THE CAMERA NEVER LIES

by John Morgan Wilson

A past Edgar Allan Poe Award winner (for his novel Simple Justice, an entry in a series starring disgraced reporter Benjamin Justice), John Morgan Wilson is continuing to arouse critical enthusiasm for his work. MysteryScene said of his new book, Spider Season: “This exquisite novel is the finest yet in a powerful series.” New readers of the series who want to start at the beginning will be glad to know that Bold Strokes Books has just reissued the first four Benjamin Justice novels.

A Super 8 video camera pans along a sidewalk in a suburban working-class neighborhood. It turns up the front walk of a plain, one-story stucco house. The camera’s weak light points the way through the deepening dusk. The audio records the sound of sneakers softly slapping the pavement.

The footsteps stop as the shooter pauses to focus on an afternoon newspaper lying midway up the walk. He zooms in on the printed date to establish the timeline visually, the way he’s seen it done in the movies. The date is November 3, twenty-two years ago.

The camera rises to slowly pan across the front of the modest house. On either side of the door the windows are dark and the curtains drawn. The camera briefly lingers, as if the shooter is surprised to see them pulled shut so early, or at all.

The camera swings to a Ford pickup parked on a gravel drive. The camera’s POV shifts to the rear of the truck, where it settles for a moment on a green-and-gold decal, shaped like a shield, affixed in a corner of the rear window. Inside the gold border are the words: Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department. Below, a bumper sticker proclaims: My Child Made the Honor Roll at Cesar Chavez Junior High. At the other end, another bumper sticker declares: Guns Don’t Kill. People Do. The shooter fixes purposefully on these details before moving on.

The camera turns up the drive alongside the house. Light glows from a kitchen window that’s set too high for the camera’s eye. A slender hand briefly reaches into frame to push open a gate. The camera enters, pausing to survey a flagstone patio, a small swimming pool, and a towering palm tree at the rear of the yard, rising above several fruit trees.

The camera swings suddenly to the left as a dog bounds across the patio. The dog jumps up, its muzzle going fuzzy as it fills the frame, nose pressed to the lens. A moment later, the dog races back, whimpering and scratching at the back door. A section of white T-shirt comes into frame and wipes the lens clean. The camera’s eye is drawn to the light from a window off the patio. It pushes in to see a man hurry into the kitchen from a hallway—burly, balding, about forty, his mouth grimly set. His brown eyes dart about the room in seeming agitation before he turns abruptly toward the back door. The camera backs quickly away, across the patio and into the shadows of the detached garage. Its light shuts off as the rear porch light comes on. The man opens the door, grabbing the dog before it can get inside. Using a leash, he secures the dog to a post on the patio, ordering the dog to stay in a gruff voice.

The camera follows the man back to the door and into the light from the house. Two or three times, he swings the door on its hinges, studying it intently. He raps his knuckles on the unscreened window in the door’s upper half, as if testing it. Finally, he closes the door from the outside. He grabs a brick from a garden border and smashes the door’s window with a quick, sharp blow. Glass shatters to the floor inside. In the silence that follows, he pricks up his ears and glances furtively about. Satisfied that he’s raised no alarm, he replaces the brick where he found it. He opens the door and steps back into the house.

The camera emerges from the shadows and approaches the kitchen window. It observes the man turn over a chair, knock utensils and a carton of eggs off the counter, and slam his shoulder into the refrigerator with such force that a blender topples, crashing to the floor. He pauses, surveying the mess, then hurries from the kitchen, turning right.

Outside the house, the camera swings urgently in the same direction. On the soundtrack can be heard the whining of the dog, footfalls on the patio, and breathing that grows more rapid.

