Many thought she deserved to be fired, convicted, and run out of town. She knew some people on the police force despised her to this day, and she honestly couldn’t blame them. She knew she’d made some grievous errors in judgment. But Mo Katz, defense attorney extraordinaire, did not judge her. He discovered procedural errors in the case that saved her. The case was dismissed. The file was expunged. It was a complete vindication, on paper.
She remembered something Katz said to her during the case: “In this business, the guilty occasionally go free and the innocent sometimes end up in jail. But the scales of justice balance out in the end. If you’re truly a bad person undeserving of a break, you will eventually go down. It’s just how it works. So it’s on you, Stoner. If you do okay from this point forward, all is forgiven if not forgotten. If you don’t fly straight, you’ll go down and no one is going to be able to save you.”
Her phone rang. She knew who was calling. She slipped a large leather purse off her shoulder and dug for the phone. Sure enough. She let it ring and go to voicemail. “Hi, this is Sherry. I’m busy, so leave a message. I’ll catch you later.”
No message was left.
A follow-up call ensued.
Stone dropped the phone into her purse and slung the bag over her shoulder. The phone jangled; the caller had left a message this time. She stopped, pulled out the phone, and went to messages. “Stoner, it’s Mo. Give me a call. Thanks.”
She clutched the phone in her hand. A breeze swept around the corner and wrapped around her. She stood straight and squared her shoulders against the wind. They had to talk, except she didn’t want to do it on the phone. A phone call left a record and she wanted nothing that could suggest they had colluded with one another. If her hunch was right, they had to cover their tracks.
**
KATZ HELD his phone, trying to will Stone into answering his call. Another call came in. “Katz,” he said angrily.
“Was it something I said?” asked a rough voice on the other end.
Katz recognized the raspy voice as that of the medical examiner, Rodney Brown. Irascible and blunt, Brown looked pretty much the way he sounded — old, wrinkled, and stooped. He was also a chain smoker, the only person Katz knew who still smoked a pack a day. To call Brown a dying breed was no exaggeration.
“Sorry if I sounded a little frustrated, Rod,” Katz apologized. “Nothing to do with you.”
He’d known Brown as long as he had been an attorney, first as a prosecutor and later as a defense attorney. The time of death, the angle of a bullet, and the existence of gunpowder burns on a victim’s skin were all factors that contributed to understanding what actually happened in a case and proved critical in informing juries whether a charge was valid or bogus. Brown was good at his job and his expertise was essential in building a case.
“Curtis called about Landry,” Brown said. The coroner pronounced Landry in a derisive tone. “I never trusted or cared for the man,” he added without a prompt.
“You don’t have to explain yourself to me.”
“I know I don’t, Mo, and I know I’m not supposed to speak ill of the dead, but Landry was an evil son of a bitch. He put a lot of innocent people through hell. I’m glad he got what was coming to him.” He coughed. It sounded to Katz as though he was sucking on a cigarette. “I only wish it had come sooner.
“Anyway, that’s neither here nor there,” Brown continued. “I’m calling because Santana wanted to know whether we had a positive ID on the victim of the explosion at Roaches Run.” He lowered his voice. “I was a little surprised at the request, to tell you the truth.”
“I asked him to check it out,” Katz explained.
“That’s what he told me. Why? I mean, was there ever any doubt?”
“You tell me.”
“It’s Landry all right,” Brown replied gruffly. “Fingerprints and dental records are a match. Positive ID by his sister earlier today, so far as you can identify a charcoal briquette. She drove down from Philly. If he treated his family the way he treated others, she was probably relieved.”
“Thanks,” Katz said. “I appreciate it.” He scratched his chin.
“There was one thing, though,” Brown said, coughing again. “At first blush, I actually didn’t see it myself.”
“What is it?” Katz asked.
“Marks, Mo,” Brown said in a conspiratorial voice. “Marks on his neck.”
“So?”
