The Only Good Lawyer - Jeremiah Healy

by Jeremish Healy

  The Only Good Lawyer

  A John Francis Cuddy Mystery

  Jeremiah Healy

  1998

  In memory of

  Dario J Azzone and Howard E Greene

  Prologue

  WOODROW WILSON GANT just loved the way his BMW 530i held the road.

  And doing fifty on a dry, snaky pavement at night was better than hitting eighty on some straightaway Interstate in broad daylight. He especially enjoyed this little stretch as it wound through probably the longest section of tree-lined valley in the whole city of Boston. Woodrow'd say to his friends, black or white, "Hey, man, you close your fists on the wheel—that nice leather wrap like they put around a good tennis racket—and you can feel the power, surging from the engine right into your body."

  Feel the power. That was what Woodrow remembered after graduating law school and starting with the district attorney's office. No more living at home with his mother and brother, and the first African—American to prosecute a homicide case in that suburban county's old-timey courthouse. But as a city boy at heart—funny, Woodrow didn't mind using "boy" in that context—he missed Boston. So, when the time came to move on from the D.A., Woodrow joined Mr. Neely's fine little downtown firm in its fine little office building close by the waterfront. And he felt the power again.

  Different kind of power, though, because it was a different kind of practice. He'd had his fill of criminals and cops, sharing office space with an asshole and his bed with a wife didn't understand his needs. Now Woodrow Wilson Gant was single again and a divorce lawyer—what the bar association liked to call a "domestic relations attorney". And the power was the weight of money, not the threat of prison. Enough money for him to live in a fancy condo and wear fancy clothes, buy a fancy car and enjoy fancy ladies.

  Just then the lady of the moment in the passenger bucket next to him snorted. Or snored, Woodrow wasn't exactly sure which. The big blond hair was all you could really see, what with the shades still on so nobody'd recognize her. One reason they'd gone back to that Vietnamese place Deborah first took him to. You're an assistant D.A. coordinating gang prosecutions, you realize pretty soon that witnesses of Color—A have a hell of a time identifying defendants of Color-B. Used to be a real problem for Woodrow back in the courtroom. Now he could use it to his advantage.

  The woman made the noise again, head lolling on the whip-lash protector, hand banging against his cellular phone in the console between them. Drunk as a skunk, and on chardonnay, yet. Woodrow knew it was the alcohol content and not the color of the liquid that mattered, but you still had to wonder why white women drink white wine if they can't hold the stuff.

  The BMW entered one of the few straight portions of the road. Even with so many curves, though, it was the shortest distance between the restaurant and Woodrow's condo. All things considered, he'd rather take his pleasure at her place—so he could just leave when they were finished? But Woodrow understood better than most why her situation at home made that more than a bit dicey.

  So, enjoy the ride in your fancy car before enjoying the ride in your fancy bed.

  Woodrow had cracked the front windows a few inches because the lady said she was feeling a little woozy leaving the restaurant, and he didn't want her getting sick on the leather upholstery he'd just had cleaned at the car wash that day. Woodrow kind of liked the crisp October air flowing by his cheeks—not to mention that nice hum of the Beemer's tires over the macadam—only the breeze seemed to put the woman to sleep more than sober her up.

  Probably best not to shoot for a doubleheader tonight. Just once over the moon and take her downstairs afterward, stick her ass in a cab. At least a thirty-dollar fare for the trip back to the lady's place, but that'd be better than having to drive her there yourself, listen to the complaining once her wine wore off.

  And besides, it's only money, and once "Ms. Barber" gets back to you, Woodrow Wilson Gant, Esquire, will be keeping a lot more—

  The sharp bang of the blowout made him jump, the shoulder strap of his seat belt yanking his torso short like a parachute harness. Through the open driver's window, Woodrow's left ear registered what seemed a crumping echo of his tire's sound coming off the hillside across the road. Wrestling the steering wheel against the skid, he was able to bring the BMW to a shuddering, humping stop against the grass sloping down at the right of the pavement.

