"Ms. Greco, your attorney is here. We'll give you a few minutes with him, then we'll be back."
"Thanks." Nat rose as Mundy shut the door, leaving her alone with a balding, preppy sixty-year-old in rimless glasses. He wore a red paisley bowtie and a black topcoat that looked like cashmere, and he carried a leather envelope with an expensive patina. He was hardly what she expected, but top criminal lawyers made great money and appearances could be deceiving. For example, she was covered in horse manure.
"Hello, I'm Carter Brooke," the lawyer said. He extended a hand, then stopped in midair with a slightest sniff. "Too bad they didn't let you wash up."
"They couldn't."
"Why not? It's just rude." Brooke's eyes glinted gray as Nantucket Sound.
The question only confused Nat. "They'll have to do a residue test on my hands, to determine if I fired a gun. Though the mud will mask the fact that I haven't, so the lack of residue won't prove my innocence. That's not good." She eyed her filthy hands with dismay. "They want everything according to procedure because they think I shot a cop, which of course, I didn't."
"Right. Let's get down to brass tacks. We don't have much time.' Brooke slid out of his topcoat, revealing a full-dress black wool tuxedo with satin lapels and red paisley cummerbund.
"A tux?" Nat asked, astounded.
"I was at dinner."
"In a tux?"
"A firm dinner." Brooke folded his topcoat carefully, then set it on the cleanest chair he could find, which was none.
"What firm are you with?"
"Dechert."
"Really?" It was one of the best firms in town. For bankers. "They do criminal cases?"
"I do, most of them. I've represented major clients in antitrust probes and SEC investigations, from target letter to trial."
But all white-collar work. "Have you ever tried a murder case?"
"Well, no." Brooke pulled over one of the broken-down chairs. "But this shouldn't be too difficult tonight. We'll get co-counsel if they charge you. By the way, I hear you're a fellow Yalie."
Nat was stumped. "Angus said you were one of the best criminal lawyers in town."
"Angus who?" Brooke withdrew a black Mont Blanc from inside his tuxedo, just as the door opened and the two troopers reentered the interview room.
"Okay, folks, let's get this show on the road." Mundy pulled up his chair, and the other trooper took a chair off to the side, but Nat wasn't finished with her conversation.
"Angus Holt," she said to Brooke. "He sent you here, didn't he?"
"I don't know any Angus, except steak." Brooke sat down, brushed off his tuxedo pants, and extracted a fresh legal pad from his leather envelope. "I was called by your father. Greco Construction has us on retainer."
Oh no. Mr. Tuxedo must've gotten here before Angus's lawyer. "How did my father even know I was here?"
"I don't know." Brooke expertly twisted off the gleaming top of his Pen between thumb and index finger.
"Wait, hold on." Nat turned to the troopers, raising her hand like a Nervous 1L. "Trooper Mundy, this isn't my lawyer."
"What are you talking about?" Mundy glared at Brooke, who stiffened defensively.
"Yes, I am.”
“No, I have another lawyer coming. I want to wait for him." Nat turned to Brooke. "I'm sorry. It's nothing personal." But the other guy will know what he's doing.
"We're not playing games here," Trooper Duffy interjected, his eyes hard. "You have a lawyer present and he's more than qualified. We can't wait anymore, and as long as you're represented, we have no legal obligation to wait." He turned to Brooke. "Are you willing and able to serve as counsel?"
"Certainly." Brooke looked matter-of-factly at Nat. "Maybe I'm not whom you expected, but the sooner we get this started, the sooner you can get home."
Nat considered it. She could probably represent herself at this stage. Hell, even Jelly could represent her at this stage.
Way to go, Dad. "Okay, let's proceed," she said, then braced herself.
Chapter 26
Nat went through the preliminaries as if they were happening to somebody else. She mechanically signed the statement that said she'd been informed of her Miranda rights and had given consent for the troopers to search her car, which had already been impounded. She watched silently as Trooper Duffy set up the black videocamera and aimed it at her, as she sat opposite Trooper Mundy, who was trying hard to reestablish their love connection. He had already brought her a cup of hot coffee.
"Told you," Mundy said, when she took a sip. "If you want me to get you a sandwich that tastes like sawdust, I can do that, too."
Nat shook her head. Brooke settled next to her and started writing on his pad, as did Duffy, who took a seat to Mundy's left, on his side of the fake-wood table.
Mundy began, "Well, I don't pull any punches, Ms. Greco. You're a direct person, and so am I. How about I tell you what we know at this time, and maybe you'll tell me what you know."
"We're listening," Brooke answered, for both of them. "By the way, may I call you Nat?" . "No, Brooke answered again, and Nat thought maybe he'd work out after all. Her gaze shifted to the black lens of the camera, then shifted away. It was making her nervous.
