The Liar

by Steve Cavanagh

  Inside, it was dark, warm, and smelled of men, grease and hops. My kind of place. A short L-shaped bar on the right with a short L-shaped bartender behind it. He was in his sixties, grizzled and bent over with age and a good deal of booze, probably tequila. “What’ll it be,” he asked, and I almost asked for a slice of lemon – so powerful was the smell of tequila on his breath.

  Harry ordered two doubles of Irish, and told me to take a seat in back, where one lamp burned over a table in the corner. Two or three hardened drinkers studied their folded newspapers on bar stools, but apart from that, we had the place to ourselves. I put my files on the table and went in search of seats.

  By the time I’d found two stools to go with the table, Harry arrived with the drinks. He put two lowball glasses of whiskey in front of him, and pulled an open bottle of Pepsi from his coat pocket and put it in front of me.

  I wanted a real drink.

  My problem was that I wanted a lot of real drinks.

  I took a slug from the bottle of Pepsi. It was warm.

  “No ice? No glass?” I said.

  Harry examined a greasy fingerprint on the inside of the first glass of Bush and said, “You’re probably safer drinking out of the bottle. I’m thinking of canceling our food order.”

  “You ordered food in this place?”

  “Sure, I’m hungry. I ordered pizza off the menu. The bartender made a call. He’s ordering in. I’m probably being charged double for a bacon and mushroom pizza from the place on the corner. Still, at least it wasn’t cooked here.”

  He took a long sip, smacked his lips, set his drink down then went fishing through the papers on the table. It took a few seconds, but eventually he drew a police report out of the pile of papers. I could tell it was a police report because of the badge logo in the corner of the first page. He handed it to me.

  “I already read the report in the Rosen case,” I said.

  “You haven’t read this. I got it faxed to the court office. A cop I know in the precinct did me a favor. You told me Howell hated Julie Rosen because he held her responsible for his wife’s death. This is the police report into the suicide of Rebecca Howell.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  Some cops put down the facts in their reports and nothing more. Some tell you what happened, then they tell you what they think really happened.

  The cop who’d investigated the incident was Officer Theo Cruz. He was the type to let the DA know what he was thinking in his reports. It was a subtle art, learned on the job and perfected with years of experience.

  A long-distance truck driver called Al White had called in the accident over his CB radio. That part of Upstate New York where the accident happened had no cell-phone coverage, as Al discovered when he’d tried to use his cell to call 911. He was on a twisting, mountain road and came around a right-hand corner to see a silver, family SUV in his lane. He hit the braking sequence on the rig and pulled the horn.

  Al said the car didn’t move, it stayed in his lane and drove straight for him. He even saw the woman driving the SUV. She looked calm, relaxed even.

  At the last moment the SUV swerved out of his lane and went straight through the crash barrier on the opposite side of the road and over the precipice.

  Al got the truck stopped, radioed in the accident then climbed down out of the cab and ran to the crash barrier. Below him was a sheer drop. Maybe a thousand feet to the bottom of the canyon. A river flowed fast below, and he saw the SUV, upside down just before it sank beneath the depths.

  He waited for the paramedics and the cops.

  Officer Cruz was first on scene, ahead of the ambulance and mountain rescue. He spoke to Al, and surveyed the crash scene. He noted Al’s description of the calm demeanor of the SUV driver, and the fact that they didn’t get out of the way of the truck at first, even after it had sounded its horn. In his statement, Officer Cruz recorded that the crash barrier which the SUV penetrated was a temporary barrier of wooden construction. Apparently a cattle truck went through the steel barrier some weeks before after a collision with another vehicle.

  On a separate sketch, Cruz traced the path of the SUV from the marks on the road. Although the SUV had only braked briefly as it turned, the angle of the tread was enough to determine that the driver had hit the barrier head on, at speed. The lack of skid marks before the barrier meant the driver didn’t try to brake at this point.

