Hades

36

Justin didn't know how he knew, but it was suddenly as clear to him as it could possibly be. Maybe it was the photo he'd seen on the Net, the one of Evan Harmon playing in the celebrity softball game. Wherever the inspiration came from, he knew what the murder weapon was and he also knew where it was. He got Reggie to arrange for someone to dive into the Harmons' man-made pond. Somewhere in there was a baseball bat. A bat that would have traces of blood on it. Ellis St. John's blood. And fingerprints. Evan Harmon's fingerprints. Salt water would have erased the evidence, but the pond was freshwater. Freshwater would not erase the evidence. Justin didn't even bother to wait around. He didn't need to. He knew.

He asked Reggie to stay in East End Harbor. He wanted her to make sure arrest warrants were prepared for Lincoln Berdon and H. R. Harmon. He also wanted her to figure out if they had enough to arrest Larry Silverbush. Silverbush might have been led down the garden path by Berdon, but there was also a reasonable chance he knew he was preparing the prosecution of the wrong man. He told Reggie that he could handle what was still left to be done by himself. But he needed her to put everything in motion. He said he couldn't trust anyone else. She didn't react to the word "trust," but he knew she had to understand the deeper meaning.

As Justin drove to Connecticut, he ran over the facts and the chronology. There were no doubts in his mind now. He didn't know what could be proved, but it didn't really matter to him. This wasn't about perception. This was about one truth. One absolute, undeniable truth.

Evan Harmon was cheating the mob and, at the same time, cheating Lincoln Berdon and his own father. He could have kept the game going, at least for a little while longer, except an accident ruined his plans. When the truck crashed on the way to Texas with Evan's shipment of platinum, he was screwed. As soon as the contents of the truck made the news, Lenny Rube and Bruno were going to know what Evan was doing. And Evan knew who he was dealing with. He knew what their reaction would be. He knew they would come and get him. So he found someone who not only looked like himself-same color hair, same basic build, same type-but was in love with him. Someone who would do whatever he wanted. So Evan arranged for Ellis St. John to come to the house. Ellis must have come willingly and joyfully, thinking he was finally going to spend the weekend with his fantasy lover. The joy would have been short-lived, though, because Evan killed him. Battered him so his face was little more than pulp. Physically unrecognizable. But wearing Evan's clothes-down to the shoes, which were put on after the murder-and equipped with Evan's wallet and credit cards and Evan's wedding ring.

And Evan was ready to disappear.

Evan knew that Abby would be out that night. Probably even knew she'd be spending Justin's birthday with him. It was perfect-the housekeeper and her husband were given the night off, and Evan's wife would be well taken care of, guaranteeing an empty house. And if the fact that she was spending the night with her lover happened to cast some suspicion on either of them, the better it was. And if suspicion fell on the missing Ellis St. John, that would be fine, too. Especially once Ellis's body had been identified as Evan and disposed of.

But Evan already had someone on whom he could cast full suspicion. He knew about his wife's affair with the contractor. And he'd seen David Kelley's stun gun-the perfect thing to point the finger at Kelley. Justin didn't know how Evan managed to get the gun out of or back into Kelley's house, but it wouldn't have been too difficult. He probably could have planted it there himself right after the murder. All he needed was to set the finger-pointing in motion. Justin didn't know for sure who Larry Silverbush's source was, but he'd bet big-time that it was Evan's father. There were calls to H. R. Harmon's phone from Ellis St. John's cell phone-after St. John was dead-and they already had gotten back the report that a call was made from Martin the chauffeur's phone to a cell phone that Justin knew would soon link directly to Evan-Quentin Quintel's cell. It would not be hard to pay someone to say that Kelley had talked about killing Evan. It would not be hard for Harmon or Berdon to pay anyone to say or do anything.

The problems came fast and furiously for Evan once he'd disappeared. Silverbush called Lincoln Berdon and reported the murder. Berdon must have suspected something, because he immediately sent his two Chinese killers up to interrogate Ronald LaSalle. He knew that LaSalle was doing a tremendous amount of business with Evan-Berdon had to have access to the Ascension records. He'd become suspicious of Evan's illegal activities and was already looking for ways to solve the problem.

Justin wasn't positive what Berdon was looking for from Ron LaSalle, but he had a decent idea. He wanted one of two things: he wanted to know if Evan was alive or he wanted to know how to get his hands on the platinum that Evan had hoarded. Berdon had to keep supplying China with platinum, or he might lose his most valuable client. China was probably worth billions of dollars to Berdon over the long haul. Justin knew that billions of dollars were usually a perfectly good justification for murder.

If Justin had to guess, he decided that LaSalle knew that Evan was still alive. That he'd faked his murder. He remembered what Vince Ellerbe had said: that Evan had to tell someone when he cheated, otherwise the cheating didn't count. LaSalle was one of the few people Evan could tell. He'd need to tell LaSalle because LaSalle could continue a lot of Evan's business dealings while he was in hiding.

