The Final Detail

by Harlan Coben

  "What?"

  "My attorney is meeting with the DA as we speak. Anonymously, of course. They won't know whom he represents."

  "I don't understand."

  "I kept evidence that night," she said. "I took pictures of the body. They'll test Clu's hand for powder residue. I even have a suicide note, if need be. The charges against Esperanza will be dropped. She'll be released in the morning. It's over."

  "The DA isn't going to settle for that. He's going to want to know the whole story."

  "Life is full of wants, Myron. But the DA won't get it in this case. He'll just have to live with that reality. And in the end it's just a suicide anyway. High profile or not, it won't be a priority." She reached into her pocket and took out a piece of paper. "Here," she said. "It's Clu's suicide note."

  Myron hesitated. He took the note, immediately recognizing Clu's handwriting. He started reading:

  Dear Mrs. Mayor,

  The torment has gone on long enough. I know you won't accept my apology and I can't say that I blame you. But I also don't have the strength to face you. I've been running away from that night all my life. I hurt my family and my friends, but I hurt nobody so much as I hurt you. I hope my death gives you some measure of comfort.

  I am the one to blame for what happened. Billy Lee Palms just did what I told him to. The same goes for Myron Bolitar. I paid off the police. Myron just delivered the money. He never knew the truth. My wife was knocked out in the accident. She also never knew the truth and she still doesn't.

  The money is all here. Do with it what you will. Tell Bonnie that I'm sorry and that I understand everything. And let my children know that their father always loved them. They were the only thing pure and good in my life. You, of all people, should understand that.

  Clu Haid

  Myron read the note again. He pictured Clu writing it, then putting it aside, then picking up the gun and pressing it against his head. Did he close his eyes then? Did he think of his children, the two boys with his smile, before he pulled the trigger? Did he hesitate at all?

  His eyes stayed on the note. "You didn't believe him," he said.

  "About the culpability of the others? No. I knew he was lying. You, for example. You were more than a delivery boy. You bribed those officers."

  "Clu lied to protect us," Myron said. "In the end he sacrificed himself for those he loved."

  Sophie frowned. "Don't make him out to be a martyr."

  "I'm not. But you just can't walk away from what you did."

  "I did nothing."

  "You made a man--the father of two boys--kill himself."

  "He made a choice, that's all."

  "He didn't deserve that."

  "And my daughter didn't deserve to be murdered and buried in an anonymous pit," she said.

  Myron looked up into the stadium lights, letting them blind him a bit.

  "Clu was off drugs," he said. "You'll pay the rest of his salary."

  "No."

  "You'll also let the world know--and his children--that in the end Clu wasn't on drugs."

  "No," Sophie said again. "The world won't know that. And they also won't know Clu was a murderer. I'd say that's a pretty good bargain, wouldn't you?"

  He read the note again, tears stinging his eyes.

  "One heroic moment in the end doesn't redeem him," Sophie said.

  "But it says something."

  "Go home, Myron. And be glad it's over. If the truth were ever to come out, there is only one guilty party left to take the fall."

  Myron nodded. "Me."

  "Yes."

  They stared at each other.

  "I didn't know about your daughter," he said.

  "I know that now."

  "You thought I helped Clu cover it up."

  "No, I know you helped Clu cover it up. What I wasn't sure about is if you knew what you were doing. It was why I asked you to look for Lucy--so I could see how deep your involvement was."

  "The void," Myron said.

  "What about it?"

  "Did this help fill it?"

  Sophie thought about it. "Strangely enough, the answer is yes, I think. It doesn't bring Lucy back. But I feel as though she's been properly buried now. I think we can begin to heal."

  "So we all just go on?"

  Sophie smiled. "What else can we do?"

  She nodded to Jared. Jared took his mother's hand, and they started back for the dugout.

  "I am very sorry," Myron said.

  Sophie stopped. She dropped her son's hand and studied Myron for a moment, her eyes moving over his face. "You committed a felony by bribing those police officers. You put my family and me through years of agony. You probably contributed to my husband's premature death. You had a hand in the deaths of Clu Haid and Billy Lee Palms. And in the end you made me commit horrible acts I always thought I was incapable of committing." She stepped back toward her son, her gaze more tired now than accusatory. "I won't hurt you any further. But if you don't mind, I'll let you keep your apology."

