Fatal Flaw Part 13

"She told me so herself," said Skink. "I a.s.sure you, Vic, I'm not here to hurt you, I'm here to help. It's safe with me, your little secret. I got no wish to spread it around like b.u.t.ter on a stack of flap-jacks. But don't be like those lawyers in the showroom with their lawyerish ways. Take the deal. It wasn't no picnic getting Jefferson to go for the plea. Don't think we can keep it on the table forever. Forget about Juan Gonzalez. Take the deal, put everything right, so no one ends up knowing nothing and we all go home happy."

He nodded at me, pushed himself off his stool, and headed for the door. He had a strange, waddling walk, like he'd just jumped off his horse after riding for a fortnight. Then he stopped, turned, and waddled back.

"You was in the house alone after she was doffed, wasn't you?"

I said nothing.

"An item is missing, a small item. No bigger than a key, if you catch the drift. It wasn't logged in by the police detectives, and it seems no longer to be in the house."

"How would you know?" I blurted out, my gaze dropping down from his eyes to his hands, which were now hidden in his pockets.

He ignored my question. "You didn't happen to pilfer the item whilst inside the house, did you? You didn't happen to palm it for your own invidious purposes?"

I couldn't answer, too frightened and stunned to even try to deny it. I stood there shaking, mute, my eyes watering involuntarily as they hadn't done in years. I couldn't answer, but it wasn't the type of question that demanded an answer. I got the sense that Phil Skink didn't need many answers from anyone, especially from me.

"G'day, Vic," he said with a click and a wink.

I watched him push open the door, head out to the street, and then I wheeled around in terror.

15.

HE KNEW. That b.a.s.t.a.r.d, Skink, he knew. I could have brazened it out with denial after denial, but that wouldn't have altered a thing. The truth was in his ugly puss. He knew. How was it possible? How? Why? Because Hailey...because Hailey had told him, so he said. They had had an understanding, so he said. They had things in common. Hailey Prouix and Phil Skink. What the h.e.l.l could they have had in common? But Skink knew, no doubt about it, and there was no telling the kind of hurt he could put on me with what he knew.

I stared into my plate, filthy now with the yellow of smeared yolk and the paprika of the potatoes. The greasy slop in my stomach turned and I gagged with a sudden nausea. There is always a faint tinge of nausea after a heavy diner meal, as if the high heat of the griddle renders cheap grease into a mild emetic, but this was something different, something far richer and justly deserved.

What the h.e.l.l was I doing? I had slept with my friend's fiancee, I had taken evidence from the scene of her murder, and now I was defending her killer to the worst of my abilities. In the heat of everything, when it played out only in my consciousness, it had all seemed so logical, even so inevitable. But now, when my perfidy played out also in the consciousness of the world's sleaziest private eye, the end result was humiliation. How had I looked to him? I could see it in his eyes. I had put myself into a position to be ethically condescended to by the likes of Phil Frigging Skink. I was a fool, I was in far over my head, I was making mistake after mistake.

I closed my eyes and let the nausea slide through me and waited for it to fade. But it didn't fade. It grew and twisted inside my stomach, reached out its arms and stretched. Unsteadily, I made my way past the empty stools and into the lavatory, turned on the light, locked the door behind me. It was filthy and small, the floor was wet, the trash bin jammed with paper towels even this early in the morning, and it smelled like, well, like a toilet. I leaned on the sink, looked in the mirror at my face, oily and green. I was getting sicker by the second. My breaths were coming now in panicky gulps. I had to figure out what to do. I had to figure out my options. Had to. Had to. Now.

Give it up, let my plan of vengeance fade, back away from the trial and disclose the affair and hope it all turned out right? Yes, yes, I could do that, yes. Except that it wouldn't go away and nothing would turn out right. Skink might disappear, true, but Guy's new defense attorney would blame me for the murder, Guy would strut out of jail, and I, stripped of my members.h.i.+p in the bar and humiliated in the press, would be the new chief suspect of Detectives Stone and Breger.

