Certain prey

Chapter Three

Barbara Allen was killed a month to the day after Carmel Loan took out the contract on her. When word of the murder swept through the firm, Carmel immediately told herself that she had nothing to do with it. She'd made the arrangement so long ago that it hardly counted.

Carmel learned of the killing as she sat reading the deposition of a late-night dog-walker who claimed that he saw Rockwell Miller – her client – go into the back of his failing steak house with a five-gallon can of gasoline. The prosecution would argue that it was the same gas can found by the arson squad in the shambles of the restaurant's basement. The fire had been so hot that it had melted the fire extinguishers in the kitchen.

Carmel was looking for what she called a peel. If she could get her fingernails under some aspect of a story, or some aspect of a witness, she could peel the testimony back, and damage the witnesses' credibility. She'd begun to think that she could peel the dog-walker. He was divorced, and carried two convictions for domestic assault, which hurt any witness if there were enough women on the jury.

She could get the women, all right. The problem was getting the assault conviction before the jury, since the average judge might mistakenly consider it irrelevant.

The dog-walker lived near the restaurant and knew the restaurant owner by sight.

Had the dog-walker and his ex-wife ever eaten at the restaurant? Had they ever had an argument in the restaurant, when they were breaking up? Might the dog walker have bad feelings about the restaurant, or its owner, even if they were unconscious?

It was all bullshit, but if she could implicitly ask, 'Can you believe the testimony of an admitted brutal wife-beater?' of twelve women good and true.. . That would be a definite peel.

She was dialing her client when her secretary stuck her head into Carmel's office, unannounced, and asked, 'Did you hear about Hale Allen's wife?'

Carmel's heart jumped into her throat, and she dropped the phone back on its base. 'No, what?' she asked. She was one of the top-three defense attorneys in the Twin Cities, and her face showed all the emotion of a woman who has been asked the outside temperature.

'She's been killed. Murdered.' The secretary couldn't quite keep the relish out of her voice. 'In a downtown parking garage. The police are saying it was a professional assassination. Like a mob hit.'

Carmel hushed her voice, while letting the natural interest show through.

'Barbara Allen?'

The secretary stepped in and let the door close behind her. 'Jane Roberts said the cops came and got Hale, and they rushed to the hospital, but it was too late. She was already dead.'

'Oh my God, the poor woman.' Carmel's hand went to her throat. And she thought:

/ didn't do this. And she also thought: / was sitting right here, where everybody could see me.

'We're thinking we should get some money together and send some flowers,' the secretary said.

'Do that. That's a good idea,' Carmel said. She found her purse beside her desk, and dug inside. 'I'll start it with a hundred.' She rolled the cash out on the desk. 'Is that enough?'

Late that afternoon, on the open-air balcony of her fabulous apartment, a gin and-tonic in her hand, Carmel worried: gnawed a thumbnail, a bad habit she'd carried with her since grade school, chewing the nail down to the quick. For the first time since the infatuation with Hale Allen had begun, she stepped outside of herself, and looked back.

She'd often told her clients, those who were more-or-less professional criminals, that they could never think of all the possible ways to screw up a crime. However many ways you cover yourself, there's always some way that you are not covered.

Carmel had considered the possibility of killing Barbara Allen herself. She'd never killed anything before, but the thought didn't particularly bother her.

She could pull the trigger, all right. But the devil was in the details, and there were too many details. How would she get a gun? If she bought one, there'd be a record of the purchase. She could use it and throw it away, but if the cops came asking for it, 'The dog ate it,' would be insufficient.

She could steal one, but she could get caught stealing it. And she'd have to steal it from one of two or three people she knew who had guns, and that might point a finger at her. She could try to come up with a fake ID – a crime in itself – but she was memorable enough that a gun-store clerk, asked later about the purchaser, might well remember her, especially if prompted by a photo.

Then there was the killing itself. She could do it. She could do anything she put her mind to. But, as she'd warned her clients, mistakes, accidents, or even random chance could ruin even the best-planned crime. With murder, in the state of Minnesota, a mistake, accident or random error meant spending thirty years in a non-fabulous room the size of a bathtub.

In the end, she'd decided the least risky way was to go with a pro. She had plenty of untraceable cash stashed in her bank deposit box, and she had Rolando

D'Aquila, the connection. She also had a safety margin. Neither her connection nor the shooter could tell the cops about their involvement, because that would make them as guilty of first-degree murder as Carmel herself was. The shooter, even if she were eventually run down, would be eminently defensible in court: as a competent professional, she was unlikely to leave obvious clues, and would have no apparent previous connection with the victim.

So Carmel was probably safe; but after a few moments of reflection, drink in hand, she decided to stay away from Hale Allen for a while. Let him recover from the murder; let the cops talk to him – they would, of course. Since she'd never demonstrated her infatuation to Hale, there was no reason to think she'd become involved from that direction.

She was working out the various possibilities, her thumbnails red with blood, and raw, when Rinker called.

The line was Carmel's unlisted home-business number, and nobody called who didn't already know her. 'Yes?' she said, picking up the receiver.

'I need to get some money from you.' The woman on the other end had a dry, mid south or Texas accent, the corners of words bitten off. But there was also an undertone of good humor.

