Indefensible (17 page)

“Yeah, well, look, Neidemeyer has a lot of manpower invested in this investigation, and it's not paying off. He could solve it in a second, bring Illman inside, make a couple of big arrests with Illman's help, and maybe close a file.”

“Just delay, Harold, okay? Maybe we'll find Illman's car.”

“From what I hear, Nick, the car's probably a two-foot block of steel on a freighter to Shanghai.”

“Delay, Harold.”

“I'll do what I can, Nick, but think days, not weeks. Are you free for lunch later?”

“Sure.”

“Good. We'll order sandwiches. Join me in my office.”

He hangs up. The idea of immunity is nuts. Scud is a guy who'll try anything to improve his position. This informant angle doesn't surprise me. What's next? Dorsey and Chip both have their people beating the bushes. We're all aching to bring Scud down. Problem is, we haven't been able to place him inside of anything significant or with anyone important. His criminal record is for diddly one- and two-person operations. He did seven years for armed robbery of a liquor store and another four years for assault with a dangerous weapon: To wit, he took a shovel to the head of a coworker on a construction project. He got lucky on that one, because the guy whose skull he creased was an illegal alien, and the sentencing judge, whose politics inhabit a region beyond Pluto, seemed to think Scud deserved some kind of medal.

Everything else in his record is small stuff. Misdemeanors, dropped charges, and investigations without indictment. No doubt he does little jobs and low-risk work, but except for Zander Phippin, it doesn't look like he's cracked the big time.

Zander Phippin was a big-time hit. The state narcotics team determined that most of the pot running into the city was from a single source. It's worth millions, and Zander, having moved up in the scheme of things, was just below the break between little guys and
big guys. Zander and everyone below him was small-time: naughty but not bad. Above Zander, though, were real criminals: big-time dealers, murderers, and racketeers. That's why we wanted his help; that's why they needed him dead. It was very much a big-time hit.

•  •  •

A half hour after my conversation with TMU, Dorsey calls. “We've got Scud Illman's car,” he says.

The car, a five-year-old Sentra, was under a tarp behind a barn forty miles north of town. “The couple who owns the barn are clean,” Dorsey says. “Scud gave them a story about going off to work in the oil fields in Kuwait.”

This is why Scud is bush-league. If he were the kind of guy who could really get things done, the car never would have turned up.

“What have you found?” I ask.

“Lots. Blood in the trunk. We've sent it to the lab. There's a problem with the tires, though. They don't match any of the impressions we took at the reservoir. We went to every pullout on the east side that day last summer. We got dozens of treads. This car doesn't match any of them.”

“Sure,” I say, “but that's consistent with how clean the whole job was. Everything was swept.”

“Exactly,” Dorsey says. “Treads or no treads, you can't argue with a trunk full of blood. Dollars to doughnuts, it's Phippin's blood. Who needs a splattered hankie now?”

“How did you find the car?”

“The old guy who owns the barn got suspicious and called in the plate.”

“Lucky break.”

He laughs. “That's police work, Nick,” and he hangs up. It's the first time he's called me Nick.

•  •  •

TMU has corned beef, and I eat a salad while rain pounds at the window. “You're on the list,” he says, casually tucking a napkin into
his shirt collar. “Now the fun starts.” The list he refers to is the list of nominees for the circuit court position. “Of course, Crutchfield isn't actually leaving till March, so anything can change.”

With his first bite of sandwich, a glob of mustard lands on the napkin that forms a ledge over his belly.

“You're a dark horse, naturally.”

“Naturally.”

“Heavy hitters on the list. Leslie Herstgood, Two Rivers . . .”

“Give me a break.”

“I know. Snowball in hell, right? But the same factors favoring you, favor Two Rivers.”

“Being?”

“It's a small, rural, out-of-the-limelight region. The president can make a feel-good appointment without giving anything up. Two Rivers feels good as a minority appointment and a paean to the Defendants' Rights crowd. Then, when Two Rivers starts issuing flaky dissents, the president acts betrayed and gets a walk on his next reactionary appointment to one of the urban circuits, or even the Supreme.” Harold opens up his sandwich and spreads horseradish.