Ignore the b.a.s.t.a.r.d and continue on as I was continuing on? Yes, yes. Maybe that was it, maybe I should just brazen it through. I bent over the sink, splashed water on my overheated face, felt the hard living thing in my stomach bubble and belch, rise into my chest and then fall again. Skink had said the secret was safe with him, that he only wanted to help. But he wanted something from me, and he was not the kind to give up on what he wanted. There would be more visits, more threats. It would never end, never, end, until the b.a.s.t.a.r.d broke me in two.

"Oh, G.o.d," I said as I banged on the wall.

Of course, of course, there was another route. Give him what he wanted, take the plea. Skink wanted it, Beth wanted it, even Guy was inclined. That was it, the easiest way out and the most obvious. Good, yes, but...A plea would hardly avenge Hailey, and even with a plea, Phil Frigging Skink would still hold his sword of knowledge over my head. How much would I have to pay him in the future to keep his mouth shut? What would it be like to have another partner?

Derringer, Carl and Skink.

What kind of name was Skink anyway?

No, it was all bad, there were no options. I was lost, I was sunk, there was no solution to that b.a.s.t.a.r.d Skink, nothing to be done except throw up. I lurched over to the sc.u.mmy little toilet and in one quick spasm gave up my morning's feed.

I stared at my red-rimmed orbs in the mirror. My face looked like a tawdry country music song. I dampened a paper towel and wiped my face and then pressed it onto my overheated forehead and let the cool seep through my skin. I rinsed out my mouth, one spit, two, wiped my teeth roughly with the paper towel. I felt better, yes, I felt much better, and my emotions settled. Slowly I began to calm, and as I did, I sifted through the detritus of my panic, searching for one thing, anything, on which to grab hold. And what I came up with had the face of a battered hardball.

Skink.

What was his game? I knew enough about guys like Skink to know the Jumblemeister wasn't after honor or love or sense of self in a world beset with meaninglessness-he was thinking of one thing only: money. And he seemed to have a route to it all his own. Wasn't it funny that in a case I had thought turned only on pa.s.sion and rage there seemed to be an underlying theme of money? The cash in the envelope. The cash in Guy's suitcase. The funds mysteriously absent from the brokerage account about which Guy and Hailey had fought. The strange untapped relations.h.i.+p between Leila's vindictive grab for Hailey's money and the name Juan Gonzalez. I had still no doubt as to who had pulled the trigger, but Guy's motivation might not be as simple as I had imagined. Maybe my personal involvement had twisted my thinking on the why, maybe it wasn't that he loved her too much, maybe it was that something he loved too much was missing. I remembered the look on his face when he learned that the brokerage account was empty. Money money money. How could ever I be surprised to learn that money ran through a story of murder like the sewers run through Paris?

Skink.

What was his relations.h.i.+p to Juan Gonzalez? Why did he want Guy to plead? And how did a piece of slime like Phil Frigging Skink get the estimable Troy Jefferson, with his overt political ambitions, to offer a lowball plea in the first place? The answer was, he didn't. The answer was, someone else did. He had used the first-person plural, and my guess is that Phil Frigging Skink was not the type to routinely use the royal"we."

Guy said Skink had worked for Jonah Peale, Guy's father-in-law. Odds on, that's who he still was working for. Maybe Jonah Peale was the other part of the "we." Maybe I should go right at him, barge in, make all sorts of threats, see what I shook up. Except I knew Jonah Peale, had met him at Guy's wedding to Leila and had spotted him since around town. He was a short, bellicose man who nodded at me brusquely as he pa.s.sed me in the street, not quite sure, I could tell, who I was or how he had met me, but quite sure he didn't care. Whatever he was, he wouldn't shake easily. I didn't know enough yet to go after him. Something was eluding me, something basic that explained much.

I took a deep breath and then another, let the oxygen flow rich through my veins. Good, see, panic was useless. With my breakfast down the toilet, I could think things through calmly and coolly.

Skink.

Juan Gonzalez.

Jonah Peale.

Skink.

Juan Gonzalez.

Jonah Peale.

Three names. Three. Somehow they were connected. How? Why? Three names. Or was it more than three names? Wasn't it also Guy Forrest? Wasn't it also Leila Forrest, nee Peale? Wasn't it also Hailey Prouix? What was it that could link them all together?

