by James Yaffe
“And what difference will it make?” I said. “You’ll just be exchanging one politician for another. New name, new look, new sex—but the same old tune. You know what the old immigrants used to say, when I was growing up in the Bronx? ‘You can’t fight City Hall.’ They were smart people, they knew what the world is like.”
Mom smiled gently and said, “You can’t fight City Hall? You know who used to make this foolish remark? A lot of alta cockers who never left the shtetl even after they crossed the Atlantic Ocean. For them City Hall was full of Cossacks, like Russia or Poland used to be. They could never get out of their heads this foolish idea that the people in City Hall weren’t human beings too. And this foolishness wasn’t good for them, believe me. What it meant was, they could never do anything to get over their problems. Everything was as bad as everything else, so what was the point of lifting a finger—”
And in two seconds flat, Mom and I had plunged into our old political argument.
We kept it up for the next half hour, and then it was time for Roger and me to leave. At the front door, Mom gave us each a hug, but I could see that her heart wasn’t in it, a sad preoccupied look was on her face. I asked her what was wrong, and she immediately produced a smile and said, “What should be wrong? Everything’s fine.”
Then I understood what it was. Mom wanted to get back into the living room and pick up the old photo album again. She was tired of thinking about murders. She wanted to spend the rest of the night with Papa.
SEVEN
I was up an hour earlier than usual on Monday morning. When things get busy in our office—for instance, when a big case comes up at the same time that we’re in the middle of a lot of smaller ones—there don’t seem to be enough hours in the day.
I gulped down some coffee and a doughnut, while skimming through The Republican American. The headlines were taken up with Harry Stubbins’s arrest and McBride’s press conference. The main story was written by Joe Horniman, but I didn’t read past its first paragraph.
I moved to the editorial page and wasn’t surprised to find the editor expressing shock and dismay at those surly cynics who were accusing McBride of taking charge of the Pulaski murder case purely out of political opportunism. Our local sheet is just about as conservative as Calvin Coolidge, though a lot more talkative, and McBride’s don’t-be-soft-on-crime line has always roused its vigilante instincts. It had supported him in his last four campaigns, and just the other day the editor had denounced Doris Dryden as a “bleeding heart liberal” whose election would be an open invitation for the Mafia to take over our town.
I got to the office at eight-fifteen, running into Roger in the elevator. Mabel Gibson, who was always there ahead of everybody no matter how early anybody was, leaned forward and spoke in her low, confidential voice. “She’s been in there for heaven knows how long. She wants to see the two of you right away.”
We went in and found Ann at her desk, in a welter of papers. They looked as if they were spread all over the place, in no particular order, but I knew this was an optical illusion. In her brain every little pile was labeled and filed; mention any particular case to her, and she could instantly pick out all the relevant documents. She had three court appearances scheduled for later today, and she’d go into each one of them fully prepared.
“Okay, let’s hear what you’ve been up to,” Ann said. “And make it fast, because you and I, Dave, are seeing McBride in half an hour for the bail hearing.”
“You want me to come to court with you?” I was surprised; she didn’t usually.
“I wish you would,” she said. “I want to buttonhole McBride right afterward and give him hell for holding out on us about the ex-husband. I feel like kicking that snake in the teeth, if snakes have teeth, so it’s up to you to give me the high sign if I start losing my cool.”
We both knew perfectly well that no high sign was going to be needed. I’d been working for Ann for four years, and her cool had yet to be even temporarily misplaced.
So we reported to her in detail on our activities yesterday, then Roger told her he was going to call the American Association of University Professors to find out about Harry Stubbins’s background. She complimented him on coming up with this approach. He accepted the compliment and didn’t say anything about where the approach had come from.
Then I told Roger he could work at my desk until I came back later this morning. Besides the long-distance calls to those professorial outfits, he had to get in touch with the Sagebrush Alleys, question the people there about Saturday night’s bowling match, and also question the members of Ron Pulaski’s team and of the team he’d been bowling against.
