The Little Death hr-1

by Michael Nava

  “How long have you known about Christina and Jeremy?” I asked.

  “Twenty years,” he replied. “John Howard sought me out after they were killed and brought me the wills. I had some of my men conduct an investigation of the accident and the subsequent coroner’s inquest. They established that the accident had been arranged and the inquest rigged for the purpose of a finding of simultaneous death. It wasn’t difficult, Robert was inept as a murderer and left a trail of evidence that would have sent him to the gas chamber but the evidence was scattered through half a dozen police jurisdictions and the police were even more inept than he.”

  “But you had the evidence. Why not use it against him?”

  He regarded me coolly as if deciding that I was not as bright as he’d been led to believe. “I did use it, Mr. Rios.” “Not to go to the police.”

  “No,” he said, laying a fingertip against the windowsill. “My investigators obtained the evidence as,” he smiled at me, conspiratorially, “expeditiously as possible. Their methods were not the police’s methods and, consequently, my lawyers informed me that Robert would’ve been able to suppress enough of the evidence to weaken the case against him, perhaps fatally.”

  “Nonetheless,” I insisted, “it was worth a try.”

  “You don’t understand,” he said, impatiently. “There were higher stakes to play.”

  “Something greater than justice for the dead?” I asked.

  He raised an eyebrow. “I was told you had a lawyer’s way with words,” he said, not admiringly.

  “You were talking about higher stakes.”

  “Yes, there was the money to think about, Christina’s estate, one-half of my grandfather’s fortune. It had fallen into Robert’s hands. Robert was many things, most of them contemptible, but he was good with money. I had to think ahead about what would’ve happened to that money had Robert been removed from the picture.”

  “It would’ve gone to its rightful heirs.”

  “Who at that time,” Smith said, “were my lunatic nephew, Nicholas, and his ten-year-old son, Hugh.”

  “Why couldn’t you have had yourself appointed their guardian?”

  “Because there was someone with a much stronger claim to that office.”

  “Who?”

  Smith snorted. “Your client, Mr. Rios. Katherine Paris.”

  I said, “Ah.”

  “Katherine Paris,” he said with recollected scorn, “a writer.” It was the ultimate epithet. “She didn’t know the first thing about money.”

  “Whereas the judge knew all about money.”

  “And, more importantly, I had a lever with which to control him.”

  “So you took the evidence that linked him to the murders and used it to blackmail him.”

  Smith looked out the window. A few late roses clung tenaciously to life. Perhaps they were the ones that had been named in his honor. “Yes,” he said, defiantly. “Yes.”

  “And what did you get in return for not exposing him?”

  “An agreement.” He began to walk across the room. I walked with him. “At Robert’s death, his entire estate was to revert to the Linden Trust, of which I am chairman. In the meantime, his affairs were controlled by my lawyers. He couldn’t invest or spend a cent without my approval.”

  “And if he had?”

  “My lawyers would’ve seen to it that criminal proceedings were initiated against him the second he deviated from our agreement.”

  “Other than your lawyers, who knew about the agreement?”

  “His lawyers, of course.”

  Grayson, Graves and Miller — Aaron’s firm. In the remote reaches of my mind something fell into place but was still too distant for me to articulate.

  “So you see, the blackmail — your word, not mine — was a necessary evil.”

  “That seems to be your forte.”

  “That was cheap, Mr. Rios,” he said, stopping in front of a painting that depicted the original law school.

  “A moment ago you indicated that I was right about the murders of Christina and Jeremy Paris but not about Hugh’s. What did you mean?”

  The color, what there was of it, seeped from his face. “Robert Paris didn’t have Hugh murdered,” he said.

  “You mean Peter Barron acted on his own?”

  “No.”

  I was about to speak when, staring at his gaunt ancient face, the bones so prominent that I could have been addressing a skull, I realized that I was staring at Hugh’s murderer.

  “You,” I said. “Robert Paris was your creature. He couldn’t have employed an assassin with you controlling his money, unless you agreed to it.”

  Smith looked away.

  “And of course you agreed to it. You had as much or more to lose as Robert Paris had his earlier murders been exposed. You knew that Paris killed his wife and son and you knew that Hugh was the rightful heir to the judge’s share of the Linden fortune. For twenty years you helped cover up those murders and defraud Hugh of his inheritance.” I advanced toward Smith, who moved a step back. “But Hugh thought you would help him and he came to you. You leased him the house so you could keep an eye on him. He trusted you. You betrayed him.”

  The two guards had come up behind Smith, their hands on their guns. I stopped. Smith glanced over his shoulder and ordered them to retreat. They stepped back.

  “Hugh hated his grandfather almost to the point of psychosis,” Smith said, “and he knew that I was no friend of Robert’s.” He smiled, bitterly. “You see, Mr. Rios, I made a pact with the devil, but I could never bring myself to enjoy his company.”

  “That makes no difference.”

  “Perhaps not. Still, I encouraged Hugh’s hatred of his grandfather — partly, I suppose, to deflect any suspicion from myself but also because Hugh gave vent to the hatred I felt for Robert Paris, my sister’s murderer, my nephew’s murderer.”

  “But you danced to his tune.”

  “Yes, I see that clearly now, but at the time, I was blind. One’s own motives are always lost in mists of rationalizations. Hugh found out about the murders and expected my help in exposing his grandfather. If I refused to help him he would become suspicious of me, perhaps even guess my complicity. But I could hardly agree to help him expose Robert without also exposing myself.”

  “Did you tell him about your part in the cover-up?”

  “Yes.” Smith said.

  “And he went berserk.”

