CHAPTER THIRTEEN
After the aborted attempt for the briefcase, Kane circled the block. By the time he got back to his car his breathing had returned to normal. His hands no longer felt heavy. His pulse had ceased to throb in his fingertips. He threw his backpack on the passenger seat and waited.
Twenty minutes passed before he saw the man in the well-cut suit leaving Flynn’s apartment. Kane watched him get into his convertible and drive away. The pulse returned to his fingers and he was suddenly very aware of the handgun in his jacket pocket. Just the guard, and Flynn. That guard would be watchful, now. Only at the last second, had Kane decided not to pull the gun on the men in the street. He’d waited too long before drawing the weapon. The guard had beaten him to it. Instead he’d drawn out his cell phone, and asked for directions. A good thing too, thought Kane. The guard would’ve shot him first.
The thought of that laptop, sitting in Flynn’s apartment, made Kane grind his teeth. Kane looked at the building again. No telling what kind of security cameras were in place on the inside, or how many occupants there were. Maybe there was a doorman on a desk.
The engine coughed into life, struggling against the low temperature. Kane put the car in gear, slowly rolled out of West 46th Street.
Another time. When he was ready. Kane promised himself he would return.
For now, he had other business.
He headed east, toward the river. Rode 46th Street all the way to Second Avenue and then the FDR. The traffic was still heavy, and he made slow progress. Kane was not a native New Yorker. Not by any means. Even so, he barely looked at his satnav. Manhattan had been laid out on a grid. You land in Manhattan for the first time, spend five minutes with a map, and you knew your way around. From a map, the island looked like a circuit board. It only needed power to run. Kane thought that it wasn’t the people, the inhabitants of Manhattan, who provided electricity needed to run that circuit-board city. It wasn’t cars, either. Nor trains.
It was money.
Manhattan ran on green.
While stopped in traffic, he checked his reflection in the rear-view mirror. His nose had ballooned nicely. Perhaps too much. It made the rest of his face quite puffy. He made a mental note to ice his face later and bring the swelling down just a little. Plus, he would need to use more make-up. The bruising was beginning to show through the thin layer on his skin.
Anyone else would be in agony. Not Kane. He was special. That’s what his mother told him.
He did not know his own body. There was a distance.
When he was eight years old, Kane discovered he was not like everyone else. A fall from an apple tree in the garden. A bad fall. He’d climbed high, and fell to the ground from the topmost branches of the tree. He did not cry as he lay on the grass. He never cried. After a moment, he got back up and was about to climb the tree again when he found that he couldn’t hold on to a branch with his left hand. His wrist looked swollen. This was unusual and he went inside the kitchen to ask his mother why his wrist looked funny. By the time he’d made it to the house, his wrist had tripled in size and it looked as though someone had popped a table-tennis ball under his skin. Even to this day, Kane could remember the way his mother’s face had twisted when she looked at his wrist. She dialed for an ambulance and eventually, sick of waiting, she wrapped two bags of frozen peas around his wrist, put Kane in the old car and drove him to the ER.
His mother had never driven so fast.
Kane recalled that drive precisely. The Stones were playing on the radio, his mother’s face shone with tears. Panic drove her voice high and wild.
“It’s okay, it’s okay. Don’t panic. We’re gonna get you fixed right up. Does it hurt, honey?” she’d said.
“No,” said Kane.
At the hospital the X-ray confirmed multiple fractures. The wrist required manipulation before a cast could be applied. The doctor had explained the urgency, and said they would do their best to relieve the pain of the procedure with gas and air. Little Joshua wouldn’t inhale the strange-smelling stuff coming from the tube and ripped off his mask more than once.
During the procedure he did not cry out. He kept perfectly still and listened with dumb fascination to the muted rattle of his shattered bones as the doc pulled and pushed at his wrist. A nurse put a sticker on his T-shirt that said he was a brave patient. He told her he didn’t need any medicine. He was fine.
