“But there’s no witness to that conversation between Klemper and Bolocco, right?”
“Not unless Freddie, the trial witness, was there. But, like I told you before, he disappeared.”
Hardwick sighed loudly. “Without corroboration, this supposed conversation between Klemper and Bolocco is useless.”
“Bolocco’s recognition of the person in the Emmerling Oaks security video connects the deaths of the mother and the son. That sure as hell isn’t useless.”
“By itself it doesn’t prove police misconduct—which makes it useless for the purpose of the appeal, which is our only purpose, which is something I keep telling you, which you seem to be fucking deaf to.”
“And what you’re deaf to is—”
“I know—I’m deaf to justice, deaf to guilt and innocence. Is that your point?”
“Okay, Jack, I have to go now. I’ll keep passing along whatever useless stuff I turn up.” There was a silence. “By the way, you might want to check on the status of the other people who testified against Kay. Be interesting to see how many of them are locatable.”
Hardwick said nothing.
Gurney ended the call.
Glancing at the clock and seeing that it was nearly six reminded him that he was hungry. He went into the kitchen and made himself a cheese omelet.
Eating calmed him. It took away most of the tension arising from the ongoing collisions between his approach to the case and Hardwick’s. Gurney had made it clear from the beginning that if the man wanted his help, it was going to be provided on Gurney’s terms. That aspect of the arrangement was not going to change. Neither, it seemed, was Hardwick’s unhappiness with it.
As he stood at the sink washing his omelet pan, his eyes grew heavy and the idea of a quick nap became very attractive. He’d just lie down for one of those restorative twelve-minute dips into semi-sleep that he’d relied on to get through double shifts in his NYPD days. He dried his hands, went into the bedroom, put his phone on the night table, took off his shoes, stretched out on top of the bedspread, and closed his eyes.
His phone awakened him.
He sensed immediately that his nap had far exceeded its intended twelve minutes. In fact, the clock by the bed said it was 7:32 p.m. He’d been asleep for more than an hour.
The ID said it was Kyle Gurney.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Dad! You sound sleepy. I didn’t wake you, did I?”
“No problem. Where are you? What’s up?”
“I’m here in my apartment watching this special legal-issues interview show? Criminal Conflict? There’s this lawyer being interviewed who keeps mentioning your name.”
“What? What lawyer?”
“Some guy by the name of Bincher. Rex, Lex, something like that?”
“On television?”
“On your favorite channel. RAM-TV. Simultaneous webcast on their website.”
Gurney grimaced. Even if he hadn’t had such horrendous trouble with RAM-TV during the Good Shepherd investigation, the idea that anyone was talking about him on the trashiest, most slanted cable news channel in the history of broadcasting would have been repellent. And what the hell was Bincher up to, anyway?
“This thing with the lawyer is on right now?”
“As we speak. A friend of mine happened to be watching it and heard them mention the name Gurney. So he called me, and I turned it on. Just go to their website and click on the ‘Live Stream’ button.”
Gurney got up from the bed, hurried into the den, and followed Kyle’s instructions on his laptop—alternately speculating on Bincher’s likely game and reliving the experience he’d had with RAM-TV’s creepy programming chief just a few months earlier.
On his third try he got to the program. The screen showed two men sitting in angular chairs on opposite sides of a low table that held a pitcher of water and two glasses. At the base of the screen, white letters on a bold red stripe spelled out CRIMINAL CONFLICT. Below that, moving letters on a blue stripe appeared to be scrolling an endless series of panicky news flashes about every form of turmoil, disaster, and disagreement in the world—a terrorist nuclear threat, a toxic tilapia scare, a celebrity altercation involving colliding Porsches.
Holding a few sheets of paper in his hand, looking seriously concerned in the vacuous style of TV interviewers everywhere, the man on the left was leaning toward the man on the right. Gurney had tuned in as the interviewer was in midsentence:
“… quite an indictment of the system, Lex, if I may use that legal term.”
The man across the table, already leaning forward himself, leaned farther forward. He was smiling, but the expression appeared to be nothing more than a perfunctory baring of unfriendly teeth. His voice was sharp, nasal, and loud. “Brian, in all my years of criminal defense experience, I’ve never encountered a more egregious example of rotten police work. An absolute subversion of justice.”
Brian looked appalled. “You’d started itemizing some of the problems just before the break, Lex. Crime scene contradictions, perjury, missing records of witness interviews—”
“And now you can add to that at least one missing witness. I just got a text message on that subject from a member of my investigatory team. Plus sexual misconduct with a possible suspect. Plus a gross failure to examine obvious alternate scenarios for the murder—such as a fatal falling-out with organized crime, other members of the same family with bigger and better motives for murder than Kay Spalter, or even a politically motivated assassination. In fact, Brian, I’m on the verge of requesting a special prosecutor to look into what may be a massive criminal cover-up of a tainted prosecution. It’s incredible to me that the whole organized crime possibility was never pursued.”
The interviewer, his face a picture of empty-headed consternation, gestured with the papers in his hand. “So what you’re saying here, Lex, is that this troubling situation could be a lot bigger than anyone thought?”
“That’s an understatement, Brian! I can see some major law enforcement careers going up in flames! Everyone from the state police to the DA could be heading for a legal ripsaw! And I’m not afraid to turn it on!”
“It seems like you managed to uncover a lot of damaging facts in a very short time. You mentioned earlier that you’d recruited a star detective from the NYPD, Dave Gurney, to work with you—the same detective who recently tore the official version of the Good Shepherd case to shreds. Is Dave Gurney the one responsible for your new information?”
“Let me put it this way, Brian. I’m running a powerful team. I’m calling the shots, and I’ve got great people executing the plays. Gurney has the best homicide clearance record in the history of the NYPD. And I have him working with the ideal partner, Jack Hardwick—a detective who was forced out of the state police for helping Gurney discover the truth about the Good Shepherd. The stuff we’re coming up with is pure dynamite—one bombshell after another. Let me tell you—with their help, I plan to blow the Spalter case sky high.”
“Lex, you just delivered the perfect closing line. And now we’re about out of time. Thanks so much for joining us this evening. This is Brian Bork for Criminal Conflict, your nightly ringside seat at today’s most explosive legal battles!”
A voice from behind Gurney startled him.
“What are you watching?”
It was Madeleine. She was standing in the den doorway.
“You look wet,” he said.