Exact Revenge Page 5

  I didn’t want a lawyer, didn’t want them to think I was guilty, even though I knew the textbooks said not to talk once you got your Miranda. My instincts and my innocence were in control. The urge to convince them overwhelmed the distant lessons from my first-year criminal law class.

  I told the cop what happened. I swore it was the truth. I had no idea how there could have been blood on my steering wheel. She had bumped her head. Lightly. I shoved her away. Not hard, no. I never saw blood, but maybe it was possible. Yes, I had a tackle box for fishing. I thought I had a fillet knife, why? No, I didn’t know her at all.

  “Then why were you there?” he asked.

  I opened my mouth and stopped. Outside the room, I could hear a muffled burst of laughter from somewhere over in the detectives’ offices. People’s lives going on as if mine didn’t matter. The detective clicked his pen. Open. Shut. Open. Shut. My face felt hot. My armpits were sweating.

  “Can I take off my jacket?” I asked.

  “Why were you there?” he asked again.

  I closed my eyes. I could see Roger Williamson’s blue skin. Smell that hospital room.

  You tell no one. Will you promise me that?

  “I made a promise,” I said, opening my eyes.

  The detective cocked his head and partially closed one eye. His lip and the mustache above it quivered slightly.

  “I can’t,” I said. “I have to think. I’d better talk to a lawyer. A criminal lawyer…”

  “You can’t tell me why?” he said.

  “Minnick v. Mississippi,” I said.

  He tilted his head the other way.

  “I asked for a lawyer,” I said. “You’re permanently barred from asking me another question. That’s the case law…”

  “You’re gonna need it,” he said with half a smile.

  I looked away from him. The red eye of the tape recorder stared at me until he clicked it off. He snatched it up and stood, holding it in his freckled fist so that the skin was stretched smooth across his knuckles.

  He left and I sat for a long time. I was beginning to think about making some racket. They owed me a phone call. I was combing my brain. I never saw a statute or any case law that told me how long they could make you wait for your phone call. Then someone else walked in.

  He was a well-built little man-like a gymnast-with curly blond hair, a tan furrowed brow, and hazel eyes. I’d seen him before somewhere, angry, and not looking quite so elfish. He smiled at me suddenly, as if someone had cued him to do it. When he held out his hand, I shook it.

  “I’m Dean Villay,” he said. “District attorney.”

  He turned the chair around and sat down, leaning toward me. He wore a gray double-breasted blazer with brass buttons and gray slacks with grass stains at the cuffs. If he had a tie, it was gone. On the collar of his white shirt was a small chocolate-colored stain.

  “I asked for my own lawyer.”

  He flicked his hand in the air, swatting the notion away.

  “They told me you cited Minnick,” he said, smiling even more broadly now. The pupils of his eyes weren’t round, but torn on the edges, giving me the sense I could see deeper into his friendly soul.

  I felt a wave of relief. Finally, someone with some sense, some understanding of just how ludicrous this all was. Wasn’t the DA an elected official? Yes. Political allies? Even from the other party, we very well could be…

  I shook my head, smiling now.

  “You don’t know how crazy this was getting,” I said with a laugh.

  He laughed too. His round cheeks were flushed and I noticed that his tie was dangling from the side pocket of his blazer. I wanted to hug him.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Cops are cops. But we’ve got to get this straightened out. They’ve got a bloody knife that they’re pretty sure was the murder weapon.”

  “A fishing knife?”

  “Yes.”

  “They asked me about that. I have no idea. I have one in my boat, but…”

  “Jesus, Raymond,” he said, rubbing one hand from his forehead down the length of his face. “This is not good.”

  “But it wasn’t me,” I said, my hands clenched.

  “I believe you, but what the hell were you doing there?” he said. “People are going to want to know.”

  “You can keep this quiet, right?” I said, lowering my voice and leaning toward him. “I mean, if you check this out, you’re the DA, you can keep this part quiet, but push the investigation the other way and find out who really did this, right?”

