“Get the rest of the names and addresses here,” Chandler said to one of the uniformed policemen, who nodded and took out a notebook. He gestured for the other two to follow him.
“We’ve got to get moving on this,” he said to Lafferty. “We need an arrest warrant for Amy Lester, a search warrant for the apartment upstairs and a stay of the grand jury hearing Woods has on the calendar. Time to wake up some judges.”
“Okay, Charlie, take it away,” Lafferty said. “This is what you do best.”
Chandler looked at Alicia. “I owe you an apology,” he said stiffly. “I was wrong about you, and I’m very sorry.”
Alicia glanced at Lafferty, who winked at her.
“Thank you, Charlie,” she said.
Chandler cleared his throat. “Come on, you two,” he said to the cops. “Let’s get this show on the road and let these people close up the store.”
Chandler apologized to Mrs. Ling and her companions for the inconvenience and thanked them for their cooperation. Alicia and Lafferty followed him out to the squad car, where he jumped into the back as the two cops got into the front.
“I’ll call you,” he informed Lafferty from the window, as the cruiser pulled away from the curb.
“We’re almost there,” Lafferty said to Alicia, who stepped into his enclosing arms.
Lafferty was up the rest of the night on the phone. Alicia called Maizie to check on her children and pass on the latest news, then tried to nap on the bed. The linens smelled of Mike, and she kept burying her face in the fragrant pillow as she heard his voice murmuring in the next room. It was the sound of her salvation; she could listen to its pleasing masculine cadence forever. At dawn she finally got up and went to sit next to Lafferty on the couch.
He smiled at her and put his arm around her shoulders. His injured eye was swollen almost shut, and the cut on his chin was dark with dried blood.
“Check the Virginia and Maryland suburbs. She seems to like politicians,” Lafferty said into the phone. “That’s Lassiter, Lester, maybe some variation of that. Get back with me when you have something. Thanks.”
He put the phone down and kissed Alicia on the forehead.
“Get any sleep?” he asked.
She shook her head wearily. “Mike, you look terrible. Will you go to a doctor today?”
“I promise I will. As soon as we get some kind of a lead on your sister.”
“What if she’s left the country?”
“She hasn’t. She can’t get too far from those trust fund checks she has to cash at an instate bank, preferably one where she has an account if she doesn’t want to elicit undue interest. I think she’s still within a day’s drive of New Jersey.”
Alicia sighed. “I don’t understand how she could have been going around New York all this time and never attracted attention if she looks that much like me.”
“Mrs. Ling told Mainardi, one of the uniformed cops with Charlie, that she was always wearing scarves, dark glasses, even wigs, when she came in from the street. Apparently she felt comfortable enough to dispense with the accessories when she just came downstairs to check for messages, maybe because she knew the Lings had no interest in the social-political scene.”
“Thank God she let them see what she really looks like or else Mrs. Ling would never have recognized me.”
Lafferty nodded.
“Michael, this whole thing is so bizarre,” Alicia began, then stopped when Lafferty pointed at the TV set and picked up the television remote. He released the mute button and the visual images moving on the screen acquired sound. Alicia followed the direction of his gaze and saw District Attorney Sandler Woods surrounded by a gaggle of reporters, all of whom were jockeying for position and jamming microphones in his face.
“You’ll enjoy this,” Lafferty said to Alicia. He looked at his watch. “Right on time.”
“I’ve called you here to announce some late-breaking developments in the Joseph Walker murder case,” Woods began soberly, using his best “meet the press” demeanor. “Due to the unflagging efforts of this city’s excellent police force, another viable suspect has been uncovered and is being pursued with all of the means at our disposal.”
Woods looked tired and his tie was askew.
“Good boy,” Lafferty said softly. “Now sit up and beg. Woof, woof.”
“You mean the wife didn’t do it?” one of the reporters yelled while Woods was still talking.
Woods looked pained. “Uh, it appears that more than one person in this case had the motive and means to kill the victim, and we are on the trail of another such person. And that’s all I am prepared to say at this time.”
“Good doggie,” Lafferty said. “Arf.”
Woods tried to escape but the reporters closed in on him like a wolf pack on fresh meat.
“Are you saying that Mrs. Walker will be released?”
“When can we expect a new arrest?”
“Will the indictment hearing be postponed?”
“Who is the new suspect?”
“Will Commissioner Newly be making an announcement regarding this case?”
Reporters shouted questions as Woods’s mouth became a thin line, and the scene shifted back to the anchor desk.
“And there you have it,” the morning anchorwoman said in clipped tones. “With a second arrest possibly imminent in the Joseph Walker murder case, you may recall that Joseph Walker’s wife, the socially prominent Alicia Green Walker, has been accused of that crime and—”
Lafferty clicked off the TV.
“I take it you had something to do with that performance,” Alicia said to Lafferty dryly.
“I sent Charlie to get Woods out of bed and tell him that I was expecting an announcement on the morning news. Charlie also told him that Althea Bransford had already received a file outlining your twin’s relevance to the Walker case. He added that if the media announcement I was expecting did not materialize then Commissioner Newly would hear about the tactics the DA was using to intimidate police officers in the performance of their duty.”
