In pain or reverie, Erno's eyes were still. The full measure of his illness showed there"a web of veins, sallow streaks, a gla.s.sy thickening. His lashes were gone and the lids looked inflamed.

"Me too," he said suddenly.

"You too what?" asked Arthur. "It would have been bad for you, too?"

Erno reached up in time to catch a cough, but nodded as he shook.

"Why?" Arthur asked. "Why would it be bad for you?"

"Tickets," said Erno. "Stole tickets, too."

"You did?"

Erno nodded again.

"h.e.l.l, why would you do that, Erno?"

He gave his hand a disgusted little toss and looked toward the ceiling.

"Stupid," he said. "Needed money. Family problems. Was two years before."

"Before Luisa was doing it?"

"Right. Stopped. But afraid."

"You were afraid?"

"Catch her, catch me." Erno stopped to breathe. "Why I went to restaurant. Stop her. Fought. Gus came with gun." Erno closed his eyes. The rest did not bear repeating.

"So there was never an affair?"

Erno smiled thinly at the notion.

"Jesus Christ," said Arthur. His voice was too loud, but he was suddenly desperate. He had the feeling that often overcame him when things went disastrously wrong, that he was deeply at fault, and that as a consequence he would have liked nothing more than to escape his own skin, shirk it, even peel it off if that was necessary. "Jesus, Erno. Why didn't you say this?"

"Pension," he said. "Twenty-three years. For my wife now. Better this way. All around."

Better for Rommy, better for him"that's what Erno meant. Except that like every lie, it could disintegrate along the fault lines of the truth. Arthur calculated. His first instinct was to summon a court reporter, someone who could get this down. But he played out the steps. Muriel's contention that Erno had shaped his tale to his own purposes would be proven. In fact, Erno had perjured himself wantonly before Judge Harlow. In the eyes of the law, therefore, he would be entirely unworthy of belief. And that was before you added in the fact that he was a thief, who'd cheated the employer that had trusted him for more than twenty years.

"Is that all of it, Erno?"

Erdai summoned himself to a decisive nod.

"What about this guy, the Pharaoh?" Arthur asked. "Can we find him?"

"n.o.body. Cheap hustler. Gone for years."

"Did he have anything to do with the murders?"

Erno made a little expectorant sound which was the best he could do for a laugh at the thought of yet another suspect. He slowly turned his face back and forth, a gesture he'd apparently repeated often. A bare spot had been worn by the pillow through the frazzle of hair at the rear of his head.

"Me. Just me." He reached between the slats of the bed rail and took Arthur's hand with fingers hot from fever. "Your guy. Nothing. Not there. Completely innocent." Erno went through the same brief paroxysm, the cough and then the rising and pa.s.sing of pain. But he had not forgotten where he was. "Completely." Although it required huge effort, Erno rolled himself in Arthur's direction so that he could bring his face closer. The shade of his eyes seemed to have grown more intense, but that was probably just the contrast to his jaundiced complexion. "Larry won't believe me," he whispered. "Too proud."

"Probably."

"I killed all them." The effort of this declaration and the accompanying movement had exhausted him. He fell to his back, still clinging to Arthur's hand. He stared then so fixedly at the ceiling that Arthur was afraid Erno had pa.s.sed right in front of him, but he felt some stirring yet in Erno's palm. "Think about it," said Erno. "All the time. All I see. All I see. Wanted it different. At the end."

As the conversation had progressed, Arthur could feel a vacuum forming inside him. The world Erno had portrayed"Luisa in the parking lot, the lovers' quarrel that followed"scenes Arthur had visualized as if he'd seen them on film, had been wiped away. Once he left the hospital, what would abide would be the fact, cold as stone, that Erno was a liar, one whose motives were perhaps no better than the grandiose pleasures that came from drawing everyone in. The last version crashed and shattered? Glue together another. Yet here in Erno's presence, Arthur could not doubt him. Perhaps that was simply a credit to Erno's skills as a con. But against all reason, he believed Erdai, just as surely as he'd taken him as a fake before Erno had opened his eyes.

A very long moment pa.s.sed.

"Always knew this," Erno said then.

"Knew what?"

Erno gathered himself again to roll to the bed rail, and Arthur reached out to help. Erno's shoulder was only bone.

"Me," Erno said and grimaced.

"You?"

"Bad," he said. "Bad life. Why?"

Arthur thought the question was philosophical or religious, but Erno had meant it as a rhetorical query to which he had the answer.

"Always knew," he said. "Too hard."

"What?"

Erno's eyes, rimmed red and bald of lashes, lingered.

