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“What Greg and I told you before was all true,” she began. “Donna Kravat’s club got all mobbed up. Jordan was a big part of it. Bo got caught up in it and couldn’t find a way out. It got bad between them. One night, Jord said he had a plan for how to get them both out from under. He said that he still loved Bo and if they could just make this one last move, they’d be free from the mob and could be happy again. I didn’t know any of this at the time. If Bo had come to me, I would have told him not to go that night. And I think even Bo didn’t believe it. By now, he had already decided he was going to work with the cops. We told you this. Bo was going to turn informant. That was his way out.”
Grace looked now at Myron. Myron nodded, keeping his face even. He wanted her to keep talking.
“Some of this is speculation on Bo’s part. So bear with me. As soon as Bo got back to the house that night, he felt like something was wrong. Jord poured them both bourbons. That was the Kravat drink—Jord and Donna are from Louisville and love bourbon. They were big Maker’s Mark drinkers. But Bo… he knew that Jord used to roofie guys at work to make them, uh, compliant. Some customers got off on that. Jord used to joke about it, call it a Gay Cosby. Sick, right?”
“Very sick,” Jeremy said. He leaned forward. It felt odd to see his son in this position, but of course his son was a highly trained military officer. Myron watched in awe and pride but there was also a pain here, pain for what he had missed, pain for what he realized he’d never get back or know.
“So when Jordan wasn’t looking,” Grace continued, “Bo switched their glasses. So if the drink was spiked…”
“I get it.”
“And sure enough, Jordan started getting sleepy. He kept muttering to himself. Bo said at one point Jordan was smiling and his head was lolling back and he kept saying ‘Bye, bye, toe’ and ‘Joey’s coming’ and laughing.”
She sat back now. Her hand fluttered up toward her face. She blinked away tears.
Jeremy’s voice was soft, confident, soothing. “What happened next, Grace?”
“He left.”
“Bo left the house?”
She nodded. “After Jordan passed out from the sedative, Bo left.”
“What time?” Jeremy asked.
“I don’t know. Around midnight maybe? Does that matter?”
“No. Go on.”
“He’d been renting an extended stay on East Harmon Avenue.”
“Okay, so that’s where he went?”
“Yes.”
“And then?”
“He watched TV. He tried to sleep. He called me at one point and said he was scared. I told him to come over and stay with us, but he said he’d be okay.”
“Where were you?”
This was all Jeremy asking the questions. Myron just kept silent and tried to make himself invisible.
“Greg and I were staying at a suite at the Bellagio. We told you before. We’d come to town hoping to help Bo get free before we headed overseas.”
“Right,” Jeremy said. “Of course. Go on.”
“At five in the morning, the police knocked on Bo’s door. They told him Jordan Kravat had been murdered.”
“In court,” Jeremy said, “Bo claimed to have seen Joe Turant leaving the house.”
“That…” She stopped, took a deep breath. “That wasn’t true. They made him say that.”
“Who is they?”
“The police, the district attorney… I don’t know. One of them, all of them. Once the DNA tests came back tying the murder to Joey Turant, the cops went nuts. They’d been trying to nail Joey for so long and now they had the goods. But the DNA wasn’t enough. All science and no emotion or something like that. They wanted to make sure it was a slam dunk. So they went back to Bo. They wanted him to testify that he’d witnessed Turant leaving the house that night. When Bo said he didn’t want to, they added threats. They’d tell Turant that he cooperated. They’d prosecute Bo on the lesser charges they had on him before all this. So really, what choice did my son have? You tell me.” She looked up at both men. “What else could he have done?”
“Nothing,” Jeremy said. “Your son had no choice.”
