The Voice Inside (Frost Easton Book 2)

by Brian Freeman

  From the kitchen, Frost heard the sizzle of meat and smelled an intoxicating mix of seasonings. The house always smelled good when Duane came to visit. “I’m going to get a beer,” he told Tabby. “Do you want a drink? Chardonnay or something?”

  “Beer sounds good.”

  “Glass or bottle?” he asked.

  “Oh, bottle, please. I may look like a girly girl, but I’m a tomboy at heart. Although I guess Tabby should be a tomcat, right? My mom was Catherine, and she was Kitty. So naturally her daughter became Tabitha and Tabby.”

  Frost chuckled. He liked her a lot.

  Leaving Tabby to cuddle and coo with Shack, he went into the kitchen, where Duane seemed to be in five places at once. He was a whirlwind of motion. Meat grilled, buns baked, edamame shelled, olives chopped, and through it all, he sang a bad karaoke version of “Heathens” by Twenty One Pilots.

  “Listen, I want to talk to you about something,” Frost told him. “Can we grab a few minutes alone after dinner?”

  Duane eyed him curiously. “Man of mystery. What’s going on?”

  “It can wait. I’ll tell you later.”

  “Sure, whatever.” His brother didn’t waste time on anything else when he was cooking.

  “Tabby’s great,” Frost added.

  “Yeah, she is.” Duane raised his voice. “Hey, Tabs, Frost thinks you’re great.”

  “He’s great, too,” she replied from the living room.

  “You want to help me with the cooking in here?” Duane called to her.

  “Nah, you’re good,” Tabby replied.

  Frost laughed. He enjoyed seeing another chef stand up to Duane. “How long have you two been going out?”

  “Six months,” Duane said, with a hint of a smile.

  Frost’s mouth fell open in surprise. To Duane Easton, six months was a lifetime. His brother usually went through sous chefs as lovers like a kid grabbing chocolates from a box. Duane’s life was his career, and the girls he dated were mostly about burning off sexual energy at the end of a fourteen-hour day.

  “And I’m only finding out about her now?” Frost asked.

  “I wanted to see if it was real first. Actually, we’re practically living together. She stays at my place most of the time.”

  Frost had nothing to say, but he liked hearing it. He was almost willing to believe that a miracle had happened and that his brother was in love.

  Duane was older than Frost by five years, but he’d always acted younger. Frost and Katie had looked like twins, but Frost didn’t see much resemblance to himself in his brother’s face. Duane was shorter than Frost by nearly half a foot and as skinny as pencil asparagus. His hair was straight and shoulder length, and tonight he had it tied behind his head. He had a narrow nose that was so long that it seemed to droop at the end by its own weight.

  “Have you told Mom and Dad about her?” Frost asked.

  “They introduced us.”

  “Seriously? How did that happen?”

  “It’s a long story,” Duane said.

  Their parents lived in Arizona and didn’t come back to San Francisco very often. The city was mostly about bad memories for them. Frost waited for an explanation of how his parents had brought Duane and Tabby together, but Duane was back in the middle of his bison burgers, and he didn’t have anything more to say about the origins of his new relationship.

  Frost grabbed two Sierra Nevada beers and returned to the living room.

  He drank with Tabby on the sofa near the window. Shack licked beer from her finger, which made her giggle. She told him about her job in the restaurant, her time in culinary school, her favorite foods, and her cousin who played for the 49ers, but when he tried to maneuver her to the topic of how she and Duane had met, she smoothly changed the subject.

  Before he could try again, his brother interrupted. Dinner was ready, and Duane’s food waited for no one.

  They laughed their way through the meal for the next hour. Duane told dirty jokes, but his were like Ivory soap compared to the ones Tabby told. Frost was in no rush to finish, because he was preoccupied with a sense of dread about the after-dinner conversation. Duane wasn’t going to like what he had to say, so Frost put off telling him.

  In the midst of dessert, however, the phone rang. Frost let the machine take it, which was a mistake. Everyone heard the message.

