Love me to death

THIRTY-FIVE

Noah hadn’t been so angry and frustrated with a case in a long time.

Fran Buckley wasn’t talking, and her lawyer, Clark Jager, was playing legal games to keep Noah away from her. In fact, Jager had threatened to pull Lucy Kincaid’s file and use her history as part of his case. It didn’t matter whether there was anything in her file; that it would be open and part of the criminal proceedings increased the chances that it would be made public.

Biggler was more forthcoming, but he didn’t have anything to add to Mallory’s confession. Noah sent Abigail to the bar to flash pictures of Mallory and Biggler-including the sister-to the bartender who served Prenter to see if they could get a witness to corroborate Mallory’s confession.

Abigail stepped into the conference room that had been turned overnight into the “war” room for the WCF investigation where Noah and Hans were reading statements and files. There was enough paperwork to keep them busy for weeks.

“Have a minute?” she asked.

“Sure, but I thought you were meeting with the bartender.”

“Too early, he doesn’t come on until five, but I called him at home and he’s agreed to come here to look at the photos.”

“What else?” Noah rose to stretch his legs, then make a small change to the timeline they were keeping on a large white board.

“ERT called. They’re writing up their report now, but wanted to give us a heads-up that they’re done with their preliminary investigation and said it’s conclusive: Cody Lorenzo didn’t commit suicide. Along with other evidence to substantiate murder, the trajectory of the bullet proved there was no way he could have pulled the trigger.”

“Shit.” Noah leaned against the table, his fingers pressed against his forehead.

“But you thought Mallory was lying. Why are you surprised?”

“Because I wanted to believe he was telling the truth. I wanted to believe he didn’t kill a cop.”

“There’s no physical evidence tying him to the murder,” Hans said, looking up from the report he was reading. “It’s the only murder he didn’t confess to.”

“That’s not going to sway a jury, not when a cop is a victim.”

“Without hard evidence, the U.S. Attorney isn’t going to go for the death penalty,” Hans said. “Considering all his other victims are criminals, a jury may be more lenient than if he were killing truly innocent people.”

There was evidence somewhere. A security camera that caught Mallory near the scene of the murder. Trace evidence. A witness who didn’t know what he or she was seeing. He might have to work for it, but there would be something to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Mallory killed Cody Lorenzo.

Lorenzo had been a cop doing his job. There had to be justice for him. Noah couldn’t tolerate a cop killer getting off lightly.

“There’s something else,” Abigail said. “Do you remember the flowers Lucy received on Monday? She thought that Lorenzo was stalking her because when Rogan went to the florist, they had a record of a cash transaction and the sender was Cody Lorenzo. But they don’t require identification to send flowers.”

“And it wasn’t Lorenzo?”

“ERT said the card attached to the flowers and the fake suicide note were written by the same person.”

It took Noah a moment for the information to sink in. “So Mallory wrote both of them? He sent Lucy the flowers and used Lorenzo’s name.”

“Appears so,” Abigail said.

“But why?” Hans asked. “To set Cody up? To make the suicide seem more plausible?”

“He planned it,” Noah said, even more angry with Mallory now than before. “That bastard. I’m going back to the jail to talk to him. He’s been manipulating people for far too long, and he’s going to have to pay the price.” He picked up the phone.

Hans said, “Noah, I understand your feelings about Mick Mallory, but he’s a smart guy. If he wanted Cody’s death to look like a suicide, I think we’d have more doubts about whether it was murder or suicide.”

“This all came down in a few days,” Noah said. “Lorenzo was breathing down the neck of someone-Mallory? Fran Buckley? I don’t know, but he was on to something. He and Lucy were the only ones looking into the deaths of the parolees, but Lucy wasn’t out in public asking questions or pulling police reports. Cody Lorenzo must have talked to the wrong person. I don’t see how else this could be playing out.”

Hans frowned. “That all makes sense. But-it just doesn’t fit Mallory’s M.O.”

“Maybe he sent someone else to do it. That’s why it was so sloppy.” He said to Abigail, “We need someone to look into Fran Buckley’s murder of Parker Weatherby in Boston. Four years ago-”

“It was four years ago last October,” she said.

“You already looked into it?”

“Just the facts of the case, after Mallory mentioned it. No suspects; the police think robbery was the motive. A couple of paintings showed up over the last two years, but nothing that led to who fenced them.”

“We need to put Buckley in Boston that night,” Noah said. “Anything-credit card information, a plane ticket, a stray hair they couldn’t match DNA evidence to. We need something solid to get her to flip.”

“I’m on it. Can I call in Rick Stockton’s help if I need it?”

“Whatever it takes,” Noah said. After Abigail left, he said to Hans, “We can’t let Buckley walk. We can only hold her for three days, and Mallory’s statement isn’t going to be enough to keep her locked up. Her lawyer is right about that.”

“I doubt she’d flee.”

“We can’t count on that. Hans, I know how this case can be played in the media. We’ll lose a lot of ground if Jager decides to play to the cameras.”

“But we have the facts on our side.”

“Jager is right about public sentiment. No one cares if a few sick predators are dead. But what I truly fear is that if Buckley gets away with it, more private citizens will take the law into their own hands. As Lucy said, it would be anarchy.”

“I don’t disagree with you, Noah.”

Noah swore under his breath. “We’ll have to offer a plea, won’t we?”

“Fran Buckley killed a man in Boston-a man who had never been convicted of a crime. He was probably guilty, but he still didn’t have his day in court, and while our system is imperfect, it’s damn good. If our former FBI agents and cops start acting like judge, jury, and executioner, society will suffer. So yeah, the U.S. Attorney will plead. But none of our conspirators are ever getting out of prison.”

