by Vanessa Skye
Click.
“Did you find out who did it?” Berg asked, frowning.
“No,” she said, wiping her face.
“Did you find him?”
“No, Lizzy found him. She was devastated for me. Anyway . . . since then, Lizzy has become my best friend. She still visits regularly, even though she no longer lives in the area. Last time I saw her, she looked so wonderful! With the weight coming off, she looks more and more like Emma every day.”
Berg felt the blood drain from her face and remembered the picture of Elizabeth’s head on Emma’s body and felt sicker with every word the woman was saying.
Click. Click. Click . . .
“Thanks, Mrs. Keating. We’ll leave you be.” Berg motioned for Arena to follow her.
He tilted his head, the unasked question clear, but followed without comment.
“Oh, Jesus,” Berg mumbled as they climbed back into the car. “Jesus . . . fuck.”
“What?” Arena asked.
“Fuck. I really want to be wrong, but I don’t think I am.”
“What?” Arena asked again, still confused.
“Look, I don’t know how she did it. But I know in my gut that she did—fuck!”
Arena huffed and smacked the steering wheel with annoyance. “Who? You’re babbling like a potty-mouthed toddler.”
“Elizabeth. She did it. She had her own sister killed. Fuck!”
“What? I thought you thought something was off about Alex. Since when are you suspicious of Elizabeth?”
“Since about five minutes ago.”
“That’s a stretch, don’t you think?” Arena asked as he pulled out of the driveway.
“Just get us to the station. I have phone calls to make.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
I hurts so bad when you finally know,
just how low, low, low, low, low, she’ll go.
Baby did a bad, bad thing.
–Chris Isaak, “Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing”
“Anything?” Arena asked a few hours later as Berg put down the phone.
“Nothing concrete. But I’m right, I know I am.” She still felt sick to her stomach at the revelation and concentrated on taking some deep breaths to abate the nausea.
“So you’re basing this latest assumption on what? Her dad loved her sister more? If sibling rivalry caused murder, then my brother would’ve killed me years ago! This is nuts.”
“It’s not just that. When I went to the Youngs’ house last month, I checked out Elizabeth’s room before she moved, and she had this really weird photo that looked like she had photoshopped her head onto her sister’s body. She said it was the photography studio’s mistake, and I let it slide because a second later she gave up Emma’s boyfriend.”
“So?”
“So I just called the studio, they don’t remember altering any of the images—certainly no editing like that on simple family portraits. According to their records, Elizabeth signed for them and picked them up from the studio herself.”
“So?” Arena repeated.
“So she fucking put her head on her sister’s body and framed it! Psycho much?”
“Okay, weird, I admit, but so what?”
“So now I have confirmation of what I suspected. Elizabeth was second best to Emma her whole life. I’m sure she craved the love and money that Emma got from her father, and we all know what that kind of neglect can do to a child who may already have sociopathic tendencies. Then she becomes friends with the women next door, only to find she was second best again, to a fucking cat!”
“You think she killed the cat? What the fuck? She was only a teenager at the time!”
“Yes, the teen years—when sociopathic tendencies first develop. She killed the cat to get that poor silly woman’s full attention . . . and it worked, too.”
“That’s a big jump from a cat to her sister.”
“We don’t know what she did in between.”
Arena still looked skeptical.
“Okay, how’s this? The house she just bought out at Evergreen Park . . .”
“Yeah, what about it?”
“She paid nearly ninety thousand in cash. I spoke to the realtor. And it’s not a cottage like she said, either. It’s a renovated three-bedroom, stand-alone house. Where did she get the money for that on a paralegal’s wage?”
“Ninety thou? What was the reward for Buchanan’s arrest?” Arena asked quickly, shifting to reach for a file on his desk.
“One hundred thousand.”
He turned his attention back to Berg. “It wasn’t her law firm we paid it to, though, right?”
“No,” Berg said. “I’ve got no hope of them telling me who their client is, but, come on! Where did she get that kind of cash? A one hundred thousand dollar reward, less the money for the dental work she’s obviously had done and the personal trainer she’s hired. Think about it. She’s got her own version of the fat farm, and she’s collecting for the braces she never got as a child. It almost seems like she’s trying to get all the money back that her parents never spent on her.”
Arena was uncharacteristically silent.
“What?” Berg asked.
“So the lawyer who visited Buchanan before he offed himself?”
“Yeah?”
He flipped open the file and searched the paperwork inside. “She says she didn’t—visit him, that is. Swears up and down the signature on the sign-in sheet isn’t hers. The name’s right, though.”
“Surveillance?”
“Nope. An inmate’s right to private legal counsel means no surveillance in the interview room.”
Berg raised her eyebrows and looked pointedly at Arena.
“Shit, Berg. If you’re right about this, then she has fooled everyone. Including her own family!”
“Mrs. Keating said she was extraordinarily intelligent. Plus, it wasn’t until I said I wasn’t satisfied that Buchanan was the whole story that she finally gave up Hudson as Emma’s boyfriend. She could have told us from the beginning, but she saved it for when she needed to steer me in another direction!”
“That would make her one diabolical woman. No one will believe it.”
