“I thought she was thrown down the stairs.”
“She was, post-mortem. Nice way to treat a body, huh? I imagine the stairs were supposed to make us think it was an accident. You’re dealing with a real gentleman.”
“The killer was a man?”
Martin clucked again. “Well, I was speaking broadly. But yes, the person who did this was almost certainly a man. A large one. He held her body with one arm.” Martin showed him a bruise along her chest. “And then he grabbed her chin with his other hand and jerked her head. That’s what caused the contusions you see here.” He pointed to parallel stripes of bruises in the shape of fingers that curved around Rachel’s lower jaw.
Leary looked closer at the gray skin of her face. “Any abrasions?” He was looking for marks where the killer’s fingernails may have broken her skin. He saw none.
“He wore gloves.”
That meant they would find no trace evidence left by the killer’s hands. “What was the mechanism of death?” Leary said, adopting the ME’s jargon.
Martin hung an X-ray and flipped on the light. The image showed a skull and spinal column. Martin pointed to the bones near the top of the spinal column. “These are the cervical vertebrae—her neck bones—the top eight bones in the spinal column. They protect the spinal cord from injury. Usually, death results from a broken neck because the cord is injured at or above the fifth cervical vertebra, here.” Martin pointed to one of the bones. “Injuring the cord here can affect breathing and cause asphyxiation.”
Leary stared at the image. “But that’s not where Rachel’s spinal cord was injured.” The break was clearly visible, lower than the spot where Martin pointed.
“No. Her injury is below the sixth cervical vertebra. Generally, an injury to this area of the spinal cord will not cause death because the victim’s ability to breathe remains intact. Paralysis may result, but not death.”
“So why did Rachel die?”
“Severity of the injury. The killer used a great deal of force. I found bleeding in the neck muscles, and the X-ray shows the extent of the violence to the bones. As I said, the spinal cord was transected—actually torn in half. That created a sudden loss of nerve supply to the entire body, including the heart, which caused a sharp drop in blood pressure. The medical term is spinal shock. This young woman died almost instantly.”
Leary looked from the X-ray to the body. “Jesus.” He felt sick.
“Why does this one bother you so much?” Martin was studying him, another of his irritating habits. He pushed his glasses higher on his nose. “Mark?”
Leary sighed, leaned against the cold tiled wall. “She tricked me. Pretended to be a witness to a crime. Instead of checking her story more thoroughly, I jumped the gun and called the DA’s office. Somehow her name and address reached the wrong people. The irony is that she never witnessed anything. She died for nothing.”
Martin’s eyes widened, but he quickly regained his composure and turned back to the X-ray, yanking it down. “You shouldn’t beat yourself up about it. She made a choice. It was her mistake, not yours.”
“She was just a kid.”
“You called the DA’s office because you were doing your job. If they have some kind of leak, that’s they’re fault, not yours.” He slid the tray back into the refrigerator and locked Rachel Pugh’s body behind an anonymous stainless steel door. “Don’t waste energy blaming yourself. Find the killer.”
“Don’t worry. I plan to.”
Outside the hospital, Leary braced himself against the cold wind and pulled out his phone. He called Jessie Black.
“Hello?” she said. Despite his mood, hearing her voice lifted his spirits.
“I just met with Tim Martin.”
“And?”
An ambulance roared up the street. Leary turned in the other direction, pressed the phone harder against his ear. “Murder. No question. Ramsey has a friend on the outside.” After a stretch of silence, he took the phone from his ear and looked at the screen to make sure the connection had not been broken. “Jessie?”
“I’m here. I’m thinking.” Another moment of silence. “Ramsey has no family, no close friends. I don’t ... I don’t know of any person—”
“But he exists. There’s no question about that. And whoever he is, he’s willing to kill to help Ramsey. When I find his motive, I’ll find him. Have you learned anything about how the information leaked in the first place?”
The phone crackled. “I confronted Elliot. I don’t think he was the source.”
