“You’ve made it perfectly clear you can’t stand the sight of me. I figured I’d make it easier on both of us and do my reports in writing.”
She huffed.
“Nothing you didn’t deserve.”
“Now just a second,” interrupted Trace as she leaned forward in her chair, hand jabbing the air. “If you’d bothered to read those files, you’d know that Shakes, I mean Detective Shakespeare, has been completely cleared in what happened five years ago!”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“He secured the gun in the trunk of his car, was followed from the scene by who we think is the real killer—”
“Real killer? We know who the—”
“Let me finish!” yelled Trace.
Shakespeare stifled a smile. You go girl!
“Shakespeare parked his car, the suspect picked his pocket, used the keys to open the trunk and steal the gun, then made it look like Shakes had left the keys in the car with the windows down and doors unlocked.”
“And what proof do you have of that?”
“A video taken by the suspect, the killer, was on the memory card inserted in the bullet wound of the latest victim.”
Turnbull leaned back, the wind apparently taken from her sails.
“I’ll have to see this video,” she said, her voice barely audible.
“What, you don’t believe me?”
She’s a pit bull!
Shakespeare decided his best course of action was to sit back and enjoy the show. Unfortunately, Turnbull decided to end it, beginning with the death grip on her chair.
“No, that’s not what I meant.” She sighed, then looked at Shakespeare. “It appears I owe you an apology.”
“Damned right—”
Shakespeare put a hand on Trace’s shoulder, calling her off.
“Accepted. Now let’s move on.”
“Agreed.” Turnbull motioned at Trace with her chin. “Quite the advocate you’ve got there.”
Shakespeare gave Trace a wink.
“Glad she’s on my side.”
Trace sat back, still flushed from her outburst. Turnbull also eased back in her chair.
“Now, where are we on this case?”
“Let’s focus on Cooper. We’ve got extremely good circumstantial evidence that Carl Gray actually killed his own wife, making it look like the other murders. Someone placed a fake obit for a man with his name in the paper, his wife was having an affair with his best friend, and his best friend was Cooper’s mailman. He confessed to having Gray cover for him several times, and confirmed he told Gray about the ‘pedo’”—air quotes—“on his route. USPS confirmed that a change of address request was in place for several months, and during this time, we assume Gray gathered enough info on the Cooper family to do a fake private sale report of a gun to the Coopers. As soon as it was in our system, he cancelled the redirect, then murdered his wife.”
“What about the DNA?”
“Vinny says it was on double-sided, very sticky tape. I’m guessing he somehow got transfer from Cooper, then put the tape in place. Vinny’s looking into it now.”
“Circumstantial is right.” Turnbull sighed, her face relaxing slightly. “Okay, how do we know Cooper didn’t do the other murders?”
“Well, we don’t. But why do we think he did them in the first place? Purely because of the gun and the DNA. If we can explain those away, then we would never even know Cooper existed. We could never find anything linking him to the other crimes, because there never was anything. This is an innocent man, who spent five years in prison because Carl Gray framed him for the murder of his wife.”
“But why bother? If he’s going to make it look like the other murders, why not just leave it ‘unsolvable’”—more air quotes—“like the others?”
Shakespeare smiled. “I’ve been thinking about that too. My guess is that he was planning on doing the murder for months, if not a year. He needed to frame somebody, so why not some pedophile. But, when he’s finally ready to do it, he’s been reading in the papers for months about the Widow Rapist, so he decides to do the copycat. But when he’s about to put the bullet in his wife’s head, either he can’t go through with it, or realizes the ballistics won’t match, so he has to go back to the original, ‘Frame Cooper’ plan, but it’s too late, he’s already made the crime look too similar to the others.”
Turnbull nodded.
“That part’s thin, but you’re right. We’ve got nothing on Cooper.” She leaned forward, dropping her elbows on her desk, grabbing her hair. “I put an innocent man in prison.”
