Sasha McCandless 03 - Irretrievably Broken (20 page)

“Did you see her go in?  Or even go on the porch?”

“No, I didn’t look back,” Nick said.

Some white knight he was.

“I don’t suppose you remember the address?”

“Of course, I do.”

Sasha stared at her client. “You do?  You’re sure?”

“Yeah. I’m sure. I recognized the street name because I’d done some work around the corner about a year ago for a couple who wanted custom kitchen cabinets. The townhouse we went to was two in from the corner.”

Sasha suppressed the hope that fluttered in her chest.

“Let’s go. You can try to sell this to Gilbert.”

Nick put out a hand to stop her.

“But you believe me, right?”

His warm brown eyes searched her face.

She sighed. “Actually, I do.”

Apparently, she had not one, but two, gullible clients who’d been set up by an unknown photographer who knew their character weaknesses.

The trick would be to convince Gilbert.

CHAPTER 34

Detective Gilbert was not convinced.

He threw back his head and laughed. “So, let me get this straight, you weren’t cheating on your wife. You were just a good Samaritan caught in a compromising position.”

“That’s right,” Nick said, earnest and wide-eyed.

“And,” Gilbert went on, “there just happened to be a photographer handy to capture this misleading kiss.”

Nick turned to Sasha, a silent plea for help.

They were back in the stuffy square of a room, the three of them squeezed around the desk, shoulder to shoulder, looking down at the pictures, which Nick had spread out like a fan.

“Don’t you find it odd that there’s photographic evidence of this ... encounter?” Sasha asked the detective. “Doubly so, considering that similar photos exist of the accused husband in another recent death of a Prescott & Talbott attorney?”

She hoped that by easing Greg Lang into the conversation, she could get Gilbert to consider the possibility that the two husbands had been framed without having to say it directly. If she suggested they’d been framed, she knew he would reject the notion outright. If he thought he’d come to it on his own, however, maybe they had a chance.

Gilbert was unimpressed. “Not really. I’d say it’s likely that two women, who happened to be colleagues and close friends, both had their suspicions about their husbands. Either together or separately, they decided to have their husbands followed by a private investigator or, perhaps, the ladies followed them themselves. It happens quite a bit.” He shrugged off the coincidence.

The way he put it, it sounded plausible, even likely, that the dead women had done just that.

“But Ellen Mortenson said she received the photographs anonymously in the mail,” she countered.

Gilbert fixed her with a look. “First, of all, we’re not here about Mr. Lang—this is about Mr. Costopolous. Although I did investigate Ms. Mortenson’s death, that was a separate homicide investigation. The Department sees no reason to link the two deaths simply because the two victims worked together. Second of all, as far as I know, the only support for the claim that Ms. Mortenson received photographs of her husband at the gaming tables in the mail from an anonymous sender is Mr. Lang’s say-so. No offense, but I’m not going to take his word for it. Are you representing Lang, too?” he finished, his voice quizzical.

Sasha ignored the question. “At least check out Mr. Costopolous’s story. He remembers the address. Go to the townhouse and see if it is, in fact, a shelter. See if anyone there remembers a woman matching this girl’s description.”

She picked up the middle photograph, the one with the best angle of the girl, and waved it at him. She’d kept her tone neutral, although she wanted to plead with him. If he didn’t bite, her next move was going to have to be to use Greg to alibi Nick.

Gilbert looked at her for a long moment. Then he shrugged.

“Sure. I’ll send a uniform out to run this down. You and Mr. Costopolous make yourselves comfortable.”

He gathered the photographs into a pile and tapped the bottoms on the table to square them, then left the room.

Nick considered the metal chair. Then he walked over to the wall and slid down it to sit on the floor.

“Why didn’t you tell him I was with Greg?” he asked, hugging his arms around his knees.

Sasha frowned and jerked her head toward the observation window to remind him they weren’t actually alone. Their conversation was almost certainly being recorded.

She was glad for an excuse not to answer him, though. She still hadn’t decided whether it was worth the risk to Greg to use him to alibi Nick, given how little weight that alibi would carry with Gilbert. But, Nick would, understandably, want her to use everything in her arsenal. Her stomach crawled as she considered the ethics.