The camera pulls up at another lighted window and looks into a bedroom. A woman not much younger than the man lies faceup on the disheveled bed, clad in a lacy bra and satiny slip panties of matching pink. Her peroxide blond hair is splayed about her head. An arm is twisted awkwardly beneath her. Smudged red lipstick and an ashen pallor mar her pretty features. Her blue eyes are opened wide, unblinking, and her mouth is agape. The camera loses focus. Its movements become erratic, grabbing images almost at random: Bruising encircling the woman’s throat like a collar. A long, glossy fingernail that looks freshly broken. A striped necktie, lying twisted and crumpled on the pillow beneath her head.

The camera moves to the man’s troubled eyes, where tears start to brim. Then it pulls back to see the entire room. Pieces of the woman’s clothing are strewn about the bed and floor. The man snatches them up and sets about dressing her, while the unsteady camera stays with him. His eyes rove the bed, fixing on the necktie. He grabs it, wads it up, and shoves it deep into one of his pants pockets. Then he makes the sign of the cross, lifts the woman in his muscular arms, and carries her from the room, turning left.

The camera pulls back haphazardly, slipping out of focus. The footsteps quicken and stumble as they retrace their path across the patio. Through the kitchen window, the camera frames the man awkwardly as he kneels and sets the woman’s body gently on the floor. The shooter pushes in shakily, trying to focus, as the man arranges her legs and arms into ungainly positions. Her limbs appear stiff and the effort causes the man to swoon. He rises unsteadily, looking queasy, glistening with sweat. He staggers to the sink, splashes water on his face, gulps from the tap.

The lens suddenly points downward at flagstone, then at a stoop, then at linoleum as the shooter enters the house. The camera is set aside atop a washing machine and forgotten but its microphone continues recording: sneakers crunching broken glass, the dog barking outside, a man’s startled voice as footsteps stop in the kitchen.

“Nicky!”

Then a boy’s frightened voice, high and cracking: “What’s wrong with Mom?”

* * * *

Nick Falco kept his camera on Deputy Ramirez as he climbed from the patrol car and approached the two corpses in the graffiti-scarred alley.

It was a grim scene, a boy and girl murdered execution-style. The boy was still on his knees, toppled sideways, shot once in the back of the head. The girl was sprawled faceup a few yards away, with blood on her chest. Both victims bore distinct tattoos. A gang deal, Nick figured. Two teenagers caught in the wrong neighborhood and gunned down for it. He panned from the deputy to the bodies and then back again. Always show the action from the cop’s POV—that was the mantra of Police in Action, one of the key reasons it was still on the air after twenty years.

Nick knew all the rules, all the tricks. After twelve years on the job, he thought, I’d better know what I’m doing. Because this isn’t just a job, documenting the horror of violent crime, cops chasing down bad guys.

It’s a mission, what I live for. It gets me through the day, keeps me sane.

He pushed in on Deputy Ramirez as he called in the double homicide to dispatch. It was July, a warm L.A. morning. Ramirez, who was on the stocky side, wiped his brow with his shirtsleeve. Behind Nick, the sound man did his dance, staying out of Nick’s way but keeping the boom overhead, without creating a shadow. Nick kept his camera moving, missing nothing. An average Police in Action segment lasted only six or seven minutes but it was pure cinéma vérité—no script, no narrator—so Nick had to give the editors plenty to work with. He grabbed as many extra shots as he could: patrol officers stringing yellow tape to cordon off the alley, uneasy residents peering over back fences, flies buzzing about the corpses before settling to crawl around the eyes and mouths. He knew the network might not approve a cutaway to the flies—too realistic for the eight p.m. time slot—but he got the shot anyway, for insurance.

It’s not for nothing that I’m known as one of the best shooters in the business. If that’s cocky, tough luck.

He heard a car roll up behind him and glanced back from the corner of his eye without losing the shot. A sheriff’s detective climbed from a spotless Crown Victoria. Sometimes they were in pairs, but this one was alone. She was a trim woman in her fifties, wearing a navy blue pants suit and flat shoes. Her graying hair was short-cropped, her bearing ramrod straight. Nick recognized her instantly: Katherine Forrest, rank of sergeant, twenty-eight years with the sheriff’s department, known for her no-nonsense manner and independent style. Nick knew she wasn’t keen on having a camera crew around, but she wouldn’t break his balls about it, either. As long as he and his sound man stayed out of her way and didn’t disturb evidence she tolerated them.

