Watch Your Back (53 page)

Joseph gave the attorney a sharp look. ‘I’ve got eleven bodies in the morgue. I’m not in a joking mood.’ He turned back to Henderson. ‘We know where you lived.’ A photo of a burned-out apartment hit the table’s surface. ‘And we know what you’ve done.’

Carefully he lined up crime scene photos – the restaurant, Stevie’s front yard, Scott Culp’s house, the hotel where the clerk had been found, and the news cameraman’s car which had blood splattered all over the inside of the windows.

Henderson scanned them all, her eyes returning to Scott Culp’s house with a puzzled frown.

‘And we know who you’ve killed,’ Joseph added. Beneath the crime scene photos, he lined up photos of faces – Elissa Selmon and Angie Thurman from the restaurant, Phin Radcliffe’s cameraman, IA detective Scott Culp, and the young clerk from the hotel.

Again her eyes narrowed slightly at the last two photos.

‘She didn’t do Scott Culp or the hotel clerk,’ Stevie said. ‘I wonder who did?’

On the other side of the glass, Henderson was shaking her head. ‘Who are they?’ she asked, gesturing widely at all the photographs.

‘You mean who are
they
?’ Joseph countered, pulling Culp and the clerk away from the others. ‘This is Scott Culp. He was a cop. Worked Internal Affairs. Sergeant Culp called this number a few hours before he was killed.’ He slid a sheet of paper across the table to Henderson.

Her eyes flickered for an instant. But it was enough.

‘That’s the number they picked up from your stingray,’ Stevie murmured. ‘Mr Backpack, aka Todd Robinette.’

‘
That
number called
this
number.’ Joseph slid another sheet of paper across the table. ‘Who later called you. So, you’re connected to Sergeant Culp.’

Again her attorney laughed. ‘And I’m connected to every person on the planet according to Kevin Bacon. You’ve got nothing, Agent Carter. Charge her with B&E and let her go.’

Joseph ignored the attorney. ‘This young man,’ he said, tapping the photo of the clerk, ‘was found dead behind the desk of the hotel where he worked.’

‘Tragic,’ the attorney said, ‘but he, like Sergeant Culp, has nothing to do with my client.’

‘Your gun killed them, Miss Henderson,’ Joseph said. ‘The gun you carried last night.’

Henderson’s eyes snapped up to stare at Joseph’s face, her cheeks becoming a dull, mottled red. ‘Sonofa
bitch
,’ she snarled.

‘Somebody set her up,’ Clay murmured. ‘My money’s on that trans-Pacific caller.’

‘Miss Smith,’ the attorney reprimanded, her voice like a whip. ‘Say nothing.’

Joseph shrugged. ‘She doesn’t have to. Ballistics said it all.’

Henderson’s jaw clenched. ‘I want a deal.’

Her attorney stayed calm. ‘Miss Smith, if you do what I say, I can get you out of here.’

Henderson’s mouth curved in an ugly smile. ‘I’d last a whole thirty seconds after walking out of here with you. You may consider your ass fired.’ She crossed her arms over her chest. ‘I want a new lawyer. Somebody that I pick out of the damn phone book. And I want a deal.’

‘No deal, Joseph,’ Grayson said into the microphone on his lapel.

‘Depends on what you have to say,’ Joseph said to Henderson, ignoring him.

‘You want Robinette?’ Henderson asked silkily.

‘Maybe,’ Joseph replied. ‘Depends on the price.’

‘I want out of here. I want immunity. I want a seat on the next flight to Sao Paulo.’

‘Gotta hand it to the bitch,’ Stevie said. ‘She’s bold.’

‘More like desperate.’ Clay glanced down at Stevie, considering. ‘She didn’t hire her own lawyer and she doesn’t trust whoever did, probably Robinette. Joseph put Robinette’s home and office under surveillance, but has anyone actually seen him? Could he have been the one who called Henderson from over the Pacific yesterday afternoon?’

‘No,’ Grayson said. ‘Robinette couldn’t have called her because he had dinner with the city manager last night, here in Baltimore. Joseph’s aide has created a timeline of Robinette’s movements over the last few weeks. His PR person is very prompt with his Facebook updates.’

‘Well, whoever called her from the plane probably gave her the gun,’ Stevie said. ‘He must have killed Culp and the clerk with it. I’m betting it was Thing One. Remember how he looked when he came back to find Robinette had broken the necks of those two cops? He knew his boss had lost it. I’d leave the country, too. We don’t need her for Robinette. We’ve got blood and hair to nail him. We want Cocksucker.’

