Tell No Lies (37 page)

The other group members were stunned into silence, aware that something beyond their grasp was transpiring. The current of air from the window carried with it the smell of car exhaust, and somewhere far away a driver was laying on the horn. Daniel remained perfectly still; the slightest movement would bring everything crashing down. Martin’s black eyes, distorted through the lenses, had gone sharp, boring through Daniel, pinning him to the metal chair.

Daniel pressed his hand another millimeter into his pocket. At once there was a shiv in Martin’s fist, low at his side next to his thigh. A carved wooden blade to get past the metal detectors, sanded to a high gleam. The knife was hidden from most of the room, but Lil, beside him, noticed and blanched.

Daniel considered the phone at his fingertips, the undercover cops in the hall, Dooley camped out one room over, but they were all out of reach. Martin was maybe five feet away on the opposite side of the ring. With a single lunge, he’d be on Daniel, blade through his throat.

Martin shifted, his fist tightening around the wooden handle. “It’s time,” he said.

Chapter 63

Blade still concealed at his side, glare fixed on Daniel, Martin set his weight forward on his boots, preparing to spring from his chair.

“Wait,”
Daniel said.

Martin paused. Lil stifled a cry in her throat.

“I think,” Daniel said, “that
I
should take center chair.”

Martin sat still for a very long time. Then he bobbed his head.

Daniel’s skin felt on fire, a dry heat baking through him. Keeping his eyes on Martin, he moved very cautiously across to the hot seat.

Big Mac said, “The hell?”

A-Dre cast out his arms. “Someone wanna tell us what the fuck is happening up in here?”

“Counselor’s got some things he needs to get off his chest,” Martin said.

“Like something
illegal
?” X asked.

“Nah,” Martin said. “He never committed a crime, because he didn’t
have
to.” His eyes, pronounced beneath the lenses, swung to Daniel. “Ain’t that right?”

Daniel met his gaze as evenly as he could manage.

“All of us did what we did for someone we loved,” Martin said. “A-Dre for his brother in jail. Lil for her husband. Me for my daughter.”

X held up a hand, tried to cut in. “What
daughter,
Martin? This shit is freaking me out.”

But Martin raised his voice, bulldozing over hers. “Fang for his cousin who got popped. X started dealing to support her sick mom. Big Mac needed money for his family.”

“Don’t put that shit on me,” Big Mac said. “I ain’t no victim. What I did was
wrong.
”

“We can’t make excuses because … ah, ah, we got it rough.”

“That
is
some boo-hoo shit, Martin,” X said, and A-Dre nodded.

Martin adjusted his grip around the wooden knife, still hidden by his side. The sleeves of his flannel were torn off at the shoulders, revealing the bulging, shiny arms of a weight lifter. “What then? We did it because we’re
evil
?”

Lil’s voice quavered with fear. “Because we made dumb choices.”

Big Mac said, “We can’t just do whatever we want because we care about someone.”

“Let’s talk about that a minute,” Martin said. Beside his thigh, the filed-down tip of the shiv ticked over to aim at Daniel. “Can
you
do whatever you want because you care about someone?”

Daniel took in a jagged breath.

“Can you?”
Martin said between clenched teeth.

Daniel said, “I have better options, yeah.”

“Better options, huh? Meaning when the shit hits, you can always pull the cord on your golden parachute and sail out of trouble. When your wife got sick, you didn’t
have
to rob no bank. You could just call your old lady, couldn’t you,
Brasher
?” Martin turned, speaking to the others. “That’s right. He got his wife a treatment that saved her life. By bumping my daughter out.”

“What’s he
talking
about?” A-Dre asked Daniel.

When Daniel hesitated, Martin said, “Honesty and accountability. Ain’t that what you say, Counselor?”

“Yes,” Daniel said. “I did. I got my wife into a closed medical trial.”

X looked devastated. “Did you
know
his daughter would get left out?”

“No, he didn’t,” Martin said. “And that makes it worse. All those people. The nurse who shuffled the files, crossed out one name and wrote in another. The accountant who rubber-stamped it. The security guard who threw my woman and child out on the street when they went begging. It was so little a part of their lives they didn’t even
remember
it. No one thinks they did anything wrong, because that’s just how it
works
for them.” His muscular shoulders gathered around his neck. “So imagine my surprise after I did my time and paid my debt to society when I got out to see that Daniel Brasher was teaching Reason and Rehabilitation. Educating us crooks on how to make better choices.”

