Flame Out

by M. P. Cooley

  “The DNA test is happening because we’re following the terms of my agreement with the DA. He denied our request for immunity. Without that, we agreed my client will answer questions about Vera Batko including her character and reputation, but Bernie will not answer questions about himself, up to and including where he was the night she disappeared.”

  I reopened my notebook but left my pencil on the table. I didn’t expect him to answer, and the recorder would catch everything anyway. “What can you tell me about the barrels in the sub-basement?” This time his sister didn’t have to caution him—he remained silent. I pushed. “The chemicals and the barrel with Vera were put there around the same time. You ordered the burial, had your brother Jake and brother-in-law Dan Jaleda”—I saw Deirdre flinch—“brick in those barrels.”

  Deirdre was furious, and I watched a flush rise up her neck and over her cheeks, but when she spoke, she was calm. “If I’m not mistaken, the chemical dumping falls under a federal jurisdiction, the very reason I didn’t want that FBI agent tagging along. We’re not answering.”

  “So we’re done,” I said. Count on Jerry to work a deal preventing me from doing my job. Whether through incompetence, spite, or a combination of the two, Jerry had fixed it so we weren’t going to get any good information, not with a lawyer like Deirdre Lawler in the room. I hit the button on the recorder and waved at the cameras. The guard reappeared.

  “Oh, we’re not done,” Deirdre said. “This interview was supposed to be sixty to ninety minutes.”

  The guard’s arm muscle twitched in restrained anger, although he remained expressionless. “You done, Officer Lyons?”

  “I am.”

  Deirdre protested, but Bernie stood. “Good-bye, Dee,” he said. “Thanks for fighting the good fight. And Officer Lyons, it was nice to meet you. You’re a chip off the old block, a good thing in my book. If I hadn’t been set up . . . well, we’ll never know what would have happened, will we? That path is closed.” He walked toward the door, standing at a safe distance as the guard unlocked it. It opened, and I heard shouts, not angry but demanding respect, or at least acknowledgment. Bernie walked through the door, staring at the ground.

  Deirdre Lawler’s eyes never left her brother. When he was out of sight, she picked up the briefcase at her side. I tried the door, but it was locked. After a short buzz we were able to open it up, a guard waiting for us on the other side.

  “That was quite helpful,” Deirdre Lawler said as the heavy steel locked behind us.

  “Helpful?” I said. “It was the farthest thing from it.”

  “Now Bernie and I know what avenues law enforcement are pursuing. So yes, helpful.” She slowed her pace, walking leisurely so that both the guard and I were forced to wait for her when we reached the far door. “Were you expecting him to walk in and confess he killed her, and oh, yes, the chemicals were his, too? You have no concrete—”

  “The chemicals can be dated.”

  “Bernie owned the factory for a short window. Perhaps Luisa’s father put them there?”

  “And Vera’s body?”

  “Another employee?”

  The guard opened the door, going into the waiting area first to make sure no one was ready to jump us on the other side. The room was empty, a bolted door with bulletproof glass at the far end.

  As we walked, Deirdre said, “We petitioned for immunity on the Vera Batko info, and your DA denied us. I told him it was a waste of time, but he insisted. Who am I to turn down a deal like that?”

  I wouldn’t have expected Jerry to waste my time during a case when he had the chance to grab press, but if for some reason he thought the DNA evidence would screw over my dad? Totally.

  “Officer Lyons,” Deirdre said, “I appreciate that you’re approaching this as a law-enforcement professional. And I appreciate that you’re approaching this as your father’s daughter. But Bernie’s conviction . . . It was a travesty. Completely based on circumstantial evidence.”

  The two of us arrived at the outside door. We waved through the window to the officer in a cage at the end of the hallway, who hit a buzzer, letting us in. The guard who had been escorting us held the door as we passed through to the hallway and then locked it behind us.

  “They never found the bodies of Luisa and Teddy, Officer Lyons,” Deirdre said. “Never.”

