The wine was cold and bitter. A white-jacketed busboy moved through the darkness of the restaurant like a ghost. Outside, a freakish spell of blisteringly hot weather had emptied the streets but here it was cool and dark and the only noise was the murmur of conversation and the silvery clink of flatware against china, ice against glass. It was two o’clock in the afternoon. Aaron Gold had been buried that morning in Los Angeles.
Grant asked, “Should we have sent flowers?”
“I’ve never understood that custom,” I replied. “Are the flowers intended as a symbol of resurrection or are they just there to divert attention from the corpse?”
But Grant wasn’t listening. His glance had fallen to the front page of the Chronicle laid out on the table between us. The contents of Robert Paris’s will had been made public. His entire estate, five hundred million dollars, was bequeathed to the Linden Trust of which John Smith was chairman. Would it matter to Smith now that Robert Paris was a murderer or was half a billion dollars sufficient reparation?
As if he read my thoughts, Grant looked up at me unhappily and said, “There’s no justice in this. You must do something.”
“I’ve tried everything,” I said to Grant, “everything I could think of doing.”
A waiter set down shallow bowls of steaming pasta before us. The fragrance of basil rose from the dish reminding me of summer. I picked up my fork.
“You haven’t tried what you’re trained to do,” Grant said.
I lifted an interrogatory eyebrow.
“I’ve been thinking about this,” Grant said. “The first thing you have to do is ask yourself what it is you want. You don’t want the identity of the killer, you already know who that is, but what you do want is to bring the killer to justice. And I’m not talking about Barron — he was just the instrument — I’m talking about Robert Paris. You want there to be a public record of his guilt.”
I nodded.
“Who is better able to make that record than a lawyer in a court of law?”
“Unfortunately,” I said, “Judge Paris is no longer within any court’s jurisdiction.”
“Wrong,” Grant said. “You’re thinking of the criminal side.”
I put my fork down. “What are you thinking of?”
“Well, I’m not a litigator, of course, but it occurred to me that you should sue him.”
Grant picked up his fork and speared a clam. I watched him chew and swallow. My brain was buzzing. Why hadn’t I thought of this before?
“Of course,” I said. “Wrongful death. I’ll sue Robert Paris’s estate for the wrongful death of Hugh Paris.”
“And Aaron too.”
I shook my head. “The judge was already dead when that happened. We’d never be able to prove it.”
Grant buttered a bit of bread. “You think we could prove it as to Hugh’s death?”
“I don’t know but we’ll do a hell of a lot of damage to Robert Paris’s reputation in the attempt.”
I thought some more.
“In fact,” I continued, “we can do some damage to John Smith while we’re at it, or at least get his attention.”
“How?”
“Well, if a suit is pending against Paris’s estate which involves money damages, there should be enough money set aside from the estate to cover those damages in the event the suit succeeds.”
Grant dabbed his mouth with a napkin and smiled.
“You mean we can obtain some kind of injunction to prevent the judge’s executors from disbursing the estate.”
“Exactly. The Linden Trust won’t get a penny until the suit’s resolved. And as for the executor,” I continued, “which happens to be Aaron’s law firm, we’ll plaster them with discovery motions and compel them to produce every scrap of paper they have that involves Hugh or Peter Barron or Robert Paris. We’ll depose everyone from the senior partner to the receptionist.”
“Those depositions will make the front page of the Chronicle,” he said.
“For months,” I replied, “if not years.” Smiling, I reached across the table and patted his head. “Good thinking for someone who’s not a litigator. It’s perfect, Grant.”
Grant looked at me and smiled nervously. “Well, not quite perfect,” he said. “As I understand it, the only people entitled to bring the suit would be Hugh’s executors or his heirs.”
It took a moment before I understood. “Katherine Paris.”
“I’m afraid so,” he said.
Katherine Paris lit a cigarette and eyed me suspiciously from across my desk. We were in my office. This was the first time I’d used it for business since I’d leased it three months earlier. There was a film of dust on the bookshelves and the file cabinets. Both were empty. The only objects of my desk were three newly purchased volumes of the code of civil procedure, the probate code and the evidence code, a yellow legal tablet, my pen and the plastic cup into which Mrs. Paris tapped her cigarette ash.
“Tell me again how this works,” she said, “preferably in English. I cannot follow you when you start quoting the law at me.”
