At Risk

15

He and Nana, and a secret mission, mid-October, the night starting out crisp and cool with not much of a moon.

Watertown, driving fast to an address where a client of hers said that dogfights were secretly being held in the basement on the weekends, horrible, violent fights, pugs, terriers, bulldogs, pit bulls, starved, baited, torn to pieces. Twenty dollars, the price of admission.

Win can still see the look on Nana’s face as she pounded on the door, see the look on the man’s face when she walked right into his dark, squalid house.

I have you between my fingers, she said, holding up two fingers, pinching them together. And I’m squeezing. Where are the dogs? Because we’re taking every one of them right now. And she squeezed her fingers together as tightly as she could, right in his mean, soulless face.

Crazy witch! He yelled at her.

Go take a look in your yard, look at all those shiny new pennies everywhere, she said, and maybe time has embellished history, but as Win recalls it, the moment she mentioned the pennies and the man went to the window to look, a fierce wind kicked up from nowhere and a tree branch slammed against that very window and shattered it.

Nana and Win drove off with a carload of dogs — pitiful, mangled creatures — while he cried uncontrollably, tried to pet them, do something to make them not hurt and shake so much, and after they left them at the animal hospital, they drove home and it had gotten very cold, and the heat had been turned on inside the house, and Win’s mother and father and Pencil were dead.

“Pencil?” Monique Lamont asks from her glass desk.

“A goofy mixed breed yellow Lab, Pencil. Because as a puppy he was always chewing up my pencils,” Win replies.

“CO poisoning.”

“Yes.”

“That’s awful.” It sounds so empty when Lamont says it.

“I felt it was my fault,” he tells her. “Maybe the same way you feel about what happened to you, that it’s somehow your fault. Victims of rape often feel that. And you know that. You’ve seen it enough in your office, in court.”

“I’m not a victim.”

“You were raped. You were almost murdered. But you’re right. You’re not a victim. You were one.”

“As were you.”

“In a different way, but true.”

“How old?” she asks.

“Seven.”

“Geronimo,” she says. “I’ve always wondered why Geronimo. Courage? Determination? Revenge for the deaths of his family? The great Apache warrior.”

She is her old self in a handsome black suit, sunlight lighting up every piece of glass in her office. Win feels as if he’s in the middle of a rainbow, a rainbow that is hers. If she tells the truth, the whole truth, there is hope.

“Because you had to become the hero?” she is asking, trying to show warmth and hide her fear. “You had to become the warrior because you were the only one left?”

“Because I felt useless,” he says. “Didn’t want to do sports, compete, be on teams, do much of anything that might somehow measure me and show how useless I really was. So I kind of kept to myself, reading, drawing, writing, all sorts of solitary things. Nana started calling me Geronimo.”

“Because you felt useless?” Lamont reaches for her sparkling water, a blank expression on her striking face.

Nana always reminded him, You’re Geronimo, my darling. Don’t ever forget, my darling.

And Win is saying to Lamont, “One of the many things Geronimo said is, I cannot think that we are useless or God would not have created us. And the sun, the darkness, the winds are all listening to what we have to say. So there you have it, what I have to say about myself. The truth, Monique.” He adds, “Now it’s your turn. I’m here to listen, but only if you plan on telling me everything.”

She sips water, looks at him, deliberating, then, “Why would you give a damn, Win? Why really?”

“Fairness. The worst things that have happened aren’t your fault.”

“You’d really care if I went to prison?”

“You don’t belong in prison. It wouldn’t be fair to the other inmates.”

Surprised, she laughs. But her mirth fades quickly. She drinks more water, her hands nervous.

Win says, “This isn’t just about your running for governor, is it?”

“Apparently not,” she says, keeping her eyes on him. “No, of course not. It was a twofold plan. My losing the Finlay homicide file and then its showing up on my property would have turned At Risk into a farce, turned me and my office into one, ingratiated Huber with the governor, the two of them in on that one together, I have no doubt. Either I’m murdered or I’m ruined or both, really. No one saying nice things at my funeral. Useless. I know that word, too, Geronimo.” She pauses, looking at him. “Useless and foolish.”

“The governor want you murdered?”

She shakes her head. “No. He just didn’t want me to win the election. Jessie wanted the governor to be grateful to him — how the hell do you think he’s gotten where he is in life? Favors. Manipulations. He wanted me dead and, oh well, that certainly would have made life easier for Crawley, too, but no. Our dear governor wouldn’t have the stomach for that. Jessie always wants everything in a big way. Especially money.”

“Insider trading, Monique? Maybe buying shares in a high-tech DNA lab that’s about to get a lot of attention?”

She reaches for her water bottle. It’s empty. She pulls out the straw, drops it in the glass trash basket under her desk.

“PROHEMOGEN,” Win then says. “DNA technology that genetically matches patients with drugs. The lab you picked for your media extravaganza may do ancestral profiles in criminal cases, but that’s not where the money is.”

She listens. She has that familiar look on her face when she is putting the case together.

“The money’s in using genomics to help with the development of these next-generation superdrugs. Huge money, huge,” Win says.

She doesn’t answer, listens intently.

“The lab in California.” He keeps going. “All the national attention you, the governor, will bring it because of this murdered old woman in Tennessee. Well, that’s extremely helpful, now isn’t it? You draw big attention to them and their lucrative biotechnology — give them that kind of free advertising — and guess what? Maybe their stock goes up. How much stock do you own?”

