Sleight of Hand: A Novel of Suspense (Dana Cutler)

by Margolin, Phillip

“Good. That means you won’t have any trouble complying. And now I’ll speak to my client alone.”

  Santoro shut the door and Benedict sat opposite Blair. The millionaire was dressed in an expensive suit, but it was rumpled. He looked furious.

  “Do you know what the fuck is going on?” Horace snapped.

  “Unfortunately, I do. The police have taken advantage of you, Horace. Robb and Santoro knew they couldn’t get a warrant to search the Bentley because they didn’t have probable cause, so they tricked you into letting them look in the trunk of your car.”

  “But they said it would help find Carrie.”

  “Your cooperation may help the detectives send you to jail,” Benedict said in hopes of frightening Blair. The more Blair panicked, the easier he would be to manipulate. “If the hairs and blood they found in the trunk of the Bentley turn out to be Carrie’s, they may arrest you for murder.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “I know Stephanie Robb. She has tunnel vision. Once she fixes on a suspect you can’t reason with her.”

  “I can’t be arrested. I have businesses to run. I have meetings scheduled in Europe and Japan.”

  “Robb won’t care, but I do, and I’ll do my best to make sure that you make those meetings. You were wise to call me.”

  “I should have done it before I let those lying bastards search my car.”

  “Don’t beat yourself up. You were worried about Carrie and that kept you from being cool and objective, the way you are when you make business decisions. Most people want to cooperate with the police, especially if they haven’t done anything wrong.”

  “I haven’t, and I have no idea why Carrie disappeared or where she is.”

  “Have they accused you of being involved in Carrie’s disappearance?”

  “No, but they’ve been acting like I’m a suspect ever since they searched my car. How can they arrest me? Don’t they have to have evidence?”

  “Unfortunately, the handgun they found in the trunk of the Bentley had its serial number filed off. That’s illegal.”

  “I have nothing to do with that gun!” Blair shouted. “I’ve never seen it before!”

  Benedict held up his hand. “Okay, relax. You have every reason to be upset, but before we talk about what they found in your trunk or Carrie’s disappearance there are a few matters we need to get out of the way.”

  “Such as?”

  “Do you want me to act as your attorney in this matter?”

  “Yes. I need an expert in criminal law.”

  “Okay, then. If I’m going to be your attorney I’ll need a retainer. Fifty thousand dollars will be adequate for now.”

  “That’s fine.”

  “You understand that the fee will be much more if they charge you with murder.”

  Blair nodded.

  “Good. Now you need to know some of the rules involving the attorney-client relationship.”

  “My corporate attorneys have told me about that.”

  “I’m sure they have, but I want to go over the rules again in the context of a criminal matter. Anything you tell me is confidential. I am forbidden by law to reveal the information to anyone, and no judge can ever force me to reveal it, even if you tell me you killed Carrie.”

  “I did not kill Carrie.”

  “Of course. I never thought you did. I’m just making a point. And another point I want to make is that no other person may have this same relationship with you. If you talk to a friend, your secretary, a member of your board of directors, and you say something that can be used by the police, those people can be subpoenaed by a grand jury and forced to reveal what you told them, no matter how much they like you and want to protect you. So, from now on, think of me as your protector and your shield. Do not speak to anyone about anything to do with this matter without consulting me first. Do you understand?”

  “I understand completely.”

  Benedict smiled. Horace Blair thought the smile signified Benedict’s satisfaction in knowing that he understood the information Benedict had just imparted, but Charles Benedict was smiling for a different reason. From this moment on, Horace Blair would be isolated from all outside influences and would do anything Benedict told him.

  “Let’s get down to business. The detectives want to interview you. I advise you very strongly to refuse to let them. But it’s your decision.”

  “After the way they’ve treated me, the last thing I want to do is talk to those two. I’m a friend of the chief of police and I have a good mind to call him about their conduct.”

  “That might be a good idea somewhere down the line, but let’s hold your contacts in reserve. Now, let’s you and I discuss strategy.”

