Play Dirty (30 page)

He paused for breath and to organize his thoughts. Also to see if she would, after all, open the car door and run screaming across the parking lot. She didn’t, so he began.

“Over the last several days, I’ve spent the daylight hours, and a lot of the nighttime, thinking.
Thinking.
And remembering. In my mind I’ve replayed every word, every small detail, from the first meeting till those last horrendous moments of Foster’s life, and I can see now how well he planned it. It was a masterful game plan.

“It even occurred to me that he’d lied when he called to tell me you were pregnant. I hadn’t heard it from you. I thought maybe that was the juiciest piece of bait for the trap he laid. That’s why I asked you earlier if you were really pregnant.”

“It was confirmed the day before he died.”

“So that much was true. Once Foster knew he had his child and heir, he wasted no time setting me up to be silenced forever. Only his plan backfired, and he died instead.”

“How? How, Griff? What happened when you got to the house?”

“Manuelo let me in like before. Poured me a drink, then left Foster and me alone in the library, behind closed doors. We toasted our success. He started talking…well, bullshit. About how delighted the two of you were over the pregnancy.”

“That wasn’t bullshit.”

“Yeah, but…but it was the way he was telling it. He got choked up, or pretended to. He told me you’d never looked so beautiful as when you said, ‘We have a baby,’ and how meaningful that word
we
was to a man in his condition.

“He told me your breasts were tender, that you wouldn’t let him touch them and how embarrassed you’d be to know he’d told me that. He talked about the baby. Could I guess what it would be? Had I thought about what it might be when we were making it? He reminded me that I’d have to read in the newspaper whether it was a boy or girl. I wouldn’t know its name until I read about it.”

Griff gave a bitter laugh. “Looking back, I can see that he was goading me. He was saying things he knew would get under my skin. At the time I just wanted him to shut up about you and the baby. I didn’t want to hear what a happy little family the three of you would be.”

He gave her a significant look, wondering if she could read between the lines. He guessed she could. She lowered her gaze to her hands, which were clasped tightly in her lap.

“He showed me my payoff money. The sight of it made me sick. Sick at my stomach, sick at myself. Marcia claims she never feels like a whore, but when I looked down into that box of money, I did. Our deal wasn’t illegal, but I felt a lot guiltier taking Foster’s money than I did taking the two million from Vista, and that’s the God’s truth, Laura.

“I didn’t even want to touch it, and he sensed that. He said he was surprised by my restraint. I mumbled some excuse for it. Then he started laughing and said, ‘Oh dear, you don’t want it to end, do you?’”

Laura looked at him sharply. “What?”

“Something like that. He began gibing me about developing a taste for you like I had the gambling. He said I must have really enjoyed ‘doing’ you, and that’s a quote. He was giving me this gloating smile. Thinking about it now makes me angry all over again.”

At the risk of casting doubt on his innocence, he reined in his anger and stuck to the facts. “I called him a sick fuck. He wouldn’t shut up about it and started saying over and over, ‘Poor Griff.’

“The taunting made me irate, Laura. I admit that. I felt myself about to lose it. Wheelchair or not, I wanted to deck him. I wanted to so bad I had to turn away. When I did, I looked down at the desktop. Swear to God I didn’t see the letter opener. Or if I did, it didn’t register. What I noticed was this sheet of paper with official-looking writing on it.

“Foster backed down then. He stopped that hideous chanting. I don’t know if he sensed how close I was to knocking him across the room, or if he saw what had caught my eye. But in any case, he said, ‘Oh, that’s why you’re here, isn’t it? That’s my proposal for what should happen if both Laura and I die before you. Read it.’

“At that point, I just wanted to conclude our business and get the hell out of there before I did something I would regret. So I picked up the sheet of paper and began to read. Or tried.”

“It was gibberish.”

Surprised, he said, “You’ve seen it?”

“Rodarte gave it to me, asked if I knew what it meant.”

