Read Online The Mayor of Lexington Avenue by James Sheehan - Free Book Online

it was time to address that problem.
    “Del, could you leave us alone for a moment?” Clay walked to the door with Del and closed it behind him. When they were alone, he pulled a chair close to Wes’s.
    “How sure are you that this kid did it?” he asked.
    “Dead sure,” Wes replied. “He was there. Puked outside after it was over. He did it. I don’t think it was premeditated but he did it. He was probably mad because she turned him down.” It was Clay who was now eager for background.
    “Tell me about this Lucy Ochoa.”
    “She’s seasonal, been coming here for years. Married once. Divorced. Very loose. Neighbors say she’s always had a lot of guys come and go. Hard to keep track of her. But nobody saw this kid from the convenience store over there before.”
    “You’re sure it’s him?”
    “Positive.” Clay needed that commitment before he went any further. Clay was a master manipulator, probably the only thing he did very well. It was in the blood. Although he had no use for the fat little bastard sitting in front of him, after ten years he could read Wes like a book. There were no nuances in Wes Blume’s life. Everything was as black and white as the pants and shirt he wore every day. When his wife decided to go back to work after their second child started school, Wes left her because he believed a woman’s place was in the home. It was that simple.
    “There were no signs of rape?” Clay inquired, although he already knew the answer.
    “Nope.”
    “You know what a defense attorney is going to do with these two blood types.” It was like waving a red flag in front of a bull. Wes hated defense attorneys. They manipulated facts, evidence, coached their clients to lie—anything to win, even if winning meant putting a criminal back on the streets. He could hear the son-of-a-bitch now, claiming some “phantom fucker” was responsible for the murder while his client, who just stopped in for a cup of tea, was totally innocent. Wes’s face was turning red. He just didn’t understand how the Constitution guaranteed a scum-sucking parasite the right to be represented by a scum-sucking lawyer.
    “Yeah, I know,” was all he said to Clay, but Clay had caught it all. It was time to make his pitch. Slowly.
    “Let’s assume this kid’s blood matches the blood on the carpet and the blood on the mug, which is a pretty good assumption based on what he told you. Are you with me?” Wes nodded.
    “And let’s assume that we conclude from the physical evidence that there was no rape. She must have had sex earlier that evening, don’t you think, Wes?” Clay could tell Wes hadn’t really thought that part through. With Clay’s help he would get it . . . eventually.
    Wes nodded his head again, but a little uncertainly this time. “I believe under those circumstances we could exclude the semen as evidence in the murder investigation completely. Do you agree?” Wes had it now. It was brilliant. There was no rape so don’t give them that evidence. Don’t let them confuse the jury with that “reasonable doubt” voodoo bullshit. And it made perfect sense that somebody else had fucked her earlier, a slut like that.
    “I agree.”
    “Good. But we’ve got to keep this close to the vest. Can you swear Del to secrecy?”
    “No problem. But what about the coroner?”
    “Harry Tuthill? Don’t worry about Harry, I’ll handle him.”
    Since they were officially co-conspirators now, Clay had a few other housekeeping matters to discuss.
    “Start a separate rape file.”
    “Why don’t we just ditch the semen?”
    “No, too dangerous.” He knew Harry would never go along with eliminating the evidence but he didn’t tell that to the Grunt. “If it ever comes out we can explain our position, but if we destroy the evidence, it will look very bad.”
    “But why start a rape investigation if our position is there was no rape?”
    “We have no probable cause to believe there was a rape but we’re continuing