The 3rd Victim

by Sydney Bauer

  ‘You think Hunt was bluffing when he told Sara that Davenport would testify as to your self-sedation?’

  ‘Don't you?’ she asked.

  ‘Why would I? If they are determined to put you away, it is certainly a good way of doing so.’

  But she was shaking her head. ‘No, depression suggests the decision was somewhat out of my control. They need me with a clear mind to secure the maximum sentence.’

  ‘You don't think Davenport has brought this theory up with the DA?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So why on earth would Hunt put such a story to Sara? Why tell the defence and not the prosecution?’

  ‘Isn't it obvious?’ she asked.

  But a frustrated Joe could not see it, so Walker took a breath and went on. ‘You have to understand the people we are dealing with here. They are incredibly clever, always two steps ahead. The murder-suicide scenario – I suspect it was a last-ditch attempt to get David and Sara to drop my case, for they know if David did so, especially at this late stage of the game, it would crucify me in the eyes of the people. And twelve of those people will ultimately decide my fate.’

  Finally Joe saw it. This was all about David's reputation, that all-important promise he made to himself when he decided to dedicate his life to representing people he believed in.

  ‘Tell me this then,’ he said after a time. ‘Why do you think Hunt and Davenport are doing what you purport them to be doing?’

  ‘David thinks it is because my husband suspected Daniel of insider trading.’

  ‘I didn't ask you what David thought.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘No you didn't.’

  She looked at him then – her eyes like steel – and in that moment, he saw beyond her fragile exterior and into something deeper, something stronger, something determined and powerful, filled with purpose but driven by fear.

  ‘This isn't about the insider trading,’ he said.

  But she did not move, merely continued to meet his eye.

  ‘Then what is it about and why are you so afraid to tell me?’

  ‘I'm sorry,’ she said, after a time.

  ‘You're the one whose life is on the line here, Mrs Walker.’

  ‘Perhaps, but I still feel … responsible, for involving others. I am not a fool, Deputy Superintendent, I know how far you are sticking your neck out for me – not to mention the risk David and Sara are taking with …’

  ‘With what?’ Her comments were starting to worry him.

  ‘With their reputations, of course,’ she replied. Her answer should have eased him, and it did, to a point.

  ‘David is a big boy, Mrs Walker, but you aren't doing him any favours by not telling him the one hundred per cent truth.’ He met her eye, sure then that she was still hiding something. ‘You are going to prison for a very long time unless you trust in your attorneys.’

  ‘I have trusted them with my life, Deputy Superintendent, isn't that enough?’

  There was movement at the window – it was the deputy who had allowed him access without noting his name in the visitor's log, now knocking impatiently on the door.

  ‘It appears our time is up,’ she said.

  He nodded. ‘I have one last question,’ he said.

  ‘All right.’

  ‘Do you know a woman by the name of Esther Wallace?’

  She blinked and her lips parted for a fraction of a second before she closed them once again.

  ‘Mrs Walker?’ he prompted.

  ‘Mrs Wallace used to be Dick Davenport's assistant.’

  ‘Until she went on vacation.’

  ‘It's a shame that she's gone,’ she offered after a pause. ‘I found her to be very … efficient.’

  Joe did not answer, understanding this was her way of giving it to him, the seed of something he needed to grow.

  The deputy knocked again.

  ‘My time is up,’ she said before correcting herself. ‘I mean your time is up.’ She got to her feet before meeting his eye once again. ‘Deputy Superintendent, please forgive me if I have appeared … callous, but …’ she swallowed, ‘it is the only way I can cope, you see, by rationalising, trying to justify what has happened and how I might find some sense of justice for …’ Her eyes started to water as she swallowed back the tears.

  ‘If it makes any difference … your daughter – I don't believe she suffered.’

  She looked at him then, the slightest smile of gratitude forming on her pale pink lips. ‘When your people found her,’ she asked, ‘did they … was their some sort of acknowledgment, some sort of pause, or silence out of sorrow, or respect, or …’

  ‘Nobody said anything for what felt like a very long time,’ he said.

