Panther's Prey (12 page)

Still shivering, I felt I'd never be warm again. “Do the police know?”

“What do they care? They've got the man who did this.”

If the police knew about Jordan and Benton, they apparently weren't even investigating the possibility that he might have been
involved in her death. “Someone sent her a text message the night she died. Was it you?”

“I didn't see her that evening. I didn't talk to her. We didn't
text.

“That text is what made her decide we shouldn't spend the night together. Maybe it didn't have anything to do with her death. But whoever sent that message, it meant I wasn't there whenever the man who killed her showed up.”

“And what would you have done if you had been there?” It seemed to me a question without an answer, yet he apparently expected one. “She didn't need protecting,” he went on after a pointed pause. “She wouldn't have opened the door to a stranger. She certainly wouldn't have opened it to Rodriguez.”

“So who sent her that text message, if you didn't?”

“My connections in the police department tell me the number was from a prepaid cell phone. All they know is what it said.”

“And what was that?”

Benton seemed to take satisfaction from the answer. “‘Get rid of him.' According to you, that's exactly what she did.”

The trip back seemed to take much longer than the trip out, probably because we'd said all we were going to and there was no more drama to distract us. Or maybe it was just that the wind had died as the fog rolled in.

We came under the bridge just ahead of the fog. It was then I chose to break the silence in which we'd sailed for twenty minutes, a quiet broken only by Benton's brusque instructions. “Was Cho really having sex with a kid in a Chinatown bathhouse or was that a lie cooked up by Jacob Mauldin?”

Benton looked startled. The shadow of the bridge fell across his face and he looked upward like part of him hadn't realized where he was. Then the fog obscured the sun. He rubbed his face with his free hand, suddenly fatigued. “I ought to have left you out there.”

“He committed suicide,” I pressed on. “They never found his body, right?”

“Just the car, parked on the Marin side. But you already know that.”

“It's strange how little coverage his disappearance received. There was a story right after the car was found, quoting his wife to the effect her husband would never have killed himself.”

“They always say that. Besides, he left a note.”

“Evidently it didn't convince her.”

“Gary Cho was a disturbed man. He hid a great many things from a great many people, and he was clearly under immense strain that no one else knew about. It's not easy to keep up a secret life, especially when those secrets jeopardize everything you care about. Sometimes a person seems strong, but all it takes is one strong gust to bring him down.”

“Then, a few weeks after the death, his wife suddenly pulls a switch. Now she's even begun a memorial fund in his name, to support suicide prevention. They've got cameras there, you know. If he'd jumped, one of them should have caught it on video—but none did. And yeah, I know there are a few blind spots.”

“He was thorough. That was his character. He'd have done his research. Such a man wouldn't have wanted to leave a video of his suicide behind. He'd have known Lydia might see it someday. There's websites for all sorts of sickos these days. There's actually one devoted just to bridge jumpers.”

We were tacking past Alcatraz now, the sail flapping in the fickle winds. I'd started to warm up slightly, but as the fog increased the chill settled deeper, soaking into my bones. I dreaded having to get on my motorcycle and ride back across. “You've checked out that theory pretty carefully. Was it because you felt responsible?”

“As you said, there wasn't video evidence and it seemed as if there should have been. Clearly he killed himself because of the dirt that came out in the trial. It had been his decision to sell out to organized crime, not anyone else's. The law, at times, requires us to inflict suffering. That doesn't mean we're meant to enjoy it. So yes, as I implied, I checked it out.”

“So you found the website telling the would-be bridge jumpers about the blind spots where they can jump without being caught on videotape, and you figured it was at least plausible he was dead.”

“As opposed to what?” Benton's voice was utterly calm.

“Alive, obviously,” I said. All at once, I recognized another possibility. “Or murdered.”

I realized Benton was the kind of man, the kind of lawyer, who was at his calmest in his moments of deepest anger—and he was angry now. “Why would anyone want to kill him?”

“I talked to your opposing counsel. He seems to think the deck was stacked, that the sex tape and the kid's testimony were fabrications, along with most of the rest of your client's evidence. Maybe Cho didn't consider himself beaten. Or maybe someone miscalculated and left him with nothing left to lose.”

Benton found this laughable. “If Ma said that, then he's an incredibly bad loser. It's remarkable he'd think so, and even more remarkable he'd speak the thought aloud. He's being sued, so I suppose he has to have some excuse. Lawyers will tell themselves—tell their clients—anything to avoid taking responsibility for their own mistakes.”

We were a few hundred yards from the marina, in a patch of still water. He brought the boat into the wind and started the engine, uncleated the mainsail and let it drop, gathering the slack and binding the sail around the boom with bungee cords. A seal surfaced a few yards from the boat, regarded me with black eyes beneath long lashes, then disappeared in a swirl of foam, slapping the water with one flipper as it went.

“Have you mentioned this theory of yours to anyone else?” he now asked.

I brushed the question aside. “So, Jordan and Cho. That's two deaths associated with the Kairos trial. Clearly, there was a lot at stake. We're talking public money, enormous contracts, the
development of what could be the most expensive real estate in the country.”

Benton had to raise his voice over the rumble of the engine as he guided us into the marina. “Are you accusing my client of murder? Because if you make those kinds of accusations, you'd better be ready to back them up with proof. I don't think you'd enjoy having to defend yourself from a slander suit.”

“I'm sure Jordan would admire your continued loyalty to your client. When I make that accusation, I'll be ready to back it up. Don't worry.”

He tucked the boat into the slip, throwing the engine into reverse at just the right moment to swing the bow against the dock. I was ready with the line as he instructed me, hopping down and wrapping it around a cleat. Then I did the same at the stern.

