X
“Mason! Someone here to see you.”
I sat up from my bunk at the corrections officer’s shout, and swung my legs out of bed to jump down. I was relieved to see it wasn’t the C.O. with the ratty face who’d been giving me shit, but an older guard called Bernard Wyber. None of the men around here were anything close to being nice, but some were a little more tolerable, and tolerant in return.
My skinhead cellmate hawked and spat on the floor, just as my feet hit the ground. He’d done it to get a reaction out of me, but I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction. Anticipation wound tight inside me.
Was Vee here to see me? I’d put both Vee’s and Nicole’s names down as people able to visit me, but no one else. I’d put Nicole’s in case something happened to Vee, if she ended up sick and unable to visit, and Nicole needed to come instead. Of course, it wasn’t something I hoped would happen, but I’d thought it would be best to be prepared. There were no other names on that list.
Wyber unlocked the cell, and stepped back to allow me through. I could feel my cellmate’s scowl burning through my back. I’d be glad to be moved to the main part of the jail. I was sure I’d have plenty of other assholes to deal with when I was there, but at least it wouldn’t be in quite such a confined space.
Wyber shut the cell door again with a clang and locked it behind me. I followed him down the corridor toward the visitors’ room. I was about to head into the main visitors’ room, where I could already see numerous people sitting at small tables, either opposite an inmate, or else waiting for one, but I couldn’t spot either Vee or Nicole.
“No, not there,” Wyber said. “You’re through here.”
I frowned, but didn’t ask any questions. Instead of the main room, I was taken to a smaller space, with just enough room for a larger table with several chairs on either side of it.
A private interview room.
A slightly overweight man in an expensive suit sat behind the table. My heart dipped with disappointment. I’d been hoping to see Vee, but this clearly wasn’t her.
“Who the hell are you?” I said as I stepped through the door.
“Mr. Mason,” he said, rising from his chair and extending a hand toward me. “My name is Joseph Monroe. Verity Guerra sent me. She’s instructed me to be your lawyer.”
Something warmed inside me at the thought that Vee was looking out for me on the outside.
“Okay,” I said, shaking his hand, but still feeling cautious.
The lawyer cleared his throat and sat back down, shuffled some paperwork, and then looked up at the guard. “Some privacy, please. I’ll shout if I need you, though I’m sure that won’t be necessary.”
Wyber gave me a look and I shook my head. “No, it won’t.”
I took a seat opposite the lawyer.
“Right, Mr. Mason,” the lawyer started. “Let me be straight with you. I’m not here because I want to be, but I’ve known Verity her whole life, and I didn’t want to let her down when she came to me for help. I’m doing this for her, not you. Got it?”
I nodded. “Of course.
“Good. I’ve taken a quick look at your file, and as you know, you won’t be getting bail. Your lack of background is enough to suspect the name you’re going under is, in fact, an alias. That you might be known under different identities makes you a flight risk. Do you understand?”
I nodded. I already knew this. I’d been told I would be refused bail when I’d been formally charged in court.
“So,” he continued, “what is your real name?”
“Lee Mason,” I said, holding his gaze.
“I guess I’ll have to take your word for that, as the only records belonging to that name seem to start when you were found after an accident only a few weeks ago, and taken to the hospital.”
He was right. I’d had my prints taken when I’d enrolled for the police department as Xavier Creed many years ago, but I’d had enough bent contacts inside the force who’d been happy to take a payment to erase those files. I’d known even back then that there was a chance I’d be picked up for something eventually, and the last thing I wanted was to be linked to the police officer I used to be. That man felt like a different person now. I was a different person now.
“That’s right. I was mugged and I lost my memory.”
“And then you killed the one person who came to help you?”
I sat back in my chair. “No, I didn’t. I’m not responsible for Harvey Baglione’s death.” Except, I kind of was. If I hadn’t taken him into Tony the Hound’s house to rescue Vee, he would still be around today. He’d felt he’d owed me, even though he hadn’t, and I’d taken advantage of that. I should have walked away from him as soon as I realized I was far from being one of the good guys.
“I need you to tell me the truth, Lee, if that’s even what your name is. I can’t help you, if you don’t help me.”
