Paradox

by Catherine Coulter

  He looked up, puzzled a moment, then he smiled and stepped forward. “Agent Porto and Chief Christie, whatever are you two doing here?” The smile fell off his face as if on cue when they didn’t answer him. He splayed his hands in apology and said in a low voice filled with emotion, “There was no time on Tuesday to thank you for caring enough to invite me to sit with you.” He squeezed his eyes closed a moment. “And then that explosion, all the chaos, a terrible thing. A miracle no one was killed.”

  “You never left Octavia’s coffin,” Sala said.

  “Of course not. How could I? She was the woman I loved, the woman who would have come back to me if that crazy young man hadn’t killed her. I saw on TV he was dead, killed where he’d lived once, in Fort Pessel, Virginia. Thursday night.”

  “Yes, that’s right,” Ty said. “Why are you packing boxes, Mr. Culver?”

  A smile bloomed, then disappeared quickly. He shrugged. “The timing is regrettable, but my lease is up. I’ve bought a small building not far from here, offices for the additional staff I’ve been planning to hire and a bigger distribution center for the three new Vita-Max stores I’m going to be opening over the next six months.”

  Sala whistled. “That’s an expensive plan. It would keep me up nights wondering how I was going to pay all the bills.”

  Culver laughed, but sobered immediately. “You’re right, of course, the financing would have been tight, but Octavia’s lawyer called me last Wednesday to tell me Octavia never changed her will. Still, I was stunned. When we married we agreed I would be her sole beneficiary and she would be mine. But then when we couldn’t resolve our differences and she left, I naturally assumed she would change her will.”

  Sala said, “Octavia told me about the bequest from a relative, a complete surprise. What is the amount, something near five million dollars?”

  Culver nodded. He shrugged again. “Of course, I’d much rather have my wife back.”

  “Would you really?” Ty had spoken very quietly, but Culver immediately turned on her.

  He stared at her, his face tightening with anger. “What do you mean by that, Chief Christie?”

  It was Sala who answered. “I told you at Octavia’s funeral she had decided to go back to you. It must have come as quite a shock, since you’d paid Victor Nesser twenty thousand dollars to murder her. Of course, if she had come back to you, you would simply have waited until it was safe to pay someone else to murder her later, say, after your second honeymoon. No reason to share all that money, was there?”

  Culver’s hands gripped the edge of his desk so hard his knuckles were white. He was shaking, and not from rage. “That’s outrageous! How dare you come in here making accusations like that! I loved Octavia, do you hear me? Loved her! I will grieve for her the rest of my life. The two of you—you disgust me. I want you both out of here right now.”

  Ty smiled at him. “It turns out, Mr. Culver, the twenty thousand dollars you withdrew on three different dates from your bank, Third Republic of Virginia, right here in Tysons Corner, was from the bank vault. It also turns out Victor Nesser paid for his dinner in a town called Winslow with a one-hundred-dollar bill that matches a sequential serial number from one of those bills you withdrew from your bank. He had a few dozen more hundreds in his pants pocket when he died.”

  He looked blank for only a moment, then he said, smooth as honey, “I admit that’s strange, if it’s true and not some kind of mix-up at the bank. But that money I withdrew? I pay people with cash all the time, some of my suppliers prefer it. He could have gotten the bills from anywhere. He didn’t get them from me.”

  Sala continued, his voice expressionless, “We examined the prison logs at Central State Hospital while Victor was there. They videotape visits to patients who are violent offenders, did you know that? Guess what? There you are, Mr. Culver, right there, a few days before Victor escaped. It was foolish of you to go there yourself, rather than hire someone else to contact him. But you’re not all that smart, are you?”

  Culver opened his mouth, but Ty raised her hand. “Mr. Culver, spare us. It also wasn’t bright of you to tell us you hadn’t known you were still Octavia’s beneficiary. One phone call to her lawyer, and that lie stood up and saluted. You knew it very well, made sure to confirm it before you arranged to help Victor escape and kill her. Your cell phone puts you there near the grounds the night he escaped. Were you ever afraid he might go crazy and murder you, Mr. Culver? After all, he was incarcerated in a high-security mental facility. Or Octavia had told you all about him, and you were certain he was harmless, at least to you? You picked him up, gave him the twenty thousand, all in one-hundred-dollar bills, and took him to the Klondike Motel and left him there.”

  Culver’s hands were fisted, his jaw working. He looked like he wanted to smash Ty’s face. “You listen to me, I didn’t mean what I said exactly. I was still grief-stricken when her lawyer called me. I don’t really remember what he said or what I said. You’re twisting everything.”

  Sala was breathing hard, so enraged he wanted to leap on this man. “If I had known what you are, you bastard, and Octavia had told me she was going back to you, I would have tied her down to protect her.”

