Dead Man's Thoughts (19 page)

I was right. Milt's eyes narrowed as he saw me coming. “Been in court all this time?” he asked.

“Yeah, Milt.” I stopped, resigned to the inevitable. “I got held up on an old warrant of Nathan's.”

“An old warrant.” He shook his head sadly. “An old warrant who just happened to be his killer.” He bit off the last word with a controlled menace that momentarily had me scared. Then I realized there was nothing he could do to me. I could hardly be fired for interviewing a client. I said something to that effect, that I'd just treated the kid like any other client.

Wrong thing to say. “Damn it, Cass!” Milt hissed, between clenched teeth. “Who do you think you're talking to? Since when do
you
do a two-hour interview on just another client? On a Legal Aid Relieved? Don't give me that just another client garbage. You had no business talking to that kid—”

“I got relieved, Milt,” I interrupted.

He snorted. “You got relieved,” he repeated derisively, “after you got everything you could out of the kid.”

“Milt, what's the problem? What difference does it make?”

If Milt had been Del Parma, he'd have started pacing. If he'd been Detective Button, he'd have given me his shark-tooth smile. Being Milt, he spoke very very softly. “You compromised the integrity of the Society, Cassandra. Representing that kid, even for a limited purpose, constituted a total conflict of interest. I can't afford to have my attorneys doing things like that. It makes me look bad. And I don't like looking bad.” He was almost whispering.

“But worse than that, Cass. Worse than that. You're opening a can of worms. You're running the risk that the newspapers will get hold of this kid angle. And if there was one kid, maybe there was more than one. Is that all the respect you have for Nathan's memory?”

“Milt, you've got to hear me out.” I was talking softly now too, hoping to keep the conversation between Milt and me. “I think the kid may have been framed.”

Milt gave me a long, incredulous stare. Then his lip curled in disgust. “Christ,” he said, still softly but with venom. “Nathan sure could pick 'em. One of his clients strangles him, and the woman he sleeps with defends his killer.” He shook his head and turned his face away.

“Fuck you, Milt,” I said. It was a normal tone of voice, but after our intense whispering, it turned heads all along the bar. I didn't care.

“It's all over as far as you're concerned, isn't it? The cops have their suspect. No bad publicity. Let's hope the kid hangs himself in Riker's, like poor old Charlie. That would make things simple for everybody, wouldn't it?”

No answer. Milt's like that. He'd closed the iron door, and I didn't exist anymore. I walked to the back of the bar, barely seeing where I was headed.

“Over here, Cass.” The voice wasn't Flaherty's, nor was it coming from the Legal Aid side of the room. I turned to see Stan Willburton in a booth with Roger Morrison, an 18-b lawyer.

“Grab a seat,” Roger invited. I put my coat on a hook and slid in next to Stan.

“What was that all about?” Roger asked, signaling the waitress with his free hand. The other was full of peanuts.

It was Stan who answered. “I know you're on trial, Rog, but even you must have heard that the cops arrested a suspect for Nathan's murder and that Cass arraigned him?”

“What is this, Gossip Central?” I asked with a smile. I was trying to keep it light in front of Roger. Stan I could tell the whole story to, if I could get him alone.

“You aren't planning on keeping the case, are you?” Roger asked.

“Of course not. It'll be murder anyway, so one of you bright boys from Stan's 18-b murder panel will get it. In fact,” I said, turning to Stan, “I was going to call you. Who can you assign? It's got to be somebody good, somebody who'll really do a job for the kid, not just cop him out.”

“Are you suggesting that there are members of my panel who—”

“Who would have copped out Jesus Christ if they could have gotten him two to four concurrent.”

Roger laughed, choking on his beer and spraying Stan and me with a fine mist of imported brew. He apologized, mopping himself with a huge white handkerchief. For the first time I noticed how drunk he was. “Roger,” I said, “how the hell long have you been in here? You look like you've been putting it away since noon.”

“Good old Cass.” He gave me a mock bow. “Miss Tact of The Year.”

