“What does that mean?” For some reason I was afraid to hear the answer. “You make it sound like you signed over your first-born child and a pint of blood.”
Charlie looked at me with sad eyes. “It means that when I say that I’m a legal fixer, sometimes that means I’m doing things that fall into a grey area.”
“What do you mean a grey area?” I pushed. I felt like he was being intentionally evasive. “Grey how?”
“I can’t really tell you,” Charlie admitted with another deep frown. “Due to the same ethical rules I mentioned earlier. I can only give you a generic example. Would that be acceptable?”
“I didn’t ask you to tell me anything,” I told him. “You don’t owe me any explanations.” This was frustrating. I felt like Charlie was playing games with me.
He shook his head. “Don’t say that yet. Not until this conversation is over. Let me give you the example. Imagine a situation where the Durant family created a piece of paper that was somehow very embarrassing to them. Imagine whatever you want to fill that piece of paper, but imagine that if it got out it would be embarrassing, ok?”
I was starting to get an inkling of where this was leading. “Yeah, sure.”
“Great. Now imagine that the piece of paper fell into the hands of someone who would sell it to the press. Someone unscrupulous and out for a quick buck. My job would be to go to that person and make sure I obtained the piece of paper before it got published. I’d be fixing the problem for them by buying it first and then destroying the piece of embarrassing paper before it fell into the wrong hands. Does that make sense?”
“Yes. It makes sense. You buy the bad stuff before someone else does. It’s not exactly bribery, I guess, but it’s kind of close. Weird, but whatever. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad person, and it doesn’t seem to require the sort of blood-oath loyalty you were describing earlier. This is sounding pretty bizarre. What does any of this have to do with us, Charlie? What does it have to do with Edith?”
He grimaced. “Bear with me. I’m getting to that. Ok, now a different example. Imagine that instead of a piece of paper that had something embarrassing on it, I found myself in possession of the medical records belonging to Edith Durant. In particular, imagine that I found myself in possession of an autopsy record that indicated that instead of dying of a heart attack—aka natural causes—Edith had been murdered.”
“I don’t have to imagine that,” I interrupted. I’d seen the ligature marks.
“Right. Well now imagine what Richard would ask me to do with those records. What do you think he would ask me to do?” Charlie’s brown eyes bore into mine with an intense expression that I couldn’t place.
“Take them to the police?” I replied. That was the obvious answer in my opinion. “Let the professionals figure out who hurt his sister so that they could be brought to justice.”
He shook his head. “My job is to make sure the family doesn’t ever have bad press or trouble of any kind. A murder investigation qualifies as bad press. It’s scandalous. It would end up in the tabloids one way or another. It could result in uncomfortable questions for the family.”
I blinked. “I don’t understand. Richard doesn’t want his sister’s murder investigated?”
Charlie’s expression was as unreadable to me as Chinese. “I don’t know what it means. I have no idea what Richard wants. All I know is that I’ve been directed not to pursue the matter.”
I cleared my throat in disbelief. “You’ve been directed not to pursue the matter of Edith’s murder?”
Charlie nodded. “Yeah.”
“But presumably others could pursue it, right? And you’re telling me all of this… why?” I found myself asking. My mind was spinning.
“Because you have a right to know,” he replied. He was frowning again. “I wanted you to know the whole truth. I wanted you to understand both why I’m so obedient to the Durant agenda, and that their agenda is sometimes, um, extra-legal.”
“Extra-legal. Are you just saying that because it’s illegal? Are you saying Richard might be involved in Edith’s murder?”
“No. Or, I don’t know. I have no idea about Richard’s involvement, non-involvement, intentions, or desires. All I know is what I know. And I know what I do isn’t illegal. It also isn’t precisely legal,” Charlie’s face looked as conflicted as his explanation. He frowned and continued, “It’s…business; it’s grey.”
We sat in silence for a moment as I thought about Edith. She’d been murdered. I knew she’d been murdered. Charlie knew. Richard also knew since he told Charlie not to tell. And Richard didn’t want Charlie to look into it. That was relevant all by itself.
“So, whoever murdered Edith is going to just get away with it?” I finally asked. “Aren’t you and me basically culpable if we don’t say anything?” What if Richard had been somehow involved in her murder? Was I working for murderers? The thought made my stomach turn.
“If we were to say anything about what? The records have gone mysteriously missing,” Charlie replied. His face was still entirely neutral.
“What do you mean? You have the records. I’ve seen them.”
“They are not in my possession anymore. Those that were in my possession were the only copies.”
“Richard has them then.”
“They aren’t in Richard’s possession that I know of. No one has the records.”
“They were destroyed?”
“They never existed.”
“Yes, they did. I saw them.”
“Do you have any proof of that?”
“I have my memory of what I saw.”
“From a legal perspective you don’t have anything if all you have is a memory.”
“Richard told you to cover it all up? To get rid of the records?”
“What records?”
“Edith’s records. The autopsy photos and preliminary report. The ones we’ve been talking about. You know what records!”
“I’m very sure that I don’t. This was all a completely hypothetical conversation.”
