back in. The break is over and we should be in there.”
I gripped him even harder.
“What fire, Walter?”
“You’re hurting my arm.”
I relaxed my grip but didn’t let go. And I didn’t take my eyes off his.
“What fire?”
He looked away from me and put an “aw, shucks” grin on his face. I finally let go of his arm.
“Look,” he said. “From the start I needed you to believe I didn’t do it. It was the only way for me to know you would bring your best game. That you would be goddamn relentless.”
I stared at him and saw the smile become a look of pride.
“I told you I could read people, Mick. I knew you needed something to believe in. I knew if I was a little bit guilty but not guilty of the big crime, then it would give you what you needed. It would give you your fire back.”
They say the best actors in Hollywood are on the wrong side of the camera. At that moment I knew that was true. I knew that Elliot had killed his wife and her lover and was even proud of it. I found my voice and spoke.
“Where’d you get the gun?”
“Oh, I’d had it. Bought it under the table at a flea market back in the seventies. I was a big Dirty Harry fan and I wanted a forty-four mag. I kept it out at the beach house for protection. You know, a lot of drifters down on the beach.”
“What really happened in that house, Walter?”
He nodded like it was his plan all along to take this moment to tell me.
“What happened was I went out there to confront her and whoever she was fucking every Monday like clockwork. But when I got there, I realized it was Rilz. She’d passed him off in front of me as a faggot, had him to dinners and parties and premieres with us, and they probably laughed all about it later. Laughed about me, Mick.
“It got me mad. Enraged, actually. I got the gun out of the cabinet, put on rubber gloves from under the sink and I went upstairs. You should have seen the look on their faces when they saw that big gun.”
I stared at him for a long moment. I’d had clients confess to me before. But usually they were crying, wringing their hands, battling the demons their crimes had created inside. But not Walter Elliot. He was cold to the bone.
“How’d you get rid of the gun?”
“I hadn’t gone out there alone. I had somebody with me and they took the gun, the gloves and my first set of clothes, then walked down the beach, got back up to the PCH and caught a cab. Meantime, I washed up and changed, then I dialed nine-one-one.”
“Who was it that helped you?”
“You don’t need to know that.”
I nodded. Not because I agreed with him. I nodded because I already knew. I had a flash vision of Nina Albrecht easily unlocking the door to the deck when I couldn’t figure it out. It showed a familiarity with her boss’s bedroom that had struck me the moment I saw it.
I looked away from my client and down at the floor. It had been scuffed by a million people who had trod a million miles for justice.
“I never counted on the transference, Mick. When they said they wanted to do the test, I was all for it. I thought I was clean and they would see that and it would be the end of it. No gun, no residue, no case.”
He shook his head at such a close call.
“Thank God for lawyers like you.”
I jerked my eyes up to his.
“Did you kill Jerry Vincent?”
Elliot looked me in the eye and shook his head.
“No, I didn’t. But it was a lucky break because I ended up with a better lawyer.”
I didn’t know how to respond. I looked down the hall to the courtroom door. The deputy was there. He waved to me and signaled me into the courtroom. The break was over and the judge was ready to start. I nodded and held up one finger. Wait. I knew the judge wouldn’t take the bench until he was told the lawyers were in place.
“Go back in,” I said to Elliot. “I have to use the restroom.”
Elliot calmly walked toward the waiting deputy. I quickly stepped into the nearby restroom and went to one of the sinks. I splashed cold water on my face, spotting my best suit