Final judgment

FIFTY-SIX

The world may be round, Mason thought as he drove back to his office, but so were bullets and he felt like he’d just taken a slug between the eyes. There was absolutely no reason to think that Ed Fiori had lost interest in his surreptitious taping system at the same time Mason had shown up asking for an off-the-books favor.

Lila Collins was the link between Ed Fiori and Al Webb; between Mason strong-arming Vanessa Carter to release Blues on bail and the blackmail net that had dropped on both of them.

Timing was everything. Al Webb had given a CD to Lari Prillman to hide in her safe at the same time she was defending him and Rockley in Carol Hill’s lawsuit. Turning the corner from Forty-seventh Street onto Broadway, Mason realized that timing was everything unless the timing didn’t work. Vanessa Carter had been blackmailed after the arbitration had ended but before someone had broken into Lari Prillman’s safe and stolen the CD.

Lari had told him that Al Webb had given her the CD for safekeeping at the outset of the hearing and that she hadn’t taken it out of her safe since then. If she was the only one with the combination, how did the blackmailer get it out of the safe to use it in the phone call with Vanessa Carter, and why would the blackmailer have put it back in the safe?

The most logical answers to those questions were that Lari Prillman had lied to him and that she was involved in the blackmail scheme. Mason wondered whether she hated the prospect of losing the case enough to blackmail the judge. Vanessa Carter had told him that the blackmailer was a man. Lari could have used a device to change her voice. Or, maybe the blackmailer was working for her.

He reconsidered the burglary, remembering how cavalier Lari had been when they arrived at her office and found the door unlocked. She hadn’t hesitated to walk in and would have continued down the hall into the arms of the thief if he hadn’t stopped her. Perhaps she knew there was nothing to be afraid of even when the shooting started, though her post-traumatic stress had seemed genuine.

The thief knew about the CD and that it was kept in the safe. The thief was able to pick the lock on the office door, crack the safe, and shoot in the dark well enough to scare but not kill him and Lari. He made a mental list of likely burglars. There weren’t many who fit that job description.

Al Webb knew about the CD but didn’t strike Mason as having the necessary skill set to pull off the job, although he didn’t have to be a second-story man. Webb had sat next to Lari at the Republican Party dinner the night of the break-in. He’d left early. Lari could have given him the key to her office and the combination to her safe. If she had, she wouldn’t have taken Mason to her office until she was certain Webb was gone. If she’d simply screwed up their timing, Webb could have come up with a more graceful exit strategy than attempted murder.

Vince Bongiovanni knew about Fiori’s tapes and may have known that Lila Collins had kept some of them for her own use, copying them onto CDs as he had. Assuming that Bongiovanni was willing and able to steal the CD, he would have blackmailed the judge to rule for his client, not against her.

Dennis Brewer was the only person Mason could think of who could have pulled off the robbery, especially after Mason and Lari interrupted him. Maybe there was more on the CD than the conversation between Fiori and Mason. Maybe Brewer was being blackmailed as well. Otherwise, Brewer would have just gotten a search warrant. Mason added another item to his to-do list: Check out a connection between Brewer and Fiori.

While he was at it, he’d try to answer a few other questions that kept rolling around inside his head. The FBI had intercepted an e-mail with the picture of Blues outside Rockley’s apartment attached to it. Who had sent the e-mail and who had been the intended recipient? Why did Johnny Keegan have Mason’s name and phone number on him when he was killed? Why did Rockley’s killer choose Fish’s car? What was so important about the outcome of Carol Hill’s case that was worth the risk of blackmailing Judge Carter?

Mason had sought answers to these questions from Detectives Griswold and Cates, Samantha Greer, Kelly Holt, Carol Hill, Mark Hill, Vince Bongiovanni, Al Webb, and Lari Prillman. He’d been stonewalled, lied to, or duped with half-truths and artful omissions. All of which meant one thing. He had yet to talk to the right person, someone he could dupe with half-truths and artful omissions. Lila Collins was his last chance.