Page 13 of Two Kinds of Stranger (Eddie Flynn #9)

Eddie

An office meeting in my firm isn’t exactly what most lawyers would call professional.

For a start, Harry hates these meetings.

He’s always sipping out of that hip flask, and he’s not drinking mineral water.

Clarence, unusually, doesn’t sit at Harry’s feet.

Instead, he snuggles up in the corner of the office so he can keep an eye on everyone.

Denise, the office secretary, gives him a marrow bone to chew on.

She thinks Clarence sees us as arguing and, of course, he doesn’t like it.

The bone and an occasional pet from everyone help keep him calm.

It was the afternoon, and Kate had called Bloch in. Denise had made coffee for everyone, but I preferred making my own. It was a weird thing to me, having someone who works for you prepare your drinks. I never got comfortable with it. Denise didn’t mind. Plus, her coffee was terrible.

Our office sat above a tattoo parlor in Tribeca.

It wasn’t spacious, and didn’t look much like a law office, which was the way I liked it.

Our conference room felt cramped with all of us sitting inside, so we stood around the two desks in the large space that encompassed the reception area, Denise’s workstation, Bloch’s desk and Clarence’s bed.

And the Xerox machine, which needed such skill and finesse to operate that I stayed away from it like it was radioactive.

‘She’s innocent,’ said Kate. ‘And she’s terrified.

Someone tried to kill her and she doesn’t know why.

Someone, possibly the same person, murdered her husband and her best friend.

She has been all over social media recently.

She discovered her husband, James Parker, and her friend Harriet Rothschild were having an affair while she was live on TikTok.

The DA has more than enough motive to bury her, but I want this case. And she wants us.’

The district attorney, Robert Castro, had history with my firm.

We had recently wiped the floor with him in a murder trial he had handled personally.

Despite this, he had gotten re-elected as DA shortly afterwards.

Castro wore a white suit and ran as an anti-corruption candidate, but the suit was just for show.

He was in the pocket of every crook on Wall Street and the fundraisers he got from his corporate friends had been enough to blow out his opponent in the election.

In the US, whoever spends the most money in an election usually wins.

Castro had some bad press lately after an inmate named Ruby Johnson escaped from a maximum-security women’s prison. Castro wanted a high-profile scalp to take away the bad press from the prison break and I guessed Elly Parker was going to be his target.

‘Kate’s right. She didn’t do this,’ said Harry. ‘She looked really ill. Like she had been knocking on death’s door.’

I noticed Denise, Bloch and Kate gave Harry a particular look.

They didn’t want to say it, didn’t want to recall it, but it wasn’t so very long ago that Harry had stood in front of that same black door.

He’d been shot, almost died in the hospital and then fell into a coma.

That was a hard time for all of us. We loved the old man, and for a while it looked like he was never going to wake up.

The polished cane in his hand was the legacy of that injury.

He hated the thing, and kept leaving it behind.

Harry Ford is one of the strongest men I ever met.

He would work his way off that cane if it killed him.

‘Okay,’ I said, ‘what do we know and what did she tell the police?’

‘Same story she told us. The man with the yellow suitcase who said his name was Logan. The lead detective is Bill Sacks. He didn’t give much away about the circumstances of the case. James Parker and Harriet Rothschild were found dead in Elly’s apartment. Five days ago,’ said Kate.

‘What’s the cause of death?’ I asked.

‘We don’t know,’ said Kate. ‘Detective Sacks’s questions to Elly weren’t specific enough. He didn’t give anything away. He basically focused on the fact that Elly was the only person alive with motive to kill them.’

I thought for a moment. Bill Sacks was a long-serving homicide cop. Smarter than most.

‘There are two explanations,’ I said. ‘Either he hasn’t found a murder weapon he can tie to Elly, or he doesn’t yet know the cause of death.’

‘Maybe both,’ said Harry.

‘So what do we know? Elly has motive for the murders. A ton of it. It’s all on social media.

We need to download hard copies of those videos before any of them disappear.

We don’t know the cause or even the time of death for the victims so we can’t chase down an alibi.

What can we do to verify her story about this guy she met on the subway with the suitcase? ’ I asked.

‘I’ll take it,’ said Bloch. ‘I have a contact in the transit police. I’ll see if we can find some security footage from Grand Central. I’ll look into the apartment she visited, find the lease.’

I nodded, said, ‘Now our big problem. When is the arraignment?’

Kate said, ‘Tomorrow morning. I think the DA will get a grand jury indictment fast, but you’re right: bail could be a major problem.

Elly’s parents are out of the picture. Her mom, Susan Yorke, died a few years ago from a car accident, and her father, Stewart Yorke, not long after – heart attack.

She has savings, but not a lot. If bail is set over a million dollars, then she can’t make the bond. ’

‘Then what happens?’ asked Denise.

‘Then she goes to Rosie’s until her trial,’ I said.

The Rose M. Singer Center on Riker’s Island was named after a former Board of Corrections member who advocated for incarceration reform.

The center was opened in the late eighties and was meant to be more rehabilitative than punitive with work programs, art therapy, gardens and access to secure open-air areas.

Rose M. Singer’s granddaughter once said it’s a disgrace that this facility bears her relative’s name.

Rosie’s, as it is known, is one of the most violent, overcrowded and dangerous places on the planet.

And it’s not just the inmates that make it unsafe – the threat of physical and sexual assault from corrections officers is very real.

Just ask the City of New York, who had paid, and will pay, many millions of dollars in compensation to the inmates who were victims of rape and sexual assault in Rosie’s.

The plan, and hope, was for Rosie’s and Riker’s to close, and end the decades of suffering on what was rightly called Devil’s Island.

‘She won’t survive in there,’ said Bloch.

It sounded even more like a factual statement coming from Bloch, who was clinical with both her language and her thought.

‘She may not have a choice,’ I said. ‘We know a few inmates who can look after her.’

‘But we don’t know anyone in maximum security,’ said Harry.

Shit. He was right.

‘Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. Kate, how much can Elly raise for a bond?’

‘Like I said, she has savings, but not serious bail money. I already discussed with Elly setting up a GoFundMe, or asking her followers for donations. That’s a double-edged sword.

She thought about it and doesn’t want to take the risk.

Right now, that’s the right call. She may change her mind after a night in Rosie’s.

Asking the public for bail money might get her out, but it’s going to throw gasoline on the media frenzy happening around this case. ’

I nodded, said, ‘Let’s hope we don’t get a crazy judge who’ll set bail above a million. As a back-up, I’ll talk with the usual bail bondsmen – see if there’s something we can work out.’

‘Are you going to appeal to their better nature?’ asked Harry. ‘Don’t bother. Bondsmen are as tough as they come. They’ve heard every sob story on the planet.’

‘I’ll bear that in mind. If the angels of their better nature can’t be reached, maybe I can find one who is on the side of the devil.’