“Okay, so you know it was a ruse. I’d belted the strong bourbon. And I was still seeing red over the things he’d said. I thought that was why I wasn’t understanding what I was reading. I went back to the beginning and started over. And that’s when I sensed movement behind me.”

“Behind you?”

“Manuelo. I hadn’t heard him return. Foster was probably doing that ‘poor Griff’ bit so I wouldn’t. I caught a glimpse of Manuelo just in time.”

Reflexes, honed by years of dodging tacklers, had kicked in. He’d moved sideways only a fraction of a foot, but it was enough to neutralize Manuelo’s lunge toward him.

“Unfortunately, his reflexes were almost as quick as mine, and he was able to wrap his arms around me, one at my throat, the other around my rib cage. You know how wiry and strong he is.”

She nodded.

“He began to squeeze. He felt like a python around me.” Griff remembered struggling, clawing at the man’s arms. He broke Manuelo’s skin with his fingernails but achieved nothing else. For a man so short in stature, the aide had astonishing strength. His muscles had been conditioned to place pressure where pressure was desired, and to do so with absolute control.

They’d engaged in a macabre dance, going round and round, knocking over the end table, sending objects to the floor, breaking a lamp. “I tried like hell to break his stranglehold,” Griff went on, “if only for a millisecond, long enough for me to take a breath. Nothing worked.

“Soon, I felt myself growing weaker. Black dots appeared in my field of vision. I’d had the wind knocked out of me and lost consciousness on the football field, so I recognized the signs and knew I was on my way under. But I could still see Foster sitting in his wheelchair, slapping the arms of it in sequences of three, muttering ‘Do it, do it, do it,’ also in sequences of three.”

Laura pressed her fingertips against her lips.

“Are you believing any of this, or am I wasting my breath?” he asked.

“Go on.”

“You’re not gonna like what I’m about to say. I was on the brink of blacking out when I realized what I think I knew from the moment I met him. He was a lunatic.”

“Don’t—”

“No, Laura. You’re going to hear this. He was insane. At least on some level. What man in his right mind, married to you, would ask another man to have sex with you? Pay him to. For
any
reason.”

She didn’t produce an answer, and Griff hadn’t expected one. “I’m convinced now that doing away with me was his intention all along.” She was about to protest, but he spoke before she could. “Think about it. He was fanatical about keeping our agreement a secret. In order to guarantee that, I had to die. Leaving me alive was untidy. For a compulsive cleaner, I was an unacceptable wrinkle in the bar towel, a water spot on the granite. He insisted on perfection, and for his plan to be perfect, I had to be eliminated.” He paused, then said, “Him I could understand. But I wondered about you.”

“Me?”

“Were you in on it, Laura? Was this your plan, too?”

“I’m not even going to honor that with a response.”

“Why’d you go to Austin that day?”

He listened as she explained the circumstances. “Whatever happened that night, I wasn’t a part of it,” she said with heat. “I didn’t even know you’d been to the mansion until Rodarte told me your fingerprints were on the murder weapon.”

He dragged his hand down his face. “I didn’t think you would plot my death, but when my lights were going out, the question did flash through my mind. Were you conveniently in Austin so you wouldn’t have to witness my murder?”

“You truly thought that?”

“Uncanny how clearly you see things when you think you’re about to die. You’d refused to talk to me after our last afternoon together.”

“You know why I didn’t, why I
couldn’t,
talk to you, Griff.”

“Guilt.”

“Yes.”

“So maybe the only way to rid yourself of your guilt was to do away with me.”

She looked at him, her gaze unflinching.

He sighed. “Okay, I know better. But that’s what went through my mind. But then, just as I was about to lose consciousness, a worse thought occurred to me. You were in on Foster’s secret, too.”

She looked at him without reaction for several seconds, then recoiled. “What are you saying?”

“After you gave birth to the child, what if he decided that you were a threat to his secrecy, too?”

