FLORA DANE WAS DRIVING D.D. nuts. Which was why, D.D. thought for the umpteenth time, a smart detective should never recruit a wild-card vigilante to be her CI. Because D.D. had to follow rules and procedures, whereas Flora had absolutely no interest.
“You’re saying you recognize the victim, Conrad Carter. You spotted him in the company of Jacob Ness during the time of your captivity. Furthermore, you believe they might have had some sort of relationship. At least knew each other.”
“I already told you that!” Flora was agitated. Pacing the sidewalk, rubbing her arms. D.D. had never seen the woman so rattled before. All the more reason to get her on the record.
“I need you to come down to the station and make a formal statement.”
“No!”
“Flora—”
“I will talk! But we both know it won’t be to you.”
Which was the other issue. Flora might have been a Boston college student at the time of her kidnapping, but she’d been on spring break in Florida when Jacob snatched her. Meaning, from the first taunting postcard Jacob had mailed from a small town in the South to Flora’s mother in Maine, Flora’s abduction had fallen under FBI jurisdiction.
The feds had done right by her. Eventually identifying Jacob as a long-haul trucker. Tracking his rig to a cheap motel. Storming the room with a dozen SWAT team officers and enough bullets and stun grenades to take out a small village. Jacob hadn’t survived the raid; Flora had.
To the best of D.D.’s knowledge, it had been at the hospital, still waiting for her mother to fly down, that Flora had given her official statement. She’d made a deal: She’d speak of her kidnapping one time to one person. Then she’d delivered her story, word by painful word, to FBI victim specialist Dr. Samuel Keynes.
The rumor was that Keynes—who had a long history of interviewing international kidnapping victims—had barely made it to the bathroom before vomiting.
Since that day, Keynes and Flora had maintained a relationship that was beyond D.D.’s understanding. She doubted it fell strictly within the guidelines of the FBI’s Office for Victim Assistance. Not that it was romantic at all—in fact, last D.D. had heard, the famously reserved psychologist had finally expressed his true feelings for Flora’s mom, Rosa, who was an organic-farming, homemade-muffin-baking, free-spirited yogi. What they actually talked about, D.D. had no idea, but having personally seen the spark between them . . .
At least something good had come from Flora and her family’s ordeal.
The problem remained; Keynes was Flora’s confessor of choice. But he also worked for the FBI. Meaning, the moment Flora started talking to him about seeing D.D.’s murder victim in the company of Jacob Ness, D.D. now had the FBI involved in her case. Or worse, taking it away.
“How many times did you see Conrad?” D.D. tried now. If Flora wouldn’t agree to a formal statement, D.D. would settle for an informal one.
“Just once. At a bar.”
“How long ago?”
“I don’t know. I’d been with Jacob for a while. Weather was cooler.” Flora rubbed her arms. “So maybe it was winter in the South.”
D.D. nodded, working some mental arithmetic. Winter of Flora’s abduction would mean they were looking back basically seven years. Detective Manley had reported that Conrad had traveled for his job, which could mean he’d had a good cover for many activities.
“What about the wife?” D.D. tried now. “Evelyn Carter look familiar to you?”
“She wasn’t there,” Flora said. She stopped pacing abruptly. “Was she married to Conrad then? What do you know of their lives?”
“I don’t. Not yet.”
“She shot him, that seems to signify less than happiness. Could she have been abused? Maybe a victim herself? The news said she was pregnant!”
Flora’s voice had grown strident.
“I think we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Investigations are a series of steps, and we have many left to take. For the record, the neighbors describe them as a normal, happy couple.”
Flora snorted. “Neighbors don’t know shit.”
D.D. shrugged philosophically. On that, they could agree.
“Do you know what bar you were in? Where Jacob met Conrad?” D.D. tried to refocus her CI.
“I don’t . . . Jacob had left me for days.” Flora’s voice dropped. “I was very, very hungry but I didn’t dare leave because Jacob would track me down and kill me. That’s what he told me every time he left, and I believed him.”
“Okay.” D.D. made her voice equally soft. This was the most she’d ever heard Flora say about Jacob. There were questions she’d love to ask, of course, but Flora had never deviated in her onetime, one-telling policy. Mostly, D.D. was left to admire the monster’s handiwork, because if Jacob had been the worst of the worst, then the woman who’d survived him was the toughest of the toughest. Whether he’d known it or not, Jacob had served as a particular kind of forge. And the Flora who’d emerged four hundred and seventy-two days later was solid steel.
The detective in D.D. admired the woman’s resilience. The mother in her was saddened by the loss.