  She nodded.

  ‘And if I didn't say it before, I am sorry for your loss.’

  ‘Me too, Deputy Superintendent. Me too.’

  49

  Madonna Carrera pressed her thumb firmly against her thigh. She held it there a moment before releasing it and was pleased to see that it left a white impression. Job done! She had managed to get a slight tan in her forty-five-minute lunch hour which would mean she could get away with not wearing pantyhose to the bar she was going to tonight. She was glad she tanned easily. Her friend Carina was as white as a bleached sheet and was openly jealous of Madonna's Jennifer Lopez-like hue. But Carina was also jealous of Madonna's hair (the volume), her boobs (the volume) and her ass (the tightness). So the skin thing was just one more asset poor Carina would continue to covet, which made Madonna wonder why people labelled both jealousy and beauty as curses, given she was blessed with the latter, and there was no way her beauty was anything close to being a –

  The sight of him cut her thought short. It was her boss, Dr Davenport. It caught her off guard seeing him anywhere but inside the surgery. He was standing by those statues looking all serious and contemplative and melan … cholic.

  This is awkward, she thought as she slowly got to her feet and shook the crumbs of her cinnamon roll from her skirt. There was no way she could avoid him, those bronze ducks were right beside the path that led back to the surgery and she was already running late so … She decided that this could be an opportunity to converse with him outside the confines of their professional setting. Perhaps this was fate – her decision to sun her legs in the Public Gardens at lunch time. Perhaps this would give them a chance to bury the hatchet from the other morning's shellacking, to converse as friends and connect on an alternative level. And so she undid the top button of her blouse before sidling up beside him and tapping him on the shoulder.

  ‘Dr Davenport, how nice to run into you! Such a lovely day, isn't it? Are you taking a brief moment to carpet diem?’ she asked, trying to sound multicultural. ‘To seize the day?’

  He turned to her then, his eyes squinting against the sun, and for a moment it looked like he did not recognise her, but then he nodded as he turned back to the statues and pointed at the largest of the nine and opened his mouth to say: ‘You've read the book, I assume – about Mrs Mallard and her eight little ducklings.’

  Um … okay … just go with it, she told herself.

  Madonna had read the book, of course, but only because Make Way For The Ducklings had been compulsory reading in elementary school. From memory, it was some lame tale about a mother duck – Mrs Mallard – who led her eights kids across the city to meet the father duck – Mr Mallard – in the Public Gardens. Which made her wonder if that was where the expression ‘lame duck’ actually came from.

  ‘Sure,’ she replied with a smile. ‘It was one of my favourites. I liked the part where the policemen stopped the traffic to let them through.’ As if that would ever happen, she thought. ‘And I remember the ducklings had really sweet names that rhymed – something like Jack and Mack and Flack and Slack.’

  ‘Actually their names were Jack, Kack, Lack, Mack, Nack, Ouack, Pack and Quack. Their journey was a long one, but once they got here, they decided to make the Gardens their home for good.’

/>   ‘Wise decision,’ said Madonna, not knowing what else to say. ‘Sure beats the hell out of Southie,’ she added, referring to Boston's working-class south.

  The doctor nodded and did a vague sort of bob before turning to look at her once again. ‘Did you know that these statues have a replica in Moscow?’ he asked. ‘In Novodevichy Park to be exact.’

  ‘No, no I didn't,’ she answered, thinking it best not to lie.

  ‘They were a gift from Barbara Bush to Raisa Gorbachev – for the children of the Soviet Union.’

  ‘That's nice,’ said Madonna. The conversation was not going the way she had expected.

  ‘It was nice,’ Dr Davenport continued, ‘until some Moscow hoodlums cut off a number of the ducks at the knees so they could sell them on the black market as scrap metal.’

