After Dark

by Phillip Margolin

  Then, as soon as you're rested, I want you back at work."

  Now it was Abbie's turn to look away. "I'm not coming back, Jack."

  "Look, I know how you feel. I've talked to everyone about this.

  There's not a soul in the office who doesn't want you with us.

  Hell, you're one of the best lawyers in the state. We need you."

  "I appreciate that and I want you to thank everyone. Hearing what you just said is important to me. But I've had an offer I can't turn down."

  Stamm looked back and forth between Abbie and Matthew.

  "I'll be damned," he said. Then he broke into a grin. "I guess some good came out of this after all."

  "Will you be our best man?" Abbie asked.

  "Hell, no. In fact, I'm going to jump up when the minister asks if there's anyone who objects to the wedding. If you think I'm going to let you two gang up on my office without doing anything to stop you, you're crazy."

  Chapter TWENTY-NINE

  The way Tracy Cavanaugh was feeling, you'd think there was bright sun and a profusion of flowers outside her window, instead of a pounding downpour and predictions of solid rain for the rest of the week before Christmas. Tracy was humming while she worked and smiling when she wasn't humming, and there was more than one reason for her high spirits.

  The case against Abigail Griffen had been dismissed because of her detective work, Matthew was almost fully recuperated and would be released from the hospital in two days and her relationship with Barry was terrific.

  A knock on her office door made Tracy turn away from her computer. On the monitor was a draft of points for the oral argument in the Texas case. Matthew wanted her to come with him when he argued before the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.

  "Tracy," Emily Webster, Matthew's secretary, said excitedly, "Dennis Haggard just called. They're dismissing the case against Jeffrey Coulter. Mrs. Franklin flunked the polygraph examination."

  "Fantastic. I'll tell Matt when I go to the hospital this afternoon."

  "The wedding invitations arrived," Emily said, handing one to Tracy.

  "Why don't you bring him a sample."

  "Sure." Tracy grinned. "He'll get a kick out of it."

  "Could you give him this, too. It's Dr. Shirov's bill. I want Mr.

  Reynolds to approve it before I write the check."

  Emily handed Tracy a sheaf of papers and left the room.

  Tracy set down the invitation and Dr. Shirov's bill and went back to work. Fifteen minutes later, she stopped typing and walked down to the library to check a case. She found the volume of the United States Supreme Court reporter she wanted and brought it back to her office, laying it on top of Dr. Shirov's bill so she could copy the passage she needed. When she was done, she closed the book, revealing the part of the bill that set out an account of the hours Dr. Shirov had spent on the case, the dates on which he had worked and the reason for spending the time.

  Tracy frowned. Something was wrong with the bill. She picked it up and shook her head. It was obviously a typo. Tracy decided to straighten out the problem so Matthew wouldn't have to deal with it from his hospital bed. She was certain he would want Dr. Shirov paid promptly.

  "Dr. Shirov," Tracy said when she was put through to the scientist, "this is Tracy Cavanaugh at Matthew Reynolds's office.

  I'm sorry to bother you. I have your bill here. I'm going to bring it to Mr. Reynolds when I see him at the hospital this afternoon."

  "How is he feeling?"

  "They're releasing him in two days. There's no permanent damage."

  "That's a great relief. Give him my regards."

  "I will. About the bill. There's a mistake on it. I'm certain it's a typo. I wanted to get the correct date, so we can pay you."

  "Good. I'm going on vacation and Matt's check will be welcome."

  Tracy laughed. "I'll make sure we send it out pronto. Do you have your copy in front of you?"

  "Let me get it."

  "Where is the problem?" Dr. Shirov asked a moment later.

  "The first entry on your time records. It says Mr. Reynolds called you about the case in early October."

  "Yes."

  "We didn't know we would need you until the trial was halfway through.

  That would have been in mid-November."

  The line was silent for a second. Then Dr. Shirov said, "The date is correct. I remember the call because Matt rang me at home."

