Cold truth

Chapter 10

Mason popped a Modern Jazz Quartet CD into his office stereo and opened the cabinet doors covering his dry-erase board. Listening to Milt Jackson work the xylophone keys helped clear his mind. He was a classic jazz fan uninterested in digitized, techno-driven sound. Basie, Peterson, Coltrane, and Monk were better company.

He wrote Arthur Hackett's name beneath the Winners and Losers column, putting $5 million next to Arthur's name, and drew a line connecting the money to the winners' side of the ledger. Next, he added David Evans's name to the losers' column.

Trent Hackett belonged in the losers' column on general principles, but that column was for people who lost something valuable as a result of Dr. Gina's death. It wasn't for people who were just losers. Instead he added a column titled Connections? and put Trent's name at the top. He drew lines from Trent's name to Jordan's and Arthur's, adding one to Gina's labeled broken window.

Robert Davenport's name was next. He wrote drugs across the line connecting the widower to his mate, adding another line with a question mark at the end leading to Centurion Johnson, the only past or present drug dealer on the board. Mason didn't know where Robert Davenport got his drugs. He doubted it was from his wife. Which meant that someone other than Gina had put the drugs in her office. The best reason to do that was to discredit Gina. The only person on the board who would benefit from that was Arthur Hackett. Arthur could have blackmailed Gina into staying, trumping her play of the Jordan card.

Mason drew a line between Arthur Hackett's and Robert Davenport's names, wondering if Robert provided the drugs to Arthur. Even if Mason was right about that, it didn't explain where the drugs came from. Mason drew a line connecting Arthur Hackett and Centurion Johnson, trying that conspiracy theory on for size.

Mason was guessing at most of these conclusions and stretching for others. It was like that at the beginning of a case. He had to consider every possibility because he didn't know enough to exclude any of them.

When he finished, he stepped back to gain a better perspective. Without realizing it, he had connected every name on the board to at least two other names and connected all of them to Gina Davenport. If that was progress, he was in trouble.

Claire Mason opened the door to his office, interrupting his graffiti analysis of the case. She was wearing one of the severe, dark suits she wore year-round, regardless of weather. It wasn't that she was severe or dark. She was the opposite. She was large, and larger than life, but oblivious to fashion, preferring clothes that were functional and durable.

"Except for that shiner, you don't look too bad to me," she said, taking a seat on Mason's sofa and motioning him to join her.

"Don't ask me to take my clothes off. I look like the Kansas City Chiefs used me for a tackling dummy."

"From what I hear, you've got the dummy part down right."

"You can join the chorus singing that tune," Mason told her.

Claire studied the dry-erase board. "I'm glad Abby Lieberman's name isn't on there. I was afraid she was somehow involved when she told me about calling Gina Davenport."

"Abby told me about the call," Mason said. "The phone number was for Jordan Hackett's cell phone."

"Why did Gina Davenport answer the phone?" Claire asked.

"Either she had Jordan's phone or the phone had been programmed to forward calls to Gina's number. I'll ask Jordan."

"That sounds like a lot of trouble. Why not just give Gina's phone number to Abby?"

"Because that wouldn't have linked Gina, Abby, and Jordan together."

Claire said, "It still doesn't make sense. Neither Abby nor Gina knew that Abby was calling Jordan's cell-phone number. How do any of them make the connection?"

Mason shook his head. "Got me." He returned to the board, adding Abby's name with lines drawn to Gina Davenport and Jordan Hackett. "Jordan was adopted.

Someone wants Abby to believe that Jordan is her daughter and that Gina Davenport knew that. Don't ask me why." Mason added lines connecting Abby to Arthur Hackett.

"What a mess," Claire said. "When is Jordan's arraignment?"

"Tomorrow morning, nine o'clock."

"You want my advice, Lou? Take the rest of the day off," his aunt said. "You're too tired to see clearly."

Mason shuddered with weariness. He hadn't slept much in two days. That was no way to prepare for an arraignment. "Okay," he said. "I'm going home. Speaking of seeing clearly-what's wrong with Harry's eyes?"

Claire stood, brushing her suit and pursing her lips. "Have you asked him?"

"Yeah. He said it was allergies and the man doesn't know how to sneeze. The other night at the restaurant, you were wiping his eyes. He was wiping them when he drove me home from the hospital. Plus, he was squinting like Mr. Magoo at the traffic lights and road signs."

