by Allen Eskens
“We’re still working on that,” Max said. “He had to acquire a car in Chicago. I doubt it’s a rental, because that’ll leave a paper trail, but we’ll check on it.”
“It’s possible he stole a car,” Niki said. “But that seems overly risky.”
“What do you think, Max?”
Max looked at Niki, then back at Dovey. “I think that Niki has some thoughts on that.”
Niki waited for Dovey to acknowledge her before she continued. “It’s possible he simply bought a car in Chicago, responded to an ad, gave the seller a wad of cash, and drove off. Pruitt drives here, kills his wife, and goes back to Chicago in time to be at the conference in the morning.”
“Do we have any evidence to back this up?”
“Not a shred,” Max said.
“So how do we get it?”
Max laced his fingers together and brought them to his lips as he thought. “We’ll need to go to Chicago. I’ll retrace his steps. I can get hotel surveillance footage, maybe hotel key-card information showing when he entered his room. Maybe staff might remember him. I’ll drive there and back. There might be surveillance cameras on the way.”
“Tollbooths,” Niki blurted out. “I-90 has a bunch of tollbooths. They must have cameras.”
Dovey nodded agreement. “If they have video footage, I can get that subpoenaed from their Department of Transportation. Give me a window of time for each tollbooth and I’ll get the footage.”
Max said. “If we can catch him driving through a tollbooth, coming back from Chicago, we have absolute proof of premeditation.”
A thin smile lit Dovey’s face, and he spoke as though he were thinking aloud. “And with premeditation we have first-degree murder—life in prison—so we’ll need a grand jury. I can get started on that. If I can get the indictment, this’ll be the biggest homicide to hit the airwaves in years: the daughter of Emerson Adler murdered by her high-powered, lawyer husband. Damn, this’ll be national.”
Max could almost see the drool seeping from the corner of Dovey’s lips. “We still haven’t received the report from the techs, and forensics from the computers is still a long way away. Should we be starting the grand jury already?”
“I’m moving on this,” Dovey said. “This is a hot one, and I don’t want any delay.”
Max could see something in the twitch of Dovey’s smile that suggested there was more to Dovey’s haste than the pursuit of swift justice. These big-name cases tended to flow in a current of political maneuvering. Dovey held a bag of gold and needed to move fast in order to keep ahold of it. “You get me the evidence of how he got back here,” Dovey said. “That’s all I need. Well, that and a motive. Do we have one of those yet?”
Max shrugged. “We have an interview with Mrs. Pruitt’s sister today. We don’t know much about the state of the marriage. Hopefully she can fill in some of that.”
“How many red sedans can there be on I-90 at that time of night?” Niki wondered.
Dovey again looked at Max, as though Niki weren’t in the room. “I’ve never met a married couple yet that didn’t have enough problems to explain why one might want to kill the other,” he said. “And I’m betting the Pruitts had more than their share. You get me that motive and I’ll have enough to take this to a grand jury.”
Chapter 18
Boady stared at Ben Pruitt’s two-hundred-thousand-dollar check and reminisced about a time when he had extra cash at his disposal. “Fuck-you money,” he called it. Small wads of equity buried around town in bonds and certificates of deposits and a junior-league stock portfolio, the kind of money that allowed him to say “fuck you” to any client who became too much of a jerk. Many of them had been raised on mob movies where the attorney held the shovel as the client tossed the body onto the freshly dug grave. “I paid you blah-blah dollars, so you do what I tell you to do.”
That’s not how it worked with Boady. On that rare occasion when a client ordered him to cross a line, Boady would walk them to the door and offer to return the remaining retainer. Not once did the client take him up on that offer. “There are rules,” he’d tell his clients. “We operate within those rules. Always. No exceptions.” The key was to know the law better than your opponent, and work harder than they did. You could never outspend the State, but you could usually outwork them.
