Chapter 8: What Gary Needed to Say
He came on Saturday morning.
Katherine wasn't home — I had seen her car leave an hour earlier.
Whether Gary had arranged that or whether it was coincidence, I didn't know.
He sat at the kitchen table in the same chair he'd sat in the first night.
He looked like a man who hadn't slept in several days, which I suspected was accurate.
I didn't make tea.
I sat across from him and waited.
"The wall," he said.
"The subcontractor story is true.
Partly.
He did tell me the work was completed.
But I didn't verify it.
I should have.
I signed off without going to the site."
"Why?"
He looked at his hands.
"Because I didn't want to know."
I let that sit.
"The commissioner contribution," he continued.
"That was mine.
I thought it was how things worked in this county.
Everyone did it.
I told myself it wasn't really — " He stopped.
"I told myself a lot of things."
"Gary," I said.
"Why are you telling me this?"
He looked up.
"Because Patrice doesn't deserve what my attorney did to her.
She was just doing her job.
She was doing the right thing." He paused.
"I told my attorney yesterday that I'm not authorizing any further contact with her or anyone else.
I put it in writing."
"That's good," I said.
"But it doesn't undo the call."
"No," he said.
"It doesn't."
He reached into his jacket and placed a folded document on the table.
"I'm terminating my attorney," he said.
"This is a signed statement — my own account of the contribution, the permit, and the wall.
I wrote it last night.
I'm going to give a copy to the DA's office on Monday.
My new attorney advised me not to.
I'm doing it anyway."
I looked at the document but didn't pick it up.
"Why?" I said again.
He was quiet for a moment.
"My father built things," he said.
"Real things.
He poured foundations by hand.
He never invoiced for work he didn't do.
He would have been — " He stopped.
He pressed his lips together.
"He would have been ashamed of me."
The kitchen was very still.
"I got into this business because of him," Gary said.
"And somewhere along the way I started cutting corners and telling myself it was just how the industry worked.
And then the corners got bigger.
And then I was signing off on walls I hadn't seen and writing checks to commissioners and telling myself everyone did it." He looked at me directly.
"Not everyone does it."
I looked at him for a long moment.
"The pool will be restored," he said.
"I've already instructed the contractor.
Full restoration.
Original specifications.
I've asked them to source the same tile series your husband used if it's still available."
Something tightened in my chest.
"How did you know about the tiles?"
"Daniel told the contractor," he said quietly.
"The pale blue-green ones.
The contractor mentioned it to me."
I looked down at the table.
"Your husband sounds like he was a good man," Gary said.
"He was," I said.
"He measured the pool steps fifteen times to get the curve right."
Gary nodded slowly.
"That's the kind of man my father was."
We sat for a moment in a silence that felt different from all the silences before it.
"What happens to you now?" I said.
"I don't know exactly.
The DA will decide.
There may be fines.
There may be a license suspension.
There may be more." He picked up the folded statement.
"But I'm not going to make it worse by fighting the truth."
He stood up.
At the door, he paused.
"I'm sorry," he said.
"For the pool.
For what my attorney said about your husband.
For all of it."
I nodded.
He left.
I sat at the table alone for a while.
Then I picked up my phone and called Diane.
"He's going to file a voluntary statement with the DA on Monday," I said.
A pause.
"That changes things considerably."
"I know."
"It won't eliminate the consequences," she said.
"But it will matter."
"Good," I said.
"It should matter."
I hung up and looked out at the backyard.
Monday, the crew would come.
They would break up the concrete.
They would restore what had been filled in.
They would look for tiles the color of an ocean Tom had never seen.
And somewhere in a county office, a woman named Patrice would walk in with a recording and eleven years of clean record, and she would tell the truth because she believed it was the right thing to do.
May you like
Tom would have liked her, I thought.
He would have liked her very much.
