“Gee. I don’t think so.” If this kid was playing ignorant, he deserved an Emmy. “She talked to me about the case. Quite a bit, really.” He sounded proud. “And she seemed pretty happy, at least at first, about being able to nail that detective, Buck Majors. She said he planted confessions in a whole bunch of other cases, too. He was the common link that was going to let Linda tie a lot of different defendants together. All wrongful convictions.”
Ellie wondered if perhaps Carrie had put on a show to play the role of devoted defense attorney. “Did you know that Carrie was related to one of the victims? Donna Blank was her half sister.”
He was starting to eye the elevator doors at the other end of the lobby. She needed to hurry.
“Linda told me. And even if she hadn’t, I saw Carrie’s name in one of the reports. Sorry, I’m just an assistant, but the details of the cases—my God, they’re so interesting. Don’t you just love your job?”
“Oh, of course,” she confirmed. “How could I not? And when I found out that Carrie was related to one of the victims—wow, talk about crazy. I guess it would be natural for her to have mixed feelings. Do you think it’s possible that she would have done anything to—you know—sabotage Amaro?”
His face was blank, yet sheepish, like those kids Ellie remembered from her youth, lined up for confession at Blessed Sacrament, complaining they had nothing to report, but looking plenty guilty. Plenty guilty in Thomas’s case. Too guilty. But about what?
“Did you send us information about the case?” she asked.
“Why are you asking me that?”
Not exactly a denial.
“Sorry, Thomas. I didn’t mean to sound accusatory. It’s just—” It’s just seemed to put a certain type of person at ease. “We received some anonymous messages pertaining to Anthony Amaro. It would be the kind of information that his defense team would know.”
All this time, she had been sure that Carrie Blank was the leak, but Thomas was looking good right now.
“This is about the documents stolen from the hotel?”
His already fair skin became even paler. Ellie realized what she’d been missing. Thomas had been the one who left Carrie’s hotel door open, supposedly by accident. And he was conveniently lying down in the adjoining room with an upset stomach during the so-called break-in.
“You need to tell me about those documents, Thomas. Filing a false police report is a crime.” That should do it.
“It was Linda.”
Ellie said nothing, because silence is what people like Thomas needed to keep talking.
“Linda made me do it. She told me to go through all the documents. To find anything that looked bad for the client and take it.”
“Because she didn’t trust Carrie with it?”
”No, she didn’t. I don’t know why. I was—I should have known something was wrong—I was happy to have some responsibility.”
“So what did you take?”
He was staring at the fast-food bag again.
“Thomas, whatever crap is in that sack has turned into solid cholesterol by now. Carrie Blank is in the hospital, and I know you want to do the right thing. What did you take from the records?”
He sighed. “There was a memo to file from his original trial attorney, Harry McConnell. He asked Amaro whether he had admitted his crimes to anyone.”
“And Amaro gave a name? Robert Harris?” Rogan’s supicions had been right. It was a defense lawyer who had known about Amaro’s conversation with Robert Harris. But instead of it being Carrie herself who gathered the information firsthand, she had seen the notation in the original lawyer’s file.
Thomas nodded. “That’s right. The cellmate when Amaro was first arrested.”
“What about the report on Amaro’s foster family?” she asked. “His foster mother used to threaten to break his foster sister’s limbs.”
“Ugh. Plus that whole fascination with the dolls?” His eyes widened dramatically. “I told Linda, this stuff not only makes him look guilty. It makes me think he is guilty. But then she told me that the weird thing about breaking the dolls’ arms and legs was precisely why Buck Majors framed our client.”
The only problem with Linda’s theory was that Majors hadn’t known the details of Amaro’s foster placement. The records were sealed. Only Amaro would have been in a position to give his lawyer access to them. “Do you know why the original defense attorney had those records? Like you said, they didn’t exactly help his case.”
“The report was part of Mr. McConnell’s—um—what’s it called? For the death penalty? To save his life?”
“Mitigation?” Ellie asked.