Initially medical staff put it down to shock, but Kane’s mother knew there was more to it. This was different. She pushed the hospital to test her son. To this day, he didn’t know where she’d gotten the money to pay for the tests. At first the doctors thought there was something wrong with his brain. He didn’t cry out when they pricked his skin with needles. He’d heard the word “tumor” but didn’t know what it meant. Soon, they ruled out a growth on his brain. That made Kane’s mother very happy, but still she worried and there were more tests to be done.
A year later Joshua Kane was diagnosed with a rare genetic condition; congenital analgesia. The pain receptors in his brain didn’t function at all. Little Joshua had never felt pain, and never would. Sitting in the doctor’s office, Kane recalled how his mother received the news with a mixture of happiness and fear. Happy that her son would never know physical pain, but nonetheless afraid. Kane could see his mother sitting in that chair in the doc’s office, looking at him. She’d worn the same blue dress that she’d been wearing when he fell from the tree. The same fearful look lit a fire in her eyes.
And Kane had enjoyed every second of it.
He heard a car horn behind him, urging him forward, bringing his thoughts back to the present. An hour later Kane was in Brooklyn. He turned off the engine, got out of the car and texted his location to his contact.
Any calls to the NYPD and Kane and would get an early warning.
He made his way past rows of identical, middle-class, three-story suburban homes. The living space located on the first floor, above the garage. Fresh paint hiding the rust on the surrounding fences. He reached the house belonging to a man called Wally Cook.
Wally’s face had appeared on the board in Carp Law as their number one pick for the jury more times than anyone else. He was a card-carrying liberal, donated profits from his Private Investigator business to the ACLU, and coached Little League at the weekends.
Kane couldn’t rely on the prosecution objecting to Wally being on the jury, and it was too damn dangerous to leave him on the list. Plus, he was taking up a space that would allow Kane to fall into the defense picks.
A car and a van were parked in the driveway of Wally’s house. Light shone in the first-floor window. A woman in her thirties with long brown hair was walking the floor with a baby in her arms. Wally approached them, kissed the woman and disappeared out of view. Kane unsheathed his filleting knife and made his way to the front door.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I waded through the rest of the files in the Solomon case in less than two hours. A lot of it I could skip through on a quick scan. Grounding statements from police officers confirming chain of custody, lengthy forensic reports, witness depositions. There were several key pieces of evidence.
The 911 emergency call from Bobby Solomon, made at 00:03. Not only did I have a transcript but an audio recording. Bobby sounded in a blind panic, choking on tears, rage, fear and his own colossal loss. It was all there in his voice.
Despatcher: 911 emergency, do you need fire, police or medical assistance?
Solomon: Help … Jesus … I’m at 275 West 88th Street. My wife … I think she’s dead. Somebody … Oh God … somebody killed them.
Despatcher: I’m sending police officers and paramedics. Calm down sir, are you in any danger?
Solomon: I … I … don’t know.
Despatcher: Are you in the property right now?
Solomon: Yeah, I … I … just found them. They’re in the bedroom. They’re dead.
(sounds of crying)
Despatcher: Sir? Sir? Take a deep br
eath, I need you tell me if you know of anyone else in the property right now.
(sounds of breaking glass and someone stumbling)
Solomon: I’m here. Ah, I haven’t checked the house … Oh shit … please get the ambulance here right now. She’s not breathing …
(Solomon drops phone)
Despatcher: Sir? Please pick up the phone. Sir? Sir?
Bobby told the police he’d been out drinking since that afternoon. He’d taken some pills too. Didn’t remember where he’d been, but recalled visiting a few bars; he met a few people but didn’t remember their names either. He took a cab outside of a nightclub and got home just before midnight. The light in the hall was out. Carl wasn’t in the kitchen or living room. He went upstairs to find him. Saw Ariella’s door open, and a lamp burning. He went in and found Ariella and Carl dead.
The call, Solomon’s story, all seemed plausible at first. Bobby had a history of minor misdemeanors when he’d gone on a bender, and it wasn’t unusual for him to have little or no memory of what he’d been up to while under the influence.
As alibis go, it was poor. But there was no reason to doubt Solomon’s story.
