Dead Man's Thoughts

by Carolyn Wheat

  “Well, yes,” I admitted. Always admit right away whatever you can’t hope to get away with denying. “But it’s not so hard to find things out if you know your way around, is it? If you or I or anybody in the system wanted to get hold of—say, a yellow sheet or a defendant’s phone number, how hard would it be? It’s all a public record. It’s fairly accessible. Especially for a lawyer.” Especially for a lawyer on trial in the building, I added mentally, thinking of Riordan. He could easily have heard the gossip about Nathan that must have been rife in Manhattan. He could have snooped around enough to find a likely patsy in Paco. He could have gotten the phone number of Paco’s mother from the ROR sheet and made the phony call that lured Paco to the apartment building. And he’d have known enough about the ins and outs of the prison system to have meddled with Blackwell’s yellow commit card. Altogether, Riordan still filled the bill.

  Stan shook his head. “It still sounds far-fetched to me, Cass.” I started to explain about Blackwell, but he put up a restraining hand. “But I’m too tired to argue. Let’s discuss it another time. Have another beer and tell me who you want assigned to the case. Roger?”

  “Yes to the beer,” Roger answered. “No to the case. When the Worm releases me, I’m heading for sun and fun. I need something to put the roses back into my cheeks.”

  I was secretly relieved. Roger’s an okay guy, a good guy to drink with, but I wasn’t sure about his skills as a trial lawyer.

  Paul Trentino came in with his partner, Pete Kalisch. Paul plopped his briefcase down and sat next to Roger. Pete brought over a chair and placed it at the end of the booth. I signaled Stan with my eyes. As a former Legal Aid lawyer who’d known Nathan, Paul was disqualified from representing Paco. But Pete, who’d known Nathan only in passing, and had become a lawyer after a stint as a court officer, was eligible. And he was a good lawyer.

  I turned to Paul. “They made an arrest in Nathan’s case,” I told him.

  He grimaced. “I heard. How could you stand up on it? Aside from the ethics, how could you stand next to the guy who killed Nathan and make a bail application?” His voice was high with strain. I kept mine as calm as I could.

  “I could do it because I don’t think he’s guilty. I think he was framed.”

  Stan cut in. “And Cass has decided he needs the best lawyer the county’s money can buy. Can you take it, Pete?”

  Pete’s face was a polite blank. “You’ll have to tell me what the cops have got.”

  “What the cops have got,” I began, “is a nice frame.” Roger got up, squeezed past Paul, and went upstairs to the men’s room. Not surprising, after all the beer he’d drunk. Stan stood up too, said he had to go, and promised to give my love to Emily. Before he left, I whispered, “Thanks, Stan. It means a lot to me to have you in my corner. Even if you don’t agree with me. Maybe because you don’t agree with me.” He gave me a quick kiss and waved goodbye.

  I started telling Pete everything I knew or thought I knew about Nathan’s murder. It wasn’t easy. I found myself turning to Paul, seeking the friendly interest of his brown eyes instead of the cold, noncommittal objectivity of Pete’s hazel ones. Expressionless, hard, they seemed to register nothing of what I was saying. Yet I knew that when the questions came, they would be detailed and pointed.

  They were. I answered them as best I could, then went on to explain my suspicions about Riordan. Pete cut me off. He wanted the facts, ma’am, just the facts.

  When I’d finished—when Pete had finished with me—he got up, put on his raincoat, and walked out the door.

  I looked at Paul, astonished. “Is he going to take it, or what?”

  Paul grinned. “He’ll take it. He wouldn’t have bothered asking questions if he wasn’t going to.”

  “How can you stand being in practice with that cold fish?”

  Paul shrugged. “He’s a damned good lawyer. He’ll do whatever it takes for your kid, Cass. Trust him.”

  But I didn’t. Not fully. The only lawyer I really trusted to represent Paco was me. Which was pretty strange coming from a person who didn’t even want to be a lawyer.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  “Plants don’t purr,” Dorinda said contentedly, as Tansy sat on her lap, his forepaws kneading her skirt.

  “Plants don’t spit up hairballs,” I retorted, eyeing a suspicious-looking spot on the painted cement floor.