“Foster loved me. I know that. He adored me.”

“I don’t doubt it, Laura. But his mind was more twisted than his body. What if he began seeing you as a flaw to his perfect plan? If you were out of the picture, he would be the only one on earth who knew the truth about his heir’s parentage. You would be a living threat and, as such, would have to go.”

“He would never!”

“Maybe,” Griff said without conviction. “But it was the fear he would that saved my life. It gave me renewed strength. I started fighting that Salvadoran son of a bitch like something just let out of hell. I bucked. I kicked. I clawed. Even tried to bite him.

“But I was starved for oxygen. My coordination was for shit. I could barely think. All I accomplished was to use up my reserves. It was then I realized that the only way I’d survive was to pretend to succumb. I went limp.

“‘Good, good, good,’ I heard Foster say. Manuelo let go. I had the presence of mind to fall facefirst onto the rug so I could hide that I was breathing. Foster said,
‘Muy bien, Manuelo. Muy bien. Muy bien.’

“I could hear Manuelo gasping for breath. He was standing close to me. I partially opened one eye and saw his right shoe inches from my head. I grabbed him around the ankle and yanked his foot out from under him. Gravity did the tough part.”

Manuelo went down hard, landing on his back. Griff lunged on top of him and drove his fist into the man’s nose, felt cartilage give way to the thrust, felt blood on his knuckles. But Manuelo wasn’t dispatched. He placed the heel of his hand beneath Griff’s chin and gave a push that could have snapped his neck if he hadn’t averted his head in time.

Manuelo used that instant to throw Griff off. He sprang to his feet with the agility of a cat and kicked the side of Griff’s head with his heel. Griff cried out as pain splintered through his skull. He felt a surge of nausea in the back of his throat but swallowed it as he staggered to his feet.

He managed to stand, but unsteadily. The room was spinning. To stave off the unconsciousness that threatened, he blinked rapidly and brought Manuelo into focus. The man’s vacant smile had been replaced by a snarl.

“He had the letter opener in his hand,” Griff told Laura. “Foster was saying, ‘No blood, no blood, no blood.’ But I don’t think Manuelo heard him. He was past listening, past caring. The fight had become a matter of personal honor. He’d been ordered to kill me. To save face, that’s what he was going to do.”

Laura’s eyes were wide. She hadn’t moved or spoken in several minutes.

“When Manuelo sprang, I dodged.” Griff had relied on his timing, the innate talent that had enabled him to throw a pass with a precision that defied physics a split second before he was tackled. He’d waited until Manuelo moved, then ducked, fallen to the floor, and rolled. “Manuelo couldn’t stop his momentum. He broke his fall against Foster’s wheelchair, landing hard.”

“And the letter opener…”

“Yeah.” It had been buried to the hilt in the side of Speakman’s neck. “When Manuelo scrambled back and saw what he’d done, he screamed. Long as I live, I’ll never forget that sound.” Another sound Griff would never forget was the gurgling noise coming out of Speakman’s mouth, which was opening and closing like that of a dying fish. But Laura didn’t need to know the grisly details of how her husband had suffered before he died.

“It was a dreadful accident,” he said to her now. “But to Rodarte it looks like the act of a jealous jilted lover.”

For a long time, they sat in silence. Finally Laura took a deep breath, as though rousing herself from a sound sleep or a bad dream. “You’re right. To Rodarte it looks exactly like that.”

“What does it look like to
you
?”

A
FTER SEVERAL SILENT MINUTES, GRIFF SAID, “YOU MUST BELIEVE
me, at least a little, or you wouldn’t still be in this car.”

Laura ran her fingers through her hair. She’d been trying to find words that would convey the doubts she’d been harboring without sounding disloyal to the husband she had just buried. But she wasn’t sure that was possible.

“Foster was over the moon about the baby,” she began, “but I begged him not to notify you until we’d had the pregnancy confirmed.”

