by John Hart
In the heart of my father’s million-dollar house was his study, and on the desk there was a single framed photograph. It had been there forever, a reminder and a goad. How many times had I caught him staring at it? It was who and what he was: what he’d strived to bury yet couldn’t bear to forget. In his heart, and in spite of his overwhelming accomplishments, my father had always been the same grubby boy with scabby knees. The dark eyes had never changed.
I’d been born into comfort, and both of us had known all along that I lacked his hunger. That hunger had made him strong, but it’d made him hard, as well. Ruthlessness was a virtue, and the lack of it in me was, to him, the surest proof that he had fathered a weakling. So where I searched for meaning, he’d sought power. His life had been a determined climb to the top, and it all came down to money; it was the foundation. Money had bought his house in the best neighborhood. Money had bought cars, paid for parties, and financed political campaigns. It was a tool, a lever, and he’d used it to shift the world around him, the people, too. I thought of my career, and knew I’d chosen the easy route. He’d bought me off. I could face that now. Maybe he’d bought us all, except for Jean. For her, the cost was too heavy, and, unable or unwilling to bend, she’d snapped under the weight of it. So in the end, Ezra had paid the price. The whole thing reeked of karma.
I studied the safe. I’d discovered it by accident and could have gone the rest of my life without knowledge of its existence, yet it weighed upon me.
Money and power.
I remembered my father’s first million-dollar jury award. I was ten, and he took the family to Charlotte to celebrate. I could still see him, teeth clamped on a cigar, proudly ordering the best bottle of wine in the restaurant, and how he’d turned to Mother. “Nothing can stop me now,” he’d said. And I remembered Mother’s face, too, her uncertainty.
Not us. Me.
She’d put her arm around Jean, and at the time I didn’t recognize it, but looking back, I knew she’d been scared.
That verdict was the beginning. It was the largest jury award in the history of Rowan County, and the press made my father famous. After that, people came looking for Ezra Pickens.
And he was right. Nothing could stop him. He was a celebrity, an icon, and his ego grew with his fame and with his fortune. Everything changed for him after that.
For us, too.
I still remembered the date of the verdict. It was the day Jean turned six.
I typed the date into the keypad. Nothing. I replaced the boards and hammered in four new nails. I took my time, and they sank into the wood, straight and clean. I spread the rug with a sigh and turned away.
It would have been too easy.
I moved around the office, closing drawers, turning off lights, and was about to leave, when the phone rang. I almost didn’t answer it.
“Damn all generosity!” It was Tara Reynolds, calling from her office at the Charlotte Observer. “My editor is about to stroke out.”
“What are you talking about, Tara?”
“Have you seen the Salisbury Post?” Unlike the Observer, it ran in the afternoons. It would have hit the stands less than an hour ago.
“No.”
“Well, you should pick up a copy. You’re page-one news, Work, and it’s a freakin’ injustice, that’s what it is. I bust my ass on this story, I’m all set to break it, and some idiot from the Post gets a call that the cops are at your office and just walks on over and takes your damn picture.”
My voice was cold. “I’m sorry to inconvenience you.”
“ ‘Police search home, office of slain lawyer’s son.’ That’s the headline. There’s a picture of you standing with the district attorney in front of your office.”
“That was four hours ago,” I said.
“Hey, good news travels fast. The article’s short. Do you want me to read it to you?”
So, the story was now official. Fifty thousand people subscribed to the Post. In twenty-four hours, it would be in the Observer, which had close to a million readers. Strangely, I felt more calm than not. Once you lose your reputation, your worries become more concrete: life or death—freedom or prison. Everything else pales.
“No,” I said. “I do not want you to read it to me. Other than making my day even worse, is there some reason you called?”
“Yeah. I want you to appreciate me. Because right now, I’m the only one doing any favors.”
“Appreciate what?” I asked bitterly.
“News,” she said. “With the same proviso as last time. You tell no one where you heard it, and I get the exclusive when this is said and done.”
