A Twist of the Knife

by Becky Masterman

  Not a day goes by that I don’t wish I could take this back. Two days later I found out my friend had eaten his gun.

  I swore I’d get revenge on the man who had abused his daughter and caused the death of a good cop.

  First, I managed to get the scumbag who had started this whole thing to meet me alone at the same Denny’s where I’d met the detective who failed to put him away. The man was arrogant despite my telling him I was going to watch him for the rest of my life and take him down. How are you going to do that? he asked. You’ll see, I said.

  He scoffed, made some comment about double jeopardy, and left me with the bill.

  Criminals always assume they’re the only ones who don’t play fair. Laugh out loud. I put on a pair of latex gloves and took a fresh roll of tape out of my tote bag. I pressed it against the things on the table I’d noticed him touching, and stuck the tape to a five-by-seven-inch piece of acetate.

  I took the tape to Derek Evers along with some really bad pictures and told him to hang on to it all. You see, I’d known for a long time that Derek liked to take a little off the top here and there, money, cocaine, small things that wouldn’t be noticed. I’d been keeping this intel to myself for a while, thinking to use it when I needed to. Evers knew I knew about him, and could prove it. He agreed to cooperate.

  Then I waited. It took a couple of years, and the daughter was ten by the time I acted, but I made sure everything was set up just right and then nailed the guy on charges of distribution of child pornography across state lines using the postal system. In so doing I transferred the prints to the photos, and Derek entered them into the evidence log on my say-so. At trial Derek testified to the chain of custody.

  Sentences weren’t as stiff in the nineties for that kind of thing, and the guy would have gotten out of jail in another two years if he hadn’t been murdered. I’m sure you’ve already heard what happens to child molesters in prison.

  So I know what you can do with fingerprints to convict a guy.

  That’s me, and that deed I did once was not lawful, but it was righteous. I bet you would have done it, too. Right?

  PS: I followed the life of the daughter, and she’s okay. She’s okay.

  Thirteen

  The next morning after I checked in with Carlo I called Laura. She was still stressed but in forward motion, working on getting a game plan going with Will for his interview, and trying to push for finding the physical evidence so he’d have something compelling to present. I told her I’d talk to my brother and attempt to talk to Tracy Mack. Maybe a different face, my own, would be useful. I assured her I would then wrest the hair dryer from Derek Evers.

  I was torn, but telling myself that Dad was stable, I had the feeling that Creighton was in the more imminent danger. With the certainty that Mom wouldn’t understand Derek Evers taking priority, when I called her I said I was going to spend some time with Todd and would be over to the hospital as soon as I could. Definitely by the afternoon. I told myself I wasn’t escaping.

  When I went downstairs to the HoJo’s restaurant, Todd and his colleague were waiting for me at a table in the back. They both sat in chairs that faced the door. The other detective, dressed in civvies, a button-down shirt with flowers on it and jeans, sat with her knees spread wide, that position that makes a man look either like his balls are too big or else his shoulders are so wide he’s in danger of toppling over. When I got close Todd stood up and gave me a brotherly hug, which feels like being hugged by a fire hydrant. At five foot seven he’s the tallest in the Quinn family and may be the healthiest, having gone largely unnoticed during his childhood. He was sweaty as usual, and I sat down, consciously not swiping the side of my neck, which had come away from him dampened but was starting to feel cool and dry in the air-conditioning. I had an unsisterly thought about whether he sweated more during sex or just maintained.

  Todd had told me he was bringing the colleague who might be able to provide some information. Now he gestured toward the woman and said, “Madeline Stanley.”

  I took the hand she held out to me and let her grip mine harder. “Brigid Quinn,” I said.

  She gave me a small quick twitch of the corners of her mouth. “We met at, at the funeral,” she said. “So many of us there, I wouldn’t expect you to remember.”

