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John McBain was tired, frustrated, and thoroughly disgusted.
When he'd arrested Todd Manning on the charge of murdering Victor Lord Jr. (not mentioning, at that point, the additional charges he'd face), Todd had made no attempt to deny it. Then and later, the only words he'd uttered were mumbled repetitions of "I'm sorry." With his head down, refusing to meet anyone's eyes.
The horrified Blair had understood at once that he was guilty. As she said later, his whole demeanor had indicated that while he hadn't expected an arresting officer to burst into her bedroom, he'd known the arrest would come. Someday.
Blair was crushed, shattered, devastated...whatever extreme word John could think of, it fit. She was so ashamed of having believed Tomas's "confession" (when both John and Tea had seen through it), and of having taken Todd into her bed, that she was refusing even to see Tomas. When he, head over heels in love with her, wanted only to take her in his arms and console her.
Both Tomas and Tea were furious with John, because what they saw as his "stalling" had enabled Todd to have his way with Blair.
He couldn't blame them.
On top of that, Viki - while just as shocked as everyone else at what Todd had done - had felt sorry for him, and pleaded for his release on bail. Over DA Nora's objections, a judge had granted her request.
And of course, Todd had jumped bail and fled. Leaving Viki another person wracked by guilt.
The Llanview police still had Malcolm Baker in custody, charged with the unlawful imprisonment of Tomas and with having forced him at gunpoint to make that false "confession." The FBI couldn't claim jurisdiction, because the charges didn't include the Federal crime of kidnapping. (Tomas had gone voluntarily to the place where he'd been taken prisoner.) But John knew in his gut that sooner or later, the CIA would step in and spring Baker, citing "national security." They believed Irene Manning's organization had possessed evidence of their past wrongdoing...and Baker might still have it, or know where it was. They wouldn't risk its coming to light.
So now, John was left with the one task that might leave him with some sense of accomplishment. Nabbing the sole remaining escaped convict: Allison Perkins.
He knew the woman was dangerous. But even so, he wouldn't have given her apprehension this high a priority if it hadn't been the only constructive thing he could think of to do.
The jurisdictional issue was tricky. Statesville Prison was operated by the state, so the actual prison break was a state issue. Theoretically, it was none of the Llanview PD's business. But the crime Allison had committed after her escape - shooting Viki - did fall under their jurisdiction. So prison officials were allowing John a good deal of latitude in questioning the convict he was staring down.
Dr. Troy MacIver.
MacIver said, "Look, I helped save Bo Buchanan's life..."
"Yes. After you'd shot him."
"Well, there is that. But..."
"And you walked out on Nora before he regained consciousness." John shook his head. "Lindsay turned herself in for the sake of requesting that ambulance Bo had asked for, without even understanding why it was needed. You put your chance to get away ahead of anything else.
"So don't think for a minute that you'll get an early parole hearing if you don't cooperate with me."
Of course, you won't get one even if you do cooperate. But hey, it's not my fault if you make a wrong assumption!
MacIver said, "I can't help you, anyway. I don't know anything about Allison Perkins."
"Sure you do," John said evenly. "The one thing that's certain about this prison break is that the three people at the heart of it were you, Mitch Laurence, and Allison Perkins. Laurence seemed to be the ringleader. But both you and Perkins have claimed to be the real brains behind it.
"What I do know is that male and female prisoners are segregated. But you - a doctor, working in the infirmary - saw both. You were the link between Mitch and Allison. Whichever of the three of you concocted the escape plan, Mitch recruited a lot of male would-be escapees, Allison a lot of women.
"So the three of you had to be close. It's a safe bet Mitch and Allison - his 'disciple' - meant to meet up on the outside, whether or not they actually did. And whether or not you planned to join them, you'd been transmitting their messages. So you know where they intended to meet up."
"I tell you, I don't know! If they ever exchanged that kind of information through me, it must have been in some kind of code. That the other one would understand, but I wouldn't."
MacIver looked so frustrated that John had a sinking feeling. Damn it, he's telling the truth.
