Straw Men Read online

  “David?”

  “Yes, David. David Harnett. He got little mention at the trial, but I’ve done a little homework. Did you know that all three times DellaVecchio was arrested before this, David Harnett was involved?”

  Christensen feigned a yawn. “Old news. Brenna looked into it and didn’t even think it was worth bringing up. Didn’t fly then or now. Yes, David Harnett was involved in those arrests, either directly or peripherally. So what? He worked sex crimes at the time. The idea that DellaVecchio attacked Harnett’s wife as a payback is a big stretch. Ludicrous, even.”

  Padgett wouldn’t be denied. “Explains a lot, Jim. This was more than just a sex fantasy. The violence was just too over-the-top. The crime scene, the wine bottle rape, that reads like punishment, pure and simple. Trying to kill her wasn’t enough. This guy wanted to humiliate her.”

  Padgett sat back, inviting a response.

  “Excellent work, inspector,” Christensen said. “But you’re forgetting one annoying little detail.”

  “The DNA.”

  “Right. DellaVecchio didn’t do it. Somebody else did and then set him up.”

  Padgett dismissed the idea with an elfin wave. “You could argue that, Jim, but whether he did or didn’t almost doesn’t matter. What I’m saying is DellaVecchio is capable of that kind of violence. I think he’s capable of worse. That’s all I’m saying. This guy’s a constant threat to anybody who gets too close.”

  “So, it’s OK to lock away somebody who’s capable of a crime? Isn’t prison supposed to be for people who make bad moral choices? You said yourself DellaVecchio’s not capable of that. You said—”

  “Look, I’ll just say this flat-out: Somebody else is gonna get hurt. That’s my concern.”

  Christensen studied Padgett’s face, wondering where this was going.

  “Based on what I know—” Padgett weighed his words for a moment. “Based on what I think really happened eight years ago, and what’s happened since, I’d say the person at risk right now is your friend, Miss Kennedy. She’s been closer to him than anyone else for eight years.”

  Christensen shook his head. “Why would he hurt someone who’s worked her ass off to set him free, someone who hasn’t charged him a penny since this whole thing started?”

  “You’re thinking logically, that’s your problem; DellaVecchio thinks like a runaway truck. The guy’s got no brakes on his impulses. For one thing, your girlfriend’s probably the only woman he’s had any contact with since he went in. I’m guessing she’s got more than a cameo role in his fantasies at this point.”

  There was no need for Padgett to elaborate. Anyone with a basic understanding of DellaVecchio’s psychological makeup would come to the same conclusion.

  “Consider his take on this whole thing,” Padgett said. “You can bet he remembers all the talk afterwards about Miss Kennedy’s ‘tactical mistake’ during his trial. That’s code and he knows it. If she’d pleaded him down to aggravated assault instead of trying to prove Dagnolo wrong, he’d have been out in three years. But she didn’t. For him that translates: It’s her fault he was in prison five years longer than he had to be. Plus, he knows the whole Scarecrow nickname started with her ‘straw man’ theory during trial. He’s smart enough to understand all that, and resent it.”

  “It’s not like we’ve ignored the possibilities, Burke. We know what we’re dealing with here. And I think you’re underestimating Brenna. Defense attorneys aren’t exactly delicate.”

  “Can she defend herself?”

  “Burke, why are you doing this?”

  “Because DellaVecchio’s different.”

  “Because of fetal alcohol syndrome, Burke. Diminished capacity. That’s been Brenna’s point from the start. The law shouldn’t ignore the truth, and she’s trying to make sure it doesn’t. Especially since, as it turns out, DellaVecchio’s not guilty.”

  “You’re still dealing with a malevolent force here.”

  “Oh Christ, Burke.” Christensen stood up. “Thank you for your concern. Really. But what about the other psychological aspect of this case? It’s not just a sideshow here. Let’s not let the bigger issue get lost in all the Scarecrow hysterics.”

  “The memory stuff?”

