The Only Good Lawyer - Jeremiah Healy

by Jeremish Healy

  Grover Gant began to cry. Deep, blubbering sobs.

  I said, “You what?"

  Trinh changed gears. "Nothing, that was it. Only way I could get the lawyer-man was without him knowing anything. In fact, it was almost better that way. I'm getting him, and he don't even know shit's happening"

  "But Grover's into you for a goodly sum of money."

  Trinh seemed thrown. "So?"

  "So maybe you want to send a message to the deadbeat who owes you."

  A squint. "You saying I kill old Woodrow because I want to put pressure on Grover?"

  "It fits."

  "Mr. Private Eye, what kinda shit you smoking, huh? I gonna shoot a lawyer-man put me away after he eats at a place I own? Not to mention old Woodrow's covering Grover's bad bets. How am I gonna get paid, I kill the goose laying the golden eggs for this deadbeat crying all over my floor right now?"

  "Because Grover is the beneficiary on a policy covering his brother's life."

  Trinh's nostrils flared, the vein at his temple pulsing under the skin. "Life insurance?"

  "That's what we call it."

  "This piece of shit here got money because the lawyer-man died?"

  "One hundred thousand. You see the . . ." Looking down at Grover, I realized he wasn't wearing the watch anymore.

  "See the what?" said Trinh.

  "Never mind. Just take my word for it. The company paid Grover off."

  Trinh stood up, Huong tensing at the wall.

  I said, "Easy does it, everybody."

  His palms on the desktop, Trinh craned forward far enough to see Gant. "You fucking piece of shit, Grover! You come in here and hand me three hundred you say you got at the track today, and your deadbeat ass is sitting on one hundred large at your momma's house?"

  I said, "At least he was telling you the truth about the track part."

  Trinh looked at me, then laughed. Only a titter at first, almost girlish, then heartier. Huong didn't see the humor in the situation, or at least, he didn't show it. Grover began moaning louder, the tears flowing freely.

  Trinh sat back down, still laughing, but quieter now. "Mr. Private Eye, you just made my day."

  "Mind letting me in on it?"

  The middle finger of his right hand whisked under each eye, smearing a couple of tears. "You just tell me I don't got a thing to worry about. Lawyer-man's dead, I figure I got to wait till his nice car get sold, get my money from Grover's inheritance. Now you telling me, my money's coming tomorrow, soon as that piece of shit get a cast on his one arm, count me out the bills with the other."

  I waited a moment, but what Trinh said sounded right. And unless he was up there with Olivier and De Niro, it seemed to me that the insurance policy on Woodrow Gant was major-league news to him.

  "So," said Trinh, "you got any more questions?"

  "Not just now."

  "Then do me a favor, Mr. Private Eye. You put your gun away and you take this piece of shit on my floor to a hospital."

  "I don't know if he has insurance."

  “You just told me his brother's policy—"

  "I mean medical insurance, for the doctors and all."

  "Oh." Trinh thought about it, then opened a desk drawer and took out some bills. Tossing them at me, he said, "Here's the three hundred from the track. I wait for it this long, I can wait some more."

  Then Nguyen Trinh raised his voice, aiming it over the desk and down. "But, Grover, only till tomorrow, right?"

  Chapter 18

  TWENTY MINUTES AFTER dropping Grover Gant at St. Elizabeth's emergency room, I said, "No rest for the weary."

  Imogene Burbage looked up from behind the reception desk at Epstein & Neely as I came off the elevator. She wore a conservative blue suit and a determined gray frown.

  "Mr. Cuddy, we are a law firm—one which had a temp call in sick this morning—and I think we've already granted you more than enough of our time."

  "Maybe Frank Neely would give me an extension?"

  Frown to sneer. “Mr. Neely isn't in."

  "How about—"

  I stopped, cold, because I heard a familiar voice accompany footsteps from the direction of Uta Radachowski's office. A voice with a little of the South in it, but also one a little out of context.

  ". . . and so I really don't see any problem."

  "Good," said Radachowski as she and Parris Jeppers came into view around the corner.

