The Four-Night Run (16 page)

“What do you think really happened?”

“I think she killed that man. He wasn’t a good man, but she killed him and then pounded his face to mash. Sometimes, you can’t say there is no justice.”

“I don’t know where she came up with that song and dance,” said Lieutenant Remi Bozant, a tall, handsome man with broad shoulders and thick red hair. “All I know is she was lying. But you could tell she wasn’t any genius. Closest thing she ever had to a brainstorm was a light drizzle.”

“Did you ever have dealings with Lucius Haste?”

“Did you read my testimony?”

“I read it.”

Big grin. “Scintillating, isn’t it? Everything I had to say, I said in court. When’s her date?”

“December eighth.”

“It won’t be the first needle stuck in her arm, but it’ll damn well be the last. Though you’ll probably get it delayed another couple years and feel all proud of yourself.”

“I’m just trying to find out what happened.”

“I’ll tell you what happened. She killed him, that’s what happened. She shot him through the chest and bashed in his face and tried to blame it on me. You wonder why I’m not sympathetic, Scrubmyneck?”

“Scrbacek.”

“What are you, Polish?”

“Hungarian.”

“The goulash, right?”

“That’s right.”

“Well, I’ll tell you something, Mr. Goulash, whether you believe it or not. It will be best for everyone, and I mean everyone, you included, when she’s put down.”

“She’s not a horse.”

“Don’t I know it. Horses I like. Murdering bitches and their lawyers, on the other hand, piss me off.”

“But there’s still one thing I can’t figure out, Lieutenant. If you never had anything to do with her before the trial, how, when it was time for Amber Grace to invent a story, did she come up with your name?”

“You’re a sharp one, aren’t you? Someday you’ll go far. Do us all a favor and stay there. I’m done. You want to ask me anything more, have the county prosecutor order me to talk. Until then, go fuck yourself.”

“Thanks for your help.”

Big grin. “Don’t mention it.”

“I said what I said because it was the truth, Mr. Scrbacek,” said Amber Grace. She was tall and thin, with dark hair pulled back from a very pretty face. There was something soft to her features, something almost angelic, despite the prison garb. “I thought that was what we was supposed to do, tell the truth.”

“Did Mr. O’Neill advise you what could happen if you testified like you did?”

“Yeah. But what I said about Remi and the way he treated me, I wasn’t gonna lie about it.”

“Lieutenant Bozant says he never saw you before you accused him.”

“He’s a lieutenant now? They must be hard up in that police force.”

“He’s a hero cop, Amber.”

“Wasn’t no hero when he was busting my nose.”

“That wasn’t Lucius?”

“Oh, Lucius was a sweetheart. He was my little man. No, it was Remi sending me to the hospital.”

“Mr. O’Neill mentioned something about an alibi witness he couldn’t find?”

“Loretta. When the trouble went down, she hightailed it out. Went to Vegas, I heard. Don’t blame her there. She was too sweet a piece for this market.”

“You have a last name for her?”

“Wayne, I think. Loretta Wayne. All blonde and skinny, driving them suburban drive-ins wild. You gonna get me out of here?”

“I don’t know, Amber. It looks pretty bleak.”

“I shouldn’t be in here, Mr. Scrbacek. I’m no saint, I made my mistakes, but I didn’t kill Lucius. You’ve got to get me out of here.”

“I’ll try.”

“It’s not about trying. I’m all tried out. It’s about doing, Mr. Scrbacek. You do what you need to get me out of here, or they’re going to kill me, they’re going to kill me dead. And then no matter how hard you tried, it’s not going to matter, is it?”

“How’d you find me?”

“The public defender’s office had an address,” said Scrbacek. “The woman at the apartment said you’d be here. Do you have a minute? Can we talk?”

“Talk about what, Mr. . . .” Loretta Sorenson, née Wayne, looked down at the card in her hand. “Mr. Scrbacek?”

“About Amber Grace.”

The woman looked at Scrbacek for a long startled moment and then back at the card. “You came quite a ways.”

“I have some questions.”

She nodded and led him to a lounge in the casino, where they sat together at a table while a chanteuse sat atop a piano on the stage and sang an up-tempo jazzy version of the blues. Loretta was delicate and pretty with long blonde hair, straight and parted in the middle like a ’60s teenager’s, and with a teenager’s desperate bands of eyeliner, but the eyes inside the liner were tired enough to give her away.

