by Steve Hadden
They’d been in the conference room since ten a.m. and Jenna had covered the key points for tomorrow’s custody hearing with Lauren. The judge would allow Mayer and the Falzones to call her to the stand. That, she explained, would be their only move. Showing her as unfit was their only chance at full custody. With the outstanding psych evaluation the judge now had, they’d attack her about Jack’s killing Tanner.
Visitation, however, was more certain. As grandparents, they only had to prove that it was in Jack’s best interest. Ike could quash that with proof of his theory that the Falzones were behind Tom’s death, but it was Thursday and he’d found little in the form of hard evidence. Jenna had watched the stress etch Lauren’s once-smooth face over the past two months, but the past three hours seemed to accelerate the process. Now she’d have to endure Jenna’s discussion about the mental-impairment strategy in the criminal trial. Even with her father there for support, Jenna never hated herself more.
“Lauren, we need to talk about the criminal trial.”
Lauren dropped her head as if anticipating the pain. Then she looked up. “Okay. We’ve been all through it. And Ike has promised he’ll find what we need. What is there left to do?”
“I know. And God knows Ike’s record speaks for itself. But it’s Thursday afternoon and we still don’t have any new evidence. We’ve had two detectives look under every rock for the last six months. We have to face the possibility that Ike won’t do any better.”
“You heard what he said. They’re hiding something.”
“We can’t risk Jack’s life on a hunch. Dad and I have been over and over the facts and there’s a significant risk that we lose and Jack gets life.” Jenna didn’t want to imagine what those words felt like as they attacked Lauren’s heart. They’d shared enough bottles of wine to get past each other’s façades, and Jenna knew that losing Jack now would destroy her.
Jenna reached across the table and took Lauren’s hand. She could see the tears welling in Lauren’s eyes as Jenna readied to breach the subject. “I think we—”
Lauren cut her off with a glare. “Don’t say it.”
“But I—”
“I don’t want to discuss any option about Jack’s mental deficiencies.”
“But we need to have that option ready and we need your consent.”
Lauren stood. “I won’t be a part of that.” She gathered her folio. “I believe Ike will come through.” She stopped at the door. “I’m going to take a break now.” She left the room.
While Jenna understood Lauren’s reaction, it filled her with frustration. She blamed herself for driving Lauren out of the room. She closed the file in front of her and cradled her forehead in her hand.
She looked at her father. “I don’t blame her, but she puts us in a box, and maybe Jack in prison for life.”
Ed slowly closed his file, leaned back, and rocked in his chair. He stayed silent, staring at the file in front of him. Then he stopped rocking. “I don’t think you can change her mind. And she’s the client, or at least his guardian.”
“But that puts everything on a long shot. I’d be counting on Ike Rossi.”
A wave of concern swept across her father’s face, and for the first time he looked old and tired. “We’re all counting on Ike.”
Jenna could read him. She always could. This wasn’t about the case, it was personal. It was about much more than the uncertainty of putting a decision into the hands of twelve strangers. “What is it, Dad?”
He folded his hands on the desk and eyed them as if he held a secret inside them. A few seconds passed, and he raised his head, locking his eyes on hers. “We’re hemorrhaging. The firm is losing its client base, especially the few corporate and small-business clients we had.”
“It’s that bad?”
“At this rate, we’re not covering costs. I’ve been supplementing the firm with my rainy-day fund.”
Jenna had missed that. She’d been so absorbed by the custody hearing and the murder trial preparation she hadn’t looked at the firm’s finances since she took the case.
“Why? They love us.”
“It’s Falzone and Latham. They’ve been carefully planting veiled threats in the business community about dealing with us. Anyone that does will not be considered a strategic partner of Falzone Enterprises, including Falzone Energy. Everyone knows the political muscle they have, too. A few don’t like the negative press about representing a murderer.”
“They can’t do that.”
“They can. They’re connected in ways you can’t imagine.”
The realization that they were in financial trouble crept in like an oozing, heavy tar. It wasn’t the firm she was worried about. Her father had worked for forty years and built up enough of a cushion to enjoy a nice retirement. But he’d also built up enough of a reserve to help support her brother Michael for the rest of his life. He’d started when Michael was four years old. Michael had needed heart surgery so he could live a full life, not die in his youth. Their family had barely made it through. Jenna had worked in the evenings and on the weekends at a local bookstore and given every paycheck to her dad. Now the foundation they’d built to let Michael live in comfort was being eroded by her decision to take the case.
She didn’t want to ask, but she had to know how bad it was. “So if we lose?”
“If we lose, we shut down. I have to start over.” His hands were still locked but trembling, and his eyes turned glassy. “I’ll have to find a firm to join and try to make as much as I can as long as I can.”
Jenna let her father’s pain become hers and soak in for a few seconds. She stood and moved next to him. She bent and hugged him. His trembling intensified until she heard a sob. A tear tickled her cheek and she wiped it away. “It will be okay, Dad. No matter what.”
Deep down in the dark pit where her competitive fire lived, a storm began to spin into a hatred she’d never felt for anyone before. The Falzones had done this, and somehow she would find a way to stop them. She needed Ike to come through. To save Jack—and to save her family.