  We had just finished dinner—stir-fried vegetables in ginger sauce—and were engaging in a familiar good-natured argument when the television newsman caught my ear. “The deceased, one Charlie Blackwell, met his death at the hands of ‘a person or persons unknown.’” I sat up in the rocking chair. Mignonette stood up on my lap and gazed at me inquiringly, but didn’t jump off. The newsman went on.

  “The commission announced its findings today and urged the district attorney to investigate Blackwell’s suspicious death, originally thought to be suicide.”

  Then Del Parma came on, surrounded by microphones. If the commission’s finding troubled him, if he had hoped for a verdict of suicide, there was no sign of it on his face. He radiated vindication, as though he had believed all along Charlie had been murdered and the commission had merely confirmed his opinion.

  It was a masterful performance. He outlined his office’s efforts to nail Blackwell, making it sound as significant and high-minded as the Abscam investigation. The only thing he didn’t mention was its motive. Nowhere was it so much as hinted that Blackwell was intended to be a stepping-stone to Parma’s federal job.

  Parma went on to praise the commission and to offer the subtle but barbed opinion that “organized crime figures connected with Stone’s defense should be carefully scrutinized by the D.A.” Reading between the lines, Parma had just fingered Matt Riordan.

  “Jesus!” I said to Dorinda, “that Parma’s got some balls.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “He sets Blackwell up for the sole purpose of turning him as a witness against Riordan. He puts the guy in jail where he gets killed under his very nose, and then he goes on TV and starts throwing the blame around. If anybody’s responsible for Blackwell’s death, it’s Parma. If he’d left the fucking guy alone, he’d be alive today.” And so would Nathan, I thought bitterly.

  “What does all this mean to your investigation?” Dorinda asked.

  “Don’t know yet. At least somebody besides me thinks Charlie was murdered. That ought to be good for something. But I’m a little confused about this commission. When I was there, they were really into the suicide thing. I wonder what made them decide it was murder?”

  The next day was Saturday. A darkroom day. A day away from murder.

  It started with a letter from Ron:

  hi kid—

  sorry about your friend. i know what it’s like to lose a friend and i know how long it takes to get over it. don’t let that worry you. it never stops hurting in one sense but in another sense peace will come. believe that. i don’t completely understand what you’re doing with your investigation, but i hope you’re getting somewhere. mom and dad wondered why you hadn’t written. i told them a friend of yours had died and that you were upset. maybe you could call and let them know you’re okay. or not. up to you.

  i saw a science program on pbs recently—I’ve probably earned a phd watching pbs—and the guy was talking about the smallest unit of time. he said it was the period in which an event of single consequence takes place. somehow i thought of you and nathan. can there be an event of single consequence when people are involved? i don’t think so. it seems that your friend’s death is having multiple consequences in the lives of everyone you know. especially yours. i think it’s good that you’re letting his life and death have consequences in your life. go with it.

  ron

  I put the letter down and shook the tears out of my eyes. Ron, who’d never met Nathan, seemed to understand so much. Things even Flaherty or Dorinda couldn’t seem to grasp. And he didn’t even know me very well anymore. Not from one
visit a year, at Christmas. Yet he knew instinctively that Nathan’s death had a meaning for me that nothing else had had recently. Not since four students had been shot to death at my school. But it wasn’t that only death had meaning for me, just that I’d grown such a thick skin doing my job in the pens of Brooklyn that it took a lot to penetrate it. I was a machine. Push the button marked STREET TALK. FOR CLIENT ONLY. Push another one: SYMPATHY. USE ON CLIENT’S MOTHER. Then the one marked LEGAL JARGON. FOR JUDGE’S EARS. I was the keypunch operator of my own mind. Only Nathan’s death had shaken me out of that role that I played so well and so unthinkingly. Only that had brought out all the human qualities I’d learned to bury to do my job.

  Deke Fischer had been right when he’d chewed me out for dumping Jorge Ruiz. I’d just pushed the CLIENT IS A HUMP button and bailed out. Jorge disappeared from my life as though a trapdoor had opened up and swallowed him. But with Paco, where finding the truth was vital to my understanding of Nathan’s murder, I had been patience itself. I would have stayed with him four hours, taking whatever abuse he cared to dish out, to get what I wanted. Ron was right. I was involved. For better or worse.

