Hunt nodded. “I’ve been having some issues with it myself.”
“So were we both just blind?”
“I don’t know. I suppose so. Although, how were we going to know? What did he show us that could have tipped us off?”
“I don’t know. But I keep thinking I should have known. I should have seen something. I mean, I knew he was confused, and he had his bad moments, but he was almost always nice to me. To everyone, really.”
“You never threatened him. Thank God.”
She let out another deep sigh. “So he really did do it? I mean Vogler and Preslee.”
“I don’t think there’s any doubt about that, Tam.”
Turning away from him, she looked out the window at the churning bay and, at the farthest extent of vision, the spectral shape of Alcatraz, the old deserted prison with its decrepit buildings. “I really don’t know what I’m going to do, Wyatt. About work, I mean.”
“How about if you don’t have to decide for a while?”
“Even still. I don’t know. It’s like the world is all different. Maybe I should be in a different field, around different people.”
“Maybe you should.”
“You wouldn’t hate me?”
He put his hand over hers. “There’s nothing you could do that could make me hate you, Tam. You’ve got to know that.”
She turned back to him and tried to smile. “I don’t feel like I know anything anymore, Wyatt. I feel like he stole my innocence or something. I just keep waiting for a break in these clouds, but I’m not sure there’s going to be one.”
“Except that there always has been before.”
“No,” she said. “The clouds have never before been this thick. And I really hate him for that.”
Hunt patted her hand. “Time,” he said.
She attempted another wan smile. “God, I hope so.”
On the third Friday after the last day of Maya’s trial, the phone buzzed at Hardy’s elbow in his office, and he punched the button to speak to Phyllis. “Yo.” Taking a moment’s immature pleasure from his receptionist’s exasperated sigh—senior attorneys do not answer the phone informally, since that causes a disruption in the force—he checked that it was indeed four-thirty and again stole Phyllis’s thunder when he added, “Send the Townshends right in.”
It was both of them, holding hands, Maya looking so radiant and lovely that he might have passed her on the street and not recognized her. Her hair and her cheeks glowed. She’d lost the weight she’d gained on the jail food, as well as the cellblock pallor. Joel, for his part, wore a sense of comfort, a confidence, and an easy smile that Hardy hadn’t noticed before.
Not that there’d been much to smile about over the past six or seven months, but something in the couple’s body language toward each other spoke of a renewed connection, an ease, a true rapport. No longer rich, successful husband and subservient, stay-at-home wife, but true partners now. A lot to grab from a first impression, but Hardy decided to believe it was true.
The occasion—final payment for his legal services—could have been handled by a check in the mail, but they’d wanted to come down and deliver it in person, and he was grateful for the opportunity to see them again, in this setting, with their ordeal behind them. So he offered coffee and condolences about Harlen, both of which they accepted, and they made small talk, until they were all settled in the formal seating area closest to Hardy’s desk.
At which time Joel reached into his inside pocket and proffered an envelope embossed with his corporation’s logo.
“Feel free to open it now, if you’d like,” Maya said.
“That’s all right.” Hardy broke a small grin. “I trust it’s pretty close.”
“Maybe not.” Maya, with an impish smile of her own, made it sound like a dare.
So Hardy shrugged, opened the flap, pulled out the check, and looked up with some surprise. “This is, um . . . I don’t remember the last time I got tongue-tied.”
“It’s a bonus,” Joel said.
Maya was outright beaming now. “We thought Dylan’s salary for a year would have a nice symmetry.”
“It’s got a lot more than symmetry,” Hardy said. “Are you sure this is . . . I’m afraid I’m just a little overwhelmed. This is more than extremely generous.”
Maya nodded. “You saved my life, Dismas. In many ways.” She reached over and put a hand on her husband’s knee. “I told him.”
“Good for you,” Hardy said. And turning to Joel, “And I bet you weren’t even tempted to leave her.”
He put his hand over hers. “Not even close. I never would. No matter what. I don’t know if she ever really believed that before. But we all make mistakes, huh? Do things we’re ashamed of, and worse than that.”
