Three Weeks to Say Goodbye

by C. J. Box

  Cody shrugged.

  “Fuck you two,” Torkleson said, standing up. “I’ve got a wife and a little girl and a lot of years ahead of me. I can’t let you screw that up.”

  “I’ve got a wife and a little girl, too,” I said. “This is about trying to keep us together.”

  He wanted to launch into me, but Cody stood up and put his hand on Torkleson’s shoulder.

  “Look what this tells us,” Cody said. “It tells us a lot. It means the judge is aware of what Garrett is up to. We’ve been wondering about that—are they working together or apart? Now we know. At last we have some clarity, even though this is about as bad a turn as we could get.”

  Torkleson shook Cody’s arm off, his face still red. I felt sorry for him even as I contemplated what Cody had just said.

  “Gentlemen, are you here for Brian Eastman?”

  None of us had heard or seen the surgeon approach from the double doors down the hall. He was short and thin, wearing blood-soaked green scrubs.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, not looking any of us in the eye. “Mr. Eastman has passed.”

  “He’s dead?” Torkleson asked.

  “It was probably for the best, in a way,” the doctor said. “With that kind of brain damage, he could have never functioned again.”

  I sat back in the chair and covered my face with my hands.

  We’d lost our friend.

  We’d lost our advocate.

  We’d lost our friend.

  Cody’s eyes streamed tears. “Man,” he said, “I wish I hadn’t have been so hard on the guy earlier. He didn’t deserve it.”

  Tuesday, November 20

  Five Days to Go

  SIXTEEN

  THERE WAS SOMETHING going on at the office. It wasn’t a conspiracy of silence, where everyone seems to know what’s up except the victim. It was simply that under the circumstances—a closed door meeting in the CEO’s office that had started early before the staff arrived and was still going past 9:00 A.M.—some kind of trouble was indicated. The halls, offices, and cubicles were silent. No animated conversations, no laughing. Just tapping on keyboards from every office. I saw Pete Maxfield, the PR guy, walk down the hall to the break room tugging on his collar, as if the heat were turned up. He looked like he felt guilty for something. On my way to get coffee, I ducked into Linda Van Gear’s office to ask her what was happening. She always knew, but she wasn’t at her desk.

  I asked Cissy the receptionist when Linda was expected back.

  “Oh, she’s here,” she said. “She’s in a meeting with Mr. Jones.”

  “Who else is in there?” I asked.

  “Mr. Doogan from the mayor’s office.”

  My mouth went dry.

  BRIAN’S FUNERAL WAS SET for Friday. Because of his prominence in Denver, his murder was front-page news. Mayor Halladay appeared on the steps of city hall and said he was both mournful and angry at the same time and that the community had lost a great man. When a reporter from Channel 9 asked him if it was a hate crime because of Brian Eastman’s well-known sexual orientation, Halladay exploded, saying if it was, he would personally make sure the DA charged whoever did it with the maximum penalty under the law. The mayor declared, “Denver will not tolerate hate!” He was followed by the Denver police chief, who said the department was pursuing every lead, and he was confident there would be arrests before the week was out. I knew through Cody that Torkleson and the cops had no more evidence than the day before, but the chief was assigning several more detectives to the case, and they were interviewing everyone they could find in LoDo who might have seen Brian or the assailants that night.

  Melissa was in a stunned funk. Brian was her best friend, and he was simply gone. “He gave his life for us,” she said through tears. I didn’t know how to respond, so I simply held her. While I did, I looked at Angelina in her walker, wonderfully oblivious to what was going on. She’d never see her uncle Brian again, and there was no way to explain that to her.

  Cody was splitting his time between our house and his. The media contingent that had been staking out his block had dispersed, likely so they could follow the Eastman murder. When I saw him, he seemed so quiet it was as if he wasn’t really there at all. I couldn’t tell whether Brian’s murder had knocked him speechless or he was deep in thought formulating a plan—or both. I do know he was combing through Brian’s call log one number at a time. He used our computer to cross-reference the numbers, and he kept a running list of numbers and names as he found them.

