The Heavens May Fall

by Allen Eskens

  “Allow me,” Ben said. Ben’s voice carried a slight tremor as he spoke, although Boady could tell that Ben was doing his best to appear calm. “I had certain . . . insider information about the death of one Jennifer Rupert. Honestly, I never thought it would have any value to me.”

  “Where’d you get that information, Pruitt?” Max barked. “Tell me or—”

  “Or what, Detective?” Ben jiggled his gun against his own temple. “Want to see who can shoot me first? Because I’m not going back to prison.”

  “What are you talking about, Ben?” Boady asked.

  “Honestly, I didn’t think that information would ever do me any good, but I put it away as a plan B, just in case. I half suspected that the city would put its best homicide investigator on my case. I mean, why not? Turns out, it was your case from the start.”

  As Ben talked, Boady could see him grow more determined. He stopped using the wall to keep himself upright, and he’d lost the tremor in his voice.

  “Then I hear that they subpoenaed the footage from the tollbooths,” Ben continued. “Now I did a pretty good job of hiding my return, but the possibility existed that our boy Max might pick me out of the crowd. So I sent him on a little treasure hunt, to distract him.” Ben gave a forced chuckle. “I almost lost it when I heard that you got reprimanded over it. Icing on the cake, I guess.”

  “You know who killed my wife?” Max asked. Boady had never heard Max sound so vulnerable. Even that night they had to carry him out of the cemetery, Max never lost his bark. But now, he sounded almost meek.

  “Yes, Max. And if I go to prison, that secret goes with me. I promise, you’ll never know the truth. It’s a simple bargain, Detective. You let me go and I give you your wife’s killer. That sounds like a fair trade to me.”

  The gun in Max’s hand began a barely perceptible shake. The equation had changed. It was no longer a matter whether Ben would get convicted. It had become a more rational transaction. One killer caught in exchange for one going free.

  “Max,” Boady said softly. “This is your call.”

  Sweat now glistened on the lines of Max’s forehead. His eyes narrowed to a squint and his chest stopped rising with breath. Max’s gun slowly sank, sagging under its weight until it pointed at Ben Pruitt’s heart. Boady could only imagine the fight going on inside of Max’s soul.

  Then Max said, “No.”

  “‘No’?” Ben repeated. “What do you mean, ‘no’? Are you willing to live the rest of your life never knowing who killed your wife?”

  “Are you willing to live the rest of your life in prison? I’m betting we can make a deal once you realize just how bad you have it. Maybe a trade in exchange for a nicer set of bars to look through.”

  “There will be no deal, Rupert. It’s now or never.”

  “We’ll see. I’ll come and visit you every year or so. See how you’re doing. See if you changed your mind. If not—so be it. But you’re not walking on this. You’re going to prison. Now drop . . . the fucking . . . gun.”

  Ben’s eyes took on a quiet sadness and he slowly shook his head from side to side. “You won’t be seeing me in a year, Detective, because I’m not going back.”

  Ben thrust the gun at Max, the muzzle flashing with exploding gunpowder. And even though he stood only eight feet away, his bullet sailed well wide of its mark. Almost as if he intended to miss his target.

  Max put a bullet into Ben’s chest before he had a chance to think.

  Ben fell back into the wall and slid to the floor.

  “No!” Max yelled, dropping to his knees beside Ben. “Why’d you do that?”

  Ben gulped at air, his eyes large and full of fear.

  “Who killed my wife?” Max grabbed Ben’s shirt and shook him. “Who killed my wife?”

  Ben’s eyes fluttered. Then he smiled a limp smile.

  “Give me a name!”

  Ben’s eyes rolled up into his forehead and his body went limp.

  Boady felt his legs deflate as he eased back into his chair. He could barely breathe as he looked around the room: Ben Pruitt dead on the floor, Max kneeling over the dead man with a look of utter despair on his face, Lila holding onto the frame of the French doors, her pale eyes searching the room for some kind of answer. Boady tried to speak, but when he opened his mouth, nothing but empty breath came out.

  Chapter 64

  By New Year’s Eve, the city had turned cold. Meteorologists were bragging that Minnesota had hit a new record low, and they saw no relief on the way. Boady parked his car on the street in front of Max Rupert’s house and slipped on a pair of leather gloves.

  He’d spent Thanksgiving in Missouri, trying to explain to Emma why they would be returning to a funeral in Minnesota. He’d concocted a story about a prison riot to explain her father’s death, but Diana quashed that idea. “She’ll read the story on the Internet someday,” Diana said. “It’s going to hurt, but we’re going to tell her the truth. If she has any hope of getting through this, she needs to know the truth. She needs to know where to aim her anger.”

  Diana was right, of course.

