The Closers (24 page)

He nodded.

"I am sorry about your sister. In my old job dealing with the families of the victims was the most difficult part. At least you got some closure. The man who did this certainly got what he deserved."

Pierce tried a sarcastic smile but it hurt too much.

"Yeah, closure. Makes everything better."

"Is your stepfather alive? Your parents?"

"My stepfather is. Last I heard. I don't talk to him, not in a long time. My mother is not with him anymore. She still lives in the Valley. I haven't talked to her in a long time, either."

"Where's your father?"

"Oregon. He's got a second family. But we stay in touch. Of all of them, he's the only one I talk to."

She nodded. She studied her notes for a long period, flipping back the pages on the pad as she reviewed everything he had said from the start of the conversation. She then finally looked up at him.

"Well, I think it's all bullshit."

Pierce shook his head.

"No, I'm telling you exactly how it hap--"

"No, I mean Renner. I think he's bullshitting. There's nothing there. He's not going to charge you with these lesser crimes. He'd get laughed right out of the DA's office on the B and E. What was your intent? To steal? No, it was to make sure she was okay. They don't know about the mail you took and they can't prove it anyway, because it's gone. As far as the obstruction goes, that's just an idle threat. People lie and hold back with the police all the time. It's expected. To try to charge somebody for it is another matter. I can't even remember the last obstruction case that went to court. At least there were none I remember when I was in the office."

What about the tape? I was confused. He said what I said was an admission."

He was playing you. Trying to rattle you and see how you'd react, maybe get a more damaging admission out of you. I would have to listen to the statement to get a full take on it, but it sounds as though it is marginal, that your explanation in regard to your sister is certainly legitimate and would be perceived that way by a jury. Add in that I am sure that you were under the influence of a variety of medications and you-"

"This can never go to a jury. If it does, I'm finished. I'm ruined."

"I understand that. But a jury's view is still the way to look at this because that is how the DA will look at it when considering potential charges. The last thing they will do is go into a case knowing a jury isn't going to buy it."

"There is nothing to buy. I didn't do it. I just tried to find out if she was all right. That's all."

Langwiser nodded but didn't seem particularly interested in his protestations of innocence. Pierce had always heard that good defense attorneys were never as interested in the ultimate question of their clients' guilt or innocence as they were in the strategy of defense. They practiced law, not justice. Pierce found this frustrating because he wanted Langwiser to acknowledge his innocence and then go out and fight to defend it.

"First of all," she said, "with no body, it is very difficult to make a case against anybody. It is doable but very difficult- especially in this case, when you consider the victim's lifestyle and source of income. I mean, she could be anywhere. And if she is dead, then the suspect list is going to be very long.

"Second, his tying your break-in at one scene to a possible homicide at another scene is not going to work. That's a stretch that I cannot see the DA's office being willing to make. Remember, I worked there and bringing cops down to reality was half the work. I think that unless things change in a big way, you'll be okay, Henry. On all of it."

"What big way?"

"Like they find the body. Like they find the body and somehow link it to you."

Pierce shook his head.

"Nothing will link it to me. I never met her."

"Then good. Then you should be in the clear."

"Should be?"

"Nothing is ever a hundred percent. Especially in the law. We'll still have to wait and see."

Langwiser reviewed her notes for a few more moments before speaking again.

"Okay," she finally said. "Now, let's call Detective Renner."

Pierce raised his eyebrows- what was left of them- and it hurt. He winced and said, "Call him? Why?"

"To put him on notice that you have representation and to see what he has to say for himself."

She took a cell phone out of her case and opened it.

"I think I have his card in my wallet," Pierce said. "It should be in the table drawer."

"It's all right, I remember the number."

Her call to the Pacific Division was answered quickly and she asked for Renner. It took a few minutes but she finally got him on the line. While she waited she turned up the volume on the phone and angled it from her ear so Pierce could hear both ends of the conversation. She pointed at him and then put her fingers to her lips, telling him not to enter the conversation.

