The King of Lies (19 page)

“Was it a man or a woman?”

“Who can say? Could have been either.”

“But you are certain it wasn’t me.”

Max shrugged again. “For years I’ve seen you. You never do anything. You sit on your porch and drink beer. I’ve known a lot of killers, seen a lot of dead men; I don’t reckon you could kill a man. But that’s just me, my opinion.”

I should have been offended, but I wasn’t. He was right. In spite of going to law school, getting married, and running a practice, I never
did
anything. I coasted.

“What was this person wearing?” I asked.

“Dark clothes. A hat. That’s all I can say.”

“How about the cars? Can you tell me anything about them?”

“One big. One not so big. Not black, I think. But dark.”

I thought for a minute. “Which car did this person leave in?”

“The smaller one. I’m sorry I can’t tell you more. They were a ways off and I wasn’t really paying attention.”

“What happened to the bigger one?”

“It was still there when I left. I was just walking by. I didn’t stay. Two days later, I walked by the same place, but the car was not there.”

“What did this person throw into the sewer, Max? Did you see it?”

“Nope, but I have a theory, same as you.”

“Tell me,” I said. But I knew.

“When a person throws something into a hole in the ground, it’s gonna be something they don’t want to be found. The papers say the cops are looking for the gun that killed your father. I think maybe you look in the storm drain and you’ll find it. But that’s just me talking, and I’m just a guy.”

I saw it through his eyes. Like I’d been there. Of course it was the gun. And if the cops found it? Game over. But the irony was like a fork in my guts. When they found Ezra in the Towne Mall, it was bad enough, but the memories of that awful day so long ago were just that, memories. But this was the tunnel, the throat, and I had to go there, to get the gun before the cops did. Before Max decided that he should tell someone else. Lord help me.

“You were right to tell me, Max. Thank you.”

“You gonna tell the cops?”

I couldn’t lie to his face, so I gave him the best truth I could. “I’ll do what has to be done. Thanks.”

“I had to tell you,” Max said, and there was something in his voice, something unsaid. I turned back to him just as a car passed us. His eyes were on that car, and he watched it until it was gone; then he looked down upon me. “I’ve been in this town for nineteen years, Work, almost twenty. I probably walked ten thousand miles in that time. You’re the only person who ever asked to walk with me . . . the only one who ever wanted to talk. That may not seem like much to you, but it means something to me.” He put one of his shattered hands on my shoulder; his eyes were steady on mine. “Now that’s not easy for me to say, but it had to be said, too.”

I was moved by his sincerity, and realized that we’d traveled our own painful roads in this town. They were different, our roads, but maybe just as lonely.

“You’re a good man, Max; I’m glad that we met.” I held out my hand, and this time he shook it, best as he could. “So come on,” I said. “Let’s walk.” I started to turn, but he didn’t follow me.

“This is where I stop,” he said.

I looked around at the empty street. “Why?”

He gestured at the yellow cottage. “This is my house.”

“But I thought . . .” Fortunately, I stopped myself. “It’s a lovely home, Max.”

He studied the house as if looking for some imperfection, and then, finding none, he looked back at me. “My mother left it to me when she died. I’ve been here ever since. Come on inside. We’ll grab a couple beers and sit on the porch.”

I stood loose and still, embarrassed by all the years I’d seen him walk past my house, and by all the assumptions I’d made. In some ways, I was as bad as Barbara, and that fact humbled me.

“Max?”

“Yeah.” His face twisted in a smile that no longer looked so gruesome to me.

“May I ask a favor? It’s important.”

“Ask away. I might even say yes.” Another smile.

“If anything should happen to me, I’d like you to take my dog. Look after him. Take him walking with you.”

It would be a good life, I thought.

Max studied me before he spoke. “If something happens to you,” he said with great solemnity, “I’ll take care of your dog. We’re friends, right?”

“Yes,” I said, meaning it.

“Then good. But nothing’s gonna happen. You’ll tell the cops about the gun, and take care of the dog yourself. Now come on. I bought beer just for you.”