"Too hard," he said, "to be good."

Chapter 31.

August 2, 2001 The Court Rules "WE WON." Tommy Molto, with his face of vanilla pudding, grabbed Muriel's arm as she left Ned Halsey's office following the morning meeting. The Court of Appeals had issued its opinion: Gandolph's habeas had been dismissed and the stay on his execution lifted. "We won," said Tommy again.

Tommy was a strange case. He rarely saw the forest, but he was the guy you wanted if you had to chop down a tree. A decade ago, when Squirrel had been tried, Tommy was the kahuna and Muriel the underling taking lessons. He had never griped as the years pa.s.sed, as she equaled him in office standing and finally was named Chief Deputy, a job Molto had always coveted. Tommy was Tommy"humorless, dogged, and utterly dedicated to victims, to the police, to the county, and to the fact that the world was better without the company of the people he pursued and convicted. Muriel wrapped him in a huge hug.

"Never a doubt," said Tommy. He departed with a laugh, promising her a copy of the opinion as soon as Carol returned from the courthouse.

Ned by now was visiting with State Senator Malvoin, so she left him a note. On the other side of the large public area that separated Halsey's office from hers, Muriel checked her messages"four reporters had called already"then shut her door. Behind her big desk in the bay window, she closed her eyes, surprised by the magnitude of her relief. In a job like this one, you rode the big waves. There were plenty of good times when you got to sh.o.r.e, and lots of thrills along the way, but you always knew that if you went under for the count, the last thing you'd think as the waves smashed you down to the eternal depths would be, I was a fool, a fool, how could I have risked everything? It wasn't just the election that had been on the line in Rommy Gandolph's case. It was being written off as someone whose career, in the end, had been built on a false foundation.

But the experience"the up and down"had been worthwhile. For once in her life, she was actually clear on something: she wanted to be Kindle County's next Prosecuting Attorney. Losing her grip on the prize had allowed her to realize how much it meant to her"both the pride and the consequence that would come with the job. But she was also certain that if the Gandolph case had cratered somehow, if her judgment was publicly scorned and the Reverend Blythes of the world road-blocked her path to the adjoining office, she would have remained intact. She didn't believe in a G.o.d who was up there giving hand signals or pushing around pieces. But if she wasn't P.A., it might have been for the best. She'd woken twice in the last several months thinking of Divinity School. In daylight, the notion had seemed laughable at first, but she'd begun to linger with it as a serious alternative. Perhaps she could do more of what mattered from a pulpit.

With a knock, Carol Keeney, a frail blonde with a persistent redness at the tip of her nose, brought in the opinion. Muriel glanced through it, largely for Carol's sake. Muriel never had had much concern about the arcane reasoning that emanated from appellate courts. The conflicts in the law that interested her were writ large"guilt or innocence, the rights of individuals against the rights of the community, the proper uses of power. The scrimshaw involved in etching decisions into words was largely decorative in her mind.

"Good job," Muriel told her. Carol had drafted the winning papers, pulling an all-nighter after Genevieve's deposition. Yet they both knew that Carol's failure to suss out what Arthur had been up to when he'd moved to depose Erno would be fatal to Carol's chances to become a trial prosecutor. In this job, Muriel handed out a lot of bad news, not just to defense lawyers and their clients, but within the office, where only a few deputies got the cases and court a.s.signments, the t.i.tles and salary increases they desired. With the spoils around here so few, bruising battles were fought among contending egos over three square feet of office s.p.a.ce. And Muriel, with Solomonic coolness, decided who won. Carol, who did not have the instincts for trial work, had lost.

"The natives are restless," said Yolanda, one of Muriel's a.s.sistants, looking in as Carol emerged from the office. Yolanda was waving several more phone messages from reporters. Muriel called Dontel Bennett, the office's media spokesman, who congratulated her.

"Tell the pressroom I'll be receiving their abject apologies at noon," Muriel responded.

He laughed and asked whom she wanted beside her on the podium. Molto and Carol on one side, she said. Harold Greer was now the Chief of Police and deserved to be there for many reasons.

"Starczek?" asked Dontel.

"Absolutely," said Muriel. "I'll call him myself."

Before getting off the phone, Dontel said, "No gloating now, girl. Just remember. Skepticism is part of the press's job description."

"You think that comes before or after selling advertising?"

She called several numbers before she found Larry at the desk he rarely occupied at North End Area Two.

"Congratulations, Detective. The Court of Appeals thinks you got the right man."

"No s.h.i.t."

