There were any number of ways to make sure she walked away free from the trial. Some participants in the trial would never change their minds. These unfortunates would need her special attention.
As she took the last bite of liver in her mouth, she thought the meal lacked something. Armagnac, perhaps. A little heavy for breakfast, but ideal for supper. Mike Modine had now been divided into manageable sections, each wrapped tightly in black plastic along with an appropriately weighted disc from the dumbbell set she had ordered. There any many ways to discard a body in New York. The rivers are by far the easiest. And the ferries are usually quiet after ten a.m. She would buy a ticket to DUMBO on the East River, and then, in the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge, with her back to a security camera on the rear deck, she could toss a limb discretely from her gym bag without anyone noticing so much as a splash. She showered, put on her running gear.
She made a note on a file pad beside her. After she dumped Mike’s arms in the river, she would call in to the liquor store and get some Armagnac.
ELEVEN
EDDIE
I left the DA’s office with the additional prosecution discovery, and went straight to Bloom’s Deli on Lexington to meet Harper for a late breakfast. I got there early, and went through the discovery before she arrived. Along with forensics were Frank Avellino’s medical files. He was in good shape when he died. Only thing of interest was a note from the neurologist, that Frank had been noticing memory problems. I couldn’t read most of the doctor’s handwriting. After recording the history the note read: RV 3/12 DY. Reassured and any changes to call.
Doctors have their own shorthand, and not all are common or even noted in a dictionary of medical abbreviations. I took out my phone, checked the abbreviations in an online medical dictionary and found RV could stand for a number of things, but one was Review. The 3/12 I already knew to be three months. So it read: review in three months, but I couldn’t decipher DY. It probably wasn’t important. I was more interested in the prosecution’s experts and forensic reports on the case. They made for grim reading. The DA’s office could tie Sofia to the murder in all kinds of ways.
A partial fingerprint, matching Sofia’s, found on the murder weapon.
Hair fiber, said to match Sofia’s, found on the victim’s mutilated body.
Heavy bloodstaining on Sofia’s clothes. The blood matches the victim.
I’ve had cases in the past where a forensic expert has given me problems. I’ve never had a trial where there is so much forensic evidence against my client. The only potential saving grace was that I knew there was forensic evidence pointing toward Alexandra Avellino too. If Dreyer succeeded in getting a joint trial where the defendants faced a jury together he would get the easiest murder conviction in the state’s history. The evidence was all on his side.
There was something else that made me uneasy. I’d read the medical examiner’s autopsy report on Frank Avellino twice. I didn’t need to read it a second time, but as soon as I finished the first reading I’d felt the need to read it again, as if I’d missed something, or the report was missing something. Frank had been stabbed multiple times, even bitten. A single bite mark on his upper chest. Apart from the injuries inflicted in the attack, Frank was as healthy as a horse. His skeleton, organs, joints, all were in great condition. I’d read it more slowly the second time, but again I felt reluctant to put the report down. There was something in it that wasn’t right. Maybe I was too tired, or maybe it was the horrific details of a man torn apart that was masking my thoughts.
I didn’t know. I would ask Harper, see what she thought.
Harper arrived and we both ordered coffee and pancakes, and then I sat quietly while Harper told me all about her time with Sofia yesterday. So far as Sofia was concerned, Harper was just checking out her apartment for security, and then making sure she was stable and settled, that she had everything she needed. Harper’s real purpose was to get Sofia talking, to find out everything she could about our new client. I worked with Harper on my last two cases, and she was incredible. Not just smart – she’d saved my life. And every time she smiled she lit something inside of me that I’d thought would never burn again.
‘We talked a lot,’ said Harper. ‘For a young woman who never managed to finish college, Sofia is impressive. Well read, smart as you or me. She was a chess prodigy like her sister. They’re very close in age – less than a year between them, but they’re not alike at all. As far as I can tell the only things they shared were parents and chess. Their mother taught them.’
‘I don’t know anything about Frank’s first wife. Who was she?’
‘Name was Jane Marsden. She grew up on the Upper East Side, in a nice townhouse with a rich family. Met Frank when he was on the up-and-up. Jane was quite the socialite, and didn’t have a career outside of being rich, going to parties and playing chess. Seems she wanted to pass on the knowledge to her daughters. Looks like that was all she wanted to give them. I don’t think there was a lot of love in that house. Sofia told me her mother used to bite her if she made a mistake in the game.’
‘Bite her?’
‘Yeah, on the fingers or the outside of the hand. Jane obviously had a lot of problems.’
I nodded.
‘They were both young when their mother fell down the stairs in Franklin Street and died. After that, Frank sent both sisters away to separate boarding schools. Sofia and Alexandra didn’t get on at all – they hated each other, and I don’t think their mother’s passing exactly helped. That’s all Sofia told me about her mother, but I did a little digging with the local precinct. Frank was out at a fundraiser, and it was just the girls at home with Jane. Alexandra and Sofia both called 911 when they found their mother on the stairs.’
‘Really?’
‘Spooky, right? Whatever way Jane had fallen, her head had become wedged in between the bannisters. Her neck was broken, and her ankle. A real bad fall. Complete accident, of course. The kids found her like that. I can’t be certain but it looks like Sofia went into counseling not long afterward and her mental health began to decline as well as her grades. She never got over the death of her mother. Grades, attendance, all went down the shitter and it only got worse. She had periods where she would get her shit together for a year or so, just long enough to enroll in college or start an internship, and then bam – she would hit the wall and have another breakdown. Poor kid.’
‘You felt for her?’
‘I really did. You know me, hard as they come. That kid had every advantage in life and it didn’t matter. Makes you think. I liked her, Eddie.’
‘So she’s not a killer,’ I said.
Harper took a bite out of a crispy slice of bacon, crunched it between her teeth while she considered her answer and then said, ‘No motive apart from the will. If Frank was going to cut one of them out of his will then I suppose that’s motive for some people, but not Sofia. For some folk, money is all that drives them. I didn’t get that from her. And she loved Frank. Her father supported her through her illness, she told me that. After Jane’s passing, Frank turned away from both kids. Sofia took it a lot harder, I’d say. Frank supported her through the rehab clinics – it’s sad that they were in such a good place and then Frank was killed. She also said her father was never the same after Jane died. I got the impression it was more than just grief. Frank had a second wife, Heather, who died of an overdose four years ago.’