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From the Prologue:
The
highway patrolman returned to his cruiser parked along the shoulder of the
freeway, its red and blue roof lights still flashing a pattern of alarm through
the darkness. His legwork was done; the scene had been cleared, and it was now
time to confront the tedium of any wreck investigation — the paperwork.
Switching on the cabin dome light, he placed his field notes on the dashboard
and reached across the seat for the familiar two-page form, then began filling
in the blanks, correctly noting the date and time of the wreck: October 25th,
1:20 a.m. Victims and vehicles were properly identified. Detailed scene
measurements were placed in the appropriate sections.
The official report was
meticulous, but it was also badly mistaken. Not that it was the cop’s fault.
The document was wrong before he even pulled out his pen. The form’s
preprinted title read “Vehicle Accident Record” and that was not what
happened. An accident, by definition, is an unplanned event. Here, every
careful detail had played out perfectly.
Almost.
The intent was for first
responders to discover a lifeless body. That part had gone as expected. He was
found entombed inside the crushed remains of a car that lost control at freeway
speed. The planners had been careful in their execution. They were confident
any routine investigation would conclude it was just another wreck.
Those who knew the victim would
speculate that a fatal lack of attention was to blame. He was, after all, an
exhausted professional, filled with such heavy burdens, alone in his car. But
that would be the end of any talk about what happened or why. The planners were
sure of it. Even those who loved him would ultimately accept that it was simply
an accident that took his life, quickly and tragically, on a late-night highway
that was completely deserted.
Almost.
The woman inside the other car
was, by definition, an accident victim. No one else was supposed to die. The
time had been carefully chosen to avoid such a complication. At that hour, few
cars were anywhere on the cross-town freeway. What an incalculable misfortune
it had been that a rusting Buick would be traveling in the far right lane at
that precise moment. Had it been five-seconds later, the aging Regal would have
been safely past the doomed vehicle. She almost made it.
Almost.
As she approached in the adjacent
lane, the right front tire of the car driven by the planners’ target sprayed
off its wheel hub. The instantly disabled Ford Taurus jerked then swerved,
tilting off axis, its sparking metal wheel hub unable to act in concert with
the steering and sudden change in direction. The left side of the Ford became
slightly airborne, providing just enough angle to throw thirty-two hundred
pounds of automobile onto its side and into the other lane at high speed. Its
vulnerable top was quickly impaled by the woman’s Buick trailing only a few
feet behind, the impact tearing and grabbing the thinner roof of the Ford with
the efficiency of a fish hook.
The changing geometry of metal
caused the Taurus to break free from its attacker and pirouette. But once that
initial spin was completed, the front end of the Buick was again upon it, its
momentum persistent like a crazed fighter delivering a deadly combination to an
opponent’s head. The Ford twirled just halfway after the second hit, its
flattened roof leading the way down the pavement.
Only physics now controlled the
vehicles as they performed a death dance, grinding their way down the asphalt,
traveling over four hundred feet, awash in a sea of sparks, a gruesome
fireworks show at ground level, before they finally came to a rest. Rest! Such
a soft word. In truth, they were halted in the most violent way by a metal
pillar elevating a green highway sign, its reflective characters declaring:
“Exit 183 - 1/2 mile.” The sign now bent downward from the structurally
weakened pylon as if to stare at the confused scene below.
The sunroof section of the Ford
had struck the sign post dead center, causing the hood and rear quarter panels
to partially deform upward around the pylon. The car’s shape had been reforged
by the combination of a fixed object and velocity, a physical testament to
Newton’s first law of motion. It looked like an angry giant force had thrown a
ringer with a horseshoe. The unusual curvature, together with the Buick’s
ninety-degree position at the center of the Ford’s undercarriage, made the
final locations of the two vehicles resemble the Greek letter Psi. Traces of
smoke and steam wept from both like smoldering solder. The force of that final
impact seemed to permanently fuse the metal between them.
Almost.
