Final judgment

FORTY-TWO

Carol had changed into jeans and a long-sleeved gray T-shirt. Her auburn hair was brushed and pulled back behind her ears. She’d applied a thin layer of makeup that dulled but didn’t hide her black eye. Lipstick softened her swollen lip. She had large breasts and full hips. Mason guessed she had been a high school knockout. Twenty years later, she was spreading out. Her shoulders were round and sloped like someone was riding her back. She was shaken and sad but angry enough to threaten to kill the man who’d beaten her and may have also killed her lover.

“If anyone kills Mark, it isn’t going to be you,” Bongiovanni told her. “He’s a moron who will piss the wrong person off sooner or later and your problem will get solved in a hurry. In the meantime, he’s not worth throwing your life away.”

Carol sat on the sofa next to Bongiovanni. “Vince says you think Mark killed Rockley and Johnny.”

“Your husband was jealous of Keegan and mad at Rockley. Men have killed with less reason.”

“How’d you know about Johnny and me?”

It was a question Mason had anticipated since he’d warned Bongiovanni about Mark Hill. He had no believable explanation besides the truth and he needed Carol to trust him if she was going to tell him anything. The trick was to tell her enough without telling her and Bongiovanni too much.

“Your husband told me. I represent a man named Avery Fish. Charles Rockley’s body was found in the trunk of my client’s car. I did some checking on Rockley and found out about your case against him and Galaxy. Since you were represented by an attorney, I couldn’t talk to you without your lawyer’s permission and lawyers usually don’t let their clients say much to other lawyers. I thought I’d have better luck with your husband and I found him at a bar in Fairfax Friday evening.”

“That dump called Easy’s?”

“That’s right.”

“He was all beat up when he came home Friday night. Did you do that?”

Mason shook his head. “It wasn’t me.”

“I wish it was you. At least I could thank you. Do you know who did it so I can thank them?”

“Sorry. I can’t help you,” Mason said, the image of Hill taking a shot to the chin flashing in his mind. “I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

She looked at Bongiovanni, who nodded at her. “Okay. What do you want to know?”

“When did you start seeing Johnny Keegan?”

She blushed, fidgeted with her sleeve, and answered in a quiet voice. “Not long after he started work there. For almost a year. We were always on the same shift. He bought me a drink one night when I was on break. We got to talking, kept talking, and that’s what happened. He was real nice to me. I didn’t care that he was younger than me. It was only a few years, and what difference does it make anyway if people are nice to each other?”

“Did Keegan and Rockley know each other?”

She looked at Bongiovanni again.

“It’s okay, Carol. If he asks you something I don’t want you to answer, I’ll tell you.”

“I saw them talking to each other all the time, but that doesn’t mean they were friends. Johnny was nothing like Rockley. Johnny was sweet and good. He made me laugh. Rockley was dirt. He came on to me because he knew about me and Johnny. He said if I was giving it to Johnny, there wasn’t any reason I shouldn’t give it to him too. So he took it.”

“Did you tell Johnny about Rockley?”

“Sure I did. Johnny was royally pissed. He said he’d take care of Rockley.”

“Is that when you told your cousin Vince about Rockley?”

“Yeah.”

“But you didn’t tell him about Johnny, did you?”

She shook her head. “I knew Mark would go crazy and I didn’t want to get Johnny in any trouble.”

Carol had made the same mistake Fish had made when he decided not to tell Mason there was a body in the trunk of his car. She told her lawyer what she wanted him to know and hoped that what she didn’t want him to know wouldn’t matter. She was too naive to realize that the first thing Charles Rockley would tell Lari Prillman was that Carol was having an affair with another Galaxy employee. Lari was smart enough to keep that card in her back pocket, waiting to play it until it would do the most damage. Her strategy may have worked too well. It may have cost Charles Rockley and Johnny Keegan their lives. Even as he considered the possibility, he still couldn’t come up with a reason for Mark Hill to hide Rockley’s body in Fish’s car.

“Did your husband ever mention Avery Fish’s name?”

“I don’t think so. Not that I remember, anyway.”

“Did your husband buy a time-share for a vacation in Florida?” Mason asked, searching for any possible connection between Mark Hill and Fish.

“That’s real likely. The only vacation he ever took was on a bar stool.”

“What about Keegan? Did he ever talk about getting away, taking a vacation with you to Florida?”

Carol’s eyes grew wet and she wiped them with her sleeve. “He said he wanted me to leave Mark and that he would take me away. He said he was working on something big and he’d have the money so we could start over somewhere else. It was going to be more than a vacation. It was going to be a new life.”

“Did he tell you what his big deal was?”

She sniffled and shook her head. “No. He just said it was okay if I lost my case because he’d have enough money for both of us. He said he was going away. I thought he would take me with him.”

Mason leaned forward. “Carol, this is very important. Did Johnny act like he knew you were going to lose your case?”

Bongiovanni sat up as well, taking a keener interest in Mason’s questions. Carol hesitated, looking at Bongiovanni, then at Mason.

“I don’t know. All he said was it didn’t matter. I thought I was going to lose anyway after everything came out about Johnny and me. I’m sorry,” she said to Bongiovanni. “I know how bad you wanted to get Galaxy and I should have told you about Johnny. I’m sorry.”

Bongiovanni put his arm around her, drawing him to her and comforting her. “That’s okay, honey. The judge hasn’t ruled yet. If we lose, we’ll just get ’em next time.”

Mason said, “One last thing, Carol. Did Johnny ever say that he needed to hire a lawyer?”

Carol pulled herself up, brushing off her T-shirt. “No. Why would he?”

“Because when the police found his body, he had a piece of paper in his hand with my name and phone number on it.”

“And I’m guessing that you’d never heard of Johnny Keegan,” Bongiovanni said to Mason.

“No, but he had obviously heard of me.”

“Sounds like somebody went to a lot of trouble to make sure the two of you never met,” Bongiovanni said.