AllFreeNovel
Share Us
A jaw disorder. She has to use a straw to eat. She can only take liquids. She has a special mouth guard.
My God! When did this start?
A few weeks ago. She wanted to see you, but she wasn’t well enough.
Is it painful?
Yes, she’s in massage therapy to ease the inflammation.
How do you get lockjaw?
Stress, my father answered matter-of-factly.
Looking back, I wasn’t sure I remembered anything after that answer. I’d given my mother lockjaw, a brilliant woman who loved nothing better than conversation. She could convince any client of anything. She won moot court in law school. She loved oral arguments in court. I would hear her talking nonstop in her book club,and she’d spend hours yakking on the phone with her friends. She and I would talk in the kitchen late at night, over tea and toast.
I remembered that night, sitting in my cell, the lowest I’ve ever been. I couldn’t stop crying. I didn’t see any way out. I didn’t know if I could change, I didn’t know if I deserved to. All I wanted to do was die, and I thought I deserved to die. It was the first time in my life I considered suicide, so I understood something about what Lemaire might have gone through tonight.
I sent up a prayer for him. I didn’t know who was mourning him—or who had conspired with him.
I only knew about the cat.
•••
I parked on Lemaire’s street, relieved to find that the lights in his house were on. There was a yellow VW Beetle in his driveway, and a silhouette in the living room going back and forth. It was either a friend or a conspirator, or both. I took a photo of the VW’s license plate, so I could run it down.
Whoever it was, I hoped they fed the cat and took care of him.
My phone pinged with a text, and I picked up the phone.
It was from John:Come over asap no matter how late
Chapter Thirteen
We met in John’s home office in his basement, a square room with one wall of law books, accordion files, and black binders of business regs, opposite another wall with glass cases displaying his sports memorabilia like signed footballs and a baseball card collection. A Thomas Moser radius desk dominated the space, with two desktop computers, oversize monitors, and a laptop. The desk chair was the requisite Herman Miller, with blue webbing to match a navy rug.
I faced John. “I don’t know if it was murder or suicide, they’re not saying yet. They think it happened tonight. The only thing is, they found him in a white Mercedes.”
“What about the Volvo?” John’s eyes flared in confusion. He was still in his work clothes, but tieless.
“I don’t know. I’m guessing the Mercedes was his. The cops released that name and I don’t think they’d get that wrong, since you have to keep the registration with the car. So I think it’s more likely his than not.”
“So the Volvo wasn’t his?”
“Unsure. I doubt he had two cars. If he knew he was going to meetyou, he might have used another car, especially if he was going to kill you. It could have been stolen or maybe it belonged to one of his co-conspirators, who could have killed Lemaire to avoid being exposed.”
“Oh no.” John sank into his desk chair. I would have sat down, but there wasn’t another chair.
“I spent all day looking for the maroon Volvo, but we still need to find it. Whoever drives it could be a co-conspirator.” I met John’s eye. “In the meantime, you should buy a gun.”
John nodded. “Man, oh man.”
“That said, I don’t think we should go to the police. It’s not like Lemaire was found dead after you met with him. I doubt you were the last person to see him alive. There’s been a whole day in between, and like I say, the time of death was sometime tonight.” I was thinking aloud. “He had to have done something today, and he could have gone to work. When I staked out Runstan, I was looking for a Volvo, not a Mercedes. Anyway, whoever lent him the Volvo doesn’t work at Runstan or wasn’t there.”
“This is driving me crazy.” John shook his head. “I should go to Stan tomorrow and tell him what happened at the quarry. I like the guy. I have a fiduciary duty to his company. I’m not going to keep it from him.”
“What if he wants to go to the cops?”
“I thought about it, and I doubt he will.” John’s eyes flickered knowingly. “It would throw a monkey wrench in the acquisition, and he stands to make a fortune when it goes through. He’ll sweep this under the rug.”
