So, someone was taking a trip. All the more reason to make my search, starting with the closets.

I searched through the clothes, the art and office supplies, the high shelves with their hat boxes, the low shelves with their shoes. As I was searching, the justice was running his hand over the tilting stacks of journals, as if amazed at the sheer amount of words, words, words. The hell with that, I was looking for something more substantial. I went through the drawers, the chests, I wasn’t dainty about it either, no sir. Let’s just say the lingerie was flying.

I wasn’t finding it, but it was here, it had to be here. For Derek had been told by Benny Straczynski about a suitcase, and if Benny didn’t learn about it from his brother then he must have learned about it from someone else, someone else who knew about the suitcase and Tommy’s plans, perhaps the someone who was planning to run off with him and all that money. Maybe someone who was planning to run off and changed her mind and used her brother-in-law to get back what she had planned to run away with, the notebooks, the money, not to mention the photographs. Funny how it all came back to the photographs.

From the shelves of a linen closet I pulled down towels, sheets, cartons of cosmetics. I pulled books off the shelves to see what was behind. I kicked at walls to look for hidden spaces. I stood on a chair, jumped up to grab a rafter, pulled myself up to see what might be hidden in the overhead tangle of pipes and wires and wood. I was trying too hard, I was being too clever.

I found it under the bed.

An old, green, hard-sided Samsonite. As soon as I hoisted it onto the center of the mattress I knew something was wrong. It was light, way too light.

“Is that the suitcase you were talking about?” said the justice as he held one of the journals open in his hand.

“Who pays the rent on this place?”

“My wife.”

“With what money?”

“After the incident with Tommy, she refused to take any money from me for the studio. She said she had an inheritance from her mother. She said she would provide for her own artistic endeavors. Something about Virginia Woolf.”

“That’s why it’s so light.”

“What is that suitcase? Who is it from?”

“It was the suitcase Tommy Greeley was carrying the night he disappeared.”

I didn’t think it was possible for the justice to grow any paler, but he did, he blanched, like a cauliflower in boiling water. But I’ll give him this, Justice Straczynski, he didn’t ask how it got there. The poor son of a bitch was quick enough to figure it out on his own.

I tried to open the suitcase, but it was locked. I went through smaller drawers looking for a key. Nothing. I didn’t want to have to break the lock, I wanted it to look pristine, unchanged from that fateful night. I made a quick return to the closets, I pulled down the hat boxes, checked between and beneath the pillows.

I was making such a racket with my search that we didn’t hear the front door opening, the footsteps upon the stairs, we didn’t noticed the figure standing in the open doorway. Didn’t notice her at all, until Alura Straczynski, holding her great swath of keys out in front of her, said,

“Looking for these?”

Chapter 67

THE JUSTICE, HUNCHED over one of the journals, stared at his wife with the same exotic expression I had spied when I first visited his chambers, the admixture of passion and fascination, of fear and disgust and abject love, but there was something else, something that hadn’t been there before but which came through with stunning purity: hate. With everything else now, there was hate on his face, and the strength of that emotion seemed to startle Alura Straczynski, though just for a moment, before she gained again her brilliant self-possession.

“What are you reading, dear? Anything interesting?”

“Not really,” he said, closing the journal in his hand.

“Then put it down.”

The justice trembled a bit, as if trying to gain control of his very muscles, and glanced my way before he carefully placed the journal atop one of the piles.

“Good,” she said. “Now, tell me, why have you broken into my studio.”

“I was just-”

“This is my private place, as private as my soul. You have no business meddling here. I made that clear many years ago.”

The justice gestured to the suitcase on the bed. “Mr. Carl says this is Tommy Greeley’s suitcase. Is he correct?”

“Our Mr. Carl is quite a pain in the ass, don’t you think so, Jackson? I told you we had to watch out for him.”

“How did you get Tommy’s suitcase?”

“That is none of your business.”

“What did you do, Alura?”

Her anger took control of her for a moment, anger at being forced to justify anything in her life, but then her gaze cast about the room and she took in the situation, my presence, the closets emptied, the clothes scattered about, her husband asking questions that he had never dared ask before. She stepped forward toward her husband, stepped forward until she was standing before him, only a pile of journals between them, standing before him like a penitent, and then she bowed her head so it touched his chest.

“Long ago I decided to stay with you, my love,” she said.

There was a moment when it appeared he was going to reach out his arms and embrace her, accept her, tell her all was right. It was what he had always done, what he was about to do, but then something seized him, perhaps the anger, perhaps some sickness at the heart. He stepped back, away from her, leaving her standing there, head bowed, in the middle of the room, alone.

“What did you do?” he said softly.

“Tommy was about to be indicted. He was running away. There was a boat. He had a plan. He wanted me to meet him at the dock and leave with him.”

“And you couldn’t just have told him no.”

“He was leaving. There were things he had possession of with which I couldn’t let him leave.”

“And so you brought in my brother.”

“No, Jackson, dear. You brought in your brother. But when he came to me, angry as a beast over what he considered my betrayal of his precious brother, I told him the truth.”

“The truth?”

“Yes, Jackson. You must believe. The truth. That I loved you. That I couldn’t live without you. That I was staying, that it was over between Tommy and myself. But there were some precious things of mine that Tommy still possessed. They would be in a suitcase. And I told him where Tommy and his precious suitcase would be found.”

“You let me think it was me. All this time.”

“I let you think what you wanted to think. You wanted to bear the guilt, so be it. If it was to be borne, you were better able to handle the burden.”

“You’re a witch.”

“Why such a frown, Jackson. I chose you. You should be grateful.”

“You were all I ever wanted.”

“I know, dear.”

“And you’re a witch,” he said, and then he seemed to totter. He reached out his arm, braced himself on the writing desk, clutched his gut. The whole of his marriage was coming clear to him in a way I would never understand and it was enough to send his stomach reeling.

She rushed to him, reached out for him, pulled him close. “ Jackson,” she said as she held him. “Oh, Jackson, my darling, Jackson.”

I stepped over to the charming scene and took hold of the keys she still held in her hand. She gave me a bitter glance before she released her grip. I went through them quickly and found the smallest ones. It only took me three tries to fit one neatly into the suitcase’s lock. With a quick click I opened it, unlatched the latches, pulled up the top.

A few old shirts, old socks, a yellowed undershirt thrown into the suitcase with haste, and then, within the fabric, three bundles of cash. The bills were old, the denominations varied, the bills like the shirts packed up in haste. I went through them quickly. Twenty, thirty thousand maybe. I took the bundles out of the suitcase and showed them to her.