Devil's Corner (8 page)

"How did they become best friends? Don't say you don't know."

"I don't."

They barreled down the street, and Vicki shook her head. "It couldn't be from the neighborhood. Jackson lived in the near Northeast, and from the file, Reheema's apartment was in West Philly."

"If you say so."

"Did Jackson have a job?"

"No idea."

"And it couldn't be from work, even though Reheema worked two jobs." Vicki was remembering from Reheema's case file and she suspected that Jackson's temp job was history, no matter what Mrs. Bott had thought. Jackson was more likely the well-kept girlfriend of a coke dealer, not a woman who worked. But for some reason, when she got pregnant, she had dimed on Bristow and decided to change her life. "Did Jackson ever mention a Jamal Browning?"

"No."

"Do you know if Jackson had a boyfriend?' "What is this, high school?" Cavanaugh laughed. "Do you know the names Jay-Boy or Teeg?"

"They dogs or people?" Vicki didn't fake a smile. "Okay, take me back to the proffer conference. At the conference, did Reheema want a deal?" Cavanaugh held up the memo and double-checked it on the fly. "It says she didn't, so she didn't."

"Did you squeeze her?"

"I wish." Cavanaugh laughed. "Re-
hee
-ma."

"Jim, this matters."

"I'm sure I did. I used to have a good rap."

"It's odd that she didn't want a deal, isn't it? I mean, no priors, so she could get off with almost no time, if she gave up whoever she resold the gun to."

"True."

"So why didn't she want to deal?"

"I don't know."

"Didn't you wonder why?"

"Frankly, my dear, I didn't give a damn." They stopped at the red light on Seventeenth Street, where Cavanaugh faced her, shrugging in his heavy coat. "You're new, aren't you?"

"Yeah."

"You'll see what I mean. I was halfway out the door by then and I was burnt out. It gets to you. All of it."

Vicki didn't have to ask what "it" was. She'd seen "it" at the D.A.'s office, but it hadn't gotten to her. Oddly, she'd only wanted more of "it." Maybe she'd feel differently if her personal life didn't suck. Or if she owned a station car.

"I only went to the proffer because Melendez pushed for it. I was there if Reheema wanted to talk, but she didn't want to talk. She made a stink at the detention hearing, yelling that she was innocent, and got herself a permanent detention." Cavanaugh shrugged again. "These people, they make their choice, they live with the consequences. I don't try to figure out why they do what they do."

They
. "You think she was too scared to name names?"

"I don't know."

"She didn't seem scared to me."

"Whatever."

"You don't remember anything other than what you told me, or what's in the memo?"

"Not really. When I started this job, I had a brain dump, I swear. I don't remember much from before." The traffic light changed, and they crossed the street. Cavanaugh picked up the pace, and Vicki hurried along, roasting in her down jacket. A woman going past seemed to recognize her and started whispering to her friends, but Cavanaugh remained oblivious. "I've been at my new firm for a year, and I tell you, it's a totally different world. This meeting I'm on my way to? It's multidistrict product liability litigation, with 137 corporate defendants. It's a city, a country! At issue is a defective disposable syringe, specifically the plunger on the syringe—"

"Excuse me, but was there any corroboration of Jackson's story?"

"It was a circumstantial case, so what else is new? The gun dealer reported that she bought them, and the best friend said she admitted reselling them," Cavanaugh said, defensively, and Vicki recognized his tone. She often had it in hers. No crime was easily proved,
Law & Order
aside.

"Who'd she sell the guns to?"

"Reheema didn't say."

"You mean Jackson
said
she didn't say." The government's case was so thin, Vicki was almost doubting it herself. "Did they ever find the guns?"

"No."

"They turn up in a robbery or shooting?"

"No."

"So the only proof in the case really was Jackson's word."

"Yes." Cavanaugh came to an abrupt halt before a massive office tower of dark glass mirrors, and people streamed into the building next to smokers taking one last drag. "Put it in context. It doesn't sound like much now, but when the indictment was filed, it did. Handgun crime went through the roof last year, I remember that much, and Strauss started Project Clean Sweep to get handguns off the street. The office was cracking down on straws, big time. We got the list of multiple purchasers from ATF, and we went after 'em. We caught Reheema and a lot of little fish in the net."