“So who else knew?”
“That’s the problem. No one. You called me and—” Her voice stopped with a sharp intake of breath.
“Jessie? Are you there?”
“I’ll call you back.”
The call ended. Leary looked at his phone, concerned. He didn’t like the tone of her voice at the end of the call. He hoped she wasn’t about to do something reckless.
47
Elliot showed his identification to the woman at the front desk of the Sporting Club at the Bellevue. He explained that a woman he needed to speak to immediately—a witness in an important trial—was inside.
“I need to talk to her now,” he said, and then waited while the woman studied his ID.
Located inside the Bellevue Hotel, the Sporting Club was considered one of the nicest gyms in Philadelphia—and one of the priciest. In addition to the usual aerobic machines, classes, weight-training gear, courts, and swimming pool, the gym boasted steam rooms, saunas, whirlpools, massages, a tanning salon, and its own full-sized indoor track. Elliot had taken advantage of a free trial period while in law school, but on his government salary, he could never afford a membership. Which begged the question—how could Amber?
Just what did Amber do, anyway?
She kept her professional life—assuming she had one—a secret from him. She did not seem to work during the day, but he had noticed that she disappeared approximately three nights a week. He would try to call her to get together for a late dinner and her phone would forward him directly to voice mail.
Was she a hooker? She had the body for it, the tattoos. The thought made him uneasy. They always used a condom, but still—having sex with a hooker, even with protection, was like playing a game of Russian Roulette. And he and Amber had been having a lot of sex.
He had toyed with the idea of paying someone to follow her, but in the end, his own lack of funds had defeated that idea. He had considered asking a vice detective to look into the matter, but he didn’t know any vice detectives—in the Appeals Unit, interaction with the police was minimal. Besides, he liked her. It was even possible that he loved her. He didn’t want to screw things up by acting like a possessive, paranoid ass.
Then Jessie Black had accused him of sharing information with Ramsey’s legal team and an even more horrible suspicion had gripped him.
What if she was a spy?
The idea seemed ludicrous, like something out of an espionage thriller. And egotistical, too—why should anyone find him important enough to seduce? But the more he thought about it, the more it made sense. From the first night they’d met, Amber had questioned him about his job in general and about the Ramsey case in particular.
Granted, it was his most interesting case, but still....
She had pushed him to ask Jessie for a draft of her opening argument. She had suggested that he try to get involved in the case when it went back to the trial court. She had seized on Jessie’s relationship with Jack Ackerman as an opportunity for Elliot to wrest control of the case. And, when he’d told her about the new witness Leary had discovered, she had pumped him for all the information he had about Rachel Pugh.
Ridiculous. Impossible.
But he had waited outside her apartment building, shivering in the cold. He had followed her on foot to Broad and Walnut, where she had entered the Bellevue through the elevator in the parking garage. He had followed her to the gym.
The woman at the desk finished examining h
is identification. “I’ll give you a temporary pass.”
He found her in the gym, where machines and workout gear gleamed under bright lights. The first thing he noticed were the women. Almost all of them were beautiful. They could be models, but he suspected most of them were the trophy wives of the city’s wealthy lawyers and businessmen. And working out on an elliptical trainer near the center of the room was his girlfriend, as beautiful as any of them, blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail, headphones in her ears. She wore a tank top and yoga pants that accentuated her lithe, muscular figure. The bob of her breasts was hypnotic.
Absorbed in her exercise, she did not notice him. He considered turning around, leaving. He felt ridiculous in his suit and overcoat, and he had already begun to sweat.
Rachel Pugh. He forced himself to listen to the sound of her name in his head. Her name was all he had—he had never seen her face, never heard her voice.
He crossed the room. Men and women looked up from their magazines and TV screens to stare at him. He ignored them. When he was five feet from Amber, she looked up from the readout on the elliptical trainer and saw him. Her soft lips parted as her face registered surprise. With one fluid movement, she removed her headphones and slowed the machine.