Mason knew his aunt wasn't capable of deception. She would rely on privilege and confidences to withhold information, but she wasn't afraid to give bad news. She gave it and took it straight on, like everything else in life.

"Come on, Claire," Mason said. "It's you, me, and Harry. No secrets."

Claire nodded. "You're right. Harry has macular degeneration. It's an irreversible disease with no cure that destroys the central vision. He won't go blind, but his visible world will shrink in bits and pieces until he can't drive, read, or see my face across the kitchen table. So far, he's having trouble with small print and distances."

Mason exhaled like a punctured tire. "Jesus Christ," he said.

"Not available. Harry already asked," Claire said. "The doctors use lasers to slow things down and they've got some other new procedures that might help. The disease kind of limps along, then eventually speeds up. Harry doesn't like to talk about it, so don't go overboard the next time you see him. Good luck tomorrow."

Mason was turning off the light in his office when the phone rang.

"Can you come see me?" Jordan Hackett asked.

"Sure," Mason said. "It's four o'clock. I'll be there in twenty minutes."

The drive to the county jail was quick, but like a power nap, the top-down ride gave Mason a boost. He finger-tapped a light beat on the steering wheel, dividing his thoughts between Jordan and Harry. He hoped she would tell him something he could use, while hoping that he would be able to do the same for Harry.

Jordan had showered but not slept. The dirt was gone, but the circles under her eyes were as dark as his black eye. Her cheeks had flattened, and her body folded inward from the shoulders, like she was trying to disappear into herself.

"I want to get out of here," she said.

They were in the same room as before, the light dull, the paint bleak. A perfect match for Jordan's jailhouse patina.

"We'll see the judge tomorrow morning at your arraignment. I'll ask him to release you on bail."

"Will he let me go?"

"Maybe. It's a high-profile case, so there's always political pressure for the prosecutor to oppose bail. Your history of violence and your confession may make it tough."

"What if," she began in a small voice, "I didn't do it?"

Mason scooted his chair back, the uneven legs scratching the vinyl floor. He walked around the tiny room, stopping at the corner farthest from the door, feeding his latent paranoia that someone was listening. "That would make you a liar but not a murderer. Which are you?"

Jordan watched Mason circle and followed him into the corner, standing close, her hand on his arm. In another setting, the gesture would have been sexual. Here, it was need.

"A liar. I didn't do it."

Mason kept his voice low, more to pull her in than to keep from being overheard. He tested her with the preliminaries. "Were you there that night?"

"Yes."

"Were you there when Gina was killed?"

"Yes."

"The videotape shows a shadow in the window immediately after the murder. Was that you?"

"Yes."

Jordan's answers came easily, without nervous tics in the corners of her eyes and mouth to betray her. Her breathing was calm and steady, her grip on his arm assured, not panic-tight. Mason believed her.

"Did you see it happen?"

She let go of his arm, covering her chest with both of hers, and turned away. "No," she said, her back to him.

Mason spun her around, his hands on her shoulders. "Did you see it happen?" he repeated.

She grabbed his wrists, pinching pressure points that shot bolts of pain the length of his arms. He winced and let go. She cast his arms away like empty husks. "I told you," she said. "I didn't see it happen."

Mason crossed his arms, rubbing both biceps, trying to regain the upper hand with a woman who said she needed him in one instant and dismissed him like he was a nuisance in the next.

"What did you see?"

"Nothing except for the broken window. Then I saw Gina's body on the ground and those TV people pointing the camera at me. I was afraid what would happen if anyone saw me there, so I left the way I came, on the elevator."

"A witness saw you enter the building on the ground floor. The elevator only runs from the basement to Dr. Gina's office. Why did you go up that way?"

"My father gave me a key to the building a long time ago. I didn't have a key to Gina's office, but I wouldn't need one if I used the elevator."

"Weren't you meeting Gina? Wouldn't she have let you in?"

"I didn't know she was going to be there."

"Then what were you doing there?" Jordan sat down again, thumping her balled fist on the metal table. Mason sat across from her and covered her fist with his hands. "I need to know," he said.

Jordan gnawed at her lower lip and pulled her fist away. Mason clamped his hands around hers, yanking her toward him. She was meaner but he was stronger. "I need to know," he said again.

"You're hurting me."

"I'm sorry," he said, feeling small but uncertain of any other way to break through to her. "Tell me."

She glared at him until he released her, leaving her rubbing her wrist, Mason feeling like a bully, his arms still tingling. They were finding a common language that he wasn't anxious to learn.