“Amber says you were with her the time of the murder,” said Scrbacek after their drinks had been served—a beer for him and a double Stoli martini for her. “She says you were her alibi.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“But when it was time for her trial, you were nowhere to be found. Did she really have an alibi?”

“What does she say?”

“She says yes.”

“Well then, yeah, sure.”

“And so if I give you a subpoena and a plane ticket, you’ll testify that you were with her at the time of the murder.”

Loretta shrugged. “I guess so.”

“Do you even remember when the murder was?”

“Not the date, but I remember. Lucius was my . . . a friend. So I remember.”

“You know what time it was?”

“Yeah, sure. The time when I was with Amber. Are they really going to kill her?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’ll do whatever I can, Mr. Scrbacek.”

“Why’d you leave before the trial?”

“It wasn’t a good time.”

“Why not?”

“To be truthful, Mr. Scrbacek, I don’t remember much about those months. I was into shit. So was Amber.”

“Shit?”

Loretta sighed and finished her drink. Scrbacek ordered her another. “Look, whatever she says, I’ll say, okay? Isn’t that what you want?”

“What about Remi Bozant?”

“Who?”

“You don’t remember a thing, do you?”

“Some things, not much. I was using pretty heavy then. So was Amber. Who the hell knows what was happening? It was a sick time. Lucius got himself killed, and I just took the chance and left.”

“What was Amber using?”

“Boat.”

“PCP?”

“And some crank to keep her going. Just a little at the start, and then more. She tried to stop when she was pregnant but she didn’t. Just kept at it, and kept working, too. By the time Lucius found out, it was too late to get rid of it, so she gave it away. And then it all got even messier, the using, and she was making less, and Lucius was getting antsy, putting more pressure on me. Just what I needed. So when he got killed, I left, simple as that. Thought I could get myself a do-over. Started pushing cocktails here. Got married. Got a life. It all seemed almost normal, and then it was like a switch was turned and there I was, back at work. It’s in my nature, I guess. You look startled, Mr. Scrbacek. What is it? What?”

“Why didn’t you tell Mr. O’Neill, Amber?” said Scrbacek.

“I didn’t think it mattered.”

“Who was the father?”

“I don’t know. It was just something that happened, and I didn’t take care of it in time. I tried not to think about it, and it wasn’t like I was getting all huge and all.”

“Where did you have the baby?”

“City Hospital. The emergency room. It fell out like a lemon drop, and then they sent me away with it, just like that.”

“It?”

“A girl, I think.”

“What happened to the baby, Amber?”

“Lucius took it away.”

“To an adoption agency? To the Child Welfare Bureau?”

“Lucius took it away, right after I had it. That’s all I know. He never told me, I never asked.”

“Amber?”

“Don’t look at me like that, Mr. Scrbacek. I made a mistake, I was wrong. But what was I going to do with it? Take it to the park with the other fine ladies? Find it playdates? Stay up nights singing nursery rhymes? What the hell was I going to do with it?”

“Where is she now?”

“I don’t know.”

“We need to find her.”

“I know we do. When I was still on the street, I didn’t think about her at all. It was like it never happened. But you know, in here, with nothing but time, I think about her a lot. I think about her all the time. You got to get me out, Mr. Scrbacek. You got to get me out so I can see my baby girl and hold her in my arms and tell her that her mommy loves her.”

He traced the trail of Amber Grace’s baby.

From the hospital records, he found the date of birth. Moving forward from that date, he scoured the records of the Child Welfare Bureau for any children abandoned into its care. Of the five babies whose files were opened in the operative period, two were too old and one of the others was a boy. Of the two girls remaining, one had been sent to a group foster home that would appear scandalously in the newspapers three years later upon the issuance of indictments by the County Prosecutor’s Office. The girl sent there had been abused so badly that she died within days of being reclaimed by the Child Welfare Bureau, her tiny body cremated, her ashes buried in a pauper’s pit.

But the second girl was not buried in a pauper’s pit. Someone had taken care of her, someone had done something right. Her case had been assigned to the most conscientious social worker in the bureau, who had scheduled numerous home visits and reported directly to the bureau’s director. The girl’s current foster family was a model of love and concern, was considering adoption, and was terrified that Scrbacek had come to take their Maya away. That was her name, now eight years old, with buck teeth and a shy manner and ribbons in her hair.