Page 29 of One of Us Is Guilty

‘Hey, you! Knicks fan,’ said Bloch as she unsheathed Maggie from the shoulder holster. She held the Magnum 500 in front of the guy’s face, his eyeballs bulging with terror as he looked at the massive handgun.

‘You come back here I won’t go so easy. Do you understand?’

The man scrambled backwards on his elbows, his face leaking blood all over his shirt.

He tried to speak, but between the blood and the missing teeth, Bloch couldn’t make out what he said. Whatever it was, it sounded perfectly agreeable.

At that moment, a car came down Mott Street, stopped in front of the Knicks fan still trying to crawl away. The engine backfired, a cloud of flame and black smoke rising from the exhaust pipe. Then the engine stalled.

To say it was a car was perhaps too loose a description. It looked as if it had been designed by someone who had never seen a car before, but who’d once had a car described to them over the phone. It was brown, dirty, dented and those were the good points.

Gabriel Lake got out of his Pontiac Aztek with a squeak and a whine from the driver’s door. His black suit jacket and pants lookedto be in about as good a shape as the car. His white shirt was creased, and although his curly black hair had been washed during his morning shower, it hadn’t been combed since a democrat was in the White House.

‘What’s going on?’ he asked.

‘Community relations program,’ said Bloch.

‘Eddie’s looking for you,’ he said. ‘We’ve got a case.’

8

Eddie

In a trial, knowledge is half the battle.

You cannot go into a trial knowing less than the other side. That way you walk into walls, get ambushed and are made to look a damn fool. The other half of the battle is knowing what to do with the knowledge you have. Like most things in life, the parallel to poker is clear. It’s like seeing two aces on the flop when you’ve got the other two in your hand. Don’t mean a damn thing if you don’t bet the right way. Go too hard and you scare off the other players. Bet too low, you’re not going to get the maximum return for your winning hand.

Trial law is the same.

First, you read the players.

Gabriel Lake walked into my office, Bloch behind him. Two of the best investigators I’d ever worked with. Lake was ex-FBI. One of their finest behavioral analysts. He kicked down doors belonging to serial killers. He was a weird guy, slightly at odds with the world. Although, he didn’t see it that way. According to Lake, the world was slightly at odds with him. His mind was like a wind turbine in a hurricane, and that meant he didn’t have room in his brain for everyday matters like dressing well, music, movies – frivolous things that others enjoyed. The only thing he was meticulous about, apartfrom investigative work, was food. He ate well, which meant he didn’t really eat what most humans would call food. He was, however, fiercely loyal, and a deadly enemy. Bloch, in particular, was fond of him, in her own way. Or at least in as much as Bloch could be fond of anyone.

‘I had to send Lake out looking for you. Did you get robbed?’

Bloch nodded.

‘How many people did you send to the hospital?’

She thought about it, held up two fingers.

‘Anybody I gotta worry about?’

She shook her head. Bloch didn’t say much.

‘There’s movement in Vanessa Vanderpool’s case. Cops want to talk to her.’

‘What about?’ asked Lake.

‘They didn’t say.’

‘So are you going to go along and find out?’ he asked.

‘Absolutely not,’ I said. ‘She’s not under arrest, and no good comes from talking to the NYPD. Whatever it is they’ve found out, they don’t have enough to arrest her. Not yet. We need to know what their next move is and get ahead of it.’

‘What’s Vanderpool’s deal?’ asked Lake.

‘She’s intriguing. Clarence liked her, and she liked him. I’m not sure we’re getting the whole picture from her, but I don’t think she killed that girl. The cops might have something they can use to falsely pin the murder on her, or something that changes my mind about representing her. Either way, I want to know now.’