12

“WHO DO you think killed her, Guy?” asked Beth.

“I don’t know.”

“You have to have some idea. Hailey’s dead and you’re on trial for her murder. You knew her life better than anyone. You have to have some theory.”

We were in one of the lawyer-client rooms at the Montgomery County Correctional Facility, a squat, sprawling building of orange brick, with a green ribbed roof and shiny loops of barbed wire, set out more for their aesthetic appeal than for security, a prison built for five hundred inmates but holding more than twice that amount. The room itself was slate gray, with a metal table, walls of cinder block, a solid steel door, and it had that lovely prison smell of ammonia and sweat and fear, with the faintest undertone of urine, which may have come from the surrounding halls or may have come from Guy himself, who was certainly distraught enough. In the week or so since his arrest he had grown gaunt. His hands shook slightly even as he held them on the tabletop. His eyes were like a bleary red smear. There was a welt beneath his left eye, blue-black against his gray pallor, fitting, since Hailey’s corpse held the same kind of welt, and the tic that jerked his upper lip to the right at arraignment was developing nicely.

I crossed my arms over my chest and leaned against a wall in the corner of the room and let Beth handle the questioning. This was all pro forma, something we had to do, keeping Guy fully apprised of what was happening to him as we asked him for as much information as possible. There were no surprises here. He continued to maintain his innocence as I leaned against the wall and watched the lies spill out.

“The only answer,” said Guy, “is that someone came in while I was in the Jacuzzi. I didn’t hear him because of the headphones. That had to be what happened.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. They were mad at me, not at her.”

“Who was mad at you, Guy?”

“Leila was upset when I left, and so was her father.”

“Jonah Peale?”

“Yes. Do you know him?”

“Only by reputation,” said Beth.

“A hard son of a bitch. Scary. He told me to stay away from Leila and stay away from him or he’d shove a pitching wedge down my throat and take a swing at my spleen.”

“Can you blame him?” I said.

Guy shot me a look of annoyance. “There was also an investigator who did some work for the firm, an ugly little lizard named Skink. Phil Skink. He had a rough reputation, and I never understood why the firm used him. There was a time, before I met Hailey, when he tried to buddy up with me for some reason. I blew him off. Frankly, he creeped me out. And then, after I left everything for Hailey, I started running into Skink in strange places.”

“Where?”

“Outside my new office, in a bar. Once I was pissing at a urinal in a restaurant bathroom. The son of a bitch came out of nowhere, sidled up next to me, and gave me that gap-toothed smile of his.”

“Phil Skink?”

“Yeah.”

“Did he threaten you?”

“Not directly, he was too sly for that. But he did mention some files I had taken with me when I left Dawson, Cricket. I told him to stay the hell away from me, and he laughed. Once, when I was walking up to Hailey on the street, from afar I saw her talking to some man. As I got closer, I realized it was Skink. It sent a shiver through me. When he spotted me, he simply walked away. Hailey would never tell me what he said.”

“You think he threatened her?”

“That’s what I assumed. Maybe he was the one making the calls and then hanging up. Maybe he was the one who killed her.”

“Phil Skink?” I said.

“Yeah, maybe it was him.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Maybe.” Or maybe O.J. was in town, I thought.

“Did you lock the front door of the house before you went upstairs?” said Beth.

“I usually did, bolted the door and locked the windows. We’re still pretty close to the city where we live. Lived.”

“And that night?”

“I think so.”

“The windows were locked when the police came, but the door was open. Did you unlock the door when you went outside?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Was it locked or was it open? After you climbed out of the Jacuzzi, you saw her on the mattress, you picked up the gun, you searched the house. Then you called Victor and went outside to wait for him. Is that all correct?”

“Yes. Yes.”

“When you went outside, did you have to unlock the door?”

“I don’t know.”

“Think about it, Guy.”

“I don’t remember unlocking it. I just opened it. It must have been unlocked. It must have been unlocked.” He opened his eyes wide, as if he had just discovered a wonderful, liberating secret. “The killer somehow unlocked it and left it unlocked. That’s it. That’s the proof.”

I stared at him from my corner, Beth stared from across the table. We didn’t say a word, didn’t a move a muscle.

“Why don’t you tell them? That’s the answer. The door was unlocked. That proves everything I said is true.”

“And the evidence for that is?” said Beth, softly.

His gaze shifted crazily around the room, and then, as if her question had been a pin inserted into his abdomen, his body deflated.

I pushed myself off the wall and walked to the desk until I stood over him, my arms still crossed. “Tell me again about your relationship with Hailey,” I said.

He looked up at me. “We were in love.”

“Still?”

“What do you mean, still? Yes, of course.”

“Did you have sex the night she died?”

“No.”

“The night before?”

“I don’t know, I don’t remember.”

“The night before that?”

“I don’t know specifically. We had an active sex life.”

“Is that why the Viagra?”

“Yes.” Pause. “But I didn’t need it.”

“Has any company ever made more money selling a drug that nobody claims to need?”

“Its just that… that… Hailey liked to keep going. The pill helped. She made me get it.”

“She made you? When was the last time you used the Viagra?”

“I don’t remember. Is it important? Why is this important?”

“Were you and Hailey fighting? Did you have any fights?”

“Some, sure. Everyone does. We did, too. About the usual things. She was fiery when we were fighting and then again when we made up.”

“Did you ever hit her?”

“No.”

“Did you hit her the night of her death?”

“No. Stop it. What are you saying?”

“There was a bruise on her cheek.”

“Maybe the killer-”

“Did you fight the night of her death? Did you hit her the night of her death?”

“No. Hit her? No. Never. Why would I do something like that?”

“Out of raw anger.”

“No.”

“Because she was sleeping with someone else. Because she was fucking someone else, Guy, and she wasn’t fucking you.”

He stared up at me, horrified and pained. “You’re wrong.”

“Am I?” I said.

Beth’s calm voice broke through the fierce flow of testosterone coursing through the room. “The coroner found semen traces in her vagina,” she said. “Such traces don’t last more than a day and half, two days maximum. The coroner swabbed out a sample and took a preliminary test. It doesn’t match your blood type, Guy. They’ll perform other tests, but that will only prove it more convincingly. Hailey Prouix was cheating on you.”

Guy didn’t say anything for a long time, nothing, and then he lied. “I didn’t know,” he said.

I stood over him for a moment longer before, ignoring Beth’s questing gaze, I turned and strolled back to the corner.

Guy’s head shook as if it were struggling to take in a new bolt of information. It was a treat, actually, to watch him work. He was dramatically sliding through the appropriate emotions like a ski racer sliding through the gates, first one, then the other. He was giving us an approximation of the emotional reaction of a man learning for the first time that his dead fiancée had been cheating on him, and a rather awkward one at that, except for the verisimilitude of the setting and situation. And then he glanced up at Beth, he glanced up as if to make sure that his emotional slalom run had been duly noted and admired, before saying: