“That kind of confirmation is useless. A dead witness is no witness at all.”
“There are witnesses. Some older Mexican boys who’d seen you down there years ago identified your photo, and Melvin Watson recognized this house as the one Sherwyn took him to.”
Hale took a sip of tea. Donnally left his untouched.
“Having parties in my own home was a mistake,” Hale said, “but I realized that too late.”
Hale’s eyes blurred as he gazed out at the garden as if he wasn’t seeing the reality in front of him, but was reliving a distant memory, populated by beautiful boys on summer evenings.
“The men who came here. You would be surprised.” Hale again looked at Donnally. “Maybe not you. I knew even then that it was a risk. Maybe that was part of the thrill. Eventually the balance shifted, and it seemed too dangerous.”
“What changed?”
“One of our members was nominated to a high government position.” Hale smiled as if enjoying a private joke, then said, “One might say that he became one of the knights at the round table. Fortunately the FBI was too busy chasing terrorists to delve too deeply into his past.”
“And that’s why you set up White Sands in Mexico.”
“Of course. The problem is that sometimes the past is like a seeping wound that won’t heal. Like Charles Brown.”
“Why didn’t you cauterize it and get rid of him?” Donnally asked. “Put an end to this when he was released from the Fresno Developmental Center?”
“You seem to think we are cold-blooded murderers. We’re not.”
“What could be more cold-blooded than the murder of Anna Keenan?”
“That was an act of desperation.” Hale smiled. “I think Sherwyn surprised himself.” He took another sip of tea. “You showing up threw a monkey wrench into things, but then we figured that we couldn’t lose whether he got convicted or the case got thrown out on a technicality. Either way, the world would be convinced he killed her. The important thing was to make sure that the case never went to trial.”
“And that’s why the Albert Hale Foundation interceded and bought him the best defense money could buy.”
“Exactly.” Hale then dismissed the entire issue with a wave of his hand. “Anyway, that’s all behind us now. The statute of limitations has run on everything I did and there’s no way to connect me to the murder.”
“What about public exposure?”
Hale snorted. “How terribly provincial. The hundred-million-dollar endowment of the Albert Hale Foundation will mitigate the minor inconvenience of some temporary bad press.”
He turned toward Donnally. “Did you see The Pianist? I’m sure it must have played even in your little Mount Shasta.”
Donnally pulled back. “You’re not deluded enough to compare yourself to a Holocaust victim?”
“Not to the Jew, but to the director. Roman Polanski. He plea-bargained away charges that he drugged and raped a thirteen-year-old girl, and then escaped to France before sentencing. A few years later he received a standing ovation from the Hollywood crowd, probably including your father, when he was awarded the Oscar for Best Director. You see, the world is forgiving of those with enormous amounts of talent or money, and I neither drugged nor raped anyone. At worst I will be viewed as flawed, perhaps even weak, but not evil. And I can live with that.”
“You mean die with that.”
“That’s implied, but until that happens I have time to spread my largesse around.”
Donnally thought of the criminals who’d redeemed themselves in the public mind through power or artistic brilliance or payoffs to charity.
Hale paused in thought for a few moments, then asked, “Do you know the Goya etchings from the eighteenth century? I’m thinking of the one in which a woman averts her eyes in shame as she reaches to yank out the teeth of a hanged man because of their supposed magical power.”
Donnally nodded.
“Expose me, if you will,” Hale said, “but charities will soon become the alchemists of my rehabilitation. My penance will be their profit, and they’ll find some way to justify it.”
Hale gazed toward the rear of the property, his eyes pausing in the direction of his Labrador lying under a tree, now illuminated by the setting sun. The dog opened its eyes for a moment, blinked into the light, and then closed them again.
“And remember,” Hale finally said. “Exposure goes two ways. You think little Melvin and the boys want to have their secrets displayed to the world? Can you imagine the looks he’ll get from the parents of the kids at the college? They’ll all wonder why the church assigned Brother Fox to the student chicken coop. I’m not sure he wants to live with that kind of humiliation. And even if he was willing, the church wouldn’t let him.”
Hale rested his cup and saucer on his lap.
“In the end, it’s all about money, of which I have an enormous amount.” Hale spread his arms to encompass the gardens and mansion behind him. “The only heaven is on earth, at least for those that can afford it. And my money is untouchable, should the boys sue me. Not only is it all under the control of the foundation, but the foundation itself is housed offshore. That way I can still control it. In this castle I’m immune, and from my throne I can distribute alms to those I choose, for the purposes I choose.”
“But you won’t be finishing out your days here, but in a hell on earth. A prison cell.”
“Are you intellectually deaf or just not listening?”
“There’s no statute of limitations on murder.”
Hale snorted again. “Anyone who could tie me to any of the murders is dead. At most you have a circumstantial case. I may be the man with the last word, but there’s no one alive who heard me speak it. The dead, my friend, are both deaf and mute. The most you could possibly have is hearsay.”
Donnally extracted his tape recorder from his jacket pocket and set it on the table between them. He left his gun exposed.
“A confession?” Hale smiled. “You expect me to confess? You’re insane.” Hale reached for the bell. “I think I’ve had enough of this.”
Donnally didn’t interfere. Instead he turned on the recorder. The voice was a whisper:
This is the dying declaration of William Sherwyn.
Hale’s eyes widened for just a second, then he looked at Donnally. “It doesn’t make any difference what he said. It’s all hearsay.”
“You should’ve studied up for a day like this,” Donnally said. “A dying declaration is the exception to the hearsay rule.”
El Mandamas is Albert Hale. He established White Sands.
Hale glanced over his shoulder at the sound of the door opening behind him. He grabbed the recorder and fumbled with it, jabbing at buttons.
I was present in Hale’s house when he gave Gregorio Cruz ten thousand dollars in cash and ordered him to kill Harlan Donnally.
Hale wrapped his hands around the device, muffling the sound, then thrust it toward Donnally.
“Turn this damn thing off.”
Donnally took it from him.
When Anna Keenan threatened to expose us, I had no choice but to-
Donnally pressed the “off” button.
The butler came to a stop next to Hale, who looked up and waved him away.
Hale waited until the butler was out of hearing range. His face was flushed and sweating.
“What do you want? A payoff? Is that what this is, extortion?”
“It would more properly be called blackmail,” Donnally said, smiling. “Extortion relies on a threat of violence. Blackmail on a threat of exposure or, in this case, of dying an excruciating death in a prison hospital.” Donnally paused for a moment. “It’s interesting. Sherwyn didn’t make that mistake. He called it by its correct name when I offered him what he thought was a chance to buy his way out.”
“So this was about money all along.” Hale forced a smirk, attempting to conceal his vulnerability behind a wall of sarcasm. “So that maybe you can buy a new stove for your little cafe? Perhaps add some outdoor seating? Maybe a mosquito zapper?”