Truth Be Told

68

“I know everything.” Jake had refused the chair Walsh offered, a buckskin leather throne dotted with brass grommets. They’d seen no one else in the house, Walsh hadn’t called out to anyone, or announced his return. Jake hadn’t planned on this, and didn’t love being here alone, but he couldn’t allow Peter inside. Now he was in a potential battle, and without a strategy. On the way to Walsh’s overstuffed study Jake had considered and rejected several approaches-the truth, a lie, indirect-and decided on the big bluff.

“You know everything? There’s an intriguing opening statement.” Walsh swiveled in his desk chair, arms on the rests, one leg crossed over his knee. A black ribbed sock showed above his shiny loafer. The desk, glass-topped and glossy, held a stationery-store display of matching leather gizmos-holders, files, pads, and containers of pens. “Can I interest you in a drink? I seem to remember your grandfather liked his whiskey.”

“No, sir,” Jake said. Walsh was trying to defuse the attack. Jake’s tactics were exactly the opposite. “You and Gordon Thorley. The mortgage.”

“Who?” Walsh swiveled, once, twice, wrinkled that forehead, three lines creasing even deeper.

“The man you lost your job over, sir,” Jake said.

“Ah,” Walsh said.

“We know you were paying his mortgage.” Jake kept talking and watching Walsh, looking for the soft spot. The flinch, the tell. Nothing.

“Cashier’s checks,” Jake went on. “Back in your day, they weren’t traceable. Now? They are. Not to mention the security video from the post office. It may take a while to put it together, sir, but there’s no doubt.”

Still not a word from Walsh.

“You knew Carley Marie Schaefer, you knew her parents. What, did she have a crush on you? Or you on her? You drive her all the way to Boston? To the Arboretum? And then-”

“I think I’ll have that drink.” Walsh rose, his chair swiveling in a circle as he shoved away. Opened an elaborate wood sideboard, inside lined with crystal decanters. “You sure I can’t offer-”

“Sir?” Jake said. He’d go for the whole nine yards now, some yards of which Jake wasn’t quite sure of. Whatever wasn’t true they could sort out later. “We know about Thorley. He’s confessed. We can trace the checks, follow the money. We know about Gary Lee Smith. We know Treesa Caramona was another of your parolees. She trusted you, that how you got to her? That why she let you in to kill her? It’s done. You’re done. We know everything.”

He watched Walsh choose a glass, rummage in a drawer. Jake took a step back, wary.

“Not quite, Jake. What you don’t know, Jake,” Walsh said. He turned, smiling, perfect host, napkin in one hand, glass in the other. “If I killed Carley Marie Schaefer, why isn’t there one bit of evidence that leads to me? Not a shred? Have you examined the police files? I’m sure your grandfather made copies. And yet, no matter how hard he tried…”

Walsh paused, poured something brown from a decanter into his glass, wrapped it with the napkin, slugged the whole thing. Shook his head, as if in sorrow.

“And yet no matter how hard he tried, he could not catch that bad guy. Used to talk about it all the time. Like I said, Jake. I knew him. In fact, when the case was new? Yours truly Sheriff Walsh was one of the first to get a look at all the evidence. Thanks to my friendship with your dear grandfather. He thought we could solve that heinous”-he stumbled over the word-“crime together.”

Walsh poured another glass. Drank it. “That, however, was not my true objective.” Put the glass down, but missed. The glass fell onto the thick pile carpeting, rolled under the desk. He watched it, seemingly fascinated. “Not after dear Carley Marie told me she wanted to stop-‘seeing’ me. I knew what her medical records would show. I’d planned her visit to the-doctor. But sadly, she wasn’t happy with that plan. Sadly, your grandfather’s cops neglected to notice the medical files weren’t exactly the same after I examined them.”

“You took-you changed-?” Jake began. He felt the back of his neck tighten, thought of his grandfather, his sorrow and defeat; his grandmother, who’d watched failure eat away at her husband. Walsh-a law enforcement officer-had access to the evidence, knew exactly what to alter, and how to do it. Back then he’d tried to erase the history of his guilt.

Now it was Jake’s turn to play with the truth.

“Times change, Walsh. These days tests are better. And they’re already underway. Even if Thorley had convinced us, we’d still have found you.” Jake was semi-bluffing, since they probably had no samples of Walsh’s DNA on file. He had to rely on Walsh’s fear. “We have the rope, remember? You ever heard of ‘handler DNA’?”

“Ah. Progress.” Walsh almost smiled. “Your grandfather, devoted as he was, simply didn’t have the tools. Died a bit, over the Carley Marie case, I always thought. So sad. And now, after all this time, here’s another Brogan, come to solve the Lilac Sunday case. After twenty damn anniversaries, twenty damn years of frigging DNA and forensic tests and God knows what else. Twenty damn anniversaries waiting for some cop to show up here with a warrant for a cheek swab. Now here you are. And a Brogan to boot.”

Jake thought about what Nate Frasca had told him: how crime preyed on the mind, how relentless fear could fester and destroy, could become a man’s personal poison.

Walsh reached into the drawer. Took out a gun.

“Walsh!” Jake pulled his weapon, aimed it.

“No need, my boy,” Walsh said. “Happy anniversary. Good luck to you.”

Walsh aimed at his own head. And fired.