The Last Witness

Chapter Twenty-five

Mason's new theory was that Fiora, the mayor, and Beth Harrell had all killed Jack Cullan, drawing straws to see who would hold him down while one of them shot him. They had such a good time that they played their game again with Shirley Parker. As a theory, it sucked, but it was easier than trying to pick a favorite.

Returning to his car, Mason called his office, curious whether Mickey had ever come back.

"Lou Mason and Associates," Mickey said.

"Associates are young lawyers who are overpaid and underworked. I don't recall hiring any associates. I'm sure I would have remembered," Mason told him.

"Chill out, boss. It's branding, like Coke or Kleenex. Gives the name some flair. Tells people we're going places."

"I catch you playing lawyer, I'll give you some real branding. Understood?"

"No problemo, man. Hey, you got a call from Judge Carter's administrative assistant, reminding you that she wants to see you and Ortiz first thing Monday morning, eight o'clock."

"The judge's assistant wasn't named Margaret, was she?" Mason asked.

"She didn't say. Why, do you think you know her?"

"Only if her name is Margaret. Are you still following Fiora's money trail?"

"Inside and outside, boss. I may have something for you tonight."

Mason stopped at the jail to talk with Blues. The sheriff's deputy who brought Blues into the visiting attorney room pointed his thumb and forefinger at Mason, dropped the hammer on his imaginary gun, and told Mason he was saving a cell for him.

Blues spoke first. "Talk inside is that the cops are looking at you for the Shirley Parker thing."

"They can look all they want. Harry knows I didn't do it."

"Who did?"

"Tony Manzerio is my choice." Mason briefed Blues about Cullan's files, the fire, and Shirley Parker. He told Blues about Donovan Jenkins's contract with Ed Fiora and Jenkins's loan to the mayor. He finished up with his visits to Baker McKenzie and Al Douglas.

"You think the same person killed Cullan and Parker?" Blues asked.

"Makes sense," Mason answered. "If the ballistics tests show that the bullets were shot from the same gun, you'll be out of here with a refund. I'll check with Harry as soon as I can."

Blues nodded silently, got up from his seat, and knocked on the door, signaling the guard that he was ready to return to his cell. He cocked his fist at his side, making imaginary contact with Mason, who returned the gesture.

Mason worried as the door closed behind Blues. Blues's face never betrayed what he was thinking or what he might do. That unpredictability made him particularly dangerous. Even a rattlesnake rattled before it struck.

Blues had been in jail for over three weeks, charged with a murder that could take his own life. Mason had looked for signs that Blues was bending to the grind of incarceration. He had seen none; no tic at the corner of Blues's eyes, no tightening of his mourn, no tremor in his hands. Yet Mason knew that Blues's rage simmered just beneath the surface and that Blues would make someone pay for putting him behind bars. Harry would be Blues's most likely target. Mason worried that getting Blues out of jail might just be the first step down a path that brought him back to the same place.

December's subzero wind chills and snowstorms had given way to a steadily raw January. Each day brought a thin mist or a thicker sleet that whipped and whirled into every body pore and open space. The sun was being held hostage behind a perpetually slate-gray sky that pressed closer to ground with night's early onset. It was the kind of weather that kept heads down and chins tucked against chests. By spring, the entire city would need a chiropractor just to stand up straight.

Mason had parked in a public lot across from the jail. His cell phone rang as he sat down behind the wheel of the Jeep, rubbing his hands against the cold.

"Lou Mason," he said, his breath vaporizing before disappearing.

"I didn't think you would answer." It was Beth Harrell. She sounded slightly breathless, a bit shaky.

"That makes us even. I didn't think you would call."

It was a small lie. Mason had expected that one of Bern 's ex-husbands, or both, would tell her about his visits. She was the kind of woman who kept a hold on a man long after the last kiss. He'd expected her to call or reach out to him some other way, but decided that there was no reason to tell her so.

Mason wondered which ex-husband had called Beth. Baker McKenzie would call to brag about decking him. Al Douglas would call so that he could witness her anguish.

"I'm sorry," she said. "Calling you was an impulse, another bad one, I guess."

Her voice triggered a crotch-centered impulse in Mason that he knew was bad. Beth was a dangerous woman under the best of circumstances, and they were a long way from that relatively stable ground. Still, she managed to reach inside him. "Don't apologize. What's on your mind?"

