Cold truth

Chapter 9

"Call a priest. I don't take confessions," Mason said.

"Lou, give me some credit. If I did it, I wouldn't confess to you until I hired you. I wouldn't want you telling the wrong people. Besides, you've already got a client and I don't need a lawyer."

"Okay," Mason said. "Solve the case for me."

"Sit down first," Evans said, patting the bench. "Enjoy the day."

Mason hesitated but sat. He suspected that Evans was playing him, but was interested in what he had to say.

"Excellent," Evans said. "Arthur Hackett did it."

Mason got up. "That's your best shot? The father did it and he's going to let his daughter take the fall?"

"Easy, easy," Evans said. "Just listen to me. I was negotiating with Arthur Hackett to get Gina out of her contract. She had an offer from a national network and a chance to own a piece of her show."

"Old news," Mason said as he turned away.

"Christ, man!" Evans said. "If you were in this big of a hurry in Max Coyle's case, I never would have had to pay you a cent!"

Mason sat back down. "Get to the point."

"Gina only had another year to go on her contract. Then she was gone. A radio station isn't like a baseball team. You can't trade your star player to avoid losing her in free agency. There was only one way for Hackett to get any value out of her."

"Kill her?" Mason asked.

"And collect on the life insurance policy he took out on her six months ago. Five million dollars is better than nothing."

Mason bit the inside of his lip to keep his mouth shut. He felt like a fish in Evans's barrel, unable to resist the bait.

Evans continued, pointing his finger at Mason like a rod, reeling him in. "You don't have to believe me, Lou. Ask Arthur. He took policies out on all the top talent, which at his station meant Gina and Max Coyle. Not that Max should be worried. He's too big for Arthur to throw him out the window."

"That doesn't explain why he would let his daughter go to jail."

"That's why he hired you. I'm certain Arthur didn't expect his daughter to confess."

"Have you told the police your theory?" Mason asked.

"Of course. I would rather Detective Greer interrogate me than you. She's much better looking."

"Why do you want to hang this on Arthur Hackett? Was Gina Davenport your last client?"

Evans laughed. "Nearly so, I'm afraid. You scared everyone else away. Gina was loyal. She understood that my problem with Max was bad timing in the stock market, not bad faith on my part."

"Six hundred and fifty thousand dollars is a lot to pay for something that wasn't your fault."

"Oh, don't tell me that, Lou. We both know cases get settled for all kinds of reasons. I didn't have insurance and I couldn't take the risk of a big punitive-damage verdict. You took advantage of my vulnerability. Don't gloat, especially when I'm trying to help you."

Mason had a sudden insight. "Gina gave you the money for the settlement, didn't she?"

"As I said, she was a loyal client and friend. She loaned me the money. We trusted each other."

"Enough that she let you manage the money in Emily's Fund. Twenty million dollars is a lot of trust. Where did Emily's Fund get that kind of money?"

Evans answered, enjoying the moment. "I can't take all the credit, Lou. After all, you don't think I'm much of an investment expert, but I made the right picks in the market. The seed money came from the sale of Gina's books, her personal appearance fees, things like that. Gina was financially set when Emily died, and insisted the money go into the foundation."

"Did you tell Samantha Greer about the settlement money and your involvement in Emily's Fund?"

"I am not stupid, despite what you and Max might think. I told Detective Greer everything. I even gave her the records for Emily's Fund, and I'll give a set to you if that will make you happy. Gina Davenport was my friend and my client. What do you do when your friends and clients are murdered?"

Evans rose without waiting for Mason to answer, patting Mason on the shoulder, sauntering away, leaving Mason riveted to the bench, uncertain whether he was ashamed of himself or overwhelmed by Evans's performance. Two birds swooped down to the sidewalk, snapping up crumbs, Mason wondering if he was another one of David Evans's pigeons.

A navy-blue Ford Crown Victoria pulled up to the curb in front of Mason's bench. The window on the passenger side descended into the door panel and the driver said, "Get in."

Mason smiled. "Yes, officer." He slid into the passenger seat. "Why do cops all drive Crown Vics?" he asked Samantha Greer. "They stick out like sore thumbs. How can you ever go undercover, especially with that thing sticking out of your armpit?"

Samantha was wearing a lightweight jacket that barely concealed her shoulder holster. When they first started going out, Mason teased her about the. 45-caliber pistol she carried. She said the smaller guns that some detectives wore behind their backs didn't have the stopping power she wanted and were harder to get at. She wasn't a big woman and wanted the bad guys to know she packed a serious weapon.

"Unlike a TR-6, a Crown Vic can take a bullet and still do a hundred twenty miles an hour. You still look like hell. Are you feeling okay?"

"Not bad for a guy who sucker-punched himself. The worst part is that it doesn't make a good story. I sound like I was too stupid to live."

"No, it sounds like you're in it for the wrong reason."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Mason asked.

"You're like a cop that always wants to be the first one through the door, not because he wants to bag the bad guys but because he wants the jolt of taking the chance that he won't make it through. That's a dangerous way to practice law, Lou. You're not that good."

Mason stared out the window, not answering because he didn't have an answer, afraid that Samantha was more right than wrong, not fully understanding why she was right. He'd stepped over a lot of lines in the past few years. Some of them small, like slipping into an office and snooping around. Some of them huge, like killing a man, even if it was in self-defense. Some of them hard to measure, like inviting violence into his life. He couldn't remember when that murky world became normal.

"Mickey calls it diving into the dark water," Mason said.