  “Is your client ready to talk?” Stephanie Robb asked as soon as Benedict stepped out of the interrogation room.

  “Absolutely not,” Benedict said. “And you two should be ashamed of yourselves for tricking Mr. Blair.”

  “Oddly, I’m not,” Santoro said.

  “I assume you’re going to let my client leave now,” Benedict said.

  “You assume wrong, Benedict,” Robb answered with a smirk. “He’s going to cool his heels tonight. Maybe after a taste of jail, your fat-cat client will be a little more cooperative.”

  Benedict was delighted. This was exactly what he’d hoped for.

  “What’s the charge?” he asked.

  “We’ve got him dead to rights on the thirty-eight, Charlie,” Santoro interposed so Robb would have a chance to cool down. “We’re treating Blair no differently than we would any other person in the same situation.”

  “All right, Frank, but don’t put him in the general population. Put him in isolation while I arrange bail.”

  “Why should we?” Robb asked belligerently.

  “I’m doing this for you two,” Benedict said. “You have no idea how well connected Mr. Blair is. I’m pissed at you for tricking him into opening the trunk, but I know you well enough to know that you thought you were doing the right thing. If this blows up in your face, it could jeopardize your careers.”

  “Is that a threat?” Robb demanded.

  “No, it’s me trying to help you.”

  “He has a point, Steph,” Santoro said. “And Blair will be out on bail soon, in any event. There’s no sense putting him in danger.”

  Santoro turned to Benedict. “I’ll arrange for a cell in the isolation wing.”

  “Thanks, Frank. I’ll let Mr. Blair know how considerate you were.”

  As soon as Benedict left, Robb turned on her partner.

  “Why are you kissing Blair’s ass?”

  “There’s a lot of evidence against Blair, but it’s not enough for an indictment. We can’t even prove that Mrs. Blair’s dead. Blair’s going to be furious anyway, but his lawyers will go ballistic if he gets hurt in population.”

  Robb calmed down long enough to see that Santoro was right.

  “Okay, call the jail and get him a cell in isolation. But the gloves come off the minute we have probable cause to arrest Blair for killing his wife.”

  Charles Benedict was in a terrific mood when he left police headquarters. Everything was going according to plan. Carrie Blair’s Porsche had been dismembered in one of Nikolai Orlansky’s chop shops. Its parts were scattered across the United States, thus eradicating any evidence that it, and not the Bentley, had been used to transport Carrie’s body.

  Carrie’s shallow grave was seeded with evidence that would lead to Horace Blair’s conviction for murder at a trial in which he would be defended, for a hefty fee, by the very individual who was framing him for the killing. Only one thing remained to be done. The police had to find Carrie’s grave, and that would be taken care of very soon.

  Benedict looked at his watch. It was a little after eight p.m. His timing was just right. Nikolai Orlansky had a man on his payroll at the jail who could guarantee that Horace Blair would spend the night in a cell next to Barry Lester. Benedict would take his time arranging for bail to
be posted. By the time Blair was back on the street, his fate would be sealed.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The jailer opened the steel door and Horace Blair walked out. His face was drained of color and his shoulders were stooped. He looked very old, and Benedict guessed that he hadn’t slept. As soon as he saw his attorney in the waiting area, Blair flushed with anger. He straightened up and started to speak, but Benedict held up a hand to stop him, telling him to wait to talk until they were safely away from the jail. Blair erupted as soon as he was in Benedict’s car.

  “What the fuck is going on? Why did I have to spend a night in jail?”

  “Hey, I know it was tough being in lockup all night, but I made sure they didn’t put you in population. Did they give you your own cell?”

  “Yes, but this cretin in the cell next to mine wouldn’t shut up. He kept asking why I was in jail. Then he started talking about how many women he fucked and how he could get me drugs. I tried to sleep but it was impossible.”

  “You didn’t talk about your case, did you?” Benedict asked, pretending to be alarmed.

