Eyes of a Child (26 page)

‘All right,' he said. ‘Let's get this done.'

Chapter
4

‘Did you ever meet Ricardo Arias?' Monk asked quietly, and Paget felt everything change.

He was in a field of evidence not yet discovered: questions yet to be asked, facts not yet sifted, connections yet to be made. But the questions
would
be asked – of Terri, of Carlo, of people Paget had never met and perhaps did not know existed – and the connections drawn, like lines between dots in a child's puzzle, until a picture emerged. Paget could not yet see the picture, and perhaps never would: it was Monk who would ask the questions, and draw the lines. Paget's role was to stare at the tape as at some coiling snake, and guess.

‘No,' he answered.

‘Did you ever
see
him?'

‘Yes.'

‘Where?'

A moment's pause. ‘In the
Inquisitor.
With a touching caption beneath him. Something like “For ten thousand dollars, you can feed this boy.”'

Monk sat back, staring at him. Even Lynch's face hardened; no one was screwing around anymore.

‘Where were you that night?' Monk asked.

‘Here.'

‘Did you ever visit his apartment?'

Paget's temples began to feel constricted, as if in a vise. ‘No,' he answered.

Monk handed the tape machine to Lynch; the gesture was like that of a man loosening his tie, settling in for a while. ‘Do you believe your son sexually abused Elena Arias?' he asked.

‘Absolutely not.'

‘Do you know why Mr Arias made that charge?'

‘Yes.' Paget's voice was firm now. ‘He was a worthless deadbeat who wanted to live off child support. The best way was to trash his wife and anyone who might help her.'

Monk leaned back. His eyes were an unusual brown, Paget thought, almost a shade of muddy yellow. ‘Mr Arias,' he said, ‘filed papers in his child custody proceeding charging your son with child abuse and you with adultery. Are you aware of that?'

Paget squinted; the noontime sun had begun to hurt his eyes. ‘Of course.'

Monk pushed the gold-rimmed glasses up the bridge of his nose. ‘Let's start with Teresa Peralta. Did you take her from her husband?'

For the first time, Paget understood what his clients must feel as they saw their lives sliced and diced and rearranged to suit the police, their pettiest and most private acts exhumed for use in court. ‘Take?' he said. ‘Terri's not for taking – or keeping. And our relationship – other than as friends – didn't start until she left Richie.'

‘You're running for the Senate, aren't you?'

There was a faint undertone in Monk's voice, perhaps the bone-deep distrust of a cop for a defense lawyer, his opponent in a world too morally complex to allow for a common view of justice. ‘I may,' Paget answered more easily. ‘But the race is almost two years away.'

Monk gazed at him, silent: Paget sensed that the message Monk intended to convey was that he should not run. But whether that reflected a weariness of lawyers and politicians, or something deeper and more specific, Paget could not tell. Then, quite slowly and deliberately, Monk asked, ‘Why did Ricardo Arias file these papers under seal?'

That Paget was expecting this did not numb the jolt he felt. ‘I can only speculate,' he answered. ‘Clearly, he intended to put pressure on Terri to give him permanent custody. Through me, if necessary.'

Monk leaned forward. ‘Was Mr Arias blackmailing you?'

It was as if Richie were not dead; his plans and schemes lived on in the minds of the police, entwining those he had plotted against. ‘No,' Paget answered.

Monk seemed to stare right through him. ‘Tell me,' he asked in a tone of mild curiosity, ‘did Ricardo Arias ever ask you for money?'

A second jolt: the insidious beauty of the question was the question buried beneath it – whether Paget and Ricardo Arias had ever spoken.

‘No.'

Monk sat back, waiting for Paget to say that he had never talked to Richie. Watching the recorder in Lynch's lap, Paget saw that the tape appeared to be close to ending. ‘Care for some iced coffee?' Paget asked.

‘No. Thank you.' Monk's voice was very polite now. ‘Did you and Mr Arias ever speak by telephone?'

The recorder clicked.

Monk fumbled in his pocket for another tape. It gave Paget a brief moment to ponder whether Ricardo Arias might have recorded phone calls. And then he realized, quite certainly, that Richie could not have done so.

