Island of Thieves

by Glen Erik Hamilton

  SPD could hold him here for three days before filing charges. Longer if they could convince a judge that the evidence was strong. So far their case against him looked to be hardening into tungsten. It was early Saturday morning. Ganz’s lawyer might not show until the workweek.

  Shaw felt clammy after the stifling rides in the cop cars and the unventilated interview room. He took off his shirt and washed his face and armpits with tepid water from the sink. Did slow push-ups until his arms trembled with the strain. Then he washed again, letting the water drip from him, and lay down on the lower bunk, the gray jail blanket still folded into a tight spool under his laceless boots.

  Kanellis and Guerin could be lying about the eyewitness, of course. Trying to spook Shaw into confessing. But Guerin, at least, would give Shaw more credit than to think he might panic like that.

  No. They’d been too certain. Kanellis too gleeful. Their witness was real.

  It had to be a frame job. Maybe by the same team that had tried to grab him in Freeway Park. Edgemont had been killed and some neighbor bribed or maybe coerced to ID Shaw, bringing the cops to his door. Had she been murdered solely to serve that purpose? Or had the team been after something? If the goons thought Linda Edgemont had pointed Shaw toward stealing the chemical sample, maybe they suspected he’d handed it off to her.

  It made a rough logical sense. They’d tried for Shaw, failed, and gone to Edgemont next. But why kill her?

  From down the cellblock, the sports talk had devolved into yelling. Meaningless threats between men who could no more reach one another than they could squeeze through the four-inch vertical slit of window in their cell.

  He had to get out of jail. Quickly. Nelson Bao’s death had started some sort of chain reaction between the players in the deal. Instinct told him that if Linda Edgemont’s murder had been intended to turn the screws on him, that pressure was only going to increase until something snapped.

  Or until Shaw was firmly out of the way, serving twenty-five to life.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  When a guard opened his cell door at noon, Shaw assumed it was to lead him down to lunch on the second level of the jail. Instead he was told his lawyer had arrived.

  On a Sunday. Ganz had come through.

  They walked past other inmates sitting and talking in the communal area on the first floor of the block. Two men played checkers with pieces of felt. None of them paid Shaw much mind. Detainment was a high-traffic area of the jail, new faces coming and going at all hours.

  Each block had a meeting room reserved for attorney visits. The closet-size room allowed for two plastic chairs, a table bolted to the wall, and two people if they weren’t opposed to sitting close enough to smell each other’s breath. Shaw turned sideways to let the guard shut the door.

  The lawyer extended a hand from his seat, apparently choosing dignity over wrestling his chair away from the table to give himself room to stand. “Ed Chiarra.” They shook. Chiarra was slight of build but had a thick head of brown wavy hair that added at least an inch and a half to his height. His suit was conservative navy blue, his tie muted red. As the lawyer withdrew his arm, Shaw saw he wore silver cuff links shaped like bull’s-eyes.

  “Ganz said he knew someone good,” Shaw said. “Thanks for taking me on.”

  “I don’t have a lot of time,” Chiarra said. “What did the police tell you about the case against you?” He had a slight New York–New Jersey accent. Maybe Chiarra was an East Coast transplant like Ganz.

  Shaw recounted what Lieutenant Guerin and Kanellis had said about the eyewitness placing him at Edgemont’s. Chiarra frowned at Shaw’s having volunteered the fact of his employment with Droma and Linda Edgemont, and the lines in his face deepened further when Shaw mentioned Nelson Bao.

  “You shouldn’t have spoken at all,” said Chiarra. “Just waited for me.”

  Shaw nodded. He knew the rules as well as the lawyer, had followed them his whole life. All the more reason that he felt like a fool now, having gambled by telling Guerin about the island and the laboratory.

  “What do you know?” Shaw said.

  Chiarra consulted his notes. “Linda Edgemont was working at the Droma International office in High Bridge until about two p.m. yesterday—Droma’s the same corporation that hired you?”

  Shaw said it was.

