the Innocent (2005)

by Harlan Coben

  Those would be the final nails in any ex-con's coffin.

  As Investigator Muse had pointed out, they already had enough with the physical e vidence. The photographs would add one thing more: motive.

  Cingle had her own career to worry about too. This had started out as a favor to a friend, just another case. But how far was she willing to go? What should she b e willing to sacrifice? And if Matt had nothing to do with the murder of Charles Talley, wouldn't cooperating right from the get-go help bring the truth t o light?

  Cingle sat back down.

  "You have something to say?"

  "I want to call my lawyer," Cingle said. "Then I'll tell you everything I know."

  Chapter 34

  "I HAVEN'T CHARGED you with anything," Loren said.

  Cingle crossed her arms. "Let's not play semantics games, okay? I asked for my l awyer. The interview is over. The end. El fin."

  "If you say so."

  "I say so. Get me a phone, please."

  "You're entitled to call an attorney."

  "That's who I plan on calling."

  Loren thought about this. She didn't want Cingle warning Hunter. "You mind if I d ial the number for you?"

  "Suit yourself," Cingle said. "I'll need a phone book though."

  "You don't know your attorney's home number by heart?"

  "No, sorry."

  It took another five minutes. Loren dialed and handed her the phone. She could a lways check the call log later, make sure she didn't sneak another call in. She t urned off the microphone and moved into the monitoring room. Cingle, wise in t he ways of the camera, turned her back to the lens, just in case someone could r ead lips.

  Loren started working the phones. First she tried the cop sitting in front of Hunter's residence in Irvington. He informed her that Matt and Olivia Hunter s till weren't home. Loren knew that this was not good news. She started a quiet s earch because she didn't want to sound off too many alarm bells yet.

  She'd need to get a subpoena for both Matt and Olivia Hunter's recent credit c ard transactions-- run it through TRW. If they were on the run, they'd probably n eed to access money at an ATM or check into a motel-- something.

  From the monitoring screen, Loren could see that Cingle had finished her phone c all. Cingle held the phone up to the camera and signaled for someone to hit the a udio switch. Loren complied.

  "Yes?"

  Cingle said, "My attorney is on his way."

  "Sit tight then."

  Loren switched off the intercom. She leaned back. Exhaustion was starting to set i n. She was nearing the wall. She needed a little shut-eye or her brain would s tart going hazy. Cingle's attorney wouldn't be here for at least half an hour.

  She crossed her arms, threw her feet on the desk, and closed her eyes, hoping to d oze for just a few minutes, just until the attorney showed.

  Her cell phone rang. She startled up and put it to her ear.

  It was Ed Steinberg. "Hey."

  "Hey," she managed.

  "The private eye talking?"

  "Not yet. She's waiting for her lawyer."

  "Let her wait then. Let them both wait."

  "Why, what's up?"

  "The feds, Loren."

  "What about them?"

  "We're meeting them in an hour."

  "Who?"

  "Joan Thurston."

  That made her drop her feet to the floor. "The U. S. attorney herself?"

  "In the flesh. And some hotshot SAC from Nevada. We're meeting them at Thurston's office to discuss your phony nun."

  Loren checked the clock. "It's four in the morning."

  "Thank you, Mistress of the Obvious."

  "No, I mean, I'm surprised you'd call the U. S. attorney that early."

  "Didn't have to," Steinberg said. "She called me."

  When Ed Steinberg arrived, he looked at Loren and shook his head. Her hair was f rizzed out from the humidity. The sweat had dried, but she was still a mess.

  "You look," Steinberg said, "like something I once left in the bottom of my gym l ocker."

  "Flattering, thank you."

  He motioned at her with both his hands. "Can't you-- I don't know-- do something a bout your hair?"

  "What, this a singles' club now?"

  "Evidently not."

  The ride from the county prosecutor's office to the U. S. attorney's was three b locks. They entered via the well-guarded private underground garage. There were v ery few cars at this hour. The elevator dropped them on the seventh floor. The s tencil on the glass read: UNITED STATES ATTORNEY

  DISTRICT OF NEW JERSEY

  JOAN THURSTON

  UNITED STATES ATTORNEY

  Steinberg pointed at the top line and then the bottom line. "Kinda redundant, n o?"

