“Not different, exactly. It’s just that later, she filled in some details.” Lois pauses and takes a long sip of iced tea. “The morning of the killing, it was about 6:00 a.m., a half hour after sunrise—I remember because I’d woken up at 5:15 and had gone to the bathroom and started the coffee. From the porch, I saw Darlene walking down the road past my house, toward the Dowd place, just like I’d seen her do before. She was wearing jeans and a shirt with a white jean jacket over it, and she was carrying a blanket. She didn’t look to be in any type of hurry. Or upset, or anything. And she certainly didn’t have any blood on her.
“Half an hour later, Cindy came rushing up to my porch in a panic, carrying something that turned out to be a hammer. She had blood all over her, and the hammer did, too. She started sobbing about how Lester had been molesting Darlene. She said she’d had a lot to drink that night and fell into a drunk sleep. When she woke up, she went downstairs and found Lester dead on the kitchen floor, beaten with the hammer. She begged me to hide the hammer. Bury it somewhere the police would never find it.”
Piper leans back, feeling like she’s been kicked in the gut. She tries to push out the question she already knows the answer to, but Susan beats her to it.
“She told you Darlene had killed her father,” Susan says. “And she wanted you to hide the hammer to help Darlene.”
“She didn’t come out and say it was Darlene, but it seemed obvious.”
“So you hid the hammer?” Tommy asks.
“Cindy asked me to keep it and preserve it. She watched me as I put it into a paper bag and sealed it shut with duct tape. She asked me where I was going to put it. I said I’d hide it in a metal locker my husband had in the back of our garage but never used.”
“Why would she want you to keep it rather than toss it into a pond or lake where it would never be found?” Tommy asks.
“It didn’t make sense to me, either. But I didn’t pressure her to explain. She was so upset already. And I figured she’d tell me eventually.”
“Did you hide the hammer while Cindy was there?”
“No, I told her to get back home and call the police. A little while later, I came down to the Dowd farm and pretended to be surprised by all the police cars out on the road. Cindy shouted to me that Lester had been killed and that there was blood everywhere—that way the police chief figured it was my first time hearing it. I told the chief I’d seen Darlene walking toward her house around six, and that she hadn’t had any blood on her.”
“You told this to Chief Foster, at the farm?” Susan asks.
“Yes, and I told him a second time when I went to his office a couple days later.”
“But he threatened you,” Piper says, repeating what Melvin Ott said. “He said he’d turn the FBI onto you.”
“And with your background, that was a chance you couldn’t take,” Tommy says.
“I hated that man from the first time I met him. He’d just come back from the service. He was twenty-four, a year older than me. We were both putting gas in our cars down at the Gulf station, and he made a pass at me. I told him I was flattered, but that I was happily married. That didn’t stop him. He kept on propositioning me for more than a year. Finally, I told Bobby about it. Bobby caught up with him, and that was the end of it. A few years later, Sonny joined the police department, and he started baiting Bobby to try and find some reason, I’m sure, to arrest him. Bobby didn’t bite, but I was always afraid he was one step away from getting himself locked up.”
“Locked up, and maybe having his past looked into,” Tommy says.
Lois nods. “Sonny Foster was also an ultraconservative type, and he made it clear he didn’t like ‘hippies’ like Bobby and me.”
“How did he know to threaten you about your background?”
“He didn’t. Not really. He always said he suspected Bobby and I were shady. We weren’t locals. We didn’t own our farm. Bobby never had a steady job with a local business. We held ourselves out as married but used different last names. He also didn’t like the fact that, some years, Bobby grew cannabis on our farm—something Sonny could never prove but which everyone knew about.” She takes a sip of iced tea. “Bobby said the whole township was situated in a microclimate perfect for growing pot, and we’d all get rich if it were ever legalized.” Lois pauses and smiles. “Sonny also hated me for being an artsy type.”
Piper looks confused, so Lois explains. “Allentown has its own playhouse, and I acted there for many years. Bobby and I fought about it more than once. He was afraid someone would recognize me and call the authorities. I told him acting was in my blood and that I’d explode if I had to give it up entirely. And I was careful. I cut my hair short and dyed it.”