  “Inspector, this is Khristeen Smith at the San Francisco Chronicle. I’d like to talk to you about the court hearing for Rudy Cutter next week. There are a lot of rumors flying, and the one name that keeps coming up is yours. Please call me back.”

  The reporter left her number, and then the house was silent. He watched a concerned glance shoot back and forth between Duane and Tabby. His brother put down the truffle that was in his hand, and he shot Frost a laser-like stare. The two of them had eyes that didn’t let go.

  “Rudy Cutter?” Duane asked.

  “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” Frost said.

  “So talk.”

  Frost glanced at Tabby, but Duane quickly intervened. “She can hear anything you have to say.”

  “Okay. Cutter’s attorney filed a motion to have his conviction thrown out.”

  “What the hell for?” Duane asked.

  “Jess manufactured evidence against him. The watch she found in Cutter’s house was planted. A fake. It didn’t really belong to the last victim.”

  Duane stood up in the dining room. He went to the front windows and peered through the curtains. He was silent for a long time. On the other side of the table, Tabby stared at her plate with a kind of quiet shock fixed on her face.

  “Is Cutter going to get out?” Duane asked.

  “That depends on the judge, but it looks that way.”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “I wish I was.”

  “This is bullshit. That son of a bitch killed Katie and all those other women. What judge is going to put him back on the street?”

  “I know that. The thing is, what Jess did—”

  “I don’t care what she did,” Duane interrupted him. “I wish we’d fried him in the electric chair. That piece of shit doesn’t deserve to be breathing.”

  “I hear you. You’re right.”

  Duane turned back from the window and jabbed a finger at him. “Why does this reporter want to talk to you? She said your name keeps coming up. Why are you involved in this?”

  Frost rubbed a hand across his beard. He tried to come up with words. Tabby still didn’t look up.

  “I’m the one who blew the whistle on Jess.”

  “What?”

  “I found out that she planted fake evidence. I took it to the captain and the district attorney.”

  Duane shook his head. “Why would you do that?”

  “What do you mean, why? I had an obligation. It’s my job.”

  “Your job? Your job is to let murderers out of prison?”

  “Jess committed a crime, Duane. She rigged the whole system. Don’t you get it? Cops can’t do that. If I let that slide—”

  “He murdered Katie!” Duane shouted, his voice filling the room.

  Frost stopped talking. There was nothing to say.

  “I can’t believe you,” Duane snapped. “I can’t believe you would do this. You’re going to have to tell Mom and Dad, you know that? You realize what this is going to do to them?”

  Frost didn’t have an answer. He knew Duane didn’t really want one.

  “We’re out of here,” Duane went on. “Come on, Tabs.”

  His girlfriend finally looked up. Her bubbly, ever-present smile was gone, and her face had clouded with sorrow. “Actually, Duane, could you wait in the car for a minute? I want to talk to Frost.”

  Duane nodded and then said something that Frost didn’t understand. “Yeah, that’s right. You can tell him what he’s done.”

  His brother stalked out of the dining room, and Frost heard the thunder of the front door slamming.

  The two of them wer
e alone. Tabby stared at him. The sparkle had left her green eyes, but he saw something he hadn’t seen in his brother’s face. Empathy. She brushed away a strand of red hair.

  “I know how hard this is for you,” Tabby said. “Duane knows, too. He’s just angry.”

  “I’m angry at myself,” Frost admitted.

  “You didn’t have a choice, did you?” Tabby got up and came around to the other side of the table and sat in the chair next to him. She took his hand; her skin was warm. “Listen, Frost, I didn’t realize that Duane hadn’t told you about me, which pisses me off a little. I guess that means you don’t know how we met.”

  “He said my parents introduced you.”

  “Sort of. I’ve known your parents for several years. When they found out I was a chef, they told me about Duane. Of course, I already knew who he was. Everybody in the culinary community knows Duane. Your mom said I should meet him, but I wasn’t really interested. He has a reputation for playing the field. But earlier this year, Duane called me. I guess your mom was pressuring him, too.”

