Lisa Scottoline - Running From The Law

“What fingerprints?” I asked him, surprised.

He retrieved some papers from his bed and thrust them at me through the bars. “My fingerprints were found at Patricia’s carriage house. In the living room.”

Shit. I skimmed the affidavit, which stated in general terms what I already knew.

“You know why, Rita, I told you Patricia and I had met there once or twice. But I wasn’t prepared to tell the police why my prints were there. That’s when they decided to charge me.”

Stupid. “Fiske, how could you let them question you without a lawyer?”

He stiffened. “I am a lawyer, and I didn’t commit a murder. I had nothing to be afraid of, I didn’t need anybody to hide behind. And it wasn’t my car either. It couldn’t have been.”

“GARDEN-2? A vanity plate on a vanity car?”

“It’s my plate, but it wasn’t my car. I took my car to work that day. I parked it under the courthouse, in the secured lot. Nobody could have gotten it out but me.”

“But Patricia was murdered at the end of the day and you took it out around five o’clock. The police were underwhelmed by your alibi.”

He faltered. “I went for a drive. I told you that.”

So fucking lame. “Work with me on this, would you?”

“But it’s the truth, I swear it! I went for a drive. I needed to think.” His voice rose, and I considered the wisdom of discussing his alibi here. Or discussing it at all.

“We’ll discuss it later,” I said.

He ran a veined hand through silvered hair. “Does the press know about the witness?”

“I doubt it, but they know you’ve been arrested. They’re outside right now. I tried to run them over but there were too many.”

“So it’s public.”

“Very.”

“I can’t believe this, Rita,” he said, then looked down at his hands. On each fingerpad was a black smudge. “This is a nightmare.”

“Buck up. Your mug shot’s got to be better than your driver’s license. Now, we have to get you out of here. Then I want to cram criminal law. You can quiz me.”

“No. We have to get to the carriage house. I want to see it.”

“What do you mean?”

“We should view the crime scene as soon as possible.”

I knew that. “Wait a minute, Fiske. First I plan to get you out of jail, then I plan to get you acquitted. How I get from point A to point B I haven’t figured out.”

He squeezed the iron bars like a born convict. “But the best way to prove me innocent is to catch the real killer.”

“Take it a step at a time. I’ll bail you out, then I’ll go to the crime scene. You’ll go home and take care of Kate.”

“But I should go with you.”

“Would you take a client with you, in my position? Of course not. At least not initially.”

“But-”

“I call the shots, Fiske,” I said sharply. He looked startled, and I admit I startled even myself. I make it a point to question authority, but I’d never yelled at a federal judge. “Look, I may not know exactly what I’m doing, but I will soon. The only way we can work this case is if you take direction from me. You can’t play my hand for me, got it?”

“Play your hand?” he said, in a way that made it sound stupid and vulgar.

“You heard me.”

He lifted his strong chin slightly. “But you won’t mind if I give you my thoughts, from time to time.”

“Your thoughts are welcome, your orders aren’t. My job is to run the case. Your job is to tell the truth, smile for the camera, and get back to work. You’re not stepping down from the bench, are you?”

“No. The Constitution applies to me as well.”

“Fine.”

“And I am innocent. Do you believe that?”

Sure, except for the witness ID and the license plate. “I’m going to get you acquitted. Isn’t that enough?”

“No.”

“It’ll have to be.”

“But how can you get me acquitted if you don’t believe in me?”

“I’ll act like I do and play the cards as they fall.”

He looked puzzled.

“You don’t play poker, do you, Fiske?”

“You know chess is my game. I dislike gambling, all games of chance.”

“Get over it. It’s time for the short course.”

He looked none too pleased.

After depositing Fiske at home with a distraught Kate, I went to Patricia’s. The carriage house was at the back of a property of at least six wooded acres, set well behind the main house, a white stucco mansion. A winding, paved driveway led from the street through the trees to the carriage house, a tiny clapboard cottage, painted ivory with blue trim. Just the sort of place that would appeal to artists, lovers, and plaintiffs.

I eyeballed the distance from the carriage house to the mansion. A hundred yards. Then the distance from the carriage house to the street. Seventy-five yards, through the trees. The driveway curved close to the back of the main house at only one point. A witness standing at the street or in the house would be able to spot a Jaguar, but would have a harder time identifying its driver with absolute certainty, especially in the downpour we’d had yesterday. I wondered who the witness was. I resolved to visit the owner of the main house as soon as I could.

I looked back at the carriage house. It stood two stories tall and was almost obscured by the grove of oak trees surrounding it. Its first floor was an ivy-covered garage, and a runner of English ivy over the door told me it hadn’t been opened in a while. Maybe Patricia used the garage for storage. I flashed on the painting she testified about at her deposition, the one of me and Paul. Maybe she kept her canvases in the garage.

“Can I get a look in the garage, too?” I asked my baby-sitter, Officer Johanssen. Until the police released the crime scene, Lieutenant Dunstan had decreed I’d need an escort to inspect it, even outside. And each visit had to be logged in, recorded.

“Yes,” Johanssen said.

We walked past the garage and around to the left, to a slate patio where the front door was tucked under a white trellis covered with purple clematis. The door was in good condition, except that its blue paint was alligatored with age and water. How did the killer get in?

“The door doesn’t look damaged, does it?” I wondered aloud, intentionally.

Johanssen said nothing and took a key with a white tag on it from his pocket.

“Were you one of the officers on the scene, right after the murder?”

“No.”

“Have you ever been here before?”

“No.”

A buff Viking with a dark tan, the cop would make a terrific sperm donor if the egg brought the personality. He jiggled the key in the lock, pursing his lower lip. If I hadn’t been there, I suspect he would have cursed. Finally the door swung open, revealing an entrance hall furnished simply, with a painted side table and a carved wooden lamp. A set of colored pencils sat on the table next to a stiff spray of dried pink statice.

“I guess the living quarters are upstairs,” I said.

“Here are the stairs,” Johanssen said. He walked to the left and I followed.

The stairway was narrow and uncarpeted. Johanssen trod heavily in his black shoes and the stairs groaned with each footfall. It was easier for me to watch his heels than to look up to the top of the stairs, wondering what I was going to find. Halfway up I had my answer, because of the smell. A smell I remembered from my childhood. I’d grown up with the scent of blood in the butcher shop, but this blood didn’t smell like an animal’s. It smelled different, primitive as menses. The hot air was thick with it. I felt queasy and leaned on the wooden banister.

Johanssen reached the top of the stairs and looked back over his shoulder. “Miss?”