This is a little embarrassing, but I recover quickly. “Then he had it done.”
Since nothing I say has any credibility with Singer, Laurie jumps in for support. “It’s too big of a coincidence to be otherwise, Steve. Rick was humiliated, and he didn’t want to come straight at me, so he went after Sondra, knowing I’d blame myself.”
Singer seems to think this is sound reasoning, and he leaves to talk to Rick at the jail. “I’m gonna miss his wit,” I say to Laurie after he’s left. A few moments later the doctor informs us that Sondra is conscious and we can see her.
She’s very much weakened; a .38-caliber bullet in the shoulder has a tendency to do that. She also has no idea who shot her. “A car just pulled up real slow, and I saw the window open, and I don’t remember anything after that.”
“But you think they were aiming for you? Was there anyone else around that could have been the target?” I ask.
She shakes her head sadly. “No. It was just me. Just me.”
She is unable to provide any helpful information, and she’s soon going to have to answer the same questions from the police, so we let her doze off.
In the car going home, Laurie says, “We have to help her, Andy.”
“She’s got to want that help,” I point out.
She shakes her head. “No. That’s what we said the other day. She didn’t want it, so we backed off. Like we did our good deed and that’s enough. Well, it wasn’t enough.”
“And a better plan would be . . . ?”
“To help her whether she wants it or not, and let her see if we’re right. Then if she feels the same way, we can back off. But we cannot send her back on those streets without trying a hell of a lot harder.”
“What does that mean in the real world?”
“It means finding her a job and a place to stay. It means putting her into a position where she can develop some self-respect and dignity.”
“Sounds good to me,” I say.
• • • • •
I RUSH THROUGH my Monday morning walk with Tara so I can meet Richard Wallace at the prison. He’s scheduled to interview Randy Clemens at nine-thirty, and there’s no way I’m going to be late.
I arrive early enough to eat breakfast at a nearby restaurant called Donnie’s House of Pancakes. I order banana walnut pancakes, which when they are served turn out to be regular, heavy pancakes with bananas and walnuts on top. It makes me feel old, but I can remember a time when the bananas and walnuts would have been
I decide to share this piece of nostalgia with the waitress, since there are only three other people in the restaurant and she’s not busy. “It makes me feel old,” I say, “but I can remember a time when the bananas and walnuts would have been
“Whatever,” she says, demonstrating a disregard for cultural history. “You want coffee?”
“Not until after the Olympics,” I say.
“Whatever.”
I head over to the prison at nine-twenty, carrying the pancakes around like a beach ball in my stomach. I’ve got a feeling I’m going to be taking them with me wherever I go for a while.
Waiting for me at the gate are Richard Wallace and Pete Stanton. I’m a little surprised to see Pete, since Richard hadn’t mentioned bringing him, but I suppose a police presence is called for, especially if Randy is going to implicate someone in the murders.
“Good morning, guys,” I say.
They don’t return the greeting. “Andy, I tried to reach you, but you had already left.”
There is probably a scheduling foul-up; such things are very common in the prison bureaucracy. “Scheduling change?” I ask.
“Andy, Clemens is dead.”
It is as if he hit me in the face with a four-thousand-pound medicine ball. “What happened?”
“Somebody slit his throat this morning, outside the mess hall. I’m sorry, Andy.”
All I can think of is Randy’s daughter, who will never get to know what a great guy he was and how much he loved her. When she’s old enough to understand, I’m going to look her up and tell her.
Pete puts his arm on my shoulder and speaks for the first time. “Come on, Andy, the warden is waiting to see us.”
They lead me inside, and by the time we get to the warden’s office, my sadness is beginning to share space with my certainty that this cannot be a coincidence. Randy has been in this prison for four years, never once having a problem or altercation of any kind, and the day he is going to talk to us about the murders, he is himself killed.
“There was a commotion in the hallway,” says the warden. “A fight, some yelling, everybody milling around. Clemens wasn’t involved, but it was probably staged so that he could be killed without anyone seeing it happen.”
“So more than one person was involved?” I ask.
“Definitely. It was an organized effort.”
“Suspects?” Richard asks.
“Plenty of suspects, but no evidence. But I can tell you, if something like this happens in here, it’s very likely that Dominic Petrone wanted it to happen.”
Dominic Petrone is the head of what passes for the North Jersey mob, an organization that is still functioning quite effectively. He and Randy Clemens are from different worlds. There is no way Dominic had ever heard of Randy, nor had any kind of grudge against him. If he ordered Randy’s death, it is because he was told that Randy was about to say something that could hurt him.
It has to come back to Linda Padilla and her alleged mob ties. And if it does, and if the mob is somehow involved in these murders, then my client is actually innocent. Too bad my other client had to die for me to realize it.
I drive back to the office, replaying in my mind the last visit I had with Randy. I remember the wariness in his eyes as he looked around the room, the way something caused him to briefly stop as he was leaving. He knew that what he had to say was dangerous, but he was so anxious to find a way out of the prison that he was taking that chance.
I also think back to the words he used, trying to remember them exactly. He referred to the victims besides “the rich one” as “window dressing.” Among the many things I don’t know are how Randy came to know this and why the killer needed “window dressing” at all.
Marcus is waiting for me at the office when I get back, sitting stoically as Edna regales him with stories of her latest triumph. She’s managed to combine and satisfy her two interests in life, crossword puzzles and finance, by discovering various business publications with financially themed puzzles. Marcus isn’t saying anything, which could mean he’s interested or not interested or asleep.
In any event, his characteristic muteness is doing nothing to dampen the conversation. Edna peppers her sentences with phrases like “Right?” and “You understand?” and “You know?” and seems to pretend that Marcus is answering, as she nods and continues.
He has returned from Cleveland, having gathered as much information as he could. There wasn’t much to learn: Daniel was a widely respected member of the press who had no criminal record whatsoever and no known tendency toward violence. The community, from politicians and business leaders on down, supported him through the ordeal. Counterbalancing that, in addition to the detective’s hunch, are some of Margaret’s acquaintances, who say that their marriage was troubled and that she was considering leaving him.
Marcus’s hunch is the same as that of the Cleveland police: He thinks Daniel may have either killed her or had it done. Like the detective, he can’t come close to proving it. It’s just that the inheritance, the troubled marriage . . . these are things that arouse Marcus’s detective instincts. The presumption of innocence is not a concept that Marcus holds dear.