I didn’t speak right away. I had a sudden splitting headache. None of this would go away. Not on its own.
“Do you have someplace else you need to be?” Tara demanded sarcastically. “If so, just tell me and I’m gone. I don’t have to play games.”
“No games, Tara. I just needed a second. It’s been a long day.”
She must have heard the despair in my voice. “Hey, I understand. I get caught up in things, the curse of the type A personality. I’m sorry.”
She didn’t sound particularly sorry, and my words, when they came, were short and bitten off. “It’s okay,” I said. “You use me. I use you. No reason to take it personally. Right?”
“That’s exactly right,” she said, oblivious. “So here’s my news. The police have figured out why your father was in that old mall.”
“What?”
“Actually, it would be more accurate to say that they’ve figured out how he was in that mall.”
“What do you mean?”
“The property was going into foreclosure. Your father was retained to represent the bank. He would have had keys to the property.”
This surprised me. While I didn’t know everything about my father’s practice, I should have been aware of the case, if only peripherally.
“Who owned the property?” I asked.
“I’m checking on that. All I know now is that it was a group of investors, some local, some not. They bought the mall several years ago, when it was about to fold. They pumped millions into renovations, but the tenants never materialized. They were hemorrhaging money when the bank finally dropped the ax.”
“Is there any chance of a connection?” I asked. “Are the police looking into it?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Are you serious?” I demanded. “Ezra was foreclosing on a multimillion-dollar operation, was killed on the property, and the cops don’t see a connection?”
I heard Tara light up a cigarette, pausing before she spoke. “Why would they, Work? They’ve got their man.” She exhaled, and I pictured her wrinkled lips and the bright pink lipstick that bled into the cracks.
“No, they don’t,” I said. “Not yet.”
“Well, that brings me to my second piece of news.”
I knew trouble when I heard it. “What?”
“I don’t have specifics, you understand? But word is that they found something in your house that incriminates you.”
“That’s not possible,” I said.
“I’m just telling you what I heard.”
“But . . . you must know more than that.”
“Not really, Work. Only that Mills about had an orgasm. And that’s a direct quote from my source.”
I thought of all the people who had been in my house since Ezra disappeared, all the parties, dinners, and casual visits. Jean had been there once or twice, Alex, too. Even the district attorney. Christ, half the town had passed through those doors at some point in the past eighteen months. What in the hell was Tara talking about?
“You’re not holding out on me, are you?” I asked. “This one is important.”
“I’ve told you all I know. That’s the deal.” Another long exhale, and I knew she had something else to add. “Have you told me everything?” she finally asked.
“What do you want to know?”
“It all comes back to the gun,
Work. They want the murder weapon. Have you had any more thoughts on that?”
I saw Max’s face, and felt the dampness of that hole. I smelled mud mixed with gasoline, and suddenly couldn’t breathe. For a moment, I’d forgotten.
“Still no sign,” I finally told her.
“Would you like to make a statement? I’d be glad to put forth your side of the story.”
I thought of Douglas. “That would be premature,” I finally said.
“Call me if you change your mind.”
“You’ll be the first.”
“You mean the only.”
“Right.”
She paused and I could almost smell the smoke; she liked menthols. “Listen,” she said. “I’m not really such a cold bitch. It’s just that thirty years of this has taught me a thing or two, like never get emotionally involved in the stories I cover. It’s nothing personal. I just have to keep my distance. It’s a matter of professionalism.”
“Rest assured, you’re very professional,” I told her.
“That was uncalled for.”
“Maybe. But I seem to be surrounded by professionals today.”
“Things will work out,” she said, but we both knew the truth. Innocent people went to jail all the time, and good guys bled as red as the rest.
“Take care,” she said, and for an instant she sounded like she meant it.
“Yeah. You, too.”
