In the aftermath of the murders, I had little appetite for legal work. Even on a busy street at the height of the midday rush, the world seemed to have receded behind an invisible screen, muffling sound, slowing everything to the dulled pace of my thoughts, weary and overburdened from constant fear and lack of sleep. More than anything else, I wanted to be with my family, with Teddy, Tamara, and Carly, preferably far from Wilder’s reach. But there was nowhere for us to go. I had to earn a living, and so did Teddy. We’d been ridden by men like Wilder all our lives. Maybe we should have been used to it, but I couldn’t resign myself.
My feelings for my father were too complicated to produce an emotion with a simple name. Not that I was so naïve as to think grief was ever simple for anyone. However, it’s hard to believe that many sons, looking back, would be able to find the multitude of reasons for self-blame that I did in those weeks after Lawrence’s death.
This was in no small part because his demise was something I’d actively desired most of my life—during those twenty-one years when, like the rest of the world, I’d blamed him for my mother’s murder. I’d spent so long wishing to be fatherless that it was difficult not to regard what had happened as delayed gratification. There were moments, even, when I caught myself feeling a sense of relief. I now saw that our reconciliation had been an eyeblink compared with the length of our estrangement.
I owed a visit to my client, Jane Doe. In preparation for this visit I printed out color copies of the picture I’d taken of Jack Sims with Carly. I’d intended to crop my niece out of the photo, yet some instinct told me to leave her in.
My client was still on the jail ward at the hospital. I rode the elevator up to 7D, showed my bar card and driver’s license, submitted to the usual search, and was admitted to the room where she remained on suicide watch, the self-inflicted wound on her neck still heavily bandaged.
“I broke my promise,” I said. “I told you that next time I came here I’d call you by your name.”
Her eyes narrowed, showing a mixture of belligerence and boredom. This told me she’d resigned herself to being alive, at least. Her voice was as flat as her affect. “I’m going to fire you, I decided. Go with the public defender.”
This struck me as a promising sign. “That would make my life much simpler. But let me show you something first.” At first she made no move to take the photograph of Sims and Carly from my hand, as if nothing I could show her could possibly be of interest. Then her eyes locked on Sims’s face, and her hand jerked toward the picture. She arrested the motion, however, a door seeming to slam closed on the fear that in that unguarded moment had filled her eyes.
“Who’s that supposed to be?” she asked, turning her face away.
“A man named Jack Sims. He was an associate of Bo Wilder’s in prison.”
A silence followed, filled with the tension of unspoken things. I sensed her wanting to make some retort, but none came.
She swallowed—painfully, it seemed, because the action brought tears to her eyes, and her hand went to the bandage at her throat. “What happened to her?” she finally asked in a voice very different from her voice of a moment ago.
I managed to keep the fear out of my voice. “I’m not sure. I only wanted to see if you recognized the man.”
I held out my hand for the picture, wanting it back, but she wasn’t ready for me to take it yet. She folded the page down the middle, making a crease between Carly and her abductor, leaving only Carly visible, on her shoulder Sims’s disembodied hand.
I wondered what she saw there. She wouldn’t identify Carly as my niece, my niece’s skin being dark enough that no outsider would guess we were related. No, Jane was more likely to glimpse herself in that photo, or, rather, the child she must’ve been before evil entered her life.
What’d he do to you? I wanted to ask, but knew I’d get no answer. If I was going to learn anything, I’d have to let the questions come from her.
“She’s in danger, isn’t she?” she said. “Did someone stop him?”
Not understanding what she meant, I shook my head. “I’m afraid you’re the only one who can do that.” I spoke gently, then paused. “I know Sims was there the night of Edwards’s shooting. How he’s connected to you, I can’t guess. The police don’t know about this, though. At least not yet. And I don’t intend to point out to them the witness my investigator found. Still, if one person saw you with him, others probably did.”
She stared at me. “You ought to be telling me to keep my mouth shut.”
“Keeping your mouth shut’s guaranteed to get you life in prison.”
“Not keeping my mouth shut will probably get me killed.”
I could only shrug. “It’s possible you’re not as easy to kill as you think. And judging by recent events, it seems death’s a risk you’re willing to take.”
“That was a mistake. I’m not going out that way.” Her voice was emphatic.
“I’m very glad to hear it.” Mine was emphatic, too.
Shifting gears, she asked, “Where’d you get that picture?”
“It’s my niece in the photo. And she’s why Wilder thinks he can count on me to help you keep your mouth shut.”
