Final Judgment

by Marcia Clark

  But now, knowing that he hadn’t cleared out his accounts, in addition to the fact that his Porsche had been found in a ditch, made it much more likely that he was dead. So the probability that the Denali belonged to Tanner only made matters worse. It would’ve been a lot easier—and safer—to transport Tanner’s body in an SUV, especially one that belonged to him and was right on hand, than to try and stuff it into a regular car.

  A car, say, like Niko’s Maserati.

  I went to the couch and lay down. I had too much crashing in on me at once. There was a soft knock on the door. I half sat up. “Michy?”

  She opened the door. “Yeah, and what’s his name.” I saw that Alex was standing behind her. “He told me about Sebastian.”

  I motioned for them to come in. “I’ve got news from Dale on Niko, too.”

  Michy sat on the couch and put my feet in her lap. Alex turned around one of the chairs in front of my desk and leaned forward as he sat down. “Good or bad?”

  I sighed. “Bad.”

  He shook his head. “You’re having one hell of a day. What did Dale say?”

  I filled them in. “Tanner has to be dead, and I think he must’ve told Niko about that Denali at some point. Where he kept it, the fact that it was unregistered.”

  Michy and Alex were both silent for a long beat. Then Michy said, “But Niko can’t be the only one he told about that car.”

  “She’s right,” Alex said. “I still think it’s possible Niko’s hiding the car for someone else.”

  As they say, anything’s possible. The question is, what’s most likely? I couldn’t think of any other investors who had no alibi, had the skill and strength to kill a healthy young man, and were friendly enough with Tanner to have known about the Denali.

  Before I could give voice to those thoughts, Michy said, “And you’re assuming the Denali belonged to Tanner. It could’ve belonged to someone else.”

  I supposed that was true, too. “Can you think of a better suspect than Niko?”

  She shrugged. “I might be able to if I knew all the people Tanner had screwed over. But that list is so long. How could you even find them all?”

  I held up my hands. “I give up. You’re right. We may never know who did it for sure.” I couldn’t think about this anymore. “Alex, let me know when you’ve figured out whether Sebastian owns a white Bentley.”

  He had a smug smile. “Already did. And he does.”

  I sat up. “What? How on earth did you hack into the DMV database that fast?”

  “I didn’t.” He opened his iPad and tapped the screen. “I Googled him. Found a photo of him getting out of a white Bentley on his way to a big fund-raiser.”

  He handed me the iPad. I studied the photo. The sight of Sebastian made my stomach clench. I had to force myself to read the caption. Sebastian Cromer, Mimi Goldstone, and Joseph Overton attend a star-studded fund-raiser for Greenspace. The date showed it’d been taken just one week ago. I handed the iPad back to Alex. “Nice work. So now, how do we figure out whether that was the car our registered sex offender saw?”

  He pulled out his cell phone. “Remember I took pictures when we canvassed Angelina’s ’hood?”

  Uh-oh. If those damn things actually did wind up being helpful, I’d never hear the end of it. “Sadly, yes. I do.”

  Alex pursed his lips. “You should be sad. Because you were wrong. I was right to take them.” He tapped his phone and spread two fingers apart to enlarge an image, then held it out to me. “See?”

  I stared at the photo. “All I see is the roofline of a house.”

  He pointed to a shiny spot. “That’s a surveillance camera on one of the homes on Angelina’s street. And it’s high enough to take in the spot where the Bentley was parked.”

  I replayed the memory of our conversations with the neighbors we’d spoken to. “I thought no one had a camera with a range farther than their front porch.”

  He nodded. “But we only got to talk to about half of them. I found three houses where no one answered the door that have cameras like this.”

  I was confused. “That’s cool, but how’s that going to help? They wouldn’t answer the door before, so why would they now?”

  He put his phone back in his pocket. “I can try and get the IP addresses for those cameras and see if I can hack into their home computers for the date we want. It was only a couple of weeks ago. Most cameras nowadays store the images for a month before they start recording over the footage.”