  “My mom usually gets what she wants,” Frost said.

  “Apparently.”

  “How do you know my parents?” he asked.

  “Through the victim support group meetings.”

  He closed his eyes. Suddenly, it made sense. “Who are you connected to?”

  “Nina Flores. Cutter’s first victim. Nina was my best friend. We grew up two blocks apart. Actually, Nina and I knew each other before we could walk. She was more like a sister to me than my own sister was. The families were kind enough to include me in the support group.”

  “I was never really into that sort of thing,” Frost said. Grief wasn’t something he shared with strangers. It was personal and private. He had to feel close to someone to invite them into that part of his life.

  “That’s okay. It’s not for everyone. Anyway, believe me when I say, I really do understand what this is doing to you.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I should go,” Tabby said. “Duane is waiting for me.”

  “Sure.”

  She let go of his hand, and she stood up. “I don’t blame you for any of this. Duane won’t, either, when he settles down. It’s not your fault.”

  She bent down very near his face, and he realized how pretty she was in close-up. A hint of perfume drifted across the space between them. He was jealous of his brother, having this woman in his life.

  “What happens next?” she asked. “I mean, if they let Cutter out of prison.”

  “I put him back inside,” Frost said without hesitation.

  “Good,” Tabby replied with a casual confidence that he was a man who kept his promises. “That’s what I was hoping you’d say.”

  9

  Frost sat in the last row of the courtroom.

  He’d already testified for two hours that morning, questioned by Rudy Cutter’s attorney and then cross-examined by Hang Li, the San Francisco district attorney. He related the whole story, including his temptation to destroy the watch that first night on the Golden Gate Bridge. He stuck to the facts of what he’d found, but facts didn’t matter to the stone faces of victims’ families packing the courtroom.

  To them, he was the enemy. He was the man who’d brought the monster back to life.

  The media filled the courtroom, too. Print. TV. Radio. Bloggers. To them, he was a study in contradictions. Brother of a victim. Cop. Whistle-blower. They’d made the story front-page news for days, and they all wanted interviews with him. He’d turned them down. The last thing he wanted was publicity.

  Yolanda Rhodes followed him on the stand. She testified about her brother, Lamar, giving her the watch with the funny inscription on the back. When the attorney showed her the watch, she identified it right away and confirmed that she’d been wearing it since long before the other watch was found in Rudy Cutter’s ceiling.

  “That’s it. That’s mine. I wish I could get it back, too.”

  And then Jess came.

  Frost didn’t know what Jess would say. That was the mystery of the day that made everyone hold their breath. He wondered if she’d lie and try to hide behind the blue wall. She could say that Frost was mistaken, that Yolanda was lying, and that the watch Jess had found was the one and only watch belonging to Melanie Valou. Melanie’s mother, Camille, would probably back her up.

  Instead, she told the truth.

  Her testimony caused a gasp of disbelief among the spectators. She admitted the entire conspiracy. The watch never belonged to Melanie. She planted it in Rudy Cutter’s house. She perjured herself during his trial. She never flinched once as she laid out what she’d done, and the entire time, she stared at Frost in the back row. When her testimony was over, she marched out of the courtroom with her back straight, ignoring the shouts and taunts that followed her as the judge swung his gavel hard for silence.

  Now it was almost done. The final arguments. And then the ruling.

  District Attorney Hang Li stood in front of Judge Elwood Elgin.

  Li was small, slim, forty years old. He had a shock of black hair, wire-rimmed glasses, and an expensive brown suit.

  “Your Honor, I’m not going to defend Lieutenant Salceda,” Li told the judge. “She falsified evidence. She lied to the court. The police have already dismissed her from her job, and I assure you, she will face legal consequences for her actions, too. The watch that she planted in the defendant’s house no longer has any evidentiary weight against Mr. Cutter. However, I would argue that the other evidence that was presented at trial would be sufficient to sustain a guilty verdict against him. Simply put, the jury did not need the watch to reach their decision. As such, the fraudulent behavior by Lieutenant Salceda—while illegal and inexcusable—shouldn’t prejudice the rest of the case against Mr. Cutter.”

