Indefensible (26 page)

“I don't know about any granddaughter.”

Huberly considers me a few seconds. She's sixtyish and looks like she has squeezed every ounce of attractiveness from a tired body. She has purplish hair and a shirt with lacy cuffs, and she's strikingly, clinically thin. I'm sure she's been targeted over the years by legions of alcohol-bolstered would-be mates, and she seems like she'd be adept at the parry and thrust of those negotiations. “You could come back
tomorrow night,” she says. “Like, say, at nine o'clock. Because what I'll do for you is I'll mention around that you'll be here. And these guys”—she indicates the barnacles—“Curly, Larry, and Moe here, at some point they'll get their fat asses off the stools for one reason or another, and chances are they'll mention how some suit was in here buying rounds and looking for Platty, and word gets around. You know?”

I give Huberly twice the cost of the drinks. “Nine o'clockish,” I say, and walk out into the fresh air.

•  •  •

At home, dinner is a beef roast that has spent the day in the slow cooker filling my house with its burgundy-soaked, vegetable-assisted fragrance.

“Smells good, Dad,” Lizzy says. We put plates on the table, olive bread, olive oil, and a salad of prewashed, precut, premixed greens. Lizzy selects the carrots, potatoes, and onions from the slow cooker, avoiding the actual roast. We pretend her vegetarianism isn't violated by eating vegetables that have simmered all day in the blood of a bovine. Usually I cook a more Eastern, garbanzo-ish meal, even for myself, but sometimes my inner carnivore stirs to life.

“You're quiet,” she says.

“I'm thinking about work. Have I told you about the circuit court?”

“Only eighty-seven times. What are you brooding about?”

“I'm not brooding.”

“Is it Tina?”

“. . . No.”

“You hesitated.”

“Did not. It's confidential. Classified. I've got a . . . a problem at work,” I say, recognizing that with sad pauses and a woeful voice, I'm begging her to keep asking. Lizzy has more common sense than anyone. No surprise that I find myself manipulating her to drag it out of me.

“Tell,” she says.

“Hypothetically,” I say, “hypothetically and confidentially. I've encountered evidence . . .” I stop. She's just fourteen. Already she's too involved in this, and here I am about to bring her further in because I need to get it off my chest and there's nobody else I know and trust enough except TMU, and I can't go to TMU, because that's the whole game—whether or not to throw Upton to the wolves.

“Evidence of what?” Lizzy asks.

“Evidence of lax standards at Turner Middle School. Moral standards, academic standards, fashion standards, problems with personal grooming.”

“Daddy . . .”

“Our informants tell of actual handholding in the hallways, exposed belly buttons, butt cracks on display.”

“Shut up, Daddy.”

“Piercings, tattoos.”

“Shut up, Daddy.”

“A's given out to pretty girls who haven't earned them. And the reading of age-inappropriate literature. Books about adultery and . . . and more adultery.”

“Are you awfully pleased with yourself, Daddy?”

“And we're going to raid the place.”

“Let me know when you're done.”

I go into the kitchen for a bottle of wine and two glasses. I pour myself a glass, then ceremoniously, I pour her about an inch.

“What's this for?”

“You're so grown up for fourteen. Wise beyond your years, responsible, disciplined, all of that. So I'm giving you this taste, illegal though it is, of adulthood. Because it's harmless. Here's to you, babe.” I clink her glass.

“Daddy?”

“What?”

“You're a jerk. And you're avoiding the subject. I know you. You're supposed to be telling me about work.”

“No, sweetheart, I'm definitely
not
supposed to be telling you
about work. Drink your wine. That's the only taste of adulthood you're getting tonight.”

“Fine,” she says, genuinely pissed off, “and you know I'm a vegetarian, how come you're making me eat this garbage?” She pushes her plate away with an exaggerated motion, takes her salad bowl and the wine, and heads up to her room.

My Lizzy. As if Cassandra's murder hasn't been traumatic enough for her without me unloading on her. This thing with Upton: I need to talk to someone, but it has to be in complete confidence, and it has to be someone compassionate, who understands the law and enforcement and the stakes I'm dealing with. What I need, I realize, is not a fourteen-year-old girl. I need a lawyer.

