Samantha twirled the last strands of pasta around her spoon. "The Davenport case is the prosecuting attorney's problem now. I'm working the elevator."
Mason watched as she finished her pasta. Her appetite was fine. His was gone. Harry always talked about the importance of keeping his personal life separate from his cases. He wasn't always able to do it. Samantha had been trained the same way. Saying that she was working the elevator rather than trying to find out who wanted to kill him was her way of drawing the line. She wiped a fleck of sauce that had splattered onto the butt of her gun. Mason was glad it was a big gun.
Chapter 10
Mason popped a Modern Jazz Quartet CD into his office stereo and opened the cabinet doors covering his dry-erase board. Listening to Milt Jackson work the xylophone keys helped clear his mind. He was a classic jazz fan uninterested in digitized, techno-driven sound. Basie, Peterson, Coltrane, and Monk were better company.
He wrote Arthur Hackett's name beneath the Winners and Losers column, putting $5 million next to Arthur's name, and drew a line connecting the money to the winners' side of the ledger. Next, he added David Evans's name to the losers' column.
Trent Hackett belonged in the losers' column on general principles, but that column was for people who lost something valuable as a result of Dr. Gina's death. It wasn't for people who were just losers. Instead he added a column titled Connections? and put Trent's name at the top. He drew lines from Trent's name to Jordan's and Arthur's, adding one to Gina's labeled broken window.
Robert Davenport's name was next. He wrote drugs across the line connecting the widower to his mate, adding another line with a question mark at the end leading to Centurion Johnson, the only past or present drug dealer on the board. Mason didn't know where Robert Davenport got his drugs. He doubted it was from his wife. Which meant that someone other than Gina had put the drugs in her office. The best reason to do that was to discredit Gina. The only person on the board who would benefit from that was Arthur Hackett. Arthur could have blackmailed Gina into staying, trumping her play of the Jordan card.
Mason drew a line between Arthur Hackett's and Robert Davenport's names, wondering if Robert provided the drugs to Arthur. Even if Mason was right about that, it didn't explain where the drugs came from. Mason drew a line connecting Arthur Hackett and Centurion Johnson, trying that conspiracy theory on for size.
Mason was guessing at most of these conclusions and stretching for others. It was like that at the beginning of a case. He had to consider every possibility because he didn't know enough to exclude any of them.
When he finished, he stepped back to gain a better perspective. Without realizing it, he had connected every name on the board to at least two other names and connected all of them to Gina Davenport. If that was progress, he was in trouble.
Claire Mason opened the door to his office, interrupting his graffiti analysis of the case. She was wearing one of the severe, dark suits she wore year-round, regardless of weather. It wasn't that she was severe or dark. She was the opposite. She was large, and larger than life, but oblivious to fashion, preferring clothes that were functional and durable.
"Except for that shiner, you don't look too bad to me," she said, taking a seat on Mason's sofa and motioning him to join her.
"Don't ask me to take my clothes off. I look like the Kansas City Chiefs used me for a tackling dummy."
"From what I hear, you've got the dummy part down right."
"You can join the chorus singing that tune," Mason told her.
Claire studied the dry-erase board. "I'm glad Abby Lieberman's name isn't on there. I was afraid she was somehow involved when she told me about calling Gina Davenport."
"Abby told me about the call," Mason said. "The phone number was for Jordan Hackett's cell phone."
"Why did Gina Davenport answer the phone?" Claire asked.
"Either she had Jordan's phone or the phone had been programmed to forward calls to Gina's number. I'll ask Jordan."
"That sounds like a lot of trouble. Why not just give Gina's phone number to Abby?"
"Because that wouldn't have linked Gina, Abby, and Jordan together."
Claire said, "It still doesn't make sense. Neither Abby nor Gina knew that Abby was calling Jordan's cell-phone number. How do any of them make the connection?"
Mason shook his head. "Got me." He returned to the board, adding Abby's name with lines drawn to Gina Davenport and Jordan Hackett. "Jordan was adopted.
Someone wants Abby to believe that Jordan is her daughter and that Gina Davenport knew that. Don't ask me why." Mason added lines connecting Abby to Arthur Hackett.
"What a mess," Claire said. "When is Jordan's arraignment?"
"Tomorrow morning, nine o'clock."
"You want my advice, Lou? Take the rest of the day off," his aunt said. "You're too tired to see clearly."
Mason shuddered with weariness. He hadn't slept much in two days. That was no way to prepare for an arraignment. "Okay," he said. "I'm going home. Speaking of seeing clearly-what's wrong with Harry's eyes?"
Claire stood, brushing her suit and pursing her lips. "Have you asked him?"
"Yeah. He said it was allergies and the man doesn't know how to sneeze. The other night at the restaurant, you were wiping his eyes. He was wiping them when he drove me home from the hospital. Plus, he was squinting like Mr. Magoo at the traffic lights and road signs."
Mason knew his aunt wasn't capable of deception. She would rely on privilege and confidences to withhold information, but she wasn't afraid to give bad news. She gave it and took it straight on, like everything else in life.
"Come on, Claire," Mason said. "It's you, me, and Harry. No secrets."
Claire nodded. "You're right. Harry has macular degeneration. It's an irreversible disease with no cure that destroys the central vision. He won't go blind, but his visible world will shrink in bits and pieces until he can't drive, read, or see my face across the kitchen table. So far, he's having trouble with small print and distances."
Mason exhaled like a punctured tire. "Jesus Christ," he said.
"Not available. Harry already asked," Claire said. "The doctors use lasers to slow things down and they've got some other new procedures that might help. The disease kind of limps along, then eventually speeds up. Harry doesn't like to talk about it, so don't go overboard the next time you see him. Good luck tomorrow."
Mason was turning off the light in his office when the phone rang.
"Can you come see me?" Jordan Hackett asked.
"Sure," Mason said. "It's four o'clock. I'll be there in twenty minutes."
The drive to the county jail was quick, but like a power nap, the top-down ride gave Mason a boost. He finger-tapped a light beat on the steering wheel, dividing his thoughts between Jordan and Harry. He hoped she would tell him something he could use, while hoping that he would be able to do the same for Harry.
Jordan had showered but not slept. The dirt was gone, but the circles under her eyes were as dark as his black eye. Her cheeks had flattened, and her body folded inward from the shoulders, like she was trying to disappear into herself.
"I want to get out of here," she said.
They were in the same room as before, the light dull, the paint bleak. A perfect match for Jordan's jailhouse patina.
"We'll see the judge tomorrow morning at your arraignment. I'll ask him to release you on bail."
"Will he let me go?"
"Maybe. It's a high-profile case, so there's always political pressure for the prosecutor to oppose bail. Your history of violence and your confession may make it tough."
"What if," she began in a small voice, "I didn't do it?"
Mason scooted his chair back, the uneven legs scratching the vinyl floor. He walked around the tiny room, stopping at the corner farthest from the door, feeding his latent paranoia that someone was listening. "That would make you a liar but not a murderer. Which are you?"