“That isn’t what I said, Detective.”
“Maybe he knows something we don’t,” Weiss suggested.
“Yeah,” Landry said. “Like how many bodies Bennett Walker has gotten rid of over the years that we don’t know about.”
“Make a remark like that in front of the press, Detective,” Estes said, “and you’ll be looking for a new profession.”
Landry shrugged as if it made no difference to him.
“Professional poker,” Weiss suggested. “Money for nothing.”
“I thought maybe I’d become a defense attorney,” Landry said to him. “How hard can that be?”
“You’re a very amusing comedy act, Detectives,” Estes said. “Unfortunately, being a buffoon isn’t a trait that will impress a jury.”
“I don’t know,” Weiss said. “Seems to work for most of you guys.”
Paulson cleared his throat. “Mr. Estes, our office notified you as a courtesy. As you can read in the warrant, we have sufficient grounds for the search. Why don’t we get on with it, so it can be completed with the minimum amount of fuss?”
“I would prefer we wait for my client,” Estes said.
“Where is he?” Weiss asked. “Out burying the murder weapon?”
Estes turned to him. “Mr. Walker is an innocent man. He is to be presumed innocent. If you have an obvious bias, Detective-”
“Not at all, Mr. Estes,” Landry said. “We only go where the evidence leads us.”
“What evidence?” Estes said. “You’re here on a fishing expedition.
“We can put the victim here the night she died,” Landry said. “We have a witness who puts your client in the victim’s car, leaving the premises, less than twenty-four hours later. We can connect the car to the site where the young woman’s body was found, and I’m betting we’ll be able to put your client’s foot in the boot that left a print both in the car and at the dump site.”
“My client has a very solid alibi for the night Miss Markova went missing.”
“Mr. Barbaro has recanted his earlier statement,” Landry said.
He had to imagine it wasn’t very often anyone got to surprise Edward Estes, but he had just managed to do it. With information Elena had given him. She would have been pleased.
“That’s news to you, isn’t it, Mr. Estes?”
Estes didn’t respond. He pulled his cell phone from the inside breast pocket of his tailored suit and stepped aside without a word.
Landry smiled like a shark. “Tell your client Elena sends her regards.”
Chapter 51
Jeff Cherry already had his money spent. He knew a guy who worked at a salvage yard that sent a lot of “pre-owned” luxury cars to Russia. The guy had pretty much promised he could get him a sweet little Mercedes convertible for 25K, with a clean VIN.
Sure, he could have put the cash in the bank or paid back the half dozen or so people he owed, but what the hell. He worked hard for his money. Well, yeah, there was a certain right-time-right-place element to it, but on the flip side, he was providing customer service by keeping his mouth shut. Information management, he called it.
He had chosen a public place for the payoff because he wasn’t stupid. He watched enough TV to know better. So he had picked the parking lot at Town Square shopping center. He parked on the side closest to Sal’s Italian Ristorante because he liked their pizza, and he didn’t know if his client was going to be on time or what, so he might as well have something to eat in the meantime.
He was a man with a plan. This payment would be Installment One-to keep quiet about the Russian girl Saturday night. Then he would go for Installment Two, which was really the more crucial piece of information he held. He had kept it in his pocket for a long time-almost a year-and now he finally had found the guts to make it pay off.
With the aroma of tomato sauce and Italian sausage filling his nose, and thoughts of his new ride filling his head, he settled in to eat.
Chapter 52
Bennett Walker drove around, thinking, his head spinning with questions of what he should do, questions about what had happened, what must have happened; imagining scenarios of what might happen, of where it all might fall apart. He had to stay calm. From experience, he knew he couldn’t panic. As long as he kept his wits about him, winning was always possible.
That was how he had to look at it-as winning, not as surviving. That was what Edward had told him years ago.
Easier said than done.
The pressure was on. The press was on the story. Their focus was on him. Never mind that he hadn’t been the only man seen with Irina Markova that night. He was the only man named Walker, married to a Whitaker, who had been on trial for rape and assault in the past.
His voice mailbox had been full for hours with calls from the many people in his life who were angry with and/or disappointed in him. And all of them would be asking him the same question he had been asking himself: How the hell had this happened?
He didn’t have an answer.
If Irina Markova hadn’t challenged him. If she hadn’t been the whore she was. If they hadn’t done so much X. If he hadn’t been drunk…
If Elena hadn’t found the body.
He still couldn’t believe that had happened. Of all the people in the world… No one should have been on that road. No one should have found that body. That the person who had was the one woman on the face of the earth who hated him most was inedible to him.
If Elena hadn’t found the body, none of this would be happening, everyone would have just gone on with their lives. He wouldn’t lave done what he had done to that stupid cunt Lisbeth. He wouldn’t have to do what he was about to do.
He wasn’t a criminal. None of this ever should have happened.
“Damage control, ” Edward had said. “Contain and minimize the damage. ” It would all depend on what the detectives had, on what hey found at the house.
The idea made him sick. It never should have come to this. They didn’t have anything on him. How had they gotten a warrant?
Stick to the plan. Damage control. Contain and minimize.
That was why Edward had gone to the house. That was why Bennett had not. Edward had drawn the attention away with him, blustering about the search warrant. Bennett had stayed, finished is dinner, had a drink, chatted with acquaintances, then left. He had driven out to Brody’s, to the stables where his own string of ponies resided, and changed out of his dinner clothes into jeans and a T-shirt, and his old Blundstone boots. He had a job to do.
He had to concentrate on the things he could do something about.
He turned right off Wellington Trace onto Forest Hill. His stomach was churning.
His memory of Saturday night was fragmented-the early evening images were vibrant, bright, electric; the hours after leaving Players were cloudy, dark. He could remember the sex-the smell of it, the taste of it. He could remember the heat, the rage.
