Stress Test (27 page)

There was a tap at the door. A uniformed officer entered and whispered in Grimes’s ear. The detective nodded once and addressed Matt. “I was about to suggest that we do a nitrate test on your hands to see if you’ve fired a gun recently.”

“Great.” Matt held out his hands. “The sooner the better.”

“How about right now. And while we’re at it, we’ll check your shirt. Sometimes we get blowback from the gun, and it leaves residue.”

Matt started to unbutton his shirt. “Take it. I’ll just need something to wear.”

“We’ll give you something,” Grimes said. “Matter of fact, we’re going to give you some really nice coveralls to wear.” An unspoken message appeared to pass between Grimes and the uniformed policeman who’d remained in the room after delivering his message.

The cop stepped around to Matt’s side of the table and gestured for him to stand up. “Matt Newman, you’re under arrest. Please put your hands behind your back.” He pulled a set of handcuffs from a pouch on his belt and Matt felt cold metal bite into his wrists. Matt received the Miranda warning for the third time that night. When he’d heard the words on TV, they’d been part of the drama. Tonight they were very real.

Sandra was on her feet, eyes blazing. “What’s the charge? Surely you’re not planning to accuse my client of this murder. You have no credible evidence.”

Grimes smiled without mirth. “Oh, we’ll have some soon enough. We have officers scouring the area for the gun he used. But in the meantime, the crime scene techs found something in his house that will support our holding him.”

Matt forgot about Sandra’s admonition to keep silent. “On what charge?” he blurted.

“Possession of narcotics with intent to sell. The team just found a large bag of white powder taped to the back of your nightstand drawer. Their field test suggests it’s heroin. And I’ll bet when our lab analyzes it, it’ll match the stuff spilled next to the corpse in your living room.”

When Elaine unlocked the office door, lights were on and she heard movement in the back room. This was definitely not what she expected at eight a.m. on a Saturday. Elaine pulled her cell phone from her purse, punched in 911, and kept her finger on the Send button as she crept through the waiting room and peeked around the other door where light showed—Sandra’s office.

Sandra was behind her desk, her hair mussed, her eyes red-rimmed. Elaine imagined this was the way her boss looked after pulling an all-nighter in law school.

“What are you doing here?” Sandra asked.

“I might ask you the same thing,” Elaine replied. “I came in to finish up some typing. How about you?”

Sandra yawned, ran her fingers through her hair, and said, “It began when I got a call after midnight. Matt Newman was at the police station being questioned.”

Elaine cleared the numbers from her cell phone. Then she eased into a client chair and listened intently as Sandra related the events of the past several hours. “So he’s in custody now on a drug charge?”

“Right. The murder’s a gray area, and they don’t really have anything to let them pin it on Matt. But a kilo of heroin is going to be hard to explain.”

Elaine shook her head. “Don’t tell me you haven’t already thought of this. Planted evidence! Who was in the house before the heroin was found?” She ticked off the possibilities on her fingers. “The man who was shot. The man who shot him. And, of course, there’s another possibility.”

“Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. The police. How hard would it be for someone to swipe a bag of H from the property room? They have evidence in there that probably dates back twenty years, and it would never be missed.”

“So who planted it?”

“Start with the patrolmen who responded to the original call. I’ll bet one of them stayed with the body and called it in while the other searched the house.” Sandra shook her head. “Or the crime scene crew, although they generally work as a team, with two people at a time in any room.”

“And you don’t think one of them could do this while the other one was across the room?”

“I don’t know.” Sandra pressed her hands to her temples. “I’ve got a headache. The Starbucks downstairs should be open. Would you do the coffee run this morning? Double espresso for me. I’ve got some work to do.”

Elaine rose but didn’t make a move to leave. “I almost forgot. I had dinner last night with Charlie Greaver. Frank Everett’s still saying he expects new evidence to turn up soon.”

They shared a long look. “Like a baggie of heroin?” Sandra asked.

Elaine shrugged. “Maybe.”

Sandra picked up a pen and started doodling on a legal pad. Elaine recognized the caricature of a gallows from a children’s game she used to play. Hangman.

“If the analysis on that bag of heroin gives him what he needs,
Frank’ll have his secretary typing up a true bill for the grand jury in a heartbeat,” Sandra said. “Someone’s trying to railroad my client into prison.” She completed the drawing of a hanged man and added X’s for eyes. “And it’s my job to keep it from happening.”

Matt looked around the cell. He’d seen a number like it in movies and TV programs, and apparently the people responsible for those sets had visited this jail for a model. The walls were bare. A metal toilet occupied one corner with a washbasin on the wall beside it. A metal cot held a mattress covered by a single blanket. It was a one-person cell. Maybe all the holding cells were. Or maybe they thought the isolation would loosen him up. But he couldn’t confess to something he hadn’t done.

He slumped on the cot, his head in his hands, and tried to think. Things had gone pretty much the way he’d figured, although his knowledge came mainly from watching episodes of
Law and Order
and
The Closer
. The police had fingerprinted him and taken photos—mug shots, he guessed they called them. They’d swabbed his hands for what they told him was a nitrate test, to see if he’d fired a gun recently. He knew the results would be negative, but the policeman who administered the procedure remained stone-faced about them.

