Gray Area (5 page)

“Best decision you ever made,” Burke couldn’t resist as Lou walked passed
him.

Maybe it was this last dig that made Lou stop.  Maybe it was
something else; a long night, too much shit in the past few hours, a dead wife,
a wasted life—he couldn’t immediately say.  But Lou made a decision within
a split second, and as soon as he had committed himself to it, he had the
feeling his life would change forever.

Not that it hadn’t changed enough already...

“You have one other option, Marshall,” Lou turned, as if in afterthought.

“What?” Marshall asked impatiently.

“I have a P.I. license.  If you’re so inclined, and can meet my fee,
you can hire me on as an independent investigator.”

“You’re hired,” Marshall said without hesitation. 

Burke moved like an animal ready to feed on fresh kill.  “Diamond, don’t
do this.”

Lou regarded Burke without expression. 

Burke turned from brother to brother, then snarled at Diamond. 
“What about your vacation?”

Lou offered an ugly smile.  “With as much as I’m gonna charge my
brother, now I can afford to take it.”

Burke fumed for a moment longer, then moved off to confer with the
Medical Examiner.  Marshall watched Burke stalk away.

“He doesn’t like you.”

“You think?”

“Listen, thanks for—”

“Twenty thousand for the job, ten up front.”

“Alright.  Jesus, Lou, what the hell happened to you?  You look
like you got hit by a truck.”

Lou didn’t want to get into it.  He was already studying the
library, trying to get a clear picture of the incident site.  “The shooter
knew the layout of this place.  Odds are he knew your people were here—and
what they were doing.”

“Like I said, Marianne’s husband.  He’s your number one suspect,”
Marshall said.

“He’s
your
number one suspect.”

“It’s Simpson, Lou,” Marshall said emphatically.  “And see that this
thing gets closed fast, would you?”

“You seem pretty sure this is all about a jealous husband.”

“Writing is on the wall.  No one better to suspect at the moment, is
there?”

Lou shrugged.  Something twinkled on the ground, just under a small
computer table against the wall.  It caught Lou’s eye and he walked over
to get a closer look.  Marshall followed, impatiently glancing around at
the army of investigating officers invading his firm.

Lou reached under the desk, and pulled out what appeared to be a broach. 
It was a golden seal, couched against a small bed of emeralds.  Lou
scanned around to see if Burke or anyone else had seen him retrieve the
jewelry.  Satisfied that everyone else was involved with corpse-related
matters, he took his brother by the arm and led him to a small enclave in the
library.

“Belong to anyone you know?” Lou asked Marshall, examining the broach.

“Only one person wears a broach like that in the firm,” Marshall
said.  “Linda Baylor.  But she’s not your killer.”

“I never implied as much,” Lou said.  “I was just asking a
question.”

Something about the way Marshall jumped to Baylor’s defense set up an
alarm inside of Lou.  Not a loud one, but a titter nevertheless.  He
had the feeling that his brother knew more than he was telling, and it fueled
Lou’s overall annoyance.

“I’ll keep this, if you don’t mind,” Lou said to his brother.  “Not
a word to Burke, okay?”

Marshall nodded surreptitiously.  Lou left through the front doors
of the library. 

Burke approached Marshall.

“Your brother is a pain in the ass.”

“Older brothers tend to be.  Comes with the territory.”

“You and he aren’t exactly the picture of fraternal love.  Mind if I
ask why?”

Marshall studied Burke and shrugged.  “He blames me for the death of
his wife.”

Burke nodded, thinking about this for a moment.  “I know about that
case.  Tough break.  But you’re his brother.  One day, I’m sure
he’ll forgive you.”

Marshall smiled without a trace of humor.

“No, Detective, I don’t believe he will,” Marshall said as he watched Lou
disappear around the corner of the elevator banks.  “As a matter of fact,
he promised to do one thing before he died.”

“What’s that?”

“He promised to kill me.”

SIX

As Lou exited the library, the brother thing vis-à-vis himself and
Marshall again loomed large in his already flagellated ethos.  They were
so goddamned different, always had been, always would be.  Even when they
had been friends of sorts, before Maria’s death.