Monk inserted the new tape, identified Paget as the witness, and handed the machine back to Lynch. ‘Did you and Mr Arias ever speak by telephone?' he repeated.

‘No,' Paget said.

‘So,' Monk said, ‘the night before you left for Italy, you didn't speak to Ricardo Arias by phone.'

‘No.'

‘Or see him?'

‘No.'

‘Or visit his apartment?'

‘No.'

Monk's rapid-fire cadence made Paget feel cornered. ‘Did Richie ever call
your
home?' Monk asked.

Paget hesitated. ‘I wouldn't know. Theoretically, it's possible.'

‘Who, besides you, answers the telephone.'

‘Carlo, obviously. Sometimes Cecilia, the housekeeper. And, when it's working, the answering machine.'

‘What are Cecilia's hours?'

‘Two-thirty to six-thirty, five days a week. She runs the laundry, cleans the house. Sometimes fixes dinner for us.'

‘Have an address for her?' Lynch asked.

Paget turned to him. ‘You can talk to her here. When I'm present, after I've spoken to her, at our convenience. I'm not going to have you scaring her to death.'

Monk glanced at Lynch. ‘We'll get back to you.' Lynch said.

Monk folded his hands. ‘Do you own a gun?'

‘No.'

‘Have you ever had one in your possession?'

‘Only in the army.'

‘Ever fire one?'

‘Again, not since the army. I don't like them.'

Monk leaned back. ‘How about Ms Peralta?'

It took Paget by surprise. ‘Terri told you already. She hates guns too. I can't imagine her owning one and have no reason to think that she did.'

‘What about Ms Peralta's family?'

Paget tried to decipher the question. But Monk's face, as usual, was opaque. ‘Gun ownership, you mean? Terri's father has been dead for years. In San Francisco, that leaves her mother. And I somehow doubt she's supplying Terri with weapons. If that's your question.'

Monk shrugged. ‘Have you ever met her?'

‘No.'

‘Do you know what her relationship to Richie was like?'

‘No . . . Of course, she
knew
him. So I'd have to guess she didn't like him.'

From Lynch, a shadow of dark laughter. Monk's expression did not change. ‘What about Ms Peralta?' Monk asked. ‘How would you classify her relationship to Mr Arias?'

‘Strained. Although, for Elena, Terri tried her best.'

Monk's gaze was attenuated and unimpressed. ‘Do you think that Ms Peralta intended Mr Arias any harm?'

Paget shook his head. ‘All the time we were in Italy, Inspector, Terri worried that he hadn't shown up. Again, for Elena's sake and in spite of everything.' Paget decided to give them a piece of his personal life, to divert them from Terri. ‘While we were there, we had long and agonized discussions about whether our relationship was possible in light of Richie's malice. You don't put yourself through that for a dead man.'

Monk's gaze hardened into a stare. ‘Unless one of you is an actor.'

It jarred Paget, as Monk intended, putting a different spin on Italy: the charade of a murderer building an alibi by toying with the emotions of a lover, hoping that the decay of Richie's body would obscure the date of his death.

‘How did
you
feel about Arias?' Monk asked abruptly. ‘You weren't exactly forthcoming with us about your reasons for disliking him. Your son, for example.'

‘I didn't like him then, and I still don't.' Paget folded his arms. ‘You weren't asking me about Carlo but about a death. About which, as it happens, I know nothing.'

Monk appraised him. ‘So you don't have any information on how he might have died?'

‘None. Except from you.'

‘On whether someone might have killed him?'

‘No.'

‘Not even a theory?'

Paget stared back at him for a while. ‘Theories are your job. Not mine.' He tilted his head. ‘Although suicide's not a bad one. If I were you, I might take Richie's note as a sign of his sincerity.'

Monk simply watched. ‘A man will do a lot of things,' he said, ‘if someone holds a gun to his head.'

Paget smiled a little. ‘Including swallow it?'

But Monk, it was clear, knew he had said enough. And he had what he had come for: answers, impossible for Paget to run from, recorded on tape. Noting the hour and minutes, he clicked off the machine. ‘We appreciate your time,' he said.