  I worried that Jeter Hoyt might just show up since he’d kept the envelope, and was happy to hear that a terrific winter storm had hit Montana and dumped eighteen inches of snow.

  CISSY LEANED INTO my office and whispered something I couldn’t hear.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Mr. Jones would like to see you in his office.”

  I took a deep breath, pulled on my jacket, straightened my tie, and went to get fired.

  “HAVE A SEAT, JACK,” CEO H.R. “Tab” Jones said. I could tell by the way Linda smiled sadly at me when I entered the office that my assumption had been correct.

  “You know Jim Doogan,” Jones said, as Cissy stepped out and closed the door.

  I nodded. Doogan shook my hand. He seemed almost kind. Despite it all, I still kind of liked him.

  “Linda,” Jones said, “do you want to tell Jack what we found out this morning?”

  Jack, Linda would say, the police say you’ve been implicated in the murder of a man named Pablo ‘Luis’ Cadena. They also say you went to Montana last weekend to hire a thug to intimidate an eighteen-year-old boy.

  Instead, she said, “Malcolm Harris was arrested this morning at Heathrow Airport before he boarded the direct London-to-Denver flight.”

  “What?” That one came out of nowhere.

  Linda looked to Doogan to pick up the story.

  Doogan said, “Your friend Malcolm Harris is suspected of being a very big fish in an international pedophilia ring. Apparently both Scotland Yard and Interpol have been working on this case for a couple of years, and today they pulled the trigger and made dozens of arrests all across Europe. Harris is considered to be a kingpin of these sickos. They’re talking real bad stuff here, Jack. Buying and selling not just kiddie porn but actual children, group sex trips to Asia, about as bad as it can get.”

  I flashed back to Harris’s long foray to the “office” behind the bar in Berlin, how he’d come back flushed. Did Fritz—no doubt a pedophile himself—have photos of children back there on his computer? Or maybe even a child? Oh, God. I cringed and felt physically sick.

  “Are you okay?” Doogan asked me.

  “He did seem a little off to me,” I said. “I couldn’t quite figure out what it was. And I had this urge to pound the crap out of him that sort of came from nowhere.”

  “A little off?” Jones said, raising his eyebrows.

  “Give him a break, Tab,” Linda cut in. “I knew Malcolm long before Jack came on board. I always thought he was strange, but I never would have suspected this.” She laughed drily. “Lots of people we work with are strange.”

  I thought, the way he looked at that picture of Angelina and thought he’d seen her before. I didn’t know what to make of it at the time, but now I figured he’d seen so many photos of little girls that he was simply confused, that bastard.

  So many things Harris had said and done that night came flooding back:

  “creeping fascism of the politically correct”

  “There aren’t bureaucrats looking over your shoulder as you live your life, telling you how to speak and think and whom to associate with—taking your freedom away.”

  “I’ve seen enough for to night.”

  His outright joy in the way the restaurant tenderized the veal…

  Jones was staring at me.

  “Hold it,” I said. “You don’t think I knew about this in any way, do you?”

  “Did you?” Jones asked, again with the eyebrows.
>
  “For God’s sake, no!” I was nauseated by the thought. “I have a nine-month-old daughter, Tab.” It seemed ridiculous to have to defend myself to a forty-seven-year-old man called “Tab.”

  “I didn’t think you did,” Doogan said, “but we have a problem.”

  I shook my head, not getting it. Linda looked away.

  “We—you—have been courting this guy,” Doogan said. “The mayor himself has announced this new business coming to town. Channel 9, which is no friend of the administration, as you know, called for a statement. They’re all over it. Even though it’s unfair, this ain’t beanbag we’re playing. Imagine a headline that reads: MAYOR HALLADAY AND DENVER CVB COURTED INTERNATIONAL PEDO PHILE.”

