Cold truth

Chapter 12

Family ties come with more knots than any sailor ever tied, Mason thought as he drove south from the courthouse toward the Kansas City Art Institute. Even his truncated family entwined him with love, duty, debt, and regret, among other assets and liabilities. He hadn't shown any talent for family building during his marriage to Kate, and couldn't imagine trying to salvage a mother-and-child reunion from the lost and found, as Abby was determined to do.

He'd asked Rachel once how she felt about missing out on creating her own nuclear family.

"Only seven percent of households still fit the two-parent Mom-stays-at-home-with-the-kids-while-Dad works profile. Everyone else is blending and separating. I figure the straight world is missing out on my world, not the other way around," she told him.

Robert Davenport was the only member of anyone's family who'd skipped the arraignment. Mason wanted to know why and he wanted to know how cocaine ended up in Gina Davenport's office since that was her husband's drug of choice. The trail that tied this case together, Mason suspected, was sprinkled with white powder.

Mason found Robert in his studio, a high-ceilinged, bare-walled box of a room, pungent with paint thinner and littered with easels and canvases. He walked in as Robert was putting the finishing touches on a nude model-without brushes or paint. The model, a young girl with broad hips, Earth Mother breasts, and hair down to the middle of her back, stood on a low platform, holding Robert to her nipple as he grappled with her bottom, his back to Mason. The girl giggled at Mason and clutched Robert's head tightly to her.

"Which one of you gets extra credit for that?" Mason asked.

Robert shoved the girl away from him and she stumbled off the pedestal, still giggling as she landed bottoms-up on a beanbag.

"Who the hell are you?" Robert demanded.

He was all elbows and joints, his bony arms sticking out of his paint-splattered T-shirt like sticks on an all-day sucker. He needed rocks in his pockets to keep anchored in a stiff breeze. A three-day growth of his salt-and-pepper beard rounded out his cocaine-diet glow.

"Lucky for you, Professor, I'm not on the tenure committee," Mason said. "Tell teacher's pet school's out."

The girl got to her feet, gathering her clothes, putting them on a piece at a time, wandering about the studio like she was on a treasure hunt, her giggles subsiding as she covered more of her body. After donning her sandals, bra, and dress, she reached behind a stack of blank canvases and retrieved her panties.

"Ta-dah!" she said, then, "What the hell," as she stuffed them back where she found them. "Later," she promised, leaving with a last laugh.

"Get out," Robert told Mason, wiping his face on his sleeve, pretending to organize his paintings.

"Come on, Professor," Mason said. "Next time you want to bang the model, lock the door."

"Fuck you," Robert said. "Get out or I'll call campus security."

"No, you won't, because I'll tell them that you and your model were playing let's-mold-the-clay. Besides, when they search for evidence, they might find your dope tucked behind your girlfriend's panties."

"Who are you and what do you want?"

"My name is Lou Mason. I represent Jordan Hackett. She's been charged with killing your wife. You do remember your wife, don't you? Dr. Gina Davenport? Had her own radio show until someone threw her out the window?"

Robert retrieved the model's panties, holding them over a metal trash can, lighting them with a butane lighter, dropping the flaming fabric into the can. "The police told me your client killed my wife. What do you want from me?"

"You don't seem too upset that someone murdered your wife, Professor. Is that because you're too coked up or are you just not the emotional type?"

"Excuse me for not sharing my grief with you, but it's none of your fucking business. Besides, my marriage was over a long time ago."

"Why? Dr. Gina was too busy solving everyone else's problems, she didn't have time for yours?"

Robert sat down on a stool, his feet tapping a nervous beat on the concrete floor. "No. She was too busy solving everyone else's problems and didn't have time for our daughter's. So Emily solved her problems by killing herself."

Mason took the head shot but counterpunched, knowing that Robert expected him to fold out of pity. "So you took the hard road, blaming her and stuffing your nose with a few extra lines of cocaine."

"I took the road I knew. I'm not bragging about it, but I'm honest about it. Unlike my late wife."

"Meaning what?" Mason asked.