"Gina didn't take notes during a session. She always said that she didn't want to have anything she might have to turn over to the insurance companies. Sometimes I gave her stuff I wrote and she kept it. After she said she wouldn't treat me any more, I wanted it back. I knew where she kept it and I took it and got out of there."

"What did you write about, Jordan?"

She squirmed in her chair, glancing around, looking for a way out, finding none, dipping her head, letting her hair cover her face, tugging on it like a mask. She hid beneath her hair, her breathing growing ragged, finally throwing her head back, slapping both palms against the table. The metal sang, bringing the guard to the window in the door. Mason waved him off.

"Mr. Mason," she said through clenched teeth. "It took eight years of therapy with Gina Davenport before I could tell her. I don't know you. I didn't even hire you and you want me to tell you."

"You're wrong, Jordan," he said. "It's you who wants to tell me."

She clutched her neck with one hand as it reddened with blood creeping up to her chin. She ran her other hand through her hair. Her eyes grew large and wet. "Okay, okay, okay," she said, talking herself down from the emotional ledge she was standing on. "When I was thirteen, my brother raped me. My parents didn't believe me when I told them. I put it all in my diary. The day it happened and every day after, when my parents called me a liar and my brother called me a slut when they weren't around. I told Gina everything a couple of weeks ago and gave her the diary."

Mason felt the walls close in around them, the air too thick with Jordan's shame for them to breathe. He understood with crippling clarity the source of her rage. He wanted to comfort her, but he didn't know how. All he knew was that there wasn't enough room on his dry-erase board for these new lines.

"Did your parents know that you told Gina?"

"We had a session with my parents. They said the same thing they always said. That I made it up. They even said there must have been something wrong with my birth mother and I inherited it."

"What did Dr. Gina say?"

"She said that she believed me and that she was obligated to report cases of child abuse to the police. My father threatened to sue her. My mother stormed out of the room, like she always does, like it was my fault."

"Did your father bring it up again after that session?"

"Last weekend. We had a real screamer. I was mad because Gina wouldn't see me anymore. That's when he told me about Gina's contract and that she wouldn't keep treating me unless he let her out of her contract. Then he started hollering at me about the rape story, saying that Gina was going to report Trent to the police if he didn't let her go."

"Did Trent know that Gina had threatened to turn him in to the cops?"

"I don't talk to the little worm," Jordan said. "You'll have to ask my parents."

"Why after all of that did you confess to killing Dr. Gina?"

"Terry Nix caught me when I came back to Sanctuary.

I'd broken curfew. I was pretty shook up and I told him what had happened. I showed him my diary. Terry said my brother probably killed Gina, just like you said. Terry said my real problem was that my parents didn't save me from my brother. If I confessed, they'd have to choose between me and Trent. He said they'd choose me this time."

Mason clasped his hands behind his neck, stretching his back and neck muscles. He didn't know whether Jordan was still telling the truth, but as long as she believed it, his representation of her had just gotten more complicated.

"Your father is paying my fees, but I can't take any more money from him. He covered up the rape. Trent may have killed Gina to keep the rape story from coming out and your father could be covering up for him again."

Jordan wiped her eyes. "I can't afford to pay you. I don't have any money of my own."

"Don't worry, the court will appoint me to represent you. My hourly rate goes down but the friendly service stays the same," he said with a smile.

"You believe me?"

Mason clasped her shoulders. "I believe you." At the moment, he knew it was more important that she believe him than that he believe her. "I need to know something else. It may not be important. Did you program your cell phone to forward your calls to Gina Davenport?"

She furrowed her brow. "Why would I do that?"

"I couldn't begin to guess," he answered. "Where's your phone?"

"I lost it. I had it with me when I left Sanctuary last Friday. I must have put it down somewhere because I didn't have it when I got back Friday afternoon."

"Where were you last Friday?"

"Terry Nix brought me in for my appointment with Gina. That's when she told me she wouldn't treat me anymore, but she wouldn't say why. She said I should talk to my father. I stopped at the radio station to talk to him, but he wouldn't tell me anything. Then Terry took me home. I don't understand what this is about."

Mason asked, "Have you ever tried to find your birth mother?"

Jordan shook her head. "My parents always blamed my problems on my birth mother. I used to hear my dad tell my mom that they didn't get the pick of the litter with me. I never thought about looking for my birth mother. I was afraid my parents might be right."

"What if they were wrong?" Mason asked.

"I was afraid of that too," she said.