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

“I can access a copy,” Sam says, and I don’t think anyone doubts that he can.

“This still leaves a lot of unanswered questions,” I say. “For one, who the hell is Rico? For another, while it demonstrates a connection between Doris Landry and Lisa, why was Lisa carrying around her obituary?”

“I’ve got a third,” Laurie says. “Why would Rico bother to frame you for the Kline killing? He didn’t find it necessary to frame anyone for Lisa’s death. Framing someone doesn’t seem like a drug dealer’s style. And how would he know about you?”

“I can’t answer those questions, but it does explain Kline’s cashing those checks. He was buying drugs. Apparently it was not enough money to get him off the hook. And for more than twenty grand, it was a very large hook.”

“Marcus, can you try and figure out who Rico is?” Laurie asks. “I’m assuming he is local.”

“Yunhhh.”

“I’ll also ask some people in the department. I doubt Rico operates completely under the radar.”

Andy takes out his copies of the obituaries and looks at the one for Doris Landry. “It says she’s survived by a son, Steven. We need to talk to him.”

“I’m feeling like there are pieces to the puzzle that are still missing,” I say. “For instance, Jake Gardener was a high-priced hit man. Is that the kind of guy drug dealers hire? Doesn’t feel right.”

I can see Laurie react with a slight frown that she quickly covers up. Gardener’s death is still bothering her; she believes that she and Marcus should have called the police that night and reported what happened. I have tried to convince her otherwise, but she comes from the same cop culture as I do, so I understand her feelings.

“Maybe Gardener was also a customer of Rico’s,” Laurie says. “He could have been paying his tab by killing Lisa and Kline.”

“Maybe,” I say. “But it’s also possible, and I agree this would be a coincidence, but just because Lisa was afraid of this Rico guy doesn’t mean he was the one that had her killed. If she and Kline were operating in this kind of world, they could have made other enemies.”

“Speaking legally, this is an enormous plus whether Rico is the killer or not,” Andy says. “If we can show that Lisa and Kline were taking drugs and in fear for her life from a dealer, it would be pretty hard for the jury not to find reasonable doubt about your guilt.”

“I want more than reasonable doubt,” I say. “I want complete exoneration.”

“A noble goal. But as your lawyer, I’ll settle for you not spending the rest of your life in prison.”

I’m uncomfortable with a lot of this, but I probably shouldn’t be. Lisa clearly expressed a fear of a drug dealer in this email, which opens up a promising area of investigation.

Andy’s right; from the standpoint of our defense, we’ve struck gold. Maybe we’ll find Rico and he’ll break down and confess, and the judge will take off my GPS bracelet, apologize profusely, and all will be right with the world.

Maybe.

JASON Musgrove, the man who was called “boss,” was as much amused as worried.

On one hand, they were up against an apparently competent adversary. And that adversary was certainly tenacious; Carlos had stupidly ensured that by framing this Corey Douglas guy for Kline’s murder.

That was a monumental error; by placing Douglas’s future freedom in jeopardy, it ensured that he and his colleagues would be relentless in discovering the truth. That Carlos had made such a dumb mistake caused Musgrove to question his choice of Carlos for the position he held.

One more mistake like that and the position would be temporary. Musgrove’s team would see to that. That team was incredibly talented; each one was extraordinary in his own right.

But Musgrove had created it all, had the access and the ideas. But he was a worrier because the operation had gotten so big, and so violent, that he did not feel fully in control of the nuts and bolts of the operation. He was aware that he did not fully know how foolproof and impenetrable the construction of the system was.

Musgrove’s amusement with the current situation came from his team’s ability to manipulate his enemies and the entire situation. His people knew everything the other side knew, and more important, what they thought they knew.

He knew that they had discovered the obituaries and was certain that they had no idea of the significance of them. They would go down one dead-end road after another, until Douglas was in jail, and Musgrove’s team would be left with more money than they could ever spend.

But just in case, he would continue to watch them.

He and his team were always watching.

WE just caught another break.

Somers Point, New Jersey, where Doris Landry lived and died, is well outside the radius that I am allowed to travel from my GPS prison. So I was not going to be able to go down there to interview her surviving son, Steven. Andy and Laurie were planning to drive down to do that.

Sam got a phone number for Steven, and Andy called him to ask if they could visit. It turns out that he does not live down there at all, but in Freehold, which is much closer.

He was quite willing to talk to us about his mother, even though Andy was vague about the reason for the request. To make matters even more convenient, Steven said he was planning on traveling to Manhattan the next day, to handle some personal business and to deal with a few issues in his mother’s estate.

Steven said that he would be willing to talk to us there, if we’d make the trip in for an early-morning meeting. So that is what Andy and I are now doing. We’re meeting at Sarabeth’s, a terrific breakfast place on Amsterdam Avenue on the Upper West Side, near where Steven said his meetings are.

We get there twenty minutes early, which