Dead Reckoning

by Linda Castillo

  She looked at the empty chair next to him and frowned. As usual, Frank was late. Nine-thirty and he hadn’t even bothered to show. What was his problem? More importantly, what was she going to do about it?

  “So did Matrone survive your meeting with him yesterday?” David asked.

  “Mike wants him on the case,” was all she said.

  David smiled. “But if it were up to you, he’d be toast.”

  “Burned to a crisp.” Leaning forward, she popped the cassette into the tape recorder on her desk. “We can—”

  The door to her office swung open. Kate looked up to see Frank Matrone stride in, looking like he’d just stepped out of the shower.

  “We’re pleased you decided to grace us with your presence,” she said.

  “Sorry I’m late.”

  “I hope your job as investigator here at the district attorney’s office isn’t interfering with your sleep.”

  He grimaced, looking appropriately contrite. “It’s not.”

  David chuckled. “Oh, brother.”

  Frowning, Frank pulled out the second visitor chair and sat down. “Did I miss anything?”

  “You mean besides points?” David stuck out his hand. “You’re not chalking up any, buddy.”

  “Never do.” Frank shook the other man’s hand.

  He was wearing the same black leather jacket. His hair was still damp from a recent shower. He’d left a tiny piece of tissue paper on a razor cut on the point of his chin. Even though his aftershave was subtle, Kate could smell it from where she sat. Some woodsy, outdoor scent that made her think of pine trees and fresh air. He was wearing black slacks and a white shirt with a red silk tie. Better tie today. He looked nice. Except for the cowboy boots . . .

  She looked away before her mind could take the thought any further. “If you two are finished bonding, I’d like to get started.” Glaring at Matrone, she added, “What you are about to hear is the initial interview between Detective Bates and Bruton Ellis. I’ve asked for a transcript, too, but as usual things are backed up over at the PD, so it’s going to take a few days.”

  “Ah . . . they’re probably not that backed up,” Frank said.

  Kate shot him a withering stare. “Don’t tell me. This is part of their ‘Let’s put Megabitch through the hoop’ thing.”

  “Megabitch?” David echoed, looking startled. “They call you that?”

  “Never mind,” Kate snapped, wishing she hadn’t mentioned it.

  “I’ll make a few calls when we’re finished here,” Frank said. “I can probably have it over here by this afternoon.”

  As much as Kate didn’t want to, she had to admit he was probably going to be an asset to the team if only to help her cut through all the red tape between the DA’s office and the PD.

  She hit the Play button on the recorder. The speaker in the center of the table hissed for a moment. Kate turned up the volume. An instant later Detective Howard Bates’s gravelly voice recited his name, title, and date, and advised all present that the interview was being recorded. He then Mirandized Bruton Ellis.

  “Do you understand these rights?” Bates asked.

  “I know what they mean.”

  “You know why you’re here?”

  “It ain’t to color fuckin’ Easter eggs.”

  “Watch your mouth.”

  A brief scratchy silence, then Bates continued. “Were you in the Snack and Gas convenience store early this morning?”

  Silence hissed for the span of several heartbeats.

  “If you want I can stop this interview right now and take you back to your cell.”

  “It gonna help if I talk to you guys?” Ellis asked.

  “Maybe.”

  Another scratchy silence.

  “So fuckin’ talk,” came another man’s voice. “Don’t sit there like a stupid shit and waste our fuckin’ time.”

  Classic bad-cop psych-out, Kate thought and looked down at her legal pad. The other detective present was Joe Milkowski. A real badass from what she’d heard.

  For several minutes Detective Bates questioned Ellis about what happened in the convenience store. Ellis’s answers were short and belligerent. Kate could hear the temper building in Bates’s voice, but he was a seasoned detective and kept a handle on it. Pushing just enough to keep Ellis going, trying to rattle him and get him to open up.

  “We got you on the security camera tape,” Milkowski said after twenty minutes of getting nowhere.