“What about me?” I ask. “Why am I a feel-gooder?”

“Serious?”

“Yes.”

“You're a dedicated prosecutor who, over the decades, has molded his office into a clean, mean, convicting machine, staying on as guardian of the public trust instead of chasing big bucks into the offices of some white-shoe firm. We can get the newspaper to run a profile, dredge up the country-lawyer stuff. The everyman hero.”

I laugh. It's the triumph of perception over reality. But from here in TMU's office, I can see the river and the Rokeby and other brick mills all closed up, and I think, Why not? I
have
been here. When I came on as head of the criminal division, the city was still reeling, making itself believe some factory or new industry would open again. But in the realignment of economic reality, new versus old
economies, the end of welfare, the rise of the tech age, rise of meth, rise of crack, the prizing apart of the economic strata, who has been here to keep the peace?

Me.

I've never spoken this, and I feel silly even thinking it, but it's a pretty good song and dance for whoever wants to plead my case.

“How can I improve my odds?”

TMU chuckles. “Keep convicting people. And if anybody talks to you, do the country-lawyer thing that worked for you up north. Your résumé can't compete with the likes of Leslie and Two Rivers, and you haven't written much. You're a blank slate. We draw what we want. What I want, what will get you the bench, is the hayseed lawyer who's all dedication and folksy wisdom with no venal ambitions of your own. Go be it.”

•  •  •

Captain Dorsey calls again after lunch. “Nick, get this,” he says, brimming with excitement. “We've got a match to the tire treads of Scud Illman's car, but it's from a parking lot on the west side of the reservoir. That's almost a two-hour drive from where we found Zander Phippin.”

“The west side?” I say, baffled. This makes no sense. The reservoir fills a narrow north/south valley in an area of few roads. While the reservoir itself averages under a mile across, it can take hours to drive from one shore to the other. “They must have been scouting for where to dig.”

“Exactly. Dollars to doughnuts, they encountered someone over there and decided it was too crowded, drove over to the east side.”

“West side,” I say. “I'm surprised you even took tire prints there.”

“We didn't,” Dorsey says. “It was the rabbit fuzz.”

“Pardon?”

“Game warden. Someone was jacking deer over on the west side, so at the same time we were taking tire prints on the east shore, the game warden was taking them on the west. The lab made the connection. They compare tire prints as a matter of protocol.”

“Lucky. But if the blood in the trunk checks out, it's all beside the point. Goodbye, circumstantial, hello, direct physical.”

“And goodbye, Scud,” Dorsey says.

•  •  •

I buzz Upton and ask him to come talk to me. Usually, I just walk into his office, but once in a while, I make him bow to the king.

“What's up?” he says, appearing in my doorway in his studied, jacket-off, tie-loosened way.

I brief him on the new developments. He makes his way to a chair and settles in.

“What's wrong?” I ask.

“Nothing.”

“You look like I just ran over your dog.”

“Domestic. Pay it no mind.”

“Shall I take you out for coffee? Get the lowdown?”

“Heehee.” He chuckles without joy. “I'm booked. But if you're really aching for some vicarious woe, maybe next week.”

“Pick a day and pencil me in. Are we talking marital or parental woe? I'm experienced in both.”

“Next week.”

He stands to leave, but I stop him. “About Scud,” I say.

“Yes. Good news,” he says without feeling, and I see that poor Upton is really into it, whatever it is.

“This time, when we lock him up,” I say, “we're not letting him out again.”

Upton drops back into the chair. “I hear talk of immunizing him?”

“Yeah. Can you believe it? It's bullshit. We've got a career criminal on first-degree capital murder, and the Bureau wants to offer him something. The guy's a con man.”

“I don't know,” Upton says. “Everything indicates he's small change, but maybe he can lead us someplace.”

“Not you, too.”

“Eyes on the ball, boss.”

“Capital murder is the ball,” I snap, “and besides, he can't provide anything valuable.”

