Ties That Bind aj-2

by Phillip Margolin

  Kerrigan had a sudden flashback to the hearing in Dupre's case. He remembered the defendant strolling down the aisle, radiating arrogance the way his gold jewelry radiated light. One of those pieces of jewelry had been an earring in the shape of a cross.

  "Sean, call Stan Gregaros. Tell him to put together a photo throw-down with a picture of Jon Dupre in it and get over here, pronto. Tell him to make it a great throw-down, one that will win a prize."

  "Who is this guy, Tim?" Rittenhouse asked.

  "Jon Dupre runs a high-class escort service that's a front for a call-girl operation. We got an indictment based on the testimony of one of his escorts, but we had to dismiss the case when she was beaten to death."

  Rittenhouse turned pale. "Just like the senator," he said.

  "Just like the senator," Tim echoed.

  When Kerrigan and McCarthy entered the living room, Dr. Deborah Cable was seated on the sofa surrounded by friends. All conversation stopped, and Deborah's protectors stared at the detective and the prosecutor. Deborah stood up, and Tim walked over and hugged her. She was a substantial woman with graying brown hair, who normally exuded confidence and energy. Today she looked exhausted and bewildered.

  "I wish this wasn't my case," Tim said after introducing Sean McCarthy.

  "I wish this hadn't happened at all," she answered.

  "Can we talk to you alone?" Tim asked, after casting a quick glance at the people who had come to comfort her. Deborah spoke quietly to her companions. Some hugged her and others squeezed her hand before drifting out of the living room.

  "When did you get back?" Tim asked when they were gone.

  "I caught a midnight flight. Carl picked me up at the airport. Thank God the press didn't know I was coming in. It's been a zoo out there."

  Deborah sat on the sofa. Tim and the homicide detective took chairs across from her.

  "Tell me how Harold died," Deborah asked as soon as they were seated.

  Kerrigan hesitated.

  "I'm a medical doctor, Tim, a neurosurgeon. I can handle the details."

  Deborah sat up straight, her hands clasped in her lap, like a schoolgirl. Her body did not move when Kerrigan explained what he'd seen at the A-frame, but her hands tightened on each other.

  "There are some questions that I have to ask if we're going to catch the person who did this."

  "You don't have to walk on eggshells with me."

  "Okay. Can you think of anyone who hated Harold enough to kill him so brutally?"

  "No, but there was a lot about Harold's life that I didn't know." Dr. Cable fixed her large brown eyes on Kerrigan. "My work is here and Harold's was in Washington, D.C. That meant that we didn't see each other very much. For the past few years that's been intentional."

  "I'm sorry."

  Deborah flashed a tired smile. "Don't be. I wasn't. Our marriage was a mistake from the beginning, but we were both so busy with medical school and law school and our careers that we weren't together enough to notice. When I finally took a look at our marriage, it dawned on me that I didn't really know Harold at all." For a second her eyes darted down. When she looked up, Tim saw defiance. "I also learned that he was cheating on me every chance he got. Probably had been since we met."

  "Why did you stay with him?"

  "I don't know. Inertia, I guess. And I was too busy to take time out for a divorce, which would have hurt Harold's career. I didn't want to do that. I didn't hate him. We didn't know each other well enough to have intense emotions in either direction."

  "Can you think of anything that will help us find Harold's killer?"

  "I'm sorry, Tim. I can't give you a name. I didn't know any of his girlfriends. I do know that he was agitated for the past week. I asked him if something was wrong but he was evasive. I chalked it up to the excitement of sewing up the nomination."

  "Do you think someone had threatened him?"

  "He never said anything like that to me, but we didn't confide in one another. Besides, Harold was a United States senator. They have tremendous resources. If someone was threatening him he would have gone to the FBI."

  "So you have no idea why Harold was upset?" McCarthy asked.

  "No."

  "Did you know that Harold owned the cabin where he was killed?" the detective continued.

  Deborah flushed but her voice was steady when she told them that she knew nothing about the A-frame.

  "Have you ever heard Harold mention a man named Jon Dupre?" Tim asked.

  "Is he mixed up in this?"

  "You know him?"

  "Not personally, but his parents are members of the Westmont; Clara and Paul Dupre."

  Tim's brow furrowed. "I don't think I know them."

  "I'm not surprised. I don't either, except to say hello. They're much older than Harold and me. They had Jon late in life."

  "Did Harold know Jon?"

  "I'm sure he knew who he was, but I've never seen them together."

  "Sean?" Tim asked.

  "I don't have anything else."

  "Then we'll leave you alone. If you think of anything else, or if you just want to talk, call me."

  Sean McCarthy followed Tim out of the living room and Deborah's friends returned to her side. Carl Rittenhouse walked over and was about to ask a question.

  "Let's go outside," Tim said. "I need some air."

  The seasons were starting to change, and the wind was stirring the gold and red leaves that blanketed the lawn. Tim had worn a suit with no overcoat and he felt chilled, but the cold was refreshing after the stifling atmosphere in Travis's house.

