"To beg your forgiveness and take your money, as suggested by those big oafs you sent. Here, Mother, do you like their handiwork?" Grace lifted a foot bottom toward her mother.
I heard the slight intake of breath as Amber understood what she was seeing.
"It worked," said Grace. "That is exactly what I was doing at your house on July the third. I was there to surrender to you.
I had had enough. I was scared enough of you by then to carry that gun in my purse. I admit that the idea of shooting you came to mind, and it wasn't a totally unpleasant thought. But what I wanted that night was to tell you I'd given up. I was done. You had won. I didn't want any more burned body parts. I didn't want your money, either. All I wanted was to be able to sleep at night without worrying who might be outside my door."
Grace looked steadily at me, then at her mother. The fires of anger were gone. "What I saw in your bedroom terrified me. I thought it was you. I called Martin, but he wasn't home, called Russell, but you weren't home. Then I went to Brent's and tried to sleep. I wasn't going to call the police and talk to some rookie patrolman about my own mother's murder. Why? Because when I looked down at you, Mother; the terror didn't come from what had happened to you; it came from how.. fitting it seemed to be. Looking at your dead body made me a little bit happy. And I knew by the time all the news of our bad blood got out—Grace Wilson would be the number-one suspect So I hid out, then came here to Russell."
I listened to the motor of the ceiling fan, the gentle whoosh of the blades. "The nail, Grace."
Grace looked down now, at her knees still covered by the blanket. Her voice was suddenly weaker. "And I'll tell you some thing I have never told another human being, Russell and Amber. It almost hurts me to say it, but I will because it explains why I was there, and why my nail stayed behind."
She looked up at Amber now with an expression so different from before, I could hardly believe it belonged to the same person. Tears welled in her lovely dark eyes and her lips so capable of scorn and sarcasm, simply trembled.
"I... I have always ... in a way... I have always loved You, Mother. And when I saw you lying there, after I felt the relief of knowing you were dead and I was safe, and after I felt that horrid... satisfaction at what had happened to you, I fell down to the floor on my knees and cried and prayed and cried and prayed and I dug my fingers so hard into your carpet, the nail broke off. I didn't notice it until I was leaving. I looked for it but couldn't find it. Back home, I took off the others and threw them away so that if the police came to me, they'd see I didn't wear nails. I was too upset and too afraid to realize they'd be as easy to find in the dumpster as they would have been on my fingers. I think I probably left a fresh pack around, anyway. I'd make a lousy criminal."
Amber took a step toward Grace, then stopped. "When Russell told you it was Alice, why didn't you call me, Grace? Why didn't you... weren't you at least relieved I was still alive?"
"Mother," said Grace, "I believed you would blame it on me, as you and Russell are trying to do right now. What I wanted, more than anything, was a few days' rest with Russell—or anywhere, really—then a long vacation somewhere alone. You can't believe how horrible it was... seeing what I saw and feeling what I felt. I love you. I hate you, too, but not enough to kill you like that. Believe what you want."
Amber stared at Grace but said nothing. There was more damnation in her silence than in any words she might have said.
Grace looked back down at her knees, sighed deeply, and rested her head against them. "And you, Russell?" she asked quietly.
"I've always believed you, girl. How much of this have you told Martin?"
"All," she answered, still not looking up.
Of course, I thought, it explained Parish's initial fingering of Grace at the scene, and his final decision to frame me—not her.
"Did you know he's going to charge me with Alice's murder?"
She looked up then, with a look on her face as close hopelessness as I had ever seen from her. "I had no idea that what he was doing. He told me very little. I thought Martin was a decent man. He always was—to me, anyway. But you should know, Russell, I'll do whatever I can to help you."
"I'm going to need your help. Parish killed Alice. Do you understand that?"
She shook her head. "Why?"
"Because he was in line for money if Amber died, because, quite frankly, Martin Parish hates your mother more than you ever did. He hates me, too. And he found a way to knock us all down with one shot. He thought he could pull off a perfect crime."
"I'm so sick of everything," Grace whispered. Tears ran down her cheeks. "Amber, I love you, but I still hate you. Russell, I'll do whatever I can to help you with Martin. I'll testify. I'll to the police."
