“Guy was pulled over for a busted taillight. When the cop approached, he smelled marijuana and asked to search the vehicle. The driver agreed and opened the trunk and everything. Cop said the inside was covered in blood. Soaked on towels, all over the interior. So the cop said something to the driver, and he got all shifty and nervous and made up some story about a dog he’d hit.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard that one before.”
“The cop saw through it, too. I don’t know if you know him, but it’s Dave Sorenson. He’s not stupid, fortunately. Told the driver that he had witness statements and that this vehicle had been seen leaving the scene of a crime. Driver cracked immediately and said he wanted to cut a deal. Said he had some information about the Globe reporter killings.”
A lucky break. Gray liked to think that all of his cases were solved with hard work, but sometimes they broke wide open with a little luck. Either way, a closed file was a closed file. “And? What’s that information?”
“We thought you could do the honors, sir. He’s been waiting in the interrogation room for a few hours now.”
Gray didn’t need to hear anything else. He immediately left his office and followed Morrison down the hall to where the suspect was being held. He was light-headed with relief and excitement. If this guy had information on the Globe reporter killings, then he could finally clear Mia as a person of interest. They could both move on with their lives. Maybe they could rekindle their relationship.
Morrison unlocked the door to the interrogation room. “I took the liberty of turning off the air conditioner.”
The suspect was sweating by the time they entered the room, and by the smell of it, he was perspiring alcohol. A lot of it. Gray watched the suspect’s eyes follow him across the room, and he was confident that he’d sobered up enough to give a decent statement. “My name’s Lieutenant Bartlett. This is Officer Morrison.”
The suspect nodded. “Whitey Black.”
Gray paused. “Whitey? Is that what your friends call you?”
“Yeah.”
“What do your parents call you?”
“George.”
George Black looked pale and flushed. His blue eyes were underscored by purple circles, and his dark blond hair was matted against his forehead. He was dressed in a dirty blue T-shirt that looked as though he’d been wearing it for weeks and jeans that had torn at the knees. Gray hoped that George “Whitey” Black had seen better days.
“Can you take these things off?” He raised his handcuffed wrists behind his back.
Gray moved behind him to unlock the handcuffs, observing the track marks on the inside of Whitey’s arms. The guy could be experiencing some withdrawal. He pulled out the chair across from him while Morrison took the only other seat in the room. “Rough night, Whitey?”
He rubbed his wrists. “Yeah. You think we could turn on the air conditioner in here?”
Gray shook his head. “I’m afraid it’s broken. But the faster you tell us what we need to know, the faster you’ll get out of here and into a cooler room, got it?”
He nodded. Good.
Gray went through a series of preliminary questions to get a sense of how honest Whitey was prepared to be. He watched his eyes move left and right as he answered questions, trying to pick up on any lies. The guy seemed as if he was telling the truth. Finally, Gray turned to the night before.
“Now, I understand you were found driving a car with a lot of blood in the trunk.”
Whitey maintained eye contact. “Yes, sir.”
“And we both know that blood isn’t from a dog, is it?”
He hesitated. Gray said, “Whitey, you ever hear about those cops who are trained as human lie detectors?”
Whitey’s eyes widened. “Yes.”
Gray pointed to his chest. “I’m one of them, so don’t feed me some cock-and-bull story about hitting a dog and putting it in your trunk, okay? I know that’s human blood, isn’t it?” The human-lie-detector bit was an exaggeration, but Gray enjoyed using it every now and then, particularly when a suspect seemed easy to break.
Whitey nodded and looked down at his feet. “Yes.”
“Yes, what?”
“Yes, it’s human blood.”
Gray’s heart accelerated the way it always did when he managed to get somewhere with a suspect. “You want to tell me whose blood it is?”
“I don’t know her name.”
“Her?”
“Yeah. That girl who worked at the newspaper.”
Gray held his breath. “Samantha Watkinson.”
Whitey shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t know her.”
“Did you put her in your trunk?”
