Glass House (21 page)

At the end of the room, when she reached the
bottom of the staircase, Megan studied the people she could see.
She was checking their faces, searching for one that she wasn’t
quite sure she actually remembered but figured she’d probably
recognize when she saw it.

As she looked across them all, what struck
her most was that everyone seemed so young. Their eyes were bright
and interested, their complexions flushed and wrinkle-free. Their
movements were purposeful and dramatic. Talking to each other, they
gestured intently, their arms out in front of them, their
expressions animated and adamant.

They’re young
, she thought again. But
something besides that, too.

Untouched, she realized sadly. The students
were young and untouched.

In that moment, it felt impossible that
she’d been here herself at one time. Never mind the familiar
surroundings or the law degree in a box in the attic at home. Never
mind the office and clients. With everything cluttered up in her
from the last few months and years, it didn’t seem she could have
been one of these people, who showed their idealism and
determination in their very faces and movements.

She spotted him in the corner. The hair gave
him away. He was alone, a book open in front of him, his arms flat
on the table where he sat, his chin resting on fists that were
stacked to prop him.

Finn Garber was a good-looking man, handsome
in the ne’er-do-well way that some women found appealing. Megan
didn’t think he quite qualified as bad, despite his history. She
just would have described him as trouble.

Finn hadn’t changed much, based on what she
could tell. He was maybe six foot, but more likely an inch or so
under. Slumped and leaning on the table like he was, he filled a
chunk of its surface and had leg length enough to stretch them far
under. He wore jeans that showed some tatter and a shirt that hung
untucked at his waist.

But the hair. In contrast to everything else
about him, the hair alone made him look misleadingly
respectable.

It was perfect. Cut neatly and combed
neatly, sandy in color and precise in tending, like an
Eisenhower-era stylist magically appeared to prepare it for him
each morning. When she was prosecuting the case against him and he
showed up at court, she’d always had the same thought, and it was
that she’d never be able to get a conviction because he looked too
much like a poster boy from the Fifties. That hadn’t changed.

But she won in the end, and he’d spent
almost half of a five-year sentence in prison. Because Finn was a
thief. A good one at that. Good enough to go uncaught in two
deliberately-planned and decent-sized burglaries that targeted the
specific goods that were stolen plus, if Megan was right, a list of
pickpockets and minor thefts for walking-around money on the side.
But he wasn’t so good he couldn’t be undone by bad luck.

In the end, Finn spent his time because of a
traffic ticket. He’d parked at a fire hydrant, and a county deputy
was writing a ticket while the plate check ran. That number didn’t
pan out to match the car make, so the deputy copied the VIN off the
dashboard and ran that and the car’s description instead.

He got a possible suspect vehicle match back
on that one, a report of a similar car’s presence at a break-in a
week earlier. The deputy moved his cruiser and sat down to wait
until Finn reappeared from a nearby restaurant. They collected him
and asked some questions, and he lawyered up, shutting down any
interrogation and ultimately digging in for the trial.

The evidence was straightforward, if
essentially circumstantial. There weren’t any eyewitnesses. No one
who saw Finn himself at the scenes, because he was too careful for
that.

There weren’t any fingerprints. No hairs or
fibers or DNA to tie him to the crimes in any way. Nothing exciting
or dramatic for forensic scientists to come in and testify on. The
county had few of those cases at all, and Finn’s certainly wasn’t
one that was ripe for treatment like that, what with the lack of
hard and definitive proof against him.

Pretty much, they had the car that matched
the one at the burglary, and a bad plate on it. That got them a
warrant for his apartment, and the warrant turned up some of the
stolen goods.

Those circumstances did him in. Those and
Finn Garber himself, who got on the stand and made the evidence
against him far worse by opening his mouth – a series of bad
decisions that ultimately sent him to the same prison where
Waldoch’s hired assistant Samuel Chilcott had been holed up. “Too
good to be true,” Megan whispered as she made her way across the
room.

“Hello, Finn,” she said, when she was
standing over him.

