Right. Those of us on Hector’s defense team had always suspected; Lightner had been absolutely sure of Hector’s sexual preference. And now I had a much more informed idea why Hector was so close to Governor Snow. I’d always thought it was window dressing for Latino voters. Instead, it seemed they shared a common trait. I wondered if there was any kind of relationship between the two of them, but it was hard to imagine. More than likely, they were just two very public men who bonded over a shared, very private personal predilection.
Yesterday, I thought maybe I knew one gay politician; now I was sure I knew two.
“Hector, no bullshit, I wouldn’t-”
My throat closed involuntarily. I couldn’t finish the sentence. My heart started racing, my instincts outpacing my brain.
I asked myself a simple question, and I thought I knew the answer.
“You still there?” Hector said. “Hello?”
I braced my arm on the kitchen counter and played it out in my head.
Hector said, “I told Carl, if there was anyone I knew who could keep a secret, it was you. So I’m not gonna be wrong about that, am I? Jason. Am I gonna be wrong?”
I couldn’t speak, or at least I couldn’t focus on what Hector was saying. My mind was spinning now, trying to build a story, layer one fact upon another.
“Let’s talk first thing in the morning? Okay, Counselor? Sound like a plan? Let’s have breakfast at Apple Jacks, eight-thirty. Carl’s going to make this up to you, Jason, I’ll make sure of it. Okay?”
I didn’t reply. I killed the cell phone and paced the kitchen, playing a game of what-if in my mind, recognizing holes in my logic but feeling in my gut that I could plug them up with additional information.
I tried it from different angles, questioning myself, playing devil’s advocate, but I kept coming to the same conclusions. I was short on a couple of facts but I knew they were true, even if I didn’t know. I was sure of it.
I felt my senses slowing, my mind shifting to a dead-alert focus. My limbs were trembling with rage.
What do you plan to do when you figure it out? Essie Ramirez had asked me.
So what’s the plan, J? Joel Lightner had said. When you figure out who killed Ernesto? You going to kill that person?
I felt everything break down, all of the walls I’d built up crumbling like a house of cards. Maybe that was a good analogy. Maybe I’d been kidding myself that I could get past this. I thought I’d done so. I thought I’d moved on. I missed my wife and daughter, but I was putting it behind me. I told myself the guilt I felt would ultimately harden, would become a permanent scar but one that would fade with each passing day.
I was backsliding and I didn’t care. How familiar and comfortable it felt, the self-destructive rage and bitterness. This is who you are. The guy who picked fights on the schoolyard with guys twice your size. The guy who blew his ride at State, his career in football, just so he could prove to the team captain how tough he was. Wanting to lash out and hurt, fully knowing the hurt would be returned twice over, wanting that hurt, seeking it out.
This is who you are.
I went upstairs to my bedroom. In the closet, top shelf, I found my old badge from the county attorney’s office. I’d thought I lost it once and had to put in for a replacement. I’d paid a heavy price for doing so-a week’s pay-the prosecutor’s office not having a sense of humor about official badges making their way into the public domain, and when I found it later, my replacement already in my wallet, I figured I’d already paid for the right to keep the original issue. So I did, even when I left my job as an ACA and turned in my replacement badge.
I had a gun, too, which I hardly knew how to use. I’d had the bare amount of training and even spent an afternoon at the FBI shooting range, a Friday perk for us low-paid, hard-working prosecutors, but I hadn’t handled this thing for more than four years and I wasn’t sure I could hit a mountain from a distance of two feet with this weapon at this point.
I didn’t have a plan, either, except that I wasn’t going to wait any longer.
Now I knew. I finally knew. The only remaining question was what I would do about it.
83
It started to rain as I drove, massive teardrops splatting my windshield. Dark and stormy seemed appropriate. I was growing cold inside as I worked through everything I knew, feeling like it was all coming up in one direction, no matter how I played it; growing cold as I did math that I knew didn’t add up: If it wasn’t for Adalbert Wozniak’s murder, there’d be no Ernesto Ramirez. If there hadn’t been Ernesto Ramirez, I wouldn’t have been waiting for him that night to call me. If Ernesto hadn’t been murdered, my wife and child would not have traveled alone.
Alone on a night like this, I thought, not cold but rainy, slippery, poor visibility.
I was past the why questions I’d asked for so long afterward. Why didn’t Talia scrap the trip when it started raining so hard? Why didn’t she slow down at the curve? I was past it as a pure function of a time cushion, and I was past it because I knew I was just transferring, because I was bitter and angry and everyone was to blame, me included but not alone.
I took deep breaths as the blackness mounted, coloring everything around me. I was trembling, white-knuckled hands gripping the steering wheel, my teeth grinding so furiously that I was tasting blood on my tongue.
I’d never been to this place, this townhouse, but I had the address courtesy of Joel Lightner. It wasn’t hard to find. The area had exploded in the last few years, before the housing bubble burst, but these were not the homeowners who defaulted on their loans and left their homes in disarray. This was the near-west side, the lofts and condos all new, purchased by the young professionals and artists.
I stood next to the mailbox, a cold shower of rain pelting me, forcing me to squint as I peered at the three-story home. At two in the morning, all the interior lights in the townhouse were out. I removed my cell phone from my pocket and dialed the number. It rang four times and went to voicemail.
I hung up. Then I dialed it again.
A light went on up on the third floor, presumably the bedroom. That’s really all I needed to know.
“Yeah, hello? Jason?”
“Hey,” I said into my cell phone. My voice was even and flat. “I think the reception was bad on the phone before. Just wanted to tell you, I’m not going to say anything to anybody.”
I could hear Hector clearing his throat, shaking out the cobwebs. “Okay, good. That’s good. Hey, breakfast tomorrow, eight-thirty? Apple Jacks?”
“Breakfast tomorrow.” I punched out the cell phone.
Five seconds later, the light went out in the third-floor bedroom again.
Hector was down for the night, sleeping more peacefully now that I had reassured him that I would not divulge the secret held by Hector’s political coattails, Governor Carlton Snow. I wondered how often Hector stayed out here at this townhouse. For a guy who liked to keep his private life private, I suppose it made more sense to stay at his partner’s place, not the other way around. He probably parked his car in a garage, maybe slinked out in the early morning hours before anyone could see him. Or maybe he figured he was sufficiently anonymous out here in the artsy-yuppie near-west side, several miles from the legislative district he used to represent.
I looked at the mailbox marked D. BAILEY. According to Joel Lightner, Delroy Bailey had moved here after his divorce from Joey Espinoza’s sister. Lightner, in his typical flair for completeness, had even noted the grounds for divorce in the petition filed by Joey’s sister: irreconcilable differences. Yeah, I guess it’s pretty irreconcilable when your husband is gay.