Half an hour later, they released Holly and she left the sub-station with Morgan hurrying behind her. She wasn’t going to be arrested, was all he had been told, but otherwise, they didn’t have to tell him squat.
In the car driving Holly back to the house on Northview Lane, Morgan wanted to know what this what all about. “You guys do something you shouldn’t have?”
Holly stared out the passenger side window, trying desperately not to tell Dan everything, release herself from all the guilt and shame that had been boiling up within herself over the past six months especially now that the cops were involved.
“Holly,” said Morgan. “Is there something going on here?” He sighed. “You know the police came by the office today. They grabbed Jeff’s old computer.” Still nothing. “So tell me the truth – is something going on that I should know about? As your lawyer?”
She finally turned and glared at Morgan. “No,” she said flatly. “Nothing is going on. It’s all one big misunderstanding.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
That night, Jeff was pacing around Holly’s bedroom in his boxer shorts.
“You didn’t tell them anything?” he asked, for what seemed like the hundredth time. He stopped his pacing to wait for an answer. “Right?”
“I told you,” Holly said, lying on her side on the bed, “I didn’t say a thing.”
“Not even to Morgan? You told that dumb shit nothing?”
“Nothing,” she said. “Although I don’t see why not. He’s my lawyer.”
“He’s an ass,” Jeff said nastily. “I don’t want that stupid fool or anyone from that firm knowing anything. He isn’t who I’d hire in case you, or we, get charged with something. He’s not a criminal lawyer anyway, just some schlep stuck in the commercial litigation department re-wording contracts. No, something bad happens, we need to go for someone good, the best, like Dan Stauber, or Pete Dobson.”
“So why haven’t they approached you?” She asked. “The cops. Dan said they came and took your computer, too.”
“I have no idea,” Jeff said. But how the fuck? He must have set us up somehow.”
“Who?” she asked, looking up at him. “Jerry?”
“Yeah,” he said. “That dumb fuck Jerry. Maybe, he isn’t so dumb and ball-less after all. I think we underestimated him, big time.” Jeff started pacing again. “He didn’t disappear because he was scared, like we thought. He concocted a nice little plot of his own to get rid of us. Fat fucker must have set it up even before he called me and told me he knew everything.”
Jeff remembered that call. Verbatim.
“So you think this is all part of the set-up,” Holly said, rubbing her temples. “His getting even with us. But can you blame him? Can you?”
“No,” Jeff said after a time. “But I’d still like to wring the fat fucker’s neck.”
He sat on the bed next to Holly. “Jesus Christ,” he said, “I wish I had closed the deal on the ranch already. We were supposed to be leaving town next week.”
“Why don’t we just go anyway?”
“It’s too fucking late,” Jeff said. “We have to stand pat. See what happens.”
“But shouldn’t Jerry be worried, too? If we go down, he does too?”
“No,” Jeff said with a sour laugh. “It’s perfect, what he did. Perfect. First of all, the money I sent him is certainly gone by now, lost in bank account cyberspace. Then he plops the emails in the laps of the police, knowing we’d be stuck between a rock and hard place no matter how we played it out. If we confess what really happened, they could either believe us, and throw us in jail for insurance fraud and grand larceny, or, if they chose not to believe us, they could still try you and probably me for murder.” Jeff sighed. “Worse yet, if we confess to what really happened, and that Jerry is simply setting us up, that would probably lead them to the body guy. And we get arrested for that murder.”
“It was you who did that, Jeff,” Holly said. “You killed him. You.”
Jeff looked sharply at Holly.
“You were in on it, honey,” he snapped. “You’re an accomplice. Just like in everything else. It was my idea, but you approved it. If I go down for it, you go down for it too.”
Jeff suddenly stopped pacing, seeming to have reached a momentous decision of some kind.
“Our only option,” he said, “is to fight this tooth and nail. Proclaim innocence on all counts. Go to trial.”