It took nearly an hour for
emergency and wrecker crews to completely separate the vehicles. The human
carnage had since been taken away, but only after firefighters worked for
twenty-five minutes to get to the victims. It had been necessary to use the
Jaws of Life, a rescue tool hopelessly misnamed in this instance. Long before
the side-panels were finally cut away, there were no lives to save. The intended
victim died of a broken neck; the accident victim from massive internal
hemorrhage.
Death had come quickly. Not that
it made any difference. For the planners, it was the need for the wreck, not
the cause of death, that mattered most.
Almost.
A bigger concern was not getting
caught.
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Excerpts from Chapter 10:
There
is an adrenaline surge that comes when committing a crime, especially for a
rank amateur. The pulse races faster and the senses are heightened. You are “in
the moment” because you have to be. The extraneous pulls of ordinary life are
set aside and concentration must remain laser-focused on only two things:
getting what you want and not getting caught.
Rob Finnegan pulled into the
parking lot of the apartment complex. It was early afternoon on a Friday and
there were lots of spaces. He decided to park close to, but not directly in
front of, the leasing office. His car could not be seen from the manager’s
windows. But if someone observed him walking around and asked what he was
doing, he would claim he was just surveying the grounds before inquiring at the
office about the rent. He wore a business suit because he had come from the
Ruiz funeral. But he reasoned it also made for a clever disguise. No burglar
wore a coat and tie.
He turned off the ignition and
took a deep breath. What am I doing? He sat in the now silent car
contemplating the absurdity of his planned actions. A corporate executive whose
“rap sheet” consisted of only two traffic tickets in the past twenty-five years
was about to commit a Class-A felony. How had it come to this? Maybe
with more time he would have seen the stupidity of what he was about to do and
smartly backed out. But it was already 2:05. There could be no second-guessing
now. He needed to get it done.
He exited his car carrying a
briefcase. In it was a small crowbar, hammer, and towel. His eyes darted left
and right as he entered the courtyard. If he weren’t so scared, it would have
felt exciting. He was like a spy holding a bag full of alarming secrets,
surveying the territory while trying to appear inconspicuous. Just like they
did in the movies.
He saw no one. No one saw him. He
took comfort in the fact that it was a workday. This was a low-end complex
built for the working-class, in a neighborhood that lazy college students and
bored retirees would choose to avoid. The odds were in his favor that few
people were home.
It took a couple of minutes to
locate Slator’s unit. While it was no mega-complex, the four buildings were
arranged at perpendicular angles and the numbering system was illogical,
especially for a nervous man. As he approached the last building his heart
froze. He saw a flash of movement. Someone had turned the corner between the
buildings and was coming towards him! What do I do now? He lowered his
head and kept walking. The man passed. Finnegan turned around to look. It was a
UPS man, the ubiquitous brown shirt and shorts a dead giveaway. The worker’s
hands were empty except for the small device used to record signatures and
drops. The package must have been delivered and he was on his way back to the
truck. Finnegan breathed normally again. To the UPS man, he would just be a
white-collar tenant coming home early on a Friday afternoon. Nothing to
remember. His goal of staying unnoticed was still intact.
Slator’s ground floor apartment
was at the corner of Building 4, the front door facing a small, side parking
lot. Finnegan quickly discovered a setback. There was a sturdy-looking deadbolt
above the locked knob. Even if the door itself was poorly constructed, prying
past two separate locks would be time-consuming and loud. The crowbar was
useless now. He walked around to the opposite side of the apartment and saw an
opportunity. It was probably a bathroom window, opaque and smaller than the
others but large enough to squeeze through. He placed his briefcase down and
turned around, facing an open and empty field. He was lucky that Slator had
chosen a unit in the last building. There were no windows across the way for a
stay-at-home witness to peer from and observe a breaking-and-entering in
progress.
His heart began pounding as he
extracted the other items from the briefcase. He pressed the towel against the
glass to muffle the sound and tapped lightly against it with the hammer. His
first attempts were too gentle. The terry cloth barrier required a firmer
strike. He took a bigger swing and the glass cracked. If the towel dampened the
noise, he didn’t think by much. It was no more than a mild, shattering crunch
but to his guilty ears it sounded like a loud explosion. Finnegan paused to
look around again. Nothing. He used the towel to brush aside the broken glass,
then returned it and the hammer to the briefcase, tossing the closed case
through the broken window. He then lifted himself up and through.
