by Lia Matera
“What was it you used to say to Hal when we were kids? ‘It’s not supposed to make sense, it’s supposed to make a point.’“
A half-smile lit his face.
“It’s scattershot,” I mused. “Somebody roaming around making as much trouble as possible around Brad. Or around me. I’m not sure which.”
We stared at each other.
“It’s like someone’s out to get me where it hurts most,” I said. “My client, my family.” My life. “It’s like someone bought a complete anti-Di Palma package. Oh my god, I wonder if that’s where the circle closes.”
“What circle?”
Fear almost froze the words in my throat. “Designer crimes. I wonder if someone went out and bought me all this trouble.”
30
I was surprised to see Jay Bartoli at the door. I’d scarcely had time to take my morning shower and make myself some coffee. I’d just left a message on Sandy’s machine, asking him to call me when he got back from D.C. I’d missed his calls the day before and hadn’t had the heart to fill his tape with my woes.
Uncle Henry had gone out an hour earlier to tour the charred remains of the mall. He’d left in a buzz of excitement. Apparently the damage wasn’t as extensive as originally feared. The fire had been gas-fed and therefore deceptively huge. But it had burned out before destroying the mall’s infrastructure. The damage was mostly cosmetic, probably fixable—if it could be proved the gas lines hadn’t burst because of earthquake damage.
I hoped Bartoli had come to tell me that, perhaps to reassure my uncle. I hoped he hadn’t come to question me again.
“Are you here about the fire, Jay?”
“No.” He seemed as faded as the anemic twilight. “We’ve got Brad Rommel.”
“Where?”
“Over at the county jail.”
“I mean where did you find him? Or did he turn himself in?”
“He turned himself in because he heard Gold was shot. That’s what he says. That he heard it on the six o’clock news. Said he was afraid we’d try to blame him if he didn’t come forward.”
I was relieved he’d turned himself in, but I wasn’t sure I understood his logic.
“He surrendered down in San Francisco. We just picked him up at the airport.”
I felt my jaw clench. “You’ve known about this since dinnertime last night.”
“He didn’t ask for you till now.”
I wanted to sock Bartoli in the jaw. “I don’t care if he asked for me or not. You knew my client had surrendered and you didn’t call me.”
Bartoli flushed, his blond brows sinking.
“Don’t give me any cop bullshit,” I forestalled him. “I don’t care what your excuse is. You went to school with Brad, for Christ’s sake. You could have done him the favor of telling his lawyer he was in custody.” I turned away, paced a few angry steps into the hall, wheeled back around. “Rommel has never needed anyone’s protection more than he needed mine yesterday. Depending on what he said, he could have screwed himself over big-time. And it’s your damn fault, Jay.”
Bartoli’s fist clenched. He moved his arm a menacing fraction as his face grew ruddy with anger. “Your boyfriend didn’t ask for you. Blame him if you’re going to blame anyone.”
I filed the “boyfriend” remark for later consideration. “Who do you think you are? Who do you and Gold think you are? The Tsar and Tsarina of Hillsdale? This is supposed to be a twentieth century town, not a damn fiefdom. By what right do you hide information from defense counsel?” I was trembling. I turned away, searching the hall for my coat. “I’ll tell you this much, this would never happen in San Francisco. If they learned my client had surrendered, they’d goddam tell me. They wouldn’t wait for him to ask for me. That’s nothing but good-old-boys playing keep-away.”
I was losing it, venting frustration after a long night of little sleep. I was falling prey to fear that Rommel had said too much, said something wrong, damaged his case without me there to shut him up.
I turned back to Bartoli. Behind him the sky was leaden.
He squinted at me, his lips tight. Finally he said, “Consider this notification that your client is being held on the fourth floor of the County Building in the county jail. You know the procedure if you want to speak to him.” He turned, taking the porch steps quickly.
I slammed the door before he made it to his car. Stupid bastard. He knew it compromised Rommel to be in custody without counsel. Why the hell hadn’t he told me sooner?
One good thing: Rommel had surrendered in San Francisco. Though technically he’d had time to drive six hours, he appeared to have an alibi for Gold’s shooting. I wouldn’t put it past her to try to implicate him.
I didn’t realize she and Bartoli would be getting together that morning to implicate me.
31
Brad Rommel could barely keep his eyes open, barely maintain a sitting posture. He’d had almost no sleep since running away. Every glimpse of a police car, every set of headlights jangled him awake. Every minute he spent not wracking his brain was a minute he felt he’d wasted. And last night, spent getting processed and then bussed north, had offered little rest.
“Probably the biggest reason I turned myself in was to get some sleep,” he admitted.
“It was the smart thing to do, Brad. They were bound to try to connect you with Gold’s shooting. They’re the least imaginative, least profession group of law enforcement officials I’ve ever dealt with.”
I regretted the words the minute they passed my lips. Brad looked devastated, his ruddy face paling.
