All Day and a Night: A Novel of Suspense (Ellie Hatcher) Page 6

  Ellie hadn’t realized from the news coverage that another person was there when Mitch Brunswick had discovered the body.

  “You’re absolutely sure he was with the kids the whole time before he connected with the screenwriter at the building?” Ellie asked.

  “Absolutely. One of the first things we checked. The kids backed him up, plus he was sending e-mails from his iPad while he was at the house. He used the wireless network there to send them. It was only fifteen minutes later that he showed up begging to be let into his wife’s office.”

  “When did you realize the victim’s arms had been broken?” Rogan asked.

  “You could tell there was something wrong just by looking at her, like she was a doll whose arms had been removed and placed on backwards.”

  “So Mitch Brunswick would have been able to draw the same conclusion when he found the body.” Rogan’s thought came out like a statement, not a question. If they could prove Brunswick was the one who wrote the anonymous letter to the district attorney’s office, they might be able to wrap this assignment up quickly.

  “Obvious. Like, two-plus-two-equals-four obvious,” Santos said. “But we assumed it was something that happened in a struggle. Or you start wondering if she’d been tortured. Then the autopsy results came in.”

  “You held back the fact of the postmortem fractures from the public,” Ellie said. “But what about the husband? Did he know that detail?”

  “We didn’t tell him, that’s for sure. And there would be no way of knowing from looking at the body. When someone’s heart is beating, blood forms around the bone break. But if the injuries are inflicted postmortem, they call it ‘effectively bloodless,’ because there’s so little blood. No, it takes the autopsy to know that. Unless, of course, he was the one who did it.”

  “But you’ve got his timeline locked down,” Rogan said. “You think he hired someone for the job?”

  “Wouldn’t be the first husband to go that route. And maybe, for good measure, he had them replicate the MO of an old serial killer case from upstate New York.”

  “Sounds a little far-fetched,” Ellie said.

  Santos gave a look to Rogan, like, How do you put up with her? It suddenly dawned on her that, just as they had asked about his reputation, he may have done the same with them, in which case he could have heard about her relationship with Max.

  “And the alternative isn’t?” he asked. “A serial killer got away with six murders eighteen years ago and suddenly decided not only to reappear, but to let the DA’s office know about it with a letter? No way, José. Not to mention that theory only works if Anthony Amaro is innocent. The man confessed, and to no less a cop than Buck Majors.”

  “Who’s Buck Majors?” Ellie asked.

  Another look at Rogan, but his face was blank too. “Boy, they weren’t kidding about a fresh look, were they? When it came to closing cases, Buck was the man. The department used to have him dole out lessons on how to remain in control of the box. A master interrogator. A legend. He could get a guy to confess, and then thank him for the privilege. If Majors said Amaro was guilty, he’s guilty. Hate to break it to you, but the DA’s putting you through the wringer, all because of some ridiculous letter. He doesn’t want the liberal elites who have taken over this city to accuse him of ignoring exculpatory evidence.” He spoke the term like it was an obscenity.

  “Trust me on this: stick with the husband. He’s playing like he’s full of regret about the breakup, but he’s got a girlfriend. Even popped the question, but when she got a look at his finances, spread thin between two houses and paying alimony, she got cold feet. Man wants to put a ring on it.” He held up his left hand. “No more Helen means only one roof to pay for. We’ve just been waiting for a break.”

  “And now we come along and take it from you,” Rogan said. “I think if I were you, I’d be a lot more upset about that.”

  The same smile that had greeted them returned as Santos reached into his suit jacket and retrieved a folded page from his pocket. “Opened this right before you called. Check out the letterhead.”

  The Law Offices of Linda Moreland, Esq.

  It was a notice of representation, alerting both the NYPD and the New York County District Attorney’s Office that Linda Moreland was now the attorney of record for Anthony Amaro. Attached to the letter were copies of a motion to vacate Amaro’s conviction and a demand to review the entire investigative file and all prosecution records to search for evidence exculpating her client. A separate demand requested access to all records documenting any confessions elicited by NYPD detective Buck Majors. The letter was signed by Caroline Blank, Associate.

