Just One Look (2004)

by Harlan Coben

Sandra Koval came to the funeral. She stayed in the back. She apologized that their father could not come. He was elderly and ill. Grace said that she understood. The two women did not embrace. Scott Duncan was there. So were Stu Perlmutter and Cora. Grace had no idea how many people showed up. She didn't much care either. She held her two children and fought her way through it.

  * * *

  Two weeks later the children went back to school. There were issues, of course. Both Emma and Max were suffering separation anxieties. That was normal, she knew. Grace walked them into school. She was there before the bell rang to pick them up. They were hurting. That, Grace knew, was the price you paid for having a kind and loving father. The hurt never goes away.

  But now it was time to end this.

  Jack's autopsy.

  Some would say that the autopsy, when she read and understood it, was what sent Grace's world off kilter again. But that really wasn't it. The autopsy was merely independent confirmation of what she already knew. Jack had been her husband. She had loved him. They had been together for thirteen years. They had two children together. And while he had clearly kept secrets, there were some things a man cannot hide.

  Some things must truly remain on the surface.

  So Grace knew.

  She knew his body. She knew his skin. She knew every muscle on his back. So she really did not need the autopsy. She did not need to see the results of the full-exterior examination to tell her what she already knew.

  Jack had no major scars.

  And that meant that--despite what Jimmy had said, despite what Gordon MacKenzie had told Wade Larue--Jack had never been shot.

  * * *

  First Grace visited the Photomat and found Fuzz Pellet Josh. Then she drove back down to Bedminster, to the condominium development where Shane Alworth's mother resided. After that, she plowed through the legal work on Jack's family trust. Grace knew a lawyer from Livingston who now worked as a sports agent in Manhattan. He set up plenty of trusts for his wealthy athletes. He went through the paperwork and explained enough for her to understand.

  And then, when she had all the facts pretty much down, she visited Sandra Koval, her dear sister-in-law, at the offices of Burton and Crimstein in New York City.

  * * *

  Sandra Koval did not meet her in the reception area this time. Grace was inspecting the photo gallery, stopping again at the shot of the wrestler, Little Pocahontas, when a peasant-bloused woman told her to come this way. She led Grace down the corridor and into the exact same conference room where she and Sandra had first talked a lifetime ago.

  "Ms. Koval will be with you shortly."

  "Great."

  She left her alone. The room was set up exactly the same as last time, except now there was a yellow legal pad and a Bic pen in front of each seat. Grace did not want to sit. She did her own version of a pace, more a limp-pace, and ran it over in her head again. Her cell phone buzzed. She spoke briefly and then snapped it off. She kept it close. Just in case.

  "Hi, Grace."

  Sandra Koval swept into the room like a turbulent weather front. She headed straight for the little refrigerator, opened it and peered inside.

  "Can I get you something to drink?"

  "No."

  With her head still in the mini-fridge, she asked, "How are the children?"

  Grace did not reply. Sandra Koval dug out a Perrier. She twisted the top off and sat.

  "So what's up?"

  Should she test the temperature with her toe or just jump in? Grace chose the latter. "You didn't take on Wade Larue as a client because of me," she began without preamble. "You took him on because you wanted to stay close to him."

  Sandra Koval poured the Perrier into a glass. "That might--hypothetically--be true."

  "Hypothetically?"

  "Yes. I may, in a hypothetical world, have represented Wade Larue to protect a certain family member. But if I had, I would have still made sure that I represented my client to the best of my ability."

  "Two birds with one stone?"

  "Perhaps."

  "And the certain family member. That would be your brother?"

  "It would be possible."

  "Possible," Grace said. "But that wasn't what happened here. You weren't out to protect your brother."

  Their eyes met.

  "I know," Grace said.

  "Oh?" Sandra took a sip. "Then why don't you clue me in."

  "You were, what, twenty-seven years old? Fresh out of law school and working as a criminal lawyer?"

  "Yes."

  "You were married. Your daughter was two years old. You were on your way to a promising career. And then your brother messed it all up for you. You were there that night, Sandra. At the Boston Garden. You were the other woman backstage, not Geri Duncan."

  "I see," she said without a trace of worry. "And you know this how?"

  "Jimmy X said one woman was a redhead--that's Sheila Lambert--and the other, the one who was egging him on, had dark hair. Geri Duncan was a blonde. You, Sandra, had dark hair."

  She laughed. "And that's supposed to be proof of something?"

  "No, not in and of itself. I'm not even sure it's relevant. Geri Duncan was probably there too. She might have been the one who distracted Gordon MacKenzie so you three could sneak backstage."

  Sandra Koval gave her a vague wave of the hand. "Go on, this is interesting."

  "Shall I just get to the heart of the matter?"

  "Please do."

  "According to both Jimmy X and Gordon MacKenzie, your brother was shot that night."

