Guilt By Degrees

71

It was a monstrous thing to contemplate. It was awful, but not impossible, to imagine a cop burying evidence of a homicide so he could blackmail the killer. But to use that to force someone to marry him, and keep her hostage with the threat of a murder rap hanging over her head…forever? Even though I was the one who’d raised the possibility, I found it hard to believe.

Bailey shook her head, stricken. “I don’t know…it’s so…”

“Pathological?”

She nodded, her expression troubled. “From every angle. Not only because it’s a sick thing to do to begin with, but jeez, like we just said, once the statute ran, what’s to stop her from nailing him for hiding the evidence? Doesn’t that seem more than a little crazy to you?”

“No, or rather, yes. But not for the reason you think. First of all, even after the statute ran, there’s no way Lilah could ever afford to turn Zack in. Remember, he didn’t falsify that report alone. She’s in it up to her ears. If he goes down for that, then so does she. The only thing she skates on is the manslaughter. And when it comes out that she committed the hit-and-run and then conspired to hide the evidence, even if she somehow beat the criminal charges, her big, fancy career would be toast with a capital T. No law firm will hire someone with a record like that. Second, I think Zack was more than a little crazy-not that she’s a model of sanity-but he was obviously willing to take the risk that she might not be as predictable as he thought. He had to have considered the possibility that she might just decide being free of him was worth the downside. But I think he was willing to go down as long as she did too. It was a game of power and control, and he had it rigged so her only choice was either to live with him and endure or to ‘out’ him and wave good-bye to her future.”

As I said those words, I envisioned Zack and Lilah locked in a macabre tango, nose-to-nose, neither of them able, or willing, to look away, hands clutching each other’s throat. Had the dance finally pushed Lilah over the edge, into murdering Zack?

Bailey blew out a breath. “Damn.” Then, echoing my thoughts, she said, “Then killing him would’ve been the only way out.”

“Yeah, but is there any case that gets investigated more thoroughly than a cop killing? How could she be sure she’d get away with it? Talk about your risks. That’s the mother of them all.”

“True that.”

We fell silent. I knew we had the hit-and-run piece of the puzzle in the right place, but Lilah’s role in Zack’s murder was still an open question. I looked back at Bailey, who was staring down at the floor.

She peered up at me, her expression perplexed. “It’s just so hard to wrap my head around. Especially because the mom and dad…hell, even Simon, seemed so…well, normal.”

“Yeah.” I frowned. It was tough to swallow. “But there is one bright side: if there really is evidence out there, and we can find it, we’ll have a good shot at nailing Lilah for not only Simon’s murder but the hit-and-run too.”

It was the only positive note I could find, but Bailey didn’t look all that cheered.

I stared out the window. Something about what I’d just said tickled the back of my mind. Frustrated, I struggled to grab ahold of it. Simon…his murder…the evidence…It was there somewhere. I began to think out loud.

“Simon winds up on that sidewalk at the same time as Lilah. Too weird to be a coincidence.”

“There had to be a reason,” Bailey agreed.

“On the videotape, it looks like Simon was there to attack Lilah. And he was armed and ready. But how could he know she’d be there at exactly that time?”

She sat up and frowned. “They’d planned to meet?”

I shrugged. “Maybe.” I paused. Suddenly the thought that had been circling just out of reach floated up to the surface. I stared straight ahead, mentally probing for the flaw as I pursued my new theory with a question. “And if that’s true, what’s the one thing Simon might’ve had that could make Lilah want to meet him?”

“The evidence,” she said softly.

We exchanged a long look.

“If we’re right that Zack hid the evidence of her hit-and-run, and Simon found out about it, that’d give Simon one hell of a great way to lure her out, wouldn’t it?” I asked.

Bailey nodded. “Explains why, after disappearing once, she ended up on that sidewalk with him,” she said. “But, as I recall, Simon didn’t have anything on him and the surveillance footage shows the stabber didn’t take anything off him.”

“Simon didn’t bring it. He wasn’t completely crazy. But his murder proves that the evidence is still out there. Or, at least, that Lilah believes it is.”

Bailey stared out the window. “And the only reason she would’ve had to believe that is because Zack told her so.”

“Which he would have done in order to use it as blackmail. The evidence must still be out there. It’s the only explanation that answers all the questions: how Zack and Lilah met, how they wound up married, maybe why she killed Zack, and why Lilah was just feet away when Simon got stabbed to death.”

Bailey drove us back to the Biltmore. Though she was in no mood for fun, she had a date with Drew and didn’t want to cancel at the last minute.

With a solid working theory in place, I was too keyed up to stop, so I holed up in my room and spread out the crime scene photographs of Tran Lee.

I’d looked through the autopsy report again, hoping to find some anomalous injuries-evidence of antemortem blunt force trauma that couldn’t be explained by the car crash. But the body had been out in the elements for two weeks. Between decomposition and animal and insect invasion, there wasn’t much left to work with. The coroner couldn’t do any better than say what was already obvious: Tran had died due to blunt force trauma. Not helpful.

