Pete dropped his eyes to the cuttings and licked his dry lips. This had to work. This was the end of the line—after this, he was out of ideas to help her.
“You said Kaufman confessed to murder when you were interviewing him, the day before he was arrested. Two months before he was stabbed in a prison riot, while he was waiting for a trial date. Unfortunate for Mr. Kaufman. But not for you, right? Because now it’s a real story. And what a fucking story. Two murders. A confession. Both victims are white, middle-class, wealthy. This is big. Must’ve opened a lot of doors for you.”
He talked faster, hoping Horowitz couldn’t hear the tremor in his voice.
“You testified, in court, that you gave the interview tapes to Devlin. Only they disappeared somewhere between the evidence locker and the courtroom.”
Horowitz looked away.
“Devlin said in court that the tapes were lost. A missing link in the chain of evidence meant a black mark on his record. Maybe even a pass when it came to reviewing promotions that year. But I don’t think there ever were any tapes. Just the transcripts. Transcripts that you wrote. And if that had come out, it would have been the end of your career. The end of you.”
Pete badly wanted a cigarette. Didn’t dare light one in case Horowitz saw his unsteady hands.
“Devlin took the fall for you. That’s what he’s got on you. That’s what you owe him for. It has to be—you’ve never worked together since. Was that your choice? Or his?”
Now Horowitz raised his head. “This is all your imagination, kid. You got no evidence. Nada.”
Pete forced himself to look the other man dead in the eye. He had to get this out fast.
“The day before Kaufman was arrested, the day you claimed you interviewed him, was September twenty-seventh, nineteen fifty-seven. The date . . .” He pushed on. “The date is my evidence.”
He took a final piece of paper from his pocket and unfolded it. It was an obituary column, dated September twenty-eighth, nineteen fifty-seven.
“I found this in the library files as well.”
Horowitz stared at it, then turned his head away. “I don’t need to see that. I wrote the damn thing.”
He took out his cigarettes. It took him four matches to light one.
“You know, that obituary was the hardest thing I ever wrote. I wrote it sitting by Claire’s bed the night she passed.”
Pete cleared his throat. “That was the twenty-seventh.”
“Yeah. The nurses kept coming in. I kept asking them not to take her away. Not yet.”
“Horowitz . . . I’m . . . I’m sorry.”
Horowitz looked at him and said, “You know something? I really think you are.”
Then he sighed. “This came out, it would finish me. Devlin too, maybe, after all this time.”
Pete thought back to the night in McGuire’s when he’d wondered how Horowitz had come to accept himself as the kind of man who lied.
And now he saw that after all, this kind of moral choice was just a question of figuring out what was most important, and keeping that front and center in your mind. It wasn’t any kind of choice at all.
So he swallowed his pity and just nodded. And then he told him again what he needed.
Horowitz scrubbed a hand over his face.
“Okay. Jesus Christ. Okay, I’ll help you. And then we’re done. We’re done and you don’t ask me for nothing, ever again. And you don’t mention this to no one. This conversation never happened.”
He turned away, kicked viciously at the rough floor of the construction site, raised a cloud of white dust.
Through his teeth, “Jesus Christ. This fucking job . . .”
He balled up his cup and flung it away from him. Stared at the ground for a moment, and then turned back.
“There’s a guy I know—he was an actor for a while. He needs money. He’ll do it.”
“How do you know him? Do you trust him?”
“He’s . . . he was my wife’s nephew. Bad apple.”
He shook his head, blew out his cheeks.
“This is gonna cost you. You know that.”
Pete pushed away thoughts of his mother. Focused on the check she’d sent him for his future.
“I got money.”
Horowitz looked at him a while.
“I can’t believe this. You sure you want to do this?”
“I have to do it. I have to help her.”
Horowitz shook his head slowly.
“You poor bastard.”
Then he sighed.
“How do you even know she’s innocent?”
Pete forced himself to meet Horowitz’s eyes.
“I don’t.”
Horowitz opened his mouth but Pete rushed on.
“I think she is. I hope she is. But she’s . . . I don’t want her to go to prison.”
And then he looked down so he didn’t have to see what was in the other man’s face.
“Jesus, Wonicke. I hope you know what the fuck you’re doing.”
There was a long pause, and then Horowitz said, “Take it from me, you do this, there’s no coming back from it. You won’t be the same person you are now. Lies change everything.”
He looked at Pete for a long moment.
“But I guess you’ve already changed.”