“This is a goddamned snake eating its own tail. It’s like something from the movies, where they put a bunch of photos on the wall and they walk back and forth a lot and they act like everything’s a piece of a bigger puzzle. But that ain’t how life works, Henry, and we both know that. People get murdered almost always for two reasons”—Jackie held up two Vienna sausage-shaped fingers—“love or money. Anything past that is a goddamn outlier.”
“What do I do with all of this, then? You put me in this. I not sure what I’m supposed to do now.”
“Do what you always do: keep running it down. You’ll figure out a solution. Or Gillespie’ll have you killed. One or the other.”
I drank some coffee. “Wonderful options.”
“I’d bet Woody would avenge your death, though.”
“I’d prefer there not be a death to avenge.”
“We don’t always get everything we want in life, Henry. Or death either.”
37
Taylor Davies was an FBI agent who worked out of the CJIS office in Clarksburg. I called her as I sat in the state police outpost parking lot and explained to her what I knew. She made a noise that sounded like “hmmm,” punctuated with “uh-huh.” Once I finished, she said, “Okay.”
“‘Okay’?” I said. “That’s all you’ve got, is ‘okay’?”
“Yes, because what you described is outside of my frame of reference. I’m a glorified record keeper out here, Henry, and I’m still under the shadow of the last pile of shit with the two of us.”
“I’m dumping a major real estate fraud scheme in your lap. There’s paperwork and everything. That’s got to be worth something.”
“I’m sure it is to someone who can do something with it. I’m not that person.”
“Christ, Davies. Please. You must know somebody.”
There was silence on the other end of the line. I thought for a moment I’d lost signal. For another moment, I thought she had hung up. A breeze stirred up, and I watched a Walmart bag dance in the wind across the pavement. It wasn’t everything the movie had promised it would be.
Then I heard her breathing.
“You’re tilting at windmills, aren’t you?” she said.
“These are not good people. They deserve to go down for this.”
There was more silence. She said, “I’ll make calls and see what I can do.”
When I called Dagny, she answered on the third ring.
“How’s Deacon?” I said.
“The same.” Her voice was ragged and creased with exhaustion. “Still unconscious. Doctors keep telling me all I can do is wait.”
“Are you at the hospital?”
“Yes. My past two days have been nothing but back and forth to the hospital, showering, and changing clothes.”
“How’s your father?”
“He is his usual stunning self. I think Dad’s reached his limit with Deacon, and who can blame him? We’ve spent years throwing life preservers at Deacon, trying to keep him from drowning, never mind he might be fine if he’d let go of the anvil.”
“That’s a fact. If he comes out of this—”
“When.”
“Okay, when he comes out of this, he’ll need support, but he’s also got to do this himself. Meaning neither one of you can save him.”
“I know.” A beat. “Thank you, Henry. For everything.”
“Haven’t done much except piss people off. I do that for free most days.”
She laughed. “For not giving up on Deacon, and for not giving up on Meadow, either. She didn’t get the chance she deserved. She wasn’t a bad kid, and she’d have made a great adult with the opportunity.”
“Is Robert working today?”
“He’s supposed to be at the bank. Why?”
“Oh, wanted to swing by and say hi, ask him a few questions. And this is asking a lot, but I need a favor, and it’s important.”
“What is it?”
I told her. She hemmed and hawed at first, agreed, and said she’d call later.
I drove over to the Riverside to get lunch. I had chicken fried steak and mashed potatoes with enough gravy to kill a horse, and wanted nothing more than to take a nap, when Taylor Davies called me.
“I talked to some people who talked to other people who won’t talk to a peon like me, and no one seems to like anything I told them,” she said.
“I’m not real fond of this myself.”
“In particular, no one likes you.”
“That’s not what you’d call a recessive trait in these parts.”
“However, these people like the idea of taking down a real estate fraud scheme. They want to talk to Charles first and find out what he knows. How soon can you get him to a safe location?”
“Name me the safe location.”
“There’s a place we use for witness interviews close to Serenity, when we’ve got cases for CJIS. You know where Norton is?”
I did. It was a nothing town a half-hour drive from Serenity, little more than some cross-section streets and a stoplight they’d installed a handful of years ago. The stoplight had made national news, if only so people could get a giggle out of the little town entering the new millennium, even if the new millennium was the old one.
“We need fast turnaround,” she said. “And there are no promises. They’ll listen, but that’s all they’ll guarantee. A business scam like this isn’t getting the priority under the current administration the same way it did under the previous one.”
“I understand.”
“Please do, because my neck is on the line for this. I’m still not loved in some circles because of the shit with you.”
“I understand that as well.”
“Good, because you need to understand I’m running out of shit to lose, Henry.”
Dagny called me. She didn’t sound happy.
“You were right,” she said.
“Don’t get too down about it,” I said. “It doesn’t happen often.”
“What now?”
“I go tilt at windmills more.”
“You don’t strike me as a lost-cause kind of guy.”
“Why not? Nothing else to do today.”
38
Jerry Logue was at his desk when I walked into his office. He looked the same as he had when I’d visited him before, the only difference this time being that his tie was less stained. He smoked and talked on the phone. When he saw me, he nodded and pulled open a desk drawer and motioned me toward a chair.
