Final Judgment

by Joel Goldman

  “Hey, Mason, your week off to a flying start?”

  “A-plus.”

  “Glad to hear that. I’d appreciate it if you’d drop by. We’ve got a few things we’d like to go over with you.”

  “Sure. I can do that. Middle of the week be soon enough?”

  “Make me wait that long and I’ll have to send someone to get you. My partner, Detective Cates, he misses you. Says he’d like it a lot if you got your ass down here right now.”

  “I can do that too.”

  Police headquarters was a monument to Missouri limestone and the public works projects of the Depression. It was on the east side of the downtown, one corner of a triangle that included City Hall and the Jackson County Courthouse. Homicide was on the second floor. An outer ring of cramped offices surrounded the detective’s bullpen, a collection of wooden and metal desks older than a lot of the department’s cold cases that had been shoved together to make sure no one had a private conversation about anything. There were three witness rooms down one hallway that ended with a lineup room on one side and a holding cage on the other.

  Detectives on different shifts shared the same desks and offices, each one adding their own personal touches. Pictures of spouses and kids competed for space with those of boyfriends and girlfriends. The mismatched images fit in perfectly with homicide, where relationships often didn’t made sense but usually explained everything.

  Griswold and Cates were sitting at their desks when Mason arrived. Griswold, who was on the phone, waved Mason toward them. Cates swung his feet from the desk to the floor and brushed past Mason on his way to the interrogation rooms, not apologizing for stepping on Mason’s foot. Cates was a little smaller than Mason, but he was looking for trouble. Mason knew better than to tease the bear on the bear’s home court. Griswold hung up the phone, smiling and shaking his head at the same time.

  “I told you Detective Cates missed you. Follow me.” Griswold led him down the hall, past the witness rooms. Cates was waiting at the door to the lineup room. “Do me a favor before we get started. We’re one short for a lineup. Usually, we get one of the rookies to fill in, but everyone’s out. Only take a minute.”

  The invitation made Mason uneasy. It was a reflex hesitation picked up from defending people after they’d been fingered in a lineup. Positive identification was rarely positive and often wrong. Five people who witness the same crime will tell five different versions from who did it to what they were wearing. Put someone who’s been beaten, robbed, or raped behind a two-way mirror with a zealous cop at her elbow giving a nudge when the suspect steps forward and don’t be surprised when she says, That’s the one. Mason didn’t want to be part of that process, but Griswold was giving him a C’mon, be a pal smile and Cates was giving him a What kind of pussy are you anyway? glare.

  “I live to serve,” Mason said, and stepped into the room, taking his place at the end of the row nearest to the door.

  Five men were standing around, shifting their weight back and forth, glancing at the two-way mirror. Two of them were young and black, both with shaved heads, gold jewelry, and attitudes. A third was mid-thirties, Hispanic, short, and fat. The other two were white guys in their fifties, soft around the middle like desk jockeys killing time until their next heart attack. They were all casually dressed, from blue jeans to khakis, their clothing the only similarity to Mason.

  A lineup was supposed to consist of a group of people who were neither so similar nor dissimilar as to prejudice the ability of the witness to accurately identify the criminal. A defendant picked out of a lineup that was intended to make him stand out from the crowd had a good defense that the lineup was rigged against him. Stepping into the room, Mason concluded that the lineup was aimed at the Hispanic. He was the one who clearly stood out from the others by ethnicity, age, and physical condition. Even if the victim identified the Hispanic, the lineup would be easy to challenge in court.

  One of the black men tried to intimidate everyone else with his ghetto glare. The fat Hispanic studied the floor as if he was hoping to get a glimpse of his feet. The other three looked around, impatient and uninterested. Griswold’s voice came over a speaker mounted in a corner. He told them to line up against the wall, take one step forward and back again when their number was called. Griswold was right. It only took a minute.