  “A company car drove her to her house in Hillman City. The driver waited at the curb until she got into the house okay. About twenty minutes after that, a neighbor out for a jog waved down a passing Seattle police car and told the officer she’d seen a white man”—Chiarra looked at Shaw—“with dark hair and large scars on his face leaving the side gate of Linda Edgemont’s house. The officer investigated and found Linda Edgemont dead by the sliding door at the back of the house. The door was open. They figure she stepped outside and was shot.”

  “Why would she open the door to a guy standing in her backyard? Even in the middle of the afternoon?”

  “The theory will be that she knew her assailant. She knew you.”

  “Except it wasn’t me.”

  Chiarra nodded noncommittally. “Right now let’s deal with what we have. The search warrant for your place listed a .22-caliber pistol and materials to silence it. You own either of those? Anywhere?”

  Shaw said no. “Why a suppressor? What did they find at the scene?”

  “Shells to match that caliber on the patio and trace metal shavings on the victim’s clothes. Tests are still being run, but my guess is that the metal’s type and the oils on it are enough to be substantive.” Chiarra tapped his attaché with a knuckle. “Most of their evidence for now hinges on the witness, or it will once they put your picture in front of her. We have to assume she’ll ID you, even if human memory can be shaky under stress. We can punch holes in her recollections later. Where were you from roughly noon to four o’clock yesterday afternoon?”

  “At home.”

  “Alone? Call anybody?”

  “Not during those hours. I was asleep. Around six o’clock I spoke to a woman named Penelope Walker on the phone. Just after that I spoke to Karla Lokosh, who’s one of the Bridgetrust Group people from the island.”

  “What’s your relationship with them?” Chiarra was making notes.

  “Penelope’s a retired recruiter helping with a charity foundation I’m involved with. Karla I met this past week, like I said.”

  “And?”

  “And we went out Thursday night.”

  “Okay. No contact with Linda Edgemont on Friday?”

  “I left her a voice mail early in the morning asking for more time to consider a job offer from Droma.”

  “So you had a vested interest in her well-being. That’s good. Tell me about Nelson Bao.”

  Shaw recounted finding Bao on the beach and what Rohner had told him about San Juan County treating the case as a homicide.

  “Warren Kilbane’s on the hot seat for Bao,” Shaw concluded.

  Chiarra shook his head. “They’re done with Kilbane. They pulled him and”—he glanced at his notes—“and a Debra Pollan and Anthony Castelli late Thursday afternoon and kept them overnight. Bao was killed late on Tuesday, is that right?”

  Shaw nodded.

  Chiarra hummed unhappily as he read. “They have alibis. They all took a state ferry to Anacortes on Tuesday morning, picked up a car from a lot there, and drove south. Pollan ate dinner at her hotel. Castelli went out with a woman that night. Kilbane was in two different sports bars as late as nine o’clock on Tuesday. All verified, or close enough, the way the sheriff sees it. They weren’t near the island, so they aren’t suspects for Bao.”

  “You move fast,” Shaw said. “When did you talk to San Juan County?”

  “Bao and Edgemont. Neither situation is much on its own,” Chiarra continued, “but add them together and you can expect a rough road ahead. The DA may argue to deny bail based on your past record. SPD will definitely be granted the warrants and court orders to look through anything they ask. We
can fight it, but it would help a lot if you can offer something.”

  “I don’t have a better alibi.”

  “If you can trade any evidence, I mean.”

  “Like what?”

  “Something concrete. Did you take anything from Nelson Bao? From the lab on the island?”

  Shaw looked at the lawyer for a long moment. Chiarra gazed back. His left eyelid twitched.

  “Ganz didn’t send you,” said Shaw. “Did he?”

  Chiarra pressed a hand flat on the table, as if slowly squashing a bug.

  “This can all go away if you cooperate.”

  “Who’s paying your hourly rate? Rohner?”

  “That’s beside the point. You need help. We’re your only way out of this shithole, so get on board. Did you take anything from Nelson Bao?”

  “Talk plain.”

  “The sample. Do you have the polymer sample?”

  Shaw leaned in.