CHAPTER 32
It was just after three p.m. and Ike had walked to Rossi’s after the tow and tire replacement on the Shelby. Other than the sidelong glances and head shakes of the mechanic after he inspected the bullet holes, no one knew about the attempt to run Ike off the road. DeSantis Auto Repair was only two blocks from Rossi’s, and Ike had known the family. He was close to the two sons, Vinny and Danny, since he started driving. The steady flow of business from his car addiction, along with a small incentive payment, would keep the secret in the family. Since the shooter had targeted Ike’s tires and not his head, he assured himself this was just a warning. But that warning meant he was getting warmer and someone, probably with the last name Falzone, didn’t like it.
Sitting on his barstool, Ike stared at the chalkboard and applied his best inductive reasoning. Normally, the board held the specials each evening, but with the lunch crowd gone and two hours to go before the Thursday night dinner menu, it held four expressions and their mathematical solutions:
3–53+8x2+19 = –15
4+3–53+8+74 = 36
9+13+30–7+8+7+99 = 159
53+25–7+47+10–7 = 121
Ike carefully thought of them as solutions and not what he needed most: answers. Since he’d received the fourth one, his gut told him the expressions represented clues. Clues that could lead to answers—answers that could free Jack. Ike had recruited Mac and Maria to brainstorm the possibilities, and they’d been gaping at the board for five minutes as if it were an alien spaceship. Rossi’s was empty, a typical afternoon lull, but the silence was unsettling. They had no easy answers.
“What did the cryptologist from Pitt say?” Ike asked.
Mac didn’t look away from the board. “He said they didn’t fit any of the known cryptographic algorithms. As far as he was concerned, they’re mathematical expressions.”
“You know,” Maria said pointing at the board, “could the
solutions be the clues?”
“I thought about that,” Ike said. “But the expressions didn’t come with a solution, and the solution is easy. Something that obvious provides no encryption value at all.”
“Then we need the key,” Maria said.
“That’s right,” Mac said. “The cryptologist mentioned that was part of the process of decryption. But he was baffled.” He took a long draw on his beer.
That made sense to Ike. “All right then, what key can we think of that would cover the range of numbers from two to ninety-nine?”
Still, nothing but silence.
“Some of the numbers repeat: three, seven, eight and fifty-three,” Mac said.
Ike began to sense some pattern to the numbers. “That makes me think this is some kind of code. Numeric to alpha.”
“That’s the first thing I tried with the alphabet while you were gone. I simply substituted the letter corresponding to the numbers. If it was larger than twenty-six, I left the number.” Mac pulled a bar napkin from his pocket and walked to the board. He wrote out his translation below the expressions:
C53HBS
DC53H74
IM30GHG99
53YG47JG
“Serial numbers?” Maria guessed.
“Maybe. But to what?” Ike said as he checked his watch.
“Too long for plate numbers,” Mac said.
Ike looked at his watch again. “Can you two keep working on this?” He stood and pushed his stool to the bar.
Mac threw a disgusted look at Ike, took another drink, and set the mug down hard. “You’re still going through with it?”
Ike had shown the access card to Mac when he’d arrived. “I’m running out of options. These things are gibberish right now, even though I think they hold the key to what we’re looking for. I can’t take the time here. The hearing starts Monday and I have no hard evidence.”
“If you steal what you’re looking for, you still won’t have hard evidence,” Mac said.
“It will be admissible.”
“It’s not its admissibility I’d be worried about. It’s the weight the court and the jury will give it. It will be evidence stolen by an unscrupulous investigator from the oil business.”
Ike found it hard to argue. “That may be the case, but it may lead to something much bigger.”
“You don’t know that. What you do know is that it will lead to losing all the reputational capital you’ve built up over the years with your clients and law enforcement. You’ll be just like those two-bit PIs that live in the sewer with the rest of the scum.”
“Mac.” Maria touched his arm.
“No. Ike needs to hear this. It’s a slippery slope. I’ve seen it a hundred times. Break the law a little here and a little there and pretty soon you’re on the wrong side.”
Ike felt as if he were back at the station at nineteen on his first days with Mac. One warning Mac had drilled into him had stayed with him all these years. Most people have good and bad inside. It’s the little steps that take them one way or the other. This was definitely a step in the wrong direction. To argue any further would be pointless—Mac was right. But the powerful force inside wanted to free Jack no matter what virtue or vice prevailed.
“I need to get ready.”
Maria called to the corner where one of the waiters was taking a break watching Ellen and asked him to take over for a few minutes. As she looped around the bar, Ike heard Mac’s mug hit the bar again.
“And you, young lady. You’re going to help him?”
Maria looked like a scolded puppy. “He’s my brother and he needs me. I’ve done this before.”
Mac held his disapproving gaze on her. But just like a puppy, she ignored his warning and followed Ike upstairs to his office. He walked to the closet and pulled out the kit. He’d used it many times when he’d gone undercover for his clients. It was one of the pitfalls of having your face plastered all over the sports pages in every publication in the country. Maria’s artistic side was perfect for the task. The makeup and facial-hair work she’d done should have hung in the Louvre.