But then MacIver said, "There is...something else I know. It might or might not be a help to you. If I can be assured of that parole hearing..."
John said smoothly, "No one can guarantee a parole hearing without knowing the information is valuable. Whether it will actually lead us to Allison Perkins."
More carefully worded language. No promise of a parole hearing, under any circumstances.
MacIver nodded. "Okay," he said reluctantly. "I'll tell you.
"First, I have to admit I was sort of...bragging, when I told Nora I'd had enough knowledge of the power grid to bring it down. The truth is, no inmate could have figured that out. It required someone's having way more computer access than any of us did - and being a skilled hacker, to boot. So it had to be a person on the outside.
"The real mastermind. The guy who suggested the whole thing to Mitch, memorized everything we needed to know and passed it on to him."
John went rigid. My God. We should have seen that. Known there had to be someone on the outside!
This was valuable information in itself, he realized. It might lead them to some dangerous criminal, even if not to Allison.
Trying not to show how very interested he was, he asked, "But how did this guy on the outside communicate with Mitch?"
"Visited him, at least a half-dozen times. Starting in late November. He was allowed to see Mitch because he was a close relative. Mitch said the guy was his brother."
"Miles Laurence?" John was startled. The last he knew, Mitch's one surviving brother had been leading an honest, refreshingly normal life.
MacIver shook his head. "No, that wasn't the name. Something like Walter...no, Walker. I remember that the name Walker Laurence struck me as familiar, but I'm not sure where I'd heard it before...
"Anyway, Mitch said this brother of his had betrayed him in the past. But now he regretted it, realized Mitch really was the 'Messenger,' or some damn-fool thing like that. So Walker wanted to make amends by helping Mitch break out of prison.
"I think including everyone who wanted to break out was Mitch's idea -
"Hey, where are you going?"
John was already halfway out the door. "You've been a big help!" he called back to MacIver.
Except that now, I'm so confused that I wouldn't be surprised if I saw the sun setting in the east.
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Five minutes later John was sitting across the desk from the prison's Chief of Security. Richard Evans - father of Shaun.
I'm glad this guy's a friend, not just a professional contact. He knows me well enough that he won't write me off as a nutcase.
Trying to keep his voice steady, John said, "Richard...you people were letting Mitch Laurence see a visitor? A guy who said he was his brother Walker?"
"Yes." Before John could even ask what the man looked like, Evans continued, "Of course, looking at that brother gave everyone here the creeps! He was a ringer for Victor Lord Jr. The late Victor Lord Jr.
"But everyone who'd been around Llanview for a while remembered the story. How Todd-slash-Victor had plastic surgery to make himself look like this Walker Laurence, so he could get close to Mitch and try to get revenge. Or something like that. Obviously, there was a real Walker Laurence. We probably would have accepted him even if he hadn't shown ID - which he did.
"Are you thinking he helped with the escape, somehow? Guards always searched him - he didn't smuggle anything in."
"What he smuggled in was in his head." John was shaking his own head. "Information. He'd memorized it, and if Mitch didn't have writing materials, he memorized it too. Mitch's 'brother' was - in Troy MacIver's words - the actual 'mastermind' behind the escape.
"But that's not the main issue here. Richard...Walker Laurence is dead! He's been dead for more than eight years.
"Absolutely, indisputably, dead. I saw his body."
And come to think of it, I never saw Victor's...
John guessed that if Evans hadn't been a dark-skinned black man, his face would have turned several interesting colors as he thought through the implications of what he'd just heard.
At last Evans said tightly, "You claim you're sure of this. Explain."
John nodded. "Like I said, he died over eight years ago. I'm not surprised you didn't know about it. It was only in the news for a day or two, even then.
"And the real Walker Laurence actually went by his middle name, Flynn. So the reports of his death identified him as Flynn Laurence.
"He died in a so-called 'freak accident,' that I've always believed was...something else. Remember the penthouse the Manning family used to live in? Laurence stepped into the elevator at the penthouse level. And instead of descending gradually, the elevator 'malfunctioned' - fell like a rock, all the way to the bottom of the shaft. For a person in it, it was like falling off the roof. He was killed instantly, by the impact.