The line went dead and I settled the receiver back on its cradle. Suddenly, things weren’t so clear. Why, on that night, did Ezra go to that nearly abandoned mall? His wife had just died. His family was coming apart at the seams. Who called him, and what was said in that hushed conversation? It was after midnight, for Christ’s sake. Did he go first to the office, and if so, why? My father had driven a black Lincoln Town Car, so Max’s big dark car had to have been Ezra’s, but who owned the other one? Jean had a dark car, but so did a thousand other people in town. Was I wrong? Could there be some other reason for my father’s death? I turned to an ugly reality, one that I’d shied away from because I simply could not face it. The old mall was less than a mile from where I sat. Its destruction was almost complete, but the parking lot was untouched, as was the low dank tunnel that ran beneath it. If Max was right and the killer had ditched the gun in the storm sewer, then it would be there still, lying in that grim place like the memories that had defiled my dreams, if not my very life. I would have to return, to claim the legacy of my father’s last breath, and I didn’t know if I could do it. But there was no choice. If the gun was Ezra’s, I’d know it. Then I could dispose of it, so that Mills could never use it against Jean. And if it wasn’t his gun? If by some miracle I was wrong, and it was not my sister that pulled the trigger?
I thought of Vanessa, pictured her face the last time I’d seen her. She’d kicked me out, spilled her tears on the hands of another man. Would she step forward if I asked? Would she utter the words to set me free?
I had to believe that she would. Whatever harm I’d done to her, she was a good woman.
My watch showed it was almost five. I glanced around the ruined office and, for a moment, considered cleaning it up, but this was not my life, so I locked up and left the place untouched. Outside, the clouds had pulled apart and a careworn light filtered through. People were leaving the surrounding offices, packing up and going home to the same dreams that used to mean so much to me. No one spoke to me. No one raised a hand. I drove home and parked beneath high walls of peeling paint and windows as colorless as sanded lead. And when I finally went inside, it was like walking into an open wound. Our bed was pulled apart, my desk was rifled, and clothing littered the floor. Every room was the same, yet each was worse than the last. I closed my eyes and saw Mills and her smug smile as she’d left me in the driveway to resume this slow and visceral penetration.
I wandered through the house, touched once personal and private things, then shuffled into the kitchen and took down a bottle of bourbon and a glass. It slopped as I poured it, but I didn’t care. I sat at the breakfast table and downed half the glass before I realized what I was seeing, right there on the table before me. I slammed the glass down so hard that the remaining bourbon exploded out of its mouth and settled in a wide wet arc onto the face of the newspaper that Mills had so carefully placed there for me to find.
It was the Salisbury Post, and there I was on the front page. It was not the headline that enraged me, but the fact that Mills had put the paper there for me to find. And that act, so simple, had been calculated to inflict pain. She’d caught me at home, defenses down, and slit me open with a fifty-cent newspaper.
My glass shattered on the wall. Then I was on my feet.
The writer didn’t have many facts, but the implication was more than between the lines. The son of a wealthy dead lawyer was being investigated. He was one of the last to see the victim alive and had somehow managed to compromise the crime scene. And there was a will, with fifteen million dollars at stake.
Not much, I thought, but more than enough for a public crucifixion. And soon there would be more, along with any unflattering information they could ferret out of my neighbors or colleagues.
I looked again at the paper, and future headlines flashed through my mind.
LOCAL LAWYER GOES TO TRIAL . . . PROSECUTION RESETS . . . JURY SAYS GUILTYIN IN PICKENS MURDER TRIAL . . . SENTENCING TODAY . . .
The phone rang. I snatched it up.
“What!” Brutal and short.
At first there was silence, and I thought no one was there. But then I heard a wet snuffling noise and what was clearly a choked-off sob.
“Hello,” I said.
Crying. Sobbing. A susurration of wet helplessness that dwindled to a keen so high, I could have been imagining it. I heard a dull and rhythmic thumping, and I knew it was Jean, striking her head on the wall or rocking so hard in her chair that it sounded in protest. My own problems dwindled into some distant place.