"Yeah? Well, do me a favor. Don't end up dead in the water. Let's get some pasta for lunch."

She drove east to Walnut, then north to the City Market, where they parked. Balzano's was an Italian diner where they were both regulars. The same family had owned it for three generations. Josephine, the matriarch, had taken it personally when Mason had told her that he and Samantha weren't getting married. She hugged both of them when they walked in, telling them that lunch was on the house if they were back together.

"Separate checks," Samantha told her, sending Josephine away, shaking her head in disappointment.

Mason asked Samantha, "What's up? Or were you just in the neighborhood?"

"Would you prefer that I was in the neighborhood or that I was checking up on you like I do all my old boyfriends?"

Josephine returned with plates of moscattioli and meat sauce, setting them down without a word.

"She's mad at us," Mason said. "My preference doesn't matter. You showed up right after David Evans left. Were you staking us out?" he asked with a grin.

"David Evans is a treat," she said. "He was in my office the morning after Gina Davenport was killed. It's nice that everyone has been so cooperative in this investigation. The killer confesses. The victim's lawyer rats out the killer's father. Very nice."

"Why didn't you look at Arthur Hackett for the murder?"

"We did. Evans's story is as good as any other, but it doesn't beat a confession that matches the physical evidence. We took elimination prints from Hackett, even though we expected to find his prints in Davenport's office. And we did."

"He's got motive and opportunity," Mason said.

Samantha said, "And a daughter whose fingerprints were found on the window frame, and whose hair and clothing fibers were found on the body and who conveniently confessed."

Mason hadn't seen the police reports and forensic analysis yet. Normally, he wouldn't get copies until just before the preliminary hearing. Samantha was cutting him some slack, and not just for old times' sake. She was doing it so he would know what a strong case the prosecutor had.

"But the confession isn't reliable. She's been under treatment-" Mason said.

"Lou," Samantha interrupted. "Save it. I'm not your audience. Besides, we've got a witness that places her at the scene."

Mason stopped sprinkling Parmesan cheese on his pasta. "Who?"

"Remember the homeless guy in the Channel 6 videotape? Earl Luke Fisher. The bench you were sitting on is his master bedroom. He ID'd Jordan. Says that he saw her park a Mercedes a couple of blocks away and let herself in the front door."

"That contradicts Jordan's confession. She says that Gina let her in."

"It's not a perfect world, Lou."

"What about Evans? Gina Davenport supposedly loaned him six hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Plus he was managing twenty million dollars in the foundation Gina set up in memory of her daughter."

"He signed a promissory note with a market rate of interest. The foundation's books are clean and so is Evans. He and Gina had been friends since they lived in St. Louis twenty years ago. He may have even been in love with her for all I know."

"Maybe they were in love," Mason said. "Maybe they were having an affair and Gina's husband found out. I hear he has a drug problem. Don't you think he could have gotten high and killed her?" Mason regretted the desperate tone of his questions, but he was running out of options.

"Robert Davenport is a recovering drug addict, I'll give you that. Someone called in an anonymous tip that Dr. Gina was dealing drugs out of her office. I talked to the narcotics detectives. They thought it was bullshit except for the husband, who's been busted a couple of times, but nothing stuck. They didn't have time to check it out before she was killed. We did find a stash of cocaine in her office."

"When did the call come in?"

"Saturday morning before Gina was killed."

"So maybe she was dealing drugs or at least supplying her husband. Maybe that had something to do with her death."

"Maybe. But not likely. Look, no case happens in a vacuum. People lead messy lives that crisscross in strange ways. That doesn't make them murderers. It just makes them screwed up. Your client confessed because she's guilty. That's not why I was parked outside the Cable Depot watching you make nice with David Evans."

"The elevator," Mason said.

Samantha nodded. "Our expert tells us that there was nothing wrong with the elevator. Somebody hit the switches that disconnected the power and released the emergency brake. What have you done that would make someone want to kill you?"

"Today?" he asked. Samantha didn't laugh. "Okay," he said. "Other than today, I don't know. I've been in this case for forty-eight hours. That's a little soon for people to start hating me enough to want to kill me."

"Keep joking," she told him, "and you'll shorten the time it takes."

"If I was the intended victim, the killer would have had to know that I was on the elevator, have access to the controls, and know how to cause the accident. That should narrow the field."

"There was a security camera on the elevator. Anyone watching the monitor would have known you were there," Samantha said.

"And the videotape is missing," Mason said.

"Gone," Samantha said, spooning the last of her pasta.

"Have you talked with Trent Hackett? He gave me the passkey. He's the building manager and he's a freak. We didn't get off on the right foot."

"He had access, but he says he was at the movies and he has a ticket stub to prove it."

Mason asked, "Anybody vouch for him?"

"He was alone."

"If that's supposed to make me feel better, it doesn't."

"It's not. It's supposed to keep you out of the dark water."

"So which case are you investigating? Gina Davenport's murder or the attempt to kill me?"

Samantha twirled the last strands of pasta around her spoon. "The Davenport case is the prosecuting attorney's problem now. I'm working the elevator."

Mason watched as she finished her pasta. Her appetite was fine. His was gone. Harry always talked about the importance of keeping his personal life separate from his cases. He wasn't always able to do it. Samantha had been trained the same way. Saying that she was working the elevator rather than trying to find out who wanted to kill him was her way of drawing the line. She wiped a fleck of sauce that had splattered onto the butt of her gun. Mason was glad it was a big gun.