“He called right after you got the results of the blood test.”

“That evening, he admitted speaking to you. He apologized for not waiting on me to be there when he called you but said he couldn’t wait to share the happy news. He said that you wished us well, but that you were mostly interested in how soon you’d get your money.”

“That’s a lie. I—”

She held up her hand. “Let me tell it from my perspective. You can rebut it later.” He nodded. “Foster and I celebrated that night. He’d had Mrs. Dobbins prepare a special dinner. He forced a second helping of potatoes on me, reminding me I was eating for two. He wouldn’t let me out of his sight. He made me use his elevator rather than walk upstairs. He said the staircase was dangerous, that I could fall. I told him I would go insane if this was how the next nine months were going to be. But I was indulgent of his mood. We actually laughed about his overprotectiveness.

“When Manuelo had him settled for the night, I went to him. He held me and told me how much he loved me, how thrilled he was about the baby. Things like that.” Her cheeks warmed with self-consciousness. “He was very tender and attentive, more affectionate than he’d been in months. I stayed with him until he was asleep.” She was intensely aware of Griff’s utter stillness, his unwavering gaze.

“His behavior being what it was that night, I couldn’t understand his insistence that I go to Austin the following morning. It was an unnecessary trip. The incident could have been handled by the supervisor there, and should have been. It was an insult to him that Foster sent me as an overseer. That wasn’t his usual style of management. Sending me didn’t make any sense.”

“It makes sense to me.”

Reluctantly, she nodded. “We had wrapped up the problem in Austin by midafternoon. I could have been on an earlier flight back to Dallas, but, without consulting me, Foster had obligated me to have dinner with some of the key people in the Austin office. The meal dragged on forever. I barely made it to the airport in time for the nine o’clock flight, the last of the night.”

“He didn’t want you back before then. He wanted you out of the way. By the time you got back, I would be dead.”

“I still can’t believe that, Griff. I just can’t. Despite what you think, he wasn’t a lunatic. I’ll admit he had grown increasingly obsessive. Doing things in sequences of three. The cleanliness. Did you notice the bottles of hand sanitizer?”

“Everywhere.”

“Nothing could be soiled, nothing out of place, nothing left to chance. But it’s unthinkable to me that he would order Manuelo to kill you with his bare hands.”

“He didn’t want my blood ruining his priceless rug.”

She shot him a look. “You know what I mean. How did he plan on getting away with it?”

“He would claim I had stormed the castle and tried to kill him.”

“Over what?”

“You. He would say that Manuelo had saved his life when I attacked him in a jealous rage.”

“But Foster didn’t know Rodarte. He certainly didn’t know that he had discovered the Windsor Street house and had concluded we were having an affair. If you’d been killed instead, what motive would Foster have given the investigator—”

“Rodarte would have made damn sure he was put on the case. He’d promised to witness my self-destruction.”

“Then what reason would Foster have given him for your attempt on his life?”

Griff thought about it. “Money. I went to the mansion and demanded more.”

“Foster wouldn’t have told anyone about our arrangement with you, especially not someone as slimy as Rodarte.”

“Maybe he’d have said he offered me a job in advertising, then changed his mind and withdrew the offer.”

“Plausible, I suppose.”

“Knowing Rodarte as I do, I’m sure he eventually would have played his ace, broken the news to the poor cuckold that I’d been sneaking afternoons with his wife. Of course, Foster would have let him go on thinking I had acted out of jealousy. Our secret affair would have made him look more like a victim, and me a likelier murderer.”

Laura silently conceded that it sounded logical, but she wasn’t yet ready to fully accept it. “Why would Foster have that phony document? And the box of cash? How would he have explained them?”

“If Manuelo had killed me,” he said, “they wouldn’t have been there. Foster didn’t expect anyone but me to see them.”

