Diehl, William - Show of Evil (9 page)

'Know an M. Lafferty?' the detective asked.

'Nope,' Flaherty said. ' The victim picked it up himself, huh?'

'Yeah. Was bellyaching about having to run over there after working
hours and then drive down here and back after dark.'

'What about this

Jane Venable leaned over the spaghetti pot and, pursing her lips,
sucked a tiny sample of the olio off a wooden spoon.
Pretty good
,
she thought, and sprinkled a little more salt in it. She looked over at
the table. Earlier in the day the florist had brought an enormous
arrangement of flowers with a simple note: 'These cannot compare to
your beauty. Marty.'

For the first time in years, Jane felt she was beginning to have a
new life outside of her office. She had made a fortune, but it had cost
her any semblance of a personal life. Now, in just a few days, that had
changed. She stared at the flowers and wondered silently, My
God,
am I falling in love with this man
? And just as quickly she
dispelled the idea.
It's just a flirtation, don't make more of it
than it
is
.

'I didn't think you really cooked in this chef's fantasy,' said
Vail. 'Where'd you learn to cook Italian spaghetti? You're not Italian.'

'My mother was. Born in Florence. She was a translator at the
Nuremberg trials when she was eighteen.'

'Ahhh, so that's where that tough streak came from.'

'My father was no slouch, either. He was a government attorney at
the trials - that's where they met. And after that a federal prosecutor
for fifteen years.'

'What did he think when you quit prosecuting and went private?'

'He was all for it. He said ten years was enough unless I wanted to
move up to attorney general or governor. I didn't need that kind of
heat.'

'Who does? There's damn little truth in politics.'

'I don't know,' she said. 'When I was a prosecutor I honestly
believed it was all about truth and justice and all that
crap.'

'I repeat, there's damn little truth in politics, Janie.'

'You know what they say, truth is perception.'

'No, truth is the
fury's
perception,' Vail corrected.

'Does it ever bother you?' she asked. 'About winning?'

'What do you mean?'

'Some people say we're both obsessed with winning.'

'It's all point of view. Listen, when I was a young lawyer I
defended a kid for ripping off a grocery store. The key piece of
evidence was a felt hat. The prosecutor claimed my boy dropped it
running out of the store. I tore up the prosecution, proved it couldn't
be his hat, ate up the eyewitnesses, turned an open-and-shut case into
a rout. After he was acquitted, the kid turns to me and says, "Can I
have my hat back now?" It bothered me so much that one night I was
having dinner with a judge - who later became one of my best friends -
and I told him what had happened. Know what he said? "It wasn't your
problem, it was the prosecutor's. Pass the butter, please." '

She laughed softly. 'So what's the lesson, Vail?'

Vail took a sip of wine and chuckled. 'Nobody ever said life is fair
- I guess that's the lesson, if there is one.'

'That's a cynical response, Counsellor.'

'There are no guarantees. We give it the best we got no matter how
good or bad the competition is. It isn't about winning anymore, it's
about doing the best you can.'

'I suppose we could practice euthanasia on all the bad lawyers in
the world and try to even the playing field. That's the only way we'll
ever approach true justice in the courtroom. Does it ever bother you,
Martin? When you
know
the opposition is incompetent?'

'Nope, it makes the job that much easier. You're not going through
one of those guilt trips because you're successful, are you?'

'No,' she said, but there was a hint of doubt in her tone.

'Janie, in the years you were a prosecutor, did you ever try someone
you thought was innocent?'

She was shocked by the question. 'Of course not!' she answered.

'Have you ever defended someone you thought was guilty?'

She hesitated for a long time. 'I never ask,' she said finally.

He held out his hands. 'See, point of view. I rest my case.' He lit
a cigarette and leaned back in his chair. He watched her silently for a
while.

'I think it's the Stoddard case,' he said.

'What do you mean?'

'That's what all this yak-yak is about, the Stoddard case. You're
having a problem.'

'There's something wrong with the picture. Something doesn't make
sense. This woman is forbidding me to defend her and I don't know why.'

'We probably shouldn't even be discussing this. I'm sorry I brought
it up.'