I started to apologize, but he cut me off. “No, Counselor. The witness will answer the question. Yes, I'm tight as a drum. If you were on trial before Hanging Harold Wormser, you'd be smashed too. That bastard is—”

“The Antichrist, the scum of the earth, the worst judge ever to befoul even the corrupt bench of Brooklyn with his presence,” Stan interrupted. He went on plaintively, “I know, Roger. Believe me, I know. Cass, don't get him started again. I've had this for two hours already.”

“What's he doing to you?” I asked Roger. “In twenty-five words or less,” I added hastily, glancing at Stan.

“That's the trouble. It all sounds like such little piddling shit. But it adds up. It adds up and it's burying me. He's nickel-and-diming me to death, and all the time he gives the jury that Will Geer nice-old-codger routine. They love him, and they think I'm a young smartass when all I'm trying to do is get the semblance of a fair trial for my client.” Roger took a healthy swallow of beer. “Who just might be innocent,” he added morosely. “That's the worst part. Wormser firmly believes that all defendants, without exception, are guilty. If somebody gets an acquittal, he tells the D.A., ‘
We
lost another case.'”

“I hope Paco doesn't get a judge like that,” I remarked.

“Paco? That's the kid who killed Nathan? Already you're calling him Paco?” I didn't like the edge of suspicion in Stan's voice.

“Look, Stan, I know this is hard to believe,” I said hastily, “but I don't think he did it. I think he was set up.”

“Set up?” Stan started shooting questions at me. The way I'd shot them at Paco—“Who by? How? Why?”

Good questions. I took a breath.

“I think somebody got him to the apartment and kept him there by a trick,” I began. “A phone call and a note on the door. That way his name would be in the book downstairs, and the desk guy would see him. That way he'd be in the building at the right time. But Nathan would already be dead.”

“That's pretty far out, isn't it, Cass?” Stan's tone was patient, but unbelieving. Roger just stared at me through his muzzy haze of beer. “Even supposing you're right, that means somebody knew enough about this kid to set him up—
him
, this particular kid, who I've already heard is a fairy. That's supposing a lot of inside information, isn't it?” Stan sat back in the booth, waiting for my reply. Waiting for the opposition to sum up.

“Well, yes,” I admitted. Always admit right away whatever you can't hope to get away with denying. “But it's not so hard to find things out if you know your way around, is it? If you or I or anybody in the system wanted to get hold of—say, a yellow sheet or a defendant's phone number, how hard would it be? It's all a public record. It's fairly accessible. Especially for a lawyer.” Especially for a lawyer on trial in the building, I added mentally, thinking of Riordan. He could easily have heard the gossip about Nathan that must have been rife in Manhattan. He could have snooped around enough to find a likely patsy in Paco. He could have gotten the phone number of Paco's mother from the ROR sheet and made the phony call that lured Paco to the apartment building. And he'd have known enough about the ins and outs of the prison system to have meddled with Blackwell's yellow commit card. Altogether, Riordan still filled the bill.

Stan shook his head. “It still sounds far-fetched to me, Cass.” I started to explain about Blackwell, but he put up a restraining hand. “But I'm too tired to argue. Let's discuss it another time. Have another beer and tell me who you want assigned to the case. Roger?”

“Yes to the beer,” Roger answered. “No to the case. When the Worm releases me, I'm heading for sun and fun. I need something to put the roses back into my cheeks.”

I was secretly relieved. Roger's an okay guy, a good guy to drink with, but I wasn't sure about his skills as a trial lawyer.

Paul Trentino came in with his partner, Pete Kalisch. Paul plopped his briefcase down and sat next to Roger. Pete brought over a chair and placed it at the end of the booth. I signaled Stan with my eyes. As a former Legal Aid lawyer who'd known Nathan, Paul was disqualified from representing Paco. But Pete, who'd known Nathan only in passing, and had become a lawyer after a stint as a court officer, was eligible. And he was a good lawyer.

I turned to Paul. “They made an arrest in Nathan's case,” I told him.

He grimaced. “I heard. How could you stand up on it? Aside from the ethics, how could you stand next to the guy who killed Nathan and make a bail application?” His voice was high with strain. I kept mine as calm as I could.

“I could do it because I don't think he's guilty. I think he was framed.”

Stan cut in. “And Cass has decided he needs the best lawyer the county's money can buy. Can you take it, Pete?”

Pete's face was a polite blank. “You'll have to tell me what the cops have got.”