“We put an innocent man in prison,” said Shakespeare. “We were all convinced he was guilty. The frame job was perfect. Gun. DNA. Criminal record. It was handed to us on a silver platter and we ate it up.”
Turnbull looked up through her hair.
“Thanks, Justin. I appreciate that, especially…”
“Forget it.”
She sat up and straightened her hair.
“You’re right, let’s move on.”
Shakespeare nodded in agreement. Seems I’ve been doing a lot of that lately.
“I’ll have to immediately issue a statement clearing Mr. Cooper. If I don’t, and it comes out we knew but dragged it on, we’ll be facing an even larger lawsuit than we already are.”
“He should be suing Gray,” muttered Trace.
“True,” said Turnbull, “and he’ll be named, I’m sure, but he’ll be in prison, earning a buck-twenty-five an hour, so it’s not very likely he’ll be able to contribute very much.”
“Okay, before you announce his innocence, I need to interview him.”
“Not a problem, I have him and his lawyers coming in thirty minutes. They requested the meeting. Stick around and you’ll have your interview.”
Shakespeare’s phone vibrated with a message.
Low jack location received. Want it?
Shakespeare waved his phone.
“They found the car Fiona Lipton was picked up in.” He turned to Trace. “You run it down, I’m going to stay here and interview Cooper.”
Trace stood up and nodded to the ADA.
“Ma’am.”
Shakespeare typed a quick reply to Frank.
Send details to Trace.
“Details are coming to your phone. Let me know what you find.”
“Will do,” she said as she left the room.
Shakespeare shifted in his seat, looking at Turnbull. “I’m going to wait in the outer office.”
She nodded. “I think that’s best.”
Shakespeare made his escape, sat down and dialed Louise. It went straight to voicemail. He looked at his watch.
Maybe the breakfast rush is still going.
He tried to satisfy himself with that but in the back of his mind he wasn’t so sure. His phone vibrated with a message.
Sorry I missed your call, very busy.
He sighed and leaned back in the chair, closing his eyes.
Gray’s breaths were a little shorter now. He could feel the thickness of the air, or lack thereof. There was no doubt now—they were running out of oxygen. He looked at the mirror and could see the young woman was also having difficulty.
“Is your only sin that you’re a prostitute?” he asked, his words halting as he took a quick breath between each.
She turned her head and looked at him.
“Escort. And yes,” she replied, apparently still hanging onto a perceived distinction between the two professions. “I’ve done nothing else wrong. And my job is just a job, to get me through college. Then it’s over.”
Her words were strained, merely talking an obvious effort.
“My sin is worse than that,” admitted Gray. His chest screamed as it begged for oxygen, and he could feel dizziness coming on, recalling the scene in Apollo 11 where their CO2 scrubbers failed. The CO2 in here must be getting very high. And with that thought, he realized his time, their time, was almost up.
He close
d his eyes and pictured his wife, her bloodied corpse, her matted hair. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t picture her alive, happy, smiling. Tears burnt his eyes as he imagined how she must have felt those final hours. His chest heaved with the thought of how terrified she must have been.
What had gone wrong?
Why had she cheated on him?
He had tried everything. He hadn’t been lying when he said he kissed her every day, told her he loved her all the time, bought her flowers every Friday on his way home from work. And she had pretended she enjoyed all of his little romances.
But it hadn’t been enough.
She had still ended up in the bed of Chuck.
He’s the one who should have died.
He sighed. Sandra was the wrong one to die. Chuck had obviously seduced her. His mind had no trouble picturing Chuck, then suddenly an image of his wife appeared, but it was of the day he had found out the truth. The day his heart had been shattered against the rocks of adultery.
The day he had come home early, and heard them having sex.
Her cries of passion stabbed at his heart with each thrust of her lover. His stomach churned at the memory, and the memory of what had happened next. He had rushed from the apartment, closing the door carefully, then vomited in the garbage chute. He then hid himself in the stairwell, watching through the tiny window to see who would emerge from the apartment.