It had started out when they were children and carried itself over to
adulthood.  Though Lou was always the protective “big brother,” Marshall
never took to being the recipient of that kind of guardianship.  In fact,
Lou suspected from early on that his younger sibling resented it. 

From the very beginning, Marshall was the brilliant whiz kid.  In
school, he was a scholastic standout, soaring over every known I.Q. test ever
created.  Teachers loved Marshall’s dizzying intellect, and mom and dad
adored him for his seemingly endless potential.  Lou never begrudged his
younger sibling the attention … but it did make him more of a loner, less
secure in any abilities he had.  Those abilities did not manifest
themselves until much later when he joined the Marine Corps, and still later in
the police force.  Abilities that made him, though an expendable asset, an
asset nevertheless on the battlefield.

Marshall went on to Cornell, then later graduated with honors from
Princeton’s elite law school.  He became a partner in the firm of Teller
and Mix in New York after only a year of associateship, having brought in more
than twenty clients and fifteen million dollars in billing fees.  Lou
followed his younger brother’s career with vicarious pride.  His own rise
through the military ranks was slow, if somewhat sporadically spectacular, but
it could not match Marshall’s stellar ascent.  Lou finally earned
recognition in the overthrow of Panama, then later in the jungles of Nicaragua
against rebel insurgents.  By the time he was thirty, he had a rank of captain
and was given his own command in the Gulf War.  It was here that he shined
in several high-visibility campaigns against the Iraqi Republican
Guard—guerilla operations which prevailed due to his experience in the bush of
South America.  There were later medals, commendations, and
congratulations from the president, even High Tea on the White House
Garden.  Honorably discharged in 1991, he joined the elite SWAT division
of the Los Angeles Police Department, where he continued to wage war, albeit of
a different kind, and again distinguished himself on the field of combat. 
In 1994, he quit SWAT, and got his J.D.  After a few years, he started his
own law practice, mainly pro bono defense of juveniles gone slightly bad, or
really bad beyond reasonable doubt.  It was during these years that he met
Maria, and of course, the rest was history.

Marshall had not been supportive of Lou’s decision to pursue the
law.  Though Lou had graduated from a small college near home with
straight A’s, Marshall believed, and told Lou as much, that he didn’t believe
this was a good career shift.  Lou was mildly baffled, but
undeterred.  At the time, he was tired of war and of the street.  He
wanted peace.  And though he didn’t expect to get married within one year
of passing the bar, he thought he was ready for the commitment.

Four years later, Maria, his wife, and mother to his only daughter, was
dead.

So while the fraternal bond between Marshall and Lou was never close, it
expanded by light years in the aftermath of Maria’s death.  Marshall had
tried to reach out repeatedly in that first year, along with his wife Cyndi,
but Lou’s own pain and his rage against his brother, was too great. 
Perhaps somewhere, deep down, Lou recognized that Marshall was not responsible for
his Maria’s death.  But he would have to dig pretty deep to acknowledge
this fact.  Then, and now, Marshall was as culpable for Maria’s death as
her true murderers.

But here they were again, speaking.  Or, rather—communicating.

And what more fitting thing to bring them together than a double
homicide.

Diamond continued walking until he reached the outer reception area near
the elevator banks.  The company staff book was lying flat on the
reception desk.  As he reached for it, a voice called out to him.

“Officer Diamond.”

Lou turned to regard a young man of around twenty-eight staring at
him.  He wore a sweatshirt that said UCLA on the front and small,
wire-rimmed glasses were even now sliding down his nose.  He was sweating
like a pig.

“Yes?”

“I’m Gabe Benjamin,” he said, folding his arms.  He looked in either
direction, then back at Diamond.  “I’m a lawyer here.  Second year
associate.”

“Congratulations.  What can I do for you?”

He nodded at the seal broach in Diamond’s hand.  “Linda Baylor’s?”

“So they tell me.”

“Listen, I—there’s something you should know.”

Diamond waited, saying nothing.

“I—I was here tonight.”

“Really.”

“They—Jason—I mean, you know—Marianne—”

“The dead people in the library.”

“Yes.  Them.  They didn’t know I was here.”

Diamond shoved his hands into his pockets, sizing up the guy.  “You
should probably go into that library and tell my associates what you just told
me.  It could be important.”

