by Joel Goldman
"Is that what happened when Whitney King shot my client, Nick Byrnes? Were you afraid to save him?"
The priest took a final drag, the tobacco glowing red, the smoke slithering off his face. "I thought Mary was your client."
"They both are and they both want the same thing. To prove that Whitney King killed Graham and Elizabeth Byrnes."
"And now you would add the shooting of Nick Byrnes to Whitney's list of crimes?"
"Nick was no match for Whitney, even if he had a gun. You were there. Tell me what happened."
"Oh, with that gun, that boy was more than a match for anyone," Father Steve said. "He was screaming at Whitney, threatening to kill him. I was a witness and he would have killed me as well. If Whitney hadn't stopped him, both us would be dead."
"Describe what happened, Father. Give me the blow-byblow."
Father Steve sighed. "I don't do play-by-play commentary, Mr. Mason. Especially when I'm scared to death."
"Give it a try, Father," Mason said.
The priest took a deep breath, his cigarette down to a stub. "All right. We came out of the office building. The boy was there, like he was waiting for Whitney. He was waving the gun around at first, carrying on, as I said. I recognized him from the execution. I told him that I understood his pain but that he was making it worse, not better. I tried to calm him, but he wouldn't be calmed. He just got more upset. Then he pointed the gun straight at Whitney. Whitney grabbed his arm. They struggled. The gun went off."
Mason didn't know enough yet about what had happened to argue. He just wanted to get the priest committed to a version he'd have to live with. "Why were you with Whitney King last night?"
"You ask me that question as if I was somehow a suspect too. Do you include me in your conspiracy, Mr. Mason? Is that why you asked about those who stood by silently and let Ryan be executed? A boy I baptized? The child of a woman who has been at my side for thirty years?"
"I've known people to do worse, Father. With or without God on their side. I don't apologize for doing my job. You can tell me now or tell me in court."
The priest's jaw hardened for an instant, his eyes narrowing; then a small smile crept into the corners of his mouth as he relaxed. "Money, Mr. Mason. The church needs it and Whitney has it. My job is to ask him for it. It's demeaning but necessary. Is that all?"
"Almost. That woman who has been at your side for thirty years has disappeared. Do you know anything about that?"
"Mary's disappeared?" Father Steve asked, hands at his sides, mouth open. "What do you mean?"
"She's missing. She left home yesterday, got on a bus to come here and see you. She never made it home."
"Am I supposed to have spirited her away? Come now, Mr. Mason."
"Was Mary here yesterday?"
"Of course she was. She volunteers every Wednesday, helping out in the office, whatever needs to be done."
"You saw her, then?"
Father Steve dropped his cigarette to the floor, grinding it beneath his heel. "Yes, Mr. Mason," he answered with diminished patience. "I saw Mary. I spoke with Mary. I saw Mary leave. Now what do you mean she didn't go home?"
Mason studied the priest, thinking of him as any other witness, evaluating his demeanor, his motive for telling the truth or not, his interest in the outcome of the case, conceding that his collar enhanced his credibility.
"Just that," Mason said, still pressing, "she's disappeared and you're the last person to have seen her alive."
"I hope you are not such an alarmist with all of your clients," Father Steve said. "Mary told me she was going away for a few days. She said she might go visit her husband. They never divorced, you know. He called her after Ryan's death."
"Did she say where her husband was living?" Mason asked.
"Omaha, I believe she said."
"Well, then. I'm sure she'll be back soon," Mason said, his sarcasm lost on the priest.
"Of course she will," Father Steve said. "I've got to get back. If you'll excuse me."
"One last thing. Something you said bothered me," Mason said.
Father Steve stuck his hands in his pockets, rocking back on his heels, his smile and his patience flattening out. "Try me, Mr. Mason. I'm a priest. I specialize in things that bother people."
"Why do you suppose Mary would go to Omaha for a few days and leave her suitcase under her bed?"
