John Lescroart - A Plague of Secrets

Today was bleak, windy, and bitter cold. As the ferry left the protection of the shore, whitecaps piled up and flung their foam across the open front deck. This was where Tamara had taken to standing, but on this day, even with her raincoat, it was too wet, too miserable. She turned and went back inside, bought a hot chocolate, and found a seat at one of the bolted-in tables by a window, where she could look out and…

What?

Imagine what life would have been like with Craig? Wonder why they had never progressed to a committed relationship? Try to understand what he’d done, and why? And what, simply, had happened in the courtroom?

None of it made any sense to her. She found it nearly impossible to get her mind around the stark reality that he’d murdered Dylan Vogler and Levon Preslee, and apparently another liquor store clerk years ago. That he had been able to live with letting Maya Townshend get all the way to trial.

Who had he been all this time, and how had she not seen it?

She didn’t have any answers. Except that it would be a long while before she would trust her romantic instincts, or even her fundamental human instincts, again. Maybe forever, she thought. She stared out into the windswept, gray-green, white-capped chop.

“Is this seat taken?”

The familiar voice startled her and she turned her head quickly to verify the presence of her boss, Wyatt Hunt. After doing so she turned back to the window and her shoulders rose and fell as she blew out a long breath. “How’d you find me?”

“I’m a private eye, Tam. Finding people is what I do. If you don’t want me to sit down, I’ll go find another spot.”

She turned back to him. “No. It’s fine. You can sit here.” Then, when he had, “I don’t know if I can come back to work.”

“Okay. That’s not why I’m here. I wanted to make sure you were all right.”

Her lips turned up fractionally and she let out a dry, one-note, half-laugh half-sob. “I don’t know what that means, all right . Not anymore. I can’t believe Craig’s gone. Even more, maybe, I can’t believe what Craig was.”

Hunt nodded. “I’ve been having some issues with it myself.”

“So were we both just blind?”

“I don’t know. I suppose so. Although, how were we going to know? What did he show us that could have tipped us off?”

“I don’t know. But I keep thinking I should have known. I should have seen something. I mean, I knew he was confused, and he had his bad moments, but he was almost always nice to me. To everyone, really.”

“You never threatened him. Thank God.”

She let out another deep sigh. “So he really did do it? I mean Vogler and Preslee.”

“I don’t think there’s any doubt about that, Tam.”

Turning away from him, she looked out the window at the churning bay and, at the farthest extent of vision, the spectral shape of Alcatraz, the old deserted prison with its decrepit buildings. “I really don’t know what I’m going to do, Wyatt. About work, I mean.”

“How about if you don’t have to decide for a while?”

“Even still. I don’t know. It’s like the world is all different. Maybe I should be in a different field, around different people.”

“Maybe you should.”

“You wouldn’t hate me?”

He put his hand over hers. “There’s nothing you could do that could make me hate you, Tam. You’ve got to know that.”

She turned back to him and tried to smile. “I don’t feel like I know anything anymore, Wyatt. I feel like he stole my innocence or something. I just keep waiting for a break in these clouds, but I’m not sure there’s going to be one.”

“Except that there always has been before.”

“No,” she said. “The clouds have never before been this thick. And I really hate him for that.”

Hunt patted her hand. “Time,” he said.

She attempted another wan smile. “God, I hope so.”

On the third Friday after the last day of Maya’s trial, the phone buzzed at Hardy’s elbow in his office, and he punched the button to speak to Phyllis. “Yo.” Taking a moment’s immature pleasure from his receptionist’s exasperated sigh-senior attorneys do not answer the phone informally, since that causes a disruption in the force-he checked that it was indeed four-thirty and again stole Phyllis’s thunder when he added, “Send the Townshends right in.”

It was both of them, holding hands, Maya looking so radiant and lovely that he might have passed her on the street and not recognized her. Her hair and her cheeks glowed. She’d lost the weight she’d gained on the jail food, as well as the cellblock pallor. Joel, for his part, wore a sense of comfort, a confidence, and an easy smile that Hardy hadn’t noticed before.

Not that there’d been much to smile about over the past six or seven months, but something in the couple’s body language toward each other spoke of a renewed connection, an ease, a true rapport. No longer rich, successful husband and subservient, stay-at-home wife, but true partners now. A lot to grab from a first impression, but Hardy decided to believe it was true.

The occasion-final payment for his legal services-could have been handled by a check in the mail, but they’d wanted to come down and deliver it in person, and he was grateful for the opportunity to see them again, in this setting, with their ordeal behind them. So he offered coffee and condolences about Harlen, both of which they accepted, and they made small talk, until they were all settled in the formal seating area closest to Hardy’s desk.

At which time Joel reached into his inside pocket and proffered an envelope embossed with his corporation’s logo.

“Feel free to open it now, if you’d like,” Maya said.

“That’s all right.” Hardy broke a small grin. “I trust it’s pretty close.”

“Maybe not.” Maya, with an impish smile of her own, made it sound like a dare.

So Hardy shrugged, opened the flap, pulled out the check, and looked up with some surprise. “This is, um… I don’t remember the last time I got tongue-tied.”

“It’s a bonus,” Joel said.

Maya was outright beaming now. “We thought Dylan’s salary for a year would have a nice symmetry.”

“It’s got a lot more than symmetry,” Hardy said. “Are you sure this is… I’m afraid I’m just a little overwhelmed. This is more than extremely generous.”

Maya nodded. “You saved my life, Dismas. In many ways.” She reached over and put a hand on her husband’s knee. “I told him.”

“Good for you,” Hardy said. And turning to Joel, “And I bet you weren’t even tempted to leave her.”

He put his hand over hers. “Not even close. I never would. No matter what. I don’t know if she ever really believed that before. But we all make mistakes, huh? Do things we’re ashamed of, and worse than that.”

“I know it’s happened to me,” Hardy said. “Though if you’d keep that in this room, I’d appreciate it. My associates would be shocked and dismayed.”

“In any event,” Maya said, “I… we just wanted to thank you so much. It has been such a burden for so long and now I don’t have it anymore. I feel like a different person.”

Joel hadn’t let go of her hand. “The same person, only happier. And better.”

She looked contentedly across at him. “Arrête un peu.” In French. Stop a little. But not too much. Then, back at Hardy, with a sigh. “Anyway… if you don’t mind, I’ve got one last little thing that you could explain that I wanted to understand, and just really don’t.”

“If I can, I will.”

She let out a small breath. “Why me?”

“Why you what?”

“I mean, with Craig Chiurco. How did he pick me to frame? I never met him, I never even had heard of him, and suddenly he picks me out of nowhere and tries to ruin my life. I just don’t understand what happened. How that happened.”