Cold Truth

by Joel Goldman

  Mason called his Aunt Claire. "Female anatomy is not my strong point," he told her.

  "I'm so sorry," Claire said. "I thought by now you were more experienced."

  "I'm good with the surface structures," he assured her. "Help me out with the internal stuff."

  "You are such a sophisticated man," his aunt said. "How can I help?"

  "If a woman's fallopian tubes are blocked, she can't get pregnant, right?"

  "Good guess," Claire said. "Next question."

  "A congenital abnormality is one from birth. That means that a woman who was born with her fallopian tubes blocked could never get pregnant. Still right?"

  Claire sharpened her tone. "Get to the point."

  "I just read Gina Davenport's autopsy report for the tenth time. She had a congenital abnormality that caused blockage of her fallopian tubes. She couldn't get pregnant, but the city of St. Louis issued a birth certificate for her daughter, Emily, showing Gina as the mother."

  "Gina couldn't have given birth," Claire said.

  "Exactly. Plus, Emily's birth certificate says that she was born at Caulfield Medical Center in St. Louis. That makes Gina the only mother in the history of the hospital that didn't sign the maternity ward Baby Book," Mason said, explaining what they had learned at the hospital.

  "You said that the hospital has no record that Abby was ever a patient there," Claire repeated. "Didn't you?"

  "That's what they say, even though Abby's signature is in the Baby Book."

  "Why would Gina Davenport falsify the birth of a baby? Why not adopt?" Claire asked.

  "Because no court was going to allow a couple to adopt a baby when the father was a drug addict," Mason explained. "Gina Davenport bought a baby and claimed it as her own because that's the only way she could get one. She and her husband probably left St. Louis at the same time so that no one would become suspicious."

  Claire followed the implications of Mason's theory. "You're suggesting that Gina Davenport bought Abby's baby along with a phony birth certificate and that she managed to get rid of Abby's medical records in the process. You know what that means if you're right?"

  "Yes," Mason said. "It means that Abby's daughter is dead."

  Chapter 28

  Mason's theory was so disastrous for Abby that he couldn't tell her unless he was certain. Even then, he didn't know how he would do it. He shoved that prospect to the side and focused on the implications for his defense of Jordan.

  He was now convinced that the phone call Abby received about finding her daughter had set in motion the chain of events that ended with the murders of Gina Davenport and Trent Hackett. That was the only way to tie the available evidence together.

  Terry Nix was the only person Mason could think of that knew the Davenports had purchased their child, though he also knew that at least one other person had to be involved. While he believed that Terry Nix stole Abby's medical records to cover up the illegal adoption, Mason doubted that Nix also forged Emily's birth certificate. That required help from someone working in the city's Vital Records department. Mason found Roy Bowen's business card and called him at home.

  "You don't waste time, do you?" Bowen told him.

  "I don't have time to waste," Mason said, explaining what he was looking for.

  "I'll see what I can do," Bowen told him. "They may not keep records that far back. This may take a while."

  Mason gave Tuffy fresh water and promised to take her on a long walk in the morning. Tuffy sniffed the water and wandered off, not impressed, ignoring Mason's pat on the back as he left again. How, Mason wondered, could he ever manage a long-term relationship with a woman if his dog could make him feel guilty for ignoring her?

  Mason didn't find Robert Davenport at home, so he headed for his studio. It was almost ten o'clock when he parked a block away after finding the street barricaded by police officers. Satellite trucks from local TV stations lined the curb. Mason ducked his head when he saw Sherri Thomas and her Channel 6 cameraman. He was in no mood to make the late evening news.

  "What's going on?" Mason asked one of the cops.

  "Guy OD'd," the cop answered.

  Mason knew the answer to his next question but asked it anyway. "Robert Davenport?"

  The cop looked past him. "No names released yet."

  "Is Samantha Greer in charge of the investigation?"

  "Yeah," the cop answered, paying more attention. "Who are you?"

  "Lou Mason. Do me a favor, call Detective Greer. Tell her I'd like to talk to her."

