by Brad Smith
“Walter’s a litigation lawyer.”
“Don’t matter. I want him to know what’s going down here. In case the deal goes sour.”
He retrieved the last slice of pizza from the box and got to his feet. Jane watched as he headed into the kitchen, a ridiculous figure in his sweats and his hoodie and his slippers, Colt .45 strapped around his ever-expanding middle. She gathered up the pizza box and the empty soda can and followed him. He picked up the shotgun from the counter and walked over to look out the glass doors to the deck, the gun propped on his hip. After a moment, he went outside, ignoring the fact he’d just implored Jane to set the alarm. She got to the keypad before the siren started.
She tossed the scraps from the pizza box into the garbage and folded the cardboard for the recycling box. Retrieving a bottle of water from the fridge, she stood inside the glass and watched Alan standing by the railing, the shotgun over his left shoulder, his right hand on his hip, near the revolver. When he turned to look at her, she went outside.
“Suzanne and I are going down to the city to see a show tonight,” she said. “Why don’t you come? We’ll stay at the townhouse until they pick this guy up.”
“Suzanne rubs me the wrong way. White trash gone nouveau riche. Spare me that fucking cliché.”
“We can drive down separately. You don’t have to go to the show. You won’t even see her.”
“I can stay here and not see her,” Alan said. He walked along the railing and back, like a sentry on duty. “I want to be here when he shows. I’m no lawyer in a fucking sand trap. At the end of the day, the only person a man can depend on is himself.
The spirit of the frontier.” He turned to her. “You ought to know that. A girl from Montana.”
“Except I’m from Chicago,” Jane reminded him.
“Are you now? You sure about that?” Alan turned back toward the trees, scanned the property. “For some reason, I thought you were a Montana girl.”
Jane sat down. “Okay. We’re getting off topic here. Come with me to the city. Do it for me if you won’t do it for yourself.”
“I’m not running. This is where I make my stand.”
She knew there would be no convincing him. On the drive to town earlier she had decided that today was the day she would talk to him about her interest in pursuing Edie Bryant’s seat in Washington. She knew now that today wasn’t the day. Looking at him in his outlandish getup, she realized that the day might never come. It would be a lot easier to conceal his mental state if he wasn’t so hell-bent on advertising it. She knew he had stopped taking the Amoxapine. She’d been counting the pills.
“If you won’t come with me, I’m staying here,” she said.
“No,” he said. “I won’t have you in harm’s way. I have a job to do, and where I go, you can’t follow.”
She recognized the line, lifted from Casablanca. Bogie at the end, sending Ingrid Bergman away on the plane.
“Then I’m going to have Walter send somebody out. Private security. You can trust Walter, right?”
She could see that the suggestion was at least getting consideration. Walter was one of the few people—maybe the only person—that Alan still had faith in.
“It would seem the better part of valor,” he said after a moment.
She had no idea what that was from, but she went inside and called Walter.
FOURTEEN
Claire had never been to Alan Comstock’s estate. At the time of his arrest for the killing of Kirstie Stempler, Claire had been working a multiple homicide, an arson that wiped out a family of six in a farmhouse near Ravena. She had nothing to do with Comstock’s indictment or his trial. Joe had been the lead on that one, much to his regret, she suspected. Not that he would ever admit it, of course. After the acquittal, Joe behaved as if he were the only one who’d done his job during the investigation, even after Mickey Dupree made mincemeat out of him on the stand.
And now, on this warm summer morning, Joe was holding forth in the kitchen of the Comstock home. Claire had received the call to come to the house when she was on the road to Albany, and she’d had to turn around.
“I told canine he would double back,” Joe was saying to a member of the forensics unit, his back to Claire. “They wouldn’t listen. Shit, when he crossed the river he left a trail a five-year-old could follow and he did it on purpose. I knew damn well what he had on his mind.”
