“A sledgehammer?” Max placed a protective hand on his head.
“A two-pound sledgehammer, to be precise.”
“I’m surprised you know what a two-pound sledgehammer is.”
“I was calling it ‘the badass mallet-thing’ until I was corrected by a CSU officer. Now that we’ve seen Carrie’s apartment, I think I know why she’s still alive. The entry to her apartment is this tiny alcove. Once Carrie fell to the ground, there was only so much damage Debi could inflict from a bent-over position. Based on the bruises on Carrie’s arms, she was protecting herself. Luckily, Debi didn’t think to start dropping the weapon on Carrie’s head from above, or we’d be talking about murder charges against her and Linda instead of attempted murder.”
Max was swirling the wine in his glass, staring at the liquid in silence.
She waved a hand in front of his face, breaking the trance. “Why do I have a feeling there’s a reason you didn’t call me back today?”
“I wanted to tell you in person. The good news is that both Debi and Linda were arraigned today.”
“Okay, that’s what we expected, right?”
“We went with attempted murder against Debi, but Martin doesn’t believe we have enough evidence to charge Linda as an accomplice.”
“She sent Debi there.”
“No. She simply told Debi that Carrie was a problem for Amaro.”
“Linda’s smart. She had to know Debi had a rap sheet filled with assaults, and she certainly knew how ridiculously loyal the woman is to the foster brother she sees as her only family.”
“Which is all pretty reckless, but we would have to prove that she intended for Debi to go after Carrie. We can’t do that.”
“She knew exactly what she was doing; she was lighting the match. And she had Carrie’s journals—several of them, not just the one that was stolen from Carrie’s hotel room. Debi Landry admitted tearing the apartment apart, looking for anything that could hurt Amaro. She grabbed the diaries just in case, and Linda was perfectly willing to take them.”
“But that’s conduct after the fact. It doesn’t prove advance knowledge, let alone intent.”
“According to Debi, Linda even told her where Carrie lived.”
“I tried, Ellie, okay? You don’t think I made these arguments to Martin? But Debi also said that she told Linda she just wanted to talk to Carrie. So again, we don’t have enough evidence to prove that Linda intended for Debi to hurt Carrie.” He downed his glass of wine in one swig and signaled to Dennis he’d have another.
“So what’s she being charged with?”
He was still staring straight ahead. “Receiving stolen property.”
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
“Do I seem like I’m kidding?”
“It’s a fucking Class A misdemeanor,” Ellie said. She saw the customer next to Max shoot her a dirty look, and lowered her voice. “She won’t do any time.”
“She’ll be disbarred.”
“It’s not enough. She put Carrie Blank in the hospital, just as if she’d wielded the weapon. We’re supposed to be on the same side here.”
“Look, we have different jobs, Ellie. You know that. Weren’t you the one who pointed out the other night that I shouldn’t know too much about Buck Majors’ interrogation tactics? You and Rogan—you . . . react. You do what needs to be done in the moment. I have to make sure the process is right. I can’t charge someone unless I’m convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that they did whatever it is I’m charging them with.”
“Thank you, but you don’t need to mansplain the criminal justice process to me.”
“Seriously? Jesus, Ellie. You really don’t like it when I disagree with you, do you?”
“You never said you disagreed with me. You even said Martin made the wrong call.”
“No. I said I made all these points to Martin. If you must know, he then accused me of not being objective. Frankly, I think he was right, and so was our charging decision. What Linda Moreland did was reprehensible, and it was reckless, but I am not convinced she meant for Debi to go after Carrie. I think, at most, she hoped Debi would confront Carrie and make her life difficult. Or maybe even break in and make sure she didn’t hang on to additional incriminating evidence. But we can’t even prove that. And it’s pretty screwed up that I can’t give you my honest opinion without you accusing me of talking down to you or betraying you somehow.”
“You know, Rogan was right.”
“Excuse me?”
“You say we react, like that’s a bad thing. But it’s just like he said: this isn’t about a process for us. We see the bodies. We tell the survivors they’re never going to see their family members again. We look directly into the faces of killers, still high from the rush, and can smell the evil rotting them from the insides. You see . . . our paperwork.”
He was trying to calm her down, but she couldn’t stop.
“You meet the families after they’ve learned to live through their grief. You see the killers after their lawyers have cleaned them up and coached them for court. We react, Max, because someone has to.”
She finally stopped when she felt her cell buzz. It was Rogan.
“Hey.”
“I’ll pick you up in front of Otto in three minutes.”
She started pulling her suit jacket from the back of her chair. “How’d you know I was here?”
Dennis nodded knowingly behind the bar. “You’re always here,” he mouthed, as he poured orange liquid into a martini glass.
“Because you’re always there,” Rogan said. “And you’re especially there on Wednesdays, because you’re Rainman. Some kind of mushed pea thing, right?”
“Pea and pancetta bruschetta,” she mumbled.
“See? White-people food. Eat fast.”
“Is everything okay?”
“Better than okay. Carrie Blank’s awake.”
She finished pulling on her jacket, and then threw cash on the bar to cover the tab she’d accumulated so far.
