by John Hart
“No.”
Beckett withdrew a folded paper from his pocket and placed it on the table. “You would have never been in that basement if you and your friends hadn’t wanted to walk on the wild side. But that’s what happened, isn’t it? You bought drugs from the Monroe brothers, and they came back and they took you. It wasn’t random. They didn’t find you on the street.”
“It was just the once. Please. We just wanted to try it.”
“Drugs?”
“Marijuana. Just the once.”
“And they came back for you.”
She nodded, small.
“What happened in that basement was your fault.” Beckett leaned forward and challenged her with every ounce of cop he had. “What happened to Liz was your fault, too. I’ve seen her wrists. I see how she’s falling apart.”
A sound escaped the girl’s throat.
“It’s time to tell the truth, Channing. To take responsibility for what happened in that basement.”
“What happens to Elizabeth if I do?”
He leaned back in the chair. “Liz walks free. Her life goes on.” The girl turned her head, but Beckett wasn’t finished. “Looking away is the easy part,” he said. “It always has been. The only real question is if you’ll let Liz die with a needle in her arm because you and your friends decided to get high. You okay with that? Look at me. This is your chance to do what’s right. Right here. Right now.”
The girl took her time. He let her have it.
“Does Liz know you’re doing this?”
“I told her I wouldn’t.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Because I look out for people I love, no matter the cost.”
“You love her?” Channing asked.
“Other than my wife she’s the best friend I’ve ever had.”
Channing considered his words for another long minute, and Beckett saw the instant she broke. “I’ll do it on one condition.”
“What?”
Channing told him what she wanted.
Beckett looked at the two-way glass, then shrugged and pushed a notepad across the table. “All right.”
The girl smoothed cuffed hands across the page.
Beckett held the pen where she could see it. “But, I want all of it.”
“Everything.”
“On camera and uncensored.”
“For her,” Channing said; and Beckett nodded.
“For Liz.” He gave her the pen. “Because she would do the same for you.”
* * *
Beckett watched the girl write, then took the page and folded it into a pocket. Two minutes later he was on the other side of the glass, and Marsh was setting up a video camera to take the girl’s statement. She looked small but determined.
Hamilton saw the emotion on Beckett’s face. “What did she give you?”
“A note,” Beckett said.
“May I see it?”
“It’s for Liz. It’s personal.”
“I don’t care.”
“You want the note, you fucking shoot me.” Beckett’s face said he was deadly serious.
Hamilton could push it, but why bother? He had the girl, and she was going to talk. “How did you know?”
“About Billy Bell?” Beckett shrugged. “I talked to the gardener this morning. I thought the mother was the only one buying drugs. Turned out it went deeper.”
“That’s not what I meant. How did you know Channing would talk?”
“Maybe I didn’t.”
“I saw your face at the drink machine. You said you could break her in five, yet you did it in two. You were certain.”
“Liz loves the kid.” Beckett studied the girl through the glass, the delicate features and swollen eyes. “I figured maybe the kid loved her back.”
Hamilton didn’t buy it. He leaned against the glass and watched Beckett’s face. “I’ve seen husbands kill their wives; mothers turn on sons. Channing and Detective Black barely know each other. It has to be more than that.”
“Maybe.”
“You have a theory?”
“Maybe she needed to confess.”
“Why?”
“They say familiarity breeds contempt.” Beckett put his hands on the glass, thinking of his wife and the warden and his own bitter mistakes. “Who do we know better than ourselves?”
* * *
When the tape was running, it began. Questions came, and the girl spoke haltingly. How she met the Monroe brothers. Where she was when they took her. The state cops walked her through it, and as surprised as they were by the story she told, no one doubted the truth of what she said. The details were too strong, the emotions too real. She spoke of the candle, the mattress, the things they did to her. In places she broke, and in places she froze. The tale of abuse was so hard to hear it shook everyone listening. Forty hours, the child was gone. Forty hours at the hands of monsters. Eventually, she got to the part that tore out the final piece of Beckett’s heart.
Even Hamilton was pale by then, sitting rigidly when he asked the question. “How did you get your hands on the gun?”
“I wouldn’t do what he wanted me to do. The smaller one. Brandon Monroe. I wouldn’t do it, so he hit me again, bit me again.” She stopped; collected herself. “The next time he did that, I bit him back, right here.” She touched the soft spot above her hip bone. “He got angry and threw me against a wall. When he came for me, I tried to crawl away, but he dragged me by the foot. I was scraping at the floor, trying to hold on to something. The gun was just there in the dark.”
“Where was Detective Black at this time?”
“In the other room.”
“Could you see her?”
“Yes. Sometimes.”
“Can you be more specific?” She shook her head; kept shaking it. A full minute passed. “This is what you’re here for,” Hamilton said. “This is what we need.”
A tear slipped down her cheek, and she scrubbed it away. “Elizabeth was on the mattress.”
“Was she awake?”
“Yes.”
“Was she wired?”
The girl said nothing. Another tear fell.
“We need to understand the level of her incapacity, Channing. If she was able to act? Why she didn’t? You tell us she’s not the shooter.…”
The girl looked at the two-way glass, and Beckett, on the other side, felt the stare all the way down in his soul.