So we sat on his front porch, looked across his tidy lawn, and sipped beer from the bottle. We spoke, but not of important things; and for that brief time, I was not lonely, and neither, I thought, was he.

CHAPTER 19

I
 found Bone asleep in the truck, curled in the sun. One look up the hill and I could tell the house was empty, but I couldn’t face it; that body was still warm. So I went to the office. It still felt like Ezra’s building and I thought it would be easier to start there.

It was a little after four and the street was empty, sidewalks, too. I wanted to be angry, but walked like a victim. I went in through the back door and saw my office first. Drawers were pulled out, filing cabinets stripped bare. Case files, personal documents, all of it. My financial information, medical records, photographs. Even a journal I wrote in once in a blue moon. My whole life! I slammed the drawers shut, the sounds like breaking fingers in the quiet building. I glanced in the break room and saw that they’d helped themselves to drinks from my refrigerator. Cans and candy wrappers still littered the small scratched table, and the room stank of cigarettes. I scooped up trash and stuffed it violently into a plastic bag. I cleared half the mess, then flung the bag to the floor. There was no point.

I went upstairs to Ezra’s office. It, too, was in shambles, but I ignored the mess and went straight to the corner of rug that hid the dead man’s safe. I took a handful of fringe and pulled the rug back. Everything looked the same: two dented boards held fast by four nails—two of them cleanly driven, two bent and hammered into the wood.

The cops had not found it, which made me savagely content. If anyone had the right to tear down the old man’s last secret, I did.

The hammer was where I’d left it, and I used the clawed end to pry at the nails. The bent ones came out, but the other two refused. The claw barely fit into the crack between the boards, but a hard yank brought them up with an animal squeal. I tossed them down and bent over the safe. Hank had said to think about what was important to Ezra if I wanted to open it without a locksmith. So I tried to think clearly of the dead man whom fate had made my father.

What was important to him? A simple question. Power. Standing. Prominence. Yet it all came down to money.

In the heart of my father’s million-dollar house was his study, and on the desk there was a single framed photograph. It had been there forever, a reminder and a goad. How many times had I caught him staring at it? It was who and what he was: what he’d strived to bury yet couldn’t bear to forget. In his heart, and in spite of his overwhelming accomplishments, my father had always been the same grubby boy with scabby knees. The dark eyes had never changed.

I’d been born into comfort, and both of us had known all along that I lacked his hunger. That hunger had made him strong, but it’d made him hard, as well. Ruthlessness was a virtue, and the lack of it in me was, to him, the surest proof that he had fathered a weakling. So where I searched for meaning, he’d sought power. His life had been a determined climb to the top, and it all came down to money; it was the foundation. Money had bought his house in the best neighborhood. Money had bought cars, paid for parties, and financed political campaigns. It was a tool, a lever, and he’d used it to shift the world around him, the people, too. I thought of my career, and knew I’d chosen the easy route. He’d bought me off. I could face that now. Maybe he’d bought us all, except for Jean. For her, the cost was too heavy, and, unable or unwilling to bend, she’d snapped under the weight of it. So in the end, Ezra had paid the price. The whole thing reeked of karma.

I studied the safe. I’d discovered it by accident and could have gone the rest of my life without knowledge of its existence, yet it weighed upon me.

Money and power.

I remembered my father’s first million-dollar jury award. I was ten, and he took the family to Charlotte to celebrate. I could still see him, teeth clamped on a cigar, proudly ordering the best bottle of wine in the restaurant, and how he’d turned to Mother. “Nothing can stop me now,” he’d said. And I remembered Mother’s face, too, her uncertainty.

Not us.
Me.

She’d put her arm around Jean, and at the time I didn’t recognize it, but looking back, I knew she’d been scared.

That verdict was the beginning. It was the largest jury award in the history of Rowan County, and the press made my father famous. After that, people came looking for Ezra Pickens.

And he was right. Nothing could stop him. He was a celebrity, an icon, and his ego grew with his fame and with his fortune. Everything changed for him after that.

For us, too.

I still remembered the date of the verdict. It was the day Jean turned six.

