A Plague of Secrets

“Slow,” Hunt said. “But we were right about all the staff being in on it. They really, really don’t want to talk to the actual police.”

“Are they still dealing out of there?”

“It wouldn’t shock me. Though not at the level Dylan was. At least not yet.”

“So who? The new manager?”

“Ruiz. Sharp guy. But he says there’s a guy, he thinks called Paco, who got in a beef with Dylan while Levon was there maybe a couple of weeks before he got killed.”

Hardy sat up. “They were both there together, Dylan and Levon?”

“Oh yeah. Pretty frequently, at least every time Levon came for his pickup.”

“Well, there you go.”

“Except there’s no Paco on the list. I’ve got Ruiz watching for him if he comes in again, but he says he hasn’t seen him since the big day. And, of course, he could be making it all up.”

“Of course.” Hardy threw another quick glance at Glitsky’s table-just as cheerful as last time. “I had a chat with your man Craig this morning, you know.”

“Yeah. He called in. Can he do anything for you?”

“Well, so far he puts Maya at Levon’s, but he doesn’t put her inside. So if I need him for something on the stand, he won’t do too much damage with that.”

“Actually, it might be a little better than that. The way it sounds to me, she’d just got there and couldn’t get in, as opposed to she was just coming out.”

“Big difference,” Hardy said.

“No shit.” Wyatt hesitated for a second. “But how did he seem?”

“Who, Craig? Fine. Why?”

Hunt shrugged. “He and Tamara broke up. I think he’s having some problems. But he was okay?”

“He seemed fine.”

“Good. Just checking on the puppies.” Hunt turned his glass around in its condensation ring. “I did get something else, maybe. Actually, Gina got the hunch from something else I was saying. If it’s anything.”

“You think you got enough qualifiers in there?”

“I don’t want to get your hopes up.”

“I’ll be on diligent guard. Meanwhile, at this point,” Hardy said, “I don’t care if Daffy Duck is your source. I’ll take it.”

“Okay. What do you know about Tess Granat?”

Hardy felt he’d be nothing without his memory, and he had his answer in a second. “Movie star. Falling Leaves, Death by Starlight. Died here in the city, didn’t she? Hit by a car when she was pregnant, if I remember.”

Hunt nodded. “Hit-and-run. Mom and unborn kid both died. Driver never found.”

“Okay.”

“Okay. Did you know she was Kathy West’s sister?”

With his water halfway to his mouth Hardy stopped cold and slowly replaced the jar on the table. The words unborn kid went jangling around in his brain. As did the details of his interview with Maya in the attorney visiting room at the jail-when she had talked about the i

Lou had a lunch staff of two white women and two Filipino men-all middle-aged-that delivered food from the kitchen and never slowed down, and one of the women showed up and plopped their Specials down without fanfare between them, then threw after them their utensils wrapped in paper napkins.

Hardy finally found his voice again. “When did this happen, the hit-and-run?”

“March of ninety-seven,” Hunt said. “Maya was a junior that year. It’s when things seemed to go south for her.”

“How’d you get this?” Hardy asked. “Or Gina?”

“We were just talking about how I got started on all this, and I mentioned ru

“There’s a co

“Maybe worth asking about.”

“So you’re thinking the blackmail might not have been about a robbery?”

“I’m not thinking anything. I’m just wondering. Granat’s death was a big deal at the time. A huge deal.”

A muscle worked in Hardy’s jaw.

“They were an item back then, too, you know? Maya and Dylan.” Hunt stopped to let that fact settle, then continued. “Although by senior year, or maybe sooner, they broke up, and she goes back to being Junior League and finds religion again.”

“It would explain a lot.” Hardy getting into it. “If she knew anything about the hit-and-run with Granat and didn’t go to the cops at the time, and then her family found out about it later, she’s fucked. The family would never forgive her, and she can’t forgive herself. Which is why she thinks she deserves whatever happens to her. It’s God working in biblical time, just paying her back now for what she did then.”

“It’s a damn compelling theory,” Hunt said, “but the bad news is that it doesn’t actually change all that much. Dylan’s blackmailing her about that, the bottom line is he’s still blackmailing her, so she’s got the same motive.”

“Not exactly.” Hardy was already thinking about how he could get any of this in front of the jury. “If it’s not about something she and Dylan did with Levon around dope in college, it takes Levon out of the picture, at least out of her picture. She’s got no reason at all to kill him.”

“Except if maybe Dylan told him.”

“Never. Knowledge being power and all, if Dylan’s the only one who knows, and my money says he is, then he doesn’t dilute it by telling anybody else.”

“You’re right.”

“Only sometimes. But it would be nice if this was one of those times.” Hardy pulled his Special over in front of him and poked at it with his fork. “Hmm. Looks a little like Yeanling Clay Bowl.” This, probably Lou’s most famous and mysterious Special-it didn’t come in a clay bowl and no one had any idea what a yeanling was-showed up on the menu about half a dozen times a year.

“You think maybe yeanling could mean ‘octopus’?” Hunt asked.

But before Hardy could do anything about his latest information, he had to be sure that it was true.

He stood in the wide hallway behind Department 25 and waited, depressed as always by the sight of the shackled prisoners belching from the elevators coming down from the jail above him. Maya, over in the new jail behind the Hall of Justice, would be coming in through the back door in her personal little chain gang.

Her saw her now and walked down to meet her. The months of incarceration hadn’t been good to her. She’d asked for a short haircut to minimize the lack of luster brought about by the caustic soap they had in the showers, but the result was just an unkempt, vaguely butch, mop-and now it was even showing signs of gray. Her skin, too, had the familiar jail pallor, although ironically she’d gained perhaps fifteen pounds with the huge servings of high-calorie jail food. And no one would ever mistake the deep creases around her eyes for laugh lines.

He accompanied her into the four-by-eight-foot cage built into the wall and co

Braun walked by them, coming back from her lunch, in conversation with one of her judicial colleagues, and she didn’t even glance in their direction.

“She’s an awful person,” Maya said.

“Yes, she is.”

“How does somebody like that get to be a judge?”

“Usually the governor appoints them first. Then they just keep getting elected.”

“So the qualification is they know a governor?”

“And probably either gave him money or helped him get it. Assuming a male governor, of course.”

“And why wouldn’t we?” She plucked at her jail suit. “I’m sorry, I’m just a total bitch today. I shouldn’t be so judgmental. I’m sure she’s trying her best.” She sighed. “And to think that’s so much the life Joel and I bought into before all this began.”