those found under Cullan's fingernails and how he had matched Blues's fingerprints to one that had been lifted from the corner of the desk in Jack Cullan's study.
'Dr. Dawson,' Mason began, 'I assume that other fingerprints were found at the scene besides the ones you claim belonged to Mr. Bluestone?'
'Yes. That's quite common.'
'I'm certain that it is. Whose prints did you find?'
'The victim's and the housekeeper's, of course.'
'Anyone else's?'
Dr. Dawson glanced at Patrick Ortiz. Mason also looked at Ortiz, who had suddenly become interested in a stack of papers on his table.
'There were a number of fingerprints found throughout the house; most of them were too smudged or incomplete for identification,' he said after Ortiz failed to help him by objecting to Mason's question.
'But not all of them, right, Doctor?'
'That's correct. We were able to identify fingerprints belonging to Ed Fiora and Beth Harrell. We matched them with their fingerprints on file with the Missouri Gaming Commission.'
'Where in Mr. Cullan's house were those fingerprints found?'
'Mr. Fiora's fingerprints were found in the kitchen. Ms. Harrell's fingerprints were found on the headboard of the bed in Mr. Cullan's bedroom.'
Mason felt like a boxer wearing cement shoes. Patrick Ortiz had spent the entire day dancing around him, landing jabs to his midsection and uppercuts to his chin. Mason had been unable to get out of his way. Dr. Dawson had sucker punched him without knowing it. The press would draw every salacious inference possible about the relationship between Jack Cullan and Beth Harrell. Mason couldn't blame them. The image of Beth in Cullan's bedroom crowded his own memory of the embrace they had shared. He didn't have room for both.
The assignment of Blues's case to Judge Carter had been the last kidney punch of the day. Judge Carter, a former prosecutor, was a conservative Republican with a reputation for harsh treatment of criminal defendants, an African American woman with ambitions to become a federal judge. Mason was worried that she would use Blues's case as a stepping-stone.
Mason studied the dry-erase board. In the last three weeks it had become a jumbled patchwork of lawyer's graffiti. He drew red circles around the keywords and phrases-Cullan's secret files-pictures of Beth-blackmail by Fiora-Blues's fingerprints-Harry and Blues-why kill me?
He was convinced that the identity of the killer lay within those scraps. The last of them, the question about whether he would live or die, shook him more than he cared to admit. Maybe it was the late hour, or maybe it was just that he didn't have Blues to watch his back this time.
He went down the hall to Blues's office. The bookshelves, file cabinet, and desk were all gunmetal gray. The floor was bare hardwood and the walls were decorated with a calendar. A digital electric piano sat against one wall. When Blues played, it was like decorating the room with a bucket of rainbow paint.
Mason pushed the piano away from the wall and used a key Blues had given him to open a small safe hidden in the floor. He lingered over the contents of the safe, his hands sweating as he fought with himself. Shivering at the too-recent memory of the river's cold grip, he reached into the safe and picked up the gun Blues had given him a little over a year ago.
'It's a. 44-caliber semiautomatic with a nine-shot magazine,' Blues told him. 'Fits in a holster that goes in the middle of your back. Wear a jacket or a loose shirt over it and no one will notice.'
Mason had barely survived the death of his old law firm and, along the way, had shot a hired killer named Jimmie Camaya, who was supposed to have added Mason to the law firm's obituary list. Camaya had been arrested but later escaped. Blues had convinced Mason that he should carry the gun for his own protection. Mason had reluctantly agreed, and Blues had taught him how to handle the gun. After a few months, he returned the gun to Blues.
'I'm not going to spend the rest of my life walking around waiting to shoot it out with someone who's probably forgotten all about me. I'm a lawyer, not a gunslinger.'
'And this isn't Dodge City,' Blues said. 'It's Kansas City, but you've got a real talent for pissing off people who don't know the difference. I'll keep the gun for you. My money says you're going to need it sooner or later.'
Now, alone in his office with his gun and holster, he wished he had a corner man to patch him up, rub him down, and shove him back into the ring when the bell rang for the next round. Blues was his corner man, and Mason needed him. Bone weary, Mason lay down on his sofa and let it wrap its arms around him.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Mason woke to find his aunt Claire sitting in one of the chairs next to the sofa. She was reading the newspaper and sipping coffee from a stainless-steel mug. The coffee's aroma was strong enough to wake the dead.
'You didn't answer your phone at home last night or this morning, so I thought I might find you here,' she said.
Mason sat up, running his tongue over his teeth, stretched his arms and legs in a spread-eagle salute, and flopped back onto the sofa. He felt trampled.
'You didn't consider the possibility that a beautiful woman had taken me home to comfort her?'
He pushed himself to his feet and stumbled toward the dry-erase board.
'Have you looked in the mirror? Anyone who picked you up would take you to the nearest shelter. Make that the nearest animal shelter. And don't bother with your board. I've been here long enough to read it and the newspaper.'
Mason changed course for the refrigerator next to his desk. He was surprised to find a bottle of orange juice.
Without looking up from her newspaper, Claire said, 'You're welcome. By the way, the next time you decide to sleep in your office, lock the door and don't leave a gun sitting on your desk. Put it under your pillow like all the other action heroes. Just don't shoot yourself in your sleep. That would be pathetic.'
Mason gulped half the bottle of orange juice before taking a breath and wiping his mouth.
'Any more advice?'
'Sorry, I'm fresh out.'
Claire read the newspaper, and Mason looked out the window, watching the morning sun glance brightly off the windows on the building across the street. She folded the paper and dropped it on the table in front of the sofa. The headline shouted back at her-Ex-Cop Bound Over for Murder.
'So,' she said with as much neutrality as she could muster, 'someone is trying to kill you again. That's why you have a gun. Who is it this time?'
Mason drained the last of his orange juice, banking the empty bottle off the wall and into the wastebasket.
'Don't know.'
Mason marveled at his aunt's capacity to listen to the most outrageous stories of abuse told to her by her clients without betraying a hint of her own outrage. She explained that her clients had enough emotion invested in their problems without seeing their lawyer lit up as well. He was glad that she employed the same detached interest as he told her about his riverboat adventure.
'You could talk to Harry.'
'Not this time. You were right. It's too complicated.'
'Can I help?'
Mason considered her offer. His love for her was as unconditional as hers was for him. She was his anchor, his reality check. She never waited for him to ask for her advice or help. She gave it whether he wanted it or not. That she had come to check on him, not demanded that he call Harry, not called Harry herself, and only gently berated him, underscored how delicate the situation was.
'There's too much going on here that I don't understand, and I don't want to be the last one to figure it out.
