Уильям Макгиверн - Summitt

Dorcas Brett put a hand tightly on Selby’s arm. “We have work to do, I think we’d better go.”

“Okay,” he said, “okay.” But his voice sounded strange to him, thick and hoarse with the effort he made to control it.

They were in the driveway beside her car before the white anger faded and Selby saw things clearly again, the rain slanting around them and the worried look in her eyes.

“Are you all right, Mr. Selby?”

“Yes,” he said, and touched her arm. Her raincoat was slick and wet. Her presence steadied him.

“There’s a diner on the pike,” she said. “On the left-hand side before Golden Road. I’ll wait for you there, all right?”

“Yes, sure.”

Selby stood staring at Thomson’s sprawling house as she drove off, listening to the barking dogs in the kennels and wondering from which of those many dark windows Earl Thomson might be watching him...

Dom Lorso’s emotions were in check, his tone matter-of-fact as he said, “If we don’t pay them back for this, Davic, we lose Earl. If you don’t show him the kind of loyalty he understands and needs, you might as well forget what you’re over here for. They dragged that filth into his home, they shamed him in front of his mother. I know what that did to Earl. I know better than his father. So we don’t take it Mr. Counselor. We can’t.”

“Let’s be clear about this,” Davic said, leaving the window. “If you want peace officers hit, Mr. Lorso, I imagine you have the necessary phone numbers. If you don’t, I’ll lend you mine. But that would be a miscalculation, I assure you.”

“Respect never hurt anybody,” Lorso said. “She could’ve let us know what was coming down, spared him and his mother the humiliation. Screw the miscalculation shit. Call those characters I fixed up the other night in Philadelphia. The Cadles. I’m not talking about a contract, I’m talking respect, fear of God.”

Davic was silent a moment and then shrugged indifferently. “Where’s the DA likely to be tonight?”

“Her office probably. But I’ll check Eberle at the district to make sure.”

Davic picked up Thomson’s phone and dialed a number. After speaking briefly to a man named Ben, he broke the connection. “Your decision, Mr. Lorso,” he said. “Remember that.”

Dom Lorso lit a cigarette and blew a stream of smoke at him. “So fucking what, Counselor? That kind of decision makes itself.”

George Thomson came downstairs as Davic was leaving. His face was pale and strained, but he had recovered his composure; his eyes were hard with a disciplined angry anticipation.

“Hold it a minute,” he said to Davic. “I got something for you before you go.”

Opening a wall safe behind a framed hunting print, Thomson removed a bulky cardboard file with metal-tipped corners. He presented it to Davic who read aloud the stenciled information on its front cover, U.S. ARMY, K/S-36663864. O.C. CONFIDENTIAL.

“A court-martial transcript,” Thomson told him, “a trial that took place in South Korea. I want you to study it and use it. Harry Selby’s father was in my outfit. A fuck-up named Jonas Selby. We nailed his ass with charges just this side of murder. You want my guess, Harry Selby is after me and my son now. That’s why he’s concocted the shit about Earl raping his daughter — I was the senior officer who presided on the court-martial. I sent that sonofabitch, Jonas Selby, to the stockade for five years.”

The attorney studied the classification on the file: o.c. confidential. “A question occurs, of course,” he said.

“You mean where I got hold of that transcript?”

Davic smiled faintly. “No, I understand things like that. You paid for it. But how does Harry Selby know of your connection to his father? He couldn’t have seen the transcript. He couldn’t get a look at anything classified O.C.”

“You’re right.” Thomson’s tone was hard and complacent. “He tried though, a few years ago, and struck out. So did the DA just recently. My guess is Harry Selby got a lead from his brother.”

“Let me explain something,” Davic said. “If I included this material in a court trial, and it’s premature to think this business will ever go that far, but if I do, the People can cross-examine and tear into every point and issue I raise. Do you understand that?”

“You’ve done your job, Davic. I understand what you’re saying.”

Thomson went to the bar and poured himself a half glass of Scotch. “But when I get hit, I hit back. Harry Selby and his cunt daughter are going to find that out.”

When Selby returned home, Shana was in the study watching television, sitting cross-legged on the leather sofa. A bowl of popcorn was on the table beside her. Blazer was stretched in front of the fireplace.

“Can we turn the TV off for a while?”

“Sure, daddy.” Shana hurried in her bare feet to snap the set off.

Selby had phoned her after talking to Dorcas Brett. As Shana sat down again, Selby said, “I’m not blaming you, but it’s time we get things out in the open. Miss Brett filled me in on what you told her. I’ll start with two questions: when did you know it was Earl Thomson and why didn’t you tell me about it?”

“It wasn’t until I saw the picture in the paper, but I still wasn’t sure so I didn’t want to tell you or anybody.”

“And that’s why you phoned him?”

“Yes, I told Miss Brett, I had to hear his voice. Can’t you understand, daddy? I had to hear him talking. I called him from here, from my room, and hung up the minute he answered. Then I called him from a pay phone when Normie and I were out driving around. I pretended I had a wrong number that time. But seeing him at Longwood, I was sure.”

“It seems you’ve been doing a lot of pretending lately, Shana. That’s what we’ve got to get straightened out.”

He made himself a drink at the bar, a converted marble-topped table with carved legs. “You want a Coke or anything?”

“I’ll get myself a glass of milk. But Mrs. Cranston made some sandwiches for you. You want me to bring them in? They’re salamis on rye with tomatoes and pickles.”

“No, no, thanks, honey.” He watched her walk quickly through the front hallway, looking small and vulnerable in her bare feet. Her penny-loafers were lined up beside the old sofa...

Dorcas Brett hadn’t bothered to remove her raincoat at the diner, only opening the collar and pulling it back from her shoulders. She had explained over a cup of coffee and with an occasional glance at her watch that “... Burt Wilger and I knew something was odd about Shana’s reaction at Vinegar Hill. The garage, the look of it, obviously terrified her. Burt and I went back and checked the driveway. Some of the ruts had been packed with wooden slats and underbrush — what a driver would use if his tires were spinning in mud. The fire trucks and water had covered most of it, but we found enough to give us the picture. His car was stuck, and our guess was that he’d gone into the garage to get an axe and to try to find some wooden slats or pieces of kindling to jam under his tires. But guesses don’t meet probable cause requirements. The statute is explicit — probable cause may not be created after the fact, not by a successful search or seizure, nor by an arrest. But when Shana remembered what happened, and pointed to the garage and said, ‘The man who raped me went in there that night. I saw him, ’ that gave us sufficient reason to go to Teague for the warrant.”

Buttoning the collar of her coat, she added, “It took twenty-four hours to process the prints and get the confirmation from Washington. When we called you late this afternoon, you were on your way to the Thomsons’. Excuse me now, but I’ve got to get back to the office...”