When Joe finally turned and saw Claire, he fell quiet. She looked past him to the situation outside and kept on walking. She glanced at her watch. It was nine thirty.
Alan Comstock was on the deck, wearing a robe and slippers and a ball cap with ac records across the front. There was a holstered revolver on his waist, and a shotgun and nickel-plated small-caliber Smith & Wesson lying on a glass-topped, wrought-iron table a few feet away. Comstock was on his left side, his arm twisted awkwardly beneath him. He had been shot several times, and he was quite dead.
Beside the two weapons on the table was a nearly empty fifth of gin, along with a bottle of tonic and an ice bucket half-full of water.
Julie Hansen from the Ulster County sheriff’s department was taking pictures. Claire said hello and Julie handed her latex gloves, which she put on.
“Who made the call?”
“The maid,” Julie said. “She got here around eight.”
“Where’s the wife?”
“Gone to New York for the night. She left the maid a note.” Claire kneeled beside the body for a moment. The eyes were open, and the ball cap was twisted to one side, the bill propped against the cedar decking.
“Rigor set in?”
“Yeah,” Julie said. “Been a few hours. At least.”
Claire gestured to the nickel-plated revolver. “You got this?” she asked, indicating the camera.
“Go ahead.”
Claire took a pen from her pocket and used it to pick up the gun, a .32 caliber. The cylinder was empty but the spent casings remained.
“Now did the recently deceased empty this revolver in the act of defending himself, or is this the murder weapon?”
“Either or,” Julie said. “We’ll know when we get the slugs out of him.”
“If it’s the shooter’s gun, you won’t find any prints on it.”
“Why not?”
“Just a hunch. He wouldn’t leave a gun behind with his prints on it. But you might find some on the casings, though, if he got careless.” Claire indicated the revolver, holstered around Alan Comstock’s ample waist and the shotgun on the table. “All this will have to go for tests, obviously. I noticed an assault weapon in the dining room and a semiautomatic on the kitchen counter. I assume they are all property of the deceased but you know what assuming can do.”
“Lot of guns,” Julie said. “What the hell was he expecting?”
“This, I’m guessing,” Claire said. “But probably with a different outcome.”
Joe walked out of the house, saw the .32 suspended in Claire’s hand. “Recognize that?” he asked.
“Should I?”
“That’s the Smith & Wesson that Comstock shot the girl with. And it looks to me that Cain used it on Comstock. How’s that for irony?”
“How would Cain get it?” Claire asked. “Wasn’t it in evidence?”
“We had to give it back after the trial,” Joe said. “Comstock showed up downtown with his buddy Mickey Dupree backing him up, and he was raving about the Second Amendment and the right to bear arms. Blah, blah, blah. We had to give it back to him.” Joe smiled. “How’d that work out for him? Either of them, come to think of it.”
Claire looked around. Behind the house was heavy forest, with trails running off in several directions. There was a large garage, or a building that looked like a garage, a few yards away. The sound of dogs barking came from inside.
“Were the dogs out when you guys responded?” she asked.
“No,” Joe said. “Lucky for the mutts. Cain would have killed them too.”
“So you’ve id
entified a suspect, have you?” Claire asked.
“Give me a break,” Joe said.
Claire indicated the body. “So how did he manage it? You have Comstock here, packing more heat than a Ranger patrol, and you’ve got Cain, presumably unarmed. If that thirty-two is the murder weapon, then Cain had to take it off him and empty it into him without Comstock returning fire.”
Joe nodded toward the gin bottle on the table. “I figure Comstock was drunk. And I’m betting toxicology will bear me out. Cain either got the drop on him, or there’s the possibility that Comstock fell asleep. How’s that for cold? Shoot a sleeping man to death.”
“Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves,” Claire said. “We don’t even know the thirty-two did the deed. Maybe Comstock emptied it, defending himself.”
Joe snorted. “Look at the weaponry around here. You telling me if someone came gunning for you, you’d use the pop gun?”
