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Authors: Eric Wight

BOOK: The Last Hand
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A
s Salter sat down across from Holt in his office he saw that the lawyer had given up. Salter made a brief speech telling Holt that he knew and could prove that Holt was the killer; he threw in gratuitously that he wasn't sure why, but that they had a lineup of witnesses who could identify him at the scene, and that the forensic people …
Holt threw up his hands. “Go ahead.”
There were still things Salter wanted to know. What caused the confrontation? Beryl Lucas's death?
“He told me he was going to send my name to the Securities Commission, on the grounds that he had discovered a serious mishandling by a stockbroker of a clients' funds. And then he mentioned the Law Society.” Holt shrugged. “I didn't plan to kill him,” he said.
“I don't think you did. You would have taken a better weapon. Remind your lawyer of that. So what gave you the idea?”
“We were moving around the apartment, arguing. I was sort of chasing him, asking him for more time to find the money. I just needed a few days. If she hadn't died I might have made it.”
“Like Cane? Waiting for the Brazilian
real
to fall?”
“Oh, no. I was waiting for the stock market. I'd made a big bet on the futures market. I figured three or four days.”
“And did it rise?”
“Not yet. But it will.”
“But when Mr. Fury looked, the money was there.”
“I bought some time with money from my other trust funds.”
“Did you always deal with Cane?”
“At first. Not lately.”
“What did you go to Bath to see him about, yesterday?”
“He called to warn me, after you had talked with him.”
“But you weren't one of his clients, lately.”
“We knew each other well, in a number of ways. He owed me a favor because I had sent him some clients, recommended them. The poker group, for example, and Flora Lucas, and a few others.”
“For a commission?”
“More or less.”
“You knew by then he was a crook?”
“Not at all. He seemed brilliant to me. Any commission, as you call it, I invested right back with him.”
“And your clients' money.”
“No. I thought I knew enough not to need Cane for that. I managed my clients' money by myself.”
“And lost the lot.”
“Nearly.”
“But why did Cane warn you? What did he know of your own dealing?”
“Nothing concrete. But he knew I was dabbling. He could smell it. I had one or two little winners that I didn't keep to myself, and he heard about them. But we were on good terms, so he thought he would do me a favor.”
“Now. What happened in Lucas's kitchen?”
“We got shouting, and I kept following him around and threatened him with my cane. He was facing the knife block and he turned around with the knife in his hand and told me to get out, and I knocked the knife out of his hand and then it got stuck in his chest. That's the best I can do for you.”
“That was the time to come to us.”
“Possibly. But when I calmed down I realized I had a chance of getting away with it. I'd seen that prostitute leave Jerry's apartment. It was quite a surprise, and I had mentioned it to Jerry and he got mad …”
“You said you would blackmail him? About the prostitute?”
“That's what he
thought
I was saying, but of course, I wasn't.”
“Made him angry enough to keep waving a knife at you.”
“Yes. Anyway, after Jerry died I thought I would wait to see if she had been seen by anyone else …”
“In which case, she might take the rap?”
“I knew they would never find her. So I washed the knife clean and left. I saw no one on the way out.”
“How did you know?”
“She wasn't a hooker. I'd seen her face before. A very striking face.”
“When?”
“At a couple of concerts. I saw them chatting once and walked over to say hello and she scuttled away before I got there. That happened again at another concert, in Roy Thomson Hall, and this time I felt sure he had signaled to her that I was approaching, so I thought it might be someone I knew, someone's wife, maybe. So I kept my eye on where she had gone, and after chatting for a minute with Jerry, I followed her. I caught up with her at the record shop in the lobby. I didn't know her then, but I remembered her face when I saw her dressed up, and I guessed what they were up to.”
“They were just horsing around.”
“It looked to me like someone acting out their fantasies.”
“Never mind. Go on.”
“So after the knife went into Jerry, I panicked at first, but then as I cleaned up I realized that there was the perfect suspect. Someone must have seen her, but they never would again. She would disappear, so nobody innocent would be charged.”
“That was your first thought, was it?”
“Let's just say I did have the thought, all right?”
“Let's get out of here. You want a lawyer at the station?”
“None of the lawyers I know would be much use. You have any suggestions?”
“Gregson. He's the best.”
“I can't afford him.”
“Ask him.”
Holt took down a directory of lawyers, found Gregson's name, and called his office. Then Salter took the receiver from him and
explained the situation before handing the phone back to Holt.
Holt said into the phone, “I can't afford to pay you. Can I run a tab?” He listened, then looked surprised. “This is the first good news I've had all week. Why? I see, I just got the right number in your charity draw. We're leaving now. Thank you.” He put the phone down and said to Salter, “He says the fee is irrelevant. He does pro bono work, and he says this is an interesting case.”
Salter was so pleased with himself he never noticed that Smith was looking more excited than usual, but as he finished the story, Smith said, “There's a detail, isn't there, sir? If Holt wasn't looking for the nonexistent hooker on Jarvis Street, as the girls reported, then who was?”
Salter said, “I don't know, but let's keep that one to ourselves until the mystery is solved. We've got a full confession, but if Gregson gets hold of that thread he might find a way to unravel it.”
Now Smith shook his head, his face shining. “Not to worry. While you were out the Vice Squad called. They picked him up last night.” He looked at a note in his hand. “You know who it was?”
“Don't fuck about, Smitty. Who?”
“A man named Gavin Chapel, a reporter for the
Dominion
. You know him?”
Salter laughed. “I'll tell the deputy chief. He may want to have a word with him.”
 