'We both want to know what really happened that night in Delaney's
penthouse, don't we?' she said.

'We know what happened.'

A silence fell over the table, broken finally when Venable sighed.
'You're right, we shouldn't be talking about it.'

'I'll make a deal with you. When we're together, let's keep the law
books on the shelf.'

She smiled and raised her glass. 'Sounds good to me,' she said. She
reached out with her other hand and stroked his cheek. He got up and
moved to her side of the table and cupped her face in his hands,
kissing her softly on the lips.

'How about dessert,' she whispered between kisses.

'Later.'

The phone rang.

'Let it ring,' Jane said, her eyes closed, her tongue tapping his.

The machine came on. Vail recognized the familiar voice.

'Ms Venable, this is Abel Stenner. Please forgive me for bothering
you at home, but it's imperative we locate Martin Vail

Vail snatched up the car phone and punched out a number. Paul
Rainey's smooth voice answered. 'Paul Rainey speaking.'

'It's Vail. Where is he, Paul?' Vail demanded.

'I, uh

As Tony guided the Cadillac up to the main building of the Daisy,
Vail saw a tall man sitting on a wooden bench beside the stairs to the
administration office. He was filling a pipe, tapping the tobacco down
with a small silver tool with a flat, circular tamper at the end of its
stem. He seemed totally engrossed in the task, twisting the pipe
between his fingers, stopping to study the tobacco, then packing it
even tighter.

'That's the chief of staff, Dr Samuel Woodward,' Tony said. 'Big
muckety-muck. He's waiting to greet you officially.'

'No band?' Vail said.

Tony laughed. 'They only let them out on Fridays,' he said.

As Vail got out of the car, Woodward stood. He was taller than Vail
had guessed, six-three or four, and was dressed casually in dark brown
corduroy slacks, a pale blue button-down shirt, open at the collar, and
a black alpaca cardigan, one of its side pockets bulging with a packing
of tobacco. He was a lean man with the gaunt, almost haunted face of a
long-distance runner. His close-cropped, dark red hair receded on both
sides to form a sharp widow's peak and he wore a beard that was also
trimmed close to his face. He dropped the pipe tool in the other pocket
of his cardigan and held out a hand with long, tapered,
aesthetic-looking fingers.

'Mr Vail,' he said, 'Dr Sam Woodward. It's a pleasure. Sorry I
wasn't here to take your call the other night.'

'My pleasure,' Vail said.

'It's such a pleasant day I thought we might stroll around the
grounds and chat,' he said in a soft, faraway voice that sounded like
it was being piped in from someplace else. 'No smoking inside the
buildings. I quit cigarettes about six months ago and thought I'd taper
off with a pipe. Instead of getting lung cancer, my tongue will
probably rot out. You smoke?'

'I'm thinking about quitting.'

'Ummm. Well, good luck. Ferocious habit.'

He took out a small gold lighter and made a production of lighting
his pipe. The sweet odour of aromatic tobacco drifted from its bowl.
Vail lit a cigarette and tagged along with Woodward as he walked down
the pavement that bounded the broad, manicured quadrangle formed by
several buildings.

'I must say I'm curious as to why, after ten years, you should
suddenly come back into Aaron Stampler's life,' Woodward said. 'You
never have been to visit him.'

'I don't make a practice of seeing any of my old clients when a case
is over. It's a business relationship. It ends with the verdict.'

'That's rather cold.'

'How friendly are you with your patients, Doctor? Do you go to visit
them after they're released?'

'Hmmph,' he said, laughing gently. 'You do go to the point, sir, and
I like a man who goes to the point, says what he thinks, so to speak.
That's rare in my business. Usually it takes years carving through all
the angst to get to the baseline.'

'I suppose so.'

'So why are you here?'

'Curiosity.'

'Really? Having second thoughts after all these years?'

'About what?'

'Come, come, sir. Now that you're a prosecutor, the shoe is on the
other foot, so to speak. I have always found that all prosecutors think
MPs are faking it.'

'Hell, Doctor, he convinced me. I saved his life.'

'And do you regret that now?'

