Deadlocked (40 page)

"You're sure Smith didn't make you for wearing a wire?" Ortiz asked Mason.

"Positive. Why? Is it too good to be true?"

"It's better than that. Shows the power of the almighty dollar. You dangled enough money in front of him and he gave you enough to send Parker away for a long time, not just for Medicare fraud. Parker knew what Virginia King had done and he helped her get away with it. He must have been sleeping with her."

"If they were having an affair, that's not all there was to it," Mason said. "Parker was depositing money in an off-thebooks account for Victoria every month. They were covering for each other. When she really got sick, Parker had to deal with Whitney."

"So why did Smith lie to you about Parker firing him?" Ortiz asked.

"Sandra Connelly found the memo in her firm's files from the partner who originally suspected Victoria had killed her husband. She knew Dixon represented Parker and asked him to check it out. Smith told Parker and Parker told Whitney. Smith told me he'd been fired because he was hoping to keep a line of communication open with me that he could use to feed information back to Parker. I went him one better when I hired him to represent me."

Ortiz dropped his feet to the floor. "Too bad he's such a damn good lawyer. He worked me over pretty good."

"Smith also incriminated himself on that tape. He was as much a part of it as the rest of them. Have you picked him up yet?" Mason asked.

"My partner, Al, just brought him in. He's screaming entrapment and every other damn thing, but I don't think he's going to return the favor," Samantha said.

"What favor?" Mason asked.

"I don't think he's going to hire you to represent him."

Tuesday morning was August 1, the last day Mason could file Nick's lawsuit. It was also the day of the primary election and the fortieth anniversary of his parents' deaths. The combination was a trifecta he would never have bet on.

He stopped at the cemetary just as the sun was rising over the hillside, the first light glancing off his parents' headstones. The grave diggers, Albert and Marty, watched him as he placed a stone on the graves. Afterward, Mason shook their hands, making good on his promise of fifty dollars.

He was waiting when the court clerk's office opened at eight o'clock, handing the lawsuit and a check for the filing fee to the woman on the other side of the counter. She stamped the papers with the date and time, gave him a copy and a receipt for his check, and told him that the papers would be served within the week.

He'd given the story to Rachel Firestone the night before and the morning paper carried it above the fold. Nick's grandmother called Mason to thank him, telling him that Nick was at physical therapy and making great progress.

He spent the day fielding congratulatory phone calls and welcoming back his old clients. He and Mickey were going over their files when Claire appeared in his doorway. Mickey looked up, saw the storm clouds on her face, and left, files under each arm.

Claire sat on the sofa, patting the space next to her. "Come sit," she said.

Mason joined her. Her color was a bit off, her gait a step slow.

"You don't look so hot," he said.

"I'm at the age when looking hot is not a good thing," she said, brushing off his concern. "Didn't take you long to get back in business," she added.

"There's no shortage of human suffering or people willing to add to the misery," Mason said.

She didn't say anything else for the moment, looking around his one room office, taking in the barely controlled chaos, the lived-in look of a life and a law practice that had no line separating one from the other.

"I was wrong," she said.

"Why? Because you were trying to protect me," Mason said, knowing that she was talking about his parents.

"When you were too young to understand, that was a good reason. But that was a long time ago. No, I was wrong to keep using that excuse to protect myself."

"From what?" Mason asked.

"From pain, more than anything else. I didn't want to deal with what happened to your parents. It was all I could do to take you to that cemetery, but I did it because I had to. I owed you that much."

"The car wreck," Mason said softly. "Was it an accident or did my father kill himself and my mother?"

Claire reached over and rested her hand on Mason's cheek, angling her head slightly, taking him in with tears in her eyes.

"There was a group of us," she began. "Your parents and me and eight or ten others we got to be very good friends with at the synagogue. All of us full of faith and fury. You know social action is one of the most important things to the Jewish people. Heal the world. That was our motto. We studied Torah and we worked in inner city soup kitchens and we marched against the Vietnam War and we had a grand time."