“I didn’t see who killed them.”

“What
did
you see?”
Benjamin started to fidget and sweat even more.  He then held up his
hands.

“I didn’t see—not at first, anyway—but I heard them.  I heard them
start to, you know—”

“No, I really don’t.”

“You know—when they began to … get it on, kind of,” Benjamin finished in
a whisper.

“I would say they did considerably more than just kind of get it
on.  Wouldn’t you?”

Benjamin moved a bit closer to Diamond.

“They didn’t know I was here because I was down in Records for most of
the day.  I thought I was the only one here.”

“Apparently, so did they,” Lou said.

“Yes, I guess so.  Anyway, I had come up for some research material
in the library, and that’s when I—when I saw them.”

“Getting it on.”

“Right.”

“Is there anything else you want to tell me?”

Benjamin stared at Diamond as if unsure whether to continue or bolt down
the hall for dear life.  He swallowed hard, and nodded.

“Jason and Linda Baylor,” he said at last.  “They were also involved
… romantically.”

Diamond continued to fix his gaze on Benjamin, not moving a muscle,
daring the young man to continue.

“It ended a little while ago, but it happened,” Benjamin said. 
“Everyone in the firm knew about it.  Jason loved to talk about his
conquests.  The idiot never knew how to shut his mouth.”

“Go on.”  

“Anyway, she broke it off a few weeks ago, I don’t know why.  And
Jason shut up, then almost immediately took up with Marianne.”

“This is very interesting stuff, Mr. Benjamin.  So why are you
telling me this, and not my friends in Homicide?”

“Because I know you’re Marshall’s brother.  And I overheard that he
wants to keep this close to the cuff.”

“How very helpful.”

“I’m … just trying to play ball.”

Again, Diamond was silent.

Benjamin glanced at the seal broach again.  “Linda’s crazy for that
shit.”

“So you don’t know if Linda and Mr. Randall had an amicable parting?”

Benjamin sighed.  “I don’t think it was amicable at all.  With
Linda, nothing ends amicably.”

“Why is that?”

“Because she’s a bitch,” Benjamin said with conviction.

“Can you define bitch?” Lou said.

“Look, she’s a brilliant litigation attorney but she is vicious.  I
should know.  I work with her.  We handle this firm’s largest
account.”

“You’re also setting her up as a fairly good suspect for murder.  Is
that your intention?”

“No, I didn’t want to do that.  I’m just saying … I’m just
suggesting that maybe, maybe, she might know who would have done this terrible,
heinous thing,” Benjamin said as he began to fidget again.

Diamond studied the seal broach he held, deciding to let Gabe Benjamin
sweat for just a few seconds more. 

“Maybe I’ll talk to this Ms. Baylor,” he said at last.

“You should,” Benjamin urged.

“Why is that?”

And now Benjamin smiled.  “You’ll see.”

He looked to the library, then back to Diamond.  “I guess you want
me to give a statement to those guys now, right?”

“That’s okay.  You gave a statement to me, that’ll do for now. 
We can make it official later.  Good enough?”

Benjamin offered a timid smile.  “Sure.  Sure, that’s fine.”

“Thank you, Mr. Benjamin.  You’ve been very … educational.”

Benjamin nodded, his smile fading.  He then turned, walked behind a
row of boxes, and disappeared out of sight.

Of course, the killer could very well be Gabe Benjamin, Diamond mused,
though he thought that Alfalfa from the Little Rascals was a more logical
suspect for murder.  The guy didn’t add up as a shooter, and no killer in
his right mind would come out and make a statement to a cop that he had been
there at the time of the actual incident.  No, the Gabester was telling
the truth, Diamond concluded.  Probably caught Jason and the fetching
Marianne fucking hard to high heaven, got an ear and eye-full, then fled the
scene with red-faced astonishment.  That he hadn’t mentioned that he heard
a gunshot was not surprising either—the Records Department was probably
downstairs, in one of the four floors that Berenson & Marelli
occupied.  The discharge explosion from a Colt, the weapon of suspect, was
not particularly loud. 

No, Benjamin was clean.  A weenie, but clean.

Linda Baylor, however …