Until I read the statement from Ken Eigerson. He lived at 277 West 88th Street. Ken is forty-three years old, and a hedge fund manager. Eigerson described getting home at nine p.m. that night, and saying “hi” to his famous next-door neighbor Bobby Solomon. He watched Bobby walk up the steps to his home. Eigerson knew the time, precisely, because his wife always works late on a Thursday night and the babysitter leaves at nine. Connie Brewkowski, the twenty-three-year-old au pair for the Eigersons confirmed she left their house when Eigerson returned home at nine.
I was thinking of ways to spin this. Some point of attack. And then I thought of the video. Security camera footage from outside the property. Date-stamped the night of the murder, and at nine p.m. it shows Solomon entering the property.
The camera is activated by a motion sensor. Nothing else is recorded until the cops showed up ten minutes after midnight.
No footage of Bobby coming home when he said he came home at midnight. Ariella and Carl are found dead by the NYPD when Bobby lets them in at ten after midnight.
The conclusion? Bobby Solomon was lying about what time he got home.
Forensics would seal Bobby’s fate. Carl’s blood on Bobby’s baseball bat with Bobby’s fingerprints on the bat. Ariella’s blood on Bobby’s clothes. And the cherry on top: the butterfly dollar bill in Carl’s mouth has Bobby’s fingerprints and DNA on it. Bobby told the cops he’d never seen the butterfly bill before, and he certainly didn’t fold it or put it in Carl’s mouth.
Game over.
Rudy answered my call straight away.
“He’s screwed,” I said.
“I agree,” said Rudy, “but you’re not looking deep enough. NYPD forensics planted Bobby’s DNA.”
“What makes you so sure,” I said.
“Because their tests showed up more than one DNA profile.”
“Give me a sec,” I said, and I opened up the forensics file. Sure enough, there was a report identifying the DNA profiles that had been successfully taken from the dollar. The DNA profiles were marked “A” and “B”. The “A” profile was Bobby’s DNA. Whereas the “B” profile matched an existing profile in the database for a man named Richard Pena.
“Hang on, Rudy. There’s bound to be more than one DNA trace on any bill in circulation. I’m surprised they didn’t find twenty DNA profiles on the bill. That doesn’t mean NYPD planted Bobby’s DNA.”
“Yes it does. That profile match for Richard Pena proved DNA contamination at the lab,” said Rudy.
“How?”
“We got some background discovery on Richard Pena. It’s buried deep in the forensics. He was a convicted serial killer. Between 1998 and 1999 he murdered four women in North Carolina. The press called him The Chapel Hill Strangler. He got caught, convicted, and after his appeals went south, in double quick time, he was executed in 2001.”
I didn’t wait for Rudy to say any more. Instead I dragged up a picture of the dollar that had been taken after it was unfolded. First image that came up was the reverse of the bill. I noticed some small discoloration around the image of the American eagle, as if the bill had once been exposed to a pen, rattling around in a pocket. I didn’t look too closely, I really wanted to see the other side of the dollar. I clicked again, this time I had what I was looking for. On the face of the bill, to the right of George Washington, was a series number. A new series number is only ever created on three occasions. The first is if a new design of the bill is being rolled out. The other reasons to run a new series are also linked to changes on the bills. Each bill has two signatures. One on either side of the picture of Washington. The first is the signature of the Treasurer of the United States, and the other is the signature of the Secretary of the Treasury. The signatures on the bill found in Carl’s mouth were from Treasurer Rosa Gumataotoa Rios, and Secretary Jack Lew. The series number corresponded to the year Lew was appointed – 2013.
Rudy spelled it out for me.
“Richard Pena couldn’t have touched that bill. At the time the bill was printed, Pena had been dead for twelve years, already.”
“And no fingerprint for Pena, just DNA,” I said.
“Right.”
“If the only fingerprints on the note are from Bobby, and both Bobby and Pena’s DNA are on the note … I’m thinking the forensic tech scrubbed the note before he planted Bobby’s DNA and somehow he also planted Pena’s at the same time, by mistake,” I said.
