Innocence

by David Hosp

  “What’s that mean, exactly?”

  Finn thought about it as he unlocked the doors. “It’s basically a conservative who likes sex and drugs.”

  Kozlowski shook his head. “Huh,” he grunted as he slid awkwardly into the car. “I wouldn’t have guessed.”

  Chapter Twenty-five

  “How’d everything else go with the investigation today?” Lissa asked.

  Kozlowski was lying on a mountain of pillows piled on Lissa Krantz’s living room floor. A fire roared in the hearth, and the bay windows gave them a panoramic view of the Charles River and the Esplanade. He’d never believed that anyone really lived life like this. Throughout his life as a cop, the only time he ever came into contact with people who had this kind of money was in the course of an investigation. Invariably, the crime—whether murder or rape or domestic violence—seemed to have its origins in wealth, and he’d been left with the impression that money was, first and foremost, corrosive and corrupting. And yet none of that was in evidence here. Here in this beautiful apartment, with this beautiful woman, everything seemed perfect.

  “You were in the office,” he answered. “You heard the conversation.”

  “You call that a conversation? The two of you didn’t say more than ten words to each other all afternoon. It was like working in a fucking library.” Lissa was lying with her head on his chest. She rolled over onto her elbow to look at him. “Do I look like a goddamned librarian?”

  She was naked, and the firelight danced over her smooth dark skin.

  He looked at her for a long time before answering, taking in every inch of her. “I don’t know,” he said. “I haven’t been to the library in a while. If you do, I need to get a library card.”

  “Well, all I know is that I didn’t sign up to work in silence. So what the fuck happened today?”

  “You mean after someone tried to kill Finn’s client, we found out that his fingerprints are really on the gun that shot Maddy Steele, and we lost our alibi witness?”

  “Right. After that.”

  He teased his fingertips across her collarbone. “Nothing.”

  She lay back down on his chest as he continued touching her. “Nothing?”

  “Nothing.”

  “How the fuck could nothing happen?”

  He laughed. “You kidding? That’s ninety-nine percent of investigative work. Sitting around, waiting, and watching while nothing happens.”

  “How does that work in a case like this, when you have only a week before you need to be back in front of a judge with actual answers?”

  “Not very well. But all you can do, ultimately, is work the case, be patient, and try to keep your sanity.”

  “I’m not sure Finn is managing all that well with the last part.” As the fire crackled, she wondered what he was thinking, but she knew better than to ask. He wasn’t the type of man who enjoyed being probed. “I’m worried about him,” she said at last.

  “Finn?”

  “Yeah, Finn.”

  “Why?”

  “He’s so crazed over this fucking case. It’s like he’s letting everything ride on it, and it’s not healthy. He’s gonna get hurt.”

  “Maybe,” Kozlowski said after considering it. “He’s a fighter, though. Tougher than you think. He’ll be fine in the end.”

  “I don’t know. He’s really far gone. If this comes out badly, you’ll have to be there for him. He needs you, you know?”

  “I’m with him. He knows that.”

  “I’m not talking about just being there for him on the case,” she said. “I mean you need to be there for him if the whole thing collapses. You need to tell him that you care about him.”

  Kozlowski gave a great, hard laugh. “Guys don’t say things like that to each other.”

  “You don’t?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because we’re guys.”

  “So?”

  “We just don’t. If I want another guy to know how I feel, I’ll buy him a drink.”

  She was baffled. “A drink says you care?”

  “If it’s a good drink, yeah.”

  “Men are fucked up.”

  “And this is news?”

  She rolled over so that she was draped across his chest, and slid a leg over his thighs. She looked at him, and he looked back at her, meeting her eyes without hesitation or avoidance. She ran her hand over his shoulder and up his neck, tracing the outline of his face the way a blind person might. She touched the long scar that ran down the length of his face, and felt him tense ever so slightly. She was tempted, but she didn’t ask. He would tell her if he wanted to.

  She smiled at him and pinched one of his nipples playfully. “So if a drink means you care, how come you didn’t buy me one tonight?”

  He slid a hand around her hips and swept her on top of him. “I know a better way to show you how I feel about you,” he said, returning her smile.

  z

  Finn sat at his desk, staring at the two lists he’d written out two days earlier. Each of the tasks he’d put on his second list had been checked off, yet none of the questions on the first list had been answered. A stack of Redwell folders was piled on one side of the desktop. They contained every slip of paper he had on the Salazar case. He’d been through them all. Three times. He’d spent hours on the Internet, researching fingerprint procedure and evidence; researching DNA procedure and evidence; researching the perils and shortcomings of eyewitness testimony. Nothing seemed to help. Nothing seemed to fit.

  He leaned back in his chair and stared at the phone. He probably shouldn’t, but he needed to talk to someone. He picked up the receiver and dialed Linda Flaherty’s office in Washington. He hung up before the phone rang, though, and put his head in his hands. “Bad idea,” he said to himself.

