Dead Man's Thoughts (11 page)

The red-haired secretary led me to another, smaller office down the hall. I wondered if the assistant would be programmed to give me a different version of the bum's rush I'd just gotten from the boss.

This time there was only one window, facing the Hudson River and New Jersey. From here, even New Jersey looked good.

The man behind the desk was about thirty-two, with thinning blond hair and mild blue eyes behind slightly tinted aviator glasses. He'd taken off the jacket from his three-piece suit, leaving a gray, pin-striped vest and pants, a pink shirt, and a tie of light blue, silver, and pink paisley. Very preppy-looking. He probably had little alligators on his underwear.

He stood up, offered his hand, and said, “I'm Dave Chessler.” I shook his hand. They were big on shaking hands in this place. Maybe I should have worn white gloves. He motioned me to a guest chair in front of his desk, which was neither as large nor as tidy as Parma's.

“Would you like some coffee?” he asked. I nodded. Coffee would be nice, and besides, he couldn't throw me out as quickly as Parma had if I were drinking his coffee.

He called for a secretary to get us coffee. I'd expected the usual office instant with powdered creamer, so I was pleasantly surprised to taste a rich dark blend with a hint of French roast. Real half and half. In china mugs, not styrofoam. I decided I approved of Chessler.

When we'd both sipped our coffee, he set his mug on the desk, leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head. It's a common enough gesture, but it brought Nathan back so sharply that tears came into my eyes. Angrily, I brushed them away, hoping Chessler hadn't noticed.

He had. “What's the matter?” he asked, in a voice that was light and pleasant. Altogether he wasn't the kind of man I'd expected to find among Del Parma's scalp-hunters.

“Nothing. You just reminded me of someone.” I quickly turned businesslike. “Mr. Parma said you might be able to help me. I need some information about the Burton Stone trial. Specifically about Charlie Blackwell. He was—”

“Oh, I know who Charlie is. Or was. Of course, that trial was before my time, but I've heard about it.”

“Well, I'm concerned about his death. They're saying suicide, but it's certainly possible that he was killed by people who didn't want him to tell your office what really happened at Stone's trial.”

“Could be,” Chessler said cheerfully. “Of course, it just happened, so all the facts aren't in yet. There's going to be an investigation, though. Maybe something will come out of that.”

“So that's what Parma meant,” I said. “I didn't know what he was talking about. Who's investigating?”

“Department of Corrections, for one. They don't like the idea that a man can get killed, by himself or by someone else, while he's under their jurisdiction.”

“True,” I nodded. “It shouldn't have happened either way. Plus,” I added, “Charlie should have been on suicide watch, and I read in the paper that he wasn't. I'd like to know how that happened.”

“Meanwhile, how can I help?” Chessler leaned forward in his chair, his light blue eyes intent as he waited for me to answer. I was disconcerted by so much receptivity. So many others, even people Nathan had called friends, had been unwilling to hear me out.

“Charlie's dead, and so is the Legal Aid lawyer he told his story to,” I said boldly. “I think there's a connection.”

“Legal Aid lawyer? You mean the guy killed in his apartment in the—”

“That's the one. Nathan Wasserstein.”

“But—I don't know quite how to put this, but—”

“But the police think he was killed by a gay lover. Yes, that's true. I don't believe it. I don't believe Nathan was gay, and I think it's too much of a coincidence that Charlie died the next day.”

“In an apparent suicide.”

“Oh, come on. How difficult would it be to hang someone in his cell and make it look like suicide?”

“Not very. And I agree that the kind of people who would want to ice Charlie would find plenty of help. Even correction officers, if necessary.”

“That's a charming thought.”

“That's the way it is. If Riordan's associates got him, they could count on officers at least turning their backs. For a price.”

“Why Riordan?” I asked.

“We've always known Blackwell was gotten to at the Stone trial,” Chessler answered. “And we knew who did it. Matt Riordan. He and Blackwell ran that crossexamination like it had been rehearsed for weeks.” The mild voice was bitter now. “Riordan broke Blackwell on the stand in a hundred different ways. And they were all based on the fact that he knew to the letter every word Blackwell was going to say. He knew because he told Blackwell what the questions would be and how to answer them. Riordan made us look like fools in that case. Lost us a conviction where we should have gotten one. I'd be a liar if I told you this office didn't care what Blackwell had to say to us. If he was going to nail Riordan, we wanted to hear it.”