He nodded slowly, almost as if he was sorry about it. “Yeah.”
“Did you kill her?”
He turned his bloodshot eyes to Gray. “I’m not talking unless we make a deal.”
Too late, Gray thought. He already had the guy confessing to putting a body in his trunk, and that didn’t leave too much room for reasonable doubt when this went to trial. But if George wanted to play, he could play.
Gray raised his hands and looked apologetic. “I’m not the one who cuts deals, Whitey. You’re gonna have to talk to the prosecutor about that. But if you tell me the truth, it will make all of this go a lot smoother. Prosecutors like it when you make their job easier.” Prosecutors also liked it when they had a slam dunk of a case, but Whitey didn’t need to know that part of the equation.
Whitey nodded as if he was turning the information over in his mind. He wanted to spill it, Gray could tell. “You don’t look like the kind of guy who normally does this kind of thing,” Gray ventured.
That was the right thing to say. Whitey’s face relaxed, and he shook his head. “I’m not. I didn’t want to. I needed the money.”
Gray thought of the track marks. “Heroin?”
Whitey pulled his arms across his chest but didn’t respond other than to look away.
“It doesn’t matter. So you needed the money,” Gray continued. “And who offered to pay you for killing the reporter?”
“I never met her.”
“Her?”
“Yeah. She called me and said she’d give me five Gs if I took out this reporter.”
“So you did.”
“Yeah.”
There was the confession he needed, but Gray was unsettled by the murder-for-hire angle. So was Morrison, who leaned forward to ask, “Do you remember the name of the person who hired you? What did she say when she called you?”
His eyes darted around the room as he struggled to recall the information. “I don’t... It was weird, man. She told me I had to use this gun, and I had to leave it at the scene. She gave me gloves to use and told me to make sure I didn’t touch the gun.”
The back of Gray’s neck prickled. “But you didn’t use the gun. You used a knife.”
He shrugged. “I wasn’t straight. I remembered about the gun after, when I dumped her.”
Gray thought about the second set of prints on the gun. “And you didn’t listen about the gloves, did you? You touched the gun.”
He averted his eyes. “Yeah.”
“Samantha Watkinson was stabbed thirty-seven times,” Gray said. “You said you didn’t know her, but that’s a lie, isn’t it?” Whitey squirmed in his seat. “What’d she do to you, Whitey? Why’d you get so angry?”
“The lady who hired me said the reporter had a list of names she was going to make public.”
“Names? What’s that mean?”
“Names of users, dealers. You know. She said if it was published, I’d be facing jail time.”
“It’s important that you identify the person who called you,” said Morrison. “Otherwise, we’re going to assume that you’re lying to us—”
“I’m not lying!”
“Then tell us her name. Tell us something about her. Her phone number, something.”
He scratched at his arms and pulled at his hair. The underarms of his T-shirt were ri
nged with perspiration.
Morrison looked at Gray and sighed. “I don’t think he’s gonna tell us. It’s too bad if he doesn’t remember, because I could call up the prosecutor—”
“Perez,” he finally stammered. “It was something... Maya Perez.”
Gray’s heart stopped. “Mia Perez?”
Whitey nodded excitedly. “That’s it. Mia Perez. She must have told me a few times, and I just forgot.” He was still nodding, looking down at his hands. “Mia Perez. That’s who hired me to kill that girl.”
Chapter 17
As she turned the key in the lock, Mia knew it would probably be the last time she’d set foot in her sister’s apartment. She’d called Mark that morning and asked him if he’d moved the boxes yet. He hadn’t, and that was good. If Lena had the key to that box in her closet, it could be in one of those boxes.
Mia entered the threshold and closed the door behind her. The windows were curtainless, and the apartment was flooded with sunshine that illuminated the boxes piled against the walls. Her heart sagged. An entire life, packed away in boxes and about to be sent to storage. She swallowed a lump and set to work. Now wasn’t the time.
