Since this hasn't really been a discussion, I consider his announcement of its ending to be premature. “Actually, I thought that since—”
And again. “Since I have influence, and since the victim was my son's girlfriend, I could talk to the governor, get that scum's sentence reduced to life in prison. Forget it. As I said, end of discussion.”
This is getting annoying. “I like beer,” I say quickly.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” he demands.
“Nothing. I just wanted to see if I could get in one complete sentence without you interrupting, and ‘I like beer’ was the quickest sentence I could think of.”
This is the point where the gruff, overpowering type usually laughs grudgingly and warms up. Victor, unfortunately, doesn't seem to be familiar with that stereotype. He looks at me with the same respect he would a roach that he just found in his Rice Krispies.
“You're as big a wiseass as I've heard.”
“Thank you very much.” That's my second sentence in a row, so I'm feeling pretty chipper.
“What do you want? I'm a busy man.”
I had been planning to talk to him about the Miller case, but he's made it clear that the only way I'll get any answers about that is to take his deposition under oath. I smoothly switch to plan B, taking out the photograph and laying it on his desk. “I was curious about when and where this picture was taken.”
For the first time, I see a human reaction. I can't tell what it is, maybe a gas pain, but something has gotten through his outer crust. A moment later it's gone, and he's back in control.
“Where did you get that?”
“My father had it.”
“Who are those people?”
“The second one from the left is you.”
He shakes his head a little too hard, and doesn't bother to look at the photo again. “That's not me.”
I'm surprised, because it is clearly him. “You're saying it's not you? That's the position you're taking?”
This annoys him; human reactions are rapidly becoming commonplace to Victor Markham. “Position? I don't have to take a position. It's not me.”
“Did you know my father back around … oh, thirty-five years ago?”
“No. Now if that's all, my girl will show you out.”
“Your girl is older than you are.”
He is already on his intercom, calling for Eleanor.
I keep at him. “Why are you so upset that I have this picture of you?” I look at the picture again and then at Victor. “Maybe it's because you've had a few snacks since then.”
He doesn't answer, pretending to no longer be paying attention. The door opens and the ominous Eleanor arrives. I can either follow her out the door or she'll throw me through the glass wall.
“By the way, Victor. I will be deposing you about the McGregor killing. You can do it the easy way, or I can get a subpoena. Let me know.”
I wink at Eleanor and keep talking to Victor. “Have your girl call my girl.”
I go downstairs, taking out my annoyance on Victor by refusing to converse with the elevator. I call my office from a pay phone in the lobby, catching my girl, Edna, with her mouth full, and I wait while she swallows to get my messages.
“Mr. Calhoun from a company named Allied called. He says it's about your car.”
I'm terrible paying bills; they sit on my desk until collection agencies call with reminders.
“Forget it. He's from a collection agency. I'll take care of it later.”
“My cousin Shirley's husband, Bruce, worked for a collection agency. He could tell you—”
I interrupt her. “Edna, did anyone else call?”
“Cal Morris.”
“Who?”
“Cal Morris from the newsstand. He said if you don't recognize his name, I should tell you that they're hanging really low today.”
Cal has never called me before; I didn't even realize he knew my full name. “Did he say what he wanted?”
“He wouldn't tell me,” Edna says, “but he said it was urgent, and he sounded really upset.”
I stop off at the newsstand on the way back, and sure enough, Cal has been anxiously waiting for me to contact him. He closes up the stand and takes me to the diner next door for a cup of coffee. We sit at a booth, and he lets it spill out.
“It's my daughter, Andy. She's been arrested. You got to get her off, there's no way she could have done this.”
“Take it easy, Cal. Start at the beginning.”
Cal doesn't know much, just that his only daughter, Wanda, has been arrested on prostitution charges. She's only sixteen, and until today Cal has assumed she's a virgin. In fact, he still does.
Cal knows that I have contacts in the local justice system. He is desperate, and he offers to pay me whatever it will take. Since money is not my biggest problem these days, I shrug it off, mumbling something about free newspapers and magazines. I don't mean it, though, since paying for the papers is part of my superstition.
I've got about an hour before I'm supposed to meet with Laurie, so I tell Cal that I'll stop off at the police station and see what I can do. He's so grateful I think he's going to cry, and it makes me feel good to be able to help. That's if I'm able to help.
I go down to the station and am lucky enough to run into Pete Stanton. Not only is Pete a pretty good friend of mine (we play racquetball together), but he is a lieutenant, and he owes me a favor. That doesn't mean he won't give me a hard time, it just means he'll eventually give in.
By a coincidence, Pete was the detective originally assigned to the Willie Miller case, and he ran the investigation. He assumes that is what I'm here to see him about, and is surprised when I tell him about Cal's daughter, Wanda.
Though Pete does not have anything to do with Wanda's case, he tracks down her file and looks through it. I tell him that Wanda Morris is a troubled kid, but after a quick read he dismisses her as a hooker.
I correct him. “An alleged hooker.”
