Makeovers Can Be Murder (15 page)

After an uncertain amount of time passed in this drama, the sound of a dog′s barking jerked me into awareness of the world around us. In the house next door to mine, the older lady who heads our neighborhood watch group had emerged onto her lighted front porch. She was holding her Rottweiler by its collar.

″Dear, are you okay? Do you need the dog, or shall I call the police?″ she called to me in a worried-sounding voice.

″No, it′s okay. He
is
the police,″ I replied. ″I′m very sorry for the disturbance. Don′t worry, ma′am. We′re fine.″

Except that we weren′t. We never would be again.

The neighbor′s intervention had lanced my boil′s rage, releasing its pressure. I turned my head away from Jonathan.

″Go on now, Jonathan,″ I said, closing my eyes. ″Just go away.″

When I opened them again, he was gone.

I backed up against the couch and dropped onto it. I remained there for a very long time, dimly aware of the changes of light and cooling air coming through my front door, which was still open a few inches. At some point I must have closed it.

I snapped out of my trance when the alarm clock buzzer in the bedroom went off. It was five a.m.

My gaze landed on the dark red roses that Jonathan had brought with him earlier. I picked them up off the table and cradled them against me for a long moment, inhaling their delicate fragrance. I walked with them outside.

The morning air felt cool and moist against my skin as I headed down the sidewalk in front of my house. Destination: a Dumpster located in front of a house that was being built down the street.

In front of the Dumpster I hesitated a moment, cradling the damp-stemmed roses against me. Their fragrance mixed in my nostrils with the smells of concrete and sawdust from the construction bin. Then I heaved the bouquet into the trash. The roses broke apart in the air, scattering petals into the bin and the sidewalk below.

I walked away.

Chapter 28

Got Dough to Blow?

If you
really
love long lashes, consider investing in eyelash extensions. They last much longer than false eyelashes (four to five weeks on average), and give you round-the-clock glamour.

—From
The Little Book of Beauty Secrets
by Mimi Morgan

 

 

It was Sunday morning at eleven a.m., the time of day when many people in Durham were dressed up in their Sunday clothes, heading to their places of worship to bow their heads in prayer.

Inside Durham County Jail on East Main Street, a much less reverential scene was taking place. Antoine Hurley, accused murderer of Jana Miller, was sitting across from me in the inmates′ visitors room on the opposite side of a plastic partition. He was dressed in the orange scrubs of a county inmate, and his head was bowed. But not in prayer. Antoine was just eighteen years old, and he didn′t look like a murderer. He looked as scared as hell.

Antoine′s lawyer, Miles Goldberg, had arranged for me to bring a videographer to shoot some video of his client. We weren′t allowed to talk through the plastic partition—the lawyer would do all the talking later.

To hear Luke or any other cop describe Antoine, the boy was nothing but a gangbanger who′d killed Jana for easy money. Luke had called Antoine a ″scumbag.″ But that description didn′t jibe with what I was seeing through the divider between us. Antoine had the soft, studious features of a mathlete, right down to the rimless glasses. We sat opposite each other without speaking, which felt supremely weird. In fact it felt almost invasive, like Antoine had been trucked out to be videotaped like some kind of zoological specimen.

Antoine sat motionless for several moments, staring down at the graffiti-scarred desk in front of him. Then abruptly, he shifted to the side and reached into his pocket for something.

I felt a surge of alarm, even though there was a plastic partition between us. Then I realized that the object that Antoine was pulling from his pocket was a piece of paper, not a weapon.

Staring at me with large, liquid brown eyes that were rimmed with black lashes, Antoine held the paper up to the plastic. He flattened it out so that I could read the writing.