 
To his boss, Deputy Mackenzie, Salter said, “Holt is probably going to be advised to plead involuntary manslaughter. Gregson wants a quick trial-and so, surprise surprise, does the attorney general. He probably feels sorry for a colleague, wouldn't you think? And we don't give a shit, do we, as long as we've done our job? Anyway, if Holt decides to change his mind and plead not guilty, the whole case becomes circumstantial. There are no fingerprints on the knife, and no fibers or hairs of the kind that Forensics are supposed to find. Louise Wilder was panic-stricken and is not sure she could identify him, so we would have to rely on the financial evidence, and no one involved wants that stuff coming out in a manslaughter trial. Later on, while he's in jail, Holt will stand trial on the embezzlement
charges, but lawyers embezzling clients' funds is so routine nowadays, the papers hardly report it.”
Mackenzie said, “So you haven't really identified him except by a witness who will herself be under suspicion if we don't nail Holt. Christ, she's a likelier suspect than he is. All Holt's gotta do is say he never entered the apartment. He knocked, he could say, heard voices, then left. Just calling on a friend, he could say. Christ, yes, let's have a quick trial, quick and dirty, and get it out of the way. Still, you did a good job. When did you first suspect Holt?”
“When he told me about a picture he'd seen of Flora Lucas in the apartment. Later on, when I heard how private Lucas was, I got to wondering why Holt would have been in his apartment if none of the other poker players had.”
“I'm glad you didn't go to town until you had something else. All he had to say was that he had visited Lucas once to pass the time. One Sunday afternoon, like …”
“That's why I waited.”
“Good. Jesus Christ. When did you get something a bit more solid?”
“When he tried to kiss me in the kitchen.”
“When he
what?
How old is this guy? Oh, I see, you're shitting me again. All right, all right. Finish it up, now.”
“Yes, I was speaking metaphorically, sir. He came on to me like a soulmate. But he's a lousy con man. And I never believed in that hooker from the start.”
“Right, right.”
“And I couldn't smell any deep, dark secrets worth killing for. I thought all those lawyers had enough money, and Lucas was a perfectly normal, middle-aged, upper-middle-income heterosexual lawyer with no kinky tastes. Except for Puss-in-Boots, who I couldn't resist, it looked like a dull and difficult case, and I would have dodged it.”
“Sonofabitch,” the deputy said. He giggled. “Eh? Lucky and crafty, Salter, that's you. Jesus. Now, I've got something else I want you to look at.”
“An investigation?”
“A very delicate case. One of us.”
Salter shook his head. “I don't think so, sir. Time's up. If you
try to get me to take this on, anyway, I'll call in sick.”
“So this is it, eh? Good way to go. Scored a fucking goal in overtime, you have. I was talking to Marinelli this morning …”
“He pissed off?”
“Marinelli? Nah. Don't do it again, though.”
“Good. I'll write out my resignation today.”
“I'll lay on a dinner for you at the club. Okay?”
“A pair of silver-plated handcuffs would be nice, too. And ask Constable Smith if he'll play the bagpipes.”
“We'll give you a good send-off.”
Salter left him, and went off for his encounter with Lichtman.
 
 
Salter won the first game, and Lichtman was silent except for a hissing noise as he got his breath, so Salter knew the situation was serious. In the second game, the court felt like a large steel cage in which he and Lichtman had been locked to kill or be killed. Lichtman won, just. Salter said, “A tie?” Lichtman smiled for the first time at Salter's suggested temporary solution to the struggle. “Right,” he said. “Let's play again, settle it, when we're younger.”
Angus was waiting for him after the game.
Salter came out of the changing room and there he was, sitting in the lounge, where he had been watching the game through the glass wall, waiting to go home with his father. Angus, Annie and Charlotte, his granddaughter, had been home for a week now, home for good.
“You really play hard, don't you, Pop,” Angus said.
“It's not just a game, you know,” Salter said. “Want a beer?”
When he returned from the bar with the two mugs, Angus said, “How about teaching me?”
Salter immediately wanted to respond by asking if this was Annie's idea, but he bit his tongue. “Did you ever play tennis? I don't remember.”
“In high school. I was nearly on the junior team.”
“Then you should be all right. It'll take you two to three months to beat me, then you'll have to find a new partner.”
“Make it a month. Tell you what. Let's make a deal. You teach me squash and I'll teach you fly fishing.”
“You never liked fishing!” It was one of the failures between them.
“Fly fishing, not sitting in a boat with a worm on a hook. Real fishing. Uncle John showed me. It's the only way to go.”
“Fuck off. I
like
sitting in a boat with a worm on a hook. Anyway I've never seen anyone do it around here. Fly fishing, I mean.”
Angus nodded. “There's a place in the corner of Algonquin Park set aside for it. When the trout season opens next spring. All right?”
Was it all right? Not really. The way Angus had handled the breakdown of his relationship with Linda had left Salter feeling slightly disappointed in him, then judgmental, and caused him to wonder about his son. He found himself now slightly irritated at the boy's enthusiasm for a fishing trip while some large problems remained unsettled. He had begun to wonder lately whether he ought to have probed his brother-in-laws' irritation with Angus as an employee, to see their impatience as a sign of something lacking in his son as much as in them. All this made him a little sad, and not quite able to enter Angus's enthusiasm.

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