"I've always believed the man we now know as Victor killed him. Rigged the elevator. But there was no proof...and in any case, it may have been a kill-or-be-killed situation. The 'victim' was a crook, who got what he deserved.
"Here's the bottom line. The only way Walker Laurence could have been alive after that date was if Victor had actually died in the elevator, and Laurence had been successfully impersonating Todd Manning all these years. That would always have seemed wildly unlikely. And last summer, Victor's DNA proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was Todd's twin.
"Is Todd's twin."
The silence stretched out.
Finally, Evans said, "All right. Let's say Victor Lord Jr. is somehow, magically, alive. Why the hell would he have wanted to bust Mitch Laurence out of prison?"
"I haven't the faintest idea."
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As John drove back to Llanview, he thought about the odd things that had come to light after Victor's "death."
Well, they'd come partially to light...
Victor's personal physician, his minister, and the local funeral director had quickly informed Tea that he'd left handwritten instructions with all three of them, back in 2004, about what he wanted done in the event of his death. Specifically: he didn't want anyone other than the necessary medical and mortuary professionals to see his dead body.
He'd believed his enemies would come to a public viewing and feign respect, while they were really gloating. But beyond that...at the time of his death, he might have young children or, hopefully, grandchildren. The sight of his dead body might be traumatic for them; but if other family members were looking at it, it would be hard to refuse them. Above all, he thought of a dead body as merely an "empty shell," and he didn't want his loved ones to have that as their last memory of him.
The upshot was that there'd been a closed coffin. Not even Tea had seen Victor's body after he'd seemingly died in her arms. None of their kin were suspicious, with his wishes having been on record for years.
If it had been only that, not even John would have suspected there'd been something stranger than they already knew about Victor.
But there was something else: the outrageous will that left his entire estate to "my mother, Irene Manning." Quite aside from the issue of what Victor would have wanted to do with his money, he shouldn't have known Irene was alive at the time that will was written.
The family had assumed the will was a fake. At the time, they'd been too distraught to think deeply about it, let alone conduct an investigation. But John had thought about it - and investigated.
He'd learned that the will was authentic. Not only that: even the first will prepared by Victor, in 2004, had left everything to Irene! He'd talked about changing his will several times over the years, as his family situation changed. Every time, he visited his estate lawyer and fussed and fretted for hours over the wording. When he left, he always seemed to think he'd changed something. But he never had. Everything still went to Irene.
John had gone to Bo with the weird discovery he'd made. They'd been forced to conclude that Victor had either been in league with Irene all along, or been so brainwashed that he'd done things he wouldn't have chosen to do - and probably hadn't remembered after doing them.
Both men inclined to the latter view. They'd disliked Victor. But they were sure he loved Tea, and all four of "his" children. They couldn't envision his having lived a lie with his family all those years, knowing he wasn't the real Todd Manning.
Taken together, the wills and the death instructions had sinister implications. Irene had known that if Victor died, she'd inherit his fortune. All she'd have to do was come to Llanview, prove her identity, and claim it. And by making it fairly easy to snatch him and fake his death, she'd given herself a way to appropriate that fortune quickly, if she was ever in a hurry for it. Never mind how Victor might have felt, at being whisked away from his family!
Neither Bo nor John had suspected that in this situation, Victor might not be dead. There was no doubt he'd been shot and gravely wounded. And Tea had been with him when he had, to all appearances, died.
Soon afterward, Irene herself was dead. No longer a threat to anyone. The Manning fortune wound up in the hands of what seemed to be - under the circumstances - the right person, Todd.
So Bo and John had seen no need to share their unpleasant discovery with Tea.
But now it was clear that they should have considered the possibility of a faked death. Undoubtedly faked without Victor's knowledge and consent - if he'd been clinging to life at the time, he must have been in a coma!
Bo was now a civilian. And there wasn't even an Acting Commissioner; Mayor Finn had offered the post to three men, and they'd all declined. To all intents and purposes, John was running the department.
He was on his own. But he had no doubt where he should go next.
