“Thank God. You’re in good hands. I’m sure he’ll explain.”
“I’m sure he will. Thank you, Benton. Good-bye.”
Mark took the receiver from me and hung up. When we returned to the table he looked at me for a long time before he spoke again.
“I left my law practice after Janet was killed. I’m still not sure why, Kay, but it doesn’t matter. I worked in the field, in Detroit for a while, then went under deep cover. The bit about my working for Orndorff &. Berger was all a ruse.”
“You’re not going to tell me Sparacino’s working for the Feds, too,” I said, and I was trembling.
“Hell, no,” he replied, looking away from me.
“What’s he involved in, Mark?”
“His minor infractions included his cheating Beryl Madison, tampering with her royalty statements like he’s done with a number of his clients. And as I’ve already told you, he was manipulating her, playing her against Gary Harper and cooking up a big publicity scam–again, like he’s done a number of times before.”
“Then what you told me in New York is true.”
“Certainly not everything. I couldn’t tell you everything.”
“Did Sparacino know I was coming to New York?” It was a question that had been tormenting me for weeks.
“Yes. I set it up, ostensibly so I could get more information from you and manipulate you into talking to him. He knew you would never agree to a discussion. So I volunteered to bring you to him.”
“Jesus,” I muttered.
“I thought everything was under control. I thought he wasn’t on to me until we got to the restaurant.
That’s when I realized everything was going to hell,” Mark went on.
“Why?”
“Because he had me tailed. I’ve known for a long time that the Partin brat’s one of his snitches. It’s how he pays the rent while he’s waiting for bit parts in soaps, TV commercials, and underwear ads.
Obviously, Sparacino was getting suspicious of me.”
“Why would he send Partin? Wouldn’t he realize you’d recognize him?”
“Sparacino isn’t aware that I know about Partin,” he said. “Point is, when I saw Partin in the restaurant, I knew Sparacino had sent him to make sure I was really meeting with you, to see what I was up to, just like he sent the so-called Jeb Price to ransack your office.”
“Are you going to tell me Jeb Price is a starving actor, too?”
“No. We arrested him in New Jersey last week. He won’t be bothering anybody for a while.”
“And I suppose your knowing Diesner in Chicago was also a lie,” I said.
“He lives in legend. But I’ve never met the man.”
“And I suppose your coming to see me in Richmond was a setup, too, wasn’t it?”
I fought back tears.
Refilling our wineglasses, he replied, “I wasn’t really driving in from D.C. I’d just flown in from New York. Sparacino sent me to pick your brain, find out everything he could about Beryl’s murder.”
I sipped my wine, silent for a moment as I tried to regain my composure.
Then I asked, “Is he somehow involved in her murder, Mark?”
“At first that worried me,” he answered. “If nothing else, I wondered if Sparacino’s games with Harper had gone too far, if Harper had gone haywire and murdered Beryl. But then Harper was murdered, and as time went by, I failed to pick up on anything that would make me think Sparacino was connected with their deaths. I think he wanted me to find out everything I could about Beryl’s murder because he was paranoid.”
“Was he worried the police would have gone through her office, that maybe it would come out that her royalty statements were fraudulent?” I asked.
“Maybe. I do know he wants her manuscript. No question of its value. But beyond that, I’m not sure.”
“What about his lawsuit, his vendetta against the attorney general?”
“It’s generated a lot of publicity,” Mark replied. “And Sparacino despises Ethridge, would be delighted if he could humiliate him or even run him out of office.”
“Scott Partin has been down here,” I informed him. “He was down here not long ago asking questions about Beryl.”