Matter of Trust

by Sydney Bauer

  ‘On the contrary, I think—’

  ‘Tell me something, Mrs Kincaid,’ interrupted Will, determined to stick to the plan. ‘What do you think is the one thing that will make this mess go away?’

  ‘My son is innocent.’

  ‘You think?’ asked Will, his eyebrows rising in punctuation. ‘From what I hear, his girlfriend was pretty pissed about the money.’

  He heard the woman’s breath catch.

  ‘I have to give you credit, though – a hundred Gs was a good offer for someone like Maloney. But then I suppose it’s all relative. I mean, just think of the trouble she’d have caused if she’d have gone public – which ironically, in the end, I guess she did. And now the captain is going down with the ship.’

  Gloria Kincaid swallowed as she strode back toward the living room, her eyes darting from left to right as if to make sure her housemaid was not within earshot. ‘How do you know all this?’

  ‘I know a lot of things, Mrs Kincaid. I know that your son had been screwing that woman senseless for decades. I know that his wife knew about it. I know that the girlfriend was in love with him – and that she believed he loved her back.’

  ‘That girl was a whore.’

  ‘And an expensive one by the sounds of things,’ responded Will. ‘Which means your son might have done you a favour. Because, in all honesty, women like that, they have a tendency to keep showing up with their palms upturned.’

  ‘My son did not kill her,’ she said, her porcelain cheeks now burning.

  ‘In all honesty, I don’t really give a crap,’ he said, drawing her into the living room and toward the chintz-covered sofa. ‘But the authorities do, Mrs Kincaid. In fact they’ve got a hard-on for your boy and as my dearly departed dad used to say, there’s nothing worse than a prosecutor with a hard-on – which is what your son used to be.’ Will knew he was pushing it, but sensed that unless he took the upper hand, the woman would throw him out. ‘A prosecutor, that is. The hard-on – well, that was what got him into trouble in the first place.’

  She was on him then, advancing quickly to slap him squarely across the face. But she stopped short of asking him to leave – and Will forced himself to smile.

  ‘There’s only one thing that’s going to save your son, and that’s providing the police with proof that he was nowhere near that apartment on the night of his girlfriend’s death,’ he said, deciding it was time to cut to the chase. ‘Your son has no alibi – but imagine if he did? Imagine if the police had reason to suspect the real killer was still out there laughing in your famous son’s face?’

  Gloria said nothing, but he could tell her mind was ticking over.

  ‘You have a solution to my son’s lack of alibi?’ she asked after a time.

  Will didn’t reply, simply fished into his pocket and produced the item he had convinced Connor to lend him last night. It hadn’t been hard – Connor would have given him the entire family fucking fortune if it meant saving his selfish father’s neck.

  Her reaction was instantaneous. ‘Where did you get that?’

  ‘You know where I got it. Your son has kept it in his glass-doored study cabinet ever since you bought him that mansion next door some twenty odd years ago. I’ve never been one for old shit myself, but Connor once told me this shiny timepiece was worth over 20,000 bucks, so . . .’

  ‘I don’t believe this. You’re admitting to me that you are nothing more than a common thief.’

  ‘Not so common – your average thief would never have been so careful. I waited over a year for the opportunity to swipe this fancy pocket watch. And you can thank your lucky stars that I just happened to choose the night of January 12 to do it.’

  ‘You stole it the night of the murder?’

  ‘Connor and Jack were upstairs doing some assignment. I was downstairs watching some stupid DVD. Connor had said earlier that his dad was stressed and had holed himself up with a bottle of bourbon in the study. I took a chance that he’d passed out, and I went to the study to . . .’

  ‘The study was locked,’ she countered, obviously assuming she’d found a hole in his story – her face reading victory and disappointment all at the very same time.

  ‘And the spare key to it sits in a drawer on the far left-hand side of the kitchen pantry.’

  ‘You knew where Chris kept the key?’

  ‘Like I said, I’m anything but common.’

  He could tell by the look on her face that she no longer doubted it.

  Silence.