Father Steve stopped rocking, tilted his head to one side, biting the corner of his mouth. "I suppose," he answered softly. "She had two suitcases."
Chapter 23
Certainty is the sum of need and faith. Wisdom is the remainder of living. Knowledge is the division of doubt by facts. Truth is the product of them all. Mason repeated the math Claire had taught him when he was growing up as he jogged toward the Plaza on Saturday morning before most people were out of their houses. The sky teased the city with the promise of rain, the sun burning through a low layer of gray clouds like dry kindling.
Mason was certain that Ryan Kowalczyk was innocent and Whitney King was guilty, though his certainty was the sum of need and faith, as was his belief that Claire was hiding the truth about his parents. He rejected the wisdom of Harry and Claire who said leave well enough alone. He had yet to find the facts that would divide their doubts. The truth still eluded him.
He ran east along Brush Creek, a landscaped tributary of the Missouri River that defined the southern border of the Plaza. He looped back, finding Tuffy waiting for him, thumping her tail for breakfast as he carried the morning paper inside. The headline read "Hot Streak Breaks Record," nothing selling better than bad news turned into a spectator sport.
The toll was charted in a sidebar column with numbers followed by the calamity they represented. Forty-two days without measurable precipitation. Nineteen days above ninety-five degrees. Eleven power outages due to high demand for electricity. Eighty-three people admitted to area hospitals for heat exhaustion. Sixteen people dead throughout the state from heat-related causes, five of them from Kansas City.
Mason took the paper with him to his office, posting his personal tally for the week on the dry erase board. One execution witnessed. One client missing. One client critically wounded. One girlfriend lost. Two best friends pissed off. One closest living relative maybe not so close. His numbers were smaller, but the toll bore down on him like a personal heat wave.
What made it worse was how little he had to show for it, getting pimped by a priest the highlight. I suppose she had two suitcases, Mason repeated the punch line, throwing another dart across his office, taking little satisfaction in the puff of plaster as it stuck in the wall, tail feathers vibrating. Maybe she did. Mason didn't think so.
He tried directory assistance for Omaha. There was no listing for Vince Kowalczyk. Mickey had convinced him to subscribe to an Internet service that promised to find anyone, anywhere in the United States for twenty-five dollars, as long as you had a Social Security number. Otherwise, the most you could hope for was a list of people with the same name. Mason booted up, striking out on Vince, the Web site practically accusing Mason of making up the name.
He did the same with a few of the jurors' names, shooting craps each time, cursing Mickey until he figured out how to cancel the Internet service. At least he was back on track with the one approach that made sense. Find a juror. One that was alive. One that would tell the truth.
Giving the computer another chance, Mason logged onto the city's Web site, clicking his way to the vital records page, certain he could do a quick search of death certificates for the jurors. They had lived in Kansas City at the time of the trial. If they had died in Kansas City since, the city would have a record of it. The city did, but he had to mail in his request with the date of death and the deceased's Social Security number, and wait four to six weeks for a response. The Web site was a cyberspace version of you can't get there from here.
He left a message for Rachel Firestone who called him back ten minutes later. "What's going on?" she asked.
"How far back do the paper's obituary records go?" Mason asked.
"Like everything else. To the beginning of time. You should read Moses's obit. It takes up five books."
"Jewish newspaper humor must be an acquired taste," Mason told her. "If I give you a list of names, can you check to see if they made the obituary page?"
"As long as I can write about it if it's a good story."
"I've got eight names. They all show up, you can write a book," he said, giving her the information.
"Okay. I surrender. Who are they?" Rachel asked.
"They were jurors on the King and Kowalczyk case. The other four jurors are dead. Two of them in accidents that don't pass the smell test. Two of them shot to death. In the face. Sonni Efron was one of them."
Rachel whistled. "What are the odds?"
"Don't try to figure the over-under. Just run down the names. Let's see who's vertical and who's horizontal."