“Probably not,” Claire had to admit. She hated it when Joe was right. Luckily, it was a rare occurrence. “But let’s have the lab do its work before we jump to any conclusions. You got people talking to the neighbors?”
“Well,” Joe said, “there’s nobody real close.”
“Let’s talk to them anyway. We need to—”
Claire, turning toward the house, stopped in midsentence. Jane Comstock had walked out onto the deck. Claire had never met the woman, but she recognized her, having seen her almost daily on the TV news during Comstock’s trial, accompanying her husband to and from the courtroom. She stood staring at the body, her hand on the doorjamb for support. Her bottom lip was trembling just slightly; other than that, she appeared pretty well composed. After several moments, she exhaled sharply, almost involuntarily, and then turned and went into the house.
“Canvass the neighborhood,” Claire said to Joe, and she went inside.
She found Jane Comstock sitting on a leather couch in a front room, a telephone receiver in her hand. Claire sat across from her and introduced herself. She was suddenly aware that she was still wearing the latex gloves. She took them off and tucked them in her coat pocket.
“I should call somebody, but I can’t think,” Jane said.
“Do you guys have kids?”
“We didn’t, no,” she said. “But you’re right. I need to call Gracie. Of course.”
“Who’s Gracie?” Claire asked.
“Alan’s daughter. She’s in Arizona.”
Jane punched in the number. Claire could hear ringing on the other end and then the sound of the voice mail greeting.
“Gracie, it’s Jane. Call me right away. It’s important.” Jane hung up and looked apologetically at Claire. “I couldn’t very well tell her machine that her father—”
“No, of course not.”
“And I need to call Walter,” Jane decided, her brain beginning to work. “He’s our lawyer. Wait a minute—where’s the bodyguard? What’s he saying?”
“What bodyguard?”
“We hired someone yesterday. Well, Walter did. Something Black . . . Security. They sent a guy out. He was here yesterday when I left for the city. Derek, I think.”
“Can you call Walter?” Claire said, getting up. “I’ll be right back.”
She walked outside to where Joe was now talking to a couple of uniforms.
“This guy is beginning to piss me off,” Joe was saying. “This doesn’t happen—not on my watch.”
“We need to take a good look around the grounds,” Claire said. “There was a bodyguard here with Comstock.”
“Christ, he killed him too?” Joe said.
Claire ignored him, turned to the uniforms. “Let’s have a look, okay?”
When she got back to the living room, Jane was hanging up the phone.
“Walter’s going to call the company. It’s Black Walnut Security.”
“Okay,” Claire said. She took a pad from her pocket. “What time did you leave yesterday?”
“Around five.”
“Alone?”
“With a friend. Suzanne Boddington.”
It seemed the name Boddington kept popping up. Yesterday Mary Nelson had mentioned it. “You hired the bodyguard just yesterday? Is that what you said?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because we heard that this Cain had escaped. Alan was . . . Alan was losing it, to tell you the truth.”
“Yeah, I noticed all the guns,” Claire said. “Did he talk to the police?”
“They offered to send somebody but he wouldn’t have it. He, um . . . he was not a fan of your department. That’s Brady outside, right? He was not a fan of his.”
“So you decided to hire somebody private.”
“Yeah. It was Walter’s idea. I wasn’t going to leave if we hadn’t. The guy was very professional. Checked out the grounds and all the entrances. He was armed with . . . whatever they carry.”
“What did you do in the city?”
“Dinner and the theater.”
“What did you see?” Claire wanted to keep her talking, thinking it would help her.
“The Tennessee Williams revival. What’s it called? Shit, what’s wrong with me?”
Somebody just killed your husband, Claire thought. That’s what’s wrong with you. “The Rose Tattoo?”
“Yes, that’s it. Have you seen it?”
“No. The reviews were good.”
The phone rang then and Jane answered. She listened for maybe thirty seconds, frowning. “I don’t understand,” she said.
“Can you talk to the police, Walter?”
