“The man my father thought did it. He was never convicted.”
“Convicted? Pah! He was never arrested, never charged, never truly investigated.” His chilly eyes never waver.
“Then how could my father know for sure that he had the right man?”
“It is an error, Talcott, to think of this matter as a proposition, true or false.” A moist, ragged cough. “To be a man is to act. Sometimes you must act on the information available at the time. Perhaps it is accurate. Perhaps it is erroneous. Still you must act.”
“I am not quite following you.”
“And I am not able to enlighten you further.”
Except that he has not enlightened me at all. I almost say this, but he has resumed the tone and didactic style of the lecturer. “Some of your questions have no answers, Talcott, and some of them have answers that you will never know. That is the way of the world, and our inability to discover all that we wish we could is what makes us mortals.” The oracular side of Jack Ziegler bothers me, perhaps for ethical reasons: What right has a murderer to lecture on the meaning of life? Does he perhaps know things we weaker mortals do not? Or is all of this oratory simply obfuscation, so that the bugs, if there are any, will never catch him admitting a crime? “And some of your questions do have answers to which you are entitled. I believe that your father wanted you, more than the other children, to have the answers. Because he always lived in some awe of you, Talcott. Some awe, some envy. And, always, he wanted your approval. More than he wanted Addison’s, more than he wanted Mariah’s.” I am not sure if I believe any of this. I am quite sure I do not want to hear it. “And so your father arranged for you to receive some of the answers. But you must also find them for yourself.”
“Which means what?”
“The arrangements, Talcott. You must discover the arrangements.” He frowns. “I do not know where your father buried the answers, but he buried them so deeply that only you would know where to look. That is why so many people have bothered you. But remember always that none of them can harm you.” A curt nod. “And that you must not abandon the search, Talcott. You must not.”
“But why is the search so important?” The question I tried to ask Maxine, whose real name is unlikely to be Maxine.
“Let us say… for your peace of mind.”
I think this over. That cannot be quite all of it. Uncle Jack wants me to find whatever there is to find. It may even be, from his insistence, and Maxine’s, that somehow his… his ability to protect me… is linked to a promise that the search will succeed. Frowning again, wanting to escape this horrible room, I fire off my last shot.
“And if I do discover the arrangements? What then?”
“Why, then, everybody will be satisfied.” He falls silent, but I understand it is merely a pause: I even know what is coming next. And I am even right. “Perhaps, when you find what your father left, you should not examine it yourself. That would be a mistake. I think it would be best… yes. I shall expect you to share it with me first. Naturally.”
“Naturally,” I mutter, but too softly for him to hear. Mallory Corcoran, Maxine of no last name, now Uncle Jack: When you find it, bring it to me! Yet Jack Ziegler, unlike the others, pronounces his demand with a sense of entitlement. Suggesting, perhaps, that I will simply be returning to him his own.
“That is a fair exchange, I think.” Meaning, in return for his promise to protect me and my family.
“Uh, sure. Yes.” His tone suggests that I am about to be dismissed. I have the frantic sense of having omitted something important. Before I can control my voice, I hear myself raising the one subject I had buried deep inside, covered with the heavy earth of other mysteries, and promised myself I would not mention. “Uncle Jack, my father told… someone… that he talked to you the week before he died.”
“And?”
“And I would like to know if he did.”
I hold my breath, waiting for the hornets to attack, but the answer comes back so fluently that he has probably been planning it for months. “Yes, I saw Oliver. Why do you ask?”
“Did he call you or did you call him?”
“You sound like a prosecutor, Talcott.” He smiles peacefully, so I know he is annoyed. “But, since you ask, your father called me a few weeks before and said he would like to see me. I told him I would be in Virginia in the middle of September and we could meet then. We had a nice dinner, purely social.”
“I see.” I have no doubt that his recitation matches precisely what the FBI has on its tapes of my father’s telephone call. But there are no recordings of the dinner conversation: Uncle Jack would have seen to that. I sense a growing unease in Abby’s godfather; I have struck close to the heart of what he most wishes to keep from me. Something happened at that dinner. Something that sent my father back to his shooting lessons? I know Jack Ziegler will never tell me. “I see,” I repeat, mystified.
“And now our time is up, Talcott.” He coughs wetly.
“If I could just ask one more-”
He holds up a restraining hand and bellows for Henderson. I wonder how he decides which bodyguard to summon for which purposes.
“Wait, Uncle Jack. Wait a minute.”
Jack Ziegler’s head swivels slowly back toward me, and I can almost hear the creaking. His pale eyebrows are elevated, his sable eyes wary. He is not accustomed to being told to wait.
“Yes, Talcott?” he says quietly as Henderson appears.
I glance at the bodyguard, then incline my head and lower my voice. “You know that the man who was competing with my wife for that judgeship… that, um, a scandal killed off his chances.”
That look of hot glee. “I told you there was a skeleton rattling around.”
“Yes. Well. But I don’t quite understand… how you knew.” This is not all that I was going to ask, but as Henderson floats closer, the room seems to close in, the view from the window dizzying me once more, and I am suddenly sure I must not press further. “About the skeleton, I mean.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Jack Ziegler whispers after a moment. “You must concentrate on the future, Talcott, not the past.”
“But wait. How did you know? Only two people knew. And neither of them would ever…” Tell somebody like you, I do not quite say.
Jack Ziegler knows exactly what I am thinking. I can read it in his tired face as he lays a wizened hand on my shoulder. “Nothing is ever known to only two people, Talcott.”
“Are you saying somebody else knew? Somebody else told you?”
He has lost interest. “Mr. Garland is leaving us, Henderson. Drive him to the condo where he will spend the night. One of the older ones down by the library, the ones with the blue doors. I do not recall the number, but Mr. Garland will show you which.”
“I didn’t tell you where I was staying.” My objection comes out slowly, for a sudden thrill of fear has made me lethargic.
“No, you did not,” agrees Abby’s godfather. He does not smile, his feeble voice and clouded expression never waver, and yet I know he has chosen, just for an instant, to show me the tiniest corner of his power. Maybe his goal is to persuade me to trust him, to believe he will protect me, and to bring him what I learn. If, on the other hand, his goal is to frighten me… well, in that he has succeeded.
Henderson is standing on the stairs to the entryway, my coat draped over his arm. I thank Uncle Jack for seeing me. He offers his hand and I take it. He does not let go.
“Talcott, listen to me. Listen with care. I am not a well man. And yet there are many who are interested in the state of my health. I take my measures, but they send their trucks and plant their bugs. I do not believe that you should try to get in touch with me again. Not unless you have uncovered your father’s arrangements.”
“Why not? Wait. Why not?”
Jack Ziegler almost smiles. It is a near thing. I do not think he is fighting the urge exactly; he simply lacks the energy. He waves to me instead, not speaking, then collapses in a fit of coughing. Mr. Harrison, instantly at his side, takes his arm and leads him away.
On the way down the mountain, I glimpse headlights in the side mirror, but that need mean nothing: everybody in Aspen has a car. I wonder whether Jack Ziegler was right about the power company truck. I wonder how long it will be before Agent Nunzio learns of my visit, or if, perhaps, he was listening in all along. I glance at
