“I mean going to her apartment like that?”
“Tony had a suspicion she might have been killed where she lived,” she says.
“Then Tony should have checked,” I tell her.
“They were searching records to see where she lived when he called me on the cellular. DMV showed an old address,” she says.
“How did you know where she lived?”
“It was in the file the day I interviewed her in the office.” Mind like a steel trap.
“And you didn’t tell them?”
“I don’t work for those people anymore.” As she says this she smiles, and we both laugh, just a little, a cathartic release.
She speculates a little about the manner of death, evidence of a struggle, whether Hall died as a result of a fall against the table or some other trauma.
“Why would anybody move the body?” I say.
“Who can say?”
If she was killed in her own apartment, and the evidence of death is left there, what purpose is served by moving her? It would seem that there is more risk involved than advantage.
“And why wasn’t the door locked?”
“Some people are trusting,” says Lenore.
“A woman living alone?”
She gives me a look that is filled with concession.
“I’ll do you one better,” she says.
“What’s that?”
“Why would she be meeting a man she was about to testify against in a criminal case?”
I give her a look, all question marks.
“On her calendar,” says Lenore, “there’s a note. She had a scheduled appointment, to meet Acosta at four o’clock this afternoon.”
CHAPTER 6
“PIECE OF CAKE,” HE SAYS.
This afternoon Tony Arguillo is pumped up with confidence, the kind that comes after the fact, when all bullets have been dodged, and the fates leave you feeling as if you are immortal.
Arguillo took his walk before the firing squad of the grand jury this morning, and to hear him tell it, all their guns jammed. For myself, I am in the dark. Lawyers are not permitted to accompany their clients behind the closed doors of the grand jury room.
I had demanded to know whether Tony was a subject of the probe and was told that at this stage, knowing what they know, he is not. What we have received is a form of qualified immunity. They cannot use Tony’s testimony to charge him. However, anything else from other witnesses is fair game.
Today Tony plants himself on the couch in my office, both feet up, hands coupled behind the back of his head. The posture of the relaxed victor.
He strikes me as one of those people who has striven at all cost through childhood to be cool, a little too hard at times. He has developed a bearing that now makes him come off more like a weasel than a wolf. In his own mind I am certain he sees himself lean and mean, bad in the way only good cops are, spitting cool invective in the face of evil: Dirty Tony.
“No harm, no foul.” He actually grimaces when he says this.
“Our boy didn’t know which way to go, or what to ask,” he says. He’s talking about Coleman Kline, who questioned him.
“Like a walk through the park,” says Tony. “A slam dunk.” If there are any more canned descriptions of victory that quickly come to mind, Tony would come up with them. This from a man who raised pimples of sweat like acne for more than a month, through three continuances, courtesy of Acosta’s fall from grace.
He tells me that he does not have a high opinion of Coleman Kline’s abilities before a jury. I will wait for another, more objective assessment.
“All thumbs. Like a bull in a china shop.” These are the mixed metaphors he uses to describe the man.
“That’s fine, so long as you told the truth,” I tell him.
The prisons of this country are littered with the bodies of men, mostly good-time Charlies, people for whom any serious crime was the farthest thought. They now do the brickyard walk for a stretch of years because they obstructed justice or committed perjury for a friend. I wonder how far Tony would go to protect Lano and his flock.
“He never got beyond the basics, never mentioned the books,” he tells me. He’s talking about Kline and the union’s books of record, which have now mysteriously disappeared. Poof! Magic. Gus Lano’s answer to everything.
“They can’t get your ass if they don’t ask the right questions,” he tells me.
The fact that in this statement is something of an admission, that his posterior might in fact be gotten with the right questions, does not seem to bother my client. He starts to tell me more about this triumph, but I cut him off. I want facts, the particulars that they asked him, as I wait at my desk with pen perched over pad.
“We can wait to declare victory until after the transcript comes,” I tell him. “If we’re lucky it never will.”
This may take weeks or months. Grand jury transcripts are usually sealed, kept from the public and witnesses until charges are brought. If we are lucky they will bury the matter, decide that there is insufficient evidence to indict any parties and no transcript will be produced.
“Sure,” he says. I have rained on his parade and Tony’s enthusiasm suddenly goes dormant. He starts giving me bits and pieces of information. “There were a lot of irrelevant questions,” he says.
I press him again on whether he told the truth.
“You worry too much,” he says. My pursuit on this issue seems to offend him. I cannot tell whether this is because I am questioning his honor, or that he merely finds the truth a nettlesome inconvenience.
“Scout’s honor.” He raises two fingers in a somewhat twisted gesture, which makes me wonder if they were crossed when he was in the box.
It has been nearly a week since that grisly discovery of Hall’s body, and there has been little from the authorities as to leads. Lenore and I combed the papers, every set piece of type for days, fearful that they might have sniffed out our scent at the apartment that night, a neighbor walking a dog, some insomniac taking a leak only to capture our visage through a crack in a bathroom window. But it is true what they say; God protects the dim-witted. Our foolish escapade seems to have gone unnoticed.