  When they finished, Cates pointed Mason toward the nearest witness room, followed him inside, and closed the door. Cates was smiling so Mason didn’t, figuring anything that made Cates happy shouldn’t make him happy. A moment later, Griswold opened the door carrying a cup of coffee. He reached behind him with his free hand to close the door, but missed the knob. He grabbed for it a second time, the delay long enough for Mason to see Detective Samantha Greer escort Mark Hill from the other side of the lineup room.

  FORTY-FIVE

  Mason didn’t know whether his glimpse of Samantha and Mark Hill was intentional or accidental. Either way, he didn’t like it. That he’d been set up was plain, though the purpose was not. He decided to pretend he’d seen nothing and let Griswold and Cates spin it out for him.

  The witness room was furnished with police chic: a wooden table with uneven legs scarred with initials and cigarette burns, metal folding chairs, and windows covered with chicken wire. The sun warmed the room and the wire, casting a checkerboard shadow on the surface of the table. Mason sat with his back to the windows. Cates stood behind him, leaning against the glass. Griswold sat across from Mason.

  “Appreciate the help with the lineup,” Griswold said.

  “I’ll waive my normal appearance fee.”

  “All smart-ass all the time,” Cates said.

  “And I thought you were just jealous of my good looks,” Mason said without turning around.

  Griswold raised his hands. “My kids aren’t as big a pain in the ass as you two are. Give it a rest, why don’t you.”

  Mason held up his right hand in a fist except for his extended little finger. “Hey, Cates. Pinky truce?”

  “Asshole,” Cates said, smacking Mason’s hand. “This is a waste of time. Let me know when you get a good idea,” he said to Griswold. “I’ve got better things to do.”

  “What can I do for you, Detective Griswold?” Mason asked after Cates left.

  “You’re like a cold sore with a personality, you know that, Mason? Annoying as hell but amusing on someone else. Don’t tell Cates, but I liked the pinky truce.”

  “Your secret is safe with me. What do you want?”

  “Answers. Information. A road map. We know that somebody killed Charles Rockley and left him in your client’s car. Maybe it was your client and he was so busy playing let’s make a deal with the feds that he didn’t have time to get rid of the body. Maybe it was someone who wanted us to look at your client. You got any ideas who might want to set up your client?”

  “I’ve got no idea. He’s a nice old man. Doesn’t bother anyone.”

  “Cut the crap for five minutes, Mason. From what I hear, your nice old man has been fleecing people all his life, including a bunch that isn’t getting their Florida dream vacation.”

  “Those people aren’t out enough money to kill someone and try to pin it on Avery Fish. Give me a break.”

  Griswold ignored the holes in his theory and changed tacks. “Why was Johnny Keegan carrying around your name and number when he got clipped?”

  “Must have needed a good lawyer.”

  “You ever talk to him?”

  “Nope. The guy was only a bartender. He couldn’t have afforded me anyway.”

  “We talked to the manager of the Galaxy, guy named Al Webb,” Griswold said, consulting the spiral notepad he carried in his shirt pocket. “Webb says Rockley got himself sued in a sexual harassment case over a woman named Carol Hill, who, it turns out according to Webb, was banging Keegan. How about that?”

  “Shocks the conscience.”

  “Pissed off her husband, too, from what Webb told us.”

  “Then why wasn�
�t Hill in the lineup instead of me?”

  “We picked him up for questioning yesterday. He had a lousy alibi and a fat lip so naturally we ask him if Rockley gave it to him and that’s why he popped him, plus the fact that Rockley was pawing his wife. He says he didn’t kill Rockley. Says he was minding his own business, drinking his sorrows away at a bar in Fairfax last Friday night. Said he got into it with someone and that’s how he got the lip.”

  “And you think I gave it to him and now you’re going to arrest me for assault?”

  Griswold gave him an indulgent smile. “Putting a lawyer away would be a public service, but we’ll wait for something with real bite. We went to the bar to check on Hill’s story. The bartender confirmed that Hill was there last Friday when two guys braced him. Said Hill pulled a knife on one of the guys and the other guy took it away from him and then they hustled Hill outside. One of the waitresses said she recognized one of the two guys from seeing his picture in the paper and on TV. Said his name was Lou Mason. So Detective Cates calls Hill and asks him if he’d like to press charges against the guy who beat him up. Hill says sure and Cates says we’ve got a suspect we want to put in a lineup.”