  Christensen picked up the galley proof of his Journal article and shook it. “None of this would’ve happened if the investigators hadn’t led Teresa on. I examined every stage of the identification process in this case to show how it skewed everything, everything, from that point forward. This was a classic case of memory manipulation, and here we are eight years later cleaning up the mess.”

  Christensen sat down again. “They walked Teresa Harnett through a couple dozen photo six-packs, and when she finally pointed to DellaVecchio’s mug shot and said there was something familiar about him, do you know what Milsevic said? ‘We thought that might be the guy.’ ”

  Padgett nodded. “Reinforcement.”

  “And the next stage, the lineup. Brenna dug out the videotape of that session, and I’m telling you, it’s an indictment. They walk DellaVecchio in with five others. Before she says a word, Milsevic points to DellaVecchio and says ‘Guy’s got a record a mile long.’ ”

  “All of a sudden, she’s pretty sure DellaVecchio’s the one,” Padgett said, nodding.

  “So by the time Harnett gets to court, she remembers every disgusting thing that bastard did to her, in living color, with full orchestration. Her original statement had none of that. I mean, where are all the people demanding to know how we got here from there?”

  Padgett picked up his briefcase. “You’re right, Jim. Absolutely right. And none of that changes anything I’ve said. Guilty or not, the young man Miss Kennedy’s just put back into this community is dangerous. There’s no other word for it. And based on what I know about him—one man’s opinion, mind you—I believe he’s a young man with a score to settle. That’s all I’m saying. You want to be real careful of that.”

  If Padgett had turned and left, if he’d tried to infuse the moment with the drama of an exit, Christensen would have had the excuse he needed to dismiss the whole conversation as a staged moment in an increasingly public career. But the psychiatrist remained, fixing his eyes on Christensen, not smiling, like a man delivering a message he considered urgent. That was utterly disconcerting.

  “You’re serious.”

  “As a heart attack,” Padgett said. “One man’s opinion, for whatever it’s worth.”

  “So noted, Burke.”

  Padgett turned finally to go.

  “Burke?” he said.

  Padgett looked over his shoulder. Christensen scanned his face for signs of smug satisfaction, but found none.

  “Thanks.”

  Chapter 8

  Brenna bounced the Legend’s back tire against the curb, then wheeled the front end neatly into a spot in front of their house. She turned the key and sat, watching her breath fog the windshield, summoning the energy to move.

  She’d finally hit the wall about three and left her office in a daze. She needed rest, but also some distance from it all. In the days since the hearing, media interest in DellaVecchio’s release and her role in it had remained at fever pitch. Dagnolo kept busy demonizing them both. He’d leaked everything from decade-old police reports filed by women DellaVecchio had harassed to an excerpt from her closing argument eight years earlier in which she acknowledged the “unpredictable incubus” that DellaVecchio’s alcoholic mother had “unleashed upon the world.” Quack calls were coming in at a dozen a day, including a psychic who saw “a handsome man” attack Harnett “in an unfolding vision, like a slo-mo replay” in a reflection on the lid of her nonstick frypan. Would Brenna like her to testify?

  The house was dark except for the front-hall lamp
, which was on a timer that clicked on at dusk. Jim wouldn’t be home from Pitt until five-thirty. Annie and Taylor were still at the sitter’s down the street, where they went every day after school. Should she summon them home early, or take advantage of an hour of silence in the house? A hot bath sounded like heaven.

  The Legend’s door scraped the curb as it opened. She reminded herself to redistribute the two boxes of hate mail in her trunk. Their combined weight had the car riding low on the left side. She was a long way from having time to read it all, if she ever decided to do that, but for now she’d vowed to keep the letters from outraged citizens from cluttering up her office, distracting her from the work at hand.

  “Claire64,” she reminded herself as she turned the brass deadbolt and pushed through the front door.