“What are you doing here?” She had to gasp to catch her breath. “What’s wrong?”
“She’s dead, you know.”
Amber stared at him, uncomprehending.
“Rachel Pugh,” he said, trying to control his rising voice. “The witness I told you about. She’s dead.”
“That’s terrible.”
Elliot reached for the control panel and stopped the machine. Her eyes flashed with annoyance.
“She was murdered, Amber. Someone attacked her in her house, broke her neck.”
Other people had stopped exercising to stare at them. A couple of muscle-bound giants put down their weights, eager for the chance to step in and rescue the beautiful damsel from the weasel in the coat.
Amber lowered her voice. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Have you been sharing our conversations with other people?”
Her laugh sounded nervous to him, cornered. “What are you saying?”
“Did you tell someone about Rachel Pugh?”
“Who would I tell?”
Two men wearing Polo-style shirts bearing the Sporting Club logo appeared at the doorway. The woman from the desk was with them. She pointed at him.
The two men headed toward him.
“Amber, tell me the truth—”
“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to leave the gym.” A hand clamped onto his right shoulder. The grip was like a vise. He felt himself being tugged backward.
“He’s with me,” Amber said.
The second man looked at her, then at Elliot. “You didn’t fill out a guest pass for him.”
“I forgot.”
“I’m leaving in a moment,” Elliot said. The hand released his shoulder. The two men hesitated for a moment, then shuffled back toward the door. He said to Amber, “Thanks.”
“Why are you here? What do you think I did?”
“Why do you ask me so many questions about the Ramsey case?”
“Because it’s interesting. It’s always on the news. It’s cool to know someone who’s part of it.”
He supposed that made sense. “But have you ever repeated things I’ve said to other people?”
“No. I swear. You told me how confidential the information is. You think I would betray that? Don’t you trust me?”
Her eyes drew together in a look of hurt that made his heart clench. “Okay. I’m sorry I barged in here.” He ran a hand through his hair, pacing in front of her machine. “Rachel Pugh was killed and I thought, because of my blabbermouth, I might have had something to do with it. I was upset. But I had no right. I’ll see you later.” He turned, averting his gaze from hers, and started to walk away.
“Wait.” She stepped down from the machine. “Aren’t you going to kiss me goodbye?”
“You’re not mad?”
“No.” She pulled him close to her. “Are you okay?”
He nodded. “Yeah. I’m just ... an asshole, I guess. Sorry.”
She pressed her lips to his and he felt her tongue slide into his mouth. She smiled as she kissed him and he smiled back, all of his troubles melting. Across the room, the weight lifters returned to their workouts. Their hard expressions, Elliot thought, looked suspiciously similar to envy.
48
Jessie used her key to open the door to Jack’s apartment. She felt guilty, but determined. Talking to Leary, she had remembered something. When Leary had first discovered Rachel Pugh, he had called her, and she had answered the call in the lobby of the CJC. Right as she ended the call, Jack had surprised her. How long had he been standing behind her? Long enough to overhear the conversation? Had she spoken the girl’s name?
She hated herself for thinking it, but once the idea occurred to her, she could not get it out of her head.
What if Jack was the mole?
Like his clothes, Jack’s home was significantly more lavish than that of the average public defender, most of whom drew even smaller salaries than assistant DAs. He lived in what was known in Philly as a “trinity house” on a cobblestone street near Seventh and Lombard, minutes from Society Hill and Washington Square. Trinity houses consisted of one room on each of three floors joined by a small, winding staircase. Old buildings, the trinities were once the residences of the craftspeople and servants who maintained the mansions on the larger streets. Many were historical buildings, now expensive to own.
She had to push hard to force her key into the lock on the front door. It felt stiff, but it turned. She glanced up and down the quiet street. There was no traffic, only the sound of the wind blowing past the brick buildings and over the cobblestones.