  Both of them seemed surprised to see me.

  "Mr. Jeppers." I said, nodding neutrally.

  The lawyer from the Board of Bar Overseers backpedaled. Verbally, if not physically, his hand coming up to the bow tie du jour and then his goatee. "Ah, yes. Mr .... ?"

  "John Cuddy." said Radachowski, staring daggers through her thick lenses at me. "He's a detective representing Alan Spaeth."

  "Of course." Jeppers extended his hand. "Sorry not to have remembered."

  I shook with him. “Mine's an easy name to forget."

  "Well," he said, "I must be off. Have a nice day, now."

  Radachowski and I stayed silent until the elevator door closed and the light through the diamond window dropped away. I let her speak next.

  "Mr. Cuddy—"

  "I thought it was 'John' and 'Uta'?"

  Radachowski bit back something before saying, "I'm afraid we can't give you any more of our time."

  From the desk, Burbage said, "I told him the same thing"

  I stayed with Radachowski. "This might be my last visit, and after all the cooperation Frank Neely's provided me, I'd hate to have to tell Steve Rothenberg that it's subpoena time."

  "I don't like threats, Mr. Cuddy."

  "And I'm not making one. But you're still a partner here, and therefore—"

  This time I stopped because of the look on Radachowski's face, as though she'd just heard me use a four-letter word over Thanksgiving dinner.

  I said, "Is something wrong?"

  "No." Radachowski waved at the air. "No, you're right. I can order you out, and call the police if that doesn't work, but I'd rather everything remained on professional, if not friendly, terms, too. What do you want to see me about?"

  First Jeppers's overly casual reaction to me, now Radachowski assuming I'd come to see her. Instinct said to go with it.

  "Just a few minutes' worth, maybe in your office"

  * * *

  Even sitting behind her desk, Radachowski looked ill-at-ease for the first time. "Your questions, please."

  "Alan Spaeth's alibi witness was found dead this morning."

  She seemed to relax a bit, like the worst was over. "I'm sorry to hear that."

  " 'Any man's death'."

  "What?"

  "It's a quote, I'm not sure from where. 'Any man's death makes us all the poorer,' or something like that."

  Radachowski looked down at her desk for a moment, then back up at me. "Are you making jokes now?"

  "No, I'm definitely not doing that. Two men are dead. One was your partner, and the other was a hard-luck guy whose major flaw seems to have been loyalty to a friend, though he can't testify to that anymore."

  A shake of the head. "Mr. Cuddy, I don't see how I fit into this line of questioning."

  "Would Mr. Jeppers fit into it any better?"

  "Parris?" A grunted laugh, that patronizing sound lawyers make in court when a witness's answer hits them like an arrow through the heart. "What in the world could he have to do with your dead witness?"

  "I'm not sure. I visit Jeppers yesterday morning at the Board of Bar Overseers, and we talk some about Woodrow Gant and Alan Spaeth. Then I come over here again, and he's visiting with you, a partner of the victim. I guess I have to wonder why."

  Radachowski closed her eyes briefly, then pointed to one of the plaques on the wall above her head. "Parris and I are both trustees for a charitable organization. We confer from time to time on matters of policy regarding it."

  When you ask a lawyer a question, you also have to listen carefully to the answer, sometimes as much
for what's not said as for what is. "And that's why he was here today, to talk about 'policy'?"

  A very measured stare this time. "I'm afraid that's confidential."

  "As in referring a potential client to a colleague?"

  Radachowski's face became a mask. "Now what are you asking me?"

  "You met Nicole Spaeth at another charity event. She was in need of a divorce lawyer, and you recommended your partner."

  “Whom I knew to be a fine domestic relations attorney."

  "With maybe a disproportionate appreciation of the women he represented?"

  Radachowski said, "I think that will be all, Mr. Cuddy."

  "Before I go, could you try Elliot Herman for me?"

  "Elliot?"

  "I'd go back out to reception, but I hate to bother Ms. Burbage again, given all she has to do."

  Packing papers into his briefcase, Elliot Herman said, "I have to be out of here in ten—no, five minutes."