  "He was," Sandra said. "He was in the hospital for three weeks."

  "Which hospital?"

  There was no hesitation, no eye twitch, no give at all. "Mass General."

  Grace shook her head.

  Sandra made a face. "Are you telling me you checked every hospital in the Boston area?"

  "No need," Grace said. "There was no scar."

  Silence.

  "You see, the bullet wound would have left a scar, Sandra. It's simple logic. Your brother was shot. My husband had no scar. There's only one way that can be so." Grace put her hands on the table. They were quaking.

  "I was never married to your brother."

  Sandra Koval said nothing.

  "Your brother, John Lawson, was shot that day. You and Sheila Lambert helped drag him out during the melee. But his wounds were lethal. At least I hope they were, because the alternative is that you killed him."

  "And why would I do that?"

  "Because if you took him to a hospital, they would have to report the shooting. If you showed up with a dead body--or even if you just dumped him on the street--someone would investigate and realize where and how he was shot. You, the promising lawyer, were terrified. I bet Sheila Lambert was too. The world went crazy when this happened. The Boston DA--hell, Carl Vespa--was on television demanding blood. So were all the families. If you got caught up in that, you'd be arrested or worse."

  Sandra Koval stayed quiet.

  "Did you call your father? Did you ask him what to do? Did you contact one of your old criminal clients to help you? Or did you just get rid of the body on your own?"

  She chuckled. "You have some imagination, Grace. Can I ask you something now?"

  "Sure."

  "If John Lawson died fifteen years ago, who did you marry?"

  "I married Jack Lawson," Grace said. "Who used to be known as Shane Alworth."

  Eric Wu hadn't held two men in the basement, Grace now realized. Just one. One who had sacrificed himself to save her. One who probably knew that he was going to die and wanted to scratch out some last truth in the only way left to him.

  Sandra Koval almost smiled. "That's a hell of a theory."

  "One that will be easy to prove."

  She leaned back and folded her arms. "I don't understand something about your scenario. Why didn't I just hide my brother's body and pretend he ran away?"

  "Too many people would ask questions," Grace sa
id.

  "But that's what happened to Shane Alworth and Sheila Lambert. They just disappeared."

  "True enough," Grace admitted. "And maybe the answer has to do with your family trust."

  That made Sandra's face freeze. "The trust?"

  "I found the papers on the trust in Jack's desk. I took them to a friend who's a lawyer. It seems your grandfather set up six trusts. He had two children and four grandchildren. Forget the money for a second. Let's talk about voting power. All of you got equal voting shares, divided six ways, with your father getting the extra four percent. That way your side of the family kept control of the business, fifty-two percent to forty-eight. But--and I'm not good with this stuff so bear with me--Grandpa wanted to keep it all in the family. If any of you died before the age of twenty-five, the voting power would be divided equally among the five survivors. If your brother died the night of the concert, for example, that would mean that your side of the family, you and your father, would no longer hold a majority position."

  "You're out of your mind."

  "Could be," Grace said. "But tell me, Sandra. What drove you? Was it fear of being caught--or were you worried about losing control of the family business? Probably a combination of both. Either way, I know you got Shane Alworth to take your brother's place. It'll be easy to prove. We'll dig up old pictures. We can run a DNA test. I mean, it's over."

  Sandra started drumming the table with her fingertips. "If that's true," she said, "the man you loved lied to you all these years."

  "That's true no matter what," Grace said. "How did you get him to cooperate anyway?"

  "That question is supposed to be rhetorical, right?"

  Grace shrugged. "Mrs. Alworth tells me that they were dirt poor. His brother Paul couldn't afford college. She was living in a dump. But my guess is, you made a threat. If one member of Allaw went down for this, they all would. He probably thought he had no choice."

  "Come on, Grace. Do you really think a poor kid like Shane Alworth could pull off being my brother?"

  "How hard would it be? You and your father helped, I'm sure. Getting an ID would be no problem. You had your brother's birth certificate and the pertinent paperwork. You just say he had his wallet stolen. Screening was easier back then. He'd have gotten a new driver's license, new passport, whatever. You found a new trust lawyer in Boston--my friend noticed the change from the one in Los Angeles--someone who wouldn't know what John Lawson looked like. You, your dad, and Shane go in to his office together, all with proper ID--who would question that? Your brother had already graduated from Vermont University, so it wasn't like he'd have to show up there with a new face. Shane could go overseas now. If someone bumped into him, well, he'd go by Jack and just say he was another John Lawson. It's not an uncommon name."

  Grace waited.

  Sandra folded her arms. "Is this the part where I'm supposed to crack and confess everything?"

  "You? No, I don't think so. But come on, you know it's over. It won't be any problem to prove that my husband wasn't your brother."

