A Cold Day in Hell Read online

  “I’m sure he’ll be on the prosecution’s list too,” Violanti cooed at him soothingly.

  “I want to know right now if you intend to point the finger at my client as an alternate suspect.”

  “I have no intention of telling you my defense strategy.”

  “It’s despicable. A grieving husband. Have you no conscience?” His round face was rapidly turning a stunning reddish purple.

  “I assume he has cooperated with the police?”

  “Fully.”

  Pouring it on thick, Violanti asked mildly, “Then what could he possibly fear from me on cross examination?”

  Ignoring that, the attorney snapped, “I don’t even know if the district attorney plans to use him at trial.”

  “Exactly why I have to put him on my witness list. You answered your own question. You could have saved yourself a trip, Robert.”

  “You’re a prick, Violanti,” he spat as he got up and grabbed his brief case. “A heartless little prick.” He stormed out the door without so much as a good day.

  Violanti turned to Lauren, who was smirking. “What?”

  “He hit the nail on the head. What could I possibly add?” She laughed and scribbled on her notepad.

  “Mock me all you want, Detective, but now I know I have his camp rattled. I want Anthony Vine furious on the stand.”

  “Oh, I believe you. I know how you work.” She’d been on the receiving end of his shenanigans more than once.

  “Now I’ll let Jennifer Jackson’s attorney stew for a little while.” He reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a fat cigar. “Want one?”

  “No thanks. I’m trying to cut down.”

  “You sure? They’re Cuban.”

  “I can smell it from here. You’re going to stink and smell me up too if you light that thing.”

  “It’s a new world, kid.” He blazed up, curls of smoke encircling his head. “Smelling like a Cuban cigar should be the least of your worries.”

  Lauren made a noise that was somewhere between a cough and a gag.

  He happily puffed away. He couldn’t wait to read Anthony Vine’s statement. Violanti had a little mole over in the DA’s office, a file clerk who knew his aunt, and she’d given him the gist of it. He had people everywhere. Some he paid, some he helped out when they were in trouble, and some did it because they had a grudge. Violanti didn’t care about motives, just results. He would have the statements as soon as the prosecution turned them all over on discovery anyway. It was just nice to be ahead of the game.

  Violanti mulled over what they knew so far.

  Vine said he called his wife around seven that evening and told her he’d be working late, maybe even staying in his office. His personal office was at his headquarters downtown. He said he fell asleep and didn’t get home until six o’clock in the morning. Katherine wasn’t there. He woke the housekeeper, who told him Katherine had left around eight the night before. She had put the boys to bed around nine thirty, when Katherine didn’t come home.

  Violanti found that interesting and wondered if the housekeeper tried to call Anthony. If she did, he didn’t mention it. He made a mental note to add her to the witness list. He also wanted Anthony Vine’s phone records subpoenaed. Violanti wasn’t sure how much that would really tell him. Vine would have an extra cell phone in someone else’s name. Guys like him always did.

  Anthony Vine had said he was just about to call the police when they showed up at his house. They wouldn’t tell him anything there. He was taken to the police station and told the news.

  Interesting.

  “Well?” Lauren prompted, breaking him out of his thought bubble.

  He hit the intercom button on his phone. “Send in Mr. Hoffman, Ruth.”

  Mr. Hoffman did indeed come strolling in, but with Jennifer Jackson in tow. “Ms. Jackson,” Violanti said, trying not to sound surprised. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

  “I’ll do the talking,” Hoffman prompted. As opposed to Vine’s attorney, Mr. Hoffman was thin and sickly looking. His pale skin stretched across his cheeks like he’d had one too many facelifts. The only thing that looked sharp on him were his eyes, dark and beady, like some kind of nocturnal animal.

  Hoffman pulled a chair out for his client with one bony hand. She slipped into her seat meekly, off to the side, while he sat directly in front of Violanti. Clutching her thousand-dollar designer bag, Jennifer Jackson looked on the verge of tears. Her blond hair had been cut severely short, almost to the point of a buzz cut. Interesting, thought Violanti. Her athletic body looked constricted in the black suit she was wearing. She seemed on the threshold of a full breakdown.