“You were in the South,” D.D. continued now. “Jacob’s trucking route?”
“Yes.”
“You said he left. You were at a motel.”
“Yes.”
“Can you think of the name? Letterhead on the stationery in the room?”
“Jacob didn’t stay in places that had stationery.”
“Okay, flashing neon sign? Work with me here.”
“Motel . . . Motel Upland.” Flora frowned. “I think. Maybe.”
“Motel Upland.” D.D. nodded. “Sounds regional. We can work with that.”
Flora rubbed her arms and resumed pacing.
D.D. hesitated. In for a penny, in for a pound, she decided. “Flora, I don’t think Evelyn was Conrad’s victim. She’s from around here, has family in Cambridge.”
“You know her?”
“Let’s just say, I’m not terribly surprised to hear about what happened. When I last spoke to her, it was right after she ‘accidentally’ shot her father.”
Flora’s head popped up. D.D. had the woman’s full attention now, including a hard gray stare designed to force someone to hand over all their valuables or confess all their sins. D.D. finally got it then—Flora’s real fear. That she hadn’t talked enough about Jacob. That with her onetime, one-tell policy, she may have left some other victim behind.
As someone who now dedicated her life to helping other survivors, such a thing would devastate her.
“Flora. I think you should come with me. I think there’s something you should see.”
“What? Where?”
“Come with me to the courthouse. Evelyn Carter is due to be arraigned this morning. I think you should see her in person. I think you should know exactly who it is you’re so concerned about.”
COURTHOUSES WERE THEIR own special kind of madness. D.D. tried to avoid them as much as possible, though that was difficult in her line of work. Actual trials weren’t so bad. They involved a set number of players in a predetermined room—if anything, they were much more boring than anything seen on TV.
The morning arraignment rush, however, was a sea of harried lawyers and wide-eyed—or completely hungover—defendants. The accused piled up, while overworked public defenders tried to identify which handcuffed prisoner would be their date for the party. The front steps were littered with bored reporters waiting for something interesting to happen, small groups of briefcase-wielding lawyers playing let’s make a deal, and neck-craning loved ones trying to catch a glimpse of the spouse, kid, friend, whatever, who’d spent the night in the slammer and might not be coming home again.
Inside was worse. D.D. had to shoulder her way through the throngs, reading the signs to determine the proper room. Flora stalked alongside her, head up, gray stare lasering a path forward. At one point, a tattooed and muscle-bound gangbanger paused beside his escorting officer long enough to give Flora a second glance.
Two alphas, sizing each other up? D.D. wondered. Predator to predator? She was never sure with Flora, but half a heartbeat later, the big guy looked away first.
“You like that,” D.D. murmured, having finally spotted Phil outside the assigned courtroom.
“Yes,” Flora said, no explanation necessary.
“Still working our way through the docket,” Phil said by way of greeting. He was the lead detective on the case, which explained why he was in the courthouse. D.D. could already tell from the look on his face that he was exasperated by her presence. Strictly speaking, supervising sergeants didn’t need to personally visit crime scenes or arraignment hearings. And having Flora with her hardly helped matters. Both of D.D.’s former squad mates, Phil and Neil, had opinions about the vigilante, much of it having to do with how they’d all first met: Flora, naked, hands bound in front of her, standing over the charred remains of a would-be rapist; Phil and Neil arriving to arrest . . . someone . . . in the case.
Phil, who considered himself the voice of reason to D.D.’s more aggressive ways, hadn’t been thrilled when she’d announced she’d recruited Flora to be her new confidential informant. Clearly, his opinion on the matter hadn’t changed.
“Flora recognized the victim,” D.D. announced bluntly, in order to cut off Phil’s arguments at the pass. “She met Conrad Carter at a bar, when she was with Jacob.”
Her strategy worked. Phil went from fatherly disapproval to immediate investigative interest.
Flora didn’t like Phil any more than Phil liked her. “That’s as much as I’m saying on the subject,” she said.
Phil returned to fatherly disapproval, for both Flora and D.D.
“I want her to see Evelyn,” D.D. said. “Maybe that will jog something. Or help her know what exactly we’re dealing with here.”
Phil accepted that. “Her mom’s here,” he said.
“But of course.”
“Real lawyer, too. No public defender. Criminal defense attorney Dick Delaney.”
“Great.” D.D. rolled her eyes. She’d been involved in cases represented by the silver-haired lawyer before. He was very good.
Phil opened the door. They were hit first by a heat wave of humanity, then by the harsh pounding of the judge’s gavel as she sought to keep some semblance of order in what was by definition an assembly line of procedures. Already two court officers were leading a young woman, gaunt, stringy hair, wild eyes, from the room, as a door opened to the side and two more officers appeared.