Mason wanted to talk to Whitney King. He wanted to hear King's story about shooting Nick Byrnes. He wanted King to explain his relationship with Father Steve. He wanted to watch King's reaction when he asked King about Mary Kowalczyk's disappearance. He wanted to talk to King in private, off-the-record, counting on King's arrogance to tell him more than he would in front of witnesses, even if he were under oath. Especially under oath.
Mason threw another dart at the wall, knowing he couldn't talk to King. Knowing that he couldn't drop in on King at his office, arrange to run into him at the gym, or invite him over for dinner. Not because King wouldn't talk to him. Mason bet he would. Mason couldn't talk to King because the Model Rules of Professional Conduct for lawyers prohibited a lawyer from communicating directly with an adverse party that the lawyer knows is represented by counsel.
Any communications had to be in the presence of the adverse party's lawyer unless the lawyer agreed otherwise. Sandra Connelly was King's lawyer and would never agree to let Mason go one-on-one with Whitney King.
Mason plucked the darts from the wall, paced off ten steps, turned, and fired again, this time hitting the center of the dart board and laughing. Not at his lucky shot, but at the absurdity of worrying whether talking to a killer without his lawyer violated the Model Rules of Professional Conduct. Killers should have such problems, Mason thought. Rule number one of the Model Rules for Murderers. A murderer shall be prohibited from killing members of more than one generation of a family.
Each state had a disciplinary committee that reviewed complaints against lawyers for violating the Model Rules. Mason imagined a similar body for murderers, made up of the best and the brightest killers, admission by secret handshake, no doubt bloody. A liberal-minded committee certain to extend the prohibition to include kidnapping and crippling family members of prior victims because if killers started hoarding their victims, there wouldn't be enough for everyone else.
Mason unleashed his last dart, wondering where he could get a radar gun to clock his speed. He picked up his phone and punched in Sandra Connelly's number, not surprised to find her in her office on Saturday.
"I want to talk to your client," Mason said. "Without you."
"Lou?" Sandra asked.
"The one and only," he answered.
"Are you drunk or just out of your mind?"
"Do you have a preference?" he asked her.
"If you're drunk, you'll sober up. If you're out of your mind, there's not much I can do for you."
"I'm serious, Sandra. I want to talk to Whitney King alone."
"What possible reason would I have to agree to that?" she asked.
"I want to know what happened with Nick Brynes. I don't want a sanitized version that passes through your filter and gets me nowhere. I want the truth."
"In the first place, I'll ignore the implication that I would let a client lie to you or anyone else. In the second place, if I agreed, I'd be committing malpractice and you know it. In the third place, who the hell do you think you are that the rules don't apply to you?"
Mason took a deep breath. Sandra was right and he knew it. "Okay, okay. I'll tell you what. Just let me talk to him. You can sit next to him and tell him to shut up anytime you want."
"You know, Lou. There's a procedure for this. It's called filing a lawsuit. Then you can subpoena my client to give a deposition and ask him anything you want. Why should I give you two bites at the apple?"
"Because there isn't time. Mary Kowalczyk is missing. I need to know what King knows about that too."
"Why would you think he knows anything about it? You can't blame him for everything that happens to your clients. If you lost your client, call the police, not me."
"Listen, Sandra. I know it's your job to defend Whitney, but let me give you a game summary so far. He killed Graham and Elizabeth Byrnes. Four out of the twelve jurors who let him get away with it are dead, the last one shot to death this week. Whitney shot Nick Byrnes and my money says he did it because he could, not because he had to. Mary hired me to put a legal beating on your boy and then she disappears. And I'm leaving out the potshots at my living room window and late night heavy breathing phone calls, both courtesy of your client. Are you getting the picture here?"
"I'm getting a picture of someone who I used to think was a pretty good lawyer who needs to get a grip. When you get one, call me," she said, hanging up.
Chapter 24
That went well, Mason said to himself, hands on his hips, surveying his office. He was stuck and didn't have the traction to get moving. Even if he did, he had no idea which direction to go. The phone rang and he grabbed it, hoping Sandra had reconsidered.
