Final judgment lm-5

by Joel Goldman

  She held his gaze, not giving ground. That steeled look was one thing about her that hadn’t changed since they first met. There was no backing down in her. Not then, not now.

  “I’ll talk to Samuelson on Monday,” she said. “Maybe we can work something out.”

  Mason saw no reason to tell her that Fish would have a new lawyer on Monday. “See you around the ballpark,” he told her.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  It was past eight o’clock when Mason stopped in his office. He had three voice messages. The first was from Vince Bongiovanni, who left his cell phone number and a promise that his call was important enough to return as soon as possible even if he didn’t say why. The second was from his Aunt Claire inviting him to dinner on Sunday.

  The third was from Rachel Firestone, a reporter for the Kansas City Star. Though they began as adversaries, each using the other to advance a case or a story, they’d become close friends. For a time, she backed off covering his cases to avoid any questions about her objectivity before deciding that she was a good enough reporter to know when to draw that line.

  When Rachel told her editor that she wanted to resume covering Mason’s cases, he noted the rumors about their relationship and questioned whether she should write about someone she was sleeping with. When she showed the editor a picture of her girlfriend, the editor made a snide remark about lesbians who really wanted to change teams. It was his last official act. Her new boss told her he trusted her judgment but to remember who signed her paycheck.

  Mason replayed her message to be certain he’d heard it right.

  “Hey, babe. It’s me. I got an anonymous tip that the body found in Avery Fish’s car was some guy named Charles Rockley. I checked it out with the cops, who did their no comment thing, but I got the feeling it was news to them. Since when does someone leak the ID of a murder victim and leave the cops out of the loop? Call me. I’m on deadline.”

  The phone rang before Mason could return any of the calls. It was Vanessa Carter.

  “Where are we?” she asked.

  “At the end of a long day and a longer week,” Mason said, glancing at his calendar. “Happy Valentine’s Day.”

  “Don’t waste your humor on me, Mr. Mason. I asked where we are.”

  Mason let out a deep breath and pinched the bridge of his nose, knowing that the story would be on the front page of tomorrow morning’s paper. “Charles Rockley is dead. Someone killed him, chopped off his head and his hands, and dumped the body in the trunk of a car owned by a client of mine named Avery Fish.”

  “I’m aware of Mr. Fish’s case. It’s been all over the news. There’s been no mention of the identity of the victim.”

  “You can read about it in tomorrow morning’s paper.”

  Judge Carter didn’t respond. Mason heard her breathing softly and steadily. In judicial parlance, she had taken his information under advisement before issuing a ruling or, in his case, another ultimatum. He knew better than to interrupt.

  “Charles Rockley wasn’t the one,” she finally said.

  Mason realized that she was avoiding any mention of blackmail. Having once been burned by having her phone conversation recorded, she was not taking any chances.

  “How do you know?”

  “I just received another call.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “He asked why I hadn’t issued a ruling. I reminded him that I had until March tenth, which is thirty days from the end of the hearing. He said they wanted the decision not later than a week from today, the twenty-first. I told him that wasn’t possible, that I had other cases besides this one. He said that this case was the only one that should matter to me and that they wouldn’t hesitate to convince me of that.”

  “Where are you?” Mason asked.

  “At home.”

  “Is there someplace else you can go until this is over?”

  “I will not be run out of my home and I will not have my life ruined again, Mr. Mason. Do your job. Make this go away.”

  “It’s not that simple.”

  “It’s your tangled web, Counselor. Do whatever you have to do or I will,” she said and hung up.

  Mason put the phone down as Blues opened the door to his office.

  “What?” Mason asked, exasperated by the new deadline.

  “Don’t shoot me, man. I’m only the piano player.” Blues handed Mason prints of the digital photographs he’d taken. “The light was bad and the angle wasn’t great, but at least I got their faces.”

  Mason studied the photographs. Blues had caught them in an unguarded moment, their faces screwed up in surprise. He didn’t recognize the two men in the car Mark Hill had struck. All three were wearing heavy jackets over jeans or khakis. Nothing with FBI stenciled on the back.

