Afraid of the Dark - James Grippando [74]
“I know what you’re talking about. Hacking into her provider’s network and zapping it from her cellular records was my version of child’s play.”
“And I never told anyone a thing about it.”
“There was no reason for anyone to know.”
Vince shifted uneasily. He hated moments like these, when people could see the angst on his face and he could see nothing on theirs.
“Look, at the time, we were of one mind,” said Vince. “The last thing we wanted was a rag-sheet reporter dragging McKenna’s reputation through the mud. But without that text message, the only evidence we had was the recording of her dying declaration—which I screwed up. The text would have put Jamal Wakefield at the scene of the crime. What nineteen-year-old guy wouldn’t have come running in response to a message like that?”
“It’s hard to run from a secret detention facility.”
“You don’t really believe that line Swyteck has been selling, do you?”
Chuck took a long drag from his cigarette. “Jamal didn’t kill McKenna.”
“Don’t patronize me. If I had stayed on the line with the nine-one-one operator and let McKenna talk to her, the case against Jamal would have been a lock. There was only a hearsay problem because I recorded it to something as unreliable as my home answering machine.”
“You need to stop beating yourself up over that. The text message doesn’t convict Jamal. It actually proves his innocence.”
“How can you say that?”
“For one thing, McKenna would never have sent a text like that. Not that I knew everything about my daughter, but that much I did know. The man who killed her picked up her cell phone and texted Jamal. It was all part of setting up her ex-boyfriend.”
Vince paused, confused. “When did you decide this?”
“After I heard Jamal’s alibi, I did the math.”
“Math?”
“The time of death was a time certain. So was the time of the text message. We also know the severity of McKenna’s wounds. With a little input from medical and forensic experts, I was able to make a fairly reliable calculation of how long a healthy teenage girl of McKenna’s height and weight could survive those injuries. That gave me an approximate time of the attack. The bottom line is that McKenna was probably stabbed before the text was sent.”
Vince considered it. Some things weren’t measurable with mathematical certainty, but if anyone could do it, Chuck could. “So Jamal was framed?”
“That’s my calculation.”
Sam rested his head on Vince’s leg. Vince patted his huge head, then scratched him in his favorite spot: on the forehead, right between the eyes. Sam’s eyes. Vince’s eyes. “Which means that the son of a bitch who did this is definitely still out there.”
“Three years and running,” said Chuck.
“Which means Swyteck was right.”
“Yeah,” said Chuck. “So right that Jamal’s mother intends to sue me under some bullshit theory.”
“How do you know that?”
“Jamal’s uncle called me. He said he was hiring Jack Swyteck, and that it was going to be the courtroom equivalent of jihad.”
“Well, if it’s war they want . . .”
A puff of smoke hit Vince in the face.
“I got a better idea,” said Chuck.
“Tell me.”
There was another cloud of smoke, then Chuck turned into Marlon Brando. “I’ll make him an offer he can’t refuse.”
Chapter Thirty-six
Jack entered the MLFC Computer Center through a fireproof door and in the company of Chuck Mays, Vince Paulo, and a security guard who made the other men look like Lilliputians.
“Watch your step,” said Mays.
Boxes of records and supplies cluttered the ramp, and it impressed Jack the way Paulo negotiated his way with just a walking stick. The guard left them at another glass door, which Mays opened with a passkey. It led to a large open space that was so well air-conditioned that Jack felt an immediate chill. Inside, rows of supercomputers hummed beneath an expansive drop ceiling with cool fluorescent lighting.
“This single computer center is bigger than my entire first company was,” said Mays.
Jack didn’t fancy himself a computer whiz, so rather than interrupt with a stupid question,