  Cruz underlined that although this barrier was on a bend, it was a gentle, sweeping bend.

  The last line of the report laid out the important facts of the accident, not as a finding, but letting the DA know Cruz’s mind.

  “It was almost as if the driver moved into the lane of oncoming traffic to create the perfect angle to hit the damaged barrier head on, so as to ensure her vehicle passed through the safety barrier and into the crevasse. The driver, Rebecca Howell, was found inside the SUV by county divers in the Terracotta River.”

  Appended to the report was the medical examiner’s verdict: Suicide. The ME confirmed Rebecca Howell took her own life, by vehicular accident, in July 2011. Confirmed by both the circumstances of the accident – and the suicide note, which was found by the deceased’s husband in their bedroom.

  The ME recounted the contents of the suicide note in its entirety.

  “Dear Lenny, I love you. I can’t live with this any more. You know, deep down, something is wrong. I did that. What we had was special and I broke it.

  I thought I knew what I wanted, what we wanted. The price was too high.

  I thought I could forgive Julie. I couldn’t. When I think of her I feel like she’s already dead and that gives me comfort. We deserve to die, Julie and me, for what we did.

  I can’t go on living with this pain. Too many lives have been ruined by me, and I won’t let that happen to you, or to Caroline.

  I love you, always.”

  Case closed.

  Only, it never really closed. This was it. I could feel it. Everything stemmed from this.

  “You see the link?” said Harry.

  I scratched my head and said, “Something happened between them. Something really bad.”

  “Look at the incident date. Rebecca Howell committed suicide six weeks before her sister died in an asylum,” said Harry.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

  “Lay it out for me, Harry. I want to know if we’re thinking along the same lines here,” I said.

  He slugged back the first whiskey, placed the glass back down on the table, twisted it around and stared at the second glass.

  “Julie Rosen was a gifted painter, and suffered serious psychological problems for most of her adult life. She had several convictions for possession of narcotics, did some probation, some community service and eventually a short stint in rehab. It didn’t work. She had a string of lovers, she told me that herself. Different guy most nights. She falls pregnant. Baby is born in July 2002 with no father’s name on the birth record for Emily Rosen. Emily and Caroline Howell must’ve been around the same age?”

  “That’s right. The Washington Post gave Caroline Howell’s date of birth as May 24th, 2002.”

  Harry nodded.

  “August 2nd 2002 Julie says she discovers a man, dressed in black, in her daughter’s nursery. The place is soaked in gasoline. The man either attacks her, or she falls and sustains a bad head injury. She’s also high. Fire fighters drag her out of the burning house.”

  “But she doesn’t mention the man who supposedly did this?”

  “That’s right. The prosecutor hung his case on that fact. Julie was arrested and tested positive for crack cocaine and that sealed her fate. Nobody in the area saw a man in black, or any unusual cars. He disappeared. Or he never existed in the first place. The head injury really fuzzed her memory – she had problems with long-term recall. She kept saying there must have been a man, but at that stage she couldn’t remember much at all. I think she was beginning to doubt herself. I told Julie we didn’t have a hope of proving there was such a man
– and it would go easier for her if she told the truth. She said she couldn’t remember what happened, not really. I fought for her. Hard as I could. But it was hopeless.”

  Silence invaded the conversation. Harry drained the second whiskey in one gulp, spread his lips over his teeth and sucked air.

  “Maybe there was a man in black? Maybe Howell went to her house that day to settle a score. Something happened between Julie Rosen and Howell’s wife, Rebecca,” said Harry.

  I rubbed my chin, raised the warm cola bottle to my lips, thought better of it and set it down on top of the papers on the table. I thought over Harry’s theory.

  “Lenny Howell wouldn’t harm a child. I can’t be certain, of course, but that’s my read. It’s not in him. You saw Barker in court just now. Does he look familiar?” I asked.

