The Quickie - James Patterson [55]
Now I knew how so many of the suspects I’d put away over the years felt right before they folded, purged themselves, gave it up. Confession was the last step to forgiveness, wasn’t that the con?
But then I remembered.
I didn’t need forgiveness.
I had a pretty good Plan B.
I did something then that I suspected Jeff Buslik didn’t see too often in his high-powered corner office. I leaned back in the hot seat across from him, folded my hands on my tight skirt–clad lap, and smiled.
Then I swung for the fences!
“I see you have a lot of paper evidence here, Jeff,” I said. “But I’m wondering, do you have any video evidence?”
“What?” the chief deputy DA said. There was a look on his face that I’d never witnessed before. Complete befuddlement.
“Lauren, please. Now isn’t the time for nonsense, okay? I have a job to do here, and if you don’t want to try to informally take a step in the right direction, I guess we’ll have to —”
“Video evidence, Jeff,” I continued. “Video evidence is incontrovertible, isn’t it? The only reason I keep harping on it is that, in the course of my investigation, I came across a . . . well . . .”
I took my laptop out of my bag, turned it on, and hit “play.”
“Maybe you ought to see this for yourself,” I said. “You really should, Jeff.”
Chapter 79
I LET HIM WATCH from the beginning of the surveillance to the end, uninterrupted. I sat staring out his window at the stands in the stadium. My dad had taken me to my first game there when I was eight. I didn’t catch a home run, but I did taste my first beer when a drunk behind us dropped one on my head.
I wondered what my dad would think of all this, of me. Would he be ashamed? Or proud that I was capable of getting bare-knuckle down and dirty to fight for my survival? I listened for some sign from my father as I waited. But all I heard was the number 4 train rattling by.
When he was finished watching the DVD, Jeff Buslik snapped the laptop closed and took a good long look out the window himself.
We listened to the heavy silence together for a while.
The video was of Jeff’s boss, John Meade, but in a way, that was even better than if it had been of Jeff. Jeff was going to run for the DA’s office next November when Meade stepped down, and word was, he was a shoo-in to win. And that wasn’t the only office he would be seeking, it was rumored. Diamond-bright, black, and with real star presence, he was already being called the Barack Obama of the Bronx by the press.
But the political fact of life was, Jeff needed his boss’s blessing. John Meade was a Bronx institution, and Jeff was his right-hand man. Until Election Day, at least, they were inextricably connected.
Until Election Day, if John Meade crashed, Jeff would burn along with him.
Jeff seemed to realize this as much as I did. He looked like he had an upset stomach all of a sudden. A bad one. Finally, he moved his sour gaze onto me.
“Evidence,” I repeated. “You have it. I have it. Listen, I have no hard feelings, Jeff. I understand coming after me would be huge for you. National coverage, maybe celebrity status. I think it’s great for somebody to want to get ahead. But if you take me on, I swear to God, the next time you see this footage, it’ll be on the Fox News channel.”
Jeff thought about that one for a little while.
“Did you kill him, Lauren?” he finally said. “Did you actually kill Scott Thayer?”
“No,” I said. “Don’t you read the papers? Victor Ordonez did. Anyway, I am resigning. I just can’t take this crazy crap anymore. I think it’s best to go out on a high note. Kind of like your boss. Don’t you think that’s best?”
I stood and popped the DVD out of the laptop.
“We’re done here, right?” I said. “Our friendly little chat?”
Jeff sat there silent for another minute. Then he turned, and the shredder behind his desk screamed twice, almost with glee, as he fed Scott’s phone records