The Letter Of The Law

CHAPTER 19

Casey looked at her watch and hurried through the garage. It was Friday and most everyone else had already gone home. In her rush, she was only remotely aware of the sensation that had made her skin crawl the other day in the garage. She scanned the area as she went, but then took her eyes off everything around her as she struggled to fit the key into the door of her Mercedes sedan. After tossing her briefcase onto the passenger seat, she slid in and started the engine.

On her way up the ramp, Casey glanced into the rearview mirror. A figure dashed across her field of vision and her heart froze. She jammed on her brakes and turned around. There was nothing. Was her mind playing tricks on her? She waited and even considered going back, but it was too creepy down there, so she told herself it was nothing and went on with tires squealing through the turns until she pulled up out of the garage and into the evening light.

She already knew about Frank Castle. It was all over the news. She couldn't let that scare her. An attorney had to expect things like that to happen. As a prosecutor, she had received threats as a matter of course. Since she'd been doing defense work, she hadn't had such a situation. Now, she needed to call on the rationale that every prosecutor repeated to herself, talk was cheap. Criminals rarely followed through on their vengeful desires. You were more apt to be struck by lightning.

Still, as she drove along she turned the situation over in her mind. The image of Donald Sales's last hateful stare filled her mind. It had to be him who killed Frank Castle. It was him… or it was Lipton. Lipton's confession echoed through her mind. Had it been a sick joke or was it really true? But why would Lipton kill Frank Castle? Only Sales had reason for that.

And if Sales would go to the trouble of hunting down Frank Castle, couldn't he be watching her as well? Casey shivered involuntarily and checked her rearview mirror again. There was nothing there outside the normal evening traffic. Casey thought about the guard gates that protected her community and the extensive alarm system in her home. She was safe. With disgust, she turned her mind to Taylor. They had spoken only briefly during the day, and he had brushed off the news about Frank Castle the way he did everything else. Casey imagined what it would be like to have a man who hurried home from halfway across the world to make sure she was all right. Didn't she deserve someone like that? To be sure, there had been men in her life who would have reacted that way.

When she got home, she changed out of her work clothes, then took a steak from the freezer. While it defrosted in the microwave, she steamed some broccoli. When the meat was ready, she put it on a plate and took it out back to the grill that was built into the stone bar beside the pool. Casey relished a good steak and she didn't mind cooking it herself. Growing up, steak had meant chuck steak, a cut of meat so tough your cheeks were sore the next day from chewing. One of the things she enjoyed most about being financially comfortable was eating well.

As the meat popped and sizzled on the open flame, Casey gazed out across the low shrubs surrounding the pool area to the rippling golf course lake, the lush fairway, and the dusty green hills beyond. Casey took a deep breath of evening air laced with the smell of good steak. The tranquillity of her surroundings sometimes allowed her to relax. She'd come a long way.

She thought back to her girlhood home, a modest farm that revealed its age by a rash of ancient gray wood beneath the pockmarks of peeling paint. She looked back over her shoulder at the towering white edifice she lived in now. Maybe her marriage wasn't as bad as she was making out. Most people had problems. Things were never perfect. She thought of her own mother's devotion to a husband who treated her like a chair. Occasionally, he would take his ease with her. Otherwise, he apparently gave her no thought whatsoever.

They'd never done much of anything together besides eat at the same silent dinner table to begin with, although in the early days there was at least a vitality about them. Her mother's pretty cheeks always seemed flushed with sun or wind, and the muscles in her father's forearms bespoke the sinewy strength of a farmer. But then, as the years passed, each of them went to seed. Her father's belly began to hang over his belt, and as her older brother did more and more of the work, his muscles grew flaccid. Her mother's face grew pale and drawn, and her hair began to fade to a mousy gray as she shrank in stature. It wasn't long before disinterest grew into disdain, at least on her father's part. Casey's lot was better than that anyway. If nothing else, Taylor still had a strong sexual hunger for her.