He tossed my sodden clothes at my feet. “You'll have to find your own way out.”

Still wearing Benton's borrowed clothes, gritting my teeth against the rush of cold air that cut into my flesh even beneath the fabric, I accelerated onto the bridge, thinking only of a hot shower back in my room.

As I rode along in the left lane—which was separated from the opposing ones by a series of widely spaced plastic pylons, nothing more—I glanced to my right. An SUV was drawing even with me in the middle lane. I gave it no more interest than I'd have given any large vehicle speeding along at sixty-five miles per hour. Its only slightly unusual feature was that its windows were tinted so darkly I couldn't see inside. It stayed beside me for a moment, then began to draw ahead. But before its rear wheels had advanced past my front wheel, it abruptly swerved into my lane. At the same time the driver hit the brakes.

I reacted instinctively, tugging the left handlebar to steer past the SUV's bumper. My bike skidded and to keep from laying it down I had to veer between two flimsy pylons into oncoming traffic. I made it across the first lane without being touched, feeling the buffeting shock waves of cars shooting past front and back. Horns blared and brakes squealed as the truck to my left swerved and sideswiped another car. At the same time, the car approaching on my right began knocking down pylons as it crossed into the eastbound lanes I'd vacated.

I saw a gap and gave the throttle a quick surge, crossing the remaining lane and driving the bike up next to the wall separating the pedestrian walkway from oncoming traffic. A truck was coming fast in my lane. Without room between the truck and the railing, I squeezed the front brake, slowing as much as possible, then bailed off and slid along the railing before flipping over it. I landed on my left shoulder on the cement walkway and kept rolling, hearing the crunch of chrome and metal as my bike was smashed, the semi's horn blaring as I continued tumbling, only one-inch metal bars separated me from the white-streaked bay far below. A red post was suddenly in my field of view through my helmet visor. I felt a tuning-fork jerk, then my body whirled—and seemed to keep on whirling forever.

“A crossover motorcycle accident on the Golden Gate Bridge? It's a miracle you survived,” Teddy said the next morning upon arriving at the hospital. Jeanie had brought him by but had stepped out, leaving us in the false privacy of my curtained-off bed.

I had a concussion, badly bruised ribs, and road rash on my shoulder and back. Even with a narcotic drip in my IV, the slightest movement was agony. Lying still was only marginally better, because then all my attention was on my splitting head.

“Feels more like a curse,” I told him.

“At least you've still got all your brains on the inside of your skull.”

He had a point there. Last time we were here together, he'd been a patient in the traumatic brain injury ward after being shot in the head.

“How's it feel to be back?” I couldn't help asking.

“It wasn't easy walking in those doors. The smell, for one thing …”

I knew exactly what he meant: that distinctive odor of human sickness overlaid with antiseptic fluids and decaying flowers. Those had been long, very difficult weeks when first he'd hovered between life and death, and next slowly had to face the dawning reality of his diminishment. I knew my brother and understood he'd rather die than live in a dependent state. Yet, though his impairments remained significant, he'd managed to achieve a recovery beyond all medical expectation, and he was now grateful for each new day.

“You get to walk out of here,” I said. “Just keep reminding yourself of that.”

“I told you you were going to kill yourself on that bike. Jesus, an accident like that!” He shook his head again in disbelief.

“It
wasn't
an accident.”

That got his attention. “You're not saying … “

“No. My God. You think I'm going to kill myself after all we've been through? Somebody tried to kill
me.
A black SUV with tinted windows came up behind me, then deliberately cut me off. I had no choice but to go over into the opposing lane.”

Now his face was dark with fury. “Wilder. He's been having you followed?”

“I don't think so.” And it was true. I didn't.

Instead, I explained to him as well as I could about my meeting with Benton and the theory I was developing that Jordan had been murdered not by Rodriguez, and not because her defense of him
had attracted the attention of a psychopath, but because of what she'd inadvertently learned during the course of the Kairos trial. I added that Gary Cho might have been murdered, too.

“By whom?” Teddy asked, his voice sharp.

I had to admit I didn't know. “Benton's client, I guess.”

“What about Benton? You're saying he and Jordan were having an affair?”

“It's likely he tipped someone off in advance about our outing today, but that'd be the extent of his involvement. I doubt he was behind it. He's just a lawyer working for a client, keeping himself useful and therefore employed. My sense is he's as distraught about what happened to Jordan as I am but doesn't see a way out.”

“See no evil, hear no evil, you mean.”

“It's not so different from what we do, is it?”

He shook his head, making a face.

“It's not so different from what
you
used to do,” I said, making my point clear.

Teddy looked away. “But I don't have any blood on my hands,” he said unconvincingly.

“That's probably what Benton tells himself. Promise me you won't go to work for Bo Wilder. You've got to promise.”

“Okay,” he answered. “I won't.” But he wasn't convincing now, either.

Lying there, however, I lacked the energy to press the point, and so changed the subject instead. “I may need Car's help,” I told him. Car'd been my brother's investigator originally. Since I hadn't heard from Nina, having hired her and given her the information her guy should have been able to use by now to find Roland McEwan, it looked like time to try a different approach.

“Car's not going to want to get within ten miles of this problem again. Anyway, it's not just finding your old client. It's getting the dude to talk. If Wilder put him up to passing that gun to you, then he isn't going to say a word unless Bo gives him the order.”

“I don't want to hear that.” I closed my eyes tight as the spike in my blood pressure made the pain in my head grow suddenly piercing, followed by a wave of nausea that left me in a cold sweat.