  It was at moments like this that he felt her absence most acutely. He’d had friends in the past—good friends, even—but he’d never had anyone in his life with whom he could share his thoughts as freely as he’d been able to with her. Trust wasn’t an instinct that came naturally to him, but she had fought through his defenses. As far as he could remember, it had been the first time he had ever let anyone get that close.

  It was inevitable, he supposed. They had met when she was a police detective, and she and Kozlowski—her partner—were investigating the murder of one of Finn’s coworkers at his old law firm. Finn had been their primary suspect at one point, and though most of the evidence pointed to him, she had refused to believe he was guilty. In return, Finn had saved her life, and the bond between them had been sealed so tightly, he thought it would never be broken.

  As he thought back, it seemed that he had no distinct memories from their first month together. They had gotten lost in the newness of their passion, and all he could recall was a blur of excitement and happiness. She’d moved in after that first month, and they’d fallen into a pattern of hectic contentment. Finn had been busy setting up his own practice, and she’d been heading up the Massachusetts Department of Homeland Security. They’d seen each other less and less often, but Finn had still felt the bond, so when she told him she was taking a new job in the federal government, it had hit him like a lead pipe to the stomach.

  “How can I turn it down?” she had asked him. “It’s the opportunity of a lifetime.”

  “I thought we were the opportunity of a lifetime” was all he’d been able to say.

  “I thought so, too,” she’d replied.

  The day she’d left, he didn’t even drive her to the airport. The taxi arrived, and she kissed him. Then she left without either of them saying a word. Perhaps that was why he still thought there was a chance for them. She hadn’t ended it, after all; she hadn’t been able to. Instead, she had left in silence, and that was enough to give him hope. Besides, he couldn’t imagine that he could ever feel the way he did if they weren’t meant to be together. He needed her, and he was convinced that she needed him just as much, even if she couldn’t admi
t it to herself.

  He picked up the phone and hit redial.

  “Department of Homeland Security, Deputy Secretary Flaherty’s office, how can I help you?” The voice was pleasant and crisp, even at nine thirty in the evening. He could almost hear the starch in the young woman’s collar.

  “Linda Flaherty, please,” Finn said. He knew that few people had Linda’s direct dial at work, and as a consequence, every call that came over this particular line was taken seriously.

  “May I tell her who’s calling?” He thought he heard a touch of the Southern accent that had probably been beaten out of the assistant.

  “Scott Finn,” he replied. The pause on the other end of the line was just long enough to be noticed, and Finn wondered how much of her

  personal life Linda shared with her assistants.

  “Just a moment, please.”

  Finn sat on hold, listening to a techno-synthesized version of “Stairway to Heaven” that seemed to suggest that, if there were a God, He had a serious vendetta against Led Zepplin. Just as the computer-generated flute picked up some momentum on what had once been a kick-ass guitar solo, the woman came back on the line. “She’ll just be a minute.”

  “Thanks,” Finn said, but the woman was already gone. He was back on hold, trapped in the land where decent music goes to die. The Zepplin cover was ending, and it bled troublingly into a candy-coated, upbeat instrumental version of “Welcome to the Jungle.” There was no percussion in the arrangement, and Axl Rose’s reedy screams had been replaced by two dueling violins. It was, Finn thought, a sign that someone in Musicland had at least a trace of irony and humor. Mercifully, the torture was short-lived.

  “So, you decided to call,” Linda Flaherty said when she picked up. “Only two weeks; I suppose I should feel flattered.”

  Finn had hoped that the sound of her voice might soothe him, but all he heard was anger and sarcasm. He deserved it, he supposed, but it made him question whether his decision to call had been wise.

  “I should have called earlier,” he admitted. “I’m sorry,just . . . couldn’t.”

  “What do you want now?” She was even angrier than he had expected.

  “Nothing. Just to talk.”

  “So talk.”

  He had no idea what to say. “How’s everything going with you?”

  “Great,” she replied.

  “How’s the job? Is it everything you’d hoped it would be?”

  “Oh, sure. Let’s see, our country’s popularity around the world is at an all-time low; my boss is in the middle of a second term that’s turned so ugly, he couldn’t get a bill through Congress to save Christmas; and every radical Islamist in the world is trying to buy his way into heaven by blowing up Americans. To top it off, this morning the guy who’s second in charge of domestic intelligence was caught by the local cops soliciting sex from a fourteen-year-old in an online chat room. Other than that, the job’s an absolute breeze.”

  “You could always come back to Boston,” Finn said, and then regretted it immediately.

  “You just won’t give it up, will you?”

  “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”

  “I’m doing something important here, hard as the job is. In fact, if it wasn’t important, it wouldn’t be hard.”

  “I know.”

  “Do you?”

  Finn said nothing, and the two of them remained locked in a silent standoff.

  “So, what’s the case?” she asked at last.

  “What case?”

  “Don’t bother bullshitting me, Finn. I know you better than that. Something’s eating at you, and it’s not the mess we’ve made of our relationship.”

  “At least you called it a relationship. That’s something.”

  She sighed. “What’s the case?”

  Finn scratched his head. “I’m trying to get a guy out of prison.”

  “Aren’t you always?”

