“You seem anxious for me to be wrong about this,” I said.
She shook her head. “I actually don’t care either way right now if Steven Gallagher was a killer or an altar boy. But I want you to focus on the prize, and not waste your time on re-solving the case.”
For some reason while she was talking I was looking at the wedding band she wore on her finger. I’m not sure why; I don’t think I’d ever noticed a ring on a woman in my life.
“You know, when I got there that day, the first thing Steven yelled was something like, ‘You said you wouldn’t come back here.’”
“So?”
“So maybe he thought he was talking to people that had framed him. Maybe they left the bloody clothes there, and he thought they had come back.”
She sighed. “You need to separate the facts there are from the facts that you wish there were,” she said.
“What does that mean?”
“It means he had motive. It means he probably couldn’t think clearly because of the drugs. It means he had the Judge’s blood on his clothes. And it means there’s not a jury in America that wouldn’t have convicted him.”
“That’s all true.” She was right in that I was having some difficulty in separating what I wanted to be facts from what I knew to be facts.
“But you’re not buying it?”
“Not entirely, no. I think there is a chance that Steven Gallagher was innocent.”
Julie seemed to decide there were much better things to do than continue pursuing that topic. “Let’s talk about the court case,” she said. “I’ve done some work on that.”
That sounded promising. “What did you come up with?”
“Carlton’s got some financial troubles.”
“His company? Or Carlton personally?” Remembering him in his robe in that hotel suite did not conjure up a picture of a guy worried about where his next meal was coming from.
“Both. The company has been bleeding money for quite a while now; it seems that each new generation of Carltons is less competent than the one before it. And Richard is in the middle of a tough divorce, which is sure to cost him a bunch of cash.”
“Interesting,” I say. “If he wins the court case, he gets four hundred million dollars. If he loses, he keeps a tract of undeveloped land near a depressed town. Pretty powerful motive. Not beyond a reasonable doubt, but definitely strong stuff.”
“Are you trying to convince a jury, or Gallagher?”
“Gallagher. Which might be harder.”
We got quiet for a while, neither of us eating our food. We were frustrated with each other, because neither of us could make the situation better.
Finally, she said, “Luke, I know it’s a long way from happening, but if you are able to do this, to prove his brother innocent, will he let Bryan go?”
“I might be crazy, but I believe that he will. He’s got a sense of justice that he follows, like an internal road map that tells him right and wrong.”
“But that would mean you would have killed an innocent man, his own brother. Wouldn’t he have to do the same to Bryan to satisfy that sense of justice?”
What she said made sense yet didn’t ring true. “I don’t think so; these are the rules he’s set up, and I think he’ll follow them.”
“And what if you can’t convince him that you have the proof? Will he…,” she said, unable to finish the sentence.
“I think he will.”
We were both quiet for a few moments, and then she said, “And then what will you do?”
“I’ll hunt him down and kill him, if it takes me twenty years,” I said. “So maybe he and I are not that different.”
She looked me in the eyes, so intensely that I thought she could see through the back of my head. “You’re very, very different. Did you tell Bryan I was sorry?”
“I did. Should I tell him you want him back? Back with you?”
She hesitated. “This is ground I’ve never covered before, Luke. Do I say what will make him feel good? Or do I tell the truth?”
“It depends what the truth is,” I said.
“The truth is that right now, at this moment, if you told me the only way to save his life would be for me to go on with our marriage, I would do it in a heartbeat. I care very deeply for him, and I would do anything to protect him. But if he comes back, and we resume as if nothing has happened, it ultimately will not work. He’ll know that as surely as I would.”
She smiled, and continued. “That’s how I feel right now, at this moment. Tomorrow, who knows?”
“Maybe you can make it work. Maybe you owe him that.”
“The problem is I don’t love him, Luke. I love you.”
That was something I had both waited a long time to hear and never wanted to hear. And under these circumstances, it was actually hard to process. I’m a disaster at being in touch with my feelings, and in this case my feelings and I weren’t on the same planet.
A hundred things raced through my mind as to how to respond to what she said, and I just as quickly rejected each of them. Finally, I settled on the only one I felt comfortable with.
“Oh,” I said.
But I said it with feeling.
Richard Carlton was worried and annoyed.
He wasn’t about to panic; that really wasn’t in his DNA. Things had always worked out for Carlton, and this situation would be no exception.
But it was very irritating, mainly because he thought this issue had been put to bed. With Brennan out of the way, there was nothing standing in the way of the Court of Appeals decision. That would end the legal battle, which would trigger the sale of the land, which would make Carlton unbelievably wealthy. The last roadblock had been removed, but the cop, Somers, was single-handedly dragging it back into the middle of the highway.
The implications were ominous. Cops were loathe to reopen solved cases, especially ones in which they had gunned down the alleged killer. For them to admit an error in a situation like that would be to expose themselves to outrage and ridicule, not something they were inclined to do under any circumstances.
So Somers must have something significant, Carlton figured, or he wouldn’t be going down that path. And he came on so strong, almost accusing Carlton of involvement in the murder, that it left no doubt he was ready and willing to cause problems. And anything that interfered with the sale, for any reason, was an unacceptable problem.
Hanson Oil and Gas was a committed buyer, but deals are not closed until they are closed. The kind of publicity that Somers might bring to bear, talk of murdering Federal judges, could spook them. They had a Board of Directors to answer to, and were listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Companies like that have to be careful of ugly controversy, and Daniel Brennan’s murder was as ugly as it gets.
The only saving grace, it seemed to Carlton, was that Somers appeared to be on something of a solo crusade. The fact that he showed up at the hotel alone was somewhat revealing, but the key fact was that Somers was the one who killed Steven Gallagher. Maybe he was haunted by that, and feeling a need to find out whether Gallagher deserved his fate.
Carlton and his partners were close, way too close for things to get derailed now. So Carlton made the phone call, and explained the situation.
“It’s not a problem,” said the voice on the other end of the phone.