His heart had broken a second time when he saw his best friend step out the door.
It was more than any man could take.
And he had wished them both dead.
But the wrong one died.
It should have been Chuck.
“What’s wrong?” asked the weak voice of his companion.
He opened his eyes and looked at her.
“I miss my wife.”
With that he reached over and pushed the button.
“Lead a good life, Fiona Lipton.”
He closed his eyes, and a crystal clear image of his wife appeared, smiling at him.
He gasped a final cry, as his chamber went dark.
TEN
Shakespeare’s stomach growled for attention, the unfinished late breakfast not having satisfied the beast. He looked from his Blackberry to the shirt that held in the caged animal, then at his watch, years of habit unbroken by the fact the time was displayed prominently on his phone.
The door to the outer office opened and a man Shakespeare recognized as one of the more prominent sleaze-ball defense attorneys, Patrick Cahill, entered, followed by Cooper, his disheveled appearance belying the fact he probably hadn’t showered since he left prison, and had most likely just climbed out of bed in the past half hour.
Then his mother.
Shakespeare cringed. Just the look on her face told him everything he needed to know. He had always thought of her as the loving mother, standing by her son’s side through all his trials and tribulations, but he now looked at her in another light. As the history of his encounters was rewritten, he realized that her constant stares, her constant physical contact, was not that of a mother, but of a lover.
A dominant lover.
When this is over, I have to figure out a way to arrest her. This guy doesn’t deserve what’s happening to him.
It made him wonder if the original arrest and conviction for propositioning an underage girl wasn’t a desperate plea for help. The arrest report said he had spoken to the girl, the girl had run away, and he then sat on a bench in the same park, almost as if he were waiting for the police.
Maybe it was his way of escaping for a few years.
None seemed to take any notice of Shakespeare. He stood up as they were announced via intercom. Cooper turned his head and his eyes flashed open, a hint of fear, quickly replaced by the false façade of bravery. His mother took him by the arm, squeezing it tightly, as if protecting him.
Shakespeare watched the expression in the eyes change, from one of false bravado, to one of shame and disgust. Disgust at himself and the life he was leading.
Shakespeare had seen that expression a thousand times before. In the eyes of abuse victims, addicts driven to prostitution, women forced to sell themselves to put food on the table for their children fathered by deadbeats who refused to accept responsibility for their actions. Nearly half of all teenage girls in some New York City neighborhoods had been pregnant at least once before the age of twenty. And almost seventy percent of those babies born to these girls were being raised by single teen moms; their boyfriends having abandoned them as soon as the news was received of impending responsibility.
Shakespeare sighed.
We’re losing an entire generation.
The secretary opened the door, and they all filed in, with Shakespeare bringing up the rear. The ADA dispensed with the formalities quickly and all took their seats, Shakespeare to the right of her desk, facing both her and the others.
“Thank you for coming in, Mr. Cooper. I’ll let Detective Shakespeare give you a quick update as to what’s been happening, then he’ll have some questions for you that after you hear what he has to say, I think you’ll want to answer.”
All eyes shifted to Shakespeare.
He shifted in his chair as the cold glare of the creature holding Cooper’s hand bore into him.
She’s deserves to be six feet under.
Why was it the innocents who always had to die? Why not monsters like this?
“Here’s what we know so far,” he said, leaning back in his chair, arms open, one leg crossed over his knee, a stance he had learned over the years was read by others as confident, and honest. He needed this group to feel as comfortable as possible, so he could get the answers he needed later. “We are now of the opinion that the first six victims were killed by the same person who committed the most recent murder that I’m sure you have heard about.”
Nods.
“We are also of the opinion that the seventh murder, that of Sandra Gray, was committed by a completely different person.”
“So you’re admitting that my client had nothing—”
Shakespeare held up a finger.
“You’re really going to want to let me finish before you say anything else, counselor.”