“You’re saying they threatened your family.”
It made her angry, I saw. She wasn’t cynical or indifferent about my troubles. The picture of Carly, I intuited, had brought my situation into alignment with hers.
“I’m no more interested in furthering the plans of these men than you are,” I assured her. “It wasn’t your idea to shoot that man, was it? Just tell me that.”
Quickly, her anger reverted back to wariness, and I saw I’d made a mistake trying to steer the conversation back to what she’d done. I waited for her to speak—if she was going to speak—but her jaw remained set. Her eyes sought the corner of the room.
I stayed a few more minutes, waiting to see if she’d relent and tell me what I needed to know to save her life, but she said no more.
Returning to the office, I shut it up for the day and drove across the Bay to my brother’s house, arriving just after 4 P.M. Tamara and Carly were out. I found Teddy sitting on a lawn chair in the backyard, a half-dozen beer bottles scattered around him.
Hearing my greeting, he turned his head. Then he nodded and gestured toward the house—an invitation, I took it, to fetch myself a beer from the fridge. “Tam and Carly went to her mother’s this morning,” he said when I came back out. “Tam hasn’t let me tell Carly yet about Dad and Dot. I’m not sure how long she intends to keep it from her. Maybe the rest of her life.”
“I don’t know how you can make a child understand death. Let alone murder. I can’t understand it. It might be better if she doesn’t know—if she just thinks they simply went away.”
“You’re probably right,” Teddy said. He sounded unconvinced.
For a moment neither of us spoke. At last I put the question to him as gently as I could. “Are they staying at Debra’s tonight?”
“Tam just said they were going there. I didn’t ask her when they were coming back. But she had stuff packed, so I’m guessing it won’t be tonight. I didn’t argue with her. I’d have done the same if I were her. Oh, Leo. What have I gotten my family into?”
“I’d say the better question is who and what Dad got himself mixed up with. If you know anything about it, now’s the time to tell me. There must have been things he didn’t want me to know.”
Teddy shrugged, seemingly torn. “There was something,” he finally said. He regarded the empty bottle in his hand. “How about you get me another beer.”
I fetched two more. When I came back out he was sitting lower in his chair and seemed to have resolved something.
“Did it surprise you that none of Bo’s crew showed up at the funeral?” he asked.
“Not really. I never thought of Dad as part of that crew. I mean, Bo protected Dad inside prison, but Dad never spilled blood for them. From what I understand, a person’s not part of the Brotherhood unless he’s killed someone to get in.”
“It’s not always an either-or thing,” Teddy said. “Need has a way of changing old fixed ideas. You were right about our cover story—it was a bunch of bullshit we told you about running Bo’s rental properties. I mean, I was doing that, but it’s not what Bo needed us for. He wanted someone he could trust to keep an eye on the guys who were supposed to be keeping their eyes on his business.”
“That’s not good,” I said. It was, in fact, horrible, exactly what I’d feared. “I can imagine those guys wouldn’t like the idea of an outsider looking over their shoulders, assuming they ever found out.”
“I don’t see how anyone could keep it a secret, or that Bo even wanted to. In fact, I think the point was them knowing he was checking up. Bo would give Dad little errands, people he was supposed to talk to, projects he needed to verify. Dad was his eyes on the outside, so to speak. But you know what I think now? I think Dad’s real purpose was to be like the canary in the coal mine. Because, as you say, it was an obvious provocation, sending a guy like him to look over the shoulders of these big badass white supremacist ex-cons. Everyone knew Dad was protected. So as long as he stayed alive, Bo could be sure his protection was still good, and that his organization was still under control. But the minute something happened to Dad …”
“He’d know the game was on.”
Teddy shook his head slowly. “There are only two possibilities. Either Bo withdrew his protection, or the forces arraying themselves against him didn’t give a shit.”
“So, basically, you’re telling me we may have inserted ourselves into a war.”
“Could be killing Dad was just a way of sending a message. To Wilder. There might not have been anything personal about it, in connection with us.”
“It was pretty fucking personal to me,” I retorted.
“To me, too, obviously,” he quickly assured me. “I’m just trying to say this could be the end of it as far as we’re concerned. As you said, Dad wasn’t really part of Bo’s crew, and neither are we. We’re on the sidelines now.”
“I don’t intend to remain on the sidelines. Because if it’s not Bo, it’s going to be some other asshole breathing down our necks. I’m tired of it, and I’d think you should be, too.”
“I’m wondering if, between the two of us, we might be able to put together a case.”