"Meaning Gina sold the public a bill of goods with a phony-baloney do-the-right-thing morality. She only cared about her show. When Emily got to be too much, Gina dumped her at Sanctuary. When Emily killed herself, Gina turned it into a radio show, not because she wanted to share our grief with her listeners, but because it was a fucking ratings sweeps month. She rode my daughter's death all the way to a national syndication deal."

"What made you hate her more-that she was more successful than you or that she cashed in on your daughter's suicide?"

Robert bounced off his stool. "Look, Mason. I'm a decent artist, not a great one. I make a living doing what I want to do. I screw around with co-eds because it's easy. But I'm not applying for sainthood, and I didn't build my career on my daughter's grave."

"Who supplies your cocaine?" Mason asked.

Robert made a squealing sound that Mason guessed passed for laughter. "Sure. Let me write down the name and address. Would you like a letter of introduction too?"

"The cops found cocaine in your wife's office after she was killed. Did you put it there?"

Robert fished a cigarette from the pocket of his T-shirt, using the butane lighter, drawing hard, shaking his head as he released the smoke. "Wasn't me. I wouldn't have wasted it on Gina."

"How much money will you inherit from your wife?"

Robert flicked the cigarette onto the floor, grinding it with his heel. "I don't know. She had her money and I had mine. Except she always had more."

"Do you have an alibi for the night your wife was killed?" Mason asked.

"You see this body, Mason," he said, turning sideways and flexing his emaciated biceps. "I can hardly throw out the trash. How am I going to throw my wife out the window? Besides, I do have an alibi. Her name is Belinda. You met her when you forgot to knock. Sorry I skipped the formal introduction."

"Did Gina mind that you screwed around?"

"No more than I minded her screwing around. Satisfied?"

"Disgusted," Mason said. "Who was Gina seeing?"

Robert shoved his hands in his pants pockets, studying the cigarette butt before he kicked it across the floor. "I don't know," he said. "But she'd been real bitchy lately. I think whoever the guy was, he dumped her."

"Is David Evans handling Gina's estate for you?" Mason asked.

"He may be handling the estate, but he sure as hell isn't representing me."

Mason asked, "Why not?"

"You're a lawyer, Mason. Would you want to be represented by the same guy who served you with divorce papers last week?"

"No, Robert," Mason said. "I don't think I would. If I was a cocaine addict whose wife was murdered and my favorite drug was found in her office and she was divorcing me and my alibi was the co-ed I was banging in my art studio-I'd like to be represented by a good criminal defense lawyer."

"Don't need one of those, Mason. I'm innocent and your client confessed."

"My client is out on bail and she's recanted her confession. You might want to reconsider."

The Art Institute is east of Main, just north of the Country Club Plaza, a shopping, drinking, and eating district that was prime Friday afternoon grazing territory for upwardly mobile beautiful people. Mason's office was farther north and west on Broadway, back toward the grittier side of the city.

He wasn't in the mood for either destination. Still beat up from his elevator escapade, and beaten down by the pathetic Hackett and Davenport clans, he had no interest in single bars or solo practice at the moment. The top was down on his TR-6, but his spirits were lower.

He sat in his car in the Art Institute parking lot, thinking about taking a drive wherever the TR-6 felt like going. Reaching into his jacket pocket for his keys, he found Abby Lieberman's business card. It was lilac-colored with the name of her company, Fresh Air, engraved in silver and black. The mix was feminine and tough at the same time. Abby understood public relations.

Mason hoped she understood human relations as well. He and Abby had connected-that was clear to both of them. Yet instead of doing something about it, he was ducking it, using Jordan's case as a reason to step back.

The reason wasn't an altogether bad one. Then again, he told himself as he dialed her number, it wasn't an altogether good one either.

"It's Abby," her answering machine said, "leave a message." Mason was tempted to hang up and dial again just to hear her voice invite him to leave a message a second time.

"Abby, it's Lou Mason. I was too hard on you today. You did a good thing and I hope it turns out well. Listen, if you're not doing anything for dinner, give me a call."