"You already have."
"Then what can I do?"
Audacity, I thought. Meet Martin on his own turf, not sure yet," I said.
Amber had already left the room.
I walked past my father in the living room, fully unconscious on a couch. I caught up with her on the deck outside. She was lighting a cigarette and her hand was shaking. I lighted it for her.
"She needs you," I said.
"It wasn't clear to me until now."
"You can go to her."
"You don't understand. She's in it with Martin. She's his partner. I'm positive. Nothing on earth interested her more as a child than my men. It's her and Martin, working together. With me out of the way, it would have been millions for them both. And all the jolly good fun they could have bashing my brains all over my bedroom. I think I'm going to puke, Russell."
She ran up into the brush of the canyon and vomited.
A few minutes later, she came back down, her shape materializing from the darkness. "I'm going home with Theodore," she said. "And in the morning, I'll see the State Attorney General again. Now that I understand Grace's role, it makes all the more sense. I will not allow Martin Parish and my loving daughter to get away with this. Not at your expense, and most certainly not at mine."
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
I hardly slept that night—or rather, morning—but the dreamy wakefulness offered me the clarity of mind that one enjoys just before falling asleep and just before fully waking. I wondered about Izzy, then wondered some more. I called the IC Unit eve: hour for reports. When I could momentarily assuage my worries about Isabella, I did my best to consider other actualities, wondered whether Amber's tack to the Attorney General might be a sound one. But again, I had no desire to meet Martin Parish on the playing field of the law—his advantage was too great.
Instead, I dreamed—or imagined—meeting Parish in Amber's house. The scene played like this: He had come to finish what he'd started on July 3. He would have the club. I would be there, a witness to his second attempt. There, I could make a citizen's arrest for burglary, which would lead to questioning, investigation, and an eventual unmasking of Parish.
I liked the directness of this action, but, at the same time Grace and I clearly needed help. Would Amber participate, perhaps help us lure Martin back to her home? Maybe. But where could we find an ally with power outside of the system? Just as the first light brought forth the basic shapes in the room around me, I thought of Erik Wald. At first, the idea seemed ridiculous, Erik being so ensconced within the court of the department. But looked at another way, I could see that he might cooperate, because taking down Martin Parish would not only clear Wald's appointment to undersherifTbut would also be the glitziest coup he might pull. Imagine the headlines when the homicide captain lay exposed by the cleverness of Professor Erik Wald and journalist Russell Monroe! And I thought, too, that Erik's natural boldness might suit him perfectly. The question was, Would he believe us, and, if so, would he help us trap Parish?
I called him at 6:00 A.M. and told him we'd be at his house in one hour. He was too mystified to protest.
Then I called the ICU nurses again.
No change.
Wald lived in a ranch-style home in the T
ustin hills, a swanky area that boasted an equestrian flavor, smatterings of sweet-smelling orange groves, and $5 million Spanish-style mansions on large parcels of land. His modest house sat back from the road, at the end of a drive lined by eucalyptus trees. The gate was locked, and I announced myself through an intercom speaker. Wald said nothing, but the gate swung open and we drove in. "Can he help us?" Grace asked.
"I think so. The question is, will he?"
"I remember him as being swashbuckling. In his own mind, that is."
"There is that side of Erik."
We parked. Wald was waiting at the door, dressed in corduroy pants and a thin T-shirt that accentuated his tanned, well-muscled arms. His golden mop of hair was still wet from a shower. He looked at me as I walked past him into the house, then he rather formally hugged Grace.
"Nice to see you," he said.
"Nice to see you, too, Erik," she replied. "Have any coffee on?"
In the smallish kitchen, Erik poured us three cups. I could see the living room, which was large and furnished in heavy Mexican-style ranch chairs and sofas. A large trunk that looked quite old served as a coffee table. The fireplace at the far end was of brick—dark and well used.
Wald led us through a sliding glass door, across a small backyard with a fountain and plantain trees and giant birds paradise, then into his study, which was likely built as maid quarters. He pushed open the door without unlocking it and followed us inside.
