Murder Suicide (33 page)

Lindsey Snow looked at her mother in horror.  "You knew?  From the beginning?"

Her mother didn’t answer her.

Clevenger waited several seconds.  "Of course she knew," he said.

Theresa Snow’s face hardened into something very ugly, her eyes steely, her teeth slightly bared.  For the first time she looked like what she was — a woman thrice scorned, first by her husband’s love of inventing, then by his adoration of his daughter, then by his passion for another woman.

Clevenger turned to Coroway.  "And you knew something else about John Snow.  Because he told you that, too.  You knew chances were he would be a very different man after his surgery, that he was starting over.  A blank slate."

"I don’t need to sit here and listen to this nonsense," Coroway said.

"You do," Clevenger said.  "You do because Theresa isn’t going to be charged with anything.  She knew Grace Baxter was seducing her husband.  She knew the whole thing was staged.  But that’s not a crime.  You’re the one who shot him."

Heller sat up, glared at Coroway.  "You fucking, sonofa—..."

Clevenger put a hand on Heller’s arm.

Coroway stayed silent.

"See, everyone here may be guilty of something, Collin, but you go to jail alone.  Because you acted alone."

"I gave him the gun," Kyle Snow said, his voice shaky.

Clevenger looked at him, then looked back at Coroway.  "Kyle gave you his father’s gun.  And he feels very guilty about that.  Because deep down he knew exactly what you would do with it.  He had been thinking very seriously of doing it himself."

Coroway glanced at Kyle.

"Killers know one another," Clevenger said to Coroway.  "You took the bait.  He used you."

"You could never prove any of this," Coroway said.

"We can and we will," Clevenger said.

"I don’t see any legal peril for my client," Jack LeGrand said, a hit of anxiety in his voice.  "We’ll be on our way, if that’s all right with you."

"I’d wait on that," Clevenger said.  He pointed at Lindsey and Kyle.  "See, the kids had been through a great deal with their dad.  And they weren’t about to lose him to Grace Baxter.  So Lindsey had her brother deliver Baxter’s suicide note to the Beacon Street Bank — to make Mr. Reese read how his wife didn’t want to live without her lover, John Snow.  They figured that would end the affair."  He looked straight at Reese.  "That would be the note you put at the bedside after you killed your wife.  You took the bait, too."

"We’re done," LeGrand said, standing.

Reese stayed put.  Deep down, everyone wants the truth.

LeGrand slowly took his seat again.

"See, the plan had worked well," Clevenger went on.  "John Snow met Grace Baxter again and again in a suite at the Four Seasons Hotel.  You learned quickly that Snow wasn’t holding out on you.  He really couldn’t come up with the final solution on Vortek.  But Grace brought him energy he never knew he had.  And his mind literally used that energy to break through the creative barrier that had kept Vortek from becoming a reality.  He used it to go further intellectually than he had ever gone.  He blew right past his seizure threshold.  Because she held him steady.  She was so entwined with his intellect and intuition that when he finally solved the problem he had wrestled with for so long, he wrote out the solution as a portrait of her in his journal.  He actually drew her hair and her eyes, her nose, her lips out of a collage of numbers and mathematical symbols — equations that added up to the invention that had eluded him for so long."

"I’m not aware the journal is in evidence any longer," LeGrand said.

"I happen to have a photocopy my son made before the FBI intervened," Clevenger said.  "It’s in evidence.  So is the record of Mr. Reese transferring five million dollars to his wife’s account to pay her for seducing John Snow.  She got the money the day after Vortek was patented."

"Very interesting," LeGrand said.  "But all your theory really proves is that my client and his wife were completely committed to one another.  She would do anything for him, and vice versa.  The only one with a real motive to kill Grace is Mrs. Snow, John’s wife.  She’s the only one he betrayed."

Theresa Snow didn’t respond.

"That might be true if the scheme had worked about as well as your client thought it would," Clevenger said.  "But it worked a little too well.  Not only did John Snow fall in love with Grace Baxter.  She fell in love with him.  She was pregnant with his child.  And she wanted to have that child."

Lindsey Snow winced.

Theresa Snow literally turned away.

Reese jumped to his feet.  "That’s a lie!"

