Death Penalty (37 page)

But what Sabin had said was true enough. My word against theirs was not good enough.

Obstruction of justice was a possible charge against me. Filing a false felony report was another. Conviction on either charge would result in instant and permanent disbarment.

The saloons along the way seemed to beckon. A few stiff bourbons would help ease my anxiety. I could drift off into another world, a happier place.

No cops.

No Palmers.

No future.

I put the pedal to the floor and tried not to think of using that as a way out.

By the time I got back to my office it was midafternoon, a Saturday. I sat and watched the river. The day was overcast but otherwise pleasant, and an army of small pleasure boats boiled the waters, ignoring the occasional passage of a huge ship. It looked like everyone was having a good time. Fishermen trolled, water-skiers bobbed behind speeding tow boats, and big-time yachts moved majestically along, most of them with people partying and enjoying the trip, drinking and taking in the view.

I envied them, they looked so carefree.

I watched in the way a prisoner might watch traffic passing below his cell. They were free, I was not.

The Bishop was right. Mallow and Palmer were crooks now, and what they might have been before was for feited.
He said they deserved no consideration. They had crossed the line. I wondered at my own decision. I couldn't blame anyone else for the trouble I was in. I had brought it on myself, yet honor demanded that I act the way I did.

Honor. It was a word, a sound, a symbol. I turned from the river and picked up my dictionary.

Honor:
it ran down most of a page and had many meanings. It meant high rank or position of distinction, a title given to officials, such as judges. Like the Honorable Jeffrey Mallow, or His Honor, Franklin Palmer. In that use it implied respect.

Honor also meant a keen sense of right and wrong; adherence to action or principles considered right; integrity.

Well, my license was in jeopardy, but my honor was intact.

I thought of all the people in the past who were famous for their integrity. Saints, mostly, either butchered, burned, or buried alive.

It was not a consoling thought.

A trial lawyer tries to conjure up what might come up, how the opposition will proceed, what is likely to happen.

I thought now of how Harry Sabin would probably handle the situation. He would wait until Monday morning to call Mallow. He would ask for an appointment. He and the state police captain would go to Mallow's office. Harry was devious, he wouldn't just blurt out what I had told him. He would work around to it gently, hoping to surprise Mallow with the accusation.

But Mallow would be ready for them. He was no fool. There would be only one reason that the head of the attorney general's criminal division would want to see him.

Sabin was right. Mallow would say I tried to enlist him in a scheme to bribe the court. He would be generous,
saying he knew of my personal problems. He would say that he had merely rebuffed me. He would say how sad he was that I had sunk to such a personal low.

I could almost write the script.

That would probably happen Monday afternoon. By that time, Mallow would have checked with Palmer, and the stories would be solid and in place.

Harry Sabin would approach Palmer the way any working attorney approached a sitting judge, like an explosive that might easily go off. Harry Sabin knew that in the future he would be arguing attorney general cases before Palmer. It would be almost a formality.

I figured that meeting might be Tuesday afternoon.

Both interviews would be taped. Harry was that kind of lawyer.

He would prepare a written report for the attorney general and request a conference. An accusation about court corruption was a serious matter, one that wouldn't be put off for long.

My guess was that Harry and the cop would meet with their boss on Wednesday up in Lansing. The attorney general was an elected politician and would take no action before he had looked at everything from every possible angle.

He would call the chief justice of the state supreme court and the chief justice of the court of appeals and ask for a conference. That was his usual way of operating. Depending on their schedules, that might happen on Thursday, the day when I would be defending Miles Stewart at his examination in Broken Axe.

They would agree that my charge was unsubstantiated. Then they would decide to have the matter investigated by a panel. A panel that would find Palmer blameless. A panel that would recommend my disbarment.

They would do all this to avoid scandal and unfortunate publicity. The court's integrity had been questioned. It
would be found intact, and the accuser punished. Especially an accuser who had been punished once before, one who had had his license suspended.

McHugh's case might even be reheard by another panel, but he would lose. Anything else would look bad.

They might even end up bringing criminal charges against me, just to show that they took this matter very seriously.

For a minute I thought about calling up Judge Bishop and telling him I'd changed my mind, I would wear the wire, I would make a case on Judge Palmer.

But I didn't.

Honor is a funny thing. Maybe even fatal.

I just turned again and watched the river.

I KEPT ON WATCHING, PUTTING MY MIND
in a kind of neutral, and time passed. I almost forgot about my date with Sue Gillis.

I didn't feel like dinner, and I didn't feel like talking. But I went anyway.

When she opened her apartment door, I saw that she was dressed to kill, wearing a short black dinner dress, her hair and accessories perfect. She looked like a princess ready to go to the ball.

Apparently I didn't look like a prince.

“Charley, what's wrong? You look like you just lost your best friend.”

She stood aside and allowed me in.

I made a feeble attempt at a smile. “It's been a difficult day.”

“If you were anyone else,” she said, “I'd offer you a drink.”

“How about an orange juice, or soda, if you have it.”

“Sit down.”

She went to the kitchen and returned with a tall glass
full of juice and ice cubes. I closed my eyes and sipped, remembering something stronger.

“What happened?” she asked.

“It's a long story. Boring, too.”

“Try me. I'm not easily bored.”

I shook my head. “It would ruin your dinner, I think.”

She studied me for a minute. “You really don't want to go out to dinner, do you?”

“Sure. We have to eat.”

“I'm not hungry, Charley.”

“You're just saying that.”

“No. If we get hungry, we can send out for a pizza.”

“You're all dressed up, Sue. You look terrific, by the way.”

“Thanks. Wait a minute, okay?”

“Sure.”