  She gave Myron a moment for rebuttal. He didn't use it. They strode down the steps and disappeared, leaving Myron alone with the grass and the dirt and the bright stadium lights.

  CHAPTER

  39

  In the lot Win frowned and holstered his .44. "No one even pulled a gun."

  Myron said nothing. He got into his car. Win got into his. Myron's cellular phone rang before he had driven five minutes. It was Hester Crimstein.

  "They're dropping the charges," she said to him. "Esperanza will be out tomorrow morning. They're offering up a full exoneration and apology if we promise not to sue."

  "Will you accept that?"

  "It's up to Esperanza. But I think she'll agree."

  Myron drove to Bonnie's house. Her mother opened the door and looked angry. Myron pushed past her and found Bonnie alone. He showed her the note. She cried. He held her. He looked in on the two sleeping boys and stayed in the doorway until Bonnie's mother tapped him on the shoulder and asked him to leave. He did.

  He headed back to Win's apartment. When he opened the door, Terese's suitcase was by the entrance. She stepped into the foyer.

  "You're packed," Myron said.

  She smiled. "I love a man who misses nothing."

  He waited.

  "I'm leaving in an hour for Atlanta," she said.

  "Oh."

  "I spoke to my boss at CNN. Ratings have been down. He wants me back on the air tomorrow."

  "Oh," Myron said again.

  Terese pulled at a ring on her finger. "You ever try a long-distance relationship?" she asked.

  "No."

  "Might be worth a try."

  "Might be," he said.

  "I hear the sex is great."

  "That's never been our trouble, Terese."

  "No," she said. "It hasn't."

  He checked his watch. "Only an hour, you said?"

  She smiled. "Actually, an hour and ten minutes."

  "Whew," he said, moving closer.

  At midnight Myron and Win were in the living room watching television.

  "You'll miss her," Win said.

  "I'm flying down to Atlanta this weekend."

  Win nodded. "Best-case scenario."

  "Meaning?"

  "Meaning you are the pitiful, needy type who feels incomplete without a steady girlfriend. Who better than a career woman who lives a thousand miles away?"

  More silence. They watched a repeat of Frasier on Channel 11. The show was starting to grow on them both.

  "An agent represents his clients," Win said during a commercial. "You're his advocate. You can't worry about the repercussions."

  "You really believe that?"

  "Sure, why not?"

  Myron shrugged. "Yeah, why not?" He watched another commercial. "Esperanza said I'm starting to get too comfortable with breaking the rules."

  Win said nothing.

  "Truth is," Myron said, "I've been doing it for a while. I paid off police officers to cover
up a crime."

  "You didn't know the severity."

  "Does that matter?"

  "Of course it does."

  Myron shook his head. "We trample on that damned foul line until we can't see it anymore," he said softly.

  "What are you talking about?"

  "I'm talking about us. Sophie Mayor said that you and I do the same thing she did. We take the law into our own hands. We break the rules."

  "So?"

  "So it's not right."

  Win frowned. "Oh, please."

  "The innocent get hurt."

  "The police hurt the innocent too."

  "Not like this. Esperanza suffered when she had nothing to do with any of this. Clu deserved to be punished, but what happened to Lucy Mayor was still an accident."

  Win drummed his chin with two fingers. "If we put aside an argument on the relative severity of drunk driving," he said, "in the end it was not merely an accident. Clu chose to bury the body. The fact that he couldn't live with it doesn't excuse it."

  "We can't keep doing this, Win."

  "Keep doing what?"

  "Breaking the rules."

  "Let me pose a question to you, Myron." Win continued his chin drumming. "Suppose you were Sophie Mayor and Lucy Mayor were your daughter. What would you have done?"

  "Maybe the same thing," Myron said. "Does that make it right?"

  "Depends," Win said.

  "On?"

  "On the Clu Haid factor: Can you live with yourself?"

  "That's it?"

  "That's it. Can you live with yourself? I know that I could."

