A Killer's Alibi (Philadelphia Legal)

by William L. Myers Jr.

  “My client has a lot of faith in you,” he says. “I’m guessing he’s more than just heard about you. I’m guessing you know each other.”

  A look crosses her face that tells him she’s weighing how to answer. “Cards on the table? I live in California now, but I was raised in South Philly, not far from the Nunzios.”

  His chest tightens. “You grew up with Jimmy?”

  “I was a few years younger.”

  He wonders whether he should probe more deeply, decides not to. “So you knew even before I told you that Nunzio’s been holding back on his witnesses.”

  “We did talk, yes.”

  “I’m not sure I’m liking this.”

  “Shall we review the jury questionnaire?” She opens a folder and hands him the questionnaire.

  Her message is clear: What you like or don’t like is irrelevant.

  It’s just after 9:00 when Mick enters the kitchen. Piper is waiting for him, stirring something on the stove.

  “Something smells good,” he says.

  “Nothing special,” she answers. “Just some pasta with marinara sauce. You must be hungry.”

  “Starving,” he says. “I can’t wait. Is Gabby in bed?”

  “Yes. And Franklin, too.”

  He pours two glasses of merlot, hands one to Piper, then sits at the island in the kitchen. After a few minutes, Piper hands him a plate full of the pasta and red sauce, and he digs in. She sits across from him, sipping her wine and flipping through this month’s Architectural Digest. He’s just finishing when his cell phone rings.

  “It’s Tommy,” he tells Piper. Then, to Tommy, he says, “Hey, what’s—”

  “You need to come to Susan’s place,” Tommy says. “Now.”

  “Susan’s? What’s wrong?”

  “I got the call from Giacobetti. I found out who’s been bothering her.”

  “Is it someone we know?”

  “Oh yeah.”

  He hears Tommy shout something on the other end of the phone; then he hangs up.

  “What’s wrong?” Piper asks as soon as he sets the phone down. “Is Tommy all right? What’s going on with Susan?”

  Up until now, Mick has honored Susan’s request by not telling Piper, or anyone else, about going to Susan’s apartment and finding it trashed. At this point, though, it seems that everything’s going to come out, so he fills her in.

  “Tommy’s at Susan’s place,” he concludes. “And the guy’s there, too.”

  He stands to leave.

  “Be careful,” says Piper. “Whoever it is could be dangerous. Shouldn’t you call the police?”

  He shakes his head. “I’m sure everything’s under control. Tommy’s there.”

  The Schuylkill is clear, but the drive to Center City seems to take forever. His mind spins with questions about what’s going on in Susan’s apartment.

  Did Armand Romero—he has no doubt that’s who the bad guy is—hurt Susan? How badly has Tommy hurt the soccer player? And how the hell does Giacobetti fit into it?

  The clock in his car says 10:30 when he pulls in front of Susan’s building. A moment later he’s standing at the front desk. To his surprise, the front-desk clerk waves him up, doesn’t even ask for ID.

  “You’re expected,” the clerk says.

  Getting off the elevator on the fourteenth floor, he races down the hall to Susan’s apartment. He’s about to knock on the door when it opens. Susan’s on the other side, a sick look on her face. She glances down as he walks past, through the hall, and into the living room.

  “Look what the cat dragged in,” Tommy says.

  “You’re fucking kidding me,” he says to the pathetic lump crumpled in the corner, his arms wrapped around his knees, which are drawn nearly to his chin. His eyes are blackened and swelling, his nose obviously busted.

  Martin Brenner.

  “He assaulted me,” the federal prosecutor whines. “Your brother.”

  He ignores Brenner and motions for Susan to follow him into the bedroom. He closes the door behind them as Susan takes a seat on the bed.

  “I’m so humiliated,” she says, the tears starting to flow.

  He pulls the chair from her makeup table and sits across from her.

  “It’s all right,” he says. “Just tell me what’s going on. We’ll take care of it.”

  He leans back to give Susan space. After a moment, she tells him everything.

