Tell No Lies (44 page)

"What are you doing here?" Jack asked.

"Claire told me where I could find you."

"I've got a phone, you know."

"She says you never answer it."

Well, that was true. But he'd never thought it might be her. Had she tried to call?

"Is this how you spend your time down here? Sitting in this chair? What about your children, Jack? Your responsibilities?"

He didn't answer. He watched a blue jay alight on a tree in the distance. He sneezed.

"You're going to catch pneumonia." Earl noticed the shotgun and picked it up. "What's this for?" He held it high and aimed.

"Earl, what are you doing here? Making sure I pay my child support? Or did you come to offer me a job?" Jack was surprised by the bitterness in his own voice. "You're about a year too late."

"No, I think you're a long way from being ready for that offer."

Jack closed his eyes. He wasn't up to the verbal sparing, but out it tumbled. "Yeah, well, it seems I wasn't ready for the other one you made me either, was I?"

Earl picked up the cup again, walked over and set it near the end of the wall, and then came back near Jack. He lifted the gun again, aimed, and pulled the trigger. The cup burst, shattering into pieces on the wall and in the grass below it.
 

"Hey!" Jack said.

Earl sat on the wall just in front of him. "You been down here feeling sorry for yourself, Jack?" he asked quietly.

Jack stared at Earl. He seemed older, but he couldn't figure out what was different. Maybe the sadness permeating his pale eyes was more than a mere reflection of Jack's own. Looking at him, Jack realized that they'd both aged in the last few months.

"No. I know I have only myself to blame. I'm just trying to figure out what to do next."

Earl nodded. "Mind if I look around?"

Jack waved—an "it's all yours" gesture. Earl's footsteps crunched through the dry grass as he neared the house. Jack heard the door to the little underground apartment open, and then he heard it slam shut.

"Your brother owns this shack, huh?" Earl was right behind him; Jack hadn't heard him come back out. He sat in the matching chair he'd dragged over.

"What's up, Earl? I don't believe you drove five hours to talk about my brother's real estate holdings." God, he was doing it again. Why couldn't he ask a simple question without the sarcastic tone?

"Listen, you have to remember that you're still a father, even if you don't feel like a husband anymore. When's the last time you saw your kids?"

Jack narrowed his eyes. "Claire send you here?"

"Would you have liked that?"

Jack looked at the hard ground between his legs. "Of course," he said quietly.

"Look, no matter what happens with you and Claire—"

"You talk like there's still more to come. What happens with me and Claire has already happened."

"Well, I didn't get that feeling when I talked to her."

Jack felt something flip in his stomach and turned to Earl. "Why's that?"

Earl looked out into the valley, focusing as if he saw something in particular. "Nothing I can put my finger on. Just a feeling I got from her. She obviously misses you."

"No, she misses who she thought I was. She hates who I am."

"She knows neither of you can go back. I think you should give her more credit."

Jack sighed. The longing he felt for her overwhelmed him.

Earl turned to him. "You said you were trying to figure out what to do next. What do you want? Do you want her back?"

"Of course." He nodded his head fervently. "That's all I want. That's all I care about." He looked right at Earl as if his old boss had the power to grant his wish. "Did she ask you to come here, to ask me that?"

"No, Jack, she didn't ask me to come here. She doesn't have any idea why I'm here. I made up a work-related excuse. I just asked the question because your answer is important, something you need to figure out before you can decide what to do next." He paused. "A marriage can survive infidelity. It just has to be for the right reasons." His eyes drilled into Jack's. "What about Jenny?"

"How do you know?" Jack asked, ignoring his mention of Jenny.

"How do I know what?"

He knew that Earl understood what he was talking about. "That a marriage can survive infidelity." Earl stood, took a step to the wall, and put one foot up on it. He leaned down and retied the lace on his shoe. Jack had never seen him so fidgety. "Earl?"

"Because mine did." Earl turned around and sat down again on the wall, facing Jack. "You didn't answer me." He ignored the look of shock on Jack's face. "What about Jenny?"

"I don't know." He couldn't think past what Earl had just revealed to him.

"Dammit, you'd better know! It's important that you know."

