The Last Word (28 page)

Having sampled all the cultural riches Quartzsite had to offer, Mark returned to his room at the Super 8 and sat on his bed, staring at the TV for hours, the stories of scandal and murder in LA blowing over him like a hot desert wind.

 

It was eight o’clock at night when Mark awoke, his sunburned arms clutching the thin pillow to his face. He didn’t know when he’d fallen into his dreamless sleep or exactly how long he’d been out of it. But his throat was as scratchy as the sheets and his stomach was growling for food.

He sat up and saw his face staring back at him on the TV screen like a reflection in a mirror.

It wasn’t a reflection. CNN was broadcasting a picture of him taken several years ago at the podium during a medical conference.

A reporter was speculating on where Mark had gone and what had happened to him.

“Some are calling him a tragic figure,” the reporter said. “But others are now questioning his accomplishments as a homicide investigator, wondering if those astonishing successes were built on a foundation of lies, corruption, and fabricated evidence.”

Mark switched off the TV and left the room.

It was a dark, dry night. The street was empty. The only traffic was a mile away, at the off-ramp, where cars stopped at the Carl’s Jr. and the gas station and then continued on their way.

He walked back to the ramshackle diner where he’d had breakfast. There was only one other customer, an obese naked woman eating a large slice of banana cream pie. She was in her fifties, her hair almost as white as the whipped cream around her mouth. The tired waiter/cook/cashier didn’t give the woman a second glance as he filled her coffee cup and handed Mark a greasy laminated menu.

Mark sat in a booth with his back to the naked woman, ordered a grilled cheese sandwich and a chocolate milk shake. While he ate, he looked out at the interstate, the cars lost in a blur of streaking light.

The vast conspiracy had worked flawlessly because Mark, and everyone else around him, had acted exactly the way Sweeney knew they would.

They were pitifully predictable.

There was no doubt that Sweeney had considered the options Mark had left and was already five steps ahead of him. Sweeney was depending on Mark Sloan to be unerringly himself.

So Mark would have to change.

He would have to behave completely contrary to his nature, to who he was, what he believed, and how he thought, or Sweeney would continue to accurately second-guess him.

But was that, too, part of Sweeney’s plan for his destruction? If Mark stopped being who he was, what did he have left?

It didn’t matter. He didn’t have any choice. It wasn’t about
his
survival anymore anyway.

It was about saving the people he loved.

So Mark gave it some thought.

How would a different man handle this situation, a man not bound by Mark’s experience, morality, and ethics?

Someone who didn’t care about others and, in fact, took pleasure in their suffering?

Someone who put his own needs first and did whatever it took to get what he wanted, when he wanted it?

Someone who didn’t care about obeying any law except the ones he created for himself?

Someone like Carter Sweeney.

After a time, Mark finally got up and turned towards the door.

And stopped cold.

The naked woman was gone. There was another woman sitting in the booth. She wasn’t naked and she was smiling right at him.

He knew her.

“How’s the pie here?” Tanis Archer asked.

Mark slid onto the bench opposite Tanis.

“It’s not bad,” he said.

“Did you see the naked lady who was sitting here before?”

“I did,” he said.

“Good,” she said. “I thought I was hallucinating. I’ve been under a little stress.”

The waiter came. Tanis ordered a slice of pie and a cup of coffee. She and Mark didn’t speak until she had been served and the waiter went back into the kitchen.

“How did you find me?” Mark asked.

Tanis frowned at him. “Don’t tell me you were making an effort not to be found.”

“Not really,” he conceded.

“That’s a relief, because I didn’t think you were that dumb. You used credit cards to pay for your gas and motel room, which isn’t something you do if you’re trying to disappear. Take it from someone who is on the run and doesn’t want to be found. But even if you’d used cash, I would have found you.”

“You put a tracking device on my car,” Mark said.

“It’s how I show that I care,” Tanis said. “What are you doing out here, Mark?”