  “No. I remembered what you told me.”

  “Well, you’re out now.”

  “Why wasn’t I released sooner? I told you to get Pratt on this.”

  “I did, but he said he couldn’t do anything until the bank opened in the morning. So I called the bail bondsman I usually use, but he had a family emergency. Believe me, I got you out of there as fast as I could. I didn’t get any sleep, either.”

  Blair stewed in silence for a while. Then he had another outburst.

  “This is outrageous. No one treats me like this. Those detectives are going to see what happens when someone fucks with me.”

  “Someone is definitely fucking with you, and it’s not just the detectives. Could Carrie have put the hairs, the blood, and that gun in the trunk of your car? Does she have a key to your Bentley?”

  “You think she’s behind this?”

  “I have no idea. But someone is setting you up, and she’s the most likely suspect, unless you can think of someone else.”

  “I have enemies. You don’t run a business like mine without ruffling a few feathers.”

  “Is there anyone you can think of who hates you so much they would kill Carrie, then try to pin the crime on you? Anyone who lost out to you in a business deal, or someone in your company who wants you out?”

  Blair grew quiet. “I’ve made some dicey moves in the last two years. There were some very pissed-off Russians who lost out on a bid to build an oil pipeline, and I engineered a leveraged buyout of a high-tech company in California. But that was business. I can’t believe any of those people would try to get back at me by killing my wife.”

  “Can you make a list for me of people who might hate you enough to do something like this? We have to cover all the bases. The one thing we know for certain is that someone is definitely out to get you.

  “But now my priority is to get you home, where you can take a shower, get some sleep, and eat a good meal. You’re going to have to stay sharp if we’re going to get you through this nightmare in one piece.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Dana’s jaunt to the West Coast had played havoc with her business. She spent the weekend writing the reports she’d put aside to go on her wild-goose chase. On Monday, she testified in an insurance case. Minutes after she left the courtroom she’d received a call from an attorney representing a Baltimore Ravens running back who had been accused of beating up his girlfriend. Dana usually refused to represent batterers, but the player swore he was innocent and Dana believed him by the time she finished talking to him at his lawyer’s office.

  After the meeting, Dana took the elevator to the garage under the attorney’s building. She was getting into her car when her cell phone rang.

  “Cutler,” she answered as she slid behind the wheel.

  “Hey, I’m glad I caught you. It’s Alice.”

  Alice Forte was a divorce attorney who had hired Dana on several occasions.

  “What’s up?” Dana asked.

  “Marta Osgood was just here. She thinks Theodore is skimming from the business and hiding assets in an offshore account.”

  “What do you think?”

  “It’s possible. He is a slimeball.”

  “Send me what you’ve got and I’ll get right on it.”

  “Will do. Say, did that woman ever hire you?”

  “What woman?”

  “This was a week or so ago. She called me for a reference. I said you were pretty good when you were sober.”

  Dana laughed. “Thanks a bunch. What was her name?”

  “I can’t remember it.” Forte paused. “She had a French accent.”

  Dana had started to put her key in the ignition but she stopped.

  “Do you remember anything else about her?”

  “Not really. She called me around ten last Thursday. She wanted to know if I would recommend you. I said you did a great job and had a terrific reputation, so she asked how she could get in touch. I gave her your number. That’s about it.”

  “Was her name Margo Laurent?”

  “Yeah, that’s it, Laurent! So did she hire you?”

  “Yes, she did. Thanks for the referral,” Dana said, and ended the call.

  Carrie Blair had called Alice and the Queen Anne Players last Thursday, so something must have happened on Wednesday or Thursday that prompted the calls. As Dana drove out of the parking garage she tried to remember what she’d been doing on those two days. Jake was away and she’d stayed home when she wasn’t working, so the triggering event had to be connected to one of her cases. There was a drug conspiracy case in federal court and a state vehicular homicide, but she’d finished most of her work in the criminal cases. She was investigating two divorces for Alice and one for another attorney. Then there were several cases for United Insurance.