  “Let’s say I do,” he said. “What happens next?”

  “You tell me where it is. Once we have it in hand, we can all move forward. I’m sure the eyewitness will have a memory jog.”

  Shaw stared at Chiarra, his dark eyes blank. His grandfather had had the same eyes. Nearly black. Like a shark’s, when he chose to keep any hint of humanity from showing.

  The lawyer shifted and cleared his throat.

  “Their case is all about placing you at the scene,” he continued uneasily. “We can prove that you weren’t there just as easily. I’m certain other witnesses can be found.”

  “Sure.”

  “You can be out of here by the end of the week. Just tell me where the polymer is.”

  “No. Spring me first.”

  “Impossible. It will take a few days to obtain other witnesses and for the police to corroborate their stories. It can’t be done overnight.” The lawyer tapped the pages with a manicured fingernail. “This is urgent. If you wait, if you stall, there won’t be any deal we can make. You have to trust us.”

  “No.”

  “Then we’re at an impasse.” Chiarra’s jaw clenched. “Don’t be an idiot. I can’t work miracles with the police timeline.”

  “Then you’ll have to find divine help elsewhere. Without me on the outside, there’s no way for you to get the sample. Even if I told you where it was.”

  “A safe-deposit box? A secure drop?”

  Shaw waited. It was a twisted kind of fun, watching the attorney’s gears grind and click into place. Finding out how far Chiarra was willing to go on behalf of his unnamed employer.

  “How do I know you’re not lying about having it?” he said.

  “It’s in a clear five-milliliter glass vial with a white cap. It’s viscous, like motor oil for a stock car. And the color is somewhere between honey and molasses. Not that I recommend tasting the goop. It smells as harsh as chlorine.”

  Chiarra drummed his fingers on the metal table. “Good. Great. How much do you have?”

  Shaw went back to waiting.

  “We can get you out,” Chiarra said finally. “I think. I’ll have to confirm that. But a . . . a direct approach might leave you in a bad position with the police.”

  “But you’ll do it.”

  “Yes.” Chiarra exhaled, as if struck by the enormity of what he was saying. “If we can.”

  “Without casualties. That’s nonnegotiable.” Shaw pointed. “Anybody gets hurt and I’ll hand the cops everything. Including your precious sample.”

  “That would be a mistake. You need us.”

  “We need each other. I want the witness to recant, and I want a hundred grand. Once I have the money, I’ll get your chemical for you.”

  “If we paid you more, in advance, would you be willing to tell me where it is right now?”

  Shaw’s grin was ferocious.

  “Better get moving, Counselor.” He reached behind him to thump twice on the door. “And watch your back. You know what happened to the last lawyer who got deep in this shit.”

  Chiarra blanched. The guard opened the door, and Shaw left.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Shaw sat in the cellblock’s communal room late that afternoon, lost in thought—the only activity available to him other than talking to the meth head at the next table, who already seemed engrossed in multiple conversations inside his brain.

  Kilbane hadn’t killed Nelson Bao. And if Shaw had needed more confirmation that the Droma security chief wasn’t behind the attack on him at the park, all three members of his team had spent Thursday night as guests of San Juan County.

  Rohner could afford plenty of bent lawyers like Chiarra. But the attorney’s willingness to consider extralegal options put him in a category more like the covert Chen and Zhang, or like Shaw himself. People whose primary concern for the law was how to get around it. Shaw’s bet was that Chiarra had been sent by whatever unknown firm employed Karla Haiden.

  The same guard that had taken Shaw from his cell in the morning appeared at his shoulder.

  “You got a video call,” the guard said. He led Shaw down another corridor to a larger room that might have been for classes or support-group meetings. Stacked columns of the ubiquitous plastic chairs covered one wall. At the opposite end of the room were four thick posts, each with two metal stations shaped like old slot machines, with phone receivers instead of pulling levers.

  The guard pointed him to the chair in front of Station 6. “Fifteen minutes.”

  Shaw sat and saw Wren on the screen. Behind her was a plant-festooned shelf he recognized as being on the wall of her bedroom. He picked up the receiver.

