“I’m not sure how far I’m willing to go with this,” I said. “I do understand my rights.”
“You have the right to remain silent.”
“Yes. Right.”
“Anything you say can be used against you in court.”
“I know that.”
“You have the right to have a lawyer for advice before we ask you any questions and to have him with you during questioning.”
I nodded.
“Please reply verbally,” said Sylvestro, nodding his chin at the recorder.
“I understand,” I said.
Sylvestro smiled at me. “If you cannot afford a lawyer,” he recited, “one will be appointed for you before any questioning, if you wish.”
“Oh, I can afford one. I am one.”
“If you decide to answer questions now without a lawyer present, you will still have the right to stop answering at any time until you talk to a lawyer.”
“I very likely will take you up on that one.”
“Do you understand what I have read to you?” said Sylvestro.
“Actually, you didn’t read it. You recited it. You did a good job. And I understand perfectly.”
Sylvestro smiled. “Thanks. Sorry about doing that. So are you willing to talk about this case?”
“You mean the Churchill case, I assume.”
“Yes.”
I shrugged and lit a cigarette. I should call Zerk, I thought. He’d ream me out if I talked to these cops without him. On the other hand, I had nothing to hide, and, after all, I was a lawyer. I thought I could handle it.
“Mr. Coyne?”
I nodded.
“Verbally, please.”
“I’m willing to talk,” I said after a minute. “I may take you up on stopping, though.”
Sylvestro smiled. “Good. Thanks.” He glanced at Woodruff, who was staring at the red eye of the tape recorder. Then he looked at Finnigan. Finnigan nodded his head once. Sylvestro turned to me.
“Okay, Mr. Coyne. Would you please repeat for us everything you did last Monday evening, beginning with the time you entered Skeeter’s Infield.”
“I want to ask you something, first,” I said. “For the benefit of your tape recorder.”
Sylvestro shrugged. “What?”
“Two reporters have called me. They indicated they knew I was involved in this thing.” I frowned at him.
“Your question is…?”
“How’d they hear that?”
“Not from me.” Sylvestro turned to Finnigan, who arched his eyebrows and shrugged.
“Well,” I said, “I don’t appreciate it.”
“We have told the media nothing except that we’re working our asses off on this case, pursuing leads, loads of possibilities, blah, blah. It’s hard to keep secrets, Mr. Coyne. Everybody wants a piece of this case. That’s why we’re here.”
“Media pressure,” I said.
He shrugged. “We’d be here anyway.”
“Can we…?” said Finnigan.
Sylvestro nodded. “Okay, Mr. Coyne. Would you mind telling us again about the night of the murder, now?”
“Sure,” I said. And I did, telling it the same way I had the previous two times, but keeping the times straight. They didn’t interrupt me. “And then I went to bed,” I concluded.
“Why’d you say you were meeting Churchill?” said Finnigan.
“I didn’t say. As you know.”
“You’re refusing to answer.”
“Clever deduction.”
“You citing the Fifth?”
“No. I don’t happen to be concerned with self-incrimination right now.”
“Incriminating somebody else,” he said, leaning toward me.
“What’s your next question?”
“Are you gonna be uncooperative here, Mr. Coyne?” said Finnigan.
“I am trying to cooperate as much as I can.”
Woodruff was staring at me. I couldn’t read his expression.
“Okay, then,” said Finnigan. “So what was it you said you and Churchill argued about?”
“I didn’t say that, either. I didn’t even say we’d argued. We’ve already been over that.”
“Protecting a client,” said Finnigan.
“Protecting a client’s confidentiality, which is his privilege when he retains a lawyer. It means something a little different.”
Finnigan shrugged. “And how did you get from Skeeter’s to Churchill’s place on Beacon Street?”
“I didn’t go there. I told you that. I went home.”
“Did Churchill let you in?”
“I wasn’t there.”
“Did you go with him, or did you follow him?”
I sighed. “I didn’t go there.”