On the other side of the glass, Joseph coughed, then roughly cleared his throat. ‘I was thinking more along the lines of a ply upgrade on the toilet paper in your cell,’ he said, responding to Henderson’s blatant request for safe passage out to Brazil.

Henderson’s eyes flashed rage. ‘I’m not going to prison,’ she stated flatly.

Joseph stood, gathered the photos from the table. ‘I have five victims that say you are. How you live while you’re there is up to you.’ He walked to the door, leaving Henderson fuming.

‘Carter,’ Henderson barked before he got out of the room.

Joseph paused, his hand on the doorknob, brows arched. ‘Yes?’

‘Where did he call from?’

He looked over his shoulder. ‘Who?’

‘Miss Smith, please—’

Henderson pivoted in her chair to face the attorney. ‘You shut the fuck up!’ She turned back to Joseph. ‘You have my phone. I’m no fool. I know you know where the call came from, the one I got yesterday afternoon.’

Joseph studied her for a long moment. Then shrugged. ‘Somewhere over the Pacific.’

Henderson’s lips firmed. ‘He’s your killer and he’s left the country. I can give him to you.’

‘We can still figure him out,’ Stevie murmured into Grayson’s lapel. ‘If he served with her and Robinette, we can cross-reference his name to flight manifests of trans-Pacific flights yesterday. Assuming he flew under his own name.’

‘I don’t need your help that badly,’ Joseph said to Henderson. ‘I have you for three murders – Culp, the clerk, and the cameraman. CSU will find something to tie you to the restaurant. Even if they don’t, you’ll go to prison for the rest of your life.’

Henderson shook her head. ‘Don’t think so. See, Robinette wants your cop. Bad. He doesn’t care who he wastes to get her. She’s gonna live her life on the run, because he’s never gonna stop hunting her.’

Her attorney smacked the table. ‘Miss Smith. Stop this. You’re admitting guilt.’

Henderson didn’t flick the woman a glance. ‘And Mazzetti’s little girl? Todd Robinette would kill the kid and not lose a second’s sleep. He’d laugh, in fact. It would make his day.’

If looks could kill, Henderson would be on the floor, gasping her last.
I want to see you fry
, Stevie thought
.
But she controlled herself because she wanted to see Robinette fry even more.

Joseph leaned against the door, a relaxed smile on his face. ‘Now who’s going to believe that? A man like Mr Robinette, so kind, so generous with his fortune. He funds rehab centers for teens. Receives awards from the city for his good deeds. He’d never kill a child.’

Henderson’s eyes narrowed. ‘Don’t mock me, Carter.’ Then she smiled.

A chill ran down Stevie’s spine. ‘She’s like a fucking cobra.’

‘This is the real Henderson,’ Clay murmured. ‘She’s muscled her way through her cravings for booze.’

‘You think you know Todd Robinette?’ Henderson asked, laughter in her voice. ‘You don’t know jack shit.’

‘This interview is over,’ the attorney said, coming to her feet.

‘Why is she still here?’ Henderson asked mildly.

Joseph was ignoring the attorney, his eyes on Henderson’s smiling face. ‘What do you mean, we don’t know jack shit?’ he asked quietly.

Henderson shrugged, stared at her fingernails. Looked up with a smugness that, if it was an act, was a damn good one. ‘Sao Paulo is beautiful this time of year.’

‘Sao Paulo is beautiful any time of year.’ Joseph opened the door and looked over his shoulder. ‘Too bad for you because you’ll never see it again.’

Tuesday, March 18, 10.55
A.M.

Joseph closed the observation room door behind him. ‘Impressions?’

‘I don’t think she’s bluffing,’ Clay said slowly. ‘She knows something big. She was saving it for last, in case you didn’t rise to the Cordelia bait.’

‘I agree,’ Joseph said. ‘She’s—’

‘Excuse me!’ They turned to see Henderson on her feet, as close to the glass as her chain would allow, the smug smile still on her face. ‘If I get snuffed while in holding, it was Robinette. And as for what he has planned? Let’s just say that the bodies you have piling up in your morgue will be like drops in the ocean. That is all.’ With a little wave, she went back to her chair.

Stevie shook her head. ‘She’s something, all right. She’s afraid to leave with the attorney. I’m of half a mind to make her. Only half,’ she rushed to add when Grayson opened his mouth to protest. ‘Can we get a search warrant for Robinette’s house and business? Maybe we can find out what she’s talking about.’

‘On Henderson’s say so?’ Grayson shook his head. ‘No. We don’t have anything of Robinette’s to compare with the hair and blood we found. He was never arrested for the murder of his wife and his prints and DNA are no longer in the military’s database, either. He and Henderson submitted “proper requests through channels” to have their personal data deleted.’

