“My eyes aren’t convincing enough?”
“In a word, no. So what proof do you have to offer?”
“Will an eight-hour confession do the trick?”
I told him about the long drive from Podunk, Texas, back to Tampa.
Hours of Sarah sniveling and saying she hadn’t meant to kill him, that it had started as self-defense and ended in blind rage. He’d touched her one time too many. It was more than she could take. I said she kept going on and on about how sorry she was, about how a lifetime of good works would never make up for what she’d done.
I have to admit, I sounded damn convincing. Part of me hoped they were recording this conversation—it would give any jury a fat dose of reasonable doubt. The other part of me was imagining Sarah’s first and final encounter with Vincent Costello.
“She was so sorry that she ran away?” Defoe asked.
“Even the guilt-ridden have survival instincts.”
“What was she doing with your knife? The fact that she had it on her suggests premeditation. It suggests she picked her fall guy in advance.”
I started to say something vague about self-protection, then dropped it. Sarah wanted to send me away for life—what did I care if Vincent took her for a cold-blooded killer?
“Maybe she did,” I said. “Our marriage peaked with the honeymoon. Since then it’s been nonstop combat. Maybe she saw her chance to kill two birds with one knife.”
Defoe quit smiling, which did nothing to improve his looks.
“Your story rings true,” he said. “The unfortunate victim had a reputation for being handsy, to say the least. And based on the little I know of you, it isn’t hard to imagine that your wife would wish you ill.”
“So what now?”
“I’ll pass on your version of events. We’ll see what the man on the throne has to say.”
“Any predictions?”
“Depends on his mood. I’ll try to catch him during his after-dinner cigar.”
“I’d rather you didn’t wait until after dinner.”
“Sit tight, Detective Walsh. You’ll have word soon enough.”
I watched him walk away, then sat there until a guard tapped me on the shoulder. I’d like to say that I felt remorse or sadness, but that would be a lie. Back in my cell, I beat Marty at hangman for the first time. The word I guessed was doomsday.
Chapter 39Anna Costello
I’M NOT sure what it says about me that I wasn’t hungover. Probably nothing good. At almost 10:00 a.m., Sarah was bringing herself to life with a long, luxurious bath. I’d called down for our breakfast and, more importantly, coffee.
Meanwhile, I took the morning paper out onto the balcony. In my previous life, it was always Anthony who read the paper. He called it his morning quiet time. Now I was claiming my time, sliding back into the big, bad world I’d been locked out of for so long.
The sky was bright and clear, the air just warm enough for me to sit outside in my bathrobe. The smell of horse manure mixed with the softer odors of baking bread and frying eggs. I set the paper on the table, flipped past the first page, and went straight for the fluff: fashion and film, gossip and real estate. It felt like that kind of day—the kind where you linger and meander and keep the mood light.
But then there it was, in a slim sidebar on page seven: the story that would turn our lives upside down and give them a hard shake. The headline said it all: DISGRACED DETECTIVE SET FREE ON $5 MILLION BAIL. I waited until my breathing slowed to a seminormal rate, then read through to the end. There was a lot of speculation about who had such deep pockets. I could have solved that mystery. The question was, why? Why was Uncle Vincent backing a cop who’d been caught red-handed holding the weapon that murdered his nephew?
Best-case scenario, at least for us: Vincent wanted Sean outside, where he could snatch him up and take his time. I had no trouble believing that Vincent would pay five million dollars for the privilege of avenging Anthony’s murder himself, mano a mano.
Worst-case scenario: Sean had powers of persuasion I’d never noticed.
He’d convinced Vincent that the knife was a plant. There was no way Vincent would let himself be convinced unless Sean sold him another killer, and Sean only had three options to choose from: Sarah, Serena, and me.
I was spinning back and forth, trying to figure out which scenario was most likely, when the French doors opened behind me and Sarah came strolling out with our breakfast tray balanced professionally on one palm.
“I don’t think coffee ever smelled this good,” she said. “You must not have heard the knocking.”
The bath had done wonders for her. She’d woken up looking green around the gills and pale everywhere else. Now there was color in her cheeks again, a bounce to her step. She seemed weightless, ready to burst into song.
Then she saw my face.
“Oh, honey,” she said, “I know I only just got here, but we both agreed: we can’t be seen together until after the trial. Last night was risky enough.”
“It isn’t that,” I said.
“Then what’s the matter?”
She set the tray on the table, brushed her still-damp hair back behind her ears, and rested a hand on my shoulder.
“Don’t tell me the drinking did you in,” she said. “That isn’t the Anna I know.”
I just held up the paper and pointed. She hadn’t made it past the headline before she dropped into her chair and let out a sharp whimper.
“Oh, my God,” she said.
“I know.”
“But who…?”
“I’ll give you one guess.”
“Vincent?”
I nodded.
“But why?”
“That’s the five-million-dollar question.”
“Coffee,” she said. “I need coffee.”
I filled our cups while she read on, her face going from ruddy to crimson.
“You think Vincent will kill him?” she asked.
I was impressed: she seemed genuinely concerned, and not for herself.
Life in prison was bad enough for her soon-to-be ex: she drew the line at capital punishment. The cynical side of me thought, That’s reserved for other