It came to me in a flash of empathic insight. It came to me because I was standing in a stinking s.h.i.+thole, having just thrown up in disgust at myself, and understood how low it was possible to fall. It came to me because I was treading the same path for Hailey that had already been trodden before me, for Hailey, and so I could see the footsteps of the prior traveler as clearly now as I could see my own. It came to me, and when it came to me, it seemed so obvious that I could barely believe I hadn't seen it with utter clarity before.

It would be nothing to confirm, and I would confirm it, but I would do more. For not only did I suddenly understand exactly who was Juan Gonzalez, but also exactly what he could do for me. He was probably dead, or as good as dead, but that was no matter. Juan Gonzalez would single-handedly get Skink off my back and bring Jonah Peale in line. Juan Gonzalez would be my enforcer. But there was more.

If it was played just right, Juan Gonzalez would also convict Guy of first-degree murder as if he himself were the decisive witness, as if he himself had seen Guy fire that shot into Hailey Prouix's heart. All I needed was to bring his name, and his story, to the proper authorities so that the insulting plea offer would be withdrawn forthwith. All I needed was a way to introduce Juan Gonzalez to Troy Jefferson without it seeming as if I were the matchmaker. All I needed was a sly plan, too clever by half, that would do by proxy what I couldn't do in person. The plan would have to be dirty, base, vile. The plan would have to exhibit a complete lack of moral fiber in the soul of the deranged maniac who dreamed it up.

I was just the man for the job.

16.

STANDING AT the reception desk on the ground floor of the Dawson, Cricket and Peale building, I could feel them working above me, the swarm, buzzing and fussing, drafting and faxing, answering phones, answering complaints, answering insults with insults, investigating, inventing, tendering offers and refusing offers, wheeling, dealing, hustling, bustling, holding firm, holding firmer, shopping for experts, shopping for forums, shopping online, filing interrogatories, answering interrogatories, deposing, defending, coaching witnesses, browbeating witnesses, browbeating secretaries, snapping pencils, complaining with righteous indignation, responding with moral sincerity, filing motions to dismiss, filing motions for summary judgment, filing motions for sanctions, responding to motions for sanctions, exploding with anger in calculated bursts, filing trial memos, filing witness lists, hiring jury consultants, conducting mock trials before focus groups, meeting, discussing, shuddering with fear, settling, settling, always settling, quickly, before the next complaint arrived. Standing at the reception desk on the ground floor of the Dawson, Cricket and Peale building was like standing beneath a hive of drones and feeling the vibrations of a hundred thousand wings beating in crazy disorder toward the common goal of honey, honey, and more honey. the reception desk on the ground floor of the Dawson, Cricket and Peale building, I could feel them working above me, the swarm, buzzing and fussing, drafting and faxing, answering phones, answering complaints, answering insults with insults, investigating, inventing, tendering offers and refusing offers, wheeling, dealing, hustling, bustling, holding firm, holding firmer, shopping for experts, shopping for forums, shopping online, filing interrogatories, answering interrogatories, deposing, defending, coaching witnesses, browbeating witnesses, browbeating secretaries, snapping pencils, complaining with righteous indignation, responding with moral sincerity, filing motions to dismiss, filing motions for summary judgment, filing motions for sanctions, responding to motions for sanctions, exploding with anger in calculated bursts, filing trial memos, filing witness lists, hiring jury consultants, conducting mock trials before focus groups, meeting, discussing, shuddering with fear, settling, settling, always settling, quickly, before the next complaint arrived. Standing at the reception desk on the ground floor of the Dawson, Cricket and Peale building was like standing beneath a hive of drones and feeling the vibrations of a hundred thousand wings beating in crazy disorder toward the common goal of honey, honey, and more honey.

"Jonah Peale," I said to the receptionist. She presided over a desk beside the elevator, an armed guard behind her, and behind him the firm's name spelled out in steel. Between the elevator and the front door sat a large marble fountain, a huge copper fish leaping out of the water with a foul spray erupting from its mouth. The spitting of the fish was almost loud enough to drown out my words.

"Is he expecting you?"

"No."