All the rustic charm of the house proper was lost upon Erik's study. The walls were white, the floor was gleaming hard wood, the furnishings looked more corporate than domestic was clearly a place of work. Two computers sat at two differant gray metal desks, two printers beside them. There were fax, a copy machines; file cabinets lining three walls; two telephone, a large video monitor; two video cameras, each mounted on tripod; a film screen. It was also a place of pride and self-absorption, as I noted the big portrait of Wald that hung onthe far wall, the dozens of plaques and trophies (marksmanship, tennis), the custom-made cabinets that displayed Wald's certifcates, badges, awards, pins—every commendation he might have collected in fifteen years of academic and law-enforcement work. Even the larger newspaper stories were available for viewing, spread on foam, then shrink-wrapped and framed. A dozen copies of his much-lauded doctoral dissertation, "Aspiring to Evil: Transference Identification in the Violent Felon," which had been published by the university after Wald's and Winters's spectacular snaring of the rapist Cary Clough, took up an eye-level shelf in one of the cases.
"One of these days, I'll write a best-seller," Erik said with a boyish smile. "Then we'll be equals in the field of letters, too."
"Russell can write better than you," said Grace rather seriously.
"Which is exactly why I work so hard at it," answered Erik, still smiling. "If I remember correctly from five years ago, when I was seeing Amber, your grades in English hovered around the C mark."
"And you suggested I reread Moby-Dick."
Wald shrugged, set his coffee on one of the desks, and took a seat behind it. I brought up a chair to face him. Grace sat atop the other desk, to our left, dangling a leg.
"Russell," said Erik, slipping on a pair of glasses, "I've been racking my considerable mind for the last hour trying to figure out why in hell you were coming here. You have my curiosity up. So shoot."
And shoot I did. I walked him through the dire events of July 3 and 4; the burial of Alice Fultz; Amber's reappearance; Martin's secret lab work and dubbed tape-, the impending indictment from Peter Haight's office. I explained what I could of the bad blood between Grace and Amber; the monies at stake should she die; and Grace's actual presence at the scene.
Wald listened carefully and took very spare notes. His attention went back and forth between Grace and myself. He groaned when I told him about Alice's hillside funeral. He nodded when I tried to account for the competition and dislike between mother and daughter, Wald being familiar enough with both to fill in the blanks himself. He looked at me with an expression that suggested exasperation at both women, then turned the same look upon Grace.
"Now that you feel superior, are you ready to help us?” Grace asked him.
Wald said nothing for a long while. He stared off through a window toward his backyard fountain. He took off his glasses studied the lenses, then put them on again.
"Parish disgusts me," he said quietly. "He always has. I can't say I'm dumbfounded that he'd do this. I always believed there was something profoundly unbalanced in Martin. The trouble is, you've got no evidence. Martin's got the evidence, and it all points to you."
"That's exactly why I'm here," I said.
"That was hardly brilliant, Erik," noted Grace.
"But it's true," he answered, turning toward her. "And what's true is going to get you out of this. Not what's brilliant.” Pivoting back to me, he said, "Now... I assume you have plan."
"He didn't leave anything behind at Amber's. I saw him but that doesn't prove anything. I don't think we can touch him for Alice without touching him for something else first."
"Such as?"
"Another attempt on Amber's life."
He looked at me skeptically.
I explained that if the situation was good—no, not good but perfect—Martin could be tempted to finish what he had begun on July 3. Until now, Amber had been safe with my father and his diligent Remington, but if Amber would offer up hers as bait, we could set a trap into which Parish might possibly fall.
"Why would he try again? I assume Amber was bright enough to do a little adjusting of her will. Right?"
"That's right. It's not the money anymore, Erik. It's the hate, the violence, and he needs her silent. He'll try it again if he's sure he can get away with it. I believe that. All we need to do is create the opportunity for him—and be there to stop him."
"That is to say, I could make the opportunity," said Wald. "We assume that any information coming from you to Martin— especially information on the... vulnerability of Amber at such and such a time and place—would be instantly suspect. I, on the other hand, could point him in the right direction in all... innocence."