“So Sonny never knew anything specific—he just got lucky making his threat against you?” Tommy asks.
Lois shrugs. “I can’t say for sure what Sonny knew, but he made the threat anyway. And he was not the type to bluff. So I sat quietly at Darlene’s trial. The jury never heard I’d seen her that morning without a speck of blood on her.”
“But what does it matter?” Piper says. “Darlene went home and killed her father. Cindy knew it, and you secreted the hammer away from the police in a failed effort to protect her.”
She feels like crying—that’s how much she’d wanted Darlene to be innocent.
Lois Beal looks directly at Piper. “That’s what I thought, too,” she says. “I figured that Darlene must have changed clothes, then left the farm after killing her father the night before. That when I’d seen her, she was returning home. But . . .”
Piper sits up. “But what?”
“I told you that Cindy later filled in some details that she didn’t share that morning.”
“Let me guess,” Tommy says. “Cindy Dowd brought you the hammer to protect herself.”
“She didn’t admit it to me until five years later. It was right after Bobby died. I told Cindy I was moving to Georgia, to be near my sister.” Lois pauses, shakes her head. Purses her lips. “If I’d have known at the time of the trial, I would have never let Darlene go to prison for Cindy, regardless of what it meant for me.”
“Why do you think she told you after all that time?” Susan asks.
“Because she wanted me to go to the authorities with the hammer. When she died.”
Susan’s face can’t hide her disdain. “And in the meantime, her daughter would keep rotting in jail?”
Her chest aching with rage, Piper says, “You’re telling us that Cindy Dowd sat back and let her husband sexually abuse their daughter, and then essentially framed Darlene for murder? That’s bad enough. But then you found out about it and did nothing?”
Lois Beal lowers her head and starts to cry. “I was afraid. That’s no excuse. God forgive me.”
“You’re going to make this right,” Piper says, pointing her finger, all her goodwill and empathy for Lois Beal gone.
“And when you’re done testifying,” Susan interjects, “we’re—”
“We’re going to decide whether to turn you in for the armored-truck killings,” Tommy interjects.
Lois is crying so hard she’s shaking.
Susan tells Piper, “I’ll draft the 9453 motion as soon as we get back. We’ll have it filed well within the sixty-day limit.” She turns to Lois. “I’m going to draw up a certification for you to sign. It will include everything you told us about the day of Lester Dowd’s killing and about what Cindy later admitted to you.”
“Wait,” Tommy says. “The hammer.”
“I took it out of the locker and buried it before I moved. There’s a small family cemetery on the farm. I buried it under one of the headstones.”
“You’re going to have to come back,” Tommy says, “and unearth the hammer. On videotape. In the presence of law enforcement. We’ll have the hammer examined for fingerprints, blood, and hair.”
“I should have come forward years ago,” Lois says, her voice raw and wet. “As soon as Bobby passed, I should have
turned myself in for the robbery and come clean with what I knew about Lester Dowd. Darlene shouldn’t have spent all these years in prison.”
Piper sees Lois searching her eyes for some small measure of forgiveness.
She can offer none.
They’re on I-95 South for forty minutes when Tommy says, “Why would she sit on it? Knowing Darlene didn’t kill her father, and that Cindy did?”
“She was afraid of getting outed as Megan Corbett,” Susan says.
“But she told the chief about seeing Darlene. She said she was ready to testify back then.”
“Until Chief Foster said he’d look into her background,” Susan says. “I think that sobered her up, made her realize she couldn’t risk testifying.”
“It just doesn’t smell right,” Tommy says. “She seemed like a decent person. I can’t see her letting Darlene rot in prison for ten years after she found out it was Cindy all along. There has to be more to it.”
“There always is,” says Susan.
23
SUNDAY, MAY 26–MONDAY, MAY 27
Mick and Gabby are at the firepit on the far side of the great lawn. The temperature is sixty degrees, but there’s a slight wind and moisture in the air that make it feel cooler. With sunset an hour behind them and the moon hidden by thick clouds, the fire is the only source of light.