He picked up a fork and took a bite of her pie. Stress was making him crave sugar. “I don’t know. I thought at first I was on my way to see Noah Dent, but I’m not.”

“Maybe you just needed some space.”

“Maybe I did,” Mark said.

“I have presents for you,” she said. “Some are in your room.”

“You broke into my motel room?”

She shrugged. “The other present is information. I know why Olivia Morales framed Steve and killed Burnside. It wasn’t for Sweeney.”

“Was it for someone else at Sunrise Valley?”

“Yes and no,” Tanis said. “Do you know who Harley Brule is?”

Brule had been in charge of the Major Crimes Unit in the Valley, which, ironically, had been responsible for most of the major crime in the Valley. Private investigator Nick Stryker found out about it and was blackmailing Brule. Mark found out about it while investigating Stryker’s disappearance and gave the evidence to Steve, who in turn gave it to Burnside. Steve arrested Brule and his men. Burnside prosecuted them in a highly publicized police corruption trial that made him a viable mayoral candidate.

“Yeah,” Mark said, “I know him.”

“Olivia’s fiancé was Larry Landvik, one of the MCU guys that got nailed. Landvik was the detective who blew his brains out instead of going to jail for a ten-year stretch. Guess who she blames for that?”

“I can imagine,” Mark said.

“There’s more. From what I can tell, she was helping the MCU guys make their scores, but she managed not to get caught, so there’s some survivor’s guilt going on there, too. Brule knew it and probably played on those feelings to get her to set up Steve.”

“And murder Mercy Reynolds and Rusty Konrath,” Mark said.

“Revenge is a cruel business.” She started to get up.

“That’s it? You’re going already?”

“I’ve been here too long as it is,” Tanis said.

“What are you going to do?”

“Run,” she said. “You?”

“Fight,” Mark said. “I might need your help.”

“I might show up again,” Tanis said. “Then again, I might not. I have to help myself right now.”

“I understand,” Mark said. “I’ll keep that tracking device on my car.”

Tanis smiled. “That’s the nicest thing any man has ever done for me.”

“It’s how I show that I care.”

She gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Be careful, Mark.”

“You too,” he said.

“I like the T-shirt,” Tanis said, then turned and walked out. It wasn’t until she’d been gone a few minutes, and he’d finished her pie, that he realized she’d stuck him with the bill.

He paid the check and left, walking slowly back to the motel. When he got to the door of his room, he examined it to see if he could find any sign that indicated that Tanis had broken in. There wasn’t any. He figured that she must have fashioned some kind of card key like his own.

Mark went in.

The TV was on, only now it was tuned to HBO and an episode of
The Sopranos
. The minibar was open and cleaned out. No wonder Tanis wasn’t hungry. She’d even taken the alcohol. He’d probably saved her a trip to the market, which meant one less opportunity for her to get caught.

She’d left a black gym bag for him on the bed. He unzipped it. The bag was crammed full of audio and video surveillance equipment of all shapes and sizes. She’d even printed out some instructions for him on how to use the stuff.

It was a thoughtful gift, one he hoped he’d find a way to put to good use.

Mark zipped up the bag, set it on the floor, and sat on the bed, his back against the headboard. He’d never watched
The Sopranos
before. It was unlike any depiction of organized crime that he’d ever seen.

The violence was vicious and shocking, but, at the same time, it seemed almost mundane because it was deftly woven into the familiar world of suburban family life.

Mark understood the way Tony Soprano used violence to simplify complex situations and overcome the obstacles to his goals.

It was something Mark could never do.

But Mark didn’t want revenge. He wanted justice. Then again, Mark wasn’t going to be Mark anymore.

He couldn’t be.

So what did he want and how was he going to get it?

The phone rang, startling him.

Mark hit the mute button on his remote and answered the phone with a cautious “hello.”

“Hey, Mark, how’s it going?”

It was Carter Sweeney.

Mark didn’t ask Sweeney how he’d found him. Maybe Sweeney had assumed that he would head for Phoenix. Maybe it was the credit cards Mark used to pay for things. Or maybe there were two tracking devices on his car.