"Then I'm sorry, but Mr. Peale has a very busy-"

"Get him on the phone. He'll see me," I said. "Tell him it's Victor Carl. Tell him I'm here to talk about his beloved son-in-law."

Peale grabbed my arm as I came out of the elevator on the sixth and top floor. He was ten inches shorter than me, but his grip was iron and so was his voice. "I'm meeting with clients in my office," he said as he pulled me into the conference room. "We'll talk in here."

The room was large, long, with a huge wooden table and a wall of windows. Peale was wearing a black pin-striped suit with a bright red tie bursting with flowers. He sat me down and then walked around the table until he stood directly across from me, his arms straight, his fists resting on the tabletop as he leaned forward. With the light streaming in from behind him, he seemed taller, the red tie glowed with power. I felt like a trash hauler negotiating a union contract with the chairman of the board.

"We've met before," he said.

"At Leila and Guy's wedding."

"Feh." Disgust twisted his hard features as if a piece of gristle were stuck in his teeth.

"Maybe you should be more careful in vetting your recruits."

His eyes flashed anger. He had a way of speaking as if every declarative statement were a barroom challenge. "I wasn't recruiting for Leila. What you want in a litigator is very different from what you want in a son-in-law. But I was wrong about him as a lawyer, too. What the h.e.l.l kind of man gets a tattoo like that on his chest?"

"The kind that good daughters inevitably fall for."

"To their regret. Your friend betrayed my daughter, he betrayed my grandchildren, he betrayed his vows. That he finally betrayed his lover by murdering her is no great surprise. I hope you received your fee in advance, or he'll betray you, too."

"How can you be so certain?"

"It's his nature to cheat."

"I'm not talking about my fee, I'm talking about the murder."

"How do I know? Because he's family." His tongue moved angrily within his cheek, still searching for the gristle.

"If you're that certain, Mr. Peale, then why are you so anxious for him to plead to a lesser charge?"

"Am I?"

"Yesterday morning a man named Phil Skink"-I left out the adjective that had become for me like a middle name-"invaded my breakfast at a neighborhood diner."

"Skink? Phil Skink? Don't know him."

"Really, now. In our conversation this Skink wanted me to plead your son-in-law out to manslaughter. In fact, he wanted it so badly he bound the request in a threat. I a.s.sumed he was speaking for you, since Guy had told me Skink did some work for your firm. If he wasn't speaking for you, then the detectives investigating Hailey Prouix's murder would surely want to speak to him about his peculiar interest in the case. I thought I'd check with you before I gave the information to the police."

I stared calmly at him and he stared fiercely back. He was a little man with a little mustache, but his eyes beneath his wire-frame gla.s.ses burned with intensity as bright as his tie. I remembered then that his wife was exceptionally large and the two of them made a comically proportioned couple, but no one ever dared laugh. I remembered then that he had been caught in some scandal involving a congressman and his aide a few years back and that the congressman's aide was a tall, full-size blonde named Agatha.

"Mr. Skink," he said finally, "is occasionally contracted by this firm to provide investigative services. He may have taken it upon himself to voice my concerns about the effects of a lengthy murder trial on my family."

"He threatened me."

"That's unfortunate."

"I don't like to be threatened."

"Things happen to all of us that we don't like. I'll be blunt. I don't want that b.a.s.t.a.r.d's picture in the papers staring at me for the next six months. I don't want the articles talking about my daughter. I don't want her forced to testify. I don't want my grandchildren used as p.a.w.ns. I don't want the tragedies of my family played out in the tabloids. I want it to be over. Is that clear enough for you?"

"Your familial concern is touching."

"So you're touched. Is that all? Because I have a client in my office."

"Give him the newspaper. Tell him to do the Jumble while he waits. I have more questions."

"I have no more answers. You can send any request for further information to my lawyer. Good day, Mr. Carl. We are through." He started the long walk around the table.

"Do you want a subpoena, Mr. Peale? Because I have one in my briefcase with your name on it."

"I'll quash it."

"I'll quash back. I was a Division Two quash champion in college. And then, when you're under oath, maybe I'll start asking about the promises you made to support Troy Jefferson's future political aspirations in exchange for a quick plea."