And once all that was done, he had to finish up a report on one of our other clients. This was a teenage kid; the cops had stopped him for speeding, found cocaine in his glove compartment, and arrested him for possession. The kid was a punk, and guilty as hell, but our contention was that the evidence should be thrown out on the grounds of illegal search.
To tell you the truth, Ann and I have had our disagreements about this sort of thing. Sometimes I catch myself thinking like I’m still on the other side of the fence.
We headed downstairs, and pretty soon we were in the courtroom.
* * *
The courtroom didn’t have many people in it. It was very early, and no trials likely to have fireworks in them were scheduled for the morning. McBride and Grantley were there ahead of us, sitting in the front row of seats. Grantley looked like a yuppie undertaker, as always, and McBride had on a loud sports coat and one of those American flag ties. He was mad about something, spitting out words at Grantley in a low voice. He broke off as we approached. I guess he saw me staring at his tie, because he gave a loud laugh and pointed at it. “My patriotic tie, Dave. What do you think? I had a batch of them made up for me for this campaign. You want me to send you one? Glad to do it, as long as you promise me you’ll wear it at every possible opportunity.”
He laughed, probably at the expression on my face. Then he stopped laughing, and his angry glare returned. “You want to hear something beautiful? Go on, Leland, tell ’em about the call you got a few minutes ago.”
“It came from some young woman,” Grantley said, looking very uncomfortable indeed. “A Korean young woman—speaking perfect English, however. She introduced herself as Edna Pulaski’s niece.”
“Oh sure, Madeleine Kim,” I said. “She translated for us when I talked to Edna Pulaski’s mother.”
“The old lady asked her to call me. She had a complaint, and of course she couldn’t tell me about it herself. It seems that her daughter, when she was taken to the morgue, was wearing a number of items on her person, and they were taken along with her. This morning, with the autopsy over, the morgue people sent those items back to the old lady, and she says that one of them is missing. A piece of jewelry.”
“What piece?”
“The ring her daughter was wearing. On her right hand—with a rather large green stone in it. The old lady says it wasn’t worth a great deal of money, it wasn’t a real emerald, but she gave it to her daughter as a birthday gift years ago, and it has sentimental value for her. She’s furious at the district attorney’s office, she blames us for losing it. Her niece—great-niece, I suppose—says the old lady is thinking of suing us on account of it.”
“Suing us! How do you like that?” McBride lifted a fist to underline his exasperation. “Her darling daughter just got killed, the stiff isn’t even in its grave yet, we’re working our butts off to bring the killer to justice—and this old biddy is worried about some cheesy piece of cheap jewelry! What kind of people are they, for Christ sake!”
“Did the morgue people itemize those things when they took them off the body?” Ann asked.
“No, there were so few things, and it all looked like cheap junk to them,” Grantley said. “Even so, they should’ve made an inventory, but you know how it is—people get overworked—they foul up. I remember seeing that ring myself, howev
er, when I looked at the body. It definitely went down to the morgue with her, so any number of people might have mislaid it, dropped it somewhere, perhaps stolen it. We’re certainly going to check into it—”
“Damn well better!” said McBride. “A thing like this makes the whole law enforcement organization in this city look bad! Goddammit, it’s all we need just now, isn’t it? With an election coming up—a major murder case—” He huffed and puffed for a while, looking more like one of the little pigs than the big bad wolf.
As soon as he had calmed down, Ann went up to him, smiling her most benevolent smile, giving no indication of her homicidal feelings toward snakes. “Could we have a little chat right after the hearing, Marvin?” she said. “Some points about the case that I didn’t get to go over with Leland yesterday.”
“I’ve got a heavy morning, Ann.” McBride’s voice was hoarser than usual, and I could see his hand shaking a little. For him, I realized, nine in the morning was like the middle of the night. “Call my secretary, maybe I’ve got a free spot late this afternoon. Or tomorrow.”
“Right after the hearing would be better,” Ann said. “We won’t be here long, will we? Purely routine procedure, I assume. So you should have plenty of time for what we have to discuss.”