He looked up, not straightening. He simply
tipped his head on his stacked fists, peering at her.

It took him a moment to register who she
was. Despite the pivotal role she’d played in his life, Finn
stared, puzzled at the woman suddenly standing before him. And then
the moment passed. He either placed the person he’d managed to
forget, or he recovered from the few seconds of disbelief he was
experiencing at seeing her in front of him again. Whichever it was,
Finn Garber’s features sank at the reappearance of Megan Davis in
his life.

Megan was thinking of the note again, her
secretary’s written exclamation of surprise at the idea that this
man was in law school. “The first thing that comes to mind is to
ask how in the world you managed to get into here, I suppose,” she
said.

Finn’s eyes, wide and intent on her, now
showed nervousness that bordered on astonishment. He straightened
slowly. He dropped a pencil at the page he was reading, and he
closed the book on it. He ran a hand on the cover, tracing along
one edge.

“I applied.” He said it with a confidence
that, caught off guard at first, had retreated for a moment but
appeared to be finding its legs again.

“They accept felons at law school?”

“I’d have thought you knew they accept all
types.”

“Even burglars and thieves?”

“I think it’s officially considered
on-the-job training.” He smiled, friendly and bantering in the
comment, and was already charming.

Megan remembered that ability of his. His
knack for an affable look and easygoing manner. Finn was someone
you’d meet and instantly want to sit down and have coffee with. She
was sure he’d counted on it, in fact, when he was making up his
mind to climb a witness stand and testify instead of keeping his
ass in his chair, where it belonged. He’d figured he could talk his
way out of it, not for the first time certainly, and likely not for
the last, despite the outcome.

“I hear there’s a law school in Arizona that
accepted a convicted murderer,” he said. “And I didn’t even kill
anyone.”

“Just stole.”

Finn smiled again, not dimmed in the least.
“That’s right. I just stole.”

“It was five, wasn’t it?” Megan didn’t have
to explain what she meant. Anyone who spent time in prison would
know right away.

Finn nodded. “Five,” he said. “But with time
off. Apparently I’m an exemplary student. Who knew?”

“Why wouldn’t you be? You were good at
burglary. I’d expect you to master prison, too, with a couple years
to work at it.”

“It wasn’t exactly a picnic. It’s not like
fun and games at the country club.”

“You mind?” Megan asked as she pulled a
chair out, sitting before Finn could answer. She pulled his book
over and spun it to read the title. “Principles of Advanced
Criminal Law,” she said. She slid it back. “You think
Advanced
refers to the law, or do you think it describes the
criminals?”

He ignored that. “What could you possibly
have to say to me?”

“I was just wondering how you’ve been. So I
tracked you down. Can’t tell you how surprised I was to find you in
law school, of all places.”

“I’m clean. As clichéd as it sounds, I did
my time, and I reformed my ways.”

“And now you’re going to be a lawyer.” Megan
worked to sound serious but didn’t think she managed it.

“I doubt that, actually,” Finn replied. “I’m
just the beneficiary of the state and a rehab program that funds,
if I’m remembering the wording right,
post-incarceration
education of qualifying individuals
. I thought I’d take
advantage of that. I figure a little personal experience can be the
best education anyway, which makes me perfectly suited to this
particular field. You’d be surprised to find out everything a
person can learn about law while they’re whiling time away in a
prison recreation yard.”

“I suspect I would.”

“But that brings us to you in our little
parade of
let’s play catch-up.
I’m assuming you’re here for
some purpose. Something other than just checking in, though I can’t
imagine what it might be.”

“Simple enough,” Megan replied. “I need some
information.”

“About?”

“A man you’ll know. An ex-con from Hutch,
who was there when you were. His name is Samuel Chilcott.”

Finn leaned back in his chair.

“You know him,” Megan said.

“To a degree.”

“How far a degree?”

“Who he is. What he’s about.”

“More than acquaintances?”

“Yes, more than that. And less than
friends.”

“He knows you? He trusts you?”