He swung his lens from Ramirez to Forrest as she approached. The deputy greeted her perfunctorily and filled her in on what he knew. As she moved on toward the bodies, she ignored Nick and his sound man as if they weren’t there.

Perfect. Keeps it real. Just the way we like it.

She slipped on latex gloves as she went, her keen eyes scanning the alley for more obvious evidence, like spent shell casings. If she noticed something, Nick had to spot it too, zooming in to maintain her POV. Sometimes he spotted it first, he was that good. He stayed close behind her, but not too close, careful not to interfere. That was another Police in Action rule, and it was inviolable.

She approached the dead girl first. Nick adjusted his lens, kept the detective in sharp relief, so smoothly viewers would barely notice he was shooting with a shoulder-mounted camera. When she knelt to examine the body without touching it, he pushed in for a tight shot of the victim’s face.

His hand suddenly faltered. The shot grew shaky. He lost his focus.

He blinked several times, feeling queasy. That had never happened before, not in all the years he’d been a shooter, and certainly not at such a key visual moment. But when he’d zoomed in just now, it wasn’t the face of a young woman he’d seen.

For a moment, he’d flashed on the face of his dead mother.

He felt a hand on his shoulder and responded slowly, like a man coming out of a trance. Sergeant Forrest stood beside him. He was trembling and perspiring heavily.

“You okay, Nick?”

She knew him by his first name because Dominic Falco, a retired LAPD deputy, was his father, and George Claxton, a retired detective, was his boss, the executive producer of the show. And because Rosemary Falco, his mother, had been murdered by an intruder who’d later committed suicide in county jail. The official version, anyway, that had stood unchallenged for twenty-two years.

“You don’t look so good,” she said.

Nick shrugged, embarrassed. “It must be the heat.”

The shot was ruined. He was furious with himself. Yet the reason he’d lost his concentration troubled him even more.

My mother’s face. Jesus.

The sound man returned to the patrol car to get Nick a bottle of water, leaving them alone.

“You’d better get out of the sun.” Sergeant Forrest smiled a little. “I don’t want you keeling over on one of these bodies and compromising my evidence.”

Nick smiled weakly, averting his eyes. He’d always prided himself on his toughness, on his ability to keep shooting no matter how disturbing the images. He’d shot plenty of crime scenes where the carnage was worse than this and never missed a beat. He knew she wouldn’t blame him, but he’d disrupted her work just the same.

She studied him closely. “You sure that’s all that’s bothering you? Just the heat?”

“I’ll be fine,” Nick said.

He could hear the lie in his voice, and it scared him.

* * * *

“I have a right to talk to him, Joyce. He’s my son too.”

“I’ve tried, Nick. He won’t come to the phone.”

“Look,” Nick said, talking as he paced in his small apartment. “I know I screwed up. I should have been there to shoot the game. I’m sorry, okay?”

“It wasn’t just any game, Nick. Tony’s team was playing in the finals. You promised him you’d knock off early and be there. Of course, you’ve made promises before, haven’t you?”

“I was on a ride-along,” Nick said. “We caught a hot pursuit just after lunch that turned into a standoff. I couldn’t just abandon a great story like that.”

“You always have an excuse, Nick. And it always involves your camera.”

“It’s how I make my living, Joyce.”

“It’s how you hide, Nick. It’s how you keep a safe distance, putting that camera between you and the rest of the world.”

He could hear the edge in her voice, the lingering resentment. He couldn’t blame her, he thought, not after the way he’d behaved the last few years of their marriage—the drugs, alcohol, other women. In the end, he’d wrecked his marriage, alienated his son, almost destroyed his career. But George Claxton had stuck by him, gotten him some help, kept him on the payroll. Now, everything was okay again. He was working hard, staying clean, making his child-support payments. Everything was under control.