  Woodrow drew in a breath, realized he needed a couple more. Taking his hands off the wheel, he could see them shaking in silhouette against the dull glow from the dashboard gauges. Woodrow glanced past the woman and out her window.

  Thanks be to God you weren't doing sixty. Even this fine machine would've sent your ass into the gully down there. Woodrow nudged the woman's left arm. "Hey?" He nudged her again. "Hey, man, you awake?"

  Just a ragged snore.

  Under his breath, Woodrow said, "You got to wonder, is a little sexual healing worth all this?"

  Then, remembering how her body accommodated him, he decided it was.

  Woodrow opened the driver's side door, the BMW's courtesy lights wrecking his night vision. As he stepped onto the pavement, he could feel the twinge from his bad left knee and a breeze blowing across his face from the front of the car. Except for the courtesy and running lights, everything was midnight dark. Raising his head and blinking, Woodrow could make out stars and a little sliver of moon, like somebody had clipped a toenail and hung it up in the sky. Reflexively, he reached back into the Beemer and activated the emergency flashers, then tried to remember if he'd ever seen any other cars, all the times he'd driven this road at night.

  No, too desolate. People'd be afraid of breaking down and getting stranded.

  Slamming the driver's side door, Woodrow walked back to his left rear tire. The pulsating glow from the flank lights was enough to see the bad news. Flat as a pancake, must have gone over one motherfucking piece of rubber-tearing shit. Across the dark road, he heard a rustling sound, some kind of creature working its way down the hillside through the brush. Woodrow looked to the left, blinking some more, but couldn't see anything beyond thirty feet from his lighted car. Probably just a raccoon. People wouldn't think you'd have raccoons in a city like Boston, but with the Charles River and other water running through it, they could survive, even thrive. In fact, Woodrow knew personally of a lady woke up during the night with a raccoon on her fire escape, those demon-red eyes staring in through the bedroom window, scaring the hell out of her.

  The memory of that lady's experience made Woodrow laugh, and that calmed his mind some. Momma always counseled her sons to look on the bright side of things. Well, it wasn't a front tire, so he hadn't pivoted and maybe rolled into a vehicular homicide. And Woodrow knew the spare in the trunk was solid because he'd had the dealer check it the last time they'd rotated the tires.

  Be good not to have anybody else see you with this woman, but you sure as shit are not about to get down on your hands and knees in this fancy suit to change a flat. And besides, what's a guy in a towtruck gonna know about who she is? Nada, right?

  So, pick up your cell phone, and call the Triple-A.

  The rustling sound from across the road was getting louder, which meant the raccoon or whatever was getting closer. Woodrow suddenly remembered another story, one he'd read in the newspaper. About how a lot of raccoons were carrying rabies.

  Maybe it was time to get back in the Beemer, make your call from the safety of a strong metal box.

  Woodrow turned to step toward the driver's side door. Then the breeze shifted from the front of the car to the rear, and he got his first whiff of gasoline.

  Mother-fuck-er.

  Forgetting about raccoons and ra
bies, Woodrow moved quickly around to the back bumper, the smell growing stronger. He bent down, his bad knee protesting, and looked through the strobing of his hazard lights. Something was dribbling out from near the right wheel.

  Woodrow touched a finger to the pool of liquid on the ground, but his nose confirmed what it was before he'd brought the finger halfway to his face.

  Which made no sense, none whatsoever. How the fuck do you get a leak in your gas tank from a flat tire? Even if whatever it was caused the puncture kicked up from the road, how could it be going fast enough to penetrate—

  The sound of brush parting and crunching footsteps across the road made Woodrow stand up abruptly, the knee now screaming at him for it. His eyes must be going, too, because he surely couldn't understand what they were telling him. A human figure, dressed in a bulky parka, was clumping toward Woodrow and his fine machine. Both hands were in the pockets of the coat, the hood up and tugged low enough that it shielded the face. But there was something familiar, too. About the walk or . . . something.

