“Objection! Save your jury argument for the courtroom.”
“And for that matter, how can we expect him to take any responsibility for what he may have done to untold other children who died because they had the mistaken belief that the Apollo suspension system was as safe as a mother’s hug?”
“Move to strike,” Ben repeated. “If you continue in this abusive manner, I’m filing an emergency application for a protective order with Judge Roemer.”
“Don’t bother. I’m finished.” Abernathy laid down his pencil and smiled. “Your witness, Kincaid.”
23
“WHAT THE HELL WAS that all about?”
Consetti was pacing back and forth in Ben’s office, banging his head against the wall figuratively and literally.
“It was just a cheap intimidation tactic. His case is falling apart, so he’s clutching at straws.”
“He’s clutching at my good name, that’s what he’s doing!” Consetti’s face was flush red; spittle flew from his lips.
“Look, any fool can drop by the station and review the police records. He doesn’t have anything factual to help him win this case. So he’s going after our witnesses.” “What was that shit about me killing teenagers?”
“That jab was best ignored.”
“The press won’t ignore it! What if he calls the World with that crap and they print it? Think what that would do to my reputation! Not to mention the Apollo Consortium.”
“He won’t. He can say anything he wants in a deposition—he’s got immunity. If he repeats it to a newspaper, though, it’s actionable slander. Trust me, he won’t take the risk.”
Consetti continued pacing. “I just can’t believe I let that swaggering mound of flesh treat me like that. I should’ve…I should’ve—”
“You should’ve ignored him.”
“Ignore him!” Consetti took a swing at the air. “Goddamn it, I don’t understand why you’re being such a milquetoast about this. Herb would’ve shoved that man’s words right down his throat.”
“And then Abernathy would’ve gone to court complaining about how we obstructed discovery and asking for sanctions and extensions of time. Again, I would’ve been playing right into his hands.”
“Goddamn…lawyers!” Consetti took another swing at the air, this time perilously close to Ben’s face.
“Excusez moi,” said a voice from behind them. Ben turned and saw Christina poised in the doorway. “I’m sorry to interrupt, Ben, but Lieutenant Morelli is here to speak with you.”
Ben looked at Consetti apologetically. “I’m sorry, sir. Can we continue this conversation later?”
Consetti gritted his teeth and barreled through the door, pushing Christina to one side. “Goddamn…lawyers!”
Ben grinned sheepishly at Christina. “I don’t suppose Mike is really here?”
“As a matter of fact, he is, although he’s perfectly content to wait. I thought you needed a save.”
“You were right.”
“I take it Abernathy tried some cheap sleazemeister tricks at the deposition?”
“Like you wouldn’t believe. He realizes he hasn’t got any proof of design defects and he’s getting desperate. Plus, he was unprepared for the deposition—didn’t know anything about the suspension system or any of the important issues. All he had was a police report and a lot of experience with tawdry discovery tactics.”
“Of course,” Christina replied, “what he probably hoped to do was scare Apollo’s upper management into early settlement.”
Ben knew better than to doubt Christina’s instincts. “Probably right.”
“And from the looks of Consetti’s major over-reaction—”
“Exactly. Mission accomplished. If I don’t win this case soon, Apollo’s going to end up writing Abernathy a big check.”
“Well, if anyone can do it, you can. I heard you creamed Abernathy at the hearing yesterday.”
“True. But only because he was so pathetically unprepared.”
“Sure. It couldn’t possibly be because you did anything right. By the by, you need to call Jones.”
“Why? Is he in trouble?”
“No. He just misses the sound of his master’s voice. Maybe you could phone him and ask him to draft some motions for you, just for old time’s sake.”
“I’ll give it some thought.”
“Well, I’ve got to get back to work. Crichton’s got me feeding documents into a litigation support computer program. You should see him in the computer room. He loves to play with gadgets.”
“The male prerogative.”