Until today. Until that moment in the alley when I saw my mother’s face on a dead girl.

“Tony’s birthday is coming up,” he said, turning the conversation away from himself. “I’d like to be there.”

“We’re having the party at Dom’s house, Nick. It was Tony’s idea. You know how he worships his grandfather.”

“He’s a drunk, Joyce. He’s—he’s not the saint you and Tony think he is.”

“Maybe you could drop by the house with your present before we leave for the party.” Her tone had softened, reminding him of why he’d once loved her, and maybe still did. “I could talk to Tony, try to convince him to see you.”

“What do I get with him? Five minutes?”

“Better than nothing,” she said. “More than you gave him at the soccer game.”

“Touché.”

“You know your father’s sick, right? The liver again.”

“George Claxton told me. He’s always on me to patch things up with the old man.”

“Maybe he’s right, Nick. Maybe it’s time you and Dom made up.”

Nick said nothing, just felt the old feelings well up, threatening to overwhelm him. If they only knew, he thought. If they only knew the truth.

“He’s your father, Nick,” Joyce went on. “I don’t know what it is between you two, but—”

“No, you don’t,” Nick said, and abruptly hung up.

He wanted a drink in the worst way, but got out a collection of CDs instead, the discs he’d used to copy the Super 8 movies he’d shot as a boy. He was only interested in one—the video he’d shot at thirteen when he’d surprised his father by coming home early from basketball practice. He still remembered the moment four years ago when he’d discovered it in a box with all the other home movies he’d made, viewing it for the first time, eighteen years after he’d shoved it in the back of his closet under a pile of old sneakers.

Buried deep, like so much other stuff all these years.

He slipped the disc into the CD drawer of his computer, recalling how that first viewing had sent him into a tailspin. Now he watched it to steel himself, to help him prepare for what he had to do. It was grainy and washed out with age and copying, but the images were adequate. Over and over he studied it, late into the night. Watching his father, Deputy Dominick Falco, the grandfather Tony now idolized, carry his wife’s body from their bedroom to the kitchen, to cover up the way she’d really died.

* * * *

George Claxton sat behind his big desk in the offices of Claxton Productions, sipping bottled water as he studied a rough cut of the Police in Action episode that would open the new season, the show’s twenty-first.

He shifted uneasily in his chair, trying to keep his mind on the video. It wasn’t easy, not with his best friend, Dom Falco, slowly drinking himself to death, and Dom’s son, Nick, always on the edge.

Damn, he thought, I should feel on top of the world, counting all my money and other blessings. His mind drifted back to his early days as a consultant on one of the police dramas, when he’d realized that what cops face on the street every day was every bit as compelling as fiction, if it could be produced right. So he’d taken early retirement and gone into production himself. Twenty years Police in Action had been on the air in prime time, spawning countless weaker imitations and making him one of the rare African-American producers to make it big in network TV. He’d built a small business empire with it, put three kids through college, watched out for Dom and Nick the best he could. What do I have to do, he asked himself, to earn some peace of mind?

He started as someone knocked on the door. Nick Falco opened it a crack and stuck his head in.

“You wanted to see me?”

Claxton nodded. “Shut the door.”

Nick closed it behind him and took a seat on the other side of Claxton’s big desk. At thirty-five, he was still a good-looking kid, Claxton thought, with a nice face he’d inherited from his mother. But not today. Today, he was unshaven and haggard-looking, with dark circles under his eyes. Still, Claxton thought, just seeing him stirred up memories of Rosemary Falco.

“You look like crap,” Claxton said.

“I’m a little tired, that’s all.”

“Late night?”

“You could say that.”

“I heard you had some problems yesterday, on the ride-along.”

“Heat got to me. It won’t happen again.”

“You sure that’s all it was?”

