My cell phone vibrated with a call. It was Harry Ford. The late call could only mean trouble.
“Hi, Harry. I’m kinda glad you called—”
He cut me off, “Eddie, I just got served with a subpoena duces tecum for the file in an old case. I’m just giving you fair warning, you might get handed one of these.” Harry was well into his sixties, one of the first black superior judges in New York’s history and a man who enjoyed half-a-dozen glasses of bourbon before he hit the pillow at the end of the day. I could hear the whiskey in his voice.
“Too late. I already got mine. I was going to call, but I didn’t want to wake you. Is this something to worry about?”
“It’s an old case I dealt with about fifteen years ago. A bad one. Julie Rosen was convicted of murder. She burned down the house with her baby daughter asleep in her cot.”
There was something in his voice. But it wasn’t booze. Regret, guilt maybe.
Most trial lawyers, if you buy them a drink, will tell you all about their greatest victories. War stories. Lawyers love war stories: how they were up against the odds, how they outsmarted their opponent and won. Knowing what I know now, I wouldn’t hire one of those lawyers for my worst enemy. You get a great trial lawyer talking about their career, and they won’t blow smoke up your ass about their wins – they talk about the cases they lost.
Everyone loses, sooner or later. It’s the verdicts that got away that stay with you. Why do the losses mean more for others? Why do they stay with the best lawyers? It’s easy. They give a shit. They care. Give me a lawyer that’s haunted by a guilty verdict on a shoplifting charge that got their client a month in Sing Sing, twenty-five years ago. Those are the lawyers you want in your corner. Harry had been one of those lawyers. And I’d been lucky to learn at his side. I wouldn’t have a career without Harry; he took me on as a clerk and then set me up in practice. Without him I’d still be hustling on the street instead of hustling in the courtroom.
Harry had a few cases turn bad. He told me about most of them. I couldn’t remember him ever discussing a case like this.
“I’m on my way to see a client. Listen, Harry, I don’t want to worry you but the process server was working for Max Copeland.”
He said nothing.
“You took the case all the way to trial?” I said.
“Sure did. Julie told me a man dressed all in black set fire to her house. She said she either didn’t see his face, or he didn’t have a face. She was kind of fuzzy. Had a bad head injury. Jury didn’t believe her.”
“Any trace of the guy?”
“Nothing. Nobody saw him. You think Max Copeland has found the guy?” said Harry.
“I don’t know. He’s got something though. Listen, I have to go, but I’ll call you in the morning.”
“Call me later, I’ll be up reading a case for tomorrow,” he said, and disconnected. Lawyers and judges keep odd hours, but it was a long time since I’d known Harry to stay up all night reading a case. He’d probably read it already or he didn’t need to read it for the morning. I got the impression Harry just wanted something to take the subpoena off his mind.
I knew he was worried about this subpoena. Copeland had a habit of attacking his client’s old attorneys. Whatever new evidence, or maybe new witnesses that Copeland had to launch this appeal didn’t matter much. The target for criticism would be Harry. He would seek to prove the conviction was unsafe because Julie Rosen had a poor lawyer; he always pleaded ineffective counsel. He’d ruined careers to win appeals in the past. Harry would be his target.
That made Copeland my target. I wasn’t about to let Harry get sucked into a shit storm by a low-life like Max Copeland.
George held up a friendly hand at a security guard that eventually emerged from the gatehouse dressed in a dark, short-sleeve button-down shirt. He wore a Glock, and a ball cap with a company logo that read – “Howell’s Security.”
A torch shone on my face briefly, obscuring my view of the guard’s features.
He turned his back, killed the torch and waved us through.
A two-lane road, with tall, white picket fences on either side, took us further into Premier Point. I wound down the window so I could smell the salt from the East River. After ten minutes we turned right into a single-lane private road. A stone wall sat on either side of the mouth of the road, and there was something else. At first I thought it was a sign pointing out the name of the property; I’d seen other signs like it on the private road like “The Manse,” “The Lodgehouse” and “September Rest.” The signpost outside of Howell’s property didn’t bestow a name on the spread. When we got closer I saw the blue lettering on the sign – “For Sale.”
As we drove along the lane I wondered what would break first, the Lincoln’s suspension or my spine. The road was littered with potholes. Some small, some huge and George, despite his best efforts, was hitting every Goddamn one of them. I thought that with the property being up for sale, Leonard Howell didn’t want to start resurfacing the road if he could get the house sold without the added expense. After a minute or so I could see a huge house in the distance. Lights were on in almost every window. It was too big to call a house, and not quite big enough to qualify as a mansion in this part of town.
Maybe a half dozen vans and cars were parked on the gravel drive outside the house. The cars were Fords; all the same make. There were two vans in all. One carried the livery of the NYPD. The other – Federal Bureau of Investigation.
George pulled up outside the house. I could see a figure standing in the open doorway, nothing more than a silhouette. I could tell it was a woman by the shape of her legs and her hair. There were no lights outside, just the warm spill from the windows.
I got out, turned to face the car and closed the door.
A voice said, “Freeze, FBI. Hands on the roof right now!”