Mundy continued. "Okay, tonight at around 10:35 p.m., one Barbara Saunders was found by her sister, shot, when the sister got home from the movies. Mrs. Saunders was found in the garage, lying on the floor. The sister called 911 immediately, and they appeared quickly on the scene, though Mrs. Saunders had lost a lot of blood."
Nat sensed from his pained expression that he’d been to the garage. She imagined Barb lying there and prayed the kids hadn't seen her.
Mundy continued, "The sister told us that you had been there to see Mrs. Saunders that night. She also told us that you’d been trying to see her since her husbands death. You told Barbara Saunders that you had a message for her."
The week unspooled through Nat's brain, an awful rewind. Next to her, Brooke took rapid notes on his legal pad.
"We looked around and found a large hole in the garage floor." Mundy made a big square with his hands. "In the hole was a will, a videotape, some magazines, and some money. About nine hundred and fifty dollars."
Money?
"We also found some pills on the ground, OxyContin. They were scattered, like somebody had dropped them on the way out." He exchanged a glance with Trooper Duffy, who kept taking notes. "The money was scattered on the ground too, like it had been left behind in a big hurry."
Nat's mind reeled. She fought to keep her mouth shut.
"We searched your car, and we found twenty-three thousand dollars and two bags of OxyContin in your trunk."
"What?" Nat blurted out. "In my car?"
"Did you take those things from the house?"
"Of course not!" Nat responded, getting scared. "This is crazy.
"Is it? Tell me why."
"Look I didn't shoot anyone, much less a state trooper, and when I left the house, Barb was alive and there was nothing in the hole but a will, magazines, and a videotape."
Brooke looked over at her, frowning. "Nat, please don't volunteer additional information."
"So you went to the house, that much is true?" Mundy asked, and his frank brown eyes searched hers, as if he really wanted answers.
Brooke said to Nat, "I'm instructing you not to discuss this."
She kept her mouth shut, but it was killing her. The money and the drugs connected her to a crime she hadn't committed.
Duffy interjected, "If we wanted, we could book you right now for the Oxys. Unless you got a doctor you want us to call."
Nat shuddered. Drug charges. Murder. She would be ruined. She clammed up.
Brooke cleared his throat authoritatively. "It would be imprudent to make an arrest on a drug charge at this juncture, before you had investigated the other crimes."
"Aren't you going to tell me what happened, Ms. Greco?" Mundy asked, but it was Brooke who shook his head.
"No, she isn't.
Are we free to go? This is a waste of her time."
Nat flushed red, and Mundy eyed her gravely.
"Let me tell you one thing, before you go. Some people say a murder case is a puzzle, and they talk about pieces we have to put together. Other people call it a game. It's never those things, not to me." Trooper Mundy shook his head. "I'm a simple guy, and to me, it's simple. You know something I don't. To me, it's about a young man, Trooper Matt Shorney, who was killed. We both knew him, Duffy better than me." Mundy gestured behind him, where the other trooper bent his bald head over his notes. "I want to know what happened to him because it's my job. Simple as that. No puzzle, no game.
Just work. If you know what happened, I'm asking you to tell me. The rest. it's all bullshit."
Brooke said, "I repeat, my client won't be making any statements."
But Nat felt touched by Mundy's words. He was right. This was about something more important than her hide. This was about the truth, and about Shorney and Barb. If she could tell the troopers what she knew, maybe they could still find the killer tonight.
"Trooper Mundy," she said, "before he died, Barb's husband told me to tell his wife there was something under the floor. I went there to tell her, and we looked all night, but we couldn't find what he meant."
"That's enough now." Brooke touched her arm, but Nat shook it off.
"Let me talk to him. I know what I'm doing." She faced Mundy, with the black camera lens over his shoulder. "I saw a man shoot Trooper Shorney."
"You really saw him killed?" Mundy recoiled slightly in surprise, and his eyes widened.
Duffy's head snapped up, and Brooke squeezed Nat's arm. "Please don't say any more," he said firmly.
"A man in a black ski mask shot him. He shot once, then he told me to run, and I did."
"Could you see his face?"
"No."
"What could you see? Anything?" Behind Mundy, Trooper Duffy had stopped taking notes and was folding his arms.
"I don't . . . know," Nat stammered. Gruesome images flashed through her mind. The trooper's hat flying off. The ski mask.
"What do you remember about his build? Tall? Short?"
"Nat, please," Brooke interrupted, but she waved him off again.
"Average."
"What kind of coat did he have on?"
"I don't know. Dark." Nat tried to remember. The only recurrent image was a figure in the rain, behind a gun. "I don't remember.
"Was he white, black, Hispanic?"
"I don't know."
Brooke interrupted again, "Please, what you're doing is against my express legal advice, do you understand?"
"Yes," Nat answered, patting his hand. She could see he'd had the fear of Greco put into him. "Please. It's okay."
"You said the shooter spoke to you?" Mundy asked, regardless. "What did he say? What did it sound like?"
"He said, 'Run, bitch.' He had a normal voice."