What most people didn’t understand was that cases were won or lost well before the attorneys stood to give their opening statements. Each side of a case knew what arrows filled their opponent’s quiver. Witness statements and exhibits crossed back and forth weeks, sometimes months, before the trial began. The secret, as Boady often told his protégée Ben Pruitt, was to have more than one chess board going at a time. Get used to calculating multiple moves by the prosecution and have an answer ready for each contingency.
Chess—a game. That’s how he once viewed the practice of law. Abstract notions like justice and truth didn’t play into his strategy. They were distractions one could learn to ignore, like people living in a path of an airport runway who no longer noticed the jets. Boady had been one of the best at playing that game. No flash, no sparkly ta-da, just a finely tuned grasp of the rules and a talent for tuning out distractions.
Miguel Quinto brought all of that crashing down around him. Boady could still see Miguel’s face, the boy’s eyes searching for hope in every visit that Boady made to the jail. He could still hear the words of Miguel’s mother as they were leaving the funeral: “You did everything you could”—the lie that sent Boady into a dark spiral. All these memories churned in Boady’s stomach as he waited for Ben Pruitt to arrive.
Ben came to Boady’s house a few minutes before ten that Monday morning, parked his car in front, and walked around to open the back door on the passenger side. Emma Pruitt stepped out of the car as if she were touching her foot down on the moon, her movements hesitant and deliberate, her father holding her hand, raising her up to a standing position. Neither looked well.
Boady had called Ben to come over, and it slipped his mind that he would naturally have Emma with him. Boady went to a closet and dug around for a game or something to entertain a ten-year-old girl while the grown-ups talked. He found a lantern and binoculars, and tried to imagine how he could present these items to Emma—how could he entice her to busy herself with these random artifacts. He shook his head and put them back on the shelf.
Then he saw a sketch pad, one on which Diana would sometimes design home-makeover ideas for her clients. He pulled the sketch pad out, threw it on the couch, and grabbed a couple of pencils from his study.
Boady opened the door to a father and child who looked like they had just survived a month at a prison camp. Ben hadn’t shaved since Boady last saw him. Fatigue lingered in the rings beneath his eyes. He stared at nothing in particular, as if it had worn his vision to a dull point.
Boady gave Ben a light hug, one that Ben returned. He then knelt on one knee to be at Emma’s level. Her eyes betrayed a fear that tore at Boady’s heart. Boady had lost his own father before he was old enough to know the man, and that loss painted every corner of Boady’s world. He couldn’t imagine the size of the wound that filled this little girl.
“Hello, Emma,” he said.
“I’m sorry that I don’t have anyone here for you to play with. I don’t even have any games, but I have a sketch pad. Do you like to draw?” Boady stepped back and pointed. Emma reached for her father’s arm and held him tightly.
“Emma,” Ben said, in a calm, soothing voice. “Mr. Sanden and I have something we need to talk about. I need you to sit here—just for a little while. Can you do that?” Ben walked her to the couch and turned her shoulders so that she faced him. “I promise, I’ll just be in the next room.” He lowered her to the seat and put the sketch pad on her lap.
Boady handed her the two pencils. “Would you like a glass of water? A cookie, maybe?”
Emma looked to her father, then to Boady, and shook her head.
Boady waited for Ben to
step away from his daughter before leading them to his study. He closed the French doors and took a seat behind his desk. “How are you holding up?”
Ben opened his mouth to speak, but stopped. He closed his eyes, rubbed them with the heels of his hands, and wiped tears onto his sleeve. “I haven’t been able to sleep. I try. I know I have to be strong for Emma, but every time I close my eyes, I see Jennavieve’s face. I see her pushing Emma on her swing. I see those two opening Christmas presents and dressing up in matching princess Halloween costumes. I see her in her wedding dress and on the beach in St. Thomas.”
Ben paused as he drew in a shaky breath.
“And then I see her laid out on that table in the medical examiner’s office. I haven’t slept and I don’t think Emma has, not more than a couple hours at a time. She wakes up out of breath and calls for her mother.”
