Bury the Lead

8




I’M OUT OF THE AIRPORT in five minutes, leaving Laurie to fend for herself. If Linda Padilla has been murdered, then this case is going to explode. And if Cummings is still in the middle of things, then as his lawyer, I have to make sure it doesn’t explode in his face.

Four years ago Linda Padilla was a middle-level bureaucrat working in the State Housing Administration. Having grown up in low-income housing herself, she was aware of the rather large need for improvement in most of these developments.

What she had not been aware of was a conspiracy among some of those above her to embezzle money meant for housing construction. When she discovered it, she feared that it would be swept under the rug, so she went public with the revelations. People went to jail, others turned state’s evidence, and she became an instant media star.

Superstar whistle-blowers don’t remain in bureaucracies long, and Padilla left to start a watchdog operation. Emboldened by her actions and aware of her reputation, others in different areas of government and the private sector started coming to her with their tales of official and executive wrongdoing. Padilla eagerly and effectively presented them to the world. It wasn’t long before people in power were, if not cowering, at least fearful of becoming her next target.

Padilla took advantage of her fame to become very wealthy. She was a highly sought-after figure on the lecture circuit, and the word was, she could command more than fifty thousand dollars per speech. She also wrote a best-selling book on her exploits; she had reinvented herself as a cottage industry and made a fortune in the process.

Three months ago Padilla announced her candidacy for governor in next year’s election. The public responded almost instantly, and poll after poll showed that she had the very real potential to turn the state’s political landscape upside down.

But Vince’s words make all that moot, and her murder is likely to initiate a media earthquake. I listen to the radio on the way there, and the news is sketchy at this point. All that is known is that Linda Padilla has been killed, and there is speculation that she is in fact the latest victim of the serial killer that has been stalking the area.

It takes me almost twenty minutes to get to Eastside Park and another ten minutes to work my way close to the crime scene. If I were a looter anywhere else in New Jersey, I’d be salivating, since there’s no doubt that every cop in the state is here in Eastside Park. There are so many car lights and floodlights that it seems like daytime, though it’s approaching nine P.M.

Since in the eyes of the police I have no standing in this case, I’m limited as to how close I can get. I’m trying to maneuver around that problem by finding cops I recognize when I see Vince pointing to me and talking to an officer. The officer nods and comes over to get me, bringing me inside the barricades. As I walk toward Vince, I look around but don’t see Daniel Cummings.

Vince grabs me by the arm. “Come on.”

He starts taking me toward the crime scene, which means we have to navigate through what seems to be five million people.

“Where’s Cummings?” I ask.

“With the state police.”

“Was he contacted by the killer?”

He laughs a short laugh. “Yeah. You might say that.”

A few moments later I understand his cryptic comment. Cummings is leaning back on a chair as a paramedic bandages his head. It appears the bandage is protecting a wound on the left side of his temple.

The medic finishes and nods silently to Captain Millen, the state cop who ran the press conference and who is in charge of what is rapidly becoming a train wreck of a case. Millen walks over to Cummings and starts talking to him.

“So, Mr. Cummings, you feeling okay?” I can tell his concern lacks something in the sincerity department, since he does not wait for a response. “Tell me everything that happened tonight. Leave out nothing.”

Cummings frowns his displeasure at this. “Captain, I already told the story to the officer. Can’t you—”

“No, I want to hear it from you.”

“Captain Millen, my name is Andy Carpenter,” I say, my voice deep and powerful so as to convey my authority. “I’m representing Mr. Cummings.”

“Good for you.” He doesn’t seem to be cowed.

“My client is obviously injured.”

“And Linda Padilla is obviously dead. So stop interrupting or I’ll have you obviously removed.”

He’s speaking to me as if I am an annoying child. This is unacceptable and demeaning, but I back off, so as to avoid getting sent to my room for a time-out.

Cummings, coherent enough in his injured state to know that he’ll get no help from me, begins to tell his story. He had received a phone call on his cell phone while driving on Route 3, about fifteen minutes from here. It was the killer, who told him that the next victim was about to be killed in Eastside Park, near the pavilion.

Millen interrupts. “How did he know you’d be out with your cell phone?”

Cummings shrugs. “For all I know, he tried me at home first.”