“Yeah. I just wish he’d stop trying to look up my skirt.”
“Perils of the workplace.”
“This one, anyway. I’ll send Mike in.”
“Thanks.”
A few seconds after Christina left, Mike strolled into the office.
“What’s up?” Ben asked.
“You are. You’re coming with me.”
Ben blanched. “You’re kidding. Blackwell is hauling me in? My time isn’t up yet.”
“No, no, no. We’re going to search Hamel’s home.”
“Oh.” Ben exhaled, relieved. “What about his widow?”
“She’s consented. In fact, she called this morning and asked us to come.”
“I thought she was mounting very serious opposition. What made her change her mind?”
“A very serious pair of fists. Impacting repeatedly on her face.”
24
BEN AND MIKE DROVE to the Hamel residence in an unmarked silver Trans Am.
“How did you ever get the department to spring for a slick pair of wheels like this?”
Mike grinned. “Let’s just say Chief Blackwell and I have an extremely close working relationship.”
“What does that mean? You have photographs of him in drag?”
“That would be telling.” Mike rolled down the driver’s side window and barreled into the fast lane. “Snazzy car, though, don’t you think?”
“Yup. It’s every sixteen-year-old’s dream.”
“Every guy’s dream, you mean.” He glanced at his reflection in the rearview mirror. “I think I wear it well.”
“Well, it looks better on you than that dirty overcoat. If you’d had this four years ago, you might have Julia sitting in the front seat instead of me.”
“Not unless I filled the glove compartment with credit cards.”
Just as Mike finished his sentence, a red Ferrari weaved around him and zoomed past.
“Did you see that?” Mike cried. He groped around in the compartment between the seats. “Where’s my siren?”
“Forget it, Mike. We have other business. You’re not a traffic cop.”
“I will not forget it. I hate reckless drivers. Especially when I’m driving my Trans Am.” He clamped the red bulb onto the roof of his car and pressed down on the accelerator. Ben felt his stomach fly out of his body as the Trans Am kicked in all eight cylinders.
“Mike, would you cool it, for God’s sake! I do not want to the in a high-speed chase!”
“Show some nerve, Ben. We’re catching bad guys.”
“I don’t want to catch bad guys. I want to live to a ripe old age.” They whizzed by a black pickup so quickly that Ben ducked. “Look, I already know you’re a hardboiled two-fisted male-machismo sumbitch. You don’t have to prove it to me by nailing some moron in a Ferrari!”
“It’s a matter of principle,” Mike muttered. “He didn’t even use his left turn indicator.”
“Oh, well then—life imprisonment for him.” Ben glanced fearfully at the speedometer. “Mike! You’re doing a hundred miles an hour!”
“Is that all? No wonder I haven’t caught up.” He pressed harder on the accelerator.
“Mike, listen to me. I’m an innocent. A civilian. I don’t want to perish in the line of duty. I want out!”
“Sorry, Ben, no time,” he said, his hands tightly clenching the steering wheel. “Justice is on patrol.”
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Forty minutes and three tickets later, Ben and Mike arrived at the home of Gloria Hamel in the plush residential section surrounding the Philbrook Museum. They rang the door, and a few moments later she opened it.
Ben was horrified.
Mike’s description, although gruesome enough, left him utterly unprepared for what he saw. Mrs. Hamel’s face was a scarred and bloody nightmare. Her nose had been flattened; her eyes were so swollen she could barely see. She had two deep lacerations, one beneath each cheek, creating a macabre symmetry. Both appeared to have been sutured. A white bandage stretched down the middle of her face, covering the place where her nose used to be.
“I apologize for keeping you waiting,” Gloria said. Her words were slurred and unenunciated; she was only barely able to move her mouth. “I’m having some trouble getting around this morning.”
Ben was astonished she was even able to stand. “I’m Ben Kincaid.”
“I know,” she said, nodding. “Lieutenant Morelli told me you would be coming when he visited me at the hospital.”