“Yes, that’s right,” Thomas said. “McConnell had mitigation research. Background material to help save the client’s life in the event Amaro was convicted of aggravated murder at trial.”
“Did you find anything else?” she asked.
“That’s everything,” he said, “from the files, at least. The part I feel worst about is Carrie’s stuff.”
She was figuring out that Thomas had a tendency to drip information in small quantities. “Her journal?” she prompted.
Thomas nodded. “I couldn’t bring myself to read it, but when I called Linda and asked about it, she told me to take it.”
Ellie thought about all the ways she could plead for various search warrants pertaining to Linda Moreland. And then she remembered Linda’s driver, so eager to help serve up the woman who’d been barking directions in his ear for a couple of short hours.
Thomas—last name still unknown—seemed eager to be needed.
“Carrie was assaulted the morning after she left Utica,” she said. “I think it’s possible Linda did it.”
“Oh, I don’t think she’d—no, it can’t be.”
He was trying to tell himself that his boss couldn’t be guilty, but she could tell he had his doubts.
“Would you be willing to ask Linda a few questions, just to be sure?”
Three minutes later, Ellie knocked on Rogan’s door. He answered with an eye mask wrapped across his bald head like a hairband. It was the first time she had laughed all day.
“You can’t read, woman?” He flipped the DO NOT DISTURB sign on the knob in a circle.
“Trust me,” she said. “You want to hear this.”
CHAPTER
FIFTY-SIX
It felt like the middle of the night to Ellie and Rogan by the time Thomas knocked on the door to Linda Moreland’s hotel room, but the defense attorney was hankering for her dinner. “Thank GOD,” she said. “I’m STARVING. What took so long?”
From a room across the hall, Ellie and Rogan were monitoring the audio from the mic they had borrowed from UPD, hidden inside a ballpoint pen in Thomas’s shirt pocket. The sound from the laptop on the little desk was clear. They were both standing, ready to intervene if necessary.
“Can you hear that, Max?” They had placed Rogan’s cell phone next to the laptop so Max could listen long distance.
“Got it.”
“Nothing’s open this late around here,” Thomas was explaining, “but I finally found something.” They heard the crinkling of a paper bag. Ellie had even gotten fresh takeout for Thomas to deliver so Linda wouldn’t second-guess the delay. “Linda, I need to ask you something. If you don’t mind, at least.”
“Come on, Thomas, man up,” Rogan muttered.
“Can it wait until morning, Thomas? It’s been a long day.”
“Um, okay. I guess—” Dammit. He was blowing it. “I’m not sure what to tell the police if they come to me, though.”
Good Thomas.
“Why would the police come to you?”
“Well, they probably won’t. But that’s what I need to ask you about. It’s Carrie. Did you do something to make her mad at you?”
“Why would you ask that?”
“Because she called me. She’s been in the hospital. Did you know that?”
There was a long pause before Linda said, “No. Is
she okay?”
Ellie looked at Rogan and smiled. “Did you notice that pause?” she asked Max.
“Shhh.”
There was no reason that Linda would know about the assault on Carrie. If she were innocent, she would have been more surprised to hear the news that her former associate was in the hospital. She would have said no immediately. She would have asked what happened.
“She was unconscious for two days. She’s all right now. Thank God,” he added. He was doing a good job. “But here’s the thing, Linda. She said someone tried to kill her. And she said there’s evidence tying the attack to you.”
Just as they’d rehearsed, Thomas was describing Carrie’s call in the vaguest of terms.
“Well, that’s just ridiculous. Are you sure it was even Carrie who called? Those police detectives were following me today. They’re not above playing mind games.”
“Of course it was her. Look.” Just in case Linda wanted verification, they had asked an NYPD officer to place a call to Thomas’s cell from Carrie’s, leaving the connection open for four minutes. Thomas was showing Linda his phone log.
“And she said I tried to kill her?”
“She just said that the police are planning to arrest you in the morning. She told me not to say anything. She was warning me to stay away from you. But I—I just don’t believe it.”
