Simple (41 page)

“Why would she buy that spiel, in the middle of the night?”

“She didn't. But then she kind of thought about it some and she almost believed it. And I was thinking about how do I get to her money before she calls the police. But then she started to scream. I got scared. I was only going to knock her out and run, but she was getting wild so I ended up killing her.”

“Hm. What did you use? Knife? The knife from the door?”

“No. I couldn't think of anything like that. I grabbed her around the neck. I didn't mean to kill her, but somehow I did.”

“Then you ran?”

“Not … right away. I was freaked out to see her on the floor. I think I stood there for a long time to see if she would move. Then I looked for her purse and I found it. I took some stuff out of her purse and then I left.”

“I see. Take it easy. We're listening.” He looked at Dolan. “Detective Dolan might have some questions for you, too.”

“Were you walking, you say? Not driving?”

“No, I drove down. I walked around on a different day, when I was parked at Sestili's.”

“Right. Okay. Got it. What kind of car do you have? You have an owner's card?”

“It's on its last legs. I don't have any money.”

“Can we see your card?”

The man removed a card from his wallet. It showed he owned a Garnet Red Oldsmobile, 1990.

“Is this a bright red?”

“No, it's more like a maroon color.”

“Thanks,” Dolan said. “Thanks for being so cooperative. Do you remember by any chance what you were wearing?”

“Just old clothes.”

“Could we see them?”

“I threw them out the next morning.”

“Why?”

“I don't know. They gave me the creeps.”

“What were these clothes—do you remember them?”

“Gray pants. Gray sweatshirt with hood.”

“Good, good. And what exactly did you take from her purse?”

“Her wallet. Oh, and her phone. I thought it might have minutes on it.”

“What did you do with these things?”

“I spent the money. I kept the other things.”

“Why would you keep them?”

“I was scared to throw them out. I thought what if somebody sees me or something.”

“And you still have those things?”

“No.”

“Where are they?”

“You had that guy accused. So I put them in his garbage.”

“But what about the photographs?”

“I don't know anything about photographs.”

“In the wallet?”

“I didn't see any. Maybe they dropped somewhere. I was pretty shaky.”

“Mr. Santini, did you strangle the woman, Cassie Price, with your bare hands?”

“With my hands, yes.”

“Were you wearing anything on your hands?”

“My wife, when she was alive, she used to dye her hair. I ended up wearing her plastic gloves. When I was doing the lock … I was worried they would tear so I put on these gloves I saw on the back porch.”

Letter perfect, Christie thought. He raised his eyebrows to Dolan.

“We certainly appreciate you taking the time to come in and tell us,” Christie said.

“Did you take down my confession? You weren't writing.”

“It's on camera.”

“Oh. Good, then.”

“Mr. Santini? Why did you go to so much trouble to hide your tracks and then change your mind and come in here? Why did you plant evidence in someone else's property and then come in to confess?”

Santini nodded. “I know. I did, like you say, hide my tracks. It was all I could think at first—get away with it and go to church a lot. Then I felt bad that a young guy was going to die for me, but I still just kept quiet. Only … when I saw it on the news and a second guy was arrested, I don't know, something happened in my head. I couldn't stay quiet anymore. I couldn't stand myself, knowing what I did. Jail isn't so bad. Three squares a day.”

“You've been in jail before?”

“Once. A long time ago I did a pretty good stint. And then like five years ago, but it was brief that time.”

“What were you incarcerated for?'

“Robbery.”

“And you're willing to do jail time again?”

“Yes.”

“By the way, are you left- or right-handed?”

“Kind of both.”

“I see. We're going to swab you for DNA, a couple of other things. Then you're free to go until we contact you.”

Santini frowned. “You're not going to arrest me?”

“Probably not today.”

“I thought you'd want to arrest me.”

“There's time. You're looking pretty weak. Have you eaten?”

“No.”

“Your wife died, you said. You have somebody to take care of you?”

“I live alone.”

“A friend, a girlfriend?”