"I'm practically a prisoner in my apartment. If I go out, the press won't leave me alone. I guess I was just feeling lonely and I couldn't think of anyone else to call." She hesitated, waiting for Mason to reply. He didn't. "Bad idea, huh?" she asked in a low, throaty, bad-girl voice.

"Not the best, but I haven't heard many good ideas lately," he told her. "The last guy you went out with on a Friday night ended up with a bullet in his eye. I don't want to make page one again any time soon."

"Neither do I. Although I don't think we could top your picture in this morning's paper unless we were caught having sex on Main Street."

Mason laughed, disarmed by her earthy humor. "You haven't seen my good side," he told her.

"Show me," she teased. "I'll make us dinner. You can park at the hotel and take the walkway across to my building. No one will see you. You'll be safe."

"Give me an hour," he told her.

Mason had a hard time using the words safe and Beth in the same sentence, but he had to talk to her about the pictures and about the gun.

Mason stopped at home, showered, shaved, fed the dog, and listened to his messages. His aunt Claire had called again, demanding that he call her. He promised the answering machine that he would. He left the lights on so that Tuffy wouldn't spend the evening in the dark, and drove to the Windcrest Hotel on the Plaza.

There were two entrances to the hotel's parking garage, one on the north side along Ward Parkway, and one on the east side on Wornall Road. Bern 's apartment was in a high-rise on the south side of the Windcrest. Mason chose the north entrance to the parking garage to minimize the chance that some reporter staking out Beth's apartment would see him.

It took Mason longer than he expected to find the walkway that connected the hotel and the apartment building, and it was past seven o'clock when he knocked on Beth's door. He heard the sharp clack of heels on hardwood as Beth walked hurriedly to the door, opening it with a sigh mixed equally with relief and anticipation.

Mason stood in the doorway, deciding whether to cross her threshold. Beth waited, one hand on the door, the other on her hip. She was wearing black linen slacks with a blood-red silk shirt, untucked at her waist and unbuttoned at her breasts. A sly smile creased her cheeks. She looked like a woman who'd never known trouble she hadn't asked for and who was ready to ask again.

"Come on in, Lou. I won't bite," she teased him.

"Hardly worth the effort then," he said as he walked past her.

Beth's apartment was compact. The entrance hall opened into a living room with a wall of glass that faced north, looking over the top of the Windcrest Hotel to the Plaza fifteen stories below, its eight square blocks of shops sparkling in a quarter of a million Christmas lights. The walls were papered in cream cloth, the hardwood floors softened with rugs in warm colors with dark borders. The furniture was more traditional than he had expected, the sort of chairs and sofas one inherited rather than bought. The lighting was indirect, casting shadows. Long, tapered candles lit with perfect ovals of yellow flame beckoned from the dining room table. Mellow jazz filled the corners from hidden speakers.

Beth followed behind him as he surveyed before stopping to look down at the Plaza. She nestled against his back and put her hands on his shoulders, drawing his coat halfway off. He turned toward her and she pushed his coat onto the floor, resting her hands on his chest. He held her arms, not trusting his hands. "We're alone, if you were wondering," she said.

"That's what worries me," he told her as he took her by the wrists and dropped her hands at her sides. "Get your coat."

Her face reddened as if he had slapped her. "Why?" she demanded.

"We need to talk, and the chances of keeping our clothes on while we do it are much better outside than inside."

She backed up a few steps, hugging herself. "You are the master of the mixed message," she said. "I'm at the end of my rope and you take advantage of me every time we're together. I can't keep playing these games with you."

"That's good, Beth. That's very good. The best defense is a good offense. Let's stay on task. If I can prove that both you and Blues are innocent, you'll only get one message from me. In the meantime, I don't trust either one of us unless we're standing up with our clothes on and it's too cold to take them off."

"I won't go with you," she said, adopting a pout "You can't make me."

"Would you prefer your own front-page story? I don't have a photograph to go with it yet, but sometimes it's better for the reader to create his own picture. Especially when it's a story of a woman taking nude pictures of herself, then claiming a dead man was blackmailing her with the pictures."

"You wouldn't!" she said, wheeling around, her hands planted defiantly on her hips.

"Without pleasure and with regret, I assure you, but I will do it the moment I walk out of here. Rachel Firestone would love to have the story."

