Hades

35

Justin let Martin, the chauffeur, out of the trunk. He decided he had the upper hand so, what the hell, he told the driver to take him back to East End Harbor. Martin said he had to ask Mr. Harmon and Justin said it was okay, he thought he could safely speak for Mr. Harmon.

Sitting in the backseat, he opened a crystal decanter and sniffed. Scotch. Nice touch. He poured himself a small glassful, leaned back in the plush leather upholstery, and called Reggie.

"It's right here in front of me," he said. "All I have to do is make sense of one or two things. But I just can't do it. I can't see it."

So she had him go over the whole thing again. Step by step. The murders. The connections. The path of the money. The corporate cheating. Lenny Rube's role. Bruno's role. Hades. The still unsolved meaning of the word "Ali" that Wanda had written. The limo was almost to the East End Harbor town limits and they were still on the phone when he said to Reggie, "I'm going to pick you up. Come over. We're too close to let this go." She hesitated and he said, "It's business, Reggie. You said we had to finish this before we could move on to anything else, so let's finish it. Now."

She agreed and the limo showed up at her motel a few minutes later. When they got back to his house on Division Street, Justin checked to make sure his car was back, saw that it was, then he told Martin he could head back to the city but to make sure that Mr. Harmon was billed for the extra time. They walked into the house, and Justin expected to find Bruno there, but the big man was not around. He and Reggie didn't waste any time. They started in all over again. From the beginning.

Justin sat down on the couch, absentmindedly picked up one of the yearbooks that Vince Ellerbe had given him, and began leafing through it.

"It doesn't make sense," he said. "I don't see the domino effect. If Evan Harmon was murdered, why does that mean Ron LaSalle had to be next? And why Wanda? And why weren't they just killed? Why were they tortured? What information did they have that someone wanted? That Lincoln Berdon wanted?"

"You're sure it's Berdon?" Reggie asked.

"It's the only thing that makes sense. He's the link to Togo and the Chinese woman…"

"Who we're searching for, by the way. We've got a bureau-wide alert out for her."

"… and he's the only one who's connected to everyone else: LaSalle, St. John, H. R., now even Silverbush. But why? Why would he want Evan Harmon dead? He doesn't benefit by Harmon's death. He only benefits if Harmon lives and he gets to buy what Harmon's selling. He needs what Evan Harmon has-so why would he want him dead? Why would-" He stopped talking. He bit off the rest of his sentence and stared at the yearbook page in front of him.

"What is it?" Reggie asked.

"Oh my god," Justin said. "Oh-my-god."

She knew enough not to say anything. She didn't ask a question, she just waited.

He didn't say anything either, not immediately. He couldn't say anything, too many images were flashing through his mind. Too many pictures, too many bits and pieces of conversations. It was as if the pieces of the puzzle were raining down upon him.

And suddenly those pieces were forming themselves into a whole:

Vince Ellerbe talking about Evan Harmon: "His friends were mostly sycophants. He usually found one or two brainiacs who were frightened of him and that's who he spent time with… He liked the cheating better. He was just basically dishonest… He could always get people in authority to look the other way, to break the rules just for him… At heart, Evan Harmon was a crook. He liked to steal and he liked to lie. He just liked it."

The talk he had with Reggie after they saw Dave Kelley.

"… The tip wasn't just that Kelley was having an affair with Abby Harmon. It said he owned a stun gun."

"So somebody had to know how Evan was killed."

"It does seem kind of strange, doesn't it? Kind of…"

"Orchestrated."

"Yes. Orchestrated."

Ellis St. John's calendar.

EH/EEH (see directions/adbk)

Reggie saying, "This guy Ellis was spending the weekend with Evan Harmon?"

Him saying back to her: "Seems like. But I'm telling you, it doesn't make sense."

The phone conversation with Abby Harmon.

"How'd you know I was working with the FBI?"

"I don't know, Jay. Someone told me… I'm sorry, Jay."

Him thinking: What the hell had she done? What was she apologizing for?

Lenny Rube, in his den in Providence. "We used to deal with unions. With business, small businesses. Now we deal with Wall Street, with investors, lobbyists."

Dave Kelley, talking in the Riverhead jail about the Harmon security system.

Him asking Kelley: "Who had laptop access?"

"Evan. On the laptop he used to travel with."

"Abby?"

Kelly nodding, saying: "But I don't think she really knew how to use it. She didn't have much interest in it."

Wanda. The horrible image of the words she'd managed to scrawl on her naked body, words written in her own blood: The last word tailing off. The final thought she'd ever have. The last two letters barely legible as her life was ending.

"Ali."

And now the yearbook in front of him. Evan Harmon's last year at Melman Prep. Photos of his classmates. Photos of one particular classmate. One classmate who'd conveniently not mentioned that he'd been a classmate.

Quentin Quintel. Now the dean of Melman.

Lincoln Berdon's town house.

Justin saying, "What the hell is it that you two crazy old bastards know that I don't know?"

Lincoln Berdon saying, "The truth."

And back to the crime scene. Back to the Harmon bedroom. Justin standing over the body.

The body that was beaten to a pulp, beyond recognition. Blood everywhere. Pools and splashes of red.

The wedding ring… the favorite sweater… the shoes.

He remembered looking into Ellis St. John's closet. And the image that refused to materialize. Now he knew what that image was.

The shoes that were shiny and new looking. The shoes on the battered body that didn't have a drop of blood on them.

And listening to Bruno when the Mafia hit man was sitting on his couch: "Like I said. I woulda killed the little prick. But somebody beat me to it."

And then again Wanda's body. The word she'd managed to write. The word Justin now knew she wasn't able to finish writing.

"Ali."

Justin looked up at Reggie Bokkenheuser. He still didn't say anything. Went to his phone, dialed the number of the Southampton Hospital, got the morgue attendant. Justin identified himself, told him it was an emergency, said he needed access to the morgue files immediately. The orderly put him on hold for a minute; someone else got on the phone, asked Justin what he needed.

"Evan Harmon," Justin said. "I want to know his shoe size."

"That's it?" the guy in the morgue said. "That's the emergency?" And when Justin didn't bother to answer, the guy said, "Nine and a half."

And Justin still didn't say a word to Reggie. He just dialed another number, this time got the Riverhead police. This one took a bit longer but eventually he got the evidence room and he told the sergeant on duty what he wanted, the information he had to have immediately. It took a few minutes but Justin waited, and then the sergeant came back and said, "I've heard you're kind of screwy and I think this proves it. But your corpse was wearing a ten-and-a-half shoe."

Justin thanked him and hung up. He turned to Reggie Bokkenheuser and said, "It makes sense now. Everything that didn't make sense before makes perfect sense now."

He grabbed a pad of paper and a pen. And he wrote down Wanda's last word: "Ali."

"I still don't get it," Reggie said.

He said, very softly, "She didn't finish. She didn't finish writing."

And so he finished for her now. He wrote down the first three letters: A… L… I…

And then he wrote the last two. V… E.

Alive.

Reggie Bokkenheuser's eyes opened wide.

"Evan did it before, when he was a kid," Justin said. "He staged his own kidnapping. Now he just upped the stakes. He staged his own death."