The Heavens May Fall (36 page)

Ben’s eyes fluttered. Then he smiled a limp smile.

“Give me a name!”

Ben’s eyes rolled up into his forehead and his body went limp.

Boady felt his legs deflate as he eased back into his chair. He could barely breathe as he looked around the room: Ben Pruitt dead on the floor, Max kneeling over the dead man with a look of utter despair on his face, Lila holding onto the frame of the French doors, her pale eyes searching the room for some kind of answer. Boady tried to speak, but when he opened his mouth, nothing but empty breath came out.

Chapter 64

By New Year’s Eve, the city had turned cold. Meteorologists were bragging that Minnesota had hit a new record low, and they saw no relief on the way. Boady parked his car on the street in front of Max Rupert’s house and slipped on a pair of leather gloves.

He’d spent Thanksgiving in Missouri, trying to explain to Emma why they would be returning to a funeral in Minnesota. He’d concocted a story about a prison riot to explain her father’s death, but Diana quashed that idea. “She’ll read the story on the Internet someday,” Diana said. “It’s going to hurt, but we’re going to tell her the truth. If she has any hope of getting through this, she needs to know the truth. She needs to know where to aim her anger.”

Diana was right, of course.

He hadn’t spoken with Max since the shooting. He’d called a few times. Left messages, but never heard back. As he stepped from his car into the icebox that was his chosen home state, he paused one last time to collect his thoughts—and maybe to collect a bit of courage. With a briefcase in his one hand, he knocked on Max’s door and waited. He could hear the footsteps approach. They paused as a shadow filled a small window in the door. Then he heard the deadbolt click open.

Max opened the door but didn’t greet Boady. He just stood there.

“Can I come in?”

“What do you want, Boady?”

“What I want is five minutes of your time. That’s all. After that, I’ll leave and never bother you again. Just five minutes.”

Max considered it for a moment, then stepped back to let Boady enter.

Boady followed Max to the living room, where Max took a seat on a recliner. Boady sat on the couch. Boady had been to Max’s house a number of times, both before and after Jenni’s death. Nothing seemed to have been touched since the day of her death.

“Five minutes,” Max said.

Boady opened the briefcase, pulled out a file about two inches thick.

“What’s that?”

“I’ve been appointed to be the executor of Ben Pruitt’s law practice.”

Max looked at Boady with no expression.

“When a practicing attorney dies, the Bar appoints another attorney to wrap up the practice: close files, return retainer money, oversee file retention, that kind of thing. Ben’s practice used to be mine. I’m the one who set up the billing procedures and file-retention system. Hell, he still had my old legal assistant on staff. Well, it just made sense to have me go in and shutter the practice.”

He paused to see if Max saw where he was headed. It didn’t appear so.

“I’ve been going through Ben’s client list for the past month. Everything seemed in order, but then I came across this file.” He handed it to Max. “The man’s name is Ray Kroll. This file was in a drawer all by itself. There is no record of Kroll ever paying a retainer, which probably means he paid cash.”

Boady watched as Max thumbed through the pages in the file. “Got arrested for a bar fight?” Max asked.

“Charged with first-degree assault. Nearly beat a man to death with a brick. Bailed out and promptly got shot.”

“The guy he beat up had friends. So what?”

“Maybe. But look.” Boady lifted the pages of reports to expose the face of the file folder underneath. There, someone had scratched a note in blue ink.
Jennifer Rupert—yellow Corolla—#49—St. Louis Park
.

Max froze.

Then Boady lifted papers on the opposite side of the file to show Max a CD-ROM taped to the back of the file. “I listened to this CD, Max. It’s two men having a conversation over the phone. Max, they’re talking about Jenni. This is where Ben got his information about Jenni’s death. I thought you should have it.”

Max stared at the file in his hands, and Boady could tell that a thousand wheels were turning in the man’s head. Then Max looked up and said, “I’m not supposed to have this, am I?”

Boady thought about the deep river of trouble that would come rushing in on him if anyone ever found out. He’d lose his license, his job—who knows how far the Board of Professional Responsibility would go. On the other side of the ledger, however, Boady knew that giving the file to Max would allow Boady to sleep at night and look himself in the mirror. In the end, it was an easy decision.

“I’m supposed to destroy it,” Boady said. “But the way I see it, Ray Kroll’s dead. Ben’s dead. And somewhere out there is a murderer who got away with it. I can’t destroy this file. But, if you tell anyone where this came from, I’ll deny it.”

“No one will ever know,” Max said. “I promise.”

Boady stood up. “I think my five minutes are about up.” He walked toward the door.

Max remained in his chair, looking at the file.

“I hope you find what you’re looking for, Max. And if you ever want to have a beer or . . . well, you know where I live.”

Max folded the file closed but didn’t look up. “Thanks,” he said softly.

Boady nodded in silence and let himself out.

Acknowledgments

I would like to offer my immense thanks to Dan Mayer, Jill Maxick, Cheryl Quimba, Jon Kurtz, Jade Zora Scibilia, and everyone at Seventh Street Books and Penguin Random House for all of the support they have shown me over the years.

I want to thank my first editor and best friend, Joely (my wife), for being my rock.

And thank you to my superstar agent, Amy Cloughley.

I would like to thank Donna Oliva, Nancy Rosin, Robert Docherty, Leonardo Castro, Allison Krehbiel, Scott Cutcher, Professor Len Biernat, Detective Robert Dale, Margaret Koberoski, Tami Peterson, James M. Crist, and Lily Shaw for answering questions and being excellent beta readers.

About the Author

Allen Eskens is the award-winning and
USA Today
–bestselling author of
The Life We Bury
and
The Guise of Another
. A criminal-defense attorney for twenty-five years, he lives with his wife in Minnesota, where he is a member of the Twin Cities Sisters in Crime.