“Sorry I’m late,” Santoro said. “Traffic.”
“Not a problem.” She pointed at her food. “Order yourself a burger and fries. You’ll thank me.”
“I can also use a beer. Court gave me a migraine.”
Dana signaled to the waitress, then pointed at her burger, fries, and beer.
“Did Gardner give Blair bail?” Dana asked.
“He’s going to rule in the morning.”
“So, why the secret meeting?” Dana asked.
“How much do you charge?”
“You want to hire me?”
“Maybe. Let’s see what you think when we’re done.”
Dana told Santoro her hourly rate.
“I can do that,” Santoro said, “but before I talk to you, I want your promise that you’ll keep what I say to yourself.”
“Okay.”
“I have doubts about the case against Blair.”
“Have you told your partner?”
“I’ve tried, but Steph is so certain Blair murdered his wife that she can’t hear what I’m saying. That’s why I need to have someone without any preconceived notions look at the case. Do you think you can do that?”
“I can try. So why do you have doubts about Blair’s guilt?” Dana asked just as the waitress placed Santoro’s beer in front of him. He took a long drink before answering.
“You heard the testimony, right?”
“Most of it.”
“Okay, well, first off, there are all these anonymous tips. The tip to the paper about the prenup was anonymous. The tip about Blair putting his wife’s body in the trunk of his car, anonymous. And why would a guy as smart as Blair let us look in the trunk if he knew the gun was still in there?
“Then there’s that key. How did it get in the grave? Benedict was right. Most people keep their house key on their key chain, so how does Blair’s house key get off the chain and into the grave?
“Finally, there’s our jailhouse informant, Barry Lester. I have a hard time believing Blair would give him the time of day, let alone confess to murder—and tell him where he buried the body.”
“Could Lester have killed Carrie?”
“No, he was in jail when Mrs. Blair was killed.”
“So how did he know where the grave was if Blair didn’t tell him?”
“Either the person who killed Carrie Blair told him or the killer had someone else tell him.”
“Have you checked to see who visited Lester since he’s been locked up?”
Santoro nodded. “The only visitors were Lester’s girlfriend and Arthur Jefferson, his attorney. Lester’s girlfriend is a stripper. Her stage name is Tiffany Starr—and that’s what she calls herself—but she was born Sharon Ross. She’s divorced, and her married name was Sharon Krantz.”
“Do you have phone numbers and addresses for Starr and Jefferson?”
“Yeah.”
Santoro pulled out his notebook and rattled off contact information for Tiffany Starr and Arthur Jefferson.
“Tell me a little about Barry Lester and his girlfriend,” Dana asked as soon as she’d stored the information in her phone.
“Starr has a record for kiting checks, and she embezzled from a company she worked for as a bookkeeper.”
“Let me guess. She needed the money to buy drugs?”
Santoro nodded. “Heroin and cocaine, mostly, but she’s used other stuff. She’s been in and out of rehab, usually as a condition of probation.”
“Got it. And Barry Lester?”
“Lester is a small-time punk with an aversion to work. He’s a high school dropout who’s supported himself with con games and petty, nonviolent crimes. The guy lives on the fringe. Occasionally he’ll work a low-paying job when he can get one, but he can’t say no to easy money. This last time he really fucked up. He drove the getaway car in a liquor-store robbery. No one was hurt, but his buddies cut deals. If he hadn’t agreed to rat out Blair he’d be looking at serious time.”
Santoro hesitated. Suddenly he looked nervous.
“There’s someone else I need you to look at.”
“Who?”
“Charles Benedict. This is the real reason I want to hire you. Horace Blair is incredibly rich and very well connected. We caught hell when we booked him on the gun charge. If I investigate Blair’s defense attorney and he discovers what I’m up to he’ll scream bloody murder and claim we’re harassing him. We’d risk having the case dismissed for prosecutorial misconduct.”
“You think Benedict might be involved in Carrie’s murder?”