“Are you feeling any better?” Mike asked gently.
“It’s hard to say.” She looked at them as if she might find her answer in their eyes. “The doctors said I could go home, although I have to return to the hospital tomorrow for more sutures. They think my brain may be partially detached from my skull.
Having grown up with a doctor father, Ben had had an opportunity to see injuries of all sorts and degrees. Nonetheless, he could not recall ever seeing anyone so hideously damaged, so…ruined. “Forgive me for asking, but have you consulted a plastic surgeon?”
“Just long enough to find out they are very expensive. Too expensive for me. Especially now that Howard is gone.”
“Surely your husband’s medical insurance at Apollo—”
“Terminated the instant he died. I’ve already spoken to Robert Crichton about it. He said he was sorry, but there was nothing he could do.”
Mike gave Ben a pointed look. “Some boss you got there, Ben.”
Ben didn’t reply.
“Please come in,” Gloria said. “I don’t like to stand out in the open.”
They stepped into the foyer of the house. Now that he was inside, Ben realized that the house was even more palatial than it seemed from the outside. The furnishings were absolutely top-drawer—much better than he would have expected a mid-level member of the Apollo legal staff to be able to afford.
“How many rooms have you got here?” Ben asked.
“Twenty-two. Not counting the attic, garage, or basement.”
Ben whistled. “Mike, we’re going to need help.”
“Agreed. Although I doubt we’ll be able to divert many men from the serial killer investigation. Let me make a call.”
Gloria pointed to a telephone in the den. Mike dialed headquarters, leaving Ben alone, and extremely uncomfortable, with Gloria.
“Do the police have any idea who did this to you?” Ben asked.
“Not that I’ve heard.” Her diction was so slurred that Ben at first thought she had said “God how I hurt.” A shiver shot down his spine. “Not that I’ve been any help.”
“You didn’t help the police?”
“I couldn’t. I didn’t see a thing. It was about one A.M. I wasn’t sleeping well—I haven’t since Howard was killed. I heard a noise downstairs. Like a fool, I got up and looked around. I startled the intruder, who proceeded to beat me into unconsciousness—I suppose so he could get away before I called the police.”
Ben gazed sadly at the woman’s tragic face. Whoever did this was seeking more than just a hasty retreat. Whoever did this was a deeply cruel human being.
“Do you have any idea what the intruder was doing here?”
She shook her head, then winced, as if the tiny movement pained her. “He seemed to be searching for something. What, I don’t know.”
“You said he. Are you certain it was a man?”
“Well, I just assumed—but no, I suppose I really don’t know. It was too dark to see anything.”
“That must be a horribly…invasive feeling,” Ben said. “To have someone break in, to learn that you’re not safe in your own home.”
“This is just one more…incident,” she murmured.
“There have been others?”
“I don’t mean like this. I mean…everything.” She lowered herself slowly into a chair. “One more blow. One more incomprehensible slap in the face. When Howard was killed, I thought my life was over, thought I had no reason to live. And now…” Her head bowed till she was staring at her hands. “…now, I wish I could die.”
25
BY FIVE-THIRTY, BEN, MIKE, and three uniforms from the Central Division had been through each of the twenty-two rooms in Gloria Hamel’s house twice. Some more.
And come up with nothing.
“Maybe we’re wasting our time,” Ben said. He sat dejectedly beside the fireplace in the den. “Maybe Hamel’s murder had nothing to do with his home life.”
“Whether it did or didn’t, he lived here,” Mike replied. He was opening drawers, looking under rugs, and checking all the other places he had already checked twice before. “There must be something helpful here, something that would give us a hint of what happened to him.”
“Well, I don’t want to sound like a quitter, but I don’t think there’s anything here.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Think about it, Ben. Last night someone took an enormous risk by breaking in here. A very desperate person, if what he did to the lady of the house is any indication. And why? Because he was looking for something. Gloria Hamel interrupted him before he found it, and he fled immediately after the beating. I don’t know what he was searching for. But I know it’s still here.”
