Almost Mortal
Page 10
“This doesn’t sound like you.” Sam searched Cornelius’s eyes, wanting to connect with him and perhaps read him. Sam’s heart clenched mildly as he saw it. Cornelius had screwed up. Or at least Cornelius believed it to be so.
“Exactly, exactly.” Cornelius was clearly relieved to speak to someone official who thought he was innocent. “This is crazy. I got a job now. Nine months. Driving.”
Sam noticed Acorn’s outfit. While rumpled and jacketless, he sported half a tuxedo, like the morning after a wedding reception gone bad. Sam jotted notes.
“You drive for Burke’s?”
“Yeah, they love me there. I got to get out. We got a gig tonight. I’m s’posed to pick up a body at the hospital at three, man.”
Acorn did have the job going for him. Burke’s Funeral Parlor was a well-known local business that handled the funerals of prominent, and not-so-prominent, Bennet residents, including Sam’s mother.
“Relax. If the judge won’t let you out today, I’ll call Burke’s and get some confirmation of your employment. I’ve dealt with them before. I’ll try to schmooze it over for you until we can figure this out. We can file a motion in a few days once we learn more. But we can’t put forward your side of this story today. Today we just—”
“Will you represent me?” Cornelius had picked up on Sam’s “we.” He employed it with every defendant, and it sometimes spawned the false hope that he would personally handle their cases.
“Not sure. We’ll see. You’ll get someone good. This is a serious charge.”
“Hey, man, you get me out of this, I’ll never forget it. I’ll repay you somehow, someday. Believe it, Sam.”
And then Cornelius leaned forward and whispered in Sam’s ear, the practiced words carefully crafted by one who sensed their volatility. He placed one hand on the small of Sam’s back to create a secret trust beyond what was available in the crowded video room. Sam felt a minor but perceptible jolt, as if Cornelius had just walked across a static-laced carpet. But there was no carpet, and Sam suddenly had an odd clarity—Cornelius had screwed up, but he was not guilty of rape.
“The bitch slapped me in the side of the head right when I was about to come.”
“Do me a favor, Cornelius.”
“Anything to get out of here, bro.”
“Don’t ever, ever, say that again.”
The video screen went black after forty-five minutes of back and forth between Sam, the prosecutor, and the judge. Out of eight new arrestees, the judge had granted bail to six of them, Acorn not among them.
“You got one more,” Deputy Wilson said, as Sam stood and picked up his briefcase.
“Oh yeah, Hogman.”
“Sorry. He’s down in the mental ward. Listen, Sam, he’s—”
“I heard.”
Sam followed the deputy to the elevator and down to the mental ward, a row of four cells with metal doors.
“You want me in there with you? He’s a whack job.”
Sam put his hand on the deputy’s shoulder and winked. “I got it.”
Wilson opened the cell with a flat metal key. “I’ll be right out here.” He shut the door behind Sam, but not so far as to click it locked.
The cell reeked of disinfectant. Hogman, a pale white guy with thinning, blondish-gray hair, looked about fifty. He sat cross-legged on the metal bench. He was short but wiry, the strong kind of thin. A fighter. A grappler. The only other thing immediately apparent about Hogman was his albino-pink eyes. Shit, no wonder they think he’s crazy.
Sam approached him, extending his hand.
“My name is Sam Young, I’m going to—”
“I know who you are, Young.”
Sam slowly pulled his hand away and scanned Hogman’s jail intake sheet, the only document he had about the case.
“You’re charged with destruction of property, but it looks like you have no record. If you straighten up your act a little, you can probably get out on bail. What’s your deal?”
“It’s a sad day when the only way I can get the lawyer I want is to crap and piss on the floor, but there you have it.”
“You know something about me?”
Hogman nodded. The corners of his eyes wrinkled, reflecting a thoughtful emotion of one kind or another. Perhaps a sad secret. Or maybe he was just crazy. Sam had long since learned that reading crazy people was a dodgy business. The very centers of Hogman’s eyeballs were pink. Hogman looked, or seemed, like a scrappy little mouse.
