by Sydney Bauer
‘Which corresponds to exactly what Chris told me,’ said David. ‘He said he called Marilyn a number of times during the day. She was pretty upset after he broke up with her, so he wanted to check how she was doing.’
Sara went on to explain that the other four messages were all in text form and all sent later in the evening and into the night. All came from the same unidentified cell number, and all appeared to be saying roughly the same thing.
‘Appeared roughly?’ asked Joe. ‘What do you mean?’
Sara shot a look at David. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘we can’t exactly read them.’
‘You can’t read them?’
‘No, I mean . . .’ Sara pulled the cell from her handbag and handed it to Joe.
‘It’s rusted,’ observed Joe.
‘Yeah, the housemaid said they’d been steamcleaning the carpets for the refurbishment and given the phone was on the floor under the bed . . .’
‘And the SIM card?’ Joe turned the phone over to see the red rim of rust around the battery cover.
‘It’s partly damaged too,’ said David. ‘It rusted into the phone.’
Joe was shaking his head. ‘David, this is . . .’
‘I know, Joe. It sounds like a wild goose chase, but having stared at the mangled messages for the past few hours, we think the sender was asking Marilyn to meet with him that night.’
Sara stood to take the cell back from Joe and scrolled to one of the messages from the unidentified cell. The message was an odd combination of numbers – with the letters thrown in at random.
‘Is this supposed to mean something to me?’ asked Joe as Sara held the screen in front of him.
Sara used her pointer finger to direct Joe’s eyes to a set of six numbers in a grouping of four and two. ‘6338 and 63,’ she said. ‘The same combinations appear in three of the four texts.’ She scrolled through the other three messages to show him. ‘The numbers correspond to the words “meet me”,’ she said. ‘And in the first text the words are followed by the configuration “t66i4h8” – “tonight”.’
‘So he was setting up a meeting?’ asked Joe.
‘We think so,’ said David, now also getting to his feet. ‘Now look,’ he added, pointing at another sequence of numbers and letters. ‘There’s another repeated series – “h6te5”.’
‘Hotel,’ said Joe.
David nodded. ‘The only reference to time being the word “m43n4te”.’
Joe’s brow furrowed. ‘He wanted her to meet him at midnight?’
David nodded. ‘But which hotel, under what name, we’re not sure.’
‘Jesus,’ said Joe, ‘this is going to be like finding a needle in a haystack. I’ve seen the guys from our crime unit work with garbled cells before, David. Once these things are stuffed, they’re generally stuffed for good.’ He shook his head. ‘Did Maloney reply to any of these texts?’
‘Yes,’ said David. ‘One. At about seven-thirty pm.’
‘And what did she say?’
David shot a glance at Sara. ‘She said “65”.’
‘65?’
‘OK,’ said Sara.
‘She agreed to meet with him?’
‘We think so. But we don’t think she ever turned up. She was working at that nightclub until midnight – after which she drank some more and went home. The super helped her up to her apartment at about quarter to one in the morning.’
‘So she stood the mystery guy up?’
‘Looks like,’ said Sara.
‘And people don’t like being stood up,’ said David.
Joe nodded. ‘I’m sure I’m going to hate myself for asking this but . . . what else can you garner from these garbled messages?’
‘There’s a dollar sign,’ said Sara. ‘Followed by a full stop and the numbers 005.’
Joe ran his hand through his thick dark hair. ‘What letter does the dollar sign correspond to?’
‘It doesn’t. It’s a separate symbol.’
‘So it can only mean dollars,’ said Joe.
‘Right,’ confirmed David.
Joe nodded. ‘And the full stop 005. It sounds like a blood-alcohol reading.’
‘To a cop maybe,’ said David. ‘But “.005” could be “100K”.’
‘The $100,000,’ said Joe, seeing it then. ‘But how in the hell did this guy know about the money?’
‘We’re not sure.’
‘You think he was trying to rip her off?’
‘One hundred grand is a motive for murder in anyone’s language, Joe.’