  “Hey,” he said. “How’d you find me?”

  “Great to see you, too.” Wren laughed weakly.

  “Sorry. Yes. Your face is the best thing I’ve seen since . . . since the last time I saw it. But how—”

  “Your lawyer Mr. Ganz knew to call Addy. Addy called me. I found out about this service and downloaded the app on my phone. I think Mr. Ganz might’ve pulled a string or two to let me call direct.”

  “Do me a favor. Call Ganz and let him know that I’ve found temporary representation. And that if it doesn’t work out, I might take him up on his offer later.”

  “Van, what’s going on?”

  “These calls are recorded. I can’t talk details, but I can promise you I haven’t killed anyone. I think the initial evidence caused the cops to look in the wrong direction.”

  “And in the meantime you’re stuck there.” She shook her head. “You sound so calm about it. As though being accused of . . . as though jail was a regular thing that everyone has to deal with. Like renewing your car tabs.”

  “My perspective might be a little skewed. You know my family.”

  She nodded and looked away. Her light brown eyes shining, a bright varnish on the chestnut wood.

  “I’m angry,” she said. “For you, if you can’t be. Furious enough for the both of us.”

  Shaw smiled. “I can be calm and angry at the same time. One of my best tricks.”

  “Don’t try to cheer me up. I’m enjoying my fury.”

  “Tell me news of the outside world, then. Did you spend all weekend weeding the Snohomish garden?”

  Wren accepted Shaw’s change of subject and spun him a story about Lettie both wanting to protect the honeybees that had discovered the garden and fighting the urge to slap frantically and flee to the car whenever one came near her. She’d fallen asleep on the car ride home, which Wren concluded was only natural, since Lettie had run the equivalent of a 10K that afternoon, twenty steps at a time.

  “The counter on this app says we only have a minute left,” Wren said.

  “Tell Addy I’m all right. If Cyndra doesn’t know . . .” He hesitated. “Leave it to Addy’s judgment whether to tell her where I am. She and I had an argument just before all this went down. We didn’t leave off in a good place.”

  “What were you quarreling about?”

  “You. Sort off. Cyn heard me mention Karla to Addy. She figur
es I’m cheating on you.”

  “Oh. Crap.”

  “That was my thought as well.”

  “I’ll . . . I’ll talk to her. Try to explain,” Wren said. “If that’s all right.”

  “You couldn’t do any worse than I did.”

  “I’m sure it will be okay. Not just Cyn, but everything. Is it . . . difficult in there?”

  “No. It’s jail, not supermax. Boredom is the main enemy.”

  “Tough guy.” She touched the screen, briefly concealing her face. “I miss you. Strange to say since we just saw each other . . .”

  “But it’s different,” he agreed, “because we can’t.”

  “Soon.”

  She ended the call.

  The guard led Shaw back to his cell. The communal room was empty; playtime had ended while he’d been talking to Wren. He sat on his bunk.

  How soon until Chiarra could make his arrangements? They would need an opportunity. No one would be storming the gates of the King County Correctional Facility. That meant getting Shaw moved to another location. The most vulnerable point would be while he was in transit. How could the lawyer manage that? Claim that Shaw required a hospital visit? Special care of some kind?

  Waiting for the jailbreak was beginning to feel like his time in the Rangers. You never knew when the call would come. You just had to be ready to move—and move damned fast.

  THIRTY-NINE

  Sofia Rohner stood beside the oil portrait of her grandparents, pretending to admire it while the housekeeper Bettina brought the tea and set it on the hearth. Sofia thanked her and said no, she wouldn’t require a fire this evening. She waited until Bettina had shut the door before she dared to sit. Fearful that even such a small measure of relaxation might start her to weeping.

  It had been her worst day in memory. First the Seattle police had called as she’d crossed the apartment threshold, bags in hand, before she’d even hugged little Iva hello. Informing her of Linda’s death. Linda’s murder. The detective had peppered her with questions about Linda’s recent activities and work life in painful detail. But her own requests to him had been largely evaded.