The King of Lies

by John Hart

“Did you know where he kept it?”

  “Lots of people did.”

  “That doesn’t answer my question.”

  “I knew where he kept it.”

  “Do you know how to fire a gun?”

  “You point and you pull the trigger. It’s not rocket science.”

  “Do you know where it is now?”

  “No,” I told her. “I have no idea.”

  So she went back to the beginning. She went over every detail again and yet again. She approached my story from different angles, searching for inconsistencies, the tiny lies that every guilty person tells. “What time did you go to bed? How about your wife? What did you talk about? Tell me about the argument. Tell me what happened at the hospital. What else did your father say before he left? How about the phone call? Let’s go over that again.”

  On and on, for hours. “How did you get along with your father? What was your financial arrangement in regards to the practice? Were you partners or were you an employee? Did you have a key to his house? Did he lock his office at night? How about his desk?”

  I asked for water and Mills poured a glass from the pitcher. I took a small sip.

  “When did you first learn about the will?”

  “I knew he was leaving me the house, but I knew nothing else about it until I met with Hambly.”

  “Your father never discussed it?”

  “He was a secretive man, especially about money.”

  “Hambly tells me you were angry about the terms of the will. He says you cursed your father’s name.”

  “Jean was not included.”

  “And that bothered you.”

  “I think it’s cruel.”

  “Let’s talk about your mother,” Mills said. I stiffened.

  “What about her?”

  “Did you love her?”

  “What kind of question is that?”

  “Answer the question, please.”

  “Of course I loved her.”

  “What about your father?”

  “He loved her, too.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “He was my father.”

  “That doesn’t answer the question,” she said.

  “I think it does.”

  She leaned back in her chair, enjoying this power she had over me. “Were you friends?”

  I thought about it, and almost lied. I wasn’t sure why the truth came out, but it did. “He was my father and my business partner. We were not friends.”

  “Why not?”

  “He was a hard man. I don’t think he had many friends.”

  Mills flipped the pages of her pad, looking back over some previous notes. “The night your mother died.”

  “That was an accident,” I said, a little too loudly.

  Mills looked up, the pages still held between her fingers. “So you’ve said. But questions were asked. There was an inquest.”

  “Haven’t you read the report?” I asked.

  “I’ve read it. It raised some questions.”

  I shrugged as if this wasn’t killing me. “People die. Questions are asked. That’s how it’s done.”

  “Where was Alex Shiften?” she asked.

  The question took me off guard. “Alex?”

  “Yes. During the argument. After the argument. Where was she?”

  “I don’t know,” I told her truthfully.

  Mills made a note on her pad and then changed tack seamlessly. “You’ve never seen your father’s will. Is that right?”

  She’d asked this before. “I’ve never seen his will,” I told her. “I never knew any details. Until I spoke with Clarence Hambly, I had no idea that his estate was so large.” I sensed movement and looked at Detective Small Head. He hadn’t actually moved, but the razor’s edge of his mouth had turned up at one corner, and suddenly I felt the true danger of the game I was playing. I couldn’t see Mills’s trap, but I sensed it. My next words were spoken slowly. “I certainly didn’t know that he’d left me fifteen million dollars.”

  I put my eyes back on Detective Mills and saw the first gleam of triumph. Whatever she had up her sleeve, I was about to find out. She opened the manila folder and removed what looked like a document sealed in a clear plastic evidence bag. She read the evidence number into the record, took the document out, and then laid it before me. I knew what it was before it hit the table. A glance confirmed my suspicions. “The Last Will and Testament of Ezra Pickens,” it read.

  “You’ve never seen this document?” she asked.

  “No,” I said, a hollow place opening in my stomach. “I’ve never seen it.”

  “But according to the title of this document, it is your father’s will. Is that a fair statement?”

  “It purports to be the last will and testament of my father, yes. You’d need Clarence Hambly to confirm it.”

  “He has,” Mills said, making her less-than-subtle point. Everything would be confirmed. Every word I said. “And you’ve never seen it before?”

  “No.”

  “No, you’ve not seen it?”

  “That’s correct.”

  Mills picked up the document.

  “I am turning to page five,” Mills said. “There is a sentence here that has been marked with a yellow Hi-Liter. The last three words of that sentence have been underlined three times in red ink. I’m going to show this to you and ask you if you have ever seen this.”

  She presented the document, placing it face up on the table. The feeling of surreal calm that had enveloped me started to crumble.

  “I have never seen this before,” I said.

  “Will you please read the highlighted portion?”

  I felt Detective Small Head detach himself from the wall. He crossed the room and stood behind Mills. In a shallow voice I read my father’s words; it was a voice from the grave, and it damned me.

  “To my son, Jackson Workman Pickens, I leave, in trust, the sum of fifteen million dollars.” Red ink underscored the dollar figure. Whoever did it had pressed down hard, as if in anger or expectation. I could not bring myself to look up. I knew what the next question would be. It came from Mills.

  “Will you explain for us how this document, which you have never seen, came to be in your house?”

  I could not answer them. I could barely breathe. My father’s will had been found in my house.

  They had their motive.