  “Of course,” he said, leaning still closer.

  I looked around, even though the room was a five-by-ten-foot closet and the door was shut.

  “I promised someone I’d give her an envelope,” I said, in a low tone. “I have no idea what was in it. It had nothing to do with me getting the nomination. But the girl, she said she was having an affair with Roger Williamson.”

  When that news hit him, the legs of the chair hit the floor and squeaked. His mouth opened, but he quickly put his top teeth over his lip and leaned back toward me again, although not as close.

  “He was the one who asked me to deliver the envelope,” I said, whispering. “I saw him the day before he died. He asked me not to say anything to anyone. Just give it to her as soon as I got back from New York.”

  Villay looked away and slowly nodded his head as he chewed his lower lip. He stood up suddenly and held out his small hand again.

  “Okay,” he said. “That’s it. That’s easy. I’ll go and find the envelope and that’s going to go a long way to help you here. You delivered the envelope and you left. The knife, I don’t know, maybe the real killer planted it.”

  “And you can keep the fact that I told you about the letter between you and me?” I asked.

  “Absolutely,” he said, smiling and tapping the side of his head. “You don’t get to where I’m at without keeping a few secrets.”

  13

  EVEN IN SPECIAL HOUSING, which is the box, they will give you an hour of recreation. Time to breathe fresh air and walk in circles. Off by yourself. On a rooftop surrounded by a high fence crowned with concertina wire.

  I don’t go there.

  I don’t want to see the sky. I don’t want to feel the wind on the back of my neck or the chill of snowflakes pricking my face. I am like an alcoholic who can’t bear to have a single mouthful of drink. I don’t want to even think about freedom and so I don’t want to taste even the foam from that glass.

  During the days before my trial I was out on bail, consumed with proving my innocence and trying to act like everything in my life was going to be just fine. I tried to work on the acquisition of a drugstore chain for a big client, but kept finding myself in the law library scrutinizing every detail of every murder case I could get my hands on. I pestered my own defense lawyer incessantly, pushing to keep the trial date from being moved out. I refinished the hardwood floors in my house to keep my hands busy. And my relationship with Lexis limped along in the no-man’s-land between the redemption and total destruction of my life.

  The lawyers and private investigators I had hired figured it all wrong. Our focus was on finding out who would have wanted Celeste Oliver dead. Whoever really killed her had obviously taken advantage of my visit to divert the blame for the murder to me. The company she kept left us with an endless selection of possibilities. We tried to track them down. Drug dealers. Bikers. Businessmen cheating on their wives. Even some small-time mobsters. Our leads went nowhere. It wasn’t until too late that I realized that it wasn’t about Celeste Oliver at all. It was only about me.

  I heard things during that time that I didn’t bother to process. I was in denial. Because I was innocent, I didn’t ever really believe I would be convicted. I kept waiting for that final dramatic moment when everything was explained. That envelope. I just knew it would turn up. Somehow. Some way. Now I know that just wasn’t possible.

  And I’ve also figured out why.

  This is the way
it must have happened.

  It was almost midnight before Villay’s Volvo coupe slowed down outside 1870 Lodi Street. There was a hush on the block that wasn’t unusual in the wake of a major crime. The good people counting their blessings and hoping they weren’t next. The bad ones keeping low profiles until the heat subsided.

  Villay pulled into the driveway behind the red Honda. He stepped out into the night and listened. Crickets. He didn’t know crickets could survive in the scant weedy patches crammed between the North Side’s dilapidated buildings and blacktop. He scanned the street, up and down, then climbed the front steps, ducking under the yellow tape. The door was locked, but he had a key for the padlock to the hardware that had been bolted in place. He stepped inside and turned on the lights. The heat from the day still lingered and with it the smell of cooked carpet and cigarette ashes. Dark swatches of dried blood stared up at him from the shaggy gold carpet.