“What do you mean?”
Instead of answering his question directly I said, “How long have you been working for Bo—a year and a half?”
“Around that.” Teddy still seemed uncertain.
“Even though you’ve been on the periphery, during that time you must have gained some knowledge of how his organization works. Who the players are, how the money moves.”
Teddy made a helpless gesture. “Dad probably could have laid it all out for you, but I mostly minded my own business. I stayed at the rental office, took payments, sent out maintenance calls. That was really the extent of it, as far as my involvement goes.”
“The rental office.” I let a measured skepticism tinge my voice.
“Yeah, the rental office.” Teddy’s annoyance was clear. “Is it so unbelievable that a guy like Wilder would maintain a legitimate business?”
“No. Those guys almost always have something that looks straight enough on the surface. It’s called a front. Money comes in dirty and it goes out clean. I could see how a rental business might be just the thing for laundering moderate amounts of cash. Tell me this: Do you have access to the leases?”
“Sure.”
“Does every tenant pay the amount that’s written in the lease?”
“No.” Teddy spoke as if this were nothing unusual. “We advertise one rate, but then we give the tenant a discount. It builds goodwill. The long-term tenants, especially, we send them increase notices every year. But most are still paying the rents they paid when they first moved in. Way below market. Sometimes a fraction of what’s listed. We came in thinking we were going to fix all that, but Bo told us don’t rock the boat right away. And he’s right. If we tripled their rent, these people would have nowhere to go.”
I felt a near-crushing disappointment at my brother’s evident lack of acuity. It was hard to believe anyone could be so obtusely innocent. No prosecutor who retained any memory of Teddy’s brilliant courtroom performances could possibly accept this current show of naïveté as genuine.
Nor did I believe it. “Don’t play dumb,” I told him. “You were keeping the books, accounting for the cash money Bo’s men brought in by crediting it across the rental accounts of tenants who were getting a discount. Right?”
Teddy looked both devastated and guilty. Tears welled for a moment before he mastered them with the aid of a long pull of beer. “Dad was so cocky, he couldn’t see that Bo was using him. He thought he could write his own ticket. But I saw what Bo was doing, and I kept my mouth shut. Not that Dad would’ve listened. I wanted so much for it to be legit. I wanted to be able to support Carly and Tam….”
He broke off, took a last swallow, and dropped the bottle to the grass.
When he was able to speak again, his tone was fatalistic. “There was a reason I never had kids before, and it wasn’t what you think, that I cared about work too much. It was that I knew having people depend on me would lead to errors in judgment.”
“I depended on you.”
“No. You would’ve depended on me, if I’d let you. But I didn’t. I kept you at a distance. I thought it was the best thing I could do for you, that I could shove you out of harm’s reach. And look what happened. It’s my fault you’re in the mess you’re in.”
“Shut up,” I told him, though a part of me responded urgently to this confession, which scraped an ancient wound. I thought again of what Car had told me when we interviewed the witness who’d placed Jane Doe and Sims together—that Teddy’s weakness, the one thing he couldn’t stand to lose, and therefore the leverage guys like Santorez and later Wilder had on him, was me.
“Stop feeling sorry for yourself,” I went on, putting these feelings aside. “It doesn’t matter how we got into this situation. Focus on getting us out.”
His voice was plaintive. “How on earth are we going to do that?”
“To start with, tomorrow you need to go back to work. It’s important, for now, for both of us to act as if nothing’s changed.”
He gave me a look of defiance, making clear the impossibility of what I’d asked. Then he seemed to put aside his protest in favor of a more pressing question. “You talked about building a case. What’d you mean?”
It would have to be an airtight case, I realized, with enough evidence to put all of them away forever. The first problem with this was there was no guarantee the police would take our evidence at face value, no matter how ironclad it was. In addition, there was nothing stopping the government from turning around and prosecuting us, contenting itself with the opportunity to settle old scores with Teddy, who, a few minutes ago, had as much as confessed to playing a central role in laundering Wilder’s money.
More practically, I doubted my brother’s ability to reconstruct Wilder’s scheme with sufficient clarity and detail to prove a complex financial crime beyond a reasonable doubt. No, I realized, my idea of bringing the government the evidence it needed to convict Wilder and his associates was a pipe dream. At best, we’d probably end up in prison, which was tantamount to a death sentence, given that Wilder’s crew was the main power structure behind bars. At worst, we’d accomplish nothing more than to put targets on our backs for men whose professional identity consisted of an eagerness to commit savage murders.