  She was polite enough, even though she had that thing going that so many women do who are trying to make it in a man’s world, copying the little things guys do to show they’re strong. The way she sat as if she had cojones, her handshake, that twitchy smile. Some women use that coping skill, putting on the tough broad; others turn up the feminine juice to get what they want. Some splendid few are just themselves. It’s hard to be ourselves; we’re that conditioned to be what others expect. The masks are natural. I flashbulbed to the execution I’d witnessed thirty-five years before. Can you take it, Brigid Quinn? And wondered, of all the kinds of women I’d been, which kind I’d been most of the time since then.

  The two already had coffee poured, and I took a mug and helped myself from the pot left on the table. As I did so I noticed they both crossed their arms at the same time as if their guts might reveal a secret they shared. You don’t have to be a cop to read body language. I wondered how long they had been lovers, whether Todd had had an affair going before Marylin died six months before.

  Even if he wasn’t my brother, I wouldn’t judge him. For one thing, life is hard enough with the plentiful judges we’ve already got. For another thing, the things I’ve done don’t qualify me as a good judge. For still another, Marylin was sick with multiple sclerosis for the last twenty years of their marriage, and Todd must have done a good chunk of his mourning long before she died. You had to cut the guy some slack.

  Now they were both in a happy time, and were yucking it up pretty good while I placed an order for poached eggs and grits on dry rye. But the yucking was partly for show, and I could feel their wariness. Cops are so defensive sometimes.

  “You need to go see Dad,” I said.

  “You didn’t bring your girl with you,” Todd said.

  I took a sip of coffee while I considered him. “That’s pretty insulting even for you, Todd. She’s Special Agent Laura Coleman. She’s busy.”

  “I heard Laura Coleman has been sniffing around, and not picking up much of a scent.” Madeline was smart, maybe smarter than Todd, and despite her cordial greeting it quickly became apparent she had arrived at the restaurant with a self-protective chip on her shoulder. “I just came with Todd because I thought it would be nice to see you again. Other than that, I’ve got nothing for you.”

  “Let me just catch up a bit. You were with the Vero Beach Police Department at the time of the Creighton crime, right?”

  She couldn’t help but look surprised that I’d done my homework. “That’s right. I moved here about four years later. It was definitely a good move.”

  “I imagine so.” I kept my eyes carefully off of Todd, feeling a double entendre in every phrase.

  “I hadn’t made detective yet at the time. The case was handled by a colleague I respect, Gabriel Delgado. He tied it up quick and neat. So what’s with this sudden interest? It wasn’t a DNA case. That means you got something on the investigators or the legal guys. So who’re you going after, Delgado, the forensic examiner, or the prosecutor?”

  I was here to get information while giving up as little as possible. I said, “No, apparently the only DNA that would have cleared Marcus Creighton was in the mistress’s vagina, and it doesn’t appear that Delgado was all that interested.”

  Madeline thought I was just being funny. “Damn, that’s what he did wrong. He forgot to subpoena her vadge,” she said, with one of those little shoulder bumps against Todd.

  Todd smiled, and then caught himself smiling.

  I said, “Maybe he forgot a lot of things.” I wasn’t smiling.

  Todd and Madeline rearranged their faces in a flash, as if they were working a mass fatality and the media had just arrived on the scen
e.

  Madeline tried not to sound snappish when she asked, “So what are you after him for, corruption or just plain incompetence?”

  I stopped and took a breath, not wanting to let the conflict escalate. On the other hand, I could have tried cajoling, but I didn’t have the time. Besides, Todd boffing her made her practically family. I decided on “Oh, stop taking it personally. We’ve got a case that someone thinks got screwed up somehow. I respect the person who thinks that. I’m just trying to get at the truth before a man fries. Cool your jets and tell me your perception of the case. It was huge. You guys must have talked a lot.”

  “It’s been a long time,” Madeline said.

  “Mr. Creighton knows that. He’s spent more than five thousand days alone in an eight-by-ten-foot room. Have you known Todd all that time, or did you just hook up when you got to town?”