To the place Victor was taken, even though he was "known" to be past saving. Where the autopsy would have been performed...where some damned idiots let him be kidnapped.
The hospital.
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Soon he was locking horns with a doctor/medical examiner he barely knew, named Malone. Wish my brother was still on staff here...
For the better part of a half hour, Malone kept insisting that Victor Lord Jr. had been DOA. There'd been an autopsy, which confirmed the obvious, that it was a homicide due to a gunshot wound. Nothing irregular had taken place, nothing!
At last John said wearily, "Okay, Doctor. I know why you're keeping up this act.
"Let me tell you what I think happened. While you were preparing for that autopsy, you were confronted by a half-dozen or so tough guys who showed what appeared to be CIA credentials. They did some ominous mumbling about 'national security,' insisted on observing what you were doing.
"Then something happened that surprised all of you - though the 'CIA' guys may have been there to watch for it, just in case. Because the corpse had been moved around and jostled so much, there was now a flicker of life!
"Victor wasn't brain-dead after all, not quite. He'd resumed breathing, but the breaths were probably so shallow that they'd gone unnoticed for hours. He must have been bleeding, too - but if his heart was pumping weakly, he wouldn't have lost much additional blood. In that situation, you couldn't ethically have withheld treatment and let him die, even though you thought he'd probably wind up in a vegetative state.
"But the 'CIA' guys insisted you perform emergency surgery to remove the bullet and so forth, then cooperate in faking his death, while they spirited him away to a secure, private medical facility. For his safety and that of his loved ones, they said, since whoever had shot him was still at large. The faked death would be easy to pull off, because of certain instructions he himself had left with the necessary people.
"I'm sure no one bribed you. They wouldn't have needed to. They told you it was a matter of 'national security,' right? That you'd be serving your country?"
Malone didn't answer. But he didn't have to. He looked like a scared rabbit. And that look told John everything he needed to know.
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There was a chance, he thought, that the interlopers really had been the CIA. Running around trying to clean up messes Irene Manning had made, because they felt responsible. It didn't seem likely, considering the bizarre things Victor had been doing lately...but still, he made a call to a CIA contact to rule it out.
And did rule it out. Absolutely.
So like I feared, it was Irene's outfit. Damn!
Malcolm Baker was still in the Llanview PD's lockup. John took another stab at questioning him. But as he'd expected, the man stonewalled. "I was in Federal custody at the time, remember? And Irene was right here in your jail. There no longer was any 'organization,' at least none that I'm aware of."
There was, and there still is, you bastard.
But browbeating the maddeningly composed Baker wouldn't do him any good. Back in his office, he realized he was stymied.
Even if Irene's gang is responsible for whatever's happened to Victor, why the hell would they have wanted the prison break? I can't see any connection.
His brooding was interrupted by his cell phone. And when he looked at it, the display was the last thing he wanted to see.
Tea Calling.
Oh God, no! What am I going to say to her? Should I keep it to myself for now, let her go on believing Victor's dead?
Considering how angry she'd been over the Todd-and-Blair fiasco, he was surprised she was calling him at all.
But he had to answer. "Uh - hello?"
"John? Please - I know I've been acting like a bitch, but I need your help! Desperately! Oh God, I can't believe this..." He could tell she was crying. "Oh God...I don't know what to believe...what to do..."
"Tea! I'm here, I'll help, whatever it is!... Tea?"
He heard her sobbing.
Then another voice came on the line. Even this one was shaky. "John, it's Tomas. I'm sorry about the way I've been acting, too.
"The problem is, Tea got a letter in the mail today. Someone's claiming Victor's alive. They say they're holding him, and they're demanding a million-dollar ransom!"
John took a deep breath.
Then he said, "My God...that's a stunner." And yes, it really was the last thing he'd been expecting. "Whatever the explanation, there's one more piece of information I need right now. You said the ransom demand was made in a letter. What's the postmark?"
Tomas had the answer immediately. "Philadelphia."
"Okay, thanks. Now...are you two at Tea's place?"
"Yes."
"Hold the fort. I'll be right over!"