  “She was coming back to me—you told me so at her funeral!”

  Sala shrugged. “I lied. I felt sorry for you, so I lied.”

  Culver grabbed up a box cutter, saw Sala beckon to him with a wave of his fingers, and slowly put it down.

  “Good move, Mr. Culver,” Ty said.

  “Listen to me, both of you, I didn’t kill her. It was that Nesser. You know he did it. I only visited him at the hospital because Octavia was concerned about him, asked me to check on him, see that he was doing okay, nothing more than that. It was a simple favor.”

  Ty shook her head back and forth. “Mr. Culver, more lies won’t help you. I’m sure Octavia told you all about him, told you how unstable he was, how easily manipulated. When she got her inheritance, you realized what a mistake you’d made. You tried your best, but you didn’t think she believed you’d really change when you swore to her there’d be no more gambling, no more women on the side. Then you remembered Victor, remembered how he’d hated what she’d said about him in order to get him committed to a psychiatric hospital and not sentenced to life in prison. You offered Victor twenty thousand dollars in cash, offered to help him escape if he would murder Octavia for you and disappear.”

  “Go away, both of you. I have nothing to say. I want to speak to my lawyer.”

  “Oh, you will, Mr. Culver, you will. But first, Agent Porto will read you your rights.”

  Sala wanted to beat this man with his bare hands, but instead he drew a deep breath and read Culver his rights. “A couple of agents will be arriving in a minute to take you to the Hoover Building. You will need a very good lawyer, but I don’t know how you’re going to pay him. All the money Octavia willed to you? You’re never going to see it.”

  “No! You have no proof of anything! You’re jealous because you couldn’t get Octavia and her money for yourself!”

  Ty saw Sala was about to leap on Culver. She laid her hand on his arm, felt his muscles tensed, felt the rage in him. She was more than grateful to see Agents Fulton and Droban walk through the office door.

  Sala was shaking when they left Culver’s office to the sound of Culver cursing. Ty stopped him by the elevator. “Sala, I’m so sorry, so very sorry, but it’s over now.” She hugged him hard, whispered against his face, “You held it together. You didn’t beat him to death.”

  He said against her hair, his voice catching, “He’s going down, Ty. The man who killed Octavia is going down.”

  She said nothing, only held him close as he wept.

  EPILOGUE

  * * *

  TY CHRISTIE'S COTTAGE

  WILLICOTT, MARYLAND

  SATURDAY NIGHT

  Sala took a drink of Ty’s Turkish espresso, settled himself against the sofa cushions, and patted Lucky, his fifteen-pound black-a
s-midnight cat with beautiful green eyes and one tattered ear, who was licking her tail even as she arched her back into his hand. She seemed perfectly content to be in a new place, sitting like a queen in the middle of a sofa with a new human ready to worship her.

  Ty said, “Time to change those butterfly strips on your head again, Sala, make sure you’re healing okay.”

  “You changed them Wednesday.” Sala touched his fingertips to where Dr. Staunton had placed three stitches. Had it only been since last Saturday? He flashed on being bound in the closet and said immediately to distract himself, “Ty, thanks for the worry, but I’m fine. If you have a Band-Aid, I’ll put some disinfectant on the stitches and cover them.”

  She looked at him thoughtfully. “It is sort of cozy having you with me, Sala, but I’m in charge here. Get your fingers away, I’ll do it.”

  When she’d smoothed down the Band-Aid, she stared at the faded bruises and welts still visible on his wrists, felt a punch of anger. “Do your wrists still hurt?”

  He shrugged. “No, good to go.”

  Ty laid her palm on his cheek. “Do you know what I think is the most amazing thing about this whole incredible week?”

  He was still stroking Lucky’s back, but all his attention was on her. He cocked his head in question.

  She looked him in the eye. “That you survived, Sala. You survived and you’re going to be fine. That makes me very happy.”

  He smiled, and perhaps he stroked Lucky’s back a bit faster. Lucky gave him a look, stretched out to lick his hand, then broke out in a symphony of purring. The vagaries of fate. “I’ve always known intellectually that none of us can have a clue when our world is going to be turned upside down. When my wife died, I didn’t think I could handle it, but time passed, and the pain and grief slowly receded. And now this. Octavia murdered, my nearly dying. Ty, the truth is, I’m still a mess. There’s been so much. The nightmares won’t go away all that soon.”

  “Then isn’t it great I’m a light sleeper?” She yawned. “Not quite time for sleep yet, though.” No, she thought, it was time to simply enjoy breathing in the soft clean air. The heavy rain of the previous night had dropped the temperature, and presented an incredible clear sky, a sickle moon, and a dazzling array of stars. The crickets gave their nightly performance.