  The cop spoke into the radio clipped to his shirt, waving Mason through. Mason found Samantha waiting for him next to a sculpture planted on the lawn outside the studio. The sculpture was an irregular cone of bronze affixed nose-down to a polished black granite base. The police had set up bright lights around the studio to assist in the search for physical evidence. The beams collided with the sculpture, making it glow like an errant space probe just returned to earth.

  "At least you can't blame this one on my client," Mason told her.

  "It's hard for one person to kill everybody," she said.

  Mason said, "One of the cops directing traffic said Davenport OD'd."

  "Looks like it. What brings you here?" Samantha asked.

  "Loose ends," Mason answered. "I'm getting ready for the preliminary hearing in the Trent Hackett murder. I had some questions for Robert."

  "You accused Trent Hackett of killing Gina Davenport. Are you going to accuse Robert Davenport of killing Trent to avenge his wife's death?"

  Mason shrugged. "It's a theory," he said, not wanting to thank Samantha for thinking of a red herring he'd overlooked.

  "Don't bother," she told him. "Davenport was giving a lecture that night. He's got a hundred alibis. Tell your client to plead guilty and get this mess over with."

  "She's not guilty, Sam," Mason said.

  Samantha grimaced, grinding her heel in the grass. "It's me you're talking to Lou, not some fresh cop out of the academy, not some reporter who wants to make you the lead in her story. I'm a damn good cop. We both know the evidence against your client is enough to send her away forever. If you don't have something better by now than the smoke you've been blowing, call Ortiz and make a deal."

  They were both right, Mason realized. He believed Jordan was innocent even though there was enough evidence to convict her. Samantha was also right that Mason's defense had so far been little more than a bluff. Mason saw no point in telling Samantha his newest theory, knowing that she would rightly dismiss it as the ravings of a lawyer whose latest scapegoat conveniently died of a drug overdose.

  Mason got up early enough on Tuesday morning to take Tuffy on a grand tour of Loose Park, leaving her panting on her living room pillow, her bushy tail thumping against the floor in gratitude. Mason even thought the dog winked at him when he promised to be home in time to give her dinner.

  The Cable Depot was his first stop. Jordan had told him that she had gone to Dr. Gina's office the Friday before Gina was murdered and that she had discovered her cell phone was missing after her therapy session with Gina. Arthur Hackett had told him that Gina had stopped at KWIN after her session with Jordan, making the radio station the likely place to start looking for Jordan's cell phone.

  Mason still had the passkey Trent Hackett gave him, but he knew he couldn't simply walk into KWIN, flash his American Bar Association membership card, and start rifling through desk drawers. He'd have to make peace, or at least reach a truce, with Arthur Hackett.

  Hackett was seated behind his desk gazing out the window to the north, his back to the door, watching private planes land at the downtown airport, when a secretary brought Mason into his office. He slowly swiveled his chair around to face Mason as the secretary closed the door, leaving them alone, shocking Mason with his deteriorated appearance. His face was gray, skin hanging loose from his cheeks, his eyes flat as if nothing he saw was worth the view. He'd lost enough weight that his clothes sagged, covering him like hand-me-downs
. Hackett raised a limp hand from his lap, gesturing Mason to have a seat.

  "Thank you for seeing me," Mason said. "I know this is a difficult time for you and your wife."

  "Do you?" Arthur asked. "How would you know such a thing, Mr. Mason? Have you buried one of your children? Have you condemned another?" Each question was cut with a dull knife, the sharp edge worn from the many times he'd asked them of himself, trying to fathom how such horror fell to him.

  "No, sir," Mason answered, caught in the quicksand of Hackett's grief. "I won't presume to know what you're going through, though I am sorry you have to go through it."

  Arthur drew a deep breath. "That's more honesty than I'm accustomed to. My home is crawling with people trying to make my wife and me feel better. I'm in no mind to work, but at least I can be left alone here."

  "Then why did you see me?" Mason asked.