“That is the truth. I didn’t kill him. Verity’s father set this up. I don’t know how he got hold of Harvey’s body—I assume it was when he took Nicole from Tony Mancini’s house—and he planted that blood on my vehicle. I’d hit a deer on the way to the city, and he saw an opportunity and took it.”
“What reason would Mickey Guerra have for wanting to frame you for murder?”
“To get back at Verity, of course. He would know that the way to hurt Vee is by hurting the people she loves.”
“Trouble is, we can’t ask Mickey about any of this. Seems he’s vanished.”
“I wouldn’t know anything about that.”
“No? That’s pretty much exactly what Verity said.”
“Then take it as the truth.”
“I would, but I’ve known Mickey for over twenty years, and he doesn’t just take off for no reason.”
I wasn’t about to start telling this guy that Nicole had hit her father over the head with a branch and we’d left him for dead somewhere in the Catskills Mountains.
“Maybe he did what he wanted, and decided he needed a vacation. Maybe he knew I’d be bringing his name up in relation to Harvey’s murder, and figured he’d be better off out of it.”
“Mickey’s never been worried about having his name mentioned to the cops before.”
I leaned forward. “Is that because he’s got half of them in his back pocket?”
The lawyer didn’t answer me.
I sat back in the chair. “Now, are you here to find Mickey, or here as my lawyer? ’Cause it sure as hell feels like you’re out to find Mickey?”
“The two things are inextricably entwined. You’re saying Mickey set you up, and I’m saying we can’t find Mickey. It’s a bit of a catch-twenty-two, wouldn’t you agree?”
I exhaled and folded my arms across my chest. “Okay, so putting Mickey aside for a moment, what happens next?”
“With no bail, we’re going to have to wait for a court date, which could take up to sixty days. With no body, and the only evidence they have being your car and the blood they found which matched the DNA of Harvey Baglione taken from his apartment, I could play it off as circumstantial. There has to be definite proof you were the one driving the car when it hit Harvey, and then killed him. As we don’t even have a body, I think there’s enough doubt in that for them not to convict you.”
“I didn’t know they could even convict someone for murder if there wasn’t a body.”
“Mr. Mason, there have been over three hundred murder trials in the United States where there has been no body found. So, don’t think that there not being a body means you’re in the clear. If the prosecution didn’t think they had enough to convict you, they wouldn’t be keeping you here. It wouldn’t be worth them going through with the cost of a trial.” He leaned forward, his forearms on the table. “What I want to know is what your motive is? You get out of the hospital, and you claim you’re suffering from amnesia? What motive are they going to say you had to kill Harvey?”
“I didn’t have one. I didn’t kill him.”
“The prosecution is going to do their research. They already know the story told at the hospital was a fabrication. You were never a business associate of Harvey Baglione’s, or at least certainly not a legal one.”
I pressed my lips together and stayed quiet. I could hardly tell the truth, could I, that Harvey had hired me to do a hit on a guy who was causing him problems. That was sure to get me sent down.
“They’re going to paint a picture of you and Harvey as a pair of criminals. They’ll say something must have gone wrong with a deal, and you whacked Harvey because of it.”
“That isn’t what happened.”
“So, help me out here. Tell me what picture I should be painting of you.”
“One of an innocent man. I was attacked and lost my memory, and trusted someone who unfortunately ended up dead. I believe the man who killed him is also the one who set me up.”
“And why would he do that?”
“Like I said, I lost my memory. I have no idea what pieces are still missing. The man might have a grudge against me from a time I can’t remember.”
Mickey Five Fingers wasn’t responsible for Harvey Baglione’s death—that had been one of Tony the Hound’s men—but I felt no guilt at trying to move the murder over to him. It wasn’t as though they could try a dead man.
The lawyer sighed and sat back, his fingers folded across his stomach. “You’re not making this easy for me, Mr. Mason.”
I shrugged. “If I could tell you something else, I would. I know how it sounds, but the most important thing is that I did not kill Harvey Baglione.”
“Okay,” he said, getting to his feet and gathering up his paperwork. “But if you happen to have any of that missing memory come back to you, please, give me a call. It would really be useful to the case.” He handed me a small rectangle card, and I looked down to see his name and several numbers etched across it.
“Sure.”
“Guard,” he called out. “You can take him back to his cell now.”
The C.O. reentered the room and I got to my feet. I’d always known I’d end up locked back in the cell.
The question was, for how long?