  “I’ve received word that my client is on your witness list. She’s a business associate of Anthony Vine, she does not know the accused, and can offer nothing in the way of your case.”

  Violanti smiled. “Are you sure about that?” He handed the attorney the pictures of her and Anthony Vine at his condo.

  Jackson took one look at them, covered her face, and began to cry. Her attorney leaned over and whispered something in her ear. Straightening up, he gave the pictures back.

  “Mr. Hoffman, consider this fair warning. If Anthony Vine gets on the stand and says he was in his office that night, I may have to call Ms. Jackson to impeach him. And I certainly wouldn’t want her to commit perjury by denying their affair.”

  She began to sob; Hoffman put a reassuring hand on her back. “There is no denial to the affair.”

  “Was she with him that night?”

  “We choose not to answer that question at this point.”

  “Because you have to call Vine and get your story straight?”

  “Because Ms. Jackson is a public figure. Her husband does not know about the affair. We aren’t going to make any more statements to you until her personal affairs are in order. If ever. I will have to trust that you use good taste and conscience in making those photos public. I don’t know where you got them, but it’s disturbing to Ms. Jackson and myself that she may have been followed.” He leaned over and whispered something in Jackson’s ear, who nodded emphatically as she tried to control her tears.

  “I thank you for your enlightening photos and fair warning. Consider this meeting over.” Hoffman stood up and held a hand out to Violanti.

  Giving it a pump, he politely averted his gaze from Jennifer, who was going to pieces in her seat. “Always a pleasure,” Violanti said. “Goodbye, Mr. Hoffman.”

  Hoffman didn’t even attempt to shake Lauren’s hand. Just tilted his head stiffly her way and turned his eyes toward his client. He crooked his arm under Jennifer’s, helping her up. She seemed fragile and small, not the confident athlete who was always swinging into Vine’s Gyms. She cried all the way out the door.

  Leaning all the way back in his chair, Violanti put his hands behind his head. “That went well.”

  Balling up a page from her notebook, Lauren tried to make a basket and failed. The random paper sat squarely in the middle of the floor. “She was with Anthony Vine that night.”

  Resisting the urge to get up and grab the paper, Violanti added, “She has every reason in the world to want Katherine out of the picture. Especially if Anthony mentioned to her that Katherine knew about the affair and there was a threat of them being exposed.”

  “Maybe more than Anthony,” Lauren started flipping through the file that she’d amassed on Jennifer Jackson. “Says here she had a two-million-dollar endorsement deal with a sneaker company. Vine was giving her half a million yearly plus a profit percentage to represent his gyms. Her husband is close to a billionaire. She was on the cover of three magazines last month. Should I go on?”

  Violanti shook his head. “No. But for the life of me, I don’t get the attraction between her and Vine.”

  “She could do better,” Lauren agreed.

  Violanti was
still trying to wrap his head around it. “What’s the draw? She has money. Her husband isn’t repulsive. Why fool around with Anthony Vine?”

  “If we could figure out why people cheat on one another, we wouldn’t be working for peanuts in this dump of a city.”

  “True,” he agreed. Then: “And what’s with the hair?”

  “You noticed that too?”

  “I am a man.”

  “Well, that’s debatable.” Violanti was not amused. Lauren shrugged, continuing while relishing the burn. “Maybe some self-punishment. Maybe she knew all this would come out in the wash.”

  “Maybe. This is good. Now we have two possible alternate suspects. If they were together that night, then they have no alibi, not really. Either one could have gone off and done it, and the other would have to cover.”

  “Anthony Vine’s headquarters is in the Larkin Building. I know they have security cameras there.”

  “Got any contacts there?”

  It was Lauren’s turn to smile. “The head of security. Mel Goodman used to be my lieutenant.”