CHAPTER THREE
The voice was female. Young. So were the hands that shoved my cheek into the polished roof of the Lincoln.
I heard George grunting and failing to spit out an explanation. A male voice told him to stay back.
“Take it easy, my name’s Eddie Flynn. I’m a lawyer. Leonard Howell invited me …”
“Shut up,” said the male voice. I felt hands searching me. They found the unsigned retainer, the envelope containing the subpoena, my cell phone and wallet.
“What kind of lawyer doesn’t carry a briefcase?” said the female voice, as she released her hands from my skull.
I got my head up but didn’t turn around.
“The kind that’s going to see a new client and doesn’t have a file of papers yet.”
“Face down. Hands on the roof,” came the command from the male and he forced his hands onto my shoulder blades, pinning me.
I put my head down on the cool roof of the Lincoln and kept my hands still. Last thing I needed was some twitchy fed putting a slug through my gut. Whoever stood behind me lit up a flashlight. The beam fell on my face, then moved away as I heard the rustle of paper.
“Those documents are confidential,” I said.
“Let him go,” said the woman. The hands holding me fell away. The first thing I saw was George with a pitiful look on his face. Then I saw the woman. She was just over five feet tall, brunette, short hair, wearing a green shirt tucked into a pair of blue jeans. The lace-up boots on her feet were almost as big her. She read the retainer agreement, the torch light shining through the paper. She muzzled the beam from the torch by tucking it under her arm, then folded the retainer back up and handed it to me. I guessed she was in her early thirties, with a soft, oval face, although her expression was anything but soft. She was pissed.
The guy beside her was my height and wore a suit and tie. His hair was short and razored into a neat line. Another fed. He handed her the envelope and my wallet and said, “ID matches. He’s seems to be who he says he is.”
She ignored the wallet and opened the envelope, bringing the flashlight up to read the subpoena.
“The wallet you can check, but the envelope is confidential.”
“Sure it is,” she said, reading the subpoena. She shook her head, bundled the wallet, envelope and subpoena together and thrust them into my chest.
“You’re not cleared to be here. George knows all visitors come through us. The guard on the gate didn’t mention a passenger name so we had to check you out. Now, you mind telling me why you’re here?” she said. For the first time I noticed the accent. Midwest and educated.
“I mind,” I said.
Hands on her hips, her right little finger stroked the butt of the Glock on her waist. She looked at the other fed. I got the impression she was considering whether to arrest me or play this another way. Her partner swung away to the right and raised a hand.
“Why don’t we start over? I’m Special Agent Joe Washington,” said the fed in the suit, this time holding his large hands across his chest. He twisted to his right and looked at the female agent and said, “This is Special Agent Harper.”
I held out a hand toward her and said, “You got a first name, Agent Harper?”
“Blow me,” she said, and kept her hands by her sides.
“Name like that would’ve made you popular in college,” I said.
She lifted her chin, looked me up and down and said, “At least I got laid in college.”
She backed away and turned toward the house. Washington was trying to stifle his laughter. I could no longer see her in the dark, but I heard the furious thump of her boots on the gravel. I looked at the house and saw that the female silhouette remained standing at the front door, casting a long shadow into the drive.
“Look, I’m sorry, pal. We’re all a little wired. Your driver should have let us know he was bringing you in. Look, we’re here for Mr Howell, we’re not in the habit of interfering in his personal business. You go ahead, and if we need to, we can talk later.”
“Why do I get the impression this isn’t the first time you’ve had to apologize for your partner?” I said.
“It’s part of my job. I’ve got her back. That’s how it works.”
“Is it worth it? Is she good at her job?” I said.
“She’s the best,” he said, like he meant it.
They were tight. It was only natural. The FBI was still overwhelmingly staffed by white males, and an African-American agent and a female agent would naturally bond. The good-old-boys Bureau club would treat them as outsiders, and for that same reason, they’d probably found each other. I was an outsider too. There weren’t too many former con artists from Brooklyn with a license to practice law. So even though they’d crossed the line, I didn’t complain.
It wasn’t the first time I’d been rolled by law enforcement and it probably wouldn’t be the last.
In truth, I was more confused than angry. If Caroline Howell was either a missing person or a person whom they suspected had been abducted, there would be a sole family liaison officer who would visit once a week, and because the Howell’s were millionaires they’d get an occasional visit from a senior officer in the missing persons division. The FBI would not be here. The NYPD wouldn’t have a van here. They wouldn’t be this tight-assed about security and there certainly wouldn’t be FBI agents backed up by tactical officers in full gear with guns in their fists on the front lawn.
Something else was going on here. Something bad.
CHAPTER FOUR
I walked with George toward the house. He’d told me to go on ahead, and not to wait on him, but I didn’t want anyone else jumping out of the dark and pointing a gun in my face. I figured I was safer with George. Besides, I liked him.
He’d produced a foldable cane from a shoulder bag, flicked it and let it clunk out into a solid walking stick. He leant on it heavily as we made our way, slowly, along the gravel driveway. Even with the benefit of the walking aid, George’s foot dug a trench in the loose gravel as we made our way through the dark.
“Don’t they have outside lights?” I said.
