Natural Suspect (2001)

by Brad Meltzer

  "Everything's taken care of."

  "Then you can go."

  "What about getting rid of the ..."

  "Someone else will be handling disposal," he informed him curtly, his tone clearly indicating that further conversation would be unwelcome.

  The bartender shrugged his shoulders and headed for the door. He'd already done much more than he'd bargained for.

  The tall man waited until John had gone before making his way down the long, dim, corridor that led to the cold rooms. He felt fortunate that from time to time in the course of his employment he was afforded an opportunity to indulge himself.

  Over the years the tall man had come to see himself as a citizen of the world, apolitical and unattached--a journeyman doing a job. His one great love was for the movies. Never before had there been a medium more perfectly suited for conveying the special qualities of violence. For a man in his profession, who'd by necessity been forced to play out the most thrilling moments of his life before an audience of the soon-to-be-dead, the movie house was a refuge, a place where men like himself were, if not exactly understood, then at least appreciated.

  As he pushed open the heavy metal door, he wondered what had ever happened to Bob Hoskins, the cockney actor who'd played the mob boss in The Long Good Friday. He'd done that animated movie about the rabbit and then . . . nothing. He navigated between two rows of beef carcasses that hung from meat hooks attached to the conveyor system on the ceiling. The overall effect was chilling. It was really too bad the lawyer wasn't the sort to appreciate all the trouble being taken in his behalf.

  Joe Kellogg, bound hand and foot and hung upside down from a meat hook, looked anything but grateful. Gravity had defeated his comb-over, and the long strands of greasy hair that usually concealed his pate now hung pitifully toward the ground. Above the wide band of duct tape that covered his mouth, the lawyer's eyes bulged grotesquely from their sockets.

  The tall man briefly considered making a joke about hanging upside down being good for the scalp, but thought better of it. Kellogg wasn't worth the breath. Besides, there were things to get ready.

  He set the cooler on the tile floor, which was punctuated with drains. Then he began to unpack his doctor's bag of instruments, laying them out carefully on the worn butcher block in the center of the room. The items formed an eclectic assortment, highly personal and chosen over the years through trial and error. Every object evoked memories. The dental probe he'd used to such great effect in Afghanistan. The soldering iron that inspired such improvisation in Jakarta. Some tasks called for specific implements, but in matters like the one before him, it was often difficult to choose.

  He picked each one up carefully, weighing it in his hand and examining it minutely before he laid it back down and selected another. Consumed by terror, Joe Kellogg started making wild, keening noises through the duct tape as his futile struggles against the ropes set him swinging, causing the chains to creak. To Stefan, the sounds held a pleasant harmony.

  "Ah," he cried, suddenly inspired as his eyes came to rest on the Black & Decker cordless drill. He picked it up and squeezed the grip that set the drill bit spinning. As he moved toward Kellogg, the tall man was pleased to note that the whine of the drill and the lawyers increasingly desperate screams blended so perfectly, they sounded almost like music.

  Jack was pretty sure that Janie must think he was crazy to go running out into the snow in order to help some crazy white man. But Jack had been a paramedic before he quit to open the restaurant, which meant that he knew about all the bad things that were out there on the dark streets just waiting to happen. He also knew the cops and figured that it would take a lot more than a call about a naked man to get them out of their warm squad cars on a night like this. If Jack didn't do something about it himself, there was a good chance the poor white fool would end up dying of exposure--or something worse--before the night was out.

  "Be careful, honey!" Janie called out after him as he unlocked the front door and headed into the street. He smiled to himself at her concern. The white guy was not only less than half Jacks size, but without any clothes he looked like a plucked chicken. Besides, it wasn't as if there were any place for him to hide a concealed weapon.

  "Hey, mister!" he called out, trying to get the guys attention, not at all that surprised when the man took off. Jack caught up with him before the end of the block without even breaking a sweat. He reached out to grab him by the arm and explain that he was only trying to help, when the poor guy whirled around to face him. His lips were blue and his eyebrows rimed with snow. Jack braced for a fight but instead the naked man covered his head with his hands as if expecting to ward off some sort of blow, then he sank pitifully to his knees in the snow.

