Brothers and Bones (3 page)

Inside the enormous windows, there are landings spanning the building’s length. If you look over the railings, you see the floor several stories down. But why look down when you can look out, through the giant windows at the sparkling water of the Atlantic Ocean?

The Criminal Division of the U.S. Attorney’s office takes up the ninth floor of the Moakley building, with the Civil Division, Administration, and the law library up on the tenth. The Organized Crime Strike Force Unit is located at one end of the banana-shaped floor and Lippincott’s big corner office was at the other end. I could have made my way there from my unit, which is one of several in the Criminal Division, by cutting through other sections—like Economic Crimes, Anti-Terrorism and National Security, Major Crimes—but instead of wending my way through the rabbit warren of offices, within units, within sections, I chose simply to exit the office area entirely and take the more direct route along the landing, essentially walking along the inner curve of the banana. As well as being more efficient when traveling all the way from banana tip to banana tip, it gave me the added benefit of seeing the sun glinting off the water rather than the faces of my co-workers, who, unlike me, were not taking that long, depressing, anxiety-provoking walk to the principal’s office.

* * *

Andrew Lippincott was an intimidating man. Not physically, mind you. He couldn’t have been taller than five-eight and I doubted he could reach a hundred fifty pounds on a scale without a soaking-wet cocker spaniel in his arms—which would never happen because he didn’t care for animals. But intellectually, the guy was more than intimidating, really. He was just plain scary. Conversations with him were like chess matches, with Lippincott always thinking a dozen moves ahead. The half-joking rumor around town among both the AUSAs who worked for Lippincott and the lawyers who opposed him in court was that the man had more than a mere touch of clairvoyance. I wasn’t sure about that, but I knew he was fiercely brilliant. His insights were dazzling. I’m not certain that a single intuition of his during his sixty-two years of life had ever been proven wrong after the fact. And as a legal mind, his was second to none in Boston, which is not known as a city full of legal hacks.

As I said, Lippincott’s on the small side, physically, but he looked even smaller sitting behind his monstrous mahogany desk, a desk so big that, when I stood in front of it, with Lippincott on the other side, I couldn’t be certain he and I were in the same zip code. I hoped they were able to build a nice little village in the space they cleared when they knocked down the trees it took to construct that thing.

Lippincott had his elbows on his gargantuan desktop, his chin resting on his hands. Most of his almost delicate, immaculately manicured fingers were laced together, except for his index fingers, which were pressed together and pointing up like a church steeple. His thumbs were tucked under his chin, providing it support. I realized that his fingers were molded into the shape that a child would use if he were pretending to point a gun with both hands. I hoped this was not some subconscious sign of Lippincott’s plans for me. But for now, he kept his thumbs under his chin, the barrel of his finger gun against the tip of his nose. He looked at me with gray eyes the color of dark smoke and, with the smallest tilt of his head, motioned me toward one of two beautiful, pine-green leather chairs in front of his desk. I swear I thought I heard his voice in my mind, telling me to sit, even though his lips never moved. He could have that effect on people.

I sat in one of the chairs, choosing the one that wasn’t already occupied. Sitting beside me was Michael Kidder, a clammy-looking guy about the same age as Lippincott. Kidder was almost completely bald on top with an unusually thick ring of graying hair running from temple to temple around the back of his head. In the center of the bald spot was a small and, to be honest, slightly ridiculous-looking tuft of hair. If it was me, I’d have shaved it completely. His head looked like a domed rock rising out of a meadow of thick grass with a tiny little plant somehow surviving on the rock’s smooth, otherwise inhospitable peak.

Kidder was the First Assistant U.S. Attorney, making him Lippincott’s right-hand man, which put him several rungs up the ladder from me and just one below Lippincott. He’d outlasted nine U.S. Attorneys, rising up from among the rank-and-file AUSAs, became Chief of the Economic Crimes Unit, then spent the final three years of Lippincott’s predecessor’s tenure in his current position of second-in-command. After twenty-two years with the U.S. Attorney’s office, there was nowhere for him to go but to the top spot, and it was beginning to look doubtful he’d ever get there. It was no secret that he’d openly campaigned for the position that ultimately went to Lippincott. Kidder was disappointed, I heard, but he was a professional. Lippincott’s daughter, Jessica, whom I happened to have been dating for six years, intimated to me that her father didn’t seem to completely trust Kidder, but she thought that might have been him sensing a little resentment—possibly real, possibly imagined—on the part of his lieutenant.

