Episodul 114 · The Price of Pages

The lawyer pulled the chair in front of the desk closer to the door. The investigator watched him, but said nothing. He had called him in for nine; the lawyer had arrived at five to nine, his overcoat over one arm and a folder so thin it fit beneath a palm.

Copies from the detention-center visitor log lay on the desk. The investigator had put them there before the lawyer came in. On top was the line signed the day before Kerr changed his statement.

— You went to see him three times, the investigator said.

— I was his lawyer.

— In a different car every time.

The lawyer looked at the numbers entered in the register. He did not seem surprised they were there.

— They were vehicles made available to the administration.

— I can verify that.

— Then verify it.

The investigator said nothing for a few seconds. In the next room, a metal cabinet drawer opened and was shoved closed again with too much force. The lawyer shifted his overcoat from one arm to the other.

— You came before Kerr changed his statement, the investigator said. Then he said he had killed to cover up the fraud. Now we have the crane log, the invoices, and the name of the man who signed them. The fraud existed. That does not make the rest of the statement true.

— I know.

It was the first answer the lawyer had given without trying to turn it back into a question. The investigator looked at him more closely.

— What do you know?

The lawyer set the thin folder on his knees. He kept it closed.

— Kerr wrote two pages before he died.

The investigator did not reach for his pen. He let the lawyer continue.

— In his own hand. They are not the statement you received.

— Where are they?

— Somewhere I can retrieve them from by noon.

— Then you should have started with that.

— I did.

The lawyer lowered his eyes to his overcoat. His fingers smoothed the hem even though there was not a wrinkle in it. The investigator remembered the same man standing in his chief’s doorway six years ago. He had seen him only for a moment then. It had been enough to recognize, later, the way other people made room when he entered somewhere.

— What do you want? he asked.

— Immunity for what I did in Castell’s name. In writing.

The investigator leaned back. In the next room, the metal cabinet shut again.

— I do not have the authority to give you that on my own.

— You have the authority to ask.

— And if the answer is no?

— The pages stay where they are.

The lawyer had said it without raising his voice. The investigator looked at him, then at the folder on his knees.

— What is in there?

— A copy of a request I want you to read.

He did not hand it over. The investigator saw that the paper in the folder interested him less than the half-open door to the corridor.

— Kerr is dead, the investigator said. When did he write the pages?

— After the statement he gave with me present.

— How did they reach you?

The lawyer tightened his hand on the folder cover.

— That has to be in the agreement too. Everything I can tell you about them.

The investigator stood. For the first time since entering, the lawyer turned his head quickly. The investigator did not go to the door; he took a file from the shelf and set it beside the register.

— You will wait for an answer. It will not be quick.

— I have until noon.

— Why noon?

The lawyer did not answer at once.

— Because after that I can no longer promise the pages will remain with me.

The investigator walked him out into the corridor. The lawyer put on his overcoat, fastened only the middle button, and headed for the stairs. When he passed the two officers working at the table by the entrance, he slowed. He looked at them, then at the wall behind them. The investigator saw it, but did not stop him. First he needed the answer to the immunity request. And Soles.

Maxim answered the phone with one hand on the steering wheel. He was in a freight yard, waiting for a warehouse to be opened for him.

— Is he with you? the investigator asked.

— Soles? Yes.

— Come to headquarters. Kerr’s lawyer says he has two pages Kerr wrote before he died.

Soles took the phone from Maxim’s hand. The investigator heard the engine switch off.

— Did he bring them? Soles asked.

— No. He wants immunity before he turns them over.

— Do you know what they say?

— Not yet.

Soles looked through the windshield. The warehouse gate was opening slowly. A man waved for them to come forward, then lowered his arm when he saw they were not moving.

— We’re coming now, Soles said.

He handed the phone back to Maxim. Maxim listened to the rest of what the investigator had to say, hung up, and lowered the window.

— I’m not unloading today, he called to the man at the gate.

— You haven’t even gone in.

— That’s why I’m telling you now.

He raised the window and pulled the truck away from the entrance. The man remained beside the gate with his hands on his hips.

Soles rested his elbow against the door. His rib had been bothering him at every pothole since morning. Now he had forgotten it.

— Kerr wrote after the confession, he said. After he blamed it on the fraud.

— That’s what the lawyer said?

— That’s what the investigator said the lawyer said.

— There are two people between us and those pages, Maxim said. Let’s not start reading what we don’t have yet.