I smiled as charmingly as I knew how. Her hard, intelligent face showed no sign of being charmed. I had virtually pulled her off a plane to Boston to get her to talk to me. Her baggage had gone on without her. Now she planned to leave that night on another flight. The clock was ticking away.
“It’s called a wrongful death action,” I said, “and it’s a law suit brought by the heirs or estate of someone who died through the negligence or wrongful act of another. The most common instance is a suit brought by the family of someone killed in a car accident or on the job.”
“I would hardly classify homicide as an instance of neglect,” she remarked impatiently.
“But it is a wrongful act.”
“Oh, at the very least,” she snickered.
“Mrs. Paris, please — I know it sounds like hair-splitting, but there are precedents in the case law that permit the heirs of a murder victim to bring an action against his murderer.”
“So you want my consent to bring this wrongful death action against Robert’s estate.”
“Exactly.”
“And you intend to ask for two hundred and fifty million dollars in damages?”
“Yes.”
She stubbed out her cigarette. “What you want is permission to conduct a circus.”
I began to respond but she cut me off.
“Mr. Rios, you are a very clever man and I have no doubt that you were devoted to Hugh but this idea of yours is absurd.”
“It’s not absurd,” I said, “It’s entirely plausible.” She remained unimpressed. “Mrs. Paris, you stand to gain by this suit whether we get to trial or not.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I know that you were left nothing in Robert Paris’s will. There’s enough truth to this suit that even if we can’t prove the allegation that the judge had Hugh murdered, the suit has considerable harassment value.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“It takes five years to get a relatively simple civil lawsuit to trial. A case of this magnitude could drag on for a decade, easily. At some point the judge’s executors will simply decide to pay you off and settle the suit.”
“But what would you get out of that, Mr. Rios? Surely you have other motives for wanting to sue Robert’s estate than my further enrichment.”
“I intend to pursue this case through the pages of the Chronicle so that even the fact of a settlement will be an admission of Robert Paris’s guilt. That will satisfy me, Mrs. Paris,” I said with rising emotion, “even if it takes the next ten years of my life to accomplish it.”
Visibly startled by my vehemence, she sat back in her chair.
“It won’t bring Hugh back to life,” she said softly.
“Mrs. Paris, do you have any doubt that Hugh was murdered?”
“No,” she said, without hesitation.
“And do you have any doubt that Robert Paris was his murderer?”
In a softer voice she said, “No.”
“But the police say Hugh killed himself, shot himself full of heroin and drowned in three feet of water. You saw the body.”
Her face went white. Her cigarette burned unheeded. She nodded.
“How can you allow your son to be slandered with this ridiculous explanation of his death? It’s as if you left his body to the vultures. Doesn’t he deserve a decent burial, a peaceful rest?”
“Spare me,” she whispered.
“I can’t,” I said. “I loved him.”
She lit another cigarette and proceeded to smoke it, all the while looking out the window as dusk gathered in the sky. Once she lifted a long finger to the ivory cameo at the neck of her blouse. Perhaps her husband had given it to her, perhaps, even, it had been given to her by Hugh. At length she turned her face back to me and studied me for a long time. I did not avoid her eyes but looked back into them.
“You loved him,” she said, at last, echoing me. “I told you once I didn’t understand that kind of love.”
“That love differs only in expression but not quality from the love you felt for him.”
“No,” she said. “The quality is different. Yours — it’s much finer.”
“May I proceed with the suit?”
She said, “All right.”
The words fell like two smooth pebbles and clattered on the desk between us.
“Thank you, Mrs. Paris.” “But I intend to catch that flight for Boston tonight. You’ll be on your own.”
“I understand that.”
“Yes, I imagine you do,” she said. “You strike me as someone who was born to be on his own. I know I was.” These last words were spoken with sadness, resignation. Recovering herself, she said, “I suppose you want me to sign something.”
“No,” I said. “You’ll either be good at your word or you won’t. If not, a piece of paper won’t compel you.”
“You needn’t worry about my word. I never give it unless I intend to honor it.”
I nodded, slightly, in acknowledgment.
“However,” she continued, “I wish to add one condition of your employment by me. You may take your thirty percent if and when we win. In the meantime-” she dug into her bag and withdrew a leather checkbook, “you’ll need money to proceed.”