Once inside, he looked at his
watch. It was 2:15. He had planned to be driving away no later than 2:30. He
needed to work fast. He reached into his pant pocket to pull out a pair of
latex gloves and put them on. Every crime show he had ever seen featured a
gloved intruder so he thought it best to pick up a pair at the hardware store.
He was unaware that big city police departments rarely dust for fingerprints in
a routine apartment burglary. They simply fill out a stolen property report and
call it a day.
His search would be swift and
methodical. He wasn’t, after all, looking for cash or jewelry. The objects of
his attention would not be secreted away in drawers or under beds. A computer,
even a laptop, would be open and obvious. If there were a landline telephone,
he would check around for a message machine. He knew there was little chance of
also finding Slator’s cell phone. He would probably have that with him. But
still he would look.
The computer was the most
important item. If Al Harris was right about the data relay, it would have
recorded the plant’s operating problems on the night of the explosion. It most
likely documented any manual override of the safety system. If he could get his
hands on that evidence it would be gone forever, exactly like the computer it
cloned from, which was now just control room trash being driven to a landfill.
The concern over phone messages
came to him in the second of the previous night’s dreams. It had startled him
awake and left him with cold sweats. He spent the rest of the night with eyes
wide open, intuitively testing the hypothesis. Nothing in any computer data
would directly bear his name or reveal his involvement. So why were Slator’s
comments so personally accusatory? He could come up with just three
explanations:
The first didn’t concern him.
Perhaps Slator’s harsh words meant only that he blamed management for pushing
the plant so hard. If that was all there was to it, he could fade that heat.
The huge increase in production was, after all, Thornton Industries’ fault, not
his.
Another possibility was that Dave
Phillips talked directly with Slator after ten p.m. to speak about the override
order and who gave it. But that made no sense. Slator wasn’t taking any calls
that night. Phillips said so, and his own failed efforts to reach Ken after the
explosion suggested that such a conversation was highly unlikely. Logic also
ruled it out. If Slator had timely heard such an idea from Phillips he would
have told him to ignore the order. He would also have called his boss
immediately to say “butt out.”
It was the third explanation that
was reason enough to break into a man’s apartment. If Phillips left Slator a
voicemail or message detailing the override conversation, and Slator played it
back after the explosion, then there existed a recorded indictment. Slator
would not have erased such a message. Like the computer data, it would be
valuable evidence against the President of SeaCoast.
Finnegan’s plan was not to sit
down and examine the hard drive or play back any messages. He would simply
steal the equipment, making it appear like an ordinary break-in. As long as the
computer and answering machine were gone, he figured he was in the clear.
Especially if he also found the cell phone.
The apartment was small but
yielded no treasure. There was no computer sitting out. He looked everywhere a
laptop might be stored. Each drawer was examined and left open. The tiny closet
was upended. The television was pulled aside. He found no landline telephone,
no answering machine. He panicked. It was now 2:25. He started tossing cushions
and pillows in hopes of discovering a carelessly left cell phone. He rooted
through the bathroom medicine cabinet, under the bed, and between the
mattresses. There were no other places to look.
Had he been a more observant
criminal, he might have found the lack of underwear and socks in the dresser
drawers to be curious. The absence of a razor or toothbrush in the bathroom
should have raised a suspicion. Had he not been in such a rush, he would have
noticed that only a couple of items of clothing still hung in the closet. He
also never considered the clear improbability of a man taking his computer to a
funeral. Clues were all around but his quest was far too focused. It didn’t
register with him that there was no trash in the bin, no perishables in the
kitchen, no suitcase anywhere.
He stood in the middle of the
ransacked apartment, shaking. His devious and risky plan had netted him
nothing. It was almost 2:45. He had to leave. There was no time for a second
look. He turned the deadbolt with his still gloved hand, then twisted the knob
below to release its lock. He peeked outside and saw no one. He stepped out,
closed the door, took off his gloves and walked briskly back to his car.