“I'm mostly alone.”

“Well, I'm concerned. You don't look well. Could we get you to your doctor?”

“That's okay. What … what do I do next?”

“Just relax. We'll do a few things and get back to you. Can we get you something to eat?”

“I don't eat.”

“Ever?”

“Just soft things.”

“I saw some deadly doughnuts out in the office. They're soft. We'll cadge one of them.”

While the inner core gathered in Christie's office, Christie, all politesse, served Frank Santini a doughnut and more coffee.

*   *   *

COLLEEN LOOKED AT
the others and had to laugh to think she probably looked like they did—bug-eyed, waiting for Christie to return.

“It's too perfect,” Dolan said. “He answered every point.”

“Polygraph will tell us something,” she said.

“It better,” Dolan answered. “You noticed, he wants to be arrested.”

“What do we
think
happened?”

“There's a virus going around—false confessions,” Potocki said whimsically.

Hurwitz blurted, “What if he did it? What if we're missing the obvious?”

Christie strode in. “Three possibilities. One: He did it. Two: Todd Simon is paying off Santini to confess and has given him all the points. Three: Someone else, not Simon, is responsible for paying and instructing. So now”—he clapped his hands to his head and laughed—“we have to investigate Santini! I asked for his doctor. That is one sick man. If we have to bring a doctor in for an opinion, we will. We'll swab. We'll do the lie detector. We'll probably send Santini home and let him stew. Something will come of the stewing. Dolan, I want you to go to his doctor and his bank; Potocki, get me his priors, his acquaintances, and his family history; Hurwitz and Denman, cover the man's house—see if anybody comes to see him. Start the paperwork for his phone records. Greer, back to Simon's house.”

“Okay, Boss. You're not letting Simon out, are you?”

“Not on your tintype.” He paused. “I'm going to ask Connolly if Haigh ever knew Santini.”

“Wasn't he something?” Potocki asked, admiringly. “Santini.”

“Not a bad actor, my wife would say. A sad man, I thought. What's the sadness about—guilt or health or what?”

“He's dying,” Potocki said. “I've seen it before. He's late stage. He either loves Todd Simon or he was desperate for money.”

“You can't spend that much in the prison commissary,” Dolan cracked.

“He's at the end,” Potocki said. “The money is for someone else.”

*   *   *

“IT'S A MATTER OF
time,” Morty Silber says to Simon in the interview room on Thursday morning. “You'll be free, as you rightly should be. By now there's been a confession. A full confession from the person who did this.”

Todd thinks his elegant nervous lawyer has gone nuts. What is he talking about?

“You know that you didn't do it. You didn't do any of it. You didn't plant the evidence. All will be well by the end of today.”

Okay. He gets it. “Who did it?” he asks. “You're not saying this is that kid confessing again?”

“You can't know who. You don't know who. But this fellow, let me say, he certainly is a consistent fellow, I hear by way of my contacts. He does not veer from his confession.”

“It's not … Cal Hathaway? This person is going to go to prison.”

“This person will not make it to prison. He'll die in jail.”

He knows who it is, then. Brilliant. Isn't it? After all this, Haigh turns out to be brilliant. Simon gives a hoot of a laugh.

Silber stands and glowers at him. “Keep your mouth shut. Don't fuck it up, asshole. He doesn't want to clean up after you ever again.”

Simon grabs at the collar of the tall long blade of a knife of a man, the Giacometti walking man, and he stops him in his tracks. “I don't want to be talked to like that ever again.”

Silber shakes himself free and leaves the room, saying, “Some people don't know how to be grateful.”

An escort takes Todd back to his cell, where he climbs to the upper bunk and lies down, thinking.

*   *   *

SANTINI IS HOOKED
up to the polygraph.

Christie says, “I'm going to ask you a few questions. Only yes or no answers. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Are you ready?”

“Yes.”

“Is this Thursday, August 27?”

Santini appears to calculate. “Yes.”

“Is your name Francis Santini?”

“Yes.”