  “Jack,” Jones said, “we’re going to restructure the bureau. This international stuff is just too hot right now. The mayor’s enemies and the press are always pointing to it as an extravagance we can’t afford, and now we’ve got this. That’s what we’ve been talking about in here. Linda’s being moved over to conventions. We’ve got a position open there, and she’s got seniority.”

  “Meaning I’m out?” I said.

  Jones pursed his lips and nodded yes.

  Doogan said, “The best way to deal with an issue like this is to get out in front of it. If Channel 9 presses the story, we’ll respond by saying we’ve restructured our efforts and cut staff to avoid embarrassments like this in the future. Your name isn’t likely to come up in any way.”

  “I’m sorry I can’t take you with me,” Linda said. “Maybe if something opens up down the road.”

  I sat back. Too much, too fast.

  “Sorry it worked out this way,” Doogan said.

  “You don’t know how much I need this job,” I said. “You have no idea.”

  “You’ll need to get with HR,” Jones said. “We’ll work out a generous severance package, and I believe you’ve got vacation and sick time coming.”

  Looks of strained sympathy all around. Linda, especially.

  CISSY WAS SUDDENLY IMMERSED in what ever she was reading on her desk and kept her head down as I opened the door. Pete, who had been loitering in the break room the whole time, tried to thinly disguise his relief.

  I went into my office and bent over my desk, my head spinning. How would I tell Melissa?

  AS DOOGAN WALKED past my office, I said, “Jim!”

  He came in. I said, “You might want to shut the door.” This was the first time I’d ever seen him look ill at ease. I said, “How much of this has to do with Malcolm Harris and how much has to do with Judge Moreland? He knows I was in on the complaint the other night when the police went to talk to his son about Brian Eastman’s murder. I wonder if this Malcolm Harris thing isn’t just the excuse he was looking for.”

  He shrugged unconvincingly.

  “You’re not talking?”

  He looked at my ceiling, my desk, his shoes, everywhere but at me. “Sometimes,” he said, “I do things that keep me up at night. I just try and convince myself that running a big city can be messy at times. Sometimes things are done for the greater good, and they aren’t necessarily fair or fun.”

  “I guess that answers my question.”

  “I’ve got to go.”

  “One more thing,” I said. “I’ve got another problem for you, and this one’s much bigger than me. I’ve been thinking about some of the things Malcolm Harris said to me. He’s got connections here, Jim. That’s why he was going to relocate. In fact, at one point he told me he would be bulletproof. Bulletproof. Any idea why he’d say that?”

  Doogan looked puzzled. “No idea at all,” he said.

  “The mayor may have a much bigger problem than me.”

  Doogan shrugged. “Then we’ll deal with it when it happens.”

  SEVENTEEN

  WITH THE PERSONAL ITEMS from my office in a box in the backseat of the Jeep, I roared out of the dark parking garage into a cold but sun-drenched day. I should have been devastated, but I wasn’t. Instead, it was as if another burden had been lifted. I was charged up, filled with a full and dangerous kind of energy. I felt manic.

  I called Melissa and told her what happened.

  “Oh, Jack,” she said. “Don’t worry, you’ll get another job. You’re good at what you do.”

  “Yes,” I said sarcastically, “there are openings for international tourism marketers all over town. I just need to snatch one up.”

  “We’ll get by,” she said. “I could go back to work after …”

  “Don’t say it,” I said, cutting her off.

  “Why us, Jack?” There was a catch in her voice.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “It’s like we’re being tested. And I, for one, am getting damned sick of it.”

  “So does this mean you’ll be home for lunch?”

  We both found ourselves laughing at that one, the same kind of uncomfortable laugh one produces to a joke’s punch line like, “Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?”

  “So does it?” she asked.

  “I’m going to go see Judge Moreland first,” I said. “We need to have a talk.”