  ‘Was he there?’ she asked.

  In that moment, Will realised the old bird actually believed her son was capable of murder. No – she was sure he had done it – but was holding on to some fine thread of hope that Will would tell her something to the contrary.

  ‘Does it matter one way or the other?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  Will hesitated. ‘Then he was there.’

  And she gave the slightest of shivers of relief – which was when Will knew it was time to move in for the kill.

  ‘Listen to me. I may not be a lawyer but my father taught me enough to know that justice is all a matter of perception. Reasonable doubt, Mrs K – that’s what it’s all about. All you need to do is establish that there is a possibility your son is innocent. The people of this fine state like your son, Mrs Kincaid. They want to believe he didn’t bang that woman and dump her still breathing body into the freezing cold waters of the Passaic.’

  He saw her start at his knowledge about the ‘still breathing’ part, but she was beyond questioning how he did or did not know things.

  ‘I will come forward and admit I stole this stupid fucking relic.’ He held up the watch again. ‘I’ll even face the court hat-in-hand and ask God to forgive me for hiding my evil deed for so long. But like I said, it’ll cost you 100K, the same amount that you and your son offered to the whore – which is really quite a bargain when you think about how much is at stake.’

  Will noticed the mini bar in the corner, and proceeded to walk over and pour himself half a glass of Gloria Kincaid’s finest vodka. And she did not protest, merely stood there as he downed the strong clear liquid in one smooth swallow.

  ‘The prosecution will claim I paid you to say this,’ she said.

  ‘You did, but so what. They won’t be able to prove it.’

  ‘How do I know this conversation won’t come back to bite me?’ she asked.

  ‘You don’t,’ he said, pouring himself another drink.

  And then she did the strangest thing – she turned on her heels and walked from the room – leaving Will, his heart now beating in double time, wondering if she had dismissed him, or worse still, gone to another room in her fancy mansion to call the fucking cops.

  But then she was back, a thick white envelope in her hands.

  ‘Here is $10,000 in cash.’ She held out the envelope in the very tip of her fingers, so that his hand would not connect with hers. ‘And there will be no more until you have given your statement to the police. And if you ever mention this conversation to anyone, if you ever even contemplate saying this meeting took place, I can assure you I will deny it and bury your bastard ass faster than you can say “son-of-a-drug-addict-whore”.’

  Will flinched.

  ‘That’s right, William, there is very little I don’t know about the people around here. Not that this situation is a surprise, given the rumours about your father and the fact that the apple does not fall far from the tree.’

  Will felt the resentment rise inside him. ‘My mother sleeps with men for drugs and you do six-figure deals with young men a third of your age with balls big enough to take you on – so tell me, Mrs K, who is the bigger whore?’

  Gloria Kincaid blinked. ‘You need to leave,’ she said.

  ‘On my way,’ said Will, downing a final vodka before turning toward the door. ‘But don’t expect this to happen straight away. I’ll need to pick my moment.’

  And as she closed the door behind him, and he caught h
is reflection in her too-clean front windows, he felt vomit rise thick and hot in his throat. And he was not sure if the nausea was triggered by relief at what he had accomplished, or the realisation that he was standing on a doorstop clutching an envelope full of money, just like his old man had before him.

  61

  ‘No boots,’ said David, now down on his hands and knees as he rifled through the shoes lined up neatly at the base of Marilyn Maloney’s closet. He was trying desperately to ignore the discomfort of being in his old friend’s home – its smells, its clean but cheaply decorated style – the pictures of Marilyn as a young girl on the night stand stinging him with a fresh sense of grief.

  Late last night, after their discovery of the impostor who’d called himself Dallas Winston, McNally had told David about the boots – and the fact that building super, Paul Sacramoni, was certain Marilyn Maloney had been wearing them, and not expensive designer sandals, mere hours before her death. They talked about the possibility that Marilyn had changed her mind about meeting the person she thought was Chris – and had slipped into the sandals to dress herself up for him, but this theory went against everything the super had relayed of his last conversation with Marilyn – and David sensed that the Marilyn he knew would be too proud to back down and seek out Chris, especially after the insult of the $100,000.