“If he was Carrie’s lover he might have a reason to kill her.”
“That’s quite a leap.”
“What do you know about Benedict?”
“Nothing really.”
“I’ve always thought he was shady. You know who Nikolai Orlansky is, right?”
Dana nodded.
“A lot of Benedict’s clients are connected to Orlansky, and a few of his cases have ended in strange ways.”
“Such as?”
“Witnesses and evidence have disappeared, or a witness changes his story.”
“That’s not evidence that he killed Carrie Blair.”
“You’re right. But Blair and Benedict had a run-in shortly before she disappeared.”
Santoro told Dana about the Ross case.
“Now, here’s something I found out,” Santoro said. “Kyle Ross isn’t the only member of the Ross family Benedict represented. He was Sharon Ross’s attorney on two of her drug cases.”
“You think Benedict told Tiffany the location of the body?”
“It’s a possibility. And there’s something else. Benedict worked awfully hard to convince us to put Blair in isolation.”
“That’s something any defense attorney would do if he had an elderly, well-heeled client who would be dog meat in population.”
“That’s true. But . . .” Santoro shook his head. “I just have this feeling that something about this case is not right. I may be way off base, but I’d feel better if you told me that after you investigated.”
“Okay. I’ll take a shot at it.”
“How much do you need for a retainer?”
“Forget about the money. Carrie Blair paid me a bundle for a few days’ work. If her husband didn’t kill her, I owe it to Carrie to find out who did.”
“At least let me cover your expenses.”
“We can talk about that when I finish my investigation.”
“Okay. So, what do you think?”
“If Benedict had Tiffany Starr tell Lester where the body was buried, it would explain a lot. What’s got me puzzled is the key you found in the grave. How did it get there? If Horace Blair didn’t murder his wife but the key is Blair’s house key, the killer had to get it from . . . Blair. And I . . .”
Dana stopped in midsentence because Santoro’s mouth was open and it was clear he was not listening.
“What’s the matter?” Dana asked.
“Something has been bothering me ever since Steph conducted her experiment with the keys at Blair’s estate, and I just realized what it is.”
Santoro stood up. “I’m going to my office to get something. Here’s my address. I’ll call my wife and tell her you’re coming. She’ll put on some coffee. We’re going to have a long night.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Frank Santoro met Gloria when she was working as a dispatcher. She understood his hours and never got on him about the time he spent on the job. Frank adored Gloria, and he appreciated how lucky he was to have someone who understood the demands of police work. His first marriage had gone on the rocks because of the time Frank spent on his cases and the shitty mood he could be in after a shift dealing with the dregs of society.
Dana liked Gloria as soon as the heavyset brunette opened the door and flashed a big, warm grin at her. By the time Frank pulled into his driveway, the two women were chatting away over coffee in the living room. Frank knew they had been talking about him when th
e women worked to stop smiling as he walked in carrying a briefcase.
“Don’t believe a word she says,” Frank told Dana.
“Who says we were talking about you?” Gloria said. “You men always want to be the center of attention.”
Frank kissed Gloria on the cheek, then told her that he and Dana were going downstairs to review surveillance tapes. Gloria handed Dana a thermos filled with coffee.
“If you want something to eat, give a holler,” she said as Dana and her husband vanished down the steps to the basement.
“Why am I here, Frank?” Dana asked as Frank pulled a DVD out of his briefcase and put it in his laptop.
“Something has always bothered me about the keys. You weren’t close enough in court to see them, but there are three that are important. The key in the grave with Horace Blair’s prints on it and the key on the key chain we found in Carrie’s purse—they both opened the front door to Blair’s mansion. But they had something else in common. They were both dulled by wear. Then there’s the key on Horace’s key chain that didn’t open the front door: it looked like the other keys, but it was newer.