Nick twisted his mouth into a knot.

“Trust me, okay?”  She patted his arm and then checked her phone.

It was nearly eleven o’clock. This was not how she had envisioned spending her night.

She thumbed out a text to Connelly:
Am running late. Not sure when I will be home. Sorry. Love, S.

Then she played Will’s voicemail. As expected, Cinco had agreed to post Nick’s bail if he was, in fact, arraigned, which she had to admit seemed likely.

She figured the news would cheer her client, so she powered off her phone and said, “Prescott & Talbott will cover your bail if it becomes necessary, the same as they did for Greg.”

Nick raised his dark eyes. They were filled with anger, not the gratitude she’d expected to see.

“I would hope so. It’s the least they could do.”

Sasha considered this statement. She recalled the crushing hours, missed vacations, and broken plans that had littered her years at the firm.

“Nick, were Clarissa’s hours causing a problem between you two?” she asked in a soft voice.

“Not like you think,” he said. “The stress was preventing us from conceiving.” His face drained to white as he realized they had, in fact, conceived.

He swallowed hard and continued, “I mean, it had been. We’d been trying for a while. Finally, we saw a fertility doctor. She told Clarissa her body wasn’t going to allow her to get pregnant while she was working eighty-hour weeks and not taking care of herself. I tried to get her to go to part-time status, but she refused. I finally convinced her to at least take a vacation. We went to Greece in July to visit the fishing village where our parents were born. We snorkeled, met about a million distant relatives, ate too much, and kicked back in the sun.” Nick smiled at the memory, but the smile faded into a frown.

“What happened?” Sasha asked.

“John Porter called. We had scheduled the trip for two weeks, but ten days in, he called and asked her to come back. He had some big filing that couldn’t wait four flipping days and he claimed no one else could possibly handle it in her absence. I told her to tell him to go pound sand, but, of course, she changed her flight and rushed back,” Nick said in a clipped voice.

“But you stayed?”

That wasn’t a great fact if they were going to paint a picture of harmony in the Costopolous home.

He gave her a sheepish look. “I did. I’ll admit I was angry. Hurt, I guess. But when I got home, she sat me down and apologized. She said she realized it was shortsighted. She said ...”  His voice broke, but he went on, “She said having a baby with me was more important. She promised to cut back some, just as soon as the fiscal year ended in August. Her plan was to get pregnant and have the baby next year. And, she did cut back ... a little. Enough, I guess.”

He hung his head. When he looked up his eyes were wet. “Someone killed my wife. And our baby. You have to make them understand it wasn’t me.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Just before midnight, the steel door banged open and hit the wall near the desk.

The air in the small room was suddenly charged. Sasha looked up from checking her e-mail messages on her phone to see Gilbert stride into the room, followed by a baby-faced uniformed officer. She rose from the cheap plastic chair, her legs stiff and slow to unfold.

Nick, who’d been sleeping fitfully on the floor under the observation window, bolted to his feet and looked around, confused.

Gilbert ignored Sasha and headed straight for Nick, stopping when he was about a foot away from him, and pulled a laminated card from his pocket. He nodded toward the uniformed officer, who circled around and stood behind Nick, with a pair of handcuffs dangling loosely in his hand.

“Nicholas Costopolous,” Gilbert intoned, “you are under arrest for the murder of Clarissa Costopolous and Unborn Child Costopolous.”

Nick wheeled around to look at Sasha; as he did so, the officer behind him clasped the bracelets around his wrists. Nick opened his mouth to protest.

Sasha put up her hand like a crossing guard to silence him. As she raced to his side, she said, “Nothing. Say
nothing
, Nick.”

He clamped his mouth shut and nodded.

Gilbert extended his arm straight and held out the card, squinting at the tiny printed Miranda warning, which he surely had memorized at this point in his career. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to speak to an attorney, and to have an attorney present during any questioning. If you cannot afford a lawyer, one will be provided for you at government expense. Do you understand these rights?”

Nick looked at Sasha, then turned back to Gilbert. “Yes.”

Sasha asked, “What about the townhouse?”