I watched her write out a check for ten thousand dollars and lay it on the desk between us.
“I’ll expect an accounting, of course,” she said. “If you need more money notify me at the address on the check. But do remember, Mr. Rios, while I may be well-off I’m counting on you to make me truly rich, so spend wisely.”
“I will.”
She rose and gathered up her things. “Now tell me, Mr. Rios, truthfully, if we do get to trial what are our chances of winning?”
“Let me give you a legal answer,” I said. “I would say we have two chances, fat and slim.”
She let out a low, throaty laugh that echoed in the room even after she’d left.
The next morning I stepped up to the counter of the clerk of the superior court, wrote out a check, handed it over with a stack of papers to a young black woman, and with those actions commenced the suit of Paris versus Paris. Along with the complaint and summons, I filed a request for discovery and a restraining order against the disbursement of Robert Paris’s estate pending the outcome of this action. Simultaneously, a courier service I’d hired with some of Mrs. Paris’s money served copies of the documents upon Grayson, Graves and Miller as executors of the judge’s estate. The clerk stamped my copies of the papers and handed them back to me, wishing me a good day as she did. I thanked her and stepped out into the hall and into the glare of television cameras.
“Sir, look this way, please,” a voice called to me. I turned to the camera. A blond man in a gray suit spoke into a microphone, explaining that I had just filed a two hundred and fifty million dollar lawsuit against the estate of Robert Paris claiming that Paris had murdered his grandson. He spoke with no particular urgency and in a normal tone of voice, but to me it was as if he was shouting his words to the world through an amplifier on the tip of the Transamerica pyramid.
At length the blond, introducing himself as Greg Miller, turned to me and said, “Mr. Rios, why have you filed this lawsuit rather than going to the police?”
I cleared my throat and told my story.
When I woke the next morning the phone was already ringing. I let my answering machine take the message as I got out of bed and wandered into the kitchen to start the coffee. I caught the tail end of the message — a reporter from the L.A. Times requesting an interview.
I’d gotten to bed at three that morning, having spent the previous twelve hours talking to reporters from newspapers and television stations from Sacramento to Bakersfield. I put on a bathrobe and stepped outside to pick up the Chronicle and the local. I’d made the front page of both. I glanced at the stories — they were the usual jumble of fact and fantasy but the slant was decidedly in my favor.
I skimmed the rest of the Chronicle. On the next-to-the-last-page, in the society section, I saw a picture of John Smith. He’d attended a charitable function the night before and was shown arriving at the Fairmont. By his expression I saw that he was used to having his picture taken but not particularly tolerant of the practice. He looked away from the camera, both his eyes and his mind visibly occupied on another matter. I had a good idea of what it was.
I folded the paper across Smith’s face and went to the window. Outside the sky was clouded over. Knots of red and yellow leaves waved back and forth in the trees like pennants. There was a lot to be done that day. Grant was expecting me for lunch where we would map out our litigation strategy. The phone messages would have to be responded to. I needed to hire a secretary and have a phone installed in my office. Abruptly, I had become a practicing lawyer. It felt good.
I rinsed out my coffee cup and went to the bedroom where I changed into my sweats and running shoes. I stretched in the living room for a couple of minutes and then went out. It was about seven and there weren’t many other people on the road. A Chinese boy came flying by, long, skinny legs pounding the sidewalk, black hair flapping like silk at the back of his head. We nodded acknowledgment as we passed each other.
It had been some time since I’d last run and it took longer than usual to catch my stride. I swiveled my head back and forth, trying to relax my neck. It was then that I noticed the silver Rolls.
It was gliding a few feet behind me, too slowly and with too little sense of direction. I increased my speed and turned a comer. I looked over my shoulder, and it was still following. Suddenly, the car sped up, turned the corner ahead of me and stopped in my path. I slowed to a trot. The front passenger window was soundlessly lowered. I felt a surge of prickly heat across my chest as my blood rushed not from exertion but from fear. I stopped. The only person in the car was the driver. He was a middle-aged man with silver hair, wearing a black suit, white shirt, black tie and a visored black cap. He turned his face to me and smiled.
“Mr. Rios?” he called out. “I’m sorry if I startled you.”
Cautiously, I approached the car close enough to talk without shouting.
“How do you know who I am?”