“You’re not a police officer at the moment,” Alicia replied. “Technically.”
“I think Woods got the message, anyway.”
“Thank you for that. I know you understand that it is important to me to clear my name, but won’t putting it on the television give a warning to my...sister? I mean, right now she thinks she got away with it.”
Lafferty shook his head. “I agree it’s a gamble, but I’m hoping it will have the opposite effect and flush her out if she sees it. Which she should, because we gave the bulletin to the wire services. There’s a pattern to deviant behavior, and an experienced criminal would not be rattled by a news announcement, he or she would take it in stride and change plans accordingly. But I am banking on our assumption that Joe Walker was your sister’s first murder, motivated by her desire for revenge. In that case she should just be calming down, convinced that you will take the fall she set up, and then if she suddenly realizes she was wrong, she may go into a panic. We’re watching all the transportation routes and if she tries to make a move anywhere we’ll nail her.”
“You said she wouldn’t leave the country.”
“She won’t, but she should try to hole up until the time comes for her next trip to the bank. That could mean suddenly leaving whatever job she has set up for herself, packing up and bolting from her new apartment, whatever. This is just an attempt to accelerate the process, Alicia. We’ll get her. Tonight or tomorrow, next week or next month. We’ll get her.”
Alicia nodded. “I just want it to be over, you know? I just want to go home and tell my kids and my grandmother that it is over.”
“It will be. Soon.”
Alicia closed her eyes. “And I can’t even begin to think about how to rebuild our lives. Claire and Joey will need therapy and God knows what else...”
“And they’re bound to resent my role in this,” Lafferty said.
Alicia looked at him.
&nbs
p; “Claire already does,” Lafferty said.
“Oh, Mike, she’ll get over that. She’s so young, she misses her father even though on some level she knows what he was like. He could be very charming when it served his purpose, and she remembers those times and gets confused. She knows that...”
Lafferty held up his hand. Alicia stopped.
“She found me in her kitchen with her mother a short time after her father was murdered,” Lafferty said quietly. “I think more than a few kids would have a problem with a widowed parent entering into a new relationship so quickly.”
Alicia sighed. “Let’s not talk about this now. One thing at a time. My sister has not been found yet, which means that I’m still the prime suspect in Joe’s murder. If and when this is over, we can worry about the impact of our relationship on my kids, okay?”
Lafferty was silent, but the expression on his face indicated that for him the subject was far from closed. He realized Alicia was at the end of her rope and couldn’t handle a domestic discussion while her fate still hung in the balance, but her insistence that all would be well with her children once her legal troubles were over confounded him.
He knew she was not that naive.
His cell phone chirped, and he grabbed it while Alicia’s heart climbed into her throat.
“Yeah?” he barked. He listened intently for some seconds and said, “Good work. Keep me posted.” He put down the phone as Alicia looked at him inquiringly.
“They found somebody matching your sister’s general description who just signed up for an escort service in Richmond, Virginia, a few weeks ago.”
Alicia clasped her hands together prayerfully, but he said, “Now don’t get excited. That’s all we know at the moment. Richmond is a little far from D.C. to be viable, but we’ll see. This could be just a coincidence, I’ve seen it happen many times.”
“When will we know?”
“Not too long. Virginia police are checking it out right now and we should know something by the end of the day.”
Alicia bit her lower lip. “I don’t know if I can stand this,” she said.
“You’ll stand it. We both will, because the end is in sight. You’ll be off the hook as soon as we grab her.”
“I still can’t believe that you will. I must have gotten used to thinking of my situation as hopeless.”
“Come here,” Lafferty said, and she moved closer to him. He pulled her into his lap, and she heard him gasp softly as she brushed against his ribs. She stood up.
“Hey,” he said.
“You are coming with me to that walk-in medical care place right now,” she said firmly. “It’s only two blocks away.”
“All right,” he said meekly, which indicated to Alicia that he was in more pain than he would admit.
“Do you want me to call ahead?” she asked.
He sighed and rose stiffly, wincing and putting his hand to the back of the sofa for support.
“Not necessary,” he answered. “They know me there.”
“Why am I not surprised?” Alicia observed wryly.
“Now, now, no sarcasm. It’s too early.”
Alicia watched him unfold until he was standing upright.
“See?” he said, grinning. “Nothing to it.”
She pointed toward the door. “March.”
“I’m okay as long as I’m walking around,” he observed. “When I sit down I sort of seize up or something.”
“Anybody else but you would be in a hospital bed,” Alicia said, opening the door for him. “How would the commissioner feel if he knew that Captain Cramer was letting you run this investigation from your apartment sofa in your present condition?”
Lafferty didn’t answer, but she hadn’t expected a reply. He and his police colleagues seemed to operate in a universe of their own, where ordinary rules did not apply and standard procedures could be suspended as long as the greater good was served.
Alicia shut the apartment door behind them and used the key Mike had given her to lock it.