  Despite the power of the office, the waiting room was done up in Early American Dentist. The carpet was threadbare. The furniture managed to be neither f ashionable nor functional. There were a dozen different issues of Sports Illustrated on the table and nothing else. The walls seemed to plead for a paint j ob. They were stained and barren, except for the photographs of past U. S. a ttorneys, a remarkable lesson in what not to wear and how not to pose when t aking a picture for posterity.

  No receptionist was sitting guard at this hour. They knocked and were buzzed i nto the inner sanctum. It was much nicer in here, a totally different feel and l ook, like they'd stepped through a wall into Diagon Alley.

  They turned right and headed toward the corner office. A man-- an enormous man--s tood in the corridor. He had a buzz cut and a frown. He stood perfectly still a nd looked as if he could double as a squash court. Steinberg stuck out his h and. "Hi, I'm Ed Steinberg, county prosecutor."

  Squash Court took the hand but he did not look happy about it. "Cal Dollinger, FBI. They're waiting."

  That was the end of that conversation. Cal Dollinger stayed where he was. They t urned the corner. Joan Thurston greeted them at the door.

  Despite the early hour U. S. Attorney Joan Thurston looked resplendent in a c harcoal gray business suit that seemed to have been tailored by the gods.

  Thurston was mid-forties and, in Loren's view, excessively attractive. She had a uburn hair, broad shoulders, tapered waist. She had two sons in their early t eens. Her husband worked at Morgan Stanley in Manhattan. They lived in ritzy Short Hills with a vacation home on Long Beach Island.

  In short: Joan Thurston was what Loren wanted to be when she grew up.

  "Good morning," Thurston said, which felt weird because outside her windows, the s kies were still night black.

  She shook Loren's hand firmly, meeting her eye and softening it with a smile.

  She gave Steinberg a hug and buss on the cheek. "I'd like you to meet Adam Yates. He's the FBI Special Agent in Charge of the Las Vegas office."

  Adam Yates wore freshly ironed khakis and a bright pink shirt that might be the n orm on Worth Avenue in Palm Beach but not Broad Street in Newark. He wore l oafers without socks, his legs too casually crossed. He had that whole Old World, came-over-on-the-Mayflower thing going on, what with the receding a sh-blond hair, the high cheekbones, the eyes so ice blue she wondered if he was w earing contacts. His cologne smelled like freshly cut grass. Loren liked it.

  "Please sit," Thurston said.

  Thurston had a spacious corner office. On one wall-- the least noticeable wall--w as a smattering of diplomas and awards. They were put out of the way, almost as i f to say, "Hey, I need to put them up but I don't like to put on airs." The r est of the office was personal. She had photographs of her children and her h usband, all of whom-- big surprise-- were gorgeous. Even the dog. There was a w hite guitar autographed by Bruce Springsteen hanging behind her head. On the b ookshelf were the usual assortment of law books, along with autographed b aseballs and footballs. All the local teams, of course. Joan Thurston had no p hotographs of herself, no news clippings, no Lucite-block awards in view.

  Loren sat down carefully. She used to tuck her heels underneath her
to gain a f ew inches, but she'd read a business self-help book about how women sabotage t heir own careers, and one of the rules said that a woman must never sit on her h eels. It looked unprofessional. Usually Loren forgot that rule. Something about s eeing Joan Thurston brought it all back.

  Thurston came around and half-sat/half-leaned against the front lip of her desk.

  She folded her arms and focused her attention on Loren.

  "Tell me what you have so far."

  Loren glanced at Ed Steinberg. He nodded.

  "We have three dead people. The first, well, we don't know her real name. That's w hy we're here."

  "This would be Sister Mary Rose?" Thurston asked.

  "Yes."

  "How did you stumble across her case?"

  "Pardon?"

  "I understand that the death was originally ruled of natural causes," Thurston s aid. "What made you look into it deeper?"

  Steinberg took that one. "The Mother Superior personally asked Investigator Muse t o look into it."

  "Why?"

  "Loren is an alum of St. Margaret's."

  "I understand that, but what made this Mother Superior . . . what's her name?"

