Hide & Seek - James Patterson [74]
“We’d like to hire you for our team. Nathan says you’re the best investigator he knows.”
“I’m very good, but what difference does it make? Isn’t this case pretty open and shut? That’s what I hear.”
“We don’t think so, not at all. Nathan thinks it’s anything but open and shut.”
“You could have fooled me. The media has her drilling the son of a bitch, blowing his head off.”
“There’s more to it than that, believe me there is. You interested in finding out what?”
“He was shtupping someone else?”
“We’ll never know. Probably. But Maggie wouldn’t kill him for that.”
“Abuse?”
“Far as I know, he hit her once. No, I’m sorry, twice. She wouldn’t kill him for that either. She’s a good person. Just like in her songs.”
“Then why’d she do it?”
“That’s what we’re hiring you to find out, Ms. Breen. We’re not entirely sure that she did.”
“You need a defense, or you want the facts?”
“We need a defense.”
“Ah. My thanks for your honesty. I like that in a famous singer.”
“But we’re sure the facts will lead to the defense. Maggie’s not a killer.”
“Only of husbands, it seems. Didn’t she shoot hubby number one? I do believe I read that in the funny pages.”
“That’s never been proved. She was never tried for it. She was originally charged with second-degree murder, but it didn’t stick.”
“And her live-in? Patrick O’Malley?”
“An accident. O’Malley had a heart attack.”
“I thought she confessed to the murder.”
“The police claim what they have is a confession. Maggie was confused and disoriented when they brought her in. You can understand that.”
“The press are already trying her. She’s sure losing in their court. The first one with a handgun, the next on a boat, this one with a rifle.”
“Look. If you don’t want to take this on—”
“Oh, I didn’t say that.”
“Then you’ll join us?”
“For you, Barry Kahn—”
There was a pause. “God bless you, Ms. Breen,” Barry said.
“Call me Norma.”
She could hear his sigh of relief, imagined the strain he was under. And she admired his loyalty to his friend, even if she was the “black widow” of Bedford and almost surely guilty as sin.
CHAPTER 88
MOST PEOPLE STILL didn’t know the issues separating the Serbs and the Croats, but the murder trial of Maggie Bradford was being watched everywhere around the world. Reporters and television crews arrived not only from across the United States, but also from Europe, South America, Asia, and probably from the moon. The crush of the press was as great, Norma Breen thought, as at a presidential inaugural—only the desperation for the “inside” story was far more lunatic.
Christ, it’s a goddamn murder trial, she thought. Whatever the outcome, it won’t change the world. So what if she killed a husband or two? Most of them deserve it!
She pointed her dusty yellow Camaro down Clarke Street in Bedford Village and slowly drove past the buzzing courthouse for the second time that morning.
A procession of black umbrellas, vinyl raincoats, Boston Chicken and Dunkin’ Donuts take-out bags stretched along the main street, past Hamilton Drugs, Willie’s Newspapers, and the new public library. The slow parade turned onto Charles Street and continued five more blocks.
What a mess! What a freaking disaster area! Tourist buses were parked down Millar and Grant streets: bright yellow school buses and Greyhounds with names like PITTSFIELD and CATAWBA on their foreheads. It was early December, and snow already hung in the air.
“Maggie and Will: Bittersweet Love Tragedy.” That was today’s headline; similar phrases floated out to Norma from her car radio, including “Three Strikes. She’s Out!”
Cute! Norma liked that one. Finally, a little sense of humor about this fiasco, which happened to be her job for now.
The chief defense investigator hated publicity, didn’t care about the fame, or even getting rich. It interfered with her work, all those reporters scurrying after her. Still, she knew what she was in for. Maggie Bradford was a star. One segment of the public had decided she was guilty; the other, innocent as a lamb. And Norma?
Dammit, I still don’t know what