Joe nodded – but his nod soon turned into a shake. ‘Hold on a moment, four texts coupled with Kincaid’s five – and I’m gathering Kincaid’s texts were also garbled?’
Sara nodded.
‘Okay,’ said Joe. ‘So what’s to say all the messages weren’t from Kincaid and he simply used another cell to send them?’
‘We don’t think so,’ said David. ‘For two reasons.’ He moved to the far corner of Joe’s office, before lifting up two fingers, so he could count them off. ‘First up, it’s the $100,000.’
‘But from what you told me, Marilyn Maloney blamed Kincaid for the six-figure payoff.’
‘Yes, and to be honest, when I saw what Marilyn had written on that satchel, I blamed him too. But I don’t think Chris knew about that money until after Marilyn’s death.’
He could see Joe was not convinced.
‘I know it sounds crazy, Joe, but the whole concept of Chris using his cash to get rid of his girlfriend just doesn’t sit right. Paying people off isn’t Chris’s style. His mother is a master at it, but Chris . . .’ David shook his head.
‘But Maloney knew him well, and she saw fit to point the finger at him.’
‘True,’ said David. ‘But I think that was just a consequence of the timing. I believe somebody else tried to pay Marilyn off, and when Chris broke it off with her that morning, she assumed he was okay with the transaction – condoned it even.’
‘What does Kincaid have to say about the money?’ asked Joe.
‘To be honest, we didn’t really get a chance to talk about it before I walked out.’ David took a breath. ‘But when I went to him to tell him I was quitting, I called him on the satchel and he swore to me that he knew nothing about the $100,000 and, in hindsight, I’m inclined to believe him.’
‘Oh come on, David,’ said Joe. ‘You said it yourself – the guy was spinning lies faster than a carnival ride on the fourth of July.’
‘Maybe so, but Chris knew Marilyn better than anyone, Joe. He knew she would never have taken the cash; that it would be the ultimate insult to offer it to her. He may have dumped her, Joe – but he had nothing to do with the money. Of that much, I’m sure.’
Joe nodded, but David could tell his experienced detective brain was ticking through the other arguments he needed to proffer.
‘You said there were two reasons you thought the texter wasn’t Chris Kincaid,’ Joe said after a pause. ‘What was the second?’
David used his remaining pointer finger to gesture at Sara, suggesting she be the one to tackle this question.
‘The second texter used text language,’ she said.
‘You drew that conclusion from that gobbledegook?’ asked Joe, pointing to the cell in Sara’s hand.
‘Chris’s messages contain longer letter combinations – but the second texter’s messages were filled with two and three letter combinations. For example we think “w8” really does mean “wait” and “pl9” is probably the shortened form of “please” or “plz”. We think the second texter may be younger – more familiar with the shorthand text dictionary.’
Joe looked unconvinced.
‘Come on, Joe,’ said David. ‘You can’t tell me Joe Jnr doesn’t text his friends in a foreign language,’ he said, referring to Joe’s teenage son.
‘Okay,’ Joe finally conceded. ‘I get your point, but that kind of stuff isn’t going to help you prove things one way or the other.’
‘Right,’ said
David, once again looking across at Sara. ‘But we figured . . . that was where you come in.’
‘You want me to get someone in my department to decipher this mess?’
‘Not in your department,’ said David. ‘We thought you might ask Susan Leigh.’
Susan Leigh was an ex-Boston PD workaholic cop who used to work under Joe’s command but was now an agent for the FBI. In fact, after a stint at the bureau’s famous forensics and scientific analysis laboratory in Quantico, she had just been posted to the Boston Field Office mere blocks from David’s office.
‘Jesus, David.’
‘It’ll look better coming from you, Joe.’
‘Asking me is one thing, but asking me to ask . . .’
‘You’ve done it before,’ David pleaded, ‘and besides, it’s not like we don’t have something for you to do too.’
‘Well, geez,’ said Joe. ‘For a moment there I thought you were going to leave me out.’