"Hey, Bob, Janis Langwiser. Remember me?"

After a pause Renner said, "Sure. I heard you went over to the dark side, though."

"Very funny. Listen, I'm over here at St. John's. I was visiting with Henry Pierce."

Another pause.

"Henry Pierce, the Good Samaritan. Longtime rescuer of missing whores and lost pets."

Pierce felt his face redden.

"You are just full of good humor today, Bob," Langwiser said dryly. "That's a new wrinkle with you, isn't it?"

"Henry Pierce is the joker, the stories he tells."

"Well, that's why I'm calling. No more stories from Henry, Bob. I am representing him and he's no longer talking to you. You blew the chance you had."

Pierce looked up at Langwiser and she winked at him. I didn't blow anything," Renner protested. "Anytime he wants to start telling me the complete and true story, I'm here. Otherwise-"

Look, Detective, you're more interested in busting my guy's chops than figuring out what really happened. That's got to stop.

Henry Pierce is now out of your loop. And another thing, you try to take this to court and I'm going to shove that two-tape-recorders trick up your ass."

"I told him I was recording," Renner protested. "I read him his rights and he said he understood them. That is all I'm required to do. I did nothing illegal during his voluntary interview."

"Maybe not per se, Bob. But judges and juries don't like the cops tricking people. They like a clean game."

Now there was a long pause from Renner, and Pierce was beginning to think that Langwiser was going too far, that she might push the detective into seeking a charge against him out of pure anger or resentment.

"You really did cross over, didn't you?" Renner finally said. "I hope you'll be happy over there."

"Well, if I only get clients like Henry Pierce, people who were just trying to do a good thing, then I will be."

"A good thing? I wonder if Lucy LaPorte thinks what he did was a good thing."

"Did he find her?" Pierce blurted out.

Langwiser immediately held her hand up to quiet him.

"Is that Mr. Pierce there? I didn't know we had him listening in, Janis. Speaking of tricks, that was nice of you to tell me."

"I didn't have to."

"And I didn't have to tell him about the second recorder once I told him the conversation was being recorded. So shove that up your ass. I gotta go."

"Wait. Did you find Lucy LaPorte?"

"That's official police business, ma'am. You stay in your loop and I'll stay in mine. Good-bye now."

Renner hung up and Langwiser closed her phone.

"I told you not to say anything."

"Sorry. It's just that I've been trying to reach her since Sunday. I wish I could just find out where she is and whether she's okay or needs help. If anything's happened, it's my fault."

There I go again, he thought. Finding my own fault in things, offering public admissions of guilt.

Langwiser didn't seem to notice. She was putting away her phone and notebook.

"I'll make some calls on it. I know some people in Pacific that are a little bit more cooperative than Detective Renner. Like his boss, for example."

"Will you call me as soon as you find out something?"

"I have your numbers. Meantime, you stay away from all of this. With any luck, that call will scare Renner away for the time being, maybe make him second-guess his moves. You're not out of the woods on this yet, Henry. I think you're almost in the clear but other things could still happen. Keep your head down and stay away from it."

"Okay, I will."

"And next time the doctor comes in, get a list of the specific drugs that would have been in your system when Renner recorded you."

"Okay."

"Do you know when you are getting out of here yet?"

"Supposed to be anytime now."

Pierce looked at his watch. He'd been waiting almost two hours for Dr. Hansen to sign him out.

He looked back at Langwiser. She looked ready to go. But she was looking at him like she wanted to ask something but wasn't sure how to ask it.

"What?"

"I don't know. I was just thinking that it was a long jump in your thinking. When you were just a boy, I mean, and you thought your stepfather was the reason your sister left."

Pierce didn't say anything.

"Anything else you want to tell me about that?"

Pierce looked up at the blank television screen again and saw nothing there. He shook his head.