It didn’t matter.

“I’ve had better days,” Mark said.

“I’m sorry to hear that. Maybe I can brighten things up for you. I was wondering if you’re available for lunch tomorrow,” Sweeney said. “Because I am. We can go anywhere that you’d like.”

Carter Sweeney was free.

Mark hung up the phone without a word, released the mute on the TV, and channel-surfed until he found what he was looking for on Court TV. There was an entire program devoted to Sweeney’s habeas corpus hearing and the startling outcome.

He learned that Judge Robert Lisker, who’d presided over the murder and kidnapping trials of Carter Sweeney, presided over the habeas corpus hearing as well.

Sweeney’s lawyers went over every detail of the charges against him, arguing that Sweeney wasn’t a serial bomber, as Mark had claimed in the first trial, and that the evidence in Sweeney’s tool shed linking him to the explosives was planted by Mark and Steve. Sweeney shot Steve with a nail gun and fled because he reasonably feared for his freedom and his life.

That trial, his lawyers argued, was compromised by Sweeney’s preexisting romantic relationship with ADA Sharon Ellison, who, he later learned, was sharing privileged information about him with DA Burnside, which amounted to prosecutorial misconduct. Ellison was later killed in a bombing that was among the murders Sweeney was charged with.

Sweeney was convicted on murder charges related to the bombings and sentenced to prison, but his bus was hijacked on the way to the penitentiary by his sister, Caitlin, who’d aligned herself with ROAR, a radical military group. Sweeney claimed that he was abducted by ROAR and that he was threatened with death if he didn’t engineer the robbery of an armored car.

Contrary to Mark’s fraudulent testimony in court, Sweeney wasn’t fleeing with a hundred million dollars in stolen money when he was caught, but rather he’d escaped from captivity in the only vehicle available to him and was going for help.

Some of those arguments had been introduced during Sweeney’s two trials, but in light of recent revelations regarding the conduct of Dr. Mark Sloan, Lieutenant Steve Sloan, Dr. Amanda Bentley, the district attorney, and the chief of police, the allegations seemed far more credible and disturbing now.

The prosecution argued in the hearing that current events had no impact on the evidence presented in the previous trials and that, in fact, nothing had changed in Sweeney’s case. The evidence against Sweeney was overwhelming, convincing and irrefutable when it was originally presented in court, and it remained so today. The actions of both the police and the prosecution were lawful and beyond reproach. None of Sweeney’s constitutional rights were violated in any way and there was no cause for reconsidering his incarceration.

Judge Lisker shocked both parties by returning his verdict a few hours after the hearing concluded. He ruled that Sweeney’s constitutional right to due process had been violated and that he’d been denied a fair trial as a result of the most egregious example of police corruption and prosecutorial misconduct that the judge had ever seen. On the basis of the evidence presented at the hearing, Judge Lisker was convinced that “no reasonable juror” would reach a guilty verdict if the trial were held today.

The judge set aside Sweeney’s conviction and ordered that he be released immediately from custody.

A spokesman for the district attorney’s office, which was still reeling from Burnside’s assassination, said the office was reviewing the ruling and considering the options.

So, for the moment, Carter Sweeney was a free man. Comparing himself to Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners, he reaffirmed his love “for this great city” and vowed to find the bomber who was responsible for the crimes for which he had been falsely imprisoned. There was even talk that he might consider running for mayor, given what he called “the present lack of worthy candidates.”

Mark switched off the TV in disgust. This time it really was his own reflection that he saw staring back at him in the screen.

But it wasn’t the Mark Sloan he’d known before.

He was staring at a new man, with a new way of thinking and a new approach to dealing with his problems.

If the TV hadn’t been bolted to the table, he would have picked it up and thrown it out the window.

Instead, he turned it back on and watched another episode of
The Sopranos
.

Mark stayed up all night, forcing himself to view his problem from an entirely new perspective. But he was locked into his usual ways of thinking.