'I have nothing to do with Louise Clark. Nothing. You can ask.. .'
'You just went to Zihuatanejo, at the same time by accident?'
'What?' Carmel sputtered. 'I never saw her in Zihuatanejo. I'd never go there with a… a… secretary. I went there by myself.'
Lucas now took a long moment to look her over. Then, half-turning away, he said,
'Sure.'
One of the vice guys found Louise Clark's name in Carmel's Rolodex, lifted it out, put it in an evidence bag. Another found a long paper record of the
D'Aquila drug trial, and bagged that, too. The lawyers in the hallway began chanting 'Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you,' and one of the senior partners came down and tried to quiet them. They didn't quiet. The chanting got louder, and the partner grinned slightly, shrugged and went upstairs; the approval as explicit as they'd ever get from that particular partner. Two minutes later, another group of lawyers arrived, from another firm in the building, and joined the chanting.
Carmel was shouting over tibe noise. 'You think I killed Hale? We were gonna get married. I was here the night he was killed. Look in our phone records, asshole, you'll find that he called me, we talked for ten minutes… Hey asshole, I'm talking to you…'
And outside, the lawyers began chanting, 'Asshole, asshole, asshole…'
Sherrill was getting angry, but Lucas touched her shoulder and grinned: 'Haven't had this much fun since we beat up that shitkicker in Oxford.'
And Carmel screamed, 'What are you laughing about, asshole?'
And Lucas let it out, a long, rolling laugh. Outside, the lawyers were chanting, scratching at the glass windows to Carmel's outer office, watching him laugh and laugh…
At five o'clock, leaving three detectives at the office to look through the last of the records, Lucas moved the act to Carmel's apartment. Carmel followed in her bloody-red Jag, which had been searched while it was parked in the office ramp. Lucas and four others were in the elevator when it arrived at the fifth floor, where Carmel's parking space was.
Carmel got on with a man who she'd introduced at the office as Dane Carlton, her personal attorney. Lucas knew him to nod to, a tall, slender, grey-haired man with a cool demeanor and icy blue eyes behind plain gold-rimmed glasses. He was wearing a blue suit with a white shirt and wine-colored tie.
To Lucas, Carmel said, 'Fuck you.'
Lucas sighed, looked at Carlton. 'You should tell your client to watch her mouth.'
'I'm her attorney, not her guardian,' Carlton said bluntly.
'And he's gonna rip you a new asshole when we're done with this,' Carmel said.
Lucas looked at Carlton. 'That right?'
Carlton, with the tiniest movement of his head, said, 'Yes.'
When Carlton and Carmel got out at Carmel's floor, Sherrill, looking after him, put her mouth close to Lucas' ear and whispered, 'I get the feeling he could do it.'
Lucas said, 'I know him. He could.'
The search team was methodical and undiscrimi-nating. They were looking for guns, cartridges, records, notes, letters – anything that would tie Carmel to any of the people who were murdered. They found a half-dozen notes and e-mails written to Hale Allen, most of them simply setting up dates.
Franklin, wearing white plastic gloves, gave one of them to Lucas: 'Fuck around on me, and I'll kill you,' Lucas read aloud.
Carlton glanced at Carmel, who rolled her eyes. But she was angry, and getting angrier, Lucas thought. He dropped the D'Aquila scratches on her the first time he got an opening, which came when Carmel started screaming again.
'You're messing up my goddamn clothes, those clothes are worth more fucking money than the city can pay… Dane, we gotta recover for this, they're wrecking that suit.'
Carlton said, 'We will, Carmel.' He turned to Lucas: 'Chief Davenport, why don't we end this charade? There's no evidence that Carmel had anything to do with any of these killings. You're simply fishing – and we will eventually find out why.
It appears to be a personal crusade against one of the most highly regarded criminal attorneys in the state. Have you lost a case to Carmel? What is there in your past…?'
'I don't have anything against Carmel/ Lucas said, injecting a little steel into his voice, 'I always kind of admired her. She's a tough attorney. I stopped admiring her when Rolando D'Aquila used his fingernails to carve Carmel's name into the back of his hand while he was being tortured and then executed.'
Carlton showed a thin smile: 'That is… one of the more amazing things I've ever heard.'
'You'll be even more amazed when you see the scratches. Or gouges – doing it had to be almost as painful as getting the holes drilled in his knees. And he didn't just carve her initials. He carved her name: C. Loan. Quarter-inch grooves in the back of his hand…'
Carlton glanced at Carmel, who'd frozen in place when she heard D'Aquila's name.
'I just don't believe it,' Carlton said finally.
'Well, we've got D'Aquila's body on ice in St. Paul, along with the blood that dried on his hands and arms while he was carving her name out. So you all can go over and look at it. I'm sure you'll find your own pathologist to examine the body…'
Carmel started to interject something, but Carlton waved her down, and turned to
Lucas with a slightly warmer tone of voice. Lucas knew what he was doing: he was looking for information, anything that might someday help a defense. 'We will challenge it, of course; because whatever might be carved on Mr.
D'Aquila's hand, it isn't Carmel's name.'
'You can say that without seeing it?' Lucas' eyebrows went up.
'Of course. Because it can't be Carmel's name.' 'Okay,' Lucas said, mildly. 'If that's your story.' 'It is, and we're sticking to it,' Carlton said.
The search continued. Sloan, one of the more mild-mannered of the homicide cops, mentioned to Carmel, in passing, that they knew about her connection with Clark at law school. Lucas, outside the bedroom when Sloan and Carmel were talking, heard Carmel spluttering, 'She was a secretary, for Christ's sake.'
And Sloan answered, 'C'mon, Carmel, we know she took that legal writing course the same time you did.'
'If she did, I didn't know about it.'
'Ah, c'mon,' Sloan said. 'You guys go way back. You even did that Halloween Ball together. It's right on the program.'
'Jesus… you guys.' But she was scared, now. More angry than scared, but scared nevertheless.
At six o'clock, with Carlton glancing at his watch every two minutes, the search team began breaking up. A crime-scene crew had been brought in to take samples from Carmel's bed, the guestroom bed, and to dust the guestroom for fingerprints. They began packing their gear, and Sloan told Lucas he was heading home. Then two more detectives checked out, and Carlton asked Lucas, 'I assume you're not planning anything else dramatic? No new papers to serve…'
Lucas shook his head: 'No. We're about done. I'm gonna take one last cruise through the place…'
Carlton went to Carmel and said, 'I'm chairing a bar meeting at seven o'clock.
Will you be all right here?'
'Sure. It's all over.'
And Sherrill, her voice low, asked Lucas, 'Got the shell?'
'Yeah. Take off as soon as Carlton's out of here.'
'I'll be across the street with Sloan. Franklin and Del are headed for your house.'
Carlton left, Sherrill looked at her watch: 'You want me to stay?' she asked
Lucas. 'I'm kind of in a rush.'
'Take off,' Lucas said. 'I'll say good-bye to Carmel, make sure nobody left anything behind.'
Carmel shouted at Sherrill, as she left, 'Good riddance to all of ya. Fuck ya.
Fuck ya…'
Sherrill flashed her the finger, over her shoulder, and Carmel's eyes widened and she took a step after Sherrill, and Lucas stepped between them and said,
'Hey, hey…' Then, to Sherrill, 'Knock it off, okay?' At the same time, he winked at her.
'Yeah, yeah…' And she was gone, too, and Lucas and Carmel were left alone in the fabulous apartment.