Eyes of a Child (58 page)

‘I can never express to you,' Paget said softly, ‘how much I wish he were still alive.'

Across the room, Rosa Peralta regarded him impassively. ‘He
would
be,' she answered, ‘if Teresa had not left him.'

The words had an eerie conviction; Paget did not know whether they were offered in irony or consolation. Rosa Peralta, he had become quite certain, was not a simple woman.

Paget watched her. ‘“Character is fate,” someone once said. I think that's true. For all of us.'

Rosa was silent for a moment, appraising him. ‘Long ago,' she told him in a quiet voice, ‘I stopped believing in God. But I still believe that, in some terrible way, there is a balance in life. I know Ricardo's death is part of that. Just as I know that, in the end, you will survive.'

Perhaps it was her voice: for a superstitious moment, Paget felt as if a palmist had read good fortune in the lines of his hand. But when he gave a soft laugh, Rosa Peralta was not smiling.

‘You will see,' she said. ‘In the meanwhile, I will believe that for both of us. And for your son.'

The mention of Carlo, accused of molesting this woman's granddaughter, startled him. And then he heard Terri's footsteps on the stairs.

Entering the living room, she looked from Rosa to Paget, as if surprised to find them together.

Paget tried to smile at her. ‘Relax,' he said. ‘Your mother just told me I'll be acquitted.'

Rosa shook her head. ‘No. I said you will be absolved. To me, it is not quite the same.'

Terri gave Paget a veiled look, then turned to her mother. ‘We'd better go, Mom.'

She bent over the sofa, kissing her mother; in profile, Paget could see how alike they were, yet how they might yet become different. At forty-nine, there might still be light in Terri's face.

‘I'll be back in the morning,' she told Rosa. ‘By seven at the latest, so Elena doesn't worry.'

Rosa faced them in the pale light; Paget thought he saw regret and a trace of sadness on her face, though he was not sure for what. ‘You look well together,' she said softly.

All at once, Paget felt this woman's love for Terri. ‘Thank you,' he answered. There was nothing else to say.

Leaving with Terri, Paget was aware of Rosa Peralta watching until she gently shut the door behind them. It was a while before either of them spoke.

‘What an interesting woman,' Paget said.

Terri did not look at him. ‘Sometimes,' she said at last, ‘my mother's like a mystic. Perhaps it's all the secrets she kept. Even from herself.'

Chapter
8

Charles Monk sat in the witness stand, wearing his trademark gold glasses, a crisp gray pinstripe that looked tailored for a football player, and a silk breast-pocket handkerchief Paget had never seen him wear before. He wondered if Monk, observing that Paget's own silk handkerchiefs had vanished for the trial, meant this as an ironic joke.

‘How did it come about?' Salinas asked Monk, ‘that you first went to Ricardo Arias's apartment?'

Monk seemed to look about, as if orienting himself to another Monday morning. ‘I was contacted by a uniformed policeman on the scene,' he told Salinas. ‘Mr Arias's mother-in-law had called in: he hadn't been seen for a week or so, and she asked if we'd perform a well-being check. When no one answered, they broke in the door and found Mr Arias.'

‘When you arrived, what did you observe?'

Monk gazed at the ceiling. ‘The body, of course. Near Mr Arias's hand was a Smith and Wesson thirty-two safety revolver – the second model, manufactured between 1902 and 1909.' Monk paused, regarding Salinas calmly. ‘The age of the gun was unusual. On inspection we found that one of the rounds had misfired and that the bullet which killed Mr Arias was the second attempt at firing. Which meant that if Mr Arias had killed himself, he was one determined man.'

The sardonic twist caused Caroline to make a note. Sitting next to her, Paget saw Luisa Marin fold her hands and force herself to pay attention; it reminded Paget that Monk was perhaps the witness he most feared.

‘Did you observe anything else?' Salinas asked.

‘Yes. The dead man had been shot through the mouth, and there was a note on Mr Arias's desk, next to a picture of a little girl who turned out to be his daughter.' He looked briefly at Paget. ‘In addition, someone had turned off Mr Arias's answering machine.'

At the corner of his eye, Paget saw Joseph Duarte open his note-book, Marian Celler glancing over his shoulder. Paget decided to focus on Monk.