  Suddenly, a hand crashed down on the table before my eyes. I jumped in my chair, looked up at Mills. “Damn it, Pickens! Answer the question. What was this doing in your house?”

  Mills continued, pounding me with words as she’d pounded the table with her open palm.

  “You knew about the will,” she said. “You needed the money, and you killed him!”

  “No,” I finally said. “None of that is true.”

  “Hambly told us that your father planned to change the will. He was cutting you out, Pickens. Fifteen million dollars was about to fly out the window, and you freaked. So you put two in his head and you waited for the body to be found. That’s how it happened, isn’t it? Admit it!”

  I was stunned. He was going to cut me out? Hambly had never mentioned that. I filed the issue away, concentrated on the present. This was a hard blow, a strategic nightmare, but I’d faced worse. I had to think. I had to be calm. I took a slow, deep breath, told myself to think about the transcript of this interview, think about a future jury. This was a deposition, I told myself. Nothing more.

  I almost believed it.

  “Are you through?” I asked, leaning against the back of my seat. My voice was quiet, and I knew that the sound of it made Mills’s histrionics seem extreme. She was on her feet, leaning over the table. She studied my face and straightened. “May I pick this up?” I asked, indicating my father’s will.

  Mills nodded, took a step back, and sat down. Much of the color had faded from her face. “As long as you’re still planning to talk to me,” she said.

  I declined to answer. I lifted t
he document from the table and slowly flipped through the pages. I needed something. Anything.

  I found what I was looking for on the signature page.

  “This is a copy,” I said, laying the document back down and squaring the edges.

  “So?” I saw brief concern tighten her eyes. It showed in her voice, too.

  “So there are only a few originals of any will. Usually the client keeps one, as does the drafting attorney. Two originals, then. Maybe three. But copies, by their very nature, can be limitless in their number.”

  “That’s irrelevant. All that matters is that you knew the terms of the will.”

  Arguing with me was her first real mistake. She’d opened the door, given me license to speculate, and it was my turn to lean forward. I wanted my next words on the transcript; I spoke clearly.

  “You acquired a copy of the will from Clarence Hambly. You did so prior to the search of my home. That’s one person that we know of who had a copy—you. I can also assume that you gave a copy to the district attorney. That’s two. Clarence Hambly, of course, had one of the originals, so he could also have made a copy. That makes three people with copies of the will who have also been inside my home within the past few days.” I counted on my fingers, bending each one back as I spoke. “Hambly was at Ezra’s wake the night after his body was discovered. That’s one. The district attorney stopped by the other day to speak with my wife. He made a special trip to visit her at the house. Nowhere else. The house. That’s two. And you were there during the search. That makes three. Any one of you could have planted that copy.”

  “Are you challenging my integrity?” Mills demanded. “Or that of the district attorney?” I saw that the color was back in her cheeks. My words had hit the mark. She was getting angry.

  “You’re challenging mine. So why not? Three people, all of whom had a copy of the will, all of whom have been in my house within the past several days. That’s a compelling problem for you, Detective Mills. People love a good conspiracy theory. And let’s not forget Hambly’s office staff. He has fifteen support people working there, plus another five lawyers. Any one of them could have copied that document. Have you checked them out? I bet a hundred bucks could buy a copy of a dead man’s will, if you found the right person. What’s the harm in that, right? Barbara and I have had countless people in our house over the past year and a half. One of them buys a copy of the will and plants it in our house. That’s a simple picture. You should check them out as well.”

  Mills was furious, which was how I wanted her. Her voice rose as she spoke. “You can twist this all you want, but no jury will buy it. Juries trust cops, trust the district attorney. The will was in your house. You knew about the fifteen million.”

  “I wouldn’t be so quick to insult the juries of this county. They’re smarter than you think. They may surprise you.”

  Mills saw the danger of letting me take control just as I smiled. I was calm. She was not. She had called the jury stupid. I had paid them a sincere compliment. It was on the record.

  “This line of questioning is over,” Mills said. Her eyes burned with conviction, and I saw real hatred there.

  I wasn’t ready to let it go. Not yet. I wanted one more theory on the record. “Then there’s the person that broke into Ezra’s office,” I said. “The one who tried to kill me with the chair. I wonder what he was after. Maybe he stole a copy of the will.”

  “That is enough.” Mills was back on her feet, her hands clamped on the table’s edge. I would get nothing further from her; that was plain.

  So I said the only thing left to say.

  “Very well. I withdraw my Miranda waiver and assert my right to remain silent. This interview is over.”

  Mills swelled as blood suffused her face. She had tasted the kill and liked it; but then I’d shut her down, blown massive holes in her theory. It would not be enough by itself—I knew that—but it made her look bad, cast some small shadow of doubt. She’d not fully considered the significance of the will being a copy. An original would have been much more damning. But it was all smoke and mirrors in the end. She had what she wanted. I was on record. I’d never seen the will, yet it was found in my house.

  And fifteen million dollars—that would sway most juries.

  Yet as Mills stormed out and left me alone with these thoughts, I had to deal with two more questions that, in their own way, were even more troubling: Why did my father want to cut me out of the will, and why hadn’t Hambly told me about it?