Noah was meeting with the U.S. Attorney’s office this afternoon, and he hoped he wasn’t chewed out for his aggressive warrant and investigation. But first, he had to call Kate. She had to know about Cody Lorenzo’s murder-and Jager’s threat to pull Lucy’s file in discovery.

Noah believed in the letter of the law, but he saw nothing good about opening Lucy’s records for the world to inspect and second-guess. He had a sense now of what Kate and the rest of them had gone through six years ago when faced with a trial versus a plea agreement with Roger Morton.

Except that if anyone could handle the pressure, Noah had no doubt Lucy could.

Sean slowly pocketed his cell phone.

Lucy wasn’t going to take this well. He had to spin it right so that she didn’t take it personally. So she didn’t heap the guilt on herself for something she had no control over.

She was asleep on his family-room couch. Sean had taken the morning to catch up on business-it was getting away from him. RCK East didn’t advertise because they didn’t need to; most of their business came from word of mouth and referrals. With only two people on staff and no admin, they didn’t need to create more business than they could handle.

But with Patrick gone, and Sean occupied with everything that had been going on, he had ignored his business emails and phone messages. He was nearly caught up when Kate called with the news of Lorenzo’s murder.

He didn’t want to tell Lucy, and he certainly didn’t want to wake her up to give her the news, but he knew she wouldn’t want him to shield her from the truth.

He sat down on the coffee table and watched her sleep. Lucy was more mature than most young women beginning their careers. Yet in sleep, she looked young and vulnerable. Her face was relaxed, her mouth slightly open, her hands together under her cheek. Sleeping Beauty. And Sean wanted her to stay this peaceful; she needed the rest.

She opened her eyes suddenly, a brief look of panic on her face.

“It’s me,” Sean said, angry with himself for staring at her for so long. Even in her sleep, she had sensed his gaze.

“What time is it?”

“Two.”

She slowly sat up, dazed. “I slept until two in the afternoon?” she asked, incredulous.

“You were up early; you needed a nap.”

She rubbed her eyes and yawned. “Three hours. I never sleep during the day.” She tilted her head and frowned. “What’s wrong?”

Sean hadn’t thought his expression revealed his unrest over the news. He was blunt. “Cody didn’t commit suicide. The FBI proved conclusively that he was murdered.”

Lucy began to shake. Cody was murdered. Because of her investigation. Why hadn’t she called in Kate earlier? Or would Mallory have killed her sister-in-law in his failed attempt to cover up his vigilante group?

“Luce?” Sean sounded worried, and Lucy reached out for him. His hands held hers tightly and her body stopped shaking so violently. She took a deep breath.

“Maybe … maybe I’m relieved.”

“Relieved?”

How could she explain it? She closed her eyes and focused on her breathing, focused on slowing down her racing heart. “The idea that he killed himself because of me-”

“It wasn’t because of you!”

“I meant, because of his feelings for me. That he’d be depressed enough to kill himself because I didn’t love him.” Her voice cracked. “But I should never have asked him to help in the first place. I should have gone to Kate or Dillon-or anyone in the FBI. I don’t know why-”

“Because you didn’t know what was going on. You were protecting people you believed were innocent.”

“And Cody is dead because I was worried about Fran.” Her anger leaked out in her voice. “I hate her! Even if she didn’t pull the trigger, she had to have known. How could she do that to Cody? The time and energy he gave to WCF. And now-damn!” Her voice cracked again and she shut her mouth.

“There’s one more thing. Cody wasn’t stalking you.”

She shook her head. “Wh-what?” It made no sense. “But the flowers-you talked to the florist.”

“The FBI proved that the same man who wrote the fake suicide note also wrote the card from the florist. They compared it to handwriting known to be Cody’s, and there’s no way he could have written either the card or the suicide note.”

“But the florist-”

“Noah thinks Mallory planned everything. That since Cody was investigating Prenter’s murder, if he discredited Cody in your eyes by making it seem like he was stalking you, either you’d believe Cody really had killed Prenter or you would have nothing more to do with him. They were trying to protect their operation.”

“He died for nothing?”

Sean pulled her head down to his chest. At first she resisted, then she let him hold her. She didn’t cry. She had no more tears. Her head ached from her grief, and sitting here with Sean helped.

Slowly, the tension eased from her body. When she could breathe normally and her heart stopped racing, she looked up at Sean. “I need to go.”

“You don’t-”

“I have to go home and shower and get ready for Cody’s prayer service.”

“I’ll go with you.”

“No-I need to go alone.”

“I don’t think you should be alone.”

“Cody’s friends will be there. Family. I won’t be alone.”

“But-”

“Everyone’s in prison. Mallory, Fran-”

“I’d still feel more comfortable if I could keep my eye on you until we know for sure the FBI arrested all the players.”

“You can drive me if you’d like. The church will be filled with cops.”

“Lucy-”

Her voice cracked, but her eyes were dry. “I believed it was Cody. How could I do that? We were friends. I was with him for nearly two years. And I believed the worst. I let my fear cloud my judgment. I should have known Cody would never do anything to hurt me. He never had before, and yet-I didn’t even give him the benefit of the doubt. I need to mourn for him, and I want to do it alone. Do you understand?”

Sean kissed her on the top of her head and held her close. “I do. I’ll drive you there and pick you up. You won’t leave the church, right?”

“Promise. Thank you for understanding.”