  “This is different. This guy is innocent.”

  “Of what?”

  Finn wondered how she meant the question. “Of shooting a cop fifteen years ago.” He could almost feel her shaking her head over the line.

  “Cops don’t like it when you shoot one of their own.”

  “Good, ’cause my guy didn’t do it.”

  “Did he shoot anyone I knew at the BPD?”

  “I don’t know. Did you know Madeline Steele?”

  “Holy shit, Finn,” she said. “Maddy Steele? You’re crazy, getting mixed up in something like that.”

  “Probably. You knew her?”

  “Not before the shooting; that was before my time. But I dealt with her a few times afterward, when she was running Victims’ Services. She was a good woman.”

  “She may still be. I couldn’t tell. She was too pissed off when I talked to her for me to judge.”

  “Can you blame her? You’re trying to free the man who ruined her life.”

  “He didn’t do it.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I’ve gotten to know the guy. He didn’t do it.” It sounded pathetic even to Finn.

  “And you’ve always been such a stellar judge of character.”

  He moved off in another direction. “He has an alibi now.”

  “Now? He has an alibi now? Do you know how that sounds?”

  “And the DNA test is going to come back and show that he didn’t do it.”

  “For your sake, I hope so.”

  “People tried to kill him in prison this morning.”

  “Finn, people try to kill each other in prison every day. If getting into a prison beef was a sign of innocence, there’d be no need for jails at all.”

  “And his last lawyer was murdered.” It was a bomb Finn hadn’t planned on dropping, but as he sat there, he realized that Dobson’s murder was what had really sold him on Salazar’s innocence. He needed Linda to understand.

  The impact of the news had clearly taken a toll on Flaherty. She was quiet for a moment. “You mean his lawyer fifteen years ago?” There was

  concern in her voice.

  “No,” Finn admitted. “This past weekend.”

  “Jesus Christ, Finn!” He couldn’t tell whether she was angry or scared, but in either case it felt good to hear the emotion in her voice. “What the hell are you doing? Why would you take on a case like this?”

  “Technically, I had already taken it on before the other guy was killed. I was planning on withdrawing, but then he was murdered. What was I supposed to do?”

  She paused before replying, obviously taking it all in. That was how she worked, Finn knew. It was what had made her such a good cop. It was what had made her such a great choice to help run the Department of Homeland Security. She gathered as many facts as she could before coming to final conclusions. “How was he killed?” she asked.

  “You don’t want to know,” he said.

  “Finn . . .”

  “Fine. He was killed with a machete. There’s a gang up here—”

  “VDS.”

  “You’ve heard of them?” He was genuinely surprised. “The cops thought my guy was involved with them, but it seems pretty clear that they’re trying to keep him in prison, so it doesn’t make sense that he was a member. I’m still trying to figure all this out.”

  “Drop the case, Finn.” It sounded like she was giving him an order, and it made him bristle.

  “What?”

  “Now. Drop the case now. File the withdrawal papers in the morning.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  She groaned. “Sometimes you don’t need to understand. Sometimes you just need to listen to people and take their advice. These are very bad people you’re dealing with.”

  Finn laughed. “I’ve dealt with bad people before, remember?”

  “Not people like this. Trust me.”

  The tone of her voice chilled him. But it also made him curious. “How do you know so much about them?”

  “Let’s just say they’re on our rad
ar screen.”

  “Why? What for?”

  “I can’t talk about it. You know that. Just please stay away from anything having anything to do with VDS, okay?”

  He thought about it. “I’m not resigning this case. I can’t.”

  She sighed heavily. “No, I suppose you can’t.” He wondered whether she meant that as criticism. “Can you at least be careful?”

  “Don’t worry about me; careful is my middle name. A strong sense of self-preservation has always been one of my few redeeming qualities. If I see trouble coming, I’ll be the first one out the door.”

  “I know better than to believe that.”

  “Can we talk about something else?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Do we have anything else to talk about?” In spite of the challenge in her tone, there was a softness, and Finn smiled at the thought of how she must look at the moment: leaning back in her chair, the gray fitted suit he’d bought for her clinging to her body at the end of the hard day, her blouse collar undone. She always looked best at the end of a hard day.

  “I hope so,” he replied. “I certainly hope so.”

  z

  Vincente Salazar watched the guard pass by the door outside the infirmary. He had much more freedom as a patient than he did in his cell. That was a small blessing, at least.

  He slipped his cell phone out of his sock and dialed the number.

  “Hello?”

  “Are you watching the lawyer?”

  “When I can.”

  “Not good enough. You heard about today?”

  “Yes. Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “For now, but it makes your job with Mr. Finn all the more important.”

  “I understand.”

  “Do you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” Salazar closed the phone and slid it back into his sock. He folded his arms over his chest and watched the door. Sleep was a luxury he could no longer afford.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Thursday, December 20, 2007

  Mac shuffled into work at a little past ten thirty. In close to thirty years on the job, he couldn’t remember ever having been late to work. It was a point of honor and pride for him: Only slackers show up late for work. He was no slacker. At least he hadn’t been . . . before.