Peter Pan Must Die Read Free Page A

And I have the perfect man all lined up, sharpening his fangs. Smart, vicious, unprincipled fucker—always hungry. She just needs to sign a couple of things to make the switch official.”
    Gurney wondered if he was hearing right. “You expect
me
to sell her that idea?”
    “No. Absolutely not. No selling required. I’d just like you to be part of the equation.”
    “What part?”
    “Hotshot homicide detective from the big city. Successful murder investigations and decorations up the kazoo. Man who turned the Good Shepherd case inside out and embarrassed the shit out of all the fuckheads.”
    “You’re saying you want me to play the role of a bright, shiny front man for you and this ‘vicious, unprincipled fucker’ of yours?”
    “He’s not really unprincipled. Just … aggressive. Knows how to use his elbows. And no, you wouldn’t just be a ‘front man’ for anyone. You’d be a player. Part of the team. Part of the reason Kay Spalter should hire us to reinvestigate the case, engineer her appeal, and get her bullshit conviction reversed.”
    Gurney shook his head. “I’m not following this at all. If there wasn’t any money for a hotshot attorney to begin with, how come there is now?”
    “To begin with, looking at the surface strength of the prosecution’s case, there wasn’t much hope that Kay would prevail. And if she couldn’t prevail, there’d be no way for her to pay a significant legal bill.”
    “But now—?”
    “But now the situation is different. You, me, and Lex Bincher are going to make sure of that. Believe me, she will prevail, and the bad guys will bite the dust. And once she prevails, she will be entitled to inherit a huge chunk of cash as Carl’s primary beneficiary.”
    “Meaning this Bincher guy is working on a contingency fee in a criminal case? Isn’t that semi-illegal, or at least unethical?”
    “Don’t sweat it. There’s no actual contingency clause in the agreement she’ll sign. I guess you could say that Lex getting paid will sort of depend on the success of the appeal, but there’s nothing in writing that makes that connection. If the appeal fails, technically Kay will just owe him a lot of money. But forget about all that. That’s Lex’s problem. Besides, the appeal will succeed!”
    Gurney sat back, stared out through the door at the asparagus patch at the far side of the old bluestone patio. The asparagus ferns had grown much taller than in either of the previous two summers. He reckoned a tall man could stand in their midst and not be seen. Normally a soft bluish green, now, under an unsettled gray sky, they appeared colorless.
    He blinked, rubbed his face roughly with both hands, and tried to refocus his mind on reducing the tacky mess being placed before him to its essentials.
    The way he saw it, he was being asked to launch Hardwick in hisnew PI business—by helping to ensure his first major client commitment. And this was to be the repayment for the regulation-skirting favors Hardwick had done for him in the past, at the cost of Hardwick’s career with the state police. That much was clear, as far as it went. But there was a lot more to consider.
    One of Hardwick’s distinctive traits had been a bold independence, the kind of let-the-chips-fall-where-they-may independence that comes from not being too attached to anything or anybody or any predetermined goal. But the man sure as hell was attached to this new project and its intended outcome, and the change didn’t strike Gurney as all that positive. He wondered what it would be like working with Hardwick in this altered state—with all his abrasiveness intact, but now in the service of a resentful obsession.
    He turned his attention from the asparagus ferns to Hardwick’s face. “So, what does that mean, Jack—‘part of the team’? What, specifically, would you want me to do, other than look smart and rattle my medals?”
    “Whatever the hell you feel like doing. Look, I’m telling you—the