  "Car trouble?" said the figure, still approaching.

  The voice placed the walk for Woodrow, but that didn't help him understand things any better. "What are you doing out here?"

  For an answer, the figure stopped about ten feet away, a hand sliding from one of the pockets. The hand had a shiny leather glove on it, but in his car's flank lights, Woodrow caught a different kind of reflection.

  The glint of blued metal.

  "Hey, man?"

  "You betrayed me, Woodrow."

  "Wait, wait. We can—"

  The first shot struck just above the belt, ratcheting Woodrow's rear end up in the air as it brought his shoulders folding downward. Both of Woodrow's hands clasped his stomach, the blood already running freely between the fingers and onto his pants.

  Hunched, he looked up at the figure, some pain beginning to filter through the shock of the impact. "No, please——"

  The second bullet hit Woodrow high on the left shoulder, turning him, almost spinning him, away from the hooded figure. Woodrow tried to make his legs work-like from the football drills back in high school? Drive and lift and stride, but between the bad knee and the wounds, all he could manage was a lurching shuffle toward the grass at the right-hand side of the road.

  The third bullet punched Woodrow squarely in the back, shattering a vertebra and ripping through his heart. He dropped like a rag doll, face first and turned toward the BMW, the upper half of his body in the grass, the lower half still on the pavement.

  A last thought crossed his brain. "My fancy car . . . What's gonna happen to . . . ?"

  The hooded figure moved quickly to the fallen man, squatting down to watch the light of life fade from the eyes. Having Woodrow Wilson Gant die here was consistent with the plan, but being close enough to see that glazing effect in the pupils was also more . . . satisfying as well.

  Standing again, the hooded figure breathed three times.

  Deeply and slowly, in through the nose and out through the mouth, to regain complete control of all body parts after the adrenaline rush of taking another's life.

  And, with luck, not even the last for this night, either.

  The figure moved very steadily to the passenger side of the BMW. It was important that the woman not have heard the brief exchange with Gant, not be able to remember a voice or even a speech pattern.

  If she did, the plan would have to be changed, and she would have to be killed, too.

  But no, no worry of that. The woman was dead drunk, as she'd appeared when the vehic1e's courtesy lights had come on a few minutes before, as she'd appeared those other times when—

  The woman began to stir, though her eyes remained closed. The hooded figure hesitated only a moment, then decided to follow through on the original plan, just without using the

  car door.

  After redundantly wiping the outside of the revolver against the parka's material, the figure slipped the weapon through the partially open side window, allowing the gun to drop so that it landed in the woman's lap.

  At which point the hooded figure ducked down below window level and scuttled, crablike, to the rear of the BMW. Moving diagonally away from the woman in the passenger's seat, the figure recrossed the road and began climbing back up the hillside.

  To retrieve the rifle used to shoot out the tire and return to the car hidden over the ridge.

  * * *

  Somewhere in the dream, the cute male flight attendant stumbled, dropping an anchor right into her lap.

  An anchor. Just what she needed, after all the bumps and banging noises on this airplane already. Her first real vacation in years, all by herself to the Caribbean without any cares, any responsibilities. But despite paying for a first-class ticket, the flight was bumpy and the engines were making all these banging noises and then the attendant has to drop . . .

  `

  Wait a minute. I took an airplane, not a cruise ship. What's an anchor doing on a 747?

  She opened her eyes then, and at first thought she'd somehow wandered into the cockpit of the airplane, because she was staring out a windshield. Like the pilot would, you know? There wasn't much light, and she couldn't see any clouds or anything, just some trees and a hood, some gauges and a door ....

  A door? A car door. Woodrow's BMW.

  Oh, shit. She shook her head, clearing it of the airplane dream. Right, right. Only . . . "Where the hell are we?"

  She turned her face to the left. "I said, where are . . . ?"

