Degree of Guilt (67 page)

Once more she climbed the stepladder, peering over the top of a new shelf.

‘Find anything?’

She turned atop the ladder. The clerk stood in the doorway.

‘Not my stuff,’ she said. ‘But a couple of nice watches.’

The clerk laughed. ‘You must really want those tapes. This room reminds me of the army. It’s depressing.’

Terri smiled. ‘If I start to need air, I’ll let you know.’

‘Okay.’ He paused. ‘These tapes, they’re not the Grateful Dead, are they?’

Terri shook her head. ‘No.’

‘Too bad. I really love the Dead.’ He went back to his customers.

She turned, resting on her arms, and glanced at the top of the next shelf over.

There was a ripped letter-size envelope, Terri saw, with a rubber band around the middle. Inside the envelope was the outline of a small rectangular object.

At least it was the right size, Terri thought. She paused, debating whether to break her discipline of a systematic search, and then climbed down the stepladder.

She slid the ladder sideways across the floor, then climbed it again, peering at each shelf as she went.

She got to the top, gazing down at the envelope. Finally, she picked it up.

It was light in her hand. When she turned it over, she saw the logo of the Hotel Flood with a line drawn through it.

Her hands began shaking. As she removed the rubber band, it fell to the floor.

She reached inside the envelope.

There was not one rectangle, her fingers told her, but two. She pulled them out.

Tapes.

Staring at them, Terri saw the Roman numerals. But it was a moment before she could accept what she was holding.

The first tape, she knew from Steinhardt’s code, was of Laura Chase. Which meant that the second was Mary Carelli.

She stood there clutching the tapes, wishing that she had not come. Then she slowly climbed down the stepladder with the tapes and the envelope.

The rubber band was by the ladder. She picked it up, put the tapes in the envelope, and wound the rubber band tight around it.

The clerk was serving a customer. Terri walked behind him. ‘I found it,’ she said quietly.

He turned, smiling, and took the envelope from her hand. He glanced at it and looked up again. ‘Amazing,’ he said. ‘Goes to show what they say about perseverance.’

He might not have noticed how strange she had sounded, Terri thought. She saw his customer watching them. ‘I guess so,’ she said. ‘Thanks for your help.’

‘Oh, you’ll have to sign for it. We can’t just let stuff go.’

He left for a moment, returning with a sheet filled with descriptions of parcels, a column for signatures and addresses. His index finger rested on a line headed ‘Tapes, Flood.’ ‘Here,’ he said.

Carefully, Terri signed the index, the tapes held in her right hand. ‘Thanks,’ she repeated.

‘Sure.’ He looked at her again. ‘Don’t I recognize you from somewhere?’

Terri managed a smile. ‘I have that kind of face,’ she answered, and left.

Christopher Paget found it hard to concentrate.

He walked to his window, gazing out at the panorama of the city – the green rise of Telegraph Hill, houses and apartments seeming to climb up its side; the sweep of piers with their luxury liners and tour boats; the blue expanse of bay. Since he was a child, Paget had loved this city, counted himself fortunate to live here; as an adult, he had taught Carlo to love it too, exploring its vistas and its nooks and crannies – a neighborhood Italian restaurant in North Beach, pocket parks with swings and slides, places to walk on Sunday morning for croissants or blueberry muffins.

On a normal day, these thoughts brought him contentment. Being part of a place that Carlo now wished to be part of made him feel that his life had added up to something, was not just about himself and how he had made his way. He no longer saw his decision to raise Carlo as something done for a lonely child: it had created a depth of happiness and pleasure that would have been beyond him on his own. Whatever else the accident of Mary Carelli had brought him, their careless weekend in Washington had brought him Carlo. Christopher Paget was lucky to be Carlo’s father; looking at the city, defined by the days they had spent together, reminded him of that.

But today the view gave Paget little pleasure, and less peace.

From the beginning, he had believed Mary guilty of something, in some degree or another. Everything he knew about her, and every twist in her story, told him she was hiding something deeper and more obscure than what had happened on the day Mark Ransom died. But Paget had forced himself to focus simply on what the prosecution could prove. If he put Sharpe’s case to an early test, he had reasoned, perhaps he could extract Mary from danger before the prosecutor learned what Paget himself did not know – by finding the tape or otherwise. And Marcy Linton had made a difference; there were times, despite himself, when Paget gave Mary’s account some credence.

Now George Bass had shaken him to the core.

It wasn’t merely the damage to Mary’s defense – though Paget could see that in the faces of the media people as he had left the courthouse, hear it in the shouted questions he had ignored. Nor was it that Johnny Moore’s failures now made sense, or even that Sharpe had transformed Marcy Linton – at least in some sense – into a prosecution witness. What was so painful was the realization that in spite of his best professional efforts and all that he knew about her, Paget had still wanted to believe in Mary Carelli.

Why blame Mary? he thought. She is who she is; only a fool invests in believing his client. Even when the client is the mother of your much-loved son.

Especially then.

Now there would be a trial, he believed, another ordeal for Carlo to bear. Searching for motive, Sharpe might find the tape: even if it was inadmissible, sooner or later someone from the media would ferret it out. There was no chance that the lucky reporter would conclude that hurt to Carlo Paget outweighed the boost to his or her career, piously cloaked in the public’s right to know. And in the meanwhile, Carlo would be besieged by questions from all sides, and worst of all his own: whether his mother had killed Mark Ransom not because of rape but to save her own career, and then coolly lied about it until the lies entangled her.

There was a soft knock behind him.

As Paget turned, Teresa Peralta appeared in the doorway.

‘Do you want to talk,’ she asked, ‘or should I come back?’

She looked as troubled as he was, Paget thought. ‘Stay,’ he answered. ‘I’m not functioning very well. Perhaps you can help.’

Just her being there would help. But Paget could not tell her that. Too much of what he felt was no longer about Terri the lawyer, as good as she was, but about Terri the woman.

‘Is it Bass?’ she asked.

Paget nodded. ‘He seems to have set off a chain reaction. In the past hour, I’ve covered Mary, Carlo, the tapes, and my own monumental foolishness. I haven’t come up with a line of argument.’

She closed the door, stood leaning against it with her black purse clasped in front of her. ‘Tell me the worst part,’ she said.

Paget was silent for a moment. Then he asked, ‘Did you ever love someone so much it hurts?’

Terri nodded. ‘Elena.’

‘For me, it’s Carlo. It’s the only time I’ve let myself feel like that – perhaps I thought that loving a child was safe.’ He shrugged. ‘Loving someone is never safe. There’s too much that can happen.’

‘And you’re worried about what will happen to Carlo.’

‘To Carlo, yes. Perhaps, more selfishly, to Carlo and me.’ He paused. ‘I don’t want this to go on for him. And I keep worrying about that tape. What on earth could have moved Mary Carelli, of all people, to bare her soul for a tape recorder?’

Terri watched him. ‘You’re still afraid they’ll find it, then.’

‘If they have a reason to keep looking. An ongoing prosecution will do nicely.’

Terri’s shoulders drew in. Softly, she said, ‘They won’t ever find it, Chris.’

Her tone was very subdued and very certain. ‘Because Mary destroyed it?’ he asked.

‘No. Because I have it.’

Something in her voice kept Paget from saying anything. Slowly, Terri took an envelope from her purse.

She walked across the room and placed it in his hands. ‘There are two tapes inside,’ she told him. ‘One is Laura Chase, talking about Lindsay Caldwell. The second is Mary.’

He stared down at the envelope. ‘How long have you had these?’

‘For less than an hour.’ Her voice was still quiet. ‘I found them at the post office.’

Paget looked up. ‘Mary told you?’

Terri shook her head. ‘I figured it out. After Mary shot Ransom, she put them in a blank envelope and slid them down the mail slot. That’s what she was doing in the hallway.’

‘Then she lied about that too.’ Paget touched his eyes, slowly shaking his head. ‘If she was cool enough to do
that
, God knows what else she did. And lied about.’

Terri walked away from him, sat in a chair, looking out. ‘I shouldn’t have told you,’ she said. ‘Not today.’

Paget shrugged. ‘You didn’t want me worrying anymore – at least about the tapes. And you reasoned, correctly, that any decent defense lawyer wouldn’t let this keep him from arguing the evidence before the court.’

