The Final Detail

by Harlan Coben

  "And neither did Clu."

  "That's right."

  "But eventually you learned the truth."

  "Eventually," she said.

  "Whoa," Hester Crimstein said. "I'm not following any of this. What does an old traffic accident have to do with Clu's murder?"

  "Everything," Myron said.

  "You better explain, Myron. And while you're at it, why did Esperanza get framed for it?"

  "That was a mistake."

  "What?"

  "Esperanza wasn't the one they intended to frame," Myron said. "I was."

  CHAPTER

  38

  Yankee Stadium hunched over in the night, crouching shoulders low as though trying to escape the glow from its own lights. Myron parked in Lot 14, where the executives and players parked. There were only three other cars there. The night guard at the press entrance said he was expected, that the Mayors would meet him on the field. Myron moved down the lower tier and hopped the wall near the batter's box. The stadium lights were on, but nobody was there. He stood alone on the field and took a deep breath. Even in the Bronx nothing smelled like a baseball diamond. He turned toward the visitor's dugout, scanning the lower boxes and finding the exact seats he and his brother had sat in all those years ago. Funny what you remember. He walked toward the pitcher's mound, the grass making a gentle whooshing sound, and sat down on the rubber and waited. Clu's home. The one place he'd always felt at peace.

  Should have buried him here, Myron thought. Under a pitcher's mound.

  He stared up into the thousands of seats, empty like the shattered eyes of the dead, the vacant stadium merely a body now without a soul. The whites of the foul lines were muddied, nearly dirt-toned now. They'd be put down anew tomorrow before game time.

  People say that baseball is a metaphor for life. Myron did not know about that, but staring down the foul line, he wondered. The line between good and evil is not so different from the foul line on a baseball field. It's often made of stuff as flimsy as lime. It tends to fade over time. It needs to be constantly redrawn. And if enough players trample on it, the line becomes smeared and blurred to the point where fair is foul and foul is fair, where good and evil become indistinguishable from each other.

  Jared Mayor's voice broke the stillness. "You said you found my sister."

  Myron squinted toward the dugout. "I lied," he said.

  Jared stepped up the cement stairs. Sophie followed. Myron rose to his feet. Jared started to say something more, but his mother put her hand on his arm. They kept walking as though they were coaches coming out to talk to the relief pitcher.

  "Your sister is dead," Myron said. "But you both know that."

  They kept walking.

  "She was killed in a drunk driving accident," he went on. "She died on impact."

  "Maybe," Sophie said.

  Myron looked confused. "Maybe?"

  "Maybe she died on impact, maybe she didn't," Sophie continued. "Clu Haid and Billy Lee Palms weren't doctors. They were dumb, drunk jocks. Lucy might have just been injured. She may have been alive. A doctor might have been able to save her."

  Myron nodded. "I guess that's possible."

  "Go on," Sophie said. "I want to hear what you have to say."

  "Whatever your daughter's condition actually was, Clu and Billy Lee believed that she was dead. Clu was terrified. Drunk driving charges would be serious enough, but this was vehicular homicide. You don't walk away from that, no matter how far your curveball breaks. He and Billy Lee panicked. I don't know the details here. Sawyer Wells can tell us. My guess is that they hid the body. It was a quiet road, but there still wouldn't be enough time to bury Lucy before the police and ambulance arrived. So they probably stashed her in the brush. And when it all calmed down, they came back and buried her. Like I said, I don't know the details. I don't think they're particularly relevant. What is relevant is that Clu and Billy Lee got rid of the body."

  Jared stepped into Myron's face. "You can't prove any of this."

  Myron ignored him, keeping his eyes on Jared's mother. "The years pass. Lucy is gone. But not in the minds of Clu Haid and Billy Lee Palms. Maybe I'm overanalyzing. Maybe I'm being too easy on them. But I think what they did that night defined the rest of their lives. Their self-destructive tendencies. The drugs--"

  "You're being too easy," Sophie said.

  Myron waited.

  "Don't give them credit for having consciences," she continued. "They were worthless scum."

