Shadow Image

by Martin J. Smith

  “Ninety minutes,” he said, and hung up the phone.

  Chapter 41

  “And you really think the family was involved in all of this?”

  Dagnolo’s words, delivered with a piano-key smile, hung like a challenge in the dead air of the district attorney’s imperial office, above the Persian rugs, the antiques, the hammered-brass lamps; above the studded leather couch and heavy curtains drawn across floor-to-ceiling windows; above the tuxedoed man now extending a long arm toward the silent television to the right of his polished walnut desk. Dagnolo stabbed a button on the TV’s remote control, and the black screen blinked on, filling the room with a scene of red, white, and blue bunting and the sound of election-night revelry. He pressed another button, muting a brass-band celebration.

  Christensen glared. “Sounds like you don’t.”

  Dagnolo set the remote down on the desk and adjusted the cant of his red silk bow tie. At 6-foot-2, he would have been intimidating even without the black hair that swept straight back from his perpetually tanned forehead. Slender and well-conditioned, he used his size and regal bearing as a weapon. If his stature didn’t overwhelm, he relied on his ice-blue eyes.

  “It’s not that I don’t want to, Mr. Christensen. You probably know with your—” A conspiratorial wink. “—connections along Grant Street that there’s no love lost between the Underhill family and myself. But you have to admit, the scenario you’ve just described—”

  “Unbelievable, I know. But it can’t have happened any other way. The pieces all fit.”

  Dagnolo’s smile was no less infuriating than the one on the thug in the mountains. “You’ve never presented a case to a grand jury, I’m assuming, is that correct, Mr. Christensen? Do you have any idea, any idea whatsoever, how skeptical that group can be? Let me be the first to tell you, they do not act decisively on theories, especially ones woven from coincidence and psychobabble.”

  Christensen stood up, his every suspicion about Dagnolo confirmed. He’d risked everything on the misguided illusion that the truth somehow mattered, that it could rise above murky politics and personal animosities, that it could raise a long-dead child and give him a voice. He’d followed vague clues into Floss Underhill’s diseased mind, knowing only that the truth lay somewhere within that labyrinth. He’d pieced together from wisps of memory and threads of logic the damning evidence that proved that even the most civilized among us are capable of killing and conspiracy.

  But for the first time since the Underhills’ dirty secret began to unravel, his hunch had been wrong. If Annie and Taylor ended up paying for it, he knew then and there he would lay the blame at the Gucci-clad feet of the condescending bastard behind the desk. And he would find a way to make him pay.

  He stood up. “My mistake. Maybe it’s the state attorney general who has the spine.”

  Dagnolo’s face turned the color of his tie. “Look at that television, Mr. Christensen,” Dagnolo said finally, his voice restrained. A commentator was standing in front of a massive black-and-white portrait of Ford Underhill, the apparent backdrop for the podium at Democratic Party headquarters. “These are not insubstantial people you’re talking about. These are people with resources, people with the will to use them to whatever end necessary, without remorse. Think about it, Mr. Christensen: Ford Underhill will be the next governor of this state. Remember who appoints the attorney general? You think whoever gets that job after this election is going to turn around and piss all over their patron?”

  Dagnolo stood up, too. Their faces were just two feet apart, but they stared across a gulf Christensen knew was impossibly wide.

  “The FBI, then. I’ll take what I have to them.”

  “Look,” Dagnolo said, “what I’m asking is, are you sure you’re ready for what these people are going to throw up against you? Forget for a moment that these deaths you say are part of a cover-up would be a capital crime. Say you were just accusing the Underhills of shoplifting. To step forward now with any allegations … I’m sure you understand how easy it would be for them to dismiss the whole thing as just so much election-year mudslinging. The timing’s wrong.”

  Christensen leaned forward, his hands on the D.A.’s desk, his voice even despite his rage. “Let me be very clear here: Even without Maura Pearson or Simon Bostwick, even without the fact that the Chembergos and my own two kids have disappeared, somebody in that family killed a child three years ago. Together, they invented a story to cover it up, a story so implausible that even my snooping around blew it out of the water. And for three years, nobody—nobody?—in this office figured it out?”

  “And let me be very clear, too.” The district attorney leaned forward, practically whispering. He could smell Dagnolo’s minty-fresh breath. “In life, as in politics, Mr. Christensen, illusion becomes reality. What this looks like is less important than what it may be. And this, especially if it comes from me, looks like a petty election-year smear. I’m not saying there’s nothing here. I’m saying—”

  “Three people are dead. Three more are missing. All this bluster about the bad blood between you and the Underhills. It’s just a cover, isn’t it?”

  “Be careful, Mr. Christensen.”

  “Hell, they’ve bought off everybody else for three years. Why not you?”

  “Gentlemen?”

  Both men wheeled. Carrie Haygood was at the inner office door, her glasses pushed up onto her forehead, a lab apron covering what Christensen assumed was her off-duty wardrobe—a dark-blue University of Pittsburgh sweatsuit. She’d taken the manila envelope of films from Christensen as soon as he burst into Dagnolo’s office a half-hour before, then disappeared. When she fanned a series of eight-by-ten black-and-white prints across Dagnolo’s desk, it was clear she’d taken the autopsy negatives to a photo lab somewhere in the courthouse. She held the X-rays up to the light one at a time.