  “Hello,” he said loudly. The sound of his own voice was intended to calm his nerves, but his hand still trembled as he began rifling through the papers that were crammed into the cubbyhole of an old roll-top desk whose broken top was leaning up against the wall.

  Villay had a sense of what it was he was looking for, but began to doubt his instincts as he pulled out his third wad of papers. Then he recognized the wavering scrawl of a man who was ready to die. The fat fold of papers pushing out of the ripped-open envelope made his mouth go dry.

  When he saw the scrawled handwritten letters, his breathing grew shallow.

  Last Will and Testament

  The paper shook so badly in his hands that it was difficult to read. He had trouble separating the pages to turn them.

  Roger Williamson’s family had a little money to begin with, and he had used his position wisely. He had a beach condo in Florida, a big home in Manlius, partnerships in two trailer parks and a golf course, and a healthy portfolio of stocks and bonds. The man was worth about six million dollars.

  It was a complete will, dated two days before Roger died. Written in his own hand from his hospital in New Jersey. A holographic will. Handwritten and signed. No witnesses, but completely valid in New York State.

  It left everything to Celeste Oliver.

  Roger Williamson had recently divorced for the third time. His only living child, a daughter, was the young woman Villay was about to marry. Under Roger Williamson’s old will, Villay’s fiancée, Allison, was to get everything. The house. The condo. The partnerships. The portfolio.

  When Villay had heard how sick the congressman really was, he even began making up a guest list for a New Year’s party at the Florida condo. He had also begun to interview stockbrokers who would manage the stocks and bonds.

  A small panicked whine escaped his throat. Nausea swept over him and he sat down in the desk’s chair, the air hissing out of the plastic cushion. The will was gripped so tightly in his hand that it curled in a funnel around his fist. He took a deep breath and laid it flat on the desk’s narrow ledge, smoothing it and scouring it again.

  He was right. The will had no survival clause, so even though the stripper had only outlived the congressman by four days, the probate court would treat the estate as if it passed to her the moment Roger died. Roger Williamson’s money, his hard-earned fortune, would belong not to his own daughter, but to the heirs of the dead stripper.

  There was another option, and Villay told himself it wasn’t just about the money. It was about the great man’s reputation and the memory his family would have of him. There was no need to sully all that so some white-trash relative of Celeste Oliver’s could become suddenly and undeservedly rich.

  Villay stood and stuffed the will into the inside breast pocket of his blazer. He crammed the other papers back into the cubbyholes and looked around for a sign of his presence before he realized that he had every right to be there and that no one would ever question him about it. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

  He left the house and shut the door. The padlock clicked and rattled against the hardware as Villay turned for the steps. He drove to the end of Lodi Street-near the highway entrance-and pulled into a weedy lot. It was a dark nook amid the glow of the city’s lights, and when he touched the cigarette lighter from his car to the edge of the will, its orange glow was hot and bright. Villay blew gently and the paper ignited, bursting into flame. Shadows morphed across his face as he tilted the burning document this way and that so that it would catch evenly.

  The flame licked his fingertips and he dropped the burning sheets to the ground. The acrid scent, like smoldering leaves, filled the air. Villay raised his foot and stamped out what embers remained of the burnt paper, scattering black ash and small sparks that were quickly swallowed up by the shadows.

  14

  IT WAS AN EARLY TASTE OF SUMMER. The sun, a stranger through the months of gray, left me squinting. The snow had melted, but piles of grit and filth from a winter of plowing still dirtied the no-man’s-land where the sidewalk meets the street. The warm air, the sight of an irregular daffodil, and the smell of soggy grass left me lighthearted and eager. I swung my jacket over my shoulder and bounced along on my toes.

  Against the wishes of the man hired to defend me, I had insisted on fast-tracking my trial. Emil Rossi, my lawyer, was old school and he believed in badgering the prosecution on every point. But I was an innocent man, anxious to have my life back. Now we were at the end. Tomorrow morning, both sides would make their closing arguments and then the jury would decide.

