False Convictions

47

CASEY SWATTED at a stray wasp as the Suburban roiled the dust on the shoulder of the road and disappeared around the bend up ahead.

“Why didn’t you tell her?” Casey asked.

“Tell her what?”

“That Graham was behind that PAC,” Casey said.

“Robert Graham?” Jake said with a grin, his eyebrows disappearing up under the wisps of blond hair. “The Savior from Seattle? He would never be involved in something like that. It’s all just coincidence, I’m sure.”

“Well, if this story doesn’t pan out for you,” Casey said, “I’m sure you’ll be able to get a gig with The Daily Show. Comedy works for you. Shows off your dimples. Go ahead, say it.”

Jake dropped his smile and opened the Cadillac’s door. They both got in.

“Honestly?” Jake said. “I don’t believe anything she says any more than I do Graham. You think because she’s singing the sad mommy song that she’s not capable of fabricating all this shit, too? I don’t trust her as far as I can spit.

“In a way,” Jake continued, starting the engine, “I’m not unlike a lawyer. I hold my cards close and play them when they’ll have the most impact.”

“How about that bull about swapping DNA samples?” Casey asked, climbing in beside him.

“I felt like a matador,” Jake said.

“You’re on a roll.”

“Except it’s something I could see Graham doing,” Jake said.

“Be serious. How?”

Jake shrugged and pulled away from the decrepit house. “Lots of ways.”

“Name one.”

“How about he has his one-legged buddy zip down to Turks and get a semen sample from Nelson Rivers?” Jake said.

“How?” Casey said, wrinkling her brow.

“Do I really have to explain?”

“Ralph? Yes, you do. How does Ralph get a semen sample?” Casey asked, her mouth souring with the thought.

“Even if his cornucopia of talents doesn’t include something like that, he only needs two things: a condom and a hooker,” Jake said. “I happen to know that Graham’s plane flew to the Caribbean the night before the hospital produced the slide.”

Casey narrowed her eyes at the road ahead. “The same night Ralph went missing. Graham gave me a ride that morning.”

“And before that, Ralph stuck to you pretty damn tight,” Jake said, nodding.

“But how could they have switched the slides?” Casey asked.

“I’ve seen ten thousand dollars in a paper bag go a long way with those watchman types,” Jake said. “And with these morons, it could have been a handshake palming a fifty-dollar bill.”

“Could they have done it that fast?” Casey asked, remembering Ralph’s exhausted face.

“Fastest nonmilitary jet in the world,” Jake said, “and I’m quoting from my interview. I love the modesty of a guy in flannel shirts and Timberlands. I bet you he has a loyal dog that loves him.”

“There are still a lot of loose ends in this story,” Casey said, shaking her head.

“So now we close them.”

“We?”

“Well, I do,” Jake said, glancing at her. “You’re welcome to join me. I know you’ve got other worlds to save.”

Casey’s face felt warm at the thought of kissing Graham in the moonlight and nearly going to him in the middle of the night, wanting to go to him, but not going because she thought it could become something special.

“Special, all right,” she said in a mutter. “Goddamn, I can pick ’em.”

“What’d you say?” Jake asked.

“Nothing,” she said. “Except that if what Patricia Rivers says is true, I just turned loose the second psychotic killer in my illustrious career.”

“Can’t we undo it?” Jake asked.

“God, what kind of a shit pile did I kick up with this one?”

“Nothing we can’t tamp back down,” Jake said. “Come on. We’ll get it worked out.”

“How?”

“Find the connection between Graham and the Marcellus Shale Formation,” Jake said. “We pull that thread and his whole flannel shirt comes unraveled.”

“So,” Casey said, “we start with The Nature Conservancy v. Eastern Oil & Gas.”

“Know any good law libraries around this place?” Jake asked, smirking and turning onto the main road and heading into town.

“You know, Marty works for Graham,” Casey said.

“Wouldn’t it be beautiful if that fat money really ended up funding a good cause after all?”

“What’s the good cause?” Casey asked.

“Putting his ass in jail.”