by Carsen Taite
“Not if she had help. Maybe she’s in business with her father.”
Claire wanted to dismiss the idea out of hand. Frank Flynn had been released from prison, but his case was officially still pending until the DA’s office made a formal announcement. He would have to be the stupidest man alive to commit two new murders while waiting to hear about his total exoneration, but she wouldn’t be doing her job if she didn’t at least explore the possibility.
Like everyone else who watched the news, she knew certain details of Frank Flynn’s case—more than most because of Bruce’s involvement, but she hadn’t memorized the specifics. The one detail that stood out was that his alleged victim was a twenty-something white woman. Coincidence? Maybe, but she needed to know more if she was going to seriously consider the possibility he might be involved in these killings. She already knew Bruce’s version would understandably come with a certain slant, so she decided to talk to the conviction integrity prosecutor at the DA’s office to get a picture of the overall case. “I promise you, we’re exploring every possibility, but if we publicly announce we’re focused on Frank Flynn or his daughter, then the press is going to go nuts and they’ll both lawyer up. We’ll lose any opportunity we have to quietly build our case. The press is already going to get worked up over two young white women being murdered. Let’s not add to the feeding frenzy just yet.”
“What about the drawings?” Bruce asked.
“What about them?”
“Any leads on where they might strike next based on those?”
“We’re working on it.” She and Nick had been talking about exactly that when they’d left the scene. First, she needed to confirm whether the sketch club had ever had one of their meet-ups at the bridge. If they had, then it was possible she and Nick could make some predictions based on other places the club had gathered. But all of these suppositions were based on the assumption one of the sketch club members was the artist. It might be time to go public with the sketch to try to flush the killer out of hiding, but she’d make that decision with Nick and not because they were under pressure from Bruce. “If we learn anything new, I promise you’ll be the first call I make.”
“I hope so. I have to be in court next week on Flynn’s case and if he’s involved in this, that’s ammo we can use to sway the judge not to let the guy skate.” He stepped closer and clapped a hand on her shoulder. “I’ve been talking up your promotion. A quick arrest on this case could pave the way. You understand?”
“I do.”
“Good,” he said, already headed to the door. “Keep me posted.”
He was no sooner out the door when Nick reappeared. “Where did you slink off to?” Claire asked. “And why the hell did you tell him anything about this case?”
“Uh, since he’s high enough up the food chain to be the boss of both of us. Besides, it wasn’t like you were here to run interference.” Nick narrowed his eyes. “You and your mentor on the outs? And speaking of slinking off, where were you when he showed up?”
Despite their closeness, she’d never shared every detail of her life with Nick, but she’d never lied to him either. But telling him she’d been out looking for Riley and why would mean she’d have to tell him about seeing Riley last night. He’d wonder why she hadn’t told him in the first place if the meeting was pure business, and she didn’t have a good response. The situation was complex, and while she usually rose to a challenge, she only wanted to avoid the thicket her omissions had created. She’d find a way to tell him later, but in the meantime, they needed to arrest the killer before they struck again.
“Any word on the cameras at the bridge?”
“Yes, but it’s not good. They capture the area near where the body was found, but they don’t fan out wide enough to view the scene. I’ve got the computer guys running all the plates of the cars that night through the system to see if we get a match on anyone in the sketch club or any that worked with these women or are in their immediate circle. Other than that, searching plates is worse than trying to find a needle in a haystack.” He took out his phone and pulled up a photo of the scene. “Whoever it was could’ve parked their car right here and completely avoided being captured on camera. Forensics found tire tracks and they should have some info to us soon.”
“Like the killer knew there was a camera there.”
“Exactly.”
“Any luck on finding her phone?”
“No. We’ve been pinging it, but it could be anywhere by now.”
Damn. Claire had held out hope that if they’d been able to locate the victim’s phone, they might be able to use her location info to determine where she’d been last before she wound up at the bridge. “Keep trying. You never know.”
“What’s going on?”
She heard the concerned tone in his voice, but it only aggravated her. “Nothing.”
“What did Bruce say to you?”
“What’s your beef with him?”
Nick raised his hands in surrender. “No beef here. Just a guy checking in with his partner to make sure they’re both on the same page about the case they’re working.”
She could see the concern in his eyes and knew she needed to rein in her anxiety. Take a deep breath, think this through. There was only one right way to handle an investigation. Step by step, careful and meticulous—that was her hallmark and the reason the DA’s office loved putting her on the stand. They never had to worry about surprises during cross-examination: missed clues, sloppy record keeping, and never ever would she participate in a cover-up designed to lead investigators in a different direction. She needed to tell Nick about her interactions with Riley, and she would, but first she wanted to talk to Riley and get her own assessment of whether she was capable of these heinous murders. In the meantime, she had another assessment to make.
“Tell me everything you know about Frank Flynn and his case,” she said.
Nick looked surprised at the change in subject. “Really? I thought you were the resident expert.”
“In a vacuum. I’m interested in your perspective.”