  "There's no understanding something like this, Mason. There's no way of reconciling to it. Carol and I weren't perfect parents. Hell, we weren't even good parents. Trent was our failure. Jordan was a mystery, bad genes, bad parents. Who knows? They were ours to take care of and we failed them. I was hoping that you found something that would make sense out all of this, maybe let my wife and me off the hook a little bit."

  "I'm trying, Arthur," Mason said, steeling himself to Arthur's excruciating confession, knowing he couldn't give the absolution Arthur needed. "I was wondering if Jordan's cell phone ever turned up. Someone used it to make a call that could be important."

  Arthur shook his head. "You asked me about that once before. I took a look around and didn't find it, though it should have been easy enough to find. Jordan bought a hot pink faceplate for the phone. It practically glowed in the dark."

  "Did the bills come to you?" Mason asked. "I'd like to see the last one." Arthur pursed his lips, drumming his fingers on his desk.

  "I can subpoena it from the cellular company, but that's a lot of trouble if you've got the bill," Mason said. He waited to ask Hackett why he was holding back.

  "You don't have to do that," Hackett said. "It's too late to be embarrassed for Jordan anyway. I got the bill the other day," he said, removing it from a folder on his desk and handing it to Mason. "It was over a thousand dollars, most of it to one of those psychic hotlines. Why she bothered with that rubbish, I don't know. I canceled the account."

  Mason studied the bill. He found the entry for the call made to Abby's phone and her return call to Jordan's phone. The other calls were made to the psychic hotline. "Did you ask the cell phone company if they could find out who placed the calls?"

  "They said there was no way to know unless the calls were recorded. Does any of that help you?"

  "I don't know," Mason said. "I heard that Max Coyle was involved with Gina. Do you know anything about that?"

  "There are no secrets in a place like this, Mason. They were both grownups. A lot of people screw around if they get the chance. I heard that you and Max discussed his relationship with Gina at the golf tournament," he added with a pleased grunt.

  "What about Paula Sutton?" Mason asked, ignoring Hackett's jab. "Who was she screwing around with?"

  "Ask her. She'll tell you. She isn't the shy type."

  "I thought there were no secrets in a place like this," Mason said.

  "There aren't. I just don't have time for all of them. Is that all?"

  "One last question. Have you heard anyone at the station ever mention someone named Abby Lieberman?"

  "No," Arthur said without hesitation. "Should I have?"

  "I hope not."

  On his way out, Mason walked past the broadcast studio where Paula Sutton was doing her morning show. He stopped and watched through the glass wall dividing the studio from the interior corridor, listening to the broadcast piped over the intercom. Paula listened while her caller denounced public education as a government thought-control plot. She noticed Mason as her caller finished his tirade, answering Mason's pantomimed request that she call him with dead air, her caller hanging up in frustration as the program engineer cut to a commercial.

  Max Coyle lumbered down the hallway, dipping his shoulder and knocking Mason to his knees as he passed, not saying a word. When Mason got up, Paula had slipped out of the studio through another door. He made it to the street without being steamrolled again, certain that Max wouldn't be doing any testimonials on his behalf.

  Mickey was waiting for him when he got to the office, shooting Nerf Balls at the basketball goal above the door. Mason caught the ball as he crossed the threshold.

  "Goaltending," Mickey said.

  "My goal," Mason answered. "I can tend it whenever I want. Are we still in business?"

  "You bet. I've figured out the great thing about the practice of law. When times are good, people can afford to fight. When times are bad, people can't afford not to fight. And criminals don't pay any attention to the economy. You'll never go out of business."

  "I love this country," Mason said. "How's the not-forprofit world compare?"

  "I don't know why they call it not-for-profit," Mickey answered. "As far as I can tell, everyone is making a killing."

  "What did you find out about Sanctuary?"

  "Nothing new. Centurion and Terry Nix are living large, but they're smart enough to do it up front. It's all in the reports. Emily's Fund is another story."

  "Tell me the story," Mason said, opening his dry-erase board, hoping the crisscrossed lines would lead him to an answer instead of another dead end.