  “Martin was seven years my senior and already a star at the US Attorney’s Office when I joined up. Everyone seemed to defer to him. I was in my second year when he asked me to second-chair a big RICO case with him. I was thrilled. To be noticed by someone like Martin, let alone be asked to try a case with him, was an honor. We won, of course, thanks to Martin. He was a genius at trial. He shredded the defendants and all of their witnesses. The verdict came in late on a Friday. Afterward, Martin asked me to join him for a drink. But you know how it goes. One drink leads to two, and then three. We both got plastered, and I did something stupid. Martin was engaged, and I was seeing someone. We agreed it couldn’t happen again. And both of us were good in honoring the agreement . . . until we weren’t. We got together on and off for almost a year. Then Martin got married, and I told him we were done . . . but I let it go on for another few months. Then his wife got pregnant, and I told him that was it. That time I meant it. We didn’t see each other outside the office for half a year. Then one night he ran into me on the street, and we had a drink together. One drink. After which we left and went our separate ways.

  “It was over for me. And I thought it was over for him. But a week later, Martin showed up at my place. I was renting a small house in South Philly then. He banged on the door until I let him in. He was plastered. He told me he loved me, was ready to leave his wife—who was eight months pregnant. It made me sick, what he was doing, what he was saying to me. I told him so. I told him to get the hell out of my house. He made a play, but I pushed him away. Jesus . . .”

  Susan closes her eyes, clenches her fists.

  He reaches out for her, but she slaps his hand away.

  “Did you go to the police?” he asks. “Tell someone you worked with?”

  “And admit what a moron I was? That I’d been sleeping with a colleague all during his engagement? And after he was married? While his wife was about to give birth? No fucking way.”

  He sits back and lets Susan gather herself. He’s known for a long time that her romantic life was less balanced than her professional life, but he never guessed she would have let things get so out of hand.

  “That’s when I moved out of the house I was renting and bought a place here, at the Towers, where they have security. It’s also when I announced I was leaving the US Attorney’s Office, and when I came to work with you and Lou.”

  He nods, thinks about what she’s told him. “That was five years ago. Why is he bothering you now?”

  She lowers her head and closes her eyes for a long time. She exhales and looks up at him.

  “I didn’t hear from him again until about six months ago. He called me out of the blue, apologized for what an asshole he’d been to me. He asked if I’d meet him for lunch. I said no. He accepted my refusal, and we hung up on friendly terms. Over the next few days, I thought about his apology and how he didn’t put up a fight when I turned him down for lunch. I called him back and said I’d changed my mind. I told him to meet me at Bank & Bourbon. He was friendly during lunch, but he seemed preoccupied. I asked him if something was the matter, and he told me that he and Heather were having troubles. That she’d told him she didn’t want to be married to him anymore because he worked too hard and didn’t pay enough attention to her and the girls.”

  Mick’s chest tightens. He’d had the same conversation with Piper a few years back, when their own marriage had come perilously close to failing.

  “I offered my sympathy and suggested they see a counselor.”

  She pauses and looks inward, a storm of emotions crashing behind
her eyes.

  “Let me guess,” he says. “You became his counselor. His shoulder to cry on.”

  Her face now filled with rage, she says, “It was bullshit. All of it. His marriage wasn’t on the rocks, at least as far as Heather knew. He made it all up to get back in with me.”

  She doesn’t offer any more details, and he doesn’t ask her to. He already knows what happened between them.

  “At some point, you figured out he was lying and you tried to call things off, but he wouldn’t have it. He started stalking you.”

  She exhales.

  “How did he keep getting into the building?”

  She lets out a bitter laugh. “He moved here, that’s how. A few months ago. With his wife and his two daughters. He bought a two-bedroom apartment a couple of floors down. He comes up here first thing in the morning, or before he goes home from work. Knocks on the door, calls my name. He knows I won’t let him in. I don’t think he even cares anymore. I think he just wants to torture me for turning him down.”

  “How did he get in the other week? I assume he was the one who trashed your place.”