"How can you be so smart and so dumb at the same time?" Grace said.
We both looked at her.
"Amber won't cooperate. She's a total coward."
"Let us handle Amber," I said.
Wald was studying me hard now. "You're asking me to set him up."
"Yes."
He continued to stare at me. Grace's dangling leg swung to and fro. The morning light came through an east window and lighted the trophy case. He slid off his glasses again, wobbled the temples in his hand as he looked down at them, the right temple swinging loosely on the frame, barely secured.
"Lost one of the screws," he muttered, hopelessly searching his drawer, desk, lap, and floor. "I hate these things."
Erik's mind was obviously not on his glasses.
And neither was mine, until the realization crashed down on me that I had a spare screw—found in Amber's bedroom— still inside the cap of my pen. Involuntarily, I blinked. And with equal involition, my mind began to race.
"Me, too," I said.
Wald looked at the frames. "I only wear these damned things when the world won't see me, image being everything, right? Anyway... back to Parish. Look, if he's done what you've said he's done, then I agree—he'll try to finish her off if the opportunity is there. It seems to me that we need to get him a chance at Amber alone. Right?"
"I think Amber's house would be best—he's familiar with it; it's remote. But we need to move soon. He's about to thro me to Haight."
Grace sighed impetuously. "I still don't think she'll help
Wald turned to look at Grace, who was now leaning back on her hands, legs still lolling off the edge of the desktop. "You think more like your mother every day."
"I'm sure that sits fine with you."
"You are both very bright women."
He turned to me.
"
Russell," he finally said, slipping his glasses back into the drawer, "let's set up a little sling, then get Martin Parish’s ass into it."
He offered me his hand. I shook it. "Thank you," I said absently, smiling with a similar absence. My mind, in fact, was reeling.
Wald stood. "I actually think this may go rather smooth! I'll have that oaf after Amber like a trout on a fly. I look forward to seeing the look on his face when we take him down for. well... what shall we shoot for? Burglary? Attempted murder? Russell, one hour from now, you and I will both be sitting in the same room with him, trying to figure how to play the Midnight Eye right. My guess is that Martin Parish will do everything he can to keep the Eye on the street until he can do Amber once and for all. He'll use the Eye's MO, like he tried to originally."
"I think you're right," I said.
"Thanks, Waldie," said Grace. She lurched off the desk and came to Erik, planted a polite kiss on his cheek, then shook his hand. "It means a lot to have a friend."
"You can count on me for that, Grace."
He was smiling broadly at her now, his blue eyes lighted with something like fascination, and something like mischief.
I used his phone to call the Medical Center. Isabella was awake and feeling well. I asked them to tell her I'd be there as soon as I possibly could.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
One hour later, we were, in fact, seated in Dan Winters's office, gathered to devise our strategy regarding the Midnight Eye. I found myself unable to look at either Wald or Parish with fearing that my suspicions were written on my face as clearly as a headline. It was no easier to focus on Winters, whose penetrating black eyes seemed, as always, to find their way straight into the weakness behind my own facade. Why did he bother to include me here, with an indictment from the DA on its way? Was he simply keeping his enemies close? Or---outlandish as it would have been—had Parish bypassed his boss? Was it even possible that the indictment was nothing more than a terror tactic from Parish, that he had no intention arresting me for a murder he himself had committed? Karen would hardly look at me, so compromised did she feel at having tipped me to Martin's plans. The thought crossed my mine he may have used her. The thought also crossed my mine she was willing to be used. Suspicions of betrayal and treachery piled so high inside me, I could hardly hear myself think. I concentrated on the notepad in front of me, on the pen in my hand, and on the question that had been bothering me as much as it had been bothering John Carfax. How had the Eye managed to bypass the intercepts? We knew he had electronic know-how, this from the testimony of Mary Ing. We knew that there were commercially available products for scrambling, encoding, and decoding, for testing whether a line was "transparent" or not. With some experimentation and a little brains, the Eye might have found the application he was looking for—namely, making calls on a line with no number. But how could he get access to the lines?
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