“Okay,” he said. “But not here. P.S. I’m starving. Okay if we grab a late lunch?”
Claire got it. Talking about whether other cops had fucked up a case was best done somewhere other than while standing in the middle of a room full of them. She grinned to add some levity. “I should’ve known there would be food involved. Bring the list of the rest of the sketch club members we haven’t talked to yet, and we’ll go through that too.”
On the way to the car, Claire was already starting to calculate how she could sneak off later and find Riley to confront her about where she’d gone after they parted ways the night before. She felt another twinge of guilt for not sharing more info with Nick, but her desire to confront Riley was mixed up with feelings that were decidedly unprofessional, and until she sorted that out, she wasn’t sharing anything with anyone.
Nick picked his favorite barbecue place, Pecan Lodge, which, thankfully, wasn’t near the courthouse and therefore wasn’t packed with cops and courthouse personnel. Because it was after the lunch rush, they scored a decent spot in the long line that had become a tradition at this spot, and after a tolerable wait, they made it to the counter to order their food. Once they were seated, Claire looked around to make sure there was no one there they knew. “Okay, give it to me. I know you’re up on this case.”
“Just a sec.” Nick shoveled a forkful of brisket into his mouth and moaned. “This is heaven.”
Claire stared at her own plate. She knew the barbecue here was perfection, but she had a hard time summoning an appetite after spending time with a dead body, not to mention everything else that was on her mind. She needed to see Riley and she needed to make progress on this case. She rolled her hand to urge him along. “Frank Flynn’s case. You know it inside and out?”
“I do, but probably no more than you, and not out of any desire to try to bring down your good buddy. I took that conviction integrity seminar last y
ear, and these kinds of cases have always fascinated me. Specifically, how do innocent people get convicted and what can I do to make sure I never wind up being the cop on the stand trying to explain why I was certain I’d arrested the right person when the evidence clearly points the other way.”
“Same.” She had similar thoughts, but rarely voiced them out loud as if doing so would manifest the problem. At some point in every case, she had to decide to go all in on the decisions she’d made or she wouldn’t make a very convincing witness on the stand. Wavering convictions on the part of the lead detective led to a low conviction rate, and prosecutors might hesitate to go to trial on cases with detectives they couldn’t count on for fear an uncommitted witness would tank the case. She wanted to see justice done as much as the next person, but the truth was that unless there was a reliable eyewitness at the scene when the bad act went down, then the only two people who definitively knew what happened were the defendant and the victim, and on the cases she worked, the victims were no longer capable of telling their side of the story. “But this appeared to be an open-and-shut case.”
“Sure,” he said. “If you only looked at Flynn.” Nick started ticking facts off on his fingers. “He was a professor and the victim was his TA. He admitted they’d once had a relationship. He’d been seen with the victim off campus earlier the same evening. He tested positive for drugs. He admitted he was angry with her because she’d threatened to tell his wife about the affair.”
“We’ve arrested people on less than that,” Claire pointed out.
“Sure, we have, but I feel pretty confident that we’ve never done it without exploring many other possibilities first. There were a number of things the detectives on Flynn’s case ignored.” Again, with the fingers. “The method, strangling, and the profile of the victim, age, build, etc., were similar to the specifics of another death several weeks before that happened when Frank Flynn was out of town and had a rock-solid alibi. Both murders fit the profile of Milo Shaw, who’d recently been released from prison. He was on parole for wait, you guessed it—the murder of a twenty-something, white woman, who surprise—died due to strangulation.”
“We know that now, but my understanding is that wasn’t obvious at the time. Milo’s parole officer reported he was a model parolee.”
“Of course, she did. The PO was also taking bribes from half of the parolees on her watch.”
“Again, that came out later.”
“How long do you think it would’ve taken you to find out the parole officer was dirty? Or better yet, wouldn’t you have taken the time to investigate the issue? The cops knew Frank wasn’t good for the first murder, but they were laser focused on him for the second one. My theory? It was easier to tag him for the crime than it was to prove up the case against Shaw and take down a parole officer, someone who was supposed to be on the side of law and order, in the process. Oh, and did I mention that the parole officer in question happened to be Bruce’s partner’s sister-in-law? Don’t get me wrong, I think there might be a small part of them that actually believed Flynn, the scared, coked-up professor worried his wife would find out he was a cheater and his employer would learn he’d been sleeping with his assistant, was the perfect suspect. They even had cover for not having the DNA tested on the grounds they already knew he’d been sleeping with her, so no news there.”
He was right and she knew it, but that didn’t make it any easier to accept that her mentor might have been complicit in putting an innocent man away. “Assuming all of this is true, Frank Flynn had an attorney and a full trial. Even if his attorney didn’t know there was DNA at the scene, you would think that raising some of the other issues would’ve been enough to create reasonable doubt.”
“He could only bring up the issues he knew about,” Nick said.
“A good defense attorney has a duty to thoroughly investigate the case.”
“You’ve met Lionel Darby, haven’t you?”