  My father asked me to join him for a beer at the Dinosaur Bar-B-Que, a biker place that regular people go to. I could smell the slow-cooked ribs and chicken as I crossed the street and edged between two Harleys. Inside, a waitress in black T-shirt and push-up bra with a biker attitude asked me what did I want. Normally you had to wait an hour for a table, but it was just four o’clock and the place was half empty.

  “All set,” I told her, unfazed and searching.

  My father and Black Turtle looked ridiculous in their poorly cut blue suits, lizardskin boots, and short wide ties. I had seen them in the courtroom, but only nodded. It was like they knew what I was thinking, because as I passed the bar, they wrestled off the ties, shed their jackets, and began rolling up their sleeves. In front of them were three longneck bottles of Bud.

  I sat down and raised my bottle before taking a long swig.

  “What did you think?” I asked. A question that would have been unthinkable before Emil had begun to build me up. After three days of listening to Villay, the jury must have had a pretty bad impression of who I was and what I had done. Things were much better now.

  “Good people,” Black Turtle said with a nod curt enough to toss his ponytail briefly into sight.

  He meant the impressive list of character witnesses. Today Emil had conducted a parade of university professors, CEOs, and the director of the Red Cross office where I had been a volunteer since age fourteen. We could have had the congressman if we wanted. Bob Rangle magnanimously stepped forward to offer his help. For Rangle, it was a politically dangerous move. Emil voted to accept, but I flatly rejected it without knowing why.

  My father finished his beer and leaned forward after wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. At the same time, he reached down under the table, producing a worn leather satchel that he thumped down next to the ketchup.

  “You’re gonna take this,” he said in a whisper, “and go.”

  “Dad?” I said with a short laugh.

  “Run. Scat. Skee-daddle,” he said.

  “They’ve got to prove the elements of the crime, Dad. The burden is on them and they haven’t done it.”

  “This isn’t final exams, goddamn it,” he said. His pupils were wide and nearly swimming. His lips trembling beneath the wavy bristles of his gray mustache. His long gray hair was slicked straight back. “Black Turtle has some Mohawk friends up at the border who can get you across. We got you a Canadian passport and a ticket to Zurich. They don’t have no extradition from t
here.”

  It was quiet among the three of us for a while. My head was buzzing and I was aware of the clashing sounds of Metallica in the background.

  “I didn’t do it,” I said.

  My father’s face wrinkled and he quickly swiped at his eyes. His voice was broken.

  “You know how many people died in jail that didn’t?” he said. “You gotta run.”

  “Weren’t you at the same trial I was today?” I said.

  “That’s just people talking. People that like you. I’m tellin’ you,” my father said, his leathery face reddening. “I’m not asking. There’s almost seven thousand dollars in here.”

  “What did you sell, Dad?”

  “That don’t matter,” he said. “You’re all I got. Everything…”

  I reached across the table and grabbed hold of his hand. My father made a fist and I put my other hand on top too. My eyes were wet. I felt a flood of emotions inside me that I didn’t want coming out. We would have time to look back on it all. Soon. We could laugh and cry when it was all behind us.

  “I know, Dad,” I said. “They’re gonna acquit me. He hasn’t proven anything beyond a reasonable doubt.”

  “What the fuck does reasonable mean?” he said. “They got her blood. They got that knife. You see things the way you want to.”

  “That’s what works, Dad,” I said. “Except for this: Look at me… look at my life.”

  “This is everything and you don’t even see it. You got a charge in your hand. It’s gonna kill you and it’s gonna kill me too.”

  “Black Turtle,” I said, “talk to him.”

  But Black Turtle directed his blank look at me, not my father.

  “I got two good men,” he said, signaling to the waitress. “We’ll get you across that river. This white court is a bad thing.”

  “Dad,” I said, looking deep into his eyes. “I put up a two-million-dollar bond and I gave my word…”

  My father looked back at me for a long time until the waitress brought three more bottles of beer.