The Thousand - Kevin Guilfoile [131]
“Okay. It was more concentrated on his left hand than on his right.”
She nodded. “Proves my point. Before he was shot, Reggie was right-handed, remember? ‘If he used his right hand, then he can’t be your man.’”
Kloska remembered. In one of the more amusing moments of the Gold trial, Reggie had argued that based on Erica’s bruises, a person who was right-handed—as he demonstrated for the jury both he and his client were—could not have committed the murders. If the defendant favors his right, the prosecution must be wrong….
“But he’d been wounded in the right shoulder. Maybe he couldn’t aim the gun with that hand, so he picked it up with his left.”
Della’s voice was several decibels louder now and several octaves of incredulity higher. “Why would Reggie murder his own client?”
“As I was just saying—”
“You think Reggie is a member of the Thousand?”
“Or maybe he was hired by them.”
Della was sitting up now, her breasts distractingly exposed. “He’s an attorney, Bobby, not a hit man.”
“All I want to know is what was in that briefcase that he didn’t want me to see. It could have been the murder weapon, right? The gun that was used to kill Marlena.”
Della wiped something from the corner of her eye. “Look, Reggie was probably on the floor and the killer leaned over him to shoot Gold at close range. Residue everywhere. Was he bagged at the scene?”
Bobby remembered how Reggie had crucified him on the stand over the sloppy tech work at Erica Liu’s crime scene. Actually, Reggie had been polite about it. It was Brad Spelling who had nailed him to the boards after the verdict. “He was bleeding. We took him to the hospital and he was tested there.”
“Residue decays quickly.”
“Right. So there could have been even more.”
“Okay. But if Reggie shot Solomon Gold, who shot Reggie? Was there significant residue on Solomon’s hands? No, right? So we still have a third person in the room. And we know Michael Liu was there.”
Bobby leaned back and closed his eyes. Frustration bubbled into heartburn and he let it subside. “Damn, Della. Sleeping with you is like dating a grand jury.”
His cell phone vibrated on the bedside table. Indiana number. He ignored it, but it got him thinking. To Della, he said, “Do you think they could really pull something like this off?”
“Who pull what off?”
“The Thousand. Could something like that really exist? Could anybody really keep secrets like that, generation after generation? I mean, somebody always confesses eventually, right? Somebody always talks.”
Della turned so her lips were just inches from his ear. “That’s a myth, Bobby. Probably started because two out of three cops in this city are Catholic. You guys all think guilt is an unstoppable force that will just squeeze the truth out of people. You think you just have to wait long enough until somebody can’t hold it in any longer. Reality is, everybody goes to the grave with a secret. It’s easier than you think.”
“There’s a weird kind of honor in that, isn’t there?” Bobby said. “Keeping each other’s secrets. Being able to trust other people that much. That’d be nice.”
She giggled again and it made him crazy. “Bobby Kloska, are you asking me to move in with you?”
He pinched her. “You won’t tell Vallentine I went off the rails with this, will you?”
She beached her upper body on his chest and pressed the side of her head to his shoulder. “Attorney-boyfriend privilege,” she said, which he laughed at, even as it reminded him that sex with Della, in that it required him to get up every day, if not out of bed, was the closest thing he had to a job.
48
THE TRUCK’S CAB was pin neat, almost luxurious, with leather seats and a satellite radio and a cozy sleeping area behind the seat. Paperback mysteries, some of them decades old, with lurid covers and forgotten authors, were bound together with long rubber bands. A small fridge was stocked