Claire nodded. Lionel was an attorney in private practice who took court appointed cases to bolster his practice. His name was well known in Dallas, mostly because his picture appeared on dozens of billboards, cabs, and bus benches throughout the city. According to courthouse gossip, he’d once been a decent enough attorney, but had a habit of taking on too many clients at once and, as a result, none of them got the attention they deserved. The judges loved to send him court appointments because he never turned one down, which only exacerbated the problem. She’d once been on the witness stand when he’d called his client by the wrong name during cross-examination.
“Granted, Lionel isn’t the best, but he wins about as many cases as he loses,” she said. “He could’ve asked the judge for funds to pay an investigator if he wanted to dig deeper. It’s an adversarial system. We bring the best evidence we have to the prosecutor, and they do their best with what they’ve got. Are you saying we’re supposed to do the work of the defense attorney too?”
“You know I’m not, but I do think we have to be held to a higher standard. We’re in a better position than court appointed attorneys with fewer resources to know things, like about Milo Shaw and the fact his PO was related to one of the detectives who investigated the case. Maybe the relationship didn’t have any bearing on why Bruce and his partner didn’t look harder at Shaw, but if Lionel had known, he could’ve made the argument to the jury. All I’m saying is everyone should start with a level playing field, which means having access to the same information. I don’t for a minute think you feel any differently.”
“I don’t, but I’m still not convinced it’s up to us to do the leveling. Think about the last time you were on the witness stand. Were you volunteering answers to questions you weren’t asked?” She heard the edge in her voice and decided they needed a break from this conversation. “Let’s agree to disagree on this one for now.” She set her fork down and tossed her napkin on the table. “Where’s the next interview?”
“LBJ and the Tollway. Some medical office. I called and told them we’d be there around five,” he said.
She did a quick mental calculation. “I’ve got to take care of something first. I’ll drop you by the station and meet you there.”
He looked like he wanted to ask why, but decided against it, which saved her from having to make up an excuse. She’d go talk to Riley, and then she could get her head straight and focus on the work they needed to do to catch this killer before they struck again.
* * *
Friday afternoon, Riley stepped into the gallery and immediately noticed Lacy was with a customer, so she took a few minutes to look around at the art on display. The upcoming show featured iron sculptures by an artist from Austin, and the gallery had several pieces prominently placed in the main room to tease the opening. She’d seen ads on the side of the McKinney Avenue trolleys for both that show and hers, and she’d heard a snippet on the local NPR station about each on the radio on the way over. She’d chosen the Lofton Gallery not only for their artistic sense, but also their savvy marketing, and her choice was turning out to be a good one.
Lacy spotted her and smiled, holding up a finger to let her know she’d be just a minute. Riley moved on to the second room to survey some of the other pieces on display. One particular sculpture, a tall open hand, struck her with its stark simplicity and realism. It seemed so real, she almost reached out to touch the palm.
“I love when I can see a piece of art and know exactly what it is, don’t you agree?”
Riley dropped her hand and turned toward the sound of the familiar voice. She was face-to-face with Claire Hanlon, the last person she expected to see here, but she was glad to see a familiar face. “I’d say I was surprised to see you, but I must be getting used to you popping up in the least expected places.”
Claire looked back over her shoulder. “Is there somewhere we can go to talk?”
“Here’s fine. The only other person here is the gallery owner and she’s busy with a customer. What do you need?”
“After we ha
d dinner, where did you go? What time did you get home?”
Riley scanned Claire’s face, looking for a clue as to why she was asking these questions, and with such urgency. The pleasant feeling she’d had upon seeing Claire again started to fade, and her preservation instincts kicked in. “Why?”
“Because I need to know.”
Claire’s tone wasn’t that of a cop engaged in interrogation, it was more like pleading desperation, and Riley’s resolve faltered for a moment. The truth was what it was, and she had nothing to hide. “I went back downtown and picked up a few things I’d left on campus. I walked down to the Eye and did a few moonlight sketches because the light was fantastic, unlike this rain today. I don’t remember what time I got home, but it was late.” She watched Claire’s face screw into a painful expression as she spoke. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing.” Claire’s voice was clipped and brisk.
“I can tell it’s not nothing.” Riley waited a beat while she pondered Claire’s questions. At first, she’d mistaken them for genuine interest, but now that she replayed them in her head, they sounded suspiciously like alibi questions. “Wait,” she whispered, “you found another body, didn’t you?”
“When’s the last time you saw your father?”
Oh, no. Now she was crossing the line. “I have answered any questions you’ve asked, but I will not discuss my father.”
“You might want to reconsider that position.”
“I think you should leave.”
Claire’s face was iron. “It’s a public place.”
“Great, then I’ll leave.” Riley took a step back, anxious to get away from Claire’s watchful gaze and distracting beauty, in order to think things through. She knew without a doubt, the police had found another body. Did they suspect Frank for these murders? Did they suspect her? She couldn’t fathom why, but if Frank had done fifteen years for a crime he didn’t commit, anything was possible. She took another step back, but this time, Claire reached out and touched her arm.
