Heart of a Killer (16 page)

She seemed not to be subject to the rigorous questioning that I was, though perhaps I couldn’t be an impartial judge of that. But in my estimation she emerged relatively unscathed.

When the court adjourned, I saw on the way out that my uncle Reggie had been in the gallery. “Good job, son,” he said. “I’m proud of you. Come on, I’ll buy you a beer.”

“You think we’ve got a chance?”

“Zero.”

I didn’t bother answering; I could do that over the beers. But he was wrong; we had one chance.

Novack.

“Did you ever think I might have a date?” Cindy asked. Novack had come straight to her house, after working in the office until almost nine o’clock.

“I wish you did,” said Novack. “I’m in the mood to kill somebody. Your date would make a perfect candidate.”

“What’s the matter?” she asked.

“I keep turning over rocks and finding things I should have found six years ago.”

“I want to hear all about it,” she said. “Are you hungry?”

He shrugged. “Don’t worry about it. I ate yesterday.”

She laughed. “Come on, I’ll make you something.”

“Have you had dinner already?” he asked, sounding surprised.

“Yes. Two hours ago.”

He looked at his watch. “Boy, time flies when you’re turning over rocks.”

Cindy made him a delicious dinner, out of basically what she had hanging around in the refrigerator. It was a talent of hers, and he had benefitted from it many, many times. They talked about the case, and she made Novack feel somewhat better. It wasn’t so much what she said as it was the fact that she was the one saying it.

After dinner they went upstairs and made love. It left him happily exhausted, as always, and he was very relieved when she invited him to spend the night. But as he was dozing off, he realized that she was no longer in bed with him.

He looked up, and saw her sitting on a chair, dressed and putting on her shoes. “What is going on?” he asked.

“I just realized I’m out of coffee for the morning.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said.

“Oh, I’m going to worry about it. I’ve seen you in the morning without coffee.”

“You’re worse than me,” he said.

“No, but I am bad,” she admitted.

“I’ll go,” he said, but made no apparent move to get up.

“No, I’ll be right back, but I’ll take your car. Mine’s in the garage.”

“Keys are in my pants.”

She took them and went downstairs, then out the front door to the car. She got in, put the key in, and started it.

The car seemed to be racing a little as it sat there, as if she were giving it too much gas, when in fact she wasn’t giving it any gas at all. Thinking that the gas pedal might be slightly stuck, she pumped it once, but it seemed to have no effect, either way.

And without her doing anything, the racing got much greater, until the car was shaking and straining, while simply sitting there. Cindy was by now frightened, and turned the key to the off position.

That also had no effect. And the racing got greater.

She started to get out of the car, to get Novack to help, and saw that the doors were locked. She didn’t remember locking them, but soon discovered that she could not release the lock. Neither the automatic lock on the door or the key worked, and she could not pull up the button on the driver’s side door.

Her fear turned to full-fledged panic when she started to detect a burning smell. The incredible power of the engine had long caused the car to overheat, and had burned up the available oil. She started screaming, as loud as she could, but with the window closed and the car’s engine so loud, there was little chance that Novack could hear her.

But he heard the car. Just slightly at first, barely piercing the oncoming sleep, but finally enough to rouse himself to look outside. He saw the car still sitting there when he opened the window and heard the noise. And saw the flames.

He ran downstairs and out the door toward the car. He took in the situation: Cindy screaming in the front seat, the flames by now engulfing the engine, soon to reach the driver.

He tried to open the door, and called to her to unlock it. She finally realized he was there, turning and making what seemed like a silent scream. The flames were reaching for her.

Novack had nothing to use to knock through the window. He was trained in the martial arts, but never had bothered to master things like breaking bricks.

Or car windows.

Letting out a scream of his own, he smashed in the driver’s side window with the side of his hand. It did not create nearly enough room for her to get out, so he kept hitting it, again and again, clearing away all the glass.

