Fighting Chance(76)

“Prosecutors do make deals of that kind.”

“I know they do,” Mark said, “but only if they haven’t got the information any other way. And you don’t get a really good deal unless you go to the authorities before they actually know that anything is happening. And I’m pretty sure they all knew that something was happening, even if they hadn’t got around to nailing it yet.”

“Martha Handling wanting to go to the authorities is more of a motive for murder than for retrieving the cell phone,” Demarkian said.

“Sure it was,” Mark agreed. “But it wasn’t just a motive for me. There were dozens of people involved in these things, and I don’t even know most of them. There were the judges, I know them, but the judges couldn’t do what they were doing without at least some collaboration from at least some of the lawyers, and then there were the guards and the social workers and the psychologists. We paid Martha Handling a set scale of fees for each juvenile she incarcerated for a year or longer, but sometimes to get the back up to do that, she’d have to pay somebody to give her the kind of report she wanted or play the defense just the right way. And we told her—right from the beginning—that whatever was going on with that, we didn’t want to know about it. As far as we were concerned, she could do whatever she wanted with whoever she wanted, but we didn’t want to know about it. And we didn’t. As far as I know, she was flying blind. But that’s the thing. Those people, whoever they were, had to have more of a reason to kill her than I did. As far as I know, those people were completely clean as long as Martha didn’t open her mouth. I was going to be in for it no matter what.”

“Then why try to retrieve the cell phone?” Demarkian asked.

“Because without the cell phone, I thought it would be all ‘he said, she said.’ The cell phone was hard evidence.”

“And did you retrieve it?”

“No,” Mark said. “The day after the murder, I nearly killed myself going in there and trying to find it. I thought the police might have missed it. And before you start—yes, I know that was a crazy idea. But Martha was so paranoid, I thought that if she had it on her, she would have put it somewhere safe. So I went out there a couple of times and went looking around. There was police tape up, but there weren’t all that many people there, and they weren’t really watching. But I couldn’t find it. I thought the police must have it, at first.”

“At first?”

“Well,” Mark said, “I think maybe I ought to tell you about the kid.”

3

Petrak Maldovanian was not a happy person. When he had first started doing what he was doing, he had had only one object in mind. He wanted his brother, Stefan, out of jail, and if he could manage it, he wanted Stefan still in the United States. That second thing was not as important as the first, because if Stefan was deported, it would not be to Armenia. He would be sent back to Canada and their other aunt. Canada was a pretty good place, and safe. It just wasn’t right in Petrak’s lap.

And Petrak had been thinking about it. So far, the experiment with the United States had not been working out for Stefan as he’d hoped it would. The United States was fine, but Stefan himself was behaving like an idiot. Only an idiot ran around shoplifting things in order to join a club. Even if Stefan was being completely accurate and the club was not a gang—and Petrak hadn’t conceded that point yet—even so, it was a stupid thing to do, and a club like that was not a good influence. If they were able to keep Stefan in the United States, then they would have to find him another school. He had to be away from the club and the other boys in it.

Stefan would be away from the other boys if he was in Canada. Petrak now thought it might be a better idea if Stefan went back to Canada.

Stefan could not go back to Canada if he was in jail. Jail was the important thing now. And Petrak hated to see Stefan the way he was in jail, with the jumpsuit and the locks and the way people acted as if he were a wild animal that would turn and savage them without warning and at any moment. Petrak was very sure that this was not a good way to treat people. People would not be better for it. A boy like Stefan would not be better for it. It would change the way he thought of himself, and that would change everything else he did.

This was, really, more than Petrak felt capable of thinking through. His impressions were vague. His feelings were confused. He didn’t know anything about jails or how they worked, or even about Stefan and how he worked. He just had impressions, and the impressions were very strong.