The Arraignment

by Steve Martini

“Your man. It’s one Hector Saldado,” she says.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah. We got him dead,” she says. “Trus’ me.”

  “Just a second.” I grab a pen and some Post-its from the holder on my desk.

  “Spell it?”

  She does. “Not only is he the only one with a cell phone lives there,” she says. “You know, of the other names you gave me?”

  “Yes.”

  “But he makes regular calls down to Mexico.”

  She can tell by the silence coming from my end that this is something of note.

  “I thought you might be interested,” she says. “There were a lotta them. These calls. At least three or four almost every day. None of them long. You know, a minute, maybe two. But how long can it take to order up some drugs? I mean, less time than a pizza, I’m sure. There’s no special toppings.”

  “You have his cell statement?”

  “I tol’ you I’d get it, didn’t I? You want it all? It’s pretty long. You know, a minute here, two minutes there. A lot of the same phone numbers too,” she says. “I checked it. The country code and area. Mexico,” she says.

  “Where? Do you know what part of Mexico?”

  “Just a sec,” she says. “Let’s see, I got it here someplace.”

  I can hear her hand muffle the mouthpiece, papers shuffling.

  “Here it is,” she comes back on. “Cancún. Quin-tan-aroo? Is that right?”

  “I’ve heard of it,” I tell her. It’s the area Metz visited when he did business with the two Ibarra brothers. “Listen. I have another job for you.”

  This afternoon I am pressed for time. I have a flight north at four, business in Capital City with an errand on the way. I should be at the airport by three, but I am stuck doing lunch, Adam style, in the private dining room next to his office. Tolt sits on one side, me on the other, a table the length of a runway. It is covered by a linen tablecloth and two candles in sterling silver holders. They match the silver chargers resting under the eggshell china dishes in front of us.

  The firm retains a chef for special occasions, as well as a company that sends waiters in white livery whenever they are needed to work from the kitchen that is through another door. Everything you need to run a five-star restaurant.

  “You handled it very well,” says Adam. “Under the circumstances, I don’t think anyone could have done better. You played the hand you were dealt, and you got a good result.”

  “For who?”

  “For your client,” he says. He reaches across with his butter knife and stabs one of the little squares in the dish, takes it back, and spreads it on a warm French roll that he’s plucked from the linen-lined basket on the table.

  “I know what you think, that I snookered you by using the settlement to cover the money she took. The fact is . . .”

  “The fact is you recovered your money,” I tell him.

  “Right.” He smiles. “What can I say? Sometimes things just work out,” he says.

  I have a feeling they work out for Adam a little more than they do for the rest of us.

  The occasion is the receipt of the check in settlement from the insurance carrier. Dana has compromised her portion and authorized me to deliver payment, a check made out to Rocker, Dusha to cover the missing funds from the firm’s trust account. All of this with interest. This now rests in an envelope on Adam’s desk as we break bread.

  “So that you know, she has no basis for complaint. I trust you told her that.” What he means is with money in the bank instead of jail time over her head.

  The waiter brings out the main course, poultry braised in red wine, with long grains of wild rice, a medly of roasted vegetables, and a new selection from the vintner, five different wines to choose from.

  “Pièce de résistance,” says Adam. Another waiter follows with assorted side dishes, stuffed mushrooms and asparagus in a glazed butter sauce, fare rich enough to give a poor man the gout.

  “The pheasant is roasted in Madeira,” says Adam. “I first tasted the dish on a trip to Portugal. I guess it was four years ago. I tried to get the recipe, but they wouldn’t give it to me. So I had Armand call the restaurant in Lisbon. He’s our chef and the chief chef at Marmande,” he says.

  “I guessed as much.”

  “They gave it to him. Professional courtesy. It’s the same in every field,” he says.

  The waiter lifts the glass cover from the dish he has set in front of Adam. My waiter does the same. Adam slips his fork into the bird, burying it to the top of the tines. He cuts a small piece with his knife and tastes it as the waiter pours wine.

  “Tell Armand he’s outdone himself this time,” he tells the waiter.

  The guy smiles, neatly bows at the waist. “Is there anything else?”

  Adam looks at me.

  “I suppose we could do it reclining like the Romans,” I tell him. “But if there’s anything else, I can’t think what it would be.”

  “No, that’ll be all,” says Adam.

  They leave.

  “I would have invited Harry,” says Tolt. “You have a wonderful partner there. Good man. From the old school. I recognize it,” he says.

  For some reason, the two of them have hit it off. I would not have expected this, Adam the world traveler, confidant of the powerful, and Harry who irons his own shirts.

  “I was impressed with the thoroughness of his research, the points and authorities you gave to the carrier. That was his work?” He looks up at me.

  “Every bit of it. Harry has saved me on more than one occasion,” I tell him.

  “Every knight needs a good armorer,” says Tolt. “I would have invited him, but I wanted to talk to you about something else.”

  Somehow I knew Adam wouldn’t celebrate like this unless there was some other purpose.

  “Some more wine?” he says.

  “No thanks.” I look at my watch.

  “Not to worry,” he says. “I’ll have my driver take you to the airport.”

