Untitled (34 page)

  He heard noise across the hall. He quickly dialed the security code. He could hear footsteps. He had to catch the person before they got away. He quickly headed for the door.

  Marshall flung open the door to the office he was hiding in and saw Roberta Shebbel stepping out of his office. She saw Marshall and was startled, letting out a little yell.

  The two lawyers looked at each other for a moment, silent. Marshall stared at her with anger and accusation. He could not believe it. Straight-arrow Roberta, the confidante, was a spy.

  "I've been waiting for you," Marshall said calmly.

  "I left something—in your office," she said.

  Roberta's words were fairly calm, but the look in her eyes betrayed that. It was a look of sheer terror.

  "You're much too intelligent to think I'll believe that, Roberta," said Marshall.

  Roberta was silent. She started to shake a little, she looked like someone about to go into shock.

  "Marshall, I—I don't—" Roberta's mind stalled. She was a smart woman, and she'd put it all together. Marshall had set a trap, and she had been caught. Roberta's lip quivered, and she started to cry.

  "How could you do this to me?" Marshall asked. "I thought you were my friend."

  Roberta continued to break down, speechless. Suddenly, a security officer ran in. His hand was on his weapon, and he had a look of fear on his face. Marshall recognized Mike Phillips, a relatively new man in security. He was so young that he looked like a kid with a toy gun on his hip as he rounded a corner.

  "Hey, Mike," said Marshall. "Sorry, man. This was a false alarm. I thought someone was in my office, so I hit the code. Turned out to be my good friend Roberta here."

  Marshall walked over to Roberta and put an arm around her. The look on his face was friendly, but in his eyes, he knew she could see the look of anger and betrayal. "She's just having a little problem."

  "Is everything okay?" Mike asked. He pulled his hand away from the gun.

  "Yes," said Marshall. "You go back. Everything's good here."

  "Okay, Mr. Jackson," said the guard. "But watch it. That code is serious."

  "I will," said Marshall.

  The guard walked off, talking into a radio. Marshall turned to Roberta, who was sobbing heavily now.

  "I want to know everything," said Marshall. "Right now."

* * *

Marshall took Roberta out of the building over to Lafayette Coney Island, a hot dog joint downtown. It was late, and it was the only place he knew that would be open.

  Marshall took Roberta to a table in the corner of the restaurant. She was calmer now but still shaken at being caught.

  "So, what the fuck is going on?" asked Marshall.

  "I don't know, Marshall," said Roberta. She was looking down in her chest, and her eyes were red.

  "Don't you go soft on me," said Marshall. "I want to know who's bugging my office and why."

  "I really don't know. It's all fucked now. Everything's fucked."

  A waiter came by. He looked at Roberta and grew concerned.

  "You okay, ma'am?" he asked.

  "Yes," said Roberta. She pulled out some Kleenex.

  "We'll have two coffees," said Marshall.

  The waiter went off, glancing back at Roberta.

  "Okay, Roberta," said Marshall. "If you won't tell me what I need to know, then I'm done. I'll go to Nate, and we'll have you investigated."

  "They killed Jessica, didn't they?" she asked.

  "Who is 'they'?" asked Marshall.

  "I don't know, I swear." She started to cry again.

  Marshall waited a moment for her to calm down. "Yes, I believe they killed Jessica," he said.

"I knew it. It was just too much of a coincidence."

"I think she found out about the recordings."

  "Oh God, this is so awful. What am I going to do?" said Roberta.

  "You're going to turn off the damned tears and tell me how you got into whatever this shit is." Marshall hated to see a woman cry, but Roberta was a traitor, and he had to know what she knew.

  "Okay, okay," said Roberta. "I'm sorry."

  The waiter came back with the coffee. Roberta took a sip without putting anything in it.

  "Okay, I was seeing this man, a lawyer in the appellate division. You know him, Lance Young."

  "Yes, he was disbarred. Had a gambling and drug problem, but I didn't know you two were seeing each other."