“Where have you been staying?”
“We went up to our lake cabin near Brainerd. I can’t go back to the house and I wanted to take Emma to some place familiar.”
“How is she doing?”
Ben shook his head. “Probably no better than I am. She’s so fragile anyway. I told her that her mom is dead, but I haven’t explained how. I can’t bring myself to say it out loud—not to her. I mean, how do you tell a child that her mom was murdered?”
“So what did you say?”
“I just said that the police are trying to figure that out. I left the TV off at the cabin, so she didn’t see any reports. I know I have to tell her, but I keep thinking that I’ll wait a little while, they’ll find who did this, and I can tell her then. At least then I might be able to explain why. That’s the hard part. There’s no sense to it right now.”
Boady leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers together. “Let’s see if we can make some sense of it. Tell me about Chicago.”
Ben, who had been staring at a pen lying in the middle of Boady’s clean desk, looked up, a trace of confusion tucked into the folds of his brow. “You want me to go over my alibi?”
“Why not?”
A slight smile edged up from the corner of Ben’s lips. “A wise teacher once told me not to ask my clients about the facts of the case, at least not until after I had all the State’s evidence. I think he told me that he didn’t want clients locking themselves into a story until they knew all the points to cover. Can’t have them changing their story on the stand.”
“I’m not sure that man was as wise as you remember.”
“Don’t worry, my version of events won’t change,” Ben said. “That’s the thing about the truth; the truth doesn’t change. Only a lie will change over time. I’m not lying. I was in Chicago. I had nothing to do with Jennavieve’s death.”
“Then what am I missing?”
“What do you mean?”
Boady debated how to step into this next part of the conversation, in the end erring on the side of complete disclosure. “You know that Max Rupert and I are friends.”
“That’s not a problem, is it?”
“No,” Boady said. “But I went to his wife’s grave on Friday. He visits her grave on the anniversary of her death every year. I went there to see if he was okay. As we were talking, I told him that you came to see me, and he said that I shouldn’t take your case.”
“I told you he has it in for me. I can’t believe he—”
“No. That’s not it. He wasn’t telling me not to take the case because he hates you. He was warning me off because he knows something we don’t. That’s what’s been bothering me. There’s something out there that has him believing that you’re his man.” Boady stopped talking and made room for the silence that would bring a response from Ben.
Ben shook his head. “I . . . I have no earthly idea. Wait . . . it’s bullshit. He can’t know anything, because there isn’t anything to know. I didn’t kill Jennavieve. That’s all there is to it.”
Ben’s words came out sure and strong and with enough volume to carry through the French doors. He caught himself and lowered his voice. “I didn’t kill my wife. I don’t care what Rupert says. I’m not concerned about what he thinks he has, because I can prove that I didn’t do it. I was in Chicago for Christ’s sake.”
“We can prove that?”
“Absolutely. They want to waste their time on some wild goose chase, let them. I’m going to figure out who killed my wife. I’m going to find the sonofabitch that stole that little girl’s mother from her.” Ben had turned red as he spat out his words.
Boady slid a box of tissues toward Ben, but Ben again wiped his tears onto his sleeve.
“I could really use your help, Boady. I don’t think I can do this alone.”
Boady smiled. “You won’t be alone. I’m your attorney and I’m your friend. I’ll do everything I can to take care of you and Emma.” He held out his hand, and Ben grabbed it like he was a drowning man grasping a lifeline.
“Thank you. Thank you.” Ben closed his eyes and breathed a heavy sigh.
Boady slid his chair back far enough to open his drawer and pull out a legal pad and a pen. “I’ve always said that if you have the truth on your side, it’s just a matter of finding the proof of that truth. So let’s get looking.”
Chapter 19
As Max waited for Anna Adler-King to come in for her interview, he read the laboratory report authored by Bug Thomas. Bug had found enough hair and fingerprints and other trace evidence to put Ben Pruitt at the scene of the crime, but the scene of the crime was his home, his bedroom. One would expect his essence to be littered throughout the place.
