Luis was on the verge of losing it completely. He hugged his son before the guards took him away and almost broke down.
“You’re going to be a free man soon,” Luis told him.
“It doesn’t matter, Pop,” Benny replied. “What matters is that you were here for me all the way.” He looked at Jack, who was standing next to Luis. “And I got a better defense than I deserved.”
The jury was out for two hours. Both sides interpreted that as an optimistic sign. “Members of the jury, have you reached a verdict?” the judge asked when they had filed back into the courtroom.
“Yes, we have,” the foreperson, a middle-aged woman, answered.
“Is it unanimous?”
“Yes it is, your honor.”
The foreperson handed the verdict to the bailiff, who handed it to the judge, who read it and passed it over to the clerk to publish.
“The defendant will rise,” Langford Middleton bellowed.
Benny stood up. Jack stood with him.
“Madam Clerk, publish the verdict.”
The clerk stood up and read the verdict. “We the jury find the defendant, Benny Avrile, not guilty.”
Benny immediately turned to his father. The two men held each other and let the tears fall. Jack just watched. It was all the thanks he needed. He was certain now that Rico was back and would take Benny under his wing and teach him finally how to navigate the field of life-how to carve out his own turf and protect it. Benny was going to be fine.
Jack looked to the back of the courtroom where Henry was standing. Henry gave him a thumbs-up. Jack returned his gesture with a smile. They had made the decision to fight this fight together. Nothing more needed to be said.
66
On Wednesday night, Jack met Molly at an Italian restaurant in the West Village. He was a little late, as usual, and Molly was waiting for him outside in the cold. She was dressed warmly in a knit cap and Navy peacoat over jeans and black boots. She looked good. She always looked good.
“My client’s father, Luis, recommended this place,” he told her as the maitre d’ seated them. “He said the food is great.”
The restaurant itself was not much to look at. It was small-maybe twenty tables. The walls were pale yellow and hung with painted landscapes of the Italian countryside. The place was clean, and each table had a white linen tablecloth.
“It’s very quaint,” Molly commented as she took off her peacoat, revealing a black wool turtleneck that accentuated her fine figure. About ten minutes later, Luis and Benny walked in.
Luis saw Jack and Molly and headed toward their table with Benny in tow. Jack saw him coming and started to stand.
“Don’t get up,” Luis told him. “We’re not staying. I left my credit card here the other night and I just came in to pick it up. We’ve got reservations elsewhere.”
Jack stayed seated. “Luis Melendez, I want you to meet Molly Anderson.”
Luis took Molly’s hand graciously. “Pleased to meet you,” he said.
“And that’s his son Benny behind him.” Benny did not come forward. He stayed behind his father and nodded to Molly. She remained seated and nodded back.
As they headed for the exit, Benny turned and gave Jack a thumbs-up. He was not smiling. Molly saw it and understood.
She had come to this dinner to break off the relationship in a natural way so there would be no lingering suspicion. Her excuse was going to be the geographical distance between them. She had planned a short speech, and she had wanted to make it before they ordered dinner. Her plan had been foiled, however, and she no longer needed to give an explanation. It was simply time to go.
“Jack, I just remembered there’s something I have to do. I’m sorry. It completely slipped my mind. I’ve got to go.”
It was Jack’s turn to understand. “You’re not even going to give me the chance to lay it out for you?” he asked.
Molly stood up. “I’m not going to sit in this restaurant after what just happened.”
“You don’t need to worry about Benny coming back or anything like that. Luis and I made sure that wouldn’t happen before we set this up. They’re gone.”
“Sorry, Jack, I can’t take your word on this one. If you want to, you can walk with me.”
Jack called the waiter over and handed him a fifty. “We have an emergency. We have to leave.”
“I understand, sir,” the waiter replied, bowing slightly.
