Gail Bowen: The Brutal Heart

At that moment, his cellphone rang. “I thought you turned that off,” I said.

Zack shrugged. “I forgot. Want me to let it ring?”

“No,” I said. “Probably just somebody wanting to wish you a happy birthday.”

Zack flipped open his cell and answered. One look at his face and I knew the call was serious. He listened without comment. Finally he said. “I’ll be there in ten minutes. And, Debbie, thanks for the heads-up.”

“Problems?” I said.

“There’s a situation,” Zack said evenly. “And it’s something you and I should talk about.”

“Can it wait?”

“No,” Zack said. “It can’t. Let’s go to our room.”

I’d left the sliding doors to the deck outside our bedroom open to catch the fresh breeze, but now the storm was lashing and the hardwood in front of the doors was wet. I picked up a towel from my bathroom and skated it across the hardwood until the floor was dry. Zack watched as I pitched the towel in the hamper. “You are admirably unflappable.”

“Comes in handy since I met you.” I sat on the bed. “So what’s up?”

“That was the cop shop. Inspector Debbie Haczkewicz says they need me to come down.”

I groaned. “Come on, Zack, a client – tonight?”

“There’s no client,” Zack said. “I’m the one they want to talk to.”

“About what?”

“It’s complicated,” Zack said. “But it starts with the reason Ned Osler committed suicide.”

“He didn’t want to live after his wife died,” I said. “I thought that was common knowledge.”

“He was also being blackmailed by a prostitute,” Zack said. “She’d filmed their sexual encounters and she was going to put them on the Internet unless Ned paid her off. That isn’t common knowledge and I hope to God it doesn’t get to be.”

A finger of lightning arced from sky to earth, throwing the trees along the creek into sharp relief. “I can’t believe this,” I said. “Ned was such a gentleman. When the three of us had dinner at his apartment, it was like stepping back in time. He was so gracious, helping me off with my coat, holding my chair before I sat down at the table. And the next day, there was always a hand-delivered note thanking me for the pleasure of my company and mentioning some detail of the evening that had brought him delight.”

Zack nodded. “Ned was a gentleman of the old school. That was the problem. Most of the guys I know would have told a lady threatening blackmail to go for it, put the tapes on the Internet, show the world Super-Stud in action, but Ned was a principled man. When this woman said she was going to make his private life public, he found the prospect insupportable.”

“Did he pay her off?”

“No. He refused to capitulate to behaviour that, in his view, was as unacceptable as his own.”

“Did he consider going to the police?”

“Believe it or not,” Zack said, “I suggested that. But Ned said the acts he’d indulged in were unspeakable, an insult to the life he and his wife, Evvie, had together. He said he’d rather die than stain his wife’s memory. I asked him to give me the name of the woman who’d threatened him, and I’d take care of it, but he said he’d made up his mind: he was going to exit honourably. That was it. Ned poured us each a serious slug of single-malt Scotch, and when we’d finished our drinks, he thanked me for my friendship and said goodbye. Three hours later, he shot himself.”

I took his hand. “I wish you’d told me.”

“I couldn’t. I’d given Ned my word, Jo. The only reason I’m telling you now is because of that phone call from Debbie.”

“Something’s happened.”

Zack sighed. “Boy, has it ever. I’ll give you the broad strokes. At Ned’s funeral, I watched his partners march up the aisle and I knew that before the sod on Ned’s grave had taken root, the woman who’d tried to blackmail Ned would be knocking on the doors of Osler Meinhart and Loftus. Anyway, I hired a private detective to track her down to see if I could head her off.”

“Did you find her?”

“Actually, she found me. Her name is Cristal Avilia. She called this morning and said she needed to talk to me about Ned.”

“So you saw her.”

“Yeah, I did.” He stroked my hand. “Christ, I’d give anything not to be having this conversation with you. Yes, I saw her, and as it turned out, it wasn’t the first time we’d met. I’d used her services myself, Jo.”

My heart squeezed. “Since we were together?”

Zack leaned towards me. “Oh God, no. Jo, you’re all I’ve ever wanted and then some. But as you know, the mechanics of sex don’t always work for me. With us, it doesn’t matter, we just fool around till we’re both happy, but it was different for me before. I could be dynamite in the courtroom all day, but if I couldn’t get it up at night, it drove me nuts.

“So you went to a prostitute,” I said.

“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” Zack said dryly. “Most of the women I could have had sex with were other lawyers. It’s an adversarial relationship, and you don’t want your adversaries to know you’re a dud in the sack. So I kept searching for the magic bullet. Cristal was just the last of many. I’m not proud of it, but there it is.”

“So was Cristal the magic bullet?” I asked.

His nod was almost imperceptible. “She was very skilful. Then I met you, and you know the rest of the story. I never saw Cristal again until today.”

There was a tap at the door, and Mieka opened it and peeked in. “The girls and I are taking off. They wanted to say goodnight, but if we’re interrupting…”

Zack’s face softened. “Couldn’t ask for a more welcome interruption.”

Sleepy but still coasting on a sugar high, Madeleine and Lena raced in and crawled up on Zack’s lap.

“Did you like our present?” Madeleine asked.

“A man can never have too many flashlights,” Zack said.

“It’s for flashlight tag,” Madeleine said. “We can play it next time we come over.”

“Somebody’s going to have to teach me the rules,” Zack said.

“I will,” Madeleine said. “Lena doesn’t care about rules. But she’s a really good runner.”

“I’m not much of a runner,” Zack said. “So what can I do?”

Lena rubbed at a grass stain on her knee of her jeans. “You can be It,” she said thoughtfully.

Her sister frowned. “Nobody can always be It.”

“Zack can,” Lena said. Then she aimed a kiss at Zack’s cheek, slid off his knee, and both girls ran to their mother. Zack wheeled his chair after them. “Mieka, I didn’t have a chance to thank you for the toast.”

Mieka met his gaze. “I didn’t exactly have them rolling in the aisles, but I meant what I said. I’m really glad you’re around, Zack.”

I closed the door after them and Zack turned to me. “Do you think she’ll still be glad to have me around when she finds about Cristal Avilia?”

“Is there a reason why she needs to know?”

There was a crack of thunder and Willie, who’d followed Mieka and the girls to the bedroom, whined. I rubbed his head. “It’s just thunder,” I said. “You’re okay. I’m okay. We’re all okay.” I turned to Zack. “We are okay, aren’t we?”

“No,” he said. “We’re not.” He splayed his hands on his knees and stared down at them. “Cristal’s dead, Jo.”

“Oh God. What happened to her?”

“She was murdered. At some point between the time I left her around two this afternoon and six tonight, when the lawn service went out to fix the underground sprinklers, Cristal fell, jumped, or was pushed over the railing of her balcony. The police are leaning towards the third possibility.”