Joel Goldman - Chasing The Dead

“Now. I’m out here on Barry Road where it happened,” he said, giving her directions.

“Can we do it next week? It’s Friday and I’ve had a long week and a longer day that isn’t over yet. I’m on my way home to clean up and go visit Robin’s family.”

“You’ve got all weekend to make your condolence call. I need you out here now.”

More silence.

“You do, don’t you. I like that,” she said, picking up on the urgency in his voice. “Okay. I’m on my way.”

Half an hour later, Alex pulled up behind Rossi’s car, joining him on the shoulder, not saying anything. He watched her study the scene, arms crossed against her chest, looking first at the road, following the tire marks, and then focusing on the damaged tree trunk. He watched Alex’s eyes well up, saw her clench her jaw as her face reddened and she wiped the tears away, taking a deep breath.

“Is that the tree?”

“Yeah. You can take a closer look if you want.”

Alex sidestepped down the embankment, standing in front of the tree, first pressing her palms against the scarred bark, then leaning in, her forehead resting on the trunk, arms wrapped around it. After a moment, she stepped back, brushing her clothing and wiping her eyes again. She walked up the slope toward the road, ignoring Rossi’s offered hand as she reached the shoulder.

“So how did it happen?”

Rossi walked her through it just as Wheeler had done for him, answering her questions, letting her sift through the photographs, waiting until she stacked them together and returned them to the envelope.

“The tire mark, the damage to the rear bumper, and Robin’s speed all make a strong case that someone intentionally forced her off the road,” he said.

“Maybe, but what you’ve got won’t hold up under a decent cross-examination, not without more. All you’ve got is evidence of an accident, not a crime. You’ve got nothing on the other car or the other driver or any motive.”

“We’ll find the car and the driver and we’ll figure out the motive.”

“Try to get it right this time,” Alex said.

Rossi beat back his temptation to take the bait. “I’ll do that.”

“So why did you drag me out here? I can’t help you fill in any of those blanks.”

Passing cars flew by, trailing small plumes of road grit, drivers in a hurry to beat the storm and start their weekend. Rossi leaned against his car as a big-wheeled pickup thundered past, waiting until it had rounded the curve.

“Let me ask you a question. Let’s suppose my theory is right but it’s you in the car. You’re driving like a bat out of hell because someone is chasing you out in the middle of nowhere. You’re scared shitless that you’re going to die. What would you do?”

She cocked her head, furrowing her brow. “Really?”

“Yeah, really. Put yourself in Robin Norris’s shoes. What would you have done?”

Alex sighed, thinking. “I’d lead the asshole to the nearest police station.”

“Okay, but you’ve never been on this stretch of road in your life. You’ve got no idea where you are, let alone where you can find a police station. What then?”

“I’d call 911, tell them what was happening, and ask them to send help in a hurry.”

“That’s what I’d do too. That’s what anyone would do.”

Alex’s eyes widened, her mouth dropping half-open. “But Robin didn’t do that.”

“No,” Rossi said. “She didn’t.”

Alex covered her mouth with her hand. “She called me. Why would she do that?”

“Think about it. What possible reason could she have had?”

Alex turned her back to him, hands on her hips, making a slow circle as she thought, stopping when she was facing Rossi again.

“She knew or thought she knew who was chasing her and wanted to tell me.”

“If it had been you and you knew who it was, who would you have called?”

She nodded her head. “I’d have called 911. It doesn’t make sense. If she knew who was after her, why call me?”

Rossi didn’t answer, wanting her to work it out on her own so she would believe it.

And then it hit her. She slumped against the side of Rossi’s car, bracing herself with her hands, staring down the embankment at the tree.

“She was trying to warn me.” She slapped the car with one hand, bolting upright, facing Rossi. “If she had just wanted someone to know who was after her, she would have called 911. She knew she wasn’t going to outrun this guy. She knew no one could get to her in time to save her. She was trying to warn me. That had to be the reason.”

Rossi kept his voice even and quiet. “Warn you about what?”

She wrapped her arms around her middle, squeezing hard, looking back and forth from the road to the tree. “That this guy was after me too. Holy shit! How is that possible?”

“And that’s why I need your help. What was going on between you and Robin that would make both of you targets?”

Alex dropped her arms to her sides, shaking her head and arching her eyebrows.

“Nothing. I mean nothing except work, but she didn’t work on my cases. She was the perfect boss. All she did was assign them to me and tell me not to fuck them up.”

“Did you socialize with her outside of work?”

“No.”

“Was she having any personal problems that she talked with you about, maybe something about someone threatening her?”

Alex waved off his question. “No, nothing at all. She was my boss. We were colleagues. I didn’t know much about her personal life. And if she was having some kind of problem, she didn’t tell me about it.”

“Then it has to be something connected to work. What’s the most recent case Robin assigned to you?”

Alex knew all about the autonomic nervous system, knew that it was the part of the peripheral nervous system that accounted for involuntary functions like heart rate, perspiration, and pupil dilation, and knew that it was better than any lie detector. She’d seen it in action whenever she caught a witness lying on cross-examination. They’d twitch or tic or their eyes would bug out or they’d look away or down or they’d burn bright red or they’d erupt in flop sweat. One way or another, their bodies would give them away and there was nothing they could do to stop it.

Only the best liars and poker players could suppress the involuntary reactions and facial movements that gave away the truth. She’d learned to do that when it came to Dwayne Reed, but Rossi had caught her off guard, her evolutionary flight-or-fight impulses overwhelming her, sending her heart rate soaring, dampening her armpits, and stretching her eyes as wide as silver dollars. She couldn’t have felt more exposed if she were naked.

“Jared Bell,” she said.

“That’s my case.”

“I know that,” Alex said, willing her voice to remain in its normal octave and not stammer. “You act like you didn’t know I was handling it.”

“I didn’t.”

Alex was relieved as her heart rate began to slow and her facial muscles to relax, hoping without faith that Rossi hadn’t noticed her mini-meltdown. If he was telling the truth, something she never assumed, he couldn’t have been involved in getting Jared’s file to Robin, but she wanted to be certain.

“How could you not know?”

“I never know who’s defending one of my cases until the prosecutor needs me. And why would I care about Bell? The guy admitted to having sex with the victim and we found the crucifix she was wearing at the time she was killed in the back pocket of the shorts he had on when he says he found her body. And he confessed. The case couldn’t be any tighter. Whether you or somebody else pleads him out makes no difference to me. But I’ll tell you what I do care about.”