Fighting Chance(83)

“Let’s start from the beginning,” Gregor said. “What the hell are you doing down here? Why are you in this alley?”

“Because,” Petrak said. “He told me to come here. He called me on this phone—” He took a small black phone out of his pocket and waved it. “—and he told me to come right away, that I had to meet a man and talk to him, and if I met this man and talked to him, then we would be able, Stefan would be able—it’s a whole pile of crap and I should have known it was a whole pile of crap.”

Gregor took the phone out of Petrak’s hand and turned it over and over. It was made of cheap black plastic. He opened it up. It took him less than half a minute to find the video. He closed it up again.

“Where did you get it?” he asked.

Petrak shrugged. “It was in the hallway,” he said, “in the back, where the evil judge was. I went to look for Father Tibor and also for Mr. Donahue and I looked in the bathroom, and then I heard noise, so I went on back. And I went into the room where the noise was coming from, and there was Father Tibor and Mr. Donahue and Dr. Loftus and I think there might have been other people. And there was blood everywhere, and I sort of stumbled in some of it and then I got scared and backed out, and then I don’t know, the police were there, and then … it was just lying in the hallway. The phone was.”

“And you picked it up.”

Petrak nodded. “I didn’t think about it. It was just there and I picked it up, and I went back out into the foyer and more police came and I forgot I had it. And then later I found it in my pocket when I was home. And I looked at it.”

“And?”

Petrak gestured to the phone in Gregor’s hand. “And then I looked at it. And there were things on it. There were calls and voice mails from the man from Administrative Solutions. That was the name. Administrative Solutions. This is the private company that runs the prisons. You know about that?”

“I know about that.”

“There were rumors that this judge, she was taking money from the prison company to put people in jail for long times,” Petrak said. “And I looked at the phone and I thought I could see how there were things there that would prove that to be true. So I used the phone and I called the man.”

“Which man?”

“You can see in the address book,” Petrak said. “Mark Granby. He works for the company that runs the prisons. I called him and then, later, I went to see him. And I told him, I told him that if he could pay a judge to put people in prison, he could pay one not to put people in prison, and I wanted Stefan sent home and I would give him back the phone if he would, if he would make sure that Stefan came home and did not go to jail.”

“Marvelous,” Gregor said. “Have you told any of this to the police?”

“No. I was waiting for you.”

“You should have been waiting for Russ Donahue,” Gregor said. “You’re going to need a lawyer.”

“I do not think Mr. Donahue is a very good lawyer,” Petrak said. “I think he should not have allowed the evil judge to hear Stefan’s case.”

“I don’t think that’s usually in the power of the defense attorney,” Gregor said. “How did you get here today? How did you just happen to find the body?”

“It did not just happen,” Petrak said. “I got a call on the phone. I have the phone on me all the time because I can’t leave it at home, because Aunt Sophie looks through everything. I was at school and the phone rang and I thought it was my own phone, maybe, but the ring tone was wrong. And I saw it was this phone and I answered it and it was him, and he told me I was supposed to come here, I was supposed to meet a woman about Stefan and it had to be very secret. So I came.”

“Do you remember the name of this person?”

“Yes,” Petrak said. “I do. It was a silly name, so I remembered it. Lydia Bird.”

“Do you know who this person was supposed to be?”

“I think she was a judge, or somebody who worked for a judge. Mr. Granby didn’t say that. Only that I was to come and meet here because we had to talk if Stefan was going to come home. He said it was hard to do because Stefan had committed a very serious job and every judge would want to put him in jail, but now there was this one but she had to talk to me. So I thought she was a judge.”

“And this conversation,” Gregor said. “It took place when?”

“This morning at ten o’clock.”

Gregor looked at him in astonishment. “You had a phone call this morning at ten o’clock from Mark Granby.”