In careful, square-edged lettering, the paper said:

An hour later Frank and I were riding in the broadcast truck, on our way to interview Antoine′s mother. They lived in the Centerville projects in east Durham. If you want to get an idea of what the projects are like, take any bad section of town you′ve ever seen, and then quadruple it. Then add streets patrolled by sociopaths carrying automatic weapons. That gives you the flavor of Centerville. It′s the worst of the urban worst. I knew from Jonathan that the cops donned full-body Kevlar armor and brought plenty of backup whenever they responded to an incident in the projects. They always had to be prepared to deal with the M Street Crew gang, which controlled the streets. Allegedly, Antoine was a gunman for that gang.

I had to find out whether that was true.

Chapter 29

″Vanish″ Your Lines with a Klingon Cloaking Device

—From
The Little Book of Beauty Secrets
by Mimi Morgan

 

 

″I know everyone thinks my Antoine is a cold-blooded murderer. But they don′t know my son. Only
I
know him. My Antoine would never, ever kill anyone. He′s a good boy.″

Violet Hurley stared at me across the wooden table. We were sitting in her well-appointed and immaculately clean kitchen. A picture of Christ, his eyes cast upward and hands clasped in prayer, hung on the wall over the sink. Several tall votive candles were lined up on the window ledge. All were lit.

Next to Violet was a trim man who sat on the edge of the kitchen chair at an angle. He radiated intensity. It was Antoine′s lawyer, Miles Goldberg. He was a well-known criminal defense attorney in the tristate area.

Just for the record, I did
not
want to do this story. Lainey had handled all the stories so far about Jana′s carjacking and Antoine′s arrest. In fact, she′d done little more than regurgitate what officials had told her on the record. But Beatty had insisted that I do this one, for some reason. When I objected, orders came down from the GM for me to do the piece. God knows why they had a bug up their ass. Maybe they thought Lainey′s police stories were too soft.

But because this story involved my friend′s murder, I was uncomfortable in the extreme. I′d have to summon up all my objectivity to remain professional.

Frank, who had his camera on a tripod in the corner of the room, was adjusting the lens focus. He gave me a nod to indicate that we were ready to roll tape.

I looked at Violet. ″Mrs. Hurley, why do you think the police arrested Antoine if he′s innocent? ″

″I′ll answer that question,″ Goldberg the lawyer interjected smoothly. ″We believe that Antoine is being blamed for a crime that was actually committed by someone else. By someone in the M Street Crew gang.″

Rolling up a ball of tissue in her hand, Violet said, ″I told Antoine, ′Stay clear of those M Crew boys; you′ll wind up dead. They′re killers.′ I told him and told him. Now look at what′s happened. That poor woman died, her child got hurt, and they′re blaming my son.
My son.
He′s an honor student at his high school. He gets all As. Did the police tell you about that?″

″No, they didn′t,″ I said.

″They never do. Not when they′ve already decided who they want to hang for the crime.″

I looked at Goldberg. ″What about the witness ID?″

Goldberg cast a sideways glance at Violet. ″Are you okay to hear these details, Violet?″

Violet scrubbed the tears off her cheeks with the tissue. ″Please go ahead, Mr. Goldberg. I want to hear everything about my son′s case. The good
and
the bad,″ she said with a quiet dignity.

″Antoine hijacked the Miller′s car; that′s true,″ Goldberg began, looking at me. ″But he was forced to do it. And despite what the police are saying, Antoine didn′t have a gun. Gang members were threatening to kill him and his family. That′s the way that gang operates. Violet filed several complaints about the fact that the M Street Crew had been threatening her and her son. But the police did nothing.″

″That′s right, Mr. Goldberg,″ Violet said, rocking back and forth in her chair. ″If you live in the projects, you′re invisible to the police. Only when somebody gets killed do they bother to show up. Especially when someone from
outside
this area gets killed. I hope you′ll do a story on that someday, Miss Gallagher.″

″It sounds like I should,″ I said.

Goldberg leaned toward me. ″The bottom line is that my client Antoine had nothing to do with killing Mrs. Miller,″ he said, keeping his eyes fastened on mine. ″They forced him to get in that car.″

″Yes. Someone with a gun forced Antoine into that car, and that was the person who later shot Mrs. Miller.″

″Who?″

″It was Mad Dog!″ Violet blurted out the name in a scream.