“Who do I look like?” he sneers. “John Q. Jury? She allegedly propositioned a cop. Vice has allegedly got it on tape.”
“An obvious case of entrapment.”
Pete laughs and shows me his nameplate on his desk. He points to the word “Lieutenant.” “See that?” he says. “That means I'm hot shit around here.”
I nod. “You're a goddamn legend, a combination J. Edgar Hoover and Eliot Ness. Which means you spend your time walking around in a dress looking for alcohol.”
He ignores that. “Come on, Andy, why are you talking to me about a hooker? I deal in big stuff, like homicides. If this hooker screws a guy to death, come talk to me.”
“You owe me.” I didn't want to have to use my ace this early in the conversation, but I don't want to be late again for my meeting with Laurie. I represented Pete's brother on a drug charge in a nearby town. I got him off and kept Pete's name out of it. His brother is doing well now, turned his life around, and Pete remembers. Pete's the type who will remember it until the day he dies, and maybe even a few years afterward.
That doesn't mean he'll cave easily. “You calling in your chit on this? A hooker case? You know as well as I do she'll be back on the street in a day anyway.”
“Her father's my friend.”
Pete nods; no more explanation is necessary. Pete is a guy who understands friendship.
“I'll call McGinley,” he says. “I'll get him to plead it out to probation. She stays clean and it comes off her record.”
“Thanks. Now, on to more important business.”
He's surprised. “There's more? You got another friend whose kid is a bank robber? Or an arsonist? Why don't you just give me a list of your friends and we won't arrest anybody with those last names?”
I haven't met the sarcasm that can stop me, so I push on. “What do you know about Victor Markham?”
“He's a rich scumbag.” He reflects for a moment. “That might be redundant.”
As a rich person, I'm offended
, but I don't show it. “What did Markham have to do with the Miller case?”
“You want me to tell you what you already know? The victim was his son's girlfriend. They were out together when it happened.”
“Were you aware of any special connection between Victor Markham and my father?”
Pete shows me a flash of anger. “Your father did not have special connections. Except to the truth.”
“Don't you think I know that?”
He nods. “Yeah, of course you do. Sorry.”
I wait for him to continue, to tell me what he knows. I don't have to wait long.
“Markham's son, Edward, was a loose cannon,” he says. “I had the feeling that Victor was pulling his strings, like he was worried what the kid might say or do on his own. No big deal, just a feeling I had.”
I take this very seriously. Pete is an outstanding cop; there are a lot of people making license plates and saying “Pass the soap, Bubba” in the shower because of feelings Pete has had.
“Where's Edward now?” I ask.
“He works for his daddy. Big job.”
I nod. “He must interview really well.”
I thank Pete and leave, stopping off at the newsstand on the way back to the office. I tell Cal that Wanda is to be in court three days from now, and if she behaves everything will be fine. For now. Cal is so grateful I think he's going to cry or, even worse, hug me. But since deep emotion is not really a part of our relationship, I'm glad when he doesn't.
I get to the office early, and Laurie hasn't yet arrived. I get a message from Richard Wallace, a Deputy District Attorney. Wallace is the best lawyer the department has to offer; if he is the one handling the Miller trial, an impossible job just got tougher.
Wallace is friendly when I call him; he and I have established a good working relationship over the years. Of course, he can afford to be nice; he's beaten me two of the three trials in which we've gone against each other. And I don't get the feeling he's too worried about this one.
The other factor that leads to us having a good rapport is that he used to work for my father, who was the District Attorney and head of the department. My father was a mentor to Wallace, and they shared a mutual respect. Some of that has transferred to me.
Basically the call is to discuss discovery, that process during which both sides turn over their evidence in advance, so that the other side is not ambushed and has time to prepare. It's not as big a deal in this case for two reasons. We already have everything that came out at the first trial, so there's not much for them to give us. And we've got nothing whatsoever to give them.
Richard informs me that additional DNA tests are being taken from the skin under Denise's fingernails, so as to more closely link Willie to the crime than the technology at the time of the murder was able to accomplish. Our response will be to attack the evidence as unreliable and incompetently gathered, but the problem is it isn't and it wasn't. I make a note to think about getting our own expert to refute what they are going to say.
“When will you have the results?” I ask.
“Just in time for opening statements.”
“Why is Hatchet rushing this?”
I can hear him shrug over the phone. “You know Hatchet. He's not a big fan of technicality appeals. This is probably his way of showing it. I asked for more time myself; it's screwing up my vacation.”
Near the end of the conversation, Richard brings up the possibility of discussing a plea bargain. He does this with a minimum of subtlety.
“You want to talk about a plea bargain?”
“Sure. We'll take a dismissal and an apology from the state. Something humble, but not cloying.”
He laughs the laugh of the gracious winner. We agree to talk at his office tomorrow, though I can't imagine it going anywhere. There will be too much public pressure on Richard to right the wrong that the technicality appeal represents. Besides, Willie has said he absolutely won't cop to anything he didn't do, or as is the case here, something he can't imagine he could ever have done.