  “I love this town. Make the call.” He pushed his landline toward her, returning the grin.

  Less than five minutes later, Violanti’s face was twisted in disgust.

  “Erased? At whose request?”

  She shrugged as she pushed the phone back across the desk. “One guess.”

  Clutching some papers, Violanti’s secretary stuck her head in the office and he viciously waved her away. Shrinking back, the door closed with a soft click.

  “Is your old boss willing to testify to that?”

  “If you subpoena him, yeah. But I bet he would rather not.”

  “Has Vine ever requested a tape be scrubbed before?”

  “Not in the three years Mel has had the contract. At least, that’s what he told me.”

  “That son of a bitch.”

  “Mel said Anthony Vine’s head of personal security came three days after the murder and had them erase every tape from the week of the homicide.”

  “How could he do that?” Violanti demanded. “He destroyed evidence.”

  “Vine owns the building. And David Spencer was under arrest, not Vine. Mel didn’t think anything of it, really. Why would he?”

  Violanti tapped his pen against his cheek. “Son of a bitch,” he repeated, pleased. “This is getting better and better.”

  Violanti watched as Lauren documented the time and substance of the phone call in her notebook. Later, when she got home, she’d have to type it up and add it to the file. That’s what he was paying her for, after all.

  While she was meticulously making her notes, Violanti sat mulling over these latest developments. He kept tapping his fountain pen on his cheek, on his desk, making little ink blots on his day planner.

  Lauren asked, “How are things with our hormonally driven client?”

  “He’s going stir crazy. Lifting a lot of weights, doing pushups. He’s trying not to dwell on the trial. He just graduated high school for Pete’s sake, he should’ve gotten a reasonable bail. So much for competing with the rich and powerful. Anthony Vine says in he stays and in he stays.”

  “How’s his mom?”

  “On the verge of a nervous breakdown. She realizes there’s only a fifty-fifty chance her son is coming home.”

  “That’s still better odds than when we started,” she pointed out.

  “That doesn’t comfort her. When David’s dad died, she went off the deep end. I’m the closest thing they have to family. This is killing her.” Deftly switching the subject, he went on, “I want your friend Mel in here. I want him on paper.” He hit his intercom button again. “Alice, get in here. I need to revise my witness list for the Vine case.”

  “I’m out.” Lauren stood with her files.

  “Stay within reach. I may need you.” He picked up his cell phone and started to stab the numbers with his finger like he was mad at them. Brushing shoulders with Lauren as she left, poor Alice hurried in still holding the papers she had tried to bring in before.

  49

  Finally in the confines of her home, Lauren poured herself a drink and lay down on the couch. It was getting dark and she was tired. Not ready to go to bed, but tired of the case. Violanti was almost right when he gave it a fifty-fifty; she thought it was really more like forty-sixty to the prosecution. A few sympathetic mothers might hold out. It was hard to say.

  She loved coconut rum, pineapple juice, and milk. Her own fake version of a piña colada. She even bought plastic straws to drink it with. Flicking off the lights, she propped her pillows up under her head and prepared to watch some trashy TV. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed a light. For a moment, she thought Mark was pulling in the driveway. She sat up. A car had pulled in across the street in the Mullins driveway. That house had been for sale forever.

  Drink in hand, she walked over to the window without turning on the light. She didn’t move the curtains but peeked through a crack in the fabric. A dark car was parked far back in the driveway. Its lights were off, making it barely visible. She couldn’t make out the driver. He or she was still in the front seat, the car in park.

  For a hot second she thought Anthony Vine might have hired someone to follow her. She dismissed that. No private investigator would be that obvious. Someone was watching her house, because from that vantage point, her house was the only thing to watch. She waited another minute.

  Time to call the police, she thought as she crept over to the phone. With the lights out, whoever was inside the car had no way to see what she was doing. Lauren dialed 911, told them her address, and said there was a suspicious vehicle in the driveway of the empty house across the street. The dispatcher said they would put it out right away. She hung up and carefully made her way back to the window.

