William Bernhardt - Murder One

Andrea gave her a silent, cold glare.

“Andrea has a bit of a whiny streak. She says she wanted to punish Joe, not to kill him. She didn’t approve of mutilating his body. Wah, wah, wah. She says I seduced her husband, then I seduced her. Made them both do horrible things they should never have done. She says I ruined her life.” She scooted closer to Andrea on the couch. “But you still love me, don’t you, Andrea? That’s what you hate most. You despise yourself for it afterward, but you just can’t resist me.” She pressed her body against her collaborator. Andrea hesitated, but soon her lips were locked with Keri’s for a protracted kiss.

Ben pushed himself away like a man recoiling from a monster. Which he was. “You lied to me. You lied to everyone.”

“I’m afraid that is correct.”

He moved toward the door. “If you think I’m going to keep quiet about this, you’re wrong.”

“You have no choice. You can’t say anything.”

“Watch me.”

“Settle down and think for a minute, Mr. Crusader. What are you going to accomplish here? No one can touch me. As you said yourself, I cannot be retried for the same crime. Never again.”

“They could go after your accomplice, then.”

“Andrea? Based on what? The hearsay ravings of a defense attorney? Which they can’t use in court? I don’t think so. Besides, you know as well as I do that after the D.A. loses a case, they never bring charges against a different defendant. Because to do so would be to admit they were wrong the first time. That they were trying to convict an innocent person. No D.A. is going to do that—certainly not Mr. Politico LaBelle.” She leaned back into the soft sofa. “Face it, Ben—it’s over. If you go flapping your mouth, the only thing you’ll accomplish is getting yourself disbarred.”

Ben’s jaw was clenched so tightly he could barely speak. “I can’t let you get away with this.”

“Uh-huh,” Keri said, bored to tears. “Honey, you don’t have any choice. Tell you what. When you figure out how to get back at me, be sure to give me a ringy-dingy. I’ll be somewhere in the Bahamas, improving my tan.” She laughed, then waved her hand in the air. “Oh, stop quivering in your boots like some outraged moron. You screwed up and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it. So pack up your moral outrage and leave already.” She turned back toward Andrea, her lips parted, her eyes wide and hungry, running her fingers through Andrea’s lustrous black hair. “And close the door behind you.”

51

BEN SAT IN HIS car, staring at the open window on the third floor of the apartment building. His brain was a blur. All the thoughts, revelations, surprises, kept whirling through his head, spinning around him, making him dizzy with disappointment, and worst of all, the inescapable knowledge that he had made a total fool of himself. How could he possibly be so stupid?

Every so often, he would see one or the other of them float past the window. He couldn’t tell what they were doing. Packing, maybe. Having dinner. Having wild and passionate sex. The possibilities were endless.

At one point, he saw Keri’s barely clad figure come to the window, stop for a moment, grin, then move on. Did she know he was there, watching? Was Keri intentionally taunting him, flaunting the fact that there was nothing he could do to stop her? Probably not, but it was making him crazy, just thinking about it.

He pressed his fingers against his temples. He couldn’t keep this bottled up any longer. He had to tell someone. But who? What Keri had said was right: the attorney-client privilege protected everything she’d said, not only the parts that incriminated her, but the parts that incriminated Andrea as well. He couldn’t tell anyone—

Except someone who was inside the privilege. He had a partner now, by God. A member of the firm. She couldn’t tell anyone else, but he could tell her everything.

But how? He didn’t want to stop watching the apartment. He had to make sure Keri didn’t blow town, had to follow her if she did. If she left that apartment, chances were she’d be gone forever.

Slowly, carefully, he considered all the possible options, weighing the ramifications of each.

And then he remembered his mother’s Christmas present.

He popped open his briefcase and pulled out the small metallic gray Palm Pilot. He typed out a message to Christina on the little keyboard. Then he transmitted it to myFax.

After he was done, he turned off the electronic gizmo and put it back in the briefcase. It must be true that confession is good for the soul, he mused. By no stretch of the imagination did he feel good. But he did sense the tiniest alleviation of the awful aching in his gut. The disquietude that ravaged his brain was easing—only a little, but enough that he could almost think clearly.

His eyes, however, remained focused on that third-floor window. He settled back into the seat and waited for his message to be received.

“Ben?”

Mike stepped through the glass doors that led to the main lobby of the office. The doors were locked but fortunately, Ben had given him a key some time ago, when they were working together on an Internal Affairs case.

“Ben? Are you in here?” Probably not. But he had missed their eight o’clock get-together and he hadn’t been at home and he wasn’t answering his phone. It was probably stupid to worry, but Ben had raced out of Kirk Dalcanton’s apartment with a stricken expression on his face, and he did have a profound talent for getting himself into trouble. Look what happened when Mike went out of town for a few weeks. He just felt better when he knew what his friend was doing.

“Ben? Are you here?”

He heard an abrupt beeping sound. A sign of life? He walked to the front desk, the post normally occupied by Jones. So what was the—?

Ah. The fax machine. Someone was sending a late-night message. Probably an advertisement for a 1-900 sex number or something equally important. Or was Ben expecting it? Did this mean he would be here soon?

He glanced at the page spit out by the printer. No, it was for Christina. So it couldn’t possibly—

Wait a minute. He scooped the fax up. He didn’t normally read other people’s messages, but before he’d even realized it was for someone else he’d read more of it than he could disregard.

His eyes quickly scanned the short message. Jesus God—could this possibly be true?

He saw the name at the bottom of the page. This message was from Ben. So it had to be correct.

His buddy was going to be pissed that Mike had read his message. Tough. Mike couldn’t overlook this. He snatched the nearest phone receiver and began dialing.

“Maurice? I need three patrol cars immediately. Here’s the address …”

“Police!”

Mike didn’t give them a second chance. He shouted “Police” again, then knocked down the door.

It was an old door, well worn and probably cheap to begin with. It didn’t take much effort. He swarmed into the apartment, Sig Sauer at the ready. Six uniformed police officers closed in behind him.

“I have a warrant,” Mike shouted, as he glided through the apartment. “A warrant to search, and a warrant to arrest.” He motioned to the officers. “Spread out,” he told them. “Cover the whole place. Fast.”

Mike was the lucky one who burst into the bedroom. He recognized the persons inside immediately. Keri Dalcanton was on one side of an unmade bed, throwing on a white T-shirt. Nearly naked, Andrea McNaughton was on the other side.

The bedspread was thrown off and the sheets were dangling crossways. This bed had obviously seen some spirited action. Clothes were strewn about all over the floor. The room was stripped almost bare; everything was in the packing boxes that littered the apartment.