  "Can you give me a summary, so I can refresh Mr. Reynolds's memory in case he has any questions?"

  "Oh, it wasn't much. He said he was going to be in trial soon and might have a rush job for me. He was checking to make certain I would be in town. That was pretty much the whole thing, except for some small talk."

  "Did he tell you what he wanted you to do?"

  "Not specifically, but he asked about the availability of the reactor."

  "Thanks, Dr. Shirov."

  "Remember to give Matt my regards, please."

  "I will."

  Tracy hung up and stared at the monitor. The words blurred.

  Her heart was beating so fast, it felt like it might blast out of her chest. Tracy walked out to Emily Webster's desk.

  "Where does Mr. Reynolds keep his account ledgers?"

  "I've got them."

  "I have to see if he wrote a check to Dr. Shirov in connection with the Griffen case," Tracy lied. "I'll look it up for you."

  "Don't bother. I'll do it. It could take some time."

  Tracy took the trust account ledger and check register to her office.

  She went back several months, but could not find what she was looking for. When she brought the ledger and register to Emily, the secretary was getting ready to leave for lunch with the receptionist.

  "Who's minding the store?" Tracy asked.

  "Maggie is sick. We're having the answering service handle the calls during lunch. You're the only one in. If you want, I'll tell the service to put your calls through."

  "No. That's okay."

  Tracy forced herself to wait five minutes after everyone left.

  Then she locked the front door and walked quickly up the stairs to Matthew's, living quarters. She had never seen them before.

  At one end of the hall was a small kitchen. She went through the drawers quickly, finding only kitchen utensils. The next room was Matthew's bedroom. She hesitated before violating his privacy. The idea of searching his bedroom repulsed her, but Tracy steeled herself and entered.

  The contents of the room gave no clue that it was the twentieth century.

  The oak bed was large; its head- and footboards polished and ornamented with hand-carved floral designs. There was a standing mirror next to a chest of drawers that may have been part of a set some pioneer shipped around the Horn.

  On the chest of drawers were several photographs. They were old. The first showed a man and woman standing together.

  The man was tall and solid. He had an easy smile and short steel-gray hair. The woman was slender. Neither person was handsome, but both were strong-featured with faces that radiated intelligence, humor and compassion.

  The second photograph was of the man. He was dressed in a suit, walking down the steps of a courthouse, his back erect, his hands manacled in front of him. The photo was part of a newspaper story. The headline read: OSCAR REYNOLDS SENTENCED TO

  DEATH.

  The third photograph was of Matthew and his father. They were standing by a stream in the forest. Matthew must have been six or seven. His father held a fishing rod in one hand and his arm was draped around Matthew's shoulder. Matthew beamed out at Tracy, so proud to be the one his father was honoring with his touch.

  Tracy felt like she might cry. She took a deep breath. When she was back in control, she started going hurriedly through the drawers.

  Matthew's clothes were whites and blacks. There were no golf shirts, no tennis shorts, nothing that hinted at leisure.

  Nothing that hinted at anything but single-minded devotion
to his cause.

  Across from the bedroom was Matthew's study. Tracy glanced at the position on the marble chessboard. She had been bringing the ,postcards from the correspondence games to the hospital and recognized it.

  Tracy looked up from the board. Around the walls stood collections of famous closing arguments, biographies of Benjamin Cardozo, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Felix Frankfurter and other great Supreme Court justices, a set of notebooks with every death penalty case decided by the United States Supreme Court and volumes on philosophy, psychology, forensic medicine and other topics related to Matthew's work. Tracy fingered some of the volumes, running her hands down their spines. This was Matthew's private sanctum, where he developed the ideas he used to save human lives. This was where he thought his most private thoughts.

  If there was a place in this house where Tracy would find the truth, it was here.

  Tracy worked quickly, worried that the lunch hour would end before she was done. She was halfway through Matthew's rolltop desk when she came to the bottom right drawer and found the manila envelope. She reached in and touched the bankbook. She had prayed that she would never find what she was looking for.

