Will should have known that Lemuel would get everything wrong. His ideas of chivalry were so simple, so remote from what had happened. Will was not trying to avoid responsibility. He was giving out credit. Only Ruby was young enough to retain any dignity after the Boy Scout aspect of the evening in Rumson. Will was left scrabbling around in his own brain.
“How were the wind farms?” he asked Pat. It was not exactly a friendly question, though his tone was pleasant enough.
“We never got to see them,” she said. “You can’t do everything.”
CHAPTER
30
Some gas stations have walled-in lots. Maybe the law requires them to put up the ivy, the concrete barriers, the high woven-wood fences if they have neighbors. But most stations, especially in western Massachusetts, are out in the open for “high visibility” and “easy access,” terms that cannot mask the bleak vulnerability of the sites. These stations are not half repair shop but half convenience store and so are more likely to hire girls. And everyone knows that gas stations and convenience stores are the most dangerous places to work.
These were the thoughts that passed through Will’s mind as he waited to pay for his gas one late afternoon in October. A teenage girl with a pierced brow was trying to do something to the cash register—ring up the sale or key in the right code or figure out the exact change. Will wasn’t really paying attention. She was doing her best to look unfazed about her difficulty, but for some reason that made her discomfort all the more obvious, and he did not want to be a witness to it. Instead he turned to watch an overhead TV tuned to CNN and realized he was looking into a familiar face. It was Neil Culp, flashing a smile beside Riley Gibbs. White type appeared over their torsos: a FEDERAL JUDGE DECLARED A MISTRIAL IN THE CASE AGAINST LINKAGE BIGWIGS RILEY GIBBS AND NEIL CULP TODAY. THE SURPRISE MOVE COMES AFTER DEFENSE ATTORNEYS CONDUCTED A BLISTERING WEEKLONG CROSS-EXAMINATION OF STAR GOVERNMENT WITNESS FRANK FOY…. Then Frank appeared walking alone up the endless steps to a courthouse, as skinny as a pogo stick, his stride jittery.
“He joined AA in prison.” These words were spoken aloud, by a real-life Lemuel, suddenly large and solid inside the jangly glass door to the gas station. “Now he goes to court every day and drives around New Jersey all night drinking coffee at four ninety-nine a pop. Even though they’re broke. They lost the civil trial, and the only thing they have left is the house.”
“You talked to Pat?” said Will. He had left Lemuel in the car, by the pump.
“The trial has been in the news for a while. I gave her a call.”
Will kept his eyes on the screen, still trying to make sense of what he saw. A photo of a page of the Daily News appeared. It showed a drawing of a juror standing in front of the jury box. IN HIS RULING THE JUDGE SUGGESTED THE POSSIBILITY THAT JUROR NUMBER EIGHT, A RETIRED BUSINESSWOMAN, HAD MADE REASSURING HAND SIGNALS TO THE DEFENDANTS DURING FOY’S TESTIMONY. A SPOKESMAN FOR THE FEDERAL PROSECUTOR’S OFFICE SAYS THAT THE CASE WILL BE RETRIED AT A LATER DATE.
“Incredible,” said Lemuel.
Will silently accepted the change for the gas.
His father turned to walk heavily back outside, swinging his heft like an old buffalo. “Gibbs and Culp claimed that the LinkAge board signed off on all their shenanigans,” he said. “And the auditors okayed the accounts. So there was no crime. There’s nothing they could be guilty of. Incredible.”
He held on to the roof to ease his ponderous bulk into the front seat. He was not one for personal chitchat. It didn’t go with his idea of manliness. But now he chuckled and said, “You and Pat’s girl took on the whole lot of them.”
Will did not start the car. Instead he grasped the steering wheel with both hands. “She screamed,” he said.
“Nothing wrong with screaming,” said Lemuel, misconstruing the situation as usual. “The way things are going, you gotta scream.”
But Ruby’s scream wasn’t that sort, thought Will. It wasn’t strategy. It was fear.
“I don’t know why everyone isn’t screaming all the time,” said Lemuel. “The problem is, no one is even opening their mouth nowadays except to stick in a bottle of water like a big suckling baby.”
Will turned the key.
“The prosecution introduced evidence that the Culps were going to flee the country,” said Lemuel. “Was that your doing?”
“Oh,” said Will slowly, considering. “Yeah, they were going to go to Ireland. So maybe we did help.”
“Isn’t that something,” said Lemuel.
On the short drive home, Will wondered where Ruby was. At this hour, she’d probably be in school, devising another plot to save her family, maybe restore their wealth. Then he daydreamed about Rose. There was no telling what she might be up to.
Acknowledgments
With belated but heartfelt thanks to Roy Blount, Michael Frayn, Jamaica Kincaid, and Cathleen Schine. Also with thanks to horticultural experts Joyce Robins and Michele Eichler; to Ursula Abrahams; to Ursula Tomlinson, R.N., P.N.P.; to Alison Carey; to Craig Seligman; and to Josette Zielenski, Bobby Meeks, and Craig Apker of Allenwood Federal Correctional Complex.
About the Author
JACQUELINE CAREY lives with her family in New Jersey. Her previous novels include Good Gossip, part of which appeared in The New Yorker, and The Crossley Baby, which garnered her a Guggenheim Fellowship. She used to write a mystery column for Salon.com.
ALSO BY JACQUELINE CAREY
The Crossley Baby
Wedding Pictures
The Other Family
Good Gossip
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2008 by Jacqueline Carey
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
BALLANTINE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Carey, Jacqueline.
It’s a crime : a novel / Jacqueline Carey.—1st ed.
p. cm.
1. Accounting fraud—Fiction. 2. Corporations—Corrupt practices—Fiction. 3. Victims of crimes—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3553.A668555I77 2008
813'.54—dc22 2008005494
www.ballantinebooks.com
eISBN: 978-0-345-50739-6
v3.0
It's a Crime Page 23