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

those other deaths in front of the jury in the first place. The judge has to find them relevant to the Kline case, otherwise he’ll rule them inadmissible.”

I already knew this, but it’s still difficult to hear. “Any good news in this?”

“Absolutely,” Andy says, surprising me. “Lisa Yates’s death is the easiest for us to get in, since the prosecution will open the door by using Lisa as part of your motive. You were avenging her death.”

“So it makes no sense that I would have killed her.”

“Right. And if you didn’t, then someone else did. Their counter to that, of course, would be to imply that Gerald Kline killed her. They’ll say that you were right in thinking Kline did it, but that doesn’t justify your slitting his throat. You positioned yourself as judge, jury, and executioner, which are three major no-no’s.

“Jana Mitchell is the tough one. The Cincinnati police see it as a home invasion. We have an uphill fight to make our judge believe it is tied into our case.”

“And Carlos?”

“Basically works for us. You are investigating to find the real bad guys, so they tried to silence you. That has the advantage of probably being true. But their position might be that Carlos was an associate of Kline and was avenging his murder. Or more likely that he had nothing to do with this case at all and was getting revenge over something you did in your days as a cop.”

“Can we win?”

Andy pauses a moment. “We can win, but if you were betting it, you’d want odds. I could use some more bullets in the defense gun.”

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I can’t supply those bullets by sitting in court all day. I need to be out in the world, investigating.”

“Don’t go there. That’s a nonstarter. You have got to be in court.”

“Is that a rule?”

“It’s my rule. Legally, you don’t have to be there. It’s your right to confront your accusers, but not your obligation. But your not being there would be a disaster.”

“Why?”

“Two reasons. First of all, the jury will look negatively on it. They’ll think that you don’t give a shit about what’s going on and what they’re doing. It’s arrogant. Secondly, it will negatively impact your ability to appeal certain issues if we lose.”

“I’m trying to get us not to lose.”

Andy shakes his head. “Laurie and Marcus will be working on it, and you can help them on nights and weekends. But when court is in session, you need to be there.”

I’m not happy about it, but Andy is the expert and I promised to follow his advice. “Okay.”

“Good. You have a nice suit to wear?”

“The last suit I wore was to my friend Bobby Rosenberg’s bar mitzvah.”

“Sounds perfect, but leave the yarmulke at home.”

AMONG the many things that are bugging me, two stand out.

One is Steven Landry, son of the deceased Doris Landry. Both Andy and I independently believed he was lying to us at breakfast that day. It was about relatively innocuous stuff, like did he notify his mother’s many email friends about her death. And it was strange that he wasn’t at all curious about why we were asking our questions. But if he lied, and we think he did, then that sticks out in any criminal investigation.

People lie for a reason, sometimes important, sometimes not. Unfortunately for this theory, Sam had checked him out and found nothing to cause suspicion.

The other thing gnawing at me is Rico. Unlike the Steven Landry situation, we have factual evidence of Rico’s existence. Lisa spoke about her fear of him to Doris Landry in that email. If she feared for her life at his hands, and then shortly thereafter she was murdered, that makes him an important piece in finding her killer.

I don’t believe that the Rico we confronted in the parking lot that night had anything to do with either Lisa or Kline, which leaves us with a missing Rico.

But I also believe that whatever is going on is tied into Ardmore Medical Systems. Could it be that Rico, whoever the hell he is, is somehow involved with Ardmore?

I could call Jason Musgrove or Richard Mahler, the CEO and the head of IT, respectively, at Ardmore and ask them if the name Rico rings a bell, but I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to reveal my knowledge of Rico at all, and even though I don’t necessarily suspect Musgrove or Mahler of anything, they could inadvertently mention something to someone else.

Instead I call my pajama-footed, Tang-drinking, tartuffo-eating pal, Don Crystal. “I’ve got another question,” I say, after he answers the phone with “Yo.”

“Any chance we could do it over a meal? I know a great barbecue place.”

“Not this time; you’ve got a rain check.”

His sigh is audible. “Okay, what’s the question?”

“Does the name Rico mean anything to you?”

“Like Puerto Rico?”

“No, like a person’s name. I’m trying to find out if there’s a person named Rico at Ardmore.”

“Not that I can think of, but I still have a copy of the company phone directory somewhere. I could find it and look.”

“I’d really appreciate that. One more question…”

“For a total of two? I should be sucking down a slab of ribs for this.”

I ignore that. “Was there a drug culture at Ardmore?”

“A drug culture?” Whatever he thought I was going to ask, this clearly wasn’t it.

“Yes. Were drugs prevalent there?”

“If they were, I’d still be there.”

I laugh at that. “Thanks, Don … that was really helpful. Will you check the phone directory?”

“You got it. Next time, barbecue.”

Having made no noticeable progress on the Rico front, I turn to our suspected liar, Steven Landry. He had little information to offer about Lisa Yates, other than that his mother liked her and tried to help her in the same way that she tried to help everyone else. There is a chance that Doris Landry was more open with her friends about it than with her son, who did