Open and Shut (21 page)

T
HE PHONE CALL
FROM SANDY MICHELSON
comes at three o'clock. In a fairly steady voice he says that he's calling to inform me that his client, Victor Markham, is dead. After signing the proffer and watching Sandy leave with it, he went into his bathroom and took enough powerful pain medication to kill himself three times over.

Sandy speculates that despite his careful explanations, Victor may well have believed that simply the act of signing the proffer meant Edward's deal was secure. He also believes that Victor's ego would not let him face the public humiliation that his confession would bring.

I'm not really interested in dwelling on the tragedy that is Victor Markham. The fact is that as evidence the proffer is useless, inadmissible hearsay in a court of law. With the lack of physical evidence that exists, Philip is off the hook before he even knew he was on it.

My frustration is complete. Laurie comes over to commiserate, but I really don't want anybody around me right now. I want to be alone to wallow in my misery. I don't tell her that, because even in this frustrated state, I retain my wimpy tendencies.

Laurie is of the opinion that we shouldn't give up, that there still has to be a way to tie Philip to this. I know better and I tell her so, but she keeps throwing out ideas, which I keep shooting down.

She asks me to take out the photograph, which I reluctantly do. Between the two of us, we've probably looked at it five hundred times, but now she looks at it carefully, as if she's never seen it before. It's an investigative technique she uses, which she has often told me about. She is able to will herself to take a fresh approach to evidence.

This time it doesn't seem to get her anywhere. She looks at it for almost five minutes, then turns to me. “Are you sure there's nothing in the background that identifies this as Philip's house?”

“I'm sure,” I say.

She tries to hand me the picture. “Look again.”

I don't want to; I never want to see that stupid picture again. “Come on, Laurie …” I whine.

“Please, Andy, I hate seeing you like this.”

“It'll get worse before it gets better.”

She keeps insisting, so I sigh and take the picture and look at it. My assessment is it hasn't changed much, and I tell her so.

“So you can't tell that's Philip's house?” she asks.

I look still again. “Nope. In fact I've never seen those trees. He must have cut them down.”

Now she looks again. “Why would he cut down beautiful trees like that?”

So I look again, a fresh look like Laurie taught me. And all of a sudden, I know exactly why Philip Gant would cut down beautiful trees like that.

I
ARRIVE AT THE
G
ANT ESTATE
at eleven the next morning, having called ahead to tell Philip I needed to speak to him. He was cordial and without a hint of concern in his voice; he seemed to know nothing about Markham's proffer. I ring the bell and the butler, Frederick, answers.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Carpenter.”

“Hello, Frederick. The Senator is expecting me.”

Frederick nods. “Yes, sir. He's at the pool.”

I nod and move quickly through the house and out to the back. I head toward the pool, and find Philip sitting in his bathing suit at an umbrella-shaded table, nursing a drink and reading a book. He hears me coming and looks up.

“Hello, Andrew.”

“Hello, Philip. Am I interrupting anything important?”

“No … no … not at all. It's very disappointing about you and Nicole. I very much wanted it to work out.”

“And you usually get what you want,” I say.

I can see him react to this; it is not something that someone would ordinarily come out and say to him, even though it is obviously true. He decides to let it pass by treating it good-naturedly.

He grins. “Yes, I guess I do. I guess I do. Congratulations on your victory in that trial.”

“Did you hear about Victor Markham?” I ask.

He nods. “I did. The entire episode is terrible. Just terrible.”

“You know,” I say, “it's funny. A secret like that is kept for almost forty years, and then it comes out, just like that. Makes you think, doesn't it?”

“About what?” he asks.

“That if you have something to hide, you can never be sure it will stay hidden. There's always that worry, always that chance that a base hasn't been completely covered.”

“I suppose that's true.” Philip's tone is now a little uncertain, tentative.

“I mean, think about this case. There's still a secret to be revealed. There's still someone who hasn't been accounted for.”

“And who might that be?” he asks.

“The guy who took the picture.”

The look in his eyes says I've got his attention, so I continue. “Maybe he's the one who gave my father the money. Maybe he's the one whose house it was.”

Philip sits there, sipping his drink, unruffled. The son of a bitch. “Andrew,” he says, “you don't want to go any further.”

But I do, and I will. “Maybe he's the one who was afraid he'd be ruined … that his perfectly planned future could be destroyed. Maybe he's the one who killed Julie McGregor to protect himself.”

Philip puts down his drink: his way of saying that it's time to get serious. “All right, Andrew, what exactly are you saying?”

“I'm saying that if I were that person, I'd be worried. Because secrets like this are very difficult to keep. And if that person were somebody prominent, somebody hot-shit important, then his whole life could go down the drain, slowly … surely … totally.”

As much as I despise this man, I am almost mesmerized by him. He is being confronted with the revelation of a secret so terrible that he has murdered to preserve it, yet he seems unfazed and totally in control. It's either a confidence bordering on invincibility, or an Academy Award winning performance.

“Goodbye, Andrew,” he says.

But I'm not going anywhere. “I know my father took your money, and that was wrong. But you had saved his life when he fell through the ice, and now he was saving yours. You were his oldest friend, and he let that cloud his judgment. But it doesn't matter anymore, because you know what, Philip? The bad news for you is that I'm not my father.”

“That much is true,” he says. “You're not even close.”