The thought crossed my mind that Chessler seemed to know a lot about a guy his boss claimed he hadn't thought about in eight years. Not to mention being more angry and bitter over the defeat than the man who had been there taking the heat—Parma himself.

“Okay,” I said. “I can see you think Riordan fixed the Stone case. But would he kill somebody? Or have the clout to have it done for him?”

The once-pleasant voice grew harsh. “Riordan's a slimy son-of-a-bitch who makes a fortune representing the worst scum in the city.”

“I thought I represented the worst scum in the city,” I said facetiously. It seemed oddly like betrayal to sit here with a prosecutor and malign a fellow defense lawyer, however unsavory his reputation.

Chessler forced a smile. “Seriously, Ms. Jameson, the man is an unscrupulous bastard who'll do anything for his clients. Like use phony medical records to get a long adjournment and in the middle of that adjournment the chief prosecution witness gets fished out of the East River. Nice, ethical stuff like that.”

I was struck by the contrast between the well-tailored clothes, the modulated voice, and the street toughness. Maybe, like the little D.A. the night Nathan and I were in court together, Chessler was working overtime to put a hard shell of experience around an essentially soft nature. He went on. “Your clients may bop old ladies on the head for their purses, but Riordan's clients will burn that lady's house down with her in it and then contribute money to a law-and-order candidate for mayor. Only that candidate never quite gets around to doing anything about arson once he's elected. So getting Blackwell to flip on the stand in order to get a scumbag like Stone off the hook is light stuff for Riordan. So is icing Blackwell if he has to. The man wouldn't turn a hair.”

“I see,” I said. I wasn't sure I accepted at face value Chessler's assessment of Riordan, but Nathan himself had said the consensus was that Blackwell had been bought or threatened into falling apart on the stand. “But to get back to ancient history, how could Riordan have gotten to Blackwell? Didn't you have him under pretty tight security?”

“Of course. He was in a hotel, under full-time guard. The only people allowed in were members of the Special Prosecutor's staff and Charlie's only relative, his sister.”

“So the sister could have been a leak?”

“She was pretty thoroughly interrogated when the fiasco was over.” I gathered he meant the trial. “But she's the next thing to borderline retarded, so I doubt she'd have been much of a go-between for Riordan. No, unfortunately, we had to face the fact that it was probably one of the guards. We never got any of them to admit anything, but then Riordan wouldn't pick somebody who couldn't stand up to questioning.”

Suddenly he stood up, almost as abruptly as Parma had, and walked over to a bookshelf crammed with papers and transcripts. From a pile on the top shelf he picked up a hefty transcript and handed it to me. It was part of the Stone trial—direct, cross, and redirect of Charlie Blackwell.

“Take this home. Read it. Then get it back to me by, say, Friday. Copy what you want, but don't tell anyone you got it from me. Understood?”

“Why are you letting me have it?”

He shrugged. “It's a public record. You could get it at the courthouse. I'm just saving you a little time.”

“But why?”

Chessler leaned back easily against the corner of the desk, and looked down at me with a friendly grin. “Do you always look gift horses in the mouth, Ms. Jameson?”

This time I noticed the Ms. He was steadily rising in my estimation. He was the first person I'd talked to who hadn't dismissed my theory out of hand. I looked forward to seeing him again when I returned the transcript.

F
OURTEEN

M
aybe it was just the weather, or maybe my mood was thawing along with the leftover snow, but I got up early the next morning and walked to work. Across Bleecker Street, down Broadway—stopping at a coffee shop where they make their own Danish—and onto the Brooklyn Bridge.

When I'd climbed the stairs to the elevated pedestrian walkway, I turned, looking once again at the skyline through the gleaming silver web. It was a picture I never tired of. I'd photographed it many times, in color and black and white, on cloudy days and sunny days, morning and evening.

