Blood and Bone

by V. M. Giambanco

  Without a guilty plea they went to trial and there were witnesses for both sides; Karasick’s public defender even managed to rustle up the priest who had led the anger management group. However, he could not testify to the whereabouts of the defendant on the night of the murder, and Sarah Klein, with respect for the cloth and derision for the attempt, took the defense to the cleaners.

  Karasick had listened in shock to the verdict. His mother was in court with his younger brother. They had cried. He started his sentence at the King County Justice Complex and lasted just over four years. His death didn’t surprise the authorities even if he hadn’t been on suicide watch. He had proclaimed his innocence of the crime he had been sent to prison for until that last day, while he’d been happy to admit to everything else—the priest had called it a step in the right direction. In the end, the prison counselor had said to the family, after his latest appeal had been turned down he had decided that enough was enough.

  Madison had waded through evidence lists and witness testimonies. She had pored over Dr. Fellman’s autopsy report and Brown’s interview notes and she was sure of one thing: if she had been in Brown’s place she’d have reached the same conclusions and gone the same way he had. They had never found the clothes Karasick had worn at the scene—and that bothered Madison—but aside from that it seemed as straightforward as they come. In fact, she reflected, it was more straightforward than most: the line joining Mitchell and Karasick had been sharp and clear from day one.

  Madison slept badly and only skimmed the surface of deep sleep. That line, she thought, was what troubled her now. Had it been too clear? The autopsy report had not been easy reading—they never are—but Madison had discovered in the turn of Dr. Fellman’s words a killer who seemed capable of a degree of cruelty and savagery that reminded her too closely of Matthew Duncan’s death.

  When Madison woke from a fitful sleep it was too early to go to work so she changed into her sweats. She needed to think, which meant that she needed to run. Her nose stung and her lungs burned in a matter of seconds. Nevertheless, she found an easy rhythm that allowed her mind to wander as she pounded the damp concrete.

  The sky was inky blue and the stars still visible. Some windows were lit but most were not, and she didn’t meet a single car on her route around the neighborhood. She passed Rachel’s house—her best friend since they were both thirteen years old—and thought of Rachel, Neal, and their son, Tommy, who would be nine soon.

  Their windows were dark.

  By the time Madison got home forty minutes later she was both warmed up and freezing.

  She drank some coffee, made herself scrambled eggs, and was out the door by the time the sky was turning from indigo to cerulean.

  Brown had said he wanted to know what she thought and she would tell him. Hand on her heart, she would tell him that he had done—they all had done—a good job with what they had, and if she had been with them Madison would have put the cuffs on Karasick herself. Yet she did not believe in coincidences: for the same DNA to turn up in two different crime scenes with similar—unusually brutal—murders, well, the odds were against them. And they had never found Karasick’s bloody clothes and, with everything in the world against him, when a plea might have shaved some time off his sentence, he had maintained his innocence.

  Madison arrived at the precinct and found Brown already at his desk.

  He took one look at her face and he knew.

  Chapter 11

  Alice Madison, fifteen years old in 1995, slid her bicycle to a stop and leaned it against the garage that stood next to Rachel’s home. It was an early-summer evening and it was warm. She knocked on the front door and waited.

  Alice loved coming to Rachel’s, always had. From the first time Rachel had brought her home—two years earlier—her mother had made her feel more than welcome. Rachel had told her mom that Alice lived with her grandparents because her mother had died and her father was somewhere else. Her mom had made it her mission to include Alice in all kinds of family celebrations and anniversaries with the result that Alice had had more Shabbat dinners than she could count and could recite the prayer together with everyone else. The fact that she hadn’t had a bat mitzvah was neither here nor there: Alice was part of the family in all the ways that mattered.

  The door was yanked open from the inside; Rachel was in a mood. “Mickey’s staying in,” she hissed.

  Mickey was her older brother—three years older and already living in a different universe.

  “Or I should say Michael,” she continued. “Since he got the letter from Yale, Mickey isn’t good enough for him anymore.”

  Alice shrugged. “I don’t mind.”

  “I do. Mom and Dad are out and we were going to have the house to ourselves. But no, Michael is playing poker with his friends, drinking beer, and pretending to be all grown up. And the Leech is there too. Joy.”

  The Leech, whose legal name was Lori, was Michael’s girlfriend.

  They reached the living room and, sitting around a table, five boys were busy dealing cards and looking cool. Alice knew them all: Michael, his two goofy friends from Burien High, and his cousins Aaron and Josh. Lori was draped over an armchair reading a magazine. She looked up when Rachel and Alice came in and then went back to her reading. Aaron’s attention flitted toward Alice for a second and then went back to his cards before any of the other boys could notice.

  Alice glanced at the table: they were playing Five Card Draw. In the world of poker, it’s the equivalent of using stabilizers; her father had taught her as soon as her hands were big enough to hold five cards. She didn’t say anything. It would probably hurt their feelings if she told them.

  Michael took a swig off a long neck. “Hey, Alice.”

  “Hey, Mickey.”

  “Rach, you’re going to watch TV or whatever in your room, right?”

  “I’m going to watch TV wherever I want,” Rachel replied.

