The two guards exchanged glances. One shrugged, then the other.
“Don’t do it again,” pudgier said.
“Bad news, I’m afraid, Mr. Vick.” Jake put on a somber face as he entered interrogation room C. Arthur Vick, still seated in a folding chair, arms crossed on the long table, slowly raised his head. His eyes were rimmed with red, his drawn face the picture of defeat. Coffee-stained Styrofoam shards now littered the table. Someone had torn the cups into pieces, lining up the bottoms in a row of grubby polka dots.
“Huh?” Vick said. He squinted at Jake, blinking as if he’d been asleep. “What happened to the other cop?”
“Shut up, Arthur.” Henry Rothmann leaped to his feet, his metal chair banging against the wall. “What bad news, Detective? Bad news for you, maybe? You admitting this whole thing is a farce? You going to let my client go? The way you should have hours ago?”
Jake closed the door behind him, then stood in front of it. Vick lowered his head back down onto his arms.
“Maybe so,” Jake said. This was risky, and if the whole thing went to hell, there’d be Miranda violations out the ass. It would kill a murder case against Arthur Vick. Jake hoped that wouldn’t matter.
She was roofed up, Patti had said. How’d she know that? The cops kept that secret. Either Vick told his wife he drugged Sellica and killed her, which was pretty damn unlikely, or Patti Vick-scorned wife of the hooker-hiring grocer-about-town-killed the other woman herself.
Vick’s head lifted ever so slightly, only his eyes showing.
“I’m aware that I can’t direct my statement to Mr. Vick, since he’s Mirandized,” Jake continued. “And on the record here, I am not asking him to respond. However.”
He paused, giving his strategy one last gut check. “However, Mr. Rothmann. And I remind you all conversations in this room are taped. Patricia Vick has just confessed to the murder of Sellica Darden.”
“Answer the phone, answer the phone,” Jane said to the darkness as she drove over the Longfellow Bridge, alert for speed traps, headed as fast as she could back to Boston. She’d found a stash of paper napkins in her glove compartment, cleaned off her coat as best she could, wrapped a couple of them around her now barely bleeding hand. It stung like crazy, and she really needed an Advil for her head. She could already feel the lump behind one ear. But she’d live. Which, for a couple of moments there, she’d wondered about.
Those rent-a-guards might call the police about Matt. Good news and bad news-really nothing for them to tell.
Her call kept ringing, the speaker filling the car with the sound. “Come on, Jakey, pick up, pick up…”
The names on that headstone.
Two children. Matt-Lassiter’s son. Could Holly Neff be Lassiter’s daughter? The ages were about right. What was she doing at the campaign? Why was she using a phony name?
Still. Had Matt killed his own sister? But Jake had said-girlfriend. Maybe that’s wrong. Maybe everyone just assumes that. Or believes that. Maybe Holly Neff was Matt’s sister. Owen’s daughter.
The phone rang again. Jane hit the red light at the Charles Circle rotary. Watched the late-night traffic battle for right-of-way around the rain-slicked loop to Mass General and Beacon Hill.
Or. Maybe not. Maybe not Holly. Would she send such a sexy photo-to her own father?
Maybe Owen’s daughter was the other woman.
Jake’s phone went to voice mail. “It’s me,” Jane said after the beep. “I think I know where to find Kenna Wilkes. Matt, too. Call me. Right away. Call me.”
70
“Bull. Shit.” Henry Rothmann poked the air at Jake with each word. “What a cheap, worn-out cop trick. Pitting the Vicks against each other. I demand to confer with my client’s wife. Confirm she really confessed. We’ve been here nine full hours. My client is exhausted. And this is simply-”
“Henry?” Arthur Vick raised a palm.
“Shut up,” Rothmann said. “She had no lawyer, she was coerced, you tricked her, nothing she said will hold up in court. And, Detective Brogan, you just presented my client with an indisputable chunk of reasonable doubt. So they’ll both go free.”
“No.” Vick stood, smoothing his sweater, tucking in his shirt. “No way. Forget it. I’m not going on trial for a murder I didn’t do. I’m not going to rot in prison for this. I didn’t kill Sellica. Yes. My wife did. And I can prove it. What else do you need to know?”
“Arthur, I order you to stop talking,” the lawyer tried again. “They’re trying to-”
“She was jealous of you and Sellica?” Jake’s phone was ringing, vibrating in his jacket pocket. He couldn’t answer it, not now that Vick was spilling. “Your relationship? So your wife was, what, out for revenge?”
“I suppose. Sure.” Vick shrugged. “Patti hated the commercials, hated my life. Swiped those photos from my computer. We were supposed to have a deaclass="underline" I let her paint. I could do whatever.”
“You agree to testify against her?” Jake asked.
“No, a husband cannot testify-” The lawyer tried to interrupt again.
“Can’t be compelled to, as you well know, Mr. Rothmann,” Jake said. “But voluntarily? No problem.”
“Yes, I’ll testify against her,” Vick said. “If I can go now.”
“Not quite yet,” Jake said. “So you had a relationship, a financial relationship with Sellica Darden? Prior to her murder?”
“Yes, yes. Like I said.” He looked at the door, fists on hips. “Can we go now?”
Jake tilted his head back and forth, as if considering. He was actually considering how gratifying this was about to be. He had taken an oath to protect and defend. To seek the truth. And here it was.
“Ah, in fact, no, you can’t go,” he said. “Arthur Vick, you’re now under arrest for perjury. For your false testimony in the Jane Ryland defamation trial.”
“Kenna?” Governor Owen Lassiter, back from the Chamber dinner, stood in the open doorway to his private office, one hand on the doorjamb. He took a deep breath. “The back elevator’s broken again.”
Smiling prettily, Kenna looked up from her place behind Owen Lassiter’s important-person desk. Sitting in Owen Lassiter’s important-person chair. She’d dressed for the occasion, formal in a black blazer and sleek white silk blouse, lace camisole, pearls, charcoal pencil skirt, and pricey suede pumps.
“Hello, Governor,” Kenna said. “Yes, we know. And Mr. Maitland says to tell you he’ll be here momentarily. We have something to discuss with you.”
Lassiter turned, looking behind him at what Kenna knew was the empty corridor. She knew Rory was elsewhere, otherwise occupied. And would be for some time.
“This is somewhat of a surprise, I must say,” Owen said. “It’s rather late, Kenna, close to eleven. Couldn’t we chat tomor-?”
Kenna stood, her fingertips touching the glass desktop. She waited, eyeing him, wondering if she ever crossed his mind.
“I’ll take only a moment of your time.”
The governor came into the room, took off his suit jacket, held it by a finger over one shoulder. Gave a half smile. “Well, what can I do for you, Kenna?”
“Something we need to discuss.” She kept her hand on the desk to keep herself from floating away. “You’re dropping out of the Senate race.”
Almost there. Matt made the light at Causeway Street, found a space, locked the car. His heart raced; his face felt hot. He was about to face his father. Face his future.
His life was about to change. About time.