Chapter 32
For a large man Jack could run fast, even over the broken concrete. Maggie went down once and took a sharp edge to the shin but still lagged behind him by only three long strides as he flung open the trailer door. At that point she had the sense to stop and let the men with the guns take down Connor Scofield. They couldn’t all fit through the narrow opening, anyway.
But past them she saw Connor Scofield on top of Carlyle, punching, and blood on Carlyle’s face. That propelled her up the steps on Riley’s heels. The two detectives peeled Scofield up as if he were a rag doll, and Jack pinned his arms behind him. The young man kicked out once but missed Riley and recovered enough sense to not try it again. Neither detective had bothered to pull out his weapon.
Maggie went to Carlyle, who had already sat up and put a hand to his bleeding nose. “Are you okay?”
He didn’t answer, only looked at his now-bloody hands. As the detectives dragged the less than cooperative Scofield outside, Carlyle pulled his legs out of their path as if the young man were a live snake.
Maggie squeezed past them to snatch a roll of paper towels off the table. She yanked off a wad and put it to Carlyle’s nose. “Does it hurt a lot?”
“No,” his muffled voice said, but not convincingly.
After a few minutes of trying to staunch the flow, she helped him to his feet, feeling the trembling muscles underneath his shirt. Jack poked his head through the door. “You all right?” He looked at Maggie, though the question must have been meant for Carlyle.
The man in question nodded, reddening paper towels bunched against his face. “Peachy.”
* * *
At the station Maggie stayed with her unofficial charge, and Jack and Riley sat down with Connor Scofield. The boy genius had been cuffed to the table in the small interrogation room, and no amount of appealing to his “brahs” could convince them to bring him a coffee. Jack figured they had caught a glimpse of the real Connor Scofield over the tinny wireless connection from the trailer to the van. Now he had to bring that Connor back.
“Tell us how you killed Diane Cragin,” he began.
The face underneath the shaggy blond hair had a few darkening bruises, and they hadn’t come from the cops. David Carlyle had fought back. Neither that nor the handcuffs had shaken the kid’s confidence, however. He had refused a lawyer and promised to tell all, speaking earnestly as if to show they were all on the same side, to schmooze them into seeing things his way.
Jack, of course, didn’t buy it for a minute.
“Dude, I didn’t kill anyone! I only told the EPA loser that to scare him into changing his report for me.”
“After attempted bribery didn’t work,” Jack pointed out.
“I’d never have done that, either. I was desperate, dude. StartUp Central is, like, crumbling before my eyes before it even broke ground, and this city needs it so bad! I couldn’t let some guy who counts blue jays for a living ruin it.”
“Or a senator.”
“I didn’t do a thing to that lady. I don’t even know how she died.” He sniffled, but not from emotion. His eyes were drought-dry.
“Let me explain something, Connor,” Riley said. “May I call you Connor?”
“Of course, brah. I got no use for formality.” He sat back, letting his shoulders relax. After all, he excelled at this kind of pleasant chat.
What he didn’t know was, so did Riley. “We have you on attempted bribery, aggravated assault, and murder, all recorded and witnessed by police officers and an EPA agent. That means your only chance—your only chance—is to hope that the judge will look kindly on your youth and spirit of cooperation.”
The kid couldn’t help a bit of an eye-narrow at the mention of his age. “I admit that I lost it and went off on the nerd. But I was never going to actually pay him any money to cover up anything—”
“Yet that’s exactly what you proposed.”
“I was talking out my ass! Like I said, I was desperate. But if no money changed hands, there’s no crime, right?”
“Wrong. Just because your mark turned you down doesn’t make it less of a bribery attempt. Tell us how you killed her.”
“I didn’t! Like I told you, I only said that to scare the guy. And it worked.” He paused for a smirk. “You should have seen his face. Eyes got all big. I really thought he’d cave.”
“But he didn’t.”
“Amazing,” Scofield admitted, giving credit where it may be due.
“That’s the problem with thinking that you’re smarter than everybody else,” Riley told him. “You tend to underestimate your opponent. And now we’re left with this: You are the only one with a motive to kill the senator.”