“Of course you shouldn’t believe it. She must be angrier at me than I thought. She’s obviously unstable. The way she just quit after three days. I should have known.”
“So if the police ask me about any of this—”
“Don’t talk to the police, Thomas. Ever. Haven’t you learned anything working for me?”
“But—the documents, Linda. I’m the one who told the police there was a break-in. That was a crime, wasn’t it? And you did tell me to take Carrie’s journal. And to hide those documents so she wouldn’t have them. Why did we do all of that?”
“Well, we didn’t do it. You did. And you did it because Carrie could not be trusted with the information. Hiring her was a mistake on my part, but I wasn’t about to let her compromise all of the important work we’re doing.”
“How was she compromising it?”
“Every time I turned around, the DA’s office had new information streaming in anonymously. I had my suspicions, and when you told me what you found in the files, they were confirmed. Carrie was disclosing evidence that hurt her own client. There’s no greater harm an attorney can do. She owed a duty of loyalty. And releasing that evidence didn’t just hurt Amaro. It hurt everything. Do you understand how many defendants Buck Majors set up with his fabricated confessions? Amaro is just the beginning. We’re about to open the floodgates, Thomas.”
“But what about the assault on Carrie? She says they have proof tying it to you.”
“I don’t have any idea why she would make up something so ridiculous.”
“But here’s the thing, Linda: she said the police have video.” Thomas was following the plan to a T. It was the same kind of slow drip of information to which he’d subjected Ellie.
“What?”
“There’s a surveillance camera across the street. That’s all she said.” It was the kind of lie that an attorney as smart as Linda Moreland would have never believed from an interrogating police officer. But from Thomas? “They’re going to arrest you in the morning. And search your place.”
There was another long silence, followed by the sound of Linda’s voice. Would she admit to attacking Carrie? Claim it was an accident? Explain that it was Amaro? They had to hope this would work.
“Whatever happened in that apartment had nothing to do with me.”
Ellie smiled at Rogan. Thomas hadn’t said anything to Linda about where Carrie had been assaulted.
“But maybe we should tell the police that she was leaking information, just in case it’s related.”
“And if you do that, Thomas, they’ll find out that you staged that break-in and filed a false police report. You don’t want that, do you?”
“We could explain. It would be worth it to find out the truth about whoever hurt Carrie. I mean, it’s better than them thinking you did it, right?”
“Let me worry about that, okay? I think I know who hurt Carrie. I’ll take care of everything.”
“But—”
“I don’t want to talk about this any longer, Thomas. I just want to finish eating dinner. And thank you so much, by the way, for getting it for me. I’ll figure out what’s going on with Carrie tomorrow. Maybe it’s some kind of misunderstanding.”
“Okay. I’m really glad I talked to you about this.”
From Thomas’s mic they heard the sound of Linda’s hotel door close. Moments later, the screen on Ellie’s cell flashed a text message: “Was that OK?—Thomas.”
“Aces. You rock!” She added a smiley face for emphasis.
On the speaker phone, Max was less enthusiastic. “She didn’t admit to the assault.”
“No,” Rogan said, “but she admitted ordering her assistant to commit a theft and file a false report, all to stop Carrie from leaking more information. There was also that pause when Thomas told her Carrie had been assaulted, and she seemed to know it happened at the apartment. And then she even said she thought she knew who did it. Motive, dishonesty, knowledge. If this were a gangbanger in the Bronx, you’d agree it was enough.”
“Okay. Wait for her to make a move—that’ll be evidence of consciousness of guilt—then take her.”
A taxi pulled in front of the hotel thirty-two minutes later. They watched, slumped in the front seats of Rogan’s car, as the cabbie placed a call from his cell. Two minutes later, Linda Moreland walked out with her handbag and suitcase. She was fumbling with her cell phone.
The driver said something to her as he placed the suitcase in the trunk. His voice got a bit louder as he continued to speak. He was to the point of waving his arms animatedly when she used her free hand to remove her wallet from her purse. Despite the juggle with her cell phone, she managed to hand him what looked like a wad of cash.