  That sounded like a tall order. “You think you can hack into their hard drives?”

  He shrugged. “You’d be surprised how many people still use lame passwords—like their street address or birth date.”

  It was worth a try, I supposed. “May the Force be with you.”

  FORTY-NINE

  After Alex retreated to his office to do his dirty work, Michy patted my foot. “How’re you holding up? This is an awful lot to deal with. First Niko, now Sebastian.”

  Now that I could relax for a bit and let Alex do his thing, I felt my eyelids drooping. “I’m so tired all the time. I can keep the motor running while we’re working, but by five o’clock, all I want to do is crawl into bed.”

  She gave me a worried look. “It’s the stress, and probably depression. Honestly, I don’t know how you manage to keep going.”

  I was about to say I didn’t have a choice, but I supposed I did. “I think we’re close to the end of the line on Eliza’s rape. I’ll hand over the evidence to Angelina and let her have at Sebastian. And Niko . . . I guess I have as much closure on that case as I’ll ever get. I should just let it go.”

  Michy didn’t look convinced. “Then you aren’t going to tell him what you found out?”

  I’d gone back and forth on that so many times. “Whenever I think about confronting him, I just wind up asking myself, why bother? Nothing good can come of it.” He’d get angry with me for investigating him . . . again. And I’d get angry with him for lying to me.

  She gave my foot another pat and stood up. “I’m not sure I agree. But obviously, it’s your call.”

  I looked up at her. “Since when has that stopped you from telling me what to do?”

  Michy gave me a little smile. “That’s fair. Okay, here’s my two cents’ worth. I think you should tell him everything and see what he says.” She moved to the door. “You’re right. It could get ugly. Or not. And it’s still possible he didn’t kill anyone.” She paused at the door. “Not that that really matters to you.” She left, and I closed my eyes.

  I couldn’t argue. Michy was right. It was possible Niko hadn’t killed anyone. But I had no desire to go through another night like our last one. If he got that upset just because I’d contacted his brother, I could only imagine how bad it’d get when I told him all I’d done since then.

  And besides, I was just too damn tired to deal with anything more. I must’ve drifted off, because when I opened my eyes, I looked through the window and saw that the sun was near the horizon. I pulled out my cell phone. It was almost six thirty. I decided I may as well call it a day. I put on my jacket, got my purse, and walked out to find Michy shutting down her computer. “I’m on my way out, too. Give me a sec to check in with Alex.”

  I knocked on his door. “Hey, we’re taking off. You ready to pull the plug?”

  Alex came to the door. “I won’t say I miss those bad lines you usually throw at me, but this normal behavior is really getting worrisome.”

  I could barely make myself smile. “Any progress?”

  He looked dejected. “Not so far. I did find one genius who used the word password as his password. But it looks like his camera was offline for the past month. I’ll keep at it, though. I’m not ready to give up yet.”

  “Don’t push it, Alex. If this doesn’t pan out, we’ll just have to find another way.”

  Alex went back to his computer, and Michy and I headed for the elevator. I told her what Alex was working on as we rode down. She shook her head
. “Why does he need to hack them?”

  The elevator reached the garage, and we walked to our cars. “Because they wouldn’t answer the door.”

  She shrugged. “Maybe I’m just too old-school, but if it were me, I’d give the door knock another chance.”

  I’d just raised my remote to unlock my car, but now I stopped. “Because they might not have been avoiding us? They just might not have been home?”

  She nodded. “Or in the bathroom, or in the shower, or on the phone.” She sighed. “You guys always jump to the worst conclusion.”

  I had to laugh. “But we’re usually right, you’ve got to admit.”

  She deadpanned me. “No, I don’t.” Michy got into her car and drove off.

  Apparently she didn’t have to admit it. On the way home, I thought about whether we’d succeed in getting any of the neighbors who had the long-range cameras to open the door—and if they did, what their footage would show. If it was good enough, I’d be able to make a strong case for Angelina. And then . . . I forced myself to rein it in. Better to not get my hopes up.