  "Did Deborah help?" Carl asked.

  Kerrigan was about to reply when a car pulled past the barricade. Stan Gregaros got out and trudged up the driveway on the thick legs of a Greco-Roman wrestler. He spotted Kerrigan and McCarthy and waved a meaty hand that held a manila envelope.

  "I got the pictures," he told Kerrigan.

  "Carl, let's go some place quiet," Kerrigan said.

  Chapter Eleven.

  Jon Dupre's starkly modern house perched on the edge of a steep hill, separated from his neighbors by woods and facing an expanse of rolling hills and the low mountains of the coast range. The front of the house was curved tan stucco but the back was mostly glass, to take advantage of the spectacular view.

  Two patrol cars pulled in behind Sean McCarthy's unmarked car. When McCarthy and Stan Gregaros walked toward the house, several officers grouped behind them. Gregaros grinned and loosened his jacket so his gun showed.

  "Jon's not going to be happy to see me," he told McCarthy. Then he rang the doorbell hard and fast, three times. When the door opened, Gregaros flashed his badge at a bikini-clad blonde. She glared at the detective as soon as she recognized him.

  "Is the gentleman of the house in?" Gregaros asked.

  "Go fuck yourself, Stanley."

  She started to shut the door but Gregaros stopped it with his foot.

  "Don't be that way, Muriel."

  The blonde turned her back on the detective and walked away without a word.

  "Lovely young lady," Gregaros told McCarthy in a voice loud enough for the blonde to hear. "Her real name is Muriel Nussbaum, but she's Sapphire when she's working. The blond hair is a dye job but her blow jobs are the real McCoy."

  Muriel didn't give Gregaros the satisfaction of a word or a glance as she waded through the deep carpeting that covered the floor of a high-ceilinged living room. She stepped aside when she arrived at a sliding glass door that opened onto a massive wood deck. Gregaros brushed past her. Dupre and a glassy-eyed brunette were chest-deep in a bubbling hot tub. A look of intense hatred suffused the pimp's handsome features as soon as he spotted Gregaros. A cell phone was lying on a low glass table. Dupre muscled his way out of the tub, grabbed it, and angrily speed-dialed a number. His eyes never left Gregaros as the detective crossed the deck.

  McCarthy studied Dupre. He had the type of sleek, muscled body that is developed in a gym. His hair was short and styled. McCarthy
was certain that Dupre's nails had been manicured. Then he shifted his gaze to Dupre's earlobe. There was a diamond stud in it.

  "The motherfucker is here. He's in my house," McCarthy heard Dupre say into the phone, his anger under tight control. As soon as Gregaros got within arm's length, Dupre thrust the phone at him.

  "My lawyer wants to talk to you."

  "Certainly," Gregaros answered with an accommodating smile.

  Dupre handed Gregaros the phone and the detective let it slip through his fingers.

  "Oh, gee," he said, as he watched the phone sink to the bottom of the hot tub. "How clumsy of me. And I did so want to chat with Mr. Baron."

  "Fuck you, Gregaros," Dupre answered with a low growl as every muscle in his body tensed.

  "You're under arrest, Johnny boy," Gregaros informed Dupre, suddenly all business.

  "For what?" Dupre asked belligerently.

  "The murder of United States Senator Harold Travis, scumbag."

  McCarthy thought that Dupre's shock was genuine, but he'd seen savvy crooks fake every emotion known to man.

  "I didn't kill Travis," Dupre protested.

  "I suppose you didn't argue with him at the Westmont, either."

  Dupre started to answer, then clamped his jaws shut. Gregaros grabbed him roughly by the shoulder and turned him around so a uniformed officer could slap on a pair of cuffs. Dupre was wearing a low-cut swimsuit and nothing else.

  "I'm not going downtown like this. Let me dress."

  "Afraid someone will buttfuck you in the lockup? Funny, it doesn't bother you when someone does it to one of your girls. It'll do you good to learn how the other half lives."

  Gregaros was trying to goad Dupre into attacking him, but McCarthy stepped in when Dupre tensed.

  "I think we can let Mr. Dupre dress, Stan," he said, calmly moving between the detective and Dupre. Gregaros turned red with rage but held his tongue.

  "Take Mr. Dupre inside and let him get dressed," McCarthy instructed a patrolman. "Watch him carefully, then cuff him."

  As soon as Dupre had been hustled inside, Gregaros whirled toward Sean. "Don't ever do that again," he said.

  "I know you'd like to kick the shit out of Dupre," McCarthy answered calmly, "but I don't want to hand Oscar Baron any more ammunition than you did by dropping that phone in the hot tub."

  "Listen . . ."

  "No, you listen to me, Stan," McCarthy cut in, his voice suddenly and uncharacteristically hard. "This is my case. You're along for the ride because you know a lot about our suspect. But I won't tolerate you letting this get personal. If Dupre killed Senator Travis I want him on death row, not back in his hot tub because you need to blow off steam."

