Guilty Minds

“That’s all water under the bridge at this point, Nick. Slander Sheet is an object of ridicule. I don’t really care who owns that piece of garbage.”

“I do. Because last night, Kayla Pitts was found dead.”

His large liquid eyes widened and his mouth came open. “What?” he rasped.

“She was in a hotel room adjoining mine.” I explained about how she’d called and I’d gone to rescue her at the private airport. I left out where I’d gone last night afterward, breaking into Curtis Schmidt’s house-that was irrelevant. And not the sort of detail he needed to know.

“Good Lord,” Gideon said. “You don’t think it could be a suicide?”

“Not given the circumstances, no.”

“You think someone killed her.”

I nodded.

“And staged it to look like a suicide.”

“Right.”

“So who would do such a thing?”

“Maybe someone who was afraid of what she’d expose. Which is why I want to know who the real owners of Slander Sheet are. And I think the answer’s going to be found at Norcross and McKenna.”

He nodded. “I know a lot of people, but I don’t know anyone there. Which is no surprise-that’s a highly secretive crew. I mean, they’re doing all sorts of confidential work for tobacco companies, the nuclear power industry, gun manufacturers… but I’m not sure I understand what you’re up to.”

“If I find out who owns Slander Sheet, I’m one step closer to finding out who had Kayla murdered.”

“Or Slander Sheet may have nothing whatsoever to do with Kayla’s death.”

“Maybe not. But I intend to find out.”

“Well, you do what you gotta do. Though we can’t keep paying you, you understand.”

“Understood.”

“Personally, I’m not sure what’s to be gained by turning over rocks. Like they say, you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas. Nick, the work you’ve done on behalf of Justice Claflin has been extraordinary. Let me tell you, Jerry Claflin will never forget what you did. I’ll never forget it. What happened to that poor girl is terrible, but it’s not your responsibility. You did nothing wrong.”

“I don’t agree, Gideon. That girl’s death is on me.”

“You’re a compassionate man, Nick, I know that. But you shouldn’t feel guilty. You didn’t do a damned thing wrong.”

I rose, put out my hand to shake his. “Thanks,” I said.

“Hey,” he said. He placed a hand on my shoulder. “You’re a hero.”

I smiled, and nodded, and didn’t argue. But I knew who I had to see next, as painful as it might be.

My father.

49

For years, Victor Heller had been imprisoned in a Gothic redbrick medium-security prison called the Altamont Correctional Facility, formerly the Altamont Lunatic Asylum, in upstate New York. It wasn’t convenient to get to-you had to fly to Albany and then rent a car and drive to the outskirts of a town called Guilderland. But that wasn’t why I didn’t visit him. Every time I saw him it felt like I gave up another piece of my soul. He was not a good man. I learned from him how to tell when someone was lying because he lied like he breathed.

I got a flight out of Reagan National Airport and got to Altamont around noon. He was waiting for me behind the long counter in the visitors’ room.

He was wearing the prison uniform of dark green shirt and slacks. His hair had gone white, and he had a big white Old Testament beard.

He didn’t look well. His head lolled to one side. I was surprised at how much his health had apparently deteriorated in the thirteen months since I’d last seen him.

When I’d called his lawyer to arrange the visit, he told me that Victor was agitating for a compassionate release on the grounds that he had senile dementia. That was news to me. The few times I’d seen him he was as sharp as ever. “Well, you’ll see,” the lawyer said. “He’s not the man he was.”

I sat down at my side of the counter. My father was mumbling something about ice cream and something about shoes. I looked at him. His face above his beard was raw-looking, with flakes of skin coming off. He had a bad case of psoriasis, like a molting snake.

“Hello, Dad,” I said.

He was looking off somewhere in the distance and kept mumbling. More about ice cream and what sounded like “laundry.”

“Dad?” A little louder this time.

So much for asking for his help with the law firm Norcross and McKenna.

“Robert told me that you’re applying for a compassionate release. Who has to approve it?”

He turned sharply and looked at me. “Bernie?”

Bernie was the name of his college roommate, with whom he’d had a falling out before I was born. I’d heard the name, and never in a positive way. Maybe I looked a little like Bernie.

“You’ve got fourteen years left in here,” I said. “That’s a long time. That’s, what, fourteen times three hundred and sixty-five days, which is… like four thousand-forty-five hundred days.”

Victor, still looking off in the distance, rolled his eyes, and snapped, “Five thousand, one hundred, and ten.”

Even at the dinner table of my childhood, Dad, with his slide-rule precision, could never stand to let arithmetic mistakes like this pass. I guffawed in victory.