  "Maybe you're right. I shouldn't analyze. And I guess it doesn't matter. Clu and Billy Lee may have created their own hell, but it wasn't close to the agony your family experienced. You told me about the awful torment of not knowing the truth, how it lives with you every day. With Lucy dead and buried like that, the torment just went on."

  Sophie's head was still high. There was no flinch in her. "Do you know how we finally learned our daughter's fate?"

  "From Sawyer Wells," Myron said. "The Wells Rules of Wellness, Rule Eight: 'Confess something about yourself to a friend--something awful, something you'd never want anyone to know. You'll feel better. You'll still see that you're worthy of love.' Sawyer was a drug counselor at Rockwell. Billy Lee was a patient there. My guess is that he caught him during a withdrawal episode. When he was delirious probably. He did what his therapist asked. Rule eight. He confessed the worst thing he could imagine, the one moment in his life that shaped all others. Sawyer suddenly saw his ticket out of Rockwell and into the spotlight. Through the wealthy Mayor family, owners of Mayor Software. So he went to you and your husband. And he told you what he'd heard."

  Again Jared said, "You have no proof of any of this!"

  And again Sophie silenced him with her hand. "Go on, Myron," she said. "What happened then?"

  "With this new information, you found your daughter's body. I don't know if your private investigators did it or if you just used your money and influence to keep the authorities quiet. It wouldn't have been difficult for someone in your position."

  "I see," Sophie said. "But if all that's true, why would I want to keep it quiet? Why not prosecute Clu and Billy Lee--and even you?"

  "Because you couldn't," Myron said.

  "Why not?"

  "The corpse had been buried for twelve years. There was no evidence there. The car was long gone--no evidence there either. The police report listed a Breathalyzer test that showed Clu was not drunk. So what did you have: the ranting of a drug addict going through withdrawal? Billy Lee's confession to Sawyer Wells would probably be suppressed, and even if it wasn't, so what? His testimony about the police payoffs was complete hearsay since he wasn't even there when it happened. You realized all that, didn't you?"

  She said nothing.

  "And that meant justice was up to you, Sophie. You and Gary would have to avenge your daughter." He stopped, looked at Jared, then back at Sophie. "You told me about a void. You said that you preferred to fill that void with hope."

  Sophie nodded. "I did."

  "And when the hope was gone--when the discovery of your daughter's body sucked it all away--you and your husband still needed to fill that void."

  "Yes."

  "So you filled it with revenge."

  She fixed her gaze on his. "Do you blame us, Myron?"

  He said nothing.

  "The crooked sheriff was dying of cancer," Sophie said. "There was nothing to be done about him. The other officer, well, as your friend Win could tell you, money is influence. The Federal Bureau of Investigation set him up at our behest. He took the bait. And yes, I shattered his life. Gladly."

  "But Clu was the one you wanted to hurt most," Myron said.

  "Hurt nothing. I wanted to crush him."

  "But he too was fairly broken down," Myron said. "In order to really crush him, you had to give him hope. Just like you and Gary had all these years. Give him hope, then snatch it away. Hope hurts like nothing else. You knew that. So you and your husband bought the Yankees. You overpaid, but so what? You had
the money. You didn't care. Gary died soon after the transaction."

  "From heartache," Sophie interrupted. She raised her head, and for the first time he saw a tear. "From years of heartache."

  "But you carried on without him."

  "Yes."

  "You concentrated on one thing and one thing only: getting Clu in your grasp. It was a silly trade--everyone thought so--and it was strange coming from an owner who kept out of every other baseball decision. But it was all about getting Clu on the team. That's the only reason you bought the Yankees. To give Clu a last chance. And even better, Clu cooperated. He started straightening out his life. He was clean and sober. He was pitching well. He was as happy as Clu Haid was ever going to get. You had him in the palm of your hand.

  "And then you closed your fist."

  Jared put his arm around her shoulders and pressed her close.

