by Joel Goldman
“And before that—where’s home?”
“No place special. A little town you’ve probably never heard of.”
“Family?”
“None anymore.”
“So your first job was with Sullivan?”
“You are a quick study, Mason. I’ll bet you’re terrifying on cross-examination.”
“I like to let things build. What did you think of Sullivan?”
“He treated people like dirt, but I didn’t have a problem with him.”
“The two of you must have had a special relationship.”
Her eyes flickered for an instant. She leaned forward, legs crossed, her chin cupped in one hand, elbow resting on her knee. She was studying. Diane was no fool and wouldn’t allow him to trap her easily. But Mason knew more than she could suspect, and he was better at this than she was. And she was living on lies, which made for a foundation with deep faults. Not the kind that would withstand much stress. Her outrageous treatment of Pamela told Mason that she felt safe—beyond his reach. Now doubt was creeping in, filling the faults and pushing them into wider cracks.
“I knew what he wanted and I did it.”
“Including figuring out what Scott and Harlan were doing with Quintex and the phony fees?”
She sat back, leaving her legs crossed at the ankles, arms extended across the back of the sofa. “Including Quintex. Sullivan asked me to check into it. I put it all together for him. Including the Cayman Island accounts. It wasn’t difficult. Scott and Harlan weren’t very clever crooks.”
“But why hide it on the Johnny Mathis CD?”
“That was my idea. Nobody listens to Johnny Mathis. It was the perfect hiding place. All I needed was a scanner and a CD burner. Sullivan didn’t want anyone to know he had the information. Except for the U.S. attorney. But I guess he didn’t get the chance to rat out his partners and poor Vic Jr.,” she added with a quick laugh.
Mason connected the last dot. “You knew Sullivan was going to make a deal with St. John?”
“I figured it out. It was the only way he could avoid going to jail,” she said with a thin-lipped smile.
Pamela tried to shrink farther into the sofa, but Diane clamped her hand on Pamela’s thigh, keeping her close.
“Why did Sullivan revoke his will?”
Diane shrugged. “He changed his mind about the charities. The codicil gave him time to decide what to do with the money.”
It was a practiced reply. The kind that is believed if repeated often enough but doesn’t make sense to anyone else.
“Then why not keep the will and change the beneficiaries? Revoking the will means he dies intestate, the estate pays huge taxes, and the heirs get screwed.”
“There would still be plenty for Pamela.”
“And for any other heirs.”
“They never had children. You should do your homework, Mason.”
“Oh, I have, Diane. I have. They never had children, but Sullivan did.”
“So the kid gets a share.”
“How did you know there’s only one kid, Diane?”
CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT
SHE REDDENED, STOOD, AND WALKED toward the bookshelves. Mason gripped the arms of his chair to keep from cutting her off before she noticed his phone. She stopped at Sullivan’s desk and took his seat.
“He said something about it once, a long time ago.”
“What did he tell you?”
Her eyes filled with the memory. “That he’d gotten some girl pregnant a long time ago but didn’t find out until years later. Once he found out, he paid support but never saw the child.”
“That must have been torture for you. To be right there in front of him and realize he didn’t know you.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about! Pamela, get him out of here. We don’t have to listen to this!”
Mason glanced up at Pamela, whose face was a furious mask. Diane pushed the desk chair back against the credenza. Her eyes were wild. Mason reached in his jacket and opened the Bible in his lap.
“Pamela, there’s an old man lying in a nursing home in Rogersville. He’s in a coma. His name is Vernon Phillips. This is his Bible. His family tree makes interesting reading.”
“Where did you get that?” Diane hissed, her body taut, ready to spring at him.
“Homework, Alice. When did you take your grandmother Diane Farrell’s name? Were you just being clever or did you want Sullivan to figure it out on his own?”
“My mother loved him, gave herself to him, and he pissed on her—on both of us!” she screamed. A lifetime of venom contorted her face.
“He paid child support.”
“Money! She didn’t want his money! She wanted him! But Pamela, beautiful Pamela, got him. And we got nothing.”
“You couldn’t stand that he didn’t want you—didn’t even want to see you,” Mason said, driving each nail slowly. “When did Meredith tell you about him?”
She was startled at his use of her mother’s name. It was another invasion of her life. Mason was Sherman marching through Georgia, and he was just warming up.
“Did she tell you Daddy was dead or that she didn’t know who your daddy was? Or maybe she didn’t tell you anything at all. Then one day, you found a check from a man you’d never heard of before.”
Diane/Alice bolted from her chair, leaning hard on the desk. Mason had scored a direct hit. The words poured out of her in a torrent.
“When I was thirteen, she wrote him a letter begging him to acknowledge me. He sent it back unopened with a check. My mother left it out where she knew I would find it. That’s how she told me!”
“And working for him was your way of getting even? Wasn’t it worse when he didn’t recognize you or your name? Surely he must have remembered Meredith’s mother?”
“My grandmother died when my mother was young. He’d have never known her.”
“But still, not to recognize you at all. There had to be some family resemblance.”