Nathan had urged me to enter my picture in a photo contest run by the
Phoenix
, Brooklyn's neighborhood paper. We'd had a big fight about it. I wasn't ready, I told him, to have my work judged. Now I wondered, as I stood on the bridge, why I'd been so reluctant. Now waiting for anything, putting anything off, seemed an act of ultimate stupidity.

I walked the rest of the bridge with Nathan. His imaginary company was a comfort, bringing a smile instead of tears.

I didn't feel much like talking to anyone at work. I nodded to the secretaries and stepped into my office. Working quickly, before anyone could come in, I threw the day's case files into my Channel Thirteen tote bag, where the precious transcript already lay. On my way out, I told Ramona, my secretary, where I'd be and tossed my AP4 cases in the traffic cop box.

Kings County Supreme Court is a huge slab of a building with tiny windows that look like shifty, close-set eyes. Inside it hasn't got a lot more character—marble walls the color of used chewing gum, an imitation tile floor so dirty the original color is a mystery, and overall a bureaucratic impersonality Albert Speer would have been proud of.

I took the elevator to nine, sidestepping the airport-style security system and going straight into the hallway.

On the side of the hall, away from the courtroom there are windows, each with a little recessed window seat, where defendants sit and wait for their lawyers, and lawyers discuss pleas with their clients. As Lenny Bruce said, the only justice is in the halls.

I checked into Part C, telling the clerk what case I was there on, and sat in the first row. I took the transcript out of my bag and started to read the direct examination of Charlie Blackwell.

Parma was good on direct—clean and crisp. Straight to the point, yet anticipating what he expected Riordan to ask on cross. Like the way he had Charlie explain his past criminal record—no hedging, no denying his guilt. If Riordan went after Charlie for being a skell, he'd be beating a dead horse. Same thing with Charlie's previous appearances as a People's witness. Charlie was open. Charlie was frank. Charlie admitted he'd made deals in the past, deals that had insured his freedom when all around him were losing theirs. Again, all Riordan could expect to get on cross was a rehash of that seeming frankness. Parma was leaving no chink in Charlie's already thin armor.

When the direct was over and Riordan stood to cross, I could almost see a smile of satisfaction on Parma's sharp, handsome face. Where could Riordan go that Parma hadn't planned for, hadn't planted little land mines for Riordan to trip over?

Nowhere, it seemed. At first. Riordan did what Parma expected. He hit on Charlie's record. He emphasized Charlie's reputation for selling out his grandmother to catch himself a break. Just what Parma had planned for.

Until the flying saucers. They came flying in all right, straight out of left field. I was laughing silently as I read, visualizing Parma's stricken face as he took in this unexpected development.

Parma peppered the record with objections. They were all out of line, and finally the judge admonished him, but they were designed to give Charlie time to think. The trouble was that Charlie didn't want time to think. He seemed eager to confide in Riordan, like an author pushing his book with a helpful talk-show host. He was more than happy to tell the world, through Riordan, all about his close encounter of the third kind. In detail. Wacky detail.

As it went on, my sick, defense-oriented sense of humor began to subside. I felt sorry for Del Parma. His case was falling apart, and I for one couldn't see what the hell he could do about it. And because of Riordan's curve ball, Burton Stone, who had single-handedly bought and sold large portions of the city I loved, would go free. To continue to traffic in people's lives.

Riordan closed his cross with a couple of questions about Charlie's 730 examinations. The questions were interesting for what they
didn't
say. They were brief and perfunctory, as though it was only the fact of Charlie's having been examined at all that Riordan wanted to bring out. The implication was clear. If the examinations had mentioned flying saucers, Riordan would have used them for all they were worth. Since he didn't, they didn't. In other words, although Charlie had been examined by six shrinks at various stages in his career, now was the first time he had ever mentioned space travel. Very interesting.

The question was, what could Parma do about it? If he used the 730s to show that Charlie's science fantasy was a recent development, he still risked emphasizing Blackwell's general looniness. If he didn't, the jury would get the impression, fostered by Riordan, that the reports backed up Charlie's unreliability.