“That’s why you started getting money recently,” Myron said. “It wasn’t a pay-off. The money came from Duane’s turning pro. He bought you this house.”
She nodded.
“And when I saw you two at the hotel that night, I immediately jumped to the conclusion that you were lovers. But it was actually a son visiting his mother. The embrace I saw when he left your room—it wasn’t the embrace of lovers, but a mother hugging her son good-bye. In fact Duane hadn’t slept around at all. That was an act on his part. Wanda was right all along. He loved her. He never cheated on her. Not with you. And not with Valerie Simpson.”
She nodded again. “He loves that girl. He and Wanda are good together.”
“Everything was going just fine until Valerie spotted Duane in my office,” Myron continued. “His sunglasses were off. She saw him up close, and like I said before, you don’t forget the face of the man you think killed your fiancé. She recognized him. She stole his card from my Rolodex and called. What happened next, Deanna? Did she threaten to expose him?”
“There’s some stuff we left out,” Deanna said. “I just want to be clear, okay?”
Myron nodded.
“Curtis didn’t know I was going to kill Errol that night,” she said. “I just told him to hide in the basement. There was a closed-off tunnel down there. I knew he’d be safe for a while. I told Errol to stay with me, I’d fix his ribs. When Curtis was out of the room, I shot Errol.”
“Did Curtis ever learn the truth?”
“He figured it out later. But he didn’t know then. He had nothing to do with it.”
“So what about Valerie? Was she going to talk?”
“Yes.”
Their eyes met.
“So you killed her,” Myron said.
For a few moments Deanna said nothing. She stared down at her hands, as though looking for something. “She wouldn’t listen to reason,” she said softly. “Duane told me that Valerie called him. He tried to convince her she had the wrong man, but she wouldn’t hear it. So I met up with her at the hotel. I tried to persuade her too. I told her he’d done nothing wrong, but she just kept talking this nonsense about not hiding things anymore—how she’d buried too many things and it had to all come out.” Deanna Yeller closed her eyes and shook her head. “The girl left me no choice. I watched her hotel. I saw her rush out. I saw her rush to the matches, and I knew she was scared and I knew she was going to say something and I knew I couldn’t wait anymore, that I had to stop her now or …” She sat still. Then she moved her hands off the table and folded them on her lap. “I had no choice.”
Myron remained quiet.
“I did the only thing I could,” she said. “It was her life or my son’s life.”
“So for the second time you chose your son.”
“Yes. And if you turn me in, it’ll all be for nothing. The truth will come out, and they’ll kill my boy. You know they will.”
“I’ll protect him,” Myron said.
“No, that’s my job.”
Tires squealed in the driveway. Myron rose and looked out the window. It was Duane. He threw the car in park and leaped out.
“Keep him out,” Deanna said, suddenly out of her chair. “Please.”
“What?”
She ran to the door and threw the dead bolt. “I don’t want him to see.”
“See what?”
But now Myron did see. She turned toward him. She had a gun in her hand. “I’ve already killed twice to save him. What’s a third?”
Myron looked for a safe place to dive, but for the second time in this case he’d been careless. He was out in the open. It would be impossible to miss. “Killing me won’t make it go away,” he said.
“I know,” she replied.
There was a pounding at the door. Duane shouted, “Open up! Don’t say anything to him!” More pounding.
Deanna’s eyes welled with tears. “Don’t tell anyone, Myron. No need to say anything anymore. The guilty will have all been punished.”
She placed the barrel of the gun against her head.
“Don’t,” Myron whispered.
From outside the door, Duane shouted, “Mama! Open up, Mama!”
She turned toward the voice. Myron tried to reach her in time, but he had no chance. She pulled the trigger and made one final sacrifice for her son.
48
Time passed. Myron had to persuade Duane to leave his mother alone. It was what she would have wanted, Myron reminded him. When they were both far enough away, Myron placed an anonymous call to the Cherry Hill police. “I think I heard a gunshot,” he said. He gave the address and hung up.
They met up at a stop along the New Jersey Turnpike. Duane was no longer crying.
“Are you going to tell?” Duane asked.
“No,” Myron said.
“Not even Valerie’s mother?”
“I don’t owe her anything.”
Silence. Then Duane started tearing again.
“Did the truth set you free, Myron?”
He ignored the question. “Tell Wanda,” Myron said. “If you really love her, tell her everything. It’s the only chance you have.”
“You can’t be my agent anymore,” Duane said.
“I know,” Myron said.
“There was no other way for her. She had to protect me.”
“There was another way.”
“What? If it was your kid, what would you have done?”
Myron didn’t have the answer. He only knew that killing Valerie Simpson was not it. “Are you going to play tomorrow?”
“Yes,” he said. He climbed back in his car. “And I’m going to win.”
Myron did not doubt it.
It was late when he got back to New York. He parked the car at the Kinney lot and headed past the ugly intestinal sculpture and into the building. The security guard greeted him. It was Saturday night. Practically no one was there. But even on street level Myron had seen the light on.
He took the elevator to the fourteenth floor. The customary hubbub of activity at Lock-Horne Securities was absent. The floor was dark. Most of the computers had been turned off and covered with plastic, though a few were left on, the bizarre screen savers dancing streaks of lights across the desk. Myron walked toward the light in the corner office. Win was sitting at his desk, reading a book in Korean. He looked up when Myron entered.