  Patrick prayed that this wasn't some kind of hallucination--the woman's kindly ministrations, the snug shop filled with good smells, and the cup of hot soup he kept trying with shaky hands to get to his lips. After bringing him the soup the woman had gone off again, looking for some clothes for him to put on. In the meantime, they'd bundled him up in big white sheets that he eventually realized must be tablecloths.

  The big black man who'd saved him had insisted that he elevate his foot, propping it gingerly on the seat of a chair draped with a clean white towel. Even though it was his own foot, Patrick couldn't bring himself to look. The pain by itself was almost more than he could bear. The black man, however, acted as if he was used to seeing such horrors.

  "What happened to your toe?" he asked, making it sound almost as if this were a normal conversation.

  Patrick opened his mouth, but quickly discovered he had no words. After all, what was there to say? A man dressed up like Krusty the Clown had cut it off with a scalpel and was holding it for ransom. It might be the truth, but it was too bizarre to be believed. Instead, all Patrick managed was an idiotic shrug.

  "My wife and I'll give you a lift to the emergency room, but if we could find the toe there's a good chance that a surgeon could put it back on. . . ."

  "I'm not going to the emergency room," declared Patrick, his voice high with panic.

  "Don't be a fool, man. They'll give you something for the pain. I know that's got to hurt. Besides, if you don't get started on some antibiotics you'll get blood poisoning for sure."

  Patrick felt his eyes widen. The clown hadn't said anything about blood poisoning. What he had done was read aloud from a fat surgical textbook. Patrick remembered it practically verbatim:

  If wrapped in plastic and placed in a plastic container and packed in ice the severed digit may be successfully replanted up to thirty-six hours following amputation. Of course, the exact critical period of ischemia may vary from case to case . . .

  He wasn't exactly sure what ischemia was and under the circumstances he hadn't felt free to ask, but one thing was certain. The man with the red rubber nose and the scalpel meant what he said. If Patrick didn't get him what he wanted within thirty-six hours, not only would he never see his toe again, but he'd be contributing other appendages to the bastard's collection.

  Aaron McCandliss was starting the day off in a foul mood. Actually, starting wasn't quite accurate, seeing as the Nassau County District Attorney had never made it to bed the night before. This fact was remarkable in and of itself. Over the years he'd managed to oversee the successful prosecution of dozens of notable cases, including the recent trials of the retired schoolteacher known as the Mineola Mangier (three separate counts of first-degree murder) and Rose Mary Bevelaqua, the Long Island housewife accused of cutting off her adulterous husband's penis and feeding it to his pet Doberman (assault with a deadly weapon, battery, and cruelty to animals). But up until now nothing--not a single case--had deprived him of an entire night's sleep. It had taken Trent Ballard to do that.

  McCandliss found himself wondering whether Ballard had a drug problem. That would at least explain the rabbit. It might also account for his reckless boasting. What else would explain the foolishness of bragging to his boss about "owning" De
vin McGee?

  It had taken the district attorney only a handful of phone calls to have his worst fears realized. Ballard hadn't merely slept with Devin McGee; he'd done it at one of the big trial lawyers' conferences under the noses of half the bar. Even if it didn't raise all kinds of legal and ethical questions, the fact that Ballard had been intimate with Julia Hightower's attorney raised all kinds of disclosure issues that could lead to an eventual mistrial. The last thing the district attorney wanted was to be standing on the courthouse steps explaining that they were going to have to start all over again because Julia Hightower had been denied effective representation by counsel. Any way you looked at it, that night in the sack was going to end up biting the District Attorney's Office in the ass--and in an election year no less.

  From the backseat of his county car, McCandliss groaned audibly as his driver made the turn onto West Street and the county courthouse swung into view. If anything, there seemed to be even more reporters out front today than there'd been the day before. No doubt it had something to do with Devin McGee getting her car blown up on the Long Island Expressway. McCandliss wouldn't have put it past her to have planted the bomb herself. He'd already said as much to the chief of police, who'd assured him that he would look into it.

