He assumed with Gayle dead that there wouldbe no one to testify against him.
As he staggers back, heavily collapsing onto the bunk, I lift my chin a little higher. “If you’d stopped at McDannig, Charlie, and Tory, you would have gotten away with it,” I add. “Maybe even if you’d stopped at Lauren. But you got greedy, didn’t you?”
I’ve put this timeline together in my head. Based on what I now know, I’m certain I’m right. “When I madethe comments to the press about you the week before I was shot, that sent you over the edge. Before that, Gayle was supposed to die of cancer and ‘leave instructions with you’ for his family to claim the funds, wasn’t he? They’d never know what he did, and you’d explain things away to his family. Maybe tell them Gayle didn’t want them to know about the funds before he died because he was afraid they’dbe confiscated or something. I’m sure you had a bullshit excuse ready that they’d believe.
“But you couldn’t stand the thought ofmepublicly denouncing you, could you? So you offered him another sizable payment. You probably thought he’d get shot and killed by Chris’ detail. Maybe you told him to try to do just that. Probably gave him the schedule. You weren’t expecting it when he was takeninto custody, and you didn’t know that he hadn’t done anything with the truck.
“There’s a record of you calling calling Jasper Schoult from your house on Sunday, literally minutes after you completed the last deposit. He received another call from a burner cell yesterday morning while he visited Gayle. That call was triangulated to within a few hundred yards of your house.
“You paid Gayle extrato kill himself, right? Because that’s what everyone thinks. Once investigators confronted Jasper Schoult yesterday, he abandoned privilege. He had no clue Gayle was anything to you but an old henchman from ‘back in the day’ you wanted taken care of, but didn’t want a connection to you, for obvious reasons. Once they laid out the full criminal conspiracy, money laundering, and the other murders,Schoult immediately broke privilege and told them everything. Including that you made that burner call, and you spoke to Gayle.”
His jaw falls open, but I’m not done. I know this is bad, this could taint his case, he could try to claim tampering or some bullshit, but I don’t fuckingcare. Besides, there’s too much evidence that was secured the right way.
And Iknow.
“Lawyers don’t do well inprison, Mr. Markos,” I softly remind him. “Gayle took the easy way out. You might want to think about doing that, too. Shae is still president, I’m still her chief of staff, and I’m going to testify at your trial that you told me you were going to ruin Shae. That’s premeditation. You’ll die in prison, one way or another. How much humiliation you go through in the process is totally up to you.”
My mask slips only enough a dark, cold smile can make it past. “And when you die, I’m going to have you buried in an unmarked grave somewhere Shae, Chris, and I can go and piss on you whenever we feel like it.”
I turn and head for the exit as his wordless screams of rage and rattles from his manacles fill the space.
The US Marshal signals for the door to be unlocked, and he escorts me to my awaitingdetail.
I don’t look back.
