Joel Goldman - Deadlocked

"My name is Lou Mason."

The light went out of her eyes for an instant, the color in her face fading along with it. She started to close the door without a word.

"Please don't," Mason said. "I'd just like to talk with you for a few minutes."

"I know who you are. I watch the news and I've seen your picture in the newspaper," she said. "I should call the police."

"I do think you know who I am, but not because of that. You saw me in my car when you were on the driveway. I had the feeling you recognized me then even though I've never seen you before."

"I told you," she said. "I saw you on television."

"It's been hard not to," Mason said. "If that was all, you wouldn't have been waiting at the door when I knocked. You would have called the police if you were frightened or you wouldn't have opened the door in the first place. But you opened the door so quickly you must have watched me come up the walk. I think you were waiting for me."

"You're mistaken. I was on my way upstairs when you knocked. That's all," she said, edging back.

"My parents, John and Linda Mason, were killed in a car accident forty years ago. You visited their graves and left a rock on their headstone like the ones in that vase. I'd like to know why."

The woman glanced over her shoulder, then back to Mason. "I don't know anything about that," she said.

Mason ignored her denial. "When a Jew visits someone's grave, they leave a stone behind to show that they remember the person who died. Sheffield Cemetery is a long drive from here. That's a lot of remembering after forty years."

The woman dipped her head. "I don't even own a car," she said, her denial weakening.

"The Mercedes you drove to the cemetery is registered in Judith Bartholow's name, but you don't look like the SUV type. Is Judith your daughter?"

"Leave me and my family alone," she said, closing the door. Mason propped it open with his hand.

"Please," he said. "I was only three years old when they were killed. It was a car wreck, but I know that it was more than that. You must have been close to them. You must know what really happened."

She studied him, giving nothing away, offering less. "I'm not what you think," she said harshly.

"You don't know what I think," he said.

"Oh, but I can imagine after what Claire must have told you all these years."

"She hasn't told me anything, not even your name, not even that you exist," Mason said.

The woman's eyes filled, her chest swelling as she twisted the chain around her neck.

"Then leave it that way. I don't exist," she said, closing the door.

Claire had taught Mason an important lesson in the practice of law the first time a judge nearly held him in contempt for continuing to argue after the judge had ruled against him. There was, she said, a time to talk and a time to walk. He knew what time it was. If he knocked on the woman's door again, she would probably call the police.

It was also time to have another talk with his aunt. She had hidden the truth about his parents and hidden the existence of at least one person who obviously knew the secret she was determined to keep. Claire didn't respond well to demands, though she never hesitated to make them. Mason didn't expect this time to be any different.

Something else struck him about his conversation with the woman as he walked to his car. She was certain that Claire had told Mason whatever it was the two of them were keeping secret, and she was equally certain that Claire had vilified her in the telling. That Claire hadn't done so didn't surprise him. That wasn't Claire's style.

Nonetheless, the woman's comment raised two possibilities. The first was that Claire's secret was so awful that Mason was better off not knowing, perhaps meaning that Claire had done the right thing in keeping silent. The second was that Claire's secret was tainted by uncertainty, putting it in the category of things better left unsaid.

Weighing the two possibilities, it wasn't hard for Mason to conjure the easy outlines of what might have happened. His father and the woman, whatever her name was, had had an affair. His mother must have found out, leading to an argument in his parents' car in the middle of a summer downpour. His father lost control and that was that.

It made for a sordid, pathetic rendering of wasted lives, except that he didn't buy it. In the first place, Claire would not have kept it from him. Whatever shame the story bore would have been tempered with the passage of time. When he was old enough, she would have told him a sanitized version, turning it into an apocryphal lesson. In the second place, the investigating officer wouldn't have labeled the crash intentional. There had to be something more that Claire couldn't bring herself to tell him.

The heat was building, the day thickening. A crew of Hispanic men was working the yard of the house where he had parked, mowing the lawn, trimming the shrubs, and laying down fresh mulch mixed with manure in the flower beds that ringed the house. They had stopped for a break, cigarettes dangling from their lips, sweat dripping from their brown faces and necks. The blend of sweat, engine exhaust, cut grass, and manure gave the air a fetid, decayed taste.

He reached his car, opened the door, and turned back toward the house. He scanned the windows on Judith Bartholow's house for a glimpse of the woman, not finding her face pressed to the glass, betting she was watching him from the shadows. He passed on the temptation to wave good-bye to her and slipped into the driver's seat as his cell phone rang.

"Mr. Mason?" the caller said, his voice feathery and familiar, but not quite right.

"Yes," Mason answered, juggling his memory, finding a partial match. "Nick? Is that you?"

"Yeah, it's me. I don't sound so good, huh?"

"Good? You sound great, kid," Mason lied. "When are they going to let you go home?"

"I just got out of the ICU last night. The doctor says I've got to stay a few more days, at least until I can go to the john by myself," Nick said.

"Well at least you're moving in the right direction. I'll come by and see you. What room are you in?"

"That's why I was calling," Nick said. "Can you come right away? It's pretty important. I'm in 619."

The last time Nick had asked to see him was to hire him. "Why? Do you have another case for me?"

"No. The cops are here. They told me I don't need a lawyer, but I'm not so sure."

Mason shook his head. The day before, Whitney King had announced that he wasn't pressing charges against Nick. That let the cops and Ortiz off the hook since prosecuting Nick would have been a public relations nightmare. On the other hand, they could live with turning Nick into a witness against Mason, using the shooting to establish a motive for Mason to kill Sandra Connelly. King shot Mason's client. Mason shot King's lawyer. It smelled of a certain schoolyard even-Steven symmetry.

"Is one of the cops a woman?" Mason asked.

"Yeah. How'd you know?" Nick asked.

"Never mind. Just put her on," Mason said.

Mason heard voices in the background, then Samantha Greer saying, "Lou, don't get excited."

"Not another word, Sam. Get out of that kid's hospital room until I get there."

"Lou, let me explain," she said.

"Out! Now! And put Nick back on," Mason said.

"Hey, Mr. Mason," Nick said. "You really pissed her off, man. That was cool."

"She'll get over it. Don't talk to anyone not wearing a stethoscope until I get there. I'm only a few minutes from the hospital. By the way, how did you get my cell phone number?" Mason asked, pretty certain he hadn't given it to Nick.

"I called your office," Nick said.

"On Saturday morning?" Mason asked. "There's no one there on Saturday mornings. In fact, if I'm not there, no one is there. Who did you talk to?"