She glanced at her watch. 8:30 PM. Jack had invited her to a client dinner function tonight, but he had not told her the time. She hoped it would run late.
The first floor consisted of a living room and a kitchenette. The furnishings were modest. A ratty recliner with a pile of books next to it. A small TV with dust on its screen. A couch that didn’t match the recliner. A coffee table. Off to the right, the kitchenette’s appliances looked a hundred years old.
She climbed the tight, metal staircase to the second floor. It was his bedroom. A queen-size bed occupied most of the space. There were two mismatched dressers, a nightstand with a phone charger and an alarm clock on it. Framed art prints decorated the wall above the bed. Through an open door, she could see his bathroom.
She climbed the stairs to the top floor. This floor was more impressive, with a cathedral ceiling, bookshelves built into one wall, and a large wooden desk and swivel chair. A laptop sat closed on the desk. There was a laser printer on top of a file cabinet that matched the desk. Jessie walked to the bookshelves, looked at the spines. Legal treatises on criminal law, criminal procedure, witness impeachment, appellate advocacy. Biographies of famous lawyers—Clarence Darrow, William Cullen Bryant, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Louis Brandeis. Memoirs by F. Lee Bailey, Alan Dershowitz, Johnnie Cochran.
Jack always seemed so laid-back, like everything was a joke to him, nothing serious. It was hard to imagine him sitting here, studying Darrow and Holmes. Calvin and Hobbes seemed more in line with his sensibilities.
But maybe these books were from his old life. Before the brief reactive psychosis, or whatever it was that had put him in a mental hospital.
She returned to the desk, sat in the swivel chair. She stared at the computer and hesitated. What she had done already seemed terrible enough—violated his privacy, completely abused his trust—and exploring his hard drive seemed even more invasive. And what did she want to look at, anyway?
E-mails.
She heard a car rumble over the cobblestones outside and brake. She froze, poised at the edge of the chair, straining to hear a lock turn downstairs. There was no sound. A moment later, sh
e heard the car move on.
Her heart was racing. She couldn’t imagine how some of the men she’d prosecuted—burglars who’d broken into dozens, often hundreds of homes—had handled the stress. She felt on the verge of a heart attack.
Get it over with, Jess.
She opened the laptop, turned it on, and waited as the Windows screen welcomed her. Then she clicked on his e-mail program and scrolled through his recent correspondence.
Nothing related to the Ramsey trial.
An unpleasant feeling began to creep over her. The feeling was guilt.
“What am I doing?” She shook her head, disgusted with herself.
Another car bumped along the cobblestones. She shut down the laptop, closed it. Her instinct to come here today had been as misguided as her instinct to interrogate Elliot had been. Rachel Pugh’s murder was eroding her judgment. Hell, the whole Ramsey situation was messing with her head.
She descended the narrow metal staircase. All Jack had ever done was shower her with affection, and she had been too wrapped up in the Ramsey trial to return it. And look at her now—she’d broken into his home, searched it for evidence. Incredible!
“Why am I such a—”
The front door opened downstairs and heavy footsteps clomped into the house. She heard two voices—men continuing a conversation as they shrugged out of their coats. She heard snippets—“cold as hell”—“nearing the end”—“glad when it’s over.” One of the voices was Jack’s. The other sounded familiar, but she couldn’t place it.
She crept off of the staircase, careful to make as little noise as possible on the metal steps and railing. The conversation continued below her. She heard the word Ramsey, heard the word Dillard. Then she heard her own name.
Her heart seemed to freeze in her chest.
That’s when she placed the second voice. Gil Goldhammer.
Dinner function, my ass. Son of a bitch!
She crouched near the stairwell, listening. Judging by the sounds, Goldhammer was standing in the living room. Jack had walked to the kitchenette and was pouring drinks. She could hear the ice crackle in the glasses.
[Jessie Black 01.0] Burnout Page 23