I hadn’t seen Kidder in a few weeks, so it seemed appropriate to shake his hand. I reached over and he met me halfway. His handshake was just as I remembered it from the few previous ones he’d given me. His grip was weak, his hand slightly moist with sweat. It was like he had pressed a damp sponge into my palm. I was dying to wipe my hand on my pants when we broke our handshake, but managed to keep from doing so.

I looked back at Lippincott, who stared at me a moment longer. As he did, I’m somewhat proud to say, I didn’t fidget or sweat overly much or yammer something nonsensical to break the uncomfortable silence. Though I wanted to do all those things.

Finally, he cleared his throat, a small, calculated sound, and began speaking in that voice of his—that deep, rich voice, unusual coming from a man of his modest physical stature, that soothing, confident voice that told judges that he knew exactly what he was talking about, that told jurors he was a man to be trusted, that told opposing counsel he was a man to be respected and, yes, feared a little. He used that voice to say to me, “If you weren’t engaged to my daughter….” He didn’t finish his thought. He didn’t have to.

I have to admit, I guess, that the main reason for my relative cool around Lippincott was the fact that Jessica, the light of his life, had agreed to marry me one of these days. My relationship with her didn’t make me cocky with regard to her father; it merely meant that I spent more time with him than other AUSAs did—I even saw him in a bathing suit one time…and, I always fervently hoped, it would remain just the one time—so I was less queasy around him than many of the other lawyers in the office were. To be honest, he was actually quite decent to me. I’d graduated in the top twenty percent of my class at Northeastern University Law School, which wasn’t bad, but the school itself isn’t ranked all that highly among law schools. Nonetheless, Lippincott, who was the District Attorney for Middlesex County at the time, recruited me personally to join his staff of attorneys, which was pretty unusual. He later told me he’d been contacted by one of my professors, who preferred to remain anonymous. I couldn’t have imagined on which professor I’d made such a positive impression, but who was I to argue? Lippincott was offering me a great job. Fairly modest pay for a lawyer, but very, very interesting work. More importantly, I thought, as a prosecutor, I just might be able to work now and then on finding out what happened to my brother, which was far more important to me than making twice the salary working in a midsized law firm.

In my six years as an Assistant District Attorney, with Lippincott as my mentor, I established an admittedly impressive record, putting away a string of high-profile nasty people. When the president of the United States appointed Lippincott U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts, and Congress confirmed the appointment, Lippincott wanted me, his star protégé, to join him working for the feds, even going so far as to agree to my condition that I be assigned a position on the highly sought after Organized Crime Strike Force Unit. I liked to think that, in the five years since, I’d acquitted myself well as a federal prosecutor. Well, at least until that morning, of course.

As I said, though, Lippincott had been pretty good to me over the years. On top of everything else, after he’d casually introduced me to Jessica at an informal DA’s office function, he hadn’t seemed to mind that we started dating. Considering all the brightly shining, tops-of-their-classes, exploding-with-potential young professionals in Boston who would, if requested, punch their own grandmothers for a date with someone as smart, successful, and attractive as Jessica, I’m surprised he let her date one of his subordinates, much less become engaged to him. But to his credit, he let her make her own decisions about me—though, for all I knew, he regretted terribly making that introduction.

I suddenly realized that Lippincott had ceased speaking and seemed to be expecting a response of some kind from me. “Yes, sir, I know I didn’t do well today, and I just—”

He cut me off with a curt, dismissive wave of his hand. He had, through use of a strategic pause, compelled me to speak, then cut me off, thereby demonstrating his control of the chessboard.

“I don’t expect excuses, Charlie,” he said.

“No,” Kidder said unnecessarily.

I nodded and kept my mouth shut. Lippincott regarded me a moment, then said, “While I’m not looking for an excuse from you, though, I do expect an explanation.”