Holly grimaced. There could be nothing good coming from being the defendant in what promised to be a scandalous, highly publicized murder trial, a regular eyewitness news media circus extravaganza. She’d have to sit there in the courtroom day in and day out hearing all the sordid details that would surely come out regarding her affair with Jeff and all the implications of that. Not to mention the expense of hiring high-class lawyers to help them win an acquittal, no doubt whittling their remaining share of the insurance money down considerably. After paying Jerry the two million, they had two left. But with this going on, it was going to be damned hard to get their hands on it.
“How the hell did he do it?” she demanded, aching for an answer.
“Do what?” “The emails.”
Jeff thought a moment and shrugged.
“Snuck in, I guess,” he said. “The one that was sent from his old PC, in his den, that was easy. He must have done it while you were at work. Then, somehow, he got the balls to sneak into my office.”
Jeff sighed. “I think we really fucking underestimated him.”
“No,” Holly said, shaking her head. “You underestimated him.”
In truth, however, she had to admit, she had underestimated Jerry as well.
“So now what?” Holly asked after a long, heavy silence between them.
“Now what?” Jeff said. “Now we wait.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“I wanted to give you an update,” said Inspector Miller on the phone with Fox. “Flaherty sent the return message. At least, that’s what our computer geeks say.”
Fox punched his arm into the air, a private victory salute. He couldn’t wait to tell Chief Reynolds.
“And they found some incriminating other stuff on Flaherty’s computer. Some stuff about arson and garage fires. What people won’t do for money.”
“You tell the DA boys what you found?” Fox asked.
“Yep,” Miller said. “Just got off the phone with them. They’re mulling it over. But I don’t see how they don’t go forward with it. Strong arm the woman, first of all, the poor, rich widow Shaw. See if she’ll flip. We could even offer her something to give up her lover. Close this case. If not, so what? The DA likes these kind of trials. Lots of publicity. White collar cases, especially with the spice of murder, always generate more press interest than the killing of some gangster drug dealer from the inner city.”
After the call, Fox went down to Reynolds' office. The Chief was on the phone, discussing some case with a senior claims adjuster. When he hung up, he squinted at Fox. This time, Fox let him wait. He sat heavily in the chair before the Chief’s desk and grinned.
“So what you got, Jack?” Reynolds finally asked.
“Looks like that Shaw case took a turn in our favor,” Fox told him. “They found the incriminating email on Flaherty’s computer. He sent the return message. Also, some research into arson fires.”
Reynolds leaned back and allowed himself to return a small smile.
“Maybe the perfect crime wasn’t so perfect after all,” he said. “Never is,” said Fox, “right Chief?”
“Maybe they know something about it,” Reynolds suggested, out of left field.
“About what, Chief?”
“How we got the e-mails. The perpetrators. Mrs. Shaw and Flaherty.”
Fox nodded. “Yeah. I thought about that,” he said.
“Why do we assume that only the wife and her boyfriend were involved in the murder?” Reynolds went on. “Maybe they needed someone else, a third party or something, to help them do i
t, and now that third party just stabbed them in the back. He got paid a wad of cash and disappeared. Maybe this was his way of getting rid of them.”
“Maybe when the wife rats out the boyfriend,” Fox suggested, sure that was going to eventually happen, “she’ll rat out the double-crosser as well.”
“Why wouldn’t she?” Reynolds asked. “Might buy her an even better plea.”
After a time, Reynolds turned his mind to another matter. “The boys upstairs want to know if we were able to find the money.”
Fox sighed. He had been so preoccupied with the arrest, and the mystery of the emails miraculously dumped in his lap, that he had not given much thought to the money.
“Not yet,” he told Reynolds. “We haven’t found a cent of it. Wherever it went, they’ve kept it secret.”
“Honestly,” Chief Reynolds said with some level of exasperation rising in his voice, “that’s the only justice Global cares about.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Jerry learned about the arrests over the Internet. It was five weeks after he had mailed the phony emails to Global’s fraud unit, sitting in Jade's apartment reading the Buffalo News on her laptop, when he spotted the headline that he had been waiting for on the lower right-hand side column of the front page of paper.
