TWENTY-EIGHT

When he saw me Cade stared in anger and surprise. Then he limped to a chair in front of Clayton. From his pallor the shattered hip was hurting.

“Well,” he demanded, “what’s the problem?”

The question was for Clayton, its rough edge for me. Clayton hung between speech and the dread of speaking. “There’s eight hundred thousand dollars missing on Lydia’s account statement,” I cut in, “and no withdrawal slip.”

Slow comprehension leeched the anger from Cade’s face and voice. He turned to me. “Do the police know?”

“Yes. And Henry’s out of pocket. Clayton tried finding him and couldn’t.”

“You’ve told no one else, Clayton?”

“No, sir. I wanted your advice.”

“Then I’d better see the account statement.”

Clayton passed the single paper, and Cade gripped it tightly in front of him while he scanned. “Rayfield’s got that,” I told him.

“Good God.” He looked up at Clayton. “Adam and I need to talk somewhere. Please, you just stay put and don’t say a word to anyone. We’ll be back.”

Cade led me down the hall toward Henry’s office. It was past five and the bank was empty, but Cade shut the door before taking Henry’s chair. He leaned over the desk, staring moodily past me, fingers drumming silently, uncharacteristically, on the glass top. “You’re wondering why I never told you about Henry.”

The irrelevance of that surprised me. But I nodded, saying, “At least I’d have understood the tension between you and Rayfield.”

“It was Henry’s place to tell you, not mine.”

“So you let him lie.”

“This isn’t ethics class,” he said sharply. “When Henry told me he’d been with a man we were in the library, with Rayfield waiting outside. He swore he’d perjure himself before giving his friend to Rayfield. What was I supposed to do, come out and tell him Henry was going to lie? I couldn’t abandon him, not then, and knowing what I knew I couldn’t turn him over to someone else. It was a dilemma. My one hope was to get the questioning done with and then keep Rayfield away until he found another suspect. Besides”—Cade paused, speaking slowly now—“you’re not sure this man even exists, are you?”

It hadn’t been irrelevant at all. “No,” I answered. “But Henry told you about his lover that morning, not later. That argues he didn’t make it up.”

Cade smiled without humor. “You assume that Henry was too shocked to lie. That’s your flaw, Adam. It’s fatal in a lawyer to be so tangled in his own emotions that he can’t think like someone else. Think like Rayfield. His Henry Cantwell is a clever man who killed Lydia and then reappeared the next morning ready to play a part. His Henry spins sympathetic lies about loyalty to a friend to make his failure to confide in you sound noble. Rayfield’s Henry Cantwell ruined the lives of both Lydia and Jason to conceal his own sexual transgressions. Rayfield’s Henry is a virtual schizophrenic.”

I felt sick. “And yours, Roland?”

He slumped for a moment, trapped-looking and for once intensely human, worry eroding the hard angles of his face. “I don’t know anymore. I think about Kris Ann …”

I was almost sorry for him. Reluctantly, I said, “There’s something worse.”

“What could be worse?”

I told him about Joanne Mooring.

As he listened, Cade’s fingers stopped drumming. His eyes became intent, expressionless. When I finished, he drew himself up, took an audible breath, and asked, “She saw him?”

“No. His black Mercedes.”

Cade stared at me. Then he murmured, “That’s enough for Rayfield,” paused with his hand over his forehead, and added, “So you think Mooring’s the father.”

“That’s right.”

“Did you tell all this to Henry?”

“I’m afraid so.”

Cade began rubbing his temple. “It’s too much,” he protested. “Do you appreciate in all of your busyness that I’ve known Henry Cantwell for over forty years?”

“I appreciate that, yes.”

“Do you?” he lashed out. “Do you know what you’ve done? You’ve trapped your own client so that Rayfield can break him like an egg. By now Henry’s a desperate man.”

I felt too weak to argue. “Clayton’s waiting,” I said tiredly, “and we’re getting nowhere.”

Cade flung out his arm. “Then tell me what to do, why don’t you. Your Mooring discovery puts me in a hopeless conflict. One client, the bank, is out eight hundred thousand dollars which it appears that another client, my friend, murdered his wife to conceal.”

“To believe that, Roland, you have to believe that Henry strangled Lydia, set up Jason, threatened Kris Ann, and shot at me—all because he’s a thief, which is as incredible as the rest.”