Outside the restaurant, Molly sidled up close to him. “Don’t worry, Jack, I’m not going to molest you in public,” she said as she undid the middle buttons of his overcoat and ran her hands over his chest, then his stomach and his groin. She then bent down and checked his ankles and all the way up his legs. Jack didn’t move.
“I’m not wearing a wire,” he told her.
“I know,” she replied. “Now we can talk.” They started walking down the street again as if they were taking a moonlight stroll. “When did you find out?”
“I didn’t know for certain until tonight, when Benny gave me the thumbs-up. I had my suspicions before that. Every night during the trial when we met, you only asked me one question about what was going on, and then you went on to something else. Pat would have grilled me for hours.”
“I’m obviously not Pat.”
“I know, but it just seemed that if you were that interested in me, you would have been more interested in what I was doing. Then I thought about when we first met. I was on the front page of the New York papers on Sunday, and you conveniently walked into the Pelican diner on Monday morning and sat a stone’s throw away from me. By Wednesday, we were having an affair. That’s pretty quick work.”
“You’re jumping everywhere, Jack. I’m not following you.”
“You’re following me fine, Molly, or whatever your name is. We don’t need to pretend anymore. You used Angela Vincent; you used Benny; and you used me. Where was I? Oh, yes, after I went back and traced the steps of our relationship and realized it was a setup all along, I knew that you or somebody who worked with you was in court every day following this case as closely as the most conscientious reporter. All you really needed to know at the end of the day was how I perceived things. You knew I’d never tell you my strategy. So every night, you’d simply ask me how it was going.
“You had an idea Spencer’s case was going south on Thursday night. When I confirmed it, you decided to help the prosecution along with the anonymous tip about the gun.”
“Just being a good citizen,” Molly replied.
Jack couldn’t believe how calm she was. She probably had a gun in her pocket and could blow him away at any time.
“Not exactly, Molly. After the trial was over, Benny and I talked. On the night of the murder you gave him a revolver, which means that you had to switch guns at his place before calling the police. It also explains to me how the murder occurred. You had gotten close to Angela Vincent in order to find out about Carl’s habits so you could kill him. Benny just happened to fall into your lap. I figure you got the idea the night he stole Angela’s credit card. You knew Leonard Woods was going to be killed around the same time Carl was. If one of the murders looked like a robbery, nobody would ever connect the two. So you enticed Benny with the promise of a ten-thousand-dollar score, and then you pretended to trip and fall so that Benny had to take center stage. You gave him the revolver, told him it had a hair trigger and not to shoot under any circumstances, and then you filled his head with cocaine. When Carl got out of his car, you were across the street and you shot him right between the eyes. You even had Benny believing he was the murderer. It was almost perfect.”
“What do you mean ‘almost’? It was perfect.”
“Not any longer. Now Benny can tell his story. Angela can identify you, and there’s a bartender in the Village who Benny believes can finger you as well.”
“Finger me as to what, Jack? A woman who was with Benny and Angela and eventually you? And that gets you where? The state already has enough egg on i
ts face. It’s not going to prosecute me for anything, even if your theories had any merits.”
“You may be right.”
“I am right, Jack. Knowing you, if I wasn’t right the police would have picked me up already. You wouldn’t wait until after dinner to report what you know.”
Jack refused to acknowledge that she was right. He also refused to get angry at her attitude. He wanted some answers.
“At least Carl’s plan won’t be thwarted,” he told her.
“That’s where you’re wrong, Jack. In the year and a half since Carl’s death, all his gas stations have been purchased out of his estate, as have his factories and his trucks-so his grand plan is over even though the existence of a formula has been revealed.”
“How come you didn’t get rid of Milton?”
“We didn’t know about him. Besides, the existence of a formula means nothing without the financial backing, and Milton won’t get that. He won’t even try.”
“If the trial didn’t matter, why did you kill Sal?”
