Steven Gore - Act of Deceit

Donnally settled into a wrought-iron chair next to Hale’s, then studied his withered hands holding a china teacup in his lap, and his eyes that had sunk into their gray sockets. From those alone Donnally understood that there would be no justice for Anna Keenan or Charles Brown, or even Deputy Pipkins, whose body had yet to be found. Hale had chosen a slow suicide years earlier by making his life an experiment in pathology.

Hale gazed at Donnally as if into a mirror.

“As you can see,” Hale said, “you’re too late. The cosmos has exacted its punishment. My HIV finally mutated into forms far outside what the drugs were designed to control.”

They sat in silence for a few moments, then Hale set his cup on the table and reached for a silver bell.

Donnally grabbed his arm. “Don’t even think it.”

Hale laughed. “You need to relax. I merely thought you’d like some tea.”

Donnally released his grip, then pulled aside his jacket, exposing his semiautomatic in a shoulder holster.

“You think I have goons lounging in my billiard room,” Hale said, “waiting for the call to charge out here, guns blazing?”

“Your guns were blazing last week.”

“Sherwyn was behind that. He still had something to fear.”

“What about you?”

“Dead men don’t have that problem.”

Hale reached again for the bell.

This time, Donnally didn’t stop him.

“H ow did you figure out it was me?” Hale asked after the butler had delivered Donnally’s tea.

“The law firm representing Sherwyn inadvertently let on that there was someone behind him. It was in their phrasing. They said that they’d been hired on behalf of Sherwyn, not by Sherwyn himself.”

“And you sensed an invisible hand.”

“It dipped in, just like it did in the Brown case. But I couldn’t figure out why it never seemed to form itself into a fist.”

Hale extended his manicured fingers and examined them like they were instruments that had an additional use he hadn’t considered.

Donnally swung past the unconvincing gesture. “Until Sherwyn told me.”

Hale smirked at Donnally. “That’s something that Sherwyn certainly would not do.”

“The kids at White Sands referred to El Mandamas,” Donnally said, “The Man with the Last Word, and a woman in Cancun talked about a wealthy man behind Sherwyn, and he confirmed it was you.”

“That kind of confirmation is useless. A dead witness is no witness at all.”

“There are witnesses. Some older Mexican boys who’d seen you down there years ago identified your photo, and Melvin Watson recognized this house as the one Sherwyn took him to.”

Hale took a sip of tea. Donnally left his untouched.

“Having parties in my own home was a mistake,” Hale said, “but I realized that too late.”

Hale’s eyes blurred as he gazed out at the garden as if he wasn’t seeing the reality in front of him, but was reliving a distant memory, populated by beautiful boys on summer evenings.

“The men who came here. You would be surprised.” Hale again looked at Donnally. “Maybe not you. I knew even then that it was a risk. Maybe that was part of the thrill. Eventually the balance shifted, and it seemed too dangerous.”

“What changed?”

“One of our members was nominated to a high government position.” Hale smiled as if enjoying a private joke, then said, “One might say that he became one of the knights at the round table. Fortunately the FBI was too busy chasing terrorists to delve too deeply into his past.”

“And that’s why you set up White Sands in Mexico.”

“Of course. The problem is that sometimes the past is like a seeping wound that won’t heal. Like Charles Brown.”

“Why didn’t you cauterize it and get rid of him?” Donnally asked. “Put an end to this when he was released from the Fresno Developmental Center?”

“You seem to think we are cold-blooded murderers. We’re not.”

“What could be more cold-blooded than the murder of Anna Keenan?”

“That was an act of desperation.” Hale smiled. “I think Sherwyn surprised himself.” He took another sip of tea. “You showing up threw a monkey wrench into things, but then we figured that we couldn’t lose whether he got convicted or the case got thrown out on a technicality. Either way, the world would be convinced he killed her. The important thing was to make sure that the case never went to trial.”

“And that’s why the Albert Hale Foundation interceded and bought him the best defense money could buy.”

“Exactly.” Hale then dismissed the entire issue with a wave of his hand. “Anyway, that’s all behind us now. The statute of limitations has run on everything I did and there’s no way to connect me to the murder.”

“What about public exposure?”

Hale snorted. “How terribly provincial. The hundred-million-dollar endowment of the Albert Hale Foundation will mitigate the minor inconvenience of some temporary bad press.”

He turned toward Donnally. “Did you see The Pianist? I’m sure it must have played even in your little Mount Shasta.”

Donnally pulled back. “You’re not deluded enough to compare yourself to a Holocaust victim?”

“Not to the Jew, but to the director. Roman Polanski. He plea-bargained away charges that he drugged and raped a thirteen-year-old girl, and then escaped to France before sentencing. A few years later he received a standing ovation from the Hollywood crowd, probably including your father, when he was awarded the Oscar for Best Director. You see, the world is forgiving of those with enormous amounts of talent or money, and I neither drugged nor raped anyone. At worst I will be viewed as flawed, perhaps even weak, but not evil. And I can live with that.”

“You mean die with that.”

“That’s implied, but until that happens I have time to spread my largesse around.”

Donnally thought of the criminals who’d redeemed themselves in the public mind through power or artistic brilliance or payoffs to charity.

Hale paused in thought for a few moments, then asked, “Do you know the Goya etchings from the eighteenth century? I’m thinking of the one in which a woman averts her eyes in shame as she reaches to yank out the teeth of a hanged man because of their supposed magical power.”

Donnally nodded.

“Expose me, if you will,” Hale said, “but charities will soon become the alchemists of my rehabilitation. My penance will be their profit, and they’ll find some way to justify it.”

Hale gazed toward the rear of the property, his eyes pausing in the direction of his Labrador lying under a tree, now illuminated by the setting sun. The dog opened its eyes for a moment, blinked into the light, and then closed them again.

“And remember,” Hale finally said. “Exposure goes two ways. You think little Melvin and the boys want to have their secrets displayed to the world? Can you imagine the looks he’ll get from the parents of the kids at the college? They’ll all wonder why the church assigned Brother Fox to the student chicken coop. I’m not sure he wants to live with that kind of humiliation. And even if he was willing, the church wouldn’t let him.”

Hale rested his cup and saucer on his lap.

“In the end, it’s all about money, of which I have an enormous amount.” Hale spread his arms to encompass the gardens and mansion behind him. “The only heaven is on earth, at least for those that can afford it. And my money is untouchable, should the boys sue me. Not only is it all under the control of the foundation, but the foundation itself is housed offshore. That way I can still control it. In this castle I’m immune, and from my throne I can distribute alms to those I choose, for the purposes I choose.”