LeGrand grabbed him, pulled him back into his seat.

Clevenger watched Reese trying to control himself.  "The trouble was that no one, including you, Mr. Reese, had taken into account the fact that John Snow was a remarkable individual.  He wasn’t a fashion plate.  He was no athlete.  He would be lost at the fancy parties you throw.  But his mind was a miraculous thing.  He was a genius.  An inventor.  His imagination was so powerful his brain could hardly contain it.  And that was very seductive to your wife.  Because, in truth, money never satisfied her.  It held the best parts of her hostage.  She ran much deeper than you knew.  Deeper than she knew.  Even you delivering the five million you had promised her didn’t make her forget John Snow."  He watched that fact burrow its way into Reese’s psyche.  "You came home when your wife didn’t show up for that cocktail party at the bank," he said.  "You had already read the terrible truth in her suicide note.  She loved Snow.  She didn’t want to live without him.  And when you found her on the bed with her wrists cut that evening, one day after he was shot, you couldn’t take it, anymore.  She wasn’t going to die from those wounds.  You knew that.  She’d played at suicide before.  But there was a difference this time.  This time, you had really lost her — to another man.  A dead man.  So you picked up the carpet knife and you cut her throat."

"You better have evidence to back that up..." LeGrand started.

"Her wounds were made by two different blades," Clevenger interrupted.  "The carpet knife your client used to sever his wife’s carotids, and something finer, like a razor blade, that she used to lacerate her own wrists."

LeGrand lost his game face.

"The police never found any bloodied razor blade.  That’s because Mr. Reese got rid of it before they arrived."  He paused.  "It all makes perfect sense to me.  And it will to a jury."

"He killed both of them," Coroway blurted out, pointing at Reese.  "Kyle delivered Grace’s suicide note and John’s gun to the same person.  George Reese.  He killed John.  And then he killed his own wife.  Because they fell in love when they weren’t supposed to.  I didn’t do anything more than Theresa did.  I just helped keep the fantasy alive between them.  I’m not guilty of any crime."

Clevenger looked at him.  He shook his head.  "You’re the keystone in this arch.  Because once you’d gotten what you wanted from your partner — Vortek — you told him the truth.  You told him he’d been set up.  He’d fallen in love with an actress.  Because underneath it all, you hated him, Collin.  You hated his intellect.  You hated the fact that he was a genius and you kept the books.  And to think he would end up with Grace Baxter on top of it all?  No.  You couldn’t stand that.  You told him what he thought was love was just a ruse.  You destroyed him.  And that’s when he said good-bye.  That’s when he told you he was leaving everyone, that his surgery would do more than stop his seizures.  It would take away all his pain.  Because he wouldn’t remember any of you."

Heller was gripping the side of the table, his knuckles white.

"I don’t know what you’re talking about," Coroway said.

"You couldn’t very well have a man with John Snow’s knowledge of weapons systems floating around free in the world.  He might share your trade secrets.  He might start his own company, put you right out of business.  It all came down to the money. So you went to Mass General that morning and arranged to meet him in that alleyway," Clevenger went on.  "You shot him point-blank in the heart.  You killed him before he ever got his chance to be reborn."

Heller flew out of his seat, rushed Coroway and threw him up against the wall.  He started to strangle him.

Lindsey Snow screamed.

"Who were you to take my client from me?" Heller shouted.  "Are you God?"

Clevenger and Kyle Snow rushed over, tried to pull Heller away.

Heller’s hands only tightened around Coroway’s neck.  "We were about to make history," he seethed.

The door to the room swung open.

Out of the corner of his eye, Clevenger saw Mike Coady and Billy step into the doorway.  Coady’s gun was drawn.

"Doctor Heller," Billy said.  "Don’t."

Heller glanced at him, then at his own hands.

"Please," Billy said.

Heller slowly let go.

Coroway fell to the ground, gasping for air.

Coady lowered his gun.  "I happen to have two sets of cuffs with me," he said, looking over at George Reese, and holding them up.  "No diamonds on either one of ’em.  You’ll just have to make do."

Chapter 22

Theresa Snow walked into Clevenger’s office at Boston Forensics a little over an hour later.  Clevenger had reached her just as she got home, told her he needed to meet with her right away.