  “He is familiar. I think I’ve seen this man before, but I can’t be sure. It was a long time ago, but I remember a man came to almost every one of Julie’s court appearances. He never spoke to me, never spoke to Julie. He was there for the trial, every day. I think I remember approaching him once, and he left before I could get to him. Thinking on it now, it could’ve been Barker.”

  “Scott Barker was Emily Rosen’s father?” I said.

  “That’s the connection. Must be. He must believe the man in black was Leonard Howell,” said Harry.

  This time the silence didn’t have to invade, we sat back in our own thoughts and let it in willingly. Only this time the silence wasn’t as pure. I could hear the TV, the volume turned low on a news channel. I heard one of the old-timers flipping over a page of his battered newspaper, take a hit from a bottle of Sam Adams and smack his lips at the same time as the ass of the bottle hit the bar.

  I glanced over the table at Harry. He looked tired. Slumped a little on his stool, head heavy, shoulders slouched. He wasn’t a young man, and the day had taken a toll. You might’ve thought Harry was about to fall asleep if you weren’t able to see his eyes. They were ruby-brown, but dulled through age, and they moved rapidly. The pupils moved in short, fast flits – seemingly without focusing on anything for more than an eighth of a second before they moved on and on. I knew him well enough to know that Harry wasn’t looking at anything. He was thinking. It was like watching a graphic of a swirling half circle as a computer loaded a program – accessing and activating thousands of lines of code in seconds. Harry’s brain was doing the exact same thing – running the theory over and over in his mind – examining it for holes or inconsistencies.

  Unconsciously, Harry began to rub the top of his head.

  “Why now? If we’re right, why would Barker wait till now to do anything about Leonard Howell’s crime?” he said.

  I found myself picking at the corner of the label on the cola bottle. Peeling it away in chunks.

  “I don’t know. We could be way off here.”

  “And why keep Caroline alive? Why not kill her? Only reason I can think of is that it’s not about Caroline – it’s about Howell himself. This is some kinda game, Eddie. That’s for sure. Nothing is what it seems. That video. Maybe it’s been faked. Doctored somehow, I don’t know, with computers. If she’s alive how do you explain the blood on the wall?”

  It was my turn to lean back and rub my head. I ran my hands over my face.

  Stopped.

  “You could do it exactly the same way as Dallas Birch did it,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Take blood from Caroline, then use the syringe to simulate the spatter …”

  I trailed off, a thought that I’d had earlier that day popped back into my head and stayed there.

  “The blood droplets on the basement floor matched the blood droplets on Birch’s reconstruction,” I said.

  “So?”

  “So if somebody has their throat cut with a knife, and there’s arterial spray, there’s also probably gonna be a huge blood pool if they bled out. No pool of blood in the basement. Just a few drops. Harry, I think Caroline is alive.”

  “But why?” said Harry.

  No sooner had he asked the question, than he shot forward and his eyes burst open wide as his mouth.

  “Let’s assume Emily Rosen is Scott Barker’s daughter. Let’s assume he and Julie Rosen had a relationship. What if your wife was an innocent woman, tried and wrongfully convicted for killing her own child? Is there a more fitting revenge that doing exactly the same thing to the person who set it up?” asked Harry.

  I nodded. It fit.

  “That’s it, Harry. That’s exactly it. Barker wanted Howell put on trial for murdering his own daughter. That’s why he set up the fake ransom so it looked like Howell was defrauding the insurance company. That gave him motive. Then there’s the blood, the explosive device to make it look like Howell was trying to destroy the crime scene, the fire, everything. It was all set up to put Howell on trial – exactly like Julie Rosen.”

  “But not convicted, why’s that?” said Harry.

  I looked at the floor, thought about Amy and how I’d felt when I thought I’d lost her.

  “The only thing worse than losing your daughter is losing her twice. Imagine it, you’re on trial for your child’s murder and some maniac says she’s alive, he has her, and if you don’t admit to some crime he’ll kill her. I think Barker is going to kill Caroline, and make Howell blame himself for it. Even if Howell could confess, my guess is Barker will do it anyway. That’s the ultimate revenge.”

