Injustice (18 page)

Judge Matsuko blinked a few times. Gregory Nations looked back and forth from Chip to the judge. The quiet siren of Peggy Devaney's sorrow stopped. “Are you telling us the FBI is in possession of physical evidence pertaining to Kyle Devaney's murder?” Matsuko said.

Chip held his phone up to the judge. “That's what I'm trying to find out.”

“If you would, sir, please step into the hallway and find out what you can. Then come back and let us know.” The judge turned toward Gregory Nations. “Have you finished with your argument?”

“No, Your Honor, I—”

“Yes,” the judge said. “I think you have finished. It seems the state has done one of three things: It has disposed of evidence that was the subject of a convict's legitimate petition for postconviction relief; or it has transferred the evidence into federal jurisdiction without keeping adequate records of that transfer; or it has failed to keep track of whether there was any evidence in the first place. In any case, Daryl Devaney's petition for access to any and all physical evidence existing in his case is hereby granted. An empty victory, to be sure, if it turns out no evidence exists. Now we'll just wait to see.”

The judge didn't smack his gavel—we were still in session—but nothing was said and nobody moved. It took about five minutes before the courtroom door opened again. Chip came in and stood at the back.

“Do you have information, Mr. FBI Agent?” Matsuko said.

“I don't have an inventory yet,” Chip said, “but it does seem we have a box.”

I
called Chip the next afternoon to ask if the FBI had gotten anywhere in investigating the murder of Jimmy Mailing, the fixer for Subsurface, Inc. Chip said no, no developments. There had been a few things in Mailing's home that might help our corruption inquiry, but nothing pointing to a suspect for Mailing's murder.

“We have the log from his cell phone, though,” Chip said. “The night before the murder, there was an incoming call to him that we can't identify. We're thinking it might have been the killer setting up the meet.”

“Keep me informed,” I said. “In fact, send over the list of stuff you think might be useful for the Subsurface case. Let me have a look.”

“Will do.”

“And what's the time frame for testing the evidence in the Devaney case?”

“I don't know,” Chip said. “What I hear is that we're arguing over who gets to test it, us or the state.”

I worked on other matters, but I was restless. After a few hours I went and bothered Upton. If it had been morning, I'd have brought coffee, but as it was late afternoon, I took a flask from my bottom desk drawer and knocked on his door.

“Who?” he said.

I opened the door a crack, stuck my arm in, waving the flask.

“Granddad,” Upton said, “you're always welcome here.”

I went in and poured us both a shot. Neither of us is really a drinker, but in each other's company, we like to flout propriety with this act of rebellion. It has become more important and more frequent since the schoolmarmish Pleasant Holly replaced the crusty Harold Schnair. Harold used to have a nip with us sometimes.
Pleasant, if she knew, would send us photocopies from the relevant pages of office “regulations and guidelines” and would probably refer us for alcohol screening.

Janice knocked on Upton's door. “Fax for Nick,” she said.

It was from Chip: the summary of evidence relating to Subsurface that the Bureau had found in Jimmy Mailing's place. Upton and I read through it together. Chip had been right. There were a few things we might be able to use. The last page of the fax pertained to items found in Mailing's car and on his person, including his phone.

I tipped us another shot. The workday was over.

The next morning I got up and went downstairs to make coffee. Tina showered and came down a bit later.

“I'll get Barn up,” I said.

“Wait.”

“Wait for what?”

Tina poured herself coffee and sat down at the table. She didn't say anything.

“What's up, babe?”

“It's not your fault,” she said.

“What isn't?”

“Everything.”

I waited.

“I can't find it,” she said.

“It?”

“How it used to be.”

“How it used to be?”

“Yes.”

“It's still how it used to be, isn't it?”

“Maybe it never was,” she said.

“That's wrong. It definitely was.”

“Maybe it was for you and not for me.”

“It was, Tina. It definitely was. And it still is. Trust me. It really is. There's just too much happening right now. With Lydia and your
health. And the corruption investigation that's kept me so busy. But things will—”

“I know,” she said. “It
is
too much. I'm not very good at being me right now.”

“It'll be back to normal soon. I promise.”

She got up and walked around tidying the kitchen. “I'm aware of loving you,” she said, “but I can't always find it.”

“Be patient,” I told her. “Don't panic.” I told her we'd live our lives and things would get back to normal. I told her she was still in shock, that it would be unwise to make big changes. She said she had tried being patient, but the feeling just got bigger. She said she'd tried not to panic, but the panic kept coming to find her. I said I probably hadn't focused on her enough, with all she was going through. She said I'd been okay, that wasn't it. I said I'd do better. She said I'd done fine.