  “This boy’s telling us his story, sirs, and babies don’t lie.” She handed the X-rays to Dagnolo. He stared at them as if she’d just handed him a turd. One by one, he lifted them to the light from the chandelier.

  “No cranial fractures on these, like we thought,” Haygood said. “But these—” She tapped the prints on the desk, then pulled the corner of one so it bloomed into full view. The boy, blond and perfect, looked like he was sleeping. “No trauma or compression marks anywhere on the scalp.” She folded her arms across her bosom and stood up to her full five feet, making sure she had both men’s attention. “Horse didn’t kick this boy in the head.”

  Dagnolo lowered the X-rays, but held them away from Christensen with a slight, confusing smile. “And so we’re back where we started, aren’t we?”

  “Sir?” Haygood said.

  “Now that we know what didn’t happen, tell me what did happen.”

  Haygood shook her head. “I can’t do that, not from these. But the subdural hematoma, what that suggests—”

  Dagnolo raised a hand, stopping her. “Suggests,” he said, turning away, walking toward one of his massive office windows. He spread the curtains with two fingers and peeked out into the night. “A difficult word, ‘suggests.’ Because we’re at the point now, I’m sure you both understand, where we have to answer an altogether different question. What does that finding prove?”

  “That somebody lied,” Haygood said.

  “Yes, of course. It’s a way of life in that family. But then, who killed the boy?”

  Haygood looked down, and Christensen knew she’d done as much as she could. “I don’t know.”

  Dagnolo turned, but kept his distance. “Mr. Christensen, who killed the boy? Give me the proof.”

  “You know I can’t,” he said, seething. “But I can give you the truth. Floss Underhill knows that something happened that day, something terrible. She may not know exactly what, but she knows i
t’s something a lot more complicated and confusing than the version Vincent and Ford told the cops. And her confusion about that, trying to square her memories of that day with the story they told, became these uncontrollable images. They started leaking into her art, and I think that’s the key to what really happened here.”

  Dagnolo clasped his hands behind his back, listening. “Go on.”

  Haygood’s glance was reassuring.

  “A lot of this started after her art went on public display, after people started to pay attention to it,” Christensen said. “Think about that. Is that a coincidence? You want to talk about timing? One painting is picked for an art show. The Press prints a picture of it. Hell, they print her first name with it. Was it a coincidence that the family pulled that painting out of Maura’s show? Suddenly, Floss is looking like a liability just as her son is stepping into the public spotlight for the first time. This fall she had a couple days later—another coincidence? Maybe. Only she doesn’t die like she’s supposed to—the damned gardener wasn’t supposed to see or hear anything, but he does—so to cover that up, the family floats these theories about caregiver burnout and suicide. They even hire an attorney who’s known for defending caregivers in those situations, hoping to spin the whole thing into a sympathy vote for Ford.”

  Dagnolo was as still as a statue.

  “A couple more things,” Christensen said. “All the people the Underhills think might know the real story suddenly end up dead or missing. And when they realize what I’m up to, my kids go missing. All coincidences?”

  Christensen swept an arm toward the television, where the bloated, smiling face of the Democratic Party chairman filled the screen. “Literally,” he said, “what’s wrong with this picture?”

  Dagnolo turned away again. The chirping telephone on his desk interrupted a long and uncomfortable silence. The district attorney didn’t look at either of them as he returned to pick it up.

  “Good evening,” he said, then listened, nodding occasionally. Finally: “All right. Keep me posted.”

  When he hung up, Dagnolo’s gaze shifted to Christensen’s eyes and locked. “Westmoreland County sheriff. Quite a little scene you left behind up there in the mountains.”

  A prickly feeling swept up Christensen’s spine. “You called them already?”

  “It’s a murder scene, Mr. Christensen. Evidence degrades. They needed to know as soon as possible, but they don’t yet know you’re involved. You should understand, though, they’ve already concluded that someone else was.”

  “You told them.”

  Dagnolo shook his head. “Simple logic. Simon Bostwick is dead in the cabin. The gentleman with the bad foot is handcuffed to a tree outside. There had to be someone else involved, you see, and at this point they consider that person their prime suspect.”

  “You know what happened, though.”

  “I know what you’ve told me. If what you’ve told me is true—and what they’ve just said does fit with your version—I assume the physical evidence will bear you out.”

  Christensen’s mind was racing. “That’s it, then. Now the Underhills have to explain why their security guy was at the scene. The story starts to unravel.”

  “Does it?” Dagnolo said, his gaze intense and steady. “He’s not talking.”

  “But he works for them.”

  “We’ll try our best to prove that, of course, but these are not stupid people, Mr. Christensen.” Dagnolo leaned forward, his large, elegant hands palms-down on his desk, his voice calm. “You might consider contacting an attorney before this goes too much further. It’ll be out of my hands before long.”

  Christensen flushed. “Not a bad idea,” he said. “She knows the whole story. Knows a lot of reporters, too. It’ll all get out, one way or the other.”