Mason shook his head sympathetically. Pamela stood as still as Lot’s wife as he moved from his chair to the arm of the sofa. He couldn’t predict what Diane would do if he kept pushing her, and he wanted more mobility.
“When did you finally tell him?”
“Last January.”
“Just before he revoked his will. What was his reaction?”
“He told me to keep my mouth shut and my billable hours up.”
“That’s it?”
“We made a deal. I told him all I wanted was my inheritance. I didn’t care if anyone knew, so long as I got my share.”
“Why not make you a beneficiary in the will?”
“That was too public an acknowledgment. This way, if Pamela died first, I’d get everything as the only heir.”
“How were you going to prove paternity?”
“He took a blood test when I was ten. That’s when he started paying child support. And I made him sign something.”
“Where is it?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
Mason remembered that Angela had told Sandra that there was something else she wanted to talk with her about.
“Angela found it, didn’t she?”
Diane’s face softened and then hardened again as she sensed where he was headed.
“Mason, I’m getting tired of this.”
She stepped away from the desk. He stood as she reached behind the Carl Sandburg biography of Lincoln and turned around, holding Pamela’s gun.
“Oh shit,” Mason said.
“How right you are.”
CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE
“YOU DON’T NEED THE GUN, DIANE,” Pamela said.
“Don’t tell me what I need, Pamela. If you’d have left my mother and father alone, none of this would have happened.”
“Richard chose me—that’s not my fault!”
“Not your fault! Ha! Mother told me how you seduced him. How did it feel to be seduced by his daughter, sweet Pamela?”
“I’ve been a greater fool before and no doubt will be again. But there’s no need for a gun.”
“Tell him that,” Diane said, waving the gun at Mason.
“What is she talking about, Lou?”
“She killed Richard and Angela. Now she’s trying to decide whether to kill us.”
Pamela stepped toward her. “Diane?”
“You’re a pathetic whore. You stole my father. Over there, on the couch, where I can see both of you,” Diane commanded, directing them with the gun.
Pamela complied, clutching a pillow in her lap.
“How did you know about the gun?” Mason asked.
“Pamela told me. She told me everything.”
“Including that Sullivan was HIV positive?”
“That was rich. It renewed my faith in God.”
“But threatened your inheritance. AIDS is a very expensive way to die. But if you killed Sullivan, you’d get your money and your revenge.”
“It was a good deal for both of us. We’d both stop suffering.”
“So you told Sullivan that you had access to experimental drugs through the gay community and, as the loving daughter, you wanted to help him.”
“I told you he trusted me.”
“And you let him shoot himself up with saline until you were ready to give him the fatal dose of insulin.”
“My, my. You have done your job, Mason.”
“The nursing home doesn’t seem real careful about its drugs. Lucky break that your grandfather ended up there.”
“It didn’t matter. I would have found something to give him.”
“How did you get him to inject himself?”
“The day before the retreat, I told him I had something new, very powerful. He begged me for it. I made him wait until Saturday night at the lake.”
“And you just watched him kill himself.”
“It was a dream come true.”
“You might have gotten away with it if you hadn’t killed Angela too. How did she find out about you?”
“The wiretap on Sullivan’s phone. She tried to blackmail me for a share of my inheritance.”
“So you went to her apartment. But how did you do it?”
“It was easy. I stabbed her in the neck with a dose of insulin. It’s very quick that way.”
“And left the suicide note on her computer.”
“I thought it was a nice touch.”
“Actually, it was stupid. Angela didn’t know Sullivan was HIV positive. Other than his doctor, you and Pamela were the only ones who knew. Too many bodies, Diane. You can’t cover all your tracks.”
“I can try. After I shoot you, I’m going to help sweet Pamela put the gun in her mouth. A messy murder-suicide should at least muddy the waters.”
Diane began walking toward them as Mason stood up.
“Sit down!” she screamed.
There was no way out. She was too far away to try and disarm her, but she was close enough to shoot them both. Mason decided to at least put some distance between him and Pamela.
“Sit down!” she screamed again as he moved toward the desk.
“Diane,” Pamela replied wearily, “the gun isn’t loaded.”
Diane and Mason stopped in their tracks. “What?” he yelled at Pamela. “Were you waiting for a sign from God to tell me?”
“I wanted to know everything,” Pamela said. “There have been too many lies. She wouldn’t tell the truth if she thought the gun wasn’t loaded.”
Diane threw the gun at Pamela, striking her on the shoulder, and charged her, screaming. They rolled on the floor in a tangle of arms and legs, knocking over the butler’s table. Mason pulled them apart, but not before Diane raked Pamela’s face with her nails, opening ugly wounds. Mason held Diane with her arm twisted behind her back until her breathing steadied, while Pamela called 911.
Diane sat in the wingback chair while they waited for the police. The doorbell rang and Pamela left to answer it. Mason had his back to Diane as he listened to the recording of their conversation, turning around just as Pamela and the cops came in the room.
They all stared at Diane. She was holding the ornamental letter opener that had fallen on the floor during her wrestling match with Pamela. Diane waited until she had their full attention before plunging the letter opener into her neck.