“I don’t know what I meant,” I told him, admitting defeat. “Dad told me he had a plan, an ‘exit strategy,’ as he called it, but he didn’t share it with me.”
“He wasn’t acting like someone who was trying to get out.”
“I’m beginning to see that. Jesus, he was so goddamn arrogant, thinking he could pull this off on his own. You have any idea what this so-called exit strategy was?”
“It’s the first I’ve ever heard of it.” A note of challenge now entered Teddy’s voice. “Sounds as though he told you things you’ve been keeping from me.”
I had to acknowledge the justice of this accusation. So I told him what little I knew, leaving out for now the evident connection between Sims and my Jane Doe case. First, I revealed what I knew about Sims—that he’d been in prison with Dad and Bo—and then, even more significantly, I told him that in the final conversation I’d had with our father before his murder, Lawrence had promised to “deal with” Sims for what he’d done to Carly at the baseball game.
“That same conversation was when he told me about his ‘exit strategy,’” I said, concluding my explanation. “It wouldn’t surprise me if he didn’t have anything definite in mind. You know Dad, always promising more than he could deliver. Maybe he was just trying to keep me from doing something crazy, like running to the cops about Sims.”
“You haven’t mentioned his name to the detectives working Dad’s case,” Teddy said, confirming what he already knew.
“No, and I’m angry with myself that I haven’t,” I told him. “I can’t stop thinking of what happened at the baseball game, those awful minutes when we couldn’t find Carly.”
“So you think Dad confronted Sims, warned him to keep his distance from Carly or else, and then Sims killed him and Dot for it.”
“Possibly,” I said. “Or maybe it’s like what you say, that he was killed because a play’s being made against Wilder. I could see how Dad, being an outsider whom Wilder was using to spy on bona fide members of the AB, might have been a natural target.”
But, in truth, I didn’t think this was what had happened. Our father had believed he was smarter than everyone else, and, as a consequence, had likely underestimated the intelligence of these men whose cunning he ought to have feared. For this, he’d paid the ultimate price. The important thing now was not to repeat his errors.
“Or maybe someone found out about Dad’s ‘exit strategy,’ and cut him off to prevent him from compromising the organization,” I said. “Or simply to punish him for having the audacity to think he had a choice.”
“They thought they owned him,” Teddy agreed.
I looked at him. “Bo had Russell Bell murdered because he wanted Lawrence on the outside, working for him. If Bell had lived to testify in the retrial, we both know Lawrence would have been convicted.”
I went on to explain my theory that Sims could have been Bell’s executioner, having been paroled just in time to pull the trigger. “You know, I doubt Lawrence would have given Sims the kind of thank-you he expected. And ingratitude is just a hair’s breadth from disrespect, after all.”
Teddy vigorously rubbed his brow, then his face, as if our speculations had left a tangible residue of fear on his skin. I felt it, too. Evening was falling, we were no closer to an answer than before, and none of the possible theories we’d come up with held any comfort for us. The common element seemed to be that we were screwed. Still, knowing this as a certainty felt, in a certain beery light, like progress.
I decided to stay, and we ordered a pizza. After we’d eaten, Teddy called Tamara and said good night to Carly over the phone. Sitting outside by myself in the cool evening, I tried unsuccessfully not to listen to his end of the conversation, conducted in the family’s small kitchen on the other side of the window that opened onto the backyard. I overheard no talk of Teddy heading there at any point, nor of his wife and daughter returning here.
It was a while before he came out with another pair of beers, his face grim and heartbroken. In the silent interim, I’d been trying to understand my reasons for withholding my conversation with Wilder from my account of facts relevant to Lawrence’s death. I’d vowed not to repeat my father’s mistakes. Wasn’t withholding vital information from my brother breaking that promise?
And yet I couldn’t truly blame Lawrence for keeping us in the dark, because I knew his arrogance hadn’t been self-interested. Rather, he’d sought to protect us, probably believing that by suppressing dangerous knowledge, he could shield us from the consequences of his acts. Though hampered now by my ignorance of all that our father had chosen not to tell us, I’d no intention of revealing to Teddy the channel that had recently opened between me and Wilder, nor my hope of somehow using Jane Doe’s case to improve our situation.
Her case was connected to a vital interest of ours—I was sure of it.
Teddy handed me my beer. We touched the necks of our bottles. “To an exit strategy,” I proposed.
“Don’t get pissed—but I think I know how he was going to do it,” my brother said. “Only the very idea of it scares me.”
“I’m listening,” I told him.