“You already discussed it—”
“Ron Pulaski.” Ann said the name softly and clearly, as if she were pronouncing it for a small child. “Mean anything to you, Marvin?”
Her question was answered by the look on McBride’s face and on Grantley’s too.
“Okay, okay, I’ll give you a few minutes after we’re through here. Up in my office.”
Ann thanked him sweetly. At this moment, through a door in the corner to the left of the bench, Harry Stubbins was brought in with a uniformed cop holding him by the arm. The shade of red in Harry’s cheeks and eyes was as deep as it had been yesterday. The only improvement in his appearance was that somebody had encouraged him to make an effort at shaving the thicket of grayish hair on his chin. The effort had been partially successful. He looked less like a porcupine and more like a goat.
Ann went up to Harry, shook him by the hand, gave him an encouraging smile.
“What’s this all about?” Harry blinked at her hard.
“It’s a bail hearing,” she said.
“You’re—you’re really going to get me out of here?”
“We’re going to try our best.”
“Get me out!” He was wetting his lips, and there was desperation in his voice. “You don’t have any idea what it’s— That’s hell, in there. Read plenty of descriptions of hell in my day. None of them comes close to the real thing.”
The judge was making his entrance now, so Ann gave Stubbins a pat on the arm and returned to her place.
The hearing wasn’t a routine procedure at all. McBride opposed letting the accused out on bail, on the grounds that he was not a reputable member of the community, had no visible means of support, no family, no registered place of residence, and would therefore be likely to flee from the venue of the court if he were released from jail.
Ann argued that the accused’s indigence was exactly the reason why he wouldn’t try to flee; he didn’t have the money to get out of town. Furthermore, since the accused obviously was in no position to put up any amount of money for bail, no matter how low it was set, he should be released on his own recognizance—otherwise the court would put itself in the position of discriminating against the accused on account of his poverty-stricken and homeless state.
Furthermore, Ann went on, the district attorney’s office was notorious for discriminating against the poor and the homeless, especially if they were elderly. Last month, for example, they asked for ten thousand dollars’ bail for an old man who was accused of nothing worse than public exposure.
“And five minutes after you set him loose,” McBride said, “he went right out on the street and exposed himself again! That’s what’s wrong with the system these days! The taxpayers lay out good money so the dregs of society can get some shyster to take their case—”
“Excuse me, Mr. McBride,” said Ann, putting on an indignant expression—you had to know her very well to realize how much fun she was having. “Who exactly are you calling a shyster? You’re just a little too fond of that word, I think. If I’m not mistaken, I heard you shout it out in open court only a few weeks ago. Right after the jury came in with an acquittal for that Chicano boy you were trying to railroad into prison for drug possession. And if I’m not mistaken the possessor turned out to be your own stool pigeon who testified against the boy—”
McBride’s voice, which always had a hoarse alcoholized edge to it, got even hoarser when he raised it in anger. “First of all, you haven’t heard the last of that case! You pulled a quarterback sneak on us, but that kid was guilty as hell, he and my stoolie were in it together, and you can take my word for it we’ll pin it on him one of these days!”
“Assuming the Supreme Court decides that the law against double jeopardy is unconstitutional,” Ann said.
“We’ll get him for something else! I know my Constitution better than you do, Goddammit!”
The judge broke in, sternly telling them both to stop their unseemly behavior. But Ann wasn’t sorry the shouting match had taken place. She knew her judges. His Honor Andrew Phipps, former counsel for the state proverty program, elevated to the bench by a lame-duck Democratic governor thumbing his nose at his Republican successor, wasn’t likely to take McBride’s fulminations lightly. Stubbins was released on his own recognizance, on condition he checked into the local Shelter for the Homeless run by the city.
“Oh God, not the shelter! Send me back to jail,” Stubbins muttered to Ann, after the judge had disappeared. “They make you come in before eight at night—they frisk you at the door! If I’m going to be treated like a common criminal, let me do it where the food’s better and the company’s younger.”
