Deadlocked

Chapter 20

Mason added Blues to the list of people he woke up in the middle of the night. Only Blues wasn't asleep. He answered on the third ring, an Oscar Peterson CD playing in the background and a woman saying, "C'mon on, baby."

"Mary Kowalczyk is missing," Mason told him.

"She's not over here," Blues said.

Mason one-upped Blues with his own punch line. "Nick Byrnes went after Whitney King with a gun he stole from his grandfather. King shot him. Nick's going to live, but there's a good chance he'll be paralyzed."

"Why you bothering me up with all the good news?" Blues asked.

"Samantha Greer wants to talk to you about what Nick said when you dropped in on us yesterday. She thinks you'll tell her that Nick threatened to kill King. The prosecutor is going to give King the self-defense merit badge, charge Nick with a couple of felonies, and send him to the crippled kid's prison for rehab. That conversation isn't privileged unless you're working for me. I just thought you'd like to know."

"I hear you," Blues said, hanging up.

Mason hoped Blues would get off the sidelines. He knew Blues believed that Ryan Kowalczyk was guilty. Any regrets Blues may have had about Kowalczyk's execution focused on doubts about the system, not about Kowalczyk. Mason counted on Mary's disappearance to change Blues's calculus.

Blues had warned Mason about putting Nick in harm's way. Mason hoped Blues would realize he'd given the boy a shove of his own. He knew that Blues wouldn't make any concession speeches or humble apologies. He'd just show up.

Mason caught a few hours' sleep when he got home, stopped at the office to see if it was still there, and tried Mary's house again. It was still empty, the morning paper on the driveway. Mason took it inside, letting himself out the back. He walked the block, knocking on neighbors' doors, asking if anyone had seen Mary.

One man said he saw her leave the house around nine o'clock the morning before, watching her from his garage. He lived across the street and two houses closer to the corner, the route Mary would have taken to the bus stop. She was carrying a purse, the man said, nothing more. The man invited Mason in. Mason gagged on the odor of expired kitty litter; half a dozen cats lounged on the furniture, fur balls rolling across the floor like mini-tumbleweeds. The man didn't notice, giving Mason a yellow-toothed grin, glad for the company.

Mason called the bus company and worked his way through a bureaucratic minefield, finally reaching someone who claimed to know the names of the bus drivers and their routes.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Mason," the woman said. "We don't give out that information."

Mason hated bureaucrats almost as much as he hated having a tooth pulled slowly. He struggled with people who were trained to say no with more conviction than a captured spy reciting name, rank, and serial number.

"Tell me your name," Mason said.

"Why is that important?" she asked.

"Because I'm a lawyer investigating my client's disappearance and I want to spell your name correctly on the subpoena when I sue the bus company for obstructing my investigation and putting my client's life in danger."

"You don't scare me," the woman said.

"Good for you. I'll tell you what," Mason said, not up for the battle. "You can keep your name a secret. Just give me the bus driver's name. He might have been the last person to see my client alive and that scares me."

The woman hesitated, measuring her victory in how long she made Mason wait. "Gaylon Dickensheets," she said, breaking her convent vow of silence.

"Is that you or the driver?" Mason asked, pushing his luck.

"Stick to scary. Funny doesn't work for you. He gets off at four. Game over," the woman said.

Mason returned to the hospital early in the afternoon, feeling slightly hung over, a throbbing at the base of his skull and a buzz in his ears from lack of sleep. A crowd had gathered outside the hospital, a ring of television and radio news minivans hugging the perimeter. The shooting had made the local news. Each station carried footage of Whitney King leaving the police station accompanied by Sandra Connelly who kept repeating that King had no comment. Mason had expected the press to show up at the hospital, but he didn't expect the crowd.

Walking toward the entrance from the parking lot, he realized the crowd wasn't there because of the shooting. They worked at the hospital, many of them wearing surgical greens, nurse's uniforms, and white coats. They were milling around waiting for something to happen, reporters sharing in their impatience, the afternoon heat making them restless.

A caravan of sedans pulled up as Mason reached the curb, all heads turning to the cars. U.S. Senate candidate Josh Seeley popped out of the lead car, working the crowd as if he had four hands, shaking and back-slapping his way to a lectern decked in Stars and Stripes bunting near the entrance. Mason had a brief view as the crowd parted for the candidate. The doctors and nurses greeted Seeley with the sedated enthusiasm reserved for someone they knew would promise to respect them in the morning even if he wouldn't call again until the next election.

Abby and Mickey poured out of the second car. Abby reached the lectern seconds before Seeley, tap-testing the microphone, ducking out of view as the candidate raised his hands to quiet the crowd. Mickey stood off to the far side, counting votes, Mason guessed.

Mason held his ground, separated from Abby by the street that passed between the hospital and the parking lot, watching as she scanned the crowd, waiting for her head-tohead search to find him. She seemed to hold her breath when she saw him, brushing invisible lint off her suit before regaining her composure, making her way to his side of the street.

Mason watched her-smiling at everyone, her chin up, her eyes radiating confidence, her dark hair swept back- feeling the same jolt he had the first time he saw her. And the second time and every time since. She owned him. When she left town without telling him, it was like she had opened his chest again. He was running on fumes, one client down, another missing. Knowing she was back, but not for him, left him raw.

