Injustice (10 page)

“Exactly what we need,” Upton said, grinning at Monica, “a little feminine charm to offset the rough-and-tumble tête-à-tête of our boy's club. Gentlemen, let's find a chair for Monica.”

“Love to,” she said, “but I'm meeting a client.”

“Thanks for the warning,” I said. “Should we evacuate now, just in case his vest goes off prematurely?”

She laughed and tugged my earlobe. “You
federales
are all the same,” she said. “I defend one small-time terrorist, and now, as far as you're concerned, I'm marked for life.”

She left.

“Where were we?” I said.

Where we were was that we were trying to decide what to do with our corruption investigation now that our Moby Dick had come belly-up to the surface all on his own.

The conclusion we arrived at was that there were plenty of other targets, and we should start working our way through. For any of the legislators and lower-echelon officers of Subsurface who wanted to cut deals, we'd take them first come, first served. There wasn't much more to discuss. Our plan boiled down to a simple process: Investigate, subpoena, indict, convict.

As we prepared to leave, my cell rang. I recognized the number: trooper headquarters. “Hello, Dorsey,” I said. “What news do you have?”

“Wrong,” a woman's voice said. “It's Detective Sabin. Have you got any time to meet this afternoon?”

“I've got right now.”

“Where are you? I'll come to you.”

I told her. She said to stay put, she'd be there in a few minutes.

Upton and Chip left.

T
he table was a mess. Clams are like that: dishes of semicongealed butter, soggy balls of crumpled napkins, broth and butter drippings everywhere, drinking glasses with an inch or two of scummy water.

Sabin showed up within a few minutes. She sat where Chip had been and looked at the table with a crinkled nose. The server came and started piling it all onto a tray. “Anything?” she asked Sabin.

“Just coffee,” Sabin said.

“You sure?” I asked. “We could get more clams.”

“Allergic.”

“Poor you,” I said. “One of life's simple pleasures.”

Her coffee came. I got a cup as well. We talked about Bud Billman for a few minutes, then she asked how Tina and Barnaby were doing with all the trauma. “We're managing,” I said, “but that's not what you're here to talk about, is it?”

She laughed. “No. There was a phone in that box of belongings from Lydia Trevor's office.”

“A phone?”

“A burner. Prepaid. Disposable.”

“And?”

“Used mostly for texting. Just a few calls. But always the same number. Only one number.” She sipped her coffee, then put it down and patted her mouth with a napkin. “Lydia Trevor was having an affair.”

“Oh. With whom?” I asked. I was pleased at my nonchalance.
Don't react, just listen.

“We haven't figured it out yet,” Sabin said. “The other party had a disposal, too. No quick way to identify it.”

“What
do
you know?”

“He's married. He was cautious, referring to his wife simply as ‘the W' in texts. No names. Lydia was more revealing. She texted a lot about Henry and Tina and your family.”

“So this mystery lover: I guess he's our main suspect now?”

“Not exactly,” Sabin said. She put a sheet on the table. “This is a printout of all the texts. If you read through, it feels like Lydia and this guy had more of a tired old marriage than a passionate fling. Very few sexual references, and the guy sounds genuinely happy for her about getting engaged.”

I flipped through the pages, reading a few strings:

555-1225:
Glass of wine tonight?

Lydia:
Can't. Plans with Henry.

555-1225:
Lucky guy.

While I was reading, Sabin chuckled. “That number,” she said. “Christmas Day. Twelve-twenty-five. It's my birthday. Ironic for a Jewish girl.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The phone number: 555-1225. I'm always seeing that string: twelve-twenty-five. December twenty-fifth. I used to use it for passwords and security codes.”

I continued reading.

Lydia:
Fun afternoon. Got to pop in my favorite CD!

555-1225:
Can't believe I fell asleep.

Lydia:
LOL. Passion gone. So sad.

555-1225:
Passion is fine. Youth and stamina gone.

Lydia:
LOL.

“You're sure it's a man?” I asked.

“Pretty sure,” Sabin said.

“Any clues who it could be?”

“Not yet. We're working on it. What we're interested in—”

“What about his wife? She'd have motive.”

“Possible,” Sabin said. “But look at these texts we pulled out.” She handed me another sheet.

Henry would fucking kill me.

Henry went ballistic.

Henry went postal.

If he ever finds out I'll be dead.

Scares me sometimes.

He's got demons like a dog's got fleas.

I handed the sheet back to Sabin. “You'd have to know Lydia,” I said. “She was like that. Everything's the biggest, the best, the worst. Everything always leads to cataclysm or to paradise. It's just the way she talked.”

“Yeah, well,” Sabin said. She sipped her coffee. “You see where we're coming from.”

“You're thinking Henry's involvement with that scumbag investigator . . . what's his name?”

“Pursley.”

“Pursley. Right. You're thinking Henry had his suspicions, hired Pursley. Pursley did the digging, discovered the affair. Is that right?”

“Ten-four.”

“And it looks bad that Henry was even involved with a guy like Pursley. Too cozy with the criminal element?”

“Well, it doesn't look
good
.”

“And I'm sure you're thinking that when Pursley confirmed what Henry already suspected, Henry went ballistic. Postal. Whatever. So Lydia fled. She tried to call Tina, but in her panic, she got the number wrong.”

“Yes,” Sabin said, “that's what I'm thinking. Henry went after her in a jealous rage, caught up with her in the park, shot her, did some quick tinkering with the scene to make it look like robbery and attempted rape, then made his way to the amphitheater and sat patiently waiting with everybody else.”

