Page 37 of Hero

“I’m going to turn on the recording equipment now. We need to know everything that has happened to you since you went to work on the evening of August 1. I’m going to stop you from time to time to ask questions, but otherwise this is your show. It’s all protected by the attorney-client privilege you just acquired.” He used his cell phone to trigger some remote switch in the room’s electronics and held up his phone to show her a red indicator was on. “Start by telling us your name.”

She hesitated for a second. Should she go into the whole Anna Kepka business now? “Justine Poole is a work name. The one I was born with is Anna Kepka.” She began to tell the story. It took her about an hour. She included every detail that she could remember, and she had been training herself to notice details for at least nine years, so there were many. She told the truth about everything, and although she told only part of the truth about a few things, at least she kept out the lies that kept offering themselves to her unexpectedly.

When she talked vaguely about leaving the coffee shop and staying the night with a friend, she added, “Someone I met at the coffee shop.”

“That morning?”

“Yes.”

De Kuyper said, “I’m not prying now, but is this friend male or female?”

“Male.”

“Again, I’m not trying to pry, but if this comes up, and it will, we’ve got to have answers. Is this relationship intimate?”

“This will come up? Why?”

“It’s an opportunity for the other side to prejudice a certain kind of juror.”

“It’s not intimate. I just met him.”

“Why did you stay with him?”

“I didn’t feel I could go home, because the killer had already broken into my condominium once, the same night he murdered Ben Spengler. And of course, he knew where I worked. He knew or could find out who else worked there. I didn’t want to put any of them in danger by staying with them. If I went off with a perfect stranger, there was no connection that the killer could find. He couldn’t trick anybody I know into telling him about this guy. Neither of us could be identified on each other’s Facebook accounts or anything else. He was safe, and I was safe. I left his place early this morning while he was asleep.”

“What’s his name?”

“Joe—Joseph—Alston. He’s a freelance writer—news investigations, research essays, that sort of thing.”

“I think I may have heard of him. It’s possible we may have sued him, or thought about it. And you picked him because?”

“He seemed like a nice guy. It turned out he is.”

“Good,” de Kuyper said. “Last question. What made you choose our law firm?”

“Because a couple of the clients I worked with at Spengler-Nash had mentioned the name, and they were the sort of people who could be choosy.”

24

Leo Sealy’s phone rang. He’d left it charging on the kitchen counter, so he had to trot across the apartment to get it. He was hoping it was going to be a friend, maybe Bobby Danziger. Before this job had been offered to him, he and Bobby had told each other they should meet for a drink soon. They were both in the same line of work and they had known each other for a few years, since the time when they had both been hired by an old guy in Palm Springs to kill the same list of eleven people. Neither of them had known before they’d driven out there to meet him exactly what the job was or that anybody else was on it. The first they knew about it was when he arrived and the old guy let him into this sprawling one-story house. Sealy and the man crossed a vast living room with a view of Mount San Jacinto but kept walking and talking. “There’s somebody else I need you to meet.”

When he had given them both copies of the list of names and addresses, they both realized that this was a very big job. The targets were all over the country, were of both sexes and a range of ages. Leo and Bobby had let their resentment of the old man go after they realized that he wasn’t expecting to get a bargain. He was willing to pay verywell for each killing. Leo and Bobby worked out a system, dividing the country so each took five names in a geographic area, and began scouting the targets. On the seventh of the next month at midnight, each would start the slaughter, trying to get through the five names as quickly as possible so the later ones would be less likely to hear of the earlier ones. Whoever got his five first could take, and be paid for, the eleventh. Leo got that one.

He reached the counter and looked down at the phone. It wasn’t Bobby, and it wasn’t a friend. It was Mr. Conger. He picked it up. “Hello.” He listened to Mr. Conger’s question. “Yes, sir. That was me, but I wasn’t just being random and stupid. Thanks to you, I knew that once the mayor’s office and DA saw the families picketing and listened to their lawyers’ interviews, the cops would make a show of getting her in right away. She’d been hiding from me for two days, but I thought she might drop in to shower and change her clothes before she turned herself in. She would have to come early in the morning before people were expecting her. I saw her walking to the building, but she saw me right away too. She sprinted for the door and beat me to it. The door automatically locked behind her. This guy was coming along the building, so I made him open the door for me, brought him inside and shot him. I went upstairs to her condo, but she wasn’t there. Somehow, she got out of sight. I don’t know how. Maybe another neighbor let her in because they’d heard the shot. I heard sirens just then, and I had to get out. Your strategy to flush her out of hiding worked, and my strategy of watching her building worked. But this time the dog didn’t get the rabbit. I’m frustrated and disappointed, but it happens. Luck doesn’t last forever, or rabbits would be running the world.”

Mr. Conger said, “So this guy you killed this morning, you don’t even know who he is. He’s not a friend of hers from Spengler-Nash, or a boyfriend, or anything. He’s just a guy?”

“A guy who lived in the building. When I was locked out, I turned away from the door, and he was there.”

“I don’t know about this,” Mr. Conger said. “When it was Benjamin Spengler, it was great for me, but you and I know it was still a mistake. Nobody asked you to go after him, you stumbled on him in the dark. This guy is different. The first one seemed like when Spengler-Nash offended me, I came right back at them and had somebody take out their leader. This looks like you panicked and executed some random retiree.”

“I didn’t panic. In a split second I knew I was locked out and saw a way in. I couldn’t let him go after that. He’d seen me.”

Mr. Conger’s voice was colder when he replied. “I’m not talking about the nuts and bolts of your job. I’ve already helped you too much with that. I’m talking about optics. You know I don’t give a shit about those two little bastards who couldn’t even rob a husband and wife with a combined age over a hundred and fifty. And I care even less about the three who are still alive and got themselves captured running away. What I have to care about is my reputation on all sides. I want anybody who considers giving me trouble to see that it’s fatal. I want the guys who work for me to get proof that what people have said about me is true. Mr. Conger is one scary guy, who always avenges the men he loses. I want the three in county jail to think that I’m a powerful friend but that betraying me would be suicidal. Your shooting some harmless bystander doesn’t contribute to making either of us look ice-cold and efficient.”

“But you do look ice-cold and efficient. You’ll destroy your enemies, no matter who has to be cut down to get to them.”

Mr. Conger’s breathing became heavy, like the breath of a man so enraged that his body was unconsciously oxygenating its blood before a fight. He said with a careful, mock-patient tone, “I guess I have to explain history to you. Years and years ago, people—all people—believed inGod—a god, anyway. They did what they thought God wanted them to do. Even the bad ones believed. They just thought they were better than other people because they were kings or something, so God had given them a pass at birth. They all thought if they broke the wrong rules God would quick-fry them with lightning or something. They even reversed it, so if somebody got hit by lighting, they must have pissed God off.

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