“Jean,” I said. “It’s okay. Calm down.”
I heard a mighty intake of breath, as if her lungs were nearly starved, yet had found the courage for one last, great effort. The air rushed in, and when it came out, it carried my name, but weakly, so that I almost missed it.
“Yes. It’s me. Are you okay?” I tried to stay calm, but Jean had never sounded this bad, and I saw her blood on a sagging floor or spurting into hot pink water. “Talk to me, Jean. What is it? What’s happening?”
More wet, stifled breathing.
“Where are you?” I asked. “Are you at home?”
She said my name again. A curse. A benediction. A plea. Maybe all three. Then I heard another voice, Alex’s, but it was distant.
“What are you doing, Jean?” Footsteps boomed on wooden floors, accelerated, grew louder. “Who are you talking to?” Jean said nothing. Even her breathing stopped. “It’s Work, isn’t it?” Alex demanded, her voice louder, as hard as the receiver clenched like an ax in my hand. “Give me the phone. Give it.”
Then it was Alex on the phone, and I wanted to reach through the line and beat her.
“Work?”
“Put Jean back on the phone! Right now, goddamn it!”
“I knew it was you,” she said, and her voice was unruffled.
“Alex, I am so serious, you would not believe it. I want to talk to my sister and I want to talk to her now!”
“It’s the last thing she needs right now.”
“That is not for you to decide.”
“Jean’s too upset to know what she’s doing.”
“That still doesn’t make it your decision.”
“Whose, then? Yours?”
I said nothing, and for that instant I could hear Jean crying in the background. I felt a terrible helplessness.
“You know what she’s been through, Alex. You know her history. For God’s sake, she needs help.”
“Yes, she does, but not from you.” I tried to speak, but Alex cut me off. “Let me make one thing perfectly clear. Jean is upset
because she saw your picture in the paper, you dumb shit. Black print implicating you in her father’s murder. Is it any wonder she’s upset?”
Then I got it. I understood. The article had compounded Jean’s guilt. She’d killed her father, and her brother was taking the blame for it. No wonder she was falling to pieces. The possibility might have occurred to her—that day she spoke to Detective Mills—but the reality was different, and it was pulling her apart. The revelation staggered me. I was out of my depth, and knew I could do more harm than good. Poor Jean. What more must she endure?
“If anything happens to her, Alex, I’ll hold you responsible.”
“I’m hanging up now. Don’t come over here.”
“Tell her that I love her,” I said, but Alex was already gone. I put the phone down and sat at the breakfast table, there in the back corner of my kitchen. I stared at the wall and then dropped my head into the cradle of my hands. Everything seemed to collapse—the room, my insides—and I wondered what further grief the day could possibly bring.
When I looked up, I saw the bottle of bourbon. I reached for it and pulled straight from the bottle. Hot liquor shot out and I drank too much, choking. I closed my eyes on the burn, wiped away something that felt like tears, and heard a gentle knock on the glass window of the garage door. I looked up, startled, and saw Dr. Stokes’s face on the other side. I stared for a moment, and he cracked the door. He wore a seersucker jacket, a white shirt, and jeans. His white hair was neatly combed.
“I won’t ask if this is a bad time,” he said. “Mind if I come in?”
His was a welcome face, lined, warm, and sincere, and I nodded. He entered with economical movements, passing through a narrow space that closed quietly behind him. He put his back to the door and clasped his hands in front of his belt. His eyes moved over the kitchen, but it was a brief journey. He spent a little more time on me.
“Where do you keep the glasses?” he asked. He was stately and elegant, perfectly composed. I pointed at the cabinet, still uncertain of my own voice. He moved farther into the kitchen and stopped next to me. I thought he would offer his hand or pat me on the back. Instead, he reached for the newspaper and folded it closed; then he was past. He stepped over the shards of my broken glass and filled two fresh glasses with ice. “You don’t have ginger ale, by any chance?” he asked.