  "And you're comfortable with that?"

  "With what?"

  "With a world where people take the law into their own hands," Myron said.

  "Good lord, no. I'm not prescribing this remedy for others."

  "Just you."

  Win shrugged. "I trust my judgment. I'd trust yours too. But now you want to go back in time and take an alternate route. Life is not like that. You made a decision. It was a good one based on what you knew. A tough call, but aren't they all? It could have worked out the other way. Clu might have smartened up from the experience, become a better person. My point is, you can't concern yourself with distant, impossible-to-see consequences."

  "Just worry about the here and now."

  "Precisely."

  "And what you can live with."

  "Yes.

  "So maybe next time," Myron said, "I should opt for doing the right thing."

  Win shook his head. "You're confusing the right thing with the legal or seemingly moral thing. But that's not the real world. Sometimes the good guys break the rules because they know better."

  Myron smiled. "They cross the foul line. Just for a second. Just to do good. Then they scramble back into fair territory. But when you do that too often, you start smearing the line."

  "Perhaps the line is supposed to be smeared," Win said.

  "Perhaps."

  "On balance, you and I do good."

  "That balance might be better if we didn't stray across the line so much--even if that meant letting a few more injustices remain injustices."

  Win shrugged. "Your call."

  Myron sat back. "You know what's bothering me the most about this conversation?"

  "What's that?"

  "That I don't think it'll change anything. That I think you're probably right."

  "But you're not sure," Win said.

  "No, I'm not sure."

  "And you still don't like it."

  "I definitely don't like it," Myron said.

  Win nodded. "That's all I wanted to hear."

  CHAPTER

  40

  Big Cyndi was totally in orange. An orange sweatshirt. Orange parachute pants like something stolen from MC Hammer's 1989 closet. Dyed orange hair. Orange fingernail polish. Orange--don't ask how--skin. She looked like a mutant teenage carrot.

  "Orange is Esperanza's favorite color," she told Myron.

  "No, it's not."

  "It's not?"

  Myron shook his head. "Blue is." For a moment, he pictured a giant Smurf.

  Big Cyndi mulled that one over. "Orange is her second favorite color?"

  "Sure, I guess."

  Satisfied, Big Cyndi smiled and strung up a sign across the reception area that read WELCOME BACK, ESPERANZA!

  Myron moved into his inner office. He made some calls, managed to do a little work, kept listening for the elevator.

  Finally, the elevator dinged at 10:00 A.M. The doors slid open. Myron stayed put. He heard Big Cyndi's squeal of delight; the floors below them almost evacuated at the sound. He felt the vibrations of Big Cyndi leaping to her feet. Myron stood now and still waited. He heard cries and sighs and reassurances.

  Two minutes later Esperanza entered Myron's office. She didn't knock. As always.

  Their hug was a little awkward. Myron backed off, shoved his hands in his pockets. "Welcome back."

  Esperanza tried a smile. "Thanks."

  Silence.

  "You knew about my personal involvement the whole time, didn't you?"

  Esperanza said nothing.

  "That's the part I could never resolve," Myron said.

  "Myron, don't--"

  "You're my best friend," he continued. "You know I'd do anything for you. So I couldn't for the life of me figure out why you wouldn't talk to me. It made no sense. At first I thought you were angry at me for disappearing. But that isn't like you. Then I thought you had an affair with Clu and you didn't want me to know. But that was wrong. Then I thought it was because you had an affair with Bonnie--"

  "Showing very poor judgment," Esperanza added.

  "Yes. But I'm hardly in a position to lecture you. And you wouldn't be afraid to tell me about it. Especially with the stakes so high. So I kept wondering, What could be so bad that you wouldn't talk to me? Win thought that the only explanation was that you did indeed kill Clu."

  "That Win," Esperanza said. "Always the sunny side."

  "But even that wouldn't do it. I'd still stick by you. You knew that. There is only one reason you wouldn't tell me the truth--"

  Esperanza sighed. "I need a shower."

  "You were protecting me."

  She looked at him. "Don't get all mushy on me, okay? I hate when you do that."

  "Bonnie told you about the car accident. About my bribing the cops."