  “We’re playing here. Just go someplace else.”

  “I don’t know. It seems to me a fine evening to put on some of my favorite music while you boys play cards and I lounge with my dear friend Alice right here on the sofa.”

  Alice knew full well that Rachel would have been happy to decamp to her room, but it was a question of principle.

  “You can stay, but no music and no TV,” Michael said.

  His friends sniggered, though Aaron didn’t. He was checking his cards and looking glum.

  “Says who?” Rachel replied and started riffling through a stack of CDs. She turned to Alice. “I think Michael Bolton, don’t you?”

  Alice was watching the game.

  “That’s Mom’s, it’s not yours,” Michael said.

  “Still, let’s see how loud I can get it to go . . .”

  “Jeez, Rach,” Lori said, “you’re such a child.” And she looked them up and down.

  Something about Lori irked Alice and she wasn’t sure what. Lori was a senior; she had long, straight dark hair and perfectly applied eyeliner. Alice had never seen her do more than simper and paint her nails. For some reason they had always disliked each other and Alice and Rachel often wondered about her, about the silly writing on her T-shirts—BEAUTIFUL BY BIRTH, BITCHY BY CHOICE—and her eyelashes. Were they fake, were they real, or were they spiders that had crawled up her face and died there?

  Michael giggled. “You’re such a child,” he repeated from the maturity of his freshly minted eighteen years.

  He wasn’t bad—as older brothers go—but here’s the mystery, thought Alice. You can talk to a guy by himself and he’s all right—no moronic tone and mostly okay manners—but you get more than three together in a group and they instantly turn into numbnuts.

  Rachel was about to open her mouth to reply, but Alice cut in. “Why don’t we play for it?”

  “What?”

  “We play—that is, I play you—and if I win we can stay and listen to—”

  “Michael Bolton,” Rachel said.

  “
Michael Bolton,” Alice continued. “And if you win we go to Rachel’s room and you won’t hear a peep from us for the rest of the night.”

  “You want to play poker?”

  “Sure, why not? How hard can it be?”

  Alice looked at Rachel, who knew Alice’s father played in Las Vegas.

  “You can play?” Michael said as if Alice had just told him she could pilot jets.

  “Yes.”

  Lori snorted; it was a delicate mouse-like snort that she probably practiced in mirrors to get just right.

  “Okay, we’re going to finish our hand and then you’re on,” Michael said.

  “Not much to finish,” Alice said.

  “Meaning?”

  Alice had kept an eye on their hands and now she looked around the table, at the cards that had been discarded and who had bet what. She could only see Aaron’s—a pair of kings. He was watching her, his long blond hair framing his face, and he didn’t seem to mind too much if Alice and Rachel decided to stick around a while.

  “Well,” Alice said, “Josh here is going for a flush or a full house, but you didn’t give him what he needed and he’s sulking. Goofball Number One has a good hand and can’t wait to get you betting, but he can’t bluff to save his life. Goofball Number Two has a two pair—one could be kings or queens—he wanted a full house but you gave Josh the card he needed. Aaron should fold while he can. And you, Mickey,” Alice smiled, “you tried for a straight flush, but you didn’t get it. You eyed the cards Josh discarded, but luck is a bitch and tonight she ain’t on your side. What’s going to happen next is that Aaron will fold, Goofball Number One is going to bet way too much ’cause he can’t help himself, and the rest of you will keep playing single-dollar bets just to see what he’s holding—which, by the way, is three of a kind. Jacks.”

  They gaped at her.

  Aaron grinned. “Come sit next to me,” he said as he folded his hand.

  The other boys looked at each other and at their cards.

  “How did you do that?” Goofball Number One said when he could find his voice—his three jacks were on the table.

  Alice shrugged. The boys threw down their cards. Alice picked them up and shuffled—not just a Sunday-night-at-home shuffle but a proper Vegas shuffle.

  “Freak,” Lori said softly behind her.

  Ten minutes later Michael Bolton blared through the speakers. Rachel and Alice allowed themselves a one-song victory and then turned it off.

  They all ended up eating pizza and watching Texas Chainsaw Massacre together for the nth time.

  “Are you going to tell us how you did it?” Aaron asked Alice.

  “Nope.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s a secret. I mean, sure, I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.”

  Aaron had laughed. The French doors to the backyard were open and the air was sweet.

  Chapter 12

  “Are you happy here?” Judy Campbell, the US Attorney for the Western District of Washington, asked her senior executive counsel. She had sent an email to Nathan Quinn to pop into her office before the scheduled staff meeting to have a private word with him. Her eyes were crinkled with a smile, but the question had not been asked lightly.

  “What an interesting question,” Nathan Quinn replied. “What brought this on?”

  Judy Campbell had known him since their early days in the King County Prosecutor’s Office when they had both been young, driven, idealistic attorneys who wanted to change the world one trial at a time. Now, twenty-odd years later, they sat in the smart office to which the President of the United States had appointed her and talked about happiness.

  Nathan Quinn sat in the armchair opposite her desk. He crossed his long legs and straightened his shirt cuff as he pondered her question. The thin scars left on his fine features by an encounter with a madman two years earlier were almost invisible and he certainly looked better than he had when he started to work for her.

