Injustice (41 page)

She lets that thought sink in, then continues: “Detective Philbin wasn't able to save or avenge his sister, and the way he saw it, he wasn't able to do anything about Lydia Trevor, either. So he decided to take matters into his own hands. He'd get Henry convicted of
something else. He planted DNA from Henry Tatlock in Kyle Runion's remains. He had the motive and the opportunity, so he took it. There is absolutely no evidence that Henry killed his fiancée, and other than this vicious and pathological frame-up, there is no evidence that he had anything whatsoever to do with Kyle Runion.”

Monica talks a few minutes about the presumption of innocence and reasonable doubt. When she sits down, our minds are muddled with the question of whether this version of reality is possible. Is it just clever advocacy, or could this be a nightmarish frame-up by a psycho cop with a vendetta? I have resisted Monica all through this trial, but as she ties everything together into this logical package, even I—I who have been wanting more than anyone to snuff Henry from memory and existence—have a moment of doubt.

Is it a
reasonable
doubt? Is it rooted in honest possibility or merely the momentary disorientation of Monica's eloquent bullshit? If I were a juror at this very moment, I can't say for certain how I'd vote.

Trial is over. I hurry out of the courthouse. I don't want to be interviewed, and I don't want to have to talk to Kyle's family or Peggy Devaney or Monica or Gregory or Philbin. I feel off balance by that moment of doubt. I'm afraid it will come back.

I go to my office and sit at the desk, wondering if there's really a chance the jury could find Henry not guilty.

Upton knocks and comes in. I knew he'd be here. I was waiting for him.

“Quite a show,” he says.

I nod. Upton settles deep into one of my chairs.

“She made a horse race out of it,” I say.

“Indeed she did. Do you have a prediction?”

“Toss-up,” I say. “Gregory was able to right the listing ship. He has science and logic on his side. Monica has fantasy.”

“Not a toss-up,” he says. “It's a done deal. They'll convict.”

“So confident?”

“There was a huge hole in Monica's case,” he says. “Lydia's murder.
Monica told us how Henry's DNA got into Kyle Runion's remains, and she told us how Daryl Devaney really did murder Kyle, but she needed to offer a better alternative for who killed Lydia. She tried to resurrect the Tony Smeltzer theory, but that's a loser because the Bureau debunked it. So the jury is left asking themselves, if Henry didn't kill Lydia, who did? She didn't need a bulletproof theory, just some alternative to Henry as killer.”

Upton and I exchange a look. We both know that it now looks like Lydia was somehow connected to the Subsurface mess, and that she was in a liaison with whoever killed Jimmy Mailing. Does this mean Monica's theory might have had legs that she didn't even know about?

D
ay over. I head “home” to Friendly City, and by the time I get there, I have to piss so bad from all that coffee that I'm in danger of embarrassing myself.

“Nick,” someone says as I hurry across the dark parking lot. He's hurrying toward me, but I can't see who it is. “It's Calvin,” he says. “Calvin Dunbar.”

“Amigo,” I say. “What brings you to this dreary outpost of abandoned husbands?”

He laughs. “I like the lounge,” he says. “It's quiet, and I can sit with a martini and get some work done.”

“Wish I'd known. We could have been having nightcaps these past few months,” I say. I'm just being friendly. I like the guy, but realistically, I'm not sure how appropriate it would be for me to get too involved with him. Of course, a drink now and then wouldn't really hurt.

“Listen,” he says, “I was going to call you. I found a bunch of documents that might help your investigation. I've got them in the car.” He turns for the parking lot and tries to pull me in his wake.

“Let me just run in and piss,” I say. “My back teeth are floating.” I start jogging for the building. “Bring them inside,” I yell over my shoulder, “we'll have a drink.”

I scoot into the fishbowl lobby of Friendly City. It'll be nice to have a drink with Calvin. He's interesting; he knows a lot about the political workings of the state and who's who. And he's humble, though I don't know whether that's an actual personality trait, or it results from his having gotten caught accepting money from Subsurface. The more I think about it all, the more forgivable the Subsurface stuff is. The line between legitimate political contributions
and bribes can be pretty damn fuzzy. The guy was on the ropes financially. He didn't actually
do
anything for Subsurface; he merely allowed them to show their support and gratitude for his position on gas tax policy.

Tina calls while I'm in the men's room. I let it go to voicemail but call her back as soon as I'm done.

“So we're on for dinner tomorrow?” she says.

I confirm that we are. She asks about the trial, and I give her a quick summary as I walk out into the lobby and around the lounge, looking for Calvin. He's not there, so I go back out toward the parking lot.

“Is there really a chance they'll acquit?” Tina asks.

“Upton doesn't think so. I'm less certain.”

I see Calvin coming from his car. It's a small blue Audi TT. I can almost envision driving something like that myself.

“I should have been there,” Tina says. “But it was all just too . . . you know?”

“I understand, babe.”

“But you know what, Nick?”

“What?”

“I'm feeling better,” she says. “A bit. Kind of.”

She means she is working on coming out of her seclusion, which means opening up to me again. “I'm glad to hear it, sweetie,” I say.

