Client Privilege

by William G. Tapply

  I shrugged. “Okay. I guess so. I got home—that’s my apartment in the Harborside down near Commercial Wharf off Atlantic Avenue, apartment 6E, hell, you probably already checked that out—I got home from work around six, six-fifteen. Could’ve been six-thirty. Changed my clothes. Opened a can of Friend’s pork and beans. Listened to Mozart and read Field & Stream while I ate. Left a little after eight-thirty. Walked to Skeeter’s. You know Skeeter’s Infield, down off State Street? Had a couple drinks there. Probably stayed no more than half, three-quarters of an hour. Got home, I don’t know, ten, around there. Showered. Went to bed.”

  “What were you doing at Skeeter’s?” said Finnigan.

  I hesitated. They noticed it. I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t violate the privileged status of Chester Y. Popowski by telling these cops my business at Skeeter’s. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I can’t tell you that.”

  They nodded, as if they knew I was going to say that.

  “Why can’t you tell us?” said Sylvestro.

  “Look—”

  “You protecting a client?” said Finnigan.

  I nodded. “I suppose you could say that. If protect is the word. I was at Skeeter’s for a client. You know I can’t tell you about that.”

  Finnigan turned to Sylvestro. “Come on, Jack. I mean—”

  Sylvestro held up a hand and Finnigan stopped. Then Sylvestro turned to me. “Mr. Coyne, would you mind going over those times for us again.”

  “Last night, you mean?”

  He nodded.

  “I really wasn’t paying much attention. Like I said, I got home maybe six-thirty. Left at eight-thirty, I’m quite sure of that, because…”

  I stopped. Sylvestro was watching me. Finnigan had a notepad on his knee and was making notes.

  I lit another cigarette. “Because I wanted to get to Skeeter’s at nine,” I finished.

  “Why?” said Finnigan.

  “Come on,” I said. “I already explained that.”

  Finnigan frowned. Sylvestro nodded and smiled. “Sure. That’s okay. Go on, Mr. Coyne,” he said.

  “Well, I had two drinks. When I left, the Bruins were still playing. The game was on the TV in the bar. By the time I got home, it was just ending. Whatever time that was.”

  “What time was it?” said Finnigan.

  “I don’t know. I didn’t notice.”

  “So you got home as the game was ending,” said Sylvestro.

  I nodded. “Yes. I had a cup of tea, took a shower, and went to bed.”

  “Were you with anybody last night?”

  “Skeeter and I chatted at the bar.”

  “Nobody else?”

  I flapped my hands. “Can’t tell you.”

  “What about when you got home?” said Finnigan.

  “Nobody.”

  “Any phone calls?”

  “I talked with my wife.”

  “Your wife?”

  “My ex-wife, I mean.”

  “What time was that?”

  “Eleven, maybe?”

  “Can she confirm this?” said Finnigan.

  “Of course.”

  “Gloria Coyne, right? Lives in Wellesley?”

  “I give you credit,” I said. “You’ve done your homework. I wish you’d fill me in a little.”

  “You didn’t talk with anybody else on the phone?”

  “I talked with a client.”

  “And you can’t tell us who, naturally,” said Finnigan.

  “Right.”

  “For crissake, Jack,” said Finnigan to Sylvestro.

  Sylvestro ignored his partner. “Why don’t you take another look at this picture,” he said to me.

  I looked at the photo of Wayne Churchill again. That’s when I saw it. The smile, the hair. In my imagination I sketched in a bushy mustache over his lip and a pair of dark glasses over his eyes and a Ben Hogan cap covering those lanky blond locks on his head. “Okay,” I said. “Now I see it. He was at Skeeter’s last night.” I glanced up at Sylvestro. He was watching me intently. “That’s why you’re asking me where I was last night. Trying to figure out where Churchill was. He was at Skeeter’s. Yes.”

  Sylvestro and Finnigan both stared at me. They were not smiling.

  “This man was murdered?” I said.

  “Yes,” said Sylvestro.

  I let out a breath. “Oh, boy.”