“So, nothing. The cause of death was the explosion. His body was torn apart and burnt to a crisp, for the most part.”
“But you said there were marks.”
Katz could hear Brown suck on the cancer stick again before he continued. “I know what I said.”
Katz sustained convictions as a prosecutor and won acquittals as a defense attorney on the strength of Brown’s testimony. One word from Rodney Brown could change the entire complexion of a case, from the time of the murder to the circumstances surrounding it. Trying to hide his impatience, he asked carefully, “So, what were the marks like?
“Like strangulation.”
Katz could hear a match strike on the other end of the phone. “Can you confirm time of death?” he asked.
“Death occurring instantaneously at the time of the explosion, according to my report.”
Katz remained silent, thinking.
“Listen, Mo,” Brown said. “I didn’t mention the marks in my report.” He took a deep drag. “What’s the point, you know?”
Katz understood the logic of not wanting to look under any rocks. Landry was dead and his reputation was in tatters. Perhaps it was best to just leave well enough alone.
“Are you still there?” Brown asked after a long silence.
“Yeah, I’m still here,” Katz said. “Have you shared this information with anyone else?”
“Only Stoner. I know she’ll hold it confidential.”
“OK. I’ll do the same. Good to talk to you, Rod. I’ll tell Curtis you called.”
“I’ll call him myself, if you don’t mind,” Brown said crustily. “I want to confirm for him that it was Landry and that there’s nothing more to it.”
“Okay.”
“And I’m not going to recollect part of this conversation after I hang up the phone.”
“Understood.”
Brown hung up.
But Katz was definitely not going to forget the conversation. Everything was spinning around him. A veteran coroner was breaking the rules. A trusted friend in the police department was not returning his calls. His research assistant had even hung up on him. Katz thought it odd that, even in death, Landry seemed to influence the way people played the game. He had done so much harm to so many people over such a long time that everyone was willing to break the rules if it meant he burned in hell or at least in the memory of everyone who knew him.
Then he realized it was May 31 and remembered the significance of the day. He left the office, got in his car, and drove to D.C.
**
“SHERRY STONE!”
Snowe opened the front door. Stone stepped inside. The foyer spilled into the living room, where Katie was seated on a couch reading a book. The girl glanced up at the tall policewoman. “This is Katie Fortune, the daughter of Tony Fortune, Mo’s old client, and…” For an instant, Snowe could not remember the mother’s last name. “…Moriarty.”
Am I subconsciously trying to erase the woman’s memory already?
“How are you, sweetie?” Stone asked.
“Fine,” Katie smiled and returned to the book spread open on the couch.
The two women moved to the kitchen. Snowe popped coffee capsules into the machine on the counter and made a couple of espressos.
“I called the other day,” Snowe said. They sat at the island in the center of the kitchen.
“I know. Sorry I didn’t get back in touch with you earlier. It’s been crazy busy. I’ve had a hard time keeping up with everything.”
“How’s it going?”
“Not much to do, from my end. Roaches Run is being inspected with a fine-tooth comb now that I’ve taken control of the situation and placed the investigation under the task force. We’ll collect and catalogue everything, but it’s not a crime scene, so there isn’t very much I have to do. As for what happened in the District, I don’t really have anything to do with that. I’m not sure how the hotel bombing is going to turn out, but at least there wasn’t any terrorist-related street incident.”
Stone seemed uncharacteristically calm and low-key to Snowe, who expected the policewoman to be more animated in describing events. Snowe took note of the fact that Stone had wrestled control of the case from Arlington County, where Roaches Run was located. The fact that the sanctuary was on federal property made the power grab seem less obvious, Snowe thought.
“Sounds like everything’s turning out okay.”
“Yeah. No innocent people got hurt and Landry went up in a ball of hellfire.”
They laughed. “I didn’t mean it that way,” Snowe said.
“It’s okay. I did.”