“Your picture’s in the papers,” he said. “Mr. Smith wonders if he could see you.”
“John Smith?”
The driver nodded.
“Now?” “Yes, sir.”
I looked at him. He seemed harmless but then I couldn’t see his lower body from where I was standing.
“And where does Mr. Smith propose we have this meeting?”
“He’s waiting for you at the Linden Museum on the university campus.”
“Step out of the car, please, and come around to my side.”
“Sir?”
“Please.”
I heard him sigh as he opened the door and got out. When he came around I told him to turn his back to me, put his hands on the top of the car, and spread his legs.
“Is this really necessary?” he asked as I patted him down for weapons.
“Don’t take it personally,” I replied, “but the last time I got into a small enclosed space with one of Mr. Smith’s employees he pulled a gun on me.”
“I’m not armed,” the driver replied.
“So I see,” I said, turning him around by the shoulders. “On the other hand you’ve got twenty pounds over me and it feels like muscle. Do you know where you are now in relation to the museum?”
“Yes.”
I looked into the car and saw the key was in the ignition. “Then you won’t mind walking there.”
“Come now, Mr. Rios-” he began.
“Look,” I said. “I’ll drive myself to the museum alone, or I won’t go at all. Understood?”
After a moment’s pause, he said, “Understood. But be careful with the car.”
“I hear they drive themselves,” I said, getting into the driver’s seat.
I calculated that it would take the driver at least a half hour to walk back to campus. Smith, or whoever had dispatched him, was probably not even certain I could be lured to the museum, much less at a fixed time, but he would begin to get nervous if too much time passed without word from the driver. I could cover the distance to the campus in about ten minutes. This gave me, I decided, about fifteen minutes of dead time before anyone got jittery. Fifteen minutes was more than enough time for the plan that now suggested itself to me.
I made a stop. When I started up again, ten minutes later, I noticed the white van a car length behind me. I began to whistle. The van’s lights flickered on and off. I relaxed.
I drove beneath the stone arch and onto Palm Drive. Just before I reached the oval lawn that fronted the Old Quad I turned off a rickety little side street called Museum Way. When I looked in my mirror, the van was gone. I followed the road for a few hundred yards until it ended, abruptly, at the voluminous steps of a sandstone building, the Grover Linden Museum of Fine Art. I parked the car and got out.
The edifice, reputedly inspired by St. Peter’s, consisted of a domed central building and two wings jutting off on each side at a slight angle. As a law student, I had sometimes come here to study since it was as deserted a spot on campus as existed. It was deserted now as I made my way up the steps to where a uniformed university security guard stood. Behind him, the museum’s hours were posted on the door and indicated, quite clearly, that the museum was closed on Tuesdays. Today was Tuesday.
“Mr. Rios?”
“That’s right.”
“Go right in, sir. Mr. Smith is up on the second floor in the family gallery. Do you know where that is?”
“Yes.”
The monster was surprisingly graceful inside. Sunlight poured into the massive foyer from a glass dome in the ceiling. A beautiful staircase led up from the center of the foyer to the second floor. Walkways on that floor connected the right and left wings of the museum. The staircase and interior walls were white marble, the banisters of the staircase were polished oak and the railings were bronze. All that glare of white and polished surfaces made me feel that I was inside a wedding cake.
I started up the stairs to the second floor, got to the top and turned right. Above the entrance to the gallery at my right were chiseled the words “the Linden Family Collection.” On each side of that entrance stood an armed security guard. They weren’t wearing the university’s uniforms. I stepped past them into the room.
The family gallery was a long and narrow rectangular room, Along one of the long walls were six tall windows looking out over a garden. Along the other were paintings of the various buildings of the university as they existed on the day the university opened its doors for business. There were also a dozen standing glass cases that displayed such memorabilia as Grover Linden’s eyeglasses, Mrs. Linden’s rosary and a collection of dolls belonging to the Linden’s only daughter.
I strolled past these treasures toward the end of the room. There, alone on the wall, hung the only well-known work in the room, a six foot portrait of Grover Linden himself painted by John Singer Sargent. Beneath it, on a wooden bench; sat an old man, John Smith.