‘It was their right,’ Joseph said. ‘That, in and of itself, isn’t damning.’

‘But it is damn convenient for them,’ Hyatt grumbled.

‘True,’ Joseph allowed. ‘Simple association with Henderson isn’t enough for a warrant either. It’s her word against his. All we know is that they knew each other in the past. Let’s come back to Robinette later and talk about the third shooter now, the one who probably set Henderson up before fleeing the country.’ He turned to Stevie, amused censure on his face. ‘You have to stop calling the guy “Cocksucker”. I nearly swallowed my tongue.’

But Stevie barely heard him. She was still back on Grayson’s comment, a scene from eight years ago playing in her head with startling clarity. ‘We have Robinette’s DNA.’

‘Where?’ Grayson demanded.

‘In the evidence room.’ She turned to Hyatt. ‘Remember when I was trying to get his case reopened? Silas had closed it, declaring Levi Robinette to have been his stepmother’s killer.’

‘You never believed the boy did it,’ Hyatt murmured.

‘No, I didn’t, but the evidence said otherwise. Robinette must have planted the murder weapon in Levi’s room before leading us there to find it. Todd had a bad smoking habit then, two packs a day. He was always careful not to leave any butts behind or leftover cups of coffee for that matter, but I kept following him until I caught him at a careless moment. One of his employees grabbed him when he stepped outside to smoke – there was a fire in the warehouse.’

‘Lucky,’ Grayson said, a gleam in his eye.

Stevie snorted. ‘Lucky nothing. That employee hated Robinette’s guts. His name was Frank Locke and he worked in the lab. He directly reported to the head chemist who was killed along with Robinette’s wife, Julie. Locke cared for both of them, was grieving them. And he did not believe they’d been having an affair – like whoever killed them wanted it to appear.’

‘He helped you obtain evidence,’ Clay said.

‘He did. I was standing outside, waiting for Robinette to come out. I’d stopped going into the plant to talk to him because he was always “unavailable”.’

Clay’s lips turned up. ‘So you stalked him.’

‘Basically. Anyway, Todd lights up. I’m hiding in the shadows, praying he gets careless when Locke runs up, grabs Robinette’s arm. They have a quick conversation I can’t hear, then Robinette yells, “What the
fuck
have you done?” He throws the cigarette to the ground, puts it out with his shoe, and starts running. Then, when they get to the door, Locke looks right at me. Gives me this look like, “Make this count.” So I bagged the butt, and hightailed it out of there.’

‘So the lab ran it?’ Grayson asked, all but rubbing his hands together with glee.

‘No. Turnarounds were longer then, and he was way back in the queue because it wasn’t a high priority case. Two days later Todd comes in with his attorney, telling us the sad story about Levi. We found the bat that was used to kill Robinette’s wife and her alleged “lover” in Levi’s closet, we confront him, he starts shooting. And then . . .’ She faltered. ‘Then I killed him.’

Clay rubbed her back. ‘He gave you no choice.’

‘Levi was set up. I bought into it. I let Robinette manipulate me, even though I knew in my gut, in my heart, that he’d done it. Now that boy is dead and nothing will change that.’

‘That made you angry,’ Clay said quietly.

‘It sure as hell did.’ Stevie’s voice wobbled and she didn’t care. ‘That’s why I kept pushing to reopen the case. Robinette got away with it. That he’s crawled out from under his rock
now
, that he’s started this vendetta against me for killing Levi? It’s outrageous. The man is insane.’

‘Nobody’s arguing with you,’ Clay said. ‘The good thing is that the cigarette butt you bagged should still be testable, right? We just have to locate it and resubmit it.’

‘I’ll go down to the evidence room myself,’ Hyatt said. ‘I’ll walk it to the lab, make sure they know it’s a priority. We’ll get him this time, Stevie,’ he promised on his way out the door.

Stevie nodded, too raw to say another word. She hadn’t thought about this case in eight years, pushing it into the recesses of her mind along with all the pain of losing Paul. And Paulie.

‘I know how hard all this must be for you,’ Joseph told her, ‘but I need to circle back to the third shooter. I think it makes sense to assume he served with Robinette and Henderson. I think it’s less likely he’s traveling under his own passport, but we’ll check it out.’

‘Unfortunately he has the build of half the men in the military,’ Clay said. ‘Matching a body type won’t narrow it down. We can get an eye color, but his goggles distorted his features.’

Stevie returned to the glass, leaning against her cane, watching as Henderson was escorted out of the interview room. The woman turned her gaze to the glass as she walked by, as if knowing people were watching. The amused confidence she exuded pissed Stevie off, cutting through the numbness into which she’d briefly retreated.