Martin’s fuse was burning down, rage tightening the skin of his face, veins popping in his neck. Daniel turned slightly, pushing his fingers farther into his pocket. He’d just touched the edge of the phone when Martin said, “Put your
fucking
hands in your lap.”

Daniel put his hands up quickly.

“The hell?” A-Dre said.

Martin lifted the knife into view, and an electric current ran through the chairs, jolting the others upright. He cast an eye at Big Mac and A-Dre, who’d gone rigid. “Everyone scoot your chairs back. Everyone but you, Counselor. Back up more. That’s right.”

Daniel stared helplessly at the mounted chalkboard. Thought of Dooley just beyond it, a few feet through the wall. The noise of the chairs moving would not alert her any more than the raised voices would; she was well aware that a lot went down within these four walls. His only hope was to survive until session ended or to send a text without Martin’s noticing.

Martin aimed the knife at the others. “First person who moves gets this in the throat, okay? So we’re all gonna just sit here. Sit here and listen. Tell them I’ll do it, Counselor.”

“He will,” Daniel said. “So let’s just sit and listen.”

“Oh, not
you.
You’re gonna have to
answer,
too.” Martin tapped the side of the blade against his forearm, studying Daniel. Then he asked, “Could you have shot her in the head?”

“What?”

“My four-year-old daughter. Francisca. Could you have taken a gun and put a bullet through her head?”

Daniel’s throat had gone dry, turning his voice hoarse. “No.”

“Right. That’s not how rich folks do things. Instead you make calls and pull strings and go back to your three-story house in the Heights. But it’s the same thing, isn’t it?”

“Pulling strings and shooting a little girl?”

“
No.
You didn’t kill
a
little girl. You killed
my
little girl. You chose your wife over my baby’s life.
Say
it.”

“You’re right,” Daniel said. “I did all that was in my power to get my wife into that trial. And I didn’t consider everything that meant. Hell, I didn’t consider
anything
that meant. And I’m not saying that was right or fair or virtuous, and I won’t try to justify it. But would you have done any different?”

“Of course not,” Martin said, grief spilling into his rage. “But you
got to.
You
got to
do it.”

Martin’s last words cored Daniel out, left him hollow. He reminded himself that this was the man who had drawn a blade across the throats of three people and poisoned a fourth. If there was a time for Daniel to feel guilt and remorse, it was not now, with his own life and five others hanging in the balance. He tried to grope his way back to his role here in this room, as a counselor. And the rules he tried to work by: Don’t force a group member. Let him lead. Wait for an opening.

“I need to make it right for her,” Martin said.

“And this will do that?” Daniel asked.

Martin pressed a hand to the side of his head, the knife rising, and at the periphery Daniel heard the chairs creak as the others tensed. Martin’s face contorted, approaching a sob, but he fought away the grief, a scowl hardening his features again. He took a wary look at the others, his fist reclamping around the handle of the knife. He rocked a bit in the chair, a wrestler bouncing to keep loose on the mat. Sweat coursed down the sides of his neck.

“You have
no idea
what I went through,” Martin said, rocking some more.

Daniel pictured tears of blood draining from the eyes of Marisol Vargas, Kyle Lane, Molly Clarke. Martin had wanted them to feel what he felt. The grief. The loss. The fear.

Martin moved the knife deftly, switching hands. He stood swiftly and took a step toward Daniel. Lil gave a faint shriek, and Fang stood up. Daniel tensed in his chair, coiled to rise, but Martin took another big stride, leading with the knife, and closed the distance in a single lurch.

The blade was at Daniel’s throat, indenting the skin just shy of its breaking point. The room, as still as a tableau. Daniel waited for the surface tension to pop, the rush of wet heat to claim the hollow of his neck. Martin stared down at him, biceps flexing. His mouth firmed with determination, and Daniel watched the killing impulse move down the man’s bulging arm like a ripple. It had just tensed Martin’s fist when Daniel fought words out against the pressure. “Then
tell
me.”