Ten Adirondack chairs circle the fire, and eight of them are occupied: two by Mick and Gabby, two by the writer Alecia Silver and her husband, and four by the family Mick saw exit the Escalade the night before. The man, it turned out, is Jimmy Nunzio’s brother, Stephen Nunzio, MD. He looks like Jimmy—fiftyish, trim and fit, with dark hair beginning to gray. The doctor’s wife is considerably younger, in her midthirties, which would explain the twin boys, Gabby’s age, and the newborn. The doctor’s wife doesn’t appear to be enjoying herself, but Dr. Steve is having a grand time, standing by the fire, joking with his boys, toasting marshmallows. Gabby is also toasting marshmallows and, Mick notices, glancing at each of the boys, then looking away when they catch her doing it.
A waiter from the lodge approaches and asks if anyone wants something to drink. The kids ask for hot chocolate, Alecia and her husband request wine. Mick orders a glass of Macallan 15.
“Make that two,” says Dr. Steve as his wife—who wants nothing—rolls her eyes. “Maybe bring the bottle,” he adds, winking at Mick.
Dinner was an interesting affair. All ten tables in the dining room were full. He and Gabby were seated at a table with Nunzio’s accountant and his wife and daughter. Rachel, Christina, and Dr. Steve and his wife, sans children, were at their own table with the old guy who got off the helicopter with Christina.
The dining room featured a menu with everything one would expect at a four-star resort. Watching everyone eat and enjoy themselves at dinner, Mick wondered the same thing he’s wondering now as Stephen Nunzio and Alecia Silver toast marshmallows around the firepit: What the hell is going on here?
The premise of this gathering, as he’s been made to understand it, is that Nunzio’s family and crew are under threat of imminent attack and have to circle their wagons. But the sense of menace he felt when he first arrived here last night seems to have existed only in his own mind. All the other guests are clearly on holiday. Or think they are. The image that comes to his mind is the scene in the old Titanic movie when the happy passengers frolic among the ice chunks that fall onto the deck when the ship strikes the iceberg.
“Having fun, Mick?”
He turns to see Rachel Nunzio coming up behind him, arm in arm with the old man.
“This is Mr. McFarland,” she says. “Jimmy’s attorney. Mick, this is my Uncle Ham.”
He shakes hands with Rachel’s uncle, finding his grip surprisingly strong for someone appearing so frail.
“I’ve heard good things about you,” says Uncle Ham. His eyes twinkle, but Mick finds his smile less than benign.
“Everyone seems to be enjoying themselves,” Mick says, “considering we’re on the cusp of a mob war.”
“Mob.” Rachel spits out the word. “Little boys fighting in the backyard. There are much larger games afoot, Mr. McFarland.”
He watches the old man, trying to gauge whether he knows what Rachel is talking about, but Uncle Ham’s face is unreadable.
“When do you think we’ll be able to leave?” he asks Rachel, who glances at Uncle Ham.
“When it’s time,” she says.
Her tone sends a clear message: Drop it.
He turns to the old man. “It was nice meeting you, Mr. . . .”
“It was good to meet you, too, Mr. McFarland,” he says, offering his arm to Rachel, who takes it. “I hope everything turns out well with my nephew.”
“James is your nephew? I thought you were Rachel’s uncle.”
Rachel smiles. “In our family, he’s everyone’s uncle.”
Mick watches Rachel and the old man stroll across the great lawn toward the lodge, the hairs on the back of his neck at attention. Something’s coming. He doesn’t know what, but it’s not going to turn out well. He turns to Gabby, now standing between the twins, the three of them holding their marshmallow sticks over the fire. He fights off the compulsion to throw her over his shoulder and run from this place as fast as he can. One glance toward the lodge, where he sees Johnny Giacobetti, his giant mastiffs, and half a dozen other soldiers pretending to lounge, tells him he’d never make it.