  As I climbed the stairs to my apartment, I was so preoccupied, I nearly fell on someone who was sitting on the top step. I grabbed the railing to steady myself, and when I saw who it was, I stared in shock. “Niko? What are you doing here?”

  He stood up. “I won’t blame you if you say no. But can we talk? Please?”

  I was struck by how good—and how painful—it was to see him. A part of me wanted to push him down the stairs. But the rest of me wanted to put my arms around him. He obviously had something to tell me. But did I want to hear it? Only if he planned to tell me the truth. I felt pretty confident I’d know if he lied to me. Especially given all I’d learned. And if he did, I could always throw him out. “I guess so.”

  I walked past him and led him into the apartment. I didn’t offer him anything—not even water. I dropped my keys and purse on the kitchen table and gestured to the living room. I sat down on the wingback chair, deliberately avoiding the couch so I wouldn’t have to sit next to him.

  Niko sat on the couch and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, hands clasped. “I owe you an apology. Maybe the most profound apology I’ll ever owe to anyone.” He stopped and took a deep breath. “I didn’t want you to know about my past. It’s a terrible embarrassment to me. I’m not that guy anymore. And really, I never was. I thought that if you knew I’d been a gang member, lived that kind of life, you’d never see me the same way again.”

  This was it? This was what he’d come here to tell me? His past was the least of my issues. If that’s all he had to say, it was going to be a very short conversation. “You know what I do for a living. You know how I met Alex. And yet I hired him, and I trust him with my life. Why on earth would you think your past would matter to me? You sure don’t give me much credit.”

  He looked down at his hands. “It’s not about you. It’s about me. My shame. My disappointment with who I was.” He raised his head and met my gaze. “Anyway, I’m only telling you that to explain why I acted . . . the way I did when Ivan showed up. He represents everything I detest, everything I tried so hard to put behind me. Seeing him here, in your place . . . I lost it. I acted like a fool.”

  I gazed at him coldly. “Okay, thanks for sharing.” I started to get up.

  He raised his hand. “Wait. Please. I’m not done.” I sat back down. He looked me in the eye. “The thing is, I’d been planning to tell you about . . . Tanner. But every time I tried, I got scared. I was afraid I’d lose you.” His shoulders slumped. “And now I’ve lost you anyway. So I’m here because I thought the least I could do is tell you the truth.”

  Still angry about all the hell he’d put me through, I refused to be moved by his sadness. I braced myself for what he was about to say. “Okay, let’s hear it. What about Tanner? And Bryan, while you’re at it.”

  He stared at the floor as he spoke. “I didn’t kill Bryan. But I found out that the so-called cryptocurrency trade was just a straight-up scam—that there was no trade, that it was just a heist.”

  I’d suspected the same thing. “And you think Tanner realized that Bryan was about to take off with all the money?” Niko nodded. I reflected on the way Tanner had behaved when we’d gone to the Gold Strike headquarters. “So that night we went to their office, when Alex found the BYO holding company on Bryan’s computer and Tanner acted so freaked out—”

  He shook his head. “It was all bullshit. I didn’t know it at the time, of course. And I can’t prove it, but now I think Tanner set up the holding company and pretended to be all shocked when Alex found it so he could point the finger at Bryan and claim he’d stolen all the money.”

  I’d have to ask Alex about the feasibility of that. But it sounded plausible enough—for two sociopaths like Tanner and Bryan. I remembered the surveillance video footage showing a man near Bryan’s back door. “Then you think Tanner killed Bryan? He was the man in the video?”

  He nodded. “It must’ve been. I know it wasn’t me.”

  That video footage had never been clear enough to say who that man was. But I’d always thought it could’ve been Tanner.

  When Niko continued, his voice was bitter. “It wasn’t a bad plan: kill Bryan, frame me by using the internal-decapitation move, and take off with all the money. Of course, I didn’t know he’d killed Bryan and framed me when I went to see him that night. I just knew he’d lied and ripped everyone off, and I was furious—”

  “So you decided to kill him.” Not that I blamed him.