He drove away, thankful he had not
been caught but frustrated by the futility of his crime. To console his sense
of failure, he kept telling himself that the whole foolish enterprise had been
unnecessary. He rationalized that both his worst fears of incriminating
evidence and his darkest suspicions about Slator would each have to be fully
realized in order to make any kind of case against him. The odds were against
that. He had been worried over nothing. His anxiety lifted somewhat as he
pulled into his driveway, happy to begin a weekend at home instead of in jail
for burglary.
A short time later, sitting in his
favorite chair with a strong whiskey in his hand, he replayed the burglary in
his head. His technique had been flawless. It wasn’t his fault the goods
weren’t there. He had been careful. He left no trace. He took a sip of his
drink. Then a thought struck him. The anxiety returned. His hand starting
trembling and he lost his grip. The cocktail glass bounced off the Persian
carpet, ice and amber liquor spilling at his feet and onto the expensive rug.
He had left his briefcase in the
apartment bathroom! It was still sitting exactly where it landed after being
tossed in through the broken window. Stupid, idiotic mistake! He knelt
down to clean up the mess on the floor while rapidly assessing the greater
damage left across town. No name or initials had been engraved on the case.There was no monogram on the cheap towel that laid inside on top of the
hammer and crowbar. The tools were as generic as a loaf of bread.
Dumb, but not disastrous. He
decided it was no big deal. He would lose no sleep over that. Even so, it would
be another difficult night. The ghosts of burnt men would be back.
________________________
They were spent. Saying goodbye to
someone so young, a daughter they loved so much, was both emotionally and
physically exhausting. Joan and Ken Slator returned to the house and collapsed
in the master-bedroom bed. Fully clothed, they embraced and fell asleep. It
marked a change, but they were too tired to comment on it. He had been sleeping
in the guest room since Tuesday when she first asked him to stay.
It had just gotten dark outside
when his cell phone rang at six. They were both still napping. He scrambled to
reach for it on the nightstand. It was the resident manager of his apartment
complex, calling to say they had discovered a broken window and unlocked front
door. The manager had gone inside. She said it looked like somebody had trashed
the apartment. She wanted to know if she should call the police. Slator told
her no, that he would be right over. He hung up and rose from the bed.
The call woke Joan as well and she
sat up.
“What is it, Ken?”
”Some trouble back at my
apartment. I should run over there.”
“Can I help? Do you want me to go
with you?
He leaned over and kissed her
forehead.
“No, stay here. Try to nap some
more. I’ll bring back something for dinner.
She nodded as he remained close.
He kissed her mouth. She kissed back.
Driving to his apartment, he made
a quick mental inventory of its contents: there was a cheap, outdated
television and a crappy mini-sound system that played a single CD and which he
had never used. Those were the “valuable” items. The used furniture wasn’t
worth stealing. The rest of the personal property would probably fit in two
boxes and carry a value at Goodwill of less than three-hundred dollars. There
would be no need to involve the police. Whoever chose to rob his apartment was
probably the most disappointed thief in history.
This was no real crisis
considering the week he was having. He would straighten the place up, then meet
with the manager and offer to pay for the window. He would use the opportunity
to give notice. He wasn’t planning on moving back in. Joan’s kiss had conveyed
a new commitment.
Entering the small apartment, he
was struck by the oddity of the crime scene. The TV and sound system were still
there. Sofa cushions were thrown on the floor, and kitchen cabinet doors and
drawers were all left opened. In the bedroom, the top mattress partially hung
off the box springs, and sheets and pillows were hurled in all directions.
Nothing appeared to have been taken.
He deduced that the burglar was
probably an addict looking for cash or drugs. The thought pained him. How
could anyone let their life descend so badly? Had Melissa resorted to such
desperation in her final weeks? He walked into the bathroom to check the
small medicine cabinet. He knew he hadn’t left behind any prescription medicine
but the mirrored front was opened, a bottle of aspirin and a roll of antacids
still on the shelf where he had left them. He turned and saw the broken window.