Charlie gave me a look that was simultaneously feigning ignorance and making a point. And that’s when I realized that Charlie had been tasked with covering up a murder for Richard Durant.
17
Charlie
Eva looked at me for a long, long time in silence. I tried my best to look back at her steadily and not look overly guilty. Even if I felt pretty damn guilty. Finally, she spoke.
“I need you to be honest with me, Charlie. I know you have all kinds of ethical rules that you have to follow in your profession. I have those too. But I also know that I need honesty when I’m with someone. If you want me, I’m going to need a truthful answer out of you: do you think that Richard killed his sister and is using you to help him cover it up?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. That’s the truth, inadequate as it may be: I just don’t know.”
She looked at me with an expression I couldn’t place. I think she was trying to figure out if I was telling her the truth and I couldn’t tell which side she was leaning toward. Her big blue eyes gave nothing away.
“I swear,” I told her, reaching out to grab her delicate hands across the table. They looked so small and fragile in mine. “I swear I’m telling you the truth. I don’t have any idea what’s going on. But I also fundamentally don’t believe Richard is to blame for his sister’s murder.”
She swallowed hard and pressed her lips together in indecision.
“Why do you think that?” She asked. “What makes you think that Richard isn’t involved?”
Eva obviously wanted to be convinced. I took a deep breath. This was progress, I told myself. She was asking questions and not throwing me out. This was good.
“A few specific reasons,” I replied. “First, he’s been supporting her for years. Throughout Edith’s life, Richard has made sure that his sister received the most competent care he could find. Obviously, I have no insight into their interper
sonal relationship and maybe he hated her, but the financial one suggests that he cared about her to some degree. At least enough to make sure that she didn’t live on the street or ever embarrass him. Second, if Richard really wanted to have his sister murdered, he would do so much more competently than this. He has more than adequate resources to make someone simply disappear. It sounds cynical, but this is too messy for Richard. Third, and this is the least persuasive of my three points, I don’t think Richard would ever involve me in something so blatantly illegal. I may be his fixer, but I’m still a lawyer. I’m unable to do anything explicitly illegal. I think he would have gotten someone less scrupulous involved in this project if he was to blame.”
When my monologue was over, Eva and I returned to sitting in silence as she mulled over my answer. I did my best not to fidget in my seat. Finally, when I wasn’t sure I could continue to wait for her to come to a conclusion, Eva nodded. I sighed in relief.
“Ok.” Her voice was as carefully neutral as mine had been. I didn’t know how to read it.
“Ok?” I asked. “Does that mean you believe me? Or does that mean you agree?”
“Both,” she replied. The light in her blue eyes was beginning to return. “I think you made some good points. Obviously, something very messed up is going on, but I’m willing to give Richard the benefit of the doubt.”
“And me?”
“What about you?”
“Are you willing to give me the benefit of the doubt? Do you think I’d willingly help cover up a murder?”
Eva paused before she answered. When she did, her voice was gentle and nonjudgmental. “I think you’d do anything you had to do to take care of your mom. I think you’d do whatever it took to make sure she received the very best care. And no, I don’t hold that against you. I just know that I couldn’t keep this secret if you didn’t believe it was the right thing to do—or rather, that it wasn’t explicitly the wrong thing to do. We all have to live with shades of grey.”
She held my gaze for a long moment and I felt my breathing slowly returning to normal.
“Do you mean that?” I asked. “You wouldn’t hold it against me if I covered up a murder to save my mom?”
She looked at me with a strange look in her eyes. “I wouldn’t give you a prize or anything, but we’re talking about your mom. I’d do just about anything to bring my mom back to life. I’d do just about anything just to know her. I assume you’d do the same. I’m glad that I don’t have a profession that would force me to make that choice.”
I’d almost forgotten that Dylan and Eva’s mom was dead. Their dad was such a force of nature it was easy to imagine that the two siblings had all their parental needs met. But of course, that couldn’t be true, especially for a daughter. Of course, Eva missed her mom. And of course, there was nothing Eva wouldn’t do to bring her back.
It was suddenly hard to meet Eva’s eyes.
“I’m sorry Eva, I forgot about your mom,” I admitted. “Dylan never really talks about her, but I know she died when you were little.”
Out of the corner of my vision, I saw her shrug.
“Don’t worry about it, Charlie. You didn’t do anything wrong. She’s been gone a long, long time. I do miss her, but I don’t miss her the same way I used to when I was a little girl. To be honest, I’m not even sure if the memories of her that I have are real. I was only four when she died.”
I made myself look into the bottomless blue of Eva’s eyes. She looked understanding.
“You’re right by the way,” I told her. “I would do anything to protect my mom and keep her healthy. I wish there was more I could do right now. It’s probably a good thing that Richard can’t bribe me with a cure for cancer. It would totally work. The idea that he could manipulate me over her is not far-fetched.”
“That’s normal. It doesn’t make you a bad person,” she replied with a small smile. “I’d think there was something wrong with you if you didn’t say that.”
“I still don’t like any of this,” I admitted. “I hate the idea that someone murdered Edith. I hate the idea that they might get away with it. I hate the idea that Richard knows all about it and seems to be weirdly guarded on the topic.”