“He'd have to be a pretty cool customer.”

“That's the thing, isn't it?” Sabin said. “His face being the way it is, he's a hard guy to read. Am I right?”

“Why are you telling me this?” I asked. “Why this sudden sharing of info?”

“Two reasons,” she said. “First is that Captain Dorsey told us to keep you in the loop.”

“And second?”

“Well, this one you're not going to like so much,” she said, her Brooklyn accent suddenly thicker. “Philbin's out talking to your wife and daughter again, asking how Henry Tatlock seemed that evening when he showed up at the amphitheater.”

She was right, I didn't like this. They were really trying to make the case against Henry. From their perspective, it all fit together perfectly.

“You'd have to know Henry,” I said.

She expected me to continue, to tell her all about him, and I could see her getting ready to silently debunk whatever I said. She'd listen to me, but she'd be thinking I was like the neighbor saying that the killer next door seemed like such a nice man. A quiet man
.
Henry
was
a nice man and a quiet man. We were friends, but in a much different way than I was friends with Upton or Chip. With Henry, I felt like the wizened master to his little grasshopper. He had that childish innocence. He was wounded, and whether the psychic wounds came with his burns or arrived separately, I had no idea. I couldn't tell Sabin this, though. I would say,
He has a wound, Sabin. He's fragile.
And she'd start to profile him:
Yes, he has a wound, and whenever it hurts, he reacts in mindless fury.

It was better for me to keep my mouth shut. A real investigation would vindicate him, so my strategy should be to make sure they investigated broadly, rather than myopically zeroing in on Henry.

“Sad, though, isn't it?” Sabin said.

“You're a master of understatement, Detective.”

“Not the murder. Of course that's sad. I mean how screwed up it gets. Even if Henry isn't the perp. You have this couple, giddy
in love, but she's got old business with some married guy.” Sabin thumps the printout of text messages with a knuckle. “You can tell the guy cared for her—the married one, I mean. It reads like he's an old friend. Maybe they could have been friends, all three of them—all four of them. Henry and her and the other couple. Except for the benefits thing. Sad.”

“Listen to you,” I said. “The yogi detective. Sounds to me like you might have a sad story of your own.”

She shrugged.

“Married?”

“Divorced,” she said.

“Amicable or otherwise?”

“Amicable. That was the problem. Not enough passion.”

“Got kids?”

“High school. Boy and a girl. Just about ready to fly the coop.”

We sipped coffee.

“Henry didn't do it,” I said.

“Somebody did it,” Sabin said.

E
vening: I cleaned up after dinner and went upstairs to work in the office. Tina put Barn to bed and must have fallen asleep reading to him, because she was gone a long time. She came into the office just as I was starting to fade. There was a lot to talk about. I rallied.

“Did you know Lydia was stepping out?” I asked.

“If I'd known, I'd have told you. And I'd have told the police.”

“I don't know,” I said. “Sisterly secrets.”

“But damn her,” Tina said. There was fury in her voice. “It's so like her. I thought she'd outgrown that bullshit.”

“Do you have any idea who it was?”

Tina shook her head. “I only met the real boyfriends. I wasn't privy to all the illicit ones.”

I wanted to wrap Tina in my arms, but she was way too angry for that. I realized something about her relationship with Lydia: Tina was very much the big sister, and she'd spent much of her life watching out for Lydia, who could be irresponsible and immature. So with the death looking more and more like something Lydia had brought about through her own lousy choices, Tina would be left wondering for the rest of her life how she could have steered the rambunctious Lydia in a safer direction.

“It's so goddamn typical of her,” Tina said. “Finally getting something good and sabotaging it.”

“I know, babe.”

“
Intentionally
sabotaging it.” She wiped her eyes. “Fuck it all.”

“How'd it go with Philbin this morning?”

“He just kept asking if Henry seemed strange when he showed
up at the concert and if there was anything notable in his appearance or behavior. I kept saying no. Philbin was like some loser representing himself in court, trying to get around a hearsay objection by rearranging the words.”

“I know how this works,” I said. “The detectives have Henry in their sights, and they're gearing up to prosecute. They get blinders.”

“And they probably won't follow up on other leads.”

“Conclusion-based investigation.”

“What can we do?” she said.

“Stand by Henry.”

“Of course.”

“And try to come up with another theory,” I said.

“I've been trying.”

Silence. I wanted to jump up and do something. Investigate. Figure it out. Charge into the night and come back with the head of whoever had messed with us. I stood up and turned off my desk lamp.

“Don't go running,” Tina said.

“Don't?”

“Stay here with me. Please.”

I sat back down and turned on my lamp again. I really wanted to go out.

“Do you think it's possible?” she asked.

“Think what's possible?”

“About Henry.” She swiveled around to look at me.

Was it possible? I'd been wondering, too. It wasn't possible for the man I thought of as Henry to kill his fiancée. But what if he had me fooled; what if he had all of us fooled? I liked how Henry was quiet and reserved and thoughtful. It was such a great counterbalance to Lydia's impulsiveness. But had I misread him? I'd assumed his placid surface concealed a philosophical core—still waters run deep, and all that. I assumed his physical scars and the events that had caused them had resulted in a heightened capacity for introspection and compassion.

Could I have been wrong? Could the placid exterior conceal bitterness? Rage? Psychosis? Did he have demons like a dog has fleas? Would the neighbors someday say he seemed like such a normal and pleasant man?

I hated to admit it, but Detective Sabin had planted some doubt.