Woodruff’s eyes darted back and forth from Finnigan to me during this exchange. Sylvestro was leaning back, staring beyond us to the window. I sensed he was listening carefully.
“Where do you keep your thirty-two, Mr. Coyne?” said Finnigan.
“I don’t have a thirty-two. I do have a thirty-eight, which you have seen. I keep it in my safe.”
“Why did you pick Skeeter’s for your meeting?”
“Can’t tell you.”
“Who are you protecting?”
I shook my head. “This is getting nowhere, and I’m getting a little pissed. If you had something, you’d arrest me. So why don’t you go get something, if you think you can, before you come in again to interrupt my work? I don’t think I want to answer any more questions. If you keep insisting on asking them, I’m going to call my lawyer. It’ll take him a while to get here.”
“Mr. Coyne,” said Finnigan, leaning toward me, “can we look through your files?”
“Are you kidding? Of course you can’t.”
Finnigan glanced at Woodruff. “I guess we’ll have to get a warrant.”
I took my wallet from my hip pocket and extracted a hundred dollar bill. I laid it on the coffee table. “That says I know you can’t get one. You guys want to cover it?”
None of them did. I left the bill on the table.
Sylvestro scratched the top of his scalp and leaned toward me, an apologetic smile on his face. “You’ve been very patient, Mr. Coyne.”
I nodded. “It hasn’t been easy.”
“I hope you understand…”
I waved my hand. “Sure. You’ve gotta do your job.”
He shrugged. “I want to ask you something else. You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”
“I think we’ve pretty well established that already.”
“Right. Okay. Now, what the papers haven’t printed is this. See, Churchill was known to fool around with cocaine.” He cocked his eyebrows at me.
I nodded and said nothing.
“That mean anything to you, Mr. Coyne?”
“No.”
“You already knew that?”
“How would I know that?”
“You don’t seem surprised.”
“I’m not, particularly. What I hear, lots of people fool around with cocaine. I’ve heard that cops fool around with cocaine.”
He smiled. “What about Churchill?”
“I don’t know anything about him.”
“Not even where he got his dope?”
“For the benefit of your machine, and for your record, no, I don’t know where Wayne Churchill got his dope.” I took a deep breath. “Look,” I said. “Something’s bothering me.”
The three of them inched forward.
“Churchill was killed a week ago tonight, right?”
They nodded, almost in unison.
“And for a week you guys have made no progress on this case. Hounding me, whether you know it or not, is not progress. You think you got yourselves a suspect, I surmise. So you think you’ve done your job. But, see, I didn’t kill the man. That means someone else did. And now a week has passed. Your killer could be in Hong Kong by now.”
“That bothers you,” said Finnigan.
“Don’t underestimate us.”
“I must say, it’s hard not to.”
“If you can help?” said Sylvestro.
It was delicate. I knew that Churchill had seduced Suzie Billings, the secretary in the Clerk Magistrate’s office, into giving him a photocopy of the old application-for-complaint form that Karen Lavoie had filled in, the form that named Chester Y. Popowski as the respondent in an assault-with-intent complaint. The form also indicated that Karen had subsequently withdrawn the complaint, and no process had issued. If the cops had found that form, surely they would have had the sense to question Pops. Surely, then, they would see that Pops, not I, had a motive for murder. The motive was linked to an old relationship from the days when Pops was an ADA and Karen a clerk in the East Cambridge courthouse.
Surely…
Except Pops was a powerful judge. Power translated into influence. Old favors can be reciprocated on demand. Potential evidence can be mislaid. A discreet suggestion, the mention of a name, and Brady Coyne becomes a suspect.
I began to see the picture more clearly. I was all they had. Maybe they knew they’d get nowhere with me. If so, we were all playing out a charade and when the hubbub died down, when Channel 8 had milked the story dry, Churchill’s death would remain unsolved, like most murders in Boston. Eventually they’d leave me alone.
