The Dark (A Detective Alice Madison Novel)(138)

“I don’t remember him, Nathan, and I’m terribly sorry for this connection, but we didn’t know this at the time. You yourself didn’t know he had been involved until much later.”

“My father always said you had a mind like a shark in water: it never stops, and it eats everything that crosses its path. If you had defended him, you’d remember everything about him—like the fact that he had no problem hurting children.”

“What did Jack tell you?”

Quinn took a folded piece of paper from his inside pocket and spread it on the table. It was a yellowed page from the Seattle Times. He took a photograph from the same pocket and laid it next to it. Locke edged closer.

“Where is everyone?” he asked, looking around—the corridor and the offices were empty.

“I told Carl to get everybody out. I thought we shouldn’t be disturbed.”

A line had been crossed: neither could back down, and each recognized the other.

“I want to talk to Jack,” Locke said.

“Jack asked me if Bobby still worked at Harborview.”

“My son, Robert?”

“Yes. They haven’t spoken for years, and Jack asked me if Bobby still worked there. He’s a cardiologist, right?”

“What did you tell him?”

“I said yes, as far as I know, Robert was still at Harborview.”

Conrad Locke took out his cell and dialed a number on speed-dial. It went to voice mail.

“Robert, call me as soon as you hear this.”

Nathan Quinn stared at his old friend.

Locke tried another number and found voice mail again. He left the same message.

“Where’s Robert?” he asked Quinn.

Quinn’s voice was quiet in the large room, and it carried with it the hell of years of rage and grief. “You won’t find him,” he said. “You might never find him. Jack has Robert.”

“This is madness!”

“Jack is not in the mood for sanity today, and neither am I. Have you seen the pictures of what he did to Harry Salinger?”

“Whatever you think happened, you can’t believe the word of a killer.”

“Who are you talking about now?” This was the closest they would ever be to arguing in court against each other.

“This,” Quinn continued, “is an article about the investigation of David’s death. It’s from the beginning of September. And this photograph”—Quinn lifted it for Locke to see—“was taken by David on the Fourth of July. You’re in the picture. It must be somewhere in the woods of the estate . . .”

“What . . .”

“. . . and this man next to you is Senator James Newberry. They found his body the second week of August. And his photo is in the Seattle Times right next to David’s.”

“Who have you spoken to about this?”

“Except that the senator had been missing since the end of June. He was about to testify in a corruption and racketeering trial against defendants you represented, and by the Fourth of July he had been missing for over a week. You knew him from before, because you knew everybody, and he must have come to you that day because he knew you’d be at the estate. At the inquiry about his death, you swore under oath that you had not seen him since the end of June. That’s perjury, Counselor. Did he come to you asking for help, for assurances? Had you introduced him to your clients in the first place?”

“Who have you spoken to about this?” he asked again.

“Did you tell him that everything would be all right? That he could lie on the stand? And that night, after the cake by the pool and the fireworks, did you call your clients—all good family men—and tell them where they could find him? How much have you helped them over the years? You sit on committees, you broker deals, you make connections between interested parties. What was your fee for giving them Newberry?”

“Who have you—”

“Spoken to? You think I’m going to go to the police with this?” Quinn felt a reckless energy that burned through his common sense. “Me? The attorney who represents John Cameron, alleged murderer of nine? Jack has Robert, Conrad. How the hell do you think this is going to end?”

“It was war,” Locke said. “You have no idea, with your corporate law, your civilized cases, your intellectual-property disputes. You have no idea what I had to do to win at least some of the time against those animals, and the only way I could do it was with the help of other animals just like them. You don’t like to think about that when you sit in this library with the mahogany table and the pretty books. Your brother was an innocent victim in an awful war, and I wish he had not been there with his damn camera, but he was. As soon as I got back to the house, I managed to get Bobby and the other kids all hyped up, and they pushed David into the water with the camera as a joke. I thought that was the end of it, and I bought him an identical one the next day. He was really upset, though, because his camera was a present from you. You had already left, and they never told you. I thought that was the end of it.”