  Todd looked clueless at my question, but Madeline was a woman after all and she got it. Sex makes a person vulnerable in ways they never see coming.

  “There was no screwup.” Noticing that her mouth had gone a bit dry, Madeline ran her tongue over her front teeth and brought her attitude down a notch. “Okay, here’s what it is. Creighton is broke, and the only thing between him and his loan shark is a two-million-dollar life insurance policy. Conveniently, while Creighton is out of the house, his wife is electrocuted and his children go missing. His mistress is his alibi, but she denies he was with her that night. He leaves a fingerprint on a hair dryer he swears he never used.”

  “All this I know. What do you think about the examiner being indicted?” I said.

  Madeline turned to Todd. “What is this, an interrogation?” And back to me. “We’re all trying to do the best we can. These days we’re all under attack. Police brutality, they yell. Shoddy science, they yell. Fucking ACLU and the liberal media. I’m trying to be polite here, but I’m getting a little tired with the effort. You don’t expect this kind of treatment from someone in the business.”

  What kind of treatment? I just asked about the indictment. But I ignored the bluster and kept to the issue. “So you think the fraud charges are unfounded.”

  She bypassed that by going back to Creighton. “You’re not going to find anything. It was a slam dunk of a case. Judge gave the prosecution a free ride, and the defense was in way over his head. If that new law—”

  “The Timely Justice Act,” Todd said.

  “If the Timely Justice Act would have been enacted fifteen years ago, Mr. Creighton would be dead and we wouldn’t be having this conversation. So in that respect, he’s one lucky man.”

  “One lucky man,” I repeated, not asking her if she’d ever visited someone on death row who might be innocent. I’d finished my breakfast and had enough of Madeline, so I stood up to leave. She stood, too, and this time when she shook my hand I noticed the small spare tire around her middle. Or maybe what’s a spare tire on males is now called a muffin top on women.

  I could have been a lot meaner. I could have told her, except for the extra weight, how much she resembled Todd’s dead wife.

  Fourteen

  Even if he hadn’t been indicted, Tracy Mack was still retired, and at home. Before I went down to the underground parking garage I called his number, and when a raspy voice answered, I hung up. I looked at my watch. It was a long shot, and I knew what my priority was that day, but this wouldn’t take that much time, and you never know if you don’t try. I went to the Imperial Point housing development, which was considered imperial when it was developed fifty years ago. Now not so much. While the entrance still sported a straight line of royal palms that had been impressive in their day, the houses were all single story and modest by today’s bigger and better standards. Luckily they didn’t have gated communities in the sixties, so I was able to drive right up to Tracy Mack’s house without warning him.

  I went up to the door and rang the bell.

  Nobody came. I supposed he could have left the house since my call. I walked around to the garage and peeked through a window in the door. Car in there, and parked in the middle, which meant he only had one. Lived alone.

  I called his number again, and this time when he answered I said, “My name is Brigid Quinn. We haven’t met. I’m not here to hurt you. Look through your peephole and tell me if I look dangerous.”

  I stood back from the door to reveal my short stature, my prematurely white hair, and my most winning smile. I even held my arms out and tried to let my triceps sag a little.

  There was a long pause during which I felt observed, and then he opened the door.

  I got a whiff of closed-up house, a combination of cigar smoke, onions that had been fried long ago, and flatus. Tracy Mack stood there in a T-shirt and workout pants with elastic at the ankles. White socks.

  “You don’t look like a reporter,” he said.

  “I’m not.” I had a business card ready and handed it to him. “I need your help,” I said.

  He took the card with one hand, and with the other extracted the very soggy, tooth-chomped end of his cigar out of his mouth. The thought of anyone touching that with their lips turned my stomach a little, and I have a very strong stomach. After taking a deep breath I stepped inside the door while he was studying my card.

  “I recognize your name from somewhere,” he said.

  “I used to be in law enforcement, and worked a lot of cases in South Florida.”