“Did you talk to him about it?” Eva asked. Her face and voice had returned to normal, and she was eating again. I allowed myself to take a bite as well. We were going to be alright.
“Yes, this morning. He already knew she’d been murdered, don’t ask me how. But I don’t think I’ll ever hear another word about any of it.”
Eva shook her head as she chewed. “Yeah this is way fucked up,” she mumbled through her full mouth. “Nothing about this makes any sense right now. And the explanations that fit are…”
“That Richard did it? I know. But I don’t think he did. Honestly.”
“I believe you. I’m less convinced you’re right, but I believe that you don’t think he did it.”
“That’s a ringing endorsement,” I said. I’m sure my voice conveyed all my sarcasm because Eva rolled her eyes and reached out to hold my hand.
“It is a ringing endorsement,” she said seriously. The edges of her soft lips lifted in a small smile that pulled at my heart. “If it wasn’t, I’d be running for the hills. I don’t want to work for murderers. I definitely don’t want to sleep with people who cover up for murderers.”
I sighed. “Fair enough.”
“So,” Eva said after a few more minutes of silent eating, “now that we got that out of the way, do you want to talk about the other elephant in the room?”
I grimaced. “Dylan?”
She smiled sadly. “Dylan.”
18
Eva
Ultimately, the plan we came up with to deal with the Dylan problem was pretty lazy, mostly because we couldn’t think of anything better that didn’t involve lying or confrontation. We decided we’d just wait for him to figure it out on his own. It took approximately four days before I received the text from my brother: Call me ASAP. I was immensely relieved that I was the one to receive the angry text and not Charlie. It was better this way.
Unfortunately, it was also several hours before I managed to work up enough courage to call Dylan back. By the time I did, my heart was in my throat.
“Hey Dylan,” I said when he answered. “What’s the matter?”
“Eva, are you sleeping with Charlie?”
My brother never did mince words.
“None of your business, Dylan,” I told him. I’d been working up to this and having the conversation in my head for a week. I sounded good in my own ears. Confident. Mature. Reasonable.
Through the phone, I heard something hard hit something else hard and then shatter. I hoped Dylan wasn’t throwing things in his office; he could get in trouble for that.
“What was that noise?” I asked. “Are you ok?”
Dylan sighed a huge, dramatic, heavy sigh.
“It was just a coffee cup. Eva, couldn’t you have picked anyone else? Anyone but Charlie?” His voice was a lot sadder than I’d expected.
“I picked who I wanted to pick and so did he. It had absolutely nothing to do with you. And it isn’t your business.”
Dylan didn’t respond for a long time. I heard nothing for so long I actually wondered if he had hung up on me in irritation. I was about to ask if he was still on the line when he finally replied.
“Eva, I know you’re a big girl. Charlie’s a big boy, too. I know that you both get to make whatever choices you want to make, misguided as they may be. I’m not a freaking cave man and I know you’re not an idiot. I’m not trying to be a patronizing asshole and I understand that you hate it when I play the bossy brother card. But when this goes south, when everything explodes, I’m going to have to make a choice between you and Charlie.”
I shook my head dismissively, although of course he couldn’t see it. He could probably hear the incredulousness in my voice. “You don’t have to pick sides in our hypothetical break up. That’s ridiculous.”
>
Another sigh on the other end of the line indicated Dylan’s disagreement.
“That isn’t true. I will have to pick a side. If we’re being honest, I’ve already picked a side. I picked it twenty-three years ago the moment you were born, and mom put this fat little pink baby in my arms. I remember in perfect detail how she told me that you were my sister and it was always going to be my job to be your big brother.”
“You can be my brother and not take sides in a future, hypothetical break up.”
“I won’t be able to forgive Charlie when he makes you unhappy.”
I was rapidly getting frustrated with this conversation. “That’s on you. Sometimes things end badly between two people in a romantic relationship regardless of it being someone’s fault. Sometimes the world just sucks. Sometimes people are unhappy. It’s part of life. You can’t protect me from it and you shouldn’t let the prospect of my unhappiness ruin your relationship with Charlie either.”
The lack of a response from Dylan did not indicate agreement, I knew that much. Usually when Dylan was quiet, he was formulating a counterargument.
“Charlie’s a good guy, but he’s complicated. He doesn’t have long-term relationships. He’s never done that in as long as I’ve known him. You’re going to be unhappy when you realize he can’t give you what you want.”
I shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. “Who told you that I want a long-term relationship? Maybe I just want a fling. Right now, we’re just taking things slowly, not that it’s any of your business.”
This was not a conversation that Dylan and I had ever come close to having, and it also wasn’t one that Charlie and I’d attempted yet. We were taking things slowly, and that meant that we were avoiding labels. I hoped my uncertainty hadn’t bled into my voice.
“I don’t know how to put this nicely, Eva. So, I’m just going to say it. Charlie’s going to end up breaking your heart. I’m sure you don’t agree. I’m sure you think that I’m being stupid and overprotective and well… I’m sure you think I sound just like dad. Too bad. Charlie is going to break your heart. When that happens, I’m not going to be able to stay friends with him.”
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