Or maybe they really thought I did it. Maybe they thought that I sold cocaine to Churchill, or bought it from him. Maybe Pops had found a way to point a finger at me. My rational self doubted they’d ever arrest me, or if they did, that they’d ever get past a grand jury with probable cause. But the part of me that secreted acids into my stomach feared it, all the same.
And whether they arrested me or not, Chester Y. Popowski was free and clear and off on his new career as federal judge.
It pissed me off. And I didn’t know what to do about it.
I wished there were a way of learning what had happened to that photocopy of Karen Lavoie’s application for complaint. It seemed to be the only concrete link in this case.
“Mr. Coyne?” said Sylvestro.
“Nothing,” I said. “I was just sitting here marveling at your collective incompetence. But you’ve probably done that yourselves.”
Sylvestro smiled tolerantly. Finnigan’s smile conveyed something else. Woodruff studied the tape recorder.
“Anyway,” I said, “this being the end of this interrogation, I have work to do.”
“I still got a question,” said Finnigan.
I looked at him and shook my head.
“Who are you protecting?”
“Mr. Finnigan,” I said, “you are a slow learner.”
“Fuck it,” said Finnigan. He reached forward and turned off the recorder. “Let’s get out of here.”
Less than an hour after the three lawmen left my office, Julie buzzed me. When I answered the phone, she said, “Your friend, that Suzie, is on line one.”
I didn’t bother correcting her. Technically, Suzie was my client. But I hadn’t let Julie in on that yet. So I said, “Thanks,” and stabbed the blinking button on the console.
“Hello, Suzie,” I said.
“Oh, Jesus, Mr. Coyne.” Her voice was soft, but I detected the sharp edge of hysteria in it.
“What’s the matter, Suzie? What’s happened?”
“The—there were some policemen. They came to my apartment yesterday.”
“They found the photocopy?”
She sniffed and cleared her throat. “God. I can’t seem to get control here. I’m sorry. No. I mean, I don’t know. They didn’t say anything about that photocopy. But they were asking me all kinds of things about Wayne.”
“What kinds of things?”
“About our—you know, our relationship. Did I know he had other girlfriends, was I jealous, what I was doing the night he got killed—”
“Did they read you your rights?”
She hesitated. “No. Is that bad?”
“No. It’s good. It means you’re probably not a suspect.”
“But they seemed to know a lot, Mr. Coyne. That I had a key to his condo. That we—we slept together. They asked about coke.”
“What about it?”
“Did I know Wayne did coke.”
“What’d you tell them?”
“I said I knew that.”
“Did they ask if you did?”
“No. But they asked if I knew where he got it. The same question you asked me. I told them no.” She sighed deeply. “I’m kinda scared. I mean, I already was scared. But this is different. I mean, now I’m really scared.”
“Okay,” I said. “Take it easy.” I started to tell her that if the police came by again, she should call me and I would join her. Then I thought how that would look to Sylvestro and Finnigan if I, of all people, were her lawyer.
It would look damned suspicious, is how it would look.
“Suzie,” I said, “I’m going to give you the number of an excellent lawyer. A better lawyer than me at this sort of thing. Call him, tell him I told you to retain him. Tell him everything you’ve told me, and anything else you can think of about Churchill. He will advise you to say nothing more to the police unless he’s with you. Do as he advises.”
She hesitated. “I don’t know, Mr. Coyne. It was hard enough telling all this to you. I don’t know how I’ll feel about going through it all over again.”
“Trust me, Suzie,” I said. “Do it this way.” I gave her Zerk’s name and phone number and made her repeat them to me. “Promise me, now.”
“Okay. I promise.” Her voice was small but controlled.
“Good.”
“Something funny,” she said.
“What’s funny?”
“Those policemen. They asked me about Rodney Dennis.”
“The television guy?”
“You know him?”
“No. Not really. I know who he is. What did they ask about him?”
“Well,” she said slowly, “nothing, really. Did I know him, had I met him, did Wayne talk about him. Stuff like that.”
“What’s funny about that? The police always ask about other people.”