  “Look—” Dagnolo glanced at Haygood, then back at Christensen. He sounded like a man who was done playing games. “What I say here stays in this room. Understood?”

  Haygood nodded. Christensen stared.

  “Mr. Christensen, do I have your word?”

  Something in Dagnolo’s tone was different. Christensen finally nodded.

  The D.A. tapped his perfectly manicured fingertips on the desk, as if reconsidering what he was about to say. Then: “You’re not the only one who figured out that Bostwick was bought off. You’re not the only one who thought there was a lot more to that story three years ago. You may think we’re just a bunch of hacks down here, Mr. Christensen, but we’ve been gathering string, looking for an opening. And we got it the day Mrs. Underhill went over that railing. Frankly, sir, you blundered into the middle of an investigation that had just gotten new life.”

  Christensen flashed on Brenna, on her confusion about the Allegheny County sheriff’s persistence in investigating Floss’s fall. “Sherm the Worm,” he said without thinking.

  Dagnolo nodded. “Sheriff Mercer’s involved, yes.” The D.A. looked at Haygood again. “Please understand, Carrie, we’d have brought you in on this eventually.”

  “And you didn’t do anything?” Christensen said. “What about Maura?”

  Dagnolo was forcing his words now, sharing information Christensen knew he shouldn’t share. “Possibly connected. But if it is, there’s no hard evidence. Whoever did it was a pro.”

  “The Chembergos?”

  The D.A. shook his head. “Bodies turned up in the Ohio River, about four miles north of the Point. Shot in the back of the head before they went in—same MO as Bostwick—but the sediment in their pockets was from along the Allegheny. Coroner guesses they went in about ten miles upriver.”

  “How close to Fox Chapel?”

  Dagnolo shrugged. “You could make a case with the right jury.”

  Christensen suddenly felt sick. “Our kids?”

  Dagnolo shook his head. “I just know what you’ve told me; you somehow neglected to report it to the police. But it’s not something we want to wait on. We all know what we’re dealing with here.”

  Christensen tried to process what he was hearing, but felt as if he’d stumbled into thick fog. “I, uh … What can you do? About the kids, I mean.”

  Dagnolo seemed to savor the reaction. “I’ll alert Mercer. But where would we start looking? We’d need a search warrant for the estate, if we could even get one with what we have, but they’re probably smarter than to take them there. I’m guessing they’re smart enough not to hurt them, either.”

  The room spun. Christensen grabbed the leather arm of a barrel-backed leather chair and sat down.

  Dagnolo slid open the lap drawer of his desk, picked up a photocopy of something Christensen hadn’t seen before, and laid it faceup between them, angled so Christensen could read it. The top page of several stapled pages was a fax cover sheet from the Westmoreland County Sheriff’s Department. The time stamp was from seven hours earlier, 3:11 p.m.

  “We’re all on the knife edge here,” Dagnolo said. His voice was almost conspiratorial. “We’re not the only ones who know more than we’re supposed to know.”

  Christensen couldn’t hide his anxiety. “What is it?”

  Dagnolo smiled. “Your salvation.”

  Confused, Christensen looked at Haygood. She shrugged. Dagnolo pushed it across the desk. “The original’s still at the sheriff’s office in Latrobe.”

  The paper shook in Christensen’s hand as he picked it up. “Per this afternoon’s phone conversation,” the handwritten fax cover note began. “Suicide note to follow.”

  Haygood moved quietly to Christensen’s side and read along.

  “The handwriting isn’t easy to read,” Dagnolo said, “but you’ll get the idea.”

  Christensen flipped to the last of what looked like about ten pages. The signature was clear
enough: Warren Doti. He looked up. “Oh, Christ. Dead, too?”

  “Shotgun, out in one of the horse stalls. Self-inflicted, they’re pretty sure. Still checking it. The note was beside him. Definitely not something the Underhills would plant. Read it.”

  “But you knew about him?”

  Dagnolo nodded. “We took his statement the day Chip Underhill died, but at the time he was supporting their version of the accident. Tried like hell to shake his story back then.” He shook his head, then gestured to the fax. “Read it.”

  The handwriting was uneven, barely legible, the language plain and familiar. Christensen had no doubt it was written by Doti.

  To who it may concern: I want to put something right now because it’s time. I had not said so before when it happened because too many people had been hurt already and saying something would have made it worse. But I see things going on and I know something is wrong and I want to put it right. I want everybody to understand certain facts as I know them, and whatever happens, happens.

  Christensen looked up. Dagnolo was back at the massive window, his back turned, peeking through the curtains again.

  My feelings for Mrs. Underhill go back to 1964 to when Mr. Vincent was governor. We were training for the national trials. We were together a lot, traveling together to competitions, and it just happened, and it was always respectful and never once felt dirty or wrong. It’s fair that this be known, but it has nothing to do with things as I’ll explain them. So I won’t say more than that in respect for my wife, who died last year and never knew. The truth is me and Mrs. Underhill stopped our meetings when Mr. Vincent came back home and never saw each other that way ever since. It was the right thing because I’d never do anything against the Underhills that gave me a life for so long.