  Sandra Koval took her time. "That may well be," she said, her words coming out more measured now. "But I'm not sure I see any crime here."

  "How's that?"

  "Let's say--again hypothetically--that you're right. Let's say I did get your husband to pretend to be my brother. That was fifteen years ago. There's a statute of limitations. My cousins might try to fight me on the trust issue, but they wouldn't want the scandal. We'd work it out. And even if what you said is true, my crime was hardly a big one. If I was at the concert that night, well, in the early days of that rabid frenzy, who could blame me for being scared?"

  Grace's voice was soft. "I wouldn't blame you for that."

  "Right, so there you go."

  "And at first you didn't really do anything that terrible. You went to that concert seeking justice for your brother. You confronted a man who stole a song your brother and his friend wrote. That's not a crime. Things went wrong. Your brother died. There was nothing you could do to bring him back. So you did what you thought best. You played the terrible hand you were dealt."

  Sandra Koval opened her arms. "Then what do you want here, Grace?"

  "Answers, I guess."

  "It seems as if you already got some of those." Then she raised her index finger and added, "Hypothetically speaking."

  "And maybe I want justice."

  "What justice? You just said yourself that what happened was understandable."

  "That part," Grace said, her voice still soft. "If it ended there, yeah, I'd probably just walk away. But it didn't."

  Sandra Koval sat back and waited.

  "Sheila Lambert was scared too. She knew that her best move would be to change her name and disappear. You all agreed to disperse and stay silent. Geri Duncan, she stayed where she was. That was okay, at first. But then Geri found out she was pregnant."

  Sandra just shut her eyes.

  "When he agreed to be John Lawson, Shane, my Jack, had to cut all ties and go overseas. Geri Duncan couldn't find him. A month later she learns that she's pregnant. She's desperate to find the father. So she came to see you. She probably wanted to start new. She wanted to tell the truth and have her baby with a clean slate. You knew my husband. He would never turn his back on her if she insisted on having a child. Maybe he'd want to wipe the slate clean too. And then what would happen to you, Sandra?"

  Grace looked down at her hands. They were still shaking.

  "So you had to silence Geri. You're a criminal defense attorney. You repped criminals. And one of them helped you find a hit man named Monte Scanlon."

  Sandra said, "You can't prove any of this."

  "The years pass," Grace went on. "My husband is now Jack Lawson." Grace stopped and remembered what Carl Vespa had said about Jack Lawson seeking her out. Something there still didn't mesh. "We have children now. I tell Jack I want to go back stateside. He doesn't want to. I push him on it. We have kids. I want to be back in the United States. That's my fault, I guess. I wish he had just told me the truth--"

  "And how would you have reacted, Grace?"

  She thought about it. "I don't know."

  Sandra Koval smiled. "Neither, I guess, did he."

  It was, Grace knew, a fair point, but this was not the time for that sort of contemplation. She pressed on. "We ended up moving to New York. But I don't know what happened next, Sandra, so you're going to have to help me with this part. I think what with the anniversary and with Wade Larue coming free, Sheila Lambert--or maybe even Jack--decided it was time to tell the truth. Jack never slept well. Maybe they both needed to ease their guilt, I don't know. You couldn't go along with that, of course. They might be granted forgiveness but not you. You had Geri Duncan killed."

  "And again I ask: The proof of that is . . . ?"

  "We'll get to that," Grace said. "You've lied to me from the start, but you did tell the truth about one thing."

  "Oh goodie." The sarcasm was thick now. "What was that?"

  "When Jack saw that old picture in the kitchen, he did look up Geri Duncan on the computer. He found out she'd died in a fire, but he suspected it was no accident. So he called you. That was the nine-minute phone call. You were afraid he was about to crack, so you knew that you had to strike fast. You told Jack that you'd explain everything but not over the phone. You set up a meet off the New York Thruway. Then you called Larue and told him that this would be a perfect time to get his revenge. You figured Larue would have Wu kill Jack, not hold him like that."

  "I don't have to listen to this."

  But Grace did not stop. "My big mistake was showing you the photograph that first day. Jack didn't know I'd made a copy. There it was, a photograph of your dead brother and his new identity for all the world to see. You needed to keep me quiet too. So you sent that guy, the one with my daughter's lunchbox, to scare me off. But I didn't listen. So you used Wu. He was supposed to find out what I knew and then kill me."

  "Okay, I've had enough." Sandra Koval s
tood. "Get out of my office."

  "Nothing to add?"

  "I'm still waiting for proof."

  "I don't really have any," Grace said. "But maybe you'll confess."

  She laughed at that one. "What, you don't think I know you're wired? I haven't said or done one thing that'll incriminate me."

  "Look out the window, Sandra."

  "What?"

  "The window. Look down at the sidewalk. Come on, I'll show you."