"I know, I know, I mean I do know." Jack dropped his head again. "I do." The weight of his despair crushed him. He'd kept it at bay until now, but Earl's appearance had caused him to surrender to it, to allow it to break through his resistance. "Something Claire said to me, that I've thought about a lot while I've been here. She said, 'Jack Hilliard doesn't get everything he wants.'  And now I understand, I know she's right."

He was suddenly gripped by an urgent need to make Earl understand. He lifted his head.

"Listen to me," he implored. "You know that old question? You know, the one where you're asked, 'If your wife and your mother were both drowning and you could save only one, who would you save?'  Or some variation of that. You know what I'm talking about?"

Earl nodded sadly, and Jack scooted to the edge of his chair, closer to him.

"I've been here a long time, and I've been thinking a lot about that question. If it were Claire and Jenny who were drowning, who would I save? What would I do?"

Two months ago he would have felt like a fool, spilling his emotions like this to his old boss. Now he didn't give a shit. "It took me so long. I tried to exclude certain factors in Claire's favor, you know, like her being the mother of our kids. I tried to isolate it, just the two of them. But I couldn't choose. I couldn't do that to either of them. But I kept telling myself, you
have
to choose. That's what Claire was saying. I can't have everything. I have to choose. I'm forced to choose or they both drown, you know? We all drown.
 

"Well, I chose. I don't want everything anymore. I just want Claire." He closed his eyes tightly. "I'd let her drown, Earl. If I had to, I'd let Jenny drown."

The next day, Jack resumed his vigil in the chair out by the stone wall. The air was cold but damp with the scent of snow. Gray, thick clouds hung heavily in the sky, and he wanted to be outside when the tiny flakes began to fall. Earl sat with him, bringing him hot coffee and soup from a can that he heated on the stove. Sometimes Jack drank the coffee, but the soup got cold and Earl ended up returning to the house with it. After a morning of silence, Earl finally spoke.

"You're needed back in St. Louis," he said bluntly, without preface.

Jack looked over at him and shook his head. He assumed Earl referred to his job, and he hadn't thought about whether he'd fight for it.

"Jeff and Frank are trying Alex Turner for Maxine Shepard's murder. The trial starts in a few weeks."

Jack stared at him in surprise. "Alex?"
What happened to Mendelsohn?
 

"Yes, Alex." Earl smiled slightly, pleased that he'd managed to pique Jack's interest. "They ruled Mendelsohn out pretty quickly. He's being charged with fraud and embezzlement, but he's not a murderer. They ran all the prints found on the gun against the prints on file for anyone who knew Jenny. As you know, because Alex is an attorney, his fingerprints are on file. They matched."
 

"Why would Alex murder Maxine Shepard?" Jack asked calmly, not wanting Earl to see the fear growing inside him.

"Seems Mr. Turner has a few screws loose. Once they tied his prints to the prints on the gun, they searched his house. They found a journal that revealed—well, let's just say he was a little obsessed with Jenny. He thought that if he could get rid of Maxine, he could win her back."

Jack's head swirled with emotions: disbelief, anger, and, even though he didn't want to admit it, a sort of understanding. Jack knew well Jenny's power to inspire obsessions.

Earl continued. "I guess she shared her Maxine troubles with Alex one too many times. He thought he'd be saving the day—you know, knocking off her nemesis, I guess."

"What about Jenny?" Jack asked.

"There's nothing in the journal to suggest she knew anything about Alex's strange scheme. In fact, there's not even anything that would constitute an outright admission by Alex, and therein lies the problem. He's denying it and pointing the finger at Jenny. And since she's gone—"

"What do you mean, she's gone?" The coffee in his stomach suddenly felt like acid.

"She skipped town," he added before Jack misunderstood.

"She ran?" Jack couldn't believe it. It was impossible.

"She ran, not long after the charges were dropped. And that doesn't look good for her."

"But what about the lie detect—"

"Alex's attorney knows it's inadmissible, Jack. And he knows he doesn't have to prove she
did
do it. He simply has to put the reasonable doubt in the jurors' heads that perhaps Alex
didn't
."
 