He left his cell phone number and called his office to check for messages. When he finished, his phone beeped, signaling that he'd missed a call. He listened to the message. It was Abby.

"Hi, Lou! Sorry I missed your call. My place at seven-thirty. Bring the wine," she said, and ended with her address.

Mason gunned the engine. His top was down and his chin was up. The only downside was the wine. Mason's alcohol repertoire was limited to beer. The only thing he knew about wine was the colors-red, white, and the other one that was kind of in between red and white. He called Blues.

"I need a good bottle of wine for tonight. You have anything in the Blues on Broadway wine cellar?"

"Since when is the closet in my office a wine cellar?"

"I can't tell my date I got the wine out of your closet, can I?"

"You can't even tell her what color it is. How are you going to tell her where you got it?"

"I'll be there in five minutes. Pick a good one and give me one of those things to get the cork out."

Abby lived in a loft in the Crossroads District in the shadow of Union Station. Ten years ago, the neighborhood was dominated by run-down warehouses and cheap dives. Now it was a mix of lofts and businesses, art galleries and restaurants. The area was still rough around the edges, with a strip joint and residential hotels one step removed from flophouses hanging on to the old days.

Abby's loft was on the top floor of a four-story building. She had taped a message to the front door, telling him to come in and take the stairs to the roof. The loft was a vast open space surrounded by sandblasted brick walls, the high ceiling supported by brick columns. Black and white photographs and sculptures made of woven fabric hung on the walls, softening the brick's coarse mortar. Simple furniture heavy with pillows rested on throw rugs like an oasis on the hardwood floors. Music drifted along air currents stirred by broad-limbed ceiling fans. He listened for a moment to be certain. It was Oscar Peterson on the piano. God is good, Mason thought.

A wrought-iron spiral staircase near the center of one wall led to a platform and an open door to the roof. Outside, Abby was leaning against a waist-high limestone rail at the building's edge, watching the early evening foot traffic below. She was wearing jeans, her white denim shirt untucked, sleeves half rolled up.

"Hey," Mason said.

Abby turned, stretching her arms out along the low wall, shimmering in the trailing light left as the sun sank behind her, a burnt orange pearl slipping into an indigo sea.

"Hey, you," she said.

"Nice roof."

"It's just something to keep over my head. Nothing special," Abby said.

Mason grinned. "We're being very cool, aren't we?"

"The coolest."

"I brought wine," he said.

"What color?" she asked.

"The one in between red and white," he said joining her at the rail, holding the bottle up to catch the last rays of sun. "I'm no expert, but I think it's called pink."

"Pink is a very good color," she said.

He handed her the bottle, keeping both their hands around its neck, taking her other hand in his, drawing her close. "I thought I'd try both hands this time."

"Don't let go," she said, and kissed him.

"Not a chance," he said, wrapping his arm around her, taking his turn to kiss her.

Abby slipped her hand behind his neck, pulling him to her, both lowering the bottle of wine until it dangled from their joined hands, inches from the ground, releasing it, laughing when it landed upright.

"Who knew they sold that stuff in plastic bottles," Mason said.

"Only at the really good convenience stores," she said, Mason stroking her cheek, brushing her hair back, smiling like he had a secret.

"What?" she asked.

"Nothing," Mason said. "I was just thinking that magic and miracles aren't often found on rooftops."

"You said it was a nice roof."

"That I did," he said, kissing her again, feeling her warmth and the soft comfort of her body against his.

"It's gone," she said as the sun disappeared. "Think we should eat dinner?"

"I'd hate to disappoint the cook."

"I'd hate to disappoint the rotisserie chicken I bought at Costco. I promised the butcher I'd give it a good home," she said.

"We could give the chicken a reprieve," he said, gathering her in his arms again, his cell phone ringing, Mason ignoring it until Abby plucked it off the clip on his belt.

"The client is job one," she said, handing him the phone and kissing the tip of his nose.

"Mason!" Centurion Johnson said. "That bitch of yours done cleaned out her room, split, and stole my god-damn Mercedes!"