Covering her eyes with her hands, she continued, ″Mad Dog told Antoine they needed the car to go to a party, and then they were going to dump it. Antoine was afraid not to do what Mad Dog said. Everyone is. Mad Dog will kill you as soon as look at you. It′s terrible out there for young men these days, Miss Gallagher.″

Goldberg glanced at Violet. ″Mad Dog′s real name is Akito Carver. He′s a major narco dealer with ties to Miami cartels.″

Removing a picture from another folder, he pushed it toward me. ″This is Akito Carver. Also known as Mad Dog.″

The photo showed a young African-American male with shoulder-length dreadlocks.

At the sight of the photo, Violet visibly recoiled ″Mad Dog′s a monster,″ she said. ″My son is getting punished for what
he
did.″

I felt sorry for Violet, but so far I wasn′t convinced by what the lawyer was saying about Mad Dog being Jana′s shooter.

″The eyewitness only saw Antoine during the hijacking, from what I′ve heard,″ I said, thinking of Shaina.

″But she didn′t see Antoine
shoot
Mrs. Miller,″ Goldberg said. ″She couldn′t have. The shooting happened a couple of minutes later. And Mad Dog was the shooter. He and a couple of his friends were parked around the corner in another vehicle. And he had the gun. He
always
has a gun.″

″That′s a good story. But where′s the evidence to support what you′re saying?″

Goldberg handed me a folder. ″An independent forensics lab has concluded that the angle of the bullets that killed Jana Miller couldn′t have been fired from inside the car where Antoine was,″ he said. ″They came from outside the car.″

″From the
outside
of the car?″

″Yes. But you won′t hear about any of this from the prosecution′s side—they′ll be testi
lying
all the way through this case,″ he said, using a defense attorney′s portmanteau for police officers′ alleged habit of lying on the stand.

I couldn′t believe the prosecution would let anyone lie on the witness stand, but I was stunned by the report I had in my hand. If it was correct, it was clear evidence that the bullets that killed Jana came from outside her vehicle. How, then, could the police accuse Antoine of killing her?

″Shaina
did
say she never saw a gun in Antoine′s hand,″ I said. ″And she lost sight of the car before she heard the shots.″

″Exactly. And those shots were fired by Mad Dog. He was lying in wait for the car.″

I flipped through the rest of the report. It would take some time to go through all the technical details, but the summary indicated that what the lawyer was saying was true—Antoine couldn′t have fired the shots that killed Jana.

When I looked up from reading, Violet and the lawyer were quietly conferring. I took in our surroundings. The Hurley home was pleasant and well kept, but it seemed highly unlikely that she would be able to afford the services of an attorney such as Miles Goldberg, whose rates started at more than four hundred dollars an hour.

″How′d you happen to take on Antoine′s case, Mr. Goldberg?″ I asked the lawyer.

Goldberg shot me an evaluating look. ″Are you asking whether it′s pro bono?″

Violet straightened up in her chair. ″The Hurley family doesn′t take charity from anyone, Miss Gallagher,″ she said. ″I′m using Antoine′s college savings to pay for his defense. We′ll go into debt—we′ll go broke if we have to—but my boy will have the best defense money can buy.″

″I′m sorry if I seemed to imply anything else,″ I said, chagrined. So much for my theory that Gavin was paying for Antoine′s defense.

By the time we left Violet Hurley′s apartment, the atmosphere in the projects′ central court had a festive feel to it—everyone had heard that the TV news was doing a story about Antoine. Word was beginning to spread that it might be sympathetic to his case.

I planned to do everything possible to make the story fair to both sides. Based on my interview with Antoine′s mother and the attorney, there was an entirely new question to be considered.

Luke had been so positive that Antoine had been the one who pulled the trigger on the gun that killed Jana. Could he have been wrong?

Was Antoine innocent?

Chapter 30

Tanning—a Good Idea. Not!