There was no one else in the room and the only noise was the soft squish of my running shoes as I walked across the marble floor. Smith rose as he saw me approach. At six foot four he had five inches over me but was thin and frail-looking. The tremulous light that fell across his face washed it of all color. Even his eyes were faded and strangely lifeless as if they’d already closed on the world. He extended his hand to me, His grip was loose and perfunctory and the hand itself skeletal and cold. And yet, even that touch conveyed authority. He sat down again and motioned me to sit beside him. I did. The two guards at the other end of the room moved to just inside the gallery. I felt their eyes on us.
“Thank you for coming,” Smith said in a surprisingly firm voice. He elongated his vowels in the manner of Franklin Roosevelt, I noticed; the accent of wealth from an earlier time,
“You’re welcome. Though I must say this is an odd meeting place.”
“My lawyers,” he said, “advised me not to speak to you at all, since it’s likely that I’ll become involved in this lawsuit of yours, but I had to talk to you.”
“So we’re hiding from your lawyers?”
“Exactly,” he replied. We watched dust motes fall through the air. “You know I haven’t been to this museum since it was dedicated sixty years ago. Of course I was just a boy then. But for years I dreamed about this portrait of my grandfather.”
“Is it a fair likeness?”
“It errs on the side of tact,” he said, smiling a little. He cleared his throat with a murmur. “Now, Mr. Rios, perhaps we can discuss our business.”
“Which is?”
“This — lawsuit.” He looked at me and said, “What will it cost me to persuade you to drop it?”
“Well, to begin with, an explanation of why you would make such a request.”
“My family’s good name,” he said.
“Robert Paris was a member of your family by marriage only,” I said, “and, from what I understand, no friend of yours. Additionally, my information is that he was responsible not only for the murder of Hugh Paris but also your sister, Christina, and your nephew, Jeremy.”
“Your information,” Smith said with a trace of contempt. “Are you so sure your information is correct?”
“I’m positive of it. Aren’t you?”
“As to my sister and nephew,” he said, rising, “yes. As to Hugh,” he shrugged, slightly, and moved toward a window. I rose and followed him over.
“How long have you known about Christina and Jeremy?” I asked.
“Twenty years,” he replied. “John Howard sought me out after they were killed and brought me the wills. I had some of my men conduct an investigation of the accident and the subsequent coroner’s inquest. They established that the accident had been arranged and the inquest rigged for the purpose of a finding of simultaneous death. It wasn’t difficult, Robert was inept as a murderer and left a trail of evidence that would have sent him to the gas chamber but the evidence was scattered through half a dozen police jurisdictions and the police were even more inept than he.”
“But you had the evidence. Why not use it against him?”
He regarded me coolly as if deciding that I was not as bright as he’d been led to believe. “I did use it, Mr. Rios.” “Not to go to the police.”
“No,” he said, laying a fingertip against the windowsill. “My investigators obtained the evidence as,” he smiled at me, conspiratorially, “expeditiously as possible. Their methods were not the police’s methods and, consequently, my lawyers informed me that Robert would’ve been able to suppress enough of the evidence to weaken the case against him, perhaps fatally.”
“Nonetheless,” I insisted, “it was worth a try.”
“You don’t understand,” he said, impatiently. “There were higher stakes to play.”
“Something greater than justice for the dead?” I asked.
He raised an eyebrow. “I was told you had a lawyer’s way with words,” he said, not admiringly.
“You were talking about higher stakes.”
“Yes, there was the money to think about, Christina’s estate, one-half of my grandfather’s fortune. It had fallen into Robert’s hands. Robert was many things, most of them contemptible, but he was good with money. I had to think ahead about what would’ve happened to that money had Robert been removed from the picture.”
“It would’ve gone to its rightful heirs.”
“Who at that time,” Smith said, “were my lunatic nephew, Nicholas, and his ten-year-old son, Hugh.”
“Why couldn’t you have had yourself appointed their guardian?”
“Because there was someone with a much stronger claim to that office.”
“Who?”
Smith snorted. “Your client, Mr. Rios. Katherine Paris.”
I said, “Ah.”
“Katherine Paris,” he said with recollected scorn, “a writer.” It was the ultimate epithet. “She didn’t know the first thing about money.”
“Whereas the judge knew all about money.”
“And, more importantly, I had a lever with which to control him.”
“So you took the evidence that linked him to the murders and used it to blackmail him.”