“Around the time Carrie disappeared on Monday there was another homicide. The guy’s name was Ernest Brodsky. He was in his seventies, didn’t have any vices, and everyone liked him. We figured it for a killing in the course of a robbery, but there was one odd thing about the case. Brodsky had a shop in the River View Mall, and the evidence points to the crime occurring on Tuesday night in the parking lot of the mall, but his body was found in a field miles away. If Brodsky was robbed and killed at the mall by some junkie, why move the body? It didn’t make sense until I remembered what Brodsky did for a living.”
“And what was that?” Dana asked.
Santoro grinned. “He was a locksmith, and he had equipment in his shop for making copies of keys! If a locksmith made a key that looked similar to Blair’s front door key but wouldn’t open the door, that key would look newer.”
“And the tapes?” Dana asked.
“They show what went on in the mall on Monday and Tuesday.”
The last time anyone had seen Carrie Blair was after court on Monday afternoon, so Santoro and Dana watched the DVD for Monday until Brodsky closed his shop. After Brodsky left the mall Santoro skipped through Monday evening and started watching again when Brodsky opened up on Tuesday morning.
“There!” he said a few minutes after they started watching in real time.
A man in a hooded sweatshirt, jeans, and sneakers walked into the picture and opened the door to the locksmith’s shop. He kept his face out of view of the surveillance camera, as if he knew where it was and didn’t want to be identified.
Santoro zoomed in. The picture was in black and white, but the resolution was grainy.
Dana squinted at the screen. “I think he’s Caucasian,” she said, “but that’s about all I can tell.”
The man stayed in the store for twenty minutes and came out holding a small paper bag.
“That’s about the right size for a few keys,” Santoro said just as the man walked out of the picture.
There was another set of tapes that covered the parking area near Brodsky’s shop. Santoro cued up the DVD for Tuesday morning and stared hard at the screen. Suddenly a Porsche drove into a spot around the corner from Brodsky’s place of business, even though most of the lot was empty.
“Carrie Blair drove a Porsche,” he said. “And it’s missing.”
Santoro froze the screen and enlarged the picture. Part of the license plate was visible.
“I can only make out two letters,” Santoro said. “What about you?”
Dana shook her head. Santoro checked his notebook.
“The L and the Q are in the right spot for her plate,” he said.
Santoro pressed PLAY and the man in the sweatshirt got out of the Porsche, working hard at keeping his head down so that his face wouldn’t show.
Santoro watched him walk around the corner, and kept watching until he returned to the car and drove off.
The man didn’t return on Tuesday and Santoro fast-forwarded through the day. Dana and Santoro watched Brodsky lock the door of his shop at 5:30 p.m. and walk into the lot. The cameras didn’t cover the whole lot and Brodsky had parked out of the camera’s range.
It was after midnight and Santoro’s eyes were about to fall out of his head. He leaned forward to turn off the machine just as a Mercedes drove across the screen. Santoro froze the picture and ran the DVD back.
“Can you make out the license?” he asked.
“No,” Dana answered. “The car’s going too fast. I couldn’t see who was driving, either.”
“Too bad. But this wasn’t a total loss. Charles Benedict drives a Mercedes-Benz.”
“Tell me what you’re thinking, Frank.”
“After Benedict kills Carrie, he decides to frame her husband for the crime by leaving a clue in her grave that points to Horace. He takes Carrie’s house key off of her key chain, drives Carrie’s Porsche, with the body in the trunk, to Brodsky’s store in the mall. Benedict has Brodsky make a key that looks like the real house key but won’t open the front door to the Blair mansion. After he buries Carrie, he figures out a way to switch the key that won’t work for Horace’s front door key, which has Horace’s fingerprints on it. Benedict puts Carrie’s house key back on her key chain before he buries her. Then he returns to the grave and plants Horace’s house key in the grave where we’ll find it. Now, the key in the grave opens Blair’s front door, but no key on Blair’s key chain opens the door, and we are going to conclude that Blair must have lost the key when he was burying his wife.”