  “They found plenty of blood, including the handprints in the trunk of the car. Did you see pictures of those, Ms. Lawler? Someone who was bleeding copiously was trying very hard to escape from where they’d been locked in. Your sister-in-law and your nephew had the same blood type, and the blood in the trunk matched it.”

  “But the blood DNA will not. I know it.”

  We passed a sign announcing that this was a NO HOSTAGE ZONE, which meant that if this place was taken over by the prisoners, Deirdre and I were on our own. There was a second buzz and we were let out the door.

  We stopped in the lobby. “Officer Lyons, trust me, I’ve seen guilty. When I was a public defender, I went on the assumption that most of my clients were guilty. I tried to make sure we got justice rather than vengeance. The system works if everyone has a competent defense attorney.”

  “As I recall, your brother had very experienced counsel.”

  “He was paid extravagantly, but as to experienced? He was one of my brother Maxim’s cronies who mostly did wills and divorces. Bernie and everyone on the Island may think our dear brother the judge can do no wrong, but in that case he did—his decision guaranteed that Bernie went to prison. That injustice needs to be mitigated.”

  “Is that what you’re trying to do with your brother? Mitigate?”

  “No.” She walked across the street to the visitor center trailer. Families huddled outside, in line for the van that would drive them fifty feet into the prison to visit their loved ones. They could have more easily walked across the street, but rules were rules. A young woman balanced a child on her hip and kept stepping sideways to prevent a blond toddler from making his escape, the sweatpants she was wearing sliding down two inches before she reached across and yanked them up: no strollers were allowed. The rest of the group were dressed in jeans and sweatshirts, except for four older African-American women, wearing dresses that skimmed below the knee and orthopedic shoes, naked without their banned purses.

  Deirdre Lawler looked ready to hand her cards out to the crowd. A van pulled up and the people piled in. We cut behind it, thick exhaust hitting us in the face, temporarily silencing both of us. She didn’t say good-bye, just hurried toward the Jaguar parked at the far end of the lot. Academics were broke, but her private practice was obviously lucrative. Not surprising. She made sure I made no progress at all today, a good quality in a defense attorney.

  CHAPTER 11

  I WAS SCANNING THE STREET FOR A COFFEE SHOP TO KILL THE hour. Maybe it would even have a pay phone so I could call Hale. Not having a cell phone was viewed as antisocial behavior these days, although I might get lucky—the prison was right there. I made it five steps toward a chicken-wing place before I heard my Saturn sputtering up the street.

  “You still OK to drive?” Hale asked as he climbed out of the car. I waved him around to the passenger side. I could feel eyes on me as I walked around the car and realized that stopping in a no parking zone opposite a prison was not our brightest move, even if we were law enforcement. I scanned the towers of the prison and saw guards with machine guns aimed toward the yard, inside the prison. Facing out was a metal figure, a replica of a Revolutionary War soldier. He had watched people come and go at the prison for almost two hundred years—mostly come. When the prison was built in 1818 the soldier was wood. The elements took care of him, so prisoners who worked in the foundry molded a stronger, more resilient jailer out of copper. He now stood guard.

  Hale climbed into the car next to me. “I got here early, figured it would be an unproductive interview, what with Jerry setting it up and all.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Well,
he’s not very bright, is he?” Hale pulled out his smartphone. “Should we bring Chief Donnelly up to speed at the same time you brief me?”

  Donnelly didn’t wait for us to get out a hello. “Just got a call from the hospital.”

  “Our burn victim? Did she wake up?” I asked, afraid to ask if she’d died.

  “We aren’t that lucky, but something went our way: The hospital thinks that the second-degree wounds on her hands have healed enough that you can pull a print.”

  “Piece of cake,” Hale said. “I can have my people over there in thirty minutes and we can get her prints in the system in an hour. Unless,” Hale hit the mute button and talked rapidly. “Do you want to be there? This is your deal.”

  “No, no. Sooner rather than later is better. We can stop by at the end of the day.”

  “Hello? Hello?” the chief called. We unmuted him and told him our plans for Hale’s agents to take care of it. The chief seemed happy with the result. He was much less happy with the results from our visit to Bernie.

