Truth Be Told

18

“You’ll need to tell me the truth, that’s all there is to it.” Peter Hardesty tried to decide whether he was visiting the cramped and faintly mildewy studio apartment of a murderer or a liar.

The liar part he could handle, but first he’d have to get Gordon Thorley to reveal why he was fabricating a confession. What would cause someone to playact like that? Maybe his client was a headline seeker, needed the spotlight, craved the attention. Peter had seen a few of those types in his legal career. Maybe Thorley was a nut. Peter had seen even more of those.

The murderer part he could also handle, if it eventually turned out law enforcement could provide sufficient evidence Gordon Thorley was at the Arboretum on that Lilac Sunday nineteen years ago. Even if Thorley’s sister’s financing ran out, he could probably get appointed to the case and make sure the guy received a zealous defense.

Innocent, guilty, or crazy. Peter simply had to discover which legal path to pursue.

But right now, Gordon Thorley seemed most interested in the large-no-sugar that Peter had provided. A slug of caffeine was occasionally enough to get guys like this to talk. Not Thorley. Not today.

“Sir?” Peter tried again.

“Like I said.” Thorley hunched over a plastic-topped kitchen table, his white T-shirt barely touching the curved metal back of the lone chair. Peter imagined he’d be able to see the man’s bony spine through the shirt’s thin cotton.

Peter stood at the entryway to the kitchen area, since Thorley’s chair was the only place to sit other than a sorry-looking couch in this… rooming house, they used to call them. Probably a more politically correct name now. Kinder words wouldn’t erase the smoke-stained paint, the discolored patches on the threadbare carpeting, the matchbook shoved under one metal leg of the kitchen table.

Loser, Peter thought, then corrected himself. Client. Innocent till proven guilty.

“Like you said-what?” Peter had not been offered a seat on the couch, not necessarily a bad thing, so he waited, arms crossed, briefcase open on the floor, standing between the front door and the back window, pretending he was comfortable. Two steps would take him to Thorley. There was not enough air for the both of them. Peter had seen worse. He had to get his guy to talk, or this was going nowhere.

“Forget it,” Thorley said.

What bugged the hell out of him, it appeared there was more to Thorley than semi-squalor. Along one wall, in black frames and matted in white, a single line of photographs stretched from one corner to the other. Aligned precisely, not one corner tipping higher than any another. Each black-and-white was similar to the next, but different. Branches. Bare tree branches, some unmistakably ancient, gnarled and battered. Others delicately young, thin, fragile. No leaves, no buds, no flowers, only stark slashes of black, backlit against a cloudless sky.

“You take those?” Might as well try to understand the guy. Murderer? Or liar?

“What of it?”

“They’re good. You’re talented.” Peter had a thought. Not a good one. “Where’d you shoot them?” The Arboretum?

“Around,” Thorley said.

“The Arboretum?” He had to ask.

“Maybe.” Thorley flickered him a look. Then stared again at the table.

So much for conversation.

Peter pulled an accordion folder from his bag. This folder was still thin, not yet filled with the research and documentation he’d gather as the case went forward. If it went forward. Peter was used to recalcitrant clients, to combative clients, to those who didn’t understand he was the only thing that stood between them and a justice system that would as soon keep them in the slammer forever, tax dollars and the Constitution and actual guilt be damned. Had to admit, though, he wasn’t used to having them confess to cold-case murders. That made this interesting. Unusual.

“Like I said.” Thorley took another sip of coffee, then coughed, one miserable hack, clapping a wiry hand to his chest. His once-white T-shirt, ribbing around the arms and neck spent and shapeless, said BARDON’S GYM in fading orange lettering. That place had closed ten years ago, Peter knew, maybe longer. “I did it.”

“Did what?” Peter flipped though the folder, finding the pale blue onionskin he needed. “According to your parole records here, you have no priors before your armed robbery conviction in 1995. And after you got out in 2010-your second try at parole-you stayed clean. What’s the deal now with this sudden confession?”

Thorley drained the last from his paper cup, crumpled it, tossed it in the aluminum sink. He licked his lips, patted his chest, then his jeans pockets.

“You got any-?” he asked.