Smart guy to ask for cash up front when someone wants a late-night ride all the way to New York City.
“Can I be the one to say it?” she whispered.
“I hated her first,” Rogan said.
“Pretty please? Cherry on top?”
“Your lady charms don’t work on me, Hatcher.”
“Steak. At Peter Luger.”
“Done.” He turned the key in the ignition and accelerated across the parking lot, blocking the taxi’s exit.
“Hey, ass—” The driver stopped himself from yelling the next syllable as he saw the badge hanging from Rogan’s neck when they stepped out of the BMW.
“Linda Moreland,” Ellie yelled, “you’re under arrest for the attempted murder of Carrie Blank. You have the right to—”
“I know my rights, Detective.”
Ellie grabbed the cell phone from her hands and placed it on the taxi’s hood. She was about to continue the recitation of Linda’s Miranda warnings when she noticed the sound of a voice coming from Linda’s phone. She looked at the screen. It read: “Debi Landry—00:12.” The line had been open for twelve seconds. She picked up the phone and listened.
“Linda?”
Ellie recognized the raspy voice of Anthony Amaro’s foster sister.
“Sorry,” Ellie said. “There was a commotion in the parking lot.”
“You’re the one who told me that bitch was screwing Tony over. You said something needed to be done. But I don’t know nothing about police pinning it on you. I ain’t seen them since I told them I wasn’t saying nothing on Tony.”
Ellie hit the disconnect button and pocketed the phone.
“That was a blatant violation of privacy, Detective.”
“You said you knew your rights, Ms. Moreland. A search incident to arrest includes anything within your reach. Not my fault you left your phone on. And you must also know that Miranda warnings don’t count unless they
’re given completely, even if the arrestee—that’s you in this scenario—is the one who cuts them off. So, shut your sociopathic mouth while I continue. You have the right to remain silent . . .”
The recitation of the warnings was like a lullaby, the click of the handcuffs a goodnight kiss.
PART FIVE
DONNA
CHAPTER
FIFTY-SEVEN
Ellie waved from the bar as she spotted Max spinning through the revolving door at Otto. He gave her a quick kiss and took the seat next to her. He also took a sip of her wine, then gave a thumbs-up to Dennis, the bar manager. “The same, please. And when you have a chance, could you find my real girlfriend? Someone replaced her with a lookalike who drinks red wine.”
As Dennis poured the unpronounceable Italian varietal, he shook his head. “No, I think this is the one you’re looking for. She had two Johnnie Walkers before announcing a switch.”
“You pulled out of work early?” Max asked.
“As I recall, you were the one who was still sleeping when I left this morning. I’ve been trying to call you.”
She and Rogan had decided to make the drive back to the city late last night, after booking Linda Moreland in Utica. She’d managed to slip in three hours of sleep.
“Sorry, I was swamped today.”
“Any word on how our favorite lawyer’s doing?”
“She’s promised to sue every single guard she’s encountered for one thing or another. Word must travel fast in the jails. Apparently Amaro heard the news, because he’s already asking for a public defender. He wrote on the application that he had a preference for one with, quote, extensive television experience.”
“You got my messages about the searches?” She and Rogan had executed warrants that morning at both Linda Moreland’s and Debi Landry’s apartments. They had found several of Carrie’s journals on Linda’s coffee table. On Debi Landry’s kitchen counter, they’d found the sledgehammer that she had used in the assault. More important, Debi Landry had confessed to the attack, revealing that she’d gone to the apartment after Linda Moreland told her that Carrie was the one who had given Debi’s name to the District Attorney and had done so as part of a larger plan to undermine Amaro’s defense. According to Debi, she slipped into the building when another tenant entered, initially planning to confront Carrie verbally. She got so angry when she saw Carrie in person that she “lost it.”
All Day and a Night: A Novel of Suspense (Ellie Hatcher) Page 27