  Ellie had never heard of Caroline Blank, but she was definitely familiar with Linda Moreland. She’d made a national name for herself in a short time span by taking on claims of innocence by defendants who had already been convicted.

  “The woman believes every inmate is innocent and every cop’s a criminal.” Santos refolded the letter neatly and tucked it into Rogan’s front jacket pocket. “Have fun with that ‘fresh look’ investigation. Before you know it, you might be famous.”

  CHAPTER

  NINE

  Carrie Blank pondered the documents spread across the table in front of her. When she’d arrived this morning at the Law Offices of Linda Moreland, LLC, she had found them thrown together in a cardboard box, pages facing in eight different directions, some folded in half or thirds, some paper-clipped or stapled together for no obvious reason. After two hours, she had arranged them in reverse chronological order.

  The most recent was the letter Linda Moreland had received ten days earlier from “the client” (would she ever get used to thinking of Anthony Amaro as the client?):

  Dear Ms. Moreland,

  I just saw you on television from Five Points Correctional Facility talking about the case of Jerrod Carter, who is also currently inprisoned here. When you said the name of the “DETECTIVE” who supposedly got him to confess—Buck Majors—I nearly cleaned out my ears to make sure I heard you right.

  I have now conversed with Jerrod Carter about his case. Most importantly, we have compared notes about Buck Majors and our so-called confessions. I have come to believe that your work for Jerrod Carter was meant to bring you to me, or visa-versa. Please hear me out, because I promise you will be interested.

  A couple weeks ago, I recieved a letter claiming that a female doctor was killed in Brooklyn, alledgley by the same way I was alledgd to kill my alledgd victims. I can’t send you the exact letter since its all the proof I have, but here’s the important part: “Helen Brunswick, murdered in Park Slope. The newspapers aren’t saying, but both her arms were broken AFTER she was killed, just like with the ladies you supposedly murdered. Now what are the odds of that, and how come the NYPD doesn’t want you to know?”

  Please. I have had this letter all these days with no idea what to do until I saw you on TV and talked conversed with Jerrod Carter about Buck Majors, who lied about Carter’s confession—and mine. And on top of that, I was nailed for killing six people (TO BE CLEAR: I KILLED NO ONE!!!) based only on my one so-called confession from this “detective.”

  The confession was BOGUS from the start. Take a look. You will see. Look at the words Buck Majors used when he was supposed to be quoting my so-called confession, and then compare those words to the so-called confession he got from Jerrod. You mean him and I—two guys that never met each other until we were in the joint, who got arrested three whole years apart—we just happened to use the SAME EXACT WORDS??? No way!

  Please help me. A real killer is out there, and it’s not me. And while he’s been out there all these years, I have been in here, and I missed

  - Seeing my mother when she was dying and asking for me

  - Her funeral

  - My sister getting married

  - My neice and nephew (twins) being born, learning to talk, starting school. They do not even know they have an uncle because they would not understand

&
nbsp; -Everything else I might of done as a young man to make myself better and stay out of jail and be a regular person

  I know I made mistakes. I was no angel, and I admit (and told Buck Majors) I hired prostitutes sometimes. But I did not kill anybody. Please believe me. Look at the words of the confessions. There is no way. My original attorney, Mr. McConnell, was a good man, but he was more worried about saving me from the needle than proving my innocence. I didn’t know then that I’d be better off dead than pullng LWOP for crimes I did not do. There’s a reason they call it “all day and a night.”

  I look forward to your response.

  Sincerely,

  Anthony Amaro

  Amaro had included a hodgepodge of attachments with his letter, random pages of miscellaneous documents he had collected over the years. Carrie’s first task this morning had been to file a motion to vacate Amaro’s conviction. They knew they didn’t have sufficient evidence yet to exonerate Amaro, but accompanying the motion was a request for a subpoena duces tecum to the Utica and New York City police departments for all documents associated with Anthony Amaro’s case.