“Why are you rushing off?” Max asked.
“Because despite Linda Moreland’s best efforts, Carrie Blank regained consciousness. Excuse me while I react.”
CHAPTER
FIFTY-EIGHT
Detectives. You’re here for Carrie Blank?” It was the same physician who had originally updated Ellie on Carrie’s condition after the attack.
“She asked for us,” Rogan said. They were used to hospital personnel assuming that law enforcement would put its needs above the patient’s.
“I’m aware. She was out a full twenty-four hours longer than the maximum I would have expected. I was beginning to fear the worst, but she went from bare responsiveness to an adamant insistence that we call police within twenty minutes.”
“How did the nurse know to call me specifically?” Rogan asked.
“Because Carrie was very specific. She threatened to check herself out against my recommendations if we didn’t call either Detective Rogan or Hatcher. She seems to be doing remarkably well, but, do you mind if I have a neurological resident sit in on your discussion with her? The substance of what she says could be medically relevant.”
Rogan scratched at his temple. “I’m not sure I follow.”
“Detectives, I’m used to dealing with patients who are here because of a crime. A lot of them are determined to avoid the police—gang shootings, domestic violence, drug deals gone bad. Other people—like Carrie—are eager to cooperate. But here’s the thing: she didn’t say one word about her head injury. It was like she didn’t even care why she was in the hospital.”
“Then why did she call for us?” Rogan asked.
“Well, that’s why I want a neuro resident in the room, because it didn’t make much sense. Something about Donna and Anthony Amaro? Do those names mean anything to you?”
They found Carrie in bed, eyes closed, her face nearly as white as the hospital sheets. Her head suddenly jerked, the tiniest yelp escaping her throat.
&nbs
p; “Sorry if we woke you,” Rogan said. “The hospital called us.”
“Good, I told them to. And, trust me, if you had any idea what I was dreaming, you wouldn’t apologize for waking me. They give you a hard time about coming in?”
“We swore we wouldn’t traumatize you,” Ellie said with a smile. They had assured the attending physician that Carrie’s desire to speak to them made sense in the context of the investigation, and promised they would ask for a doctor if Carrie seemed the least bit confused.
“They’re acting like I might fall into a coma any second, but they’ve also made it clear that I’m losing my bed, come morning. I guess unemployed lawyers don’t have the best health insurance.” She offered a weak laugh.
“How much do you remember about what happened?” Rogan asked.
“This?” she said, looking up at the bandages still wrapped around her head. “I feel like I remember every millisecond. Every ounce of pain. The temperature of my blood on the floor. Separating from the present. I was sure I was going to die. No, more like, I remember actually dying. And I remember the smell of cigarettes.”
Debi Landry was a heavy smoker.
“We made an arrest just this morning,” Rogan said. “A woman named Debi Landry.”
Carrie blinked vacantly.
“She’s Anthony Amaro’s former foster sister?” Ellie prompted.
Carrie showed no sign of recognizing the name. Maybe the doctor’s concerns had been correct.
Rogan looked at Ellie, and then explained. “She assaulted you when you came home and then removed several of your journals from your apartment. She gave them to Linda Moreland, who has now been charged with receiving stolen property.” He managed to suppress any sarcasm as he relayed the charging decision he had only just learned about himself. “Linda also ordered the supposed burglary at the hotel in Utica, and it will be up to local prosecutors there whether to charge her with that.”
“But . . . why?” Carrie was asking a question, but she sounded like her mind was elsewhere.
“Linda Moreland wanted to keep you from proving Amaro was guilty,” Rogan said. “She told Debi Landry what you were doing. Debi says she went to your apartment initially just to confront you, but the fact that she went with a weapon leads us to believe she wanted revenge.”
“I’m sorry. Revenge for what? Quitting?”
“No,” Rogan said slowly. “For the leads to new evidence.”
“What new evidence?”
“An old cellmate of Amaro’s?” Ellie said. “Plus some information from his time as a foster child that showed motive?”
Carrie’s expression was still vacant. If only Ellie’s own poker face were so good.
Ellie stepped in closer. “We know who sent the information to the district attorney’s office, Carrie.”
More blankness, followed by impatience. “So who was it?”
“It’s okay,” Ellie said. “We know.”
“Yeah, but I don’t. Am I missing something here?”
Dammit. Ellie was so sure that, once alert, Carrie would give them more helpful information. But now she saw the problem: of course, Carrie couldn’t admit to sending the anonymous tips without risking disbarment.
“We don’t want to get you in trouble,” Ellie said. “But it’s important that we be able to establish the motive for your assault. And if you have any other evidence against Amaro—”
“Wait, you think I—? Absolutely not. I was his lawyer. That would be a blatant ethical violation.”
Carrie wasn’t bluffing. She was genuinely confused by the entire discussion.
“If you weren’t the anonymous source, and you didn’t see who attacked you, why did you have the hospital call us?”
“Because I think I know why Donna was killed. And I don’t think it was Anthony Amaro who did it.”