  ‘They cut off the ducklings at the knees?’ she asked, genuinely horrified. ‘Why that's just awful. They are just babies. If that was real life, the mother duck would have been … you know, spewing.’

  ‘Except they cut her off too – she was biggest and therefore worth the most.’

  Shit, thought Madonna, what the hell do I say to that? But then she saw an opening. ‘Must make you feel good about what you do, Doctor – you know … making families, keeping the mothers and their babies together.’

  He looked at her then, and his face turned all tortured and sad as if she had said something deliberately to hurt him. ‘You should be back at the surgery,’ he said. ‘The Thompsons are due in at one.’

  She nodded, wondering what she had said wrong.

  ‘All right,’ she said, as she backed away and started up the path toward Charles Street. As she reached the crossing she took a chance and turned back to check if he was behind her, but he was still near the statues, standing there, mesmerised, like he expected those fucking ducks to up and start following him. Like he was the father they'd trekked all that way to hook up with, the daddy who'd take them all home.

  *

  This was not like him. He was usually so in control. He was usually immune to … how might you put it? … the human aspect of his work. He saw himself as a scientist, which was probably why he was able to do what he was able to do, but he'd be lying if he did not admit to his also acknowledging the humanitarian aspects of his work – and it was these more morality based concepts that were distressing him so much, or to call a spade a spade, eating away at him, like parasites sucking on his soul.

  He knew what he was supposed to do. His friend had made it very clear. First he was supposed to have found the midwife, which he had failed to do. It did not help that her name was Mary Brown and Dublin had a population of over half a million people. He was not sure why this request had been made of him but he guessed it was his friend's way of rubbing salt in the wound – reminding Davenport how he'd failed to maintain control of his end of the deal from the outset. It was petty, but Davenport would not have put it past him.

  The second task was more … worrisome. He also knew that he should have completed it by now, but Sophia was still alive and well, as was the child inside her.

  So what was the problem? As it was pointed out to him, he had done this before. All right, that was not strictly true. When his friend had commented that it was ‘not like you haven't done it before’ he was referring to the old woman – to Wallace, who was way too smart for her own good. He had told him that he had dealt with her, which he had, but not in the fashion his friend had imagined. The truth was, he hadn't had to deal with Wallace because she'd up and left before he'd had a chance to. And perhaps he was playing ostrich by hoping that that was the end of it and he would never hear from the woman again, but he figured, given he had not heard a peep from her in over four months, that the woman had indeed put her time working with him behind her. She was smart, and that had definitely been the smart thing to do – under the circumstances.

  But Sophia was another matter altogether. She and Wallace were polar opposites. So the idea of ‘dealing’ with a subordinate such as Sophia went against everything he had supposedly dedicated his life to when he entered Yale School of Medicine all those years ago. He took the oath – to do no harm – and more to the point Davenport, in all his genius, had taken the words of Hippocrates further. He did not just cure, he created, he did not just treat, he designed.

  No, this was not just about Sophia, it was about the child that she carried inside her. The first was lost in … in so violent a fashion, but to voluntarily give up both – it seemed so … indulgent. It was not like another could be created with a click of the fingers. Indeed, they lost that opportunity many months ago. So how could he, given his commitment and, he had to admit, appreciation for what he was capable of, destroy what was perhaps the greatest thing he had ever produced? It was just so criminal considering the masses who were churning out millions upon millions of substandard specimens at a rate that would eventually be the ruination of the planet. And so to annihilate one so unique was, well … it was tantamount to sacrilegious, whether you were religious or not.

  Dick Davenport shifted his weight. He looked up and noted that the blue sky was being consumed by the grey and he told himself that if he was smart he would, like that blue, allow the inevitable to happen. For even if he did act on such notions, what was he supposed to do with a child such as this one he had fashioned? To not provide it with the nurturing it deserved would be sinful – like painting a masterpiece for no one to see.