I typed the date into the keypad. Nothing. I replaced the boards and hammered in four new nails. I took my time, and they sank into the wood, straight and clean. I spread the rug with a sigh and turned away.

It would have been too easy.

I moved around the office, closing drawers, turning off lights, and was about to leave, when the phone rang. I almost didn’t answer it.

“Damn all generosity!” It was Tara Reynolds, calling from her office at the
Charlotte Observer.
“My editor is about to stroke out.”

“What are you talking about, Tara?”

“Have you seen the
Salisbury Post?”
Unlike the
Observer,
it ran in the afternoons. It would have hit the stands less than an hour ago.

“No.”

“Well, you should pick up a copy. You’re page-one news, Work, and it’s a freakin’ injustice, that’s what it is. I bust my ass on this story, I’m all set to break it, and some idiot from the
Post
gets a call that the cops are at your office and just walks on over and takes your damn picture.”

My voice was cold. “I’m sorry to inconvenience you.”

“ ‘Police search home, office of slain lawyer’s son.’ That’s the headline. There’s a picture of you standing with the district attorney in front of your office.”

“That was four hours ago,” I said.

“Hey, good news travels fast. The article’s short. Do you want me to read it to you?”

So, the story was now official. Fifty thousand people subscribed to the
Post.
In twenty-four hours, it would be in the
Observer,
which had close to a million readers. Strangely, I felt more calm than not. Once you lose your reputation, your worries become more concrete: life or death—freedom or prison. Everything else pales.

“No,” I said. “I do not want you to read it to me. Other than making my day even worse, is there some reason you called?”

“Yeah. I want you to appreciate me. Because right now, I’m the only one doing any favors.”

“Appreciate what?” I asked bitterly.

“News,” she said. “With the same proviso as last time. You tell no one where you heard it, and I get the exclusive when this is said and done.”

I didn’t speak right away. I had a sudden splitting headache. None of this would go away. Not on its own.

“Do you have someplace else you need to be?” Tara demanded sarcastically. “If so, just tell me and I’m gone. I don’t have to play games.”

“No games, Tara. I just needed a second. It’s been a long day.”

She must have heard the despair in my voice. “Hey, I understand. I get caught up in things, the curse of the type A personality. I’m sorry.”

She didn’t sound particularly sorry, and my words, when they came, were short and bitten off. “It’s okay,” I said. “You use me. I use you. No reason to take it personally. Right?”

“That’s exactly right,” she said, oblivious. “So here’s my news. The police have figured out why your father was in that old mall.”

“What?”

“Actually, it would be more accurate to say that they’ve figured out how he was in that mall.”

“What do you mean?”

“The property was going into foreclosure. Your father was retained to represent the bank. He would have had keys to the property.”

This surprised me. While I didn’t know everything about my father’s practice, I should have been aware of the case, if only peripherally.

“Who owned the property?” I asked.

“I’m checking on that. All I know now is that it was a group of investors, some local, some not. They bought the mall several years ago, when it was about to fold. They pumped millions into renovations, but the tenants never materialized. They were hemorrhaging money when the bank finally dropped the ax.”

“Is there any chance of a connection?” I asked. “Are the police looking into it?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Are you serious?” I demanded. “Ezra was foreclosing on a multimillion-dollar operation, was killed on the property, and the cops don’t see a connection?”

I heard Tara light up a cigarette, pausing before she spoke. “Why would they, Work? They’ve got their man.” She exhaled, and I pictured her wrinkled lips and the bright pink lipstick that bled into the cracks.

“No, they don’t,” I said. “Not yet.”

“Well, that brings me to my second piece of news.”

I knew trouble when I heard it. “What?”

“I don’t have specifics, you understand? But word is that they found something in your house that incriminates you.”

“That’s not possible,” I said.

“I’m just telling you what I heard.”

“But . . . you must know more than that.”

“Not really, Work. Only that Mills about had an orgasm. And that’s a direct quote from my source.”

I thought of all the people who had been in my house since Ezra disappeared, all the parties, dinners, and casual visits. Jean had been there once or twice, Alex, too. Even the district attorney. Christ, half the town had passed through those doors at some point in the past eighteen months. What in the hell was Tara talking about?