  "Won't take three."

  "All right." Wearing pleated pants held up by whale-pattern suspenders today, he looked around the office instead of at me. "Sit."

  Without closing his office door behind me, I took a chair. "I need to ask you an awkward question."

  "Ask it." Herman slipped a file from the middle of a stack on his desk. "Concisely."

  "I've heard rumors about Woodrow Gant."

  The file wouldn't quite wedge between the others in the case. "What kind of rumors?" Herman asked, almost absently, as he tugged on the handle to a desk drawer.

  "About Mr. Gant and some of his female clients."

  Herman stopped with the drawer open. Rather than close it, he crossed the room and closed his door instead, beginning to speak again while he was still behind me. "Mr. Cuddy, I don't understand."

  I waited until Herman returned to his desk, though he stayed standing, the pleats of his pants quivering as if the leg muscles were tensing underneath.

  I said, "There's some talk that Mr. Gant used to see his clients . . . socially."

  Herman's right hand smoothed the hair by his white, lightning streak. "I don't see how that—even if it were true—could matter to you."

  "Alan Spaeth is accused of killing his wife's lawyer. I'd like to know if other opposing husbands might have had a motive to go after Mr. Gant as well."

  I phrased my answer that way to see if it got a rise out of Herman, as a way of determining whether he knew of his own wife and Gant. But Herman's expression never changed.

  He looked just as worried.

  "Mr. Cuddy, you realize what this could do to the firm?"

  "The rumors?"

  "The discussion of them in open court."

  "Maybe it doesn't have to get that far."

  Herman thought for about three breaths. "Okay, there was some noise about Woodrow."

  "Noise."

  "Frank got a few calls, I think. He had a talk with Woodrow, stressing things like the firm's image and general appearances. That's all I know, okay?"

  "Frank Neely just talked with Mr. Gant?"

  Now a confused look. "What do you mean?"

  "There was no 'Listen, once more and you're out of here' kind of warning?"

  Herman watched me. "I couldn't tell you that. I just know what I've already told you."

  "And how do you know even that?"

  "How?"

  "Yes."

  Herman shrugged. "Woodrow and I had drinks once."

  "Mr. Gant talked with you about this?"

  "Yes."

  "When was this?"

  "I don't know. Five, six months ago, maybe."

  Around the time of Gant being with his wife. But Herman wasn't showing anything to me except that constant concern about the firm's future.

  I said, "Were any . . . names brought up?"

  "Of the women clients? Negative. Woodrow wasn't like that, the kind to brag, I mean. But even if he had mentioned names, I couldn't tell you. Client confidentiality."

  I asked my next question slowly. "And what did Mr. Gant say to you about Frank Neely's 'talk' with him?"

  Herman closed his eyes, as though trying to envision something, then opened them again. "Woodrow said he wasn't sweating it too much."

  "Why not?"

  Elliot Herman glanced at his watch and nearly jumped for his briefcase. "Woodrow said the fees he brought in, Frank wouldn't dare call for a partnership vote with Uta, and if he did, Woodrow would bail out himself."

  * * *

  Imogene Burbage was on the phone, so I waited patiently in front of the reception desk.

  "No, Ms. Barber, Ms. Ling had a meeting after lunch, and she isn't back yet."

  The name was familiar. That divorce client of Gant's who wanted to sell her house.

  Burbage said, "Yes, I left your earlier message on her desk .... Certainly, and the number? . . . Five-one-three, one-nine-four-four .... Thank you."

  When Burbage hung up, I said, "Voice mail on the fritz again?"

  She seemed exasperated more by me than the machine. "Yes."

  "Well, I think you've already answered the question I was going to ask about Ms. Ling. Is Mr. Neely still gone, too?"

  "He is."

  "Do you know when either of them will be back?"

  "No."

  Burbage gave the impression that she was sorry the English language didn't have a shorter term for the concept.

  I said, "Can I leave word for both to call me?"

  "Yes."

  But instead of putting pen to paper, Imogene Burbage swung the spiral message pad around so I could write out my own number for each of them.