  Cutter’s attorney rose to his feet with outrage turning his face red, but Judge Elgin calmly waved him back to his chair. “Save your breath, Counselor,” the judge told him in an unflappable voice. “I’ve got this.”

  Frost knew what was coming. Everyone did.

  Judge Elgin was a long-time member of the San Francisco Democratic political establishment, an environmental lawyer with roots in Nancy Pelosi’s congressional office. He was fifty years old, a white-bread liberal who spoke softly but wielded a big stick from the bench. He’d railed against the excesses of police misbehavior in the city for twenty years, and Hang Li had just handed him a cut-and-dried case of a rogue police officer rigging the justice system.

  “Mr. Li, do you know what you get when you add rat poison to a steak?” Judge Elgin asked.

  “Your Honor, I don’t really understand—”

  “You get poisoned steak,” the judge continued, emphasizing each word. “It doesn’t matter whether it’s a perfect prime-cut ribeye. Once you put poison on it, you have no choice but to throw it out. And that’s what we have here. Lieutenant Salceda’s actions have compromised the case against Mr. Cutter in its entirety. Your argument about the other evidence would be insufficient on its face, because the watch was the linchpin of your case, and we both know it. But even if you had other compelling evidence against Mr. Cutter, the police misconduct would void it. It’s distasteful to both of us, but I have no choice but to vacate the guilty verdict against him.”

  The crowd erupted. The judge pounded his gavel.

  “Your Honor, we ask that you keep Mr. Cutter in custody while we prepare to refile charges against him,” Li pleaded. He was grasping for legal straws.

  “Denied. If you’re able to build evidence for a new criminal case, I’ll examine the question of bail at that time.”

  “In that case, Your Honor, I’d like to raise the issue of electronic monitoring,” Li went on.

  Judge Elgin leaned forward on the bench. “Also denied. Mr. Li, you seem to be under the impression that you still have some sort of case against Mr. Cutter, and let me be clear. You don’t. This is not a question of pasting together prior evidence without the watch
that was planted in Mr. Cutter’s house. I’m throwing it all out. If you refile charges based on evidence gathered or supervised by Lieutenant Salceda, then I will be forced to dismiss the case, and at that point, I’ll do so with prejudice. Her behavior has poisoned the entire investigation.”

  “Your Honor!” Li protested.

  “Enough. We’re done here. Everyone who has touched this case should be ashamed of themselves. If you think Mr. Cutter is guilty, and you want to put him back in San Quentin, then you and the police have one job. Start over.”

  And that was that.

  Katie’s killer was free.

  Frost found himself unable to move. He wanted to get up and leave the courtroom immediately, but the awful reality of what he’d done pinned his feet to the floor. He sat in the back row, in the aisle near the walnut door, as spectators filed past him. The media shouted questions that he ignored. Family members of the victims swore at him. One man, a father, spat in his hair. The guards tried to create a bubble around Frost, but he didn’t care what they did or said.

  He blamed himself, just like they did.

  Slowly, the courtroom emptied. Rudy Cutter, surrounded by police protection, was the last to leave. Frost wondered if someone from the families would be waiting outside the courthouse with a gun. Or a knife. He had to dig inside himself to ask whether there would be anything wrong with vigilante justice right now.

  It didn’t matter what the judge said or what Jess had done. Cutter was guilty. Nothing changed that.

  Frost realized that Cutter had stopped right next to him. He stared back at the man, eye to eye, cop to killer. Cutter had cleaned up for his court appearance; his face was smoothly shaved, his blond hair neat, his suit and tie pressed. He could have been Daniel Craig, a suave and sexy spy, not a serial killer. Cutter was whistling under his breath, but loud enough for Frost to hear it. The tune was familiar. The police tried to herd the man away, but he lingered in the aisle, not moving, and then he bent down so close to Frost that no one else could hear what he said. Frost felt the heat of the man’s breath.

  “Tick tock, Inspector,” Cutter whispered.