He’d made this happen.
He’d done it.
“She was wired to the mattress,” Channing said. “Facedown…”
* * *
Twenty minutes later Beckett hit the door, and Francis Dyer followed him out into the hall. People stopped and stared. They knew what was happening. Not specifics, but they knew. “What the hell have I done?” Beckett pushed into an empty office. Dyer followed. “Jesus Christ, Francis. Liz will never forgive me.”
“You saved her life. No charges. No prison. You did what cops are supposed to do. You got to the bottom of things.”
“I made her a victim.”
“Titus Monroe did that.”
“You think she’ll be a cop again? You think she’ll just get over it? People will see that testimony. Every cop in here will know what happened, that I broke the most important part of her.”
“You didn’t—”
“That’s bullshit, Francis. We all have our armor; we all need it.” Beckett dragged his hands through his hair. “She’ll never forgive me. Not for this. Not after I promised.”
“Why don’t you get out of here? Take the day. Take a drive.”
“Yeah. Sure. A drive.”
“I’ll need the affidavit, though.”
“What?”
“Billy Bell’s affidavit. The one you showed the girl.”
“Jesus, man. There is no affidavit.” Beckett laughed a ragged laugh and withdrew the same piece of folded paper from his pocket. “This is a blank page. I just pulled it off the printer.”
19
Crybaby called it a cabin, but that was not accurate. The driveway cut through private forest for over a mile, ending on a bluff above a mirrored lake that blurred into the feet of distant mountains. The cabin, made of stone and wood, was massive and so permanent looking it could have been carved from the earth itself.
Elizabeth climbed from the car and took it all in: the hundred-year oaks, the plunging views. “‘The cabin’s yours,’ he says. ‘Have a drink, relax.’”
That wasn’t going to happen.
She followed a walkway to the back of the house. Bushes were overgrown, but the grass had been cut often enough to hold the forest back. She found the key where he’d said it would be, beneath a flat rock on the other side of the empty pool. Unlocking the main door, Elizabeth disengaged the alarm and entered the house, passing through a vaulted foyer and into the main room, where a wall of glass framed views of the lake and mountains. The fireplace was large enough to sit in. She saw sheeted furniture, books, a table long enough to feed thirty people. Dust covered everything, with tracks where the caretaker had been through on previous occasions. She followed them into the kitchen, then upstairs, and outside onto an upper balcony that felt like the roof of the world.
“Damn, Crybaby.”
She’d forgotten the magnitude of his success, the raw power he used to wield both in and out of court. Back inside, she studied photographs that stretched back six decades or more: Crybaby with past presidents, celebrities, the woman who’d been his wife. The distraction bought five minutes peace, then she moved onto the porch that faced the drive. It was fifteen feet deep and forty long. A dozen rocking chairs were turned upside down to protect them from the wind. Righting one, she dragged it to the low, stone wall that fronted the drive. The old lawyer would follow the drive, so that was the place to wait.
But, waiting was hard.
She sat. She paced.
The soft, warm day ate her alive.
* * *
The first sign of his arrival came midafternoon: a sudden stillness in the forest, then the hum of tires. By the time the limousine appeared in the clearing, Elizabeth was off the porch and in the drive. Her hand was on his door before the vehicle came to a complete stop.
“What?” She read his features the instant she saw them. “What went wrong?”
The old man extended a hand. “Help me, if you would.” She helped him from the car. He looked tired in the wrinkled jacket and put more weight on the cane than usual. “Are you hungry? We stopped for a few things.…”
“I’m not hungry. Where’s Channing?”
“Take my arm.”
“Faircloth, please.”
“Take it. Walk with me.” He firmed as he moved, guiding her to the shade of the porch. “Would you?” He gestured at a second chair, and she turned it over for him. Dropping into the chair, he told her, “Sit, sit.” She ignored the chair beside him, choosing instead to settle on the stone wall so their knees nearly touched. “We used to have such parties here. People would come from all over, you know. Europe and Washington and Hollywood.”
“Faircloth…”
“We thought it the ultimate expression of a life well lived. Powerful friends. A job that mattered. Look at it now, emptiness and dust, all those exciting people dead or close to it.” He craned his neck to look at the stacked-stone pillars, the massive beams. “I offered the place to my wife when she left. She refused to take it, though, knowing how much I loved it. She said it was a manly space and needed a man inside it. That was good of her, don’t you think? That kindhearted lie.”
“You’re stalling, Crybaby.”
“Perhaps.”
“It’s bad, then?”
“Your partner convinced her to do the noble thing.”
“Beckett? What?”
“He felt he had no choice, not with the indictment. He asked me to tell you as much in the hope you might find a way to forgive him.”
“Forgive him?” Elizabeth stood. The betrayal was too much. “He did exactly what I asked him not to do.”
“That may be so, but when I describe the young lady’s actions, I don’t use the word noble lightly. Channing confessed to make sure you were safe and well. No threats were made against her, no leverage or offers of leniency. She offered the truth for a splendid reason, and that is rarely a simple thing.”