Martin paused.

Even over the surge of panic static filling his head, Daniel could make out the heightened breathing of the others. He forced out the words, “Tell me what you went through.”

Martin lifted the blade from Daniel’s throat, took a few steps back, and sat again in his chair. His eyeglass lenses were fogged at the bottoms. He twirled the knife in his hand.

Everyone sat silent, on the razor’s edge.

Though soft, Martin’s words carried a weight behind them, as if pushed out from his core. “She’d lost so much weight you could count her ribs. Like something from a war movie. Or Africa. Twenty-two pounds. And the fevers. Her head would get so hot it’d burn my hand. We had to cool her off with ice, but she hated it. The cold. And we couldn’t explain to her that it was for her … for her…”

Daniel said, “For her own good.”

Martin breathed for a time.

“They took so long to change her sheets. At the last hospital. She was in too much pain to get up and go to the bathroom, and if we were late with the bedpan … Her sheets were dirty, always dirty. I couldn’t take care of her. I was her father, and I couldn’t take care of her.”

The others listened, wan and tense and hanging on every word. A-Dre started to say something, but Daniel held up a hand, palm out, and he closed his mouth.

“That’s why you’re doing this,” Daniel said.

“Yes,”
Martin said. “I have to make it right for her now.”

Daniel caught the phrase coming around a second time—
have to make it right for her.
A desperate little plea, a fissure into Martin’s pain. Daniel sensed an underlying truth, that perhaps this whole blood-drenched pageant wasn’t merely about justice but
regret.

Daniel wanted desperately to interject, to take control, but as hard as it was, he firmed his mouth and ran the mantra:
Let him lead. Wait for an opening.

A few moments later, Martin started up again. “In her last days, she couldn’t take it. We were dead broke, but we had the money for another round of chemo. I’d
gotten
her that money, I’d done what I had to do, but she just said, ‘Daddy, I’m so tired. Please don’t. Please don’t make me.’ And I was so mad. I’d done
everything
for her. Risked my life even to get the money, all for her, but she was still…” He halted.

And Daniel saw it there, the back half of the equation. “She was still going to leave you,” he said.

That tiniest of taps seemed to knock Martin into a different lane. For the first time, tears fell, though his face stayed blank. “I was so angry with her for that. She was lying there in dirty sheets, wasting away, and I couldn’t forgive her. I couldn’t forgive her.”

He sat motionless, tears streaming.

Daniel said, “What do you wish you’d told her?”

“Not
told her,
” Martin said. “
Done
.”

Daniel tried to catch his balance after the misstep. “But you did so much for her.”

“No.” Martin’s head rocked side to side. “No.”

He was working his way up to something, and Daniel paused again, giving him time and runway. Martin clenched the makeshift knife so tightly that his hand had gone bloodless.

Daniel said, “What do you wish you’d done for her?”

Martin’s barrel chest heaved. “She wanted princess toes,” he finally said. “There was this pedicure place up the block from the clinic. Forty bucks to bring the lady in. And I told my little girl she didn’t need it. I was so angry she wouldn’t do the chemo, and she was begging me, but I told her no, that if she wouldn’t let us spend the money on treatment to save her life, she couldn’t spend it on having her fucking toes painted. My little girl was lying there sick in dirty sheets. And I told her no. That she couldn’t.” Tears dripped off his chin, pattered on the floor. “She died with unpainted toes because I was mad at her.”

His palms went to his face, the knife clattering to the floor, then he collapsed from the chair onto his knees, hunched and weeping on the tile.

After a breathless pause, Daniel slid the phone from his pocket and keyed a few buttons.

A moment later the door flung open and a stream of undercover officers, led by Dooley, poured inside. Martin remained on his knees, rocking himself as if in prayer, the whittled shiv lying just beyond his reach.

They took him without a struggle.

Chapter 64

After the explanations, the witness reports, the phone calls to Cris, after the hushed conversations with group members, Kendra, and an endless array of cops, Daniel found himself at Dooley’s side in the basement of Metro South, filling the doorway of Angelberto’s little janitorial office. A fan of uniformed cops waited behind them in the hall, edged into sight sufficiently to announce their presence.