“I’ll behave from here on out. And don’t worry about the confounded bail. Just find out about my case and come see me in a few days. I’ll be out of the crazy unit by then. Just tell them I was coming down from PCP or some shit. Whatever you can think of. I’m a decent guy, believe me. Odd perhaps, but decent.”
Nothing like a low-maintenance client.
“Okay then, I’ll get discovery on your case and see you later this week. Call me if you change your mind about bail.”
“You can be sure I won’t.” He held out his pale hand to Sam, who gripped it. Hogman’s limp hand was cool and dry. Calm. Upon touching Hogman’s hand, Sam’s eyes jumped to Hogman’s again, as if the handshake was meant to be a hint that Sam had missed something. But Hogman just looked at him with the same even expression.
“You all right?” Sam said.
“Are you?” Hogman met Sam’s gaze silently until Sam buzzed the door.
•••
Sam whipped the Escalade out of the sprawling suburban strip mall that housed Diagnostia. His fist gripped his balled-up copy of the confidentiality agreement he had just signed. Twenty-four hours. Confidential DNA typing results. Unless—the crumpled paper declared in bold writing—it came to the attention of the management that the results were relevant to a serious criminal investigation.
As with most legal waivers, no one had any idea what it meant. It wouldn’t matter. Sam had fidgeted nervously as he informed the salesperson at Diagnostia that he wanted to find out if his wife had had a weekend guest who just may have sipped from the metal chalice Sam had found on his night table. The clerk’s caring smile said exactly one thing—the mantra of all private investigators in spousal cheating cases: In your heart, you already know. Perfect.
Sam started the Escalade and looked at the time on his phone while his mind checked off things on his never-ending to-do list, always wondering if he could fit in one more thing. Juliana was likely waiting. The letter from the storage company and the odd new connection to his mother’s home away from home—Holy Angels—both arriving at the same time seemed, like so many things in his frantic life, fortuitous. Like a force from somewhere else trying to give him a hint. Or, as he often thought when he noticed what appeared as a notably serendipitous series of events, maybe it was just his hungover brain clawing for a special meaning, utterly unsubstantiated by the facts. Magic, clairvoyance, depression, or craziness: there was no way to tell the difference. He eased the Escalade out of the parking lot, his phone buzzing untouched on the seat beside him.
As far as Sam could tell, You Keep the Key Storage had not changed in sixteen years—beyond a new paint job. He had rented the space about a week before he drove his mother’s Toyota down to college. It had taken him mere minutes to load the six boxes into the stuffy little storage area. Twelve ninety-nine per month. In the years since, the price had tripled for the tiny square room. Sitting in the Escalade, Sam held his key ring and fingered the small, flat padlock key he had never used.
“Hey, man,” the uniformed attendant said. “So you’re the guy, huh? The guy who hasn’t been back since the nineties?” Sam stood in front of his storage unit, examining the new padlock. “Can’t wait to tell Otto I saw you. Anyway, we change the padlocks every five years or so. Never look inside, just change ’em, you know. Here you go.”
The guy stepped in front of Sam and opened the shiny new lock with what must have been a master key. He gently opened the door to reveal Marcela Young’s six unmarked, neatly packed cardboard boxes.
“Good luck, Mr. Young. If it matters to ya, you had the record.” Sam drove away slowly, watching the kid wave at him through the rearview mirror.
CHAPTER 11
“YOU CAN’T FOLD ME into attorney-client privilege. I work for the state.”
Juliana sat naked in the center of the carpet on her living room floor. As usual, one leg was folded under her and the other bent to prop up her smoking hand, the cigarette like a pointer at a lecture.
Sam lay on his side next to her, holding a glass of wine and looking at the floor.
“I’m not saying it’s like a formal attorney-client privilege. I’m just saying that we can help each other.”
“I could get shit-canned for this.” But her eyes said she did not care. They gleamed—dark orbs, deep in complex thought.
