You don't need a bodyguard, he said quietly. I' m not going to hurt you.
Cardoni looked tired and subdued. The bravado she had so often noticed was not present.
The policeman will leave as soon as you sign the release.
Cardoni held out his hand, and Amanda gave him the document and a pen. He read it quickly, signed and returned the pen.
I'll be watching through the window, the officer assured Amanda before leaving the room. Amanda sat stiffly, feeling very uncomfortable in the doctor's presence.
Thank you for coming, Cardoni said as soon as the lock clicked into place.
What did you want to tell me?
Cardoni closed his eyes and rested for a moment. He seemed weak and exhausted. I was wrong about Justine.
Clever move, Doctor. Who are you going to blame for your crimes now?
I know I' m fighting an uphill battle trying to convince you that I' m innocent, but please hear me out. Four years ago, after Justine buried me at my bail hearing, I was certain that she had framed me. And after I did this, Cardoni said, pointing at his scarred wrist, all I could think about was revenge for my hand, the time I' d spent in jail and the destruction of the life I' d built. I wanted her to suffer the way I was suffering.
Cardoni held his wrist out. Do you have any idea what it's like to saw off your own hand, to lose a part of yourself? Can you imagine what it would be like for a surgeon whose life is his hands? And the new hand. Cardoni laughed bitterly. Picking up a glass was like climbing Everest. Holding a pen, writing; my God, the hours I spent trying to master that simple task.
He paused and rubbed his eyes. And, of course, there were the victims. I believed that Justine would continue to kill and that no one would try to stop her because everyone thought that I was guilty.
I returned to Portland and took a job at St. Francis so I could keep an eye on Justine. I was certain that she had a new killing ground. It took me almost a year to find it. I spent hours looking at records, visiting properties that fit the profile, talking to attorneys until I discovered Mary Ann Jager on the Thursday before Justine was arrested. That night I went to the farm and found that poor bastard in the basement. He was already dead.
Cardoni closed his eyes again and took a deep, rasping breath before continuing. He looked as though he were trying to banish a bad dream.
I went back to the hospital and took the coffee mug. I already had a surgical cap with some of Justine's hair and a scalpel with her prints. I' d been saving them.
After planting everything at the farmhouse, I parked down the street from Justine's house and phoned her from my cell phone. She left and I followed. When I saw her make the turn from the highway onto the road that led to the farm, I called in the nine-one-one. I hoped that the police would find her at the farm. If she got away before they arrived, her prints would be on the items I left and everything she touched when she was there. An anonymous tip would lead the police to her.
Cardoni paused again. He looked depressed.
When I found the victim in the basement, I studied him so I could write a journal entry detailing what I was certain she had done to him. I learned the writing style when I read the journal in the farmhouse bedroom. As soon as I was sure that Justine was going to the farm, I wrote the journal entry on the computer in her house and left a copy.
Cardoni rubbed his eyes and sighed.
I was so certain that I was doing the right thing. I was so certain that Justine had framed me and killed all of those people. Seeing that man in the basement ... I was so certain ...
Cardoni's voice trailed off.
Everything was going exactly the way I planned it until Tony Fiori blew my cover. I knew the police would release Justine as soon as they realized that I was alive. I was desperate, so I had Roy Bishop set up that meeting with Mike Greene to try to convince him that Justine was guilty.
It didn't work.
No, it didn' t, but something did happen. I received instructions to come to a rest area off the interstate. A diary excerpt was enclosed. It was an account of the torture of one of the victims. Only the killer would have that journal. So I went to the rest area early to lay a trap, but I outsmarted myself. The killer was there ahead of me, and I was hit with a tranquilizer dart.
Amanda held up her hand as though she were stopping traffic.
Please. If you're going to tell me that Bobby Vasquez is the killer, I'll walk out right now.
No, no. I didn't even know that he had followed me to the rest area until McCarthy questioned me after Justine's murder.
So who is it now? The butler?
Cardoni answered her sarcasm with a murderous glare. Then his anger faded and he looked defeated. Amanda folded her arms across her chest but stayed seated.
The first time I woke up after being tranquilized I was in total darkness and disoriented. I' m not even certain that this really happened. I thought I saw light and I think that someone gave me a shot, then I was out again.
The next time I came to I was in Justine's kitchen. I remember Fiori shooting me. The next thing I remember, I was in the hospital.
Amanda stood up. This has been a very interesting story, Dr. Cardoni. I suggest you try selling it to Hollywood. Perhaps you can start a writing career while you're on death row.
I have proof. Have them test my blood. The hospital draws blood before an operation. Have the hospital run a screen for tranquilizers. I was still heavily sedated when Fiori shot me.
You can have your attorney do that. My firm doesn't represent you anymore.
Amanda pressed a button next to the door.
I know who killed Justine, Cardoni shouted at her. It's your boyfriend, Tony Fiori.
Amanda burst out laughing. If I were you, I' d go with the butler. It's a hell of a lot more believable.
He tried to kill me at the hospital, Cardoni cried out desperately. Then he shot me at Justine's house. I was on the floor when he came through the door. I was barely conscious. Why would he shoot someone who was no threat to him? I think he needed me dead to stop the investigation. I think he was afraid that the police would figure out that I' m innocent if they kept looking into these murders.
Amanda turned to face Cardoni. The fear she' d felt was long gone, replaced by a cold hatred.
He shot you because you tried to kill him, Dr. Cardoni. I saw your gun.
I never fired a shot. I swear.
Amanda banged on the door and the guard opened it immediately. She turned back to face Cardoni.
I was with Tony when Justine called from her house and asked me to come over. She was alive then, but she was dead when Tony and I arrived. You were the only other person at the house. You tried to kill Tony and you murdered Justine.
Miss Jaffe, please, Cardoni pleaded. But Amanda was already out the door.
Chapter 61
Amanda was furious with herself for visiting Cardoni and furious with the surgeon for thinking so little of her that he would try to fool her with his ridiculous story. During the return trip to the Stockman Building, she thought about things Cardoni had said that would help nail him. He' d confessed to planting the mug, scalpel and surgical cap at the farmhouse. This tied him to the scene of four murders, but it didn't prove that he' d killed anybody. Amanda wanted something more. Justine's death demanded it.
It was while she was parking that Amanda remembered the Ghost Lake murders that Bobby Vasquez had included on his list. Back at her desk, she ran an Internet search. She found several stories about Betty Francis, a senior at Sunset High School, who had disappeared seventeen years before during a winter break ski trip, and Nancy Hamada, a sophomore at Oregon State, who had disappeared the next year, also while skiing at the Ghost Lake resort during winter break. Their bodies had been discovered fourteen years ago when a cross-country skier stumbled across them.
Amanda phoned the sheriff's department in Ghost Lake. No one in the department had been with the sheriff's office fourteen years earlier, but the secretary, who had grown up in Ghost Lake, remembered that Sally and Tom Findlay's boy, Jeff, had been a deputy when the bodies were discovered. Amanda called the Findlays and learned
