“You saw to that,” I said.
“No,” Smith repeated wearily. “That was Peter Barron acting on his own. He told me he’d gone to talk to Mr. Gold, that there was a struggle and the gun went off.”
“There was no struggle,” I said, “Aaron was shot as he sat in an armchair getting drunk.”
“I didn’t believe Barron,” Smith said, “since he had reasons of his own for wanting the identity of Hugh’s killer secret.”
“He was the trigger man.”
Smith nodded. “So now you know everything,” he said, “and I repeat my original question: What will it cost me to persuade you to drop the lawsuit?”
I shook my head. “It’s never been a matter of money. I want an admission of guilt. I want that admission in open court and for the record. I want the law to run its course. No secret pay-offs, no cover-ups.”
“My lawyers were right,” Smith said, “I shouldn’t have spoken to you. And yet I’m glad I did.” He hunched his shoulders as if suddenly cold. “I’m not an evil man, or at least, I can still appreciate an act of human decency. I appreciate your devotion to Hugh, Mr. Rios, but you must understand that I too will have the law run its course and I will fight you with every resource to which I have access.”
“I understand that,” I said, “but I have two things on my side that you do not.”
“What?”
“Time,” I said, “and justice.”
A ghostly smile played across Smith’s withered lips. “Goodbye, Mr. Rios,” Smith said, “and good luck.”
He turned and strode the length of the gallery. The two guards fell in behind him. I waited a moment and then followed him out. I got to the top of the steps outside the museum in time to watch the silver Rolls slip away into the wood. I jogged down the steps.
I turned down the collar of my sweatshirt and spoke into the thin metal disc attached there. “He’s gone,” I said. “I hope you got it all down.”
A moment later the white van moved into view from behind the museum. The passenger door swung open and Terry Ormes got out, followed by Sonny Patterson pushing his way out from the back of the van. Terry had insisted that I be wired for sound in the event that I was being led into a trap, so that the cops could respond. Neither of us had expected the conversation we had just heard. Patterson had signed on at the last minute, in the event that something useful was said. He walked toward me looking like a man who’d just heard an earful.
“Your little speech about time and justice,” Patterson said, “ought to play real well in front of the grand jury.”
“You recorded it?”
“The whole thing.”
“Then there will be a grand jury.”
“You bet,” he said, “and if they don’t come back with an indictment, I’m washing my hands of this profession.”
Terry who had come up beside us, said, “Good work, Henry.”
“It’s not exactly how I thought it would go down.”
“I’ll guess you’ll be amending the complaint in your lawsuit to allege Smith as a defendant,” Patterson said.
I shrugged. “I’ll talk to my client. She may not want to pursue the case after the grand jury concludes its business.”
“You wanted it to be Robert Paris, didn’t you?” Terry said.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Smith is as much a victim as Hugh. Smith was a moderately good man who chose expediency over justice the one time it really mattered. But Robert Paris was the real thing, he was evil. I pity Smith.”
Patterson looked at me disdainfully. “That old public defender mentality,” he said. “People don’t commit crimes, society does. You know Latin?”
I shook my head.
He said, “ Durum hoc est sed ita lex scripta est — It is hard but thus the law is written.”
“Where’s that from?”
“The Code of Justinian, and it was engraved over the entrance of the library of my law school — which was not as big a deal as your law school here at the university, but those of us who went there were hungry in the way that justice is a hunger.”
He turned from us and walked away. Terry and I looked at each other. What Patterson wanted was clear: a fair trial and a guilty verdict. My own motives were hopelessly confused — my hunger had never been as simple as Sonny’s.
“Maybe,” I said to Terry, “I never wanted justice but just to vent my grief about Hugh.”
She shook her head. “Grief is half of justice,” she said, and added, a moment later, “the other half is hope.”