The 3rd Victim

by Sydney Bauer

  ‘Well, yes … but …’

  ‘And you spent a good two hours with the defendant last night, did you not?’

  This was news to Joe, and he wondered if it would also be news to David. Joe shot a look at Leo King as Jacobs nodded.

  ‘And you found her to be …?’ the Kat continued.

  ‘Cooperative, organised, intelligent. Helpful, logical, accommodating. Sienna Walker is incredibly smart. Her thought processes are methodical, structured. Her body language – despite the distressing nature of her situation and surroundings – is calm and controlled. She answers questions without hesitation, she elaborates where appropriate. I found her to be frank, forthcoming and –’

  ‘And everything you describe here, Special Agent,’ interrupted the DA, ‘syncs with behaviour exhibited by high-IQ sociopaths who are inherently skilled at covering their tracks, does it not?’

  But Jacobs' brow was knotting. ‘Yes and no, Mr Katz. Certainly sociopaths are indeed adept at maintaining their composure – in fact such control is part of their MO. But, such traits can simply be what they appear to be – a willingness by the subject to answer honestly. Also, what I was going to add before you, well …’ Jacobs hesitated, ‘was that Mrs Walker also appeared to be gutted by the loss of her daughter. Her grief is controlled but very much present. She is a mother in mourning – there's no doubt in my mind about it.’

  That took the wind out of Katz's sails – if only for a second or two. He reached for his iced water, taking one, two, three long slow sips that Joe tracked down his throat. ‘Do you think the woman had post-partum depression?’ he finally asked, cutting to the chase.

  Jacobs took a breath. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Sufferers of post-partum depression experience symptoms such as mood swings, frequent crying, extreme weight loss, agitation and anxiety. They express continuous feelings of worthlessness and guilt, they have trouble concentrating and making decisions, they have thoughts of death and suicide and that's just not where Mrs Walker is at. PPD sufferers also often exhibit physical symptoms such as headaches, chest pain, rapid heartbeat and dizziness, so I checked with Mrs Walker's medical report at the jail,’ continued Jacobs, ‘and she showed no such symptoms.’

  Everyone in the room waited for Katz to jump on Jacobs with some sort of self-serving counterargument, but the Kat said nothing – if anything, his expression softened as his face broke into the slightest of smiles. ‘She doesn't have PPD,’ he said.

  ‘Not in my opinion,’ said Jacobs.

  Katz turned back to Joe. ‘You get that medical file yet?’

  ‘You raise that warrant yet?’ fired Joe.

  Joe had sent a text to Katz saying they would need a warrant to retrieve Sienna Walker's medical file from the reluctant Dick Davenport not long after they had left the physician's office.

  ‘I spoke to Judge Worthington immediately after I received your text. He was going to raise the warrant instantaneously. Maybe it was delivered while you two were taking that nap,’ he said.

  It took all of Joe's strength not to leap across the table and kick the shit out of the asshole DA then and there.

  ‘So let me make this clear,’ said Katz, who, Joe was now sure, had called this meeting for the specific purpose of manipulating Agent Jacobs' expertise to his advantage. ‘In your opinion, Special Agent Jacobs, as a trained psychological professional, Sienna Walker does not suffer from PPD?’

  Jacobs hesitated, flashing a look at Joe. ‘No.’

  ‘And if that is the case it is also your opinion that her actions were undertaken while she was of sound mind?’

  Jacobs said nothing as, once again Joe noticed, did King.

  ‘She appears of sound mind to me,’ conceded Jacobs, ‘but once again I stress my expertise lies with –’

  ‘… helping the local authorities with their investigations,’ interrupted Katz, ‘and we appreciate your help, Special Agent.’

  Finally Joe understood exactly what had happened here – Katz now had a top FBI profiler, one he would no doubt call on to give testimony in court, willing to vouch for Sienna Walker's competency. Katz was going for the jugular. He wanted to throw the PPD out the window in favour of calculated premeditation.

  And in that moment it struck Joe that everyone involved in this case, even the defendant's so-called friends, were lining up to stick it to her – a woman who, according to the expert Jacobs, was sick with grief at the loss of her child. And he wondered if they had got it wrong after all. And then he thought of David.

