“You—you said they were killed in a traffic accident.”
“They were. It’s bad news when a truck comes at you in an intersection. Particularly if someone has drained most of your brake fluid.”
“I can’t believe it. I—can’t believe it.” Ben knew he was babbling, but he couldn’t think of anything else to say. It was as if his brain was frozen and nonfunctional.
“Oh hell, honey, you haven’t heard the worst of it.” She turned toward Andrea. “Should I tell him?”
Andrea shook her head.
“Aw, come on. I want to.”
Andrea continued shaking.
“Spoilsport.”
“Tell me what?” Ben bellowed.
“I’m sorry, Andrea, but I just can’t hold this back any longer.” She leaned forward eagerly on the sofa, providing an ample display of cleavage. “I’m the one who planted the knife in your office.”
“What!”
“You heard me.”
Ben grabbed the edge of the kitchen counter, trying to steady himself. It was all too much, too impossible. “I could’ve been convicted of murder! I could’ve been disbarred! Why in God’s name would you do that?”
“To throw the dogs off my scent, dearie. I knew you’d never be convicted of anything. And I also knew that if they found the murder weapon in your office, you—and maybe others as well—would be convinced someone was trying to frame me. See, I knew about the Blue Squeeze. Contrary to what you proved in court”—she giggled a bit at that one—“Andrea wasn’t behind the police harassment. Why should she want to hassle me? It was all that bozo Matthews’s idea, trying to prove his manhood by deifying his former partner. But once we knew about it, Andrea figured we could use it to muddy the waters. To create more reasonable doubt. And to make you more certain than ever that I was innocent.”
“So you put the knife in my file cabinet?”
“Of course. And I phoned the anonymous tip to Matthews. Think about it, Ben. Who else would have that thing? It was my knife, after all. Happily, I didn’t leave it in my apartment, so the cops didn’t find it. I had that much sense. But I knew where it was. I retrieved it and planted it on you. Brilliant, huh?”
Ben found himself barely able to speak. “And—and you don’t have any … regret?”
“I’m proud to say that I do not. Now, Andrea, here, is another story.”
Andrea gave her a silent, cold glare.
“Andrea has a bit of a whiny streak. She says she wanted to punish Joe, not to kill him. She didn’t approve of mutilating his body. Wah, wah, wah. She says I seduced her husband, then I seduced her. Made them both do horrible things they should never have done. She says I ruined her life.” She scooted closer to Andrea on the couch. “But you still love me, don’t you, Andrea? That’s what you hate most. You despise yourself for it afterward, but you just can’t resist me.” She pressed her body against her collaborator. Andrea hesitated, but soon her lips were locked with Keri’s for a protracted kiss.
Ben pushed himself away like a man recoiling from a monster. Which he was. “You lied to me. You lied to everyone.”
“I’m afraid that is correct.”
He moved toward the door. “If you think I’m going to keep quiet about this, you’re wrong.”
“You have no choice. You can’t say anything.”
“Watch me.”
“Settle down and think for a minute, Mr. Crusader. What are you going to accomplish here? No one can touch me. As you said yourself, I cannot be retried for the same crime. Never again.”
“They could go after your accomplice, then.”
“Andrea? Based on what? The hearsay ravings of a defense attorney? Which they can’t use in court? I don’t think so. Besides, you know as well as I do that after the D.A. loses a case, they never bring charges against a different defendant. Because to do so would be to admit they were wrong the first time. That they were trying to convict an innocent person. No D.A. is going to do that—certainly not Mr. Politico LaBelle.” She leaned back into the soft sofa. “Face it, Ben—it’s over. If you go flapping your mouth, the only thing you’ll accomplish is getting yourself disbarred.”
Ben’s jaw was clenched so tightly he could barely speak. “I can’t let you get away with this.”
“Uh-huh,” Keri said, bored to tears. “Honey, you don’t have any choice. Tell you what. When you figure out how to get back at me, be sure to give me a ringy-dingy. I’ll be somewhere in the Bahamas, improving my tan.” She laughed, then waved her hand in the air. “Oh, stop quivering in your boots like some outraged moron. You screwed up and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it. So pack up your moral outrage and leave already.” She turned back toward Andrea, her lips parted, her eyes wide and hungry, running her fingers through Andrea’s lustrous black hair. “And close the door behind you.”
51
BEN SAT IN HIS car, staring at the open window on the third floor of the apartment building. His brain was a blur. All the thoughts, revelations, surprises, kept whirling through his head, spinning around him, making him dizzy with disappointment, and worst of all, the inescapable knowledge that he had made a total fool of himself. How could he possibly be so stupid?
Every so often, he would see one or the other of them float past the window. He couldn’t tell what they were doing. Packing, maybe. Having dinner. Having wild and passionate sex. The possibilities were endless.
At one point, he saw Keri’s barely clad figure come to the window, stop for a moment, grin, then move on. Did she know he was there, watching? Was Keri intentionally taunting him, flaunting the fact that there was nothing he could do to stop her? Probably not, but it was making him crazy, just thinking about it.
He pressed his fingers against his temples. He couldn’t keep this bottled up any longer. He had to tell someone. But who? What Keri had said was right: the attorney-client privilege protected everything she’d said, not only the parts that incriminated her, but the parts that incriminated Andrea as well. He couldn’t tell anyone—
Except someone who was inside the privilege. He had a partner now, by God. A member of the firm. She couldn’t tell anyone else, but he could tell her everything.
But how? He didn’t want to stop watching the apartment. He had to make sure Keri didn’t blow town, had to follow her if she did. If she left that apartment, chances were she’d be gone forever.
Slowly, carefully, he considered all the possible options, weighing the ramifications of each.
And then he remembered his mother’s Christmas present.
He popped open his briefcase and pulled out the small metallic gray Palm Pilot. He typed out a message to Christina on the little keyboard. Then he transmitted it to myFax.
After he was done, he turned off the electronic gizmo and put it back in the briefcase. It must be true that confession is good for the soul, he mused. By no stretch of the imagination did he feel good. But he did sense the tiniest alleviation of the awful aching in his gut. The disquietude that ravaged his brain was easing—only a little, but enough that he could almost think clearly.
His eyes, however, remained focused on that third-floor window. He settled back into the seat and waited for his message to be received.
“Ben?”
Mike stepped through the glass doors that led to the main lobby of the office. The doors were locked but fortunately, Ben had given him a key some time ago, when they were working together on an Internal Affairs case.