A Stranger on the Beach(93)
Mays leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers. “What does this mean? You think Caroline stole the gun from her brother-in-law?”
“No,” Jess said. “I bet Joe Lombardo gave the gun to Jason Stark. Gave it to him willingly. From what the AUSA said, Jason knew he was in trouble. That’s consistent with something Hannah Stark told me. She said that in the months leading up to the murder, her parents seemed upset and worried, like something was wrong. About that time, her father started carrying the gun. Jason needed a gun to defend himself against the Russians. Joe Lombardo gave him his gun, but maybe he knew that his brother-in-law was dirty. He didn’t want to be implicated if the gun was ever used in a shooting. So, he reported the gun stolen. And he was right to do that, because it was used in a shooting. It was used to kill Jason himself—somehow.”
“Yes, but how, and by whom?” Mays said. “There are too many loose ends in our case. I’m uncomfortable. We need a witness who can reliably tell us what really happened. Somebody who was there.”
“Caroline, obviously, once we locate her,” Jess said.
“I said reliably. Caroline has no credibility. After the insurance policy? With her prints on the gun? Come on. She’s toast. What about Aidan?” Mays said.
“Aidan?” Jess said.
“Why not? We flip him, get him to testify against her. Maybe he’s the shooter, but she’s the better target. Betrayed her own husband for five million dollars and the love of a younger man? It’s classic.”
“What makes you think he’d flip on her?” Jess asked.
Jess doubted it, personally. She’d seen the desperation in Aidan’s eyes as he grabbed for Caroline in the station house. There was at least one thing Caroline hadn’t lied about. Aidan Callahan was obsessed with her nearly to the point of insanity. Jess didn’t believe he would talk.
“What’s the alternative?” Mays said. “Callahan rots in jail while she lives it up on the insurance money? He’ll flip, I guarantee it. I say we get a warrant for Caroline Stark’s arrest. Put her in handcuffs, do a nice little perp walk into the courthouse. Oh, yeah. I’m liking this.”
55
“I have some good news and some bad news,” Lisa Walters said.
It was five days since Aidan’s last court date, and five more until the grand jury would meet to determine his fate. Aidan and Lisa sat across a narrow table from one another in the small interview room that the prison set aside for attorney visits. The fluorescent lights buzzed. The carpet was dingy and stained. The room smelled of roach spray and damp. But Lisa, in a red suit and bold earrings, with her clear gaze and firm voice, brought a ray of hope.
“I could use some good news,” Aidan said.
“All right. Good news first. And this is big. The prosecution wants you to cooperate against Caroline Stark.”
“Cooperate? What do you mean?”
“Turn. Flip. Sing. Drop a dime. Call it what you’d like. They believe she killed her husband with your help, and they want your testimony against her in exchange for a reduced sentence.”
“But—”
Lisa held up her hand. “Wait a second. I know what you’re going to say. Waah, waah, Lisa, I can’t remember. Waah. I love her, I won’t talk against her. Well, stop right there, kid. You’re gonna do this. You’re going in there and agreeing to testify, but not with a guilty plea, and not in exchange for a reduced sentence. They’re going to declare you innocent and drop the charges. I have a bombshell up my sleeve that changes everything. Your tox screen came back. You know how many Ambiens you took on the night of the murder?”
“Ambien? The sleeping pill? Zero. I never took a sleeping pill in my life.”
“Wrong. You took a shitload. The tox screen shows an enormous concentration of zolpidem in your blood, which is the sedative in Ambien. Normally, zolpidem dissipates quickly. Your blood was drawn after your arrest, which by my calculation was about eight hours after you had that drink with Caroline—”
“The bourbon?”
“Yes. My expert says that to have that much zolpidem in your system that long after administration of the drug, you would’ve had to ingest up to four or five times the standard dose.”
“You’re saying Caroline drugged me?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying. Don’t you think she did?”
Aidan cast his mind back to the first gulp of that bourbon at Caroline’s house. It had tasted bitter and strange, but he’d ignored that and drunk the whole glass down, simply for the pleasure of drinking with her. Almost immediately afterward, he’d started feeling lethargic, dizzy and shivery. But the music was intoxicating and being near her was overwhelming, and he attributed his light-headedness to that. Yet, when he awoke in his truck the next day, his mind was wiped clean like he’d been bingeing for days, after only one drink. Aidan tended bar for a living. He had a high tolerance for alcohol. He never blacked out. Yet he remembered nothing after the singular moment of stepping out into the wind and rain. And then, to wake up drenched in blood with a gun he’d never seen wedged under the seat, and Caroline’s husband dead, at his hand? He remembered telling Caroline he’d protect her from him. He even recalled wanting to jump the guy. But in his heart, he didn’t believe he could do something like that and have zero memory of it.