“Well, since you put it that way…”
Ben pushed himself away from the fireplace and resumed his search.
“I’m going to check with Sergeant Mattingly. He’s searching the garage.”
The garage? “Mike, there’s also a basement and an attic. In addition to the twenty-two rooms we’ve already searched.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive. Gloria told me.”
Mike slapped him on the back. “All right, Sherlock Kincaid. I’ll take the basement, you take the attic.” He poked Ben in the ribs. “Unless that’s too high up for you. I don’t want you to get dizzy and fall out a window.”
Actually, it was too high up for Ben, not that he planned to admit it. Worse, the attic had huge windows on two sides. There was no direction he could turn to forget that he was not firmly planted on the ground. He tried to calm himself, recalling that he had once jumped out of an office window at least this high off the ground. Somehow, that only made him more nauseated.
The Hamels’ attic was a junkman’s dream. Almost every inch of floor space was piled high with mementos and castaways. The tremendous clutter guaranteed that this search would take several hours at least.
Most of the clutter derived from the man of the house. Incomplete projects filled the attic—a half-finished model train set, various model airplanes, a ship in a bottle. One corner was filled with fishing and camping gear. The only traces of Gloria he saw were a dust-covered dressmaker’s dummy, a sewing machine, and various needles and threads—remnants of an avocation long since abandoned.
Well, there was no point in procrastinating. Ben chose the closest corner and plunged in. He tried to be as thorough as possible; he opened every drawer, every trunk, every cardboard box. He overturned every piece of furniture, carefully checking for hollowed cushions and the like.
An hour and a half later, he had tunneled a path to the first wall, and come up with nothing that cast any light on Hamel’s death.
He patted down the wall, listening for a hollow sound that might suggest a secret room. All he heard was the consistent thud of plaster and wood.
You’re losing it, Kincaid, h
e thought to himself. This is real life, not a Gothic romance.
Above him, Ben spotted a huge blue swordfish, stuffed and mounted on the wall. A small plaque informed him that Howard Hamel caught the fish off Padre Island on August 12, 1988.
The swordfish triggered something in the back of Ben’s mind. It took him a moment to bring it back: I love deep sea fishing, Hamel had said. If I could, I’d spend my whole life doing that and nothing else.
Could it be? Ben pulled over a rickety chair and raised himself eye level with the swordfish. Maybe it was just his overactive imagination, but the fish seemed to be…smiling at him. Cautiously, Ben put his hand into the fish’s mouth, stretched, and withdrew.
Nothing. Ben jumped off the chair, utterly embarrassed. Who do you think you are, one of the Hardy Boys? he asked himself. First you look for secret passages, then you stick your hand into a swordfish. What did you expect? Golly, maybe we’ll find a treasure map!
Then he recalled the remainder of what Hamel had said: In fact, I’m going on vacation myself in a few days. Gonna catch some sun and some fish down at Key West. Get away from it all for a few days.
Ben wondered if perhaps Hamel wanted to get away from a specific something. Or someone. If he had some kind of sensitive information, something someone else wanted intensely, Hamel would probably take it with him.
Ben raced back to the corner of the attic containing Hamel’s fishing gear. He tore through the pile, uprooting rods, reels, nets, and sophisticated electronic gizmos. He found a tackle box and flipped open the lid. Lures, plastic worms, hooks, spare line—yes! He thrust his hand down to the bottom of the box and came up with a photograph.
“Mike!”
No response. He ran to the top of the attic ladder. “Mike!” he shouted again.
A few moments later, he heard, “What? I was in the middle of searching the half-filled paint cans. I love paint fumes. This had better be good.”
“It is.” As soon as Mike reached the top of the ladder, Ben thrust the photo into his hands. It was a small Polaroid, not very old.
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