“I have ideas,” I said. “Plans. Plans about us. Well, no, not plans, thoughts. I was going to tell you. I was waiting, though, until things settled down, but I'll tell you now. I had wanted to tell you sometime when we were curled up on the couch with wine, talking, and I'd say it as, like, some hare-brained scheme, and we wouldn't have to take it real seriously but just toy with the idea and see if it took root. So this isn't what I pictured, both of us about to leave for work and you feeling how you're feeling. But I just thought . . .”

“What?”

I cleared my throat, sipped my coffee, and told her my thinking about moving up to the lake and opening a private practice together. It came out urgently, desperately. It sounded preposterous even to me.

She laughed. But where a minute ago she'd been remorseful and compassionate, her laugh was caustic. “Unbelievable,” she said.

“What?”

“Your solution to my feeling alienated is to ignore everything I've said and move to a cabin in the woods.” She poured the dregs of her coffee into the sink. “I should have known better,” she said to herself, but plenty loud enough for me to hear.

O
n Saturday Lizzy met me at Jo Mondo's. We had a latte together and drove to a building on the edge of downtown. It was in plain sight at the intersection of two busy roads but hidden from notice by its shoe-box architecture and by the fact that there was nothing about it you should ever need to know:
FRIENDLY CITY EXECUTIVE SUITES
, the sign says:
DAY, WEEK, MONTH
. I once spoke at a law enforcement conference there (“Recent Changes in the Law of Search and Seizure”), and though I'd driven past the building a thousand times, I had to look up the address that day because I couldn't place it on my mental map of the city.

I remember when it was built. I had worked in construction a couple of summers during college, and the experience left me with an interest in how buildings are put together. It's a disappointing thing to watch: two-by-fours, plywood, pipes, wires, Sheetrock. Then siding—plastic or aluminum or fake stone or, in this case, tan stucco. At every step, you expect to see something to make it seem less disposable and less transitory. But no: It is always just one fire, or one earthquake, or one bankruptcy, or one termite infestation, or one design flaw, or one economic downturn away from being a pile of rubble or a vacant derelict.

“This is nice,” Lizzy said. We were looking at a suite. “Suite,” as used in the context of an empty, undifferentiated, impersonal hotel room, meant it had an extra room where Barnaby or Lizzy could stay sometimes. Barnaby would have no say in this, but as for Lizzy, it is probably a fiction I tell myself that on some evening she may actually choose this joyless warehouse of displaced spouses over the goofy and cinnamony country home where she and Ethan play at
being married in the laughter-filled, no-questions-asked haven of Flora's spare room.

Lizzy volunteered to help me find a place. There were lots of one- and two-bedroom apartments available around town, but the act of renting a real apartment instead of a joyless hotel suite would give this sorry chapter greater weight than it deserved:
DAY, WEEK, MONTH
.

Day: certainly.

Week: worst case.

Month: not a chance.

I pulled the curtain aside from the balcony window and saw that I had a view of office buildings and parking garages.

Lizzy helped me carry things in from the car. I said, “How about if we go out for dinner, Liz? There's probably an acceptable restaurant nearby.”

“Love to, Dad, but I told Ethan and Mom I'd be home.”

“That's okay.”

“Come have dinner with us. Mom and Chip would love to have you.”

“No, I'll stay and get settled. You go.”

When she left, I turned on the TV and found a show about people who clean out abandoned storage units and then sell the shit they find.

I woke up in the night. I tried watching TV or going back to sleep. Eventually, I got up and drove over to my house, parked in front on the street, and dozed off in the car.

M
onday morning. I got into the office early and reviewed my list of current cases, taking notes on what needed doing for each one. Then I got coffee for myself and wandered around chatting with people. I stopped in on Upton. He asked about my weekend, and I said it had been fine.

Detective Sabin called me later in the morning to talk about Lydia's murder. “Let's meet,” she said.

“Do you have anything new?”

“No, we keep hitting dead ends. So Philbin and I thought it might be good to put our three heads together again, come up with some new ideas.”

I met with Sabin and Philbin at Jo Mondo's. There were no tables open, so we sat three across at the counter along the window.

“Haven't heard from you in a while,” I said. “Do you have any new theories?”

“We know who the perp is,” Philbin said. “It's Henry Tatlock. We have tons of circumstantial. We're working on finding something physical.”

“Well, no,” Sabin said. “It's not so cut-and-dried as Philbin claims.”

Philbin was sitting between Sabin and me. He is huge and she is small. She leaned way forward over her coffee, head almost down on the countertop, to see around him while she spoke.