"I was going to call," she said, standing close enough for Mason that he could smell her perfume and hair, scents that hurt.

"When," he asked, "after the primary or the general election?"

Abby crossed her arms, the muscles in her neck tightening. "Don't turn this around. This is about you, not me. I can't live my life with someone who keeps painting a target on his back."

"What about Mickey?" he asked. "Did you tell him you got him the job with Seeley to punish me or to protect him from me?"

"You don't need to be punished," she said. "But the people who care about you need protecting."

Mason had no answer. He'd made and broken his promise to Abby, and wouldn't make it again. The scarf around Abby's neck was reminder enough that he couldn't keep it. Standing next to her, he felt like he was drowning. She was a lifeline just beyond his reach. Fragments of Josh Seeley's speech drifted back to them. Something about limits on malpractice lawsuits, the audience finally clapping like they meant it.

Abby broke their silence. "I don't want you following me around like this."

"I'm not following you," he said. "I didn't know you were going to be here."

"Then why are you here?" she asked, suddenly anxious, her eyes wide. "Is it Claire? Is it Harry? Are they all right?"

"They're fine," he told her, taking a deep breath, knowing she would find out anyway. "My client, Nick Byrnes, is here. Whitney King shot him. The police are calling it self-defense."

Abby swallowed hard, her mouth a silent cry, her eyes filling. "And what do you call it? Diving in the dark water or self-destruction?"

She left him on the curb. Mason watched her wade into the crowd, joining in their cheers, taking her place behind Seeley, Mickey at her side. Mickey looked across the crowd, finding him and lighting up when Mason gave him a salute. Abby tugged at Mickey's sleeve, forcing him back to their business. Together, they ushered the candidate into his car, directing the troops to their next destination, gone again.

Mason found Esther Byrnes in the food court on the lower level of the hospital, the first floor rotunda giving him a view below. She was by herself, a tray of uneaten food in front of her. She was wearing the same blue slacks and pale green blouse she'd had on the night before. Trying to gauge her mood, Mason watched her for a moment before going downstairs.

"Mrs. Byrnes," he began when he reached her table. "I'm Lou Mason, Nick's lawyer."

She looked up at him, her face a clouded patchwork of wrinkles and sorrow, his name registering in the deepening downturn of her mouth. "Nothing's changed," she said. "They've got him sedated so he doesn't move around. Otherwise the bullet might press more against his spinal cord."

She gave him the news with flat, rote precision, looking away as if that should be enough to satisfy him and leave her alone. Mason forced a weak smile and pulled out a chair.

"You know, Nick's a strong kid. He'll pull through just fine," Mason said, her blank stare saying she knew no such thing. "Is your husband with him?"

She shook her head. "He went home. He can't take it. He couldn't take it when Graham and Elizabeth were…when they died," she said, choosing the easier explanation. "It's different for a mother, I think. We're used to the pain our children bring us. It starts when they're born and keeps on hurting with every scraped knee and broken heart. Fathers, I just don't know. Martin is like a lot of men. They're so full of their feelings they don't know what to do with them, so they just get all balled up and mad all the time."

"I've seen pictures of your son. Nick looks just like him," Mason said.

She nodded this time. "I don't know what to make of that," she said. "It's a bitter comfort, I suppose."

"I know you didn't want Nick to hire me, Mrs. Byrnes," Mason said. "But Nick wants Whitney King to be held accountable for what he did. That's really important to him and I think he's right to want to do that."

Esther looked at him, studying him as if she was only just then aware of his presence. "My son and daughter-in-law are dead, Mr. Mason. For no reason other than Whitney King decided to kill them. Now he's ruined Nick, maybe left him worse than dead. There's no way to hold him accountable for that. It's a debt that can't be paid."

Mason asked her, "What about Ryan Kowalczyk? Wasn't he guilty too?"

Esther shook her head, a rueful smile easing the burden on her face for a moment. "I never believed that. Never did," she said, clasping her hands together, her arms stretched out in front of her.

Mason pulled his chair closer to the table, leaning toward her. "Why not?"

"Ryan was a lost boy. You could see it in his eyes. He was sweet, tender. Good to his mother. I could tell, watching them in the courtroom. He could never have hurt my children."

Mason sat back, disappointed but not surprised that Esther had no proof of Ryan's innocence, just a grandmother's intuition. "What about Whitney King?"

Her face darkened. "He has the devil's cruelty," she answered. "And an ugliness about him that I've never seen. He killed my children because he could, no more than swatting a fly. I truly believe that, Mr. Mason. All through the trial, he acted like it was a lark, a high school field trip to the courthouse, like he knew he was going to get off. Sometimes he'd look at me, his eyes so black it made me cold."

"Then why didn't you and your husband sue him? It's easier to win a civil suit for wrongful death than it is to get a murder conviction."

Esther stood, putting distance between her and Mason's suggestion, waving one hand in front of him, the other shielding her heart. "No, no it isn't. Not with that one. You see what he's done. He's taken enough from us. That boy is a killer."