Cold Day in Hell (30 page)

“What’s this I’m hearing about another phone threat? Do you know anything about that?”

I looked past Kelly and spotted Megan Lamb crossing at the corner. “There’s your chief investigator. Why don’t you go collect some no-comments from her?”

Kelly followed my gaze. “The Lambinator. I can’t figure that one out. She’s gay, you know.”

“Well, hey, you figured that part out.” As Megan angled in our direction, I whispered, “Say something nice about her hair.”

“As
if
.”

Megan came over to us. “Any word?”

“Something about the jury foreperson in a coma,” I said. “Apparent suicide attempt. I just got here.”

“I got the call as I was leaving my apartment. I live just over on Hudson.” She acknowledged the reporter. “Morning, Ms. Cole. Any scoops you’d like to share with us?”

“You took the question right out of my mouth.”

“Has the juror’s name leaked yet?”

Kelly shook her head. “No. Would you care to leak it for me, Detective?”

“Don’t worry. Hospitals are sieves. It’ll come out. When it does, I suppose you’re ready to contribute to the shutting down of this trial.”

“I do my job, Detective. You do your job. Mine is reporting the facts.”

“Sometimes your job makes my job ten times harder.”

“I pass information on to the citizens. That’s how a free society works.”

Megan turned to me. “Little early for a civics lesson, don’t you think? Come on.” She started for the emergency room doors.

“Uck foo you too, sister,” Kelly murmured as I turned and followed.

“You all right?” I asked Megan as we entered the hospital.

“Not relevant,” she snapped.

Bruce Spicer was a man surrounded. Seated against the far wall in a visiting area down the hall from the ICU, he was nearly drowning in members of Marshall Fox’s defense team. Peter Elliott and Lewis Gottlieb stood nearby. A dozen cops, a doctor and several other people I couldn’t identify were part of the cluster. Spicer was talking as Megan and I added to the crowd. Actually, he wasn’t talking. He was railing.

“Why in the world should I
not
speak my mind? My wife has been kept in virtual incarceration for nearly
three months
, forced to undergo torture and abuse at the hands of state-appointed imbeciles who don’t seem to know which hole their heads are supposed to pop out of. Let me tell you something right now, I am
tired
. I am sick and tired and disgusted at the bend-over-backward efforts to so-called protect the so-called rights of a rapist and fornicator and murderer! Who’s nuts here? Is it me? Have I landed on a backward planet? The man is a despicable
sinner
. He is
guilty
of all the charges. Not to mention a whole lot more that the state has been too lily-livered to even bother to
bring
. I’m sick of it. I’m disgusted. I’m fed up. My wife is on death’s doorstep, thanks to
you people
!”

He sent an accusing finger around the room, punctuating the air as he aimed it at every single person present. Even Megan and I got stabbed.

“You are
all
guilty of sending my wife to the grave, if that’s where this ends up. So are those eleven ninnies you saw fit to put into the jury box with her. I’m telling you this: you lawyers—you want some work? It’s coming.
I’m
coming. Are you ready? I’m coming strong. I’ll get you a whole big pile of work to do.” He counted off on his fingers. “I am suing the
city
. I am suing the
state
. I am suing the
ninnies
. And you can damn well be certain I am suing KBS Television and the company that owns it and Mr. Marshall Fox
and
that prostitute wife of his!”

I looked over at Megan and mouthed, “Prostitute?”

Megan answered in a low voice, “You might want to tell that reporter friend of yours. I think that’s a scoop.”

Spicer looked out over his small crowd. “Where are the reporters? I’m sick of talking to you people. I need to speak to the God-fearing Christians out there. Some people with common sense. They need to hear what I’m saying. Those women who were killed last year were whores! Marshall Fox is an indiscriminate fornicator. Let the swine go down with the swine. Why should taxpayer dollars be spent on any of this? Why should my wife be sent to her
death
on account of a pack of godless sinners? Where’s the press? We need to get the word out. Have you got them locked out? I guess they’re in on the conspiracy with the rest of you heathens. I’m sick of it. I’m sick of it all. Ye shall know my strength and ye shall fear my wrath, you sniveling pack of whores!”