“Who else, dammit. Show me who. Otis Lee, Mooring, Mooring’s wife, even Jason—none of them could take this money. Only Henry could and then keep that from Lydia. Say she did want a divorce. The first thing she’d do is take stock of all her assets. If he’d stolen her money, and not told her, he could never let that come out. Think what he might do—”

“We have to talk to him.”

Cade shook his head. “But that’s where the conflict is. Until now I’ve looked at this like he’s innocent. Now I have to consider, what if he confesses? We’re barred by the attorney-client privilege from telling the bank.”

“But we can’t be sure there’s a conflict until we talk to him.”

“God.” Cade looked at me resentfully. “I need time to think what to do.”

“Maybe the morning,” I tried. “We can think overnight and see him then.”

“It won’t work. Clayton can’t hold off telling his board that long.”

“He told us. If we ask him to keep quiet until tomorrow, then we’ve assumed the burden.”

Cade leaned back. “That would leave the night to figure how to handle Henry, and maybe by noon tomorrow we’d know what to tell the bank.”

“Right.”

“Very well.” Cade began snapping decisions. “We’ll see Henry tomorrow morning, at his place. I don’t want anyone else around. And you’re to come with me. I may want a witness.” He snatched the telephone, stabbing out numbers.

“What’s this?”

“Henry.” Cade’s mouth was a tense line as he held the phone out so I could hear it ring. “Not in.” Then there was a click and Henry’s voice, thin and reedy and faraway sounding, said, “Hello.”

Cade clamped the phone to his ear. “Hello, Henry. How are you feeling?… Good.” I watched Cade maneuver his face to match the smoothness of his voice. “Adam and I are here at the bank. He’s found something, and we both think it’s important we meet with you tomorrow morning, early.”

Cade began listening. I wondered how Henry felt and sounded. Cade was telling him, “It’s better at your place.” He listened again, nodding, then casually answered, “Eight will be fine. Bye, now,” and hung up. Henry would never imagine Cade’s hand shaking as it put down the phone. His forehead glistened with the beginnings of sweat. “Eight o’clock,” he said tiredly. “God, I hated that.”

“How is he?”

“I don’t know.” Cade shook his head. “I just don’t know.”

“Think he’ll call one of us tonight?”

“If he does we can’t talk to him. I want both of us there, especially me.” He looked up at me, bursting out, “It’s you who’s made this disaster, letting Henry manipulate you until you’ve built a case against him by accident and then baited Rayfield into coming here to finish it.”

“Look, Henry asked me to help.”

“Did he? Or did you force him to pretend to want that while trying to scare you off with Kris Ann’s picture and then gunshots, so that he could ask you to stop helping for your own good. Think—you’re not clever enough. Not once since the killing has he told you anything you haven’t forced out of him. He’s maneuvered you until he couldn’t anymore—”

“Save it, Roland. This is hard enough.”

Cade looked incredulous and then his face became blurred in front of me. “Do you think I like it?” he was saying.

My skull was a blinding ache. I blinked once, saw Cade again. “Clearly not,” I answered. “But whether that’s on Henry’s account I wouldn’t know.”

Cade gave me a long, wintry glare before asking, “Now what does that mean?”

“You probably hate Jason Cantwell more than I do. More, even, than you hate me.”

He stared until he was sure what I meant. “She told you?”

“Yes. I understand now why you gave her that gun. It would have been simpler to tell me about Jason.”

“That was between us.” Cade’s fist crashed down on the desk. “Damn you, you’re like a skin graft, stuck where you don’t belong. For two cents I’d rid us both of you—”

He stopped, eyes narrowing as I stood, dug in my pocket for two copper pennies, clinked them in the cup of my hand before I tossed them underhand so that they hung for an instant above the desk, fell, hit his chest, dropping silently on the soft rug. “They’re yours,” I said. I turned my back and went to find Clayton.

By the time Clayton dropped me off it was dusk and I was having trouble with balance. I passed the guard on my porch without speaking. Kris Ann’s face as she met me was a double image. “Are you all right, Adam? Let me call the doctor.”

I leaned in the doorframe. “No need. I’m just tired.”

She took my arm. “There’s a problem at the bank, isn’t there?”

Something in her voice made me turn. “Henry called,” she said reluctantly. “He sounded upset.”

“I’d better call him.”

Her face became one, then two, then one again. “It can wait until morning,” she urged. “You look like a ghost.”

I stared past her from the hallway toward the kitchen telephone. It was a blur. I put my hand on the railing and walked slowly upstairs.

Henry never called back. After a time I feel asleep. But in a dream my father died again, and only Brian wept.