by David Ellis
Grant’s father, former Senator Simon Tully, delivers a eulogy. He is dressed in black, genuinely grim, delivering one of his least favorite public speeches. He talks of Dale’s more publicized cases but emphasizes the ones that didn’t make the headlines. “Most people don’t realize how much pro bono work Dale did,” says Simon. “It wasn’t money or prestige. It was about making sure that the protections of the law—”
My pager blares out. Forgot to kill it. I quickly reach my belt and disable it.
“—applied to those who couldn’t afford the likes of Dale Garrison. It was about the law, in its purest form. Equal justice for all.”
Simon Tully was never the best public speaker. He grew up in a time when cameras were not omnipresent, when backdoor dealing was even more prominent than it is now. He finishes up and takes a seat next to his son, Grant, while the clergyman continues the ceremony.
We file out. The press stops Grant Tully. His father is overtaken by people offering their favorable comments on the eulogy. I reach a cab and head back to the office.
I get off the elevator at my floor of Seaton, Hirsch, and a passing secretary looks at me like she’s seen a ghost. I smile to her but her eyes drop. I head down the hallway toward my office. All the lawyers, everyone, are standing in the hall. My secretary, Cathy, is standing down the way, near my office. When she sees me she rushes toward me. She’s heavyset, so it seems unusual to see her moving so fast.
“Jon, I tried to page you. I tried to stop them but they have a warrant. Bennett looked at it.”
“It’s okay,” I say absently and move to my office. Three people are inside, two men and a woman, going through my stuff. Two of them are in police uniforms. The third is Brad Gillis, the detective. He flashes a paper at me. “A warrant to search the premises,” he says.
“What the hell are you doing?” My disdain is sincere but also appropriate considering the number of people from my office surrounding me. Bennett Carey walks over and stands next to me.
“We’re gonna need to look at your home as well,” says Gillis. He is not the least bit intimidated by the crowd. He probably likes it, turning people’s lives inside out in full public view.
“You showed up when you knew I was at the funeral,” I say.
“We’re pretty much done here,” the detective replies. Not a reply at all, which is the detective’s point. He’s in charge, even within my law firm.
I look over the warrant—first time I’ve seen one—while the detective continues.
“We need to talk to you again, Mr. Soliday. If you’ll come with me.”
“We’ll drive separately,” Bennett says to Gillis. “We’ll follow you.”
“This is outrageous,” I say. “This is Elliot Raycroft trying to make me and the senator look bad. Right, Detective?”
The detective smiles. “I wouldn’t know about that,” he says. “No, Mr. Soliday, it’s not about making anyone look bad. It’s about the fact that Dale Garrison was murdered. He didn’t have a heart attack like you told everyone. He was strangled in his office, while you were the only one there.”
I feel the blood rush to my face. “Ridiculous,” I say, before Bennett takes my arm to shut me up.
12
“THIS IS RIDICULOUS,” I say to the guy who enters the room. I’m at some police station on the near north side, sitting in a plain-looking room with Bennett Carey sitting next to me. We’ve been sitting here for a good forty-five minutes. Ben and I have gone back and forth about my saying anything in this interview, but I insist on my position. I have nothing to hide, I’m not clamming up. I remind him that he took the same position with me almost a week ago.
“Assistant County Attorney Daniel Morphew,” the man says, extending a hand across the table. He has a square jaw, a rough, splotchy Irish face, the standard mustache, thick wavy gray hair. He seems perfectly calm, completely in control, and rather happy about that.
“Jon Soliday.” I shake his hand. Bennett introduces himself as well, as my attorney, but it seems they already know each other, presumably from when Ben worked for the prosecutor’s office.
“You work for Raycroft,” I say.
Morphew considers me a second. “That’s right.”
“Tell Elliot something for me.” Bennett places a hand on my arm but I yank it away. “Tell him if he thinks he can cast a public cloud on me, then release me quietly when there’s no evidence to support the allegation, he’s in a for a rude surprise. I’ll make this whole thing about a county prosecutor who’s doing Lang Trotter’s dirty work.”