He reached in to grab her, his bloody hand brushing against the steering wheel, and getting burned by the searing heat. If she had her seat belt on he never could have gotten her out, but she hadn’t put it on yet, and with another scream he pulled her through the window and out.

They landed together on the grass adjacent to the sidewalk. He quickly got up and dragged her away as the car became completely engulfed in flames, and exploded when it reached the gas tank.

She looked at him and held on to his neck, sobbing, and he held her until she slowly calmed down. All this as her neighbors, with a car on fire on their street, watched as if mesmerized.

Finally, when she was quiet but still holding him, he said, “We can do without coffee; I think I saw some tea in the cabinet.”

It was one of those weird coincidences that happen in life. I was home going over my written replies to some follow-up questions that the court had given me when I decided to take a break and watch some TV. Skimming through the stations, I hit upon the local news, and my friend Mitch Allen.

Mitch and I went to high school together, and we still played tennis with each other at least once a month. He was an attorney with a small firm in Newark, but liked it even less than I did. The difference was that he wouldn’t quit and walk away, at least not until he found another job. I was still sticking to my decision to leave when the case was over, and the way I threatened Timmerman would ensure my demise at the firm even if I changed my mind.

Mitch was being interviewed, but it had nothing to do with his profession. He was on a suburban street in what looked like the neighborhood where he lived. Behind him, over his right shoulder as if the shot were framed to be that way, was a car that appeared to be totally burned. Firefighters were still hosing it down, though it appeared that while they won the battle against the flames, they lost the war. The car was a smoldering shell.

“I ran out when I heard this noise; it sounded like an airplane engine or something,” Mitch said. “I saw this car with the whole front end on fire. At first I couldn’t tell if there was anybody inside, but this guy was standing by the driver’s side door, yelling like crazy.”

“That was Detective Novack,” the interviewer pointed out.

“Right. I’ve seen him around a lot. Anyway, he does like a karate chop, and smashes the window. Then he does it a few more times, and reaches in and pulls Cindy … she’s my neighbor … out of the driver’s seat and away from the car, just before it explodes. It was unbelievable.”

They then cut back to the studio, where they had Novack’s picture on the screen and they were talking about him. I don’t know what they said, because within ten seconds I was out the door and on the way to New Jersey.

It was past ten o’clock, so there was very little traffic in or out of the city. I knew the way because I had picked Mitch up a few times to go play tennis, and I was at the street in Fair Lawn in a half hour.

The problem was that I was late for the party. The car shell had been removed, the spectators and media trucks were gone, and all that was left to indicate that something might have happened was a single police car parked in the driveway of one of the houses.

I approached the car, which had two officers inside. They saw me and came out to meet me. They did not look terribly friendly.

“I’m looking for Detective Novack,” I said.

“What about?”

“I’d rather not say. We’re working together on something.”

“He’s not here. Call the precinct in the morning.”

“Is there any way to reach him? I really want—”

I was interrupted by a woman’s voice that said, “It’s all right, Officer.” I turned and saw her, standing on the porch.

“I’m Jamie Wagner,” I said to her.

“I know who you are. Come in.”

I followed her into the house, where she introduced herself and poured me a cup of tea. We sat in the den as she told me what happened, crying frequently through what was likely the first time she had verbalized it.

“It wasn’t an accident,” she said. “Someone tried to kill me. It was as if the car had a mind of its own, and it was intent on killing me.”

“It was your car?”

It seemed as if the question jolted her, as if she had just realized what should have been obvious. “No … it was his. It was John they were trying to kill.”

She said that Novack was wherever they took the car; he had insisted that it be examined immediately, to determine how it happened. “When John demands something, it’s tough to refuse.”

“I picked up on that,” I said.

She invited me to wait for Novack to come back. I got the feeling that she didn’t want to be alone, not even with two police officers standing guard in front of the house. If she thought my being there made her safer, her terrifying experience had rendered her temporarily delusional.