“Do you sometimes go by the name Frank?”

“Yes.”

“Did you once work for the United States Postal Service?”

“Yes.”

“Did you ever work as a psychologist?”

He looks surprised, even confused. “No.”

“Have you ever been incarcerated?”

“Yes.”

“Did you come to our offices today to confess to a homicide?”

“Yes.”

“Did anybody coach you as to what to tell us?”

“No.”

“Are you receiving any payment for confessing?”

Slight pause. “No.”

“Did you kill Cassie Price?”

He almost says no. “Yes.”

“Thank you.”

“That's it?”

“Yes.”

“How did I do?”

“You did very well.”

“What's next?”

“You go home until we contact you. We have some other work to do. Detective Dolan will be coming by your house in a bit.”

Santini looks puzzled, but he leaves.

*   *   *

DOLAN REPORTED A
few hours later that there was very little money in Frank Santini's account and so far no bumps in deposits. The man lived mainly on Social Security. After that, Dolan went to Santini's house, a sad little box in disrepair.

Santini was at home, even though he apparently wanted to be in jail. He was not much of a housekeeper. He sat on a littered sofa, staring at a TV. “Search warrant,” Dolan said. “Sorry to bother.”

“Go ahead. Search. I was expecting you.”

Dolan looked hither and thither but saw nothing of use.

The polygraph machine didn't believe Santini did the crime, and neither did he.

“Where are your children?” Dolan asked. “Why aren't they here helping you?”

“They have problems.”

“What kind?”

“Daughter is getting divorced and she's always hiding somewhere from the bastard. Son is an addict. He's been in and out of rehab. He can't pull it together.”

“So you end up taking care of them,” Dolan said easily.

“Yeah, I do.”

“What I marvel at is … a caring man like you, how you could bring yourself to hurt that young woman? Why didn't you just let her call the police?”

“I don't know. Wasn't thinking clearly. Drink will do that.”

“It certainly will.”

He called in to Christie on the way to his car to puzzle over Santini, and he learned that according to Potocki all the priors
were
robbery charges. One was dropped. The victim in the case felt bad for Santini and said he knew Santini had money problems and family problems.

“We're getting a picture,” Dolan said. “It's making a picture. Down-and-out family. What about Connolly? Did you get hold of him again on this?” Dolan got to his car and started it for the return trip to the office.

“Yeah. Connolly is seriously depressed. He says he doesn't know of any Frank Santini. Doesn't know if Haigh knows Santini. But he does say Haigh has tentacles to all parts of the state, people who do all kinds of work for him. You met Haigh. Would he pay off somebody to confess?”

“I don't doubt it for a moment. More's the point, would he pay off somebody to kill a girl if she got in his way? I wouldn't be surprised. He's a people pusher.”

“Let's meet back at Headquarters. Whoever was involved, I want the whole lot of them. I don't stop until I have that.”

“I'm on my way.”

*   *   *

THE INMATES WERE
all at
the TV again, and Todd got down to the common area just in time to catch his golden boy saying, “… not be entering the race for governor this term. I have assessed that I need to spend time with my family. I'd like to thank the many people who urged me to run; I want to thank them for their efforts in my behalf. I will continue to oversee projects that I have begun.”

Efforts? You'd better believe it.

It was all for nothing. It's so laughable.

Connolly did the announcement solo—no wife, no party officials at his side. He looked terrible. He was guilty, all right—he'd killed Cassie Price by making her love him.

“Who killed Cassie Price?”

“I did,” said the cat.

“I did,” said the rat.

“I did,” said the pig.

FOURTEEN

SUNDAY, AUGUST 30

WHEN THEY CHARGED
Santini with his false confession on Friday, when they explained that any payment that went to his son or daughter would be confiscated anyway, the little man gave up and admitted he'd been coached by Haigh and his secretary until he had every detail of the story memorized. It was just that, a story. That's what confessions were, after all, stories that attempted to make sense of something that didn't fit in the hum and drum of ordinary life.