  "Nobody did. We had a very discreet relationship." She sniffed a little. "Couldn't have anyone know he was fucking a fat girl." She laughed bitterly.

  Marshall was mildly shocked. Roberta didn't curse often, in fact, he didn't think he'd ever heard her curse until now.

  "So what did your relationship with Lance have to do with all this? I want you to start from the beginning and don't leave anything important out." He was treating her like a witness in prep for a trial or deposition. He had to. She was all over the place with her emotions and needed focus.

  "Lance got into trouble," she started. "He owed money to some bad men. So, naturally he came to me for help. He always did. I knew what he was, but I was weak for him. Well, I didn't have the kind of money he needed. Lance was desperate. He'd been beaten and he was crying. He said they'd kill him. I couldn't stand seeing him like that. I was in love with him. You have to understand that."

  Roberta stopped and took out another Kleenex. She had a wet pile of them now.

  "I checked our recent cases, then I took the money from evidence control before they could check it for prints and all that other stuff they do."

  Marshall remembered that a few months back, twenty thousand dollars turned up missing from evidence in a drug case. The defendant was freed and the money never recovered.

  "Lance got the money," Roberta continued. "He gambled it and snorted it away. Then he got caught buying drugs and was disbarred. Not long after that he dumped me and went to Denver with another woman. After that I figured, what the hell, I was a dumb-ass woman in love. I thought I'd just stick that mistake in my little private closet where it would just turn into another skeleton, you know."

  "But someone got to you. Who got you to spy on me and why?"

  Roberta sniffed a little and blew into another Kleenex. "I got an anonymous letter one day that said how I stole the money and why. They said that they had evidence that I was the one."

  "So, why didn't you come to me or Nate? Why not cut your losses, Roberta?"

  "I was going to, Marshall, but—" She looked down into her coffee.

  "Oh God, did you do drugs too? Did you spend the money on something?"

  "Yes, I partied with Lance, but there was something worse than that. These people, whoever they are, sent me a copy of a video Lance and I made together—with another man."

  Marshall was stunned. He was like most men. He never thought of a fat woman like Roberta as a sexual person. She had probably endured years of loneliness and rejection. She'd finally found a man but had gotten in way over her head.

  "I didn't know he taped it," said Roberta. "Someone must have found it after Lance self-destructed. We had gotten so crazy. The other guy was one of Lance's drug connections."

  She took a moment and wiped another tear from her face. "Do you know what it's like, Marshall? To be a woman who's not pretty or attractive? Fat. It's a death sentence for a woman my age. You haven't lived until you've seen the terror in the eyes of a blind date, or heard the whispers and laughing as you walk by people in a health spa. I don't blame anyone, it's just—The things about me that are good are not in my underwear, but that shouldn't doom me to a life without a man. All I wanted was somebody to be with. It's goddamned humanity, Marshall, didn't I deserve that?"

  Marshall almost felt sorry for her. Roberta was a talented woman, exceptional in fact, but he had to admit, she wouldn't be his first choice for a date. But that was not the issue. She'd committed several felonies and violated his privacy. He knew she was being blackmailed, bent to someone else's will, and what he was about to do was no better.

  "What happened to Lance?" asked Marshall.

  "He was found dead in Denver not long ago. Probably crossed the wrong people."

  "So, this mysterious person told you to bug my office?"

  "Yes, I kept getting these notes that told me what to do. They all came to my house. Never at work for some reason. I knew it was blackmail, but I just couldn't let that video get out. I just couldn't."

  "Who do you think is behind this?" Now he was picking her brain. He knew she had to be thinking about her blackmailers and probably had some theories.

  "Law enforcement," said Roberta. "FBI, CIA, maybe even someone from our office. I don't know what you're into Marshall, but someone's watching you."

  "The only thing I'm into is my job. Do you have the letters? I want to see them."

  "I kept them, but it's just regular paper from a laser printer. There's nothing you can get from it. Whoever's doing this is too smart."

