"I believe you," he said, sensing that it was she who lacked faith, not him. "I'm sorry," he added, regretting that was all he had to offer.
"Me too." Jordan ran her hands through her hair, turned, and dipped past Mason, circling to the other side of the bed. "Well, thanks for that trip down memory lane. You said there were two things you wanted to talk about."
Mason was glad to change the subject. "Centurion said you took something that belongs to him when you left Sanctuary. He wants it back."
"Can we get out of here if I give it back to him? Can I go back to Abby's?"
"I hope so."
Jordan opened the closet door and picked up her backpack. She unzipped a compartment on the front, pulled out a slender leather-bound ledger, and handed it to Mason. The pages were filled with a series of initials separated by slashes, followed by dates and dollar amounts ranging from $10,000 to $100,000 and either the letter P or B in parentheses.
"What is it?" Mason asked.
"Nothing. It doesn't matter. Give it back to him."
"It can't be nothing," Mason said. "Centurion all but threatened to kill me and you to get this little book back."
Jordan tapped into a wellspring of venom Mason thought had run dry. "I said it's nothing! Give it back to the fucking pig and tell him I'll rip his fucking heart out if he comes near me!"
Mason thought about the lies he'd told and heard that day, adding Jordan's outburst to the list. The ledger was something-maybe gold, maybe poison, maybe both- but it was the opposite of nothing. That was Jordan's lie. That she would rip out Centurion's heart if she had the chance was nothing but the truth.
Mason left Jordan in the bedroom. He used the all-in-one fax, copier, printer, and scanner in Daphne's study to make a copy of the pages in the book. Then he called Centurion, arranging to meet him in another very public place. Mason thought his choice was perfect for returning a book. Besides, he doubted whether Centurion had ever been in the public library.
Chapter 19
Mickey was in the study, seated at Daphne's computer, scrolling through a web site and muttering under his breath, as Mason confirmed his meeting with Centurion Johnson. Maroon velvet wallpaper shrank the study, already cramped by a rolltop desk, its cubbyholes stuffed with incoming and outgoing mail.
"Is that a good idea, Boss?" Mickey asked.
"Is what a good idea?"
"You going out in the rain to meet Centurion?"
"I'm meeting him at the public library. That's the safest place I know unless you take a sex education book back into the stacks."
"Bad idea to go alone."
"Who said anything about going alone. I'll call Blues."
"He's tending bar tonight since the regular bartender called in sick. Normally, I'd fill in, but I'm babysitting Jordan."
"That's why he calls the place Blues on Broadway. The customers expect to see him. I'll call Harry."
"Not home. Claire picked him up a few minutes ago. They're flying to Chicago for dinner."
"Get real, Mickey. Nobody flies to Chicago for dinner, especially Harry and Claire."
"She said it's for Harry's birthday, the celebration that never ends. She's acting like he won't see another one. Their flight is at six and their reservations are at nine. They're coming back in the morning."
Mason knew his aunt better than he knew anyone alive. She had raised him on a regimen of duty disciplined by frugality. She was a serious woman with serious values moderated by a serious humor that rarely indulged in flights of fancy, let alone flights to Chicago for dinner. Mason gave Mickey credit for his unintentional insight. Claire wasn't worried that Harry wouldn't live to see his next birthday. She was worried that he wouldn't see by his next birthday, and she was determined that he would see as much as he could for as long as he could. He envied her devotion to Harry as he rubbed the ache left by Abby's last angry words.
Mason agreed with Mickey that it was a bad idea to meet Centurion alone, even at the public library, but he was out of backups and it was a worse idea to back out now. Centurion would assume that Mason was setting him up, and that was the worst idea Centurion could get.
"We'll use our cell phones again. I'll call you when I get to the library and you listen in. If Centurion doesn't use his library card to check out this book," Mason said, palming the ledger, "call the cops."
"Swell, but still stupid," Mickey said, studying the computer screen. "Check this out. I found a web site that has all the Form 990s for private foundations. Here's the one for Sanctuary."
Mason pulled up a chair next to Mickey, crowding him for a view of the screen. The form looked like every other tax return Mason had ever seen, an indecipherable grid of add, subtract, multiply, and divide adopted by Congress as the Accountant's Full Employment Act.
"David Evans told me that this form lists all the donations and expenses for the foundation. Find that part."
Mickey scrolled through the pages, stopping at the list of donors. "It lists the names of donors making contributions in excess of five thousand dollars. Let's take a spin," Mickey said as he rolled the cursor down the list, stopping at Emily's Fund.
"One hundred thousand dollars," Mason said. "That's a lot of cheddar for Dr. Gina to give to a place that didn't stop her daughter from committing suicide. See if there's anything interesting on the expense side."
"It lists compensation for the highest-salaried people," Mickey said, clicking the mouse to find those entries. "Nice work if you can get it," he added. "Centurion is knocking down three hundred and fifty K, and Brother Terry Nix is alive and well at one hundred and seventy-five."
"Don't forget the free room and board," Mason added with a sour laugh. "Who sits on the board of directors?"
Mickey pulled that page up on the screen. "It's a Who's Who of the big-bucks crowd," he said. "Plus a few more familiar names, Gina Davenport, David Evans, and Arthur Hackett. Hackett chairs the investment committee. Evans got nice fees as the outside investment advisor and lawyer for Sanctuary. Guess how much?"
"One hundred thousand dollars," Mason said.
"You got it, Boss. Dr. Gina brought the money in the front door and David Evans took it out the back door."
"The world is round," Mason said, looking at his watch. "I've got to get going." He handed Mickey the copy he'd made of Centurion's ledger book. "See if you can figure this out. It may be a list of contributors. Compare the initials to the names on the donor list."
Mickey asked, "If it's a list of donors, why would Centurion make such a big deal out of it? Those people are already on the Form 990."
"I don't know," Mason said. "Maybe they were contributing to a different cause."
"Centurion is going to ask you if you made a copy of his ledger. What are you going to tell him?"
"A lie."
Mason wished he was back at his office, diagramming the day's developments on his dry-erase board instead of trying to connect the dots as he drove to the library. The storm front that had parked over Kansas City all day had dropped more coins in the meter and settled in for the night, painting the town with a heavy black brush. The rain was steady now, in no hurry to move on.
The main branch of the public library was downtown, a block from the triangle formed by City Hall, the County Courthouse, and Police Headquarters. Though open until nine o'clock, it couldn't compete with the bars nearby or the multiplexes in the suburbs, and was empty except for a skeletal staff manning the checkout and information desks.