Gilbert returned his card to his pocket and said, “Dead end. The address your client gave us is a residence. An elderly husband and wife, Polish immigrants, live there. Despite their minimal English skills, the Milchecks made it clear that they’d never seen the girl and had never heard of the shelter. Officer Dickinson over there showed them a photograph of Mr. Costopolous, as well, and they didn’t recognize him.”

The officer nodded his agreement with this recitation.

Nick was wild-eyed. “But, that’s impossible! She said she was going to My Sister’s Place.”

“Stop talking,” Sasha said. She allowed a sharp edge to creep into her voice so Nick would understand she was serious.

“Here’s an interesting fact about My Sister’s Place,” Gilbert went on. “There is an organization with that name, but it’s not a women’s shelter on the South Side. It’s a group that provides housing and other services for single-parent families in the Mon Valley.”

Sasha looked at Nick for a moment. He just raised his shoulders, confused.

She turned back to Gilbert. “So, Mr. Costopolous was hoodwinked by some girl. That doesn’t really seem to merit an arrest.”

Gilbert gave her a tired smile. “Nice try. The assistant district attorney on call okayed a warrantless arrest. As I’m sure you know, we can hold Mr. Costopolous for up to twenty-four hours before we arraign him.”

Sasha squared her shoulders and summoned her sense of outrage, but Gilbert held up a hand to stop her, just as she’d stopped Nick.

“But, we’re not going to do that, okay?” he said before she could jump in. “Someone in the DA’s office will write up the complaint in the morning and get your client in for his arraignment before lunchtime. I gave them your number and told them to call you and let you know what time. As a courtesy.”

“Oh. Well, thank you,” she said. “So, we can go then?”

Gilbert looked at her for a full thirty seconds before he spoke. When he did, his voice was almost gentle.

“Your client’s going to lockup at the Allegheny County Jail, Counselor.”

Nick’s face stretched into a mask of fear and despair. Sasha had to look away.

Gilbert continued, “Mr. Costopolous will be processed and then placed in the custody of the sheriff at the jail. You should go to his place, get a change of clothes for him to wear for his arraignment, and then get some sleep.”

She shook her head. “I can’t get into his house. Clarissa changed the locks, remember?”

The detective nodded, a slow movement that revealed his fatigue. “That’s right; I forgot. Officer Dickinson, I’ll handle Mr. Costopolous’s intake myself. You escort Ms. McCandless to the residence. Let her get her client a change of clothes.”

“Yes, sir,” the officer said.

Gilbert turned to Nick, “You take any medications?  Wear glasses or contacts?  Anything like that?”

Nick shook his head.

“What about a toothbrush?  Toiletries?” Sasha asked.

“The taxpayers will provide those to Mr. Costopolous free of charge,” Gilbert told her, slipping back into his jaded cop routine.

Sasha patted Nick on the arm. “I’ll see you as soon as I can. Just remember, no talking to anybody. That includes your fellow ... inmates.”  She stumbled over the word.

Nick swallowed hard but nodded.

Officer Dickinson walked around to hold the door open, and she followed Gilbert and Nick out into the hall.

FRIDAY

CHAPTER 35

Sasha stifled a yawn and checked the time. Three-thirty in the morning. She stretched; her back was tight, and the cold night air caused the muscles along her spine to cramp.

She wondered how much longer this could possibly take as she stood on Greg Lang’s front porch and watched Officer Dickinson crawl around in the cab of Nick’s truck.

And she’d been so close to making it home, she thought, as the door swung open and Greg stepped out onto the porch with fresh mugs of coffee for each of them.

“Here you go,” he said, handing her the blasted
I Got Lei-ed
mug.

She wrapped her hands around it to suck up its warmth and took a long, greedy sip.

“Ah, thanks.”

He nodded and raised his own mug to his lips, his eyes locked on Dickinson.

She’d been walking down the steep steps outside the Costopolous’s house under Dickinson’s watchful eye, when his radio had buzzed to life. She was taking her time because she didn’t have a free hand; she had a suit, dress shirt and tie on a hanger in one hand and was carrying a reusable Trader Joe’s grocery bag stuffed with Nick’s dress shoes and clean boxers, socks, and a t-shirt in the other.