As she started, Ike reached over and kissed her on the forehead. He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t have to. The love they had for each other was a bond that had carried them through the terrible times of the past. As he leaned back and felt the soft brush stroke his face, he remembered Mac’s warning—and hoped it wasn’t a prophecy.
CHAPTER 33
Maria hadn’t said a word. She didn’t have to. Ike could see the building dissent in her eyes. It clawed away at his resolve, which held back a reservoir of guilt about disappointing her. At his core, he knew she was right, but she knew little of the abyss and how failure here would swallow him up. Ike sensed they were at a silent stalemate. A brother who’d become a surrogate father who was loved and respected by his little sister, versus an adoring sister who now was afraid to tell him he was wrong. As the soft brush stroked his face for the final time, it seemed as if she were covering up the face that was letting her down.
Ike checked the ID wedged into the corner of the mirror with the image staring back at him. If he didn’t know the truth, he’d clear himself through a TSA checkpoint as Mark Smith. His iPhone rang and Maria stepped back as he answered.
“Rossi.”
“Ike, this is Jenna. Is this a good time?”
Ike detected an accommodating tone that was uncharacteristic of her hard-driving spirit. He’d seen teammates do the same thing when their performance on the field fell far short of their own confident expectations. “Any time is good for you, Counselor.”
“Great. I wanted to touch base—see how things are going.”
That meant either she was coming to his point of view on the mental-impairment strategy, or Lauren simply said no. “I’ve got several avenues I’m pursuing. One is the seismic shoot. I think there’s something there that the Falzones are hiding, and since Tom Cole was involved, this could be the break we need.”
“I can subpoena them. It’s not too late.”
“I think all that would do is give them the signal to hide or destroy it.”
“How else can we get it?”
Ike was in deep water here. He’d read Jenna as a straight shooter. Unlike some defense attorneys he’d dealt with, she wore her ethics like a jersey with her name on it.
“I’m working on an angle through Cole’s seismic company.”
Jenna hesitated long enough for Ike to know she suspected something on the dark edge. Maybe she’d handled a case or two on the theft of confidential information or she remembered what he’d said about the confidentiality of seismic interpretations.
“Don’t do anything we’ll regret. Keep the subpoena in mind anyway. What about Tanner?”
“I’ve got a great lead on him. I’m following up tomorrow.”
“So no hard evidence yet?”
Ike got a whiff of desperation in her question.
“I’ll have it soon. Just be ready.”
“Okay. We only have a few days left to prepare any new strategy … and please remember the rule of evidence and maintaining its value.” A polite rebuke, for sure.
Ike didn’t want desperation to convince Jenna and Lauren to sell out Jack.
“Got it. Talk to you soon.” Ike ended the call.
Maria kept her back turned as she returned the brushes and makeup to the kit. When she finished, she turned and faced Ike. Her eyes were wide and her voice soft. “I love you, Ike, and you know I support you no matter what you do, but …” She gathered herself as if readying to stick her head in a lion’s mouth. “But why are you taking such a chance? This isn’t like you. You’ve never tried to steal something.”
Ike had been challenged before by much more menacing opponents, but this one cut deep. He remembered carefully repeating all the lessons he’d learned from his parents to a nine-year-old Maria. He’d taken her to church and explained the differences between right and wrong. All in an effort to keep her from doing exactly th
e sort of thing he was about to do. “You have to believe me. There is no other way. I’m out of time and so is Jack. These people are hiding something that may prove what he did was self-defense. I can’t fail. He’ll be put away for life—and he’s only ten years old.”
Maria stepped closer. She reached out and touched his arm. “I’ve seen you struggle with trying to find Mom and Dad’s killer. And this feels like that. You don’t have to do this to prove anything—not to me, and not to yourself.”
Ike stood and gave her a long hug. “I’m doing this for Jack. Maybe a little for me, too. Maybe if I can’t get closure for us, I can get closure for him. And if I get closure for him, then maybe, in some way, it will give me a bit of closure, too.”
Maria pulled back slowly, looked up at Ike, and nodded. She turned and pulled the access card from the mirror and handed it to him. “Be sure to stay out of the rain. Not sure that’s all waterproof.” She gave Ike the smile he’d seen any time they were about to color outside the lines on purpose.
Except this was not playtime. Someone could get hurt. Someone could get arrested, someone could get killed—but someone had to do it.
CHAPTER 34
Ike shielded his eyes from the sun’s reflection off the bronze upper floors of Falzone Center. It was warm again, and he could feel the sweat under the beard Maria had carefully tacked to his face. The feelings of guilt had faded. It was now all about executing the plan.
He’d parked at Forbes and Grant and walked a block, lingering on the corner of Grant and Fifth. Traffic was swelling in the city as the towers emptied their workers, all rushing to their cars to make the congested slog to the suburbs. The fumes from the cars filled Ike’s nostrils, but that wasn’t anything compared with the dark clouds of coal soot that must have had blanketed the city over the first half of the last century and stained the granite exterior of the corner of the courthouse he leaned against now.