“Jon,” says Ben. “That’s enough.”
Daniel Morphew seems not the least bit affected by my outburst. He has with him a thin manila folder, which he fondles. “Are you willing to talk to me, Mr. Soliday?”
I exhale and try to calm my nerves. “Of course I am.”
“Okay.” Morphew reaches for the tape recorder resting in the center of the table. “I have to record this interview, that okay with you?”
“Whatever.”
Morphew turns on the Record button on the tape player and states his name, my name, the date and time. “Also present is Mr. Soliday’s counsel”—Morphew looks at Ben’s card, just handed to him—“William Bennett Carey.”
“I don’t need a lawyer,” I say. “This whole thing is ridiculous.” Best to start the conversation on the proper note.
Morphew casts a look at Ben. “Are you asking Mr. Carey to leave?”
“No, he can stay.” I take another deep breath. I need to keep my wits about me. “First of all, are we sure Dale didn’t just have a heart attack or a stroke or something? I mean, he had to be in his late sixties and he had cancer.”
Morphew purses his lips. He’s considering what to reveal to me. His eyes narrow. “He was sixty-eight. He did have cancer. And he was strangled.”
“Autopsy?” Ben asks.
“Yep. Cause of death”—Morphew reaches into his folder and holds out a paper—“asphyxiation by manual strangulation.”
“Impossible,” I say.
The prosecutor tilts his head. “How’s that impossible?”
“Because I was the—” I stop myself.
“Because you were the only one in the entire suite of offices with the victim.” He measures me a moment. “Right, Mr. Soliday?”
Ben reaches for me, but I respond anyway. “As far as I knew.”
“You were at his office to discuss legal matters,” says Morphew.
“Right.”
“Involving?”
“Involving a mutual client,” I say.
“Senator Grant Tully,” says Morphew.
“That’s privileged.”
“Oh.” The prosecutor smiles. “I must not have read that case. Mr. Soliday, since we’re all lawyers here, let me tell you that it’s not privileged. It was Senator Tully, right?”
“Next topic,” says Bennett. “He’s not discussing it.”
Morphew doesn’t have much leverage here. Attorney-client privilege or not, I have a Fifth Amendment right to silence. I could stop talking altogether, right now. “So he just dropped right in front of you?”
I clear my throat. Morphew knows what I told Detective Gillis at the time—that I left the office and came back after Dale called me on my cell phone. Seen through the prosecutor’s eyes, it’s a weak story. I was at the office, I stepped out, someone slipped in to strangle Dale, then I returned. My stomach calls out to me. I start to reconsider Bennett’s advice. Morphew has me either way here. If I change my story, he’s got me lying, one of the times. If I say the same story, he has me on tape, telling the tale that, the more I think about it, sounds pretty weak.
“You know that’s not what happened,” I say. “I was in his office and then I left. Dale called me on my cell phone and then I returned. I walked in and found him dead.”
Morphew says nothing. The point is to keep me talking.
“Look, just match it up,” I say. “You can confirm the phone call, the sec
urity guard downstairs saw me leave and return. So figure how I would have had time to kill him in that small window of time.”
“I’m sure Mr. Morphew has checked the phone records for Dale Garrison’s office,” says Bennett, ostensibly to me but for Morphew’s benefit. “I’m sure he has checked the phone records relating to your cell phone, too, Jon.” Ben turns to the prosecutor. “So?”
Morphew has some years on Bennett; he was probably far higher up the chain at the prosecutor’s office than Ben, who was assigned to a felony courtroom when he was there. I imagine Morphew is sufficiently experienced to know what he can give now and what he can withhold. His eyes move from Bennett’s to mine. “Tell me what Garrison said to you.”
“No.” Bennett slices his hand on the table. “Your turn.”
Morphew’s eyebrows rise, as if the turning of the tables is nothing but an inconvenience. “I want to hear what Garrison said to you when he called you.”
“He told me to come back up to his office,” I answer, pulling my arm from Ben’s grasp. “That’s it.”
