Chapter 16

 

Fortunately, the Fort Orange Club was one of those places where half the clientele raised their hands high when one shouted, “Is there a doctor in the house?” Turned out a thirty-something cardiologist heard our calls for help before anyone else. He bounded up the stairs two at a time and immediately began mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and other life-saving procedures, like rapid fire compressions on O’Connell’s sternum using both his hands.

In the end, O’Connell came around, but he was groggy and in pain. EMTs arrived and carted the lawyer off to the Albany Medical Center emergency room where he was immediately tested for cardiac arrest. Surprise of surprises, he didn’t suffer a heart attack so much as he endured a doozy of an anxiety attack. It was also discovered that O’Connell liked his Valium, and he’d only recently run out of his script while staying at the Fort Orange Club. And here I thought he was as pure as Ivory Soap.

It’s exactly how I put it to Miller, who was seated across from Blood and me behind his desk in his Central Avenue office.

“Christ, what a train wreck,” he said, sitting back in his swivel chair, running a hand over his smooth-shaven face. “It’s a good thing O’Connell fainted. His fleeing town would have automatically made him a person of interest if not a suspect.”

“Speaking of persons of interest,” I said, “what’s gonna happen to Long?”

“He took O’Connell’s one-hundred K,” Blood added.

Miller sat up, adjusted the ball knot on his tie so that it looked even more perfect.

“That don’t mean a whole lot to me, Blood,” he said. “What does mean something to me is I gotta let him go even before I get a single word out of him.”

“What do you mean you gotta let him go?” I asked.

“Hotshot defense lawyer jumped in. Handling the case pro-bono. Thinks it’s big enough to hit the major networks.”

“He just want the publicity,” Blood said.

“She, Blood,” Miller said.

“What’s her name?” I said.

“Carol Myer. You know her?”

“Seen her around,” I said. “Married to an investment banker. Cute brunette. Big, ummm . . .”

“Kahunas,” Blood posed.

“Exactly,” I said, holding out my fist which Blood jabbed with his own fist.

“Well, Myer with the big kahunas followed the cop cruiser to the precinct, and before we could even take his vitals and statement, she cried no dice. Not only do we not have a leg to stand on, she said, but Long’s confession could easily be construed as mental illness. With that, she pretty much took him by the hand and led him out of the building.”

“You let him go,” I said. “Just like that.”

He sat back hard in his chair again, threw up his hands.

“Fucking choice did I have?” he said. “She was right. Just because this crazy Jesus freak says he’s guilty of something that happened thirty-five years ago doesn’t mean he actually did it.” He rolled his eyes. “Christ, I had a nickel for every confession that was phoned, emailed, or brought to me up close and personal for any given homicide case, warm or cold as ice, I’d be a rich man by now.”

I said, “But you know for a fact, Long was there when Finnegan was robbed at gunpoint.”

“I sort of know it for a fact, Keep. And sort of ain’t good enough. I need real evidence.”

“Which you wish for us to dig up,” Blood said. “In your stead.”

“If you feel up to it,” Miller said.

I stood from the wooden chair. Blood remained seated on the couch since he enjoyed the opportunity to relax his body as much as he did to physically challenge it.

“What do you have to drink around here?” I asked.

Miller opened the drawer, pulled out the whiskey bottle and three glasses.

“Same thing you always drink when you come in here,” he said.

We all drank a shot a piece in a silence filled with the noise of the busy APD booking room. The steady rumble of telephones, printers, fax machines, and even good old-fashioned Selectric typewriters reverberated inside the concrete block corridor and leaked in through the interior office walls and door.

“Listen,” Miller said after a time, “I thought the point to this whole thing was that Long was determined to talk. Determined to confess to God and country his malfeasance in Marty’s death.”

“That a question or a statement, Miller?” I asked, gently sipping my whiskey.

“A little of both,” I guess. “Just trying to make sense of his one-eighty. Why decide now, after putting on a dog and pony press conference, to clam up?”

“Maybe his lawyer good at convincing him to clam up,” Blood pointed out. “Maybe she show him the light more than Pastor Ian and Jesus did.”

“Maybe her big kahunas spoke to him,” I added. But nobody laughed. Then, “What about an exhumation? What about a re-examination of the body of evidence?”

Miller went stiff. His eyes weren’t blinking, but his brain was processing.

“One of the two surviving kids would have to sign off on it,” Miller pointed out after a long beat. “What’s their names? Michael and Christine.”

“Michael was at the press conference,” Blood said, setting his empty glass back down onto Miller’s desk. Miller refreshed it. “He forgive Long.”

“If he’s so forgiving,” I said, “then he might be willing to cooperate with an exhumation.”

I set my glass onto the desktop. Miller refreshed my drink too. He also refreshed his own.

“Hang on,” he said, picking up the phone. When the APD operator came on the line, he told her to get Michael Finnegan on the phone. He hung up, picked up his whiskey glass, took a small sip.

“That’s a little bit of heaven in a dirty glass,” he said.

His phone buzzed. He seemed almost startled. He set down his glass and picked the handset back up.

“That was fast,” he said.

Miller’s face went so white, Blood and I instinctually glanced at one another.

“When did it happen?” Miller said, his eyes wide, staring into mine. “He’s only been gone from the precinct for an hour. Maybe less.”

I glanced at Blood. We both knew something tragic had just gone down.

“Jesus, Christ,” Miller said, standing. “Okay, thanks, we’re on our way.”

He hung up the phone.

“Let me guess,” I said. “That wasn’t Michael Finnegan.”

“Good guess,” Miller said, biting down on his bottom lip. “That was a member of my support staff.”

“What happened?” Blood asked.

“Steve Long is dead,” he said. “Two out of three persons of interest in the suspicious death of Marty Finnegan are now dead.”