"So we had our story and we were going with it."

"Exactly," Cavanaugh answered, with a final smile. "Now I gotta get to work."

"Thanks," Vicki called after him, but he had already turned and was flowing with the others into the mirrored tower.

She stood still, momentarily stumped. Maybe she'd been going about this the wrong way.

But if she was going to try a new tack, she didn't have much time.

ELEVEN

Vicki checked her watch: 3:15. Not bad. The sky was still a frozen blue, so she turned up the heat in the car and steered her old white Cabrio out of the business district in clogged traffic. She'd gone home to get her car and cell phone, and, with a sick feeling inside, wiped it clean and plugged it into the recharger in the dashboard. Almost immediately the phone began chiming, signaling she had messages.

Vicki reduced her speed, picked up the phone, and tried to ignore the darker line of dried blood around the keypads while she thumbed through the menu to see who had called. Dan. The three messages were as predicted, and she pressed the button to call back, bound to the recharger like an umbilical cord.

Dan answered after one ring. "Woman! Holy God, what are you up to? You off your Ritalin?"

Vicki laughed.

"I heard you tried to kill a defendant! I say, who's got a problem with that? We all clean the streets our own way. Judge not, lest ye be judged!"

"I didn't try to kill her." After last night, Vicki would never again use that word so lightly. "I just wanted a little information, is all."

"So you tried to kill her for it?"

"Not true!"

"Bale's walking around the office with steam coming out of his ears. It's not a good look for him."

"I can imagine."

"You're definitely right about that Botox. He's completely pissed off and he still isn't frowning."

Vicki felt a guilty twinge and switched lanes.

Dan said, "Isn't that a perfect vision of hell? Having all that anger and not being able to express it?"

"Sounds like work."

"Or marriage."

Vicki let it go and passed Thirtieth Street. "At least he didn't fire me."

"Congratulations. Your career is really going places."

"Thanks for your support."

"So what happened? Tell Daddy," Dan said, and Vicki filled him in completely. "Quite a story. So where are you now?"

"In the car, going to learn a little more about Reheema. She should get out of jail free in a few hours, and I wanna see what I can see before then."

"You think it's a good idea? Coke? Guns? You? One of these things is not like the other."

Vicki smiled. "The most dangerous thing I'm doing is talking on the cell and driving."

"Why do you want to know more about Reheema?"

"I'm curious, is all."

"Curiosity killed the Cabrio."

"Puns are beneath you, Dan."

"You overestimate me."

"That's a given."

"No, I mean it." Dan's voice turned serious, and Vicki could imagine exactly how he'd look when his handsome features darkened. Basically, he'd look even handsomer. "You're doing this for Morty."

"No, really?" Vicki accelerated when she saw open road. "The cops are on it."

"Oh yeah? I just met with the CI's mom, who didn't even get a call from them. God knows when they'll get in gear, and I'm not stopping them, anyway. I'm learning about my own case. If anything, I should have known it before." Vicki swallowed hard, checking traffic in the rearview. A gypsy cab was riding on her bumper. "If I'd taken the time to get that transcript, I would have known the stuff I found out today."

"You were on trial. Don't blame yourself."

"I'm at fault."

"No, you're not."

"Enough." Vicki braked at the light at Thirty-eighth Street.

She was going back out to West Philly again. Penn students crossed the street in scruffy jackets, mingling with university employees wearing plastic ID badges on lanyards. A white police cruiser pulled next to her, and the cop gave Vicki a nasty sideways look, disapproving either of her cell phone or her penchant for police work. "I should go."

"Call me as soon as you get home."

"I will."

"The minute you get home."

"Yes, dear," Vicki said, as if she were kidding. She pressed end, flipped the phone closed, and tossed it onto the seat beside her. When the light turned green, she accelerated. She was almost there, even if her thoughts were elsewhere.

With Dan.