Lewis Gottlieb stepped forward. His demeanor was impeccably calm and civil. “Mr. Spicer, I hear all that you’re saying. I honestly do. This is a terribly delicate situation. I feel horrible about what has happened to your wife. Matters should not have been allowed to reach such a point, and on behalf of the court and the state of New York, I want to apologize personally to you and your family. But please, we need to contain the damage here, we don’t—”

Spicer interrupted. “Gottlieb, is that right?”

The attorney inclined his head. “That’s correct.”

“I’ll be suing you, too! Personally!”

The attorney demurred. “What you need right now is to be alone with your wife. This is not the time to be raising a holy fuss. Your wife’s health should be your only concern right now. If there is—”

“My wife’s health had better be
your
concern. All of yours. Is anybody listening to me? I want to talk to the press, and I want to do it right now! What’s going on here? Am I under some sort of house arrest?”

Peter spoke up. “Mr. Spicer, we really do not want this trial to fall apart. The wise thing is to wait until we’ve heard from Judge Deveraux—”

“Him?” You’d have thought Spicer had just stepped on a land mine. “Sweet Jesus and Mary, the man in the black robes. I wouldn’t cross the street to spit on him.”

Lewis Gottlieb had had enough. “You are a contentious low-life little
shit
is what you are.”

As the attorney started forward, Spicer leaped to his feet. “I don’t think any killer of the Lord Our Christ is going to judge
me
one iota.” He grabbed the chair he’d just been sitting in. Before he could lift it, Peter Elliott lunged forward and grabbed hold of it. Spicer tried to yank it free, but Peter had a good grip. With his free hand, he tried to move Gottlieb back, but the elderly gentleman tripped on his own feet and went tumbling to the floor. Spicer cried out.

“Baby killer! Heathen pig!”

Peter sunk his fist hard into Spicer’s stomach. The man doubled over and the police leaped into action, two of them taking hold of Spicer while another one pulled Peter away from him. Spicer continued bellowing, “Heathens! Blasphemers!”

Peter snarled at him, “Just shut the hell up, would you?” as the policeman guided him over to the far wall. Lewis Gottlieb was helped to his feet. He slid into a chair. Spicer was still thrashing to free himself of the police grip, and he attempted to kick the elder attorney, but the police jerked him out of range. Gottlieb waved a freckled hand in the air, like a wizard concluding a spell.

“Please take that man away from here. I’d like to consider assault charges. Please detain him somewhere until this has been sorted out.”

Spit was flying from Spicer’s mouth. “I demand to see my lawyer!”

Gottlieb dusted off the arms of his jacket and addressed the man. “Luckily for you, Mr. Spicer, there are plenty of lawyers who
would
cross the street to spit on you.”

He waved his hand again at the policemen. “For goodness’ sake, take him away.”

LEWIS GOTTLIEB WAS CHIDING his protégé.

“You’ve got to let a man like that put his own fool head in the noose. He’ll do it. He did it. I sacrificed my can, and then you come along and actually assault the damn fool. What in the world were you thinking?”

“I’m sorry, Lewis. It was the slur.”

“Oh, the
slur
. Screw the slur. You think I haven’t lived my entire life on the edge of a slur? I could care less at this point. Especially from a psycho like our Mr. Spicer. The point is that now he can charge
you
with assault.”

“The list of charges Bruce Spicer wants to bring is so long it’ll take him a year to get around to that one.”

“Let’s hope.”

Megan and I were sitting with the two lawyers in the hospital cafeteria. Gottlieb, it turned out, had smacked his elbow fairly hard on the floor when he’d gone down and had injured it somewhat. The attorney’s jacket was hung carefully on the back of his chair, and the left sleeve of his shirt was rolled up to his biceps so he could hold an ice pack to the injury. Peter was looking glum. He knew he’d screwed up in attacking Spicer. Gottlieb’s demeanor was surprisingly wily.

“The trial’s sunk, that’s obvious,” the elder attorney declared. “Bruce Spicer’s big mouth is not going to be denied. And a forewoman with a husband like that? If Fred Willis doesn’t demand that Sam declare a mistrial,
I
will. This is the most hackneyed affair I have ever been involved with.”

Peter groaned. “New trial. I think I’ll just shoot myself now. How are we going to pull that off? The entire country’s been handicapping this one up close and personal. What rock are we going to look under to get an untainted jury at this point?”