"No, that's about it."

He doubted he had gotten the line by her. He assumed that criminal defense lawyers dealt with liars as a matter of course and were as expert at picking up the subtleties of eye movement and body inflection as machines designed for it. But Langwiser simply nodded and let it slide.

Well, I need to go. I have an arraignment downtown." Okay. Thanks for coming to see me here. That was nice."

"Part of the service. I'll make some calls while I'm driving in and let you know what I hear ah out Lucy LaPorte or anything else. But meantime, you really need to stay away from this. Okay? Go back to work."

Pierce held his hands up in surrender.

"I'm done with it."

She smiled professionally and left the room.

Pierce detached the phone from the bed's side guard and was punching in Cody Zeller's number when Nicole James stepped into the room. He put the phone back in its place.

Nicole had agreed to come by to drive Pierce home after he was checked out by Dr. Hansen and released. She silently registered pain as she studied Pierce's damaged face. She had visited him often during his hospital stay but it seemed as though she could not get used to seeing the stitch zippers.

Pierce had actually taken her frowns and sympathetic murmurings as a good sign. He would consider it to have been worth all the trouble if it got them back together.

"Poor baby," she said, lightly patting his cheek. "How do you feel?"

"Pretty good," he told her. "But I'm still waiting on the doctor to sign me out. Almost two hours now."

"I'll go out and check on things."

She went back to the door but looked back at Pierce.

"Who was that woman?"

"What woman?"

"Who just left your room."

"Oh, she's my lawyer. Kaz got her for me."

"Why do you need her if you have Kaz?"

"She's a criminal defense lawyer."

She stepped away from the door and went back closer to the bed.

"Criminal defense lawyer? Henry, people who get wrong numbers usually don't need lawyers. What is going on?"

Pierce shrugged his shoulders.

"I don't really know anymore. I got into something and now I'm just trying to get out in one piece. Let me ask you something."

He got off the bed and walked up to her. His balance was off at first but then he was okay. He lightly touched her forearms with his hands. A suspicious look came across her face.

"What?"

"When we leave here, where are you taking me?"

"Henry, I told you, I'm taking you home. Your home."

Even with the puffiness and the road map of stitches, his disappointment was visibly evident.

"Henry, we agreed to at least try this. So let's try."

"I just thought.. ."

He didn't finish. He didn't know exactly what he thought or how to put it into words.

"You seem to think that what happened with us all happened so quickly," she said. "And that it can be fixed quickly."

She turned and headed back toward the door.

"And I'm wrong."

She looked back at him.

"Months, Henry, and you know it. Maybe longer. We hadn't been good together in a long, long time."

She went through the door to look for the doctor. Pierce sat on the bed and tried to remember the time they were on the Ferris wheel and everything seemed so perfect in the world.

Blood was everywhere. A trail of it across the beige rug, on the brand-new bed, on two of the walls and all over the telephone. Pierce stood in the doorway of his bedroom and looked at the mess. He could remember almost none of what had happened after Wentz and his sidekick monster had left.

He stepped into the room and bent down next to the phone. He gingerly lifted the receiver with two fingers and held it a good three inches from his head, just enough to hear the tone and determine if he had any messages.

There were none. He reached over and unplugged the phone and then carried it into the bathroom to attempt to clean it.

Dried blood was splashed across the sink. There were bloody fingerprints on the medicine cabinet door. Pierce had no memory of going into the bathroom after the attack. But the place was a mess. The blood had dried hard and brown and it reminded him of the mattress he had seen the police remove from Lilly Quinlan's apartment.

As he used wet tissues to wipe off the phone as best he could, he had a memory of going to a movie called Curdled a few years earlier with Cody Zeller. It was about a woman whose job was to clean up bloody crime scenes after the police were finished with the onsite investigation. He now wondered if there was really such a job and a service he could call. The prospect of cleaning up the bedroom was not attractive to him in the least.