“Mrs. Henderson, the offer is very generous,” he said into the phone. “I know you wanted more for pain and suffering, but we have to be realistic about it if we go to trial. No, ma’am, I’ve seen plenty of photos of your leg. Yes, I think our pictures show the pus. Yes, it was a lot of pus. I’m sure you’ll be able to wear capris again. If you weren’t limping the first time we met with their attorneys, it won’t help for you to have a limp now. Mrs. Henderson, there’s another call coming in. Let me handle this and I’ll call you back, okay? You have a great afternoon now.”
He hung up his phone and set it down. “Goddamn but people ain’t ever happy with what you can get them. They always got to want more.”
“That’s the American way of life, isn’t it? Always wanting more?”
“When I got my law degree, my plan was to never set foot in court. I wanted to handle contracts, wills, things like that. You can do that, but plenty of places offer that, and they’ll sue the fuck out of your neighbor if his dog bites your kid. You gotta compete. There was a guy who called himself The Hammer. Sounded like a goddamn professional wrestler, but his ads, he said ‘If they owe you money, hit ’em with ‘The Hammer.’ I liked that. For a while, I had billboards. Called myself ‘The Logger.’” Had ’em all over the state.”
“Did they work?”
“If they worked, you think I’d be sitting here? Course they didn’t work. No one wanted to see my mug ten feet tall. I’ve got a face made for radio and contract work. Such is life.” He tappe
d ash into an empty cup. “You look like shit. Plus, that’s a goddamn ugly T-shirt.” He streamed smoke through his nostrils. “How’s the Charles thing going?”
“It’s going.”
“I suspected it was, what with you standing there. Not like you’re not here because of the decor or because I’m such good company.”
“Your decor sucks, and you’re nothing to look at, either. But I do have questions for you.”
“Still think you’re scratching up the wrong tree here, buddy. Eddie Dolan, that’s ancient history. Let the world move on.”
“This isn’t about Eddie Dolan. This is about you and Robert Charles and the money he gave you.”
So you spend enough time in courtrooms, watching trials play out, you get the feel of what it takes to be a good attorney, and part of that is playing it cool when the need arises. You’re standing there in court, doing cross-examination, or you’re watching your client’s testimony get knocked flatter than a house of cards in a hurricane, and your whole job is to remain composed, and not let anyone see you sweat.
Jerry Logue was shit out of luck in that skill set. No, he showed in a heartbeat he was fucked four ways to Friday. His hand dove into the open drawer, but I was on my feet and across the desk, knocking towers of paperwork to the floor. I grabbed the drawer and pushed it shut, catching his wrist in the closure. He screamed like a scalded cat, and I slid the drawer open enough to slam it again with force. That time, I heard something snap.
I opened the drawer and grabbed the revolver resting inside. Logue drew his hand out. It hung limp from the end of his arm. He pulled it close to his chest. Tears welled in his eyes. “You broke my goddamn wrist, motherfucker!”
“Sue me.” I popped the cylinder and emptied the six bullets into my hand, dumping them into my pocket, and put the pistol in a side pocket of the cargo shorts. Fuck anyone who says those aren’t useful.
I helped myself to one of his cigarettes. He watched the action with rage bubbling across his face. I rolled my eyes and lit him one and handed it to him. He let his wrist drop into his lap and drew the smoke in deep and exhaled for what felt like five minutes.
“Robert Charles paid you to get Dolan to confess to Meadow’s murder,” I said.
Logue stared at me through slitted eyes. “The retard was going down for it. Him saying he was innocent was making it tougher on himself. And Mr. Charles, he wanted this shit over. I didn’t blame him. The family had suffered enough.”
“Your talk about a vigorous defense was nothing but talk then, huh?”
He didn’t say anything.
The phone calls to Dagny had been to check her father’s accounts around the time of Eddie’s trial. She found a withdrawal of ten thousand dollars. There wasn’t any good reason for it. A reason, sure, but it wasn’t good.
Logue tapped ash into a plastic cup on his desk. “Charles came by two days before we were to go to trial, said he had a deal to offer me. I told him I shouldn’t even be talking to him, conflict of interest, things like that, but he told me he was just interested in justice for his daughter. That little girl, she might have been a dope head, but what got done to her, it wasn’t right. Hands me an envelope full of hundreds and tells me it’s mine if I get Eddie to confess to the murder.”
“Which you were more than willing to do.”
“Eddie would have gone up for this, anyway. You think that piece of white trash would get away with killing a rich girl? Cute little girl, she wasn’t gonna get murdered and then everyone forget about it. No, the outcome was going to be the same no matter if I took Charles’s money or not. Give me a reason my pockets should have to go empty.”
“You’re a goddamn credit to your profession, Logue. No wonder people hate lawyers.”
“You and your high-minded attitude can suck my left nut. I did that kid a favor. You know what would have happened, we’d gone to trial? They’d have crucified him. I didn’t like it, but it needed to happen for his own goddamn good.”
“The ten grand helped soothe the hurt of violating your ethics, such as they are.”