"The woman I talked to, the one whose daughter is Judith Bartholow. She's the one who left the rocks at the cemetery. Was she in your group?"

Claire nodded. "Her name then was Brenda Roth. She was married to Frank Roth at the time. They eventually divorced."

"He was one of the pallbearers, right?"

"Yes he was," Claire answered. "And he was your father's best friend until your father and Brenda...well, until they..."

"Had an affair," Mason said, completing the sentence. "I thought it might be something like that. So, my father was unfaithful to my mother. I imagine that was a big deal in the sixties, especially in a group like that. Everyone reciting the Ten Commandments all the time," he said, the words coming in a rush.

"Don't you dare trivialize your faith," she snapped. "You don't know anything about it!"

"Because you never taught me!" he said.

"I didn't teach you but I didn't teach you to be a lawyer either. You learned that on your own. Quit using me as an excuse!"

Mason rose, walked to his refrigerator, and popped the cap on a bottle of beer.

Claire said, "I'll take one if you've got another."

Mason brought it to her, both of them drinking in silence, Mason sitting in the chair next to the sofa.

"I'm sorry," he said at last. "I was out of line. It just seems like it had to be more than a simple affair to have ended the way it did."

"There's no such thing as a simple affair," she said. "Nothing that begins with betrayal is simple or ends well."

"What happened?" Mason asked.

Claire set her bottle down on the table in front of the sofa. "Brenda said that she tried to break off the affair but your father wouldn't. She says they fought and that he raped her. Your father's lawyer told him he was going to be arrested and charged with rape and that he should turn himself in to avoid the embarrassment of being taken away in handcuffs. He agreed to turn himself in the next morning."

"The accident happened the night before he was supposed to turn himself in?" Mason asked. Claire nodded in reply. "That's why the police said it was intentional?"

"There was more. Brenda said that your father called her and begged her to drop the charges. She said he was hysterical, yelling that he'd kill himself."

Mason slumped in his chair. Claire's words rang off him like hammer blows. "Was it true?" he asked. "Did my father rape that woman?"

Claire looked at him with anguished eyes, her face mottling with bursts of red. "I don't know."

Mason bolted out of his chair. "How could you not know? Didn't you ask him? Didn't you ask his lawyer?"

"I was his lawyer," she said. "And I did ask him and he denied it."

Mason circled around the office, stopping behind the chair, gripping it with both hands. "You didn't believe him, did you?"

"I was his sister. I knew him better than anyone. He admitted the affair. He said that he was the one who wanted to end it, not her. He admitted they fought, but he denied the rest."

"What about the woman? How soon after did she report it? Did she go to the hospital? Was there evidence of rape?"

"She told the police a month later. There was no physical evidence."

"Then she's a liar!" Mason said. "She said he raped her to get back at him!"

Claire said nothing, letting Mason wrestle with it as a lawyer and a son the way she had wrestled with it as a lawyer and a sister. Mason stared out his window, looking for answers in the traffic on Broadway, turning back to his aunt. He threw a dart so hard at the wall that the shaft shattered.

"How could Frank Roth have been a pallbearer for my father after what happened?" Claire didn't answer, Mason finding his own answer. "He didn't believe her either. Two people died because of an accusation that could never have been proved."

"Two people died. Our group of friends fell apart and I never went back to the synagogue."

"And the woman," Mason said, unable to speak her name, "leaves stones on their grave so she won't forget them! If that's not an admission of guilt, I don't know what is."

"But guilty of what?" Claire said. "If I was certain, perhaps I would have told you sooner."

"The accident happened forty years ago today. Why was she out there two weeks ago?"

"It was your parents'
yahrzeit.
The anniversary of their deaths on the Jewish calendar."

Mason came back to the sofa, taking his aunt's hands in his, shaking his head. "It's just like Ryan's Kowalczyk's case. He told the truth and still ended up dead."

