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Shaky folded his arms, his body language less than conciliatory. “Why should I back you on anything as long as you’re still telling the world to ‘go pirate’ your old songs? I’m bleeding money by the minute.”
“I’d rather lose my pitiful share of royalties to pirates than let you keep an even bigger share.”
“Then fuck you!” said Shaky, slapping the table. “You’re a liar who lies about everything, including Tyler McCormick!”
“Fine,” she said, rising. “I didn’t back down to the U.S. attorney in New York when he tried to silence me, and I won’t back down to you. Let’s get out of here, Jack.”
Imani started for the door.
“Wait,” said Shaky, and Imani froze. Shaky paused, as if preparing himself for what he was about to say, and then looked at Jack.
“She’s not lying.”
Imani settled back into her chair, casting a look at Jack that said,I told you so.
“Progress,” said Jack. “That’s a good thing. But this version of the truth is not without problems. If Tyler McCormick was a stalker, both of you, as a married couple, had reason to want him dead.”
“In other words, you both had motive,” said Shaky’s lawyer.
“Perhaps even motive enough to want his body chained to a piling for the fish to eat,” Jack added. “Depending on how bad the stalking was.”
“Then we need to find someone else who had motive,” said Imani.
“Sometimes that’s a good strategy,” said Jack. “Sometimes not. Keep in mind that we don’t have to prove that someone else did it in order for the jury to find you not guilty. All we have to do is create ‘reasonable doubt.’”
“But won’t the jurors ask themselves that question?” said Imani. “If Shaky doesn’t try to pin the murder on me, and I don’t try to pin the murder on Shaky, that leaves an obvious unanswered question. Who did it? Who killed Tyler McCormick and put his body on display in Biscayne Bay?”
“There’s a reason some cases go cold,” said Jack. “We don’t always get all the answers. We don’t live in a perfect world.”
“And sometimes innocent people get convicted,” said Imani. “Right, Jack?”
She was doing it again, comparing herself to Theo. But this time she seemed to be looping in her ex-husband, and Jack wasn’t ready to go that far.
“That won’t happen here,” he said, keeping his response intentionally ambiguous, offering no explanation whether he meant there would be no conviction, or no conviction of the innocent.
Chapter 24
Theo couldn’t remember the last time he’d placed a call from a phone booth. He’d seen plenty of London’s signature red booths in the movies, but it surprised him to discover that they were actually still functional, not mere relics of the past protected from extinction like some inanimate endangered species. He found one on a street corner near the Holiday Inn Express, where Gigi was staying on his dime. The strange dial tone threw him for a moment. Once he realized it was normal, he dialed the operator and told her he wanted to place a “long-distance” call.
When was the last time I said that?
Theo knew absolutely no one, save Uncle Cy, who still had a landline in his apartment. He’d almost forgotten that there were indeed advantages, including at this moment, to this security. A call on a cellphone could easily be intercepted by anyone with the right gadget sold by countless tech stores on the internet. A callfroma cellphone could give up the caller’s location via GPS locator. These things mattered when a Russian oligarch and his goons were determined to find and kill you.
“Hello?” said Uncle Cy, his aged voice cracking on the line.
“Cy, it’s me! Theo!”
“Theo who?” he said, and then he laughed. “So good to hear your voice, boy. Where are you?”
“Still in London.”
“When are you coming home?”
“That’s what I’m calling about. Could be a little while.”
“Somethin’ bad happen?”
“No, there’s this girl.”