Casey flipped the steak and in the edge of her vision saw something move. Someone had ducked back into the woods bordering the fairway. She searched the cart path that looped around the water, back to the tee, and then snaked along the fairway through the cluster of trees on the near side of the course. There wasn't a cart in sight. Neither was there a golf bag or anything that would indicate the presence of a golfer who'd hooked his shot into the thick woods on the far side of the fairway. The sun was low in the west but not yet below the ridge of hills beyond the golf course. It still burned brightly yellow, and Casey had to shade her eyes and squint toward the spot in the woods where she was almost certain she'd seen the strange movement.

What she needed was a glass of wine. She was jumpy and overreacting to an emotional few days. She took her steak off the grill and cut the flame. With several glances over her shoulder, she went back into the house, stopping to lock the sliding door that led into the kitchen. She set her steak on the granite bar and dumped the broccoli down on the plate beside it.

From the wine rack she removed a good bottle of merlot, opened it, and poured a large glass. While the wine breathed, she went back to the glass door and peered outside for several minutes. The sun had dropped down below the edge of the hills, and the sky was already beginning to turn a deep postcard pink. Casey took little notice of the sky. Instead, she carefully studied the woods that bordered the fairway.

After a while she turned her attention back to her meal. But before sitting down, she went upstairs and took a small Colt 7mm automatic out of the dresser drawer. She set it down beside her plate and took a long sip of wine. The steak was a little underdone, but she ate it anyway, relishing the taste of blood with her wine. Half a bottle later, with her stomach now full, she began to relax once more.

When the doorbell rang, she jumped. They didn't live in the kind of neighborhood where people made house calls. Each house was on its own small estate. Neighbors naturally afforded one another a considerable degree of privacy. But no one else should have been able to get into the development without stopping at the gate. Security would have called to ask her permission to let them in. Pistol in hand, she cautiously approached the front door. Through the ornate beveled glass in the door, she could make out the shadowy form of a man.

With her free hand on the doorknob she said, "Tony?"

He was the only person she could think of who might be able to get past the security gate without their calling, although even that didn't make sense. The fleeting images she thought she'd seen in the garage and outside came back to her. Whoever it was rang the bell again.

"Tony!" she said as an edge of panic crept into her voice. "Is that you?"

There was a sidelight next to the door that was cloaked in a translucent curtain. Casey wanted to pull the curtain aside and look out, but something inside her didn't want to be seen peering out like a timid mouse by whoever was there. The man rapped his knuckles hard and loud against the wood of the door. Casey started to feel angry now; angry at her fear and angry at the insistence of whoever was out there. She was no coward. She'd grown up literally fighting like a boy. In that moment, she remembered with pride the shock on her parents' faces when she'd been suspended from school for breaking the nose of an insolent boy. If she had to shoot someone to defend herself, she could do that, too, and without hesitation. Against her better senses, she raised the gun, twisted the lock, and yanked open the door with a ferocious look on her face.

"Ms. Jordan."

"Detective," she said, still angry. "Why in hell are you here?"

"Did I shake you up?" Bolinger asked, eyeing the gun with only mild concern. His badge had been enough to get him through the gates. Bolinger had actually tracked Unger down at the clubhouse. To make the agent feel a part of things, he'd filled him in on the details of his investigation into Lipton's computer, including the titillating details about Roman Empire Ltd., before requesting that Unger process a subpoena.

"No. Yes. You didn't shake me up," Casey explained, dropping the gun down to her side, "but I certainly didn't expect to be disturbed by you at home, my home, without warning."

"Well, I don't mean to disturb you," Bolinger said sarcastically. "But my captain wanted me to make sure you knew about Frank Castle and that we're still looking for Donald Sales and I was… in the neighborhood, so to speak."

"I read the papers," Casey said defiantly. Actually, she felt like a fool standing there with a pistol in her big T-shirt and a pair of UT athletic shorts. The last time she'd seen Bolinger, she'd been in a charcoal business suit and heels, and the only thing in her hand was a briefcase.

"That's what I said," he told her, unable to keep his eyes from wandering toward her fine bare legs. "But the captain, he doesn't want something to happen to you and have anyone say that we should have made you aware of the situation so you could… so you could be more alert than you otherwise might be. But I see you're already prepared for the worst."

"Are you trying to scare me, Sergeant?" she asked.

"No. You're already scared," he said placidly. "That's pretty obvious. Has something happened?"

