The Best American Mystery Stories 2002
- Автор: Грейди Джеймс, Камински Стюарт Мелвин
- Год: 2002
- Язык: английский
- Год: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
- ISBN: 978-0-618-12494-7
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «The Best American Mystery Stories 2002». Краткое содержание книги:
I was startled by her vehemence and realized there were tears welling up in the corners of her eyes. I didn’t think she was acting, either.
She swallowed, gulping down her sorrow. “Max is using you} How do you think I feel?” she demanded.
Probably like crap, I thought. “Confused,” I said.
“You are not a lot of help.” Kitty said, scrubbing her eyes angrily on her sleeve.
Up until then I hadn’t wanted to be.
“This isn’t going the way I’d hoped,” she muttered.
“Me, either,” I told her.
“Well, that’s a small relief,” she said.
I didn’t know what to make of that remark.
“You want me to put it into words, don’t you? Okay,” she said. “You think Max Quinn is using his job at Ravenant and Dwyer as leverage. So do I. He’s collecting proprietary client information to make a case against Chip McGill for the states. It’ll never stand up in court, if it comes out, because the evidence would be tainted and none of it admissible, but he can set them up, all of them, McGill and the bikers, and the state police can tell a judge we have a confidential source, somebody inside, and the judge will go along with it.”
“But how much does Max know?”
“Not enough, obviously. That’s where you come in.”
“Working under attorney privilege for Ravenant and Dwyer.”
“Which could put me and Andy both in the toilet.”
I saw that. How could you claim to be oblivious? You were either unscrupulous or incompetent.
Kitty sighed. “This is a no-win situation,” she said.
“Looks that way,” I said. “Max is working from a stacked deck. But even if all of this is true, what’s his handle on Andy? Or are you saying that Andy could have been in on it from the get-go, that he’s a party to it?”
“I don’t believe that.”
“Don’t believe it or can’t bring yourself to?”
She gave that a moment’s thought. “No, it’s not wishful thinking,” she said finally. “I don’t believe it because it’s not in Andy’s character. It runs counter to what he believes in. The practice of law may he adversarial, but you hope it all balances out, on average.”
“Okay,” I said.
I must have sounded unconvinced. “Jack,” she explained, “Andy Ravenant is a straight arrow. Not a Boy Scout, but a guy who honors the law, even if it’s an imperfect instrument. And that’s as much a weakness as it is a strength in this trade. The point is, he wouldn’t countenance unlawful means even if they led to a desirable end.”
“Okay,” I said again, smiling this time. “Let’s make sure we’re reading off the same page, here. We both figure Max Quinn sees Chip McGill as a target of opportunity, and helping Major Crimes take him out would put Max in solid with the AG’s office and the old blues. The fact that you guys are defending a couple of kids who might be persuaded to rat McGill out gives Max an angle, and the fact that Andy’s grandfather is involved makes for a strong pressure point, although you don’t think Andy will fold.”
“I know so,” Kitty said.
I didn’t have quite her confidence, but I let it go. “Does Andy have power of attorney for his grandfather?” I asked her.
“I couldn’t tell you even if I knew,” she said. “Why?”
“Stanley’s in intensive care,” I told her. “He might be on his way to the back exit.”
“Oh my God,” she said, shocked. “That’s why Andy isn’t at the office. He should have said something.”
It occurred to me why he hadn’t, and Kitty worked it out in the next heartbeat.
“He didn’t want Max to know,” she said, staring up at me.
I was already standing, fishing for my wallet. I dropped a ten on the table and put my glass on top of it.
Kitty was right behind me as I made for the door. “What is it?” she demanded, catching up with me on the sidewalk.
“I don’t think Andy’s at the hospital with Stanley,” I told her. “You have a cell phone?”
She pulled it out of her handbag as we hoofed it down the block to my car. I unlocked the passenger door, and Kitty climbed in, reaching across the seat to unlock the driver’s door as I limped around.
“I don’t know the number,” I said as I got behind the wheel. “It’s a listing in Ayer. See if you can get through to Admitting.”
Kitty was already punching up directory assistance.
I pulled out into the traffic, headed for the expressway. It was the wrong time of day and we’d be fighting rush-hour on the Mystic Bridge approaches, but I figured the McGrath & O’Brien was our best bet to get to Route 2. It was the same road I’d traveled that morning with Tony.
“You want to know whether Andy’s there?” she asked me.
“No harm in asking,” I said, jumping an intersection, “but I want to find out where the EMTs picked Stanley up. If you can get directions, that’s a plus.”
The Central Artery was gridlocked. I inched along until I could take the Storrow Drive exit.
“Stanley’s only visitor is his wife,” Kitty told me, her hand over the phone for a second. I heard her tell the nurse on duty she was an insurance adjuster looking for time and mileage on the emergency call. “Right,” she said, listening, and noting it all down on a legal pad. She disconnected with a thank you.
Traffic along the river was moving faster. I could pick up Route 2 in Cambridge.
“Pepperell,” Kitty said. That’s where Stanley was picked up. “Volunteer fire department, ambulance on call. I’ve already got the number; you want me to give it a shot?”
I should have known Stanley wasn’t just joyriding. He’d been on his way to see the beekeeper.
“Try my brother first,” I said. I gave her Tony’s number.
She started to explain who she was when he answered; I interrupted impatiently. “Ask him how the hell we’re going to find Creek Fortier,” I said. “Tell him I screwed up, and we’re behind the clock.”
“He heard you,” Kitty told me, listening to Tony. Then she laughed. “You got that right,” she said into the phone.
We were past the Magazine Street railroad trestle, closing on Soldiers Field Road and the Eliot Bridge. I was shifting back and forth between lanes, picking every gap I could, leaving some exasperated commuters behind me, giving me the finger.
“He’ll have it for us,” Kitty said, speaking to me with exaggerated calm as if she were talking a kitten off a ledge. “Tony wants to know how soon you think we’re going to get there if we survive the ride?”
“Forty-five minutes, an hour, if we’re lucky.” I let my foot off the gas incrementally. “Make that an hour and a half.” It was sort of an apology to Kitty for being so abrupt.
“Okay,” she said to Tony and flipped the cell phone closed. “He says to be cool, Jack.”
“I’m working on it,” I said, but I was stirred with unease and a sense of urgency.
My brother used a livery service out of Lexington on a regular basis. They had handicapped-accessible vans, and a fleet of cabs to cover the suburban area beyond Route 128, and they bid on school bus contracts, filling in between assigned stops. If you were too far off the beaten track or had a special-needs child who wasn’t being mainstreamed, Tony’s taxi guys would carpool you, mileage paid by the state. Their dispatchers knew every secondary road in Middlesex County, including this poverty pocket outside the 495 loop. Tony was passing us directions.
“Stanley’s been helping Creek Fortier out ever since Vietnam,” I explained to Kitty. “He’s lent him money he never expected to be paid back, given him tools, kept him afloat. I don’t mean Fortier’s a user, but Stanley was a soft touch because Creek was a link to his dead son, something Stanley wouldn’t want to let go of. My guess is that Stanley cosigned a mortgage for this property Creek’s got, and when Creek didn’t keep up the payments, Stanley took title or something like that. Creek’s on the dim side, I hear. Or not of this world, anyway, which Stanley wouldn’t take as a handicap. And he wouldn’t want to see Creek lose the place. He must have told Andy to make sure the land got transferred to Creek’s name, but he didn’t tell Andy the punchline, which is that he was dying. Andy got curious.”