Identical (3 page)

The five members of the commission filed in from a back door, four men and one woman, a diverse racial array like a UN poster. Evon had no idea who any of them were. No doubt they were all friends of the governor, a Republican, and thus, if anything, likely to be inclined toward Hal, who, largely by himself, financed the operations of the Republican Party in Kindle County.

The chairman, a sorrowful-looking fellow named Perfectus Elder, went through a discussion of several cases that received nothing but perfunctory commentary from the assistant attorney general, a lean guy named Logan whom Hal and Tooley had been talking with when Evon arrived. While this was occurring, an elderly lady in a wheelchair was steered into the hearing room by her tiny Filipina caregiver. The woman was engaged in an addled murmur, and the caregiver remonstrated with her quietly, as if speaking to a young child. The old woman’s white hair was disordered and thin, like the remains of a milkweed pod, but she was beautifully dressed, and, even reduced by age and disease, retained a look of some determination. Paul turned away from his brother to greet her and she fell upon him with sufficient desperation that Evon realized the old lady was their mother.

“Typical stunt,” Hal muttered immediately, loud enough that the commissioners had to hear the remark. Under the table, Tooley grabbed Hal’s hand. Evon had been around enough hearing rooms to share Hal’s suspicion. Stern and Paul, an accomplished trial lawyer who’d made a bundle in the national tobacco litigation after he left the PA’s office, were using the twins’ mother as an exhibit, demonstrating that there was no time to lose in letting Cass out. In the meantime, Paul again awaited the deputy’s agreement before nodding to Cass, who turned back to embrace their mom. She became a burbling mess, her wailing briefly filling the hearing room. Evon realized it might have been years since the old lady had last seen her sons together. Chairman Elder grimaced a bit, then called the case everyone here was clearly waiting for.

“Matter of Cassian Gianis, number 54669, objection of Herakles Kronon.” Elder made a complete hash of Hal’s names, not just the first, which was often mispronounced, but the last as well, which was spoken as if he were an Irishman named Cronin.

Mel on one side, and Stern and Paul on the other, met at the lectern and gave their names for the record, which was a tape recording being made by the slender young woman who was operating the machine at the end of the table. Several reporters had filed in in the last few minutes, taking the seats next to Evon in the first row of chairs, joining Paul’s two staffers. Word that Paul Gianis was in the house seemed to have attracted several additional onlookers, who filled the second and third rows.

“Mr. Gianis is scheduled for release on January thirtieth,” said Elder, “and Mr. Kronon has objected. Mr. Tooley, how should we proceed?”

“My client would like to address the commission,” said Mel, and moved aside to let Hal take his place. Tooley was giving the wild horse its head, but doing his best not to be splattered by the mud as he galloped by. Everyone in the room, except Hal, accepted the inevitability of Paul Gianis’s election.

Hal came to his feet, looking awkward, as Evon could have predicted. He had forgotten to re-button his shirt collar and his tie was to the side, and he couldn’t figure out where to put his hands, which he finally folded in front of himself. Her boss, even at his best, was not a pleasing physical presence. He had a large sloping belly and an oddly lizard-like face with goggle eyes, heavy jowls, thick horn-rimmed glasses and a flattened nose. His hairline had been reduced to a few flyaway scraps.

He expressed his thanks to the board members and then began a free-form soliloquy about Dita’s death. Although Hal generally avoided the unruly emotions summoned by speaking about his sister’s murder, she was never far from his mind. In Hal’s office, on one wall, was a small shrine to Dita, including her senior sorority picture from the Kappa Kappa Gamma house at State. She had been striking and dark, with huge eyes and a wide wry smile.

By the time Hal was a couple of minutes into his remarks, he was weeping, but he was also largely incoherent. Only one thing was clear in his presentation. Because Hal’s pain remained, it seemed wrong that Cass Gianis would be allowed to walk free.

As Hal spoke, occasional loony mumblings came from the twins’ mother on the other side of the room, her caregiver making persistent efforts to shush her. At the other table, Paul and Cass remained respectfully stone-faced throughout Hal’s presentation.