  Mason dropped the photographs on his desk and pointed to the phone. “That was Judge Carter. She got another call and a new deadline for her ruling. A week from today or the tape makes the top forty.”

  “I guess that rules out Rockley as the blackmailer.”

  “Not necessarily. The way she described the call, it sounds like more than one person is involved. The caller kept referring to ‘they,’ not just to himself. Rockley could have been one of them. On top of that, I got a message from Rachel. Someone leaked the news that Rockley was the guy in Fish’s trunk.”

  “Only the FBI and the killer knew Rockley’s identity and the killer sure as hell isn’t going to call the Star. Why would the Bureau leak it before they told the cops?” Blues asked. “Why go out of their way to make them look bad?”

  “Beats me. Plus, I also had a message from Vince Bongiovanni to call him as soon as possible. Even left me his cell phone number.”

  “What time was that call?”

  Mason checked the log of calls stored in his phone. “Seven p.m.”

  “We left Hill at close to seven. Brewer and his buddies didn’t look like they were in the mood to let him call his lawyer so it’s probably not about that.”

  “I never told Hill who I was and I doubt he recognized me,” Mason said. “Brewer could have told him, but he wouldn’t have had any reason to. I think Vince got the same tip Rachel did. Makes me wonder why.”

  “When did Rachel call?”

  “Seven-oh-five.”

  “That fits and it explains one other thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Why Bongiovanni is waiting for you downstairs. He’s in the back booth.”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Juries like different kinds of lawyers. Patrick Ortiz, the prosecuting attorney, was a rumpled everyman, the kind of lawyer jurors imagined going bowling with or having over for chili. Mason was a street fighter, ready with a killer cross-examination or a devastating one-liner, but always ready. He was the lawyer jurors wanted to represent them if their life was on the line.

  Vince Bongiovanni had the chiseled chin, penetrating eyes, and smoky cool that made women want to take him home and men want to be his pal, hoping some of what he had would rub off on them. He was tall, sandy-haired, and trim and dressed like the million bucks he routinely racked up in fees. One local magazine did a feature on eligible bachelors and labeled him the total package.

  “Hey, Lou,” he said, as Mason slid into the booth opposite him. “Buy you a drink?”

  “I’ll pass. Sorry I didn’t return your call earlier. I just got your message.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I figured I might catch you here. Nice place.”

  Mason looked around. Myles Cartwright’s trio was playing mellow sounds on the small stage, the drummer and bass player taking their lead from Cartwright’s piano. The music complemented the soft buzz of conversation. Some people came to hear the music, others just to be near it.

  “Your message said it was important.”

  Bongiovanni nodded. “It is important. I understand you represent Avery Fish.”

  “It’s been in the papers.”

  Bongiovanni grinned. “You kill me, man. You get more ink
than I do.”

  “Ah, but you get the big bucks.”

  “Somebody’s got to do it.”

  Bongiovanni delivered the practiced punch line, grinning again. Mason didn’t envy Bongiovanni’s success. He’d learned the hard way to stick to the cases that suited him best. He dabbled occasionally in representing plaintiffs, always coming back to the higher stakes of life and death.

  “Might as well be you,” Mason said.

  “Might as well. I got an anonymous tip that the body found in your client’s car has been identified.”

  Mason could understand a newspaper getting an anonymous tip. The tipster got off on seeing his story in print. Feeding the news to the lawyer who was suing the victim smacked of inside baseball. He wondered who would gain by leaking to Bongiovanni.

  Mason saw no reason to deny something that would be reported in the morning paper. He’d only look foolish if he did. However, that was no reason to tell Bongiovanni anything else. Bongiovanni would eventually find out what had happened between Mason and Mark Hill, but that would be a tap dance for another day. This was the time to listen.

  “I heard that too.”

  “Guy named Charles Rockley. You know him?”

  “Never met,” Mason said.