Salinas moved forward. ‘After you made these observations, what did you do?'

‘Dr Shelton and the crime lab people were doing
their
work – inspecting the body, lifting fingerprints. So we began to search the apartment.'

‘What did you find?'

‘To start, there was no sign of forced entry. That could have meant suicide, but it could also mean that Mr Arias had been killed by someone he let into the apartment, particularly because the building had an intercom for visitors. Then we started finding things that didn't add up.' Monk paused, sipping casually from the glass of water in front of him. ‘Mr Arias had a laundry ticket in his pocket, which turned out to be dated the last day anyone had seen him. It seemed kind of strange that a man who meant to kill himself wanted five clean shirts, with medium starch.'

It was a blow, Paget knew at once. With an air of satisfaction, Salinas asked, ‘Did you find other anomalies?'

‘Yes,' Monk answered. ‘There was a full pot of coffee. Someone had set the automatic coffeemaker to brew some coffee that Mr Arias never got to drink. When we got into his computer, we found a calendar showing appointments for after anyone had seen him
and
, we calculated from the pile of mail and newspapers,
after
he'd been shot.' Monk ticked them off on his fingers. ‘There was a notation for eleven the next day: “Coffee with Leslie.” Then there was an appointment with a Dr Gates on Monday and, a hearing in the family court. If this man was winding up his life, he seemed to have left a few loose ends.

‘Then there was nothing which tied Mr Arias to the gun – no permit, no record of purchase, nothing. Not even any ammunition, or oil, or anything you'd need to maintain a gun.' Monk peered at the jury. ‘Man wants a gun to kill himself, he's not going to make any secret about buying it. I mean, what's the point, especially when you mean to leave a note.

‘Of course, it
could
have been a robbery. But the apartment wasn't torn up, and Mr Arias still had his watch and his wallet, with cash and credit cards inside.' Monk gazed down for a moment. ‘Also, in a gym bag in the bedroom closet, we found ten thousand dollars. Cash.'

Caroline looked up from her notes. ‘Colt,' Paget whispered. ‘They must have paid Richie off in cash.'

Almost imperceptibly, Caroline nodded. ‘Watch Victor,' she whispered back.

Salinas had paused. ‘So accordingly to what you found, Mr Arias
also
was not financially desperate.'

Monk gave him an even stare; Paget sensed some private form of communication. ‘Sure didn't look like that,' Monk said coolly. He stopped, as if interrupting himself, and then shrugged ‘We also found a passbook showing another ten thousand or so. In an account at the B of A. So he had some money even without support from Ms Peralta. However he got it.'

‘Brooks called Monk off,' Paget murmured to Caroline. ‘Monk wanted to know where the money came from, and they made him stop when he couldn't trace it to Terri or me.'

‘Sounds right.' Caroline made another note. ‘I wonder if Victor knows about that.'

‘And when,' Salinas asked, ‘did you first speak to Mr Paget?'

The prosecutor, Paget realized, had quickly changed the subject. ‘Victor knows
something
,' he said under his breath.

‘Three days later,' Monk was answering. ‘At his home, after he and Teresa Peralta flew back from Italy. She was there too.'

Paget leaned closer to Caroline. ‘I remember Monk asking if I still meant to run for the Senate. Maybe he was trying to tell me something.'

‘And what did Mr Paget tell you?' Salinas asked Monk.

‘Then? Only a few things.' Monk glanced at Paget, then he faced Salinas. ‘I asked Mr Paget whether he'd been home that Friday night, after the last time anyone claimed to have seen or spoken to Mr Arias. I understood him to say yes. But when I went back to the office and replayed the tape of our interview, I realized he hadn't said a thing. Just nodded.' Monk shook his head in wonder. ‘It was a stupid mistake. I don't know how many times I've told interview subjects to answer aloud. Including a couple of Mr Paget's clients.'

‘What did you do about that?'

‘Nothing, at first. Just started going over the papers we found in Mr Arias's apartment.' Monk adjusted his glasses. ‘I found a clipping from a tabloid, the
Inquisitor,
where Mr Arias accused Mr Paget of ‘stealing' Teresa Peralta and breaking up his marriage. So I started in on the papers from Mr Arias's divorce case.'