  He sat up, his expression anguished. “No! I never meant to kill him. I went to his place to confront him. For some stupid reason, I thought I could shame him into admitting what he’d done—and that I’d either get him to turn himself in or I’d go to the police and tell them what’d happened.” He rubbed his eyes. “Even now, I can’t imagine what made me think for one second that would work. The only thing I can say is that I was really messed up.”

  I guess that was all he could say. Because the very idea that someone like Tanner might have enough of a conscience to confess was ludicrous. But was that the truth? Had Niko really just meant to persuade Tanner to confess? I studied him for a long moment. His tortured expression, his woeful tone, his abject misery. My gut told me it was the truth. He’d been too shattered to think clearly. So he’d projected his own morality, his own psyche onto Tanner. Niko knew that if he’d killed someone, he’d have felt compelled to admit it—as he was, in fact, doing right now. And so he’d hoped Tanner would do the same. “Go on.”

  Niko swallowed hard. “I know I was pretty steamed when I confronted him. And Tanner didn’t deny he’d scammed us all. He just . . . he completely lost it. He attacked me, immediately went for my throat. I tried to stop him, kept trying to back away, but he just kept coming at me. I got worried someone would hear the noise and call the police. I tried to get out of there, but when I went for the door, he grabbed me and put an arm around my neck—like a choke hold. I managed to break free. But I knew I’d have to knock him down to get out of there. So I threw a punch, hit him hard right in the chest.” Niko paused, his brow furrowed. “I must’ve hit him in the heart, because he went straight down and just lay there. He wasn’t moving. I couldn’t believe it. At first, I thought he might be trying to fake me out. But then I saw that he didn’t seem to be breathing. I took his pulse and . . . he was dead.” He lifted his head, his expression showing he was suffering with the memory. “I didn’t mean to kill him. I really didn’t. It was an accident. But I knew no one would believe that. I fight for a living.”

  He glanced at me briefly, then looked away. His shoulders sagged, misery etched in his features. And I could see that he’d lost weight. His face was thin and drawn. A lot of that had to do with his mother. But now I could see that Tanner’s death, and lying to me about it, had also been weighing on him.

  At first, I’d listened with a healthy dose of skepticism, reluctant to believe almost anything he said after he’
d lied to me for so long. But I could picture it all so easily. I’d seen so many homicides go down that way. A stray bullet, a lucky punch, a blind knife thrust. And his tone and body language showed utter sincerity. Had Niko not been a martial arts expert, he’d be in the morgue—and Tanner would be sitting on a pile of cash a thousand miles away.

  So I had no doubt. Niko had told me the truth. Finally. And now, I needed to follow suit. I told him about finding the Denali and Tanner’s SAA chip in the rear cargo area. “That was Tanner’s car, wasn’t it?”

  There was a look of shock on his face. “How did you figure all that out?”

  I shrugged. “It’s what I do. Alex and me, that is.”

  He nodded slowly. “Yes, it was Tanner’s car. He’d bragged about scoring an unregistered SUV. I never did know what he’d planned to use it for.” He paused. “I think I do now.”

  To make his escape after he killed Bryan. “But didn’t you say he bought it a while ago? You’re not saying he planned to kill Bryan all along?”

  He spread his hands. “No. I think when he first bought it, he just wanted to have it around—in case. But when he dreamed up that cryptocurrency rip-off, then . . . yes. I think it became part of the plan to take the money and run.”

  That sounded about right. But now I was curious about the logistics of it all. “Okay. So how’d you get Tanner’s body out of the condo and into the Denali without anyone seeing you?”

  He took a deep breath. “That was really just luck. I knew he kept the Denali in the condo parking garage. The only thing I could think to do was wait until it was late enough that no one was likely to be around—after two in the morning—then I put his arm around my neck and stood him up next to me so it’d just look like I was helping my drunk friend get home.”