Ann was gently unmoved, though. I made a call to the Shelter for the Homeless, and gave Stubbins the address, and in front of the courthouse I pointed him in the right direction. To make sure he got there, I reminded him that this was no time for him to antagonize the public defender.
* * *
A few minutes later Ann and I reached Marvin McBride’s outer office. To get to the inner sanctum you had to run the gauntlet of countless little minions occupying desks and cubbyholes along the way, and then you found yourself in a small-size auditorium, where McBride was seated behind a huge desk. Why is it that short men always like to sit at big desks, even though they look even shorter in contrast?
Grantley was there too, sitting a little to the right of McBride’s desk, holding a notebook on his knee.
McBride gave a nod and a growl at us as we took our seats. He was fifty-four years old, about the same age as me, but his bloodshot eyes and the little red veins in his cheeks made him look older.
After the nod and the growl, he went back to what he had been doing, lighting up one of his cheap little cigars. Pretty soon the vile smell would fill his office, and make us all feel sick, but McBride had never been known to care, or even to notice.
“All right,” he started in, “what’s this all about, Ann? What’s that name you mentioned to me?” McBride frowned and seemed to be thinking hard. “Ron Pulaski, was that it? Oh, you mean the dead woman’s ex-husband, don’t you?”
“That’s who I mean all right. Old Mr. Raymond Chang told you about him, didn’t he? In case you don’t recognize the name, he’s the nice old man who owns the pharmacy down the street from the victim’s house. Leland talked to him yesterday morning, at which time he said he saw Pulaski in the neighborhood at midnight Saturday night. And Pulaski himself came to see you here yesterday afternoon. Now here’s a woman who gets killed, and here’s her ex-husband who’s in the neighborhood half an hour or so afterward, and you don’t think you owe it to the defendant to tell his attorney about it?”
McBride gave a grunt. “You’re wrong about one thi
ng. I never talked to Pulaski, yesterday or any other time. Leland talked to him. Isn’t that right, Leland? Gave me a complete report afterward, of course.”
“Of course,” said Ann. “You’re personally in charge of the case. If a shady maneuver gets pulled, like trying to cover up a witness who might help the defense, you have to take full responsibility.”
“Now that’s not fair.” Grantley looked up from his notebook, his smile a little tight at the edges. “Very well—I see why you and Dave might jump to the worst possible conclusion. I see that there’s room for misunderstanding and misinterpretation here. I don’t blame you for what you’re thinking, believe me I don’t. I’d probably be thinking the same thing in your place. But I assure you—I give you my solemn word—there’s no foundation whatsoever to your suspicions.”
“It’s nice to have your solemn word,” Ann said, “but even nicer would be an explanation of why we had to dig up this pertinent information for ourselves?”
“Because it isn’t pertinent, that’s why. Pulaski did come to see me in the afternoon, I talked to him for an hour, but I finally let him go. I couldn’t hold him, for the simple reason that there’s conclusive proof he didn’t commit the murder. If you know as much as you do, you must also know that he’s got an airtight alibi. That’s why he got in touch with me. He wanted to admit that he was in his ex-wife’s neighborhood at midnight or thereabouts on Saturday, but he came there directly from his weekly bowling match. Ten or fifteen people who knew him well were at that match with him, and we’ve talked to most of them, and they all swear Pulaski got there before nine-thirty and didn’t leave till the match broke up just a few minutes before midnight.
“Granted, it would’ve been physically possible for him, or somebody else, to kill her after midnight—we have the autopsy report now, I’ll tell you all about it in a moment—but your client’s own statement makes that unlikely. Your client claims that some unknown person entered Edna Pulaski’s room at eleven thirty-five, just as he—your client, that is—was losing consciousness. Now that person has failed to come forward, which suggests one of two things about him—or her. Either this was the murderer—in which case the ex-husband Pulaski can’t be guilty—or this is a figment of your client’s imagination. Needless to say, the second alternative is what we favor in this office.