CHAPTER EIGHTY
DIANE PUNCTURED HER JUGULAR VEIN. The cops did what they could and the paramedics did more. She lived long enough to be pronounced dead in the emergency room.
The clouds were breaking up when Pamela and Mason left the hospital. It had been two weeks since he had identified Sullivan’s body at the lake. For the first time, the air was clear.
Pamela thanked him for the ride, for everything, she said. Mason promised to check in on her, but it was a promise neither of them wanted him to keep. It’s too hard to become friends after you’ve been stripped naked.
Mason believed that Pamela must have suspected Diane. At least that she was Sullivan’s daughter. Yet she allowed their relationship to become dangerously intimate. Perhaps had even encouraged it.
He’d read that some people stay in abusive relationships because they think they deserve it. Maybe Pamela knew what she was doing with Diane—punishing herself for taking Sullivan from Diane and her mother. He couldn’t wait for Jerry Springer to do a show on women who sleep with their stepdaughters who kill their husbands to get even with their fathers for abandoning them.
Sunday evening, Mason met Kelly at the airport. Other friends and lovers streamed past them, embracing one another, grabbing luggage, moving on. Mason and Kelly stood for a moment, holding hands, measuring where they were. She clutched him briefly, brushed his lips, and said she was glad he was all right. The intensity of the last two weeks had locked them together. Both sensed that the grip of those days was loosening. They had a quiet dinner, dancing small steps around the future.
“Blues is buying a bar,” he told her. “It comes complete with office space upstairs. I’m thinking about becoming his first tenant.”
“That’s great. Really great. You’ll be happier on your own.”
Mason knew that she was talking as much about herself as about him. She’d buried her partner, exhumed his memory, and had to bury him again. Another part of her had been lost when her cabin burned.
After dinner, they drove to the Plaza and parked in front of their fountain. The top was down on the TR6. The air was close, thick with humidity. Bugs danced in the fountain’s spray. Cars filled with teenagers sauntered past, rap and rock bellowing from open windows. Mason and Kelly smiled ruefully at each other, realizing that the magic had been in the moment, not the fountain, and the moment had passed.
Mason read her thoughts. “Nick was dirty, Kelly. That was about him, not about you.”
She sighed deeply, rubbed her hands in her lap, and nodded. “I didn’t see it,” she said. “That is about me.” A thin tear leaked from the corner of her eye. Mason reached to wipe it away. She took his hand. “The cabin was my hiding place, Lou. I hid everything there, including my feelings for Nick, for you, and for myself. I’ve got to rebuild before I can decide what I want.”
Mason dropped her at her hotel. Kelly stepped from the car, leaned back in, and kissed him. He watched her walk away until she disappeared through the revolving door.
The next day, he returned Vernon’s Bible to him. He was unchanged. A new nurse was caring for him and told Mason that he could last for years in that condition. He almost promised that he’d come back to visit, but he was tired of making promises meant to be broken.
When he got home, he called Webb Chapman. “Any news on the safety hooks?”
“I was getting ready to call you. The test results came back today. Several of the hooks have blood on them. One of the blood samples matches Tommy’s blood type. You need DNA tests to prove it was Tommy’s blood, and that’s not cheap to do.”
Mason quickly calculated how much money he had left from his insurance settlemen
t. “Do it.”
“Have you told Tommy?”
“No. I want to be certain first.”
Blues on Broadway opened the week after Labor Day. It was a straight-ahead joint. No cutesy memorabilia from funkier times. A rectangular-shaped mahogany bar dominated the center. Glasses hung in racks from the ceiling. Single-malt Scotch got premier billing on the shelves behind the bar. Black leather booths lined the walls, and a handful of matching round tables dotted the floor.
Blues’s Steinway grand piano, its ebony wood buffed to a high sheen, sat a foot off the floor on a stage barely big enough for it and the big man who played it. Mason had an office upstairs and a part-time job tending bar.
Sandra Connelly dropped in one afternoon as he was wiping glasses. Her auburn hair was shaped, shortened, and highlighted for fall. A glistening diamond hung from the center of a gold necklace. She stood in the doorway, silhouetted by the sunshine.
“Come on in,” Mason told her. “You can sign up to be a charter regular.”
“What do I get? My own chair at the bar?”
“Any seat that isn’t taken.”
“Suits me. Give me a glass of your best house wine. And don’t open a fresh gallon on my account.”
Sandra had been at the center of a fierce recruiting battle among the major law firms in town. She didn’t discourage the soft exaggerations of her exploits by the media and leveraged her high profile into a corner office and a fat paycheck. Mason admired her ambition but didn’t envy her. He poured and she sipped.
“Victor O’Malley just wrote my firm a check for a hundred thousand dollars.”
“Still paying for work his lawyers didn’t do.”
“Cute, for a bartender. This one is the real deal, Lou. I’m his lawyer. St. John is still going after him.”
“Any word on Vic Jr.?”
Sandra turned serious. “No. The cops assumed that Camaya killed him. His father wants me to keep looking. I came by to tell you something else.”
“What’s that?”
“Camaya escaped from the prison hospital last night. It looks like he had outside help.”
“I’m not worried. Jimmie and I have an understanding.”