  Now that she had it, she was afraid to open it.

  Tracy leaned back and the antique wooden chair creaked.

  There was $300,000 in the account after Matthew deposited the $250,000 he received for defending Joel Livingstone. There was only $150,000 the week after Justice Griffen's murder.

  Tracy's hand shook as she emptied the contents of the envelope onto the blotter. She felt dizzy. She knew what she was seeing, but she wished with all her heart that it was not there.

  First were the articles about Abigail Griffen. She moved them aside and saw the photographs.

  "Oh, God," she whispered as she shuffled through them.

  There were pictures of Abbie outside an office building in a business suit, talking earnestly to another attorney, and Abbie in the park across from the courthouse, resting on a bench, her head back, face to the sun, oblivious of the fact that her picture was being taken with a telephoto lens. Then there were pictures of Abbie at the house where Justice Griffen was murdered and the rental house where the metal strip had been found. One shot showed Abbie gardening in her yard in jeans and a tee shirt.

  There were several shots of Abbie inside both houses that had obviously been taken through a window at night.

  Tracy picked up a set of 81/2 x 1 1 photographs, taken with a telescopic lens from the woods on the edge of Abbie's property, which showed Abbie by her pool in a bikini. The first shot showed Abbie stepping through the French windows onto the patio and the shots followed her to the side of the pool. Several more photos showed Abbie in seductive poses: languorously stretching like a cat; lying on her side with her knees drawn up looking like a child; and resting on her forearms with her face to the sun. A final set, taken in extreme close-up, concentrated on every part of her body.

  Tracy thought back to the wilderness photographs she had seen on her first visit to Matthew's office. Especially the shot of the doe and her fawn in the clearing. She realized, with horror, that Matthew had stalked Abbie with his camera the way he had stalked the deer.

  But it was the final batch of photographs from the manila envelope that brought everything into focus. The shots Matthew had taken at the cabin on the coast. Abbie circling the cabin with her Pentax camera on the day she was attacked, Abbie walking on the beach, pictures of Abbie taken at night through the window. In several, she was naked, wandering through the living room unselfconsciously, searching for something. In the next group of pictures, she was terrified and racing through the woods.

  Tracy could not feel the pictures in her hand as she slowly shuffled through them. In the next shot, a man in black was staring away from the camera. In the next, he was facing it. The man was wearing a ski mask, but he had the physique of Charlie Deems.

  The last group of photographs solved the mystery of the intruder's identity. Matthew had captured Charlie Deems, the ski mask removed, standing in the recesses of a deserted parking lot under a streetlamp, talking to Robert Griffen.

  Chapter THIRTY

  Tracy Cavanaugh sat beside Matthew Reynolds in his hospital room and imagined instead that they were in a narrow cell in the penitentiary after dark. The image would not hold. The concept was unbearable. The idea would not leave her.

  "The outline for oral argument is excellent," Matthew said as he reread the last paragraph of the document Tracy had prepared for the Texas case. Though Reynolds looked tired, and his pale skin seemed thin as parchment, a glow suffused him. "Thank you," Tracy answered stiffly.

  Reynolds took no notice of her mood. He put down the outline and examined the wedding invitation again. He held it up and beamed with happiness.

  "I think they did a good job, don't you?" he asked.

  Tracy did not answer. Until now, she had been unable to tell him the real reason for her visit.

  "Tracy?" Reynolds said, putting down the invitation. She was staring at the window. It was streaked with rain. Tracy shivered.

  "Do you remember telling me about your father?" Tracy asked. "The way you felt growing up. Losing him and loving him so much."

  Tracy paused. A hard and painful lump had formed in her throat.

  "What's wrong?" Reynolds asked, his face clouding with confusion and concern.

  "I tried to imagine what that must have been like for you," Tracy went on. "Knowing he was going to die and not being able to save him. Now, I know how you felt."

  Reynolds cocked his head to one side, but he said nothing.