  "I don't know the order," Myron went on. "You sent Clu a computer diskette like you sent me. Bonnie told me that. She also told me that you blackmailed him. Anonymously. That explains the missing two hundred thousand dollars. You made him live in terror. And Bonnie even inadvertently helped you by filing for divorce. Now Clu was in the perfect position for your coup de grace: the drug test. You fixed it so he would fail. Sawyer helped. Who better, since he already knew what was going on? It worked beautifully. Not only did it destroy Clu, but it also diverted any attention from you. Who would ever suspect you, especially since the test seemingly hurt you too? But you didn't care about any of that. The Yankees meant nothing to you except as a vehicle to destroy Clu Haid."

  "So true," Sophie said.

  "Don't," Jared said.

  She shook her head and patted her son's arm. "It's okay."

  "Clu had no idea the girl he buried in the woods was your daughter. But after you bombarded him with the calls and the diskette and especially after he failed the drug test, he put it together. But what could he do about it? He certainly couldn't say the drug test was fixed because he'd killed Lucy Mayor. He was trapped. He tried to figure out how you'd learned the truth. He thought maybe it was Barbara Cromwell."

  "Who?"

  "Barbara Cromwell. She's Sheriff Lemmon's daughter."

  "How did she know?"

  "Because as quiet as you tried to keep the investigation, Wilston is a small town. The sheriff was tipped off about the discovery. He was dying. He had no money. His family was poor. So he told his daughter about what had really happened that night. She could never get in trouble for it--it was his crime, not hers. And they could use the information to blackmail Clu Haid. Which they did. On several occasions. Clu figured Barbara had been the one who opened her mouth. When he called her to find out if she'd told anyone, Barbara played coy. She demanded more money. So Clu drove up to Wilston a few days later. He refused to pay her. He said it was over."

  Sophie nodded. "So that's how you put it together."

  "It was the final piece, yes," Myron said. "When I realized that Clu had visited Lemmon's daughter, it all fell into place. But I'm still surprised, Sophie."

  "Surprised about what?"

  "That you killed him. That you let Clu out of his misery."

  Jared's arm dropped off his mother. "What are you talking about?" he said.

  "Let him speak," Sophie said. "Go on, Myron."

  "What more is there?"

  "For starters," she said, "how about your part in all this?"

  A lead block formed in his chest. He said nothing.

  "You're not going to claim that you were blameless in all this, are you, Myron?"

  His voice was soft. "No."

  In the distance, out beyond center field, a janitor started cleaning off the memorials to the Yankees' greats. He sprayed and wiped, working, Myron knew from past stadium visits, on Lou Gehrig's stone. The Iron Horse. Such bravery in the face of so awful a death.

  "You've done this too, haven't you?" Sophie said.

  Myron kept his eyes on the janitor. "Done what?" But he knew.

  "I've looked into your past," she said. "You and your business associate often take the law into your own hands, am I right? You play judge and jury."

  Myron said nothing.

  "That's all I did. For the sake of my daughter's memory."

  The blurry line between fair and foul again. "So you decided to frame me for Clu's murder."

  "Yes."

  "The perfect way to wreak vengeance on me for bribing the officers."

  "I thought so at the time."

  "But you messed up, Sophie. You ended up framing the wrong person."

  "That was an accident."

  Myron shook his head. "I should have seen it," he said. "Even Billy Lee Palms said it, but I didn't pay attention. And Hester Crimstein said it to me the first time I met her."

  "Said what?"

  "They both pointed out that the blood was found in my car, the gun in my office. Maybe I killed Clu, they said. A logical deduction except for one thing. I was out of the country. You didn't know that, Sophie. You didn't know that Esperanza and Big Cyndi were playing a shell game with everybody, pretending I was still around. That's why you were so upset with me when you found out I'd been away. I messed up your plan. You also didn't know that Clu had an altercation with Esperanza. So all the evidence that was supposed to point to me--"

  "Pointed instead to your associate, Miss Diaz," Sophie said.

  "Exactly," Myron said. "But there's one other thing I want to clear up."

  "More than one thing," Sophie corrected.

  "What?"

  "There's more than one thing you'll want to clear up," Sophie said. "But please go ahead. What would you like to know?"

  "You were the one who had me followed," he said. "The guy I spotted outside the Lock-Horne building. He was yours."

  "Yes. I knew Clu had tried to hook up with you. I hoped the same might happen with Billy Lee Palms."