  As if they knew Lauren called the police, the dark-colored car came ripping out of the driveway. The driver had ducked down so Lauren couldn’t make out a face. She tried to get the plate, but it was obscured by something, maybe a rag.

  Within a minute, two police cruisers were at her house. Lauren met them outside. They were young guys, cops she’d never worked with on the street, but who had heard of her. Every cop on the force had heard of her. They took her more seriously than they usually would have. A single woman thinking men were watching her? Normally, it was a blow-off call. But Lauren Riley was something of a police legend, especially now that she was taking on the district attorney. If she thought something was up, these two cops were going to handle it. It made Lauren feel better. She gave them a description of the car and the direction of flight. After they told her they’d check it out and keep an eye on her house, a thought flashed through her mind.

  As the red and white lights of the patrol cars faded around the turn, Lauren wondered what kind of unmarked car Joe Wheeler had.

  50

  Luckily Joe had his police scanner with him. Usually he didn’t bother because with Lauren in the throes of passion, she wasn’t likely to notice his car. Lover boy didn’t come over that night, so she made him right away. He forgot how smart she could be. Thankfully, he had covered his plate after he went through the gates. The security guard didn’t bother with him anymore, thought he was on some kind of long-term investigation. He’d pull through the security gate and drive around the corner then pull over and cover his plate with an old black tee shirt. He never thought anyone would notice him because, to be in the neighborhood, you had to belong there. The guard at the gate said so, right?

  Now he’d have to give up his surveillance of her house. The cops would go right to the gate and see who came in. He wasn’t worried, he hadn’t done anything wrong. If he was asked he could say it was part of the Vine case. He was surveilling Lauren to see if she was meeting with possible defense witnesses. She wouldn’t press it, though. She never had before. The time would have been when he punched her in t
he parking lot. She only called the cops because she didn’t know who it was. He wondered what would’ve happened if she had known it was him. Would she have invited him in? Made him some coffee and talked it out? He didn’t have a wife and kid to go home to. Joe actually had something to offer her.

  Maybe she would’ve taken his hand, told him everything was okay. There was nothing that couldn’t be fixed. He would say nothing, just take her right there. Once she had him again she’d remember why she’d wanted to marry him. She’d forget all the garbage she let get in the way of their love.

  He found himself driving to the strip club again. He hoped his favorite girl was back to work. She hadn’t been there in a while. He was a little rough on her the last time.

  51

  “The Invisible Man wants to see us. He cornered me on the way back up from the gym.” Reese tossed his gym bag in the corner by his desk and wiped his hands on his dockers. His face was flushed from the shower and he still had droplets of water clinging to his close-cropped hair.

  Lauren pulled the cellphone from her ear and hit end in mid-ring. “Right now?”

  “That’s what he said. Both of us. In his office. I literally haven’t seen him around in two weeks. It’s like getting an audience with the Queen.”

  “Okay, then,” she said getting up. “Let’s do this.” She knew that sooner or later the brass would haul her in because of the Katherine Vine case. A million scenarios raced through Lauren’s head, none of them good. The commissioner was pulling the plug on her side work, she was getting transferred, they were both suspended. She dug her fingernails into her palms the entire way to the Invisible Man’s office at the far end of the Homicide wing, almost drawing blood. This had to be bad, very bad.

  Captain Maniechwicz, aka the Invisible Man, was the administrative Homicide captain. Since the squad was supervised on a day-to-day basis by its three sergeants and one lieutenant, all Captain Maniechwicz really had to do was sign off on case clearances, go to high-profile scenes and press conferences, and reassure the commissioner that all was well. It was rare to actually see him in the Homicide wing on a regular working day when nothing hot was going on. It was even more rare that anyone got called into his office. He had a hands-off policy, which he claimed let the detectives do their jobs, but which everyone in Homicide really thought meant absolving him of liability if anyone messed up. He lived by the mantra of plausible deniability.