“It didn’t matter a year and a half later. Six months ago, everything wasn’t in place. And Sal made the mistake of finding out about Leonard Woods’s relationship with Carl and the close proximity in time between their deaths. He wasn’t able to put things together like you were-and I have to tell you, Jack, you did an incredible job against overwhelming odds-but Sal had to go. It gave us an additional six months.”
“You keep saying ‘we.’ Who do you work for?”
Molly looked at him and smiled. “You’ve already gotten more out of me than any man or woman alive. Now you want to know who I work for?”
“There’s no harm in asking.”
“Oh, yes, there is. If I gave you names I’d have to kill you right after I told you. Here’s the general answer: I work for the powers that be-the people who get things done in the world.”
“The government?”
Molly shook her head. “The people who run the government are like the officers of a corporation. I work for the owners.”
“You’re not going to tell me any more than that, are you?”
“No.”
They were at the corner. She stopped and looked at him, her hands in the pockets of her peacoat. Jack figured she had the gun in there. “Good-bye, Jack,” she said, knowing there would be no polite exchange of kisses.
“You know, you’re really good at your job, Molly. There were times there that I thought we had something going on between us.”
“We did, Jack, we did. If we hadn’t, you wouldn’t be standing here.”
She turned and walked away.
EPILOGUE
A month after Benny’s trial, Jack was back in New York for a visit. He met Frankie O’Connor for breakfast at Pete’s. Frankie brought along a friend, Nick Walsh. The two men shook hands. Throughout the entire investigation and Benny’s trial, Jack had never spoken with Nick Walsh except on the witness stand.
“I asked Nick to join us for breakfast, Jack. He wanted to personally pass along the results of the information you provided to us.”
Jack had given Frankie Molly’s telephone number, hoping it would be useful to the police in some way. Apparently, Frankie had turned the information over to Nick.
“She obviously ditched the phone when the trial was over,” Nick began. “However, I was able to persuade her phone company to give me the last month’s billing records. They were very interesting.”
“Who was talking to her?” Jack asked.
“One of my personal favorites,” Nick replied. “And as I understand it, one of yours as well-a little peacock named Spencer Taylor.”
“I’ll be a son-of-a-bitch,” Jack replied. “He was in on it all the time.”
“I don’t get a hard-on for too many people,” Nick added. “But I’m going to love watching this guy go down.”
“Do you have anything specific on him yet?” Jack asked.
“Not yet,” Nick said. “I’ve just been watching him. There was, for sure, a boatload of money involved in a deal like this, and sooner or later I know he’ll be spending it.”
“That could take a long time,” Jack replied.
Nick just smiled. “Yeah, it could. However, Taylor just booked a flight to the Caymans. I strongly suspect he wants to see his money and count it. I’ll be there when he does.” Jack looked at Frankie, who was smiling as well.
“That’s beautiful,” he said.
“Once we catch him, he’ll start squealing like a pig,” Nick continued. “We won’t ever get to the people on top, but maybe we can cut a few legs off and make them think twice the next time.”
“It’s a constant battle,” Frankie added.
Back in Bass Creek later that same week, Jack lifted his head from the pillow and glanced at the clock on the night-stand next to his bed. It was 5:35 a.m. He rested his head back down for a moment and took a deep breath before swinging his legs over the side and sitting up. Ten minutes later, he was out the front door, dressed only in running shorts and a T-shirt.
This was his time now, the early morning when nothing stirred except the night owl and the crickets, and the moon and the stars were on center stage. He followed his and Pat’s familiar path into the woods, armed with his flashlight. Five minutes into his run in the deepest foliage, as a possum ran across his path and almost sent him reeling, he heard her voice in his head: Keep that flashlight up so you can see where you’re going. He smiled to himself. Maybe it was an illusion. Maybe he was just plain crazy. It didn’t matter, though, because it was his own personal craziness, a warm feeling in his heart that he didn’t share with anybody. Nor was he troubled that she had seen him with Molly. In all probability there would be others. Pat was above that now-a spirit devoid of human frailties, unburdened by time and space-free at last.
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