Even this small courtesy haunted Paget a little. ‘Sure,' he answered.

The response felt insufficiently outraged. But Paget had entered a territory without a map: he no longer knew what to say, or even how to act. Only a couple of hours had passed, and now nothing in his life felt natural.

Shepherding Monk and Lynch to the door, Paget said little. From the window of his library, he watched them leave.

Damn Ricardo Arias to hell.

For the next hour or so, his thoughts cold and clear, Paget entered the mind of Charles Monk. When he rose from his chair, his skin felt clammy, like the aftershock of a nightmare.

He went to the kitchen, took out an oversize green garbage bag. Then glancing at the front door, Paget climbed the stairs to his room.

His walk-in closet was filled with suits. For years, Paget's response to depression, or even boredom, had been to buy an Italian suit: about twenty-five suits were jammed so tight that it was hard to find the one he was looking for. A gray suit, with a speckled stain on the cuff of one sleeve.

He pulled it out, examining the cuff. The dry cleaner, he decided, could do nothing with it. Even if that still made sense.

Paget took the suit off its hanger and stuffed it into the garbage bag. It was only when he was outside, standing over the garbage can, that he realized the police might search his trash.

Paget went to the library, gazing into the fireplace. But Carlo, he realized, might come home.

He hurried upstairs to his room.

Randomly, he pulled out three more suits. Then he put the gray suit back on its hanger, threw it on his bed with the others, and began looking for the shoes.

This was easier. Paget was indifferent to shoes; the three pairs of dress shoes wedged between the running shoes and Dock-Siders were all that he owned.

Which ones were they?

The simple black ones, he remembered. They were almost new; he had worn the pair before that until Terri had pronounced them older than she was. Putting them in the garbage bag, he felt a twinge of sadness. And then, more deeply, felt furtive and alone.

He had no choice, Paget thought; he could not keep the suit and shoes.

He walked outside, into the bright sunlight, and drove to the Goodwill bin at the supermarket. It was gone: a sign said that the only drops now available were at the Goodwill stores.

He sat there in the parking lot, apprehensive now, considering his choices. The image of Charles Monk, coming to his home at random, kept breaking through his thoughts.

Nervous and irresolute, he drove to the Goodwill outlet in the Mission District. Not far, he reflected, from where Terri had lived as a child.

The outlet was a dark room with a long counter, where a pleasant Hispanic woman with vivid makeup and round beautiful eyes was taking donations of clothes and scribbling out receipts for tax deductions. There were two men in the line ahead of him: Paget looked at the floor, still debating with himself. And then the woman looked up, smiling brightly, and met his eyes.

It was a moment before he showed her what he had brought. ‘Suits,' she said. ‘Nice ones too.'

‘Thank you.' Paget hesitated and then placed the bag on the counter. ‘I also have some shoes.'

She pulled them out of the bag. ‘They look new.'

Paget nodded. ‘They don't fit quite right. It's sort of like walking on roller skates.'

She laughed at that, looking into his face, flirting a little. ‘You should be more careful with your money.'

Would she recognize him, Paget wondered, or remember him? ‘So my girlfriend tells me,' he said.

The woman laughed again. But now she turned to the receipt pad in front of her. ‘Oh, don't bother,' Paget said.

She glanced up. ‘No? I'll be happy to give you one. Help with taxes. I mean, this has got to be over a thousand dollars, even used.'

Too much conversation. ‘Okay,' Paget said. ‘Thanks.'

The woman scrawled out a receipt. ‘The name?' she asked.

‘Paget.'

He watched the woman write ‘Padgett.' He did not correct her; as he took the receipt, Paget saw the woman slide her copy into a drawer.

‘Thanks,' he said, and quickly left. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw her smiling after him and waved. A few feet down the street, looking back again, he crumpled the receipt and tossed it in a trash container.

Paget drove home, fervently hoping to become a shadow in the mind of a busy woman. That was likely, he tried to tell himself, unless she saw his face again. With that thought came another, as insidious as superstition: he had made a mistake that he could not correct.