21st Birthday (Women's Murder Club #21)(76)

“What?”

“Sorry. Go back to sleep.”

She took a look at me and said, “Lindsay. What’s wrong?”

I tried waving her off again, but she persisted.

Finally, I said, “I think I get it now.”

“Get what?”

“Why Burke really shot his girlfriend in front of us.”

“Tell me. Don’t hold back.”

A flight attendant rolled the cart to our row, offering snacks and beverages. I chose the breakfast burrito and a mini bottle of chardonnay.

Alvarez said, “Make that two.”

After we’d been served, I lowered the window shade and unscrewed the top from my bottle of wine. Alvarez was still waiting for me to finish my theory on why Burke shot Jane Doe.

She shook my arm and said, “Speak.”

“Okay. My theory goes like this. Burke saw Berney at the Bellagio. He rightly assumes that Berney is there for him. When we crashed his party at the Eagle, he put it all on red. Better to risk a murder charge in Vegas than in federal court.”

“Mmm. Nevada has a death penalty,” Alvarez said.

“Okay, say he gets a great defense lawyer, a local pit bull who’s looking for a showcase trial. Burke could cook up a convincing story about the Jane Doe shooting and maybe win over the jury. If so, he’d get light time or no time. You heard him, Sonia. He can say anything, spin anything, with feeling.

I went on with my hypothesis.

“So, Burke says, ‘The room was totally dark.’”

“It was,” said Alvarez. “And noisy.”

“Right. There’s pounding music from the wedding dancers overhead, pots clanking and shouting in the kitchen. And of course, Burke says he and Jane Doe were doing some heavy breathing when his door was kicked in.”

Alvarez said, “He could say she never yelled for help.”

“They’re having a good time, right? As Burke’s lawyer tells it, his client didn’t hear us knock. He didn’t hear us say ‘Police.’ He was otherwise engaged. Then, the door is kicked in and Burke sees silhouettes with guns. What’s he supposed to think?”

Alvarez said, “That we aren’t room service. That he’s a target because of his winnings. He grabs his piece and fires.”

“Right, and now the girl in his lap is screaming. He tries to push her head down as he aims around her, towards the doorframe —”

“— but she pulls away or otherwise moves her head. Oh, noooo.” “You got it,” I said. “She catches a round with her skull. Now, it’s an accident. Manslaughter, not murder, and we cannot prove otherwise.”

Alvarez said, “His lawyer calls it bad freaking luck.”

“Burke’s a gambler,” I said. “Win some. Lose some. This could be the best bet of his life.”





CHAPTER 101





NEWT GARDNER MOVED with the confidence and deliberation of a jungle cat as he approached the stand to cross-examine Yuki’s star witness.

Gardner said, “Director Hallows, I just have a few questions for you. Regarding the razor that you say was used to kill Ms. Fogarty.

“Assuming the blood on the blade was Ms. Fogarty’s —”

“It was.”

“— and you assert that the fingerprints on the handle belong to Mr. Lucas Burke. Did I get that right?”

“Yes, that’s correct.”

“How long can fingerprints remain on an item like that?”

“As long as the surface isn’t handled. Could be for quite a long time.”

“So, if someone picked up the razor with gloved hands, and didn’t wipe the handle, the fingerprints would be preserved?”

“If the person who picked up the razor wanted to preserve them, yes.”

“Now, you saw the video of Lucas Burke leaving his house? And some twenty minutes later Tara Burke left the same house with the baby?”

“Yes, I saw that video many times. Frame by frame.”

“Did you see Tara lock the front door?”

“No. Her hands were full.”

“So, could Luke’s razor have been taken from the unlocked house by a person wearing gloves who had an interest in preserving the fingerprints that were on it?”

“It’s possible.”

“So …” said Gardner, turning away from the witness, keeping the spectators and the jury waiting for him to finish his point, then spinning back around to give Hallows his fifteen-hundred-dollar-an-hour stare.

“We agree. If someone wearing gloves took Mr. Burke’s razor from the house and the handle had Mr. Burke’s prints on it, that someone could have killed Ms. Fogarty with it. And if that razor remained concealed by weeds for months, it would still have the victim’s blood and the defendant’s prints on it, correct?”

Yuki listened to Gardner lay out his case on Hallows’s back. Hallows was a very good criminologist, but Clapper had blamed him for not searching the vacant lot sooner.

Hallows said, “I’m a scientist, sir. You’re asking me to give definitive answers to a number of compounding possibilities, all untested. That isn’t how I work.”

“I’m asking you as an expert, director. Is this scenario possible?”