  She paused. “Is that a good idea?”

  “What can it hurt?” I said. “What can happen? The mayor finds out and fires me?”

  I FELT GUILTY for not feeling guilty. But in a strange way, my path had been cleared.

  I parked on the street in front of the federal court house and took the steps two at a time. I would have charged through the lobby except for the guard who told me to slow down, empty my pockets, and walk slowly through the metal detector.

  “Write down your name and who you’re here to see so I can check you against the preapproved list,” he said, handing me a clipboard.

  I wrote, “Judge Moreland.”

  He took it back and asked if the judge was expecting me. “I don’t see your name on the approved list.”

  I said, “Tell him Jack McGuane is here to see him.”

  I waited impatiently while the guard called upstairs, gave my name. Then shook his head while he listened and hung up. “They say he’s not expecting you.”

  “I need to see him.”

  The guard narrowed his eyes and looked me over. This was one of those situations where my jacket and tie helped. “Are you a lawyer?”

  “No. Judge Moreland is trying to take my child away.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said warily. “You need to leave.”

  While I was putting my keys and change back into my pocket I looked up to see the man himself, Judge John Moreland, entering the building through a secure entrance accessed by a side street. He wore a suit and carried a briefcase, a long camel-hair coat draped over his arm. A vestibule of thick glass separated us.

  “There he is,” I said.

  Just as the guard reached for his radio to call for help if necessary to get me out of there, Moreland looked up. I startled him. Our eyes locked.

  I gestured, pointing to him and back to me. I mouthed, I need to talk to you.

  Smoothly, oh so smoothly, he turned away and continued on to his private elevator. He stood there with his back to me, waiting for the elevator car to arrive.

  “Sir,” the guard said, rising to come around the counter. The public elevator on my side of the glass whooshed open and two more uniformed guards stepped out.

  The three of them surrounded me.

  “I’m going,” I said, barely able to talk.

  BACK OUTSIDE ON THE STREET, I seethed. As I approached my Jeep I turned and looked back at the court-house. The three guards watched me from the double doors. And seven stories up, framed by a window, Moreland looked down on me with his hands on his hips. His face was impassive.

  I WAS THREE BLOCKS away from the court house when I saw an open parking space and took it. My hands were trembling from anger as I opened my phone, got the number for the Alfred A. Arraj U.S. Court house from information, and punched the numbers in.

  “Judge Moreland’s office,” a female receptionist said
.

  “This is Jim Doogan from the mayor’s office,” I said. “I need to talk with the judge.”

  “Just a moment.”

  In less than thirty seconds, I heard Moreland’s mellifluous voice. “Hi, Jim.”

  “Why won’t you talk to me?” I said.

  It took him a moment, then he chuckled. “Using a ruse to get me on the phone, Mr. McGuane? That’s not very sporting. Good bye, Mr. McGuane …”

  “Don’t hang up! You need to hear what I’m going to say.”

  He paused.

  “You’ve got three minutes,” he said. His voice was all business now. “I need to be in court.”

  “Your son needs to sign that release,” I said. “This can’t go on any longer. Enough people have been hurt on both sides.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Are you referring to having the police come to my house to question my son in regard to that murder? That was a really stupid, desperate play.” God, how could he sound so rational?

  “Garrett was involved,” I said. “I heard him.”

  “Oh come now. He was at home with Kellie and me.”

  “I heard his voice. I know it was him. And I know you know it.”

  “You think you know a lot, Mr. McGuane. Look, I need to be going.”

  “I lost my job today,” I said.

  “I’m sorry to hear that, but it’s no concern of mine.”

  “Actually, it is. It means I can fight you full-time.”

  He chuckled again.

  “Why is it your wife doesn’t know about Angelina?” I asked. “How can that be? What is your game?”

  “Kellie?” He sounded genuinely surprised. “Kellie knows all about our granddaughter. She’s been working for a month getting the baby’s room ready.”