  “That lineup was bullshit and you know it.”

  “It was bullshit if we wanted to charge you, but not if we wanted to test Hill’s story and get on his good side, being sympathetic and all that. Just because we like your client for Rockley’s murder doesn’t mean we’re sitting around with our thumbs up our ass. Could be it was Hill. We needed you for the lineup. Guess what?”

  “Surprise me.”

  “He didn’t pick you even though we stacked the deck. What do you make of that?”

  Mason was wearing the same jacket he’d had on Friday night. Hill’s knife was still in the inside pocket. He wasn’t going to get out of the witness room by denying what had happened in the bar. He pulled the knife from his pocket and laid it on the table.

  “We didn’t lay a hand on him.”

  “We?”

  “Blues and me. We went to the bar to talk to Hill. He pulled the knife on me and Blues took it away from him. We went outside and talked. He left and wrecked his pickup on the way out of the parking lot. Ran into a car parked across the street. The driver got out and decked him.”

  “Blues as in Wilson Bluestone, the ex-cop?”

  Mason nodded.

  “They still talk about him around here. Not the way I’d like to be remembered. I don’t suppose you got a license tag on the other car or that you can identify the other driver?”

  Mason was following two of the cardinal rules he gave his clients. Only answer the question asked and don’t forget that the guy on the other side of the table isn’t your friend.

  “No tag. Tall guy, blond, works out a lot.”

  “You’re a big help, you know that?”

  “Best I can do. Sorry.”

  Griswold shrugged his shoulders and leaned forward in his chair. “It’s like this, Mason. We didn’t find out that Rockley was the stiff in your client’s car until a reporter called us Friday night. By then, you’d already been to see Mark Hill. So me and Cates wonder what led you to him and we can only think of one thing. You knew that Rockley was the stiff and you knew about the sexual harassment case. Al Webb says he ran into you Saturday night at some Republican Party blowout and that you knew all about Rockley, Keegan, and Carol Hill. When we talked to you Friday night, you claimed you never heard of Johnny Keegan. You starting to see the problems me and Cates are having with all of this?”

  Mason had been leaning back in his chair, the front legs off the floor. He eased the chair down. Griswold’s refrain was the same as Vince Bongiovanni’s. The only thing they were both missing was the picture of Blues outside Rockley’s apartment.

  “You think the only way I could have gotten to Hill was if someone told me about Rockley, and you think Fish is that someone because he killed Rockley.”

  “Head of the class, Mason. That’s right where you’re headed.”

  “Except Fish had no connection to Rockley and he didn’t kill him. Whoever did had his own reasons for dumping the body in the trunk of Fish’s car. That was Fish’s bad luck, period.”

  “If Fish didn’t tell you about Rockley, who did?”

  Mason met Griswold’s gaze, then looked away and stood. He couldn’t keep ducking Griswold’s questions without inviting more suspicion. He was willing to trade partial answers for information Griswold might have.

  “You really didn’t know that Rockley was the murder victim before Rachel Firestone called you?”

  “It’s not your turn to ask questions.”

  “It is if you want any answers from me.”

  Griswold hesitated, tapping his coffee cup on the table. “No, we didn’t know. Made us look like rookies.”

  “Who leaked Rockley’s ID to the press?”

  “Had to have been the FBI. Who else could it have been? We sent them the DNA sample.”

  “Did you call them on it?”

  “Damn straight! I’m the liaison with the Bureau on this case. My counterpart is an agent named Kelly Holt. Good looking but cold. She said it wasn’t them. But you knew it was Rockley before the Star came out with it, am I right?”

  Mason hesitated but saw no edge in denying the obvious. “Yeah, I knew.”

  “When did you find out?”

  Mason sighed. “Friday morning.”

  “Friday fucking morning! Who told you?”

  “Kelly Holt.”

