Guilty as Sin (20 page)

Jay could very clearly remember the news footage of Paul Kirkwood falling to his knees in the snow, his son's coat clutched in his hands while he sobbed. "Oh my God, Josh! Josh! Oh God! No!"

He could still hear the anguish, could feel it run through him like a pike. For a fleeting second he put himself in Paul Kirkwood's place and imagined the kind of wild, hot panic that would tear through him if all he had left of his own son was a jacket and a madman's twisted message.

The emotion hit him with physical force, punishing, crushing. Nine times sharper than the pain he had brought here with him. He pushed it away, cursing himself for a masochist. He didn't need to feel what these people felt, he only needed to capture it on paper.

With that squarely at the forefront of his mind, he abandoned his coffee, grabbed his coat, and headed for the door.

The accounting firm of Christianson and Kirkwood was housed in a new two-story square brick building that bore the grandiose name of The Omni Complex. According to the list of tenants in the foyer, the building also housed a real-estate agency, an insurance agency, and a pair of small law firms. Christianson and Kirkwood was located on the second floor.

Jay walked up, found the oak door with the appropriate stenciling job, and let himself into the outer office, which looked like a thousand other outer offices he had been in—white walls hung with pseudo-southwestern artwork, the requisite potted palm, nondescript furnishings of oak and oatmeal-colored upholstery. A secretary with flame-red hair looked up questioningly from her computer terminal and gave a little jolt of recognition.

"Is Mr. Kirkwood in?" Jay asked, flashing a smile. "Name's Jay Butler Brooks. I'd take a minute or two of his time if he's free."

The secretary sucked in a little gasp of breath, her blue eyes round as silver dollars in her freckled face. Apparently rendered speechless, she popped up from her chair and disappeared into Paul Kirkwood's office. Jay eyed the small sofa that had likely been picked more for the decor than comfort, and stayed on his feet. His own face stared up at him from the cover of an outdated People magazine on the oak coffee table. Crime Czar: Jay Butler Brooks Pens Arresting True Crime And Makes A Killing In The Process. People's penchant for puns never failed to make him cringe.

"Mr. Brooks." A handsome smile turned Paul Kirkwood's mouth as he strode out of his office. "It's a pleasure to meet you."

Jay closed the distance between them. "I have a regrettable habit of dropping in on people. I hope this isn't an inconvenient time."

"No, not at all." Kirkwood met Jay's handshake automatically, but his grip was uncertain. "Come on into my office. Would you like coffee, Mr. Brooks?"

"No thanks." Jay said.

While Paul gave instructions for privacy to his secretary, Jay took a moment to survey the room, looking for clues about Josh's father. As in the outer office, the furnishings were oak with smooth, rounded modern lines. A framed print of wood ducks hung on one dark-green wall. Another displayed diplomas and certificates. The office was neat and tidy— compulsively so. If not for the open file on the desk, he would have thought he had walked into a display in a furniture store. The only sign of Paul Kirkwood living here was the neatly folded green-plaid blanket on the sofa.

"I read in the paper about your performing CPR on Judge Franken," Paul said as he entered the office and closed the door behind him. He was clean-shaven, his pin-striped white shirt neatly pressed, the crease in his brown trousers sharp. "What a strange and unpleasant happening that must have been."

"Imagine how the judge must have felt about it," Jay said dryly. A framed photograph in the bookcase caught his eye: Josh in a too-big baseball uniform, Paul kneeling beside him with a proud and silly grin on his lean, handsome face. The image caught Jay unaware.

"Josh is quite the little athlete, huh?" he asked, nodding to the photo. "Baseball, hockey. He was at hockey the night he was abducted, right?"

"Yes. He plays wing on his Squirts team. Hannah was supposed to pick him up that night, but she got hung up at the hospital. . . ."

He spoke carefully, trying to keep the accusation out of his voice, but a hint of it remained like a phantom coffee stain that wouldn't come out of a shirt. The feeling had become dyed into the fabric of the answer.

"I'm sorry for your pain," Jay said. "I can only imagine the toll this all has taken on you and your wife. And then to have the perpetrator turn out to be someone you knew and trusted . . . Must have been one hell of a shock."

"You don't know the half of it," Paul muttered.

"Let me tell you what I'm doing here, Mr. Kirkwood."

Jay walked around behind the desk and glanced out the narrow window that overlooked the parking lot full of cars crusted in winter grime.

"What's gone on here, what's going to go on here in bringing this case to trial, has caught the interest of the nation," he said, turning around. "A crime like this one in a small town touches a lot of nerves. If a crime like this can happen here in Deer Lake, Minnesota, then it can happen anywhere. People want to feel they have some understanding of why that is and what they might do to prevent it."

"You want to do a book about Josh's kidnapping."

"Possibly. Probably. It's an intriguing story. Complicated. Compelling. I imagine it will prove to be only more so as the trial unfolds."

"And you'd like to make some kind of deal?"

Jay looked up from his examination of the items meticulously arranged on the desk. There were dollar signs in Paul Kirkwood's deep-set hazel eyes.

"Deal?" Jay said, playing dumb.

Kirkwood shrugged. "Inside Edition offered me a hundred thousand."

And you're waiting for me to up the ante, Jay thought. He had been through it all before. Sometimes victims threw him out of their houses, outraged at the very idea of a book about their ordeal, and sometimes they wanted him to compensate them for their suffering as if he had perpetrated the crime himself for the sole purpose of setting the scene for a book. And then there were the Paul Kirkwoods of the world. Paul Kirkwood had greed oozing out of his pores like sweat. And Ellen thinks I'm the profiteer. . .