Jack suddenly knew why
he
was needed in St. Louis. Earl must have seen the realization on his face. "He's counting on you not to show up," he said.
 

"I can't do it," he said. "I can't get on the stand and testify about it. I can barely think about it."

"It wouldn't be any different from what you told the examiner on the lie detector test. Jeff merely needs to establish that you were with her."

"It would. It would be very different. It'd be in front of a courtroom full of people, and I'd be subject to cross-examination. A defense attorney would have a field day with my testimony."

"True, but Alex would have a field day without it," Earl replied.

Jack shook his head. "I'm already the laughingstock of the city. And Claire—"

"You'd be surprised how much public support you still command. They've taken the story and managed to romanticize the whole thing, to the dismay of Steve Schafer and his camp."

"Oh, great. I'm sure Claire appreciates
that
."
 

Earl stared hard at him. "Claire's instinct is a bit stronger than yours in terms of separating out what's really important, what matters."

Jack sighed. On that point he needed no persuading.

He looked out over the valley. The sky was darker in the southwest, and he guessed the snow was already falling there. It wouldn't be long now. It was moving in their direction.

"When Jenny was a child she saw her parents and little sister murdered," he said. He wanted Earl to know that about her. "We'd known each other for nine years and she didn't tell me until the night of Maxine Shepard's murder. I pressured her to tell me." He could see her sitting on the bed, her back to him, every ridge on her spine visible as she hunched over, trying to keep him out. "She didn't want to tell me, but I wouldn't let up." He laughed sarcastically. "Good 'ol Jack. 'Tell me, Jenny, so I can be there for you.'  Except she knew all along I wouldn't be there for her. She resisted, but I pushed and pushed until she gave in." He paused, remembering. "Everything happened that night because I pressured her."
 

"Jack, she's an adult. You can't—"

"No, it's true. She told me I was selfish, and I didn't even understand what she meant. I practically begged her to let me stay the night." He saw them together in the garage, her cold hands in his.
Jenny, please
. And later her look of resignation, when she asked,
Do you want to go upstairs now
? "It's like she already knew the road we were on, but she didn't have the strength to tell me no."
 

"She's a strong woman. She made her own choices."

I'm a big girl
. "You're wrong. I always thought so, too. But she only pretended to be strong." He looked straight at him. "She
didn't
do it, Earl."
 

Both of them knew that it really didn't matter what Jack wanted or was willing to do. Both of them knew that as long as he stayed in Missouri, he could be subpoenaed to appear at the trial, and that Earl was asking him to come back voluntarily merely as a courtesy. But Alex had to know that, too, didn't he? Perhaps he thought Jack, like Jenny, would run before he'd subject himself to that ordeal.

Jack felt wetness on his hand and looked down to see a snowflake melt against his red, chapped skin. The snow started to fall slowly, the feathery crystals settling intermittently on their coats and legs, but within minutes they were surrounded by white rain. It didn't float but rather appeared to be pushed down from the sky.
 

Jack finally nodded. Of course, he would go back. He had to. He had no choice. He would tell no lies. He would give them what they wanted, and he would finally hammer in the last nail of the coffin he'd started building for himself nearly a year before.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

JUDGE LEHMAN'S COURTROOM seemed larger than Jack remembered. He hadn't set foot in any courtroom since Jenny's arraignment. That had been mere weeks ago, really, but he felt so out of place, it could have been years. This particular courtroom boasted floor-to-ceiling windows with a southern exposure. In the summer, the room's sweltering heat forced the bailiff to lower the large, ancient blinds to block the sun; they were yellowed with age and dust flew whenever he fiddled with them. But it was March now; the blinds were pulled tight against the top of the window frame, their frayed cords hanging loose. Beams of dusty light penetrated the room.

When he passed through the heavy double doors in back, he focused on the judge's bench and on the empty seat in the witness box waiting for him. In his peripheral vision he saw the faces of the crowd, small, round blurs watching his entrance. He saw shoulders leaning against one another and heard hushed mumbling. He knew that if he looked, he would recognize many of the faces. But he didn't look. The only person he wanted to see was Claire, and he felt certain she would stay away.