She went into her bedroom and closed the door. I walked over to the windows and looked out on the golf course. I could see a distant cart and several golfers. I thought of The Bishop. I wondered if he was on some course now.

In a few minutes Sue came back wearing a robe; the party clothes were gone.

“I wanted to get comfortable,” she said.

“You didn't have to do that, Sue.”

“I know I didn't.” She waited until I came back and sat down, then she sat opposite me.

“So tell me, Charley. Something's been bothering you for some time. Is this it?”

I nodded.

“This isn't something that I'll have to arrest you for, is it?”

I laughed. “You'll have to stand in line.”

“Oh, God, Charley, what have you done?”

It made no difference if I told her now. Everything would soon be a matter of public record.

I sipped the juice. “What I've done is I've been honest. And, this side of skydiving with no parachute, that's about as dangerous a thing a person can do, as it turns out.”

“Go on, Charley.”

“Do you remember me talking about the McHugh case? The big appeal case I argued?”

“The paralyzed man.”

“That's him.”

“So?”

I began to tell her the story, starting from the beginning, the first meeting with Mickey Monk, and as I talked it became easier.

She didn't ask questions, merely nodded her head. I realized I was like a soldier debriefing after a battle. Once I began, it was difficult to shut me up.

She didn't try.

I described the meeting at Bishop's house.

“He didn't tell you the police would be there?”

I shook my head. “To say the least, it was a very big surprise.”

“This Judge Bishop,” she said, “tell me more about him. How come you trust him as much as you obviously do?”

I had finished the juice and she got me another.

“It's hard to explain. Everyone calls him The Bishop. He looks the part. Over the years, he's been like the guru to everyone who ever came out of St. Benedict's law school. If you were in a spot, or needed advice, it seemed natural to go to him.” I sighed. “He's like everyone's grandfather, after a fashion.”

“You said he was a classmate of this Judge Palmer?”

“Yeah. And Jeffrey Mallow was a year or two behind them.”

She shook her head slowly.

I raised an eyebrow in silent question.

“Charley, how come you have this reputation as being a smart attorney?”

I laughed. “It's a question I ask myself often.”

“You were set up, I hope you realize that?”

“What do you mean?”

She looked away from me. “I'm a cop, Charley. I think a pretty good one, too.”

“I agree.”

“What you did was like going to the head fox to try to protect the chickens. Jesus, you said the bunch of you are like—”

“The mafia,” I said. “They call us the St. Benedict mafia.”

“Exactly. So you went to the don to try to turn in his capos.”

“The Bishop isn't crooked.”

“Probably not. But he's going to be looking out for his own people.”

“I'm one of those people.”

“Junior grade, Charley. The others are like him, judges, and powerful.”

“I don't think you understand, Sue.”

“I understand better than you do. The Bishop's the one who told you to play along, right?”

“Not to do the deal, just to see how far they would carry it out.”

“Sure.”

“C'mon, Sue, I'm not that stupid. I trust The Bishop.”

“Charley, do you know why he had the cops there today?”

“To start the investigation of Mallow and Palmer.”

She shook her head.

“Do you realize why they were so insistent that you wear a wire?”

“To make the case against Mallow, and Palmer, if possible.”

“No.”

“No?”

“They wanted you to wear that wire to set you up, Charley. You'd go to Mallow and he'd deny ever having made any kind of an offer. Think about it. That way, they'd have you on tape, caught in your own lie. Mallow would have been briefed and ready for you. They'd have a nice little case on a crooked lawyer, wrapped up real pretty like a Christmas package with a big, fat bow. You'd have been arrested and charged without a hiccup of publicity, or not much anyway, just another crooked lawyer caught.”

“But that's paranoid!”

“Is it?”

“I think it is. I know Harry Sabin. He's as straight as an arrow. He'd have no part of anything like that.”

“He wouldn't have to know, would he?”

“What?”

“Your friend, The Bishop, would have set everything up like a pie recipe. The attorney general's man would act like a normal prosecutor making a case. They'd expect that. No, the only people in this thing are your good friends, The Bishop, Palmer, and Mallow.”

“The Bishop's no crook.”

“You thought that about Palmer, too, you said you did.”

I nodded in agreement.

“Maybe I'm wrong, Charley, but I think what you did was like going to Nixon to tell him about the Watergate burglary.”

“God, I hope you're wrong.”

“So do I, Charley. So do I.”

We sat silently for a while.

“Should I order out for pizza?” she asked.

“I'm not hungry.”

“Neither am I.”

She got up and came over and sat beside me. She smelled good as she put a comforting arm around me.

“Maybe it'll work out,” she said.

“Maybe.”

“Miracles do happen, Charley.”

I looked at her. “Do you really believe that?”

She didn't reply.

I laughed. “Well, if a miracle happens, it'd better happen by Friday. I think that's all the time I have left.”

“Friday's a long way off,” she said.

She got up and led me to her bed. We lay there in our clothes, not making love, just wrapped in each other's arms.

As I drifted off to sleep, I remembered thinking that at least this was consoling.

I awoke first on Sunday morning. Sue lay next to me, her breathing even and peaceful. I lay there, grateful to be with her. There are some benefits to living alone, but in times of trouble, it's reassuring to feel the presence of someone else close by.

And trouble was what I was in. I tried not to think of what had happened, but that was impossible. Like remembering an old movie, some scenes from the past few days relentlessly played over and over again in my mind.

To escape my own thoughts I carefully got out of bed, still dressed, and tiptoed into Sue's kitchen. I found the makings for coffee; her coffee maker was much like my own, so I soon had a good pot brewing, the aroma filling the apartment like pungent perfume.

It was the aroma that woke Sue, who seemed surprised
to find me sitting there at her kitchen table until she apparently remembered we'd spent the night together.