Thursday, August 1, 10:00 A.M.
Where was Torpedo?
It wasn’t often anyone kept Luke waiting, and he didn’t care for the experience. Especially not in his own office. Especially not when he’d invited Faith to join him. His corporate attorneys had insisted Teddy Torpedo Haynes was not just a showboating media darling. He was the best criminal-defense attorney money could buy—never lost a capital case and played exceptionally well with Southwest juries. Luke pushed a hand through his hair. This asshole better be good because he was wasting Faith’s time as well as Luke’s.
The door to the conference room in his downtown business suite swung open.
Swallowing his irritation, he got to his feet and offered his hand to Teddy Torpedo Haynes. “I’m Luke Jericho. Call me Luke.” He inclined his head toward Faith, who’d also risen. “That’s Faith Clancy, my brother’s psychiatrist. Call her Doctor if you don’t mind.”
“Oh, I don’t mind a bit. I’m Teddy Haynes but y’all can call me Torpedo.” The squat, well-fed attorney pulled his black Stetson off in a backward sweep, revealing a strawberry blond comb-over. The combination of hair spray, Stetson, and male-pattern baldness left some patches of hair glued flat to his scalp while others stuck straight back behind his ears like Winged Mercury.
“Any relation to Richard Racehorse Haynes?” Faith walked over and shook the Torpedo’s hand.
“Not far as I know. But winning in the courtroom is in my DNA just the same as it is in his, so never you mind the technicalities.” Torpedo hooked his black Stetson on a coat pole in the corner of the conference room and took a seat at the head of a table that seated twenty.
That was Luke’s seat. Once again, he swallowed his gall. The only thing that mattered was Dante. “Shouldn’t you be wearing a white hat? For the jury’s sake?”
“I don’t see a jury in here, son. So no, I’ll let my true colors show.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Luke caught a definite rise in Faith’s eyebrows.
“And this pretty little filly”—Torpedo winked at Faith—“knows a jury would pick up on a cheap trick like that anyway. I got a better one up my sleeve.” He proceeded to swing his arm wide, knocking Luke’s cup off the table and dousing himself in cold, black coffee. “Now that little stunt will buy the jury’s sympathy for sure.” He ripped off his Gucci jacket and tossed it on the floor. “Poor Torpedo, he’s a walking disaster. I hope his client’s innocent. Hate to see him have to lose the case on top of being a boob.”
Haynes was known for his theatrics both inside and outside the courtroom, and apparently Luke and Faith were going to get the full dog and pony. Which was no problem just as long as Torpedo made good on his promise to bring Dante back home where he belonged and wipe the Jericho name clean. If the Torpedo could do that, Luke didn’t give a flying fuck about the man’s hat size.
Torpedo rubbed his hands together. “Shall we get down to business then?” He motioned a stay-put to Faith and Luke, who’d both gotten up to clean up his mess. “You got people for that, son.” He thumped a microphone on. “Testing, testing.”
Faith reseated herself and openly rolled her eyes. “We can hear you perfectly well without the mic.”
Torpedo shrugged and clicked off the microphone, plopped his bared elbows on the table. “First thing you should know is my courtroom skills are every bit as good advertised.” He pounded his chest with one fist and made a sound reminiscent of hocking a loogie. “Trust me, the jury loves a common man. They’re pudding in my hands.”
“You mean putty?”
“Whatever. The point I’ll make is this.” His tone changed here, and he pulled his shoulders back, looking shrewdly at Luke, his beady black eyes suddenly gleaming with intelligence. “You don’t want me to prove myself in the courtroom. If I’m really earning my keep, this case won’t get that far.”
Up until this very minute, Luke had been seriously doubting his choice of counsel. But if this guy was good enough to trick him into believing he was a poor Country Joe, no telling what he could do with a jury. He wasn’t sure he liked the Torpedo, but he decided right then and there he was going to have to trust him. “Okay. How do we accomplish that?”
“First, it would help an awful lot if we could establish an airtight alibi for your brother for at least one of the murders. If we can eliminate him as a suspect in even one case, it casts grave doubt on the validity of each and every one of his confessions.”
“That shouldn’t be hard; I mean, assuming he’s innocent, he should be able to account for his whereabouts in at least one of the four cases,” Faith said.
Torpedo pulled a toothpick from his pocket and stuck it between his teeth. As he spoke the toothpick pumped up and down. “That might be true in most cases, but I’m afraid in this situation there are some complicating factors. For one thing, the guy’s a loner—that means he spends a lot of time alone.” Chortling at his own joke, Haynes almost choked on the toothpick.
“My brother’s innocent. And he’s not always alone.” Luke’s mind went to the prostitute he’d caught Dante with at the casita. There were bound to be others. Maybe one of the women could vouch for his brother. Luke dragged a hand across his face and forced himself to smile. He knew what language Torpedo spoke, because he spoke it too—money. “If you need funds for a PI to help locate . . . and motivate . . . witnesses, it’s no problem.”
“If money were a problem, I wouldn’t be here. It’s a given you’ll provide whatever I need.”