“What the cops have got,” I began, “is a nice frame.” Roger got up, squeezed past Paul, and went upstairs to the men's room. Not surprising, after all the beer he'd drunk. Stan stood up too, said he had to go, and promised to give my love to Emily. Before he left, I whispered, “Thanks, Stan. It means a lot to me to have you in my corner. Even if you don't agree with me. Maybe because you don't agree with me.” He gave me a quick kiss and waved goodbye.

I started telling Pete everything I knew or thought I knew about Nathan's murder. It wasn't easy. I found myself turning to Paul, seeking the friendly interest of his brown eyes instead of the cold, noncommittal objectivity of Pete's hazel ones. Expressionless, hard, they seemed to register nothing of what I was saying. Yet I knew that when the questions came, they would be detailed and pointed.

They were. I answered them as best I could, then went on to explain my suspicions about Riordan. Pete cut me off. He wanted the facts, ma'am, just the facts.

When I'd finished—when Pete had finished with me—he got up, put on his raincoat, and walked out the door.

I looked at Paul, astonished. “Is he going to take it, or what?”

Paul grinned. “He'll take it. He wouldn't have bothered asking questions if he wasn't going to.”

“How can you stand being in practice with that cold fish?”

Paul shrugged. “He's a damned good lawyer. He'll do whatever it takes for your kid, Cass. Trust him.”

But I didn't. Not fully. The only lawyer I really trusted to represent Paco was me. Which was pretty strange coming from a person who didn't even want to
be
a lawyer.

T
WENTY
-
FOUR

“P
lants don't purr,” Dorinda said contentedly, as Tansy sat on her lap, his forepaws kneading her skirt.

“Plants don't spit up hairballs,” I retorted, eyeing a suspicious-looking spot on the painted cement floor.

We had just finished dinner—stir-fried vegetables in ginger sauce—and were engaging in a familiar good-natured argument when the television newsman caught my ear. “The deceased, one Charlie Blackwell, met his death at the hands of ‘a person or persons unknown.'” I sat up in the rocking chair. Mignonette stood up on my lap and gazed at me inquiringly, but didn't jump off. The newsman went on.

“The commission announced its findings today and urged the district attorney to investigate Blackwell's suspicious death, originally thought to be suicide.”

Then Del Parma came on, surrounded by microphones. If the commission's finding troubled him, if he had hoped for a verdict of suicide, there was no sign of it on his face. He radiated vindication, as though he had believed all along Charlie had been murdered and the commission had merely confirmed his opinion.

It was a masterful performance. He outlined his office's efforts to nail Blackwell, making it sound as significant and high-minded as the Abscam investigation. The only thing he didn't mention was its motive. Nowhere was it so much as hinted that Blackwell was intended to be a stepping-stone to Parma's federal job.

Parma went on to praise the commission and to offer the subtle but barbed opinion that “organized crime figures connected with Stone's defense should be carefully scrutinized by the D.A.” Reading between the lines, Parma had just fingered Matt Riordan.

“Jesus!” I said to Dorinda, “that Parma's got some balls.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“He
sets Blackwell up for the sole purpose of turning him as a witness against Riordan.
He
puts the guy in jail where he gets killed under his very nose, and then
he
goes on TV and starts throwing the blame around. If anybody's responsible for Blackwell's death, it's Parma. If he'd left the fucking guy alone, he'd be alive today.” And so would Nathan, I thought bitterly.

“What does all this mean to your investigation?” Dorinda asked.

“Don't know yet. At least somebody besides me thinks Charlie was murdered. That ought to be good for something. But I'm a little confused about this commission. When I was there, they were really into the suicide thing. I wonder what made them decide it was murder?”

The next day was Saturday. A darkroom day. A day away from murder.

It started with a letter from Ron:

hi kid—

sorry about your friend. i know what it's like to lose a friend and i know how long it takes to get over it. don't let that worry you. it never stops hurting in one sense but in another sense peace will come. believe that. i don't completely understand what you're doing with your investigation, but i hope you're getting somewhere. mom and dad wondered why you hadn't written. i told them a friend of yours had died and that you were upset. maybe you could call and let them know you're okay. or not. up to you.