‘Not a chance,’ said Sara, stifling a smile. ‘We’d like you to contact the unidentified texter’s telephone provider to find out if there’s a name that goes along with that number. We’d also like to know what cell towers the messages triangulated through – to give us a better idea of the mystery man’s location.’
Sara was referring to the fact that all calls and messages were routed through the closest cell phone tower at the time the call was made or message was sent.
‘You need a warrant to get that sort of information, Sara,’ said Joe.
And there was the sticking point – the line they were asking Joe to cross.
‘What am I supposed to do – make up some bogus story that the texts found on your cell are relevant to an investigation I’m running?’ Joe shook his head as his eyes turned to David. ‘In case you haven’t noticed, I work homicide, and my jurisdiction ends in a ten-mile radius from here. And you don’t have a chance in hell on petitioning for a warrant, given you are no longer on the case.’
Despite the fact that David still believed he had made the right decision to ‘quit’ at the time, Joe’s reminding him of it stung.
‘You could refer it to your larceny division,’ offered Sara, holding up Marilyn’s cell. ‘This phone could have been stolen. I mean maybe there are other people who have Matt Dillon and Rob Lowe in their contact list?’
‘Like Emilio Estevez?’ suggested Joe, his patience wearing thin.
‘If you like,’ said Sara. ‘But my point is, your guys from larceny – I would imagine they run traces on stolen cell phones all the time. I mean, what if they got a warrant to try to find the owner of the cell – and the warrant covered trying to identify those who sent the owner messages as a means of tracking down possible connections to the cell phone thief so that . . .’
‘You want me to give this cell to the guys in larceny, and ask them to do a full identity check on anyone who sent the messages saved in it, under the pretext of the cell being stolen?’
‘Well,’ said Sara. ‘The BPD mantra speaks of “shared responsibility”.’ She smiled.
And despite himself, Joe managed a half-smile in return. ‘Whatever he’s got,’ he said, pointing to David. ‘It’s catching.’
David stifled a grin, as they waited in silence for Joe’s response.
‘Okay,’ he said finally. ‘I’ll call Susan and talk to larceny and see what we can do.’
David breathed an audible sigh of relief.
‘But you have to promise me you’ll make contact with Newark PD,’ added Joe.
‘Sure,’ said David.
‘And whatever information I uncover has to be forwarded to them.’
‘Whatever you say,’ said David.
‘And,’ Joe began, before shrugging his shoulders in defeat. ‘I don’t know why the hell I agreed to this. Even if I do get the information, I have no idea what in the hell you guys are gonna do with it, given you no longer have anything to do with the case.’
‘Not sure that’s ever stopped us before, Joe,’ said David.
Joe nodded. ‘For the first time this morning, you’re right.’
48
Newark, New Jersey
Rebecca Kincaid saw him park his car across the street. She knew it was him, not because she could see his head in the driver’s side window – she could never see his head in the side window – but because she recognised his Chrysler and this was at least the fifth time he had made this visit in the past four months.
Things were not going well.
Chris had entered a deep depression. It was almost as if he had accepted his fate and was just waiting for his punishment to be issued. He still maintained his innocence, but Rebecca had picked up on the recent signals being sent by his attorney – a seventy-year-old pompous ass by the name of Edward Fisk. Fisk was considering negotiating a plea, and it seemed that Chris was inclined to agree with him.
That was what Marshall was hoping for, Rebecca knew. His strategy, as far as she could tell, was to ‘work on the wife’ – to reiterate over and over that the case against her husband was foolproof and that the window of opportunity regarding the possibility of a plea was closing – and that if Chris chanced his day in court, he could well regret it, given the sentence for murder was life. But Rebecca would not falter. Marshall had spent the past four months playing the concerned bastion of justice, letting her know that it was okay – understandable even – for her to feel angry, humiliated, scared. But there was no way Rebecca was abandoning her husband now; if anything the past few months had made her stronger. For the first time in her life she felt brave.
