Final judgment

SEVENTY-FIVE

The subconscious mind was the brain’s buried treasure. It was where memories, dreams, and other evanescent flotsam and jetsam lay hidden until synapses short-circuited, allowing a particle of past knowledge to escape and pop into one’s head. Sometimes a song lyric became lodged against an ear, looping over and over. Sometimes it was the starting lineup of the 1963 Dodgers. Sometimes it was a scene from a movie.

As Mason drove away from the bank, he had such a moment, flashing on another scene from Animal House, the one where a member of the fraternity takes a freshman pledge to the grocery, throwing items over his shoulder to the pledge, who tries to keep up, catching as many as he can, until he is finally overwhelmed and slides to the floor in surrender. The frat boy doesn’t care whether the pledge catches a single thing. He just wants to keep the pledge’s hands full.

Mason felt like the pledge when he realized that Kelly was throwing as many things as possible at him so that he couldn’t keep up with her. He was certain that Mickey was telling the truth about the phone call and he was equally sure that Fish hadn’t made the call. The combination was enough to get Mickey arrested and an APB issued for Fish, both of which would tie Mason up long enough that she and Brewer could finish what they’d started-whatever that was.

He focused on the call he knew Fish had made to Sylvia McBride setting everything in motion. Kelly had been there and had heard Fish reminisce about how his late great friend Wayne could mimic Fish’s voice well enough to fool Sylvia. Fooling Mickey, who barely knew Fish, would have been easy. Kelly could have obtained Mickey’s cell phone number simply by flashing her FBI badge and invoking the Patriot Act.

All of which made Kelly and Webb, nee McBride, partners in a bank robbery. Hardly a matter of national security and hardly worth the risk. But there it was. Kelly had set him, along with Fish and Mickey, up to take the fall for the robbery.

Along the way, Rockley, Keegan, and Hill had been murdered and Judge Carter had been blackmailed. As the day wound toward dusk, Mason couldn’t get away from Al Webb as the trigger man. Rockley and Keegan must have turned on him, or given him reason to think they had, and he killed them. Mark Hill must have gotten drunk enough to go after Webb to avenge his wife’s honor and met the same fate. Webb also had to be the blackmailer despite his protest that he had nothing to gain since the other likely candidates were dead and the blackmailer was still pushing Judge Carter’s buttons.

The pieces didn’t fit perfectly together, but criminals were not models of rational behavior. While economists contrive mathematical models to explain what rational people should do, real people persist in their refusal to act as predicted. The models fail because they are stripped of the emotions that drive people to buy high and sell low. Or, in the case of blackmailers and murderers, sell out and kill often.

The rational thing for Mason to do was to get Mickey released and spend a quiet night with Abby. By the time Fish turned up, he’d have a new lawyer in place for him as well. But there was one other thing left on his day’s agenda. He was to meet Al Webb and Lila Collins at the house at Lake Lotawana. He had a feeling they wouldn’t be alone when he called Blues and told him to meet him there.

That evening, as he was on the way to the Lake, Rachel Firestone called him. “What did you do to Vanessa Carter?” she asked.

He knew that she wouldn’t have asked him the question unless she’d already talked to Detective Griswold or to Judge Carter. Griswold wasn’t a talker and Judge Carter wouldn’t have been either except that Mason had told her he was going to give the story to Rachel.

“What did she tell you?”

“An absolutely unbelievable story about you, Blues, and Ed Fiori. She said that you asked Fiori to pressure her into releasing Blues on bail when he was charged with murder; that she didn’t know anything about it and released Blues anyway. She says that Fiori taped his conversation with you and somebody at Galaxy ended up with the tape and is using it to blackmail you to blackmail her to rule in Galaxy’s favor in Carol Hill’s sexual harassment case. Jesus Christ, Lou,” she added, out of breath. “You can’t make that up.”

“She didn’t make it up. It’s true.”

“In case you forgot, I covered Blues’s case. Judge Carter granted bail for Blues, then she quit the bench without saying boo to anybody. When it happened, I asked you why she released Blues and then quit and you said you didn’t know.”

“I lied,” Mason said. “I’m sorry.”

“That’s it? You lied, you’re sorry.”

“I couldn’t tell you then. I was going to tell you today, but I haven’t had a chance.”

“Judge Carter said you told her that you were going to give the story to me. She figured you had already talked to me and wanted to make certain that I knew she hadn’t been blackmailed then or now.”

Mason knew the story would erase any doubts Rachel’s editor had about her loyalty and commitment to the paper. If there was an upside to his predicament, that was it.

“She’s telling the truth. Print the story. I’ve already told the police. The prosecutor is probably preparing an indictment with my name on it.”

Mason parked on the side of a gas station across the street from the Lake Lotawana police department and waited for Blues, who pulled up just before seven, driving his pickup, signaling Mason to follow him. Mason fell in line behind the pickup, trailing Blues onto a service road that disappeared into the woods far away from any houses. Blues got out of the pickup and slid into the passenger side of Mason’s SUV.

“I called you an hour ago,” Mason said. “Where have you been?”

“Peeking in people’s windows. I figured we’re headed into trouble and I like to see it before it sees me.”

“Kelly told me the same thing a few days ago.”

“I thought we might be back after our last trip out here so I looked at some maps. The house Webb is using is on L Street, which T-bones into a long, narrow cul-de-sac. This service road feeds into a bike path that comes out at the opposite end of the cul-de-sac from Webb’s house. Since no one is home at the other houses, it was easy to get close without being seen.”

“What did you find out?”

“Lot of lights on in that house. Webb was there.”

“What about Lila Collins? Dark hair, thin, mid-forties.”

“I saw two women. One of them was older, late fifties, carrying a bag with both hands like it was real heavy.”

“That’s Sylvia McBride. The money she stole from the bank is in that bag.”

“The other woman was younger. Could have been Lila, but I couldn’t see her face too well. Sylvia and Webb had to hold her up like she was sick or drunk.”

“What did they do with her?”

“Last I saw, they took her out on the deck and down a set of stairs and locked her in a storage room underneath the deck.”

“You’ve got to get her out. Webb is expecting me at seven. I’ll keep him occupied.”

“There’s another problem,” Blues said.

“I know. Sylvia. I’ll have to play that by ear. Maybe Webb will keep her out of sight.”

“She’s not the problem. Avery Fish is. He showed up just as I was leaving.”

Mason slammed his hand against the steering wheel. “Damn! Kelly was right. Fish was in on the robbery. He told me that the mark never feels the hook until it’s in too deep. He was talking about me. I let that old man con me. I don’t believe it!”

“How do you want to play this?”

“I’ll knock on the front door. You rescue Lila.”

“You got another plan after I rescue Lila or am I going to have to come back and rescue you too?”

“Might as well. I’d hate for you to feel left out.”