I noticed that one photograph showed an officer pointing to a key in the ignition of the car. So it hadn’t been hot-wired. I got excited for a moment. That could be proof the car hadn’t been stolen. But then I remembered that Conrad Bagram claimed the car was stolen off his lot. He probably told the cops he kept the keys in the cars, or had a Hide-A-Key stashed in the wheel well. It might even be true, but I made a mental note to check anyway.

It was only nine thirty, but I needed a break. I gathered up the photographs and autopsy report and stacked them on my desk. Ordinarily this would be when I’d call Graden, or vice versa. We’d hash out our day, talk through our cases, and generally unwind together. I’d be lying to myself if I said I didn’t miss him. But there was Daniel, in a condo just minutes away. It’d be easy to call him, maybe meet for drinks-hang out like old friends. But I knew that’s not all it would be. The awareness of what we’d been to each other and the possibility that we could go there again would still be lurking on the fringes, like a melody playing in the distance, too faint to be able to distinguish the song but too loud to ignore.

I stood at the window and looked out at the night. Wispy, translucent clouds drifted across the sky. The moon glowed like a neon orb, surrounded by sharp pin dots of starlight. A soft breeze made the trees sway like wraiths, their bare branches floating like ghostly tendrils.

I saw myself reflected in the balcony window, standing alone in a hotel room. Would I always end up this way? Alone and wondering why this one hadn’t worked out? And then the next one? My eyes fell on the street below, and I saw one of our investigators sitting in a car at the curb. The sight of my security detail hit me like a bucket of icy water.

I was standing in a lit window that faced the street-like a perfectly framed and backlit sitting duck. A really dumb sitting duck. I abruptly stepped back and drew the curtains.

Depressed, I took a long, hot shower, put on my pajamas, and slipped in a Miles Davis CD. I was in the mood for Kind of Blue. I curled up on a chair in my bedroom, poured myself a tall glass of Russian Standard Platinum, and pondered the accuracy of the phrase drowning one’s sorrows. This seemed like the night to find out if that was possible. Scientist Rachel Knight conducts a groundbreaking new experiment.

I’d hoped to wait up for Bailey. But I fell asleep early with the lights on, the music playing, and an empty glass beside me.

I woke up at seven, full of energy and ideas. Really good ones, like: Find Lilah! Find Simon’s killer! Find the evidence that’ll nail Lilah for Tran’s killing! Morning never has been my best time of day. I dressed in slacks and a sweater and went out to the living room to see if I’d managed to get up before Bailey.

“Hey, sunshine, you’re up early,” she said.

Clearly not. “Did you order breakfast?”

“Yep.”

I poured myself a cup of coffee from my mini-coffeemaker while I waited for room service to bring the big pot. Seconds later, the waiter, Alejandro, was ushered in by DA investigators Gary and Stephen. He looked a little unnerved by his unexpected welcoming committee.

We made fast work of breakfast and headed out.

“I’d like to see Rick Meyer today, if you don’t mind,” I said.

She looked like she did mind, but she nodded.

“I got us lined up to talk to an expert about the watch on our stabber’s wrist,” she said.

Our watch expert was downtown in the Jewelry Mart area. The mart is a huge building with about a hundred different businesses devoted to all aspects of jewelry sales, design, and acquisition. Our man was in one of the little shops across the street from the main building-a bright space filled with watches in lit stands that crowded the floor, and in glass cases on the walls. Herman Rozen, a plump man with tufts of gray hair that floated around the periphery of his head like a baby bird, was dressed in suspenders and wire-rimmed glasses.

After making our introductions, Bailey handed him the blowup of the stabber’s wrist. He looked at it with a large magnifying glass.

“Hmph,” he said. He snorted twice, then swallowed and gave a disturbingly long, wet cough that just couldn’t have been healthy. Or normal. Or tolerable.

“TAG Heuer Monaco Calibre Chronograph,” Herman said. “It’s worth about three thousand dollars.”

“Wow,” I said, referring to the watch, and his cough.

“It’s no Patek Philippe, but it’s nice, I suppose,” Herman sniffed. Then he snorted and swallowed again. I wondered how long it would take the CDC to come and get him.

“Where’s it likely to be sold?” Bailey asked.

Herman looked at her as if she’d just asked where she could find the Pacific Ocean.

“In stores that sell watches,” he said. “Or on the Internet, or at an estate sale, or-”

Bailey favored him with one of her “don’t fuck with me” looks. “I get the picture. Thanks.”

“Sure,” Herman said.

He snorted again, but this time I walked out before I had to witness the whole stomach-turning routine. Bailey followed close behind.

We stood on the sidewalk. Our investigators were a few paces away, watching in all directions.

“I’m thinking he might not be our A material for the witness stand,” I said.

Bailey made a face. “I’ve got Purell in the glove box,” she said as we headed for her car. “Use it.”