“Oh, come on! She’s a politician. Everyone has a motive to kill them. If you ask me, Joey did it. Hate to speak ill of the dead and all, but he had way more motive than me. With her out of the way, the election would be a cakewalk. He said that to me, right after he told me she was dead. A cakewalk. Whatever the hell a cakewalk is, anyway.”
“A half-hour ago you told David Carlyle that she had been working with Joey Green. Against you. Sounds like you had motive to kill both of them.”
Scofield slumped a millimeter or two, not so chatty on this aspect.
Jack asked, “What made you think Green and Cragin had joined forces?”
“Because the other bitch told me so.”
“Who?”
“Her flunky. Kelly Henessey.”
* * *
Maggie found herself in front of the bare-chested David Carlyle for the second time that evening. She had gotten a fresh stack of paper towels, but that turned out to be overkill; the bleeding slowed and then stopped, except for the last oozes of red liquid, now faint smears against the white towels rather than the bright red spots they had been. She had enough from the trailer that they had made the trip back to the station without getting any blood on her clothes, or any more on his. She couldn’t be sure about the police van but did not intend to fret; surely that van had seen much more blood spilled than this in its day.
“How does your nose feel?” she asked Carlyle.
“A little sore,” he admitted. “But it’ll be okay. It always bleeds like this, ever since I was a kid.”
She pulled the duct tape off his back to release the wires, using the same technique as with painter’s tape—peeling at an acute angle with a steady pace. But no technique could make it painless, and his muscles rippled under the skin. Behind him, where she could sound more objective, she said, “That was brave, you know.”
He made a comment that sounded like “Meh.”
“It was. This isn’t your job and you’re not trained for it. You weren’t obligated to do a single thing to bring Connor Scofield down, but you went alone into a situation that could have turned violent—and did.”
He flexed shoulders and twisted his torso a bit, apparently to stretch the now-freed flesh. The duct tape had left angry red lines. “But I wasn’t alone. You were there.”
She came around the front of him. “I’m glad that was a comfort.”
“And this isn’t my first fight, believe it or not. I got into a couple when I was little because, you know, that’s what boys do.” This had a boastful tone until he added, “My propensity to bleed actually helped. I’d start gushing, and the other kids would get so freaked out, they’d leave me alone.”
She smiled for what felt like the first time that evening. But when she saw the nearly adoring cast to his face, she thought better of it.
“Are you okay? Your leg is bleeding.”
The broken concrete had not only bruised her shin but cut through both her pants and her flesh. “Oh, hell. Yeah, it will be fine, but I’d better go wash it out. I’ll leave the recorder here for the detectives to give back to Vice. After that I’ll have to get back to the lab. I have more—” She began to say money but then remembered he probably didn’t know about that. “Stuff to process.”
“Thanks for your help. And . . . thanks for being there.”
“You’re welcome.” She wadded up the used duct tape.
“I really appreciate it.”
“No problem.”
“It would be great—”
“Are the detectives in here?” asked a new voice.
Maggie turned. Collette Minella stood in the doorway to the homicide unit.
She said, “The ones named Renner and Riley. Are they here?”
“They’re conducting an interview right now. Do you need them for something?”
“Just an update as to my aunt’s property.” She entered the unit. Unlike Maggie she seemed perfectly comfortable to stare at the bare-chested David Carlyle, and asked him, “What happened to you?”
“I—I went undercover. Sort of.”
“You a cop?”
“No.”
She grinned. “Good. Neither am I.”
Maggie introduced them, explaining that Collette was Diane Cragin’s niece.
Carlyle told her, “I knew your aunt. I work at the EPA . . . but we didn’t see, um, eye to eye.”
“That happened a lot with my aunt.”
“She pretty much couldn’t stand me,” he admitted.
“Then we have a lot in common.”
Maggie sidled out the door. Glancing back, she saw David Carlyle smile at Collette Minella, a hopeful, tentative look, and Maggie breathed a sigh of something very much like relief.