  “Sick bastard,” said Harry.

  My cell phone was ringing. Harper.

  “We’ve got a crisis response team inbound and we’re setting up an incident room at the precinct. The SAC wants to talk to you and Judge Ford,” said Harper.

  “We don’t want to talk to Lynch,” I said.

  She sighed. “We have to pull together on this. As much as it pains me. We need you. And you need us. We’re going to hit Barker’s apartment – and we want you both there.”

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  Harry drove while eating lukewarm pizza. I sat beside him and complained about his driving while I ate lukewarm pizza. Stuffing a slice into his face as he overtook two cars was the highlight of the ride. Somehow we made it to the precinct. Harry parked up and we made our way inside.

  The Bureau had set up a crisis response base on the second floor. There were around twenty agents either hauling paper, on the phones, working on laptops or pinning maps and photos to a sheet of glass that sat in the center of the room. Washington was drawing a timeline on the glass with a fat, orange marker. Meanwhile Harper directed the agents as to where the timeline would take them next. On the glass I saw a floorplan of Howell’s home, another plan this time of the rail station at Rochelle, and photos of all the relevant players – Leonard Howell, Susan Howell, Caroline Howell, Terry McAuley, Marlon Black, and a big red circle around a picture of Scott Barker.

  “You’re not authorized to be here,” said a tall, male agent wearing a sickly green necktie over a bright, white shirt.

  “I’m not authorized to be anywhere,” I replied. “And whoever authorized your tie should be fired.”

  “Wait, he’s with me,” said Harper.

  The tall agent backed away, glanced forlornly at his tie and went about his business. We made our way toward Harper.

  There were no pleasantries from Harper. She motioned toward a set of table and chairs to her left, we sat and she got straight down to it.

  “Max Copeland is saying nothing. Barker won’t say a word, either,” said Harper.

  “Does Barker know that Howell’s in a coma?” I asked.

  “No, and we want to keep it that way. Who knows what he’ll do if he realizes that? We have to figure out what Barker thinks Howell has done. Meanwhile we’re retracing our steps. Going over everything in the Caroline Howell case. Maybe we can find her ourselves.”

  “Has the case been re-opened then?” I asked.

  “Not officially. We’re officially investigating Barker. I’ll have a search warrant for his apartment in the n
ext ten minutes. I called you both in because we have to figure out the connection to the Julie Rosen case. That’s what we’re missing here. And we don’t have much time,” she said, and pointed to a digital clock affixed to the wall above us. The digital readout on the clock counted down from eleven hours and four minutes. Almost an hour gone. Three hours until I was back in court, with not much to show for it. If Howell couldn’t give Barker his confession, I would have to do it, and pray he let the girl go.

  “Give me what you have,” said Harper.

  Before the four remaining minutes of the hour were up, Harry and I had told Harper all that we knew and all that we suspected had really happened in the Rosen case.

  “There was no evidence of this man in black. No mention of him at all until Julie was in a hospital bed and being asked questions by two homicide detectives. No one had seen a car, or a man fitting that description on the road leading to her house or anywhere close to it. Julie was high when she was brought in. She maintained this man-in-black theory until the trial. I’d told her the jury might not believe her.”

  Harry paused, swallowed down the emotion threatening his voice. Out of every lawyer, judge, or cop I’d ever met – Harry was the one man who’d believed in the justice system. He had to. He’d been a part of it for forty years. And in that time as a lawyer he’d never betrayed a client, never misled the cops, and always told the truth to the judge and the jury – he’d kept his oath.

  I could see the tears threatening the corners of his eyes. He cleared his throat, stared at the desk.

  “Even if the man in black was real, you still wouldn’t have been able to prove it in court. You fought the case, you did the right thing,” I said.

  “It doesn’t feel right any more,” said Harry.