The Final Detail (Myron Bolitar 6)

“I did.”

“Didn’t it ring a bell?”

“No. You have to remember. I only saw her that one time. You know Billy Lee. A different girl every night. And Clu and I sat in the front. Her hair was a different color too. She was a blonde then. So I didn’t know.”

“And neither did Clu.”

“That’s right.”

“But eventually you learned the truth.”

“Eventually,” she said.

“Whoa,” Hester Crimstein said. “I’m not following any of this. What does an old traffic accident have to do with Clu’s murder?”

“Everything,” Myron said.

“You better explain, Myron. And while you’re at it, why did Esperanza get framed for it?”

“That was a mistake.”

“What?”

“Esperanza wasn’t the one they intended to frame,” Myron said. “I was.”

Chapter 38

Yankee Stadium hunched over in the night, crouching shoulders low as though trying to escape the glow from its own lights. Myron parked in Lot 14, where the executives and players parked. There were only three other cars there. The night guard at the press entrance said he was expected, that the Mayors would meet him on the field. Myron moved down the lower tier and hopped the wall near the batter’s box. The stadium lights were on, but nobody was there. He stood alone on the field and took a deep breath. Even in the Bronx nothing smelled like a baseball diamond. He turned toward the visitor’s dugout, scanning the lower boxes and finding the exact seats he and his brother had sat in all those years ago. Funny what you remember. He walked toward the pitcher’s mound, the grass making a gentle whooshing sound, and sat down on the rubber and waited. Clu’s home. The one place he’d always felt at peace.

Should have buried him here, Myron thought. Under a pitcher’s mound.

He stared up into the thousands of seats, empty like the shattered eyes of the dead, the vacant stadium merely a body now without a soul. The whites of the foul lines were muddied, nearly dirt-toned now. They’d be put down anew tomorrow before game time.

People say that baseball is a metaphor for life. Myron did not know about that, but staring down the foul line, he wondered. The line between good and evil is not so different from the foul line on a baseball field. It’s often made of stuff as flimsy as lime. It tends to fade over time. It needs to be constantly redrawn. And if enough players trample on it, the line becomes smeared and blurred to the point where fair is foul and foul is fair, where good and evil become indistinguishable from each other.

Jared Mayor’s voice broke the stillness. “You said you found my sister.”

Myron squinted toward the dugout. “I lied,” he said.

Jared stepped up the cement stairs. Sophie followed. Myron rose to his feet. Jared started to say something more, but his mother put her hand on his arm. They kept walking as though they were coaches coming out to talk to the relief pitcher.

“Your sister is dead,” Myron said. “But you both know that.”

They kept walking.

“She was killed in a drunk driving accident,” he went on. “She died on impact.”

“Maybe,” Sophie said.

Myron looked confused. “Maybe?”

“Maybe she died on impact, maybe she didn’t,” Sophie continued. “Clu Haid and Billy Lee Palms weren’t doctors. They were dumb, drunk jocks. Lucy might have just been injured. She may have been alive. A doctor might have been able to save her.”

Myron nodded. “I guess that’s possible.”

“Go on,” Sophie said. “I want to hear what you have to say.”

“Whatever your daughter’s condition actually was, Clu and Billy Lee believed that she was dead. Clu was terrified. Drunk driving charges would be serious enough, but this was vehicular homicide. You don’t walk away from that, no matter how far your curveball breaks. He and Billy Lee panicked. I don’t know the details here. Sawyer Wells can tell us. My guess is that they hid the body. It was a quiet road, but there still wouldn’t be enough time to bury Lucy before the police and ambulance arrived. So they probably stashed her in the brush. And when it all calmed down, they came back and buried her. Like I said, I don’t know the details. I don’t think they’re particularly relevant. What is relevant is that Clu and Billy Lee got rid of the body.”

Jared stepped into Myron’s face. “You can’t prove any of this.”

Myron ignored him, keeping his eyes on Jared’s mother. “The years pass. Lucy is gone. But not in the minds of Clu Haid and Billy Lee Palms. Maybe I’m overanalyzing. Maybe I’m being too easy on them. But I think what they did that night defined the rest of their lives. Their self-destructive tendencies. The drugs—”

“You’re being too easy,” Sophie said.

Myron waited.

“Don’t give them credit for having consciences,” she continued. “They were worthless scum.”

“Maybe you’re right. I shouldn’t analyze. And I guess it doesn’t matter. Clu and Billy Lee may have created their own hell, but it wasn’t close to the agony your family experienced. You told me about the awful torment of not knowing the truth, how it lives with you every day. With Lucy dead and buried like that, the torment just went on.”

Sophie’s head was still high. There was no flinch in her. “Do you know how we finally learned our daughter’s fate?”

“From Sawyer Wells,” Myron said. “The Wells Rules of Wellness, Rule Eight: ‘Confess something about yourself to a friend—something awful, something you’d never want anyone to know. You’ll feel better. You’ll still see that you’re worthy of love.’ Sawyer was a drug counselor at Rockwell. Billy Lee was a patient there. My guess is that he caught him during a withdrawal episode. When he was delirious probably. He did what his therapist asked. Rule eight. He confessed the worst thing he could imagine, the one moment in his life that shaped all others. Sawyer suddenly saw his ticket out of Rockwell and into the spotlight. Through the wealthy Mayor family, owners of Mayor Software. So he went to you and your husband. And he told you what he’d heard.”

Again Jared said, “You have no proof of any of this!”

And again Sophie silenced him with her hand. “Go on, Myron,” she said. “What happened then?”

“With this new information, you found your daughter’s body. I don’t know if your private investigators did it or if you just used your money and influence to keep the authorities quiet. It wouldn’t have been difficult for someone in your position.”