She looked up at him. ‘Do you want
me
to do the argument?’

‘No. You’ve done far too much already.’ Paget’s brain was sluggish, he realized; it was only as he spoke that it came to him that Terri was at risk. ‘You got these tapes yourself?’ he asked.

‘Yes. There’s a storeroom for mail without postage.’

Paget looked from Terri to the envelope and to Terri again. ‘They made you sign for them, I imagine.’

‘Yes.’

‘Then they can trace this to you.’

‘I suppose so.’ Her voice and eyes were steady. ‘Better me than you. Or Mary.’

Paget sat next to her. Quietly, he asked, ‘Why did you do this?’

She was silent a moment. ‘Because I like Carlo,’ she answered. ‘And I like what you’ve done with him. He’s been hurt already, and I didn’t want him hurt anymore. Now, perhaps, he won’t be.’

‘But you’ve got your own life, Terri, your own career. I didn’t want you involved. Not like this.’

Terri looked down. ‘I have trouble drawing lines sometimes. I know that. But if it were Elena, and me, wouldn’t you have done the same thing?’

Paget gazed at her; the still, silent profile, the face he had learned to trust. ‘Then leave it at this,’ he said. ‘You gave me the tapes, and your responsibility ended. You didn’t know what I’d do about them, and I never said. But you assumed I’d keep them safe.’

Terri smiled faintly. ‘Did I?’

‘Yes, you did. And that’s what you’ll say if you’re ever asked. For my own peace of mind.’

Her smile faded. ‘All right. If that’s what you want.’

‘It’s very much what I want.’

They sat next to each other for a time, Terri staring out the window, Paget at the envelope. At length, she asked, ‘Can I help with your argument?’

‘In a while.’ It was only when he spoke again that he was certain. ‘After I listen to this tape.’

She looked over at him. ‘You want to do that? Now?’

‘I can’t
not
do it. Tomorrow, the next day – I’d have to listen to it, Mary’s feelings aside.’ He paused. ‘I don’t like this. But she’s lied to me about too many things for far too long for me to worry about
her
feelings. And who’s to say that Steinhardt was the only other person who knows what’s on the tapes? If it concerns me, and what we did in Washington, I have to know.’

‘But why today?’

‘Because until I hear it, I can’t think about anything else.’

Terri touched his shoulder. ‘I’ll leave, then. Call me when you need me.’

He gazed at her. Softly, Paget asked, ‘And what if that’s now?’

Her eyes filled with confusion. As if sparring, she said, ‘You don’t want me to know what you’ll do with them.’

‘True.’ He looked away. ‘But you can know that I listened.’

Terri’s eyes did not move from him. In a quiet tone, she asked, ‘Why do you want me here?’

‘As I said, I feel squeamish about Mary. But I just don’t want to be alone with this.’ Suddenly Paget felt embarrassed. ‘All my life, I’ve never leaned on anyone. Tomorrow I’ll go back to that. I suppose, for a day, I’m borrowing you.’

She nodded, silent. After a time, she reached into the envelope, pulled out a tape. ‘It’s this one.’

Paget stood, walking to the credenza behind his desk, and produced a portable tape player. He put it in front of them. Inserting the tape, he briefly looked at Terri. Then he pushed the button.

As Paget sat next to Terri, Steinhardt asked, ‘Did Chris know about your involvement with this man Jack Woods?’

The tape crackled with static. Steinhardt’s words had a ghostly quality; reminded Paget of driving late at night through the Pennsylvania hills during a college trip he had made across the country, the distant voice of an evangelist the only sound that could come from his radio.

‘What do you mean?’ Mary asked quietly.

Steinhardt hesitated, as if confused. ‘Your involvement in obstructing the Lasko investigation.’

‘Yes.’ Mary’s voice became a monotone. ‘He knew about that.’

There was a long silence. ‘But as I recall his Senate testimony,’ Steinhardt said slowly, ‘he supported you.’

‘No,’ Mary corrected. ‘Chris
lied
for me.’

Paget felt Terri glance at him, look away. Listening to Mary’s taped voice, saying through the static what she never thought he would hear, was haunting. But at least, as Mary had described this tape, he had already heard the worst of it.

‘Do you know why Chris lied?’ Steinhardt asked.