  I rubbed my hands across a face that felt as if it belonged to another man. Razor stubble, deep lines—I ground my palms into raw eyes, opened them when I heard Detective Small Head approach the table. He dropped a telephone onto the surface.

  “One phone call, counselor. Better make it a good one.”

  “How about some privacy?” I asked.

  “No chance,” he replied, and moved back to lean against the wall.

  Already the interview was moving behind me. I looked at the telephone and remembered Vanessa’s face as she’d fled the sound of Barbara’s voice. I had one phone call, so I thought of all the lawyers I knew, then dialed the only number that made any sense whatsoever. I heard the phone ring at Stolen Farm and squeezed the receiver so tightly that my hand ached. Was I looking for my alibi? Maybe, for a moment, but most of all I wanted her to know that I’d not abandoned her. Please, I begged silently. Please pick up. But she didn’t, just her voice, indifferent, asking that the caller leave a message. But I couldn’t. What could I say? So I lowered the phone back to its cradle, dimly aware of the detective’s curious stare, and the fact that, far from here, an unfeeling machine carried the sound of my anguished breath.

  CHAPTER 25

  In my imagination, the cells were always cold, but the cell they took me to was hot. That’s the first thing I noticed; after that, it was the size. Narrow and mean, eight by six, with a small window where I’d always pictured bars. But the glass had wires in it. I noticed this as I pressed my face against the window, trying to see more of this place to which Mills had sent me. I’d not seen her after she stormed off, but she didn’t leave me alone for long. Detective Small Head and two uniformed officers had cuffed me again and led me through a warren of hallways to the heavy steel door that guarded the entrance to the police station’s parking garage. Then into a cruiser for the short ride to the county jail, where I was processed.

  That part was worse than I’d ever imagined. They took my name, took my clothes, and with a flashlight and a rubber glove, they took the last pitiful rag of my dignity. Detective Small Head watched, and lit a cigarette when they spread my cheeks.

  Eventually, someone tossed me an orange jumpsuit and I put it on, ashamed of my eagerness. The legs were too short, and the crotch drooped almost to my knees. My heels hung off the back of the flip-flops, but I stood as straight as I could. Detective Small Head smiled as he said, “Sleep well, counselor.” Then he was gone, and I was alone with the guards, who contrived to act as if they’d never seen me before, instead of two or three times a week for the past ten years.

  I stood there for another ten minutes while the senior guard finished his paperwork and the younger one ignored me. No one else entered and no one else left. Ten minutes, the three of us, and not a word spoken. The pen rasped across paper in triplicate, and his meaty forearm left a damp spot on the desk as he moved down the form. Even the top of his head looked bored. I wanted to sit, but the only other chairs had leather straps and I couldn’t go there. They were thick, stained with sweat and blood, and one had teeth marks in it. I stepped away from it.

  “Going somewhere?” the older guard asked wryly. I shook my head. “Just relax, counselor. Time is the one thing you’ve got plenty of.” Then he went back to work, and the younger one sat on the edge of the desk, picking at his fingernails.

  I studied the walls, the floor, and tried not to look at the door that led to the interview rooms. I’d walked through it a thousand times, but that was not my dest
ination. This time, they would take me through another door, into the general population; and as I stood there, I felt the truth of the guard’s words. Time was the one thing I had, and in that time I felt it—the reality. Not the concept or the possibility, but the bones of it, the flesh and hair of it. I was in jail, accused, and in that blink of time the fear sweats descended upon me. They warped the room, soured my stomach, and I fought a sudden surge of nausea.

  I was in jail. I would go to trial.

  Finally, the older guard finished his paperwork and looked up. His eyes flicked over me and I saw the recognition in them, but he ignored my obvious distress. He’d seen it all before. More times than he could probably count. “Pod four,” he said, indicating to the younger man where he was to take me.

  I followed the guard out of central processing and into a world where nothing felt real. They’d taken my watch, but I felt the lateness. We passed blank doors, and I saw the flickering reflection of my face in the tiny black windows with the guillotine wire.

  I lost track of the turns, aware, in any real sense, of only the sounds and the smells: the guard’s polished shoes cracking on the concrete floor, the whisper of flip-flops worn as thin as skin. Sounds of a distant argument abruptly ended. Metal on metal. The smell of antiseptic, packed humanity, and the faintest whiff of vomit that was not my own.

  We moved deeper into the institution, down an elevator, down another hall, away from the last hint of fresh air. I followed his back, and it led me deeper. Once he looked at me and mouthed a question, but I had nothing to say; my thoughts bled together, shattered, and were lost. I felt hunted, and I shied away from blind corners and dark recesses. I smelled my fear, and envied the guard his casual arrogance. In that long walk, he became a god, and I came to dread the moment he would cast me loose in this place.

  And so I followed him as far as he would lead me, into the hard-cornered space that was pod four, an octagonal area with doors on its perimeter. There were eight of them, and I saw more than one face pressed against the small glass panes. One door stood open, and the guard gestured toward it. At the door, he turned, and I saw that he was not a god after all. He looked uncertain. He seemed to shuffle his feet without actually doing so. Finally, he met my eyes.