“We need to interview her, and we need to find the link between her and Buchanan. If she’s as good a manipulator as I suspect she is, it wouldn’t take too much effort on her part to delude the already cracked Buchanan into killing her own sister and then—”
The shrill ring of her desk phone stopped all train of thought.
“Yeah?” she said, distracted. “Now?” she questioned, looking up.
Following her gaze, Arena turned toward Jay’s office.
“We’re kinda in the middle of—fine.” She put down the phone. “We’ve been summoned,” she said ominously to Arena.
Berg and Arena walked into Jay’s office to find him with ASA Maroney perched on the corner of his desk, and neither one of them looked happy to see the detectives.
“Well done. Great fucking job, you two,” Carla said sarcastically as Jay motioned angrily for them to sit.
Berg and Arena looked at each other, and as they moved toward the chairs, Berg raised an eyebrow and Arena shrugged in response.
“Forgive us for our confusion,” Berg said to Carla, equally as sarcastic. “But your words just don’t match your tone.”
“I just got off the phone with Feeny’s smug fuck of a lawyer. What do you think’s going on?”
“I’ve got no idea!” Berg yelled.
Carla shook her head in annoyance and looked at Jay.
“Feeny’s recanting his confession, saying it was coercion.” Jay sighed and slumped in his chair. “He said it was a false statement to protect his children and himself from a physical reprisal from gang members who were incorrectly tipped off by this station. See where we’re going with this?” Jay sat up again and shouted. “I told you that kind of move would bite you on the ass!”
“This is bullshit!” Arena slammed his hand down on the edge of Jay’s desk. �
�If he didn’t know exactly who those gangbangers were, and exactly why they were there, he wouldn’t have felt the need to confess at all!”
“Oh, please!” Jay rolled his eyes. “You’d just given him a whole performance about ‘shoot on sight’ gangbangers in front of his lawyer. You’re about as intelligent as Buchanan was!”
“Hey! Are personal insults really—”
“Can it, Arena. I’m this close to taking your badge,” Jay said, holding up his thumb and index finger. “The confession’s the only thing keeping Feeny in prison. There’s no physical evidence, no money trail, nothing. And his lawyers know it. If it gets kicked tomorrow—and it looks likely— Feeny walks. You’re just lucky we got the murder weapons, plus Elena Feeny’s necklace, so the shooter isn’t walking, too!”
“Come on! Surely the shooter will say who hired them in exchange for a deal?” Berg asked Carla.
“You honestly think I didn’t try that already?” Carla replied angrily. “I’ve been cleaning up after you for weeks!” A heated blush touched her cheeks—it was the only time the ASA had appeared even remotely ruffled. “The gun used for the murders was only one in an entire arsenal of weapons we found at their hideout. That weapon alone has been used in at least three other gang-related murders in the last year. He even pulled it on SWAT and shot at a cop when they were arrested. This guy’s looking at death even without Feeny’s mistress and wife’s murders. And so now I have no leverage as the state’s attorney is refusing to take death off the table. The guy is going to die and Feeny’s going to walk—all because you two couldn’t follow simple police procedure!”
“I don’t need to tell you what losing this conviction does to all the men and women in this precinct who get up every morning and do their job properly,” Jay said furiously. “This casts a shadow across—”
“And, what? The same gang killing Feeny’s wife and mistress is just a big coincidence?” Berg moved to the edge of her chair unable to believe what was coming out of Jay’s mouth.
“Alleged mistress,” Maroney interjected. “We’ve got nothing but Feeny’s recanted statement on that, too!”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake! You want me to do my job better? How about you and your other ASAs do your job better. That kind of coincidence just doesn’t happen and we all know it. Stop tying our hands!” Berg yelled.
“Coincidence doesn’t replace evidence!” Jay shouted. “If you’d—”
“I want to speak to the shooter,” Berg said.
“Yeah.” Arena said, backing up Berg even if he had no idea what the hell she was up to. “We want to—”
“Not you, Arena. Just me. I want to talk to him. Now. Set it up,” Berg said to Carla.
Arena sat up straight and looked ready to argue his point. “Berg, why—”
“Sorry, I think I will be more effective on my own,” she said, standing.
“What do you think you can do that I haven’t already tried?” the ASA asked and then smirked. “What, you going to give him a conjugal right there in Cook County? Maybe let the guards watch? I’ve heard rumors that you like an audience—”
“Carla!” Jay shouted, his face red. “That’s enough!”
“Fine.” Carla stood and jerked her bag to her shoulder. “I’ll set it up. But if you get a gangbanger with a chronic hatred of cops to give up Feeny with no deal, I’ll eat my Harvard law degree.” She stalked out of the office, followed a moment later by Jay.
“What are you going to do?” Arena asked, also standing. “She’s a pain in the ass, but she’s right. We have no leverage. He has no reason to help us, and a big reason not to. What can you do?”
Berg shrugged and said exactly what Arena expected to hear as she watched the bitch stomp around the corner. “I have no idea.”
Except she did know.
Jay caught up to Carla at the elevators. “Carla.”