  Chapter 19

  FROM THE OTHER end of the line, Steve Rothenberg said, "Anything, John?"

  "Not that helps us. I can't come up with an identifiable motive, much less a plausible theory, why somebody would kill both Woodrow Gant and Michael Mantle."

  Nothing for a moment. Then, "The sooner I plead Spaeth out, the better the deal's likely to be."

  Rothenberg's words, but his tone of voice, too: tossing in the towel. "I thought you told me when we got started that the D.A. wasn't offering any kind of plea bargain?"

  "John, what we'd be talking about is less 'how long' and more 'where'."

  "Meaning which prison."

  "And cell block. How would you like to be a white-collar white guy like our boy consigned to general population after killing a black role model?"

  "Steve, do me a favor?"

  "What?"

  "Don't call the prosecution for a day or two."

  "A day or . . . ? Why not?"

  "Because neither of us thinks Spaeth did it."

  Another moment, then a sigh. "John, you remember that line from Love Story about not having to say you're sorry?"

  "I remember the movie version."

  “Yeah, well, the Alan Spaeth version is, 'We did our best, but there's only so much you can do without any evidence.' "

  "Meaning we don't have to say we're sorry."

  "Right."

  "Steve?"

  "What?"

  "You contact the D.A. before I get back to you, I think we'll both be sorry. For as long as Spaeth sits in a cell anywhere."

  * * *

  I'd called Steve Rothenberg when I'd gotten back to my office from Epstein & Neely. After hanging up on him, I checked in with my answering service. The nice woman with the silky voice relayed a one-line message from Lieutenant Robert Murphy. “Cuddy, I want your ass at the South Market building, NOW."

  The woman told me she wrote that last word in caps because that was the way Murphy said it. She was pretty sure of his feelings, too, because he'd called only ten minutes before.

  * * *

  The South and North Market buildings are the twin, Federalist-period shoe boxes flanking the better-known Quincy Market. Each has countless boutiques and several anchoring restaurants—including Cricket's, where I'd last seen Nancy. However, from all the commotion at the harbor end of the building, it wasn't hard to know where Murphy wante
d me to be.

  I'd walked down State Street from my office on Tremont, so I didn't have to find a parking place. That was the only fortunate part, given the sickening similarity the cruisers and unmarkeds and Medical Examiner's van carried with them from the scene in Southie earlier that day.

  A different uniformed officer met me at the yellow-tape barrier. She led me under the "POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS" lettering and around the corner to the alley behind the building. I saw a dumpster with some trash overflowing, unusual because the city was adamant about the restaurants and stores maintaining a neat appearance for our tourist showcase. When you got closer to the dumpster, though, you could see the thing wasn't really full. More like somebody had intentionally strewn garbage on the side of it.

  And over what lay on the ground next to it.

  "Cuddy," said Murphy, standing near the trash pile, "just what the fuck is going on here?"

  I was close enough to see the shapely legs sticking out from under a flattened cardboard box. The pantyhose were torn up the right calf, that two-inch heel on, the other off so the left foot was visible, pointing toward the sky at a forty-five-degree angle. For just a second, my heart said it was Nancy, but my head kicked in quickly, because while the shoes were right, what I could see of the legs belonged to a shorter woman. Besides, Murphy wouldn't have sprung something involving Nancy on me, no matter what his mood might be.

  I drew even with him and looked down at the other end of the trash pile. The orange rinds and banana peels had been brushed away from the face staring up at us. The eyes were bulging, the tongue gorged and turned that grotesque shade of blue.

  The way Michael Mantle would have been if the rats hadn't been at him first.

  "You recognize her." said Murphy, but not as a question.

  I did, though what I saw on the ground made no sense. "Deborah Ling."

  He nodded. "I met her when we did the Q&A over at Woodrow Gant's law firm, day after he was killed on the road."

  "I was there a little while ago."

  "The road?"

  "No, at Epstein Er Neely. The head secretary, Imogene Burbage, said Ling hadn't gotten back from a meeting after lunch."