“They do,” said George, aiming his cane at an unlit, mock Victorian street lamp. I looked around and saw a few of them, standing dark and unused. “But ss-sss-sssssomebody ka-ka-cut the lines,” he said.
“Who?”
He shrugged his shoulders.
The female figure that had been standing in the doorway was gone. Instead, a very different kind of shadow stood there. It blocked out almost all of the interior light from the entrance hall. I had to do a double take, because at first I thought somebody had closed the damn door.
It was a man, well over six-and-a-half feet tall. We took our time coming up the steps, and the closer we got to the door, the bigger the guy looked. His head was almost square, and sat on what looked like the curves of somebody’s ass, sitting on top of his shoulders. I then saw these were his massively overdeveloped trapezius muscles. His shoulders were well rounded too. This was a guy who spent many hard years in the gym, and probably followed it up with a truckload of steroids. The huge, almost comically overgrown torso led to a narrow waist and legs that looked like they were full of balloons. I nodded at the man. He didn’t move and for a second I wondered if he was real – or some kind of dummy people placed in their window to scare off intruders.
Up close, I could make out a chin like a shelf and a long fat nose, but the man had no discernible eyes. Only small black slits sitting above bloated cheeks.
“Mr Howell is expecting you,” he said, in a voice that was too high for his size. I’d been right about the steroids. He stood aside and let me in.
I took a minute to look around. White marble entrance hall, curved staircase and doors to the left and right. And, of course, a huge chandelier right above us. It was expensive, but somehow lacked taste. I didn’t pay much attention to the furnishings or the rest of the house. There was something that took my mind from it.
Tension.
It was as if the house itself was wound tight. I could practically hear the floorboards above me creak with the atmosphere. It reminded me of going to an Irish wake with my father in the Bronx when I was maybe ten years old. I’d been to plenty of wakes before that one, and they were usually fairly raucous affairs with beer, sandwiches, whisky and poteen flowing along with the heartfelt, often hilarious stories about the recently deceased. An Irish wake wasn’t that dissimilar to a house party on Saint Patrick’s Day. The only real difference was that somebody died before the party started, not during it.
The wake in the Bronx that day was different. The dead man had been in his early twenties, and there were no funny stories. The women and the men had cried into their Bushmills, and the whole house seemed dark and thick with death. Howell’s mansion felt just the same. I sensed the pressure in the air.
The mountain turned and expected me to follow him.
“You go on, Mr Flynn, I-I-I’m go-going to get sss-ssssss …”
“Come on, we don’t have all night,” said the big man. I ignored him and stood beside George, waiting for him to finish.
“… SOME tea. See you … you-later,” he said.
“I’m sure I will. Thanks for everything, George.”
He disappeared through an alcove. The big man stood below the staircase and beckoned me.
I followed him as he broke right and went through a large oak door. Beyond the door was a lounge filled with cops, some in full SWAT gear and others in suits. The suits studied me as I walked by. In the corner I spotted a pair of FBI agents wearing bullet-proof vests over their shirts. Law enforcement were using the lounge as some kind of incident room. They sat in front of open laptops, or stared at a map displayed on a fifty-inch TV screen affixed to the wall and everywhere there were coffee cups and food wrappers. Muted conversation and the tap of fingers on keys punctuated by the occasional metallic slap and click from a SWAT officer loading an AR-15 assault rifle.
They were prepping. Something was about to go down, but I’d no idea what that might be.
The noise level diminished as I followed Bigfoot through th
e lounge and into the corridor beyond. Just before I left the lounge area I spotted Harper nudging another female officer and looking at me. I ignored them both and turned my attention back to the big guy.
At the end of the corridor he took me through an identical oak door. We were in a large, spacious study. The blinds were pulled shut and a couple of lamps lit the room, but not too brightly. On my left was a brown leather couch and matching armchairs. A small dark-skinned man in a navy suit occupied the chair closest to the window. He didn’t register my arrival.
On my right, behind a mahogany desk, sat Leonard Howell. His head bent low over the desk, his fingers locked behind his head. He sucked in a long breath, unlaced his fingers and sat up. On the desk in front of him was a nine millimeter Beretta and a magazine. Behind him I saw the same figure I’d seen silhouetted in the light of the doorway when I’d pulled up in the town car earlier. She was attractive. She had that poise and the expensive perfume that comes from being married to a guy like Howell. I’d read somewhere that her first husband died of carbon monoxide poisoning, and that she and Howell hooked up after his first wife passed away. Strange how death can bring two people together.
Her ash-blonde hair fell about her shoulders in a carefree manner as she leaned down and kissed Howell on the cheek. There was no tenderness in that kiss. It seemed perfunctory.
“Are you sure about this?” she said.
“It’s the only way,” said Howell.
She nodded and made for the door. As she passed me her gaze lingered. I caught the smell of booze. The big guy closed the door behind her, returned and flapped his big hands underneath my arms.
“Hands in the air, I have to search you,” he said.
I put my hands up and waited while he patted me down.
“I’ve already had the FBI searching me. You’ve got enough law enforcement here to invade a small country. What’s happening?” I asked.
The Liar Page 3