How could I tell him that a voice from the past, possibly from the grave, had caused that train wreck in court? How would he react to my telling him that my long-lost, dearly departed brother might actually have been not so lost or departed? How long would it take for him to call for security if I told him my performance was pure crap because I was wondering whether my brother, who went missing thirteen years ago, might be somewhere nearby at that very moment arguing politics with a parking meter? And besides, it was none of his business. So I told him that I was distracted, hadn’t slept well the night before, got flustered when the trains ran late that morning, and aliens had abducted me during the night and used probes in very personal ways.

Lippincott and Kidder listened—Kidder looking like he’d just sucked on a lemon. Lippincott’s eyes were hard at first but gradually softened a little. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been nervous in court, Charlie. A very long time.” I had trouble believing he’d ever been nervous, anywhere, any time. “I forget what it’s like to be young and eager. To want to impress the boss. Perhaps my attendance today was a mistake.” He paused. Maybe he was waiting for me to remind him that he never made mistakes, but I kept quiet.

Kidder stepped in. “But as Andrew and I were discussing before you came in, you have a good amount of experience yourself, Charlie. We thought you’d be past this kind of—”

Lippincott cut him off. “I expected more, Charlie. I expected…” I winced. I knew what was coming. Lippincott finished. “…personal perfection.” I think I caught Kidder out of the corner of my eye silently mouthing the words as Lippincott spoke them.

It was his catchphrase, his personal mantra. He wanted “personal perfection” from everyone around him. He didn’t necessarily expect perfection in the results we achieved, but he expected it in our preparation, in the performance of our jobs. If we planned and performed with personal perfection, the results would take care of themselves.

And Lippincott didn’t set a standard he didn’t hold himself to. He expected nothing less than perfection from himself and I doubted he was ever disappointed in that regard. He was never unprepared, never open to second-guessing. He made the right decisions, the right calls, every time, it seemed. And his quest for personal perfection didn’t end in his job performance. His office was so tidy it looked like he hired a team of people with raging cases of obsessive-compulsive disorder to clean it, though I knew that he kept it that way himself. His suits were always pressed. I think he trained his sweat glands not to secrete anything until he allowed them to, probably when he was alone, in his shower. Rumor had it that, several years ago, a few strands of his hair fell out of place, but that rumor was never confirmed.

“You understand what I’m after,” he said, “don’t you, Charlie? You understand the perfection I expect?”

I nodded.

“You weren’t personally perfect this morning.”

“Sounds to me like you were far from it,” Kidder said.

“You’re right, sir,” I said to Lippincott. “I know it’s late in the game, but I assume you’ll want to appoint someone else lead counsel for the rest of the trial. I’d like to sit second chair, if I could, give as much assistance as I can. I’ll put in extra time. I’ll handle my own caseload and put in longer hours at night helping out on the trial. Just let me know to who I should send my working files.”

“Whom.”

“Excuse me?”

“To whom you should send your files, not ‘to who.’ And that won’t be necessary. It’s still your trial, Charlie.”

I might have been less surprised if he had said, “We’re turning the reins over to a talking ferret named Mr. Whiskers.” At first I didn’t think I’d heard him correctly. Sensing my doubt, he nodded with a very, very small smile. It was no more than a slight upward curvature of the corners of his mouth.

“Michael here disagrees with my decision, Charlie.” I sensed Kidder nodding beside me. “To be honest,” Lippincott added, “I have my doubts. I might be making a mistake. I might be flirting with…imperfection.” He smiled a little again. Just a little. “You’re an excellent lawyer, Charlie. You’ve shown that time and again. And I believe you can be excellent,
personally
perfect
, during this trial. But you need to remember how important it is to us. I think we may have weakened our chances of scaring Redekov into cutting a deal and rolling on other members of his family, but, to be honest, that was a long shot at best anyway, I think. Redekov is a real hard case. I never gave us good odds on that. But we still need to put this guy away. Send a message to organized crime in Massachusetts. No one, absolutely
no one
gets away once we’ve got you. Understand? We need to win this.
You
need to win it. You need to achieve personal perfection.” I noticed that, at some point, he’d holstered his finger gun. “I think you can do it.”