“The Bureau seems to think otherwise.”

“Well, when blood results come back from Scud's car, the Bureau can kiss my ass, 'cause I can put Zander Phippin in the trunk of Scud's car, I can put the car at the reservoir, I can put Seth Coen at the reservoir, and I can put Scud with Seth Coen.”

“What if Scud loaned Seth the car?”

I stop. I try resolving this question, and I can't.

“That's right,” Upton says, “we haven't put Scud himself at the reservoir. I think we should consider using him.”

I stare at him. Something's amiss. Upton is the scrappiest one of the bunch. Sometimes I have to keep him on a leash, but here he is, sounding like someone's grandmother. Maybe he's sore that I took over the case. Or maybe he senses change on the wind and he's positioning himself. TMU and Judge Washington are both getting old, and I might be going off to the circuit bench. Jobs are opening up. It's not in Upton's interest to piss off the Bureau. He and I are good friends but not close friends. Allegiances shift. I need to be wary of him for the time being.

“True enough,” I say with false cheer that I'm sure he sees through. “Let's see what the lab says about the blood. Then we'll have a powwow and hammer this out.”

Upton leaves, looking as miserable as when he came in. Something's clearly out of wack. He doesn't seem at all interested in seeing Scud convicted, and lately, his formerly indelible smile has become cheek-bitten. Something is eating him, and it seems connected to this case. I don't believe it has anything to do with some problem he's having at home.

L
izzy and I are driving north. I left the office late and rode the glacial traffic to Turner, picked up Liz, went grocery shopping, and now we're driving into the night. The wipers are
smack-smack
ing and the defogger is blowing, and I'm driving slowly because it's a real rainstorm and visibility is lousy.

“Potato salad or coleslaw?” Lizzy asks. She wears a headlamp and is dishing dinner from half-quart takeouts while I drive.

“Potato.”

She hands me a plate. I set it on my thighs.

“Any news?” she asks.

“Yes. We'll have an arrest again any day. Maybe any minute. We're waiting for blood results.”

“Cassandra's?”

“No.”

“The guy in the woods?”

“Yes.”

Silence. Then, “I never believed in capital punishment.”

“I know.”

“But this one. When you've met somebody . . .”

“I know.”

Silence again. Then, “I never understood what you do before.”

“This isn't really what I do, sweetheart.”

“Of course it is,” she says. “You just usually do it more from behind a desk.”

More silence. Later, this time in a lighter voice, “That lawyer who works for you . . .”

“Many lawyers work for me.”

“You know. Tina.”

“Yes. What about her?”

“I don't know.”

“Did you like her?”

“She likes dogs.”

I thought of suggesting to Tina that she might enjoy getting out of town and driving up to spend Saturday with Lizzy and me at the lake. But with Tina breathing fire over Kendall's antics in the Tamika Curtis case, I thought better of it.

The road is smooth and winding. My headlights cut a narrow cone into the darkness, and Arthur Rubeinstein caresses out a hypnotic piano sonata on the stereo. Lizzy is silent, and I think she's asleep, but then she says, “There are three kinds.”

I wait.

“There're the ones where you know right away. Like Anna K. and Vronsky. Or Romeo and Juliet. And then there're the ones where, like, never in a million years, thank you very much! And then there're all the ones in the middle: maybe yes, maybe no.”

“You're a pretty wise girl.”

“Cassandra was the first kind. And so was Mommy.”

And they all end tragically.

“Mom has told me,” Lizzy says. “She says if it hadn't been for baby Toby . . .”

“Yeah, well . . .”

Silence.

Lizzy says, “I hope I only have girls.”

This makes me wonder how much Flora has told her about Toby. More than I have, certainly, but less than everything. I say, “Times have changed, babe: amnio and everything. You can tell a lot before they're born; make your decisions.”

Quiet.

“Anyway,” she says, “the lawyer, Tina, I figure she's in the ‘it could go either way' group. And that's okay with me.”

“Lizzy! She just works for me.”