“I know it’s happened to me,” Hardy said. “Though if you’d keep that in this room, I’d appreciate it. My associates would be shocked and dismayed.”
“In any event,” Maya said, “I . . . we just wanted to thank you so much. It has been such a burden for so long and now I don’t have it anymore. I feel like a different person.”
Joel hadn’t let go of her hand. “The same person, only happier. And better.”
She looked contentedly across at him. “Arrête un peu.” In French. Stop a little. But not too much. Then, back at Hardy, with a sigh. “Anyway . . . if you don’t mind, I’ve got one last little thing that you could explain that I wanted to understand, and just really don’t.”
“If I can, I will.”
She let out a small breath. “Why me?”
“Why you what?”
“I mean, with Craig Chiurco. How did he pick me to frame? I never met him, I never even had heard of him, and suddenly he picks me out of nowhere and tries to ruin my life. I just don’t understand what happened. How that happened.”
Hardy picked up his coffee and took a sip. He knew that it was an excellent question, and that she deserved an answer. But there was no certain answer. Craig was dead, and no one would ever really know for sure. Hardy just hoped that the one he had—and he’d given it a lot of thought—was good enough for her.
“Well,” he began, “here’s my best guess. Dylan was in the blackmail business, and he was a greedy man. For a long time he was happy stringing you along, selling his dope, keeping up on his customer list. But remember, he also knew that Craig had killed the Gomez boy. Now, the fact that he’d done it in connection with a robbery they were both involved in made it a little squirrelly, since technically, legally, they’d both be guilty of that murder, whoever it was that pulled the trigger.
“But he liked pushing the limits, Dylan did. And what I think happened is that they were all together at BBW that day a few weeks before he got killed, and Dylan brought it up again. And here’s Craig going for his private eye license, straight all these years, thinking his past is all behind him, and then Dylan ups the stakes. Somehow. Tells him what he’s been doing with you, maybe without any of the specific details, but enough to make Craig know that you’ve got every reason to want Dylan removed too.
“So he decides to kill Dylan, and all he needs is to have you show up soon after.”
“So he called me? That was him?”
“I don’t know for sure. But Dylan had a Brooklyn accent, which isn’t so hard to mimic. Craig calls you late at night and makes it short and sweet, saying it’s an emergency he can’t talk about now . . . well, you came running. He knew what time Dylan got to the alley every day. He knew he’d have your gun with him. In any event, it all worked. If you want my opinion, you’re damn lucky he didn’t wait around to kill you too.”
“I thought of that. I’m kind of surprised he didn’t.”
Hardy shook his head. “Two dead people, and the police still left looking for who killed them? Too much to orchestrate. He wanted to keep it simple.”
“So what about Levon?”
“Levon would have remembered the conversation at BBW, their fight that Eugenio Ruiz witnessed, remember?
So he goes to Levon’s, pulls his gun, has Levon call you on his cell phone and invite you over, walks behind him and . . . well, you know the rest.”
“So he didn’t know me at all, and just did that?”
“That’s what I think,” Hardy said.
“That’s about what I told her too,” Joel added. “She just said that sounded like the essence of evil. She doesn’t want to believe that people could really be that bad, in their souls.”
“I mean,” she said, “we all make mistakes, sure. Even terrible ones. But this wasn’t a simple mistake. This was a conscious decision to just destroy somebody he didn’t know at all.”
Hardy nodded. “That’s right.”
“I don’t want to believe that people can actually be like that,” she said.
“Not all of them. And thankfully, maybe not too many. But definitely some,” Hardy said. “Definitely some.”
Acknowledgments
It is almost impossible for me to imagine that this is my twentieth book! And so my first acknowledgment is to all of you, my readers, who have been so enthusiastic and supportive of my work over all these years. I never forget that I owe my success—never anticipated to this degree, and tremendously appreciated—to those of you who buy these books, pass them to your friends and relatives, discuss them at work and at home, take them to your hearts. Having such a dedicated core of readers is one of the great thrills of a writer’s life, and I am humbly grateful to each and every one of you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
This book began in an e-mail discussion with one of my correspondents, Dr. Jack Crary, who had been intrigued by some of the medical issues in some of my earlier books—particularly the effect of traumatic injury on family members of those who’d suffered it. That correspondence led me to Abe Glitsky’s reaction to his son’s accident, and got me off and running in Chapter One. Thanks, Jack.