“I’m not using again, if that’s what you’re thinking. I’m not drinking.”

Claxton nodded and let it go. “You call your old man yet?”

“No.”

“Don’t you think it’s time you two talked? It’s been what, four years?”

“What’s on your mind, George?”

“He’s sick, Nick. He’s in bad shape.”

“Not so bad he can’t throw a birthday party for Tony next week.”

“It might be his last one. Did you ever think about that?”

“I guess that happens when your liver’s shot and you keep on boozing.”

Claxton wanted to say more but held back. Then he said, “I want you to take a week off, pull yourself together.”

“We’re scheduled to shoot in Fort Worth in two days.”

“I’m sending another crew. I want you here in L.A., resting up.”

“Where you can keep an eye on me?”

“It’s not a request, Nick.”

Nick glowered. “Is that all?”

Claxton nodded curtly. Nick got up and headed for the door.

“Nick! Maybe with the time off, you can find five minutes to pay your old man a visit.”

Nick said nothing, just stood there, looking sullen.

“I’m telling you,” Claxton said, “when he’s gone, when it’s too late to say the things you need to say, you’ll regret it.”

“I’ll take that into consideration,” Nick said, and closed the door on his way out.

* * * *

That afternoon, Nick went to see Sergeant Forrest.

They met by appointment in her office at sheriff’s headquarters in East L.A., where she kept plaques and certificates of commendation on the wall behind her and a framed photograph of her longtime female companion on her desk. With her clean record and plenty of years in for retirement, and a reputation for standing up to the brass, Nick figured she was the right one to come to with his story. Still, he dreaded digging up the past like this, worried sick about how Tony would take it, learning what his grandfather was really like.

Sergeant Forrest listened to him calmly and attentively, but Nick could see in her stiffening posture the conflict she had to be feeling, since he was accusing a former deputy of murder. He’d brought along old newspaper articles he’d photocopied at the public library, implicating his mother’s boss, Marshall Blake, in her death. The articles reported the basic facts, at least what the press and public had been fed: Blake had been arrested for Rosemary Falco’s murder while preparing to flee the country. The case had never gone to trial because Blake had committed suicide in county jail shortly after his arrest, following a verbal confession to the lead detective.

When Nick finished telling Sergeant Forrest his version of the story, she folded her hands tightly in front of her, looking sceptical.

“And you think your father actually committed the crime?”

“I don’t think, I know,” Nick said tersely.

He handed her a CD he’d burned that morning. She glanced at it curiously and slipped it into her computer. He studied her eyes, which became more troubled as she watched it.

Afterward, she said, “It’s obviously important evidence. It must have been a terrible thing to witness, for someone so young.”

He wasn’t interested in her pity, just her assistance. He mentioned his parents’ marriage, which had slowly deteriorated because of his father’s drinking and volatile temper. He identified the crumpled necktie on the bed as one he’d given Dom on Father’s Day.

“It’s pretty obvious this guy Blake was framed,” Nick said. “That he was chosen to take the fall for Mom’s murder.”

“We don’t know that,” Sergeant Forrest said carefully. “That’s what investigations are for, to get at the truth.”

Nick clenched his teeth. “The camera never lies.”

He let the words hang there between them, his eyes unblinking. She didn’t look away but she didn’t seem too comfortable, either.

Finally, she asked, “Why are you showing me this video now, after waiting so long?”

“Because my son Tony is about to turn thirteen, the same age I was when—” Nick broke off, swallowing with difficulty. “I don’t want him to grow up with a bunch of secrets between us. I lost my mother. I don’t want to lose him too.”

“It could get very ugly, Nick. You need to understand that.”

“I understand that my mother deserves justice.”

“And what about you? How are you holding up, keeping all this to yourself all these years?”

He dropped his eyes. “I’ve had a few problems.”

“You’re hoping for some resolution.”

“You could say that.”

“I’ll look into it. But I’d prefer to go about it quietly, without a formal complaint. It might make my initial inquiries easier.”

