Harlan Coben - The Final Detail

Myron nodded.

“We all cried. We all begged him to stop. And finally Clu broke down too. He sobbed like a baby, said he was ready turn his life around. Two days later he paid off a guard and sneaked out of rehab.”

“So you think he was just masking the symptoms?”

“He could have been. He was good at that.” She hesitated. “But I don't think so.”

“Why not?”

“I don't know. Wishful thinking, I guess, but I really thought he was clean this time. In the past you could almost see he was going through the motions. He was playing a part for me or the kids. But this time he seemed more determined. Like he knew this trade was his last chance to start fresh. He worked at it like I've never seen him work at anything. I thought he was beating it too. But something must have pushed him back off…”

Bonnie's voice tailed off, and now her eyes filled. She was wondering, no doubt, if she had been that push, if Clu had indeed been clean and if she had thrown him out of their house and plunged him back into the world of his addictions. Myron almost told her not to blame herself, but good sense kept the grating cliche at bay.

“Clu always needed someone or something,” she went on. “He was the most dependent person I ever knew.”

Myron nodded, encouraging her.

“At first I found that attractive, that he needed me so much. But it got weary.” Bonnie looked at him. “How many times did someone pull his ass out of the fire?”

“Too many,” Myron admitted.

“I wonder, Myron.” She sat up a bit, more clear-eyed now. “I wonder if we all did him a disservice. Maybe if we weren't always there to save him, he would have had to change. Maybe if I had dumped him years ago, he would have straightened himself out and survived all this.”

Myron said nothing, not bothering to point out the inherent contradiction in her statement: She finally did dump him and he ended up dead.

“Did you know about the two hundred thousand dollars?” Myron asked.

“I heard about it from the police.”

“Do you have any idea where it might be?”

“No.”

“Or why he might have needed it?”

“No.” Her voice was far away now, her gaze drifting over his shoulder.

“Do you think it was for drugs?”

“The papers said he tested positive for heroin,” she said.

“That's my understanding.”

“That would be ^ new one for Clu. I know it's an expensive addiction, but two hundred thousand seems extreme.”

Myron agreed. “Was he in any trouble?”

She looked at him.

“I mean, besides the usual. Loan sharks or gambling or something like that?”

“It's possible, I guess.”

“But you don't know.”

Bonnie shook her head, still looking off at nothing. “You know what I was thinking about?”

“What?”

“Clu's first year as a pro. Class A with the New England Bisons. Right after he asked you to negotiate his contract. Do you remember that?”

Myron nodded.

“And again, I wonder.”

“Wonder what?”

“That was the first time we all banded together to save his ass.”

The late-night phone call. Myron swimming out of sleep and clutching the receiver. Clu crying, almost incoherent. He had been driving with Bonnie and his old Duke roommate, Billy Lee Palms, the Bisons' catcher. Drunk driving, to be more precise. He had smashed the car into a pole. Billy Lee's injuries were minor, but Bonnie had been rushed to the hospital. Clu, not a scratch on him, of course, had been arrested. Myron had hurried out to western Massachusetts, plenty of cash in hand.

“I remember,” Myron said.

“You'd just signed Clu to that big chocolate milk endorsement. Drunk driving was bad enough, but with an injury to boot, well, it would have destroyed him. But we took care of him. The right people were bought off. Billy Lee and I made a statement about some pickup truck cutting us off. We saved him. And now I wonder if we did the right thing. Maybe if Clu had paid a price right then and there, maybe if he'd gone to jail instead of skating by…”

“He wouldn't have gone to jail, Bonnie. A suspended license maybe. Some community service.”

“Whatever. Life is about ripples, Myron. There are some philosophers who think that everything we do changes the world forever. Even simple acts. Like if you left your house five minutes later, if you took a different route to work-it changes everything for the rest of your life. I don't necessarily buy that, but when it comes to the big things, yeah, sure, I think the ripples last. Or maybe it started before that. When he was a child. The first time he learned that because he could throw a white sphere with amazing velocity, people treated him special. Maybe we just continued the conditioning that day. Or brought it up to an adult level. Clu learned that someone would always save him. And we did. We got him off that night, and then there were the assault charges and the lewd behavior and the failed drug tests and whatever else.”

“And you think his murder was the inevitable result?”

“Don't you?”

“No,” Myron said. “I think the person who shot him three times is responsible. Period.”

“Life is rarely that simple, Myron.”

“But murder usually is. In the end someone shot him. That's how he died. He didn't die because we helped him through some self-destructive excesses. Someone murdered him. And that person-not you or me or those who cared about him-is to blame.”

She thought about it. “Maybe you're right.” But she didn't look convinced.

“Do you know why Clu would strike Esperanza?”

She shook her head. “The police asked me that too. I don't know. Maybe he was high.”

“Did he get violent when he got high?”

“No. But it sounds like he was under a lot of pressure. Maybe he was just frustrated that she wouldn't tell him where you were.”

Another wave of guilt. He waited for it to recede.

“Who else would he have gone to, Bonnie?”

“What do you mean?”

“You said he was needy. I wasn't around. You weren't talking to him. So where would Clu go next?”

She thought about it. “I'm not sure.”

“Any friends, teammates?”

“I don't think so.”

“How about Billy Lee Palms?”

She shrugged an I-don't-know.

Myron tossed out a few more questions, but nothing of consequence was batted back to him. After a while Bonnie feigned a check at the time. “I have to get back to the kids,” she said.

He nodded, rose from his chair. This time she did not stop him. He hugged her and she hugged him back, gripping him fiercely.

“Do me one favor,” she said.

“Name it.”

“Clear your friend,” she said. “I understand why you need to do that. And I wouldn't want her to go to jail for something she didn't do. But then let it be.”

Myron pulled back a bit. “I don't understand.”

“Like I said before, you're a noble guy.”

He thought about the Slaughter family and how it all ended; something inside him was crushed anew. “College was a long time ago,” he said softly.

“You haven't changed.”

“You'd be surprised.”

“You still need justice and neat endings and to do the right thing.”

He said nothing.

“Clu can't give you that,” Bonnie said. “He wasn't a noble man.”

“He didn't deserve to be murdered.”

She put a hand on his arm. “Save your friend, Myron. Then let Clu go.”

Myron took the elevator up two floors to the nerve center of Lock-Home Securities and Investments. Exhausted white men-there were women and minorities too, more and more each year, but the overall numbers were still woefully inadequate-darted about, particles under blaring heat, gray phones tethered to their ears like life-sustaining umbilical cords. The noise level and the open space reminded Myron of a Vegas casino, though the toupees were better. People cried out in joy and agony. Money was won and lost. Dice were rolled and wheels were spun and cards were dealt. The men constantly glanced up at an electronic ticker, awe in their faces, ardently watching the stock prices like gamblers waiting for the wheel to settle on a number or ancient Israelites peering up at Moses and his new stone tablets.