Laurie arrives, and her manner is cold but professional. It feels like I need to do something to resolve the situation, but I'm at a loss to know what. Her attitude is completely appropriate, which makes it all the more frustrating.
We set out going through all the files on the case, though we've both already been over them at least three times. I start letting my mind roam, not tempering my thoughts with logic. I often find it leads me to places I want to go, though just as often it leads me nowhere.
“What if Denise wasn't just a random victim? What if the killer had a motive?”
“Like …” she prompts.
“I don't know … she was a reporter … maybe she was going to write a story which would hurt the killer. He got rid of her to prevent the story.”
“Why would she write a story about a loser like Willie Miller?”
I challenge her. “Who said the killer is Willie Miller?”
“A jury.”
I'm starting to get frustrated by her pessimism. “Don't you get suspicious when there's all this evidence? Don't you think the prosecution's case might be a little too strong?”
“Actually, no,” she says. “I tend to find evidence convincing. More evidence is more convincing.”
I am about to challenge this logic when there is a knock on the door; it is the Chinese food Laurie has ordered for us. She hadn't asked me what I wanted, but I let it go because I figured she was lashing out at me, culinarily speaking. She also lashes out financially speaking, by signing for a big tip and telling the delivery guy to charge the whole thing to my account.
She starts to unpack the food, so I ask her what she's ordered.
“Steamed broccoli, stir-fried asparagus tips, and broiled seaweed with tofu.”
This is not exactly making my mouth water. “Are you catering a rabbit convention?”
“It's good for you, unlike that greasy poison you always order.” She takes two bites, then looks at her watch. “Are we almost finished here? Because I've got plans.”
Uh, oh. The dreaded plans. I get a pit in my stomach the size of Argentina.
“Plans?”
“Yes, plans,” she says. “Like in, I have a life so I make plans.”
“Okay. I deserve that.”
“No. If I gave you what you deserve, I'd be in the same situation as Willie Miller.”
I'm getting annoyed, and my level of annoyance has always been directly proportional to my level of courage. Actually, it's a theory of mine as well. I believe that all real heroes demonstrated their bravery only when they got angry. You think Nathan Hale liked the guys who put the rope around his neck? You think Davy Crockett considered the Mexicans coming over the Alamo walls his good buddies? I'm no different. Piss me off enough and before you know it they'll be writing songs about me.
Here goes. “Look, we started to get involved. It was nice … really nice … but we never took an oath.”
She's ready for this. “Right. You and Nicole are the ones that took an oath.”
“As a matter of fact, we did. And one of us may wind up breaking that oath, but we won't know that for a while.”
She stands up. “I'm happy for you, but I've got plans. Now what is it you want me to do next?”
I guess she's not going to eat the Chinese food next, leaving it all for me. Yummm. I'll have enough left over to make broiled seaweed sandwiches tomorrow.
“Check out the eyewitness … Cathy Pearl. Maybe we can shake her. Maybe she did it, for Christ's sake.”
“Great idea!” she enthuses. “I'll also ask people I meet at the supermarket if by any chance they killed Denise McGregor. Maybe we can shake someone else into confessing.”
“Aside from our personal situation, what is your problem with this case?”
She looks me straight in the eye, though that is what she always does. She's an inveterate eye looker; I on the other hand look at people's mouths when they talk.
“My problem is th
at we're defending a brutal murderer, Andy. If we're successful, which we won't be, he goes back on the street.”
“And if he didn't do it, then the guy who did is already out on the street.”
She sighs with resignation, as well as the fact that down deep she knows I'm right. We've been over this ground before. We have a role to play, and if we don't play it to the hilt the system doesn't function.
“Okay. It's a job and we do it. Where are you going to start?”
“With Denise McGregor.”
VINCE SANDERSIS A GRUFF, UNKEMPT, VERY overweight man who has spent one hundred twelve of his fifty-one years working on newspapers up and down the East Coast. He's the type that you think must still be pounding stories out on his old Smith-Corona while all his colleagues are using high-tech computers. When I show up at his office, he is doing research at warp speed on the Internet. Oh, well.
Vince was Denise's boss on the Newark Star-Ledger. I ask him if Denise was working on something at the time she was killed, and he laughs. Not a hah-hah, friendly laugh, but any port in a storm.
“Working on something? Are you kidding me? Denise was always working on something.”
I ask him if he knows what she was working on. He doesn't.
“She wouldn't tell me, but she was really excited. And it must have been good, 'cause she asked me to meet her in here the next day, which was a Saturday. She knew damn well I don't get off my fat ass on Saturdays.”
I laugh, since it seems like I'm supposed to, but he calls me on it. “What the hell are you laughing at?” he asks.
“I was thinking that based on the size of your ass, the reason you don't get off it on Saturdays is because crane operators don't work weekends.”
He looks at me for a few moments, as if deciding whether to kill me. He doesn't have a gun, which means he would have to get that same fat ass out of the chair to get up and strangle me. He seems to decide that it's not worth it.
“You think insulting me is the way to get information?” he asks.
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