He raised his conflicted eyes. “I picked you because I trust you.”

“I appreciate that,” she said.

* * * *

Her first step after talking with Nick was to fill out a standard request form for the Rosemary Falco report, which she delivered personally to the Homicide Library, keeping her supervisor out of the loop. She knew it was risky but felt it was necessary at this stage. To her surprise, the clerk reported that the file was missing. Probably misfiled, he said, and promised to begin a search. But two days later, he e-mailed her that the file was nowhere to be found, and there was no record of it being checked out. This caused her some concern.

She considered going to her commander, then thought better of it. Not yet. Not until she had enough evidence so that no one above her could quash an investigation. Then she remembered that two decades back, before the department was fully computerized, a hard copy of every homicide incident report was sent to the Records Bureau. If someone had deliberately hidden or destroyed the original report, it was possible they’d forgotten about a copy being kept in Records.

This time, at the Reports Retrieval Unit, she struck pay dirt. She surreptitiously made a photocopy of the report, which she read during a solitary lunch in Chinatown, miles from headquarters.

The report placed Rosemary Falco in her kitchen when she died, fully dressed, the victim of an intruder. That version had been corroborated by crime-scene photos and a coroner’s investigation. With Marshall Blake’s alleged confession and jailhouse suicide, the homicide case had fallen into inactive status, effectively if not officially closed. Sergeant Forrest knew that Dominic Falco, only a deputy, couldn’t have carried out such an elaborate coverup on his own, that he must have had help within the department.

She felt sick about what she’d uncovered, about the wider implications. But as she reached the bottom of the final page, she was in for one more shock.

The report had been signed by the lead investigator on the case: George Claxton.

* * * *

She drove directly from Chinatown to the storage section of the crime lab. She was relieved to learn that the key physical evidence in the case had been properly preserved and ordered samples taken from the victim’s clothing and fingernails. That done, she tracked down Marshall Blake’s widow, who still lived in the same house, and asked a few discreetly worded questions. She discovered that Mrs. Blake had tossed her husband’s personal items into a box and stashed them in the garage, intending to sort through them before disposal. In her pain and confusion, Mrs. Blake had procrastinated, and the box had remained there ever since, untouched. Among the items was a brush and comb set that Sergeant Forrest bagged and submitted for DNA analysis—unavailable twenty-two years ago. At the crime lab, she cashed in a favor to get the DNA processed quickly and on the QT.

With that underway, she drove east two hours to Palm Desert to visit Bud Billingsley, a retired deputy she’d met when they were rookies at the training academy. Billingsley, whose problem with black people had surfaced when he’d worked patrol, had been assigned desk duty at county jail around the time Rosemary Falco had been killed. She figured Billingsley might know something and be willing to give it up, for reasons having to do with his ingrained racism.

A longtime divorcé, he lived alone in a middle-class neighborhood down the highway from Palm Springs. Heat shimmered off the asphalt as she turned into his cul-de-sac and pulled up in front of his two-bedroom house. She found him lounging by a small pool with two little dogs, a pot-bellied man with leathery skin, drinking beer before noon. When she explained what she was after, he was quiet a moment, then told her that everything he was about to say was strictly background, off the record.

“I don’t need no trouble,” he said. “I’m too damn old. You okay with that?”

She told him she was. He started talking.

After being processed into the old Hall of Justice jail, Billingsley said, the suspect, Marshall Blake, was left alone in his cell with bed sheets on the bunk, despite signs of serious despondency that might have called for a suicide watch. A short time later, he was found dead, hanging by his neck from a knotted sheet.

“Was George Claxton around that night?” Sergeant Forrest asked.

“Claxton,” Billingsley asked, contemptuously, “the colored guy that got rich producing Police in Action? Yeah, he was around—and he made sure things went down the way they did.”

The other deputies were more than happy to cooperate, Billingsley added, eliminating a suspect who’d killed a deputy’s wife.