“I’m afraid that’s going to be your problem, young squirrel,” Gottlieb said. “I’ve got eighteen holes calling my name, and this time they will not be denied. It would have been nice to add Mr. Fox’s pelt to my collection, the self-righteous son of a bitch. But don’t worry, Peter. The groundwork’s been laid. The country knows what kind of sicko Fox really is. You’ll be fine. Detective Lamb here and Joe Gallo did a superb job of boxing that little prick into the corner, and the evidence isn’t going anywhere. We’ll take some public relations hits, no doubt about that. You’ll get your usual clamor that mistrial means the man must be innocent. Just ignore all that. Don’t get caught up in the sideshows. That’s all an idiot like Bruce Spicer is, a sideshow. And there’s your irony. Spicer hates Marshall Fox’s guts, but all he and his wife have succeeded in doing is giving the man a whole new day in court. Spicer’s got his agenda over here and his brains out in West China somewhere.” He turned to me. “Now that you’ve seen him in action, is my idea so crazy?”

Megan asked, “What idea is that?”

Peter explained, “Lewis believes we should be considering whether Spicer had something to do with Zachary’s and Robin Burrell’s killings.”

Gottlieb interjected, “Not ‘something to do with.’ Stop pussyfooting around, Peter. My contention, Ms. Lamb, is that Bruce Spicer’s our killer.”

Megan turned to me. “You were looking into this?”

“Lewis mentioned his theory to me the day I got dunked in the East River. I haven’t really had a chance to pursue it.”

Gottlieb lowered the ice pack. “We’ve got nothing to contain at this point—not after Nancy Spicer’s gesture. I suggest very strongly that you and your boss look into this. The man’s a fanatical anti-abortionist, and Ms. Burrell admitted on the stand to those two abortions. Not just one but two.”

“What about Riddick?”

“Lifestyle, Ms. Lamb. Our Mr. Spicer is fond of words like ‘heathen’ and ‘fornicator.’ Our dear departed Zachary surely falls into these categories.”

I turned to Megan. “What do you think?”

She steepled her fingers and rested her chin on them. Her gaze bored through the table to the floor below. “Something Spicer said just now. Upstairs…” She let the sentence drift off, unfinished.

“What?”

“Oh my God!” She looked up sharply. “Did you hear it? When he was going on about suing everyone? ‘I’m coming.’ I knew there was something that’s been nagging me.”

Peter’s mouth dropped slowly open. “My God. You’re joking.”

“I’m not. It’s what he said. ‘I’m coming.’ The same voice. ‘Can you taste the blood?’” Megan’s eyes traveled from face to face as the meaning sank in.

Four chairs screeched abruptly away from the table.

HE WAS GONE.

After his rant, Spicer had been escorted from the visiting area to the room that was being readied for his wife. Nancy Spicer had emerged from her coma nearly simultaneously to her husband’s histrionic display in the visiting area, and according to the aides who wheeled her up from the ICU, Bruce Spicer had whispered something in her ear, given her a squeeze on the shoulder and exited the room. A quick search of the floor told us that he was no longer on it.

“I’m going downstairs,” Megan said. “I’ll put in a call from one of the cruisers. He can’t have gotten far.”

Peter wasn’t so confident. “He could be on a subway. He could be headed anywhere.”

“We’ll flood the Port Authority,” I said. “We’ll alert the airports. Airport security will pluck him out in a heartbeat. Don’t worry. He’s stuck in the boroughs. Plus, you saw him. The man’s like a mad chicken. He won’t be able to hide.”

I joined Megan. We took the stairs two at a time. As we approached the hospital’s front door, I had a thought, and I pulled up short. “Allison Jennings.”

“What about her?”

“Spicer called her. He threatened her. We still don’t know why.” I pulled out my cell phone. “I’m going to see if I can get ahold of her. See if the name means anything to her.”

“I’ll be outside.”

I had to track around in the lobby before I could get a decent signal. I leaned up against a wall engraved with the names of financial Samaritans and pulled Allison Jenning’s card from my wallet. Something felt peculiar as I punched in the numbers. Just before the final one—a four—I realized why it felt peculiar. I shifted my thumb over one number and hit the five instead. It picked up on the second ring.

“Kelly Cole.”

Son of a bitch. That was it.

“Kelly, It’s Fritz. Where are you?”

“I’m still outside the hospital, why?”

“I want you to put your hand lovingly on your pretty throat.”

“My…what are you talking about?”