“That makes at least one thing obvious,” she says. “Make it look as if I took the case home, was hiding it. But make sure it’s found.”

He looks at her for a long moment, says, “Pretty shrewd. Ruin you but save the day. The case file’s found eventually. Publicity and more publicity. At your expense. Maybe the case is solved, maybe not, but a lot of publicity for that lab in California.”

“It will get it anyway. Already is. The case is solved.”

“The lab didn’t do anything wrong. In fact, it did everything right. Helped solved the case.”

She nods, distracted.

“Sad truth is, that murdered old woman didn’t matter at all in any of this,” Win says. “The powers that be didn’t care.”

Lamont is thinking, probably trying to move things along in a direction that suits her, says, “I know you probably don’t believe me, but I did care. I wanted her case solved.”

“How much stock do you own?” Win asks again.

“None.”

“You sure?”

“That idea would never have entered my mind. I knew nothing about the company, but in Jessie’s position, he’s privy to all sorts of biotechnology, all sorts of private labs springing up all over the world. I didn’t know about this, about the California lab and its biotechnology. I just thought we were working a twenty-year-old murder case that turned into a very public crime initiative I called At Risk. Really.”

“Huber the one you were with the night before you were attacked? Probably when your keys disappeared? You said you were out, went to work straight from wherever it was you were staying.”

Win has a minidisc running on top of her glass desk. He is taking notes.

“We had dinner. I can’t… I can believe a lot of things about him….”

“Motive.” Win’s not going to let her avoid the answer.

She takes her time, then, “Jessie and I are friends. Just as Jessie and you are friends.”

“I seriously doubt it’s quite the same.”

“Earlier this year, he gave me some advice about my portfolio.” She clears her throat, tries to steady her voice. “I made some money, realized what was going on a week later when I read in the paper that U.S. regulators had cleared the sale of a particular drug being developed at some lab, not the one in the Finlay case. Another one.”

“Enough of a motive for him to set up your murder?”

“He’s been getting insider tips in exchange for subcontracting out thousands of DNA kits to be analyzed for our database, for databases in other states based upon his recommendations. Major purchases of instruments for his labs, recommendations for other crime labs to buy the same things. It’s been going on for years.”

“He admitted all this to you?”

“After his stock advice, a lot of things began to add up.” She glances at the recorder. “The more he told me, the more he implicated me. I’m guilty of insider trading. Next I’m guilty of conspiracy, of knowing what the director of the state crime labs is doing and I don’t say a word. Not to mention…”

“Right. Your not-so-professional relationship.”

“He loves me,” she says with nothing in her voice as she stares at the recorder.

“Amazing way to show it.”

“I ended it months ago, after he gave me the advice about the stock and I realized what he was into, what he had just gotten me into. What he is. I told him I didn’t love him anymore, not that way.”

“You threaten him?”

“I told him I wanted nothing more to do with his illegal activities, that they had to stop. And if they didn’t, there would be consequences.”

“You told him this when?”

“Last spring. Probably wasn’t a smart thing to say,” she mutters, staring hard at the recorder.

“You could have had a lawyer present,” Win reminds her. “You said all this willingly. I didn’t force you.”

“Nice suit, by the way.” She looks at his light gray suit, swallows, tries to smile.

“Emporio Armani, about three seasons out of date, seventy bucks. I didn’t force you,” he repeats.

“No, you didn’t,” she says. “And I’ll take what comes.”

“You’ll testify against Huber?”

“It will be a pleasure.”

Win picks up the recorder, pops out the disc, says, “Ever enter your mind you got enough glass in here to burn down your entire building?”

He selects a crystal paperweight, holds it up to the sun streaming through a window, focuses a white-hot dot on the disc. Lamont watches in amazement as a thin stream of smoke rises.

“What are you doing?” she says.

“You’re living inside a tinderbox, Monique. Could burst into flames any minute. Maybe you should be more careful, take the heat off yourself, direct it elsewhere. Focus it very intensely where it belongs.”

He hands her the ruined disc, their fingers lightly touching, says, “In case you get cold feet. Just pull this out and remember what I said.”

She nods, tucks the ruined disc in a pocket.

“Another bit of advice. When someone else interviews you, like a grand jury, for example,” he adds, “I suggest you leave out unnecessary details. The way I see it, most people are going to assume Huber was setting you up, conspiring with the governor, jealous, vindictive because you spurned him, greedy. On and on. I wrote down most of it. The relevant information.” He holds up his notepad. “Just left out the misleading information. And you know what that information is. Such as any stocks Huber recommended, anything illegal he admitted to you that you never passed on. No proof. You could have chosen to make any investment you wanted, doesn’t mean you got inside information, right? His word against yours.”

She watches him, studies him, as he hits send on his cell phone.

“Sammy?” he says. “I want Huber brought in for questioning. Yup. The time has come. Get the warrant, we’re going to search every place he owns. And our little buddy, Toby. Bring him in, too.”

“With pleasure. Lay it on me,” Sammy says.

“Attempted murder, conspiracy to murder, arson. And let’s see.” Win looks at Lamont, some of that old steely glint back in her eyes. “I’m sure the Feds will be delighted to hear all about his SEC violations.”

“And then what? What about me?” Lamont asks Win as he ends the call. “You really think I’ll be all right?”

“Funny how nothing changes,” he says, getting up from his chair, smiling at her. “Funny how it’s always about you, Monique.”