“What if Blake was innocent, Bud? What if someone else did it?”

“Then why would he do the hangman’s dance like he did?”

“Maybe he was grief-stricken because a woman he cared about was dead, while he got blamed for her murder.”

“I guess you could see it that way,” Billingsley said. “Anyway, I’ve told you what I know. Off the record, remember.” He raised his beer bottle. “You want a cold one?”

She declined, thanked him for the information, and showed herself out.

* * * *

After four days, Nick Falco was back at Claxton Productions, unable to stay away from work.

He dropped by the digital editing bays to watch segments being cut, viewed assembled episodes to see how many of his stories had made it into the show, ran a maintenance check on his camera pack—anything to stay close to the action and keep his mind off the investigation Katherine Forrest was conducting behind the scenes.

“Nick, we need to talk.”

George Claxton had found him in the supervising producer’s office, checking the network air dates for the show. He followed Claxton down the hall to his office door.

“I’ve just come from the hospital,” Claxton said. “Dom’s critical, lapsing in and out of consciousness. I called Joyce. She’s picking Tony up at school.”

“I appreciate that. Anything else?”

Claxton clenched his jaw. “He doesn’t have long, Nick. This is it.”

Nick said nothing, just looked away. Claxton took him by the shoulders, forced him to make eye contact.

“Whatever it is between you and Dom, you’ve got to get past it. If you don’t talk to him now, make things right, you won’t have another chance. Please, Nick, don’t leave it like this.”

They both turned as a figure approached from down the hall. It was Sergeant Forrest, walking briskly, clutching a file folder. Claxton recognized her, but she opened her jacket to show her gold badge anyway.

“I need a moment of your time, Mr. Claxton.” Her eyes flicked toward Nick. “In private.”

“Sounds serious,” Claxton said.

She leveled her eyes on his. “It is.”

She turned to Nick, asked him to wait for her in the lobby.

When he was gone she said to Claxton, “I’ve been looking into the Rosemary Falco case. I believe it was prematurely deemed inactive.”

He flinched, swallowed hard. “I see.”

“I ordered DNA tests. The results have come back. I have some questions that need answering.”

He nodded wordlessly and stepped aside. She passed into his office and he locked the door behind them.

* * * *

Not quite half an hour later, Nick stood as Sergeant Forrest approached him in the lobby, moving quickly.

“We’re going to the hospital,” she said. “I’ll fill you in on the way.”

Before he could protest, she took him firmly by the arm and led him out to her car. As she drove off, Nick saw Claxton standing at his office window, watching them.

She raced out of the parking lot into the thick of traffic.

“There’s no question that your father covered up the truth about your mother’s death,” she said, “and that he had help doing it.”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” Nick said.

She shot through a yellow light, accelerating.

“George Claxton was the main fixer, Nick.”

He stared at her, looking stunned. “George was in on it?”

“He was the lead detective on the case. His name never surfaced in the press reports. That was part of the plan.”

Nick faced forward again, staring out the windshield as she blasted her horn and ran a red light.

“The two of them, best friends,” he said. “I should have seen it years ago.”

She hit an open stretch of road and pushed the speedometer to sixty.

“It’s not what you think, Nick.”

He glanced over, pinned her with his eyes. “Not what I think? I have the video, remember?”

“Your mother was having an affair with her boss, Marshall Blake. She died accidentally, during a risky sex act—autoerotic asphyxiation, partial strangling with a necktie for heightened sexual arousal. Only it went too far.”

“What?”

“I warned you it wouldn’t be pretty, Nick.”

He faced forward again, staring out the windshield. “Go on.”

“Blake panicked and fled. Dom came home and discovered her body. He’d known about the affair but blamed himself. He’d kept quiet about it to keep his marriage together, determined to change, to win her back. He called Claxton, devastated by your mother’s death but also concerned for you. He didn’t want you to have to live with a sordid memory of your mother or face the ugliness of a sensational trial. Claxton promised Dom that he’d do anything he could to protect you.”

