“This guy has been sitting there for twelve years. Whether he’s crazy or not: You think he hasn’t thought through every angle of this? Consider that for a minute: twelve years before he does anything. Maybe it took him that long before he found someone like Whittaker, before he found whoever killed Griswald-maybe it took that long to talk them into it-but after twelve years he still wants his revenge.”
There was something left unspoken. “Wants his revenge?” I asked. “You think he wants more than Jeffries and Griswald?”
He did not answer, not directly. “Jennifer was right: You’re the only one who could have made the connection between Whittaker and Elliott, but there are a few other people who could make the connection between Elliott and the two judges.”
I could think of at least two others. “His wife,” I said. “And Asa.”
“Right. Now, if he was ready to have Quincy Griswald murdered when all the judge did was preside over the hearing that sent him to the state hospital, what about the lawyer that was supposed to look out for him?-and what about the wife who betrayed him? Twelve years he’s waited. Do you think he’s going to forget about them? Do you think that just maybe he wants them to see the connection between the first two murders so they can worry about when it’s going to happen to them?”
“But they wouldn’t have figured it out,” I objected. “Neither Asa nor Elliott’s wife. They wouldn’t have had any reason to think it was anything more than a terrible coincidence-if they thought about it at all. Jennifer’s right. I’m the one who put it together. I brought out the fact that Whittaker was a mental patient. I’m the one who accused Elliott of being behind both murders.”
“Which may be exactly what Elliott wanted you to do.”
Before I could express any doubt, a doubt about which I was myself not quite certain, Flynn shook his head and slid closer to the table. “Look, we know two things, don’t we? He left a trail you were able to follow.”
“But how could he know I’d follow it?” I interjected. “How could he have known that I’d get involved? How could he have known I’d end up defending the kid who got charged with the murder?”
Flynn’s rust-colored eyebrows lifted up and he clicked his teeth.
“The first killer confesses and then kills himself. The second killer does what?-gives the murder weapon to someone else and disappears.”
“Thrown in the river,” I reminded him.
He shrugged it off. “Doesn’t matter. The point is he gives up the weapon. And remember,” he added, again raising his eyebrows, “he first wipes it clean so only the kid’s prints will be found on it. Why?”
I tried to sound more skeptical than I felt. “So someone innocent will be charged and I’d take the case?”
The more Flynn talked, the more certain he was that he was right. He swept over my halfhearted objection. “He waited twelve years to have Jeffries killed; he only waits a couple months to have Griswald murdered.”
He said it as if it explained everything; I was not sure it explained anything.
“In twelve years he doesn’t have a visitor he’s willing to see.
In twelve years you don’t try to see him, and then, after all that time, Jeffries is murdered and you show up. He knows you’ve been thinking about it, all of it, the way anyone would: what he had been like when you first knew him, the way you brought him into the firm, the kind of man and the kind of lawyer you thought he was going to be. We all think about that, don’t we?-the way things could have been and the way they didn’t turn out. He knows you’ve been thinking about Jeffries, too-what an evil bastard he was and the terrible things he did to people.”
Flynn took a long drink from his water glass and looked around at the well-dressed couples having a quiet dinner on a weekday night, the kind of people who were used to good food and did not think twice about what it cost. How many nights, I wondered, had Elliott Winston stared at the blank wall of his asylum cell and driven himself a little more crazy thinking about his beautiful young wife having dinner with Calvin Jeffries in a place like this?
“He knows all this,” Flynn went on, “and what does he do with it? He tells you what they did to him-Jeffries and his wife-how they made him crazy with jealousy and how he almost killed you because of it. He lets you know-doesn’t he?-that he has every reason in the world to hate them both. And then what happens-
after your visit? Griswald is killed in exactly the same way as Jeffries. He knows you’ll think about it; he knows that sooner or later you’ll figure it out. And he knows something about you.
Don’t forget that. He knows he can trust you and he knows you won’t let an innocent man be convicted.”
“Trust me? What makes you think that?”
A wry smile creased his mouth. “He shot you, didn’t he? No,”
he said when I started to protest, “I mean it. He tried to kill you, and you told him that you don’t believe he really meant it. Besides that, he knows you think you’re in some way responsible for what Jeffries did to him.”
Jennifer had not yet come back to the table. I turned around and looked across the dining room toward the hallway in front that led to the rest rooms.
“There’s something else,” Flynn said as I searched for a sign of Jennifer. “If the Griswald murder wasn’t enough-if that didn’t tell you what was going on-there was always Asa Bartram. There would not have been any doubt then that they were all connected.”
I spun back around. “I’m calling Asa as a witness. I haven’t told him why. But we better warn him about this. Asa is old. He may not have heard about what happened in court, and I doubt he put the two murders together on his own. First thing in the morning would you call his office? Talk to Jonah Micronitis. He’ll know what to do,” I said, looking over my shoulder, expecting at any moment to see Jennifer.
“You said there were two things we knew,” I said. “The first: that he left a trail we could follow. What’s the second?” I asked, wondering what was taking Jennifer so long.
Flynn sat still, staring at his hands. “For the first time in twelve years Elliott Winston is going to get out of the state hospital,”
he said, slowly raising his eyes.
“To testify in court,” I added.
Flynn cocked his head. “If he gets to court.”
“His wife?” I asked as I got up from my chair. “Do you think that’s what he wanted all along-to get out so he could…?”
“Because she’s the one person he wants to kill himself?” Flynn wondered aloud, one thought leading to another, each more sinister in its ultimate implications.
“I’ll be back in a minute,” I explained, thinking about two things at once. “I just want to check on Jennifer.”
There was no one in the hallway near the rest room. I knocked on the door to the women’s room. There was no answer. I knocked again, this time more insistent, but there was still no response.
“Excuse me,” I heard someone say behind me. A woman with gray, silver-tinted hair was looking at me with annoyance, waiting for me to get out of her way.
I apologized but did not move away from the door. “I’m a little worried about my fiancee,” I explained to her. “Would you mind seeing if she’s all right?”
The annoyance vanished. “Of course,” she said. “I won’t be a moment,” she promised as I stepped aside and she pushed open the door.
“Oh, my God!” I heard her shout, the sound muffled by the door that had swung shut behind her. I nearly knocked her over as I bolted inside. Behind her, curled up on the white tile floor, Jennifer had her arms wrapped around herself, clutching hard as her body shuddered in violent convulsions. Her mouth was shut tight, her teeth clenched with such force that the color had drained out of her face. Her eyes were fixed on the wall in a rigid, deathlike stare. I got down on my knees next to her and pulled her into my arms, rocking her back and forth, telling her she was all right. When she finally turned her head and looked at me, she tried to pull away, to fight me, and I held her with all my strength to keep her from hitting me or hurting herself.