“You think I’m gonna apologize for making money? Fuck you. I leaked cash working that case. I couldn’t do nothing else while I was on it. That money didn’t come close to covering what I lost not taking on any other work.” There were potato-sized sacks under his eyes, and his stubby, nicotine-stained fingers tapped a steady, nervous rhythm on the desktop. “You one of those guys, they never leave well enough alone. What you gonna do now?”
“Don’t know. Taking the money, it’s grounds for disbarment, isn’t it?”
“Big time. Huge.”
I walked to the door. I heard Logue come to his feet, and I spun around, ready if he came at me. Instead, he stood there, barely visible behind the remaining stacks of papers. The cigarette dangled from his lips, and his broken wrist hung by his side.
“Ain’t fucking right to just leave this hanging over my head, Malone,” he said. “Ain’t right at all.”
I reached for the doorknob. “Might not be, but it’s the way it’s gonna be for a while. You already knew what you did; see how you like someone else knowing about it.”
He trembled slightly, maybe out of anger, maybe out of disgust with himself. No idea. I didn’t give a shit, either. I just walked out.
39
“You’ve had a busy morning,” Woody said.
“I can’t exactly go home and take a nap, now can I? Though goddammit, if I don’t want one so bad.”
We were sitting at the Riverside, having lunch. I’d left Logue’s office to find Charles, to let him know I’d sold him out to the Feds, but he wasn’t at the bank. I tried to persuade information out of his receptionist, but she was impervious to my charms.
After lunch, Woody and I drove out to Charles’s house. I was leaning out the window to buzz the intercom when the wrought iron gates swung open and Charles’s voice said, “Come on up.” The voice sounded as though he’d been yelling for the losing team the entire game.
Charles was standing in front of the house as we pulled up. He wore a nylon tracksuit and a look of anger that implied he didn’t deal well with disappointment.
“Top of the morning to you,” I said as Woody and I came out of the Aztek.
“It’s the middle of the goddamn day, Malone, and you’ve got a lot of balls coming here, after that bullshit trick you pulled at my bank.”
“I’m trying to find your daughter’s killer, Mr. Charles.”
“My daughter’s killer is rotting in prison, as he should be. You, on the other hand, broke into an office in my building and stole confidential documentation—”
“Yeah, about that,” I said. Woody and I walked up the steps. “That documentation points toward you and Mitchell Gillespie being involved in a massive real estate scam, and Mitchell is undoubtedly connected to a murder. So outside of the federal charges on that, you’re looking at accessory-after-the-fact. The question becomes if the Feds or the state get a hold of you first, which prison system do you spend the rest of your life in. If I were you, I’d hope for you to land in a federal prison. Some of ’em are awfully soft. You might luck into one with a golf course.” I put on the biggest smile. “Might even help with your handicap. I figure once you’re done with federal time, they’ll put you in Mount Olive, which’ll be super ironic since Dolan is there. You and he can sit together during lunch and share recipes to make prison toilet hooch.”
Charles’s face drained of color. One side twitched, and I thought he was having a stroke.
I stepped in closer to Charles. “Tell me what the fuck is going on here. Now.”
His eyes met mine. His mouth turned down in disgust. “You couldn’t let well enough the fuck alone? You had to keep poking, keep being an asshole.”
“Where the fuck were you when they handed out consciences, Charles? Do you possess the ability to know the difference between right and wrong?”
“You don’t know the shit that’s been dropped at my feet for year
s now, or what I’ve done to keep my family alive, to keep my business alive.”
I poked Charles hard in the chest. The movement caught him by surprise, and he stared down at my finger, then at me. “Talk, Charles.”
“Inside.”
In the kitchen, Charles poured himself a glass of Jameson’s, threw the drink back fast, and refilled it and let it rest on the counter. He kept a hold on the glass like it was a life preserver, the only thing keeping him from sinking into whatever depths surrounded him.
“After my first wife died, everything spiraled into a whirlpool of shit,” he said. “I loved her so much, and I had angry children struggling to understand why their mother wasn’t there any longer. I felt empty, and Brooklyn was a bad idea I didn’t care was a bad idea, because she filled a space I couldn’t get rid of. Meadow happened not long afterward, and it became apparent how—” Charles gave his glass a shake, letting the ice cubes clink. “How ill-suited Brooklyn was for either mothering or monogamy.”
“Your wife’s not discreet in her indiscretions.”
Charles lifted his eyebrows. “Are you referring to her and Gillespie? It’s not what anyone could call a ‘secret.’ I’m sure there are others, but her and Mitchell, that’s where the tip of the blade hits deepest. Maybe because I maintain a facade of ignorance between the two of them so the largest customer at my bank doesn’t pull his business and go elsewhere and leave me broke. Because when I’m broke, Brooklyn will leave also, and whatever will I do without either my philandering wife or my alleged best friend she’s fucking.” He snarled. “Whatever love or pity Brooklyn might have for me, what’s stronger is the part of her that loves to see me humiliated, so she makes no effort to be discreet. And I’m too tired to go through a divorce, so I let her do what she wants.” He sipped at the Jameson’s. “I guess this makes me a cuckold. Jesus.”
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