Truth Be Told

10

“What’s this all about, Mr. Thorley?” The rye bread on Peter Hardesty’s turkey sandwich was turning up at the corners, and by now, four hours after he’d opened the waxed paper, the mayo was risky. He tossed the whole thing into his trash basket, regretting the waste. Thorley, sullen, sat in the visitor chair of Hardesty’s law office, running his tongue over his teeth and staring at the framed diplomas on the wall. The interview was not going well.

“Columbia Law, as you see,” Peter said. “And then the Northeastern prisoners’ rights program. I understand what you might have experienced down at MCI Norfolk. You were inside for-how long? Fifteen years? But you’ve been doing great on parole. So. I admit, I’m confused.”

“Can I go?” Thorley said.

And we’re having a wonderful day. Peter took off his suit jacket, draped it over the back of his chair. Stacks of rubber-banded file folders and red-brown accordion files lined the wall under his curving bay windows. Outside, the Boylston Street side of the Boston Common lawn was transformed into a multicolored expanse of college students, maybe staying for the summer, now tossing Frisbees and skateboarding on the Revolutionary War pathways.

“You can go, sure,” Peter said. “But how about giving me five minutes? All I want to know-what’s going on here, Mr. Thorley? Your sister is confused, upset, as you might imagine. Should we give her a call? Reassure her you’re fine? She seems to have a lot of affection for you.”

Some lawyers didn’t care about the reality, they simply wanted to get their client off. He’d heard them say it to suspects-don’t tell me what happened. I don’t want to know. Peter preferred to work from truth, though clients didn’t always tell it. Innocent or guilty. He’d be a zealous advocate, no matter what.

Thorley fidgeted in the upholstered chair, like he was trying to sit without touching it. “You know the drill. I went to the cops, confessed, bang, that’s it.”

“That’s not it. I have your file, Mr. Thorley.” Pulling teeth. “I can get the Carley Marie Schaefer evidence from the police. I can see if there’s anything to tie the case to you. Trust me here. It’ll be easier if you tell me the truth.”

“It’s already easy. I told them everything.” Thorley cleared his throat, a sandpaper rasp. Patted his empty shirt pocket, maybe imagining cigarettes. “How many times do I have to-this is crap. Why don’t you believe me? Why don’t they? Don’t they want to catch the guy? I’m the guy.”

“They had nothing to hold you, that was why they let you go.”

“I confessed. What the hell else do they need?”

Peter’s phone rang, the bell making Thorley flinch. He let it go to voice mail. “Mr. Thorley? I have all the time in the world. But you? You don’t. How about you tell me what’s really going on?”

“They let him go?” Jake took a deep breath, considering. Paused at a blinking yellow light, just long enough to be legal. Hit the gas. D had just gotten off the phone with Bing Sherrey. “They let him go?”

“Yeah,” D said. “That guy we saw in the interrogation room before they cut the mic? He was a lawyer. ’Parently he convinced Bing there wasn’t enough to hold him.” D shrugged. “I mighta gone the other way.”

“Yeah,” Jake said. “I remember Grampa-I mean, the commissioner-saying ‘it’s got to be someone we haven’t questioned yet, Jake.’ Maybe he was right. He knew this case, start to finish. Wish I could ask him about it.”

Jake hit the remote, waited to see if the often-stubborn cop shop garage door would open this time.

“There’s no DNA test results,” Jake said as they finally drove inside, the door clanking down behind them. He pulled into a space marked HOM SQD. “It was too long ago. Thorley was inside before they pulled samples from every convicted felon like they do now. If there’s even anything to compare his sample to. She wasn’t sexually assaulted.”

“That we know of.”

“True. But that’s all there is, right? What’s in the evidence file?” Jake shook his head as he turned off the ignition. “Wouldn’t that be a helluva thing? If we closed Lilac Sunday, after all this time? Especially now.”

“You think he did it?” DeLuca opened his door.

“Doesn’t matter what I think,” Jake said. “Only matters what’s true.”

Jake punched the button for the ancient elevator. The gears ground into place, the cables whirring.

“You handle the lab,” Jake said. “Okay? See what they make of that two-by-four you found in the closet. Good thing the news conference was over by then, right? I can imagine the headline if-well, we lucked out on that one. And check the bank records. See who owned that house.”

The elevator door slid open. The inside walls were plastered with taped-up handwritten posters for a retirement thing at Doyle’s-someone had magic-markered pointy black devil horns on the short-timer’s face-a pitch for supplemental health insurance, and a union meeting at the post in Southie.

“Never a dull moment,” Jake said.

“You wish,” D said. “One of these days that retirement poster’s gonna be for me. Then you’ll be sorry.”

“No doubt,” Jake said. He pushed 4. Nothing. He pushed again, then jabbed the close button. “I’ll call on Mornay and Weldon. See if they’re missing an agent. I don’t want to e-mail them a crime scene photo-there’s no shot where she doesn’t look dead. It’s after five, so maybe someone hasn’t come back to the office who should have.”

Jake’s cell trilled from his jacket pocket.

“Brogan.” He paused, smiling. “Well, you too, Nate. Here I thought you’d gone all big-shot doctor on me. Not calling back. Or maybe you’re afraid I’ll have a case you can’t-damn it.” Jake looked at his phone. The line was dead. “This freaking elevator.”

He hit REDIAL. Nothing. “I’ll call when we get upstairs.”

“Who is this guy, anyway?” D said. “Nate Frasca?”

The doors opened onto the gray and steel hallway. “Institutional neutral,” Jane always called it. A rank of closed doors. At the end of the hall, an ell of double-tall windows fronted the Homicide squad offices. Jake could smell the coffee.

“Nate Frasca? He’s gonna tell me if Gordon Thorley is Lilac Sunday,” Jake said.