  And then his BlackBerry began to beep.

  27

  Marc Rigotti swerved out of the Museum of Fine Arts car lot before taking a right on Fenway and making his way around The Fens. David was sitting next to him, holding onto the side passenger door to steady himself as Rigotti took another turn, this time left into Huntington, heading east toward Back Bay.

  They drove in silence, their wet hair dripping down the sides of their faces and onto the collars of their coats, the windscreen wipers working in double time – thump, thump … thump, thump.

  ‘Jesus, Marc,’ said David as Rigotti swerved around a taxi now breaking at an amber light.

  ‘You could have driven yourself,’ replied Rigotti, his arms crisscrossing the steering wheel as he pumped it hard to the right. ‘So what's your take?’ he asked after a beat.

  David didn't answer. He was fearing the worst – namely, the discovery of new evidence that would go toward incriminating his client, evidence such as …

  ‘Whatever it is, it's big,’ said Rigotti, interrupting David's thoughts. ‘I have a guy in the communications room at HQ. They've dispatched four squads and the K9s. They've found something –’ he glanced right to gauge David's response – ‘we just need to find out what.’

  David clutched at the door again as Sienna Walker's street finally came into view. He couldn't see them, but the reflections of blue flashing lights on the windows of houses diagonally opposite his client's confirmed Rigotti's suppositions that the street was now clogged with patrol cars. There was a van on the corner that David recognised as belonging to the dog squad and, as they approached, a uniform was setting up a roadblock directing all traffic to a detour further down the street.

  Rigotti screeched to a halt another fifteen yards up the road, squeezing his Nissan into an illegal spot next to a fire hydrant. They jumped out together, ignoring the rain as it beat down upon them. Rigotti cursed as he saw two mobile TV trucks rounding the corner two blocks up.

  ‘Shit,’ he said, before turning to David. ‘We're good, right?’ he asked, indicating to David that, given the information he had shared earlier, he was owed, at the very least, an exclusive comment from defence. Rigotti knew he had no way of making it past the roadblock, whereas refusing entry to David would be legal suicide for the police and the prosecution given David could argue obstruction and infringement of his client's rights.

  ‘We're good,’ nodded David, knowing he would not even be here if not for Marc. And then he ran down the sidewalk toward Sienna Walker's front door.

  *

  ‘Tell him to move the hell away,’ said Roger Katz, his hand shooting into the front seat across Joe Mannix's face. The DA was in the back of Mannix's unmarked sedan pointing at the uniform manning the roadblock. The cop turned to register Joe's approach – portable light flashing, siren blazing – and almost tripped over his own feet as he hurriedly went to move the wooden horse petitions to his left.

  ‘What is this, an episode of the Keystone Kops?’ said Katz as a quietly fuming Joe swerved over to brake in front of Sienna Walker's brownstone. Joe knew the only reason Katz had hitched a ride was because Joe could use the siren and Katz wanted to be here for the opening curtain. The DA knew the news outlets monitored police radio 24/7, and a reference to this address would spark a media frenzy.

  Katz checked his face in Joe's rear-vision mirror before straightening his raincoat and pushing out the door.

  ‘Wanker,’ said Frank as he and Joe went t
o follow the DA.

  ‘Asshole,’ said Joe as he spotted Captain O'Donnell and moved toward the accused's front door.

  And then he saw another familiar figure approaching quickly from their left, a man on a collision course with his number one enemy.

  *

  ‘Don't even think about stopping me, Roger,’ said David, now coming face to face with the clean-shaven DA.

  ‘I'm sorry, Counsellor, but this is a crime scene. You're going to have to wait until we've finished,’ said Katz.

  ‘Then you can expect a motion for dismissal on the grounds of obstruction.’

  ‘David,’ said Joe.

  David lifted his right hand to shelter his eyes from the downpour before turning to square off against Joe.

  ‘You want to stand in my way, Joe?’ he asked. David was still smarting from Rigotti's earlier heads-up regarding the initials on the forensics, and he knew Joe saw it – the anger in his eyes.

