Joel Goldman - Deadlocked

Mickey taught him how to use the laptop and Mason had become a proficient surfer. He logged on while seated in his living room at the dining room table. He'd picked up Greek carryout on the way home, washed it down with a cold beer, and shoved the remains to the center of the table to make room for his computer. He kicked off his shoes, rubbing Tuffy's belly with his bare foot.

Rachel Firestone's sources had said that King's mother, Victoria, had been a patient at the Golden Years Psychiatric Hospital since the death of her husband, Christopher King, his death coming on the heels of Whitney's acquittal in the Byrneses murder trial. Mason could understand how the combination of those events could fracture a sound psyche, though Victoria King's must have been eggshell thin to have left her institutionalized for the last fifteen years.

Mason found the Golden Years Web site touting its caring staff and comfortable surroundings at its nursing homes and psychiatric hospitals located in Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, and Illinois. He clicked on the button for locations, selecting Lenexa, Kansas.

The hospital and nursing home were located on a twenty-five-acre campus that included condos and assisted living apartments. A map showed directions to Golden Years, Mason noting that it was only a short distance from Burning Oak, the exclusive development where Whitney King lived. It was hard to fault a man for living close to his mother.

Mason returned to the Golden Years home page, clicked on a link titled "About Us" and learned that the privately owned company was founded thirty years ago to-according to its mission statement-"provide special care for special people with special needs."

There was a message from Damon Parker, the president of the company, spreading good cheer and compassion for the elderly and those suffering from mental illness and Alzheimer's. Parker's picture was pasted in the upper-righthand corner of the Web page, a thin-faced man with a Marine brush cut, black-rimmed glasses over narrow, hawkish eyes, and a smile that Mason was certain had been digitally enhanced. Parker looked to be in his late sixties, maybe early seventies, and Mason wondered whether he'd reserved his own Golden Years suite.

After reading Parker's message, Mason clicked on the word "more" scripted in bright blue at the bottom of the page. The following Web pages recited the company's history and included photographs of the groundbreaking ceremony for the Lenexa location. Mason double-clicked on those photographs, enlarging them one at a time to fill his computer screen. He held the laptop up so he could study the pictures more closely, setting it down again when he saw what he was looking for.

"Son of a bitch," he said, pressing too firmly on Tuffy's stomach, the dog snapping at Mason's toes. "Sorry, dog," Mason said, patting her on the head, "but you aren't going to believe this."

Mason carried the laptop to the office he kept in one of the upstairs bedrooms. He attached a printer cable to the laptop, put a sheet of photo quality paper in the printer, and clicked print. A moment later, he had a glossy image of the ground-breaking ceremony, a sign reading "King Construction Company, General Contractor" clearly visible in the background. Mason had no trouble picking out Damon Parker. He had had the birdlike face, geek glasses, and flattop haircut a long time. Equally obvious was Christopher King, a dead ringer for his son Whitney. Both men were grinning, holding gold-tipped shovels and wearing spotless hard hats.

A woman and a little boy stood behind Christopher King, the woman draping her hand across the boy's chest, the boy grasping a miniature shovel, gold-tipped like his father's. Mason savored the irony that Whitney's father had built a home for his wife without even knowing it.

He carried the picture of little Whitney and his parents into his bedroom, comparing it to one of him and his parents Claire had given to him when he was a boy. It was more snapshot than portrait, a five-by-seven showing Mason on a swing set, his father pushing him from behind, his mother pretending to catch him. Claire had taken the picture a week before his parents were killed, the date written on the back. Mason kept the picture in a Plexiglas frame on the nightstand next to his bed, space shared with a framed picture of Abby.

He sat on his bed, laying the King family picture aside, thinking of his fragmented past and his uncertain future. The phone rang, saving him from dipping too deeply into those waters. He let it ring twice before picking up.

"Hello," he said, his thoughts still distant.

Harry Ryman said, "Lou, I finally got the story on that license plate you asked me to run. Sorry it took all week, but like I told you, the chief has made it tough. The son of a bitch says the department isn't in the favor business."

Mason stood, not taking his eyes from the picture of him and his parents. "You mean the license plate from the cemetery?"

"What cemetery?" Harry asked. "You didn't say anything about a cemetery."

"Sorry, Harry," Mason said. "What did you find out?"

"The car is a Mercedes SUV registered to a woman named Judith Bartholow."

"Did you get an address?" Mason asked, grabbing a pen.

"I'm full service," Harry said reciting the address. Mason wrote it down on the back of the King picture. "Her name mean anything to you?" he asked Mason.

"I hope so," Mason answered.

There were times in a case when Mason knew he was on the verge of making sense out of the contradictory, indifferent, and depraved impulses that led people to lie, cheat, and kill. It was an urgent, irresistible sensation that reminded him of when he used to fly down the long, steep, sweeping curve of Ward Parkway from Fifty-fifth Street to the Plaza.

It was the summer before his junior year in high school when the only thing he could drive was a ten-speed bike. In those days before the Plaza went upscale, Sears occupied a four-story building on the west end of Nichols Road, the shopping district's main drag. Mason worked on every floor and in every department from electrical to women's hose, setting a record for the most men's cologne sold the day before Father's Day.

Ward Parkway was a wide boulevard divided by a lush, green median. South of Fifty-fifth, it carried traffic on a level plane to the homes of the urban landed gentry. North of Fifty-fifth Street it became a bike rider's bobsled run, fast and furious. Mason would kick his bike into high gear just before he crossed Fifty-fifth Street, churning the pedals, making his spokes blur as he launched himself down the stretch he called "The Chute."

He hunched over the handlebars, molding his body to the frame, elbows tight to his sides like a jockey on the home stretch. His necktie whipped over his shoulder, the wind digging tears out of the corners of his eyes as he leaned into the curve, pounding the pedals, shooting past cars on his left. He flew, skinny tires spinning over the pavement, teasing gravity and fate, knowing that a misplaced pebble or an unseen crack in the pavement could throw him under the tires of the cars chasing him.

When he came out of the chute and the road flattened again, he straightened in his saddle, his arm raised, his fist clenched in triumph, as he slowed for a leisurely finish alongside Brush Creek. It was his first memory of testing himself against things that threatened him.

The need to measure himself, the need to feel the heat, the urge to raise his clenched fist in victory had driven him to take chances others wouldn't. Sometimes it made the difference for a client threatened by a more powerful adversary-the state. Sometimes it made the difference when the adversary was personal and threatened him. Sometimes it raised the stakes too high, as it had with Abby.