After that, Matt was given jail garb, depositing his clothes in a plastic sack to be taken to the police lab where they’d look for blood splatter or evidence of blowback from a revolver. And finally the cell door slammed behind him with a sound that sent his heart into his slipper-clad feet.

One thing Matt hadn’t been prepared for was the noise. He’d somehow envisioned jail as a place where prisoners brooded in solitary silence. Instead, he was treated to a cacophony of slamming cell doors, yelling inmates, and various other sounds.

Matt hadn’t slept at all. There was the noise, of course. Then the thin mattress atop the metal shelf that passed for a bed made sleep difficult, and the working of his mind made it impossible. How many more days would he be in here? What was going to happen next?

He hoped Sandra was hard at work, arranging to get him out. It was Saturday, and that might slow things down. When would he have a bail hearing? And how could he come up with whatever amount the judge set? He was scraping the bottom of his financial barrel, struggling to meet his obligations. If his salary at the hospital stopped, he’d be sunk.

In the books his brother, Joe, had left behind was one about Dr. Gordon Seagrave, the missionary some called “the Burma Surgeon.” Matt had picked it up one day, interested because it was about a doctor, and once into it, he’d read the whole book. Although Seagrave devoted his life to serving the medical and humanitarian needs of the Burmese people, after a change in government, he was charged with treason and arrested. Despite suffering many indignities, Seagrave never lost hope and his faith never wavered. Matt recalled Seagrave’s words: “Everyone should be in prison for at least four months, on suspicion, and sick half the time. Only then can they treasure freedom.”

Matt had been jailed on suspicion. He wasn’t sick, except in his heart, and the expression “heartsick” had new meaning for him. He hoped he wouldn’t be here four days, much less four months. But when that cell door opened for him, like Seagrave he’d treasure his freedom.

NINETEEN

“Double espresso.” Elaine handed Sandra a steaming paper cup wrapped in a Starbucks sleeve. She laid a small white sack on her boss’s desk. “And you need some food, so I brought you one of the cranberry-orange scones you like.”

“Low fat?”

“Of course.”

Sandra looked up from the law book on her desk, but held her place with her finger. “Thanks.”

Elaine dropped into a chair and turned back the flap on the lid of her coffee. “I know you. You’ll get engrossed in your search for just the right point of law, and ignore your coffee and the scone. Take a break, will you?”

Sandra used a yellow Post-It note to mark her place, closed the book, and shoved it aside. She pulled the scone from the sack and broke it in half. “You want some?”

“Had one. It didn’t survive the elevator ride. Thanks, though.”

Sandra blew across the surface of her cup, took a sip of coffee, and
felt the caffeine begin working. Probably all in her head, but she’d take it anyway. She nibbled the scone and washed it down with more coffee. “I should have asked you to bring back a newspaper.”

“Thought of that,” Elaine said. “But you say all this took place around twelve or one. That’s about the time the paper gets printed. If there’s anything in the news right now, it will be on radio, TV, or the Internet.”

The clock on Sandra’s desk showed 7:15 a.m. Maybe she could catch the tail end of a local TV newscast. She fished the remote out of her desk drawer and turned on the small set almost hidden among the law books on the shelves behind her. She swiveled around in time to see the picture replaced on the screen by what appeared to be a booking photo of Matt, overlaid by a banner that said “Breaking News.” Sandra turned up the volume.

“This just in to the Channel Four newsroom. Local doctor Matthew Newman is in police custody after an overnight shooting at his home. Sources tell us that the episode may represent a narcotics deal gone awry. Dr. Newman was also involved, but never charged, in the death of Ms. Cara Mendiola, with whom he worked at Metropolitan Hospital. Police are still working that case, and sources tell us that Newman remains a person of interest.”

The anchor moved to another story, and Sandra turned off the set. “How did they get that?” she said, as much to herself as to Elaine.

Elaine finished her coffee and handed the cup to Sandra, who deposited it in the wastebasket under her desk. “Shouldn’t be hard to figure that out,” Elaine said. “Who had the information?”

Sandra chewed and swallowed the last bite of scone. “My best guess is someone at the police station. My money’s on Grimes, but that could be anyone from another detective to the patrolmen to a janitor cleaning in the area.”

“Could be,” Elaine said. “And there’s another group to consider.”

Sandra lifted her coffee cup to her lips, found it was empty, and discarded it. “Yes, the DA’s office would be involved by now. It could have come from there.”

“I’d be surprised if Jack Tanner let it leak at this stage,” Elaine said. “Or Charlie Greaver.”

“On the other hand, I wouldn’t put it past Frank Everett,” Sandra said. “He’s been salivating to get this case, and he’s just the kind of guy who’d like to start trying it in the media before Matt is even arraigned.”

Elaine stood. “Well, I’ll leave you to your work. I guess with the cat out of the bag, it doesn’t really matter who untied the drawstring.”

Sandra thought about that. True, it didn’t matter who leaked the story, but it might help to know who was responsible. If there was someone with a vendetta against Matt, it might be a good idea to keep an eye on them. And wasn’t Matt’s old girlfriend a secretary in the DA’s office? Jennifer something or other; she’d get the name from Matt. Meanwhile, Sandra added that name to what was becoming a long list: people who could be out to get her client.