  ‘Chief,’ said Frank. McKay's attempt at diplomacy.

  ‘I'm coming, Frank,’ said Joe before turning his back on both Katz and David and moving through the door.

  The yelling started as media reps revelled in the presence of both the County DA and the lead attorney for the defence going at it on the defendant's front stoop. Questions flew as cameras jostled against the roadblock some twenty yards away.

  ‘You want to star in your own execution, then be my guest,’ said Katz as he shifted left to allow David into the house before him, strategically angling himself toward the lenses now pointed directly at the two.

  ‘Go fuck yourself, Roger,’ said David as he shouldered past the DA and followed Joe into the house – the corridor acting as a wind tunnel, the echo of a dog barking cutting through the chaos like the crack of a cowboy's whip.

  *

  ‘What have we got?’ asked Joe Mannix after reaching the courtyard and making a beeline for the cop named Atkins, who'd called it in. Atkins' face was pink under his plastic-covered hat. He steered Joe and Frank toward the courtyard wall.

  ‘Captain O'Donnell put crews on regular patrols of the house mainly to look out for media interference. Today it was our turn,’ he said in a thick South Boston accent as he pointed toward a female cop Joe knew as Gabriella Russo. ‘As part of the patrol Russo and I walked round back to check out the courtyard because it borders the separate laneway. I heard a noise that I thought was coming from inside the yard but when we unlocked the gate we saw it was that branch –’ he pointed at a fallen tree branch – ‘banging against the fence. I picked up the branch and moved it sideways to stop the banging and that's when I saw this.’

  Atkins pointed downward to a circular drain trap in the paved courtyard floor. It sat under an oversized gutter pipe that dripped its contents into the catchment. All the rain combined with the broken tree branch had resulted in a stack of leaves being washed into the drain. The leaves had covered the grate and effectively blocked the water dripping from the gutter pipe from getting through.

  ‘Jesus,’ said McKay, now staring at the pool of red now sitting on top of the concealed grate. The pipe continued to drip, something inside it turning the water red.

  Joe turned to another cop named Simone who was holding his K9 at the collar. The dog had stopped barking but he was chomping at the bit to get closer to the pipe. ‘What's the story, Simone?’ he asked.

  Simone cut to the chase. ‘Bella here can distinguish up to a hundred smells, Deputy Superintendent, so we narrowed it down by giving him an item of the baby's clothing to sniff before letting him loose.’

  Joe closed his eyes before refocusing once again. He looked at Dan Martinelli, who he'd asked for personally to supervise the collection of ‘evidence’ at this hotly contested scene. ‘Dan?’ he said.

  Martinelli nodded to indicate the man beside him. ‘This is Bill Vaughn,’ he said, introducing the fit-looking man wearing a pair of royal blue BPD Crime Lab Unit overalls. ‘Vaughn's ex-NYPD forensics. He specialises in extractions from difficult-to-maintain structures.’ He looked at Vaughn. ‘What are you thinking, Bill?’

  The technician named Vaughn put his hands on his hips and considered the pipe before him. ‘The pipe is wider than most – seven, eight inches,’ he began. ‘But that's not uncommon given a lot of people who live in the old brownstones replace the old ones with sizes comparable to their originals.’ Vaughn wiped the water from his eyes with the back of his heavy-duty work glove before taking a breath and moving on. ‘The pipe is K-style, which means it's seamless – less likely to break or leak. It's pretty new. I'd say a year or two – aluminium. But like I said, there are no joins so we're gonna have to cut.’

  And there lay the problem – where the hell to cut.

  ‘I don't want you shredding evidence,’ said Joe.

  Vaughn shook his head before holding up a hammer. ‘I'm gonna tap the pipe with this,’ he said. ‘We should be able to hear when we hit a hollow space as opposed to …’

  ‘A section blocked by something,’ finished Joe.

  Vaughn nodded at both Joe and Martinelli before moving toward the pipe.

  Vaughn was tall – well over six foot – so he reached up and started high, all in the courtyard silent as he tapped his way down the front of the coated gutter pipe. The noise was consistent, a metallic clink that shook the pipe and caused its mouth to cough out spatters of the red liquid. He was crouching by the time the noise changed from a clink to a dull thud. He looked up at Joe.