  She had also reached out to Harry McConnell, Amaro’s original defense attorney on the Deborah Garner case, and learned that he was retired from practice. She left a message for the daughter who now ran the office, hoping she might be able to fill in some of the blanks. Now Carrie was creating a more specific list of requests to file with the police. While Linda’s many years as a courtroom defense lawyer made her great in front of a jury, big-firm practice had made Carrie very, very good at looking at pieces of paper and figuring out which other pieces of paper were likely missing.

  She was pulled into the present by three quick raps at the door, followed by the appearance of Thomas’s cheerful face. “You sure you have everything you need in here?”

  In here was a squat better suited as a janitorial closet than a lawyer’s office. Thomas’s eyes darted around Carrie’s makeshift workspace in curiosity.

  Yesterday, she had thought of Thomas as simply the receptionist, but now Carrie realized that, until today, he had been the only full-time worker at the Law Offices of Linda Moreland, LLC, other than Linda herself. From what Carrie could tell, Thomas was Linda’s secretary, scheduler, and personal barista. When Linda had introduced them yesterday, Thomas beamed as Linda recounted a story of him producing a backup tube of her go-to shade of lipstick when she couldn’t locate hers before a recent CNN interview.

  Linda Moreland had been a true one-lawyer shop, but now she had so much work she needed a second lawyer—enter Carrie. When she offered Carrie the position yesterday, she had also offered to let her delay the start-time until she secured “proper working space.” Carrie had been the one to decide she wanted to start right away, and now Thomas had added Take care of Carrie as she worked out of a storage closet to his list of responsibilities.

  “Thank you so much, Thomas. Really, I’m fine.”

  “She’s got me calling the building manager to nudge him about the space down the hall she’s expanding into. Obviously it’s more urgent now that you’re here.”

  At Russ Waterston, lawyers billed their time in six-minute increments, so there wasn’t a lot of in-office small talk. “Well, thanks for doing that. But I don’t mind this.”

  He didn’t close the door, though. “I never thought she’d hire a full-time lawyer. She has a bunch of investigators she likes to work with. And she’s used contract attorneys when she’s busy; and she likes to employ interns. I think it reminds her of teaching. But I guess something happened with the Jerrod Carter case that led to all this new work?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Because I know she thinks that case is a big one, with a big payout. Like, that’s why we—well, she was going to be able to take more square footage in the building. I mean, he’s been in prison for fifteen years, and now there’s new DNA pointing to someone else. The problem is, Carter confessed. Or at least, he supposedly did. So Linda’s been digging into the detective’s history. Turns out he was extremely successful getting murder suspects to confess. He was considered one of the very best by the NYPD. Linda thought maybe he was a little too good. Buck Majors. That’s his name. Except the cops all called him Dime. Know why?”

  Carrie did know, because Linda had explained the connection between Jerrod Carter and Anthony Amaro to her before Carrie had even agreed to yesterday’s job interview. But she could see that Thomas was eager to tell her. She raised her eyebrows.

  “They joked that he should be named Dime instead of Buck—like you couldn’t be questioned by him without doing a ‘dime’ in prison. That means ten years. So Linda had already been digging around about the detective, wondering if he’d earned his big reputation by lying or beating it out of them or something.”

  So far, everything Thomas had said could be gleaned from information Linda had discussed during talking-head gigs about the Jerrod Carter case. She noticed Thomas’s eyes darting not so subtly around her table full of documents.

  “Anyway, that’s all I know. But, I’m not a lawyer or anything, so—I’ll leave you to be.”

  Carrie had seen how Linda treated Thomas the day before. She was friendly and full of praise, but when it came time to talk about the job and Carrie’s responsibilities, she had closed her office door, even though Thomas was the only other person around. She was so focused on her own priorities that she had never noticed the obvious: Thomas wanted to feel like a real member of the team.