This also solved one other thing that had been puzzling Justin: Where was Ron LaSalle going that early morning when he'd slipped out of his house and gotten himself killed? Justin thought he had the answer. He had told Reggie that Wanda liked to work with an inside plant. He was pretty certain that LaSalle was Wanda's source. He was an honest guy who had tried to do the right thing. When he began to be pressured by Lenny Rube and Bruno, the right thing would have been to go to the FBI. Wanda had to have realized that LaSalle would be a brilliantly effective source. And LaSalle was just honest enough to go along with that. It's how Wanda knew to bug Bruno. It's how she knew so much about Lenny Rube's dealings. It's how she would have put various bits of information together to figure out what Bruno had done to the ship Hades. And what Evan Harmon was doing with his illegal trading. What she wouldn't have known-and what LaSalle wouldn't have known-was just how involved Berdon and H. R. Harmon were in Evan's scheme. If they had been involved, Wanda knew she'd need a lot of absolutely secure information to bring them down. She'd also have known not to play her hand too soon with her superiors. Berdon and Harmon could go high up in the administration; they could pull a lot of favors. Wanda had to keep this to herself at the beginning or her investigation would have gotten squashed flat. So she would have kept playing her best card-her inside source. Ron LaSalle had gotten murdered because he was slipping away to meet Wanda. Justin was positive about that. He'd gotten killed while he was trying to do the right thing.

The odds were that Ron LaSalle talked before he died, told his torturers that Evan Harmon was still alive. That meant that Berdon knew almost from the beginning. And once he knew that, he also knew he had two chances to get his hands on Evan's platinum dealings and car-related companies. He could find Evan and make a deal or he could find Evan and kill Evan-and make a deal with his widow, who would inherit all Evan's property.

Money and power.

And thus Abby's conversion to the dark side.

The rest was just a footrace: Berdon trying to find Evan, Bruno trying to find whoever had what the mob considered to be rightfully theirs, Justin trying to figure out what the hell was going on.

He wondered what H. R.'s role in all this had been. The old man knew that Evan was alive. The phone records proved there were several conversations. Was the father trying to protect his son? Or was he working with Lincoln Berdon to gain control of the son's assets? Or both? Justin had a feeling he'd never know the answer to that one. But he knew which way he'd bet. He did not think that H. R. Harmon had much paternal love in him. The old man seemed fed up with his son as far back as prep school. He'd go for the money. He'd feel bad about it-maybe have to skip a few rounds of golf he'd feel so bad-but he'd go for the money. He'd have the veneer of respectability but underneath was the dirt he'd never been able to completely hide.

Justin was almost to his destination now.

He parked about a block away from the small house in the country. There was a long driveway, a fairly steep climb that led to what was basically a charming cabin in the woods. Sitting in front of the house were two cars. One was the rental car that Ellis St. John had used to drive to East End Harbor and to his death.

By the time Justin walked past the car and got to the house, he was out of breath.

Definitely back to the gym, he decided.

He decided to try the door without knocking. It was open, so he stepped inside. As he did, he pulled his gun.

Quentin Quintel was cooking in the open kitchen. His back was to the front door, but he must have sensed Justin's presence because he put his mixing bowl down and turned slowly. He looked shocked to see Justin, then the surprise seemed to fade quickly, replaced by a look of resignation and, Justin felt, the tiniest bit of relief. Justin waved his gun, just to make sure that Quintel saw it, and he put his fingers to his lips. The dean's eyes shifted ever so slightly toward the stairway. Justin nodded and headed up the stairs.

Evan Harmon was in one of the two upstairs bedrooms.

He was lying on a single bed, not sleeping, just staring up at the ceiling, his hands clasped behind his head. Justin stepped into the room, his gun in his hand. Evan did not look shocked to see Justin. He did not look resigned or relieved, either. He just smiled and shrugged, as if a long game of chess had come to an end.

"I was wondering who'd figure it out," Evan said. "I have to admit, I didn't think it'd be you."

"I guess you were wrong about a few things," Justin said.

Evan stood up from the bed and he let Justin handcuff him without a struggle. Justin led him down the stairs and out the front door. As they walked down the driveway, Evan leading the way, Justin saw that there was an almost buoyant spring to the man's step.

He's not unhappy, Justin thought. Now everyone will know what he did. Everyone will know the scam he almost pulled off. He's happy to be caught.

And that's when he heard the noise. From the woods to the right of the driveway. A twig snapping, maybe. A footstep.

Justin turned. Saw a shadow, a massive shadow, but that's all he saw. The blow came quick and hard and Justin went down to his knees. The second blow caught him behind his left ear and things went fuzzy. He wasn't out completely, wasn't out for long. Maybe a few minutes. But his world was a blur for those minutes. While he was down, he heard a pop, quieter than the snapping twig, but closer. He couldn't get his eyes open to see what was happening. And by the time he was able to clear his head, to stagger up to his hands and knees despite the brutal pain radiating behind his eyes and at the top of his skull, it was too late.

Justin sighed and quietly said, "Oh shit," when he saw that Evan Harmon was lying on the driveway right next to him, a small hole in the back of his head, blood still pouring out of the wound.

Justin managed to turn his head but there was no sign of anyone else around. There were footprints in the dirt next to the gravel of the driveway. A man's footprints. Justin saw that the prints were embedded into the dirt and crushed twigs. The man was not petite. He was large and heavy.

Justin closed his eyes, but that was a mistake because he was overcome with dizziness, so he opened them, forced himself to forget about the nausea and the pain, and he picked up Evan Harmon's dead body, carried it down the driveway to the car, put it in the backseat, and drove back to East End Harbor.