She stood and walked towards the kitchen, where she stood, flatfooted and naked in the bright light, slowly pouring a glass of wine. She then walked back towards Sam, staring him directly in the eyes, her playful smile dodging the serious issue on the table. Sam sat up just as Juliana softly dropped to her knees, set her wine glass on the carpet, and put her mouth on him as he lay back. Minutes later she sat before him again. Her lighter flashed in the dim light, and she continued the conversation as if nothing had happened. Sam looked at the ceiling as he let out a heavy breath.
“Your client thinks he has information on the Rosslyn Ripper, maybe even his DNA profile. He can’t go to the cops for some bizarre reason, and you may want me to check out the DNA result. Am I hearing this right?”
“It’s probably all BS. I’m not asking you to compromise a bit of what you’re doing. Just lay my result up against what you’re working on. If it’s worth pursuing, we’ll figure out together how to manage it.”
“Hmmmmm.”
“So, you got anything new?” Sam asked.
Juliana pulled her legs under herself and sat erect. Testifying once again.
“I ran Powerplex 16 on swabs from the necks and undersides of the chins of all three victims. I got a very partial profile from Joni West’s face. One faint allele on TPOX.”
“TPOX?”
“A locus. The same allele appeared at it as the bra snapper showed at TPOX. Just fainter. This is a very weak result. No one would ever bother to run tests on it.”
“So does it add anything?”
“For the court, not really. But it does for me. It means it’s the profile of the same guy. The guy who touched Joni’s bra also touched her neck or the underside of her chin. Now I’m convinced the bra snapper is the killer.”
“Odds?”
“Not worth doing. It’s weak. A one-allele match could never, ever, be used in court.”
“So let’s say I have a complete DNA profile from saliva. Can the lab get the Powerplex 16 typing?”
“Sure, but you have no chain of custody. It wouldn’t even be admissible.”
“This would just be for me. To know if it’s anything at all.”
“Why didn’t you bring this straight to me? Why a private lab?”
Sam stood, put on his underwear, and stepped into his pants. Juliana lay on her back on the floor, one leg over the other, smoking and looking at the ceiling.
“You better know what you’re doing, smart guy.” She blew smoke into the air.
•••
Sam pulled into his parking space in front of his building a couple minutes before eleven. Camille was already there, leaning against her car, her leather briefcase slung over her shoulder. She wore sneakers, long shorts, a loose, gym-appropriate T-shirt, and a baseball cap with a Holy Angels softball logo. Before he reached her, she had the brown envelope out.
“That couldn’t wait, huh?” he said.
“Actually, maybe I was bored. But really, Sam, you have to read this. I want your take on it.” She said it like a teacher telling a student he would agree with her calculation of a math problem by the next day.
“Why me? You really think this thing was written by the killer or has something to do with the case?”
Sam watched Camille carefully for any clue of deception, but saw nothing, just a relaxed young woman in a softball uniform leaning against her beat-up old Toyota Camry.
“I know it has something to do with something.” She opened her car door and got in, but the window came down as she started the engine.
“Don’t drink too much tonight,” she said.
•••
Sam shifted the journal from one hand to the other. Then back. He stood still for a few moments. Not smoking. Not looking at his phone. Not thinking of a client. Just breathing. He looked up along the side of his building. The red bricks. The fire escape. His second-floor window that watched the busy street. No cars, no people; nothing moved anywhere around him. The quiet moment ended soon enough, and Sam moved quickly upstairs to his apartment and its makeshift bar.
Sam’s phone buzzed. “This is Young.”
“Samson,” Steve Buterab’s mellow voice said.
“Hey, Steve.” Sam braced himself for a possible brush back.
“I got a question about your doctor friend. You see here’s the problem. He’s no good. If you’d come to me before, maybe, but I’m sorry, he’s too far gone. There can’t be an extension at this point, and you’re even asking for a reduction.”
Sam did not answer. He was accustomed, possibly too accustomed, to hearing affirmative replies to his requests for small favors. Spoiled, maybe. He had taken it too far with the Buterabs.
“Unless—” Steve said.
Sam’s spirits buoyed. He sensed a chink in Steve’s armor through the phone.
“Unless?”