  Sylvestro nodded. “You’re sure you saw him there, now, Mr. Coyne? This is pretty important.”

  “I’m sure. He—he looked different.”

  “Different how?”

  “He had a mustache, dark glasses, one of those caps like golfers wear. A disguise, I suppose, though I didn’t know it at the time.”

  “And you didn’t know who he was.”

  “No.”

  “Did you talk to him?”

  I nodded.

  “What about?”

  “Sorry. I can’t tell you that.”

  “It’s pretty important, Mr. Coyne,” said Sylvestro.

  “I can’t help you there. Sorry.”

  “You his lawyer?” said Finnigan. “You doing business with Churchill?”

  “Please,” I said. “I can’t tell you my business. You know that.”

  Sylvestro nodded. “Sure. You’re right. That’s okay. Was Churchill there when you got there?”

  I shook my head. “He got there a few minutes after me.”

  “Did he leave before or after you?”

  “Before me. I left maybe ten minutes after he did.”

  “About what time was that?”

  “Nine-thirty, quarter of ten. I didn’t really notice.”

  “Did you notice if he talked to anybody else when he was there?”

  “No, he didn’t. Ordered a drink from Skeeter. Otherwise, just me.”

  “He came in alone?”

  I nodded.

  “And left alone too?”

  “Yes.”

  “So,” said Finnigan, “you were there before him and stayed after he left. All the time he was there, he was talking with you.”

  “That’s right,” I said.

  “You know it could help a lot if we knew what you talked about,” said Finnigan.

  I nodded. “I understand. You know I can’t discuss it with you.”

  “Sure,” said Sylvestro.

  The two cops glanced at each other and exchanged nods. Sylvestro picked up Wayne Churchill’s photo and slid it back into the envelope. They stood up.

  “Thanks for your time,” said Sylvestro. “You’ve been a big help.”

  “Anytime,” I said. “Wish I could help you more.”

  “You helped.”

  I shook hands with both of them and we moved toward the door. I opened it and we stepped into the reception area. Sylvestro turned to me. “I’m sorry if we made you uncomfortable, Mr. Coyne.”

  “I must admit, you put me on the defensive.”

  “Didn’t mean to. It’s just, we need to backtrack the man. Placing him at Skeeter’s at that time, that really helps us.”

  “No problem. Glad to help.”

  They turned to walk away. Finnigan hesitated, then turned back. “You smoke an awful lot, Mr. Coyne. You know that?”

  I shrugged and glanced at Julie. She was grinning. “You nervous?” he said.

  “Life makes me nervous,” I said.

  He smiled at me.

  “Come on,” said Sylvestro. “Let’s leave the man alone.” Finnigan nodded and joined his partner. They marched past Julie, nodding to her as they left.

  After the door closed behind them, I said to Julie, “Any calls?”

  “Somebody named Rodney Dennis?” It was a question.

  I shrugged. “Nobody I know. What’d he want?”

  “He wouldn’t say. Left a number. Asked for you to call back.”

  I grinned. Julie knew that I didn’t return calls to strangers. Some of them were people looking for counsel. I had all the clients I wanted. Most of them turned out to be officers
of nonprofit organizations looking for donations or after-dinner speeches. They knew if they left that message with Julie, they’d never hear from me. My approach to them was strictly democratic—I ignored them all, without regard to race, color, creed, gender, or national origin. “Anything else?” I said.

  “Nothing I couldn’t handle,” she said. “What was that all about?”

  “You ever see Wayne Churchill on television?”

  “Sure. He’s a hunk.”

  “He was murdered last night.”

  Her eyes widened. “Wow! No kidding.”

  I nodded.

  Suddenly she frowned. “So why were those cops talking to you, huh?”

  “I talked to Churchill last night. I was helping them pin down his movements before he got killed.”

  “What were you talking to Wayne Churchill for? He interview you or something?”

  “Something like that.”

  “So who killed him?”

  I shrugged. “I didn’t ask. I don’t know if they know.”

  “How’d those cops know you’d been talking with Wayne Churchill?”

  “I never asked that, either. They did most of the asking.”

  “Well,” said Julie, nodding her head in that emphatic way of hers, “I didn’t like them. They made me nervous.”

  I grinned. “Nothing to be nervous about. A couple of cops, doing their job. I was just helping them retrace a murdered man’s movements before he was killed, that’s all. I don’t mind helping out the police. In the name of good citizenship and all, you know.”

  She rolled her eyes. “My hero.”

  FIVE

  I WENT BACK TO my desk. I tried Pops’ number at the East Cambridge courthouse. His secretary said he was still in court. She expected he’d adjourn within the next fifteen minutes. I asked her to have him call me as soon as he came out.

  I swiveled my chair around so I could look out my office window. It faced westerly, out over the old churches and new office buildings of Copley Square toward Cambridge and beyond, if I could see that far, as I liked to imagine I could, to the Swift River in Belchertown and the Deerfield beyond it, a hundred miles and a different world away, where I could count on escaping city problems like the murder of a handsome young newscaster who wanted to blackmail a Superior Court judge whose name had been submitted to the United States Senate for a seat on the Federal District Court bench. The same newscaster with whom I had had a drink the same night he was killed.

  What kind of a world was this, anyway?

  Dreaming of catching rainbow trout on the Swift and the Deerfield didn’t work. I was still sitting there in my office, and it was a dreary dimming afternoon in February, and the fishing season was months away.

  My phone buzzed. I rotated back to face my desk and picked it up. “Yes, Julie?”

  “It’s Judge Popowski.”

  “Thanks. I’ll take it.”

  “I’m leaving now, okay?”

  “Sure. See you tomorrow.”

  I depressed a button on the phone and said, “Pops.”

  I heard him sigh. “What’s up, Brady?”

  “You ever hear of a guy named Wayne Churchill?”

  “Sure. Newsman on Channel Eight.”

  “Did you know he was murdered last night?”

  “Of course. The courthouse is all abuzz.”

  “What have you heard?”

  “Gossip, mostly. Girlfriend found him in the proverbial pool of blood. Two small-caliber bullet holes in him. One in the chest, one in the forehead. No sign of forced entry. They have not recovered the weapon. Understand the girl’s being quizzed closely.”

  “Same old story, huh?”

  “Usually works that way.” I heard him clear his throat. “This is interesting, Brady, and I like gossip as much as the next guy. But may I ask, so what?”

  “You hear anything about someone he had a drink with shortly before the estimated time of death?”

  “No, nothing like that.”

  “Guy he argued with in a bar?”

  “No.”

  “Skeeter’s?”

  There was a long silence. “Oh, Jesus, Brady.”

  “‘Oh, Jesus’ is right, Pops.”

  “This Churchill…?”

  “Yes. Our friendly neighborhood blackmailer. One and the same.”

  “You didn’t—?”

  “What, kill him?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. That’s not what I was going to say. How’d you hear about this?”

  “The police visited me. Asked me some questions. Trying to figure out where Churchill had been, I guess.”

  “How’d they track you down?”

  “I don’t know. I was there and so was he. Only he was wearing a mustache and shades, so I didn’t recognize him. They showed me Churchill’s photograph, and I drew a blank. They told me his name and I couldn’t place it. Asked me where I was last night and what I was doing there. Queried me closely on my comings and goings. The thing is, I’m not sure I gave them good answers. I mean, they came in just trying to backtrack Churchill’s whereabouts. But I gave them lousy answers, looking back on it. I mean, for all I know they left with a new suspect. That’s how I’m beginning to feel.”

  “My God, Brady. I don’t blame you for being upset.”

  “I’m not exactly upset, Pops. I mean, mainly, it’s weird, thinking there I was, talking with the man, and he walked out of there and went home and somebody shot him.”

  “Murder is always weird,” said Pops.

  “I feel so—so guilty, Pops. They asked me these questions, and I couldn’t answer them very well, and somehow they made me feel as if I had done something wrong.”

  “Good cops can do that.”