She began culling through the boxes in the bedroom, shaking out the comforter and linens, searching through the pockets of her clothes. The movers Mark hired had packed away the gorgeous silver jewelry box he’d given her, along with all of her jewelry. It was just sitting there, untouched, at the bottom of a cardboard box. Mia ran her fingertips along the delicate gold chains and pearls before deciding that these items didn’t belong in a storage facility. She would take the box with her for safekeeping.
She went through each room, asking herself where Lena would keep something like a small key. Lena was a clever girl. She would have found a hiding spot for it, Mia was sure, and it wouldn’t have been anywhere obvious like an underwear drawer or a freezer. She pressed her fingers around the columns of the cast-iron radiators, blowing out the dust and cobwebs to check the floor space underneath. Nothing. Could she have hidden it behind a panel of wainscoting? Mia felt a little crazy as she felt along each individual panel, checking for a loose board. That search took nearly half an hour and turned up nothing.
She searched the built-in bookcases and the china cabinet. She searched the corners of the pantry and the kitchen cabinets. Desperate, Mia crawled around on her hands and knees, checking the floor tiles. Nothing was out of place, and there was no key to be found.
I can take it to a locksmith, she thought. That was the solution, no matter the cost. Then again, she didn’t know what she was going to find inside. Maybe she should try breaking it open herself first.
She collected the jewelry box and some family photographs, took one last look behind her and closed the door. She told herself that it was just a space and the things inside were just things and that they meant nothing. Locking up that apartment didn’t mean that she was abandoning her sister. It sure felt like a betrayal, though.
Sigmund was at the door when she came back home. The cat wound himself between her legs aggressively, agitated about something. “You have food and water,” she told him, double-checking the bowls to make sure. Must be a change in weather coming. Sigmund was terrified of thunderstorms and would often act up hours before.
He followed her into the bedroom as she set the jewelry box on her bed. Maybe Mom and Dad would like a few of Lena’s pieces. She’d call them later to ask. She hoped they would be home. She hoped they would accept her call.
Mia reached back into the closet to grab the metal box. When she turned, Sigmund jumped on the bed, his generous girth upsetting the jewelry box. It opened and spilled a few bracelets and earrings onto the bed. Mia shooed him, picked up the bangles and set the box on her nightstand. That was when she remembered.
Lena had come to her door one night when it was raining and her hair was soaked. She’d looked as if she’d been crying, but she wouldn’t tell Mia why. Then she’d pressed the metal box into Mia’s hands. “I need you to keep this for me,” she’d said. “Put it somewhere safe.”
Mia had stared slack-jawed at her sister. Lena was the type who let things roll off her back. Something was seriously wrong. “What is it?”
“Insurance. Don’t open it. Promise me you won’t open it.”
“Okay. I promise.”
Lena had reached into her trench pocket and extracted a small silver key. “This is the spare key. I have one, too. But if something happened to me...” She looked around the apartment. “You need to hide this somewhere.”
Mia had turned helplessly, running her gaze over her tiny apartment. “I have a box in my desk where I keep some important things.”
Lena had shaken her head. “Not good enough.”
That had begun a frantic dash as Lena had scoured Mia’s apartment for the perfect hiding spot for a little silver key.
Now Mia pushed her nightstand aside. Underneath, one of the floorboards had chipped, leaving just enough space to press the key inside. It was wedged so tightly that she needed a paper clip to fish it out. She turned it in her fingers and knew that this wasn’t the first time she’d used this key. She’d opened this box two days after Lena had vanished, when she was desperate for answers. Lena had called it “insurance.” Insurance for what?
She stuck it into the keyhole of the metal box and heard a small click. She forgot to breathe as she lifted the lid, knowing that this was where she’d found the gun. Lena had given her the gun. But now, of course, there was no gun inside. The only thing in the box was a white cloth. Mia pulled it out and opened it, spread it on her bed, her heart in her throat. The shirt resisted unfolding where the blood had caked. It streaked down the side in four even lines. Fingerprints. On the side of the shirt was an insignia she didn’t recognize—some kind of small blue dragon.
