Loving thrust his fist in the air. “All right! Let’s go, team!”
Christina and Jones followed his lead. “Go, team, go! Win, team, win!”
“Wait a minute,” Ben said. “This is serious.”
They didn’t stop. “Go, go, go! Win, win, win!”
“Hey!”
Christina laid a hand on Ben’s shoulder. “It’s no use. You know how stirred up Loving gets when you do these Knute Rocknesque pep talks.” Jones and Loving continued chanting in the background.
Ben grabbed his briefcase. “While you clowns finish your pep rally, I’m going to visit Mike.”
They continued unabated. “Two, four, six, eight, who do we appreciate? Be-e-e-e-n!”
By the time they got to “Rah-rah, sish-boom-bah,” Ben was halfway to police headquarters.
Chapter 16
BEN PUSHED OPEN THE door bearing the M. MORELLI nameplate and found his friend barking commands into the phone. “And I want it now, which means you’re already late!”
Ben took a seat and waited for Mike to complete his latest effort to increase efficiency through intimidation. At last Mike threw the receiver into the cradle with disgust. “Incompetents!” Mike bellowed. “Be glad you got out of government work, Ben. It doesn’t matter what department you’re in. It’s all just one big miasma of bureaucrats and bullshit. You know what Balzac said.”
“I do?”
“Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies.”
“Right. I knew that.” Ben took the nearest seat. “You don’t seem very jolly this morning. Barrett case giving you headaches?”
“Like you wouldn’t—” Mike paused. “You’re taking his case, aren’t you?”
“Yup. Filed my entry of appearance and everything. How did you guess?”
“Oh, hell, I knew you would the minute you mentioned it.”
“I didn’t.”
“I did. After all, it’s stupid, irrational, fruitless, and almost certain to do you more harm than good. In other words, a case you couldn’t resist.”
Ben smiled wryly. “How’s the investigation going?”
Mike opened his desk drawer and jammed a toothpick in his mouth. He’d been off tobacco for six months, but he still needed the oral security of a wood sliver in his mouth from time to time. “There’s no investigation. We have our man. The evidence says he’s guilty. We’re taking him to trial.”
“And no one is considering any other angles?”
“What other angles?” Mike spread his arms across the desk. “Ben, you know me. I don’t jump to conclusions or try to take the easy way out. There is simply no evidence indicating anything other than the obvious: Wallace Barrett killed his wife and kids.”
“Okay. Tell me about this evidence.”
Mike shook his head. “You’re in the wrong office. Bullock is upstairs.”
“C’mon, Mike, you know how Bullock is. He’s not going to give me anything without making me refight World War Two. We’ll have motions and hearings and it will take days.”
Mike rolled the toothpick to the other side of his face. “Maybe you should sweet-talk him.”
“It wouldn’t help. He seems to be a bit angry with me.”
“He’s angry at you?” Mike’s eyes widened. “I’m surprised you’ll even speak to him, after what he did to you.”
Ben shrugged. “We need to put the past behind us.” Ben scooted his chair closer to Mike’s desk. “So anyway, old buddy old pal, what can you tell me about this case?”
Mike glanced at the open door. “What do you want to know?”
“What about the victims? How were they killed?”
“Dr. Koregai can give you more details, but basically, they all suffered fatal knife wounds.”
Ben nodded grimly. Knives would not be the typical weapon of choice for a professional hit man. Of course, that might well be why it was chosen. “Were the bodies moved?”
“Nope. D.R.T.” As Ben knew, that meant they were Dead Right There.
“Have you found the knife? Or knives?”
Mike shook his head no. “And frankly, we don’t expect to.”
“Why not?”
“Well, Ben, there’s a lot of ground between here and that tollbooth he smashed into on the Indian Nation Turnpike.”
“When I was in the Barrett house, I didn’t notice all that many signs of struggle.”
Mike shifted his weight uncomfortably. “By the time you arrived, much of the evidence had been photographed and removed. But you’re right. There were a few overturned chairs, vases, a coffee table. But not much.”
“Any prints?”
“Yeah, lots. All family members. Barrett’s prints were all over the place, but I suppose we can’t hold that against him, since he lived there.” Mike paused. “Have you seen the video?”
“Excuse me?”
“The video. It’s easy to get. There are three different versions on the market now. Wallace Barrett’s Flight from Justice. Horror in the Heartland. I forget the other one.”
“No, I haven’t seen it.”
“You’ll want to. It’s very exciting.”
“Do you think the prosecution will use it?”
“Would you?”
Ben nodded. Stupid question. “Anything that suggests a possible motive?”
“Motive might be too strong a word. Theory, I’d say.”
“Okay, what’s your theory, Sherlock?”
Mike paused. “Have you had any discussions with your client? Like about his relationship with his wife?”
“A little. Not much. Why?”
“You … might want to do that.”
Ben leaned forward anxiously. “What are you getting at, Mike?”
Mike hedged. “Again, the coroner can tell you more than I can. But some of the bruises we found on the wife’s face … don’t correlate to the knife wounds.”
Ben felt a fluttering sensation in his gut.
“We’ve had some reports from people who observed Barrett with his wife in public. Parties and such. And a rather detailed report from their neighbor.”
“Mike, you know that any time someone famous is arrested, a thousand would-be talk-show guests crawl out of the woodwork claiming to know something about them.”
“That’s true.”
“Be realistic. Wallace Barrett was a celebrity. If he was a wife beater, word would’ve gotten out.”
“I don’t know, Ben. Sometimes the darkest secrets stay hidden the longest. You know what Charles Churchill said.”
“Intimately.”
“Keep up appearances, there lies the test / The world will give thee credit for the rest. / Outward be fair, however foul within / Sin if thou wilt, but then in secret sin.”
Ben frowned. “Do you stay up late memorizing these things just so you can make me feel inferior?”
“Actually, yes.” Mike flashed a brilliant smile. “It’s my revenge for all those times you blew the intro to my big make-the-girls James Taylor number.”
“Mike, I don’t believe the mayor of the city could keep a history of domestic abuse secret. And I don’t think a jury will, either.”
“I don’t know, Ben. We’ve had 911 calls about alleged domestic disturbances sending us to Barrett’s place twice in the last three years. And then there’s the business about the picture.”
“The picture? What picture?”
“Didn’t you notice? The framed photo smashed against the wall in the living room.”
“What?”
“A picture of Caroline Barrett. And someone smashed it into a million pieces.”
Ben tried not to react. “Anyone could’ve smashed a photo.”