  “Nathan, how long have you worked here?”

  “About eighteen months.”

  “In these eighteen months as senior counsel would you say your workload has been light, heavy, or about what you expected?”

  “I’m not sure I follow . . .”

  “Let me put it another way. Do you realize that you have taken on the workload of three attorneys and your staff is mutinous?”

  “I see.”

  “They can’t complain because you’re here before them and leave after they do. However, you have taken half the cases of the senior litigation counsel and I know for a fact that the Criminal Division is relying very heavily on you. You seem intent on making up for having spent twenty years in private practice and would be quite happy if we all scooted off home and left you to do all our jobs. Mine included.”

  “I think you’re exaggerating a little.”

  “Am I?”

  “Do you have any worries regarding the standard of my work?”

  Judy Campbell sat back in her chair and let out a bark of a laugh. “Do you know what your staff calls you behind your back?”

  “Do I want to know?”

  “Probably not.”

  “What’s wrong, Judy?”

  She studied him for a moment. She was glad that she had known him a long time. Long enough that they had talked about the good times and the bad—and his bad times had been very bad indeed. Long enough that she knew his strengths and the keen edge of his skills.

  “You are a litigator, Nathan,” she said after a moment. “A wartime consigliere. And I don’t know how long I’ll be able to keep you here—after all the years it took me to persuade you—because we are not at war. And war is what you need.”

  There were thoughts behind his black eyes that she could not and would not fathom.

  “I’ll make sure my staff know they can go home for a couple of hours at night, if they absolutely need to,” he said.

  “You do that,” she replied as he stood.

  He left and her eyes fell on the picture on her desk of her husband and three children. Nathan Quinn was a cool, tall drink of trouble and she was suddenly thankful that she was a happily married woman.

  As the meeting with senior staff was winding to an end, Jessica Decker, the criminal chief, turned to Judy Campbell. “I had breakfast with Ben McReady,” she said. “Something came up in the Duncan murder. One of his prosecutors called him last night. It might be something, it might be nothing, but they have some trace evidence that links it to a seven-year-old homicide. A homicide we’ve already tried and sentenced somebody for—somebody who committed suicide in KCJC two years ago.”

  “Was it a solid case?”

  “Solid as can be. The prosecutor was Sarah Klein and the primary was Detective Sergeant Kevin Brown.”

  Nathan Quinn looked up from the file he was reading.

  “I don’t even want to think about the kind of mess this could turn into,” Decker continued. “We need to make sure t’s are crossed and i’s are dotted because the potential for screwing up is endless and the Duncan murder is media catnip.”

  “I could keep an eye on it, if your plate is full,” Nathan Quinn said, as if it didn’t matter one way or the other. “I know Sarah Klein. I’ve worked with her before. If a mistake was made I’m willing to bet it wasn’t hers.”

  Decker nodded. “It’s yours if you want it.”

  “Good,” Quinn said, and went back to the document he was reading.

  Chapter 13

  John Cameron adjusted the latex facial prosthesis in the restroom mirror and checked how it subtly altered the shape of his cheeks and jaw. He blinked. His eyes, normally a color close to amber, were blue—a natural-looking gray-blue—and his dark hair was a few shades lighter than usual.

  The empty restroom was on the third floor of the Holy Pilgrim Hospital in Los Angeles. He sighed. He had enjoyed the trip to Newfoundland—brief as it was—more than he had expected and would have stayed longer if previous engagements had not called him
back to Los Angeles. Then again, the point of the trip was to acquire—no, to confirm—information to round things up in LA, to conclude a project that had taken almost eighteen months to come to fruition, and then he would have all the time in the world to wander those vast, empty forests and the jagged coastline.

  The air in Newfoundland had been deliciously cold and shockingly clean, such a complete contrast to the tepid, sticky warmth of the city and its sluggish traffic. There was something extreme in that landscape that appealed to him immensely even though the place could easily kill you if you forgot what you were dealing with. Maybe that’s why he liked it so much.

  John Cameron had been thinking about today’s work for many months: ever since he had been kidnapped on the orders of people who meant to do him unthinkable harm. It had taken him a while to regain his balance, to metabolize that single day when death had been so close he’d felt it brushing against his skin like a cat. If not for Detective Madison, the cat would have gotten him. He knew now that what he had felt was not fear but a sense of frustration that his life should end in such an untidy manner at the hands of men he despised. As his wounds had healed he had decided to make sure the men would not have the chance to try their luck again.

  In the moments when he thought he might die, it had been a comfort to him that Nathan Quinn had been safe. Nathan was a brother in all but blood and John Cameron had killed for him—for him and for the memory of a boy who had been good and brave. That first murder—a fledgling killer’s attempt at justice—was only one of the many things they did not talk about. And now that Nathan worked for the State Attorney it made it even less likely that they would ever talk about it. It didn’t matter. Their friendship was layers of shared memories from when they were kids, from when their fathers worked together in the restaurant they owned. It was a lifetime of joy and sorrow and, most of all, secrets.