his sister, cutting off her hands so she couldn’t be identified. Eliot would then wait the three years to get her removed from the will.
“Lassiter, whether on his own or with Eliot’s approval, murdered the other women to deflect attention from the main target, Rosalie. Then, to get revenge against Daniel, Lassiter set him up to be the fall guy. I’m sure he found it fit together quite well.”
Laurie asks, “So the entire time Daniel was communicating with the killer, he knew it was Lassiter?”
I shake my head. “I don’t think so. I think he found out the night of the Padilla murder, which is why he didn’t call the police when he got the cell phone call. I think Daniel went to the park hoping to kill Lassiter himself.”
“So why did Lassiter kill the fifth victim, which let Daniel off the hook?” Kevin asks.
“Here I’m guessing, but I think it’s a good guess. In court the day Calvin let in the murder scene pictures of the previous victims, Daniel asked for their files. I think that’s the day he recognized Rosalie. The day he put it all together.”
Kevin nods and quickly thumbs through the logs showing visitation to Daniel at the prison. “And he saw Eliot at the prison the next day.” I can hear the excitement in his voice.
“Right. Daniel pieced it together and told Eliot that if he didn’t get him off, he would reveal Rosalie’s identity to the world. Eliot had Lassiter do another killing, which ensured Daniel’s freedom.”
“But Lassiter wasn’t about to let Daniel walk away, so he killed him at his house,” says Laurie.
“And then Eliot killed Lassiter so there couldn’t be a link back to him,” says Kevin.
I nod. “Except for Sondra. It’s why Rosalie was killed in her apartment and the place was ransacked. Eliot was looking to eliminate any possible connections between Rosalie and her real family. It’s also why there were two attempts on Sondra’s life; Eliot was covering another base on the chance that she knew something.”
As I’m talking, another piece clicks into place. “You know, Eliot met Sondra in my office, and Willie and I both noticed he was staring at her. What I think he was really staring at was her locket. He recognized it, and it was soon after that he tried to have her killed. Which is why the killer grabbed at her neck.”
We continue talking, and I can feel myself, as well as the others in the room, grow more excited. Eliot wasn’t here out of concern for Daniel; he was here to monitor the situation. It’s why he offered help; he wanted to be as close as he could to the source of information.
We’ve figured it out, I’m sure of it, and it’s a damn good feeling.
It’s left to Sam Willis to bring us crashing down. “So what are you going to do about this?”
For a group with all the answers, we shut up mighty fast. Eliot seems to have covered all the bases; the only ones who could testify against him, Daniel and Lassiter, are gone. Through DNA we can conclusively prove that Rosalie was Eliot’s sister, but we have no concrete evidence at all that he paid for her murder.
Laurie thinks we have an obligation to turn this information over to Captain Millen, and while I’m sure she is right, I want to think things through first. I feel like our advantage, slim as it may be, is that Eliot doesn’t know we are onto him. As long as our information stays within our group, we possess the element of surprise, and I’m not ready to give that up yet.
The group leaves at a little after midnight, and Laurie and I stay up for another hour or so talking about the situation some more. As a longtime criminal attorney, I’ve seen some pretty awful things, but the fact that so many women were brutally murdered as nothing more than a smoke screen sets a new standard.
Eliot Kendall is a scumbag, the lowest of the low, and I am going to bring him down.
All I have to do is figure out how.
• • • • •
MY PLAN IS NOT EXACTLY brilliant, but after twenty-four hours of intensive thinking, it’s the best I can do. I’ve gathered our group together again this evening to present it, first asking if anyone else has come up with anything.
Vince volunteers to “kill the son of a bitch,” but other than that, everyone seems to want to hear what I have to say. So I say it.
“I’ll call Eliot, tell him I want to see him about something related to the case, but I won’t let on that there is anything wrong. When we meet, I’ll tell him what I know, make him believe I have evidence to go to the police, and try and blackmail him.”
“Blackmail him?” asks Kevin, making no effort to hide his incredulousness at my plan. “Why would you possibly blackmail him?”
“So I can get him to incriminate himself,” I say. “I’ll be wearing a wire.”
Laurie seems less impressed than Kevin. “Andy, this isn’t a TV movie. You try wearing a wire, you’ll electrocute yourself.”
Next, it’s Vince’s turn. “Andy, this guy is responsible for at least six murders. He killed Tommy Lassiter himself. What if he decides to make you number seven?”
We kick it back and forth for a couple of hours. Nobody is crazy about my plan, not even me, but the advantage it has is that it’s the only plan we’ve got. We decide to try it, with the understanding that if it doesn’t work quickly and smoothly, we turn everything over to Captain Millen.
“And the press,” Vince hastens to add.
Laurie is going to go to Cleveland with Marcus, where they will await my arrival. Their job will be to listen in on the wire, but more important, to protect me if things go wrong. Which they very well could.
I don’t sleep much, trying to decide how I should approach Eliot. It has to be a matter significant enough to make me travel to Cleveland, but not ominous enough to alert him to any danger.
In the morning I walk Tara and then go to the office. It would seem more natural for the call to be coming from there. Eliot isn’t there when I call, but he gets back to me within ten minutes.
“Andy,” he says, his voice open and friendly, “I didn’t expect to hear from you. What’s up?”
“I didn’t see you at Daniel’s funeral, and I-”
His tone goes somber on me, the grieving friend. “I took it pretty hard . . . I just couldn’t stay around anymore. I mean, after all that he went through, after all you did, after he got
“It was terrible,” I agree.
“Any news about who might be responsible?” he asks, trying to sound conversational.
“Could be. That’s actually why I’m calling.”
“Oh?”
“I have reason to believe Walter Castle may have been behind it after all. I know you had your investigators checking into him, so I wondered-”
He interrupts. “They really didn’t come up with anything important.”
“Maybe so, but maybe it would look different in the light of the information I have. I’d like to fly out and sit down with you about it.”
“It must be important to you,” he says.
“I hate to see a killer go unpunished.”
We make a plan to meet tomorrow evening, and he agrees to my request to maintain “discretion” by meeting at my hotel. I’ve already made a reservation, and Laurie and Marcus will be in the adjoining room. I chose the hotel Marcus had stayed in before; he knows the layout, it’s near a Taco Bell, has no spa, but does have an ice machine.
Laurie and I go out to Charlie’s for dinner, and we talk about everything but the trip to Cleveland. We’ve already worked out the arrangements, purchased the recording equipment, and made our plans, so there doesn’t seem to be anything more to say. In any event, if there is, neither of us wants to say it.
It isn’t until we get into bed that Laurie says, “I’m concerned about this.”
“Don’t be. If I’m too virile for you, I’ll stop and give you time to rest.”
“Let me see if I understand this,” she says. “You’re making a bad sex joke? Now?”
“I didn’t think it was so bad, but it was definitely a sex joke. I thought it was pretty funny.”
“Andy, I’m worried about you. This guy is dangerous.”
“I can take care of myself,” I say.
“Since when?”