“Now you’re getting it. It’s the only possible theory. DNA can be killed with exposure to household detergents. Easy to get rid of it. And how many hands had touched that bill since 2013? It’s got to be in the hundreds, if not thousands. They messed up trying to frame Bobby. They wiped the bill, then messed up planting Bobby’s DNA. Somehow Pena’s got added in the lab. It’s the only explanation. We’ve got them on this,” said Rudy.
It made sense. Still, something troubled me. The butterfly was symbolic, in some way. It was important to someone. Probably the killer or the victim. And the police had exploited this piece of evidence. The NYPD had used it to frame Bobby, by planting his DNA on it, but they messed up.
“Pena’s DNA would’ve been tested in another state. How did it get to the NYPD lab?”
“We don’t know. But it did.”
I listened to Rudy unload on the phone about police corruption, the media storm this evidence would create, and how this was the lynchpin of Bobby’s defense. After thirty seconds I tuned out. In my mind, I was back at Carp Law. Sitting beside Bobby. Listening to him protest his innocence. In that moment, I wondered if I’d allowed myself to be convinced by Bobby. He was a talented actor. No doubt. Not all movie stars are great actors. Bobby was a craftsman, and he had the skills. Something else bothered me. In most cases, if a police force planted evidence against a suspect it was usually because they believed he was guilty. I couldn’t see how anyone else could’ve gotten in and out of the house without being spotted on the motion-activated security camera. And there was the neighbor’s testimony.
“Rudy, I bought Bobby’s story. I can’t lie to you or myself about that. I believed him when he told me he was innocent. I can’t let anything else cloud that judgment. If it’s alright with you I want to get started with my own investigator. We still don’t have the knife used on Ariella. Tell me, what does Bobby say about the baseball bat used on Carl?”
“He said he kept the bat in the hallway. Sure, he had security but his old man always kept a bat beside the front door. Bobby has always done likewise. It’s his bat, so that explains why his prints are all over it …”
“But not the blood. I need to look into this more,” I said.
“Your fee’s been wired to your account. If you want to blow some of that on investigation, be my guest. I’ll be handling jury selection. Give me a call in the morning. And get some sleep,” he said, and ended the
call.
I scrolled through the contacts on my phone until I came to one labeled “Blow Me”. I hit dial. I didn’t check the time, the person I was calling was used to taking phone calls at all hours. Came with the job. The call connected. A female voice came on the line. Husky, a little Midwest twang in the accent.
“Eddie Flynn, con man at law. I’ve been wondering when you’d call me.”
The voice belonged to a former FBI agent named Harper. She’d never told me her first name. Come to think of it, I couldn’t be sure I’d ever asked for her first name. I’d met Harper a year ago, right before she’d quit the Bureau with her partner, Joe Washington. They’d set up a private security and investigations outfit in Manhattan and they were doing pretty good by all accounts. When we’d first met she’d slammed my head into the roof of my Mustang. A few months later we were chasing the same bad guy, and she’d saved not only my life, but the lives of her fellow agents. I could’ve looked into Bobby’s case on my own, but I wanted Harper. She had good instincts. I trusted her judgment; if she thought Bobby was guilty I might think twice about things.
“Good to talk to you, too. Sorry I haven’t been in touch, I’ve been waiting for the right case. I need an investigator. Know any good ones?”
“Blow me. Who’s your client?”
I knew what was coming, before I’d even said it. I told her anyway.
“I’m on the defense team for Bobby Solomon. We’re going to prove he was framed by the NYPD. You’re going to help me.”
She let out a burst of laughter and said, “That’s a good one. Next you’ll be telling me you’re representing Charles Manson.”
“I’m serious. A security guy from Carp Law will be at your apartment in the next hour with a laptop. He’ll wait while you read the files. This is sensitive stuff. If any of this got out before the trial …”
Harper’s laughter died in her throat.
“Eddie, come on. You serious?”
Thirteen_The serial killer isn’t on trial. He’s on the jury Page 8