It was obviously the point of entry. Glass shards lay scattered on the floor. A
brown briefcase laid flat near the tub.
It wasn’t his. He knew that. He
knelt down and opened it. He removed the tools and towel from the bottom
compartment. The inside top of the case had an expandable file separator for
sorting papers. He felt inside. There was nothing in there. On the front side
of the separator was a stitched pocket for holding pens and a calculator. Next
to it was a smaller stitched pouch for storing business cards.
He saw a tiny corner of white
protruding barely above the top line of the smaller pocket. He reached in and
removed the single card which had been inserted backwards. It was crumpled and
apparently long forgotten. He turned the blank side over and stared at the
print in disbelief. It read:
Robert
E. Finnegan
President
SeaCoast
Chemical Corporation
________________________
It was a Friday night. Doug decided to
forget about Paul Ravich and the Crouch case, at least for the evening.
Tonight, he was going to honor a promise made to himself on Monday: to become a
real friend to the court clerk, Sarah Ash. It was just a casual dinner, a small
way to say thanks for her kindnesses over his short career. But, as things
turned out, she was once again helping him. After a trying week, he needed to
relax with someone pleasant.
She had seemed surprised — or was
she happy? — when he called midweek at the courthouse and asked her out for
dinner on Friday. She had teased “Is this a date?” He responded with “It’s two
friends having a meal. But we’ll be drinking, so who knows?” It was pretty weak
banter, he now realized, but she had accepted. He supposed that attractive
court clerks were used to lame talk from lawyers.
Doug hadn’t been involved in a
serious relationship for the last six years and wasn’t looking to begin one.
His law school girlfriend had been his last committed relationship. A few years
after graduation, they decided their individual careers left none of the time
that true couples need. Since that breakup, he found himself too busy at work
to bother looking for “the right one.” The occasional date or hookup led to a
couple of short-term casual relationships. His professional life was
complicated enough. He tried to keep his social life simple. This date with
Sarah was not an effort to change that. It was just going to be a nice evening
with a nice person.
Sarah had ditched her conservative
clerk wardrobe in favor of a sleek black cocktail dress. It was her Friday
night too. Clothes may make the man, but her outfit made men notice. She was
stunning, her look transformative. The businesslike clerk became the carefree
single girl with only a few yards of black silk and a pair of high-heel pumps.
They talked and laughed over
drinks and sushi. There were none of the usual first date hesitations. They
knew each other. Still, they spent time initially talking shop, trading stories
about lawyers and trials. Nothing too personal was discussed. No revelations
shared. Doug was enjoying the light conversation and she was too.
Eventually, a sense of comfort
took over — aided by the warm saki and cold Japanese beer — and they ended up
sounding more like a couple on a date rather than two people at a legal
convention. He complimented her looks. She said she liked his eyes. They told
each other what music they listened to and chatted about other favorite things.
When she said she enjoyed dancing, he took that as a cue. They left the
restaurant in search of a club.
They danced like it was a
high-school prom. As the night progressed, hands that were joined on the dance
floor stayed clasped as they sat at their table. They began to flirt more and
dance less. She had a great body and was smart and pretty. He was a handsome
gentleman who liked to have fun. They were both very pleased with the way
things were going.
When it came time, they left the
club arm-in-arm. When he walked her to her condominium door, they both knew.
There was no need for frat boy lines. He kissed her. She didn’t engage in any
coy, schoolgirl retreat. She kissed him back. They were both in their thirties.
They no longer had to play games.
“Would you like to come in?” she
asked, as she opened her door.
“Do you think I should?” he
demurely replied, a sly grin betraying his words.
“I think you’d better,” she said,
almost as an order, while pulling him across the threshold.
________________________
“Thank God you weren’t there.”
Joan reacted to her ex-husband’s
account of the apartment break-in. She was worried for him; about him. He took
it as a telling expression of concern. She cared once again.
He didn’t provide all the details
when he returned to the house Friday night. He said only that someone had
broken a window and entered the place, apparently searching for cash or drugs.
