“I’m not amused by people who think they’re clever,” said Stahl.
“It seems nobody wants you to win this Electoral College vote more than Dr. Perez. So I asked myself: Why? At first, I thought it had to do with medical marijuana. But trying to buy Charlotte Holmes’s vote is very high risk, and it seems out of line with any potential reward to Dr. Perez.”
“People take stupid risks.”
“I agree. But what happened tonight at Charlotte’s house changed my thinking. Forget marijuana grown strictly for medical use by Florida residents. Swap it for marijuana grown in Florida and sold for recreational use all over the country. Now you’re talking tens of billions of dollars. Trying to buy Charlotte’s vote might not seem so stupid. Not if Dr. Perez had narcos breathing down his neck. Not if his life depended on a Stahl victory.”
“You make it sound like the drug dealers have me in their hip pocket.”
“No. I think it’s someone else.”
“Who?”
“Follow the nanny,” said Theo, sounding a bit like a shadowy figure in a dark parking garage.
Jack let the suggestion hang in the air for a moment, gauging the senator’s reaction. Then his gaze drifted to the senator’s wife. It was time to use the ammunition that Theo had pried from the accountant, albeit without attribution. “Gwen, it’s my understanding that your nanny was referred to you by Dr. Perez. Is that true?”
She glanced at her husband, then back at Jack. “Yes. The Perezes’ nanny is Yolanda’s cousin.”
“So, here’s what I think,” said Jack. “Senator, you don’t work for the drug dealers. Dr. Perez does. You work for Dr. Perez and your nanny. Because Yolanda found out your secret. And she told Dr. Perez.”
The senator chuckled, but nervously. “Secret? What kind of secret would—”
“Oh, my God, Evan!” said Gwen, rising from the couch. She took a step back and glared at him, seemingly unable to sit beside him any longer. “Did Yolanda find you in our house—with a man?”
“Gwen, you know that didn’t happen!”
“That’s exactly what Jack is saying. She caught you, and you were blackmailed by Dr. Perez and his narco business partners!”
The senator jumped to his feet. Husband and wife locked eyes, as if finally ready to have it out, speaking to one another as if no one else were in the room.
“You’ll stop right there, Gwen, if you know what’s good for you,” he said.
“You were blackmailed because you cheated on your wife with a man!”
“Stop the show, Gwen. The audience isn’t buying it.”
Jack wondered what that meant, but sometimes the best thing a lawyer could do for a client was to stand back and watch the real criminals slice each other to ribbons. Jack let the “show” go on.
“I’m tired of living this lie,” Gwen said. “You should know the truth, Jack.”
“You’re being a fool,” said Stahl, but it didn’t stop her.
“When I met with you and Charlotte, I told you our nanny had to go back to Colombia—because that’s what Evan told me. Yolanda was gone so suddenly, she never even said goodbye to me or Rachel.”
“Gwen, that is bullshit!”
“The truth is, when Rachel and I came back from Singapore, she found an ammunition casing in the planter in the hallway. Right outside her room.”
“Your ammunition casing!” said the senator, his voice booming.
“You liar!”
“You work for the FDLE, Gwen. You’re the only one in this house who owns a gun and knows how to use one.”
“I’m sorry, Evan, I’m done protecting you,” she said. “Jack, you were exactly right: Yolanda found out Evan had a lover who is not his wife and not a woman. She’s dead. Evan shot her with my gun.”
“I did not!” the senator shrieked.
“My husband took a play straight out of MacLeod’s playbook—the big lie. Everybody was talking about ‘Is he gay?’ What they should have been asking is, ‘Where’s the nanny?’”
“Jack, don’t be fooled. Yes, we baited MacLeod with ‘Is the senator gay?’ And like the complete idiot he is, he ran with it. But this wasn’t to protect me.”
“Don’t deny that Yolanda’s dead!”
“I don’t deny it. That’s the reason we sent you halfway around the world.”
“See, Jack? He admits it!”
“Yolanda is dead because you shot her!”
“Because you were fucking her in your own daughter’s bedroom!”
Dead silence. Nobody moved. Nobody said another word.
Jack watched as husband and wife stood glaring at each other, Gwen breathing a little harder than the senator. The television was muted, and the breaking news was still the shoot-out in Tallahassee. The red-and-white banner headline on the screen read, electoral college crisis looms.
“But—but,” said Gwen, stammering. “Damn it, Evan! Now you’ve got me all upset and confused. My mind is all . . . mixed up. Jack, you have to believe me. If I shot Yolanda, if I knew she was dead, why would I have even mentioned our nanny when I met with you and Charlotte?”
It struck Jack as a valid question, but only on the surface. “That’s the problem with the big lie, Gwen. Sometimes the liar finds herself believing it.”
The senator’s gaze drifted toward Jack. “I don’t suppose you could see your way fit to consider this conversation protected by the attorney-client privilege. Could you?”
“I’m not your lawyer. I never was your lawyer. I wouldn’t want to be your lawyer.”
Jack dug his cell from his pocket.
“Not to throw a fly in the ointment,” said Theo, “but you do realize that making that phone call means four more years of MacLeod.”
Jack knew he wasn’t serious, and perhaps someday, looking back, he’d find a way to laugh at the gallows humor that came so naturally to his friend. But not now.
Jack dialed the Miami-Dade Police Department on his cell.
Epilogue: December
Jack’s stepmother was laid to rest on a Saturday. It was Jack’s second funeral in a week. And what a week it had been.