“Sorry,” Peter said. “Gave it up.” He felt his phone vibrate in his pocket, the alarm set to remind him of his meeting with Jane Ryland. For which he was now verging on late. Time was also running out, he predicted, for Elliot Sandoval. “Look. Thorley. Your sister called me. I’m here to help. You need to let me help you.”

“Carley and me, we met at high school,” Thorley said. He looked over Peter’s shoulder, so intently Peter turned to see if someone was there.

“We-had a thing,” Thorley went on. “We kept it secret. I was older. She lived with her parents, out in Attleboro. Then she tried to break it off. I didn’t want that. We went to our special place in the…”

“What was she wearing?” Peter interrupted. He’d already heard Thorley tell the “special place” part. They needed to get this show on the road.

“When?” Thorley said.

“When you killed her.”

“A dress. With flowers.”

“Remarkable.” Peter riffled though the sparse paperwork, found the ragged photocopy of the Register article he’d been looking for. “That’s exactly what the newspaper reported.”

“’Cause it’s true, I guess.”

“You ever kill anyone else?”

“Nope.

“Just Carley Marie Schaefer.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Huh?”

“Why? Why’d you kill her?”

Thorley looked at the kitchen sink, as if fearing he’d thrown away the coffee too soon. He splayed his narrow fingers across the yellowed Formica table, stared down at them. Stretched one hand, then the other.

“Why?” he asked. “Why not?”

“Her jacket is here, Mr. Gianelli, so she must be here.”

Aaron hated Stephanie’s voice. Almost as much as he hated what she was telling him. The secretary sat behind her damn little desk, wearing that damn little headset, and didn’t seem at all concerned that Lizzie, her boss, wasn’t in her office. Even at eleven in the morning, way past the time she should be here. As for the jacket, Aaron knew what Stephanie clearly didn’t. Lizzie had left that jacket on her chair last night, not this morning. Last night, when Aaron had lured her to the swan boats, and then to that expensive dinner, and then to the second floor of the Hardamore Road house.

The office door behind Stephanie was wide open, showing Lizzie’s vacant desk. And that meaningless jacket over the back of her black leather chair.

Ridiculous that their “date,” or whatever, ended so absurdly. Him slamming the door as he stormed out. He’d tossed his whole ring of keys at her, so frustrated, even kind of told her to lock up and find her own way home. It was a bush-league beer-fueled mistake, but she’d made him so damn angry, laughing at him, first about the sheets, and then about, seemed like, every freaking thing he said, that he’d pretty much lost it. Now, before the whole thing blew up in his face, he had to get those keys back. Keep Lizzie happy. And make sure he hadn’t created a career-ending mess.

“Is she in a meeting?” That would be a reasonable explanation. “Can you check her calendar?”

Stephanie yanked open a drawer, but pulled out a packet of sugar instead of a calendar, dumped it into her mug of coffee, stirred it with a little stick.

“Oh, sorry, we don’t do the calendar thing yet. She’s new. We’re supposed to work that out this week.”

This girl was Lizzie’s secretary, she ought to know where Lizzie was. If she didn’t, she should be smart enough to wonder.

“Did she call you? Tell you she was gonna be late?” Aaron yanked at his tie to keep it from strangling him, tried to “eavesread” the paperwork on Stephanie’s desk to find any clues to Lizzie’s whereabouts. He’d put off the meeting with his client, but if he stalled much more, that deal’d fall through.

“Nope.” Stephanie took an agonizingly slow sip. “She might be at the doctor, and forgot to tell me. Or she might be upstairs. I was a little late myself.”

Upstairs? Shit. Exactly what Aaron feared most.

Had Lizzie told anyone about last night? Did anyone know they were together? She probably hadn’t, since it could be equally damaging to her as it would to him. Mutually assured destruction. Might keep her quiet.

Might.

“Will you have her call me, soon as she gets here?” He adjusted his tie, made himself into a confident bank employee again. “Nothing urgent. Just-whenever.”

He walked toward the elevator, checking behind him one last time. Praying to see the one person who might save his life.

If Lizzie gave the keys to anyone, anyone upstairs especially, he’d be screwed. Beyond screwed.

Okay. It was his fault. But fault didn’t matter at this point. Lizzie was the problem now, because she had the keys. All the keys.

The elevator door opened. But Aaron didn’t budge. He’d just realized what would make this even worse.

What if she didn’t have them?