We moved from coffee to wine, and she seemed to get more comfortable in the process. It was almost two hours until Novack got back, which made it past one o’clock.

He opened the front door, came in, and saw Cindy and me sitting in the den. He walked over to her, kissed her on the head, and said, “You okay?”

“Yes,” she said, “thanks to you.”

“I’m sorry I got you into this,” I said, to Novack.

“That’s bullshit.”

I nodded. “Yes, it is.”

“I need to talk to the lawyer,” he said to Cindy.

“Anything I can’t hear?” she asked.

He thought for a moment and said, “Of course not.” Then, to me, “I talked to the top auto guy in the department; he looked at what was left of the car.”

“Could he tell what happened?” I asked.

“Not from looking at it; there was basically nothing left. But he had no doubt how it went down. It was the computer in the car.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand,” Cindy said. “There was a computer in the car?”

Novack nodded. “Most people don’t realize it, but for a while now, cars have been run by computers. They’re fairly sophisticated.”

“Could someone have hacked into it?” I asked.

“Apparently so. They would have had to have access at first, but then could have operated it remotely. It’s like those commercials you see on television, where people are opening their cars, or starting them, using their cell phone. So it could have been done.”

“By people who really knew what they were doing,” I said. “I don’t know that much about computers, but they really must be good.”

He nodded. “Good enough to turn a car into a killer. And good enough to create people that don’t exist.”

“And bad enough to be willing to burn someone alive in a car,” I said. “Sheryl Harrison isn’t a killer. These are the people she’s afraid of.”

We were back at the prison at 9:00
A.M.
When Sheryl saw it was both Novack and I, she said, “I think I’ve seen this movie already.”

“Not this one,” I said. “This one ends differently.”

“What does that mean?”

“Someone tried to kill me last night,” Novack said. Sheryl of course had no idea what had happened, so Novack told her. I think I heard his voice crack when he talked about how Cindy was seconds from burning alive, but he covered it quickly, and he’d certainly never admit to it.

When he was finished, Sheryl looked stunned. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” I said, surprised at how protective of her I felt.

“Yes, it is,” said Novack. “It’s your fault because you haven’t told us the truth. But what you don’t understand is that it’s not going to matter.”

“What do you mean?”

“Because if they’re trying to kill me, then it’s because they know I’m after them. And they know I’m talking to you; they probably followed me here today. So whatever you’re afraid might happen if you talk is going to happen anyway, because they think you’re talking. And if we don’t know what it is, we can’t stop it.”

“Sheryl, Charlie was involved in a conspiracy,” I said. “The fake IDs in the safe-deposit box were of people that profited from someone’s death, and those people had died of apparent malfunctions of some type of computer. The same thing would have been done with the ID in his wallet, had Charlie lived.”

“I’m not sure why this matters,” Sheryl said.

“I’ll tell you why,” I said. “All of this had to be the most important thing in his life for at least the last six months. From what I’ve learned about him, he was not the shy, retiring type. He must have talked about it.”

“You’re double-teaming me, Harvard? You’re playing bad cop, bad lawyer?”

“We’re not playing games, Sheryl, no strategy, no manipulations. I wouldn’t do that to you. But the time to tell us what you know is now. For a lot of reasons, later may be too late.”

She was silent for a few moments, which became a full minute. Her lower lip was quivering, and I thought she was going to cry. But she was not any more likely to do that than Novack; she was one tough lady.

“Will you protect Karen?” she asked. It struck me that it was the same concern she had six years earlier, when Novack came to the house to find Charlie and arrest her. She had made sure that Karen was met at school, and taken to Terry’s.

“Absolutely,” Novack said, without any hesitation at all.

She nodded. “I didn’t kill Charlie. I wanted to many times, but I didn’t kill him.”

I wanted to ask, “Who did?” but a look from Novack silenced me. I figured he had considerably more experience than me in getting witnesses to talk, so I took his lead and kept my mouth shut.