“He’s in shock. Everybody is. Even Max, which is hard to believe. Sally’s death has blown a hole in that house.”
“Paul?”
“Even worse than I feared. He’s a rudderless boat in a storm.”
This doesn’t surprise me. “Sally was the only real counterweight to Max in that family. I don’t know if Paul can deal with Max off the chain.”
Jet closes her eyes and sighs. “Deep down, Paul knows there’s nothing left in me. Not for him. Sally’s death may finally make him face that.”
“Or he might shove it down so deep he’ll never have to.”
“That’s what he’s been doing for years.”
Jet sits at the kitchen table and stares into her wine. I’ve rarely seen her morose, but given that she’s accepted the burden of defending Max, I’m surprised she’s not in deep depression. “What have you spent the day doing?” she asks, sounding preoccupied.
My visit with Dr. Kirby rises into my mind, but I’m not ready to broach that subject yet. I ought to summarize my receipt of the flash drive and my interaction with the coroner, but I don’t feel like going into that, either. In the end I mumble a boring evasion.
Jet slowly runs the tip of her right forefinger around the rim of her wineglass, as though trying to get it to resonate. I watch her for a while, wondering whether she’s come here out of habit or has something on her mind. After a couple of trancelike minutes, she lifts her finger from the glass and says, “Sit down. I need to tell you something.”
Her ominous tone makes me swallow hard, but I sit opposite her and wait.
She says, “I’ve been thinking about what you said, about not being able to trust Max.”
“And?”
“I have a backup plan to get custody of Kevin. Two plans, actually. One you know about, one you don’t.”
“Which one do I know about?”
My iPhone begins to ring. The screen tells me it’s Nadine. I click decline and put the phone back in my pocket.
“Who was that?” Jet asks.
“Ben Tate,” I answer, inexplicably lying for the first time since we began our affair. “I’ll call him later.”
“Thanks. Do you remember when I told you that I thought both Max and Paul had committed felonies related to their businesses? Tax fraud, for one thing, but also improper disposal of the toxic waste produced by the wood treatment plant? Both arsenic and hexavalent chromium.”
“Sure, I remember. But you didn’t have proof.”
“Now I do.”
The coldness in her voice is unnerving. “How did you get it?”
“I went through Max’s office this morning, while he was in jail. With Sally dead, there was nobody to question what I was doing. The evidence against Paul I found about three weeks ago.”
“Okay. So, to sum up: you’re suggesting that the best way to get custody of your son is to put your husband and father-in-law in prison?”
Anger flares in her eyes. “Obviously that’s not the ideal solution. But it might be the least dangerous one. Would you have scruples about me doing that?”
“Not because of Max. But Paul . . . yes. Plus, I’m not sure Kevin would ever forgive you for that.”
“That’s my hesitation, too.”
“What’s this second option? The one I don’t know about?”
She bites her lip and studies me, searching for something I’m not sure she’ll find. “It’s more complicated,” she says. “But it would only affect Max.”
“Let’s hear it. You’re running out of time.”
“It has to do with the Poker Club and Azure Dragon Paper. I don’t know all the details of the deal that brought the Chinese here, but I do know money and favors changed hands over site selection. I’m not sure who got what, but I know from things Max and Paul have said that it happened. I decided to exploit that to get leverage over Max, with the goal of discrediting him with the Poker Club.”
“How?”
“About eight months ago, my father sent me some money from Jordan. I didn’t tell anybody about it, not even Paul. I ran it through my law practice. Apparently, my father’s felt guilty all his life for leaving me. He’s sick now. Anyway, knowing I had that money, I decided to create a little alternate reality.”
“For whom?”
“The Poker Club.”
“I like the sound of this, but you’re scaring me a little. What have you done, Jet?”
She looks reluctant to continue, which tells me that her plan must be pretty extreme.
“I’m over at Max and Sally’s house a lot,” she says. “Obviously. I’ve gotten into Max’s office quite a few times alone. I’ve never figured out his computer password, but I do have some of his banking information. Using that, I set up an overseas account for him in the Seychelles, which I’ve heard him mention as a haven for illegal money. Then I took the money I got from my father and bought Bitcoin with it.”
She’s losing me. “Bitcoin? What the hell?”
“You’ll understand in a minute. I held that for a couple of weeks, then deposited it in a Chinese bank under an alias. That was the hardest part, but I managed it. It helped to be a lawyer. Anyway, my last step was transferring the money from the Chinese bank to the Seychelles account in Max’s name. Do you see where I’m going with this?”
It takes me about twenty seconds to work it out. “You want Max’s partners to think he’s double-crossing them. That he’s taking money on the side that they don’t know about.”
She nods, still waiting.
“If Max’s partners believe that . . . it won’t just discredit him. They might kill him.”
“They might,” she says. “Someone like Tommy Russo might. But I don’t think it would go that far. I don’t think the others would let that happen.”
Her words sound sincere, but her eyes betray such savage intent that I feel a shudder of revulsion. “I don’t think you’re being honest with yourself.”
“Marshall, I told you I’m desperate. If I execute this plan, Max will lose the protection of his partners. He’d also lose his influence over things like cops and judges. The Poker Club wouldn’t lift a finger to help him with something like my divorce.”
“Maybe not. But the first thing they would do is confront Max with whatever evidence you leaked to them. And Max would deny it.”
“They wouldn’t believe him. The evidence is undeniable. Oh, Blake Donnelly might take up for him. But it would only take a couple of malcontents to create chaos in their ranks. Max would never be trusted again.”
I let her suggestion hang in the air, hoping she’ll recognize the dangers inherent in it. But Jet only watches me, hoping I’ll tell her to put her plan into motion.
“You’re forgetting something,” I tell her. “The Poker Club members might believe Max screwed them. But Max would know he was innocent. And it wouldn’t take him long to work out who had put him into that trap.”
Jet nods like a queen who has already accepted death as the risk of victory in war. “I’m willing to take that chance.”
A wave of apprehension rolls over me. Schemes like this end up getting people killed, or at least locked into prison cells. Instead of arguing with her, I reach out for her wineglass. As I drink the remaining contents, an even more frightening possibility hits me.
“Jet, will you swear you haven’t put this plan in motion already? You haven’t told the Poker Club about this fake Seychelles account, have you?”
She smiles strangely. “It’s not fake.”
“You know what I mean.”
She sighs in what sounds like frustration. “This isn’t an Alfred Hitchcock film. I haven’t done anything, except set up that account. What makes you think I’ve already set it in motion?”
“Sally was murdered last night. How about that? I’m worried the Poker Club might have sent somebody over there to shoot Max, and they got Sally instead.”
“Oh, that’s ridiculous.”
I’m missing something, I can feel it. “Why today, Jet? Why are you suddenly telling me about this setup that was weeks or months in the planning?”