Animal Instinct by Rosenfelt, David (novels for students TXT) 📕

just because it followed so quickly, but more because of their so far successful attempt at framing me. I said something which worried Kline, and which in turn must have worried his bosses. So they got rid of both problems, by killing Kline and framing me.”

“Which means it was not a domestic dispute, or a broken relationship, that caused this,” Andy says. “You may have originally thought that’s what you were dealing with, but you stumbled into something much bigger. And there is big money involved.”

“Why do you say that?” Laurie asks.

I jump in. “Because someone hired the person who killed Lisa Yates. Maybe it was the twenty-five grand in cash that Kline took out, or maybe not. But either way it didn’t come cheap. And I would think there is a good chance that Kline’s killer was hired as well. Could very well have been the same person.”

“I’m going to offer a third assumption,” Laurie says. “I don’t believe that there was anything Kline was going to show you that night. I think he was either forced to say that or was a willing participant, not realizing it was going to result in his death. He may have thought he was setting you up to be killed, Corey.”

“I agree,” I say. “So where do we go from here?”

Laurie turns to Marcus, who has not said a word. “Marcus, can you try to find out who was hired to kill Lisa Yates?”

“Yunhh.” I assume that means yes because Marcus nods when he says it.

“How will you do that?” I ask.

Marcus just shrugs, so Laurie picks up the slack. “Marcus knows people in that world. He has a knack for getting information from those people. If the guy is local, we have a chance. If he was brought in, it’s less likely.”

“I have an idea,” Sam Willis says, the first time he has talked as well. He says it a little sheepishly, as if not sure he should be speaking up.

“That’s what you’re here for,” Laurie says.

He nods. “Okay. We monitored Kline’s phone after you left that night, and he didn’t make any calls for the next twenty-four hours. Yet it seems obvious that he spoke to someone about you.”

“Right,” I say. “But they could have met in person.”

“That’s possible,” Sam says. “But maybe he called on a different phone, one we don’t know about. Maybe one that isn’t even in his name.”

“So?”

“So virtually every phone has a GPS in it. The phone company can tell you where a specific phone is at a specific time.”

“How does that help us?” Andy asks.

“It can also be cross-checked to reveal what phones are in a specific location. If Kline had a different phone in that house, I believe I can tell you the number, by cross-checking the GPS data.”

“And if they met in person?” Laurie asks.

“If it was at Kline’s house, then I can tell you what phone his visitor was using. And if it was elsewhere, I can follow Kline’s phone and tell you where he was.”

Laurie turns to me. “Corey?”

She’s asking me the question because she knows about my reluctance to let Sam use “extralegal” methods. The issue is whether I will feel differently now that it’s my ass on the line.

“Sounds like a plan,” I say.

Dani smiles. “That’s my little hypocrite.”

THERE is not a huge amount of publicity about my arrest.

It obviously made the local papers; the coverage has been greater than it would have been had I not been an ex-cop.

But as far as I can tell, it hasn’t hit the TV local news. That is a function of geography: since Paterson is under the New York television umbrella, it rarely makes the cut as to what goes on the air. If the media were to cover every murder that happens in the New York metropolitan area, it would be all murder, all the time. There would be no room for weather, and no one would know where the hell the Canadian air is, or what is preventing it from getting here.

I don’t care that much about the publicity either way, though it’s not fun to be thought of as a slasher/killer. I realize that people naturally assume that someone who is arrested is guilty; I used to have that impression myself. But I feel confident that I will be vindicated, and my reputation restored.

But the publicity level, or lack of it, does have some independent importance. In the investigation we are going to conduct, I am going to want to talk to a lot of people, some of them friends or colleagues of Kline’s. If they think of me as his killer, it could prove to be a definite conversation stopper.

We are still figuring out who to approach, while waiting for Marcus and Sam to come back to us with information. In most situations I am incapable of just sitting around, but with a GPS bracelet on my ankle I am particularly anxious. No, anxious is not strong enough … crazed would be the proper description.

I open my computer and start to get some information off the internet. I’m not sure what I’m looking for, and I’m certainly no Sam Willis, but it gives me something to do.

I google Lisa Yates and read the stories covering her murder. There’s nothing there that I don’t already know. Biographical information on her is short, but her Facebook page is at least partially enlightening. Apparently Facebook pages stay up after a person dies, which I guess makes sense, since there is no one to take it down. I’m sure Facebook has no interest in monitoring death records; they only make money off the living.

I switch to googling Gerald Kline. Reading the media stories about his murder is painful, especially the follow-up stories that identify me as having been arrested for the murder.

The worrisome part, as these stories remind me, is that the police and prosecutor felt confident enough to make the arrest. I get it that I had a grudge against