  "Okay, Roberta," said Marshall. "I want you to be cool and keep playing along."

  Roberta lifted her head. "You're not going to turn me in?"

  "I can't. This is bigger than you know. I'd tell you what I think is going on, but you're in enough trouble already."

  "When I saw you go to that bookcase, I thought I'd piss my pants. I thought my life was over. I went home tonight and actually thought about killing myself."

  "Roberta, I can't condone what you've done. But you're a good person and a good lawyer. You deserve better than this, but I can't let you out until I get to the bottom of this. More people may be hurt."

  "So, why are they interested in you? Are you fixing cases or something?" she asked. "I heard you had that gunrunner cold on weapons charges and he got off."

  Marshall was insulted, but it did make sense. As far as Roberta knew, the Douglas case had nothing to do with the bugging. "Langworthy did that," he said. "He gave the jury a fucked-up instruction that allowed them to spring Lewis Quince because of abuse by the cops. What they want from me is something else."

  He didn't want to tell her any more than that. The one thing he couldn't do was give her information to trade to whoever was squeezing her.

  "I'm gonna see if I can bring out our friend."

  "What about the case?"

  "We go on."

  "Just like that. After all you know, we're going to continue?"

  "Yes," said Marshall with determination. "I'm not going to stop this case and derail everything because of this. You— we're both in too deep now. Trial starts in a few days. Be ready with all your research and support."

  "So, you still want me on the case?" She had a look of surprise on her face.

  "Yes. I'm not judging you, Roberta, but I'm not saying you'll be clean on this, but if you help me, it might be easier for you when this is over."

  Roberta thought about this. She tilted her head up a little, the way people do as if they are looking for divine inspiration.

  "If I survive," she said.

  Marshall didn't want to lie to her. She was smart enough to know that they were on very dangerous ground now. People were already dead and things were bound to get worse.

  "Yes, if you survive—and me too."

M
arshall got up early the next morning. All night he thought of Roberta and her dirty tale of sex, blackmail, and regret. The seriousness of what it meant weighed heavily on his mind. The surveillance on him meant Mbutu might not be guilty. If that was true, then a bigger, more villainous force was at work.

  He thought about who could benefit from Douglas's death. Reluctantly, he had to name Judge Bradbury, his old friend. He was in line to get Douglas's job and didn't like the dead man's politics. There might be radicals and subversives who didn't like Douglas, but none of them could bug his office. That was a government move. If it was the CIA or FBI, or the ever-elusive NSA, there could be a thousand reasons to kill Douglas. Who knew the kind of shit they were into?

  He had to look beyond the obvious reasons. Everyone just assumed that Douglas was killed because of race-related issues. But that wasn't necessarily true. He remembered what he had told Danny about the racial overtones of his brutality case:

  
Race clouds people's minds, and while they're
angry
about it, someone can steal the world from you.

  The first thing he'd do was check the crime again. If there was another shooter, then according to the ballistics report he could only have been in the same general area as Mbutu. The trajectories of the shots were close. They went over the scene carefully, but maybe their heads weren't in the right place.

Then he had to work to find his brother. The FBI had an interstate manhunt going but so far had nothing. If they found Moses, Marshall would have to get to him first and make some kind of deal. The information in his brother's head might be the key to all this. If he could find out who really killed Douglas, then maybe he might flush them all out.

  
Before they kill me too.

  The words slipped quietly into his head. And they were accurate. How long before the powers behind all this decided that he was dispensable too? Not long, he reasoned. So he had to get to it fast.

  Marshall had a glass of orange juice and tried to read the paper. After a while, Danny and Vinny came downstairs and sat with him in the kitchen. Danny looked tired and upset. Marshall looked at his friend and saw the key to his plan. Danny was outside the law now and had no connections to the feds. But could he put his friend in harm's way like this? It didn't seem fair, although he knew that Danny would never refuse him.