  But not today.

  I decided to print up some old negatives from home. Victorian houses, one of my favorite subjects. There was one in particular, a gingerbread beauty near my favorite pizza joint in Kent. I had full views as well as close-ups of some detail. I wanted to try printing them on high-contrast paper, bringing out just the outlines. To make brief sketches, hints, suggestions—like houses seen in dreams.

  I mixed the chemicals at the sink, then carefully carried the filled trays back to the bedroom. My darkroom is under the bed. Which sounds a little weird, except that it’s a loft bed, sort of like the top of a bunk bed without the bottom. So there’s room underneath for storage or a study or whatever. In my case, it’s a darkroom. Tiny, no running water, and I have to step out fairly often to keep from being overcome by hypo fumes, but it works. The perfect New York apartment darkroom.

  I was just watching the first print come up in the developer when the phone rang. Watching your picture form on the paper is the most exciting part of printing, maybe of photography itself. Even the pros say if that sight ceases to thrill you, get the hell out of the business. So I was extremely reluctant to pick up that phone.

  Finally I did. I popped the picture out of the developer and into the fixer and made a mad dash, hoping it wasn’t just some clown wanting me to take home delivery of The New York Times.

  It wasn’t. My instinct had been right. The call was important. It involved Nathan, Charlie Blackwell, and Del Parma’s press performance the night before. It was Matt Riordan.

  My surprise must have been evident in my voice, for he said, “I guess I’m the last person in the world you expected to hear from.”

  “Well,” I admitted, recovering a little of my poise, “at least you’re not trying to sell me a cemetery plot.”

  He laughed, a rich baritone laugh that went with his face and bearing. Riordan was all of a piece. Smooth as glass.

  “Did you see the Post this morning?”

  “No,” I answered, puzzled at first, then realizing what he was getting at. “But I saw the news last night, if that’s what you mean. Del Parma put on quite a show.”

  “Didn’t he then?” Riordan’s voice lost its amused casualness. “That slimy ass-kissing little bastard all but accused me of murdering poor Charlie Blackwell.”

  I didn’t know what to say. I could hardly admit that I thought Parma had a point.

  “Anyway, Ms. Jameson—or should I say Ms. Drew,” the light, bantering tone was back, “I’ve decided to answer the questions you didn’t have a chance to ask me the last time we met. You did want to ask me some, didn’t you?”

  “A few, just a few, Mr. Riordan,” I answered, trying to stay as light as he had.

  “Well, how about we meet later—for drinks, say.”

  “You name the time and place,” I said. “I’ll be there.”

  “All right. According to the phonebook, you live in the Village. Is there somewhere near you we could go? Somewhere,” he added, “where I’ll be safe, that is. I’m not accustomed to being whistled at on the street.”

  I laughed. “Well, at least now you know how it feels. How about the White Horse Tavern?”

  “Fine. Haven’t been there in years. Not since I was an undergraduate at Fordham. That was, believe it or not, about the same time that Dylan Thomas was hanging out there. Not,” he hastily added, “that I ever saw him.”

  I was impressed in spite of myself. Somehow I’d expected the Matt Riordan I thought I knew to be full of phony stories, about Dylan Thomas or any other celebrity whose name happened to come up. We agreed to meet at 5:30—a little early, but he had a dinner engagement he couldn’t break. As a matter of fact, though I didn’t mention it to Riordan, I had a date too—with Dave Chessler.

  I put down the phone and stood in thought a moment. Then, remembering, I ran to the darkroom and rescued my print. In spite of its prolonged fixing bath, it looked pretty good. The high-contrast paper erased the evidence of a seedy present—the peeling paint, the tacky curtains—and revealed the stately outlines, the dignified silhouette. Like soft-focus photography of an aging star.

  The success of the first print inspired me. I took out another negative, a close-up of a Doric column on another old house, this one now a funeral parlor in Bedford. I got so absorbed in what I was doing I didn’t stop to eat lunch till 3:30. I cleaned up the darkroom, made a quick sandwich, and jumped in the shower. As I massaged the shampoo into my hair, I realized how keyed up I was with anticipation. What I couldn’t decide was whether the anticipation was for my date with Dave or the long-awaited confrontation with Riordan.