Pair Accused in Murder Plot
The sub-heading stated: Gruesome Slaying Tied to Husband’s Life Insurance
Jerry knew this was it, the fruits of his daring plan. He punched out his arm with a triumphant “Yeah!” before reading the article:
A man and woman were arrested late yesterday afternoon and charged with murder for allegedly burning the woman’s husband alive in a plot to collect the victim’s four-million-dollar insurance policy. Erie County District Attorney Jack Connors released a statement saying that Holly Shaw, 30, and Jeffrey Flaherty, 31, concocted the plot during an affair which started at the prominent local law firm, Carlton and Rowe, where Flaherty was formerly employed as an associate attorney and Shaw had been a secretary for several years.
Just then, Jade walked into the guest bedroom of her cramped, two-bedroom apartment which had been converted into Jerry’s den.
“What you shouting for, hon?” she asked, still sleepy-eyed and yawning. It was a little past nine in the morning, and Jade wasn’t used to being an early riser. The fact that she woke up much later than Jerry every morning, sometimes around noon, gave him some quiet time which he had come to appreciate. Sometimes he surfed the internet, but mostly he worked on his comic book superheroes, especially stories about the Anonymous Man.
“They arrested them,” Jerry told her, still excited as he pointed to the computer screen. “They're finally getting what they deserve.”
Yawning, Jade sauntered over to the side of his chair. Her silk robe came open as she leaned over, allowing her breast to rub against his shoulder as she squinted at the article on the computer screen. As she bent over, her tired, sexy attitude and unique, sensual aroma had the desired effect on Jerry. He turned in his chair and grabbed Jade around the waist, pulled her to him.
“That’s wonderful, hon,” she said. “You did it.”
She stooped down and kissed Jerry on the lips. It turned deep and passionate. He moved her hand down to his crotch to show his erection. Jade grinned mischievously and Jerry got to thinking that life had never been so good.
“You do it to me every time,” he said.
“Well, come back to bed,” she said and tugged at the sleeve of his sweatshirt.
“Let me just finish this,” he said. “I want to read the rest.” She let go of his sleeve and, pouting, started out of the den.
At the doorway, she said, “Well, you better hurry up, hon. If I fall back asleep, you’ll be pleasing yourself this morning.”
There really wasn’t much left to read. Holly and Jeff had been indicted for Murder in the First Degree, which, if convicted, could get them life in prison without the possibility of parole. Each of them had retained prominent attorneys who indignantly proclaimed the innocence of their respective clients outside the courtroom where they had just been arraigned. Each attorney went on to inform the press, and public, that this was nothing more than a weak attempt on the part of a greedy insurance company to take back the money to which Mrs. Shaw was rightfully entitled through the terrible, tragic death of her husband, to whom she had always been faithful. Jeff’s lawyer added it was a terrible shame that the District Attorney saw fit to assist in the greedy insurance company’s effort against a helpless citizen of his county.
Jerry laughed to himself. The article was juicy enough as it was, but if they only knew the truth, the real story. Now that would make some real news.
Jade was asleep by the time Jerry returned to bed. He slid under the covers next to her and tried to wake her up by nuzzling against her. No good. All she did was groan. Jerry closed his eyes, and soon enough, he was sleeping, too.
It was Jade who woke him an hour later. She was nibbling on his ear, stroking his crotch, laughing to herself.
“C’mon, Mister,” she said in her best, husky dominatrix voice, “time to wake up and serve the master.”
He turned to her and they made fast, furious love. Afterward, with her lying in his arms, content and relaxed, she blurted out, “When we gonna get out of this town?”
“Huh?”
“Go down south,” she said. “Florida. Disney World. Like you promised. Buy a house somewhere down there. What was the place called, with that funny name? Kiss-me?”