“Well, for one thing, he was the only one. I would’ve maybe expected them to ask about Gretchen or some of Wayne’s other girlfriends, but they didn’t. And the other thing…” Her voice trailed away.
“Suzie?”
“Hm? Oh, I was just thinking. Sorry.”
“What was the other thing?”
“About Rodney Dennis. Right. The other thing was, they mentioned him right in the middle of all those questions about coke, Mr. Coyne. I mean, I told them what I knew, which was that Wayne had mentioned Mr. Dennis. He was Wayne’s boss. But that was all I knew. Don’t you think that was kinda funny?”
“Yes,” I said. I thought it was even funnier that the police hadn’t mentioned the name Coyne to her. “It’s funny, Suzie. But don’t worry about it. Just give Mr. Garrett a call.”
FIFTEEN
AFTER I HUNG UP with Suzie, I waited for the length of time it took me to drink one cup of coffee and smoke two cigarettes. Then I called Zerk’s office in North Cambridge.
“Xerxes Garrett, Attorney,” answered one of his secretaries. He had two, a white one and a black one. Zerk liked to say that he ran an equal opportunity office, and he wouldn’t discriminate on account of race, sex, religion, country of origin, income, or golf handicap, whether it came to hiring office help or taking on clients.
He said this pointedly. Zerk did a great deal of pro bono work. My clientele was, as it happened, all white, mostly WASP, generally wealthy. Not that I turned needy folks away. They just didn’t tend to seek me out.
“It’s Brady Coyne, Mary,” I said. Mary was an Irish lady from South Boston with six school-age kids and an alcoholic husband she hadn’t seen in four years. “I need to talk to Mr. Garrett.”
“Well, do ye, now, Mr. Coyne?”
&n
bsp; “That I do, Mary.”
“This bein’ business or pleasure?”
“It’s business, Mary. Honest.”
“Well, you just hold tight, Mr. Coyne, and I’ll see if I can get him for ye.”
A minute later Zerk came on the line. “Yo, bossman.”
“We’ve got to talk.”
“Whoa,” he said. “Not even a ‘how are the wife and kids’?”
“You haven’t got a wife and kids. Whereas I have a problem.”
“Client who can’t foot the bill?”
“No. I’m serious. I’ve got a bunch of cops who think I killed somebody.”
“Yeah, I suppose that might qualify as a problem. Need a lawyer, huh?”
“I think it’s time I retained counsel.”
“Good thinking. You know what they say?”
“Yes. In fact, you learned it from me. One of the several golden nuggets of wisdom I have given you. The attorney who defends himself has a fool for a lawyer. I think I’ve already proved myself a fool. Can we meet?”
“Lemme look.” A minute later he said, “I’m in court all day. Why don’t you come by at five this afternoon.”
“Five it is.”
“Meanwhile, as if I had to tell you, don’t talk to anybody.”
“Sure. I know that. Another thing. I referred a client of mine to you.”
“I’ve already got a shitload of clients.”
“This one’s name is Suzanne Billings. She’s young and beautiful and blond and she may be a suspect in a murder case.”
I heard him chuckle. “The same murder case?”
“Yeah.”
“She’s probably better off with me than you for a lawyer, then.”
“That’s what I figured.”
After I hung up with Zerk I walked out of my office.
“Be gone about an hour,” I told Julie.
“Hey, don’t worry about it,” she said. “I’ll mind the store.”
“I wasn’t worried.”
“You wouldn’t be,” she said.
I took the elevator down to the parking garage and strode over to my reserved slot. Here and there on the concrete floor large puddles of melted snow had spread under parked vehicles.
My little BMW seemed to hunker self-consciously among the larger and shinier models that surrounded it. I had bought my first Beemer shortly after Gloria and I were divorced, which was before I had any awareness that a BMW made some sort of statement to other people. I liked it because it was small, maneuverable, and dependable, and because it came with a terrific stereo system. I did not seriously consider getting a Jag or Mercedes or Volvo wagon. Those cars, it seemed to me, inevitably did make a statement.
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