When Hal finally sat down again, Stern rose, taking care to first close the center button on his suit coat. He still retained the faint accent of his native Argentina.

“No one wishes more than Cass, and his mother and brother here beside him, that the events of that night twenty-five years ago could be undone. It has been a source of terrible grief to their family, and they understand that their own loss has been small next to the Kronons’. But Cass has paid the price fixed by the law, a sentence that was agreed to with the consent of the Kronons at the time. The record-”

Hal could not contain himself. “It was all right with my father and mother. It was never all right with me.”

Chair Elder looked even more sorrowful in the face of this outburst. He searched around for a gavel and, finding none, banged the flat of his hand on the card table as Tooley hauled Hal back to his seat. Several of the observers murmured. If Hal was hoping to agitate public opinion, it wasn’t working. He was making a fool of himself.

Elder nodded to Stern, who continued for only another moment. When he was done, Elder leaned left and right to consult with his colleagues. It was unusual for anyone of stature to appear at these hearings, except when grandstanding prosecutors, usually those running for reelection, came to inveigh against the release of a particularly notorious prisoner. But that was part of the established agenda. To have influential strangers like Paul and Hal embroiled before the commission was uncomfortable, especially when there were reporters here. Elder clearly wanted to get this over with now.

“Release date to stand,” Elder said. The panel then rushed out the back door, like liquid through a funnel.

Evon watched as Paul Gianis hugged his brother. The deputies took hold of Cass’s blue sleeve, but allowed him to embrace his mother briefly before they steered him from the room. The reporters surrounded Paul.

Stern shook hands with Tooley and left first. Hal marched out with Evon and Mel in unhappy cortege behind him.

“Talk about wasted breath,” said Hal in the corridor. The conference room door swung open a second later, and the attendant appeared, struggling to back Mrs. Gianis’s chair across the threshold. Hal, who in his own way was quite a gentleman, rushed over to help. Just to prove you never knew what you would get with Hal, he knelt beside the old lady as soon as she was outside, purring to her, as if he had not just been painting her son as the spawn of Satan.

“Auntie Lidia,” he called her. He rested a hand on her forearm, the brown skin mottled with age spots and a skinny white patch, shiny like an old burn. Evon was reminded of the deterioration of her mother’s skin when she was dying. It had seemed as thin as paper, as if you could tear it with your fingers. “Auntie Lidia, it’s Hal Kronon. Zeus and Hermione’s son. It’s so good to see you.” He smiled at her, as the old woman looked about trying to comprehend. Her eyes were watery from age and bald of lashes. In order to help her, Hal switched to Greek. The sole word Evon understood was when Hal repeated his given name. But Mrs. Gianis caught that, too.

“Herakles!” the old lady exclaimed. She nodded several times. “Herakles,” she repeated, and then brought her hand to Hal’s cheek with remarkable tenderness. The door swung outward again and this time Paul emerged, followed by a trio of reporters and his two young staffers. Hal stood up, wet-eyed again, his overused hanky crushed into the center of his face. Paul surveyed all of this for a second, then spoke to the attendant.

“Nelda, I think you should get Mom upstairs. They’re waiting at the home.” Mrs. Gianis was still saying ‘Herakles’ while the attendant wheeled her away. Paul turned back to Hal with a ripe expression, something between bitterness and bemusement, his lips drawn tight.

“Don’t give me the evil eye, Paul,” Hal responded. “Your mother was always kind to me.
She
didn’t murder anybody. Which I’d never say about you.”

At the last remark, Paul’s mouth actually fell open and he took a step back.

“Jesus, Hal.”

“Don’t ‘Jesus’ me. You got away with it, but I know you had a hand in Dita’s murder. I’ve always known that.”

The three reporters wrote furiously on their spiral pads. Paul’s brow collapsed toward his eyes. His public image was of an eternally measured person and he was not about to let that go, no matter what the provocation. He stared Hal down for only an instant longer.

“That’s nonsense, Hal. You’re upset.” He gestured to the two young people who’d accompanied him and threw on his overcoat as he hustled off down the corridor.

The reporters immediately surrounded Hal. Maria Sonreia, from Channel 4, who was in her heavy camera makeup, her eyebrows so perfectly defined that they could have been pasted on, asked Hal several times, “What exactly do you believe Senator Gianis’s role was in your sister’s murder?”