There was no disputing that. “All right, I see how he could have given Rodarte a credible explanation, and Rodarte would have accepted it, believing Foster to be in the dark about us. But what would Foster have told me?”

“Probably that the confirmed pregnancy had made me greedy. I got to the mansion and demanded more than the half million. When he refused to pay more, I attacked him. Thank God for Manuelo. And thank God I’d done the job I’d been hired to do. You were pregnant. My death was a tragedy, but wasn’t it lucky that I was no longer around, an ongoing threat to your secret and the well-being of your child.” He paused, then added, “It would have been just as he wanted it, Laura. Neat and tidy.”

They were quiet for a time. Movies ended. People trickled out of the theater and made their way to their cars. Others arrived. There was a line to purchase tickets. But the van and the pickup truck stayed, and no one paid attention to the couple sitting in the innocuous midsize car between them.

“Your fingerprints were on the hilt of the letter opener.”

“So were Manuelo’s.”

“But he could have handled it at any time.” She tried to make eye contact, but he avoided it. “Griff?”

“I didn’t want you to know how he died.”

“I have to know.”

He looked away from her, out the windshield, his eyes following a family of four, mom and dad, two children, who’d just come out of a movie. The young son was rolling his eyes, flapping his arms, doing a disjointed jig, obviously imitating an animated character. They were laughing as they piled into their SUV and drove away.

“Why were your fingerprints on the letter opener?”

“I was trying to save his life,” he replied in a quiet voice. “When I saw what had made Manuelo scream, I pushed him aside and shouted at him to call 911. But he was transfixed by the horror of what he’d done. So I placed the call. While I was doing that, Manuelo split.

“I bent over Speakman to see just how bad it was. My initial reaction was to try to pull the letter opener out of his neck. I took hold of it but almost immediately realized it would be better to leave the thing where it was. It was partially plugging the wound, and even at that it was gushing.” He stopped, cursed softly. “Laura, you don’t want to hear this.”

“I must.”

He hesitated, then continued. “There was nothing I could do but what I did, which was to apply pressure around the blade, try to slow down the bleeding.”

She swallowed. “Rodarte said that there was blood on Foster’s hands, tissue under his fingernails. That he had…”

Griff held out his hands to her, palms down, so that she could see the scratch marks on the backs of them. “He was trying to pull the letter opener out. I knew for certain he would die if he did, so, yeah, we fought over control of it.”

He waited to see if she would respond to that, but when she didn’t, he went on. “I talked to him, trying to calm him down and stop him from struggling. I told him that help was on the way. Told him to hold on, to hang in there. Stuff like that. But…” He shook his head. “I knew he wasn’t going to make it, and I think he did, too.”

“Did he say anything?”

He shook his head. “He couldn’t articulate.”

“Were you with him when—”

“Yes. I stayed.”

“Thank you for that.”

“Jesus, don’t thank me,” he said, sounding almost angry. “Believe me, as soon as he was gone, I was out of there. I knew what it would look like. I showed no more guts than Manuelo. I grabbed my ass and ran. And…” He stopped, looked away, toward the brightly lit entrance to the theater.

“What?”

He blew out a gust of breath. “There were plenty of times after that last afternoon with you when I wished he was dead.” He looked directly into her eyes then. “Not dead specifically. Just…just
not.
In the depths of my rotten soul, I wished him away.” He continued looking at her for ponderous seconds before speaking again. “But I didn’t kill him. Do you believe that?”

She opened her mouth to speak but discovered she couldn’t. His story was more credible than she wanted it to be. But she also remembered that afternoon of fevered lovemaking, the hunger and urgency of it. Her impassioned responses had unleashed from him a wild possessiveness. She remembered the way his large hands had moved over her body, claiming it, the intensity with which he had thrust into her, and how jealously he’d held her afterward.

She lowered her head and massaged her temples.

“Forget I asked,” he said curtly. “You’re not going to believe me until you have Manuelo Ruiz’s sworn statement that he accidentally stabbed your husband. You and Rodarte.”