  As the car pulled up to the courthouse steps, the district attorney straightened his tie and smoothed the temples of his graying hair with the flats of both palms. Usually he went out of his way to be accommodating to the press, but today he dropped his shoulder and pushed his way through the yelping pack like the running back he'd been in college. He'd been up all night working through his options, and while he had three different motions, all typed, signed, and ready to be submitted to the court, in his briefcase he still couldn't make up his mind which one to use.

  The courtroom was packed to the rafters with print journalists and the merely curious. It already felt stuffy and overheated. He noted with irritation that Trent Ballard's seat at the prosecution's table was empty. Indeed, he caught Bonnie Morris, the young lawyer who was Ballard's second chair, casting an anxious look over her shoulder, no doubt hoping that he was Ballard.

  On the other side of the aisle, Devin McGee was already in her place, quietly conferring with her client. McCandliss noted with disgust that she was sporting a hard cervical collar, the kind of neck brace usually associated with whiplash injuries. No doubt she planned on playing up whatever minor aches and bruises she may have sustained in the blast.

  If she'd known what the district attorney was thinking, Devin would have been more than happy to tell him that he was wrong. If anything, she felt even worse than she looked. It wasn't just her neck. Every bone in her body hurt, and there was a terrible ringing in her ears that had been caused by the nearness of the explosion. The doctor who'd taken care of her in the emergency room said it might be weeks before it went away.

  Of course, McCandliss showing up in the courtroom didn't do anything to make her feel better. She knew that as a rule he went to court only when a big verdict was due to be handed down, and then only in order to take advantage of the publicity. She had no idea what his presence at the Hightower trial meant, but she suspected that it was nothing good.

  But she had no time to worry about it. No sooner had McCandliss made it to his seat than the bailiff entered the room and declared in his booming Marine Corps bass that court was now in session. Devin rose painfully to her feet, her heartbeat quickening in anticipation. This was it. Last night she'd made some hard decisions about how she was going to proceed. From here on in there would be no turning back.

  Robert S. Rutledge stood at the apex of Wall Street in every sense of the word. From his vast corner office high atop the World Financial Center he commanded a breathtaking view of lower Manhattan, while as the managing partner of Hammer, Crain & Rutledge he was lord of much of what he surveyed. One of the world's most powerful privately held trading firms, Hammer Crain, as it was known on the Street, was involved in dozens of different businesses and had far-flung interests all over the globe. But on this particular morning, Robert Rutledge was concerned only with oil--Hightower Oil.

  On the desk before him lay the investigators preliminary report on the Hightower children, complete with highly informative color photographs (taken, by the looks of them, with a very long lens). It made for interesting reading, especially under the circumstances. While Joe Kellogg had assured him that he would deliver the votes when the time came, Rutledge hadn't gotten where he was by leaving things to chance. Assurances or no assurances, he liked to know with whom he was dealing. The fact that so much depended on the outcome of the trial presented its own set of problems. According to Rutledge's sources inside the courthouse, things were not going as well as might be hoped.

  He reached across to the console on his desk and pushed the intercom button.

  "Cordelia!" he bellowed into the box. "Cordelia, get yourself in here!"

  While by no means a handsome man, he'd discovered that each successive million made him increasingly attractive to the opposite sex. That is, with the notable exception of his personal assistant, Cordelia. Impatiently counting the seconds it took her to respond to his summons, he wondered if perhaps he should try being nicer to her. But he immediately rejected the idea. Hell, the woman was privy to his personal financial statements. That should be aphrodisiac enough.

  As soon as Cordelia set foot in his office, he reconsidered. If anyone was worth the extra effort, it was the green-eyed beauty who had worked for the last three months as his assistant. With her long legs and auburn hair, she seemed to embody the perfect combination of sex and class. The fact that she seemed totally indifferent to the effect she had on him made her seem, if anything, even more maddeningly attractive.