“That makes sense, but how did he switch the keys?” Dana asked.
“That is the million-dollar question.”
“Which we won’t be able to answer as long as Benedict represents Horace Blair.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
The next morning, before breakfast, Dana and Jake loosened up with calisthenics before running five miles. Dana had gotten home from Frank Santoro’s house a little after one in the morning and she was groggy during their workout. Jake showered first, then made breakfast. When Dana came into the kitchen, her hair was damp from her shower and she was dragging.
“Have I told you recently that you are a genius?” Jake asked.
Dana perked up. “No. What did I do that’s so smart?”
“Remember telling me that I should use my photographs from the Arctic expedition for a show? Yesterday, I phoned Louis Riker at the Riker Gallery. He called back while you were in the shower, and we’re meeting this morning.”
“That’s great!” Dana said, breaking into a grin.
“It’s not a done deal.”
“I’ll keep my fingers crossed.”
After breakfast, Jake left for his meeting and Dana went down to the basement office. She booted up the computer and did an Internet search for “Charles Benedict.” There were several articles about cases in which he had served as defense counsel. There was also a piece in the Washington Post that had been written in connection with one of the attorney’s high-profile cases.
Dana had no trouble learning that Benedict was a member of the D.C., Maryland, and Virginia bars and had earned a degree in economics from Dickinson College in Pennsylvania. At the University of Virginia Law School, Benedict made the law review and graduated fourteenth in his class. He should have been able to land a judicial clerkship or a position as an associate in a high-powered law firm, but he chose to hang a shingle and specialize in criminal defense. By all accounts, he had been a success from the get-go, experiencing none of the hardships usually encountered by sole practitioners.
What Dana found odd was that no article contained an account of Benedict’s life before college. She was unable to find out where he was born and grew up, or anything about his parents. It was as if Charles Benedict did not exist before he went to Dickinson.
Dana called the Washington Post and asked to speak to Shawn
DuBurg, the reporter who had written the profile of Benedict. After introducing herself, Dana explained why she was calling.
“Yeah, I remember writing the piece. Why are you interested?” DuBurg asked.
“I’m working for a client who’s thinking of hiring Mr. Benedict and he asked me to check him out.”
“Everything I know is in the article,” DuBurg said.
“I was interested in what wasn’t in it. For instance, you didn’t write about Mr. Benedict’s childhood, where he grew up, that sort of thing.”
“That’s because it wasn’t relevant to the article. It was about his legal career.”
“I’m having a hard time finding out anything about Mr. Benedict before he went to college. Do you know any of that stuff?”
DuBurg was quiet for a moment. “You know, I think I did ask him but he said he’d had a rough childhood and didn’t want to discuss it. Like I said, I was mainly interested in his legal career, so I didn’t push him.”
Dana thanked the reporter and ended the conversation. She tried to think of ways to get what she needed but every idea she had was a dead end, so she called Andy Zipay.
Zipay was an ex-cop who had left the D.C. police department under a cloud while Dana was still on the force. Dana had been one of the few officers who had not shunned him, and she’d sent business his way when he went private. When Dana got out of the mental hospital and decided to work as an investigator, Zipay returned the favor by sending her work. It was one of the assignments Zipay had referred to her that eventually led to Dana’s discovery that the president of the United States was involved in a series of murders. Zipay was a very good detective and an excellent person to present with a puzzle.
Dana listened to the radio during the drive to Zipay’s office. She turned up the sound when the announcer said there was a decision on bail in Horace Blair’s case.
“Judge Gardner agreed with the defense that Mr. Blair was a prominent member of the community but he cited several reasons for denying bail. The judge held that the evidence produced by the commonwealth pointed to a strong possibility that Mr. Blair would be convicted of the murder charge. He recognized that the defense might call this evidence into question at trial but he said that he was forced to decide the issue of bail on the evidence presented in court.
Sleight of Hand: A Novel of Suspense (Dana Cutler) Page 16