  I dressed carefully. Though the days were growing warmer, the nights were still wintry. I put on a wool challis peasant skirt, an embroidered Ukranian blouse, and my black boots. I used a curling iron to make windswept bangs for my normally straight hair and wore enameled earrings with brightly colored birds on them. A touch of perfume and my favorite red-lined black cape and I was ready.

  The White Horse was a quick walk through cold back streets. The night was clear and crisp, the day’s clouds having blown away. It seemed more like January than April. The last blast of winter, I told myself, before the welcome thaw of spring.

  Riordan sat at a window table. For a moment, from the chilly vantage point of Hudson Street, the scene was pure Hopper. A man in a bar, seen through a dirty window. Waiting.

  I came in and sat in the booth. Riordan was drinking Scotch, and when I told him I drank it too, he ordered the same for me. I never did find out what brand it was, which was just as well, since I’m sure I can’t afford it. It was as far above my usual brand as La Grenouille is from the Golden Arches.

  We sat and sipped in silence for a moment, while I adjusted to the dim warmth of the place. Another assumption about Riordan shattered. I would have expected him to abhor silence, to fill it automatically with charming, witty small talk.

  Finally he spoke, and it wasn’t small talk. “About Charlie Blackwell,” he began. Then he broke off and stared at me. “How much do you know about the Stone case?”

  “Quite a bit, actually. I’ve done my homework. Oh, and I was there, for one day, anyway. When I was in law school a bunch of us went over.” I smiled at him. “To see the great Matt Riordan in action.”

  He smiled back. A warm smile. “I hope you weren’t disappointed.”

  I shook my head. “I learned something,” I answered. I didn’t say what. It had more to do with theater than with law, and I wasn’t sure he’d find that flattering.

  He went on. “You know, then, that the whole case against Stone rested on Charlie Blackwell’s credibility.” He smiled. “But as Oliver Wendell Holmes would have said, they were leaning on a weak reed.”

  Another surprise. Riordan the legal scholar. “Yeah,” I agreed. “The papers made a big thing out of it. Parma caugh
t hell for even starting a trial with a witness as flaky as Charlie. Of course, what they didn’t know was that Charlie might have been a skunk, but he wasn’t all that flaky until you asked him those UFO questions.”

  “You mean until I planted the answers to those phony UFO questions.” He smiled again, but this time the smile was twisted, ironic. “You don’t have to be tactful with me, Miss Jameson. I know what everyone thought about that trial. The papers took the line they did because Stone unconvicted was still a powerful man. If he’d been convicted, they’d have eaten him alive like the vultures they are, but since he was acquitted, it was a dirty shame how Parma went after him. That’s what happens to losers. Parma took that chance, and he lost. So he paid the price. It’s that simple.”

  “Somehow I don’t think Parma thinks it’s that simple.”

  “Parma’s a whiner. No, don’t defend him. I know he’s got a tough job, going after people with power instead of the poor slobs who steal pocketbooks for a living. But nobody put a gun to Parma’s head to make him take that job. He wanted the power and the headlines, and he who lives by the headline.…” Riordan let his voice trail off and took another swallow of his incredible Scotch, which he drank as if it were water. Not very good water.

  “But to get back to our immediate problem. I didn’t fix the Stone case. Ironic, isn’t it? Parma’s been trying to nail my ass to the wall for eight years, and I didn’t do a damn thing. Whoever did it is in his own office.”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  I must have looked as boggled as I felt. “Don’t look so shocked, Ms. Jameson,” Riordan teased. “It shouldn’t come as a surprise to someone as smart as you. The tip I got to ask Charlie those questions came from within the Special Prosecutor’s office.”

  “How do you know?” I demanded. He was right. I was shocked. But not so shocked that I believed him. Not until I heard a little proof.

  “Well, look at it this way. I didn’t plant those questions with Charlie. Take that on faith for the moment. I got them in the mail. Anonymous, of course. But Charlie had all the answers down pat. So pat that I might have prepared him myself. Somebody who had access to him in custody went at him day and night to get that kind of a performance out of him. There was no way I or anybody associated with me could get that kind of access.”