  "Yes, Mr. Rutledge?" she inquired with the aloof correctness of a well-trained British servant. She was dressed in a cream-colored wool suit over a lavender silk blouse that contrasted dramatically with her green eyes. In her hand she held an oblong box, elaborately gift-wrapped in gold paper and tied with a red ribbon.

  "What's that you've got there?" he asked, suddenly adopting the teasing tone he associated with flirtation. "You never said anything about it being your birthday. If I'd known I would have gotten you something special."

  "My birthday is in July," she replied with a demure smile. "This just came by messenger for you. I was about to check my computer files to see whether you had a special occasion coming up when you buzzed."

  "In that case, we'd better open it," he declared, taking the box from her hands. Like most millionaires, Rutledge adored presents. He held it up to his ear and gave it a shake. "Doesn't sound breakable," he observed playfully.

  Rutledge pulled the ribbon and tore through the paper like an impatient child. Inside was a plain box of heavy brown cardboard. He lifted the flaps, quickly discarding the last sheets of gaily colored tissue that separated him from its contents. Cordelia stepped closer for a better look.

  "What the hell is this?" demanded Rutledge, his voice clotted with a mixture of incredulity and rage.

  Cordelia did not answer. Instead she staggered toward the door. All the color had drained from her face and the back of one hand was pressed to her lips in a caricature of ladylike revulsion. She fled from the room, leaving Rutledge by himself, staring at the neatly severed human hand.

  Chapter 5.

  Is everything okay, Ms. McGee?" Judge Hardy asked.

  Struggling to her feet, Devin didn't answer. She knew the judge hated to be interrupted, but she had no other choice. Last night's explosion changed everything.

  "I asked you a question, Ms. McGee--is everything okay?" At this point, the ringing in her ears was almost deafening. "I'm fine, Your Honor!" she shouted at the top of her lungs. "I just wanted to make sure I could hear you okay!"

  Her voice boomed through the room and echoed off the wood-paneled walls. Behind her, a few members of the press couldn't help but laugh. Even McCandliss let out a little snicker.

  The judge
, however, was less than amused. "I can hear you just fine, Ms.--"

  "I said I wanted to make sure I could hear you okay!" she repeated. "Don't worry, though, it's fine. Let's continue. " "Are you sure, Ms. McG--" "What?" Devin shouted. "I said, are you--" "A little bit louder!" "Ms. McG--" "Perfect!" she shouted.

  Scowling at the now-ready-to-burst members of the press, the judge crossed his arms and leaned back in his seat.

  "Did I say something wrong your honor?"

  "Why don't we--" "What?"

  "I was trying to make a suggestion, Ms. McGee. Considering your injuries and the seriousness of this proceeding, why dont we recess for the day so you can have a chance to recover from your injuries?"

  Devin nodded at the judge. "Thatd be great! Thank you., your honor!"

  Slamming shut her briefcase, Devin whispered something to Mrs. Hightower and took off for the door.

  "Nice trick," McCandliss growled as Devin flew past him in the aisle.

  "Sorry," Devin grinned, pointing to her ear. "Cant hear a word."

  The tall man known by some as Stefan scratched the scar on his left cheek and cursed the monkey bars for ever being invented. With a forceful stride and a friendly nod, he strolled right past the security guard in the lobby. "Whats cookin'?" he threw in for effect.

  "Same old, same old," the guard said with a wave.

  Stepping inside the waiting elevator, he pressed the button marked seven. As he waited for the doors to close, he didn't lean back against the railing or rest his shoulder against the wall. He just stood there, unmoving, in the center of the elevator. Without a doubt, he hated the physical filth of the public world, and unlike his predecessor, he wasn't into showy, blood-on-the-walls torture sessions. He knew there was much more order--much more control--in keeping it neat. Put down some plastic; wrap it in a nice little box. Don't touch anything. That's the only way to get away with it.

  He stepped out into the fluorescent-lit, blue-carpeted hallway and followed the signs to suite 727. There it was--thick black letters painted on translucent glass: devin a. mcgee--attorney at law.