K
endall Vance writes precise letters that don't touch one another: “Conversation with Asst. U.S. Atty. Davis.” It's the top line of a canary-yellow legal pad. On the next line, he letters the date.

“Can I see that?” I say, reaching across his desk. I pull the pad toward me, tear off the top sheet, crumple it, and pitch it over my shoulder.

“I see,” he says.

“Just a discussion.”

“Concerning someone I represent?”

“Indirectly.”

“One moment,” he says. He goes to his outer office and comes back with two cups of coffee. His is in a ceramic cup that I recognize as one the local public radio station sends when you pledge over fifty dollars. My coffee is in a paper cup, which seems a bit déclassé for a high-profile criminal attorney. “Now, don't keep me in suspense,” he says, settling back behind his desk.

I tell him why I'm here. He already knows a lot of the story from his representation of Scud. I fill in details, though I fudge about my snooping in his, Kendall's, cell phone. “I became aware,” I say, which is classic testimonial language for something you don't want to discuss. “I became aware that Upton conversed directly with Scud on at least one occasion, and yet when I asked Upton if that was the case, he denied it.”

I tell Kendall about there being a leak in enforcement, and about the resignation letter I found in Upton's desk drawer, and about my conversation with Tipper, the con who told me about Upton's gambling. Kendall doesn't interrupt, but occasionally, I see him eye
the yellow pad, wishing, no doubt, he could jot something down. A few times I get close to things I don't want to put out there—my other-than-professional interest in Cassandra, my almost blabbing this whole sorry mess to Lizzy, the sadness I felt when Scud's stepson, Colin, had to sit through the search of Scud's house. But every time I'm tempted to crack that valve, I see Kendall's eyes peering at me with such intensity that he looks nearly cross-eyed. Kendall is no confessor, no confidant. That's why I'm here: In legal matters, Kendall checks his feelings at the door, and he has the intellectual complexity of the
Boy Scout Handbook.
I want someone who, if A=B and B=C, can conclude, without getting mired in the math of his own emotional or ethical universe, that A=C. Because right now I can't.

Maybe it's dicey talking to Kendall. I chose him for a few reasons: First, he might know things about this case that I don't—things Scud might have told him. He wouldn't actually tell me any of it, but he might lead me in a useful direction. Also, though I don't particularly like Kendall, I know he won't play games, he won't intentionally lead me in the wrong direction. Too many defense lawyers are tweedy, muddle-headed moral relativists. Not Kendall. He knows the federal system, and if he has a conflict, he'll tell me. He won't try to screw with me just because I'm a prosecutor.

I weave my story out until I talk myself to a standstill.

“What was Upton's reaction when you said you were going to handle the Scud Illman prosecution yourself ?” Kendall asks.

“Surprised.”

“Disconcerted?”

“Who knows.”

Kendall nods. “Your suspicions: Do you have a theory?”

“Perhaps,” I say, “but at three-twenty an hour, I'd rather hear from you.”

He laughs. “Professional courtesy, Nick,” he says. “Let's say this first meeting is gratis.”

I nod graciously. “Still, let me have your unvarnished impressions.”

“Realizing that my impression is informed by the details you chose to provide, here is what I hear. I hear that Upton Cruthers has
or had a gambling problem and that this knowledge, combined with observations of your own and information you've obtained, leads you to suspect that Assistant U.S. Attorney Cruthers may have been blackmailed, that the blackmailer was Scud Illman, and that Scud was trying to get Upton to sabotage your investigation and prosecution in the murders of Zander Phippin and/or Cassandra Randall.”

“Yes,” I say, “but there's more, isn't there?”

He missed a lot of it. Or maybe not. Maybe I held back too much in the telling, or maybe I've made a fundamental error in coming here. I'm wanting to talk about this the way I would with my stable of prosecutors and/or some agents at the Bureau. Kendall might be too much the defense attorney. Do all roads lead to innocence in his world? Is he incapable of seeing major crimes if he can see minor ones instead?