  No, he told himself as he glanced down at Mrs Mallard one last time before turning to head back to his surgery, this nonsense has to stop. He knew there was no alternative bar the one that had been set for him, so he needed to swallow this bitter pill and move on before the situation transformed from controllable to beyond their manipulation. Better to let something go than not do it justice, he reiterated as he passed the smallest of the eight sculptures, the duckling named Quack.

  Unless … the thought came to him like a bolt from the blue, causing him to stop in his tracks on the pathway. Unless …

  50

  Washington DC

  David sat back in the antique leather chair and took in the room around him. He had been led into the library, a cool, darkly furnished space where the only light came from a desk lamp that sat centre right on top of the highly polished walnut desk. The heavy brocade drapes had been drawn against the morning sun, giving the impression that this room sat in an eternal state of evening, where bourbon was drunk and matters of great importance were considered and debated well into the night.

  He took a breath as he contemplated exactly how he was going to approach the man he had made this appointment with a mere fifteen hours ago. David had grabbed an early morning shuttle to DC, determined to make the most of what was described by one of Baker's three clerks as a ‘rare window in the judge's overcrowded diary’. He had expected to have more time to plan, but it was made clear to him that audiences with the great man were often booked months in advance – and that this opening would close within seconds unless David made the commitment to be at Judge Baker's Georgetown home at 9 am the following morning, and to be there promptly on time.

  The door behind him opened with a swish, the force moving through it pushing past him without even bothering to acknowledge his presence. David was a tall man but even so Baker towered over him like a monolith, his girth just about balancing out his six-foot-five-plus frame. He was wearing a custom-made business shirt that was monogrammed at the cuffs, his chest bordered by old-fashioned braces which corralled the perimeters of his middle and crisscrossed the expanse that was his back.

  ‘You're Cavanaugh,’ Baker said as he moved behind his desk and reached out with his massive block of a hand. The desk lamp forced his shadow across the back wall which was littered with images of him with every President since Johnson.

  Baker shook David's hand with gusto. ‘It's been some time since I had a visitor from Boston, unless you include the Governor and the Attorney General – who I don't consider visitors by the wa
y, but liberal inconveniences.’

  David was speechless.

  ‘It's all right, Mr Cavanaugh, I have no doubt you vote Democrat like most of your Commonwealth's compatriots but I shall try not to hold that against you – unless you support the Red Sox, in which case …?’

  ‘Worse, sir – I grew up in Jersey, so I'm afraid I am a Yankees Man.’

  ‘Well, at least you're honest about it,’ said Baker before gesturing for David to take a seat. The big man planted himself in the green leather chair behind the desk, from where he towered over the files and newspapers and the framed family photographs that were grouped on the top right-hand corner of his desk.

  ‘Let me guess,’ said Baker, not one to let the silence linger. ‘My clerk told you that I had a rare window which meant you had to fly down here on a second's notice in order to nab the spot.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ David nodded. ‘And I appreciate your –’

  ‘That was bullshit, Mr Cavanaugh. Not the rare window thing, god knows my windows are about as rare as those on the Great Pyramid of Giza, but it was I who moved things around in order to meet with you.

  Does that surprise you?’

  A confused David nodded. ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘You represent the Walker woman.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The friend of Daniel Hunt's.’

  Okay, thought David, surprised by this. ‘Her husband was employed by Hunt and Associates but I am not sure my client would refer to Mr Hunt as a friend.’

  Baker's eyes narrowed before they widened once again. ‘What do you know about him?’ he asked.

  David shook his head. ‘Hunt is of interest to you?’

  ‘Of course he's of interest to me. One minute we've never heard of him, the next he is being touted as one of the most influential corporate identities in Massachusetts. He is one of those men people seem to know everything and nothing about, and men like that always pique my interest, Mr Cavanaugh.’

  David tried to contain his excitement – could this really be going the way it appeared to be? Had Jim Walker actually made contact with Ted Baker prior to driving south toward Washington? Did Baker know of Jim's suspicions and perhaps already put out some feelers to try and find out what Daniel Hunt was up to?