Page 40 of Two Kinds of Stranger (Eddie Flynn #9)

Eddie

‘We’ve got you.’

That’s what I said to Elly as Detective Bill Sacks followed her and the two uniformed cops out of my office.

She was in handcuffs. White with shock. The two cops were practically holding her upright.

I told her not to say a word to the cops, but I didn’t think she could formulate speech, even if she had wanted to. She was in shock.

Whatever sliver of fight was left in Elly Parker had been taken from her.

I don’t know if she heard me. She hadn’t spoken a word since Sacks read her the Miranda warning in my conference room.

She had passed out a few minutes before that.

I didn’t blame her. There are only so many punches anyone can take and for the past few days Elly had been bleeding on the ropes.

This one, the arrest for the murder of her father – this was the knockout.

Life sometimes feels like a mountain falling on top of you.

It felt as if Everest was toppling over onto Elly Parker’s head.

‘ We’ve got you. ’

Those words felt hollow even as they passed my lips.

We didn’t have her. She was slipping away.

Kate, Harry and I took my car and shadowed the cops to the precinct. Kate and Harry went inside to be with Elly through booking.

I stayed outside and called our opponent, ADA Bernice Mazur.

She took a long time to pick up the phone.

The sound of my frustration was made real by my heels pounding the sidewalk as they led me back and forth across the entrance to the police precinct while I waited.

I had an image of her walking through the hallways of Center Street Courthouse, one arm lost in that huge handbag, her fingers searching through a haystack of pens, and little boulders of crumpled legal-pad paper and eventually alighting on her cell phone.

She answered and I didn’t have time to vent my anger.

‘Before you say anything, Eddie, this was all Sacks. He came to me with the standard homicide protocol in poisoning cases and I took it to the judge for an order of exhumation and postmortem. That’s it. I did what my client asked me and I’m sorry—’

‘You’re sorry? Right now, my client is having to deal with the death of her husband, and her best friend, she’s been framed for the murder by a psychopath who tried to kill her too, and she just got out of jail right before she got stabbed.

On top of that, she’s having to process her father’s body being exhumed and she’s now accused of killing him?

You have no idea what she’s going through . . . ’

‘Eddie, has it ever occurred to you that this woman might be guilty?’

‘Of course. Then I met her. She wouldn’t do this. Elly became famous with a viral video and some psycho saw it and decided she was the perfect mark. This guy with the suitcase likes to kill people and cover it up by framing someone else.’

‘So how do you explain the father?’

‘I don’t know yet. All I know is you and District Attorney Castro are screwing us at every opportunity.’

‘That’s not how I run my cases. You know that.’

‘Then prove it.’

She sighed, said, ‘I’ll have the autopsy report and video sent to you today.

The rest of the discovery in the case will follow in a week.

We just got confirmation of the poisoning vessels.

Two bottles of water were found in the bedroom.

Both of them laced with lethal doses of tetrahydrozoline.

Look, I won’t oppose bail. We can roll this charge into her current bail package. ’

Now we knew. Two bottles of water. They were going to say Elly snuck into her apartment when James was out, poisoned the water bottles.

That was their case. We were going to get confirmation of all of this in discovery, and probably we should have had it sooner.

I got the impression Bernice was holding this back, waiting for an irate call from me after Elly’s arrest. And this was the salve: the cause of death and method of poisoning revealed.

In other words, Bernice held back a bone to throw to me when I barked.

‘Won’t Castro object to bail?’

‘This is my case. He’s on my back about this one every day, but it’s my call.’

I ended the call. Took a breath.

I looked up at the concrete sky high above the buildings of Manhattan. My fingers reached for my chest, poked through my shirt and touched the cold aluminum Saint Christopher’s medal I wore on a silver chain round my neck.

It was always tucked under my shirt. Every time I sensed it against my skin I thought of my father.

He had worn it every day of his life, since he’d stolen it from a little store in Dublin before he got on a boat to America.

Part of him was still in this relic. It gave me strength to fight, not for myself, but for the people who relied on me, for my family, and for the lost souls who wandered into my office as their last great hope.

There is always hope.

Right now, with Elly’s situation, I just couldn’t find it.

My phone buzzed.

Amy.

‘Hi honey, is everything all r—’

‘ Dad! You’ve got to help! The police just arrested Mom and Kevin for murder!’