“Claxton told you all this?” Nick demanded. “And you believe him?”

“Just be quiet and listen.” She swung right on squealing tires at a road sign for the hospital. “Claxton picked up Blake, who was distraught. He was wracked with guilt, and knew he was ruined socially and professionally. He begged Claxton to let him commit suicide. Claxton sequestered him in a cell, where Blake hanged himself. In the meantime, your father was altering the crime scene. As the lead detective, Claxton was able to expedite the coverup from start to finish. According to the official version, your mother was strangled as she prepared dinner for her family, the innocent victim of her obsessed boss, who broke in to assault her.”

“I don’t believe it,” Nick said. “My mother would never—”

“I ordered DNA tests on the semen and tissue samples taken from your mother’s body and undergarments. They prove conclusively that Blake was with her that day, and that she clawed at him, digging into his flesh, probably in the heat of passion.”

Sergeant Forrest braked as she pulled up at the hospital entrance. She turned to face Nick.

“They did it to protect you, Nick. If your father was guilty of anything, it was of loving you too much.”

Nick sat numbly beside her, a vacant look on his face. She reached over, laid a hand on his arm.

“The camera doesn’t always capture the truth, Nick, not all of it. It only sees what it’s able to see. Kind of like people.”

He turned slowly to face her, looking hopelessly lost.

“What do I do now?”

“At some point, you might want to destroy that videotape. Right now, though, I’d get into that hospital and up to see your father.”

“What about your investigation?”

“What investigation?” She reached across and opened the door. “Go, Nick, before it’s too late.”

He unbuckled his seat belt, leaped from the car, raced into the hospital. A minute later, the elevator doors opened on the fifth floor. He dashed out and down the hall, past a doctor who’d just emerged from his father’s room. As Nick reached the door, a nurse was coming out.

“He slipped into a coma,” she said. “Just minutes ago.”

“Will he come out of it?”

She smiled sympathetically. “I’m afraid not. Are you family?”

“I’m his son, Nick.”

“He was calling for you. ‘Nicky’ was the last word he spoke.”

* * * *

Nick watched the nurse pad quietly down the corridor in her white shoes. Then he entered the room, which smelled of illness and medicine. Dom lay on his back, his body trapped in a tangle of tubes. The bed sheet and blanket had been pulled up and folded neatly under his chin. His eyes were closed, his breathing shallow and erratic. On the nightstand was a framed photograph of the three of them twenty-five years ago—Nick at ten, in between his smiling parents.

He drew up a chair and sat beside the bed. He took his father’s hand, raised it to his lips, fought back tears.

His cell phone rang. He checked the Caller ID. It was Joyce.

“Nick? Where are you?”

“At the hospital.”

“Did you talk to Dom?”

Nick’s voice trembled. “I—I was too late.”

“He’s gone?”

“Comatose. They say it’s final.”

“We’re on our way. Tony’s with me.”

“He won’t want to see me.”

“Don’t be so sure.”

“Joyce, I—”

“You need to be there, Nick. To help him through this.”

“I won’t know what to say to him. I’m no good at this. You know that.”

“Just put your arms around him, Nick, and let him know you’re there for him. That’s all he’s ever wanted.”

She and Tony were only a few blocks away, she said, no more than a minute or two. Before Nick could respond, she ended the call.

He found a brush and carefully brushed Dom’s hair. He sat again, studying Dom’s deeply lined face, thinking about how much had needed saying that would never be said, how much they’d lost that they’d never get back. Then he rose, kissed Dom on the forehead, and stepped from the room.

Down the corridor, a bell rang softly as an elevator reached the fifth floor. Joyce stepped out first, Tony a moment later. As he turned toward his grandfather’s room, he saw Nick standing by the door. He could see that Nick was crying, and he started crying too. Then he was running, into his father’s arms.

Copyright © 2010 John Morgan Wilson