He’s referring to the warrant.
“Not yet,” I tell him. “Want to give me a sneak preview?”
He leans down a little farther, clasps his hands together and rests on his forearms. “Your client’s story didn’t check out,” he says. “She lied to us about where she was last Sunday.”
I keep my eyes on the waves and wait.
“She did go to her club,” the Chief continues, “and she played nine holes, just as she said. But she didn’t eat. She never made it to the grill.”
I turn from the water and look at him.
“Seems she had something else to do,” he adds.
Tommy Fitzpatrick knows me well enough to know I won’t react. He looks out at the waves and apparently decides to move on. “Official cause of death is drowning,” he says to the pounding surf.
I nod, knowing there’s more.
“Secondary to head trauma,” he says.
I feel a tiny surge of hope. Head trauma isn’t inconsistent with a boating accident. It doesn’t necessarily rule out suicide either.
“The body was bound,” Tommy adds. “Wrists and ankles.”
I’m embarrassed more than anything else. Embarrassed by my millisecond of hope. I should know better by now.
CHAPTER 15
Officer Glover lays a hand on top of Louisa’s head as she lowers herself into the backseat of the cruiser. She swats at him. “Don’t touch me,” she says, enunciating her Southern-speak precisely. “Keep your hands to yourself, young man.”
Glover backs away from her, looks first at the Chief and then at Mitch Walker. Mitch pops a stick of gum into his mouth and elbows the Kydd. “She’s a feisty one, hey, Counselor?” He grins and holds out the yellow pack, offering the Kydd a stick of Juicy Fruit.
The Kydd shakes his head. He looks pale, a little bit sick.
The troopers finished the evidence search quickly, filling their crate with items of little significance, as far as I could tell. The notable exception, of course, was Herb Rawlings’s handwritten apology. Officer Holt brought the solitary page from the sunroom, bagged it, and delivered it to the Chief instead of the evidence crate. Tommy Fitzpatrick scanned it quickly at first, then read it over more carefully, and then stared across the room at me. He asked nothing.
The Commonwealth’s lab technicians weren’t so speedy. The duo arrived in time to put an end to my oceanside conversation with the Chief and then spent hours dusting, brushing, and photographing. They scrutinized the entire house, even spent a good chunk of time in the basement. Their efforts struck me as overkill, given that Herb Rawlings perished at sea. The two huddled periodically, compared notes, and then continued their work. Unlike the Chatham cops, the state guys were secretive about the items they confiscated, carrying lidded crates out to their van every half hour or so. They didn’t wrap it up until more than three hours after they’d arrived. And by then, I was worried.
The Chief starts toward his car and slaps the Kydd on the back as he passes. “The DA wants to arraign this afternoon,” he says to me.
The DA seems to be in quite a hurry. The autopsy, the arrest, and the arraignment all in the space of twelve hours. At this rate, I expect she’ll schedule the trial to begin next Monday.
“At open session,” the Chief continues, “unless an earlier slot opens up.”
Open session starts at four o’clock each day in Judge Leon Long’s courtroom. No matter what case is in progress before him, Judge Long adjourns at four to tend to what he calls the “untidy” business of the system: matters no one put on the regular docket because no one saw them coming. Matters like Rinky Snow. And Louisa Rawlings.
The two cruisers back out of the driveway, lights active but sirens mute. Louisa stares straight ahead from the backseat of the lead car. She’s wearing a calf-length beige trench coat, a matching broad-rimmed hat, nylons, and heels. Teardrop diamonds glisten on her earlobes. Her jaw is rigid, her eyes hidden behind Versace sunglasses.
The Chief backs up next. Mitch Walker is in the passenger seat, still grinning and chewing his gum. He waves to the Kydd. The Kydd stares at him but doesn’t wave back.
Just like that, they’re gone. We stand silent for a moment in the oyster-shell driveway, the Kydd seemingly oblivious to the fact that I’m still planning to strangle him.
“Now where were we,” I ask, “before we were so rudely interrupted?”
He stares at me, blank.
“Oh, I know.” I feign a sudden recollection. “You were offering your opinion—your professional opinion, I believe it was—about the course this case is certain to follow.”
His eyes move to his feet—his bare feet.
“Any other opinions you’d like to share?”
He takes a deep breath, looks up at me again, and shakes his head. “What do we do now?” he asks.
I should tell him that we don’t do anything now, that we no longer work on this case, that we disqualified ourselves the minute we got involved with the client.
But I can’t. There’s more to be done than one person can do. And most of it should’ve been done yesterday. I need help and, as always, the Kydd is it.
“First of all,” I tell him, “we establish a few ground rules.”
He nods emphatically. He knows what’s coming.
“If she’s lucky enough to be back in her own home at the end of the day, you aren’t to be anywhere near the place.”
“I know,” he says, still nodding.
“You don’t set foot on this property again unless I’m with you.”
“Okay.” He stares at his feet.
“And no matter where she is, you act as her lawyer, nothing else.”
“I get it.”
“Every word that passes between you two had better be about the case. Nothing else.”
He looks up at me. “I get it,” he says again. “I swear I do.”
His eyes tell me he does.
“Marty,” he says, “would you do me a favor?”
“A favor?” He’s out of his mind.
He swallows hard. “Would you not mention this to Harry?”
Harry. Another problem. I’m silent for a few seconds, as if I’m thinking it over, but I’m not. I already know I won’t tell Harry. Questions about my motive would plague me if I did.
“If he sees anything between the two of you that makes him ask the question, I won’t lie,” I tell the Kydd. “But I won’t bring it up either.”
“Thanks,” he says. “So what do we do now?”
“We split up. You head to the courthouse. Get into lockup if you can. Nobody questions her. Nobody talks to her. She doesn’t utter a word. Not even to the janitor.”
He nods. He knows this drill. He’s done it before.
“And call me if it looks like arraignment will happen before four,” I add. “I’ll keep my cell turned on.”
“Where will you be?” he asks.
“At the Fish Pier. I want to have a word with Taylor Peterson and his crew, if I can find them.” I fish my keys from my pocket and head for the Thunderbird.
When I back up, the Kydd is planted right where I left him. He makes me think of Lot’s wife, after she looked back at Sodom and turned into a pillar of salt. I stop in front of him and roll down my window. “Before you head to lockup, Kydd, remember the rules.”
He squares his shoulders in the morning sunshine, no doubt bracing for a continuing lecture on the Canons of Professional Conduct.
“Lockup’s a lot like the corner grocery store,” I tell him instead. “No shirt. No shoes. No service.”
CHAPTER 16
It’s one o’clock by the time I park in the upper lot of the Chatham Fish Pier. This morning’s sunshine has taken a powder and it seems more like twilight here than midday. I get out of the Thunderbird and the sky rumbles, fair warning of what lies not far ahead. Out over the Atlantic, a single sword of lightning stabs the horizon, Mother Nature’s version of the Nike logo. And as if on cue, large globes of rainwater land on my face and hands.