  ‘Cut just above it,’ said Joe.

  And so Vaughn picked up his Crime Lab issue cordless handsaw and began to cut.

  *

  ‘I gotta tell you, Counsellor,’ said Roger Katz, his voice low under the screaming of the saw. He and David were crushed in a corner of the courtyard, the space now filled by police, K9 and Crime Lab personnel who stood quiet, chins lowered, sensitive to the situation now playing out before them.

  ‘Normally I'd revel in a slam dunk but this is almost too easy,’ he said. ‘Almost.’

  David felt his jaw tighten.

  ‘Shall we make a wager – the body or the nightshirt, or maybe even both?’ he said, voicing what, out of respect, no one else had been willing to say. ‘Either way you're screwed,’ he said, ‘you and your sick fuck of a client.’

  The blade finished its job, Katz falling once again into silence. David stood mesmerised, wanting to respond but somehow unable, simply because there were no words.

  Vaughn disconnected the bottom portion of the pipe and proceeded to use an automatic drill to remove the screws that held it to brackets attached to the wall. Then he lifted it up – just an inch – and sideways before laying it flat on the courtyard floor.

  It looked heavier than it should have.

  ‘I'm gonna take a look,’ said Vaughn, his eyes on Joe, who nodded.

  Vaughn took a breath, perhaps preparing himself for seeing something it was likely he would never forget.

  The world stood still as he got down, positioning himself so that he was lying on his side, in the irregular puddles of water, his eyes lining up with the opening of the section of dismantled gutter pipe.

  And then Vaughn's head slumped as he rested it on the pavers before looking up at Joe once again.

  ‘It's the deceased,’ he said. ‘She's small but wrapped in what looks to be a large piece of clothing which has wedged her in tight.’

  No one spoke. No one moved.

  The rain fell. The dog panted. The cop named Russo crossed herself.

  ‘Two for two, Counsellor,’ said Katz in so slight a whisper that David barely registered it. ‘Two for two.’

  28

  The following morning

  David was twenty-five when his father died.

  Sean Cavanaugh Snr had worked on the docks of Port Newark Container Terminal for most of his life, David's memories of him were still tinged with the smells of salt and grease and end of the day sweat. The older Cavanaugh suffered a heart attack right on knock-off time on a Friday eveni
ng while he was collecting his belongings from the Marine Operations office. And everyone who knew him said how typical of Sean Cavanaugh that was, given he would never think of quitting until his shift was done.

  For some reason this memory clung to David as he sat hunched over a strong black coffee at the back of Myrtle McGee's. It was early, barely past dawn, so the café was reasonably quiet. But Mick, who had no doubt already read today's front page headlines, was giving David some space.

  The events of the past twenty-four hours were still spinning in David's head. He had left Sienna Walker's brownstone not long after the discovery of her baby daughter's body, ignoring Katz, avoiding Joe, and giving Marc Rigotti his only statement to the press.

  He knew how this would play out, Katz milking every last drop from his twofold evidentiary coup. The Tribune showed front page photos of the DA taking centre stage on Sienna Walker's brownstone steps, his face appropriately respectful to the memory of the murdered infant, and his carriage – chest out and chin high – saying by hell or high water, I will fight until justice is done.

  David played it the only way he could, by telling Rigotti – and as a flow-on his 400,000 readers – that the discovery of Eliza's body, while important to the case in evidentiary terms, in no way went to consolidate his client's guilt. He asked that the media appreciate this was an extremely difficult time for Sienna Walker, who had been charged with a crime she did not commit, and said he looked forward to the trial that would clear her name and enable her as a mother to finally put her child to rest.

  Of course he wanted to say that he was sure subsequent forensic tests and a medical examination of the baby's body would not only prove his client's innocence but give the police clues as to the identity of her real killer – but in all honesty, he sensed that this would probably not be the case.

  David had a horrible feeling that the autopsy of the child and the analysis of the nightshirt would not only consolidate Katz's case but add more fuel to his fire, a situation that would, if at all possible, put him in an even more precarious position than he was in right now.