“Trust isn’t deep in prison. But he knows me
well enough, I’d suppose.”

“Then you’re the person I want,” Megan told
him, “and I need your help.”

“My help. The woman who put me away is
sitting here asking for my help?”

“Something like that.”

“And I should do this to, what, repay the
favor of you putting me in jail?”

Megan shook her head. “No,” she said
quietly. “You should do it to prove your claim that you’ve actually
reformed, by helping me figure out if another man I know killed a
woman the other day.”

Finn was staring at her, weighing the look
in her eyes and the set of her features. He sighed, and he rubbed
his face tiredly. He collected the law book and stood. “Let’s take
a walk.”

_______________

“I don’t do it anymore. I hope you know
that.”

“Do what?” Megan asked.

“I’m not a thief. I’m not a criminal. I gave
it up. All of it.”

They were outside the law school, heading
east toward the heart of the campus, where the Hill started to dip
down into a central bowl that wore a crown of buildings and somehow
managed to hide a stadium. As they walked, Megan realized the image
of the charming thief was gone. She’d made Finn nervous. He was
anxious and unconfident because she showed up in his life
again.

“Yeah, you mentioned you were reformed,”
Megan said.

“I meant it.”

She didn’t respond. She was waiting.

“I don’t do it anymore,” he said in the
silence. “No stealing. Nothing.”

“I don’t need you to steal anything,” Megan
told him. “That’s not what this is about. I just need to know what
you can tell me about Chilcott.”

She felt him watching her as they moved.
When they stopped at a corner, waiting for the light, Megan was
studying the line of buildings ahead of them, and she could feel
Finn Garber’s gaze on her. He was weighing what she said, searching
for any tricks, and Megan understood at that moment that he’d
wanted to leave the school because he didn’t trust her.

It was a secret, she realized. Not from the
school itself. Not from the administration and the record keepers,
because you couldn’t keep a secret like that from them.

But the students didn’t know Finn was a
thief. He didn’t want to sit around in the commons, talking to the
woman who prosecuted him until someone he knew came by and asked to
be introduced. So they’d left before he would talk more.

“You don’t believe me,” Megan said. “You
think I’m checking on you.” The stoplight changed, and they started
across.

“I –” He didn’t finish.

“I understand that,” Megan said. “I track
you down and show up out of nowhere.” They stopped on the opposite
street corner, and she turned to him. “I’m not here to bust you in
some way. It’s not my job anymore, and I don’t have the time or
desire.” Megan was moving again, and Finn jogged a couple paces to
keep up. “I just want the information.”

“Only information,” he said, before
repeating the last word in a whisper – “information” –
for reassurance. “Beyond the goodness of my heart and the proof of
my newfound virtue, what’s in it for me?”

Megan didn’t skip a step. “What do you
want?” she said, heading toward the interior of the campus.

“I don’t know.” He sounded surprised by his
own answer.

“How about a license?” she asked.

They were a half block farther before Finn
replied. “A license?”

“To practice law,” Megan explained. “I can
get you a recommendation. A nice letter you can put in an
application, from your former prosecutor, telling everyone what a
great lawyer I think you’ll make. I’ll even be sure to mention how
you’ve reformed, just like you say. Maybe get one from the judge,
too.”

Megan wasn’t sure she would ultimately do
those things. But she didn’t particularly care, either. She wanted
someone with a connection to Chilcott, and she’d consider a
recommendation for Stalin if it got her that person.

“You say you’ve cleaned yourself up,” she
pressed. “That’s good. But I can help clean up your paper for you,
too.”

“What do you mean? Expungement?”

Megan was shaking her head. “You were
convicted, so I can’t do that. But I have enough connections to
make the conviction meaningless. Think of all the people I know.
All the judges. All the county and assistant county attorneys. All
the well-connected lawyers in my firm. That’s a lot of potential
paper, with a lot of potential praise.”

The idea was sinking in for Finn, the doubt
in his face softening, then disappearing altogether. “It’s a little
like stealing my past.”