“That’s funny.” Morphew draws up, as if he’s ready for the main course. “Because the phone records show that Mr. Garrison never called you. There are no phone calls coming from that office during that period of time, or even close to it.”
I look at Bennett, who manages a poker face. I hold my breath a moment, before the adrenaline rush. This isn’t right. This doesn’t make sense. I swallow hard.
“Who did call Jon’s cell phone?” Ben asks.
“Good question, Counsel. One I was hoping Mr. Soliday could answer.”
“It was Dale,” I say.
“Jon.” Bennett grabs my arm tightly. “Be quiet a moment.” Then to Morphew: “What do the phone records say?”
Morphew’s eye twitches. He waits a beat before answering. “It was a cell phone that belonged to a woman by the name of Joanne Souter. Anyone you know, Mr. Soliday?”
“No,” I say.
“Right. Because Joanne Souter’s cell phone was stolen from her purse earlier that day.”
I raise my hands. “You got me.”
“You figure Dale Garrison stole this woman’s phone and used it to call you?” he asks. “Does that make sense?”
No. Of course that doesn’t make sense. I raise a trembling hand to my face.
“It’s clear to me that you didn’t act alone,” says the prosecutor. His hands are laid out on the table, a gesture of amicability. “Whoever was on the other end of that phone call was a part of this. That’s who I want. So why don’t we work this out here? Tell me who called you, and your attorney and I can work out a deal. Something that keeps you out of the electric chair.”
I pop out of my chair. “There’s nothing to tell. I didn’t kill Dale. Somebody is setting me up. Can’t you see that?”
Morphew points his index finger into the table. “Sit.”
I look at Bennett, who nods solemnly. I take my seat again, still fuming, bordering on panic.
“Mr. Soliday is Senator Tully’s chief counsel,” says Bennett, “and a colleague of Dale Garrison’s. Your story doesn’t wash, Dan. He’s not a murderer. And no one would believe he is.”
Morphew looks at Ben a moment. Then his eyes move to me. There is a predatory look in his expression, an animal in the midst of the hunt. “Was someone blackmailing you, Mr. Soliday?”
I close my eyes. That letter. That goddamn letter.
“We’re done here,” Ben repeats.
Morphew slides a copy of the letter in front of me. “Was this in the top drawer of your desk, Mr. Soliday?”
I guess I’m the only one left who knows the secret that nobody knows. I think $250,000 should cover it. A month should be enough time. I wouldn’t presume your income source, but I imagine if anyone could find a way to tap into the campaign fund without anyone noticing, you would. Or I suppose I could always just talk to the senator. Is that what you want? One month. Don’t attempt to contact me about this. I will initiate all communications.
“You’re the deputy treasurer for Citizens for Grant Tully,” says Morphew. “With access to the campaign funds.” The prosecutor waits for a response. “Was it Dale Garrison? Was he blackmailing you?”
I look at Bennett, who requires no prompting. “We are stopping this interview.”
“Because if it wasn’t Garrison,” Morphew continues, “it would sure help you if you told me that right now.”
Ben has hold of my arm. I am suddenly deflated.
“I was in Dale’s office,” I say. “And he just up and died while I was gone. I came back in right about the time the security guard was doing his nightly rounds and—”
“He wasn’t doing a nightly round,” says Morphew. “He was called up to the eighth floor. Someone said there was a disturbance in Dale’s offices.”
I feel a burning down my throat, into my stomach.
“What was the secret, Mr. Soliday?” the prosecutor asks. “The ‘secret that nobody knows,’ Mr. Soliday.”
Bennett rises and forces me up with him. “We’re leaving. Any future contact—”
“Mr. Carey, tell your client that if he can explain how this note didn’t come from Dale Garrison, maybe he can avoid being arrested.”
“We’ll consider that, Counselor,” Ben answers. “Now if we can go?”
Morphew stands as well. “You can go, Mr. Carey, if you’d like.” The door opens, and Brad Gillis walks into the room, handcuffs dangling from his belt.