  "It wasn't just the photograph, was it? You created every piece of evidence. You manufactured the bomb and the duplicate metal strips, then you lured Abbie to the rose garden so you could plant one of the strips and the Clorox bottle in her garage. You paid Charlie Deems fifty thousand dollars to testify against Abbie. You told him what to say and you created the account with the hundred thousand dollars, so you could destroy him on cross."

  Matthew's eyes were fully alive and focused on her. She had his full attention.

  "What are you talking about?" Matthew asked evenly.

  "When was the first time you knew the state thought the metal strip was significant?" Tracy asked, ignoring his question.

  "After Torino's testimony. You know that."

  "I also know that you called Dr. Shirov before the trial started to make sure he would be in town, and that the reactor would be available.

  What possible reason would you have to do that, unless you knew you would need his testimony to discredit the testimony of Paul Torino?"

  "If I understand you correctly, you're saying that I murdered Justice Griffen and framed his wife for his murder."

  "That's exactly what I'm saying."

  "Have you forgotten that Abbie and I are going to be married?"

  "No."

  "Do you understand that I love Abigail Griffen more than I love life?"

  "Yes. And that's why you did this monstrous thing. For love.

  Bluffing won't do any good. I know everything. I've seen the pictures."

  Matthew's eyes widened. "What pictures?"

  "I was in your study."

  Matthew's face was suffused with rage. He rose halfway out of his chair.

  "You were in my rooms? You dared to go through my private papers?"

  Tracy was so drained that she could not feel fear or anger or even sorrow any longer.

  "Was that worse than what you did, skulking in the dark, violating every rule of decency, because of your obsession? Peeping in Abbie's windows, raping her with your camera?"

  Tracy stopped. Matthew sank back into his chair as if he had been slapped.

  "Why?" Tracy asked, fighting back tears. "Why, Matt?"

  Matthew looked out at the rain. For a moment, Tracy was afraid he would dismiss her. Then, in a voice that sounded as if it came from a distance, Matthew said, "She would never . . . It was my only chance.

  My onl
y chance. And . . . And he would have murdered her if I hadn't stopped him. It was the only way to protect her."

  Matthew leaned back and closed his eyes.

  "Have you any idea what it was like for me, growing up with a mother who killed herself, the stigma of being a murderer's son, and this face? I had no friends and the idea of a woman loving me was so alien I never ever let myself consider it, because I couldn't stand the pain it would bring me. My only escape was into my imagination and my only salvation was my mission.

  "Then I saw Abbie. She was prosecuting Charlie Deems. I had dropped in to watch the trial because Deems wanted to hire me and I was curious to see how his case was being tried. She was so radiant I was struck dumb.

  I followed her that very first day. I couldn't keep my eyes off her.

  That night all of my defenses crashed and I saw myself for what I was. A pathetic little man so frightened of the world that I used my father's death as an excuse to keep from living. I was less than human. I was an animal burrowing deep into the ground, afraid of the light. And that light was life itself. And I realized that life was meaningless without love."

  Matthew leaned forward, desperate for understanding.

  "Do you know what it's like knowing that everything you do must be perfect or someone will die? I never sleep peacefully. The fear that I'll make a mistake makes it impossible. Until I saw Abbie, I coped by fooling myself. I truly believed in my mission. I was like a religious zealot who can walk barefoot across coals because his faith shields him from the pain. When I saw Abbie, it was like losing my faith in God and suddenly seeing that there is only a void.

  "I knew Abbie was my salvation. She was color in a world of grays. Only the thought that she was walking the earth kept me going.

  "The week before we went to Atlanta, she told me she was going to the cabin. When Joel Livingstone accepted the plea, I flew home and went to the coast. I camped out in the woods and spent two days with Abbie."

  Matthew colored. He looked away. "I know what you think.

  That I'm twisted, a monster. I am all that, but I couldn't help myself.

  It was something I'd been doing ever since I saw her. I never even bothered to rationalize my actions. She was like air to me. Without her I would die.