Chapter 57

Josh Seeley won the primary. It was close, the networks not calling the winner until early Wednesday morning. Mason watched the returns until it was over, flipping between the cable and broadcast networks, hoping to catch live reports from the hotel ballroom in St. Louis where Seeley and his supporters had gathered to await the results.

He was channel surfing in the hopes that he wouldn't catch a glimpse of Abby. While the talking heads dissected exit polls, he played out his fantasy that she had left the campaign to come back to him—that she would ring his doorbell any minute, throw her arms around him, and whisper
for better and for worse
in his ear. He could practically feel her touch and taste her skin against his.

Since Sunday, he'd reached for his phone more than once to call her, stopping each time. She'd left him a voice message at home on Monday, picking a time she knew he wouldn't be there. She said that she was glad that he and Claire were okay and that she was sorry he wasn't home when she called. She said she would try again but things were crazy and not to miss her too much. He replayed the message just to hear her voice.

When Seeley finally appeared for his victory speech, Abby was on his left, Seeley's wife to his right. Seeley held both their hands, raising them high in victory, then turned to embrace each of them. Seeley's wife was more than gracious when he hugged Abby hard enough to lift her off the stage. The camera captured Abby's exhausted exhilaration. He did miss her—too much.

He waited an hour for things to calm down before calling her on her cell phone. It rang five times before she answered.

"Congratulations," he said.

"Lou? Is that you?" she shouted over the din of celebration.

"I saw you on TV," he shouted back. "You look great."

"Hang on a sec," she said. "Let me get somewhere quiet." He paced as he waited. "Are you still there?" she finally asked.

"Never left," he said.

"It's three o'clock in the morning, for God's sake," she said.

"You know how these election returns are. Once you start watching, you're hooked."

"You didn't have to call," she told him. "You could have waited."

"Not me. I wanted to talk to you, not leave a message."

He heard Abby catch her breath. "I called. You weren't home."

"I'm never home on Monday. Especially after I almost get killed on Sunday."

"Is that why you called? To tell me that I shouldn't have ducked you. I'm sorry if that upset you."

"I think that's called an apology with a tail."

"Don't do this, Lou. Please."

"You're right. It's your big night. I'm sorry. No tail." Neither of them spoke for a moment, though Mason thought he heard Abby crying softly. What's next for the campaign?" he finally asked, hoping to salvage something from the conversation.

Abby took a deep breath. "Washington. We leave in the morning to meet with the national campaign people. They think Josh can win in November and they're going to put a lot of money into the election."

"I guess you'll be living out of a suitcase for a while."

"Maybe longer," she said. "Josh wants me in Washington if he wins."

Mason thought about the way Seeley had embraced Abby. "I don't blame him."

"I've got to get back," she said. "I'll be in and out of town. I'll call you. We can have dinner."

"I'd like that," he said, and let her go.

He woke Tuffy, the dog coming alive when he picked up her leash.

"Yeah, I know," he told the dog. "It's three o'clock in the morning. Who goes for a walk at this hour? You and me, buddy," he said, clipping the leash to the dog's collar.

They took a lap around the block, Mason opening the car door instead of the front door when they got back. He rolled the windows down as he pulled out of the garage, Tuffy sticking her nose into the warm, moist night air. He hoped a drive into his past would get his mind off his uncertain future with Abby.

The drive to the suburbs flashed by, some of the traffic lights blinking yellow in deference to the late hour. He turned onto Judith Bartholow's cul-de-sac, parking across the street from her house, dousing his headlights.

The house was dark, the answers to his lingering questions tucked away in the mind of a woman who may have condemned his parents to death. Though he knew that harsh appraisal was less than fair. His father was to blame as well. He knew that but couldn't focus his raw emotions on his father as clearly as he could on the woman. She was an easier target since she was still alive; his father was a remote memory.

Mason thought about the woman's daughter, Judith, how she'd appeared to be close to his age, perhaps a few years younger. The math and the story played tricks with his mind, conjuring more fanciful complications of an incomplete story. Guilty of what? Claire had asked the question, Mason willing to let it go unanswered for now.