Angelo Valiante sits in the front passenger seat of the Ford Econoline van. Beside him, in the driver’s seat, is Sal Tuscano, one of his brother Tony’s closest friends. Behind them, on three rows of seats, are eight of the Valiante crew’s toughest soldiers. Many of them served in the military, including two of the three men on the last seat, who were drummed out of Special Forces for being too violent. Five more identical vans, each with a driver and nine soldiers, are parked on the berm of River Birch Lane, the forest-lined private road leading to Nunzio’s lodge.
The vans left Brooklyn earlier that evening, spaced roughly ten miles apart so as not to attract attention. They rendezvoused at the Rodeway Inn, a two-story motel in Milford, eighteen miles from the lodge. Other members of the crew rented rooms at the motel and stockpiled them with enough weaponry and rounds to invade a small country. They left an hour ago for the final push from Milford, up Routes 6 and 590.
Angelo was impressed with the vans as soon as he saw them. The glass is almost an inch thick. The armored chassis is so heavy the vans require special tires. Except for the front windows and windshield, the windows are tinted so dark as to be opaque from the outside. That was done because it’s crucial that Nunzio’s men believe the vans are loaded with Valiante’s soldiers when they drive onto the property. Nunzio’s men will burst from their little log huts and attack the vans, and that’s when he and Sal and the rest of the soldiers will fire from the forest, tearing Nunzio’s men to pieces.
“Nunzio’s daughter,” Sal says. “She’s a looker. You gonna share?”
He considers this. “Why not? Let’s pull a train. I’ll be the engine, you follow right behind.”
“Shit,” one of the men on the seat behind them says. “I go after you two, I’ll need a Kevlar condom.”
Everyone laughs.
Gabby stirs in the bed, and Mick looks over at her. He’s been awake for an hour now; before that, his sleep was fitful. After the firepit, he brought Gabby back to the room and put her to bed. They took turns reading from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Gabby fell asleep midway through the last chapter, “The Flaw in the Plan.” True to form, she’s been out cold ever since.
Mick waits another few minutes, then sits up in bed. He looks across the room, through the darkness, to the balcony. The night sky is black, telling him that the clouds have not moved out. He carefully stands, steps to the balcony, and looks out over the great lawn. The firepit is extinguished, and even the guards appear to have gone to bed. He closes his eyes, inhales the cool night air. When he opens them, he’s st
ruck by the sense that he’s being watched. He scans the great lawn again, seeing no one. Then he glances below and sees her. Loki. The giant mastiff is sitting on the grass, staring up at him. His heart speeds up for a moment, until he wills it to slow.
“Just a dog,” he murmurs as he turns away.
He decides to go out to the second-floor porch. He dresses in jeans and a black T-shirt. Flip-flops, because he doesn’t feel like tying his sneakers.
The door to the porch is only a couple of doors down from his own. He opens it and steps outside. The roofed porch is furnished with outdoor couches and chairs. Walking toward the set closest to the railing, he feels her before he sees her. A warping of the darkness before him, the subtle scent of perfume.
The details become clearer as he moves closer. She’s wearing an open robe over loose-fitting satin pajamas, emerald green. Her long, auburn hair caresses her shoulders.
She looks up at him from the couch. “Mick.”
“Hi, Christina. Mind if I join you?”
“Couldn’t sleep, either?” She nods toward the other end of the couch, and he takes a seat there. “Let me light a candle,” she says, leaning over the coffee table and picking up a pack of matches. She strikes one and lights a white votive. In the candle’s glow, the olive skin of her face looks smooth as porcelain.
“Tea?” she asks, and he notices a small clay pot and a cup and saucer. “I can go down to the kitchen and bring up another cup.”
“Thank you, but no. The caffeine—I’d never get to sleep.”
She refills her own cup.
“Your father won’t tell me what happened that night, in the warehouse,” he says, hoping Christina will open the door. “He says he’s waiting until the time’s right.”
At the mention of her father, Christina purses her lips. She opens them but doesn’t take the bait. “I’ve heard you’re a good lawyer,” she says. “I suppose you’ve heard things about me as well.”
“A few things. I know you worked hard in college, graduated at the top of your class at Wharton. Since then . . .” His voice trails off.
A Killer's Alibi (Philadelphia Legal) Page 20