  Dana frowned. Whatever happened had to have happened on Wednesday, because she had slept most of Thursday. Wednesday night and early Thursday morning she’d worked on an insurance case but that couldn’t be it. The case was a big nothing. Lars Jorgenson was claiming that he’d been permanently injured in a car crash. He walked with a cane and had a quack for a doctor. The insurance company had dealt with this doctor before and they didn’t buy it, so Dana had camped outside Jorgenson’s apartment and had eventually photographed him jogging.

  Then the crazy woman chased her!

  That had to be it. Dana remembered taking pictures of Jorgenson jogging when this couple walked out of a condo. The woman had looked her way before screaming and running toward her. Dana had peeled out and had seen the woman stop in the middle of the street. Was the woman Carrie Blair? Had she been close enough to read Dana’s license plate? If she got the number, finding the owner would be easy for someone in law enforcement.

  Dana sped home and raced down to her office. She had sent the photographs from the Jorgenson case to the insurance company, but she had a duplicate set in her file. Dana found the Jorgenson file and took out the photographs. She spread them across her desk and examined them with a magnifying glass.

  It was Carrie Blair. Who was the man? If she could find him he might be able to tell her what was behind Blair’s scheme. She would have to blow up the photo so she could get a good look at the face of Carrie Blair’s companion.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Christopher Rauh’s hamlike hands were clenched, his massive body leaned threateningly toward Stephanie Robb, and his face was beet red.

  “Are you out of your fucking mind?” the man in charge of the Lee County Homicide Division asked, his voice only a few decibels below a scream.

  “He killed her,” Stephanie Robb answered defiantly.

  “Do you have any idea how powerful Horace Blair is? I’ve had Ray Mancuso on my ass all morning,” he said, naming the commonwealth attorney, “and he’s had the mayor on his ass, and the governor has been screaming at the mayor.”

  “Power
ful people don’t get a pass in America, Chris,” Robb argued. “You kill someone, you go down. Virginia isn’t a banana republic.”

  Rick Hamada laughed. He was short and chubby and his sweater vest and slicked-down black hair made him look like a nerd, but in court, Lee County’s chief criminal deputy was Attila the Hun.

  “Blair’s buddies live in the White House, Steph,” Hamada said. “He has Supreme Court justices over to his house for brunch. He’s a multi-fucking-millionaire who contributes to every influential politician in this state. For guys with Blair’s influence, Virginia is a banana republic.”

  “We can nail him,” Robb insisted.

  “Not on what you’ve given me,” Hamada said. “There’s an old saying about not missing when you aim at a king. If you arrest Horace Blair for murder and the case blows up, you’re going to be spending the rest of your law-enforcement career in animal control.”

  “It’s her blood and her hair,” Robb said. “Read the lab report. We have witnesses who will testify that the Blairs had a heated argument at the Theodore Roosevelt hotel a week before she disappeared. And don’t forget the gun.”

  “Which you can’t connect to a murder because you don’t even know if Carrie Blair is dead,” the assistant commonwealth attorney reminded Robb.

  “You should never have made Blair spend a minute in jail,” Rauh snapped. “You knew Benedict would get him out on bail.”

  “The gun gave us a legit basis for arresting Blair,” Santoro said calmly, in hopes of lowering the temperature in the room.

  “Were Blair’s prints found on the gun?” Hamada asked.

  “No,” Santoro answered, “but neither were anyone else’s. It was wiped clean.”

  “This could turn into a major cluster fuck,” Rauh fumed. “But it won’t, because we are going to dismiss this stupid gun charge. Then you are going to stay away from Horace Blair unless I tell you otherwise.”

  “So we’re off the case?” Robb asked, making no attempt to hide her anger.

  “No. You’re on the case. But you will not—I repeat, will not—contact Horace Blair or anyone who knows him until you have cleared it with me. Is that understood?”