"I don't do deals, Mr. Kirkwood. What I write is not a biography. This story will involve many people. If I grant any one of them a portion of the book, then I run the risk of having the story slanted to reflect their view of things. Contrary to what some might believe, I have ethics and I do apply them."

"And your 'ethics' don't include sharing the millions you'll make on a book?" Paul scowled at him, a look that was more petulance than menace. "I fail to see how you can publish a book about events in someone's life without compensating them."

"It's like this, Mr. Kirkwood: the crime, the trial, that's all a matter of public record. If you choose to talk to me, then I may include your point of view. If you choose not to, then I'm forced to form opinions based on the testimony of others and the records of the events that have taken place. It's your call."

"It's my life," Paul snapped. "I deserve—"

Jay narrowed his eyes.

"Josh is my son," he said, scrambling to cover his mistake. "He deserves something from this."

Jay had made up his mind on that issue before he'd even climbed onto the plane to come to Minnesota. He would set up a trust for Josh, as he had for other victims whose stories he had told. A sizable chunk of the book advance and royalties would go into it. This was his standard procedure, a practice he kept absolutely out of the press, for the obvious reasons.

He chose to withhold this information from Paul Kirkwood as well. Paul had failed the test. It's my life ... I deserve . . . Inside Edition offered me . . .

"Well, I'll tell you what, Mr. Kirkwood," he drawled, "Josh sure as hell deserves better than what he's got."

Letting that hang in the air, he crossed the room slowly and rested a hand on the doorknob.

"I'll leave my number with your secretary. You can think on it some and call me if you'd like—if you can find time between Hard Copy and Oprah."

Paul watched him walk out, rage curling inside him. Bastard. He could pay lip service to ethics and the integrity of his story, but he Wouldn't pay cash. He would rake in five million and still had the gall to sneer at the man whose suffering would be an integral part of what would make him that fortune.

I deserve . . . Paul refused to feel guilty for thinking it. He did deserve something. He was a victim, too.

Even as a part of him insisted on his entitlement, another part of him thought of Josh in the hospital, while another filled with images of that night two weeks ago. All of it twisted inside of him until he felt as if he were caught in a whirlpool sucking him down to drown in panic and remorse.

Josh's frantic cries of "No!" echoed in his ears. He pressed his hands over them. Even with his eyes squeezed tight against the images, he could see his son kicking against the hospital bed, felt as if each kick were landing squarely in his belly.

A thin cry slipping between his lips, he sank down in the chair behind his desk and doubled over. Shudders racked his body. His mouth twisted open; the chaos in his brain thinned to a single thought—my son, my son, my son, my son . . .

Then came the guilt. A wall of it. It was the guilt that made him open the bottom drawer of his desk. It was the guilt that had made him keep the answering-machine tape from that fateful night. He kept the tape in a microcassette recorder he had bought for dictating letters but never used.

He placed the small black rectangle on the desk, pressed the play button. And Josh's voice spoke to him from the crossroads that had turned all their lives onto a dark path.

CHAPTER
 
12

I'm here in Park County to see that justice will be done." Ellen chewed on Tony Costello's words as she drove all the way across town. "As if the state outside the metro area is a lawless frontier," Cameron complained. "And he's Wyatt Earp, come to bring us justice."

"It's all part of the show," Ellen murmured, turning onto Lakeshore Drive.

"It doesn't bother you?"

"Of course it does. Using the Holloman kidnapping in a naked grab for publicity—it's too sleazy for words. But you can't let Tony Costello get to you any more than you let Denny Enberg or Fred Nelson get to you, Cameron. He's just another hired gun."

"A hired gun in an Armani suit."

"That's what success will buy you in the big city, Cam. If you're willing to pay the price."

"I'm not interested in becoming the next Anthony Costello."

"Glad to hear it. The world has more Tony Costellos than it needs."

"He doesn't impress me."

"Well, he should," Ellen said, turning in at the Kirkwoods' drive. "He's extremely good at what he does. Don't underestimate him and don't let him get under your skin."

She turned the Bonneville off and sat for a moment, looking at the Kirkwoods' home, a cedar-sided multilevel that fit in gracefully with its wooded surroundings. Built on the last oversize lot on the street, it had an unrestricted view of the lake to the west. On the north and east the thick woods of Quarry Hills Park wrapped the property in a feeling of seclusion must have cost a pretty penny. On the front yard a half-finished snow fort gave testimony to the normalcy of life in this home before a kidnapper destroyed it.

Her eyes lingered on the Wrights' house two doors down.

Ellen heaved a sigh. "Okay, let's get it over with."

Hannah answered the door, looking pale and thin. The smile she gave as she invited them in was brittle and quick.

"Hannah, this is my associate, Cameron Reed." Ellen pulled her gloves off and stuffed them into her coat pockets.

"Yes, I believe we met last summer over a soccer injury," Hannah said, shaking hands with Cameron.

He smiled warmly. "I recovered fully, and you were right—the scar is a definite icebreaker at the gym." The smile faded. "I can't tell you how sorry I am for all you and your family have gone through, Dr. Garrison."

"Thank you," Hannah replied automatically. "Let me take your coats."

"How's Josh doing?" Ellen asked.

The brittle smile came and went. "It's good to have him home."

"Has he said anything? Given any indication of who took him or where they took him?"