"I saw you with her on New Year's Eve. I don't know what you see in a woman like that! She can't love you!" Tears pooled at the corners of her eyes, spilling down past her nose and tracing a wet line along her lips. "Damn you!" she said as she stood crying, her arms limp, her shoulders heaving.

Mason was stunned at Beth's vehemence. Her world was collapsing around her and he was pushing her right up to the edge. Each time she reached out her hand, he was afraid to take it because he didn't know if he could pull her back or if he would be forced to throw her over.

He wrapped his arms around her and she muffled her cries against his chest. He held her while she slowly gathered herself, wiping his sweater with her sleeve, then her eyes and nose.

"God, I'm a mess," she said.

"Not if you like mascara streaks. I understand that's how KISS got the idea for their makeup."

"Screw you," she said, regaining a measure of playfulness.

He said, "Let's go for a drive instead."

"Okay. Let me change."

Beth chose corduroy jeans, ankle-high boots, and a heavy red woolen sweater. She had washed her face and tied her hair back with a bandanna. Not bothering with more makeup, she was scrubbed clean and fresh, indifferent to the crow's-feet and laugh lines that she'd left uncovered. Relieved of the burdens of tears and seduction, she had a fresh vulnerability that pierced Mason's heart. She pulled on her parka, grabbed her purse, and marched to the door while he remained locked in place.

"Let's go," she said. "I'm not going to spend my whole life waiting for you."

Mason pulled the Jeep out onto Ward Parkway, did a lap under the Plaza lights, and headed south. Neither of them spoke. When they'd left the city limits in the distance and the headlights ahead and behind them dwindled to a few, curiosity overcame her.

"Do we keep going until you run out of gas?" she asked him.

"Not much farther," he promised.

A few minutes later, they pulled into the driveway of a farmhouse. Mason got a swift shot of paranoia until a car that had seemed to be following them continued on past the driveway. He got out of the car and walked to the end of the driveway, looking to his west as the car's taillights disappeared over the next hill.

He got back into the Jeep and drove around the farmhouse, down a rutted path, and into a small clearing in the woods. "Let's go for a walk," he told her.

"Are you nuts? In the dark? In this cold?"

"It's invigorating. The Swedish do it all the time. If we had snow, we'd take our clothes off and roll around in it."

Mason grabbed his flashlight from the glove compartment and got out, followed reluctantly by Beth. He led her through the woods, back toward the farmhouse, quieting her with hand signals whenever she started to ask a question. Mason could make out the shape of the farmhouse when a pair of high-beam headlights bounced off the front windows and splashed back into the front yard. Mason turned off his flashlight and pulled Beth down to the ground.

Mason watched as Tony Manzerio, silhouetted by the headlights, took a quick tour of the grounds. Sound travels farther at night, and in the cold stillness he heard Manzerio invoke ghosts and godfathers in frustration at having lost them.

Mason, and Beth waited in the woods until Manzerio drove away, and another twenty minutes to make certain he wasn't coming back.

"Okay," Mason said. "Let's go." He helped her up and began walking toward the farmhouse.

"Wait a minute," Beth said. "The car is back the other way."

"We're not going to the car. We're spending the night here."

Mason walked to the back door of the farmhouse and knelt at the stoop, where he found a porcelain jug. He twisted the top off the jug and removed a key. He unlocked the door and returned the key to the jug.

"Lou Mason, international man of mystery," Beth said as they stepped inside. "Whose place is this?"

"It belonged to a former partner of mine who was killed when he got in over his head in a money-laundering scheme. He used to invite me out here. He was a nice man, gentle but weak, and it got him killed. I kind of look after the place for his family, who live on the West Coast. They're waiting for suburbia to get here before they sell it."

"And you feel safer spending the night with me in an abandoned farmhouse in the middle of nowhere than in my nice, warm apartment on the Plaza where we can actually order room service from the Windcrest Hotel? Don't tell me what you're taking because I don't want any of it."

"I didn't intend to come here, but it looked like we were being followed. I'm not much good at playing hide-and-seek in traffic, so I tried a little misdirection and it worked. I don't know if Manzerio was following both of us or just one of us. There's no point in finding out by going back to either of our places tonight. No one will bother us here."

"What about keeping our clothes on?"

"Don't worry. There's no heat or electricity," he told her.