Twenty-Nine
Frank Santoro held open the door to the interrogation room and Arthur Jefferson gestured Barry Lester inside. Lester had been brought to the Homicide Bureau so that other inmates wouldn’t know he was snitching. He was dressed in an orange jumpsuit and his hands were cuffed. Santoro took off the cuffs and Lester flashed his most ingratiating smile as he and his lawyer took seats on one side of the room’s only table. Robb and Santoro sat on the other side.
“I hope I can help you guys,” Lester said.
“I checked you out, Barry,” Santoro said. “It looks like you’ve made a habit out of helping the police solve crimes.”
“Look, I know I’ve got a record, but I’m not a bad guy, and when I get a chance to pay back my debt to society by helping you guys solve a crime, I take it.”
Lester shook his head in disgust. “That Blair is one sick puppy. Killing his wife, that’s cold.” He turned his attention to Robb. “The stuff I’ve done, none of it is violent. I don’t go for that. And men who abuse women, well, I draw the line there. My mother—God rest her soul—taught me to respect women.”
Robb’s features hardened and her shoulders tensed. Stephanie hated ass kissers.
“That’s good to hear,” Santoro said to head off anything rash his partner might do. “So, Barry, your lawyer says you know where Carrie Blair is buried.”
“I do.”
“How did you learn this information?”
“Blair told me.”
“Really?” Robb said, unable to mask her skepticism.
“They had him in isolation for the night, and he had the cell next to me. Man, was he scared. Here he is, a big-shot millionaire with Hong Kong tailors, and they put him in a jumpsuit two sizes too small, locked in with hardened criminals.” Lester grinned. “So I calmed him down and we got real friendly.”
“Blair is the head of a multinational corporation,” Robb said. “He negotiates with the Communist Chinese and the Russians. I have a hard time believing that he would be stupid enough to tell you he’d killed his wife, then give you the location of her grave.”
“But he did. Like I said, I got his confidence, and he admitted he did her. He said he put her in the trunk of his Bentley and drove her to this place and buried her.”
Santoro and Robb didn’t show any reaction, but they both wondered how Lester knew that Blair had a Bentley and that the body might have been in its trunk.
“He just confessed and told you the exact spot where he dumped the corpse?” Robb asked.
“That’s right.”
“How do we know you didn’t kill Carrie Blair?” she said.
“No way. I’ve been locked up since before she disappeared. Check the records.”
Santoro leaned back and folded his arms across his chest. “What do you want, Arthur?”
“He leads you to the body and testifies, I think he’s earned himself a ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ card.”
“We’ll talk about that with the commonwealth attorney if Mr. Lester takes us to the body.”
The picturesque Blue Ridge Mountains are part of the larger Appalachian range. The densely packed trees release isoprene into the atmosphere, which creates a haze and makes the mountains look blue from a distance. But Stephanie Robb and Frank Santoro were not appreciating the beauty of the region as their caravan of police vehicles headed for the abandoned campground where Barry Lester claimed they would find Carrie Blair’s grave. The lead car was driven by two uniformed officers. Lester was sitting in the back beside his attorney. Robb and Santoro were next, followed by a van from the crime lab. The morgue wagon, piloted by medical examiner Nick Winters, was also there in case Lester knew what he was talking about.
Santoro hadn’t said a word since they’d left police headquarters, and Robb could tell that he had something on his mind.
“What’s bothering you?” Robb asked her partner.
“Something about this case doesn’t feel right.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. There’s just a lot of odd stuff going on.”
“Such as?”
“First we get an anonymous tip about the Bentley, and the paper gets an anonymous tip about a prenup. Then there’s Blair; he’s the head of a multinational corporation, he deals with heads of countries. You can’t be a wimp and get where he’s gotten. Can you see him spilling his guts to Lester?”
“Sometimes things are exactly as they seem, Frank. In real life, if the wife gets killed, it’s usually hubby whodunit.”
The lead car turned off the highway at a sign advertising Rainbow