As the conversation continues, I learn that the police had been tapping all of Cummings’s phones except the cell phone that the killer called on. It was not Cummings’s personal phone; it was one supplied by the paper, which he kept in the car and rarely used. He hadn’t thought to mention it to the police and is baffled as to how the killer could have gotten the number, since he doesn’t even know it himself.

“What did you do next?”

“I rushed here, of course. And I tried to keep him on the phone as long as I could. I thought maybe I could save whoever . . . if he was talking to me . . . well, he couldn’t do anything.” He glances over toward the inside of the pavilion, where Ms. Padilla’s body lay covered. “Finally, we got cut off as I reached here. I tried calling you, but there wasn’t any cell phone reception. So I went in . . . hoping to stop . . .”

My own cell phone goes off, rather untimely considering what my client has just said.

“Hello?”

It’s Laurie, calling from the airport. “Where are you?”

“I’m at Eastside Park . . . there’s been a murder.”

Millen looks over at me, then back to Cummings. “How come his cell phone works here?”

Cummings has a flash of anger at Millen. “I don’t know . . . and I really don’t care.”

“Who was murdered?” Laurie asks.

“Linda Padilla,” I say. “Take a cab home. I’ll call you.”

I hang up, having smoothly accomplished the difficult feat of making my own client look like a liar.

“Good job” is Vince’s sarcastic whisper.

I shrug as Millen questions Cummings in excruciating detail about the phone conversation, seeking to find out every possible nuance, probing for exact words used, tone of voice, et cetera. Finally, Cummings tells Millen that he doesn’t remember much more. He was apparently hit on the side of the head by an unseen assailant. He was knocked out, though he doesn’t know for how long, and when he came to, he called the police, since the cell phone’s reception had somehow been restored.

“Did you see him at all?” Millen asks.

“No.”

“His car?”

“No.”

Cummings seems to wince in pain and touches the bandage on his head.

“Captain,” I say, “he needs to get to a hospital.”

Millen seems about to argue, then changes his mind. “We’ll be in touch tomorrow.”

The paramedics load the reluctant Cummings into the ambulance, which will take him to the hospital for X rays. Once he is gone, Vince and I walk off to talk alone.

“What do you think?” Vince asks.

“How well do you know Cummings?”

“Very well,” says Vince, a little too quickly. “Well enough. Why?”

“He was lying. The cell phone story was bullshit. I walk Tara around here all the time, and I’ve never had a problem with reception. And I heard Laurie clear as a bell.”

“So maybe your—”

“You got one? Call your office.”

Vince takes out his phone and dials his office. After a few moments he cuts off the call; it obviously worked.

“Why would he lie?” Vince asks.

“I don’t know . . . maybe he wants to be a hero and catch the killer himself. But if I knew he was lying, then you can be sure Millen knew it even faster. And with the pressure that’s about to come down, he’s not a guy to jerk around.”

Vince doesn’t say anything for a few moments, worry etched on his face. There’s something going on here, and as the lawyer, it would be nice if I knew what it was.

“Vince, are you telling me everything? Because I feel like there’s a whole bunch of missing pieces here.”

“I’ve told you everything I know. Why wouldn’t I?”

I shrug, since I have no idea, and he continues. “I’ll talk to Daniel in the morning. You wanna go grab a beer at Charlie’s?”

Charlie’s is a combination sports bar/restaurant that is my favorite sports bar/restaurant in the entire world. Simply put, it is the Tara of sports bar/restaurants. But there is absolutely no chance that I will be going there tonight with Vince.

“Let me see . . . ,” I say. “A beer with Vince, or seeing Laurie for the first time in two weeks? Mmmm . . . Vince or Laurie . . . Laurie or Vince? Gorgeous woman . . . or fat slob? A terrific evening with the woman I love . . . or a night of burping and slurping with a pain in the ass? Help me out here . . . I just can’t decide.”

“I’m buying,” he offers.

“Even though that would be a historic event, I’m going to pass. Call me in the morning after you’ve spoken to our boy.”

I leave Eastside Park and stop off at my house to pick up Tara before I go to Laurie’s. I never leave Tara alone in the house all night, and my plan is to spend this particular night at Laurie’s. Of course, it’s always possible that she’ll have a different plan. It’s her first night home . . . she might be tired or just feel like being alone.

I ring her doorbell and she comes to the door. She’s wearing one of my T-shirts and nothing else, and she kisses me in such a way as to make me confident that my plan is going to work.

And it does. Brilliantly.