  ‘No boots,’ he repeated, the detail worrying him.

  ‘Then where did they go?’ asked McNally.

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘Maybe the killer cleaned her out?’ the detective suggested, joining David near the closet – both men stepping back to observe Marilyn’s belongings as a whole. ‘I mean, correct me if I’m wrong, but that doesn’t look like much stuff for a woman.’

  ‘You’re right,’ said David. ‘I know Marilyn didn’t have much money – but the girl I remember had a thing about clothes and shoes.’

  ‘Maybe that was before she had to fend for herself,’ suggested McNally.

  ‘Marilyn’s father was a drunk. I don’t remember a time she didn’t have to fend for herself. But that doesn’t explain the missing boots.’

  McNally nodded.

  Searching the apartment had been McNally’s idea. While an impatient David had argued, over breakfast for three at a downtown café, that he, Sara and McNally should hit the Airport Hilton as a team to try and get a visual on the man who called himself Dallas Winston, McNally had argued that Sara should go alone – stressing that any investigations they carried out at the busy hotel had to be discreet and under the radar.

  ‘The minute I walk in and start asking questions the investigation goes back on the record,’ McNally had reasoned. ‘I need Marshall to believe I am still wallowing in self-pity, not out in the field trying to undo his case.’

  ‘But what if the manager asks me to produce a warrant to secure the security recording?’ Sara had asked.

  ‘I’ve met the manager and she’s obliging, smart, and, my guess is, savvy enough to understand that warrants mean car loads of police ransacking her hotel and tearing apart her security system. I think Ms Trudeau will be much more conducive to discreetly helping someone like you, Sara – a defence attorney with no agenda bar trying to discover the truth so you can prove your client’s innocence.’

  And so it was decided. Sara would go solo to the Hilton while David and McNally would go over Marilyn’s apartment trying to get a fresh perspective.

  ‘Her toothbrush is missing,’ called David from the bathroom – another odd detail that concerned him.

  McNally met him at the bathroom door. ‘Maybe this mystery rapist used it, then confiscated it so as not to leave trace of his DNA.’

  ‘But why would a rapist stop to clean his teeth?’

  ‘It’s happened before. A while back we investigated a serial rapist who used to brush, floss, shower, even used the ladies’ products to shampoo and condition his hair.’

  ‘Did he take her boots?’ asked David.

  McNally shook his head. ‘The boots are still a mystery.’

  David moved out of the bathroom and toward the bedroom window. ‘How did he get up here?’ he asked.

  ‘He could have used a key, but that’s a long shot. Maybe Maloney buzzed him in?’

  ‘Then she must have known him.’

  ‘Not necessarily. She was drunk. Maybe the guy simply buzzed apartments at random, then took the lift up here and knocked on her door.’

  ‘Then why did he pick her door?’ A reasonable question.

  ‘Because he knew where she lived,’ speculated McNally.

  They kept coming back to that same point – that it was most likely that Marilyn knew her killer.

  ‘There’s not much here,’ observed David, as he went through Marilyn’s chest of drawers. The top one containing knicks and knacks including some free movie coupons, an old dry cleaning receipt and a letter from her health insurance company.

  ‘Marilyn had private health cover,’ he said, picking up the note with the Blue Shield, Blue Cross logo in the corner.

  McNally nodded. ‘The crime scene guys found her membership card when they did the initial search of the apartment. They would have taken it into evidence so the ME could use it to track down her dental records and make the official ID.’

  ‘The ID Chris failed to provide from the outset.’

  ‘He dug his own grave on that count, Cavanaugh.’

  David couldn’t contradict him.

  ‘Push me,’ said McNally as they moved back into the small but neatly arranged living room.

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Push me. I’m gonna pretend to hit my head on the coffee table.’

  David shrugged before obliging, but found the action surprisingly hard to manoeuvre. ‘The table’s too close up to the sofa on either side. I can’t get the footing to give you the angle you need. Maybe the killer banged her head on the floor when he was raping her,’ he suggested.