Gwen Stahl was charged with second-degree murder. It was “a crime of passion,” and it had happened on a night when her daughter was on a sleepover at a friend’s house. Gwen had taken her FDLE-issued pistol from the wall safe in the master bedroom and walked down the hallway to check on a strange noise coming from Rachel’s room. There, she’d caught her husband and the nanny in the act. Senator Stahl was charged as an accessory after the fact for dumping Yolanda’s body in the Florida Everglades and creating the phony paperwork that “documented” her return to Colombia. His name was removed from the Electoral College ballot. The choice was between Malcolm MacLeod and Governor Greer of Wisconsin, the vice-presidential candidate on the Democrat ticket.
There was little doubt that MacLeod would be reelected. Some Democrats were already calling for the appointment of a special counsel to undo the election. Harry Swyteck’s “party that never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity” would, it seemed, miss another opportunity.
Jack and his father were the last to leave Agnes’s grave. They walked in the patchy shade of towering royal palm trees that lined a meandering footpath. The 10:00 a.m. graveside service had been short, and the Electoral College was scheduled to convene at noon in Tallahassee.
“Who is Charlotte going to vote for?” asked Harry.
“You, I hope,” said Jack.
Harry smiled a little. “Seriously.”
“She’s not saying. Charlotte learned her lesson about announcing her vote in advance.”
“Amen to that,” said Harry.
They continued to walk, passing a row of little American flags that marked the graves of veterans.
“Did you know Amanda Lopez was a veteran?” asked Jack.
“Yeah, I read that.”
“Charlotte asked me to file a motion with the court in Pensacola.”
“What for?”
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“Charlotte’s sister got a permanent restraining order against Amanda on false pretenses. The court entered it by default because Amanda never filed an appearance to oppose it. We’re going to ask the court to vacate it, posthumously.”
“That’s a nice gesture. Is Charlotte moving back to Pensacola?”
“I doubt it.”
“Will she stay in Tallahassee?”
“Don’t know. The good news is she won’t be moving to Lowell.”
Jack meant Lowell correctional facility, home to over three thousand female inmates. The Leon County state attorney dismissed the murder charge against Charlotte based on stand your ground—a decision hastened by an “anonymous” tip to check the storm drain outside Clyde’s for Logan Meyer’s missing handgun. The tip had come in the day before Amanda died.
The footpath came to an end, and they reached the parking lot. Andie was with Righley, waiting by the car. Harry opened his arms, and his granddaughter ran straight to him. He picked her up and held her tight.
“Grandpa?”
“What, precious?”
“Did you know that the crosswalk machine by our house can talk?”
“You don’t say.”
“It’s true. Daddy showed me. And when you ask, it will tell you a word that rhymes with ‘gate.’”
“Is that so?”
“Uh-huh. And it can also tell you what Max loses when he goes on a diet.”
“Really?” he said with exaggerated interest. “Oh, that Maxie McFatty could lose some weight, couldn’t he?”
“Do you want me to show you? The machine is right by my house.”
“I would love for you to show me, Righley.”
“Well, then you have to come visit us.”
Jack stepped closer and held Righley’s hand. “Sweetheart, that’s an excellent idea,” he said, and with a quick glance in Andie’s direction, he knew the idea was hers. He loved her more for it.
“What do you say, Grandpa?” asked Andie.
Harry glanced back sadly at the footpath they’d followed, then gave his granddaughter a kiss. “I think that’s the best idea I’ve heard in a very long time.”
Acknowledgments
Anyone who’s read a Jack Swyteck novel in the past twenty-five years knows that this is where I usually take the opportunity to thank my longtime editor, Carolyn Marino. It was at Carolyn’s suggestion that the Jack Swyteck series was born, when we decided to bring him back in Beyond Suspicion, eight years after his debut in The Pardon. Carolyn shepherded Jack through more than a dozen adventures before passing the baton to my new editor, Sarah Stein. I’m so grateful to Sarah for stepping up and leaving her own mark on Jack in The Big Lie.
There are still a few “usual suspects” to thank, including Richard Pine, my literary agent, and Janis Koch, my grammarian-at-large who educates me, humbles me, and makes me laugh with her spot-on and often witty copyedits.
Finally, my biggest thank-you is for Tiffany. We celebrated our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary while I was writing The Big Lie. I love you. That’s the big truth.
About the Author
James Grippando is a New York Times bestselling author of suspense and the winner of the Harper Lee Prize for legal fiction. The Big Lie is his twenty-eighth novel. His books are enjoyed worldwide in twenty-eight languages, and his signature character, Jack Swyteck, is one of the most enduring protagonists in the legal-thriller genre. James teaches the Law and Lawyers in Modern Literature at the University of Miami School of Law. He lives in South Florida.
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Also by James Grippando
The Girl in the Glass Box*
A Death in Live Oak*
Most Dangerous Place*
Gone Again*
Cash Landing
Cane and Abe
Black Horizon*
Blood Money*
Need You Now
Afraid of the Dark*
Money to Burn
Intent to Kill
Born to Run*
Last Call*
Lying with Strangers
When Darkness Falls*
Got the Look*
Hear No Evil*
Last to Die*
Beyond Suspicion*
A King’s Ransom
Under Cover of Darkness
Found Money
The Abduction
The Informant
The Pardon*
Other Fiction
The Penny Jumper
Leapholes
* A Jack Swyteck novel
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
the big lie. Copyright © 2020 by James Grippando. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
first edition
Cover designed by Ervin Serrano
Cover photographs © South_agency/iStock/Getty Images (confetti); © sorsillo/iStock/Getty Images (sky)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.
Digital Edition FEBRUARY 2020 ISBN: 978-0-06-291506-1
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-291504-7
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