Chapter 60 Eddie

60

Eddie

The sound I'd heard was not from inside the Jacksons' home.

The sound of a mechanism moving came from another lock. The next-door neighbor opened her front door, a woman in her sixties perhaps, wearing an expensive-looking dressing gown.

‘What the hell is going on? I thought when the Jacksons left, this place would quieten down. You're the second person banging on that door tonight. Can you keep the noise down?' she said.

‘Someone else was here?' I asked.

‘Sure, couldn't really see who it was. He looked familiar. Saw him parked outside on the street the other night in a Range Rover.'

Bale.

‘What happened? Is he inside?' I asked.

‘No, he left with the nanny. She got into his car and they drove off not five minutes ago, down the street there,' she said, and pointed.

‘Lake, can you open this door?' I asked, but he was already working the lock with something small and black that looked like a key fob. It whirred and clicked and then the door opened. He pocketed the device and said, ‘I'm going after them,' and then ran for his car.

The neighbor looked at us suspiciously, then said, ‘You're the lawyer.'

‘Yes, thank you, ma'am. Sorry for the disturbance.'

She went back inside, slamming her door shut, and I followed Bloch into the Jacksons' hallway.

Everything in the living room looked normal. The hallway and the kitchen didn't. In the kitchen, I saw a bag of tools.

‘Don't touch anything without these,' said Bloch, handing me a pair of latex gloves. We both put them on. I closed the front door and Bloch said she was going to check upstairs, make sure there was no one else in the house. We had both seen the sheeting on the hallway floor and Bloch stepped over it to get upstairs.

I examined the tool bag first. It looked new, along with the tools inside it. A flathead screwdriver with a long neck; a trowel; a claw hammer; a crowbar and a hammer with a heavy flat-faced double head – a crack hammer. I took a moment to examine this closely. It still had a store sticker on the rubber covering the shaft. It looked new. No dents or scrapes around the steel head, but there was some staining. Dark spots. Could be blood. Could be Esther Hanson's blood.

Bloch came downstairs, holding an empty glass.

I pointed to the hammer, and the spots on it.

‘Could be the murder weapon used to kill Alison's mother,' said Bloch. ‘Looks like the type.'

‘What's with the glass?' I asked.

‘It was in the boy's bedroom, on the nightstand. There's some residue inside. Looks and smells strange – almost medicinal.'

‘Alison mentioned Tomas had a fever and Ruby gave him some medicine. Maybe she put it in a glass of juice.'

A thick plastic sheet was spread out on the floor in front of the stairs. It was secured under furniture and a small, heavy hessian bag of what looked like sand, or plaster. There was no manufacturer's label or store sticker on the bag. The other corners were taped to the tile.

In the center of the plastic sheet was the creepy old painting.

This thing was important to Ruby. I knew that much. Alison had mentioned Ruby stared at it sometimes.

She'd got a lot of money out of Ellis and Bale before they'd worked out Ruby was the blackmailer. And she'd more than likely killed Alison's mother, Esther. And it had all started, I guessed, with planting another murder weapon in John Jackson's bedroom closet. A gun used by either Ellis or Bale to murder Margaret Blakemore. My working theory was that either Ruby had been in on the murder or, more likely, she was a witness. I couldn't discount the possibility she was part of the plot to kill Blakemore, but that part didn't entirely make sense. No, I was pretty sure Ruby had been lucky, or unlucky, one night, and secretly watched the murder.

Instead of calling the police right away, she had taken the gun from somewhere. Maybe she'd watched the killer dump it, then she'd quickly retrieved it, wiped any trace of the real killer and somehow planted John's DNA on the weapon – but, impossibly, not his palm print.

She'd got the money she'd wanted. Yet she was still coming to trial, I guessed, to testify against Jackson tomorrow. What was her endgame?

My mind, stalled, switched back on to the real world and my eyes seemed to flash open on the refrigerator door. That, or my subconscious was drawn to it.

I looked at the family collection of souvenirs and reminders on the door. Postcards. Artwork. Plans. Then joined Bloch in the hallway as she stood on the plastic sheet and stared down at the painting.

‘Was she going to wrap this painting in plastic and steal it?' Bloch asked. ‘This has all been about money.'

‘She wanted the Jacksons out of the house,' I said. ‘She probably stole the necklace too. Framed Althea for the theft and Esther's murder. But this painting . . . Maybe it is valuable, but . . .'

My breath caught in my throat as the priest in the picture moved.

Then I saw it wasn't moving. A fly had darted across the priest's face. It took flight, and landed beside another fly in the discolored space on the wall where the picture had hung.

Bloch looked at the wall, looked at me.

I went back to the kitchen, said, ‘Take some pictures of the refrigerator door. We need to move,' I said.

I went outside, got into my car, started it up and called Alison.

‘Hi, Alison, it's Eddie. I need you to make a call for me tonight . . .'

After I'd hung up on Alison, I called Detective Artie Chase.

The precinct patched me through to Chase on his cell phone.

‘I need you to come meet me tonight,' I said.

‘I'm a little busy right now, but you are on my list of people to talk to. I've got two dead bodies to deal with. You mind telling me your client's movements this evening?'

‘He's in a hotel with his wife and son. Hotel staff and security cameras should be able to confirm that. What bodies are you talking about?'

‘Two more of his neighbors are dead. Todd Ellis was found burned to a crisp in a rental car near the airport. Local cops ID'ed him from his wallet contents, some of which had managed to survive the fire. I'm standing on Henry Hudson Parkway right now, looking at Brett Bale. He was shot in his car. Doesn't look like a robbery to me.'

Somehow Ruby had escaped Bale. It wasn't Lake who shot Bale. He would've called.

‘I can't help you with those murders, but I need you to come meet me tonight. I want to make a deal.'