There has been a lot of talk and speculation, none of which surprises me. Ever since the papers made the connection between Acosta’s prostitution case and the victim, the press has been rife with conjecture, all of which focuses on who stood to gain from the woman’s death. The most obvious candidate so far is the judge.
The cops tried to talk to Acosta the day after the murder. I am told he declined to say anything and offered no alibi. I could fire the flames of journalism like a steel blast furnace by telling them about the note on the girl’s calendar. And yet as much as I dislike the man, and even with the information I have from Hall’s calendar, I find it difficult to believe that Acosta would commit murder.
“Why did you talk to Gus Lano about our discussions in the office?” Without warning I lay this on Tony. Surprise is usually the best path to the truth.
My question puts him back a few steps; he arches his eyebrows, but he plays it cool.
“Testy,” he says. But he doesn’t deny it. There’s a little lame scratching of the head here while he considers the question.
“He seems to know an awful lot about our conversations.”
“Maybe he’s got a Ouija board,” he says. “Gus’s into the occult, black magic, the devil, all that shit.” He laughs at the image.
Gus is the devil, only Tony doesn’t know it.
“Let me think,” he says. He is not terribly disturbed by this accusation, still reclining on my couch, feet on a pillow.
“I don’t remember talking to him.”
If this is an example of the truth he told before the grand jury, Tony shoul
d be trying on horizontal stripes.
“Gus’s got a lot of sources,” he says. “Besides, what’s the harm? The grand jury’s looking in all the wrong places. Like I say, no harm, no foul,” he says.
This is getting redundant.
“It’s a question of confidence,” I tell him. “Mine in you.”
This draws a look from him, a cool smile, like it’s my dander up, not his.
“It’s hard to maintain a lawyer-client relationship if one of the parties is broadcasting to the world everything we discuss.”
“Talking to Gus is hardly broadcasting to the world,” he says. Tony has a lot to learn about admissions. It seems he has just made another. “What’s the problem?” he says.
“For one thing,” I tell him, “it serves to waive any privilege between us.”
For the first time he gives me a dense look, like he doesn’t understand this. So I explain.
“All of our conversations are privileged. The state cannot force me to reveal anything we have discussed within the attorney-client relationship.”
A happy look. Sounds good to Tony.
“Unless you have revealed it to someone else,” I say. “Then they can turn the screws and force me to repeat anything and everything you’ve told me,” I tell him.
“Oh.” I get a sober look, but still he doesn’t move.
“Yes. Oh.” Tony gets my drift. Some of the information he has revealed to me, mostly minor indiscretions, would not get him prosecuted but might get him fired. While there is a vast gulf between crimes and employee misconduct, it is a chasm that is deep enough to swallow a cop’s career.
“Of course it’s always possible that Gus already knew things about you that I do not.” This puts it squarely, and Tony finally swings around and sits up, feet planted firmly on the floor, eyes as mean as Tony knows how to make them.
“Say it?” he says.
“Zack Wiley. Strike a chord?” I ask.
I can tell by the look that it does.
“Officer Wiley, you remember, was killed in a raid on a crack house last year. I’m told you were there. That you came up with the gun that was later determined to have killed the officer. I’m also told there was a problem with that particular weapon, some question about whether it was property in the possession of the department from another, earlier crime scene.”
I get a hollow gaze from Arguillo, the kind that flashes like red neon: Trouble here.
He would say “Oh shit,” but he doesn’t have to. I can read it in his eyes.
“Is there something you didn’t tell me about this morning’s examination?”
“It was nothing. Irrelevant,” he says.
There’s a considerable pause, the psychic smell of rubber burning, as if he is replaying some of the questions and his testimony of this morning in his head. Coleman Kline is more devious than Tony could imagine.
“He asked some questions about a robbery over on the East Side three years ago, and whether I responded to the scene. It was a fishing expedition,” he says.
“You wish.”
“He’s got nothing,” he says.
“Did you respond? To the robbery scene?” I ask.
“Not that I remember,” he says. “It’s hard to recall that far back. You make a dozen calls in a day. Six or eight robberies in a month. If nobody gets shot they all come together in your mind after a while.”
“Is that where the gun came from?” I ask.
He gives me an expression, something halfway between an admission and he’s not sure.
“How did you know about the gun?” he says.
“Half the city knows about that gun,” I tell him.
“What are you trying to say?”
“I’m trying to say that the jury probe may be moving beyond its initial scope, onto more dangerous ground,” I tell him.
As these words clear my lips, Tony’s cool indifference begins to melt like ice on a hot day.
CHAPTER 7
I WOULD GUESS THAT SHE IS IN HER EARLY FIFTIES. SHE has dark hair and is not unattractive, though her makeup is smeared in a few places, maybe evidence of a rush to get here this morning.