“Victor Markham gave a proffer for a plea bargain, Philip. He said that you were there … that you all took Julie McGregor to this house.”

For a moment there is a flash of uncertainty in Philip's eyes, but it is immediately replaced by confidence.

“I don't believe that is true. But even if it were, his death renders that useless.”

“You know,” I say, “Julie McGregor's body was never found.”

Philip smiles, serenely confident. “Is that right?”

“If it was me, if I were a pig like yourself, I would have buried the body. And then I would have covered it up … like maybe with a guest house. Which was built not long after that night. You didn't build it as a future home for your child, Philip. You built it as a headstone for Julie McGregor.”

I see it, a quick look of panic, a steel blade of truth cutting through to the bone. “Andrew …”

“Philip, you went to Yale Law, so how about we try a legal riddle? Ready? When is a useless proffer not useless?”

Philip doesn't answer, so I continue. “Give up? It's when you want to use it to get a search warrant.”

He knows I have him, but he's not giving up. He smiles, almost sadly. “We can reach an accommodation, Andrew. It was so long ago.”

There are some things that I've got to know before this is over. “Why did you do it, Philip? A guy from your family, good-looking, smart, you could have had a lot of women. Why did you have to have Julie McGregor that night?”

“She was no innocent, Andrew. She wanted to as much as we did; then she pretended to change her mind. Well, the unfortunate fact was we hadn't changed ours.”

“So you did what you had to do.”

“And we have had to live with it ever since. Not an easy thing, I assure you.”

“Yeah, you've really suffered. Where was my father when all this happened?”

“In the house.” Philip laughs, as if recounting a funny story from long ago. “He drank too much and he was throwing up.” He laughs again, even harder. “He had a weak stomach and it cost me two million dollars.”

It is all I can do not to strangle him. “You are a scumbag, Philip. My father lost a piece of himself that night—and he never got it back. And you deserve everything that is going to happen to you.”

Philip starts to speak, but when I hear a voice it is not his. “Andy, what are you doing?” It is Nicole, having walked in on us. I'm not sure how much she has heard, but my guess is it's enough.

“I'm sorry, Nicole. It's already done.”

“Andy, what will this accomplish? For God's sake, he's my father.”

“Your father is a rapist and a murderer.”

Before she can respond, Pete, Wallace, and two patrolmen walk from the house to the pool. Frederick walks with them, as if he is escorting them. Wallace goes up to Philip and hands him a piece of paper, which Philip does not take. Wallace puts it on the table.

“This is a search warrant for these premises, Senator. It authorizes us to excavate under the guest house, and it will be lawfully executed this afternoon.”

Nicole goes over to Philip and grabs on to his arm. “Daddy …” she says, as if he is going to fix this.

He just sits there, nothing to say and nothing to do.Nicole sits there with him. They'll probably still be there when Julie McGregor's body is dug up. But I won't be here. I want to get as far away from this as I can.

“R
ICH OR POOR, IT'S GOOD
to have money.” That's what my mother used to say, tongue firmly tucked in cheek, when she'd see an ostentatious display of wealth. Of course, she had no idea she was already rich by virtue of my father's hidden fortune, but I'm learning to accept that and deal with it.

I'm having more trouble learning how to be rich.

It's been two months since the end of the Willie Miller trial, and I still haven't touched the money. I make plans to touch it, I come up with strategies to touch it, but so far no actual contact has taken place.

Laurie thinks I need psychiatric help, an opinion that has become more strident since she happened to be at my house when the mail arrived. The thing is, I've taken to ordering catalogues of every conceivable product ever produced; my mailman has vowed to bill me for his hernia operation. A lot of the merchandise is appealing to me, and Tara has her eye on a cashmere dog bed featured in the “Yuppie Puppy” catalogue. But I haven't actually purchased anything from anywhere. There's time for that.

Philip has resigned from the Senate and is in prison awaiting trial. He's in an actual prison, as the justice system in its infinite wisdom decided that, based on the Victor Markham experience, the ankle bracelet idea just might have some flaws. Philip was arrested the moment poor Julie McGregor's remains were unearthed.

I speak to Wally McGregor at least once a week. He took the news about Philip in stride, and we got back to talking baseball. Wally thinks Willie Mays was better than Mickey Mantle, which pleases me, since it means we'll always have something to argue about.

I haven't heard from Nicole since that day at Philip's house, but I did see her on television at the arraignment. I've tried calling her a couple of times, but she hasn't taken my calls.

Cal Morris is still nowhere to be found. I have an image of him on a Caribbean beach, drinking piña coladas and selling
Des Moines Register
s to the tourists. I have no hard feelings toward him, and I've managed to create new superstitions to take his place.

I've been busy, working on a bunch of cases at once. I'm trying to lure Kevin out of the Laundromat, but he's resisting. If he doesn't relent soon, I'm going to have to hire someone else to help keep up with the workload.

Laurie and I have settled into a nice rhythm, going slow and enjoying ourselves. She's as much friend as lover, and I don't want to do anything that might rock that boat. I made mistakes with Nicole, mistakes I'm wary of repeating.

I've never been accused of being an intellectual, and I get my philosophy wherever I can find it. In the movie
The Natural
, Glenn Close tells Robert Redford, “I believe we have two lives. The life we learn with, and the life we live with after that.”

I want Laurie to be a leading player in my “life after that.”