Alicia’s sister was not apprehended for another three days. Alicia spent that time with her children, trying to follow their activities and keep them calm as her own heart leaped every time the telephone rang. The kids were aware that the police were pursuing another suspect, but not that the person was their mother’s long-lost sister.
When the call finally came, Alicia was playing a board game with Joey and Maizie called her into the kitchen.
“Is it Michael?” Alicia asked.
Maizie nodded as she handed Alicia the phone.
“I think he has something,” Maizie added, her eyes wide with excitement.
Alicia took the receiver with a shaking hand. “Michael?”
“Nobody else. We got her.”
Alicia closed her eyes and nodded. Maizie let out a whoop and then started to cry.
“Are you sure?” Alicia whispered into the phone.
“She’s your double. She cut off her hair and dyed it black, but I just saw a wire-service photo, and the resemblance is uncanny. So far she hasn’t confessed to anything, but she will. The evidence has been piling up since we got the break about the Chinese restaurant.”
“Where was she?” Alicia’s children came in from the den, drawn by the sound of Maizie’s weeping.
“A Virginia suburb. She was installed in a condo complex and lining up work. The arresting officer down there told me she went with him without protest, almost as if she had been waiting for him.”
“Mike, I’m going to call Oswald Kirby and get him to represent her. I’ll pay for it.”
There was a pause from the other end as Maizie conveyed the good news to Alicia’s children in a low tone.
“Alicia, are you sure? This woman may be your blood sister but you don’t know her. She’s a criminal. She set you up to take the fall for a murder she committed.”
“There but for the grace of God go I. It was just chance that I got the good life with the Greens and she was left impoverished with a grandmother who died too young and a mother who apparently didn’t want her.”
“I don’t know if Kirby will want to take her case after representing you,” Lafferty said doubtfully.
“I have to try. He’s very skilled, he can present her history sympathetically to a jury. Maybe if they hear the details of her background and childhood they will be able to understand why she did what she did.”
“Do you understand it?”
Alicia hesitated. “I’m trying,” she finally said, as Joey erupted into cheers and Claire put her arm around her mother.
“I take it the kids have heard the news,” Lafferty said dryly on his end.
“Maizie told them.” Alicia hesitated. “There’s something else. I’d like to meet her, Mike. Talk to her.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
“I want to do it. Would that be allowed?”
“I think that under the current circumstances DA Woods can be persuaded,” Lafferty said with a smile in his voice. “In the presence of counsel, of course.”
“Mike, I don’t know what to say,” Alicia murmured, suddenly overcome with emotion. “You saved my life. If not for you I would have left my children parentless and gone to jail for a long time. Thank you.”
Claire moved away from her mother and went back into the den. Maizie, wiping her eyes with a tissue, shooed Joey in the same direction.
“No need to thank me,” Lafferty said, his own voice low and filled with feeling. “Just doing my job, ma’am.”
“Much more than your job, sir.”
“I’ll call you tonight,” he added quickly, and then hung up the phone.
Alicia stood in a daze, trying to absorb how that call had changed her life.
She would soon be free.
The dark world had become bright again.
Chapter 11
The office of the district attorney was an austere place, as befitted an institution supported by taxpayers’ money and dedicated to dispensi
ng justice to those who had violated the law. Alicia and Lafferty were shuttled by an aide into a room which contained a long refectory table and scattered chairs, where Oswald Kirby was already waiting for them.
Kirby rose and shook hands with Alicia. “Mrs. Walker. Allow me to congratulate you on your recent good fortune. The district attorney has supplied me with a copy of Amy Lassiter’s full confession, since I am now her attorney of record.”
“Thank you for taking the case,” Alicia said.
“Not at all. It is always gratifying to see the innocent go free and the guilty apprehended. I promise you that your...ah... Miss Lassiter will get the very best representation I have to offer. If she agrees to accept my help, of course.”
“Miss Lassiter, as your legal representative I must remind you again of what we discussed last evening. You have already confessed to the crime of which you are accused, but anything you say here—” Kirby began smoothly.
“Save it, buddy,” Amy interjected, cutting him off abruptly. “I’ve decided I don’t want anything from goody two-shoes here, including you as my lawyer.”
Kirby glanced at Alicia, who made a placating gesture. “Please stay,” she said to him.
“Oh, isn’t this nice?” Amy asked rhetorically. “The princess is determined to do the right thing. It warms my heart.”
“Why did you do it?” Alicia asked quietly. “Why did you kill my husband?”
“Your husband!” Amy replied, laughing. “That’s a good one. I saw more of him than you did. While you were running charity balls and taking modern jazz classes I was keeping him very happy.”
“How did you meet him?”
Amy shrugged. “Purely by chance. He liked working girls, he booked me for a night, and once he saw me he was thrilled that he could hire me to do in bed what you wouldn’t. It was a mutually beneficial arrangement, we both got what we wanted out of it.”
“You haven’t answered the question,” Lafferty said, speaking for the first time. “Why did you kill him?”
Amy looked Lafferty over with a practiced eye. “This must be the boyfriend,” she said, amusement in her tone. “Not bad. Not bad at all. Looks like you met with an accident recently, handsome.”
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