  A memory slipped across his face. “Brigid Quinn. Now I remember. FBI.” He plugged his cigar back in his mouth.

  He didn’t invite me further into the house, and I was just as happy to stand in the foyer with the door open, letting in some fresh air. I took shallow breaths while I scanned the living room and saw a half-finished jigsaw puzzle on a card table and a laptop on a small desk. All his play and work right there. Maybe his whole world.

  “You’re retired?” I asked, to put him at ease until I could get to the good part.

  He talked around the cigar out one side of his mouth and couldn’t seem to resist engaging in the human contact. “You could say that. I’m working on a book.”

  “What’s it about?”

  “It’s a history of forensic science.”

  “Let me know when it’s done. I have some contacts.”

  That’s not true, but it always works. He unplugged the cigar, an indication that he was more interested in whatever I had to say now that I might be of use to him. But enough beating around the bush.

  “Right now I’m here because of Marcus Creighton,” I said.

  “Who’s Marcus Creighton?” he asked.

  “A man you testified against. He was convicted of killing his family based partly on your testimony.”

  He might not have remembered the name of one of the many thousands he had put away, but you could tell he knew where I was going and that he’d been had.

  “I’m not talking to anyone,” he said, and plugged the cigar back in. He started to push me out the door, but I had seen the muscles tighten in his right arm and knew it was coming. I blocked the door with my body.

  “I’ll call the cops,” he said as he pressed the door against me, his cigar threatening.

  I turned my face to avoid it. “That won’t do you any good,” I said. “I used to be one, remember? Look, Mr. Mack, Creighton has been scheduled for execution. He’s going to die in four days, for God’s sake. Do you realize if you reverse your testimony even now you can save his life?”

  Appealing to his sense of decency didn’t help. Maybe he was low on that particular sense. He looked at me with a tired hate, though he eased up on the door some. “I would have thought we’d be on the same side,” he said.

  “I was never on a side. And if I was, it wouldn’t be yours,” I said, losing my patience as I recognized he didn’t have the heart I was hoping to find.

  Mack said, “I know, I know, the business about calling me Dick Tracy. Well, maybe I’m not so different. It’s not my fault. They pressure you.”

  “About Creighton
, you mean? About that fingerprint being his? Who pressured you?”

  “I’m not saying anybody pressured me. Maybe I’m just admiting to myself that when you’re in doubt, you give the prosecution what it wants. And after thirty years of rendering that service, I get repaid with an indictment. Go talk to my lawyer.”

  This time he caught me off guard, pushing me off balance and out the door. Before he slammed it I managed to say, “Do you think it’ll be easier or harder to find a publisher now that you’re indicted?” Then I left, with nothing accomplished except having the last word.

  Fifteen

  First stop near Vero: When I first met Derek Evers at the Indian River physical evidence storage facility I thought he was there as part of Bring Your Kid to Work Day. Turned out he was in his early thirties and in charge of the facility. So diminutive, and so slight, he probably bought his clothes in the boys’ department. Here it was more than twenty years later and, except for graying at the temples and sporting a goatee to force his face to look older, he hadn’t changed much. He certainly hadn’t gained a pound, and he still really needed that belt to cinch in his pants, which puckered around his waist.

  “Brigid Quinn,” Derek said warily. At his post, guarding the stacks of evidence boxes, he was always mildly wary without giving an obvious reason, like a librarian always expecting you to tell him your books were way overdue.

  “Derek! It’s been forever. How the hell are you?” I didn’t want to come across all King Kong on him, so I didn’t ask him if he’d kicked the habit. But just the same his eyes narrowed with suspicion. The books were way overdue.

  “Our business is done. I don’t owe you anything,” he said.

  “Our business is never done,” I said quietly. “Hey, looks to me like you’ve been hearing about what’s going on. The Creighton case. What a mess, huh?”

  “Seems pretty straightforward to me.”

  “No, it’s a mess, all right. Listen, I have someone investigating—”