Claire took the phone. “Claire Marchand.”
“This is Walter Monroe.” One of those voices, Claire thought at once. Disdainful and dismissive. Not a criminal lawyer. Criminal lawyers were invariably accommodating and forthcoming, especially early in the game, hoping to get something in return. “Okay, I’m operating in the fog here,” the voice went on. “First of all, is Alan Comstock dead?”
“Yes.”
“Do you guys have this man Cain in custody or not?”
“Do we have him in custody? No.”
“Then what in blazes is going on? I just got off the phone with Black Walnut. Their guy was out there last night. On the job. At around midnight Alan received a phone call. He got off the phone and told the bodyguard that the cops had just picked Cain up. And so Alan sent the guy home.”
“Did he say who made the call?”
“Did Alan say who made the call? I have no idea. Keep in mind that I have been on this for less than ten minutes. I didn’t talk to the man himself. This was in his report.”
Claire was writing on the pad. “You got a number for Black Walnut?”
The lawyer gave her the information. “Just to be perfectly clear on this,” he said, “you do not have Virgil Cain in custody at this time?”
“No.”
“But you had him in custody.”
“Yeah. We did.”
“And if he were still in custody, then my friend Alan Com-stock would still be alive this morning. Is that correct?”
“That would be speculation on my part, Mr. Monroe. You’ve heard of due process, right?”
“Yeah, and I’ve heard of police incompetency too. I want to talk to Jane again.”
Claire handed the phone back to Jane and left her alone to talk. She went outside to deliver the news that the bodyguard had been accounted for. Comstock’s body was bagged now, and they were loading it into the wagon. Joe was overseeing.
“Well, I’m going to go talk to the security guard,” Claire said.
“Ask him if he spotted a green Jeep anywhere in the area when he was leaving,” Joe told her.
“Should I ask him about other suspicious vehicles too—or just the Jeep?” Claire asked.
“Ask whatever you want,” Joe said. “We both know it was Cain.”
“No,” Claire said. “We both don’t.”
Driving away from the house she saw a man a couple hundred yards away, cutt
ing the grass alongside his paved drive with an electric trimmer. She stopped to talk to him briefly. He hadn’t seen anything the night before.
Black Walnut Security was located on Washington Avenue in Kingston. Claire called on the way and when she arrived, the guard, whose name was Derek James, was waiting for her, alone in an office just inside the front door. When Claire walked in, he stood and politely introduced himself. He was a big man, black, with his hair razored short. He had a very soft voice and was holding a notebook.
“I never had a job like that before,” he told Claire. “I get there, the man’s all Rambo-ed up like he’s in a movie. Shotguns and assault weapons, revolvers, semis. I’m like, ‘What do you need me for?’”
“So what did you do while you were there?”
“Most of the time, just sat out on the deck. He was shooting targets, all these sheets of plywood set up behind the house. Wanted me to join in. I kept telling him, ‘I fire my weapon, I have to fill out a report.’ So then he says I can shoot his guns. I’m, like, ‘I’ll pass.’ All the time, he’s talking in clichés. ‘Back to the wall.’ ‘Where the bullet meets the bone,’ stuff like that.”
“Was he drinking?”
“Oh yeah. Gin and tonics, lots of gin and tonics.”
“Do you remember him having a thirty-two caliber Smith & Wesson? Nickel plated?”
“Yeah, he had one of them. I kept trying to get him to move inside, especially after it got dark. But he was all ‘No, this is where I make my stand. Like the Alamo,’ he said. I wanted to remind him how that turned out.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No. The client is always right.”
“Tell me about the phone call.”
“There were two calls.” At this point Derek looked at the notebook. “First one was from his wife. At ten thirty-five. I wrote it down. He went into the kitchen to answer and talked to her for maybe five minutes.”
“How did you know it was his wife?”
“He told me when he came out. Said she just got out of a show down in the city and she was calling to check in.”