  "Pillow talk," Esperanza said with a shrug.

  "And once you were arrested, you made her swear to keep her mouth shut. Not for your sake or hers. But for mine. You knew that if the bribes ever became public, I'd be ruined. I'd committed a serious felony. I'd be disbarred or worse. And you knew that if I ever found out, you wouldn't be able to stop me from telling the DA because it would've been enough to get you off."

  Esperanza put her hands on her hips. "Is there a point to this, Myron?"

  "Thank you," he said.

  "Nothing to thank me for. You were too weak coming off Brenda. I was afraid you'd do something stupid. You have that habit."

  He hugged her again. She hugged him back. Nothing felt awkward this time. When they broke the embrace, he stepped back. "Thank you."

  "Stop saying that."

  "You are my best friend."

  "And I did it for my sake too, Myron. For the business. My business."

  "I know."

  "So do we still have any clients left?" she asked.

  "A few."

  "Maybe we better get on the horn then."

  "Maybe," he said. "I love you, Esperanza."

  "Shut up before I puke my guts out."

  "And you love me."

  "If you start singing 'Barney,' I'll kill you. I've already done prison time. I'm not afraid to do more."

  Big Cyndi stuck her head in. She was smiling. With the orange skin, she looked like the most frightening jack-o'-lantern imaginable. "Marty Towey on line two."

  "I'll take it," Esperanza said.

  "And I have Enos Cabral on line three."
/>   "Mine," said Myron.

  At the end of a wonderfully long workday Win came into the office. "I spoke to Esperanza," he said. "We're all doing pizza and old CBS Sunday at my place."

  "I can't."

  Win arched an eyebrow. "All in the Family, M*A*S*H, Mary Tyler Moore, Bob Newhart, Carol Burnett?"

  "Sorry."

  "The Sammy Davis episode of All in the Family?"

  "Not tonight, Win."

  Win looked concerned. "I know you want to punish yourself," he said, "but this is taking self-flagellation too far."

  Myron smiled. "It's not that."

  "Don't tell me you want to be alone. You never want to be alone."

  "Sorry, I got other plans," Myron said.

  Win arched the eyebrow, turned, left without another word.

  Myron picked up the phone. He dialed the familiar number. "I'm on my way," he said.

  "Good," Mom said. "I already called Fong's. I got two orders of shrimp with lobster sauce."

  "Mom?"

  "What?"

  "I really don't like their shrimp in lobster sauce anymore."

  "What? You've always loved it. It's your favorite."

  "Not since I was fourteen."

  "So how come you never told me?"

  "I have. Several times."

  "And what, you expect me to remember every little thing? So what are you trying to tell me, Myron, your taste buds are too mature for Fong's shrimp with lobster sauce now? Who do you think you are, the Galloping Gourmet or something?"

  Myron heard his father yell in the background. "Stop bothering the boy."

  "Who's bothering him? Myron, am I bothering you?"

  "And tell him to hurry," Dad shouted. "The game's almost on."

  "Big deal, Al. He doesn't care."

  Myron said, "Tell Dad I'm on my way."

  "Drive slowly, Myron. There's no rush. The game will wait."

  "Okay, Mom."

  "Wear a seat belt."

  "Sure thing."

  "And your father has a surprise for you."

  "Ellen!" It was Dad again.

  "What's the big deal, Al?"

  "I wanted to tell him--"

  "Oh stop being silly, Al. Myron?"

  "Yeah, Mom?"

  "Your father bought tickets to a Mets game. For Sunday. Just the two of you."

  Myron swallowed, said nothing.

  "They're playing the Tunas," Mom said.

  "The Marlins!" Dad shouted.

  "Tunas, marlins--what's the difference? You going to be a marine biologist now, Al? Is that what you're going to do with your leisure time, study fish?"

  Myron smiled.

  "Myron, you there?"

  "I'm on my way, Mom."

  He hung up. He slapped his thighs and stood. He said good night to Esperanza and Big Cyndi. He stepped into the elevator and managed a smile. Friends and lovers were great, he thought, but sometimes a boy just wanted his mom and dad.