Killer Ambition

51

With so little time to prepare for a preliminary hearing that would likely be broadcast around the country-or as Declan put it, “go wide”-we had no time for lunch, and I wasn’t planning to make any time for dinner either. So Bailey dropped me at the office and headed back to the station, where she’d be hunkered down and getting ready too. When I passed by Melia’s desk, she jumped up and thrust a fistful of messages at me. I groaned inwardly and took them back to my office. I flipped through them quickly. There were more than thirty, and as I’d suspected, they were all from reporters. It was already too much to handle. I could either prepare my case or field press calls. I couldn’t do both. Much as I’d wanted to earn some brownie points and make nice, I was going to have to let Melia route all of the press calls to Sandi, our media relations chief. I told Declan.

“You might not have as big a problem with public opinion as you think, Rachel. Most of those people on the newscast were in the industry, and they all have something to gain by currying favor with Powers or Russell Antonovich.”

Exactly what Toni’d said. “But how do they all know Russell isn’t on board with us?”

“Are you kidding? Russell has minions circling him around the clock. And every single one of them knows everything about him. He likes beets, hates brussels sprouts, and throws away his socks after one wearing. He doesn’t care for the Lakers, loves the Oakland A’s. If that’s common knowledge…”

“Yeah.”

“And they like to spread any insider information to all their friends-it gives them status. So something as big as this? After the way he screamed his head off when you gave him the news? Believe me, word started spreading before we got off the lot. Which means everyone and her Chihuahua knew that the way to Russell’s heart was to vilify you. And I promise you that if we lose, every single one of them will be on Russell’s and Ian’s doorstep, calling in their chits.”

“So it doesn’t matter that Ian slashed the throats of two young kids. It’s all about sucking up to the big names-”

“Who can put them in films, buy their screenplays, hire their clients…yes.”

Sickening. But, really, was Hollywood so unique? What about Wall Street? Or Capitol Hill? They were no better. Some would argue they were a lot worse-and they might even be right.

“How’s the research coming?” I asked.

“I think you’re in good shape with the seizure of the laptop. The language you put in the warrant about electronic writings covers it. The only real issue’s going to be what writings you can get into evidence. But that’s a relevance issue, not a Fourth Amendment issue.”

“And on that note, you hear back from Cliff yet?”

“No progress there. He agrees, there’s nothing he’s seen so far that has anything to do with this case, but he’s checking for any anomalies in…something, I can’t remember the word he used-”

“Wouldn’t matter if you did. I wouldn’t have known what it meant.” I looked down at my “to do” list. “I’m going to dig into the coroner’s reports right now. Do me a favor and put in a request for Steve Diamond to compare the wound tracks on Brian and Hayley and see if he can say whether the same knife was used on both victims.”

My phone started ringing. Declan flashed me a look of sympathy and went off to take care of his task. I buzzed Melia and told her to take that call and start routing all my calls through Sandi.

“What if they’re personal?”

I took a deep breath and blew it out. “I don’t get personal calls on the office number. They always come to my cell, Melia.” But, really, how could I expect her to know that? Just because, in the past two years, not one personal call had ever come to my office number? Silly me.

I hung up and called Bailey. “We seized the Ruger they found in Ian’s bedroom, right?”

“Yeah. And to answer your real question, we are having it looked at, but I wouldn’t get my hopes up. It seemed pretty clean.”

We’d already tested for fingerprints and found only Ian’s, so I figured Powers had initially held Brian at gunpoint because it would’ve been an easier way of controlling him if they’d had to move him up the mountain ridge to the killing ground. But Powers didn’t want to use the gun to kill because bullets and casings left too much evidence. If we could come up with evidence of soil or plant debris on the Ruger consistent with Boney Mountain, it would go a long way toward proving my theory correct. And proving premeditation.

I flipped through the murder book, to the evidence report. “You ever get the hard copy of Averly’s phone bill? I don’t see it here.”

“I should have it soon. It took a little while because I asked them to go back through all of his numbers for the past ten years.”

“Okay, keep in touch.”

“Yeah, sure. I’ll call every fifteen minutes.” She hung up. I did not believe she would.

For the next couple of days, I toiled away at my desk, working through lunch, taking my dinners in my room. Other than the occasional visit from Toni and phone call from Graden, the only people I spoke to were Declan and Bailey. Thanks to my having delegated the daily Vanderhorn reports to Declan, I didn’t have to waste time cooling my heels in his anteroom-or catching more of Francine’s “I told you so” looks. I had a feeling Vanderhorn was A-OK with this arrangement. By Wednesday evening, I’d gotten on top of the case enough to believe I might just be able to spend some weekend time with Graden, so I called him and asked what he was doing on Saturday.

“You could come over to my place and let me make dinner for you,” he suggested. I knew it was a concession to my desire to avoid restaurants, where I might run into less than adoring fans, or the press. But it would also put us alone in his house…with wine. I was, however, sorely tempted.

“I might not have time for a whole night out.”

Graden suggested we wait and see how the rest of the week shook out. “We could always just grab a quick bite downtown.”

I agreed. Did he know that my hesitation was only partially work related? I couldn’t tell.

On Thursday Bailey called with news.

“I got Averly’s phone bill. Wait’ll you see. Oh, and by the way, it does look like he and Powers go back-”

“Great. Wait’ll I see what?”

“I skipped right by it the first time, for some damn reason-”

This preamble was killing me. “Tell me already!”

She continued, rolling right over me, “-but then I realized there was something familiar about one of the numbers. I checked out the exact time and then I checked out the number-”

“Seriously, I’m going to hang up.”

“Remember the texts between Hayley and Brian on the mountain?”

I exhaled impatiently. “Of course.”

“Well, after the last text from Brian, there was a gap, and then there was a text telling Hayley to come out and meet on the trail-”

“That was probably from the killer. Yes, I know-”

“No, there’s no ‘probably.’ That text was definitely from the killer.”

I sat up and clutched the phone. “What?”

“In the same minute-probably within seconds of sending that text, the killer made a call from Brian’s cell. To Jack Averly.”

“Oh, my God.” This was huge. It proved that Averly didn’t take part in the actual killings. Powers wouldn’t be calling Averly if Averly was standing next to him. And Powers wouldn’t have been using Brian’s cell to do it if Brian was still alive and kicking.

“That’s it,” I said. “Ian Powers called Averly after he killed Brian-”

“-to say he’d found Hayley?”

“Or to tell Averly what direction he’d be moving in so Averly could meet him.”

We had our proof: Ian Powers had killed them both.