“Listen, the reason I called you,” Snowe lowered her voice, “I’m trying to get my bearings on this whole thing with Katie.”
“What whole thing?”
“I’m interested in seeking some kind of guardianship, depending on how everything turns out. I want to be sure I’m not using my professional position to get an inside track.”
“And you’re asking my advice?”
“Mo trusts you. He says you’re pretty well grounded when it comes to doing the right thing. A lot better grounded than some of the others on the force.”
“Mo said that about me?”
“You look surprised.”
“Well, yes and no. We go back a ways, as you probably know. He was my defense attorney once upon a time. He got me out of a jam when I deserved to be severely punished.”
“That’s old history, Sherry. Mo always talks about the scales of justice balancing out in the end. If people get a break, it’s on them as to whether it keeps.”
“Believe me, I’ve heard the gospel according to Mo.”
“Well, if you deserved worse than you got, it would have found a way of catching up with you. But it hasn’t. You’ve been a stellar member of the force. Which takes me back to my point. Mo trusts you. So do I. I’m seeking your opinion on whether I’m crossing a line.”
Stone searched for words. “I can’t really answer that question for you,” she said. “You need to consult your ethics office. But, for what it’s worth, I don’t see a conflict. You’re not abusing your position. You’re simply trying to help a child. No harm, no foul, in my book.”
They finished their espressos in silence.
“By the way,” Stone said, “I was hoping Mo would be home. I haven’t been able to return his calls. Will you tell him I dropped by?”
**
THE PRIEST expressed surprise at seeing the U.S. Attorney kneeling in a pew. The interior of the church was dark. The only light came through the stained glass windows that adorned each side of the chapel and from the candles lit in front of the altar. “I haven’t seen you since the funeral for Tony Fortune four years ago, come November.”
“I don’t go to church,” Katz replied. “Or temple.”
The priest stroked his full gray beard. His protuberant eyes were watery and bloodshot. He plopped his rotund body in the pew beside Katz. The wooden bench sagged with his weight. “You don’t have to come here to find God.” He tilted his head. “So long as you pay homage to Him, it doesn’t much matter where you do it.”
“I suppose that’s true,” Katz nodded.
“What brings you here?”
“Today’s Tony Fortune’s birthday,” Katz said
“Is that so?” The priest smiled. He remembered Fortune and the many close brushes with the law that he shared in the confessional.
“Yeah, May 31. The first time I represented him it was in connection with an incident that occurred on his birthday.” Katz didn’t elaborate but he remembered the facts. Fortune blew a tire on the 14th Street Bridge returning to Virginia from D.C. A cop stopped to help and found a brick of coke in the trunk, a birthday present from a good friend. Katz got the case dismissed because it wasn’t Fortune’s car. “His funeral was here, so I thought I’d drop by and say a prayer.”
“Good of you to do that,” the priest said. “It’s funny that you stopped by this afternoon. I had a dream the other night and you were in it.”
“No kidding. About what?”
“I wish I could remember. Dreams are weird. You sort of remember them, but not really.”
“You know, I had a dream about Tony the day he was murdered in Georgetown back in ’17. I was in a hospital bed recovering from getting wounded. It was so real I thought he was actually there.”
“It was tragic, Tony getting shot and all. You worked out a nice settlement for Maggie. Look what she did with all that money. It can’t make you feel good.”
“It makes me feel terrible.” Never in Katz’s wildest dreams did he think the money would be used to facilitate a drug habit. Now Moriarty’s life was in tatters, and her daughter essentially had no family. “My girlfriend’s trying to help Maggie and Katie now. It makes me feel like we’re trying to make amends.”
“You’re not to blame,” said the priest.
“I appreciate your words, but it doesn’t really change the way I feel,” Katz confided. “I got her the money and, instead of being a springboard to a better life, it started her on a downward spiral.