  “You didn’t miss anything. He worked at the Galaxy Casino. In his spare time, he sexually harassed a client of mine, a woman named Carol Hill. I sued him and the Galaxy. The case was arbitrated last week in front of Judge Carter. We’re waiting for a ruling.”

  “That’s good to know. The cops think Fish had something to do with Rockley’s death. I’d like to talk with Carol about Rockley.”

  Bongiovanni leaned forward in the booth. “I already talked to her. She had nothing to do with it.”

  Mason figured it had been little more than an hour since Bongiovanni was tipped off about Rockley. That wasn’t much time to cross-examine Carol Hill about the murder and hustle down to Blues on Broadway to wait for him. The timing made him wonder if Bongiovanni had known Rockley had been murdered before he got the tip.

  The quick denial of Carol’s involvement raised, rather than lowered, Mason’s suspicion. He hadn’t considered Carol as a suspect until her lawyer assured him she wasn’t one. Mason could picture Mark Hill angry and drunk enough to kill Rockley especially if his wife egged him on. None of that led to the trunk of Avery Fish’s car. Still, Bongiovanni’s assurance of Carol’s innocence gave Mason an opening.

  “I’m glad to know that. Then she won’t mind talking to me.”

  Bongiovanni hesitated, rubbing his palm against his bottle of beer. He frowned long enough to convince Mason that his indecision was rehearsed. “I’ll make her available, but I want whatever you come up with on Rockley.”

  “Why? Your case is over. Mine is just beginning.”

  “My case is a toss-up. Rockley claimed to be a choirboy, said my client was lying. Carol took some hits on cross-examination. If I can get something good on Rockley, I’ll ask Judge Carter to let me add it to the record before she rules.”

  Mason remembered Judge Carter’s comment that Carol and her lawyer were out for blood, not money. He knew that lawyers and clients often changed their appetite after the harsh realities of the courtroom set in.

  “Why not settle?”

  Bongiovanni tightened his jaw. “Not a chance.”

  “You said it was a close case. Sometimes a bad settlement is better than a bad verdict.”

  “Carol is family. This isn’t ever going to be one of those times.”

  Judge Carter’s assessment had been dead-on. If the case was a toss-up, Bongiovanni’s deal made sense except for one thing. The better his case got, the harder it would be on Judge Carter to rule in Galaxy’s favor. Still, Mason needed whatever he could come up with on Rockley, and Carol Hill was as good a place to start as any. He had to talk with her as soon as possible while putting Bongiovanni off until after the blackmailer’s deadline.

  “I’ll keep you in the loop, but I may not have anything for a while. Depends on how much cooperation I get from the cops or from Galaxy. The sooner I can talk with your client, the sooner I can start putting something together.”

  “How about tomorrow morning? We can meet at her house.”

  That was the last place Mason wanted to meet, imagining her husband wandering out from the bedroom with a hangover. He shook his head.

  “My office. Ten o’clock.”

  “Done. I’ll bring the bagels,” Bongiovanni said.

  “One other thing. Who do I talk to at Galaxy about Rockley?”

  “Forget it. You’ll have to go through Galaxy’s lawyer, Lari Prillman, and there isn’t enough heat in hell to melt her heart.” He stood, clapping Mason on the shoulder. “A Jew and an Italian on the same team. Look out, world.”

  Mason waited until Bongiovanni cleared the front door of the bar before he called Rachel Firestone.

  “What do you know about Charles Rockley?” she asked him.

  “Just because you have caller ID doesn’t mean you don’t have to say hello.”

  “Hello and I’m on deadline. My editor said if you don’t give me something on Rockley we might as well start sleeping together since I won’t be any good to him anyway.”

  Mason preferred the old Rachel, the one he could confide in, trade tips with, and not worry about what was on or off the record. He couldn’t give her the whole story because he didn’t know which pieces might come back to haunt him.

  “Your message was the first I heard about the victim’s identity. I’ll talk to the cops on Monday and give you what I can,” he said.