  Griswold stood and stepped toward Mason until their chins were almost touching. “Listen to me, Mason—and this is Griswold’s gospel. Kelly Holt got her skirt dirty once before and they ran her out of the Bureau. No one seems to know how or why she got back in. She wouldn’t have told you about Rockley without getting something in return. I’d be real careful before I put your client’s life in her hands. You tell Fish that if he killed Rockley, he’ll never get a better deal than if tells me all about it right now.”

  “And if he didn’t kill Rockley?”

  “Don’t get in bed with Uncle Sam. They’ll fuck you for sport.”

  “What do we get if we climb in bed with you?”

  “A kiss in the morning.”

  FORTY-SIX

  Mason knew about Kelly’s history with the FBI, though it was Kelly’s version—wrongfully accused and brokenhearted. He didn’t know what had brought her back to the Bureau, into Fish’s case, and back into his life. Griswold had his slant. The facts were the same. The slant was everything.

  He assumed Kelly would play hard and play to win but that she knew where to draw the lines. She probably assumed the same about him, though her assumption would collapse if she knew what he’d done to Judge Carter. Maybe they didn’t know each other as well as they thought. It was all in the slant.

  Samantha Greer fell in alongside Mason as he walked down the stairs from the bullpen.

  “Sorry about the lineup,” she said.

  “Don’t be sorry. You were doing your job.”

  “I know, but that doesn’t mean I like it. Especially when I’m working with Cates. That boy is a P-I-G pig.”

  “Animal House, right?”

  “Yeah. I went out with this guy who claimed there was no situation in life that couldn’t be explained by that movie. It was his philosophy and his religion.”

  “How inspirational. Was there a second date?”

  “No. The guy was a total loser, but I rented the movie and, you know what, there’s something to it. In fact, there’s one line that works better than any of the others.”

  “Which one?”

  “It’s right after they wreck the fat kid’s car, the one he borrowed from his older brother. One of the guys says to him, ‘You fucked up. You trusted us.’ Now there’s a lesson.”

  “And the rest is commentary.”

  “Hey, are you buying me dinner tomorrow night or what? It’s my birthday.”

  They stopped at the bottom of the stairs. Samantha ducke
d her chin and fingered the ends of her hair as a couple of detectives walked by, giving them a knowing glance. She was acting like they were kids on the playground and he was asking her out. Except it wasn’t a date even if she thought it was. It was an obligation—one he wished he didn’t have especially now that she was involved in his case and even more so since it was her birthday.

  “I’ve been saving up. How about that Italian place in the Freight House? Meet you there at eight.”

  She smiled, but only enough to hide her disappointment that he didn’t offer to pick her up. For an instant, he thought she was mouthing the line from Animal House.

  “Sounds great,” she said instead, giving his hand a quick squeeze before heading back up the stairs.

  Mason stood on the sidewalk outside police headquarters. It was a cloudy day, cold enough to make him want to keep moving, but he jammed his hands in his jacket pockets and ignored the temperature, concentrating on Kelly Holt.

  She’d told Mason about Rockley but denied that she’d leaked the information to the press when Griswold asked her if she had. Mason believed her since keeping the lid on Rockley’s identity a while longer was part of her pitch to him and Fish. Pete Samuelson had nothing to gain by leaking the information. Nor would he have had any reason to tip off Vince Bongiovanni.

  That left someone else in the U.S. attorney’s office or the FBI as the source of the leak. Mason could come up only with one candidate. Dennis Brewer, the FBI agent who’d appeared on the scene after Hill clipped the sedan on his way out of the parking lot at Easy’s. That was a card he’d play when he and Fish met with Kelly and Samuelson later that night.

  Fish had persuaded Mason not to quit representing him. It was time instead, as Fish had put it, to get in the game. That meant telling the feds they were ready to play. They’d figure out what to do after the feds told them what they wanted from Fish. Mason had agreed, but told Fish that he’d prefer to know what game he was playing, who was playing it, and what the rules were. Fish had laughed.

  “The name of the game,” he had said, “was Fuck Your Buddy. Everyone was playing it and there weren’t any rules. That’s what makes it so much fun.”