She read him the better parts of the opinion. He laughed like a greedy child at the end of every line.

"It's time for Meet the Press," she told him then. "Can you pretty yourself up by noontime?"

"I'll have to see if my plastic surgeon can fit me in. So does this mean I can cancel my cable to Interpol asking for information on Faro?"

"Apparently." The investigation that had been renewed by Erno's testimony was over. For another year or so, the case would probably schlep on with Arthur or some other cause lawyer rolling out barricades to execution. But Larry's job was done, his commerce with her concluded.

When Muriel put down the phone, it struck her with a clarity that had not emerged before that she had absolutely no intention of letting him go.

The chief clerk of the Court of Appeals called at 9 a.m. to notify Arthur that they would release the decision in the Pet.i.tion of Gandolph ex. Rel. Warden of Rudyard Penitentiary in an hour. When Arthur reached Pamela with the news, she volunteered to retrieve the written opinion so that Arthur would have time to gather himself before dealing with reporters. She stopped in his office on her way out to the courthouse.

"We're going to lose," he told her.

Before she'd met Rommy Gandolph, Pamela Towns probably would have argued the point. Today, the spirit faded from her long face and she answered simply, "I know." Twenty minutes later, she reached Arthur from the Federal Building. He could hear the despondence even as she said h.e.l.lo.

"We're dead," Pamela said, on her cell phone. "Well, he's dead literally. We're just dead legally." She read Arthur the decisive portions of the opinion.

"'In connection with his effort to file a second habeas corpus pet.i.tion, Mr. Gandolph was granted a brief period to adduce evidence of actual innocence that could not have been discovered at an earlier date. Although Mr. Gandolph's court-appointed counsel"' That means us," said Pamela, as if Arthur, after thirteen years of practicing law, might not know. "'Although Mr. Gandolph's court-appointed counsel has scoured out a new and material witness to Gandolph's innocence, the testimony of Erno Erdai is uncorroborated by forensic evidence of any kind"' Funny they don't care about forensic corroboration when it comes to the case against Rommy."

"Go on," Arthur told her.

"'In addition, Mr. Erdai is a convicted felon with a perceptible motive to punish the same law-enforcement authorities who punished him, and also admits having made statements ten years ago that fully contradict his present version of events. It is also noteworthy that another witness against Mr. Gandolph has been uncovered by the state, Genevieve Carriere, who has related a highly incriminating statement by pet.i.tioner Gandolph, and pointed up important new evidence of Mr. Gandolph's motive to kill one of the victims. Unlike pet.i.tioner's new witness, Ms. Carriere's account is consistent with other evidence of record. We are aware that a respected District Court judge"'

"I'm surprised they didn't put 'respected' in quotation marks," interjected Pamela, referring to the appellate judges' distaste for Harlow. Arthur made no effort to conceal his impatience this time when he told her again to go on.

"Right," said Pamela "'...a respected District Court judge made limited credibility findings concerning Mr. Erdai, but that took place before Ms. Carriere's testimony was known, clearly lessening the significance of those findings.

"'Mr. Gandolph has waited nearly a decade to make any claim of innocence. Although that obviously casts doubt on the verity of this new contention, under the law it is more important that pet.i.tioner had the opportunity to raise this claim and bypa.s.sed it at trial, as well as in subsequent collateral attacks. A habeas corpus pet.i.tion, particularly a repet.i.tive request, is limited solely to remedying a violation of a defendant's const.i.tutional rights so grievous as to amount to a miscarriage of justice. There is no basis to believe that Mr. Gandolph will satisfy that standard. We agree with the state that the direct evidence of Mr. Gandolph's guilt, on which the trier of fact long ago relied, has gone unquestioned; indeed the quantum of evidence against pet.i.tioner has only increased through the process to date. Accordingly, we conclude that there is no basis in law to allow the filing of a second habeas corpus pet.i.tion. To whatever extent our prior order, allowing a brief discovery period, might be construed as permitting that filing, we conclude such permission would have been improvidently granted. The appointment of counsel to a.s.sist Mr. Gandolph in this process is, as a result, terminated, with the thanks of the Court. Our prior stay is hereby dissolved and no longer bars the Superior Court of Kindle County from setting a date certain for execution.'"

After he hung up, Arthur faced the river, feeling very much as if he were drowning in its dark waters. Execution. His mind ran to the consequences for Rommy, but his heart was submerged in sorrow for himself. The media would not pick up the drift, but he detected the court's message. They thought he'd ginned up Erno's story, or at least had not been appropriately skeptical. As appointed counsel, his a.s.signment was to conduct himself with a moderation they appeared to feel he'd abandoned. And he realized that was true. It was not news to Arthur Raven these days that he was a person of pa.s.sion. What Rommy had helped him discover was that those pa.s.sions had a place in the law. The light had gone forth, and now by court order, it would be shuttered again.