  “Yes.”

  “Threatened to expose you as well.”

  “Yes.”

  “So you had him killed.”

  “Yes.”

  Smith brought his hand to his throat, as if protecting it. Suddenly, I saw the scene that had occurred between Smith and

  Hugh when Smith revealed his part in the cover-up. Hugh must have responded like a madman, physically attacking his great- uncle. In a way, that might have made it easier for Smith to give the order to have Hugh killed; to regard Hugh as a madman on the verge of bringing the entire family to ruin and obloquy. Smith believed he served a legitimate purpose in having Hugh murdered, but in fact he was merely acting as Robert Paris’s agent.

  Smith and I had squared off, facing each other tensely across a few feet of shadowy space.

  “That’s not the end of the story,” I said. “You had Hugh killed by Peter Barron. But where is Peter Barron?”

  “Dead,” the old man muttered.

  “His life for Hugh’s?”

  “Is that so rough a measure of justice?”

  “Yes, from my perspective, especially when you weigh Aaron Gold’s death in the balance.’’

  Smith shook his head. “That was unintentional. Mr. Gold worked for the firm that handled Robert’s personal accounts. Shortly after Hugh’s death, the partner who worked closest with Robert discovered certain documents missing that showed the extent to which I controlled all of Robert’s transactions. There were also some personal papers missing, among them, Hugh’s letters to Robert. The partner
conducted a quiet investigation. The documents were found at Mr. Gold’s home and the letters, as you know, at your apartment.”

  “Aaron had discovered that Paris wasn’t in control of his affairs but that you were,” I said, “and he reasoned that you, not Paris, were behind Hugh’s death.”

  “Something like that,” Smith said. “No one ever had an opportunity to talk to Mr. Gold.”

  “You saw to that,” I said.

  “No,” Smith repeated wearily. “That was Peter Barron acting on his own. He told me he’d gone to talk to Mr. Gold, that there was a struggle and the gun went off.”

  “There was no struggle,” I said, “Aaron was shot as he sat in an armchair getting drunk.”

  “I didn’t believe Barron,” Smith said, “since he had reasons of his own for wanting the identity of Hugh’s killer secret.”

  “He was the trigger man.”

  Smith nodded. “So now you know everything,” he said, “and I repeat my original question: What will it cost me to persuade you to drop the lawsuit?”

  I shook my head. “It’s never been a matter of money. I want an admission of guilt. I want that admission in open court and for the record. I want the law to run its course. No secret pay-offs, no cover-ups.”

  “My lawyers were right,” Smith said, “I shouldn’t have spoken to you. And yet I’m glad I did.” He hunched his shoulders as if suddenly cold. “I’m not an evil man, or at least, I can still appreciate an act of human decency. I appreciate your devotion to Hugh, Mr. Rios, but you must understand that I too will have the law run its course and I will fight you with every resource to which I have access.”

  “I understand that,” I said, “but I have two things on my side that you do not.”

  “What?”

  “Time,” I said, “and justice.”

  A ghostly smile played across Smith’s withered lips. “Goodbye, Mr. Rios,” Smith said, “and good luck.”

  He turned and strode the length of the gallery. The two guards fell in behind him. I waited a moment and then followed him out. I got to the top of the steps outside the museum in time to watch the silver Rolls slip away into the wood. I jogged down the steps.

  I turned down the collar of my sweatshirt and spoke into the thin metal disc attached there. “He’s gone,” I said. “I hope you got it all down.”

  A moment later the white van moved into view from behind the museum. The passenger door swung open and Terry Ormes got out, followed by Sonny Patterson pushing his way out from the back of the van. Terry had insisted that I be wired for sound in the event that I was being led into a trap, so that the cops could respond. Neither of us had expected the conversation we had just heard. Patterson had signed on at the last minute, in the event that something useful was said. He walked toward me looking like a man who’d just heard an earful.

  “Your little speech about time and justice,” Patterson said, “ought to play real well in front of the grand jury.”

  “You recorded it?”

  “The whole thing.”

  “Then there will be a grand jury.”

  “You bet,” he said, “and if they don’t come back with an indictment, I’m washing my hands of this profession.”

  Terry who had come up beside us, said, “Good work, Henry.”

  “It’s not exactly how I thought it would go down.”

  “I’ll guess you’ll be amending the complaint in your lawsuit to allege Smith as a defendant,” Patterson said.

  I shrugged. “I’ll talk to my client. She may not want to pursue the case after the grand jury concludes its business.”

  “You wanted it to be Robert Paris, didn’t you?” Terry said.

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Smith is as much a victim as Hugh. Smith was a moderately good man who chose expediency over justice the one time it really mattered. But Robert Paris was the real thing, he was evil. I pity Smith.”

  Patterson looked at me disdainfully. “That old public defender mentality,” he said. “People don’t commit crimes, society does. You know Latin?”

  I shook my head.

  He said, “ Durum hoc est sed ita lex scripta est — It is hard but thus the law is written.”

  “Where’s that from?”

  “The Code of Justinian, and it was engraved over the entrance of the library of my law school — which was not as big a deal as your law school here at the university, but those of us who went there were hungry in the way that justice is a hunger.”

  He turned from us and walked away. Terry and I looked at each other. What Patterson wanted was clear: a fair trial and a guilty verdict. My own motives were hopelessly confused — my hunger had never been as simple as Sonny’s.

  “Maybe,” I said to Terry, “I never wanted justice but just to vent my grief about Hugh.”

  She shook her head. “Grief is half of justice,” she said, and added, a moment later, “the other half is hope.”

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