He stopped. "There were no promises."

"Call them what you will. The only way a political opportunist like Jefferson backs away from a high-profile murder trial is if the political payoff is higher than all those appearances on the six o'clock news. What does he want to be, DA? Attorney general? Lieutenant governor? What does he want to be, the big man himself?"

"Troy Jefferson is a young man with sterling qualities who would be an a.s.set to the commonwealth in any public role."

"Yes, and he had a nice jump shot, too, but that's not what's going on, is it? Why are you trying to end this case before it starts?"

"I told you. My family-"

"No. Try again."

"My daughter-"

"Sorry, wrong answer."

"My grandchildren-"

"I don't think so. Not unless you have a grandchild named Juan Gonzalez."

Peale pressed his thin lips together, his head jerked within his starched collar. He took hold of the closest seat and sat down. His voice, when it came, had lost its iron edge. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"I understand why you wanted it kept secret. Red Book Insurance is your largest and oldest client. It bought this building for you, paneled your offices. It keeps you in feed, and not chicken feed at that. If you had told them what happened right at the start, you could have weathered it, maybe, but you kept it from them, kept it your little secret. For them to find out now would destroy the relations.h.i.+p irrevocably. They'd leave, for sure, and the scandal would convince others to leave, too. Who could ever trust your firm after this? It would be over for Dawson, Cricket and Peale, except at the unemployment line."

"You're barking off half-c.o.c.ked."

"I can tell I'm right, you're mixing metaphors. What I don't understand is how you expected it to stay a secret. It wasn't hidden, really. All it took was a visit to the clerk's office, a review of the case files, the discovery of a medical malpractice action ent.i.tled Juan Gonzalez Juan Gonzalez v. v. Dr. Irwin Gla.s.s et al. Dr. Irwin Gla.s.s et al. The whole story is there right on the docket sheet. I found it all yesterday, after my little breakfast meeting with Skink. Representing the plaintiff: Hailey Prouix, Esquire. Representing the defendant doctor and insurance company: Guy Forrest, Esquire. Oh, not only Guy, your name was at the top of the list of lawyers, you were the billing partner, I suppose, but Guy did the work. It was on that case that he met Hailey, wasn't it? It was during the length of the litigation that he dined her, romanced her, seduced her. And after the settlement, after the three million dollars were handed from the insurance company to the plaintiff, about the going rate for a man entering the hospital for routine prostate surgery and leaving in a coma, Guy ditched his wife, his children, your firm, to move in with Hailey. Living on her share of the award, her one-third, a cool mil." The whole story is there right on the docket sheet. I found it all yesterday, after my little breakfast meeting with Skink. Representing the plaintiff: Hailey Prouix, Esquire. Representing the defendant doctor and insurance company: Guy Forrest, Esquire. Oh, not only Guy, your name was at the top of the list of lawyers, you were the billing partner, I suppose, but Guy did the work. It was on that case that he met Hailey, wasn't it? It was during the length of the litigation that he dined her, romanced her, seduced her. And after the settlement, after the three million dollars were handed from the insurance company to the plaintiff, about the going rate for a man entering the hospital for routine prostate surgery and leaving in a coma, Guy ditched his wife, his children, your firm, to move in with Hailey. Living on her share of the award, her one-third, a cool mil."

"It was a solid case," said Peale. "The settlement was a fair one. I oversaw it all. For the three million dollars Red Book escaped exposure to a much larger amount, an amount that could have crippled its operations."

"Maybe, but I think not. I think there was something there that would have won the case for Red Book, some hard piece of evidence that Guy hid until after the settlement was signed and the money paid and Guy and Hailey had a million dollars to start their lives together. Otherwise he would have dropped off the case once the relations.h.i.+p started. Otherwise Hailey Prouix would have insisted on it. Why allow even the tinge of impropriety to hazard the settlement somewhere down the line? Why put a million dollars at risk? Unless it was the only way to get the million dollars in the first place. I had wondered why Hailey's big fee was placed in a joint account, and now I know, because they both earned it. And you knew, didn't you? You knew and tried to keep it quiet. That's why you wanted the plea accepted. That's why you sent Skink to threaten me."