Smith looked out the window. A few late roses clung tenaciously to life. Perhaps they were the ones that had been named in his honor. “Yes,” he said, defiantly. “Yes.”
“And what did you get in return for not exposing him?”
“An agreement.” He began to walk across the room. I walked with him. “At Robert’s death, his entire estate was to revert to the Linden Trust, of which I am chairman. In the meantime, his affairs were controlled by my lawyers. He couldn’t invest or spend a cent without my approval.”
“And if he had?”
“My lawyers would’ve seen to it that criminal proceedings were initiated against him the second he deviated from our agreement.”
“Other than your lawyers, who knew about the agreement?”
“His lawyers, of course.”
Grayson, Graves and Miller — Aaron’s firm. In the remote reaches of my mind something fell into place but was still too distant for me to articulate.
“So you see, the blackmail — your word, not mine — was a necessary evil.”
“That seems to be your forte.”
“That was cheap, Mr. Rios,” he said, stopping in front of a painting that depicted the original law school.
“A moment ago you indicated that I was right about the murders of Christina and Jeremy Paris but not about Hugh’s. What did you mean?”
The color, what there was of it, seeped from his face. “Robert Paris didn’t have Hugh murdered,” he said.
“You mean Peter Barron acted on his own?”
“No.”
I was about to speak when, staring at his gaunt ancient face, the bones so prominent that I could have been addressing a skull, I realized that I was staring at Hugh’s murderer.
“You,” I said. “Robert Paris was your creature. He couldn’t have employed an assassin with you controlling his money, unless you agreed to it.”
Smith looked away.
“And of course you agreed to it. You had as much or more to lose as Robert Paris had his earlier murders been exposed. You knew that Paris killed his wife and son and you knew that Hugh was the rightful heir to the judge’s share of the Linden fortune. For twenty years you helped cover up those murders and defraud Hugh of his inheritance.” I advanced toward Smith, who moved a step back. “But Hugh thought you would help him and he came to you. You leased him the house so you could keep an eye on him. He trusted you. You betrayed him.”
The two guards had come up behind Smith, their hands on their guns. I stopped. Smith glanced over his shoulder and ordered them to retreat. They stepped back.
“Hugh hated his grandfather almost to the point of psychosis,” Smith said, “and he knew that I was no friend of Robert’s.” He smiled, bitterly. “You see, Mr. Rios, I made a pact with the devil, but I could never bring myself to enjoy his company.”
“That makes no difference.”
“Perhaps not. Still, I encouraged Hugh’s hatred of his grandfather — partly, I suppose, to deflect any suspicion from myself but also because Hugh gave vent to the hatred I felt for Robert Paris, my sister’s murderer, my nephew’s murderer.”
“But you danced to his tune.”
“Yes, I see that clearly now, but at the time, I was blind. One’s own motives are always lost in mists of rationalizations. Hugh found out about the murders and expected my help in exposing his grandfather. If I refused to help him he would become suspicious of me, perhaps even guess my complicity. But I could hardly agree to help him expose Robert without also exposing myself.”
“Did you tell him about your part in the cover-up?”
“Yes.” Smith said.
“And he went berserk.”
“Yes.”
“Threatened to expose you as well.”
“Yes.”
“So you had him killed.”
“Yes.”
Smith brought his hand to his throat, as if protecting it. Suddenly, I saw the scene that had occurred between Smith and
Hugh when Smith revealed his part in the cover-up. Hugh must have responded like a madman, physically attacking his great- uncle. In a way, that might have made it easier for Smith to give the order to have Hugh killed; to regard Hugh as a madman on the verge of bringing the entire family to ruin and obloquy. Smith believed he served a legitimate purpose in having Hugh murdered, but in fact he was merely acting as Robert Paris’s agent.
Smith and I had squared off, facing each other tensely across a few feet of shadowy space.
“That’s not the end of the story,” I said. “You had Hugh killed by Peter Barron. But where is Peter Barron?”
“Dead,” the old man muttered.
“His life for Hugh’s?”
“Is that so rough a measure of justice?”
“Yes, from my perspective, especially when you weigh Aaron Gold’s death in the balance.’’