Tooley, who like Evon had stood by speechless, finally intervened, grabbing Hal by the arm and pulling him away.

“We have nothing else to say at the moment,” said Mel. “We may have a further statement tomorrow.”

Evon called for Hal’s car on the way to the elevator, and the limo, a Bentley, whose caramel leather always made her feel as if she were inside a jewel box, was at the curb when they got there. Delman, the driver, held open the door, smiling amiably as a traffic officer in an optic vest waved her lighted baton at him and told him to move. At Hal’s instruction, Evon jumped in. Delman would drop Hal at the office, then bring Evon back to pick up her car.

“Hal, what the
hell
was that about?” Tooley demanded, as soon as they were under way. Mel was a childhood friend of Hal’s. Among Hal’s many myths about himself was that he was ‘a city boy’ who had been raised in a bungalow in Kewahnee, not the Greenwood County mansion to which his father moved them when Hal finished junior high. He had no taste for the well-heeled suburbanites with whom he’d attended high school and college, and among whom he’d now raised his children, preferring a few grade school friends, like Mel, who truth be told had probably shunned Hal back then like everyone else. Unctuous by nature, Tooley nonetheless was direct when need be with Hal, who in the right mood could tolerate straight talk.

“You know you’re on page one tomorrow,” Mel said.

“Obviously,” said Hal. You could never forget with Hal that despite the emotional magma that frequently forced its way to the surface, he could sometimes be cunning.

“There isn’t any chance, is there, that I can talk you into issuing a public statement this afternoon retracting what you just said? If we get something out fast, then Paul may not sue you for defamation.”

“Defamation?”

“Hal, he’s running for mayor. You just called him a murderer. He’ll sue you for slander. He can’t ignore it.”

Hal was heaped inside his overcoat, arms across his chest, looking a little like a molting bird.

“I’m not retracting anything.” Having a billion dollars had an odd effect on people, Evon had come to learn. In Hal’s case, it often made him a baby. “Let him sue me. Don’t I have the right to express my opinion about somebody running for mayor?”

“Even with a public figure, Hal, the law says you can’t make accusations that show a malicious disregard for the truth.”

“It
is
true. Mark my words. The twins were in this together. I’ve known those two all their lives. There is no way one of them could have done something like this without involving the other one.”

Tooley shook his head.

“Hal, man, I’ve followed this case for you for decades. I’ve never seen a word that implicates Paul. And it’s a ridiculous time to make the charge. After twenty-five years, you suddenly pipe up, blaming him for his brother’s crime, just when Paul is odds-on to become mayor, and you’re the biggest donor to the other party?”

Hal considered all of this with a sour expression, his eyes skittering about behind his thick lenses like cornered mice.

“The guy pisses me off.”

Evon was in no position yet to fully comprehend the web of family resentments at play here. But at least one part of Hal’s fury was understandable. Dita’s murder had ended his father’s political career. Zeus had abandoned his campaign for governor within days of his daughter’s death. And here was Paul, scaling Mount Olympus, with the papers already saying that if he won, the governor’s office was likely to be next.

“I always thought he had something to do with it,” Hal said. “My parents would never hear that, neither one of them. My father kept telling us, ‘This is as big a tragedy for the Gianises as it is for us,’ and my mother, especially after my dad died, she just hated discussing the entire thing. And I kept quiet for their sakes. But they’re gone now and I’m speaking my mind. I think I’m actually going to run ads.” Hal nodded decisively. Evon was beginning to recognize that none of Hal’s remarks, here or back in the corridor, were completely spontaneous. He had been considering making a scene, and the potential aftermath, when he’d arrived today.

“That’ll only force him into court,” Tooley said. “You go that route, big fella, you gotta have some proof.”

“Evon will find the evidence.”

“Me?” She couldn’t contain herself. But she had spent three years now extracting Hal from the holes he blundered into.

“Call Tim,” Hal said.

“Tim?” asked Evon. Hal was referring to the PI he’d had tailing Corus Dykstra from YourHouse the day before.