The question took Vail by surprise and he thought about it for a
moment before answering. 'I don't

Caught off guard and shocked, Vail stepped back from Vulpes and
turned to Woodward, who was leaning against a bench, smiling. For an
instant he thought perhaps this was a perverse joke; that they were all
mad and Woodward was the maddest one of all; that when Vail tried to
leave, they would slam the doors and trap him inside with the other
lunatics.

'I wanted you two to meet,' Woodward said casually. 'We're going to
the vistor's suite, Raymond. I'll send Terry up for you in a few
minutes.'

'Fine, I have to finish changing a couple of chips in Landberg's
machine.'

'Excellent.'

'See you then, Mr Vail,' Vulpes said, flashing another
million-dollar grin as they left the repair room.

'What the hell's going on?' Vail asked as Woodward locked the door.

'Recognized him, eh?'

'Ten years hasn't changed him that much. He's a lot heavier and he
seems to be in great shape.'

'Works out an hour a day. Part of the regimen.'

'What regimen? Is this some kind of bizarre joke?'

'Joke? Hardly. Relax, Martin, all in good time.'

MaxSec was sealed from the hallway and the rest of the ward by a
wall with a single, solid, sliding steel door. The security officer, a
skinny young man named Harley, smiled as Woodward and Vail approached.
He pushed a button under his desk. The heavy door slid open. Harley
waved them in without bothering with the sign-in sheet.

The wide hallway continued inside the steel-guarded entrance. Light
streamed in through the glass-panelled roof. The walls on both sides
were lined with locked rooms. There was moaning behind one of the
doors, but the hall itself was empty. Woodward led them into the first
room on the right.

The room contained a small desk with two chairs, a padded wooden
chair, a table and a TV, and a cot. The window was five feet above
floor level. The entire space and everything in it - walls, furniture,
and floor - was painted pure white.

Vail remembered the room. Except possibly for a slight rearrangement
of the furniture, it had not changed in ten years.

'Is this, uh, what's his name again?'

'Raymond Vulpes.'

'Is this his room?'

'No, no, this is the visitor's suite, as we jokingly call it.'

'So they have visitors here.'

'Yes. Patients in max are not permitted any visitors in their
quarters, so we provide this homey little visitor's room. They're not
permitted to associate with other patients, either.'

'Can't they talk to each other?'

'No, sir. Sounds a bit medieval, I know. The reason, of course, is
that they are in various stages of recovery. Social intercourse could
be disastrous.'

'I should think total isolation would be just as disastrous.'

'There are people around,' Woodward said with a shrug. 'Therapists,
security people, some staff. It's not solitary confinement. And they
can spend an hour or two a day outside.'

'They just can't communicate with each other?'

'Quite right.'

'So Aaron hasn't had any communication with the outside world in ten
years?'

'You mean Raymond.'

'Raymond, Aaron,' Vail said with annoyance.

'It's an important, even crucial distinction. Sit down, Martin. I
hope that what I'm about to tell you will give you a sense of pride.'

'Pride?'

'You had a part in it. Had it not been for you, Raymond would never
have existed. The host would certainly have been dead by now, either by
electrocution or terminal injection.'

'Who
is
Vulpes?'

'Raymond is what is known as a resulting personality.'

'A what?'

'Resulting personality. Roy was a resulting personality. Now Raymond
is one.'

'So Aaron's split into a third person?'

'Yes and no. He's certainly a third person. However, the others no
longer exist. It's not a unique case, although it well might become
one.'

'How?'

'If we've stabilized Raymond. By that I mean he won't split again.
They usually do.'

'Where did Raymond come from and when?'

'He was created to mediate the problems between Roy and Aaron. He
first appeared almost three years ago.'

'Who created him?'

'Aaron was always the host.'

'Another escape mechanism?'

'Not an escape. An alternative. Another form of transference. As I
explained to you, transference is the conscious or subconscious
mirroring of behaviour patterns from one individual to another. This
also applies to personae in a split personality. It's a form of
denial. The schizoid places guilt on another individual, in this case,
a new person -
voila
, Raymond.'