  "Emily's Fund reported making donations to about a dozen other charities. All of them had to file the same annual report listing their contributions. The only one that matches up is Sanctuary. The others reported getting about half of what Emily's Fund says it gave them."

  "What's the total difference between the two amounts?"

  "More than two million bucks over the last couple of years," Mickey said. "Emily's Fund has a fiscal year that ends June 30, and that's when it makes a lot of its contributions. Almost a million of the discrepancy was from contributions made on June 30."

  "Wouldn't somebody notice the discrepancy?" Mason asked.

  "Doubtful," Mickey answered. "From what I found out, these charities rarely get audited by anybody, especially if the charity's directors are the same people playing with the dough. Plus, anyone looking at the report for one charity probably wouldn't cross-check it against the reports of another charity, especially if the first charity's books balanced."

  "Gina Davenport and David Evans were the only directors of Emily's Fund, right?" Mason asked.

  "Kind of convenient," Mickey answered.

  "Did Gina Davenport sign the reports?"

  "In front of a notary," Mickey said, "swearing they were accurate."

  Mason picked up Gina's book, her picture staring back at him from the cover. "So that's the way you did the things you did, Dr. Gina," Mason said. "Did that get you killed?"

  Chapter 29

  Late that afternoon, Mason returned to the Cable Depot, this time to talk to David Evans about Gina Davenport's recipe for cooking the books of Emily's Fund. Earl Luke Fisher was sprawled out on his park bench across from the building entrance, his head propped on an oil-stained canvas bag, the rest of his worldly possessions crammed into a grocery cart lashed to the back of the bench with a candy-striped bungee cord. The autumnal sun, low-angled and gentle, painted him gold to match the leaves pooled beneath the bench. He called out as Mason parked his car.

  "Hey, Mason!"

  Mason gave him a waist-high salute as he made for the front door.

  "Come here, Mason!" Earl Luke shouted, sitting up on his bench. "What's the matter? You too good for Earl Luke? Do I gotta make a damn appointment?"

  Earl Luke stood, eclipsing the sun at his back, his shadow rippling on the pavement, aiming at Mason, who looked at his watch and shrugged. It was close to dinner, and he guessed Earl Luke's meal plan was a little short.

  "How you doing, Earl Luke?" Mason asked, crossing the
street.

  "I'm fit to spit," Earl Luke answered, closing one eye and slapping his hand over his heart, as if to prove the point.

  "Something on your mind?" Mason asked.

  "Always got something on my mind," Earl Luke said. "It ain't free, though."

  Mason had put money into worse lost causes than Earl Luke, and didn't mind doing it again. He liked Earl Luke's approach, turning panhandling into retail at the street level. He said, "You've got to ask for the sale to make the sale."

  "I'm asking, I'm asking," Earl Luke said, rubbing his hands on a denim shirt that could have been a palette for a dirt painter. "That prosecutor fella come see me again and give me a subpoena for court this Friday. Give me a check for forty bucks too."

  "That's a witness fee," Mason explained. "The subpoena isn't valid without the check."

  "Well, forty bucks is nothing to sneeze at, 'cept I can't cash no check seein's as how I ain't exactly got a local bank account, if you get my meaning."

  "You'll have to take that up with the prosecutor," Mason said. "Maybe they'll give you cash."

  "The hell with that and the hell with them!" Earl Luke said. "I'm taking up a collection to head south for the winter. Thought you might like to get me started. If I can get a stake, I'd leave today, let that prosecutor cash his own damn check. Might do your client some good if I was to be a long way from that courtroom come Friday."

  Mason stepped back, not interested in Earl Luke's offer to become a tampered witness regardless of the price. "Can't help you," Mason told him. "You're under subpoena to appear in court. You better show up or the prosecutor will send the sheriff to make sure you do. Besides," Mason lied, "I'm not worried about your testimony."

  "It's a goddamn conspiracy, is what it is!" Earl Luke said. "You damn lawyers are all in it together," he added, snatching up his canvas bag, spilling its contents on the ground, scrambling to shove the coarse stuffing of his vagrant life back in the bag.