  "Mother Katherine," Loren said.

  "Mother Katherine, right. What made her suspect foul play in the first place?"

  "I'm not sure she suspected anything," Loren said. "When Mother Katherine found Sister Mary Rose's body, she tried to resuscitate her with chest compressions a nd discovered that she had breast implants. That didn't mesh with Sister Mary Rose's history."

  "So she came to you to find out what was up?"

  "Something like that, yes."

  Thurston nodded. "And the second body?"

  "Max Darrow. He was a retired Vegas police officer now residing in the Reno a rea."

  They all looked at Adam Yates. He stayed still. So, Loren thought, this would be t he game. They'd roll over and maybe, just maybe, the feds would award them with a tiny doggie treat.

  Thurston asked, "How did you connect Max Darrow to Sister Mary Rose?"

  "Fingerprints," Loren said. "Darrow's fingerprints were found in the nun's p rivate quarters."

  "Anything else?"

  "Darrow was found dead in his car. Shot twice at point-blank range. His pants w ere down around his ankles. We think the killer tried to make it look like a p rostitute rolled him."

  "Fine, we can go into the details later," Thurston said. "Tell us how Max Darrow c onnects to the third victim."

  "The third victim is Charles Talley. For one thing, both Talley and Darrow lived i n the Reno area. For another, they were both staying at the Howard Johnson's n ear Newark Airport. Their rooms were next door to one another's."

  "And that's where you found Talley's body? At the hotel?"

  "Not me. A night custodian found him in the stairwell. He'd been shot twice."

  "Same as Darrow?"

  "Similar, yes."

  "Time of death?"

  "It's still being worked on, but sometime tonight between eleven P. M. and two A. M. The stairwell had no air-conditioning, no windows, no ventilation-- it had t o be over a hundred degrees in there."

  "That's why Investigator Muse here looks like that," Steinberg said, gesturing w ith both hands as if he were presenting a soiled prize. "From being in that s auna."

  Loren shot him a look and tried to hold back from smoothing her hair. "The heat m akes it more difficult for our ME to pinpoint a better time frame."

  "What else?" Thurston asked.

  Loren hesitated. Her guess was that Thurston and Yates probably knew-- or at l east, could readily learn-- most of what she'd already told them. So far, this h ad all been about getting up to speed. All that she really had left-- all that s he'd have that they probably wouldn't-- was Matt Hunter.

  Steinberg held up a hand. "May I make a suggestion?"

  Thurston turned toward him. "Of course, Ed."

  "I don't want to have any jurisdictional hassles here."

  "Neither do we."

  "So why don't we just pool our resources on this one? Totally open communication b oth ways. We tell you what we know, you tell us what you know. No holding b ack."

  Thurston glanced at Yates. Adam Yates cleared his throat and said, "We have no p roblem with that."

  "Do you know the real identity of Sister Mary Rose?" Steinberg asked.

  Yates nodded. "We do, yes."

  Loren waited. Yates took his time. He uncrossed his legs, tugged at the front of h is shirt as if trying to get some air.

  "Your nun-- well, she's not even close to being a nun, believe me-- was one Emma Lemay," Yates said.

  The name meant nothing to Loren. She looked at Steinberg. He, too, had no r eaction to the name.

  Yates continued: "Emma Lemay and her partner, a cretin named Clyde Rangor, d isappeared from Vegas ten years ago. We did a fairly massive search for both of t hem but turned up nothing. One day they were there, the next-- poof-- they were b oth gone."

  Steinberg asked, "How did you know we found Lemay's body?"

  "The Lockwood Corporation had her silicone implants marked. The NCIC now puts e verything they can into the national database. Fingerprints, you know about.

  DNA and descriptions, those have been in there for a while. But now we're w orking on a national database for medical devices-- any kind of joint r eplacements, surgical implants, colostomy bags, pacemakers-- mostly to help i dentify Jane and John Does. You get the model number, you put it in the system.

  It's new, pretty experimental. We're trying it out on a select few that we're v ery anxious to locate."

  "And this Emma Lemay," Loren said. "You were anxious to locate her?"

  Yates had a good smile. "Oh, yes."

  "Why?" Loren asked.