  “You’re lying!” Ellis snarled. “There ain’t no fuckin’ tape.”

  Kate found herself wishing for video. Things were so much clearer when you could see expressions and mannerisms and body language. She could hear Milkowski grumbling and cursing beneath his breath.

  “Want to see it?” Bates asked, and a resonant click sounded. “See that stupid shit with the shotgun under his coat? That’s you, Einstein. And we got you by the dick.”

  Ellis made a sound of distress. “No . . .”

  “You cooperate with us and we’ll do what we can to cut a deal,” Bates said. “You keep fucking us around and you’re going to death row.”

  “Death row?” Ellis cried.

  “Yeah, you know, Huntsville. That’s where they strap ruthless motherfuckers like you to the gurney and inject them with enough drugs to kill a fuckin’ rhinoceros.”

  “What do you want from me?”

  For the first time Kate heard fear in the other man’s voice. Good. He was scared. A scared man was a man who cooperated. A man who would talk to save his neck.

  “Why don’t you start by telling us what you did,” Milkowski said.

  Ellis sniffed, and Kate realized he was crying. “Oh, man.”

  “You give us a confession and we’ll do what we can to get you life instead of lethal injection.” A pause. “You got thirty seconds or I swear to Christ I’m going to turn off that recorder and walk out of here.”

  “I didn’t—” Ellis’s voice broke.

  “You did, asshole. We got you on tape.”

  “I gotta go to the bathroom.”

  “You can go when I say you can go.”

  Another sound of distress.

  “You went in there to rob the place, didn’t you, Ellis.”

  “No!”

  “You lying little shit.”

  “I’m not. They told me to take the money. To make it look like a robbery.”

  A pregnant silence ensued. Even though there was no video, Kate envisioned the two detectives exchanging looks. “What the hell are you talking about?” Bates asked after a moment. “Who?”

  “A guy. He hired me to go in there and kill those two bitches.”

  “Did he tell you to rape one of them, too?” Milkowski swore, then came the sound of the legs of his chair screeching across the tile. “Get this piece of shit out of here.”

  “Wait!” Ellis cried. “I said I’d talk.”

  “Why would someone hire you to off two women in a friggin’ convenience store?” Bates asked.

  “I don’t know! But he paid me. Five thousand dollars. In cash.”

  “Cash, huh? That’s convenient.”

  “It’s not like he’s going to give me his fuckin’ Visa number. Christ!”

  “You got the cash?”

  “No,” Ellis muttered. “I spent it.”

  Another, longer silence ensued, then Bates’s gravelly voice broke it. “You know what, Ellis? I think you’re a lying shit-head. Do you think cops are that stupid? You think you can walk in here, make up some wild story, and get yourself a deal?”

  “I didn’t make it up! I swear! This guy hired me to go in there and blow away those two broads. He paid me five grand. In cash! I swear!”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “I don’t know, man. I didn’t ask.”

  Bates sighed, an angry impatient sound as it hissed out of the speaker. “Who was the guy?”

  “All I know is he goes by Segal.”

  “Segal, huh?” A hard laugh sou
nded. “Well, why don’t I just look it up in the fuckin’ Yellow Pages under Murdering Asshole?”

  Curious about his reaction to the tape, Kate glanced at Matrone. Surprise rippled through her when she found his eyes already on her, his expression as hard and unreadable as a block of ice. Even though she’d caught him staring, he didn’t look away or try to pretend it hadn’t happened. He didn’t even look particularly uncomfortable. Just . . . intensely interested. It was a strange moment she didn’t quite understand. She wanted to believe he was watching her to gauge her reaction to the audiotape. But something in the depths of his dark green eyes belied the explanation.

  Inexplicably her cheeks heated. She felt uncharacteristically flustered. Hoping he didn’t notice, she dragged her gaze away from his and to David Perrine. He was slumped in the chair, staring at the floor, listening intently.

  “Why did he hire you to kill those two women?” Bates barked.