“Kissimmee.” He paused and then decided to go ahead and ask. “What's the big deal with Disney World, anyway?”
“It's just somewhere I feel right. When I was a kid, that's where my parents took me during Easter vacations. I always thought it was like being in heaven. Then we stopped going.”
“Why?”
“My real father died,” Jade said, then she told Jerry about how her step-father started crawling into her bed with her, feeling her up and making her kiss him. Do other things she couldn't even talk about, not even now, years later. She told Jerry how she had run away not long after turning sixteen because her mother wouldn't listen and her stepfather wouldn't stop.
Jerry kept quiet while he listened, almost sorry he had brought it up. At least now he knew.
Jerry reached over and squeezed her hand. “Yeah, hon,” he said, “sure, we can go down there. Anytime you want. Florida it is.”
Jerry meant it. Going south at some point had always been part of the plan. Binghamton was no good, too cold and ugly for his tastes. And it was too close to his real life. He could be truly and completely anonymous down in Kissimmee.
“Really?” she said. “We’re going?”
“Sure Jade,” he said. “Let’s pack up the car and leave first thing tomorrow. It’ll take us two days to get down there. We'll rent an apartment, then buy a house. Something small, with a pool. Right on the outskirts of Disney so you can go there every day.”
She rose to her knees and started jumping on the bed like a little kid. Jerry smiled. She was so full of energy and innocence. And still in that moment, he saw Holly in her. The way Holly had been when they had first met. Full of promise and hope with Hollywood and stardom ahead of her.
“But when the time comes,” he added as Jade celebrated on the bed, “I’m gonna head back north to watch the trial. Watch Jeff and Holly squirm at the defense table while the jury eyes them up and down like the trash they are. Watch them fry.”
“Watch their trial?” Jade asked. She stopped celebrating and her smile faded to an incredulous look.
“Yeah,” he said. “Why not? Nobody will recognize me, with my beard and all, my hair different, a totally different color and longer than it used to be. And, most of all, all the weight I lost. I’m a hundred pounds lighter.” Jerry slapped his gut, flat and rippled from his daily doses of crunches, amazed that he looked that way. Sexy.
“But what for?” she asked. “What’s the point?”
Jerry
really didn’t have a decent answer for that except it would be great theater watching Jeff and Holly twist and turn in the wind. Holly especially.
What was just as likely, Jerry feared, as his revelry soured, was that they would beat the charges and walked away free and clear, with unfettered access to all the rest of the insurance money.
If that happened, the thought had crossed Jerry’s mind on his most dismal nights, when even Jade’s best blow job couldn’t mollify his anger at being so terribly betrayed by Holly, that he would step forward and ruin the celebration of their dual acquittals by revealing who he was, and their plot – and that Jeff had murdered the body guy.
“I just need to do it,” Jerry finally stated in a voice so low she hardly heard him.
They settled back down into the bed, holding each other. “So we really going down to Disney?” Jade asked.
“Sure, I said it, didn’t I? Tomorrow morning. We’ll move next door to Mickey and Minnie. Buy a decent house, with a pool and everything. Permanently.”
As Jade relished the idea of leaving the bad memory of a life she had led in Binghamton for the sunny future promised by the purchase of a Florida home, with tile floors, a yard lined with palm trees, a pool and all, Jerry relished the thought of what he was putting Holly and Jeff through.
“But, like I said, “Jerry said as Jade snuggled close under his arms, “when the time comes, I’m heading north to watch Jeff and Holly fry.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“She won’t budge,” Inspector Miller told Fox.
He had called Fox to update him on the Holly Shaw/Jeff Flaherty case. It had finally been set for trial, in a month.
The Assistant District Attorney prosecuting the case, Joe McGraw, had asked Miller to make arrangements to bring Fox up to testify. McGraw was a veteran prosecutor, trial-tested at every level, and arrogant as one gets after all those trials, especially when one routinely wins. He had not lost a murder trial in four years.
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