Panic spreads across Ben’s face. “You don’t speak to him,” he says to Morphew and Gillis. Then to me: “Keep your mouth closed, Jon. We’ll get you out as soon as possible.”
I stand mute as Detective Gillis reads me my rights and places me in handcuffs.
“What’s the ‘secret that nobody knows’?” asks Morphew.
I ignore the question and move in to Ben’s ear. “You better call the senator,” I say.
13
GRANT TULLY’S SPORTY new hatchback sails down the interstate. He drums the steering wheel along with the song on the radio, singing fearlessly as the wind of a midsummer night licks his hair. It makes me think of Shakespeare, and the fact that I will never have to read it again.
“Easy, Tru,” I say. “They’ll ticket you like anyone else.” I say this because Grant Truman Tully—Tru to everyone who knows him—is the son of State Senator Simon Tully, a political heavyweight, a giant in our community. Tru has played on his family connection more than once, but out on the interstate it’s state troopers, not local cops, and he’s fair game to them. That never stopped Tru; I dare say nothing has ever stopped him. A typically fearless teenager with all of the answers but none of the questions.
“Tell me again where the hell we’re going,” I say.
Tru and I just graduated high school. We have these three months before we head to college—Ivy League for Truman, state university for me. The primary responsibility for a high school grad is to attend every party possible. There’s a big blow-out tonight in the city, but Tru has talked me into leaving the state, driving forty-five minutes across the state line to a party in Summit County. Land of the smokestacks, an industrial town you can see from the towers in the city but which I’ve never visited.
The thought, I assume, is to get me away from my worries. My girlfriend of two years, Vivian, just ended things between us. She was headed west for school, what was the point, etc. So Tru, who has wanted me to unleash the “shackles” anyway, is taking it upon himself to find some fun for me this summer. I’m up for it, I guess.
Tru belches after a deep guzzle of his beer, which he places back between his legs. He is wearing a plaid oxford and shorts with loafers, no socks. “Rick’s party,” he says. “Well, it’s not his party but he’ll be there.”
“Rick who?” I ask. “Do I know him?”
“Rick is all I know,” he says. “They call him Ricochet. It’s like a joke name.”
I look at Tru. “Good friend of yours, I see.”
“There gonna be talent?” I ask. I’m speaking Tru’s language. He’s notoriously single, not a lady-killer but he has his way, the confidence and strut. Most of his relationships last shorter than a shower.
He flashes a smile. “Affirmative on the talent. The nice trailer-trash variety.”
Tru takes an exit off the interstate. We’re on the streets of Summit County now. Tru guns the accelerator. We cruise along what appears to be a tiny downtown. Nothing but dilapidated stores, a dry cleaners, a couple restaurants and bars, a grimy carry-out with the obligatory rusted-out sign, and potholes the size of craters.
Tru makes a wicked right turn, throwing me in my seat. We drive down a residential street. All of the houses are ranches, nothing even two stories high until we see an apartment building on the end of the block. On the next one, cars are lined along the curbs. We are here.
Tru parks the car haphazardly and stops abruptly. He grabs a couple more beers from under the seat; he must have taken a six-pack and lined it up down there.
The house is third from the corner. This one is two stories, aluminum siding, black shutters on the windows. Four cars parked in the driveway. The noise of the stereo and a raucous crowd greets us from the street.
Tru walks up to the door confidently. He does everything confidently. I’m a good sidekick for him. I hold my own but have none of his charisma. I get the good grades, play the right sports, and associate with him. That’s enough.
Grant Truman Tully doesn’t ring the doorbell, he just walks in. The room is filled with people mingling and talking and laughing. The stereo is at full tilt, blasting angry guitar-driven music. A haze of smoke lingers above their heads. Some are celebrating their release from the school year. That is the pretense for the party, at least. But from the look of the age of these people—mostly late teens and early twenties—I imagine that the majority of these people are no longer concerned with school. It’s not exactly a diverse crowd in the conventional sense. An all-white party. Wardrobe is mostly T-shirts and blue jeans. These people live in a middle-class community not entirely different from my own, except that I live in the city and they live in a town of industry whose best days are behind it.