“That doesn’t matter, Brad. You did the right thing. We needed to get your explanation on record. If Piatti phoned you, then obviously someone’s been trying to frame you, and your fear—and flight—make sense. If we can get the court to see that as the starting place, it won’t weigh as heavily that you spent a few days in San Francisco.” It wasn’t likely the court would look at it quite that way, not initially. But Brad needed to take the long view. He needed to keep the faith. He was too exhausted to dwell on the depressing interim. “The main thing for now is for you to say nothing, absolutely nothing. I’m going to do all the talking for you, all right?”
He nodded, rubbing his red-rimmed eyes. “I didn’t say anything when I turned myself in except who I was and all that. I figured they’d get it that I couldn’t have been up here if I was down there.”
I ignored the drive-time factor. “Well, we may be dealing with a contract killer. The mask and the level of planning—he was in the hall one minute and then just gone. I’ve heard that’s characteristic of hired guns.”
Brad laughed feebly. “So they could say I went to San Francisco just to have an alibi. That I hired someone.”
“They can say anything they want. But they’re not going to find any evidence.” I kept it open-ended, inviting him to contradict or elaborate. “Let’s go through it all again, Brad. I know you’re tired. But it’ll help me get you out of here. Start with Friday night.”
“I told you: I got a call from Cathy. I went to the mall just like I said.”
“You were delayed,” I prompted.
“Right. Right.” He massaged his forehead with rough fingers. “Kind of a big lady with a locked-up car. Maybe we could find her? Do you think that would help me?”
“There’s a possibility the mall’s gas lines were tampered with. Finding her would prove you were in the wrong place to have done that. But you’re not charged with that crime.”
“Yeah,” he sighed.
“The hour and half between the beginning of the fire and you going back home … anybody see you then, while you were up the hill watching? Anybody who might identify you?”
He shrugged. “I doubt it. Everyone was looking down at the fire.”
“Well, the plane in your driveway probably didn’t have anything to wit
h the fire. It was caused by gas igniting. The gas lines might have cracked in an earthquake that night. But they haven’t ruled out arson—tampering from on the ground.” I watched Brad. His reaction was subsumed by exhaustion. “Someone at the scene claimed he saw a plane. He might have said that to implicate you, to get the police up to your cabin.”
“If I’d gone on time to the mall, I’d have been crisped. They’d have found me dead inside and a burnt plane next to my house. What’s been bugging me is, don’t those two things cancel out? If I’m dead inside the mall, who’s supposed to have flown the plane back?”
“The big woman,” I said. “She made sure you didn’t get there in time to get caught in the fire. That has to have been part of the plan, to keep you away long enough. Because you’re right, it doesn’t make sense to try to kill you and frame you. One or the other.”
“Guess I should be happy they went for framing me.”
“Except, you know what? Arson investigation is a fairly exact science. Whoever did it must have known they’d eventually figure out it was an on-the-ground operation.”
His eyes were as bright as blue lights. “Framed for a few days until they figure out it wasn’t my plane and a plane didn’t do the damage.”
“I wonder why someone would want you in jail, or at least under suspicion, for a few days.” If he hadn’t run off, screwed up his bail, he’d probably be getting out about now. “Or maybe out of the way. Maybe Cathy’s phone call, the burning plane, all that … maybe it was supposed to spook you into leaving town.”
For the first time since I’d walked into the holding tank, he looked alert.
“You’re saying I did what they wanted me to do? That I played into their hands?”
His sudden flush warned me to shift gears.
“These complications and loose ends are going to help us, Brad. Put aside that we only have your word for Piatti’s phone call and the big woman delaying you. Look at the other things: the so-called witness who said he saw a plane, the plane in your driveway when one wasn’t used to set the fire, the bucket of frozen blood on my uncle’s lawn. It won’t be hard to make them look like part of a scheme against you. We’ll use them to cast doubt on the rest of the DA’s evidence. With luck, this crazy stuff will get you out of here.”
Brad nodded, his weariness seeming to ebb as I offered hope.
But I was as tired than ever. It was going to be a long day.
32
It was evening before I reached Sandy. I sat on a wooden chair in my uncle’s hallway, too dispirited to walk the cordless phone into the living room.
My uncle was still off conferring with fire marshals, construction consultants, seismologists and the mall’s original developers. I hoped the length of his absence was a good sign.
Sandy and I had gone through details of the shooting, most of them twice. It had been a challenge not to exacerbate each other’s worries.
“Bartoli’s got someone watching you?” Sandy asked again.
“Yes,” I lied. Sandy hadn’t had enough sleep to drive here. He was flying up in the morning. No use perturbing him from afar. If my uncle didn’t get back soon, and I got nervous, I could go visit Aunt Diana. If someone was after me, maybe he’d shoot her by mistake.
“I talked to two of Piatti’s neighbors this afternoon,” I told him.
“Did you go with the guy whose name I gave you?” He’d left me a message with the number of a local “security escort.”
This time I answered honestly. “I met with him. But I could see he’d be useless. Brawny enough, but completely witless.”
“He came recommended.”
“I know. But I didn’t have any problems. It was fine.” I almost stopped myself from adding, “Except that I missed you.”
“Did you?”
I thought the question was rhetorical. By the time I realized it wasn’t, I’d waited a second too long.
He continued, “What did you learn?”
