“But that wasn’t a bribe in the legal sense, was it?”
“What would you call it-a gift?”
“I’d call it found money,” Sid Fork said. “But I’m kind of flexible.”
There was another silence, briefer this time, that Huckins ended when she asked Adair, “Where are they now?”
“Jack and Jill?” He looked at Vines. “I’m not sure. New York?”
“London,” Vines said.
“When we were out at Cousin Mary’s today-yesterday now-except for Sid, of course, and you avoided telling me-”
“Neglected, not avoided,” Adair said.
“When you didn’t tell me what you’ve just now told us, I remember your saying that if the two Jimson kids died, their share of the gas revenues or royalties would go to their stepmother. Is that correct?”
“Yes,” Adair said. “And if the stepmother died, her share would go to Jack and Jill.”
“Once I’d found out that bribe was a fake,” Sid Fork said, “you could bet the rent I’d’ve had me a talk with that stepmother.”
“Kelly’s the authority on her,” Adair said.
All three looked at Vines, but it was the mayor who said, “This time, Mr. Vines, please don’t leave anything out.”
Vines ignored her and looked to his right at the chief of police. “How hard is it to fake a suicide when a gun’s the death weapon?”
“Damned near impossible what with all the forensic expertise there is nowadays,” Fork said. “Best way to fake a suicide is shove the victim out of a high window around three in the morning and don’t leave a note or anything else behind.”
Vines turned to the mayor. “After the cops told our somewhat dim attorney general that the Fullers’ deaths were probably a double murder, he did nothing until he figured out what would give him the most political mileage. Finally, he decided that having a bribe-proof supreme court was the way to go-even though its chief justice by then was having a little trouble with the IRS.”
“Not so little,” Adair said.
“So the A.G. ordered a full-scale investigation that would, in his words, leave no stone unturned. One of the stones most in need of turning was, of course, the stepmother. So a two-man team of experienced investigators was sent down to question her. Soon after the team came back and made its report, the attorney general called a press conference to announce that the deaths of Justice and Mrs. Mark Fuller weren’t suicide-murder after all, but rather what he called ‘a diabolical double murder’ and that neither Justice Fuller nor Chief Justice Adair had ever been bribed. Two days later, just before the two investigators were to question the stepmother again, her Cadillac ran off the road at an estimated seventy-eight miles per hour and into a cottonwood tree.”
“Killed her, too, I bet,” Fork said.
“Broke her neck. An autopsy showed a point-one-six-percent alcohol in her blood, which made her more than legally drunk. An autopsy of the Cadillac by a team of mechanics hired by the attorney general revealed what he described-at still another press conference-as ‘an inexplicable failure of the car’s steering mechanism.’ When a reporter asked if that meant somebody had messed with the tie rods, he said he couldn’t comment until further tests were made, and went on to announce that the stepmother, over the past five months, had withdrawn almost two million dollars in cash from her several bank accounts. After that, everybody thought they knew where the money in the shoeboxes came from and the tie rods were almost forgotten.”
“Pretty good motive,” Sid Fork said. “She puts up two million to win how much-fifteen million, twenty?”
“If both the Jimson kids died, she’d get all the gas royalties,” Vines said. “The last I heard they were valued at anywhere between fifty and a hundred million dollars.”
“If she could’ve made it look like those two kids had successfully bribed the supreme court to keep them out of the gas chamber-”
“It’s lethal injection in my state,” Adair said.
“Okay,” Fork said. “Out of the needle room. But if that’d happened, I don’t think there’s a court in the land that’d lift a finger to keep the kids from being executed.”
“I’m afraid you’re right,” Adair said.
“And if Mr. Vines hadn’t found that half a million in your closet,” said B. D. Huckins, “I think it still could’ve worked.”
“I’m afraid that’s right, too,” Adair said.
“Anyway, it sure has a happy ending, doesn’t it?” Sid Fork said. “The two kids are acquitted. The state supreme court turns out to be honest after all, except for that little problem its chief justice had with the IRS. And when they finally got around to figuring out the ‘who profits?’ angle if the kids’d been executed, it turns out to be the wicked stepmother. That about it, Mr. Vines?”
“Just about.”
“Then tell me this,” Fork said. “Did they ever try and come up with the sucker who did the scut work? The one who zapped the old judge and his wife, then dressed up like a priest to stick that half a million bucks in the judge’s closet and maybe even messed with the tie rods on the stepmother’s Caddie?”
Before Vines could answer, B. D. Huckins looked at Adair and said, “What was the stepmother’s name?”
“Marie. Marie Jimson.”
“Before she was married-her maiden name?”
“Marie Contraire.”
Sid Fork’s face went almost white just before the blood raced up his neck and turned his ears a cardinal red. He jumped to his feet, pointed an accusatory finger at Huckins and roared, “Goddamnit, B. D.!”
The mayor gave him her sweetest smile. “I just wanted you to hear it in context from them and not from me.”
The red was fading to pink as Fork, still glowering, sat back down and said, “That was one shitty thing to pull.”
“Shut up and listen some more,” she said and turned to Adair again. “Because Sid wasn’t with us when we met with Parvis at Cousin Mary’s, I gave him a condensed version of what we talked about. Obviously, I left out a few details.”
“Like the stepmother’s maiden name,” Fork said.
She ignored him and shifted her gaze to Vines. “When you called earlier tonight, I was in some delicate political negotiations with the sheriff and that’s why I hung up on you. I apologize.”
“No need.”
“Later, Sid came up with some very important information, which is the real reason we’re here.”
She’s giving him all the credit for something, Vines thought as he looked at Fork. “What’d you turn up, Chief?”
It was not a modest smile that spread across Fork’s face. “This guy that B. D. and I knew a long time ago-the one who dresses up like a priest and a plumber and all-and who we knew as Teddy Smith or Jones?”
“The killer,” Vines said.
“Yeah. Him. Well, I found out his real name.”
“How?”
“From fingerprints he left on that pink van.”
“Stop milking it, Sid,” Huckins said.
His proud and happy smile still in place, Fork looked from Vines to Adair. “Well, the guy’s real name isn’t Smith or Jones-although that’s no big news. His real name’s Theodore Contraire.”
Fork watched with evident enjoyment as surprise rearranged the faces of Adair and Vines. It was Vines who recovered first and asked, “Her brother?”
Fork nodded. “Who else could she trust with something like that? According to his sheet, he has-or had, I guess-a sister three years older than him whose name was Marie Elena-like the old song-Contraire.”
“How long’s his sheet?” Vines said.
“Nine arrests and two convictions. He spent two years in Angola down in Louisiana and nine months in the L.A. county jail for aggravated assault.”
“What’d he give as his occupation-just out of curiosity?”
Fork grinned happily. “Actor.”
“Congratulations, Chief,” Adair said.
“Well, it took more charm than brains,” said Fork, trying to sound modest but not succeeding. “All I had to do was convince some guy to do something he wasn’t quite sure he wanted to do.”