  “I didn’t ask,” Ellis replied. “I took the money and I did it. End of story.”

  “Where did you spend the money?”

  Ellis groaned. “I needed . . . you know, some coke.”

  “Of course,” Milkowski said dryly.

  The interview lasted another twenty minutes. When it was finished, Kate snapped off the recorder and shot David Perrine a pointed look. “What came back on Ellis’s background check?”

  David set his empty cappuccino cup on the tabletop in front of him and dug around in a brown expanding file, finally pulling out a few pages. “He was arrested for DUI three times before the age of twenty, twice in Texas and once in Oklahoma. Fourth time the State of Texas took his license. He was arrested in 1999 for assault. Case was tossed. He was arrested in 2000 for a burglary in Dallas County. Served sixteen months before being released. He was arrested again in 2001 for a robbery at a gas station in Collin County. Did two years and got out on an early release program.” Frowning, David set down the report. “In 2004 he was indicted on a weapons charge, but he beat it.”

  “He fits the profile.” She looked down at her notes. “What do you think of his saying that someone hired him?”

  “I think he’d say anything to save his dirty red neck,” David shot back.

  Kate looked at Frank, who’d been quiet up until now. “Will the cops look into that allegation?”

  “They’ll look into it, but they’ve got a dozen other murder cases dogging them. This one’s pretty cut-and-dried, so they’re going to want to put it to bed. They might do a little digging, but they’re not going to put too much weight in what he said.” He leaned back in the chair. “There’s no doubt Ellis did it. We’ve got the tape. That’s enough for a conviction.”

  “That’s all we need,” David added.

  Kate contemplated the two men. Even though she didn’t know Frank well, she could tell there was more on his mind than he was saying. With a sinking feeling, she knew it had to do with what Ellis had said about someone having hired him. It was weird that Frank had mentioned it even before seeing the interview tape.

  “Okay, let’s go to work on this.” She glanced at her notes. “David, the police questioned a possible witness. A man who’d pulled into the Snack and Gas to fill up. Name is Harry Bunger.” She rattled off the witness’s contact info and David scribbled. “I want you to talk to him. Get a statement. See if he gives you anything we can use.”

  “I’m on it,” David said.

  “I want the hard copy of Ellis’s background check.”

  “I’ll have it on your desk this afternoon.”

  She looked at Frank. “See if you can expedite a transcript of this police interview. If they could courier it over this afternoon, that would be great.”

  Frank gave her a slow smile that, she felt, was far too intimate for an office environment. Jesus, she wished she could get a handle on him.

  “I can have a typed transcript here within the hour,” he said.

  “That would be a record.” David shot Frank a curious look. “You got something on the chief, or what?”

  “Assistant chief,” Frank said deadpan.

  David chuckled, then looked at Kate. “I don’t get the megabitch thing.”

  “I think we’ve had enough discussion about that.” Not sure if she was amused or annoyed, Kate looked down at her notes. “I’m going to go over the ME’s report and ballistics.” She paged through the thick file she had already accumulated. “Frank, I want you to start contacting family members of the victims. Talk to them. Check any possible ties to Ellis. We probably won’t need any of it, but I don’t want any surprises hitting us down the road.”

  She’d barely gotten the words out when the door swung open. Liz Gordon rushed in, her expression harried and apologetic. “Sorry to barge in, Kate, but I thought you might want to see something.” She rushed over to the twelve-inch color television on Kate’s credenza and switched it on.

  Kate swiveled in her chair to see a baby-faced reporter from one of the local news stations gazing steadily into the camera, his voice low. “We now bring you District Attorney Mike Shelley’s press conference live from Dallas police headquarters.”

  The camera panned to Mike Shelley standing outside the glass doors of the Jack Evans Police Headquarters building with Chief of Police Charlie Buchanan. The two men were flanked by an entourage of city politicians and several uniformed police officers looking like they’d drawn the short straw and hadn’t had a choice but to show up. A dozen microphones were being shoved at Mike’s face, and he looked like he was enjoying every minute of it.