He didn’t burden her with the ominous clue he had discovered. Rob Finnegan’s
briefcase was left outside in his car’s trunk.
“These things happen, especially
in neighborhoods like that.”
He spoke as if it were a minor
episode, hoping to conceal his greater concerns. Joan already had enough to
worry about.
She reached across the kitchen
table, ignoring the take-out Chinese he brought back for dinner, and took his
hand.
“Ken, I want you to stay here.
With me. And not just because it’s unsafe over there.”
He looked into her eyes.
“I don’t know what I’m feeling
right now,” she continued. “You don’t either. I just know that I need your
support, your kindness, and I’m grateful that you’re here for me."
He felt tears form but fought them
back. He wanted to remain strong for her.
“So I’ll give it a try,” she said
smiling, “if you want that as well.”
He squeezed her hand gently and
softly nodded as a single tear escaped. She saw it and squeezed back harder,
returning a look of happy wonder. He was not the stoic and distant man she had
divorced. He was again the man she married. Words were no longer necessary.
Through touch and gaze, they silently renewed their vows.
________________________
He woke up late in a much too
comfortable bed. Sarah Ash was standing beside it, wearing a delicate bathrobe
and a conspiratorial smile. She held out a fresh cup of great-smelling coffee
and raised her eyebrows suggestively when he looked at her.
“Good morning, counselor.”
He sat up in bed, tugging the
sheet around his naked chest. The Saturday sunlight brought with it the modesty
that had been tossed aside the night before. He took the cup and grinned.
“Thanks.”
“For what?” she teased.
He laughed. “I appreciate the
coffee too.”
She sat down beside him. “I don’t
normally do things like that,” she began, with a complete lack of remorse. She
lightly brushed at his hair with her fingers. “I’m just a shy court clerk by
day."
“And Wonder-Woman by night. What
got into us?"
She ran her fingers across his
chest. “I found your closing argument to be persuasive.”
He played along. “You were quite
eloquent yourself.”
She responded with a devious grin.
“Well, that could explain why there was so much rebuttal.”
They both laughed hard, each glad
that humor had diffused that awkward first-time, morning-after moment.
Doug took a sip of coffee and
looked at his watch. It was almost ten.
“I haven’t slept this late in
years.”
“You only got five hours sleep.”
She rose from the bed. “I keep track of what lawyers do. It’s my job.”
He nodded appreciatively.
She spun and headed for the
bathroom, talking as she disappeared. “You need to get up and sneak out of
here. I have a reputation to maintain with my neighbors.”
He laughed again as he swung his
feet to the floor. He stood and reached for his clothes piled on a nearby chair
and began dressing. While buttoning his shirt, he heard water running and the
sound of teeth being brushed behind the closed door. As he put on his shoes, he
continued their conversation with a raised voice.
“Hey, if I’m seen leaving, I’ll
just say I’m your brother paying a visit.”
The water stopped and the door
opened. She leaned against one side of the door casing with a playful smile and
pointed her toothbrush at him for emphasis.
“Considering the noise we made
last night, that should confuse them pretty good.
He walked over and put his arms
around her waist. “I really had a great time,” he said, shifting to a more
serious tone.
“Me too.”
He pulled her closer and they
kissed with passion. He then took a step away. Otherwise, they were headed back
to the bed. He smiled and looked into her eyes.
“Um, minty-fresh.”
“You might want to try some
yourself,” she joked, as she lightly pushed him away. “I’ll let you show
yourself out.”
Her sense of humor and easy-going
attitude were even more refreshing than her breath. Sarah Ash, the docile court
clerk, was indeed full of pleasant surprises. He turned to say one more thing.
“I’d like to see you again.”
She gave him an impish look as he
instantly realized how trite those words probably sounded. He tried to salvage
things.
”I mean, maybe next time we could
even talk more."
“And sleep?” she teased.
“Whatever you’d like to do.”
She flashed a radiant smile.
“I’ll keep you at the top of my
docket, Counselor."
Chapter continues…