Part 29 (1/2)

In pain or reverie, Erno's eyes were still. The full measure of his illness showed there”a web of veins, sallow streaks, a gla.s.sy thickening. His lashes were gone and the lids looked inflamed.

”Me too,” he said suddenly.

”You too what?” asked Arthur. ”It would have been bad for you, too?”

Erno reached up in time to catch a cough, but nodded as he shook.

”Why?” Arthur asked. ”Why would it be bad for you?”

”Tickets,” said Erno. ”Stole tickets, too.”

”You did?”

Erno nodded again.

”h.e.l.l, why would you do that, Erno?”

He gave his hand a disgusted little toss and looked toward the ceiling.

”Stupid,” he said. ”Needed money. Family problems. Was two years before.”

”Before Luisa was doing it?”

”Right. Stopped. But afraid.”

”You were afraid?”

”Catch her, catch me.” Erno stopped to breathe. ”Why I went to restaurant. Stop her. Fought. Gus came with gun.” Erno closed his eyes. The rest did not bear repeating.

”So there was never an affair?”

Erno smiled thinly at the notion.

”Jesus Christ,” said Arthur. His voice was too loud, but he was suddenly desperate. He had the feeling that often overcame him when things went disastrously wrong, that he was deeply at fault, and that as a consequence he would have liked nothing more than to escape his own skin, s.h.i.+rk it, even peel it off if that was necessary. ”Jesus, Erno. Why didn't you say this?”

”Pension,” he said. ”Twenty-three years. For my wife now. Better this way. All around.”

Better for Rommy, better for him”that's what Erno meant. Except that like every lie, it could disintegrate along the fault lines of the truth. Arthur calculated. His first instinct was to summon a court reporter, someone who could get this down. But he played out the steps. Muriel's contention that Erno had shaped his tale to his own purposes would be proven. In fact, Erno had perjured himself wantonly before Judge Harlow. In the eyes of the law, therefore, he would be entirely unworthy of belief. And that was before you added in the fact that he was a thief, who'd cheated the employer that had trusted him for more than twenty years.

”Is that all of it, Erno?”

Erdai summoned himself to a decisive nod.

”What about this guy, the Pharaoh?” Arthur asked. ”Can we find him?”

”n.o.body. Cheap hustler. Gone for years.”

”Did he have anything to do with the murders?”

Erno made a little expectorant sound which was the best he could do for a laugh at the thought of yet another suspect. He slowly turned his face back and forth, a gesture he'd apparently repeated often. A bare spot had been worn by the pillow through the frazzle of hair at the rear of his head.

”Me. Just me.” He reached between the slats of the bed rail and took Arthur's hand with fingers hot from fever. ”Your guy. Nothing. Not there. Completely innocent.” Erno went through the same brief paroxysm, the cough and then the rising and pa.s.sing of pain. But he had not forgotten where he was. ”Completely.” Although it required huge effort, Erno rolled himself in Arthur's direction so that he could bring his face closer. The shade of his eyes seemed to have grown more intense, but that was probably just the contrast to his jaundiced complexion. ”Larry won't believe me,” he whispered. ”Too proud.”

”Probably.”

”I killed all them.” The effort of this declaration and the accompanying movement had exhausted him. He fell to his back, still clinging to Arthur's hand. He stared then so fixedly at the ceiling that Arthur was afraid Erno had pa.s.sed right in front of him, but he felt some stirring yet in Erno's palm. ”Think about it,” said Erno. ”All the time. All I see. All I see. Wanted it different. At the end.”

As the conversation had progressed, Arthur could feel a vacuum forming inside him. The world Erno had portrayed”Luisa in the parking lot, the lovers' quarrel that followed”scenes Arthur had visualized as if he'd seen them on film, had been wiped away. Once he left the hospital, what would abide would be the fact, cold as stone, that Erno was a liar, one whose motives were perhaps no better than the grandiose pleasures that came from drawing everyone in. The last version crashed and shattered? Glue together another. Yet here in Erno's presence, Arthur could not doubt him. Perhaps that was simply a credit to Erno's skills as a con. But against all reason, he believed Erdai, just as surely as he'd taken him as a fake before Erno had opened his eyes.

A very long moment pa.s.sed.

”Always knew this,” Erno said then.

”Knew what?”

Erno gathered himself again to roll to the bed rail, and Arthur reached out to help. Erno's shoulder was only bone.

”Me,” Erno said and grimaced.

”You?”

”Bad,” he said. ”Bad life. Why?”

Arthur thought the question was philosophical or religious, but Erno had meant it as a rhetorical query to which he had the answer.

”Always knew,” he said. ”Too hard.”

”What?”

Erno's eyes, rimmed red and bald of lashes, lingered.

”Too hard,” he said, ”to be good.”

Chapter 31.

August 2, 2001 The Court Rules ”WE WON.” Tommy Molto, with his face of vanilla pudding, grabbed Muriel's arm as she left Ned Halsey's office following the morning meeting. The Court of Appeals had issued its opinion: Gandolph's habeas had been dismissed and the stay on his execution lifted. ”We won,” said Tommy again.

Tommy was a strange case. He rarely saw the forest, but he was the guy you wanted if you had to chop down a tree. A decade ago, when Squirrel had been tried, Tommy was the kahuna and Muriel the underling taking lessons. He had never griped as the years pa.s.sed, as she equaled him in office standing and finally was named Chief Deputy, a job Molto had always coveted. Tommy was Tommy”humorless, dogged, and utterly dedicated to victims, to the police, to the county, and to the fact that the world was better without the company of the people he pursued and convicted. Muriel wrapped him in a huge hug.

”Never a doubt,” said Tommy. He departed with a laugh, promising her a copy of the opinion as soon as Carol returned from the courthouse.

Ned by now was visiting with State Senator Malvoin, so she left him a note. On the other side of the large public area that separated Halsey's office from hers, Muriel checked her messages”four reporters had called already”then shut her door. Behind her big desk in the bay window, she closed her eyes, surprised by the magnitude of her relief. In a job like this one, you rode the big waves. There were plenty of good times when you got to sh.o.r.e, and lots of thrills along the way, but you always knew that if you went under for the count, the last thing you'd think as the waves smashed you down to the eternal depths would be, I was a fool, a fool, how could I have risked everything? It wasn't just the election that had been on the line in Rommy Gandolph's case. It was being written off as someone whose career, in the end, had been built on a false foundation.

But the experience”the up and down”had been worthwhile. For once in her life, she was actually clear on something: she wanted to be Kindle County's next Prosecuting Attorney. Losing her grip on the prize had allowed her to realize how much it meant to her”both the pride and the consequence that would come with the job. But she was also certain that if the Gandolph case had cratered somehow, if her judgment was publicly scorned and the Reverend Blythes of the world road-blocked her path to the adjoining office, she would have remained intact. She didn't believe in a G.o.d who was up there giving hand signals or pus.h.i.+ng around pieces. But if she wasn't P.A., it might have been for the best. She'd woken twice in the last several months thinking of Divinity School. In daylight, the notion had seemed laughable at first, but she'd begun to linger with it as a serious alternative. Perhaps she could do more of what mattered from a pulpit.