  The new alarm system’s red eye winked at her in the front hall’s dim light. On the panel’s alphabetical keypad, she punched in C-L-A-I-R-E—her mother’s name. She shifted to the numeric keypad to add the 6–4—Claire Kennedy’s age when ovarian cancer finally took her. The red light turned green.

  Jim and the kids must have left in a hurry. A pile of Taylor’s clothes lay in the middle of the foyer. Her son was a fussy dresser, and Jim was accustomed to his last-minute changes, but they usually got the discards back into the right drawer before leaving. Annie’s lunchbox sat forgotten at the base of the banister. Nothing unusual. She was nine and preoccupied with her overwhelming need for pierced ears. Little else mattered.

  Brenna suppressed a tingle of guilt, wishing she could be more help in the morning, wishing sometimes she could be the doting mother and loving wife other people expected her to be. But she wasn’t, couldn’t be no matter how hard she tried. Thank God Jim understood; thank God he brought to the relationship the patience her eight-year-old son needed so badly. She couldn’t imagine a better man for the job. So why couldn’t she commit? Why had she twice postponed the civil marriage ceremony Jim planned, both times using the DellaVecchio case as her excuse?

  She picked up Taylor’s clothes, folded them, and set them on the bottom step. She unloaded the Tupperware sandwich container from Annie’s lunchbox into the refrigerator. The PBJ would keep for tomorrow’s lunch. She kept the one filled with grapes. It would keep Annie from starving while they fixed dinner. Brenna put the ice pack back in the freezer and started toward the stairs when she heard a chirp from the far side of the kitchen, over near the microwave. The answering machine. She poked the Play button and turned back toward the stairs, then stopped to hear which of Annie’s many friends had called. Long pause. The low hiss of an open line, but nothing. Then something indecipherable, mechanical, followed by another hiss, this one pitched higher. An electronic solicitation? Brenna was about to hit the Erase button when the music began:

  Got to learn to live with what you can’t rise above

  If you want to ride on down in through this tunnel of love.

  Husky voice. Springsteen. Chillingly familiar. The message ended with a click! as abrupt and startling as a gunshot. The answering machine’s digital voice followed: “End of messages.”

  Brenna’s hand shook as she reached again for the Play button. She thought of the mail in her car’s trunk, of the obvious anger this case was generating. Somebody’s idea of a joke? Maybe, she thought, but it would have to be somebody who remembered DellaVecchio’s trial in re­markable detail.

  Brenna flashed on the letter Teresa Harnett had received two days before she was attacked. She remembered its odd weight the first time she held it during pretrial motions. The chunky letters of the manual typewriter. The distinctive, truncated letter y throughout that tied it to the battered Olivetti found in the Dumpster near DellaVecchio’s house. The Lawrenceville postmark on the envelope. She remembered Harnett on the witness stand, holding the note in her rock-steady hands, reading aloud the lyric for a jury transfixed by her courage:

  Got to learn to live with what you can’t rise above

  If you want to ride on down in through this tunnel of love.

  Harnett’s voice was just as strong when she finished reading as when she’d started. If she’d broken down, the moment would have been less powerful. But she’d set the note on the table in front of her, looked straight at DellaVecchio at the defense table and said, “I used to think ‘Tunnel of Love’ was a beautiful song.” Her understatement back then became one of the most devastating moments of DellaVecchio’s trial.

  Brenna looked around. The house never seemed bigger. She willed away the phantom prickle that suddenly made her hair stand on end. She’d expected the hate mail, hadn’t she? Even anticipated the threats. So why the pounding in her chest? Why the trembling hands as she reached for the answering machine’s Save button?

  Who would do this?

  Brenna knew the answer, couldn’t will that away. Only one person would lose if she proved Carmen DellaVecchio innocent—the animal who really did attack Teresa Harnett. After eight years free and clear, he was watching the slow absolution of the man convicted of his crimes. Was this his pathetic attempt to reverse that process? Did he really think he could intimidate her?

  “Dumb bastard,” Brenna said, and laughed out loud.