  EPILOGUE 2

  * * *

  SAVICH HOUSE

  GEORGETOWN

  SUNDAY NIGHT

  Three Dizzy Dan’s pizza boxes were open on the coffee table in the Savich living room, smells of piping-hot cheese and Sherlock’s favorite, pepperoni, wafting through the air.

  Sean was finally in his bed, hopefully asleep, after thirty minutes as the star of the show without a word about the week the adults had managed to survive.

  Savich took a final bite of his vegetarian delight pizza and settled back. He’d taken Ty and Sala through all their questions about what had happened in Fort Pessel. He said now, “No one has a clue about where Jennifer Smiley hid the bank robbery money. With the fresh publicity about it, the bank will be dealing with treasure hunters swarming over the property again and digging holes everywhere, not to mention what they’ll do to the interior of the house. Publicly the bank is declining to get involved, but I’ll wager bank employees are out there digging with the rest of the treasure hunters.” He paused, took a drink of his Dos Equis.

  He looked over at Sala, dressed in chinos, a black T-shirt, and sneakers, and thankfully, saw that he finally looked calm and settled. He wasn’t surprised Sala had more or less moved to Willicott with his cat and was living in Ty’s cottage. And who knew where that would lead?

  Sherlock said, “So how’s Lucky doing?”

  Sala said, “This morning Ty gave her slivers of baked chicken breast. After that offering, she settled under her hand for a good petting. That’s progress.”

  Ty said, “Give me three days, and she’ll spend more time with me than with señor here. By the way, we saw Leigh Saks, her mother, father, and her father’s wife today at Lulie’s bakery, her first day out of the hospital. Congressman Mellon’s wife was very pleasant. She was eating Lulie’s éclairs at a fine clip, along with the rest of us.”

  “And Leigh?” Sherlock asked. “How is she doing?”

  “She was smiling a lot,” Sala said. “Needless to say, everyone was eager to see her, to talk with her. Lulie told me Leigh’s thinking about politics and working for her dad in Washington. It was his idea. It would be a whole new life for her. She seemed excited about it.”

  Ty said, “Leigh was amazing. I think she was amused everyone suddenly wanted to speak to her, well understood their interest, but she didn’t really show it. She was gracious and kind.”

  “That’s great to hear.” Sherlock added, her hand hovering. “Okay, guys, there’s one last slice of pepperoni pizza.” But she didn’t wait, she snagged it up and took a big bite.

  Savich leaned forward. “So you were in Haggersville today. How are Albie Pierson’s husband and brother-in-law dealing?”

  Ty said, “Landry and Eric were in denial at first, but after reading the letters she wrote to them, they’ve had to accept it. They’re devastated. What’s amazing to me is she managed to lead a normal life for five years after she killed LaRoque.”

  Sala shrugged. “And why not? It was the life she had before LaRoque became a threat to her again. And it was over. She avenged her family. It ended for her when she strapped her father’s belt to LaRoque’s body and threw him off the dock at Gatewood.”

  Ty nodded. “Just as he did her family. Still, for five years she had to live with the world praising Mr. Henry when she knew the truth.”

  Sala said, “She had to pay that price to stay safe, to keep who she was secret. Chief Masters hasn’t released the facts of the case yet, said he wasn’t going to until he’d gone over all the evidence with the district attorney.”

  “Have they contacted all the families of the victims from LaRoque’s journal?” Savich asked.

  “They’ve been going over his journal and his box of souvenirs, and yes, they’ve started to contact the family members before they release the names. The chief said drama was running high in town, with rumors about why Mrs. Sparrow was missing without warning, but that will be nothing compared to the uproar when he announces the truth about Mr. Henry being a serial killer. And he’s already told Leigh Saks, in confidence, that it was Susan Sparrow who struck her down.”

  Sherlock asked, “What did Leigh say?”

  Ty said, “When she got the whole story out of Chief Masters, Leigh said no way would she press charges. She said she couldn’t imagine what Susan had lived through. She wished her the best since Susan hadn’t killed her—and look what she’d given her, a rebooted brain. She said she hoped Landry, once he got over his shock, would be proud of her, and maybe in the future, who knew, Susan would contact him and maybe they’d get together again.”

  Sala looked directly at Savich and Sherlock. “Chief Masters told Ty and me he isn’t going to commit any resources to finding her. Are you both on board with that?”

  Savich and Sherlock didn’t hesitate. They nodded and raised their glasses in a toast. “To justice. Long overdue.”

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  * * *

  Catherine Coulter is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of eighty-three novels, including the FBI Thriller series and the Brit in the FBI international thriller series, cowritten with J.T. Ellison. Coulter lives in Sausalito, California, with her Übermensch husband and their two noble cats, Peyton and Eli. You can reach her at ReadMoi@gmail.com or visit Facebook.com/CatherineCoulterBooks.

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  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.