Her hand was shaking as she spoke into the phone. “Why are you doing this to me?”
“Because I know that you will make the right decision.”
“Don’t be so sure.”
“Don’t be a fool, girl. Your half of forty-six million dollars can buy a lot of grief counseling. So remember, two weeks from today, the first victim falls. If you’re smart, it won’t be you.”
“You’re sick.”
“You’re right. But I’m also right about one thing. If you’re at all thinking that you should do something to save the others, trust me: They aren’t worth saving.”
She thought for a moment, wondering what he’d meant by that, but a moment was too long. There was silence on the line. The call was over. Deirdre put the phone in her purse and walked away from the crime scene, no longer interested in some story about just another body in the back of a van.
Twenty-five
Jack was eager to see what part of the five-year-old investigative file the state attorney was ready to disclose. The judge had given Mason Rudsky two days to turn over anything he’d shared with Deirdre Meadows about the murder of Sally’s daughter, and the government waited until the fifty-ninth minute of the forty-seventh hour to notify Jack that the materials were ready for his inspection. Jack might have busted their chops about stringing things out, except that he’d been busy for two days trying to convince a jury in another case that it really wasn’t robbery if his client took forty bucks and change from the cash register but dropped his wallet on the way out with fifty-eight dollars inside. It was sort of the criminal defense version of net-net economic theory. Didn’t work, at least not where the defendant had left his photo ID and Social Security number at the scene of the crime.
The government’s entire production on the Katherine Fenning murder investigation consisted of one videotape. It was in a sealed envelope with an affidavit from Mason Rudsky in which the prosecutor swore that he’d shared nothing else with Deirdre Meadows. Jack brought Kelsey with him. It was nice to have another point of view.
“What is this?” asked Jack.
A police officer was seated in a folding chair near the door to the conference room. He didn’t answer.
“Excuse me, Officer. I asked what’s on the tape.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m under strict orders from Mr. Rudsky not to answer any of your questions.”
“Then why are you here?”
“To make sure the tape does not leave this room.”
“Seeing how this room has no windows, maybe that’s a job you could do from the other side of the door. My colleague and I would like to be able to talk freely while viewing the tape.”
The cop considered it. “I suppose that’d be okay.”
Jack thanked him and closed the door. Kelsey was examining the videocassette. “Interview of S. Fenning,” she read from the label. “It’s almost five years old.”
Jack said, “Sally’s ex-husband told me they were both interviewed. They must have videotaped Sally’s.”
“Why?”
“It’s a smart thing for law enforcement to do if there’s a chance of getting a nice voluntary confession that will play well to a jury.”
“What would Sally have to confess?”
“Let’s play the tape and find out.” Jack shoved the cassette into the VCR and switched on the television. A horizontal bar blipped across the bright blue screen, followed by snow and static. When it cleared, Sally Fenning was staring straight at them.
The image was the most unflattering Jack had ever seen of Sally. Her eyelids looked heavy, and her skin was pale. A punishing light shining in her face didn’t help. Sally wasn’t the kind of woman who needed makeup to be beautiful, but even a natural beauty had her limits, especially in a head-and-shoulders closeup like this.
“She looks so tired,” said Kelsey.
“Something tells me they didn’t start taping at the beginning of the interview. Looks like we’re several hours into the interrogation.”
“How soon was this after the murder of her daughter?”
Jack checked the date on the videocassette sleeve. “Couple of months, I think.”
On screen, Sally continued to stare into the camera, waiting. Finally, the voice emerged. “Are you ready to continue, Ms. Fenning?”
The focus remained on Sally’s face, and the man’s voice had come from somewhere off-screen. “That’s Rudsky,” said Jack.
“Ready,” said Sally.
“I want to ask a few more questions about this stalker you said was pursuing you. First, can you tell me what he looks like?”
“Not really. I only saw him once, from behind. One night I looked out the window and saw someone running away. I’m afraid I didn’t get a very good look at him.”
“What does he sound like?”
“I’m not sure. Whenever he called, his voice was distorted by some kind of mechanical contraption.”
“Is there anyone you suspect? Any customers at the bar who’ve been bothering you, hitting on you?”
“A bar waitress gets hit on by creeps all the time. Kind of an occupational hazard. Could be anyone, really.”
The camera kept rolling, but there was silence. Sally took a sip of water.
“Ms. Fenning,” said Rudsky, “I have here a report on the results of your polygraph examination.”
Kelsey looked away from the screen and asked Jack, “She took a polygraph?”
“Evidently,” said Jack.
On tape, Rudsky’s voice continued, “The results are interesting, to say the least. Your response to one question, in particular, showed obvious signs of deception.”
“I don’t understand how that could be.”
“Let’s explore that, shall we? The question was this: Have you ever cheated on your husband? Your answer was no.”
“That’s right.”
“You were lying, weren’t you?”
Jack watched the tape carefully. Sally seemed to be struggling as she blinked twice and said, “I can explain.”
“Please do,” said Rudsky.
“It happened before we were married.”
Rudsky’s sarcastic chuckle caused a crackle in the speakers. “How do you cheat on your husband before you’re even married?”
“Mike and I dated exclusively for two years. A few months before our wedding, we had an argument and broke up. I was devastated. I leaned on someone who I thought was a friend, and he…I made a mistake. It wasn’t technically cheating, because Mike and I weren’t married. We weren’t even dating at that particular moment. But in my heart, I felt like a cheater. So I wasn’t lying when I answered ‘No’ to the lie detector question. But I felt like I was lying, so I’m sure that’s what the machine picked up.”
There was silence again, as if Rudsky were trying to make her squirm. Finally, the follow-up question came, “Do you really expect me to believe that?”
“It’s the truth.”
“I’m beginning to wonder if anything you’ve said so far is the truth.”
She tightened her mouth, seemingly defensive. “What do you mean?”
“You claim there was a stalker.”
“There was.”
“But you can’t tell us what he looks like.”
“No.”
“You can’t tell us what he sounds like.”
“No.”
“You can’t tell us anything about him, except that he ‘could be anybody.’”
“I wish I could tell you more.”
“And this started how long before your daughter was murdered?”
“Several months.”
“But you never told the police anything about a stalker until after your daughter was murdered.”
“Calling the police would only have infuriated him.”
“You didn’t even tell your husband.”
“I thought he would make me quit my job, which we couldn’t afford. And I didn’t want him to haul off and do something stupid, like buy a gun. I didn’t want a gun in the house with a four-year-old child.”