He pulled a chair closer to his desk, motioned for her to take it.  He sat in his desk chair.

"What is it you’d like to talk about," she asked.

"The truth."

She met his gaze, held it.  "The truth about what?"

"About John."

"Tell me what you mean."

"I know what really happened, Theresa.  And I know why."  He looked away.  "I’m not proud of what I did in that interview room.  But I would do it again."

She stayed silent.

He looked back at her, lowered his voice.  "I know why you killed John.  And I don’t blame you for it."

"You’re insane," she said, tentatively.

"You’re mind was in love with John’s mind.  But the rest of you was dead all the years you were married to him."

No response.

"You stood by him when anyone else would have left.  You stayed even though he was cruel to your son.  You stayed while he lavished all his affection on your daughter.  You put yourself last.  Him, first.  Because he was extraordinary."

"Marriages are about different things," she said.  "Ours was about John’s work."

"Which is why you went along with Coroway and Reese.  You let them stage a romance for John.  Because you knew how badly John suffered when he was blocked, when he couldn’t invent.  Vortek was torturing him.  And then he stumbled on someone who gave him a new kind of energy, energy the two of you never had together, energy that had the potential to jump-start his creativity.  So you sacrificed your feelings — again.  For him."

"Se wasn’t supposed to actually...  You know."

"Sleep with him."

She looked wounded by those words.  "She was supposed to tell him how much she cared for him, but that she needed to figure out her own marriage first.  She was supposed to channel his energy back into his work."

"Until he was finished with Vortek.  Then it would be over between them."

She nodded.

"But it wasn’t over.  Not for her.  Not for him.  All those years you stood by him, all Kyle’s suffering, didn’t seem to count for anything.  John didn’t want to live without Grace Baxter any more than she wanted to live without him.  So you — not Collin — told John that Grace had been put up to seducing him.  You shattered his belief in her.  And that’s when he told you he was leaving — everyone.  He told you the surgery would make you and him strangers."

"He wouldn’t even remember what he had done to me."

"You wouldn’t exist for him," Clevenger said.  "He was the one threatening you with annihilation.  No one could expect you to let that happen."  He slid his hand a few inches toward her.

She gazed longingly at it.

Clevenger saw the hunger in her eyes, hunger for the kind of connection her husband had found with another woman.  "There’s a reason nothing turned out the way Coroway and Reese told you it would," he said.  "Sometimes when people meet, they feel something they’ve never felt before.  It’s a lock and key fit.  An old professor of mine used to say it was like finding your
lovemap
.  Grace Baxter was John’s.  And vice versa."

"Will I ever...?"  She looked into his eyes.

"Tell me how it felt," Clevenger said.

"What?"

"Shooting him."

She hesitated.

"You can tell me anything.  It’s over now.  Reese will be convicted of Grace’s murder.  Coroway will be convicted of John’s."  He paused.  "Did it feel good?"

She closed her eyes, opened them, like a cat.  "I felt like a person for the first time."

"For once, you put your feelings before his."

"I honestly didn’t think I could pull the trigger.  But then he had the gall to tell me to get over the past, to reinvent myself.  After I had given him my whole life."  She moved her hand so that it was nearly touching Clevenger’s.  "The strange thing is, by shooting him, I think I did reinvent myself.  I think I changed the whole architecture of my life."

"Do you think that’s why Kyle gave you John’s gun?  So you could escape?"

"We both needed to."

Clevenger took a deep breath, shook his head.  "Coroway gets life in prison.  I don’t know if he deserves that."

"Collin, George and I all knew we were playing with fire," Theresa said.  "Any of us could have been burned at any time."

"That’s true," Clevenger said.  "You just never know when or how it’s gonna happen."  He swiveled his chair toward the large, ornately framed mirror that hung on the opposite wall.

Theresa turned and looked at the mirror, too.  She smiled at their reflection.

Clevenger reached back to a button built into the underside of his desk.

Their reflection gradually receded as the lights in the office dimmed, turning the mirror transparent, revealing Collin Coroway, Mike Coady, Billy Bishop and Jet Heller standing behind it.