“But look at what we’ve got, Jack-”
He looked up. “Well, let’s take a look at it, Aud. What’s your most damaging lead? The gun? So you’ve got Rinaldi on some case in Grand Rapids, and the same gun in that one turns up here.”
“Which is no coincidence. Rinaldi had a reputation as a bad cop.”
“Now, you’ve got to be careful there. That’s hearsay. Cops are always gossiping, stabbing each other in the back, you know that better than anyone.” He sighed. “No one’s going to let you run with that. If you want to say he took the gun, fine-but you don’t have any proof of that.”
“No, but-”
“Look at it through the eyes of a defense attorney. The same gun used in Grand Rapids turned up here? Well, you think that’s the first time a gun was used in Grand Rapids and here? Where do you think our drug dealers get their guns? Flint, Lansing, Detroit, Grand Rapids. They’ve got to come from somewhere.”
Audrey fell silent, watching him spoon the soft-serve, careful to catch a dollop of strawberry goo in each spoonful.
“Far more likely, in fact,” Noyce went on, “is that some shitbird in Fenwick bought a piece from some other shitbird in GR. Pardon my French, Audrey.”
“But the hydroseed stuff-the soil match-”
“That’s an awfully slender reed to hang a first-degree murder on, don’t you think?”
She felt increasingly desperate. “The cell phone call Conover lied about-”
“Again, maybe he really did get the day wrong. Audrey, I’m just being devil’s advocate here, okay?”
“But Conover’s own security system-the video for that night was erased, and we can prove it.”
“You can prove it was erased, or you can prove the tape recycled? There’s quite a difference.”
Noyce had clearly been talking to Kevin Lenehan. “You have a point,” she conceded.
“Then there’s the fact that both you and Bugbee canvassed Conover’s neighbors, and not one of them heard a shot that night.”
“Jack, you know how far apart the houses are in Fenwicke Estates? Plus, a three-eighty isn’t all that loud.”
“Audrey. You’ve got no blood, no weapon, no footprints, no witnesses. What do you have?”
“Motive and opportunity. A stalker with a history of violence and a handgun who was stalking the CEO of Stratton-”
“Unarmed, as far as we know.”
“Even worse for Conover if Stadler was unarmed.”
“And you yourself told me the guy had no prior history of violence. ‘Gentle as a lamb,’ wasn’t that the phrase you used? Audrey, listen. If you had a solid case against these guys, no one would be happier than me. I’d love to take ’em down for this murder, you kidding me? But I don’t want us to fuck it up. I don’t want us to go off half-cocked.”
“I know we have a case here,” she said.
“You know what you are? You’re an optimist, down deep.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“Anyone who loves God the way you do’s got to be an optimist. But you see, here’s the sad truth. The longer you stay in this job, the harder it is to stay an optimist. Witnesses recant and the guilty go free and cases don’t get solved. Pessimism, cynicism-that’s the natural order. Audrey, did I ever tell you about the case I had when I was just starting out? Woman shot in the head standing in her front parlor, shifty cheating husband, we kept catching him lying about his alibis, which kept changing. The more we looked at him, the more we were convinced he was the shooter.”
“He wasn’t,” she said, impatient.
“You know why he kept lying about his alibi? Turned out he was in the sack with his sister-in-law at the time. This guy wouldn’t own up to the fact that he was cheating on his wife even when he was faced with a first-degree murder charge. He didn’t crack until just before the trial was scheduled, the bastard. And you know what it was killed the wife? Just a random, stray bullet through her open window, a street shooting gone bad. Wasn’t her lucky day. Or maybe that’s what you get for living in a bad neighborhood. What seemed so obvious to us turned out not to be true when we really dug into it.”
“I get it, Jack,” she said, watching him scrape the boat clean, pleased to see that his last spoonful contained equal portions of ice cream and strawberry. “But we’ve dug into it.”
“A crazy guy’s found in a Dumpster in the dog pound, with fake crack on him-I’m sorry, but you’ve got to go with a crack murder as your central hypothesis. Not some white-collar CEO with so much to lose. You know the old saying-in Texas, when you hear approaching hoofbeats, you don’t think zebra. You gotta think horses. And I think you’re going after a zebra here.”
“That’s not-”
“Oh, I know it would be a hell of a lot more intriguing to spot a zebra than a horse, but you’ve always got to consider the likelihoods. Because ultimately your time is limited. Who’s that woman who calls you every week?”
“Ethel Dorsey?”
“Tyrone’s her son, probably killed in a drug deal, right? How much time have you been putting in on that case?”
“I haven’t really had much time recently.”
“No, you haven’t. And if I know you, I’ll bet you feel that you’re letting Ethel Dorsey down.”
“I-” she faltered.
“You’re good, and you have the potential to be great. You can make a real difference. But think of how many other cases are clamoring for your attention. There’s only so many hours in the day, right?”
“I understand.” She was shaken; what he said made sense.
“There’s another case I want you to get involved in. Not instead of this one, but in addition to it. One that will really, I think, give you an opportunity to shine. Instead of just getting bogged down in this dog-pound murder. Now, Jensen’s got the Hernandez robbery trial on Monday, but he’s going on vacation, so I’d like you to handle it.”
“Isn’t Phelps the secondary on that? I only did one follow-up interview.”
“Phelps is on personal leave. I need you on this. And the prosecutor wants a pretrial conference on Friday.”
“Friday? That’s-that’s in two days!”
“You can do it. I know you can.”
She was befuddled and most of all depressed now. “You know,” she said in a small voice, “that looks good, what you had. What do I ask for?”
93
Marta came to the front hall, holding a dish towel in wet hands. No doubt she’d heard the little double beep of the alarm system when he opened the door. Somewhere in the background were peals of girlish laughter.
“Something wrong?” Nick asked her.
Marta shook her head. “Everything’s fine,” she said huffily, her tone implying the exact opposite.
“Is it Luke?”
Marta stiffened. “Miss Stadler invited herself over.”
“Oh,” Nick said. “That’s fine.”
Marta shrugged unhappily. It wasn’t fine with her.
“Is there a problem, then?” Nick asked. What was with this Mrs. Danvers act, anyway?
“It’s just getting hard to keep track of who’s in the family and who isn’t, these days.”
It was an invitation to a heavy conversation; Nick silently declined.
In the family room he found Cassie, in an oversized Stratton T-shirt and black jeans, sitting with Julia, who was wearing an outfit Nick hadn’t seen before, a turquoise velour tracksuit. Very J. Lo. The word “Juicy” ran across her butt.
He stood at the threshold and watched, unnoticed.
“There’s nothing dirty about it,” Cassie was saying.
“Dirty pillows!” Julia said, in silly mode. “Dirty pillows!”
“You get older, your body changes. Boys seem less yucky. You start to feel more private about your body. Everyone goes through it. It’s as natural as granola.”
Julia giggled at that, somehow anxious and pleased at the same time. “I hate granola,” she said.