  Even as her words filled the empty house, she considered another possibility. Her bravado turned to anger as she paced the kitchen floor. The straw man was back on the street. The Scarecrow was unchained, a menace loosed. Any hint of trouble and Dagnolo would be all over the judge, arguing to put DellaVecchio back behind bars. Maybe someone was setting him up again.

  The kitchen wall clock read 4:23. What now? She played the message again, its creepy power diminishing each time. She could ignore it, but Jim had a right to know if this ugliness was seeping into their home. She thought suddenly of Alton Staggers, the Underhill family’s security goon who a year earlier had snatched her son and Jim’s younger daughter from school after she and Jim had unearthed the Underhills’ sordid family secret. In situa­tions this volatile, there are no boundaries.

  No, she decided, this had to be done by the book. It was risky, but she saw no other way. She picked up the phone and dialed.

  “Public Safety Building,” the operator answered.

  “Chief Kiger, please.”

  “Who’s calling?”

  Brenna gave her name and waited. Would he remember her? No matter. Patrick Kiger was the one man in the Pittsburgh Police Department she felt she could trust. In the years since he arrived from Memphis, he’d turned the department from a swamp of institutionalized vice and debilitating internal politics into one of the most effective and best-managed forces in the country. His low tolerance for misconduct among his officers earned him loyalty and loathing in equal measure. The police union filed regular grievances against him, but few ever questioned his personal integrity. Even Dagnolo knew better than to cross him.

  “I’m sorry, Chief Kiger’s out this week.”

  Brenna swore under her breath. “Is there any way—”

  “Hold on, I’ll transfer you.”

  She considered hanging up, but didn’t. What choice did she have? She wanted this on record, just in case it happened again. Just in case whatever.

  “So, what?” came a familiar voice. “You take it all back?”

  Milsevic. Damn.

  “Uh, Captain,” she stammered, “I was looking for the chief.”

  Milsevic laughed. “Surprise!” he said. “He’s in San Diego. Had to speak at a DBA seminar. Left me holding the fort. What can I do for you?”

  As Kiger’s second-in-command, Milsevic more than made up for the chief’s lack of personal charm. It worked on most people. She had always felt that if his police career didn’t work out, he showed promise as a hot-tub salesman, or maybe a motivational speaker. Her friends in the department’s rank-and-file considered Mil
sevic ruthlessly ambitious, but cops have better bullshit detectors than the general public. Kiger, on the other hand, understood Milsevic’s value as the department’s unblemished public face.

  “Nothing,” she said after an awkward pause. “Just … nothing.”

  “Look,” Milsevic said, “let’s not play games here, OK? If there’s something we need to know—”

  “Nothing personal, Captain. I do need to talk to somebody there. I’m just not sure you’re the right guy. You’re too involved in my case, and with the Harnetts. I’m just not comfortable—”

  “If this is about your boy DellaVecchio, no worries. Unless he’s slipped his collar, he’s at his dad’s house in Lawrenceville right now. The wonders of electronics.”

  “I know,” Brenna said. “Talked to him an hour and a half ago, just before I left the office.”

  “What then? The lynch mob’s torches keeping you awake at night? Swear to God, they didn’t get your address from me.”

  Asshole, Brenna thought. “I’d take a mob any day over some spineless little prick who just phones in his threat,” she snapped.

  The line went quiet. The bluster was gone from Milsevic’s voice when he finally asked, “What are you saying?”

  “I’ll just talk to Kiger.”

  “Look … sorry. If there’s a problem, we need to know.”

  He was right. The message was too scary to ignore. Brenna thought again of the kids, of Jim. This was her battle, but they were in the crossfire. She thought, too, of Teresa Harnett. If it was the same guy, she could be a target again.

  “I got a phone message, a threat, I think,” she said. “Nothing overt, just implied. I’m no Chicken Little. I think you know that. We’ve had plenty of this bullshit since the release. But this one was different. I just got a feeling about it. Plus, it was on my home machine.”

  “You saved the answering-machine tape?”