  “The Dallas County district attorney’s office has carefully reviewed the evidence and interviewed witnesses in the Bruton Ellis case. Taking into consideration the brutal nature of the crimes committed, it has been determined that we will be trying this brutal double murder as a capital case.”

  A murmur rose from the crowd. Mike raised his hands, asking for silence, and continued. “I have assigned an experienced assistant district attorney to prosecute the case.”

  A dozen questions sounded at once, but Mike remained calm and pointed to a popular local journalist and called her by her first name. “Nancy?”

  “Can you tell us which prosecutor will be trying the case?” she asked.

  “The prosecutorial team is still in the process of being assembled. I will send out a press release when the time is appropriate.” Mike Shelley paused dramatically. “One thing I can tell you is that the district attorney’s office will use every resource to ensure that justice is imposed in this brutal case.”

  Several journalists asked questions simultaneously. Taking the hubbub in stride, Mike pointed to one of the reporters. “Fredericka?”

  “Is it true that Life, Inc., has vowed to very strongly protest any case in which the death penalty is being sought?” The camera panned to a stern-looking woman with dark red hair and matching lips.

  “All I’m going to say about possible protests is that we live in a free society, and as free citizens, everyone has the right to protest something he or she doesn’t agree with.”

  “What if those protests are violent?”

  Another barrage of questions rose, but Mike stepped away from the podium.

  Kate had heard enough. She couldn’t believe Mike had agreed to a press conference without at the very least warning her. But then, she’d always known he loved the limelight. He was a media hound and never turned down an opportunity to look good. Even if that opportunity was going to be met with controversy.

  “Looks like the cat is out of the bag,” David said.

  “Let’s hope no one shoots the cat,” Frank added.

  “Thank you for that,” Kate said dryly and turned off the TV. “It’s only going to be a matter of time before our names are made public.”

  “What was Mike thinking?” Liz asked.

  “I’ll make a wild guess and venture to say he’s thinking about the election in November,” David put in. “Think he used the word brutal enough times?”

  Kate
shot him a warning look. “I’ll send an e-mail to everyone on the team, reminding them to refer all media inquiries to our public relations department.”

  “You might want to put something in that e-mail about Life, Inc., Kate.”

  All eyes turned to Frank. “They’ve become more than a little radical in the last couple of years when it comes to capital cases.”

  A newshound, Kate was all too familiar with the anti-death penalty group and realized with a deepening sense of dismay that the personal safety and security of her team could very well become an issue. “I’m familiar with Life, Inc.”

  “Then you know the prosecutor who put one of the Texas seven on death row had to send his family to an undisclosed location during the trial because they had been threatened.”

  “Do you think that might happen with this case?” Liz asked, her expression concerned.

  Kate looked at Frank. “What do you think?”

  “I think from this point forward, all of us should keep our eyes and ears open,” he said. “If anything happens that makes any of us uneasy, even if you feel it may not be important, bring it to either my, David’s, or Kate’s attention immediately.”

  Kate nodded in agreement. But her mind was already jumping ahead to the few choice words she had for Mike Shelley. He’d been foolish to hold a press conference so soon. He’d put his office—and her team—in the spotlight weeks before the preliminary hearing.

  “That’ll be all.” Picking up a stack of documents from her in-box, Kate set them in front of her and began to page through them as the three members of her team filed out.

  She’d already turned to her computer to draft the e-mail when Frank’s voice sounded behind her. “I need to talk to you about something.”

  “If it’s about being late, don’t bother.” She frowned at him. “It would be a tremendous help if you would just start showing up on time.”

  “It’s about the case.”

  “What about it?”

  “I want to talk to Bruton Ellis,” he said.

  If he hadn’t looked so serious, Kate might have laughed at the absurdity of his request. “You know that in order to do that, Aaron Napier will have to give you permission. You know there’s no way in hell he’s going to let you do it.”