Salinas stood straighter, folding his arms. ‘And what did you find there?'

‘The last papers filed in the case were marked confidential, so the public couldn't read them.' Monk touched his chin. ‘It was a motion by Mr Arias to keep his daughter, Elena, from seeing Mr Paget or his son. Mr Arias's own affidavit repeated the accusations he'd made in the
Inquisitor
.' Monk finished in a flat voice. ‘He also accused Carlo Paget of having sexually molested Elena Arias.'

With every instinct of a father, Paget wanted to stand up to say that Ricardo Arias was a liar. But instead he fought to compose himself, aware of Marian Cellar turning to watch him. Beneath the table, he felt Caroline lightly touching his arm. And then Salinas asked Monk, ‘Did you then go back to Mr Paget?'

‘Yes.'

Slowly, Salinas walked back to the prosecution table and produced a black tape player, holding it aloft. ‘And did you record your second interview with Mr Paget?'

‘Yes.'

Paget braced himself for the tape. But then, to his surprise, Salinas dropped the subject. ‘After you spoke to Mr Paget,' he asked, ‘what did you do next?'

Monk glanced at Paget again. ‘We interviewed a neighbor,' he answered. ‘A woman named Georgina Keller, who lived next to Mr Arias. She had gone on her own vacation the same day as Mr Paget, to visit a daughter in Florida, and only returned ten days or so after we found Mr Arias.'

‘And what did Mrs Keller tell you?'

‘What she
told
us,' Monk responded, ‘was that she'd been taking out the trash to the garbage chute the night before she left. When she passed Mr Arias's apartment, she thought she heard voices coming from his apartment. Two men, and then a thud. Like someone hitting the floor.'

Caroline rose at once. ‘Your Honor, Inspector Monk is entitled to a certain leeway in describing the course of his inquiry. But we're in danger of getting a lot of undocumented information, a lot of it secondhand, and plainly hearsay. I move that the answer be stricken and that Inspector Monk be admonished to stick to matters about which he can claim personal knowledge.'

‘He
is
,' Salinas retorted at once. ‘I am not asking him to testify for Mrs Keller, who will be with us shortly, but to describe the evidence he gathered. Subject to proof, we are entitled to lay out his investigative processes.' Here he turned to Caroline. ‘Particularly if, as we suspect, Ms Masters intends to suggest that the police or prosecutor are somehow biased against Mr Paget.'

Salinas, Paget thought, was like a computer. There was no defense he did not anticipate, no testimony he was not armed to justify. ‘Motion denied,' Lerner said promptly. ‘The prosecution may continue.'

‘Thank you, Your Honor.' Quickly, Salinas turned to Monk. ‘What else did Mrs Keller tell you?'

‘That she went to her door and opened it a crack.'

‘What, if anything, did she report seeing?'

‘A tall blond-haired man, in a light-gray suit leaving Mr Arias's apartment. She saw his face, she said, because he stopped for a minute to look at his hand and then at something on the sleeve of his coat.'

‘Did she describe this man?'

‘Yes.' Monk folded his hands. ‘About six feet, six one, with blondish hair, a strong jaw, and a slight ridge on his nose.'

Paget felt the jury turn to him, matching the description with his face. Joseph Duarte seemed to squint; next to him, Marian Celler put on her glasses.

‘And did you then show her a photograph?'

‘Yes.' Monk paused a moment. ‘Of Mr Paget.'

‘What, if anything, did Mrs Keller say?'

‘That this was the man she had seen in the hallway.'

Paget found that he could not watch the jury.

‘And what did you do next?' Salinas asked in a calm voice.

‘Detective Lynch and I obtained a warrant to search Mr Paget's house and impound his car.'

‘And what evidence did you find?'

Monk removed his glasses, wiping them on the silk handkerchief before he casually stuffed it back into the breast pocket of his suit. ‘Mr Arias's landlord,' he said matter-of-factly, ‘had installed new carpeting just before he moved in. All carpets leave fibers on the shoes of anyone who walks on them, and
new
carpeting leaves many more fibers.' He put his glasses back on. ‘According to the crime lab, there were fibers from Mr Arias's carpet on the Persian rug in Mr Paget's entryway, the runner up his central stairs, and the Chinese carpet in his bedroom.'