  Thomas beamed when Carrie spoke up before he closed the door. “The reason she needed another lawyer is because there’s a pattern. It turns out that, in case after case, Majors claimed that the defendants confessed with phrases like ‘You got it right’ or ‘That’s how it happened’ or ‘I didn’t mean to do it.’ Linda’s still trying to find more police reports and trial transcripts, but she says that at least one of those phrases appears in about two-thirds of the detective’s confessions. And it was actually Jerrod Carter and another inmate who initially spotted the similarities between their two confessions to Major. Or, rather, their supposed confessions. So now she’s also representing the other inmate. His name is Anthony Amaro.”

  She showed him the letter Amaro sent to Linda, seeking her help.

  “All day and a night,” he said. “You know what that means, don’t you?”

  “I do.” She hadn’t until she’d looked it up online. A life sentence was “all day.” “All day and a night” meant a life sentence without parole. “I’m focusing specifically on the Amaro case, while Linda continues to track down other questionable confessions obtained by Majors. She’s finding more potential clients every day who are going to challenge their convictions.”

  “Wow. That’s amazing. Because Linda has built this huge platform, and is, basically, famous. But, you know”—he looked down the hallway, just to make sure no one was around—“we’re small,” he whispered. “And, like, I was wondering how she was going to pay for that space. And, well, for you.” He laughed nervously.

  Ah, and for him. He’d been wondering whether Carrie was here not as an addition but as a replacement, as the only other body Linda Moreland could afford.

  “Not to worry,” Carrie said. “From what I’ve been reading, Buck’s new nickname should be ‘Multimillion Bucks,’ as in, the millions of dollars he’s going to cost the government for trusting him.”

  They heard the front office door open, and, just like that, Thomas was back at his post.

  A few minutes later, there was another tap on the door. Linda pulled a step stool from against the wall and used it as a chair. “Sorry about the ghetto digs. More importantly, sorry to make you get started on your own. That stuff at Cardozo took longer than I expected.”

  She had already explained that she was giving a lunchtime lecture at Cardozo Law School, followed by a meeting with the director of their wrongful-conviction clinic. She had been hoping to peel off some of their students to work for her in exchange for school c
redit.

  “Any luck?”

  “Nah. They want a level of supervision we can’t provide. I need working bodies, ready to go.”

  “Well, I’ve been chipping away.” She told her about the subpoena duces tecum she had filed.

  “Sounds like good work. But I’ll warn you, this isn’t like the civil cases you’re used to. You can’t just ask and expect to receive. They’ll claim confidentiality of police personnel records, protection of witness and informant identities, ongoing investigations, every piece of bullshit. Sometimes you’ve got to find another way. I’ve got a contact in the crime lab. He tells me the police got a letter similar to the one Amaro received at the prison, but have they said one word? Of course not.”

  “They’re just ignoring it?”

  “Not entirely. They’re having the labs take another look for DNA evidence. They’re probably hoping to find fresh evidence against Amaro so they can bury the letter without anyone being the wiser, but my contact will tell me one way or the other.”

  “How do you have a source there?” Carrie realized how naïve she must sound to someone with Linda’s experience.

  “Because I show him more respect than the prosecutors do. The ADAs treat the science types like puppets, expecting them to regurgitate whatever rehearsed testimony might impress a jury. But I’ve learned that if you treat them like professionals, they’ll be fair on cross-examination. They’ll acknowledge the limits of their evidence. I’ve spent years cultivating relationships. The last thing these people want is to contribute to a wrongful conviction. They won’t tell me everything, but they’ll tell me when something doesn’t smell right.”

  Carrie noticed that Linda’s voice was calmer—less shrill—than during her television appearances. “Has anyone ever told you that you seem so different in person?”

  Linda’s laugh was deep and warm. “Oh, all the time. And thank God for that. ‘Linda’ on TV is a persona. In this job, you’ve got to be a fighter. Cops and DAs have the built-in superhero thing. There are eight different flavors of Law and Order on constant cable replay, depicting them as the good guys. I do what I need to do to help our clients. I try to channel every person’s inner rebel, that small part of us willing to recognize the terrifying truth that sometimes cops and DAs get it wrong—and, even worse, sometimes they really don’t give a damn.”