  ‘No,’ said McNally. ‘The ME said the blow had an edge to it. What about the armoire?’

  ‘It has a flat surface,’ said David, examining the wooden cupboard in the corner. ‘No protruding edges bar the drawer handles, and they’re round. There was no blood, hair or DNA found on any of these surfaces, right?’

  McNally shook his head. ‘Wherever she came down, the killer must have wiped it clean.’

  David nodded. ‘Where did you find the satchel?’ he asked.

  ‘Just under the armoire,’ McNally replied. ‘The ring was underneath it.’

  ‘Like they’d been knocked off?’ asked David.

  ‘No. More thrown on the floor in disgust.’

  They stood in silence for a while.

  ‘Does Marshall think Chris asked the super to let him in so he could retrieve the $100,000?’ It was a very pointed question. David was basically asking McNally to share the particulars of the prosecution’s case.

  ‘Yes,’ replied McNally without hesitation.

  ‘But if that were the case, it was pretty stupid of him to leave the satchel behind, wouldn’t you say?’ argued David.

  ‘Murder and ingenuity don’t necessarily go hand in hand, Cavanaugh. Marshall will argue that Kincaid panicked.’

  ‘But they didn’t find the cash at his house.’

  ‘Marshall will claim he banked it.’

  ‘If he did, Marshall would have found it in his bank records.’ David was fishing again.

  ‘The last I heard there was no such evidence,’ said McNally, another concession that resulted in David feeling both grateful and relieved.

  They both surveyed the scene once again. David remembered that in years past he’d been able to read Marilyn in her silences. His friend had never been one to hold back when it came to offering her opinion, but on the rare occasions when she fell quiet, he recalled ‘hearing’ her more clearly than ever. Now, surrounded by this small part of the world that Marilyn had called her own, David wished more than anything that he could picture her face, that her expression would tell him just h
ow much she had suffered, and how he might avenge her death. But all that came to him was a sense of emptiness, and the feeling of despair that went with it.

  ‘She’s not here,’ he said, unaware that he had voiced it aloud.

  McNally nodded, as if understanding him perfectly. ‘And if she was?’ he asked.

  ‘She’d be giving me hell for not being able to work this out.’ David managed a smile.

  McNally responded with the smallest of laughs. ‘When my wife died, my local priest kept telling me if I listened hard enough, I’d hear her,’ he offered.

  ‘And do you?’

  McNally shrugged as if in answer. ‘I’m here with you, aren’t I?’ he said.

  62

  The Newark Airport Hilton is in Elizabeth, approximately five miles from the centre of Newark and less than one mile from Newark Liberty International Airport. It features all the usual facilities airport hotels tend to boast – a business centre, conference rooms, gymnasium, heated swimming pool, and a surprisingly spectacular window-framed lobby with a sweeping spiral staircase leading invitingly to levels above.

  Sara was here to meet the manager – a woman by the name of Jacqueline Trudeau. It was Sara’s first independent job in the case of the State of New Jersey versus Senator Chris Kincaid, and her first solo task in a criminal case since the birth of Lauren. And so she was feeling more than just a little nervous in her determination to get things right.

  ‘Miss Davis,’ said Jacqueline Trudeau before introducing herself.

  Sara had noticed the attractive woman walking down that impressive circular staircase but had wrongly assumed she was too young to occupy the post that she did. ‘It’s nice to meet you, Ms Trudeau.’ Sara took the manicured hand of the stylishly dressed executive before her. ‘Thank you for agreeing to see me.’

  ‘It really is my pleasure,’ said Trudeau, already taking Sara’s elbow and steering her toward the staircase. ‘But if you’ll forgive me, Mondays are always terribly busy – I have a meeting at twelve and several phone calls to make prior. You said you were interested in discussing a guest who stayed with us on the night of January 12, which of course I am happy to do if you can assure me I am in no way reneging on our hotel’s promise of confidentiality.’