“I wouldn’t wish it on you, but if you wanna guarantee it, we go a ways back and all, and I think you’re a standup guy. If you wanna get involved, I can look into a price. To settle. To save the trouble, you know. For everybody.”
Sam swallowed. He thought of Torres, the clueless idiot, with his daughter waiting by the mailbox for her acceptance letter to MIT. He took a deep breath while climbing the stairs to his apartment. He poured himself a drink while he considered Steve’s offer. It would save Torres if he forked over the bulk of his new fee from Barnabus to the Buterabs. On the other hand, he needed the cash. Why did he so often get into these situations?
“Can I think about it?”
“Okay, pal, but don’t just think, you gotta know. I’ll tell you what, no guarantees, no promises yet. Let’s say you’re provisionally interested. I’ll get back to you. I gotta say though, Samson, you’re one fuck of a friend. This guy save your life or somethin’? Or you just a goddamned do-gooder?”
Sam smiled but said nothing.
“I sure hope it’s the first thing, counselor,” Steve said. “I sure fucking hope so. Anyway, back at you soon.”
Sam set the phone on the table and took a sip of his drink, a long enough sip to generate a need for a new trip to the kitchen. Good old Steve. Always there to help out a friend. Yeah, right. And, of course, Steve would give a cut to his old man. And why not? The wheels of commerce turned for saints and sinners alike.
Sometimes, people—witnesses, prosecutors, clients, even judges—seem momentarily befuddled over why they acceded to one of Sam’s suggestions or requests. He had always believed that his little mental jabs and punches had an impact their targets never noticed.
So was he working Buterab over, or was it just the opposite?
Sam sat in the chair in the center of his living room, vodka in hand. The long, bar-sized mirror on the wall behind his couch allowed him a view of the bright digital clock on the kitchen counter. Almost eleven forty.
Sam thought about Juliana while the first half of the drink worked its magic on his nerves, his stomach, and his entire body. He knew he was taking a risk on several levels by sharing information with her. And while he could not see the endgame of doing so, she wa
s his only way, at least his only potentially private way, to find out how Camille’s mystery man’s DNA compared against evidence from the actual Ripper crime scenes. If there was a match of some kind, they’d have to deal with it, which was, of course, why Camille had hired him.
In the end, while Juliana’s duty to science certainly trumped any loyalty she had developed to Sam over the last few months, he sensed that she would work within his constraints, at least within the bounds of reason. He pictured Juliana’s excited face, her animated gestures while she held forth on her subject of expertise. Sure, like cops and prosecutors, she wanted to catch bad guys, but Sam trusted her anyway. Juliana Kim was, as much as could be said of any person, devoid of guile or artifice—a heart-on-her-sleeve scientist. Sam finished the drink and stood to get another.
He pulled the next section of Camille’s manuscript from the brown envelope and again studied the neat script of a person careful to perform each quirk and angle of his block letters correctly. Sam repeated his Q-tip swabbing, this time covering the entire back of each of the top three pages. Plainly, the papers would contain more than one person’s DNA, including, probably, Camille’s. When to actually test the swabs was not the point. The point was that he had them—he might have the Ripper’s DNA on swabs in plastic bags in a drawer in his kitchen. And what was the point of that? To know more than the police? To help Camille or an old priest who realistically faced very little legal peril? No. The point was that there was no point at all beyond that he wanted to work, to solve the puzzle, to outsmart the person on the other side of the aisle, to keep his mind chewing through problems instead of merely swimming through liquor. On this point, he and Juliana were just alike. Soul mates, even. He sipped his second vodka and pulled out his notes and phone.
Chicken Industry, Argentina—Argentina is currently the eighth largest chicken producer in the world. But in the 1950s?
Sam found worldpoultry.com and then Buenos Aires Chicken Factory. Indeed, chicken production in and around Buenos Aires appeared to be a booming business. Sam found an article distinguishing indoor from outdoor chicken facilities, noting that because of the USDA American chicken-rearing methods are the safest and, for lack of a better phrase, less cruel than those of developing countries. He satisfied himself that it was at least possible that an indoor chicken factory existed in the ’50s in Buenos Aires.