That’s right. Rebecca Kincaid was on a high. Yes, a high – hard to believe, under the circumstances, but for the first time she could remember, Chris needed her. She could see it in his eyes when she went to visit him – the sorrow, the repentance, the remorse. He finally acknowledged, finally understood, how much she loved him; how much she was willing to do for him, when all of the chips were down.
Playing the supportive spouse at campaign time was one thing, but playing the devoted wife who believed unequivocally in her husband’s innocence was another. And, as dire as the situation was, Rebecca had decided to treat it as an opportunity – to finally prove to her husband that marrying her was not the mistake she knew he had always believed it to be. Rather, that it was a fortuitous twist of destiny – which ultimately could save his life.
‘This really is a lovely sitting room,’ said Elliott Marshall, lifting his Wedgwood cup so that the maid might pour him another tea, a task she obviously found difficult, considering half of the hot brown liquid managed to find its way onto the accompanying blue and white saucer.
‘Thank you, Demelza,’ said Rebecca Kincaid, using a napkin to mop up the drops that had found their way onto the sunroom table. ‘I am sorry, that pot tends to leak a little.’
But she stopped short of apologising to Marshall, which was not unexpected given she had always been more than a little cold toward him – an attitude he hoped she would relinquish as he worked on her vulnerability and explained the hopelessness of her adulterous husband’s cause.
‘I have to be honest with you, Mr Marshall,’ Rebecca Kincaid went on. ‘I am not sure it is appropriate for you to continue calling on me like this. Chris has an attorney and he has made it clear that all contact with the prosecutor’s office should be directed solely through him.’
Marshall had to admit it – this nut was harder to crack than he had originally hoped. At first glance, Rebecca Kincaid appeared to be a typical lower-middle class gold-digger who, despite her lack of good looks and charm, had managed to get her hooks into the handsome, well-to-do man of the moment. But truth be told, the woman seemed genuine in her support of her husband; and even if she was clinging to her upper class, socially respectable existence as if her life depended on it, she did not appear bitter about her husband’s dalliances, which also meant she could be a valuable asset to the defence.
‘I am sorry, Mrs Kincaid. Please forgive me. I suppose my main
aim in visiting you today, and on previous occasions, is to assure you that we at the Essex County Prosecutors Office understand that in cases such as these, there are more victims than just the – ah, victim. Your husband may be charged with a very serious crime, but you need to know that we are not ogres, Mrs Kincaid. We are not out to destroy your family, merely out to discover the truth.’
‘Then I suggest you let my husband go and stop wasting your time. The real killer is out there, Mr Marshall, and you are here,’ she gestured at the space around her, ‘in my sitting room, drinking a too-sweet lemon tea.’
She said these words with such bravado that Marshall sensed she surprised even herself. ‘What makes you so sure he is innocent?’ he asked, honestly intrigued.
‘He is my husband. I trust him.’
‘You trust him – despite the fact that all evidence suggests he has been sleeping with your old school friend for decades.’
‘But you have no real proof of that do you, Mr Marshall? I know you managed to get a court order to suppress certain items of discovery – items you no doubt are concerned have the potential to hurt the public perception of your case.’
This was true, Marshall had gotten a court order to suppress a lot of information relating to the case for a number of different reasons. He had successfully petitioned that an embargo on ‘information relevant to the case’ went to ‘assuring an unpolluted jury pool’. He’d blocked the doozie that the woman was alive when she hit the water so that he could nail Kincaid with his heartlessness in court – that one would act to his advantage. But he’d also prevented the public release of certain information for selfish reasons – most importantly, that relating to the yet to be identified DNA found under the victim’s fingernails. For Marshall knew he needed time to identify who that pesky piece of genetics belonged to – and rule him out as a potential suspect before they either went to trial, or perhaps even negotiated a plea.
‘But when it comes down to it,’ Rebecca Kincaid went on, ‘given the DNA discovered did not belong to my husband, besides that blessed shoe – which was obviously planted by some jealous rival in a sick attempt to sabotage my husband’s political efforts – I am really not sure what evidence you do have against him. But please, Mr Marshall, correct me if I am wrong.’