  When the guard let Jon Dupre into the noncontact visiting room at the jail, he looked as vicious as a raccoon that had once been trapped in Oscar Baron's garage. The lawyer was grateful that a wall of concrete and bulletproof glass separated them.

  "Hey, Jon, how are they treating you?" Baron said, speaking into the receiver of the phone that hung from the wall on his right.

  "Get me the fuck out of here."

  "It's not that simple, Jon. You're charged with murdering a United States . . ."

  "I didn't kill anyone. The charge is total bullshit. That asshole Gregaros is behind this. I want you to sue him for false arrest and assault."

  "Slow down. We're not suing anyone until we clear this up."

  "Well, do it then. Find out what the bail is and get me out of here."

  "I told you, it's not that easy. They don't have to set bail in a murder case like they do with other charges. We have to ask for a hearing. It will take time."

  "I want out of here, Oscar. I don't want to be caged up with a bunch of degenerate morons."

  "Hey, I don't want you locked up either, but there are procedures that have to be followed. I can't just break you out. And there's something else, too--my fee. We need to get that settled."

  A vein started throbbing in Dupre's temple. "What kind of shit is this, Oscar? Haven't I always taken care of you?"

  "Definitely, Jon," Baron said, keeping his tone businesslike, "but defending a murder case is different from handling that thing with the escort service. It's complicated and expensive. And they're probably going to go for the death penalty, which means twice the work you put in for a noncapital case. So we have to talk about money before I agree to hop in here."

  "How much money are we going to talk about?'

  Baron fought to keep his voice level. He was going to ask for more money than he'd ever received before and he was hoping that Dupre could come up with it.

  "We're going to need an investigator--maybe more than one--and expert witnesses . . . ."

  "Cut to the chase, Oscar."

  "Okay." Baron's head bobbed up and down. "Let's say two hundred and a half for starters."

  "Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars?"

  "That's the retainer. It could go higher depending on the length of the trial and . . ."

  Dupre laughed. "I can't come up with two hundred and fifty thousand dollars."

  "Hey, Jon, don't go cheap on me. We're talking about your life."

  "I don't have that kind of money."

  "I thought you were doing okay with the girls and the other stuff."

  "I was until the cops busted me. I haven't been able to run Exotic for months and I've had to lay low with the other stuff. Besides, you know I don't keep everything that comes in. There are other people who . . . you know."

  Dupre grew intentionally vague, nervous about phone taps.

  "Well, what can you come up with?" Baron asked.

  "Right now? Maybe fifty."

  "That's not even enough to get started in a case like this, Jon."

  "I'm good for it, Oscar. I've always paid you."

  "This is a death-penalty case. They're expensive. What about your parents? They have dough."

  "My parents will probably cheer when they hear about my arrest. They cut me off when I was kicked out of college."

  "Well, why don't you think it over, Jon, and give me a call," Baron suggested, anxious to get away now that it looked like Dupre couldn't come up with his retainer.

  "This is bullshit," Dupre said, glaring at Baron through the glass. "You can't bail on me, you greedy fuck."

  Baron shot to his feet and glared back, very brave with a concrete wall and bulletproof glass keeping Dupre at bay.

  "This greedy fuck just beat a case for you, you ungrateful shit."

  Dupre didn't want Baron to leave him. He had to get out of jail.

  "Hey, man, I'm sorry. Calm down, okay? I'm locked up and I'm a little tense."

  The lawyer sat down, feigning reluctance. Dupre might be bluffing to get Baron to lower his retainer. Dupre's next words dashed his hopes.

  "What if I can't get the money?"

  "Tell the judge. He'll appoint you a lawyer."

  "A public defender!" Dupre was livid. "I'm not risking my life with a free lawyer."

  "Hey, they're okay, Jon. They screen them for murder cases. You'll probably get someone good." Baron looked at his watch. "Gee, I didn't realize the time. I've got someone waiting at the office. Meanwhile, see if you can get the dough for my retainer. You need a pro and I'm the best."

  Dupre's hand tightened on the receiver.

  "We'll be in touch," Baron said, backing out of the room. As soon as he was in the corridor, the attorney breathed a sigh of relief. He hated dealing with angry clients, especially loose cannons like Dupre. Of course it was different if they could pay, but that didn't look likely. Too bad, a quarter of a million dollars would have been nice.

  Chapter Twelve.

  Once a month, Tim, Cindy, and Megan Kerrigan ate dinner with Tim's father and fourth wife in the oak-paneled dining room at the Westmont Country Club. These dinners were an ordeal for Tim, but Cindy, who found William Kerrigan charming, insisted on the ritual. Cindy also got along with Francine Kerrigan, who was twenty years younger than Tim's father and
had the tight, sun-baked skin of a woman who sat poolside at expensive resorts all year, and a figure kept trim by starvation.

  When they arrived at the club the night after Jon Dupre's arrest, Tim saw that his father had invited some other guests. Harvey Grant was seated at the table, along with Burton Rommel, a wealthy businessman who was prominent in the Republican Party, and Rommel's wife, Lucy.