Casey pressed her lips tightly together and considered the detective. Irrational or not, she was scared. She was still shaking from the unannounced intrusion and the connection it had in her mind to the shadowy fears she'd already experienced. She cleared her throat and said, "Would you like a cup of coffee, Sergeant?"

"I've been known to drink coffee," he said, stepping across the threshold and into the house.

Bolinger sat at the kitchen table while Casey put the coffee on.

"That's some view," he remarked, looking out past the pool, across the water, and down the dark green fairway of the luxuriant golf course and the blood-red sky still framing the hills. "I never realized getting criminals off was such a lucrative business."

Casey placed two steaming ceramic mugs on the table and sat down across from Bolinger. "I'm not a lawyer because of the money, Detective. I do it because I believe in it. Our judicial system is the best in the world, the best in the history of the human race."

"Wow. That's pretty good," Bolinger said with a mischievous smile. "Do you think the judicial system was working good when you got Lipton off?"

"I didn't free Professor Lipton." Casey sniffed. "A jury did that. I advocated for him to the best of my abilities. That's what I do. That's what people deserve. I know you're not familiar with it, but it's called the presumption of innocence, Detective."

Bolinger shook his head. "Do you think society deserves to have him running around out there, killing innocent young women?"

"Detective," Casey said, glowering. "I invited you in for a cup of coffee, not to talk about Professor Lipton. I'd like to know what's being done to find Donald Sales. I would think you'd be looking for him.

"But," she added sharply, "I'm only basing that on logic."

Bolinger sighed and took a swig of his coffee. It was the flavored stuff that cost fifteen bucks a pound. He swallowed it fast to get past the taste and thought wistfully about the Dunkin' Donuts he would have to visit on the way home for a cup of coffee. "I'm interested in them both. Hey, look, I don't mean to be callous, but I find it pretty ironic that someone who spends her time helping to set criminals free is now concerned about one that's on the loose."

Casey bit back a caustic response and instead asked, "Is there any particular reason your captain thinks that I have a reason to worry about Donald Sales?"

"I don't know," Bolinger said, considering her carefully. "I guess I haven't thought about it too much. I guess not, really. Sales is probably in Mexico by now, or somewhere."

"But not here?" Casey asked.

"No. Not here."

Casey nodded and came quite close to telling him about the things she'd seen.

"There is something I'd like to ask you about Lipton, though," he continued. "I'd like to know about his legal seminars."

"The Letter of the Law," she said.

"The Letter of the Law?" he asked quizzically.

"The seminars, that's what they're called," Casey told him. "He wrote a book, too. They focus on the nuances of our criminal justice system."

Bolinger took another quick sip and fought back a grimace. "Lipton had a computer that we confiscated when we arrested him last year. One of our people looked at it, but not very hard. I was thinking that he probably kept his business records on that computer. Would you agree with that?"

Casey looked at him blank-faced. "I can't really discuss anything about Professor Lipton with you, Sergeant. You should know that. He's my client."

"I thought he was your client," Bolinger said. "And… if you go by the books, he's been tried and acquitted in the case where you represented him. Technically, you're not his lawyer anymore, and you can talk to me about him and you know it. And you also know that if you have information that could prevent a future crime, you not only can tell me, you're ethically bound to."

"I know the law, Sergeant," she said impatiently.

"He's gone, you know," Bolinger said quietly. "I need to find him, and I'd like to know where it was he conducted these seminars."

"I really shouldn't be discussing any of this," she said.

"Can't you just tell me if I'm right? I mean about his computer. I know you have it. I spoke to Michael Dove. He got it from property and gave it to you when you took the case." Bolinger leaned across the table and dropped his voice in an excited tone, "I'm going to level with you… I don't think Marcia Sales or the girl in Atlanta were the only ones. I think there were probably girls before and… there'll be girls to come."

"Detective, I-"

"No! You just listen to me," Bolinger said, his eyes burning with intensity. "You don't have to say anything, just listen. I've got a feeling that that computer holds the key to everything, where he was, where he's going. Maybe even a list of women he met over the years at these seminars, a goddamn target list!

"That's how these kinds of people do things," he continued frantically. "They don't stop! That job on Marcia Sales was done by someone who'd done it before, probably dozens of times. He took her fucking gall bladder for a trophy, for God's sake!"