  “These guys are good cops, then.”

  “So, what’d you tell them?”

  “I told them what I did last night. I mean, I just told them the truth, as best I could. You don’t pay attention to things when they’re happening. What time you do this or that, exactly who said what to whom. After a while they started to question me more closely, trying to pin down the times. Looking back, I think I was pretty vague. I felt as if I was being interrogated.”

  “I’ve got to ask,” he said.

  “You should know better, Pops. You don’t even need to ask. You’re my client, and you’re privileged. I didn’t utter your name to them. I did admit I was there with him on behalf of a client. But now I can see how damn suspicious I must’ve appeared to them. I mean, they got me to admit I’d had a drink with this Churchill just last night, yet when they showed me his picture I didn’t even recognize it, and I couldn’t place his name, which I guess makes me suspicious right there. I gather everybody in Boston’s heard of Wayne Churchill except me.”

  “Anybody who watches the news on Channel Eight,” said Pops.

  “I don’t. I like the sports guy on Channel Four. But how do you explain that? So anyway, then they asked me why I was there at Skeeter’s with him, what we talked about. Naturally, I refused to say. I must’ve sounded pretty evasive.”

  “You sound upset, Brady.”

  “It’s been slowly dawning on me how it seemed.”

  “Christ, what a mess. I’m really sorry I got you into this.”

  “Hey,” I said. “This is why lawyers make a lot of money.”

  “What can I do?” he said.

  “Nothing. Pat my head. Tell me I’m overreacting.”

  “Well, of course. You are. You know you are.” He hesitated. Then he said, “Brady, I know you realize how important our privileged status on this is to me. My God, if my name were connected with a murder just now, there’s no way that nomination would happen. I mean, a peccadillo a long time ago, that’s one thing. But a murder? After all the crap that’s been happening with judicial appointments…”

  I arched my neck against the stiffness that stress always brings. “Don’t worry about it, Pops. This is not an issue.”

  “I do appreciate it, Brady, and I know it make
s things more awkward for you. But, hell, you didn’t kill the man, did you?”

  “Is that a question?”

  “No. Of course not.”

  “I’m not gonna tell them anything about you, Pops.”

  “Hell, I know that.”

  “I didn’t tell them that you and I talked on the phone last night, either.”

  “It never occurred to me that you would.”

  “Well,” I sighed, “anyway, that’s the story. That’s who sent you the note. Wayne Churchill.”

  “Unbelievable,” he muttered.

  “Look on the bright side,” I said.

  “There’s a bright side?”

  “Sure. This Churchill’s the guy who wanted to blackmail you. He’s dead. So you don’t have that to worry about anymore.”

  “Christ, Brady. What kind of a thing is that to say?”

  “I’m always on the lookout for bright sides.”

  “Boy, I’m sorry about this, friend.”

  “Me too.”

  “Let me know if there’s anything I can do.”

  “I will, Pops.”

  After supper that evening I walked to Skeeter’s. I had to get out of my apartment. I felt a compulsion to do something, and I didn’t know what. I was beginning to feel like a character in a Kafka novel. In retrospect, it seemed to me that Detectives Sylvestro and Finnigan had not questioned me as if I were simply a witness. The deeper we had gotten into the interrogation, the more I had begun to feel as if I were a suspect. I had to admit that I must have sounded suspicious. They probably thought I was hiding something, copping out behind the client privilege plea. Why did I meet Churchill at Skeeter’s? Sorry. Can’t say. Client privilege, don’t you know. So what’d you talk about with this guy who was about to get snuffed? Terribly sorry, gentlemen. Client privilege, of course. What about phone calls when you got home, help us know you were there when somebody was shooting Churchill? Sure. Talking with a client. Can’t tell you who, you understand.

  Christ, it sounded bad.

  It was ridiculous, of course. The product of my own overwrought imagination. It’s what I do when I spend too much time by myself. I invent troubles for myself that don’t exist. I visualize my boys speeding around the back roads at high speeds, colliding with telephone poles. That’s one of my standbys.