As the story got under way, I encountered, as usual, a great dearth in my knowledge about what I was hoping to write about. For insights into business perspectives that were foreign to me, I’d like to thank my neighbors (and fellow Piscators) Tim Lien and Tim Cronan. These gentlemen connected me to a U.S. attorney in San Diego, Bruce Smith, who was a forthcoming and generous source on the uses of forfeiture in connection with the drug trade. After the first draft was finished, I turned to a very talented writer and author, John Poswall, and a couple of other colleagues of his who prefer to remain anonymous, for further insight into government prosecutions and grand jury proceedings.
None of my books would be what they are without the ongoing assistance and first-draft revision suggestions of my dear friend, San Mateo assistant district attorney Al Giannini, whose general expertise on all things criminal, exquisite taste, and refined judgment contribute mightily to the finished product. Like no one else, Al is a true collaborator in the Dismas Hardy-Abe Glitsky series, and my debt to him cannot be measured.
Of course, any book owes its life to its publisher, and I am blessed to have worked with a wonderful staff at Dutton now for the past nine books. This is a fantastic group of enthusiastic, bright, committed people—starting with the publisher Brian Tart; marketing whizzes Lisa Johnson and Beth Parker; Erika Imranyi, Trena Keating, Kara Welsh, Claire Zion, Rick Pascocello, Susan Schwartz; and the wonderful cover artist and designer Rich Hasselberger. Saving the most personal until last, I’m knocked out by the style, taste, and talents of my editor, Ben Sevier. His support in many conversations was crucial throughout the book’s gestation, and his comments and suggestions as we approached a final manuscript were consistently pithy, germaine, and critical. Ben is the real deal as an editor, and I consider myself blessed to be able to work with him.
My writing life wouldn’t be half as productive without the load taken up by my assistant, Anita Boone. Besides possessing one of the most even-keeled and sunny personalities in the world (a major plus when working with sometimes gnarly authors), she is truly the right arm and majordomo of many, many aspects of my life in the business of writing, and I couldn’t do what I do without her.
As many have attested, the writing life can be solitary. Without close friends to keep perspective on the other things that are important, and that hopefully help to keep the writing fresh, the creativity wouldn’t flourish, nor would the experience be joyful. And so for keeping the spirit alive, here’s to the perennial best man, Don Matheson; to author/bon vivant Max Byrd; Frank and Gina Seidl; Sandy and Peter S. Diedrich, M.D., M.P.H.; and my two children, Justine and Jack.
Several characters in this book owe their names (although no physical or personality traits, which are all fictional) to individuals whose contributions to various charities have been especially generous. These people, and their respective charities, include: Stacy and Mark Wegzyn, Holy Family School; Katherine (Kay) Hansen, Thrillerfest (International Thriller Writers); Michael J. Schermer, the Sacramento Public Library Foundation; Deborah L. Dunham and Chuck Cunningham, the Davis, California, Chamber of Commerce; Mrs. Jacky Glass, H.E.L.P. (Healthcare and Elder Law Programs Corporation); and Mickey Friend (Sonoma Paradiso).
Finally, my literary agent, Barney Karpfinger, is the rock of my career and of my professional life. A great friend, a tireless advocate, a beacon of taste and intelligence, Barney is simply the best in the world at what he does, and I’m endlessly grateful for my relationship with him. Thanks for everything you do, Barney—you’re an amazing and wonderful human being.
I very much love hearing from my readers, and invite all of you to please visit me at my Web site, www.johnlescroart.com, with comments, questions, or interests.
About the Author
John Lescroart is the author of nineteen previous novels, including Betrayal, The Suspect, The Hunt Club, The Motive, The Second Chair, The First Law, The Oath, The Hearing, and Nothing but the Truth. He lives in northern California.
A Plague of Secrets Page 39