No prison clothes this time. Instead, Evie Carter appeared, pale, slightly trembly, clad in black slacks and a demure cream-colored button-up cardigan that strained slightly over her rounded belly. The Evie D.D. had met sixteen years ago had been a scared teenager. The woman she’d become still had the same dirty-blond hair, but cut short, in a fringed style that emphasized her large brown eyes. The clothes, D.D. was already guessing, had been supplied by Evie’s mother, Joyce, who sat in the front row, every frosted blond hair in place as she gazed at her only child.
Evie, D.D. noticed, didn’t look at her mother at all, but took her place beside her lawyer at the defense’s table. Her hair was mussed, her eyes bruised. For all the dress-up clothes, nothing could change the fact she’d spent the night in the slammer.
“That’s her?” Flora whispered in D.D’s ear. “She doesn’t look anything like I expected.”
“Her mother dressed her,” D.D. whispered back.
Flora nodded, as if that explained everything.
“Your Honor,” the Suffolk County ADA Danielle Fitzpatrick began. “The people are pursuing charges of murder one against the accused, Evelyn Carter, in the shooting death of her husband. We request she be held without bail, given the severity of the charges.”
“Your Honor!” Delaney was already on his feet. “That charge is ludicrous. The people lack sufficient evidence for a charge of premeditated murder, let alone given the delicate state of my client—”
“The ‘delicate client,’” Fitzpatrick intoned drolly, “shot her husband three times. As for evidence, the police found her at the scene, still holding the murder weapon. In addition, her hands tested positive for GSR as well as human blood. We are confident in our case, Your Honor, and that’s without delving into Mrs. Carter’s previous history—”
“Objection! Inadmissible and not even relevant. Continue to make such underhanded references”—Delaney glared at Fitzpatrick—“and I’ll be forced to demand a change of venue given your deliberate contamination of the jury pool.”
The judge banged her gavel again. “Sustained, though I’m not sure what underhanded references you two are bickering about. Feels to me we have enough to discuss with the case at hand.”
Flora looked askance at D.D., who murmured in the woman’s ears, “Evie shot and killed her father when she was sixteen. It was ruled accidental at the time and no charges were ever filed—I should know, as I was the investigating detective. Delaney’s right: Given that, the incident is inadmissible. But Fitzpatrick isn’t playing to the judge. She’s playing to the press, who I can guarantee you are right now scrambling to figure out what about ‘Mrs. Carter’s previous history’ is worth such a fuss.”
“Your Honor,” Delaney was saying. “My client does not deny being at the scene of the crime, nor even holding the murder weapon. In fact, she’ll even concede she fired the gun. What ADA Fitzpatrick has failed to mention is the slight problem with the police’s timeline of events.”
The judge turned, regarding ADA Fitzpatrick with interest, while on the other side of D.D., Phil stiffened. D.D. got it a second later. “Oh shit.”
“Your Honor,” Fitzpatrick began, but Delaney was already on a roll.
“Eight minutes, Your Honor. There’s an eight-minute gap between the time neighbors first called in the report of shots fired, and the police arrived on the scene and also heard shots fired. That’s because there was not one shooting last night but two. The first was the fatal shooting of my client’s beloved husband and father of her unborn child. We can prove, in fact, Your Honor, that my client wasn’t even home at the time of her husband’s death. She arrived minutes later, discovering the dead body. At which point, she did pick up the gun. She fired the weapon.
“She committed the second shooting, Your Honor. Except her victim was a laptop. Which, let’s face it, we’ve all wanted to shoot at one time or another. So, yes, my client handled the murder weapon and, yes, she had GSR on her hands. But she did not kill her husband. We demand the dismissal of all charges as well as my client’s immediate release at this time.”
The judge regarded Delaney, then the ADA, whose face was now set in a grim line, then Delaney again. “Well,” the judge said, “it sounds like we have plenty to discuss at trial. Given there is sufficient evidence worth presenting, charges are not dismissed. However, I will grant bail. Five hundred thousand, cash bond.”
The judge banged her gavel. Evie Carter, who’d never looked left or right, was led from the room. A moment later, every reporter in the place had leapt to his or her feet and was racing to the door.
Phil, D.D., and Flora stood to the side to let the rush pass.
“I’ll be damned,” D.D. murmured. “She’s gonna do it.” She glanced at Phil, who nodded his agreement.
“Do what?” Flora demanded.
“For the second time in her life, Evie Carter’s gonna get away with murder.”