“Nothing much. Nothing I didn’t hear the first time I interviewed Piatti’s neighbors. They still don’t buy it that she took off. They’re positive she’d have called them.”
“That would depend on why she left.”
“I brought that up, that she’d been arguing with Brad and might have wanted to leave without a final scene. That she might have wanted some quiet, some time to think. Remote island or mountaintop, with bad mail service.”
“Yeah? And?” He sounded tired, seemed to be stifling yawns. He’d probably worked through the night, rushing to conclude Steve’s business.
“They’re positive they’d have heard from her. And they flat-out don’t believe she called Brad last Friday and not them. They think he put her dead body in the mall and burned it down.” One neighbor, burly in his flannel shirt and surly drunk at three in the afternoon, had grown furious. “Guy across the street from Piatti’s got so hostile I literally ran back to my car. I didn’t ask some of the questions I wanted to. I’ll let him cool down and then go back.”
“Glad you didn’t push it,” Sandy said, sounding a bit surprised. Usually I ignored the warning signs. But the last ten days had taught me caution.
“It all seems so complicated, so baroque. I can’t tease the strands apart. I can’t decide it’s a few crazy things intertwining, or if it’s all …” I hesitated, not wanting to say, all about me. “All one thing.”
“Did you get anything else out of Bartoli?”
“No. I was so pissed at him this morning I said some things I shouldn’t.” I was still angry. But not in the exhilarating way that masks regret. “I guess I’ll have to mend my fences. The bastard.”
“When I get there, we’ll see if the sheriff’s got anything new on Piatti,” Sandy said. “She’s the key. At least to Rommel’s part of this. If she’s been dead a while, then Rommel’s been lying. And going to a lot of trouble to make this as confused as possible. If Piatti was still alive on Friday, then she was in cahoots with whoever’s behind this, maybe including the mall thing.”
“I walked by her old store. Tried to look inside.”
“Graffiti, anything like that?”
“No, nothing.”
“Kind of a shame.” He paused. “What happened to the downtown, I mean.”
“It wasn’t much in heyday.” But he was right. It was depressing to see the boarded-over windows and empty interiors. The artier stores had moved to Old Town. The more commercial ventures had run laughing to the mall. But the places I remembered best—the luncheonettes and five-and-dimes—had folded like Piatti’s boutique. “At best, it’ll be months before the mall’s back together. Maybe downtown’ll get a jolt of cash.”
“More likely the waterfront area will.” Lately Old Town had been dying, too, for all its new brick and polished brass. A few of those windows were boarded up now.
We sat in silence.
I knew it had been hard for Sandy to learn I’d been shot at. Again. It was hard for him to remain too distant to keep vigil. He’d already cautioned me to be careful, to keep my door locked, not go out alone. He’d already vowed to abandon Steve and catch the morning plane up. The only thing he could do for me tonight—the only thing that would help rather than upset me—was to let me talk about the case. But so far, I’d vented without the reward of insight.
It was his turn. “Okay, Laura, possibility number one: Cathy Piatti was bitter her business was ruined, and she wanted to blow up the mall. She was also mad at Brad. So she stole a bucket from him, bled into it, and went into hiding. Just to screw him over. He got arrested. She waited till he was out on bail, called him so he’d be at the scene, then she torched the mall. Except she didn’t get out in time to save herself.”
“Talk about overkill. And possibility number two?”
“Piatti was working with someone who hated Rommel even more than she did. And that person decided last
Friday that she was expendable.”
“More overkill. And who would it be?”
“No idea.” He sighed. “Possibility three: Rommel’s lying. He killed Piatti. He set the mall on fire. Rigged a plane to burn up in his driveway. Put that other bucket on your lawn.”
“Why?”
“Well, maybe he killed Piatti for the usual kind of reasons—jealousy, anger. She was leaving town, leaving him, he didn’t want her to go. But after he killed her, he couldn’t shake the angst. Decided to atone by torching the mall because it puts downtown shops like hers out of business.”
“Far-fetched. And what would the plane accomplish?”
“Make him look framed? Since the mall wasn’t strafed, it didn’t inculpate him. It’ll probably help him, if you go to trial on the murder thing, right? You’ll have a list of things that make it look like someone’s out to get him. Including your car door getting smashed off. He might have had someone do it for that reason.”
I’d thought of the possibility, but I didn’t like it. “Too complicated. Too mistrustful of what a good lawyer could do for him.”
“Well then, I think we’re back to designer crimes. The two shootings—”
“No. I can’t worry about Jocelyn Kinsley tonight.”
“You have to. It could be why Connie Gold got shot. Maryanne More came to your office to ask why we were talking to her clients, her ‘failures.’ If she didn’t like your answers—thought you were hiding something, thought you suspected her? Better to come after you three hundred miles from her office than anyplace close.”
“A contract killer?” I thought of Maryanne More, prim in her dark suit with the velvet collar. The notion seemed downright crazy.
“We know almost nothing about her, Laura.”
“Maybe so. But she seems …” I’d gotten an impression of sadness and vulnerability, not of cold self-interest. “I suppose it’s possible.” My view might be colored by her partnership offer. I wanted to believe it was sincere. I was tired of working alone, scrambling for clients.