Smith shook his head. “That was unintentional. Mr. Gold worked for the firm that handled Robert’s personal accounts. Shortly after Hugh’s death, the partner who worked closest with Robert discovered certain documents missing that showed the extent to which I controlled all of Robert’s transactions. There were also some personal papers missing, among them, Hugh’s letters to Robert. The partner conducted a quiet investigation. The documents were found at Mr. Gold’s home and the letters, as you know, at your apartment.”
“Aaron had discovered that Paris wasn’t in control of his affairs but that you were,” I said, “and he reasoned that you, not Paris, were behind Hugh’s death.”
“Something like that,” Smith said. “No one ever had an opportunity to talk to Mr. Gold.”
“You saw to that,” I said.
“No,” Smith repeated wearily. “That was Peter Barron acting on his own. He told me he’d gone to talk to Mr. Gold, that there was a struggle and the gun went off.”
“There was no struggle,” I said, “Aaron was shot as he sat in an armchair getting drunk.”
“I didn’t believe Barron,” Smith said, “since he had reasons of his own for wanting the identity of Hugh’s killer secret.”
“He was the trigger man.”
Smith nodded. “So now you know everything,” he said, “and I repeat my original question: What will it cost me to persuade you to drop the lawsuit?”
I shook my head. “It’s never been a matter of money. I want an admission of guilt. I want that admission in open court and for the record. I want the law to run its course. No secret pay-offs, no cover-ups.”
“My lawyers were right,” Smith said, “I shouldn’t have spoken to you. And yet I’m glad I did.” He hunched his shoulders as if suddenly cold. “I’m not an evil man, or at least, I can still appreciate an act of human decency. I appreciate your devotion to Hugh, Mr. Rios, but you must understand that I too will have the law run its course and I will fight you with every resource to which I have access.”
“I understand that,” I said, “but I have two things on my side that you do not.”
“What?”
“Time,” I said, “and justice.”
A ghostly smile played across Smith’s withered lips. “Goodbye, Mr. Rios,” Smith said, “and good luck.”
He turned and strode the length of the gallery. The two guards fell in behind him. I waited a moment and then followed him out. I got to the top of the steps outside the museum in time to watch the silver Rolls slip away into the wood. I jogged down the steps.
I turned down the collar of my sweatshirt and spoke into the thin metal disc attached there. “He’s gone,” I said. “I hope you got it all down.”
A moment later the white van moved into view from behind the museum. The passenger door swung open and Terry Ormes got out, followed by Sonny Patterson pushing his way out from the back of the van. Terry had insisted that I be wired for sound in the event that I was being led into a trap, so that the cops could respond. Neither of us had expected the conversation we had just heard. Patterson had signed on at the last minute, in the event that something useful was said. He walked toward me looking like a man who’d just heard an earful.
“Your little speech about time and justice,” Patterson said, “ought to play real well in front of the grand jury.”
“You recorded it?”
“The whole thing.”
“Then there will be a grand jury.”
“You bet,” he said, “and if they don’t come back with an indictment, I’m washing my hands of this profession.”
Terry who had come up beside us, said, “Good work, Henry.”
“It’s not exactly how I thought it would go down.”
“I’ll guess you’ll be amending the complaint in your lawsuit to allege Smith as a defendant,” Patterson said.
I shrugged. “I’ll talk to my client. She may not want to pursue the case after the grand jury concludes its business.”
“You wanted it to be Robert Paris, didn’t you?” Terry said.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Smith is as much a victim as Hugh. Smith was a moderately good man who chose expediency over justice the one time it really mattered. But Robert Paris was the real thing, he was evil. I pity Smith.”
Patterson looked at me disdainfully. “That old public defender mentality,” he said. “People don’t commit crimes, society does. You know Latin?”
I shook my head.
He said, “ Durum hoc est sed ita lex scripta est — It is hard but thus the law is written.”
“Where’s that from?”
“The Code of Justinian, and it was engraved over the entrance of the library of my law school — which was not as big a deal as your law school here at the university, but those of us who went there were hungry in the way that justice is a hunger.”
He turned from us and walked away. Terry and I looked at each other. What Patterson wanted was clear: a fair trial and a guilty verdict. My own motives were hopelessly confused — my hunger had never been as simple as Sonny’s.
“Maybe,” I said to Terry, “I never wanted justice but just to vent my grief about Hugh.”
She shook her head. “Grief is half of justice,” she said, and added, a moment later, “the other half is hope.”