  "Which it did. Billy Lee thought that maybe I killed Clu to keep my part in the crime buried. He thought I wanted to kill him too."

  "It makes sense," she agreed. "You had a lot to lose."

  "So you were following me then? At the bar?"

  "Yes."

  "Personally?"

  She smiled. "I grew up a hunter and a tracker, Myron. The city or the woods, it makes little difference."

  "You saved my life," he said.

  She did not reply.

  "Why?"

  "You know why. I didn't come there to kill Billy Lee Palms. But there are degrees of guilt. Simply put, he was more guilty than you. When it came down to a question of you or him, I chose to kill him. You deserve to be punished, Myron. But you didn't deserve to be killed by scum like Billy Lee Palms."

  "Judge and jury again?"

  "Luckily for you, Myron, yes."

  He sat down hard on the pitcher's mound, his whole body suddenly drained. "I can't just let you get away with this," he said. "I may sympathize. But you killed Clu Haid in cold blood."

  "No."

  "What?"

  "I didn't kill Clu Haid."

  "I don't expect you to confess."

  "Expect or don't expect. I didn't kill him."

  Myron frowned. "You had to. It all adds up."

  Her eyes remained placid pools. Myron's head started spinning. He turned and looked up at Jared.

  "He didn't kill him either," Sophie said.

  "One of you did," Myron said.

  "No."

  Myron looked at Jared. Jared said nothing. Myron opened his mouth, closed it, tried to come up with something.

  "Think, Myron." Sophie crossed her arms and smiled at him. "I told you my philosophy when you were last here. I'm a hunter. I don't hate what I kill. Just the opposite. I respect what I kill. I honor my kill. I consider the animal brave and noble. Killing, in fact, can be merciful. That's why I kill with one shot. Not Billy Lee Palms, of course. I wanted him to have at least a few moments of agony and fear. And of course, I would never show Clu Haid mercy."

  Myron tried to sort
through it. "But--"

  And then he heard yet another click. His conversation with Sally Li started uncoiling in his head.

  The crime scene ...

  Christ, the crime scene. It was in such a state of disarray. Blood on the walls. Blood on the floor. Because blood splatters would show the truth. So splatter some more. Destroy the evidence. Fire more shots into the corpse. To the calf, to the back, even to the head. Take the gun with you. Mess things up. Cover up what really happened.

  "Oh God ..."

  Sophie nodded at him.

  Myron's mouth felt dry as a sandstorm. "Clu committed suicide?"

  Sophie tried a smile, but she just couldn't quite make it.

  Myron started to stand, his bad knee audibly creaking as he rose. "The end of his marriage, the failed drug test, but mostly the past coming back at him--it was all too much. He shot himself in the head. The other shots were just to throw the police off. The crime scene was messed up so no one would be able to analyze the blood splatters and see it was a suicide. It was all a diversion."

  "A coward to the end," Sophie said.

  "But how did you know he killed himself? Did you have his place bugged or under surveillance?"

  "Nothing so technical, Myron. He wanted us to find him--me specifically."

  Myron just stared at her.

  "We were supposed to have our big confrontation that night. Yes, Clu had hit rock bottom, Myron. But I was not through with him. Not by a long shot. An animal deserved a quick kill. Not Clu Haid. But when Jared and I arrived, he'd already taken the gutless way out."

  "And the money?"

  "It was there. As you noted, the anonymous stranger who sent him the diskette and made all those phone calls was blackmailing him. But he knew it was us. I took the money that night and donated it to the Child Welfare Institute."

  "You caused him to kill himself."

  She shook her head, her posture still ramrod. "Nobody causes someone to kill himself. Clu Haid chose his fate. It was not what I intended but--"

  "Intended? He's dead, Sophie."

  "Yes, but it was not what I intended. Just as you, Myron, did not intend to cover up my daughter's murder."

  Silence.

  "You took advantage of his death," Myron said. "You planted the blood and gun in my car and office. Or you hired someone to do it."

  "Yes."

  He shook his head. "The truth has to come out," he said.

  "No."

  "I'm not letting Esperanza rot in jail--"

  "It's done," Sophie Mayor said.