I stand and wander the room. I study his wall of fame. All prominent lawyers seem to have one. Plaques and certificates of appreciation: Big Brothers and Big Sisters board of directors; State Commission on the Causes and Treatments of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder; Disability Law Center Board of Directors. Additionally, he has been pro bono counsel to the Center for Children's and Infants' Rights, and he is a volunteer mentor at the local Veterans' Reentry Program. He's been involved in some good things, which, dammit, forces me to further reconsider my contempt for him again.

“Okay, taking it a step further,” Kendall says. “I hear that you're wondering how far Upton went to protect his secret. Like whether it was Upton himself who leaked Cassandra Randall's identity to the bad guys?”

“It has occurred to me.”

“And his polite resignation letter was an attempt to put some worms back in the can. Like maybe if he got out ahead of Scud—or whoever was blackmailing him on the gambling—he could keep the snitching secret?”

“Sure,” I say. “He knows he's about to get outed by Scud, so he snatches the ball. He cops to the gambling to, quote, clear his conscience, and he denies he ever threw a game. I had already taken
over Scud's prosecution, so the question of whether Upton obfuscated on that is moot. Worst case: He loses his job. In all likelihood, Harold and I refuse to accept the resignation, and Upton gets out of it clean.”

“What do you believe?” Kendall asks. “Is he the snitch or not?”

“It's still more complicated than that, isn't it?” I say.

“Meaning what?”

Kendall hasn't caught up with me. It's so obvious, I can't believe he's missed it. He just waits, so I feed it to him: “If someone's blackmailing you, Kendall, what are your options?”

“Pay or don't.”

“Or?”

He shakes his head, confused.

“Oh, for Christ's sake, Kendall, you whack them. Isn't it kind of coincidental that Scud got killed late in the evening of the very day Upton wrote but apparently decided not to deliver his resignation letter?”

He stares at me, disbelieving.

“Why not?” I say.

“It's just . . .”

“Why the hell not? You find out a guy isn't who you think he is, where do you stop? He'd do this but not that; or he'd do this and that but not the other thing. Fuck it all, if a guy's dirty, he's dirty. And which is worse anyway, snitching secrets that get bystanders like Cassandra Randall killed, or putting a slug into some lowlife like Scud Illman? Personally, I might respect him if all he did was pop the likes of Scud; save everybody a lot of trouble. But snitching, that's a different matter. If Upton sold out Cassandra, I'll make it my life's work to see that . . .”

I stop. I was shouting. Kendall is surprised. He looks terrible, and I want to goad him—this lily-livered defender of hoodlums, gangsters, psychopaths. Here he is, struck speechless by the idea of a murderer among our brothers in the law. I don't say anything. We watch each other across the desk until it gets awkward. Finally, I say, “Anyhow, that's why I'm here.”

“I see.”

“ 'Cause I need to believe one thing or another before I do anything.”

“Of course.”

“And I needed to talk it through with someone who knows the landscape; to hear my thoughts out loud.”

“Of course.”

“Because if I'm wrong, well, a guy never recovers from an accusation of murder or conspiracy, no matter how innocent he is.”

Kendall seems to be shrinking as we talk. He is pale and unsteady in his speech. The idea of Upton as a murderer has completely undone him. “Is there physical evidence of any kind?” he asks. “Anything usable from the scene of Scud's murder?”

“We haven't even figured out where Scud got whacked.”

“Should be easy enough,” Kendall says. “Guy gets shot in the head and dumped in the river, you just work your way upriver till you find something.”

“You'd think,” I say, “but the troopers haven't found squat.”

“Have them keep looking,” he snaps, and for an uncomfortable few seconds, neither of us speaks. Then he says, “Upton might be up to some shenanigans of some kind, but he sure as hell didn't kill Scud.”

“You're naive.”

Kendall leans back in his chair, hands folded across his stomach, and stares at me, unblinking. He doesn't say anything, but the silence is thick with meaning: He represents criminals accused of unspeakable acts. He's privy, in the sacrosanct attorney-client confidentiality, to details of these crimes that are more horrible than any jury will ever know. He is anything but naive.