Cahill frowned, but complied.
“As I was saying, we think it was a different person. We have determined that the other seven victims were all spouses of men who died heroes, saving others.” This elicited a quick jaw drop from Cahill whose head flitted between Turnbull and Shakespeare. “Sandra Gray on the other hand, we have determined was a copycat job. An obituary was printed the week before for a Carl Gray, whose name comes just after our Carl Gray, in the phonebook. We believe we were meant to think that the killer went to the wrong apartment, confusing the two Grays.
“We have since determined that this obituary was fake, thus proving that the murder isn’t linked. We have also determined that Carl Gray had a link to you, Mr. Cooper, that we weren’t aware of before.” He raised his hand again, halting the objections about to be raised by Cahill. “Your mailman was the best friend of Carl Gray. Carl Gray covered several shifts for him, meaning he delivered mail to your address on several occasions in the year following up to your arrest. As well, he put in a change of address for your home covering several months. We believe he did this to intercept your mail so he could get enough personal information to report a private sale of a weapon to you, Mrs. Cooper.”
“You mean the weapon you lost?”
Shakespeare chose to ignore the jab from the attorney, but ADA Turnbull didn’t.
“Video evidence has completely cleared Detective Shakespeare in that matter. It was stolen from the locked trunk of his car.”
Before anybody could question this statement, Shakespeare plowed on.
“This weapon was then entered into our records, serial number only, and police were sent to your house as you didn’t have a license.”
“I remember that,” said Cooper. “And I remember not getting our mail too. We would
get a bunch of it every couple of weeks, then we got a big batch all at once, hand delivered by a mailman.”
Shakespeare leaned forward.
“Can you describe him?”
Cooper shook his head.
“No, I didn’t really look at him.” Cooper looked at the ground, and Shakespeare realized why. He’s too shy to look anyone in the face. “I remember though, because you weren’t home, Mom”—he gave her a quick glance—“and the doorbell kept ringing. I finally went and answered it, thinking it might be an emergency, and it was the mailman. I had to sign for a huge amount of mail. He said there was a screw up at the sorting facility or something like that, and it shouldn’t happen again.”
There’s the contact. But how’d Gray get the DNA?
“Do you remember anything unusual? Did he touch you, scratch you, pick a hair off you, anything?”
Cooper looked at Shakespeare as if he had a second head growing out of his shoulder. “What the hell are you talking—” Then he paused. “Wait, there was one odd thing.”
“What?”
Turnbull and Shakespeare both asked the question as they leaned forward in unison.
“The clipboard. It was covered in glue or something, on the back. He handed it to me and I remember my fingers sticking to the back. It took me almost fifteen minutes to get the shit off my fingers.”
Shakespeare and Turnbull exchanged wide-eyed grins.
Bingo!
Shakespeare leaned back in his chair.
“That’s how we think he got your DNA. It was found on a piece of double-sided tape at the Gray residence. Tape that was being used to hold together a broken door jamb. I’m guessing that this tape was what your fingers got stuck on, and some of your skin was pulled off, enough to leave your DNA at the scene.”
“So…” began Cahill, looking at Shakespeare, as if wanting permission to continue. Shakespeare nodded. “…what you’re saying is you’ve completely cleared my client?”
“We believe so. It turns out Sandra Gray was having an affair with Carl Gray’s best friend”—he glanced at Cooper—“your mailman, and Gray found out. He killed his wife for it, and planned on framing your client due to his past criminal record. With the other murders in the news, he decided to make it look like a copycat, but at the last minute realized the ballistics wouldn’t match up, so went with his original plan of framing you. It worked out even better than he had hoped when you are also accused of killing the other six women, and with the gun stolen, there was no way to prove you weren’t responsible. And due to your DNA being at the scene, all suspicion fell on you for all seven murders.”
Redeemer (A Detective Shakespeare Mystery, Book #3) Page 17