  But Woodrow wasn't behind the wheel, and the action of swiveling her head triggered a wave of nausea, just like she felt after that goddamn Vietnamese meal. With the six-dollar chardonnay they marked up to twelve. And that gucky soup, the . . .

  Now, thinking about all the disgusting food, she felt more sick.

  Handkerchief. Handbag.

  She dug into the main compartment of the bag till she found a hankie. Even before she held it up to her mouth, however, the gag reflex started.

  Have to get out of here.

  Yanking the door handle while holding the hankie, she realized her seat belt was still on. With the knuckles of her left hand, she struck the button that releases the metal tab, sensing the belt itself retract but without taking the strap of her handbag with it.

  Aspirin in the bag, too. Make me feel better. After.

  She bashed the door open with her shoulder and swung her legs out of the BMW, feeling something heavy slide off her lap and onto the ground. The anchor, of course.

  Only it wasn't an anchor. In the light from the car's interior, she could see it was a gun, lying on the grass. A gun like . . . God, no. "Woodrow?"

  She struggled to a standing position, the ground under the grass sloping down, giving her vertigo. Which made everything else so much worse, both in her stomach and in her head.

  "Woodrow?" Oh, God, no. Please, no. "Woodrow, where are you?"

  I'm going to be sick.

  She took two steps down the slope and slid onto her rear end, expecting to throw up into the grass to her left. But all she could manage was the dry heaves.

  The gun. He didn't . . . couldn't have. Even he's not that stupid.

  Regaining some control, she called out again. "Woodrow?"

  Please, God, where is he? "Woodrow?"

  She struggled to her feet again, turning toward the back of the car.

  And saw Woodrow Wilson Gant's lifeless eyes staring at the right rear tire.

  "Oh, God, no!"

  He did it. He really did.

  I have to . . . Have to get as far from here as . . .

  She began running along the side of the road. Away from the BMW and the restaurant miles behind it.

  Running into the night.

  Stumbling to the ground.

  Then staggering up and running some more.

  And dropping down intentionally only when she'd see another car's headlights coming up the road toward her.

  Chapter 1

  IN MY O
PINION, it had been a tough year for the neighborhood Boston calls "Back Bay." Our only family drugstore, a fixture opposite the Lenox Hotel for decades, closed after three discount giants bunched around it like Davy Crockett's shot pattern. A candy store on Newbury Street also left, thereby eliminating the irony of the diet center occupying the retail space directly beneath it. And the Exeter Street Theatre building had suffered a devastating fire, nearly destroying one of the city's most upscale landmarks.

  Concepts like "upscale" and "landmark" struck me all the more that Tuesday morning as I climbed the stairs of Steven Rothenberg's building, the elevator broken again. You couldn't call the structure that contained his law office anything but a dump, especially with one of its neighbors already torn down, leaving a gap like a punched-out tooth in that block of Boylston Street.

  I'd first met Rothenberg a few years back, when he represented an African-American college student named William Daniels. The student was accused of killing his white girlfriend, and I was helping out as a favor for a black lieutenant in the Boston Homicide Unit. Since then, Rothenberg had hired me to do the private investigator work on a number of criminal matters. This time around, he'd left a message with my answering service the afternoon before, asking me to drop by the next day.

  I reached Rothenberg's floor and, after a turn, the office suite he shared with half a dozen other sole practitioners. The lawyers' names were done individually on horizontal slats of wood stacked vertically to the side of the doorjamb. Each slat had been lettered by a different engraver on differently grained wood, a xylophone designed by committee. I thought a few of the names might have changed since the last time I'd been there, but Steve's was still in the same place.

  Inside the front door, a young female receptionist with orangeade hair cut in a shingled pattern typed on a desktop computer. Angled away from me, she wore little earphones, the wire running down out of sight. She might have been listening to an old dictation machine or a new Walkman. Given the way she was rocking her head, I put my money on the latter.

  Coming up on her blind side, I said, "Excuse me?"