Luke wheeled his chair back from the table, crossed his arms over his chest. “Whatever you need.”
“Good.” Torpedo spit his toothpick at the trash and missed. “Now then, the complicating factor I was referring to is time, not money, and I don’t mean ordinary time. I mean time of death. You see, there isn’t one. Not really. No one can say exactly when any of the victims went missing, and the bodies were found at least several days postmortem. So the medical examiner had no physical indicators to establish a tight time of death.”
“You mean like liver temperature and rigor mortis.” Faith frowned, her eyes darkening with concern for Luke’s brother. He touched his heart to signal his appreciation for that concern, but she kept her attention focused on the attorney.
“Yep.” Haynes nodded.
“What about social media?” Faith started taking notes on the tablet she’d brought with her.
“You’re on the ball there, darlin’. You sure you haven’t done this kind of thing before?”
Luke didn’t follow, but before he could ask, Faith turned to him, and explained, “Two of the victims were teenagers.”
“Which makes this whole situation even more horrifying, but I don’t see what that has to do with establishing time of death.” He rubbed his eyes, his head beginning to ache, his impatience with the showboating Haynes growing greater by the minute.
Torpedo took back the reins. “These days, our best markers for time of death are social-media-related. Too true. Too true. When was the last tweet or Facebook post? Last text message sent? Teens today text almost continually while they’re awake, even while they’re in a classroom or at the movies. So Dr. Clancy is onto something. The tightest timeline we’ll get will likely come from Ken and Nancy. But there’s still going to be a large window of opportunity to cover. Unless your brother can account for his whereabouts for the entire window, we’re shit out of luck.”
Luke snapped a pencil. He was no longer willing to let Teddy Torpedo Haynes run the show. “My brother is an innocent man. He wouldn’t harm a fly, much less brutally murder four people. He’s simply not capable of such an act.”
“I’m not saying we’re not going to try. I’m just saying—”
“Shut up, Teddy. I’m not done talking.”
Teddy’s head jerked a nod.
“Now then, as I was saying. My brother is innocent, and I’m not paying you to sit there and spit toothpicks and tell me all the reasons you can’t prove his case. I’m paying you to figure a way. So do your damn job or get the fuck out of my office.”
Torpedo’s mouth flattened. “I hear you, and believe me, I intend to deliver on my promise. I’ve never had a client convicted of murder, and I don’t plan on breaking my streak now. I’m not saying I won’t work the angles. I’m just saying that even if your brother is innocent, it won’t be easy to bulletproof his alibi. So we need more angles. You can never have too many angles going at once.”
“Keep talking.” Luke got to his feet and went to stand about an inch in front of Haynes.
“I’ll get my team working the alibi, but in the meantime, the best thing for your brother would be to convince him to recant his confession.” Haynes flicked his gaze to Faith, eyes all over her in a way that made Luke want to grab him by the collar and kick him back to Texas, where he came from. “And that’s where, you, Dr. Clancy, come in. Long as you’re on our side, that is,” Haynes said.
Her face reddened, and Luke’s fingers flexed. Maybe he’d take Torpedo by the collar after all.
“Are you suggesting I won’t do everything I can to get to the truth—to help my patient?” Faith sat straighter in her chair.
“No offense, Dr. Clancy, but getting to the truth and helping your patient may not turn out to be one and the same. You and I are not in the same position. An attorney advocates for his client. That means my job here is to do anything and everything I can, short of breaking the law”—his face screwed up as if it pained him to admit to any scruples whatsoever—“to get my client, Dante Jericho, off the hook. His guilt or innocence is not my concern. You, however, most likely would not wish to do anything to help a guilty man go free.” He waved his hand in the air. “Which is fine. In fact, it makes you a damn good consultant. You’ll have all kinds of credibility with the jury. But before I send you in to talk to Dante as my agent, I need to know which side of the fence you’re on.”
“I’m on the truth side.” Her eyes rose to meet Luke’s even though she spoke to Haynes. “I don’t believe Dante’s confession is factual. I don’t think he killed those people.”
“That’s good,” Haynes said. “Then you’ll likely work harder to get him to see reason and recant. And now more than ever we need him to take back that goddamn confession.”
“How can he be in any more trouble than he’s in now?” Faith asked.
Luke braced his hand on the edge of the conference table, dreading the answer he knew was coming.
“Last year, there were 345 executions in my home state of Texas.”
“But New Mexico doesn’t have the death penalty.” Faith came halfway out of her seat.
Luke kicked his chair and sent it spinning across the room. It hit the opposite wall with a loud thud. “One of the victims, Kenneth Stoddard, disappeared from Amarillo. The body turned up a week later in Lubbock.”
For the first time, Haynes dropped his eyes like he gave a damn. “If you can get Dante to recant his confession, Dr. Clancy, it’d be a big help. Texas wants their piece of the Santa Fe Saint. They’re already making noises about extradition. Dante respects you. He trusts you. So you gotta let him know it’s his life on the line. All or nothing. We’re not talking life in prison. Get him to take it all back, and you just might save an innocent man’s life.”