  “My bags are already in the trunk of my car,” I tell him.

  “You can park it in our garage. The driver will get you to the airport in ten minutes and drop you at the curb. That way you won’t have to find a parking space. Give him your flight, he’ll pick you up when you come back.”

  “I couldn’t have you do all that.”

  “Nonsense.”

  “Keep it up. You’re going to spoil me, Adam.”

  “That’s the idea.” He smiles and takes another bite.

  “So, what is it you wanted to talk about?” I’d like to know what the charges are.

  “I didn’t ask you why she took the money. Dana, I mean. Mrs. Rush. I assume she was pressed financially. So I suppose no harm, no foul. But I would like to know one thing.”

  I’m sitting back, sipping wine, listening.

  “The insurance, her taking of the trust fund checks. Did any of this have to do with Nick’s death? I don’t need to know any details,” he says. “Whatever passed between the two of you in the confines of lawyer- client should stay there. And I will accept whatever you tell me. If you can’t say anything, I understand. My concern regards the firm. I merely want to know whether we can expect more repercussions from this?”

  “You want to know if I think Dana killed Nick?”

  He makes a face. “I suppose. In a word,” he says. “I’ve dragged my feet, covered some things. And I have my neck stretched out, just a little at the moment. I did it to protect the firm. But if there is something, and the police start looking, well, they’re going to find the checks she forged. And then I’m going to have to explain to the bar, and possibly to the police, why I didn’t report it.”

  “I understand.”

  “I thought you would.”

  “Unfortunately, I can’t help you. Not because I don’t want to,” I tell him. “The fact is I don’t know. She says she didn’t have anything to do with it. She says Nick left her high and dry. That’s the only reason she took t
he checks from his desk.”

  “Do you believe her?”

  I laugh without doing it out loud. “I gave up trying to read those entrails long ago. She did know about the insurance. She had a copy of the policy. She told me she didn’t find it until we spoke the first time. But to be honest, I don’t believe her. She had to know Margaret’s name was on the policy.”

  “So she lied to you.”

  “More than once.”

  “And the issue of double indemnity?”

  “She didn’t know what it was called, at least that’s what she led me to believe. But she picked up the theory pretty quickly as soon as I told her Nick’s death was an accident. I don’t think this was news to her. She had to be reading the papers, following the investigation. The police were already speculating in public. Whether she might have talked to somebody else who gave her chapter and verse on a claim, I can’t say.”

  “But your instincts. You’ve certainly developed those if you’ve dealt with criminal defendants. What do they tell you?”

  I give him an expression like maybe I’d rather not say. But then I do. “My instincts tell me Dana is trouble. I’m not saying she killed her husband. I’m saying that you’d have a hard time trying to figure out what’s going on behind those blue eyes at any given moment. Is she capable of it? I suppose. I don’t mean pulling the trigger.”

  “You mean hiring somebody else?”

  “It’s been known to happen. But . . .”

  “But what?”

  “These people were professionals.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I was there. I heard the shots. If Dana hired somebody to kill Nick, it would probably be somebody she met someplace, in a bar, maybe a wayward lover she recruited. That kind of person usually doesn’t have access to automatic weapons, semiautomatic maybe. But what killed Nick and Metz was a submachine gun. Nine millimeter. I saw some of the spent cartridges on the ground. They were ejected out of the car window when he fired.”

  “Hmm.” Tolt sits back in his chair, chewing a piece of pheasant slowly as he considers this.

  “So you don’t think she did it?”

  “I’m not saying that. She certainly had motive. And it’s possible she’s more resourceful than I think. She could have crossed the border. Flashed some money in the right places down in Tijuana, and you can probably find cops who will introduce you to people with Uzis, AKs, as well as the talent to use them. They might even do it for you themselves if you pay them enough. It’s the thing about San Diego, the proximity to the southern border creates a whole new dynamic,” I tell him.

  “Then she could have done it?”

  “It’s possible.”

  “What you’re saying is that anything’s possible.”

  “That’s what I’m saying.”

  “Unfortunately, that’s not going to allow me to sleep much better at night,” he says.

  “It is what it is,” I tell him.

  We finish the main course and they bring on crème brûlée for dessert, along with coffee and a little cognac. He offers me a cigar and I pass.

  “Nick used to love them. Smoked them like a chimney at the last Christmas party,” he says.

  “That’s the difference between us,” I tell him.

  “Not the only one,” he says. “I feel bad for Nick. I don’t mean just because he’s dead. He wasn’t treated as well as he should have been while he was here at the firm. And I blame myself for that. I set the tone, and over the last year or so it’s been one of not caring. But my wife was sick.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “Yes. Cancer,” he says.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “No, it’s all right. She beat it,” he says. “But you never know how long you have to spend with those you love. So for the past two years, I’ve spent what extra time I had with her instead of here. And I’m afraid Nick—he was one of our newest additions—I’m afraid he fell through the cracks. I can’t but think that maybe whatever he got involved with . . . Metz I mean . . . well, that perhaps it was the result of his seeing his potential here as somehow limited. You knew him best. Did he ever say anything?”