Larry hated journalism. There were several reporters whom he found good company, but he could never buy into their enterprise. They barely saw the flames, never felt the heat, and still tried to tell everybody else about the fire. Which was why he took such pleasure watching Muriel duke it out with them today.

The P.A.'s pressroom had been carved out of the former grand jury chamber. The rear wall had been painted in the electric blue favored as a backdrop, and a raised podium had been erected, with the county emblem emblazoned just below the mike in plastic, rather than bra.s.s, so there was no distracting gleam from the rack of high-wattage studio lights installed overhead. Beneath their intense whiteness, Muriel was calm and pleasant, but commanding. She introduced everyone on either side of her, mentioned Larry specially, then serenely praised the judgment of the U.S. Court of Appeals and hailed the laborious but accurate workings of the legal process. She said, as she had for months now, that it was time to proceed with Mr. Gandolph's execution. Several of the reporters wanted her to comment again on Erno's story and she simply referred them to the court's opinion. Gandolph, not Erno, was the issue. Squirrel had been proven guilty and the court had said unequivocally the proceedings had been fair. Three faceless judges several blocks away had now become tireless advocates on Muriel's behalf.

As soon as the lights were off, Larry loosened his tie. The Chief shook his hand, and then Larry kidded around for a second with Molto and Carol. Muriel was waiting to walk out with him and together they crossed the marble entryway of the County Building, which was teeming in the lunch hour. Surrounded by the crowd, it seemed somewhat harmless when she took his arm.

"You did a great job on this case, Larry. I'm sorry it's given us such heartburn this summer, but this is it."

He asked her what would happen next and she described the various legal hand grenades that Arthur or his successor could lob. All, she promised, would be duds.

"Is Arthur really gone from this case?" Larry asked.

"That's up to Arthur. The court is clearly giving him a way out."

"I say Arthur is the Energizer Bunny. He won't quit."

"Maybe not."

"So," he said. He faced her, with emotion swelling as they came to a standstill amid the throng comprised of lawyers and citizens with business here, as well as denizens of the building coming or going from lunch. "I guess this is so long."

She laughed pleasantly. "Hardly, Larry."

"No?"

"You're going to have to fight to get out of my life again, bub. Give me a call. We should have a drink to celebrate. Seriously." She reached up and hugged him. A master of the outward look of things, like most good courtroom lawyers, Muriel managed the gesture with a certain sterile composure. To the stream of pa.s.sersby it could not have appeared to be more than the appropriately fond farewell of respected colleagues. But there was more in the instant her body lingered against his. "I expect that call," she said as she let go. She walked off, and then waved cutely over her shoulder, the first and only moment that someone watching might have called her a flirt. He'd been getting the message for a while now, but this was the first moment he'd been dead certain he wasn't mistaken.

Dazzled, he pa.s.sed between the long Doric columns that fronted the County Building. On instinct, he reached for his shades, then saw the dim sky. The air, in fact, held the heavy scent of rain.

Once before, he'd thought this case was pretty much over, although he'd not taken much joy in it at the time. He'd just finished sitting next to Muriel for two weeks, during Squirrel's trial and sentencing in early '92. Muriel and he were kaput by then and she was getting ready to marry Talmadge. Larry had gone into the weeks of trial preparation with a boy-meets-girl movie once more showing in his head, in which just rubbing elbows with him would restore Muriel to her senses. When that hadn't happened, he'd been so far down he wasn't sure who it was the jury said was going to die.

Goofing or flirting, Muriel had pa.s.sed a remark a few weeks ago that he missed her, and if she'd stayed on the line he probably would have said something dumb like, 'I do.' But he didn't want to go through any of it again"it was like volunteering to take a forty-story fall. It was just ironic, was all. From start to finish, the two things had been synonymous: the end of Rommy and the end with Muriel.

From the sidewalk, he looked back at the solid redbrick block of the County Building and saw the words chiseled in the limestone over the columns. Veritas. Just.i.tia. Ministerium. If his parochial-school Latin was any good, that was something like truth, justice, service. He felt p.r.i.c.kling across his body. Those were still the right words, still what he was about, still what had kept him going on this case, despite the personal c.r.a.p and Rommy's revolving defenses. But somehow, standing here, he was certain of only one thing.

He still wasn't happy.