She pushed her briefcase between the doors forcing them open as he stopped just outside them.
“You say anything like that to Detective Raymond again, and we’re done. We clear?”
She had clearly expected his support because he saw nothing but shock at the anger in his tone.
“Crystal,” she replied bitterly, letting the doors close in his face.
Berg sped out to Cook County with her mind racing.
Feeny and Elizabeth Young—they were both guilty, and they were going to get away with murder. And not just your average murder of passion, but well-planned, well-executed, intentional murders of their nearest and dearest, done in the most cowardly way possible—from afar, by a third party.
Berg shook her head slightly. She needed to set Elizabeth aside for a moment. She knew what she had to do—she knew she had the one thing this shooter would want. But could she do it? Could she go there?
Yes, Leigh hissed. For justice!
Feeny absolutely could not walk away. He had murdered two women, Berg was certain of it. They had been gunned down, like stray dogs. The fact that he hadn’t held the gun didn’t make him any less responsible. In fact, it made him even more of a craven, spineless asshole. He hadn’t even had the guts to look them in the face as he killed them—he hadn’t had to see the horrified shock on their faces as they gasped their final breath. He hadn’t been present for their last bubbling wheeze as they had been executed on the orders of a supposed loved one. Instead, he’d hidden like the weakling he was behind his money, reputation, and his conscienceless lawyers.
The more she thought about it, the angrier she got.
Do what you know you have to do, Leigh whispered as Berg pulled up to the prison.
As much as she hated to admit it, she was with Leigh on this one.
You’re broken and you know it . . . use it.
The prison guards buzzed her though, and after a shockingly long walk, led her to one of the private interview rooms in the maximum security section of the Cook County sheriff-run prison, Division One.
She looked around as she waited. The bare room only contained a table and two chairs, both of which were welded to the floor. The upper right hand corner of the room held a small video camera. She hadn’t asked for it to be turned on, but she unplugged it just to be sure. It was a private room where inmates consulted with their lawyers, so recording was not mandatory, and no one would notice.
Soon enough, a lone guard led a medium-height Hispanic man with a shaved head and a thick black mustache into the room. He was shackled at wrists and ankles, with thick chains linking the restraints together.
The guard pushed him into the chair and carefully locked his chains into a metal loop embedded into the floor, yanking them a few times to ensure they were secure. He wasn’t going anywhere.
“I’ll be right outside.” The guard nodded at Berg. “Call if you need me.”
Berg handed him a twenty. “Actually, could you get me a coffee?” Berg smiled. “Get yourself one, too.”
“Detective?” The guard clearly thought she was nuts wanting to spend even a moment alone with a man who had cold-bloodedly murdered two innocent women for profit, among others.
“We’ll be fine. Black, thank you,” Berg said. “And bring a legal pad and a pen back, would you, please?”
The guard shrugged and shut the door behind him.
Berg listened as his footsteps retreated.
“What’s the pen and paper for? I’m not telling you a goddamned thing.”
“Your statement,” Berg said, not intimidated by the hatred and violence rolling off the banger in waves. “Details about who hired you to murder Lauren Wesley and Elena Feeny.”
“Well, I’m glad you’ve got coffee coming, because you’re gonna be waitin’ a while,” he said as he leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “Don’t want you gettin’ dehydrated.”
“Funny,” Berg said and stared at the man, noting the plethora of tattoos he had all over the parts of his body not covered by bright orange short-sleeved coveralls, including his scalp. The tally included the black pitchfork iden
tifying him as a Devil’s Hand member.
“Like I told the blond cunt before you, I don’t talk to no cops. If I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die with honor. To the code. And you got nothing I want anyway. I’m not afraid to die,” he said.
“I do have something you want, actually,” Berg replied. “Something you want very badly.”
The banger leered at Berg. “You’re a good-looking bitch, for a cop, but I’ve got me a woman. I don’t need to fuck yo’ skinny ass.”
“Cut the shit, I don’t have time for it,” Berg said, keen to get the conversation moving before the guard came back. “You know what I can give you, and it’s got nothing to do with sex.”
The man glanced up at the video camera, noticing it was unhooked. “You do that?” he asked, interested.
“Yes.” Berg actually saw the light go on behind his eyes.
“You on the level? You’ll give me what I want?” He leaned forward.
Berg stopped herself from smiling in triumph. “Yes.”
“You’re a cop. Don’t this go against everything you stand for?”
“I stand for justice,” Berg said firmly. “That’s my code.”
He looked at her and smiled cruelly, nodding. “Well, whaddaya know? You’re my kind of woman after all. Maybe we could rethink that body thing?”
“Hell no. Take it or leave it.”
“What do I gotta do?”
“In a moment, the guard will come back in here. You’ll tell me, with him as a witness, who hired you to kill those two women, how he contacted you, how he paid you, and where the money is now. You’ll be amazingly forthcoming with information, and give us anything that will ensure we nail this fucker. I’ll write out the statement, you’ll sign it, I’ll sign it, and the guard will sign it. You’ll testify in court that the statement is true and accurate and given of your own free will. We’re done.”
“And if I do all that?”
“I’ll give you want you want.”
