He looked away.
“Lenny?”
“I don’t know what happened, Marc. I really don’t. I sneaked back down the stairs. She still had the gun. . . .” His voice tailed.
“So you shot her.”
He nodded. “I didn’t mean to kill her. At least, I don’t think I did. But suddenly you were both lying there, dead. I was going to call the police. But now I wasn’t sure how it would look. I had shot Monica at a funny angle. They could claim her back was turned.”
“You thought maybe they’d arrest you?”
“Of course. The cops hate me. I’m a successful defense attorney. What do you think would have happened?”
I didn’t reply. “You broke the window?”
“From the outside,” he said. “So it would look like an intruder.
“And you took Monica’s clothes off?”
“Yes.”
“Same reason?”
“I knew that there would be gunpowder residue on the clothes. They’d realize she fired a gun. I was trying to make it look like a random attacker. So I got rid of her clothes. I used a baby wipe to clean off her hand.”
That was another thing that had bothered me. Monica being stripped down. There had been the possibility that Stacy would have done it to throw off the police, but I couldn’t imagine her thinking of that. Lenny was the defense attorney—him I could see.
We were getting to the heart of it now. We both knew that. I crossed my arms. “Tell me about Tara.”
“She was my godchild. It was my job to protect her.”
“I don’t understand.”
Lenny spread his hands. “How many times did I beg you to write a will?”
I was confused. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Think it through for a second. During all this, when you were in trouble, you resorted to your surgical training, right?”
“I guess.”
“I’m an attorney, Marc. I did the same. You were both dead. Tara was wailing in the other room. And I, Lenny the Lawyer, realized instantly what would happen.”
“What?
“You hadn’t made out a will. You hadn’t named guardians. Don’t you see? That meant Edgar would get your daughter.”
I looked at his face. I hadn’t thought of that.
“Your mother might contest, but she wouldn’t stand a chance against his finances. She had your father to worry about. She had a drunk driving conviction six years ago. Edgar would get custody.”
I saw it now. “And you couldn’t allow that.”
“I’m Tara’s godfather. It was my job to protect her.”
“And you hated Edgar.”
He shook his head. “Was I clouded by what he did to my dad? Yeah, maybe subconsciously, a little. But Edgar Portman is evil. You know that. Look at how Monica turned out. I couldn’t let him destroy your daughter like he did his own.”
“So you took her.”
He nodded.
“You brought her to Bacard.”
“He had been a client. I knew some of what he did, though not to what extent. I also knew that he would keep it confidential. I told him I wanted the best family he had. Forget money, forget power. I wanted good people.”
“So he placed her with the Tansmores.”
“Yes. You have to understand. I thought you were dead. Everyone did. And then it looked like you might end up a vegetable. By the time you were okay, it was too late. I couldn’t tell anybody. I would go to prison for sure. Do you know what that would do to my family?”
“Gee, I can’t imagine,” I said.
“That’s not fair, Marc.”
“I don’t have to be fair here.”
“Hey, I didn’t ask for any of this.” He was shouting now. “I walked in on a terrible situation. I did what I thought best—for your daughter. But you can’t expect me to sacrifice my family.”
“Better to sacrifice mine?”
“The truth? Yes, of course. I’d give up anything to protect my children. Anything. Wouldn’t you?”
Now I was the one who stayed silent. I had said it before: I would lay down my life in a second for my daughter. And truth be told, if push came to shove, I would lay down yours too.
“Believe it or not, I tried to think through this coldly,” Lenny said. “A cost-benefit analysis. If I come forward with the truth, I destroy my wife and four children and you take your daughter from a loving home. If I keep quiet . . .” He shrugged. “Yeah, you suffered. I didn’t want to do that. It hurt me to watch you. But what would you have done?”
I didn’t want to think about it. “You’re leaving something out,” I said.
He closed his eyes and muttered something unintelligible.
“What happened to Stacy?”
“She wasn’t supposed to be hurt. It was like you said. She had sold Monica the gun and when she realized why, she rushed to stop her.”
“But she arrived too late?”
“Yes.”
“She saw you?”
He nodded. “Look, I told her everything. She wanted to help, Marc. She wanted to do the right thing. But in the end, the habit was too strong.”
“She blackmailed you?”
“She asked for money. I gave it to her. That wasn’t important. But she was there. And when I went to Bacard, I told him everything that had happened. You have to understand. I thought you were going to die. When you didn’t, I knew that you’d go nuts without closure. Your daughter was gone. I talked to Bacard about it. He came up with the idea of a fake kidnapping. We’d all make a lot of money.”
“You took money for this?”
Lenny leaned back as if I’d just slapped him. “Of course not. I put my share into a trust fund for Tara’s college. But the idea of this fake kidnapping appealed to me. They’d set it up so in the end, it would look like Tara was dead. You’d have closure. We’d also be taking money from Edgar and funneling at least some of it to Tara. It seemed like a win-win.”
“Except?”
“Except when they heard about Stacy, they decided that they couldn’t depend on a drug addict to keep quiet. The rest you know. They lured her with money. They made sure she got caught on tape. And then, without telling me, they killed her.”
I thought about that. I thought about Stacy’s last minutes in the cabin. Did she know that she was going to die? Or did she just drift off, thinking she was merely getting yet another fix?