  "Ten years ago Lemay and Rangor agreed to turn on a nasty perennial RICO top-ten a sswipe, guy named Tom 'Comb-Over' Busher."

  "Comb-Over?"

  "That's what they call him, though not to his face. Been his nickname for years, a ctually. Used to be, he had this comb-over going. You know, when he started g oing bald. But it just kept growing. So now he kinda twirls it around and a round, looks like he stuck a cinnamon swirl on top of his head."

  Yates chuckled. Nobody else did.

  Thurston said, "You were talking about Lemay and Rangor?"

  "Right. So anyway, we nailed Lemay and Rangor on pretty serious drug charges, p ressed them like hell, and for the first time, we got someone on the inside to f lip. Clyde Rangor and Comb-Over are cousins. They started working with us, t aping conversations, gathering evidence. And then. . . ." Yates shrugged.

  "So what do you think happened?"

  "The most likely scenario was that Comb-Over got wind of what was up and killed t hem. But we never really bought that."

  "Why not?"

  "Because there was evidence-- lots of it, actually-- that Comb-Over was searching f or Lemay and Rangor too. Even harder than we were. For a while it was like the r ace was on, you know, who'd find them first. When they never turned up, well, w e figured we lost the race."

  "This Comb-Over. He still on the streets?"

  "Yes."

  "And what about Clyde Rangor?"

  "We have no idea where he is." Yates shifted in his chair. "Clyde Rangor was a m ajor whack-job. He managed a couple of strip clubs for Comb-Over and had a rep f or enjoying the occasional, uh, rough session."

  "How rough?"

  Yates folded his hands and placed them in his lap. "We suspect that some of the g irls didn't recover."

  "When you say didn't recover--"

  "One ended up in a catatonic state. One-- the last one, we think-- ended up dead."

  Loren made a face. "And you were cutting a deal with this guy?"

  "What, you want us to find someone nicer?" Yates snapped.

  "I--"

  "Do I really need to explain to you how trading up works, Investigator Muse?"

  Steinberg stepped in. "Not at all."

  "I didn't mean
to imply. . . ." Loren bit back, her face reddening, upset with h erself for sounding so amateurish. "Go on."

  "What else is there? We don't know where Clyde Rangor is, but we believe that he c an still provide valuable information, maybe help us take Comb-Over down."

  "How about Charles Talley and Detective Max Darrow? Any idea how they fit in?"

  "Charles Talley is a thug with a record for brutality. He handled some of the g irls in the clubs, made sure they kept in line, didn't steal much, shared t heir, uh, tips with the house. Last we heard he was working for a dump in Reno c alled the Eager Beaver. Our best guess is, Talley was hired to kill Emma Lemay."

  "By this Comb-Over guy?"

  "Yes. Our theory is that somehow Comb-Over found out that Emma Lemay was p retending to be this Sister Mary Rose. He sent Talley here to kill her."

  "And what about Max Darrow?" Loren asked. "We know he was in Lemay's quarters.

  What was his role?"

  Yates uncrossed his legs and sat up. "For one thing, we think Darrow, though a f airly solid cop, might have been crooked."

  His voice drifted off. He cleared his throat.

  "And for another," Loren prompted.

  Yates took a deep breath. "Well, Max Darrow . . ." He looked at Thurston. She d idn't nod, didn't move, but Loren got the impression that, as she had done with Steinberg, Yates was looking for an okay. "Let's just say that Max Darrow is c onnected into this case in another way."

  They waited. Several seconds passed. Loren finally said, "How?"

  Yates rubbed his face with both hands, suddenly looking exhausted. "I mentioned b efore that Clyde Rangor was into rough trade."

  Loren nodded.

  "And that we think he killed his last victim."

  "Yes."

  "The victim was a small-time stripper and probable hooker, named . . . hold on, I have it here . . ."-- Yates pulled a small leather notepad from his back p ocket, licked his finger, flipped through the pages--"named Candace Potter, aka Candi Cane." He snapped the notebook shut. "Emma Lemay and Clyde Rangor d isappeared soon after her body was found."

  "And how does that fit in with Darrow?"

  "Max Darrow was the homicide investigator in charge of the case."