TWELVE

"
You're
a lawyer?" the manager asked skeptically, which dispelled Vicki's concern that he'd recognize her from the TV news. His name was Mike Something and he was maybe thirty-five, his face dotted with old acne scars. He wore a ratty blue sweater with jeans, and his short, dark hair was gelled and spiky, so it stuck up like an unfortunate crown. His eyes were narrow and blue, his nose straight, and his teeth stained with nicotine. Vicki stood in the door to his tiny, windowless back office, and he took way too long to eye her up and down.

"Yes, I'm a lawyer," Vicki answered.

"You don't look like a lawyer. You're so little."

"I'm a little lawyer."

Mike smiled crookedly. "You watch
The Practice
? I used to watch
The Practice
. I don't know why they took it off." They were in the back office at Bennye's, a raggedy sandwich shop in West Philly. The paneled walls were covered with an old Miller High Life ad, a taped-up 2001 calendar from a local heating oil company, and an obscene Lil' Kim poster, which was redundant. The office reeked of leftover cooking grease, and Vicki couldn't fight the sensation that even the air was sticky. Mike sat behind a small desk cluttered with old newspapers. "I liked the blond chick on
The Practice
, you know which one?"

"Yeah, I liked her, too." Vicki didn't have all day. "Talk to me about Reheema Bristow. She waitressed here, right?" There had been a note in the file.

"You're here about Reheema?" Mike brightened, sitting straighter in his black vinyl chair. "Whyn't you say so? How the hell is she?"

"Fine."
Only because they stopped me from strangling her
.

"I went to visit her a couple times, inside. Tell her I said hi, will you?"

"Oh, I'm not her—" Then Vicki caught herself. Mike thought she was Reheema's lawyer.
Well, what's the harm
? "Sure, I will. I'll tell her you said hi."

"Thanks. My best to her mom, too. How's she doin'?' "

"Her mom? Fine."
I hope.
"Now, you're a friend of Re-heema's, right?" Vicki was taking her cues from Mike's demeanor, like a cable TV psychic. "She mentioned you to me. She said you'd be glad to talk to me, if it helped her out."

"I am. Anything she needs, you just ask."

"What I need most is information. Background info, for her case." Vicki thought a minute. "I don't remember her mentioning anyone but you from here. Didn't she have any other friends at work? People who know her well? I could use them for character witnesses at her trial."

"Not really. There's only the one waitress, the joint is so small. I prolly was the closest one to her, being the boss. I'd be a great character witness."

"Great, we'll get to that in a minute." Vicki made a fake note in her Filofax. "By the way, did she have any boyfriends, that you know of? We don't get time to talk girl stuff."

"A boyfriend? Reheema? No way. She worked this job in the day and the housecleaning at night, at Presby, the hospital. She didn't have the time. She was like a church girl, anyway, you know."

Church girl?
Vicki blinked, nonplussed. "I know, that's what's so unfair, with the charges against her. The government indicted her for buying two guns and selling them to someone else."

"The government can kiss my sainted ass." Mike snorted. "She would never do that. Reheema was the kind of girl, you know, she took care of people. Her mother, all the customers. Reheema wasn't ghetto, like some of them."

Vicki let it go. "Let me ask you something. Why did she work here and at the hospital, if she was a college grad? If you don't mind my asking."

"Not at all, I know this ain't the Ritz. I think she used to work for the city, like a case worker or somethin,' but she got laid off. I knew she'd leave when something better came along." Mike was shaking his head. "Then they picked her up. Whatever they said she did, she didn't do it."

"How do you know that? I mean, how can I prove it?"

"She never done nothin' wrong, I'll come in and testify, I'll tell 'em. Reheema, she was the best." Mike pursed his lips, and Vicki read his look. He'd had a crush on her.

"What would you say about her, in detail, if I called you to testify?"

"I'd say she worked the day shift when I started here, opened up each morning, and kept the place always clean as a whistle when I come in. And she took real good care of all the customers. The customers loved her, too. They still ask about her. She worked every day, seven days a week, always on time, super-reliable. The only time she missed work was when her mom was sick. That's four days in two years."

"What was her mom sick with?"

"Cancer. Her mom's big in the church, too." Mike cocked his spiky head. "Don't you know, about her having cancer?"

Oops
. "Right, she did mention that, but she didn't go into detail. Reheema keeps the personal stuff to herself."