  “As lovely as the Finger Lakes are, did you get anything valuable out of him?” he asked.

  “Other than the fact that his lawyer—his sister—is convinced the DNA will exonerate him? Nothing. And she was gleeful to get information on Vera’s case so she can prep before we come at Bernie.”

  “But does she realize the DNA can help prove he committed a second murder?” Hale asked.

  “She must,” Donnelly said. “She has that much faith in her client.” He paused. “Any problem coming in tomorrow morning to write it up? I want to have a sharing and caring discussion with Jerry about what constitutes helpful in this case.”

  I promised to type up a report first thing in the morning, and had my own request. “Any chance we could get into Bernie Lawler’s house with a crime scene team? It’s been empty for thirty years, and there might still be evidence of Vera’s murder.”

  “Let me line up a warrant and a crime scene unit,” he said. “I’ll call you back in a bit.”

  On our way out of town, we drove past a bunch of small machine shops and foundries. All the guys who served time developed skills, and there were opportunities right outside the prison wall. In the nineteenth century, it was small trades: shoes, leatherwork, saddles. When the big industry moved to town, the ex-cons found jobs there or in the small businesses serving those factories. In the nineteen seventies Columbian Rope, ALCOA, P&R Spaghetti, and a bunch of other factories moved South, wooed by lower wages in those states that were less favorable to unions, and then overseas by even lower wages. The city stayed afloat thanks to the prison jobs, but prospects were about even with those in Hopewell Falls.

  Hale listened to the recording of the interview as we drove, periodically pausing the machine and making notes. He stopped it when his phone rang.

  “Hale Bascom,” he said, and then sat up straight. “Yes, of course. Hello there.”

  Hale had a sweet smile on his face, trying to charm the person at the other end of the phone.

  “Yes, we’d like that very much. Should we pick them up tomorrow?” He shifted in his seat, and I could hear a feminine voice on the phone. “Well, if it’s not putting you to any trouble . . . No, no, it’s very secure. Yes, ma’am. We can tie up this investigation and move on to other things. Absolutely. Thank you kindly.”

  He hung up. “Tanya.”

  “Didn’t realize you two were friends.”

  “We’re not. She dug out some more pictures for us, a few of Vera and one of Oksana. Tomorrow could go sideways, so I asked her to drop them at the station.” He turned to me, his broad shoulders straining at the seat belt. “I’m sure she would have called you next.”

  “Oh, I’m sure.”

  As we crossed the Albany city limits, Hale’s phone rang again. It was his people calling with bad news: prints from our burn victim were impossible.

  “They got some detail, but not enough to get a match with anyone in CODIS. It would seem that our victim has been ‘sloughed’ of a couple of layers of skin, with another scheduled for later today.” Hale shuddered. “A hospital visit today looks like a bust.”

  I made a U-turn and drove Hale home, toward old townhouses that were part of the first settlements in Albany, clustered around the Ten Broeck mansion downtown. Built in the last century, the townhouses were beautiful, but most had fallen into disrepair. The neighborhood scared off all but the most intrepid of yuppies.

  “I’m carrying,” Hale said. “And one of the old ladies in the neighborhood made sure to announce to all and sundry that the neighborhood’s new homeowner was an FBI agent. The drug dealers moved away right quick.”

  “You bought?”

  “I’m not going anyplace anytime soon, and even if I have to pick up at the last minute, I can maintain two residences for a bit.” I didn’t know if that was a comment on Hale’s family money or the neighborhood’s low cost of real estate. “Plus, I like being so close to the bus station. It’s a great way to keep track of the criminals who are in town.”

  I craned left and right, trying to find a parking space. I was getting ready to double-park when Hale nudged my arm. “Hey, why don’t you come in for dinner?” I was about to decline when he added, “C’mon. I haven’t had a chance to show my place off to anyone. You can be my housewarming party.”

  I hadn’t thought of Hale as someone who might lack for company, but most of the people he’d met in this area worked for him, so socializing could be awkward. I agreed to his invitation.