  “He . . . ahh . . . well there’s no denying he was disappointed,” I say.

  “So he told you. I knew it. And I have to blame myself. I was just too damn busy to pay attention.”

  “You can’t help something like that,” I tell him. “I know. I’ve dealt with it.”

  He looks at me, a question mark.

  “I lost my wife to cancer six years ago.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “It’s all right. I know what it’s like. The time it takes. Your life stands still. But time doesn’t. You stop living for a while. It took almost a year after she died before I could function fully again.”

  “Then you do know. Thank God I didn’t have to go through that. But you live with the constant thought that maybe you will. And in the meantime, the firm kept going, growing. It’s what happens when you get too big. You start going for quantity instead of quality.”

  “You’re saying Rocker, Dusha is getting too big?”

  “I hope not.” He smiles. “All the same, Nick got caught up in that machine. No doubt he viewed his problems as a bad mix with corporate chemistry, that he didn’t fit in. After all, he came here from a solo criminal practice. He may have fit better than he knew. But I wasn’t around to tell him.” At the moment Tolt is not looking at me as much as through me, to the wall beyond, taking personal stock, and not pleased with the picture he is seeing.

  “Twenty-nine years with the firm. I’m sixty-seven years old. Pretty soon they’ll put me out to pasture. And I suppose I should go gracefully. Still, I’ll think about Nick and wonder whether if I’d been here he might still be alive.”

  “Perhaps you need to be a little more fatalistic,” I tell him.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Lincoln had to get out of bed every morning knowing that before his day was out, he would likely have to review casualty reports. He considered himself lucky if these contained thousands of names, and not tens of thousands. After a year of this, he came to view the war as the result of God’s hand at work, punishing the nation for the sin of slavery, and that he was just a tool. Lincoln came to believe that no matter what he did, or how he exhorted his generals, he couldn’t end the war until God was ready.”

  “So you think I should be more like Lincoln?”

  “Oh. I think everybody should,” I say.

  “You’re not a fatalist, you’re an idealist,” he says.

  “No. I’m a cynic because I know it’s not going to happen. But I understand your feelings.”

  “I thought you would. You’re different than Nick,” he says.

  “In what way?”

  “You see what is practical, what’s doable. Too many of the people here don’t. I can’t judge Nick, because I didn’t know him well enough. So I won’t. He and I may have been better suited than I’ll ever know, because I didn’t take the time or have the time. I don’t want to make that mistake again. Life is too short not to know the people you work with. So I’ve been giving this a lot of thought,” he says, “and I’d like to get to know you better. I would like you to come to work for the firm.”

  I look at him, shocked, round eyes.

  “We’ll double whatever you’re making in your current practice. And we’ll find a place for Harry. I have Harvard grads doing research for me. They could take lessons from him.”

  Harry in a place like Rocker, Dusha would be like a lit cigarette next to black powder.

  “I don’t think that would work.”

  “I don’t want you to give me an answer right now. Think about it. Take it back to Harry. Get out your calculators and see what you both need to come on board. Think about it,” he says. “I see no reason why the two of you couldn’t continue to work together. We’ll find adjoining suites, put you both under contracts, after a year, you’d both have an o
wnership interest, partners. You’d report directly to me,” he says.

  “I’m flattered,” I tell him. “But I don’t think . . .”

  “Don’t think about it right now. Give it some time. We can talk after you get back from your trip.”

  What can I say? I’m looking at my watch, time to go. Adam grabs the phone off the sidebar behind him, orders up his car and the driver, then walks me out the door to the elevator.

  “Just press G-One, down to the garage, first level. My driver will meet you there, get your bags. Give him your keys, he’ll move your car into one of the spaces in the garage until you get back. Give him your flight and he’ll be out in front of the terminal to pick you up. Oh, and one more thing. Here, take one of these.” He hands me one of the firm’s newsletters, eight pages in four colors folded like a tabloid. “A little something to read on the plane,” he says.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  With the roar of the jet engines, the kinetic drag of acceleration presses me back in my chair. A few seconds later, we lift from the runway and climb quickly to a thousand feet.

  The pilot throttles back to cut noise, and we glide out over Ocean Beach, a few shimmering blue specks of backyard pools, past Sunset Cliffs, and the rolling line of surf. The flight crew gooses the powerful turbines again and the Boeing 737 climbs rapidly, heading north up the coast.

  We settle in at cruising altitude and I pull the attache case from under the seat in front, take what I want from it, and put it back. On the tray table in front of me is the newsletter from Tolt’s firm, a file with Tresler campaign statements that Harry had collected, and Nick’s small handheld device.

  I settle back in the chair and open the newsletter. Just below the fold I see my name in bold headline type.

  MADRIANI & HINDS

  SETTLE CLAIM

  FOR RUSH ESTATE

  This is why Adam handed it to me. The story is not long, a few inches. It talks about the firm’s key-man policy. Adam has taken the opportunity to boost this as one of the perks of partnership.

  In two short sentences, the article covers Nick’s death, the date, and the fact that he was caught up in a drive-by shooting while talking with a client in front of the federal courthouse. The last two graphs read like a promotional brochure for Harry and me.