The Final Detail: A Myron Bolitar Novel by Harlan Coben

had hurried out to western Massachusetts, plenty of cash in hand.
    “I remember,” Myron said.
    “You’d just signed Clu to that big chocolate milk endorsement. Drunk driving was bad enough, but with an injury to boot, well, it would have destroyed him. But we took care of him. The right people were bought off. Billy Lee and I made a statement about some pickup truck cutting us off. We saved him. And now I wonder if we did the right thing. Maybe if Clu had paid a price right then and there, maybe if he’d gone to jail instead of skating by …”
    “He wouldn’t have gone to jail, Bonnie. A suspended license maybe. Some community service.”
    “Whatever. Life is about ripples, Myron. There are some philosophers who think that everything we do changes the world forever. Even simple acts. Like if you left your house five minutes later, if you took a different route to work—it changes everything for the rest of your life. I don’t necessarily buy that, but when it comes to the big things, yeah, sure, I think the ripples last. Or maybe it started before that. When he was a child. The first time he learned that because he could throw a white sphere with amazing velocity, people treated him special. Maybe we just continued the conditioning that day. Or brought it up to an adult level. Clu learned that someone would always save him. And we did. We got him off that night, and then there were the assault charges and the lewd behavior and the failed drug tests and whatever else.”
    “And you think his murder was the inevitable result?”
    “Don’t you?”
    “No,” Myron said. “I think the person who shot him three times is responsible. Period.”
    “Life is rarely that simple, Myron.”
    “But murder usually is. In the end someone shot him. That’s how he died. He didn’t die because we helped him through some self-destructive excesses. Someone murdered him. And that person—not you or me or those who cared about him—is to blame.”
    She thought about it. “Maybe you’re right.” But she didn’t look convinced.
    “Do you know why Clu would strike Esperanza?”
    She shook her head. “The police asked me that too. I don’t know. Maybe he was high.”
    “Did he get violent when he got high?”
    “No. But it sounds like he was under a lot of pressure. Maybe he was just frustrated that she wouldn’t tell him where you were.”
    Another wave of guilt. He waited for it to recede.
    “Who else would he have gone to, Bonnie?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “You said he was needy. I wasn’t around. You weren’t talking to him. So where would Clu go next?”
    She thought about it. “I’m not sure.”
    “Any friends, teammates?”
    “I don’t think so.”
    “How about Billy Lee Palms?”
    She shrugged an I-don’t-know.
    Myron tossed out a few more questions, but nothing of consequence was batted back to him. After a while Bonnie feigned a check at the time. “I have to get back to the kids,” she said.
    He nodded, rose from his chair. This time she did not stop him. He hugged her and she hugged him back, gripping him fiercely.
    “Do me one favor,” she said.
    “Name it.”
    “Clear your friend,” she said. “I understand why youneed to do that. And I wouldn’t want her to go to jail for something she didn’t do. But then let it be.”
    Myron pulled back a bit. “I don’t understand.”
    “Like I said before, you’re a noble guy.”
    He thought about the Slaughter family and how it all ended; something inside him was crushed anew. “College was a long time ago,” he said softly.
    “You haven’t changed.”
    “You’d be surprised.”
    “You still need justice and neat endings and to do the right thing.”
    He said nothing.
    “Clu can’t give you that,” Bonnie said. “He wasn’t a noble man.”
    “He didn’t deserve to be murdered.”
    She put a hand on his arm. “Save your friend, Myron. Then let Clu go.”

CHAPTER 10
    Myron took the elevator up two floors to the nerve center