  “Really?”

  “Yes . . . however”—I scanned the block—“there’s no parking nearby.”

  “Oh, wait ’til you see this,” he said and directed me to an alley that led back behind a series of row houses. At the end was a garage.

  “This right here,” I said as I pulled into one of the two berths, “doubled the value of your place in downtown Albany.”

  Hale unlocked his back gate. It was an iron affair dating from the Civil War era, which in this historic neighborhood could be considered a modern addition. The yard was empty but mowed, and we walked up the back steps to the townhouse door.

  Hale unbolted three locks and held the door for me. I walked through to a beautiful kitchen. Original wide oak floors were polished to gleaming. The cabinets were made of the same wood as the floors, and the countertops and backsplash were green marble that gleamed in the late-afternoon light. Flowers sat on the counter.

  “Cleaning lady came today,” Hale said. “She had to go through security clearance to get this job and thinks she’s a spy. She always brings groceries and flowers from her garden.” He pulled off his jacket, hanging it over the back of his chair, and removed his tie. “You want the tour first or food first?”

  I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. “Food. Now.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Hale said, opening the refrigerator and pulling out ingredients.

  Hale poured me a glass of pinot grigio while I called my Dad. He encouraged me to take my time, suspiciously pleased that I was eating dinner at Hale’s.

  I hung up. “They’re up to something.”

  Hale raised an eyebrow. “Your dad and Lucy?”

  “No, Lucy’s fine. It’s Dad and Dave I’m worried about. The Hardy boys swear they’re going to hand over any information they find to me, but . . .”

  “It matters too much to them.” Hale looked up from where he was whisking together a marinade of soy sauce, orange juice, and honey. “They’re good men and good cops, but you can’t trust ’em to do the right thing at the moment, June.”

  Hale put rice on to boil and dropped salmon steaks into the marinade. He picked up a mango, squeezing it briefly before splitting it along its length, the green skin giving way to golden flesh. We chatted about Lucy, Albany, and old friends from Quantico while he diced mango and a red pepper into small uniform pieces, scattering cilantro on top.

  He slid the salmon into the oven.

  “That’ll take five minutes,” he said. “Want the quick to
ur while that broils?”

  He led me through a dining room with a farmhouse table made of recovered railroad ties, its roughness offset by the detailed ironwork holding it together. One chocolate-brown wall was almost entirely taken up with three posters, each showing the lines of battle on a day in Gettysburg. The living room was lined with bookcases made of the same recovered railroad ties as the dining table, filled with history books and Thomas Pynchon novels, three shelves taken up with vinyl records. He had a modern leather couch, brown with clean lines and sharp edges, and an oriental rug, worn in places, with rich blues and golds running through it. I’d vouch for it being a certifiable antique.

  “Nice,” I said. “Was it hard to move from your old place?”

  “Didn’t have a place, honestly. Everything’s new except for the rug, a legacy from my great-great-grandmother on my mother’s side.” He reached over and straightened a book. “When we were working the Brouillette case, well, I figured out I wanted to put down roots here.”

  “If you can say that after suffering through two blizzards, you’re committed.”

  “Don’t forget the ice storm. Ruined my favorite pair of Donald Pliner loafers,” he said, looking pleased when I laughed. He touched my shoulder and said more seriously: “No, June. Right here is where I want to be.”

  The oven buzzed, and we returned to the kitchen, where Hale prepared plates. I was just about to pour more wine when Hale stopped me.

  “Why don’t we go up to the deck? It’s the nicest part of the house.” He pointed up. “Well, except for the garage.”

  I followed Hale up the narrow staircase. He took the short stairs two at a time—it seemed that the American colonists were much shorter people. I found him waiting for me on the landing, eager to show off the second floor.

  “The guest bedroom is down there,” he said, gesturing with his elbow to the far end of the hallway. My feet sank into the thick carpet as we passed the bathroom and a locked office. We arrived at the base of a second staircase, directly in front of his bedroom.