The whole thing was a crock of shit. “Crock of shit,” Peter said out loud.
“Sir?” the cop said.
“Nothing,” he said. He’d left messages for Brogan and Sherrey, hoping to meet them here this morning. He’d come on his own, before he heard back from them, planning to get the lay of the land before the two detectives or their cohorts tried to fast-talk him out of coming. “You hear back from HQ? About when I can go in? They going to send someone?”
She pointed to the cigarette-pack radio velcroed to her right epaulet. “Negative, sir,” she said. “Sorry.”
Peter wiped the sweat from his forehead, lifted the limp oxford cloth shirt away from his chest, peeled his pants from the toasting Jeep. Standing out here in the heat was a waste of time. Thorley was in lockup, awaiting “further investigation” as the cops put it. Sandoval was in lockup, awaiting arraignment, which still could come this afternoon. Would the judge grant bail for his client? Often they’d allow defendants to post a bond, but the Sandovals had already lost their home to foreclosure. Could the couple ask relatives to put up their houses to get him released? A tough call for all involved.
Might Elliot Sandoval have to stay in jail because he had no home to offer as collateral? The whole thing stunk.
Peter snapped some photos of the exterior of this crime scene with this cell phone, just in case. He dug out a business card, handed it to the cop.
“I’m headed to another appointment,” he said. “If Brogan or Sherrey contact you, can you tell them to call me? No matter when?”
“Will do,” the cop said. He saw her put his card into the pocket of her uniform pants, wondered if it’d see the light of day again.
What stunk even more, Peter thought as he opened his car door, the heat inside blasting him, Gordon Thorley simply didn’t feel guilty to him.
If a client said he was guilty, confessed he was guilty, wanted the justice system to agree he was guilty, what were Peter’s responsibilities?
Peter cranked the ignition, felt the welcome blast of AC. If Thorley was simply a good liar, for whatever reason, then someone else killed Carley Marie twenty years ago. And in that case, someone else, the same person, or maybe someone totally else, killed Treesa Caramona early this morning. Maybe.
Some lawyers, he figured, would do nothing. Take the fee, accept a plea, get the best deal they could, be done with it.
Peter pulled his car away from the curb, and edged into the potholed asphalt of Moulten Road, considering. What if Thorley was-crazy? Or coerced?
Or lying on purpose? Why would someone do that?
There was a legal responsibility, Peter knew, not to perpetuate a fraud on the court. Rule 3.3 in the code of professional conduct: “A lawyer shall not knowingly offer evidence that the lawyer knows to be false. A lawyer may refuse to offer evidence the lawyer believes is false.”
He had a duty to discourage his client from testifying falsely.
He had to take “reasonable remedial measures” if a client lied.
He had to dump Thorley as a client if he persisted in lying.
If Thorley was lying.
Peter flipped on his left-turn blinker, signaling his direction. Wished it were that easy for the other parts of his life-pick a direction, go there. He had one client who insisted he was guilty. The other insisted he was innocent. Who was telling the truth?
He honked at some nut who tried to cut him off, then touched the brake, letting a Volvo get ahead of him. He’d had enough with asshole drivers. He wondered how Jane was, but decided he would call her after this next interview. She didn’t need to be there for this one-that wasn’t part of their deal.
Traffic increased as he hit Highway 93 South. Two hours for this trip, he figured. He’d be there by three. Should he call ahead? Next time he saw a Dunkins’, he’d get iced coffee, make a phone call, and cross his fingers.
Who was telling the truth?
The police didn’t care. Far as they were concerned, they’d caught their bad guys. The press didn’t care-well, maybe Jane did. But guilty or innocent, she could write her story either way.
Right now, finding the truth was up to Peter. And two people’s lives-actually, more than two-depended on it.
Jake hit the Bluetooth as he drove up Melnea Cass Boulevard, a crosstown shortcut to parole officer Richard Arsenault’s house. He’d told his mother he’d be back for the files, given Diva a good-bye pat, and headed for Southie. The news he just heard wasn’t the best for Elliot Sandoval, but that’s sometimes the way the cookie crumbled. The guy shouldn’t have killed Shandra Newbury if he wanted to stay out of lockup. The phone rang once, then again, then he heard the buzz and click that meant Peter Hardesty was not going to pick up. But then a live voice interrupted.
“Hello? Hello? This is Peter Hardesty. Sorry, can you hear me? I’m in the car.”
“Jake Brogan,” Jake said. He stopped at a light, watching cars make illegal left turns onto Mass Ave. Lucky he was on the phone or he’d have nailed them. “You called about getting into Moulten Road? Not gonna happen any time soon.”
Jake could have been nicer about this, but right now he wasn’t a big fan of Towel Man.
“Crime Scene’s still in there,” Jake went on. “And the Sandoval arraignment? That’s on for tomorrow. Courts are closed today, there’s some sort of judge’s meeting.”
He paused, waiting out the unhappy reaction. Didn’t blame the guy, they were keeping him away from Moulten Road, and now he was hearing his client would stay in lockup, overnight, because judges had their little meeting. Win some, lose some, Towel Man. Life was full of disappointments.
“Nothing you can do?” Peter’s voice cracked over the speaker. “I mean, that’s bullshit, the system of justice grinds to a halt because-”
“Yeah, I hear you.” Jake hit the gas, turned right at the high school, and toward the intersection. “But Sandoval is first on the calendar, after the call. Best we could do, according to my guy. So. See you in court.”
Jake clicked off before Peter could answer. He didn’t need to get beat up on the phone by a disappointed defense lawyer. The tox screen showed Sandoval with elevated steroid levels, so that’d explain the guy’s anger. His fingerprints had been all over. He’d lived there, of course, so that was arguably problematic. According to Brian Turiello, the real estate broker, Shandra Newbury had not only shown the Sandovals their home, she’d also hooked them up with her connection in the mortgage department at their bank. A connection who apparently ignored their income-to-mortgage ratio.
The Sandovals wound up over their head, mortgage-wise. And bottom line, Shandra Newbury had arranged it. They’d lost their house. As a result, Shandra’d lost her life.
Losing your house as a motive for murder.
Any jury would believe that. A Sandoval guilty verdict was probably a slam dunk.
Jake checked house numbers, slowing as he hit a narrow cul-de-sac lined by tired triple-deckers with gasping lawns and hanging plants on their last legs.
Fifty-three was the last on the left, Arsenault had told him.
The plastic-coated living room inside doubled as Arsenault’s parole office, a bank of walkie-talkies and an electronic monitoring board taking up much of the space on a makeshift set of cobbled-together veneer shelving. A display screen with a line of green lights glowed like a neon sign in the lower left. Looking more closely, Jake saw each had a name on a color-coded label affixed beside it, printed in shaky felt-tip handwriting, apparently Arsenault’s jerry-built system for keeping track of his parolees. All lights green, all accounted for, Arsenault had explained. At the bottom, one light was red. G. THORLEY, the peeling label said. Red. Gone.
Jake pointed to the red light. “Well, now at least, we know where he is.”