She is well-dressed, in heels, a dark skirt, and white blouse under a silk blazer, with a matching blue scarf about her neck. Her face is creased by a few lines at the forehead and cheeks, which if I had to guess are the product of some recent stress. By her presence here in my office I can assume this is legal in nature.
Her name is Lili. A first name, which is all I am given by way of introduction from Lenore. And while I am not told why they are here, I detect the aroma of commerce, a client with money, and a hungry lawyer named Goya.
“I assumed you wouldn’t mind the use of your office,” says Lenore.
“Mi casa, su casa,” I tell her. I offer to leave so they can talk privately. We have discussed an association, some sharing of office space since Harry and I have an empty but unfurnished suite down the hall. It is something Lenore wants to think about.
“I can use the library for a few minutes,” I tell her.
“Not necessary,” says Lenore. She’s sipping coffee from a foam cup as she talks, leaving ruby red lip prints around the edge. “I could use some advice,” she tells me.
I am figuring practical stuff that public prosecutors do not deal with, like fees, and costs. Still I am flattered, and I make a grand gesture, as if to say, “Moi?”
“Whatever I can do,” I tell her.
“Your husband, is he here?” Lenore turns to the woman, all business.
“He will be here momentarily,” she says. “He had to park the car and did not want to be late.”
“I’m sure this has been a difficult time for both of you,” says Lenore.
“You cannot imagine,” says the woman. “My husband is worried about what all of this will do to our family, especially our two daughters, if he is arrested.”
“Minor children?” asks Lenore.
“No. No. They are married. They have children of their own,” she says. She reaches into her purse and takes out her wallet. A second later she produces two pictures, dusky, dark-eyed beauties maybe six or seven years of age in party dresses, with curls like little funnel clouds, bearing toothless smiles of innocence.
“The little one, Gabriella.” The woman called Lili points with a well-manicured finger. “She is the apple of her papa’s eye. My husband,” she says. “It would kill him if this thing were to harm her in some way. These ugly accusations and innuendos,” she says.
She speaks in a clipped staccato, syllables rolling from the tongue in the trill of a Romance language, making me think that English is not native to her.
“Has your husband made any statement to the police?” asks Lenore.
“No.” She shakes her head. “He has said nothing to anyone. He does not even want to discuss it with me. He’s been very depressed,” she says. “I am worried about him.”
“You think he might harm himself?” says Lenore.
Lili gives an expression of concession, as though this may be possible.
“You would not tell him I said this?” she says.
Lenore shakes her head, like never.
“Maybe we should start at the beginning.” I sit here, the proverbial man from Mars, wondering whether we are talking ax murder, or someone accused of fondling little girls. The lofty calling of the criminal law.
“It might be best if we wait until he gets here,” says Lenore. “So we don’t have to go over it twice.”
I shrug my shoulders. It’s her party.
“Has your husband talked to another lawyer?” she asks.
“I don’t think he has considered it,” says Lili. “When he found out that you were available, and that you were about to join Mr
. Madriani, he wanted you immediately.”
“How nice of him,” says Lenore.
Now I am intrigued.
Lili tells her that the police have said nothing, though they have come twice to the house to look for evidence.
“Did they have search warrants?”
“Yes.” Lili nods. There is no fudging on this. The woman seems to know search warrants from shopping lists.
“The first time they took away his car. They had it towed somewhere,” she says. “We have not seen it since.”
I hear movement in the outer office, the door, and voices: the receptionist’s, and another, a familiar deep baritone.
“I think they’re expecting me,” I hear the man say.
It is a voice that imparts dark premonitions, like an advancing tidal wave in the blackness of night. An instant before the door to my office opens I get a glimpse of Lenore. She is studying me for effect, one eye covered by tousled hair, the other filled with sheepish apprehension, an expression like the Mona Lisa’s.
Mahogany swings wide, and there in the open frame of my door stands Armando Acosta.
It is an image like something on celluloid, strange encounters, the form of a man I would not envision in my most demented dreams darkening my portal. Our eyes lock only for a brief instant, until he breaks this gaze.
Lili does the honors with Lenore, making introductions as the two shake hands.
“My husband, Judge Acosta. Ms. Goya,” she says. She ignores the fact that he is no longer on the bench, having been suspended pending disposition on the prostitution charge, which is now compounded by the death of the state’s only witness.
“You may call me Armando,” he tells her.
I can think of a dozen other names, each one profane, but more appropriate than that selected by his parents on the dark day of his christening.
“Lenore,” she says.
For a moment I think maybe he is going to kiss her hand. But he merely bends at the waist, and takes her limp wrist. This turns into something more courtly than I might have imagined.
Stunned, I am still planted in my chair behind the desk when he turns on me. I am afraid that if I try to rise, my legs may fail me.
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