  “That’s it? This guy is murdered, butchered, and dumped in the trunk of your client’s car and you’ve got nothing? I don’t believe it.”

  “Best I can do,” Mason said.

  “I wouldn’t brag about it,” she told him.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Mason stayed at the bar, hoping the music would soothe the tension in his neck and shoulders, finally leaving close to midnight. It had been a long day. He felt like a fighter who had spent eighteen hours in a crouch. He hadn’t taken a beating, but his instincts told him one was coming and he didn’t know if he could stay covered up long enough to avoid the knockdown.

  He lived in the middle of a block of houses that were statelier and better cared for than his, as were the people who lived in them. His neighbors barely tolerated him, resenting the turmoil that too often followed him into their quiet acreage. He tried to ignore their conscious disregard for him though it had begun to gnaw at him.

  He’d lived there all his life, first while being raised by his Aunt Claire, then during the few short years he was married to Kate, and now for the seven years since, when he’d lived there alone. Abby Lieberman hadn’t moved in, though she’d spent enough nights there to qualify for Gold Guest status until she found herself agreeing with the neighbors.

  He understood Abby’s reasons for leaving and his neighbors’ reasons for wishing that he would follow. Whether it was stubbornness, inertia, or a blind willingness to sacrifice what he wanted for what he needed, he’d not been able to change. He couldn’t resist lost causes, last chances, or dark water.

  When Abby left for Washington and took Mickey Shanahan with her, his world shrunk, its population reduced to Claire; her longtime boyfriend and retired homicide cop, Harry Ryman; Blues; and Rachel. Now he was playing dodgeball with Rachel, wincing as he imagined her redheaded fury when she discovered he’d been holding out on her. Everything felt smaller and isolated-his office, his house, and especially him.

  Heading for home, he thought about driving south and west into the Kansas-side suburb of Leawood, where Judith Bartholomew lived with her husband, her children, and her mother, Brenda Roth, but decided against the late-night drive. He’d only recently pried from a very reluctant Claire a slice of his tarnished family history. Mason’s father had had an affair with Brenda when Mason was a small child. His parents had died in a car wreck that had its genesis in their il
licit relationship.

  Growing up, Mason had idolized his father though he knew that his memories were manufactured, his father dying too soon for honest ones. He didn’t know much about his father’s life except that his father had gone to college; met and married his mother; tried his hand at a couple of different businesses before settling on insurance; and that was about it.

  He hadn’t needed the details to craft his family myth, imagining his father as a strong, silent hero, resolute and doomed though unaware of his fate. Claire had a picture of the three of them, his father wrapping one arm around his mother, the other arm draped over Mason, who hugged his father’s leg. The picture fed his childhood fantasies of what might have been, all of them dependent on the legend he’d imagined about his father.

  The remnants of his myth had given way to the harsh reality that his father had cheated on his mother. He wondered how his father had justified the betrayal, knowing that it didn’t matter then or now. His father had crossed a line; his parents had been killed by the implacable rule of unintended consequences.

  Sifting Claire’s revelation, he couldn’t shake a queasy wonder about Judith Bartholomew. He’d seen her outside her house. From a distance, he thought that she bore a soft resemblance to him, perhaps real, perhaps imagined in the knowledge that she was born at a time when his father and his mistress could have conceived her. He still longed for his father, to understand him and to forgive him. Perhaps, even to redeem him. He wondered if Judith Bartholomew was part of that.

  Mason knew that he too had crossed a line, breaking the law when he had asked Ed Fiori to strong-arm Judge Carter. He hadn’t used those words, hiding instead behind euphemism and rationalized need. Now the words and the reasons didn’t matter; only the consequences did. Redemption was too remote a prospect at the moment. He just wanted to survive.

  A car was parked across the street from his house when he pulled into the driveway, the windows fogged, the motor running. Two men got out as he waited for his garage door to open. They walked toward his car, their hands in plain sight and empty, their faces red in the glow of his taillights. It was the homicide cops, Griswold and Cates.