Mallory stood up and moved quickly to Charles. She used force to pry his fingers off the gun, and then she closed her hand over his to stop the finger from its spasmodic firing of a gun that was no longer there.
Charles’s eyes were locked with the boy’s. Justin was still and quiet, turning his eyes away from Charles to look inward. And it was only a little disturbing that he pouted like a real child, an angry child.
Martin was standing over the hogtied Kipling. ‘Is he dead?’
‘No,’ said Mallory. ‘He fainted when the gun went off.’
Riker and Mallory exchanged words without words. Do I know my perps? she asked with only the lift of her chin. Damn straight, he said with one thumb up.
Martin was fishing out his cuffs.
‘Naw,’ said Riker, putting up one hand to stay Martin. ‘I don’t think the cuffs could improve on Mallory’s knots. Let’s carry Kipling out through the lobby like that.’
Martin grinned. ‘Yeah, I like it.’ Now Martin stabbed his finger at the blood splatters on the carpet. ‘So, who took the hit?’
His answer was crawling slowly across the rug, pulling itself along by its front paws, crying and making its way to Mallory. At last, it lay at her feet, bleeding on her white running shoes.
‘What happened to the cat?’
‘I didn’t do it,’ said Mallory.
‘Mallory, you’re going to love this.’
Betty Hyde slipped the video cassette into the VCR. The picture was of the judge on the steps of the Coventry Arms. He was flanked by an escort of two uniformed police officers. A young woman reporter was thrusting a microphone in his face and asking him if it was true that the district attorney was planning to exhume the body of his mother.
Then the judge advanced on the woman. One fist knocked the microphone out of her hand and the other fist was flung at the cameraman. The camera lay on the sidewalk shooting the feet of the officers scuffling with the feet of the judge, dragging him back from the feet of the woman reporter. The audio portion was a woman’s screams of’You’re hurting me, you son of a – ‘.
‘About that police escort with the judge,’ said Hyde. ‘I don’t suppose you could explain that?’
‘I’m not sure,’ Mallory lied. ‘I heard a rumor that some ME investigator implicated a detective in an extortion racket. I think they just wanted to ask the judge if he had any information on the case. But you didn’t get that from me.’
‘Of course not. Thanks for the judge on a platter,’ said Betty Hyde. ‘Not that I’m greedy, but did you dig up anything else that was interesting?’
‘No,’ Mallory lied again as she continued her packing.
‘Well, I did. You were right, Mallory. I was holding out on you. Eric Franz is not blind.’
Mallory pressed out the wrinkle on a T-shirt before she folded it into her duffel bag. ‘Eric Franz told you that?’
‘Oh no, he denied it for several hours. Actually he spent most of that time getting drunk and reminiscing about Annie. That’s the strange part – he really did love her. But the accident was certainly murder if he was sighted, and he didn’t – ’
‘If Franz didn’t confess to you, then where is this coming from?’
‘I told you I have spies everywhere.’
Mallory folded a pair of blue jeans into the duffel and slowly zipped it shut. ‘Arthur, right? He was on duty the night of the crash. Is he the one who told you Franz killed his wife?’
‘Well, no. Arthur doesn’t know Eric can see. He only said that if Eric had been able to see, he could have saved his wife. But Eric’s version of the accident doesn’t match. Eric lied.’
‘How much did you pay Arthur?’
‘Fifty dollars.’
‘Well, you probably got the full treatment. I only gave him twenty.’ Mallory opened the flap pocket of the duffel and rummaged until she found the file she was looking for. ‘Arthur told you he gave the plate number to the police, and they caught the guy in an hour, right?’
‘Right, but – ’
Mallory held up a sheet of paper. ‘This is the accident report. He did give them a plate number, but it was the wrong plate. And they didn’t pick up the hit-and-run driver until 7:00 am. The driver was parked outside of his own local garage, sleeping off the drink, waiting for the shop to open so he could have the dent removed from the fender. There was still blood on the car. A meter maid caught him.’
‘But Arthur described – ’
‘And did he tell you the part about the little silver Jaguar? It was a gray Ford. Nothing like a Jag, but it makes a better story for the money.’
‘He saw a fight between the Franzes.’
‘Across the street? I don’t think so.’ She selected another sheet of paper from the file. ‘This came off his optometrist’s computer. Arthur does fine for the first twelve feet – without his glasses. So all you’ve really got is a case of the blind contradicting the blind. But even if Arthur’s vision had been 20/20, it probably would have been the same story. Any cop could have told you eyewitnesses are the least reliable evidence you can have. If your case hangs on a witness, you’re dead meat in a courtroom. And the testimony you have to pay for is the worst. I don’t think you’d make it as a detective. Don’t give up your day job.’
‘I’ve been had, haven’t I? You steered me into Eric Franz to keep me away from Kipling, didn’t you?’
‘You’ve got the judge’s head, and you’ve got an exclusive story on Amanda’s murder. So you don’t have anything on Eric Franz. Two out of three isn’t bad.’
‘I owe you one, Mallory.’
‘You owe me a lot more than that. If you’d printed any of that crap on Franz, you’d be in the middle of a lawsuit and looking for another job.’
Out on the sidewalk, Eric Franz stopped a moment to talk to her. He lowered the dark glasses and stared at her as a sighted person would do. His face looked sleep starved and pained.
‘I understand we have some business to transact. I gather the computer messages were yours? You’ll be contacting me again?’
‘No,’ said Mallory. ‘We have no business, you and I. I don’t think we’ll ever meet again.’ She pulled out her shield. ‘I’m only a cop, and you didn’t break any laws.’ None that she could prove. He was just a little crazy. Charles could explain it better – he was good at guilt.
She had neglected to mention to Betty Hyde that the doorman had been wearing glasses that night. Arthur had only made all the mistakes of the average eyewitness with good eyesight.
The doorman had seen the lights of the oncoming car shining on Eric’s face. In that bright light, the doorman would have seen the proximity of the man who watched his wife cut down in the street. Like Cora, Arthur had witnessed a murder without realizing it.
But it was not the cold-blooded murder that good cases could be built around. It had been a crime of passion just as surely as if he had caught her in bed with another man and shot her dead. There were moments in everyone’s life when they should not have a gun in their hands. She had understood the moment of the kill. Eric Franz had been presented with two thousand pounds of speeding metal. And for lack of a warning, Annie Franz had died.
Mallory watched the faux blind man walk away with his dog. She would always wonder what it was like to live in that charade of darkness, unable to leave it for an unguarded hour. It had crossed her mind to finesse him into a breakdown, but what would be the point? What fresh hell could she have added? And what for? The man was doing his own version of hard time.
Markowitz would have let Franz walk away. She wasn’t sure how she knew that, but she knew.
EPILOGUE
Jack Coffey had seen the tape version of Judge Emery Heart attacking a reporter. Who had not? It had run continuously on all the news channels for the past five days.