“Is she in state custody or local?”
“Local for now. Charging decisions remain unmade.”
Elizabeth stared into the forest. Charging decision or not, she saw how it had to be. The girl would be in processing, now. Stripped of her clothes. Examined. Violated all over again.
“She wanted you to have this.” A piece of paper appeared in the old lawyer’s hand.
Elizabeth took the folded page. “Do you mind?”
“Of course not. By all means.”
Elizabeth walked to the far end of the porch. The note was in a beautiful hand, and brief.
Dear Elizabeth,
You told me wounds heal, but only if we’re strong and if we’re right. I try to be strong, and think maybe I can be, but nothing I do will ever make things right. You were in that basement because of me, and not in the way you think. Your partner can explain. He figured it out, and I know you would too, in time. The thought of that is more than I could bear, worse even than the memories of what we suffered together. Please, don’t hate me for telling the truth about what happened. I love what you tried to do, but I pulled the trigger and nobody else. It’s my fault, all of it. Please, don’t be angry. Please don’t hate me.
Elizabeth read the note a second time, then let her gaze fall to the lake. How could she hate her? They were sisters. They were the same.
“Are you quite all right, my dear?”
“I don’t think I am.”
Crybaby appeared beside her. “The indictment against you has been rescinded, and the state police have no further interest in you. I can take you home if you like. Your car will be fine until tomorrow.”
“May I stay for a while?”
“As long as you wish. I made no joke about provisions. There’s food, liquor. Enough for a week, if you like.” She nodded, and he pressed closer. “Was there comfort?” he asked. “In the young lady’s note?”
“No. Not really.”
“Then let me tell you a thing I’ve learned in my eighty-nine years. This house, the friends and memories—I’d trade it all for a chance to do what that young woman just did: a noble act, freely undertaken. How many of us have such a chance? And how many the courage to take it?”
“You’re the kindest man I’ve ever known. I’m sure you’ve had many chances.”
“To put one’s freedom above my own? To risk my life for another I barely know?” He shook his head, serious. “What I see here is the rarest of things, and the loveliest: her sacrifice and yours, what you’ve tried to do for each other. One in a million would do the same. One in a hundred million.”
Elizabeth studied the keen eyes and white brows, the lines that furrowed his face as if to show every hard decision he’d ever made. “Do you really believe that?”
“With every ounce of my soul.”
She looked away and swallowed in a dry throat. “You’re a good man, Faircloth Jones.”
“I’m an old fart, actually.”
Elizabeth folded the note and took his arm. “You said something about liquor.”
“I did.”
“Is it too early for a drink?”
“Not at all, my dear.” Crybaby leaned on the arm and steered for the door. “I have found, in fact, that on days such as this the whiskey lamp is most always lit.”
20
Beckett didn’t go for a drive. He went to the gym in the basement of the precinct. It wasn’t much of a facility, but his wife had been after him about his weight, and the next hour came down to two possibilities: sling some steel or seriously hurt somebody.
Minutes. Seconds.
He was that close to losing his shit.
&nbs
p; Opening the locker, Beckett stripped off his suit and put on gray sweats and old sneakers. He loaded steel plates on the long bar and didn’t worry about the noise as he grunted through more reps than he’d pulled in a long time. Curls, bench, squats. After that, he hit the machines. Triceps, lat pulls, leg extensions.
There was no peace, though.
Too many things moving.
A cold shower broke the sweat, but his mind was still hot as he took the stairs up and rounded into booking.
“Detective Beckett?” a voice called out, and Beckett saw the new girl brought in to work the phones. Laura? Lauren? She pushed past two bloodied men cuffed to a bench and met Beckett halfway across the room. “I tried your cell. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. I was working out.”
“Two messages in the past hour. This is from the warden.” She handed him a pink slip with a number on it. “He wants you to call his cell. He said it’s his fifth message and that he expects to hear from you this time.”
Beckett crumpled the paper; tossed it into a can. “What else?”
“A call came into the tip line twenty minutes ago. No name. He asked for you specifically.”
Beckett processed that. The only active tip line he knew about had been set up for the Ramona Morgan case. The number was in the papers, on local TV. “What’d he say?”
She made air quotes as she spoke. “‘Tell Detective Beckett there was movement at the church.’”
“That’s it? Movement?”
“It was strange.”
“Any ID on the phone?”
“Disposable cell. The voice was muffled, definitely male. He said one other thing, but it was even stranger.”
Beckett looked the question.
She flinched a little. “Sorry. The connection broke so I missed part of it, but I think he said, ‘Not even the house of God requires five walls.’”
* * *
Five walls. Beckett didn’t like the sound of that. Four walls to hold up the roof. What was the fifth?
Adrian Wall?
Beckett decided to take a drive, after all. He rolled down the windows to wash out the heat, then worked his way through downtown and past the sprawl. Tip lines had been known to cause more trouble than they were worth, especially in high-profile, violent cases. Nut jobs came out of the woodwork when the press got hot. False reports. Copycats. General hysteria. He’d been around long enough to see it all, but something about the tone of this one bothered him.