Bug had been thorough, and his report listed everything from the hairs they found in the shower drain, which appeared to match Jennavieve and Ben Pruitt, to partial shoe prints found on a spot of bare earth by the driveway, which belonged to Jennavieve. Max would reread that report over and over in the coming days, as he did in every case, waiting for the right clue to jump out at him, but in his initial perusal, very little seemed helpful.
Anna Adler-King arrived for her appointment wearing a tight black dress, tailored, belted at the waist, a V-neck unbuttoned just enough to give a hint of cleavage, definitely not off-the-rack. Max wondered if this was Mrs. Adler-King’s idea of bereavement attire, a suit that whispered “I’ve lost someone” but screamed “Hey, everyone, look at me.”
Max introduced himself and walked her to the interview room. “I appreciate you coming in to see me. I’ll try not to take up too much of your time.” Max motioned to a chair for Mrs. Adler-King as he took his seat. She remained standing, her eyes fixed on a coffee stain on the chair’s seat, a brown blotch about the size and shape of a gherkin pickle. Max pointed again. “Please, have a seat.”
“I don’t suppose you have a chair that’s clean, by any chance?”
Max leaned forward to look at the brown splotch on the orange material. “Oh, that’s been there for years. It won’t harm you.”
“It’s disgusting,” she said, looking at Max as though he were trying to make her sit on a dog turd.
Max closed his eyes so that she would not see them roll. “Would you prefer my chair?” He stood up so she could inspect it.
“That would be very kind of you,” she said.
Max switched his chair for the stained chair, and Anna Adler-King sat down with her back straight—careful not to lean against the back of the chair—and her hands folded together on her lap. She didn’t touch the tabletop, as though contact with its surface might infect her with whatever disease pulsed through the veins of the many criminals who had been in that room before her.
“Detective Rupert,” she said. “I want to do everything I can to convict the man who killed my sister.”
“You know who killed her?”
“Well, isn’t it obvious? Ben Pruitt. It had to be him.”
“Why do you say that?”
Anna Adler-King appraised Max Rupert as if to discern whether he was playing stupid or if stupid was his natural state. Max waited.
“Who else
would do something like this?”
“Mrs. Adler-King, how well do you know Ben Pruitt?”
“He’s my brother-in-law, but we aren’t close.”
“When’s the last time you spoke to him?”
She thought for a moment then answered. “It would have been at a fundraiser for the St. Paul libraries, just under a year ago.”
“When was the last time you saw your sister?”
“That same evening.”
“Would you say that you were particularly close to your sister?”
“We were sisters. Of course we were close.”
“But you didn’t talk to her for almost a year . . . and you live in the same city.”
“Detective Rupert, there are bonds between sisters that make us close. We didn’t need daily visits.”
“I understand, Mrs. King—”
“Mrs. Adler-King,” she corrected. “Unlike my sister, I chose to keep my maiden name. I am quite proud to be an Adler.”
“Okay. But if you haven’t talked to your sister in a year, you don’t know how things stood between the Pruitts. I understand that you may not like Ben Pruitt, but that gives me nothing to add to the investigation.”
“You want something to add to the investigation, I’ll give you something. Jennavieve and Ben had a prenuptial agreement. Ben Pruitt had every reason in the world to kill Jennavieve.”
“A prenup?” Max picked up his pen and slid a pad of paper off of a stack at the end of the table. “Tell me about it.”
Anna smiled and crossed one leg over the other, her skirt sliding up just enough to expose a hint of the lace garter at the top of her expensive hosiery. “To begin with, you should know that my sister and I are rich. Not our own doing. Everything we have comes from our father and his father before him. My grandfather made a fortune in paper milling, a business he handed down. Our father diversified and built on what Grandfather did, and now Adler Enterprise is estimated to be worth nearly a billion dollars.”
“Are your parents alive still?”