  He hadn’t spoken with Max since the shooting. He’d called a few times. Left messages, but never heard back. As he stepped from his car into the icebox that was his chosen home state, he paused one last time to collect his thoughts—and maybe to collect a bit of courage. With a briefcase in his one hand, he knocked on Max’s door and waited. He could hear the footsteps approach. They paused as a shadow filled a small window in the door. Then he heard the deadbolt click open.

  Max opened the door but didn’t greet Boady. He just stood there.

  “Can I come in?”

  “What do you want, Boady?”

  “What I want is five minutes of your time. That’s all. After that, I’ll leave and never bother you again. Just five minutes.”

  Max considered it for a moment, then stepped back to let Boady enter.

  Boady followed Max to the living room, where Max took a seat on a recliner. Boady sat on the couch. Boady had been to Max’s house a number of times, both before and after Jenni’s death. Nothing seemed to have been touched since the day of her death.

  “Five minutes,” Max said.

  Boady opened the briefcase, pulled out a file about two inches thick.

  “What’s that?”

  “I’ve been appointed to be the executor of Ben Pruitt’s law practice.”

  Max looked at Boady with no expression.

  “When a practicing attorney dies, the Bar appoints another attorney to wrap up the practice: close files, return retainer money, oversee file retention, that kind of thing. Ben’s practice used to be mine. I’m the one who set up the billing procedures and file-retention system. Hell, he still had my old legal assistant on staff. Well, it just made sense to have me go in and shutter the practice.”

  He paused to see if Max saw where he was headed. It didn’t appear so.

  “I’ve been going through Ben’s client list for the past month. Everything seemed in order, but then I came across this file.” He handed it to Max. “The man’s name is Ray Kroll. This file was in a drawer all by itself. There is no record of Kroll ever paying a retainer, which probably means he paid cash.”

  Boady watched as Max thumbed through the pages in the file. “Got arrested for a bar fight?” Max asked.

  “Charged with first-degree assault. Nearly beat a man to death with a brick. Bailed out and promptly got shot.”

  “The guy he beat up had friends. So what?”

  “Maybe. But look.” Boady lifted the pages of reports to expose the face of the file folder underneath. There, someone had scratched a note in blue ink. Jennifer Rupert—yellow Corolla—#49—St. Louis Park.

  Max froze.

  Then Boady lifted papers on the opposite side of the file to show Max a CD-ROM taped to the back of the file. “I listened to this CD, Max. It’s two men having a conversation over the phone. Max, they’re talking about Jenni. This is where Ben got his informa
tion about Jenni’s death. I thought you should have it.”

  Max stared at the file in his hands, and Boady could tell that a thousand wheels were turning in the man’s head. Then Max looked up and said, “I’m not supposed to have this, am I?”

  Boady thought about the deep river of trouble that would come rushing in on him if anyone ever found out. He’d lose his license, his job—who knows how far the Board of Professional Responsibility would go. On the other side of the ledger, however, Boady knew that giving the file to Max would allow Boady to sleep at night and look himself in the mirror. In the end, it was an easy decision.

  “I’m supposed to destroy it,” Boady said. “But the way I see it, Ray Kroll’s dead. Ben’s dead. And somewhere out there is a murderer who got away with it. I can’t destroy this file. But, if you tell anyone where this came from, I’ll deny it.”

  “No one will ever know,” Max said. “I promise.”

  Boady stood up. “I think my five minutes are about up.” He walked toward the door.

  Max remained in his chair, looking at the file.

  “I hope you find what you’re looking for, Max. And if you ever want to have a beer or . . . well, you know where I live.”

  Max folded the file closed but didn’t look up. “Thanks,” he said softly.

  Boady nodded in silence and let himself out.

  Acknowledgments

  I would like to offer my immense thanks to Dan Mayer, Jill Maxick, Cheryl Quimba, Jon Kurtz, Jade Zora Scibilia, and everyone at Seventh Street Books and Penguin Random House for all of the support they have shown me over the years.

  I want to thank my first editor and best friend, Joely (my wife), for being my rock.

  And thank you to my superstar agent, Amy Cloughley.

  I would like to thank Donna Oliva, Nancy Rosin, Robert Docherty, Leonardo Castro, Allison Krehbiel, Scott Cutcher, Professor Len Biernat, Detective Robert Dale, Margaret Koberoski, Tami Peterson, James M. Crist, and Lily Shaw for answering questions and being excellent beta readers.

  About the Author

  Allen Eskens is the award-winning and USA Today–bestselling author of The Life We Bury and The Guise of Another. A criminal-defense attorney for twenty-five years, he lives with his wife in Minnesota, where he is a member of the Twin Cities Sisters in Crime.