“My God, Lena,” she whispered. “What were you involved with?”
Reeling, she sat back on the bed. The gun had been wrapped in that shirt. This was the shirt the person who’d killed Jake Smith had been wearing, and Lena had found it and the gun and had given them both to Mia for safekeeping. Then Lena had been killed.
Bile rose in her throat. Of course, it all made sense now. The person who’d killed Lena had enough inside information to convince even the police department that Lena was one of Valentine’s victims. The charade was made even easier when the killer was assigned the lead investigator to her file. And that insignia on the shirt...now she remembered where she’d seen it. That night when she went over to Lena’s apartment and she and Joe were having drinks. “Do you like Joe’s shirt?” Lena had beamed. “I brought it back for him. A little gift from Italy.”
Joe D’Augostino. He hadn’t loved Lena. He’d killed her because she’d somehow figured out that he’d killed Jake Smith. Then when Mia had confronted him with the evidence last summer, bringing the gun for protection, he’d attacked her. It all made sense.
With shaking fingers, Mia picked up her cell and dialed Gray. The call went to voice mail. “Gray. It’s Mia. I have something big. You have to call me when you get this.” She chewed on her thumbnail, pacing the apartment. “It’s Joe D’Augostino. He killed Lena, and now he’s framing me for the Globe reporter deaths. I remember the gun now. Lena gave it to me for safekeeping. She was afraid for her life—”
A knock at the door. Her heart stopped. On shaking legs, Mia approached. “Who is it?” Her throat squeezed the words out.
“Mia? It’s Joe. I need to talk to you.”
Her blood drained, and her heart stammered. Joe D’Augostino was here. He’d somehow entered her apartment building, and now he was going to finish what he’d started last summer. “Just—just a minute,” she squeaked.
Run.
She darted to the living room and tugged on the window, which was swollen stuck from the heat. She cursed, pressing the sash up with all of her strength until the frame began to shudder open. D’Augostino knocked again, this time more insistently. “Mia? Is everything okay?”
>
She didn’t bother to answer as she squeezed herself through the window and onto the fire escape. She hoped he was still knocking on her door two minutes later as she landed in the alleyway and sprinted away from the building.
* * *
Gray rehearsed his speech in the car. Mia, there’s a small situation. No, too alarming. The police picked up this guy. It’s kind of a strange story.... No, not right. Hey, there’s this guy who says you owe him five grand. Just...no. It didn’t matter what he said, because nothing could smooth over the fact that he needed to break the news that she had to come in for questioning.
He couldn’t begin to think about how to explain that an arrest could be imminent.
He cursed and smacked his palm against the steering wheel. He was traveling too fast, weaving through traffic. His cell phone rang, and he checked the number. Grew cold. Mia. He sent her call to voice mail. In a little under five minutes, he would be at her apartment. It was better that they speak in person.
There was no sense denying the mess any longer. Gray might be certain that someone was framing Mia for murder, but that was a position her defense attorney would need to take, not him. To the Boston P.D., the simple answer was that Mia Perez had ordered a hit on two Globe reporters. Ludicrous to his thinking, but he couldn’t prove that she hadn’t done it.
She doesn’t need to prove a negative, he reminded himself as he mounted the stairs to the apartment. The burden of proof is on the prosecution. But juries were unpredictable, and an arrest would spell the end of Mia’s career, financial ruin... He slumped under the burden of the message he was about to deliver. Bad news, honey. I’m about to ruin your life. God, was he a bastard.
One foot in front of the other, one step at a time. They could make this work. He would work day and night to set this right. His gut churned. He’d work, and what? Mia would sit back and wait for him to do his damn job? Potentially wait in prison?
He felt ill, as though his stomach were spinning in place. He loved her as he’d never imagined loving anyone, and he couldn’t do this to her. Bringing Mia in for questioning was against everything he stood for. Once she arrived, Morrison and Gomez would do their damnedest to get enough evidence to obtain an arrest warrant. He might as well feed her to lions.
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