'Are you okay?' Carmel asked.

'I'm just fine.'

'You make me a little nervous,' Carmel said. 'I'd prefer to see you in a public place.'

The woman chuckled, a pleasant, homey sound rattling down the phone line, and she said, 'You lawyers worry too much – and you ain't gonna see me, honey.'

'Maybe,' Carmel said. 'So how will we do it?'

'You have the money with you?'

'Yes, that's what Rolo said.'

'Good. Get in your Volvo, drive down to the University of Minnesota parking lot at Huron and Fourth Street. That's a big open lot, lots of students coming and going. There's a ticket-dispensing machine at the entrance. Park as far as you can from the pay booth, but park in a spot where there are other cars around you. Don't lock the driver's side door. Leave the money in a sack – one of those brown grocery sacks would be best – on the floor on the driver's side. Walk over to Washington Avenue… Do you know your way around over there?'

'Yes. I went to school there.' She'd spent seven years at the university.

'Good. Walk over to Washington, then walk down to the river. After you get to the River, it's up to you. Whenever you want, walk back to the car. I'll lock it when I leave it. And all the time, you'll be out in the open, in public. Safe.'

'What if somebody takes the money before you get there?'

Again, the pleasant chuckle: 'Nobody will take the money, Carmel.' The woman said 'CAR-mul,' while Carmel always pronounced it 'car-MEL.'

'When?'

'Right now.'

'How'd you know I have a Volvo?'

'I've been watching you off-and-on for a week or so. You drove it down to that Rainbow store the day before yesterday. I wouldn't have bought that sweet corn, myself; it looked a couple of days too old.'

'It was,' Carmel said. 'I'll be there in fifteen minutes.'

Carmel did exactly as Rinker asked, taking an extra few minutes in her walk along the Mississippi. When she got back to the car, the door was locked and the money was gone. She drove straight back to her apartment, and when she walked in, the phone was ringing.

'This is me,' the dry voice said.

'I hope everything went all right,' Carmel said.

'Went fine. I'm leaving town, but I wanted you to know that your credit is good.

Do you have a pencil?'

'Yes.'

'If you ever need me again, call this number' – the woman recited a phone number with a 212 area code that Carmel recognized as downtown Washington, D.C. – 'and leave a message on the voice mail that says, "Call Patricia Case." '

'Patricia Case.'

'Then I'll call you back within a day.'

'I don't think I'll ever need this.'

'Don't count on it; you lawyers have strange ways…'

'Okay. And thanks.'

'Thank you.' Click – and the dry voice was gone.

The phone rang again, before she had a chance to turn away.

'Carmel?' And for the second time that day, her heart was in her throat.

'Yes?'

'This is Hale.' Then, like she might not be able to sort out her Hales, he added, 'Allen.'

'Hale. My God, I heard about Barbara. How terrible.' She leaned into the telephone, vibrating with the urgency of the emotion. Tears started at the inner corners of her eyes. Poor Barbara. Poor Hale. A tragedy.

'Carmel… God, I don't know, I'm so screwed up,' Hale Allen said. 'Now the police think maybe I had something to do with it. The murder.'

'That's crazy,' Carmel said.

'Absolutely. They keep asking about how much money I'll inherit, and Barb's parents are saying all this crazy stuff…'

'That's terrible!' He needed help; and he was calling her.

'Look, what I'm calling to ask is, could you handle this for me? Could you deal with the police? You're the best I know…'

'Of course,' she said briskly. 'Where are you now?'

'I'm at home. I'm sitting here with all of Barb's stuff… I don't know what to do.'

'Sit right there,' Carmel said. 'I'll be there in half an hour. Don't talk to any more cops. If anyone calls, tell them to talk to me.'

'Won't that make them suspicious?' Not the sharpest knife.

'They already are suspicious, Hale. I know exactly where they're coming from.

It's stupid, but that's the way they think. So give them my office number and this number, and do not, do not, talk to them.'

'Okay.' He sounded better already. 'Half an hour?'

Oh, God. The thing about Hale Allen, she thought, was his hands. He had these big, competent-looking hands with clean, square nails, and fine dark fuzz on the first joints of his fingers, a hint of the underlying masculinity. He had beautiful, thick hair, and wonderful shoulders, and his brown eyes were so expressive that when he concentrated on her, Carmel felt weak.

But it was the hands that did it. And did it one afternoon in a nice lawyer bar with lots of plants in copper kettles, and antique dressers used as serving tables. There'd been three or four of them sitting around a table, different firms, no agenda, just gossip. He'd been laughing, with those great white teeth, and he'd looked deep into her a few times, all the way, she felt, to the bottom of her panty hose. But the main thing was, he'd been drinking something light and white, a California Chardonnay, maybe, and he kept turning the wine glass in those strong fingers and Carmel had begun to vibrate. They'd been together two dozen times since, but always in social situations, and never too long.

She thought, though, that he must know, somewhere in his soul. Now with this call…

She took fifteen minutes with her makeup – making it invisible – and after applying the lightest touch of Chanel No. 7, she went down to the parking garage and climbed into the Jaguar.

She forgot all about her resolution to stay away.

Hale Allen needed her.