"Hello?" Mason asked.
"This here is Albert from the cemetery. I'm looking for a fella name of Lou Mason."
"Hi, Albert. I'm Mason."
"You the one what gimme twenty dollars to call you if someone visited your momma and daddy's grave?"
"That's me," Mason said. "I was there the other day. Asked you about someone leaving a rock on their headstone. You told me about Sonni Efron's funeral. I gave you a business card with the money."
"Okay, then," Albert said. "I guess it's you."
"It's me. What do you got for me, Albert?"
"Someone come by this morning. Left another of them rocks, a real smooth one, shiny too. But I left it alone. I'm
not messing with nobody's grave. I just dig 'em."
"Did you get a look at the person?"
"No, sir. I surely didn't. They was too far away. Looked like a woman though, course you can't really tell the way some people dress and all, and the sun was kinda of in my eyes."
Mason sighed. Albert's call was another wisp of information that evaporated without adding anything. "Thanks for calling, Albert. She shows up again, there's another fifty if you get a name."
"Now hold the phone there, Mr. Lou-fifty-dollar Mason," Albert said. "Marty, he was working down along the wall near the street. I hollered down at him, did he get a look at her. Marty says at who, and I holler back at him, that woman what put a rock on the Mason headstone. And Marty, he hollers back there's a woman pulling out from the curb right then, must be her on account of there ain't nobody else around there but him and me. So Marty, he writes down her license plate."
Mason grinned for the first time in a week. "Albert, you and Marty are going out for the biggest steak dinner my money can buy. Give me the tag number."
Albert recited it, telling Mason he liked his steak well done. Mason thanked him again before making another call.
Harry Ryman picked up on the second ring.
"Harry, it's Lou. Can you get someone in the department to run a plate for me?"
Harry hesitated, clearing his throat. "The chief is clamping down on that sort of freelancing since I retired, from what I hear."
Mason didn't know whether that was true or not, but he knew that Harry could get the plate run in a heartbeat even if the chief had to do it himself. Harry was no more in the mood to help Mason prove Ryan Kowalczyk was innocent than he had been the last
time they'd talked.
"It's got nothing to do with the King case, Harry. It's something else. Something personal. I'd really appreciate it," Mason added.
Mason listened to Harry breathe. Harry finally said, "Give it to me. I'll see what I can do."
"Thanks, Harry. One other thing," Mason added, not wanting Claire to know what he was doing. "Keep this between you and me, okay?"
"Sure, Lou. I can do that."
"Wait a minute," Mason said before Harry could hang up.
"What?" Harry asked, his meter running.
"You remember telling me that the jury in the Byrnes murder trial was deadlocked for two days before they reached a verdict on the third day?"
"Yeah, so what?" Harry asked.
"Nancy Troy told me that the jury refused to talk to anybody after the trial. How did you know they were deadlocked?"
"Because, Clarence Darrow, they hadn't reached a decision."
"That doesn't mean they were deadlocked. They could have been working through the evidence, talking about it. You and Nancy said the same thing. The jury was hung up and then something happened. How did you know that?"
Harry was silent for a moment, Mason visualizing him as he called up his memory of the trial. Harry remembered the details of every case he ever worked. Mason waited patiently.
"It was the priest," he said at last. "You remember the priest at the execution?"
"Father Steve. He's practically my new best friend," Mason said.
"He didn't miss a day of the trial. He was the one who told me."
"Father Steve says that Whitney's father told him about the jury," Mason said.
"Whitney's father didn't know squat. He never got within a mile of that courtroom."
Mason rode the surge of energy he always got when he put things in motion. It wasn't much but it was better than whining and throwing darts at his defenseless wall. He drummed a pen against his desk, shuffled stacks of paper, wiped off the dry erase board and started a new mosaic, linking names with lines, broken and solid. He was ready to try anything to nurture his rekindled momentum.