Bolinger was boiling over now. He'd been formulating his theory for months, without telling anyone. It had just churned around in his gut fermenting until now. "That's the kind of crazy shit a serial killer does, that crazy connection. She wasn't raped. She was eviscerated! That's bizarre. It's unheard of. He's probably impotent. He gets off on tying up these women lawyers. He tapes them up, that's his way of controlling them, asserting his dominance. Then he butchers them and takes their gall bladders for a memento.

"That's how these sick fucks think, that's how they get started. They kill someone somewhere, and it turns them on in their own sick way, and then they get away with it. When they get away with it once, they keep doing it and every time they get better. Then, they get so good they start to play with you. With the police, I mean. They know how it works by then. They know how to leave a crime scene totally clean. They wear gloves. They wear two layers of clothes and shoes wrapped in plastic bags. Their balls get bigger and bigger until they think they're fucking untouchable.

"I think that's why Lipton killed Marcia Sales. He wanted to prove something, like he could do it in his own backyard and get away with it. He would have, too, if he hadn't hit that woman's car. Even then, he got off. He's free, and he's probably got more balls than ever!"

"And what if you're wrong, Detective?" Casey said with just as much passion. "What if I was right at the trial and it really was Donald Sales? Maybe he's the killer."

"What about the girl in Atlanta?" Bolinger demanded. "Why would Sales kill her? There's no connection."

"Maybe that was part of a different perfect crime, the perfect setup," she argued. "He was infuriated with his daughter, maybe enough to kill her. He hated Lipton for his involvement, and he figured he could kill the girl and blame it on Lipton at the same time."

"And go all the way to Atlanta to do it?" Bolinger asked incredulously.

"It's possible, Detective. It's really possible," she said.

Lipton's own confession was ringing out all the while, clear and keen in the back of her mind. Casey wanted desperately to be right. The idea that Lipton's confession was anything but a sick joke was too horrible to admit without a fight.

Bolinger frowned. "If I could get his records, we'd know. If I could find out where he's been over the past five or ten years, I could check those places for this kind of crime. If we find one that's connected to Lipton, we'll know it's not the father. Lipton didn't know Marcia Sales until she came to school. Sales couldn't have killed someone five years ago to set him up."

"Well, even if you're right," Casey said, "I can't help you. Even if I could help you, I don't have his computer, and when I did have it I didn't even look at it. He just asked me to hold it."

"When did he get it back?"

"The day after the trial," she said.

"Goddamn!" Bolinger struck his palm with a fist. "I knew it. He wanted it back!"

"Of course he wanted it back," Casey snapped. "Anyone would want their computer back."

"No, but right away?" Bolinger said. "First thing you do is get your computer back and disappear?"

"You said he was gone, now you're saying he disappeared," Casey said with concern.

"He has."

"Maybe he's afraid of Sales," Casey suggested hopefully.

"I won't lie to you. I know Sales," Bolinger said, looking at her hard. "He's a dangerous man. I like him, but he's dangerous. I think this trial, what you… what happened to him and to his daughter put him over the edge. He killed Frank Castle, and I'm pretty sure he was the one who shot Lipton. I could never prove it, but it was him. To be honest, I didn't care all that much about what he did to Lipton because I know Lipton killed Marcia Sales and that girl in Atlanta and probably a lot more. Unlike you, I figure sometimes justice needs a little shove. But Lipton lived and now he's free and he's out there and I'm going to get him."

"And Sales?" Casey said.

Bolinger shrugged. "I'll get him, too, if I can."

"If you can?" Casey asked incredulously. "If he killed Frank Castle and shot Lipton, he could be the one that's behind everything."

"You mean the girl in Atlanta, too?" Bolinger scoffed.

"Yes," she urged. "You're right about one thing. There's a killer loose somewhere, a serial killer if that's what you say. And you can go on all you want about Professor Lipton, but it's every bit as likely that Donald Sales is the man you want."

Bolinger looked at her long and hard before saying, "You're trying awfully hard to be convincing… But I wonder…"

He paused, then said, "Are you trying to convince me? Or are you really just trying to convince yourself?"