“Just don't . . . okay? Don't.”

Don't hurry her, she means. Don't come on too strong. Don't create any stress.

“Noted,” I say.

We end the call. Calvin is standing waiting. “Sorry,” I tell him. “My wife.”

“No problem,” he says. “How is Lydia, anyway?”

“Wrong sister,” I say. “I'm married to Tina.” I don't bother getting into the whole thing about Lydia.

“Of course,” Calvin says. “Tina. I knew that.”

“So about those documents,” I say.

“What an idiot I am,” he says. “I thought they were in my car.
Wrong. They're at home. I'll try to get them to you tomorrow, okay?”

“But tell me what you've got. Is it significant? I can send someone over to get them.”

“Oh, no,” he says. “It's just some old notes and files. I mean, I'm not a lawyer, but I doubt there's anything important there. I just thought you guys should have them.”

“Okay. I'll get them tomorrow. Now, about that nightcap?”

“You hurried inside too quick,” he says. “I called after you. Can't tonight. The wife is expecting me.”

“Too bad. 'Nother time?”

“For sure.”

He gives me an affectionate two-handed handshake and heads to his car. I go inside.

I forgot to thank him for helping Lizzy with her research. Darn.

Morning. No word from the jury, so I try to call Calvin to tell him I'd like to get the documents he spoke of. He doesn't answer. I remember that Lizzy is going to see him soon, so I call her to have her pass a message. She doesn't answer, either, so I leave a voicemail and get busy on other work.

People often confused Lydia's and Tina's names the way Calvin did last night. Maybe it's because they looked so similar, or because they were both beautiful and lively and smart, or because both names end in “A.” I like that it still happens sometimes, as though something of Lydia lives on through Tina.

I wonder how Dunbar knows of Lydia, though. I'm sure I never mentioned her to him. But her murder was big news, and since Calvin and I were already entangled through Subsurface, it might have caught his attention when she was killed.

And Tina's name: I don't remember ever mentioning Tina to him, either. Of course, Calvin
is
a politician and an insurance agent, so maybe remembering names and sending regards to people's spouses is his stock in trade.

But no. Something in the way he said their names was too familiar:
How
is
Lydia?
And then the goofy forehead smack when I corrected him:
Of course. Tina. I knew that!
It sounded like he actually knew at least one of them. Something's odd.

Upton is in trial, so I try calling Chip and Isler, but they're both unavailable, which may be just as well. I'll think my way through this Tina/Lydia/Calvin issue, then I'll go to my colleagues with ideas instead of bewilderment. The question I ask myself is how Calvin and Lydia could be connected. As soon as I form the question in my mind, I've answered it, and it's an answer I should have thought of months ago: Lydia worked for the state legislature several years back. I never put it together before because these two investigations—Subsurface corruption and Lydia's murder—were entirely separate. Lydia's murder was under state jurisdiction and we assumed it was about violence or jealousy or rage. It was about Henry Tatlock or Tony Smeltzer. No way could it be about white-collar crime and greed.

Subsurface, though, is under federal jurisdiction, and it is about greed. It is about politicians and businessmen behaving poorly, not about shooting innocent women in the head. So it's not like I forgot that Lydia worked for the state legislature half a decade ago, it's more that it didn't seem important enough to remember.

I pull out my files about Calvin Dunbar and Lydia and compare dates: Lydia worked for the legislature—in the house clerk's office—for only four months, one legislative session. Calvin, as chair of the house appropriations committee, probably had plenty of business to take care of in that office. They would have come into contact, and I can easily imagine them hitting it off: Calvin with his Nordic good looks; Lydia with her easy and flirtatious exuberance. Calvin with that vulnerability and capacity for self-reflection he showed in our discussions about his legal transgressions; Lydia with her lifelong search into the dark corners of her own soul.

I remember the texts Lydia and her lover sent each other. They sounded so comfortable. I had the impression they'd known each other a long time and that the sexual urgency of new love had had
years to quiet down and was replaced not with indifference, as often happens, but with a deeper and quieter kind of affection.

Could that lover have been Calvin?

Maybe.

I start rereading the printout of their text messages again:

Lydia:
Fun afternoon. Got to pop in my favorite CD.

555-1225:
Can't believe I fell asleep.

Lydia:
LOL. Passion gone. So sad.

555-1225:
Passion is fine. Youth and stamina gone.

Lydia:
LOL.

The part about the CD had confused me because of Lydia's aversion to recorded music. But now I remember something Lizzy told me about Calvin not long ago: CD for Calvin Dunbar. That's his nickname. He told her it's what his friends call him.

Maybe popping in the favorite CD wasn't about listening to music but about the anatomy of sex.

My instinct is to be repulsed by this adulterous union that has led to such woe. At the same time, I'm thinking of how this affair, amid all the assignations that go hand in glove with the other kinds of bartering so common in state politics, apparently lasted for years on a trajectory similar to that of a real marriage, real love. But this isn't about love, it's about Lydia's murder. And Jimmy Mailing's. And maybe some others.

I puzzle over it all a while longer. I really do need another perspective, so I call Isler, but he can't talk right now. He says he'll be over as soon as he's free.