"Did he have an accent?" Mundy asked, and behind him, Trooper Duffy's eyelids fluttered, just short of an eye roll.
"No," Nat answered.
"Where did he come from?"
"I don't know. He came out of nowhere, in the rain."
Duffy looked away, but Mundy leaned forward. "What kind of car was he driving?"
"I didn't see a car. He came up behind me, on foot. He shot the trooper over my shoulder. I turned around and saw the gun in his hand." Nat's thoughts raced ahead. "He must have been the one who shot Barb. He must have been the one who put the pills and the money in my car."
Duffy interjected, "You didn't say he had anything in his hand but the gun."
"He didn't.”
“So how did he put twenty grand in your car? And the Oxys?"
Nat felt momentarily confused. "I don't know," she answered, as Mundy fell silent.
Duffy took the lead. "And where'd it come from then, if he didn't have a car?"
"I don't know. I have to think."
"He couldn't run around with that much money, not in the rain. It's quite a bundle."
"I'm not sure how he did it. I have to think." Nat couldn't wrap her mind around it fast enough.
"The cruisers are equipped with an MVR tape, a mobile video recorder," Duffy said with a slight smirk. "But it sure doesn't corroborate your story."
Nat was nonplussed. "That's impossible. I mean, he was there."
"Not according to the camera, he wasn't. The camera shows your back, you facing Matty—I mean, Trooper Shorney—and him going down. It shows no third party, ski mask or no."
Nat tried to understand. "Does the camera show just the drivers-side door?"
"Yes, and the back of your car and your license plate."
"But this man, the killer, wasn't that close. He was on the other side of the car, near the curb. He must have been standing out of the camera range."
"Oh yeah?" Duffy cocked his head. "The camera has audio too, and we didn't hear anybody say, 'Run, bitch.'"
Nat's mouth went bone dry. "He said it. I heard it." Then she remembered. "The rain was so loud, maybe the audio didn't pick it up." She began to feel scared, desperate. "Look, I didn't take money or drugs from Barb's house. I didn't put them in my car. I would never have shot Barb, Trooper Shorney, or anybody." Her words sped up in a panicky way, as Duffy's voice grew colder. "I mean, really, look at me. I'm a law professor. Why would I kill innocent people, or steal drugs and money?"
"I don't know yet, but I've got a couple guesses."
"Like what?"
"For one, you work at a major university. You can sell pills to the students. It's just the kind of candy corn the kids like nowadays.
"That's ridiculous!"
"Is it?" Duffy lifted a sparse eyebrow. "Here's how I see it. Saunders was dealing, on the inside, at the prison. He knew he had a stash under the floor and he wanted his wife to have it. So before he died, he told you the money was under the floor."
"But he didn't." Nat shook her head miserably. Brooke took rapid notes.
"So you go to the house, you tell the wife what her husband said, and she takes you to the hiding place. You shoot her, then take off."
"But I didn't." Nat felt stricken at the very thought. "I wouldn't shoot her for twenty thousand dollars, or for any money."
"Why not? People kill for a helluva lot less." Duffy's eyes hardened. "Or maybe you went there to scare her but you fired. She ends up with two in the chest and you run out with the dough and the Oxys."
Nat's heart began to hammer. Somebody was framing her. Somebody had followed her. Somebody had done all this to shut her down. Who wore the mask? Beside her, Brooke kept taking notes with his shiny pen.
"Then, if you wanna know how it ends, poor Matty pulls you over for speeding, probably, knowing the kind of a guy he was, he's worried about you, going fast on a rainy night." Duffy flinched, his fresh grief evident. "You're afraid he's gonna search your car, or you think he might want to talk about Barbara Saunders, so you shoot him, too."
"That's crazy!" Nat exploded. She had to fight back. "If I had shot Trooper Shorney, why wouldn't I have driven away? Why would I have run into a field?" Next to Nat, Brooke was putting his pen and legal pad away.
"To get rid of the gun. Like David says, you're smart, too smart to drive around with a gun that would incriminate you."
"But look at me, I'm so muddy, I'm a mess," Nat countered vainly. Brooke took his topcoat from the chair, placed it carefully over his arm, and reached for Nat.
Duffy continued, louder, "If you just threw it out of the car, it Wouldn't go far enough. You fell. You're no country girl. We didn't send the ballistics tests yet, but it was a .22 that killed Matty and injured Barbara Saunders. My bet is that it's the same gun, and if we find it in that field, we'll know whose it is. Yours."
Nat felt blood drain from her face. Brooke hoisted her to her feet. She couldn't believe this was happening. Duffy seemed convinced she should be charged. He had developed a reasonable theory, composed of undisputed circumstantial evidence, whi
ch also happened to be completely, horribly, wrong.
The trooper rose to his feet, still talking. "You were driving pretty damn fast when we caught you. A motorist called us when she drove by and saw Matty's body. She had to go to a house to call, she didn't have a cell. If we hadn't gotten that call when we did, you'd be home right now."