“I should have anticipated she might be overwhelmed with the settlement. I should have come up with some kind of game plan to teach her how to make the best use of it. I feel as though I failed all of them, Tony, Maggie, and Katie. I wish we had a chance to try to get everything back on an even keel.”
“Maybe you’ll have that opportunity. As I’m wont to say, it’s in God’s hands.”
The priest left. Katz stayed in the pew silently eulogizing Fortune. He lit a candle before he left.
**
OUTSIDE THE CHURCH, Katz walked down a cobblestone path to the gated entrance as he scrolled through emails and text messages on his phone. Birds were rustling in the bushes along a chain-link fence. He opened an email from Lin. Then he clicked on the attachment. It was a photo of the inscription on the inside cover of The Rhythmic Cycle of Life. It read:
F — We have come full circle. May this merit the redemption you long desired—Ari
He reread the inscription. For an instant, he stopped breathing. When he finally inhaled, he did so slowly, filling his lungs with cool evening air and exhaling through his nostrils. His mind focused on the salutation and the signature: “F” and “Ari.” He recalled his earlier conversation with Santana. There were still some pieces that didn’t fit into the puzzle, but he possessed two key ingredients: identity and motive. Thanks to Lin’s legwork, he now knew the identity of Landry’s killer.
Chapter Thirteen: Evening
HUGH SPATES emerged with a backpack and took the elevator to the basement of his apartment building. A minute later, his car ascended from the underground parking garage and bounced onto the street. The headlights pierced the night as he swung to the left.
He heard on television that he’d been the target of a federal investigation for several weeks. People he had enlisted — Morley and the train conductor — were working against him all the time. He was angry, humiliated, and scared. His phone was probably tapped, and both Morley and the train conductor were probably wired for some of their conversations, he concluded. He hoped there was no wire on Morley at the time of the shooting.
He picked up the interstate at New York Avenue, drove across the river into Virginia, and exited on southbound Route 1. He had left his phone at the apartment for fear he would be traced. He turned on the radio. There was wall-to-wall coverage about the explosions at the GreyStone Hotel, about a man who plunged to his death on the trestle bridge, and about the van explodi
ng at Roaches Run.
“What a fucking disaster,” he sighed.
As he crossed the intersection of Route 1 and Gunston Cove Road, he saw lights in the rearview mirror. A cruiser had activated its emergency equipment. He pulled to the shoulder, which was adjacent an industrial area populated by a junk yard and huge outdoor parking area for RVs and boats. Spates bit his lip. He put on his mask. He had considered renting a car, but decided against it. He was a fool to think he could avoid law enforcement simply by driving in the dead of night. After all, there was probably an APB out for his arrest.
“What’s the problem, officer?” he asked, lowering the window on the driver’s side as the officer approached. The officer had not sat in his cruiser to check the license and registration, which told Spates he was dealing with a rookie who had noticed something about the car and was likely to cut him a break. Thank goodness for the new world of community policing, he thought.
“Did you know you’ve got a rear light out?” the officer asked.
“You’re kidding,” Spates laughed. “I just got the car inspected in April.”
“I’m going to issue you a citation, but if you get it fixed before the court date the case will be dismissed. You can send the information to the clerk’s office and you won’t have to appear in court.”
“Listen,” Spates said. “I don’t want to get on the interstate and drive if a light’s burned out. The safest thing for me to do is get it fixed right now. I noticed a service station at the intersection back there. If it’s okay with you, I’ll turn around and get it fixed now.”
“I doubt there’s a repairman working tonight,” said the officer.
“I’ll check,” Spates said. “If they can’t take care of it, I’ll postpone my trip until the morning. I want to be safe, both for myself and others.”
The officer considered what to do. Part of him wanted to just let the guy go based on the promise to fix the light and stay off the road until it was repaired. But there was something that bothered him about this guy, who seemed to be too accommodating. The officer reached for his flashlight and shined it inside the car. The light illuminated an orange H-Pack backpack in the back seat.
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