She reached out and angrily grabbed his hand. “Don’t you dare compare me to Rodarte. And don’t give me attitude, either. You’re asking me to believe in your innocence. I want to, Griff. But believing you also means accepting that my husband, the person I had loved and admired for years, was a madman who plotted your murder. It’s a lot to absorb so soon after burying him. Forgive me if that’s proving to be difficult.”

She dropped his hand, and for several moments the atmosphere crackled. He was the first to relent. “Okay. No more attitude.” He reached into the backseat and got the duffel, placed it in his lap, and unzipped it. “My only hope of exoneration—from anybody—is to find Manuelo Ruiz.”

He rifled the bag, removing what appeared to be the aide’s keepsakes from El Salvador. A rosary. A map of Mexico, with a red crayon line snaking up through it to a starred spot on the Texas border.

“His route,” he said. There was an old photograph of a couple on their wedding day. “His parents, you think?” He passed her the picture.

“Possibly. Their age looks right.”

That was it except for a few Spanish-language paperback books and an inexpensive wallet. Griff checked every compartment. In the last one he looked, he found a piece of stained paper. It had been folded so many times, the creases were dirty and almost worn through. Griff carefully spread it open on his thigh.

He read what was printed on it, then smiled and passed the sheet to her. Written in pencil were four digits and a name. She looked back at him. “An address?”

“Appears to be. It’s a place to start looking.”

“It could be right here in Dallas or in Eagle Pass.”

“Yeah, but it’s something.” He seemed suddenly galvanized. “Do you have a cell phone?”

She reached into her handbag and withdrew it. Checking the readout, she saw that she’d missed several calls. “I had silenced it at the office and forgot to turn it back on. Kay called once. Rodarte’s called three times. The last time was twelve minutes ago.”

She handed the phone to Griff. He pressed the send button, so that Rodarte’s number would be automatically dialed. It rang only once before he answered. “Mrs. Speakman?”

“Sorry to disappoint you, Rodarte. You’ve got me. And I’ve got her.”

“You’re a moron, Burkett. You’re just digging yourself in deeper.”

“Listen, I’m gonna make this quick, simple enough even for you. I did not kill Foster Speakman. Manuelo Ruiz did.”

Rodarte laughed. “Right. The minion. The slave who idolized the guy. Yank somebody else’s pod.”

“It was an accident. Manuelo was fighting with me.”

“Trying to protect Speakman from you.”

“Wrong again, but we’ll go into the details later. You and I both need Manuelo. You’re right about him worshiping Speakman. That’s why he was so horrified by what he’d done, he ran. Find him and all our problems will be over. I’ve got a lead for you.” He read off the address. “We found it in Manuelo’s belongings. He didn’t have much, so this means something or he wouldn’t have kept it.”

“What city?”

“I don’t know, but you’ve got resources.”

“And he’s got almost a week’s head start.”

“That’s why you can’t waste any time. If you find him, treat him kindly, and you’ll get the truth of what happened that night. Nobody committed a murder. Manuelo will tell you that. He can tell you—”

Griff broke off suddenly, surprising Laura, who’d been following every word. One second he’d been speaking rapidly into the telephone, the next, he was silent, staring into near space. Through the phone, she could hear Rodarte saying, “Burkett? Burkett, are you there? Burkett!”

“Griff?” she whispered. “What?”

He focused on her sharply, then slapped the phone closed, abruptly ending his call. He opened the car door and dropped the phone onto the pavement. As he turned on the car’s ignition, he said, “Rodarte’s probably put a satellite track on your phone, so we’ve got to get the hell out of here.”

“I don’t understand.” She clutched the hand grip as he backed out of the parking slot and wheeled the car sharply.

“Manuelo Ruiz can clear me.”

“That’s why you’re desperate to find him.”

“And why Rodarte is desperate
not
to.”