CHAPTER
FIFTY-NINE
Tell me why everyone’s so sure Anthony Amaro killed my sister.”
Rogan started walking out of Carrie’s room. “There are limits to what we can tell you, Ms. Blank. I suggest you call the ADA in the morning.”
“Wait! I’m sorry. I’m—I’m trying to help, okay? But—I’m—I want to make sure I’m on the right track. Let me put it this way. I think Donna was different.”
Jess’s friend Mona had said the same thing.
“She wasn’t into the life,” Ellie said. “Not like the other girls. She worked at a strip club—”
“Club Rouge,” Carrie said. “I know about that.”
“And she had a drug problem. But we don’t know of anything firmly connecting her to street prostitution.”
“And I saw the autopsy. Her fractures weren’t nearly as severe as the other victims. Plus, there’s the skin beneath her nails. She fought. There’s no evidence the others defended themselves. They must have been knocked out or incapacitated first. I think Donna was killed by someone else. I found an oversight in the police files. When Donna’s mother first reported her missing, she said Donna was on her way to my house.”
Ellie and Rogan both nodded.
“My mother said she never got there,” Carrie said, “but she did. She came over to apologize.” She sounded frustrated as she tried to make them understand a conflict that had meant everything twenty years earlier, but probably sounded trivial to her ears today. “There was this whole drama where I gave Donna money from my college fund, but instead of going to rehab—”
“Her mother told us,” Ellie said. “Go on.”
“So when she was at the house to apologize, she kept promising that she had a plan to make everything better. She was going to make sure that I got the opportunity I deserved. I heard her crying—screaming—she meant it. Donna could be determined when she wanted. That was why I thought rehab would work—”
Carrie’s voice started to drift, but Ellie needed her to focus.
“You don’t think—your mother?”
“Oh, God no. My mother can inflict more damage with words than force. What I keep coming back to is Donna’s insistence that she had a plan to pay me back. It was only eight thousand dollars, but to my family it was a fortune. She couldn’t make that dancing at a crummy strip joint in Utica.”
“So you think she had some other income in mind,” Ellie said.
“Maybe stealing it, or selling drugs. I don’t know, but something that could have put her in danger. I keep thinking that whatever she was saying to my mother about having a plan is the reason she was killed.”
“You wound up getting that scholarship,” she said. “It had to have been much more than the money Donna stole.”
“You know about the Morris Grant? So you probably also heard that I blew it. It figures. Two of my friends were much more likely to get it. Everyone—including me—knew I was basically third in line. But by the time the committee picked a winner, I was the poor kid whose sister got offed by a serial killer. I always assumed that’s why they picked me.”
“Sorry,” Rogan said, “but how is any of this connected to the bodies found at Conkling Park?”
Ellie hadn’t mentioned her conversation with Rosemary Blank because it hadn’t seemed important at the time. Now she was reconsidering.
“Am I correct in understanding that your two friends withdrew from consideration?” she asked.
Carrie nodded, then winced in discomfort. “Down the road, I realized they both had their reasons—one was pregnant, and one had a drug problem.”
“Didn’t that strike you as odd that they thought that far in advance? I’d expect most kids would go ahead and apply, and then deal with the fallout later. Is it possible Donna knew about your friends’ problems?”
Carrie blinked vacantly and then opened her mouth in sudden realization. “Yes, that’s it. When I was back in Utica, I saw the husband of the friend who got pregnant, Melanie. He said Donna had found out that Melanie was pregnant and basically bullied her into withdrawing. Melanie obviously told Tim about it at the time. And I know Tim has violent t
endencies. Oh my God. It was about the scholarship.”
Rogan had his eyes closed, trying to process all the new names and facts that were coming in. “I’m not sure I see why this guy Tim would target your sister. Your friend was still pregnant. Her secret was coming out one way or the other.”
“It could have started out as a fight and escalated from there,” Carrie said, “which would explain the skin beneath Donna’s nails.”
Ellie pictured Donna Blank pleading for another chance to be part of her father’s second family. She imagined Donna bullying Carrie’s friend to drop out of a life-changing competition. She tried to force her mind to leap to the idea of the friend’s boyfriend shooting Donna, and then staging her body to resemble a victim of Anthony Amaro.
She couldn’t make the leap. Ellie had seen the Utica Police Department’s records. They had managed to bungle a lot, but she couldn’t imagine some random hothead discovering insider knowledge about the case.
But Carrie was competing with two friends.
“You mentioned a second friend, with a drug problem?” Ellie asked.
Carrie nodded. “Bill Sullivan. He’s the lieutenant governor now.”
“And he was in rehab?”
She nodded again. “Back then, I didn’t realize how bad it was. I mean, I’d seen him drink to the point of blacking out, and he was smoking weed. But that was nothing at our high school. Then when he went to rehab after graduation, I just assumed he was holding the bar higher for himself since his dad was a cop. But he’s been remarkably open about the truth.”
“Which is what exactly?” Ellie had a vague recollection of Bill Sullivan’s backstory but couldn’t remember the details.
All Day and a Night: A Novel of Suspense (Ellie Hatcher) Page 28