“You’re not holding out on me, are you?” I asked. “This one is important.”

“I’ve told you all I know. That’s the deal.” Another long exhale, and I knew she had something else to add. “Have you told me everything?” she finally asked.

“What do you want to know?”

“It all comes back to the gun, Work. They want the murder weapon. Have you had any more thoughts on that?”

I saw Max’s face, and felt the dampness of that hole. I smelled mud mixed with gasoline, and suddenly couldn’t breathe. For a moment, I’d forgotten.

“Still no sign,” I finally told her.

“Would you like to make a statement? I’d be glad to put forth your side of the story.”

I thought of Douglas. “That would be premature,” I finally said.

“Call me if you change your mind.”

“You’ll be the first.”

“You mean the only.”

“Right.”

She paused and I could almost smell the smoke; she liked menthols. “Listen,” she said. “I’m not really such a cold bitch. It’s just that thirty years of this has taught me a thing or two, like never get emotionally involved in the stories I cover. It’s nothing personal. I just have to keep my distance. It’s a matter of professionalism.”

“Rest assured, you’re very professional,” I told her.

“That was uncalled for.”

“Maybe. But I seem to be surrounded by professionals today.”

“Things will work out,” she said, but we both knew the truth. Innocent people went to jail all the time, and good guys bled as red as the rest.

“Take care,” she said, and for an instant she sounded like she meant it.

“Yeah. You, too.”

The line went dead and I settled the receiver back on its cradle. Suddenly, things weren’t so clear. Why, on that night, did Ezra go to that nearly abandoned mall? His wife had just died. His family was coming apart at the seams. Who called him, and what was said in that hushed conversation? It was after midnight, for Christ’s sake. Did he go first to the office, and if so, why? My father had driven a black Lincoln Town Car, so Max’s big dark car had to have been Ezra’s, but who owned the other one? Jean had a dark car, but so did a thousand other people in town. Was I wrong? Could there be some other reason for my father’s death? I turned to an ugly reality, one that I’d shied away from because I simply could not face it. The old mall was less than a mile from where I sat. Its destruction was almost complete, but the parking lot was untouched, as was the low dank tunnel that ran beneath it. If Max was right and the killer had ditched the gun in the storm sewer, then it would be there still, lying in that grim place like the memories that had defiled my dreams, if not my very life. I would have to return, to claim the legacy of my father’s last breath, and I didn’t know if I could do it. But there was no choice. If the gun was Ezra’s, I’d know it. Then I could dispose of it, so that Mills could never use it against Jean. And if it wasn’t his gun? If by some miracle I was wrong, and it was not my sister that pulled the trigger?

I thought of Vanessa, pictured her face the last time I’d seen her. She’d kicked me out, spilled her tears on the hands of another man. Would she step forward if I asked? Would she utter the words to set me free?

I had to believe that she would. Whatever harm I’d done to her, she was a good woman.

My watch showed it was almost five. I glanced around the ruined office and, for a moment, considered cleaning it up, but this was not my life, so I locked up and left the place untouched. Outside, the clouds had pulled apart and a careworn light filtered through. People were leaving the surrounding offices, packing up and going home to the same dreams that used to mean so much to me. No one spoke to me. No one raised a hand. I drove home and parked beneath high walls of peeling paint and windows as colorless as sanded lead. And when I finally went inside, it was like walking into an open wound. Our bed was pulled apart, my desk was rifled, and clothing littered the floor. Every room was the same, yet each was worse than the last. I closed my eyes and saw Mills and her smug smile as she’d left me in the driveway to resume this slow and visceral penetration.

I wandered through the house, touched once personal and private things, then shuffled into the kitchen and took down a bottle of bourbon and a glass. It slopped as I poured it, but I didn’t care. I sat at the breakfast table and downed half the glass before I realized what I was seeing, right there on the table before me. I slammed the glass down so hard that the remaining bourbon exploded out of its mouth and settled in a wide wet arc onto the face of the newspaper that Mills had so carefully placed there for me to find.