  “The prick called a locksmith to the building. He met the guy in the lobby and brought him up to my floor, pretended that my apartment was his. What am I going to do? I see his wife in the elevator, with their daughters. We make small talk. She has no idea.”

  Susan closes her eyes again, shakes her head.

  “What happened tonight?”

  “What happened is he’s been coming up here every half an hour or so, knocking on my door, asking me to let him in. He’s been calling, too. Apparently Heather is out of town with the girls. The last time, I opened the door a crack—it has a security chain—to tell him to get lost. He pushed the door, and the chain broke. At the same time, the elevator rang. The next thing I knew, Tommy rushed up and tackled him from behind.” She pauses and stares at him, a confused look on her face. “How did Tommy know to be here?”

  Mick weighs whether to tell her about Giacobetti. “We’ll get to that. Just keep on with what happened after Tommy tackled him.”

  “Tommy asked if this was the guy who’s been bothering me, and I told him yes. That’s when Tommy clobbered him and threw him into the corner.” She stops and stares at the floor.

  “Come on,” he says, standing and reaching down for her. She rejects his hand but follows him back out into the living room.

  “I want to get up,” Brenner says.

  “Sure, we can go another round,” Tommy says.

  “Mick, please,” Brenner pleads.

  “Let him up,” he says.

  Tommy backs away, and Brenner slowly lifts himself to a standing position.

  “Look at this, goddamn it. I’m dripping blood.”

  “You’re breaking our hearts,” Tommy says. Then he looks at Mick and asks, “What do you want me to do with him?”

  Mick turns to Brenner. “It depends. How soon are you going to list your apartment?”

  Brenner’s eyes grow wide, then he slumps, resigned. “This week,” he answers. “I’ll call an agent this week.”

  “Not this week,” he says. “Tomorrow. You’ll hire an agent tomorrow, have the place listed the next day.”

  “And how am I going to explain that to my wife?”

  “Tell her the neighborhood scares you,” he says. “You’re hearing things at work about a new crime wave in Society Hill.”

  Brenner is fuming now. “And this?” he says, pointing to his pulverized face. “What do I tell my wife about this?”

  Tommy answers, “You were attacked on the way home from work. Fits in perfectly with the crime-wave story.”

  Mick and Tommy laugh. Even Susan cracks a smile.

  “You’re having a lot of fun with this, eh, Mick?”

  Before he can answer, Tommy shoves the taller man against the wall, slaps his face with his left hand, grabs his throat with the right.

  “Hey, asshole,” Tommy hisses, “no one’s having fun here. This is all fucked-up. What you’ve been doing to Susan. And for her, it’s going to end right now. Or it’s going to end very, very badly for you.”

  Brenner’s wide eyes turn to Mick, pleading silently. Tommy tells him, “Look at me. From this minute on, and for the rest of your miserable life, I’m going to be looking for some reason, some excuse, hell, any excuse—to end you. You go near Susan again, knock on her door one more time, call her, or walk past her on the street, and I will find you. I will bash your brains in. Understand?”

  The veins in Tommy’s temple are throbbing now. His face is red.

  Brenner’s mouth is wide open, his eyes bulging. He nods his head, fast.

  “Yes, yes,” says courtroom lion Martin Brenner. “I get it. I get it.”

  Tommy releases Brenner and steps back.

  Brenner stands frozen in place, his hands shaking.

  “Now it’s my turn, Martin,” Mick says. “Two days from now, I’m going to pull up the multiple-listing service online. If I don’t see your apartment for sale, I’m going to have a meeting with your boss. I’m going to tell him everything Susan has told me. And you’re going to lose your job, your license, and maybe even go to jail. Unless, of course, I’m wrong and your boss decides I’m making the whole thing up. Which would not be good for you at all. Because if that happens, I’m going to call my brother. And Tommy will mete out his particular form of justice.”

  Brenner puts up his hand, extends his arm, and shakes his head. No más.

  “Come on,” Tommy says, taking Brenner by the arm and crossing the room. When they get to the doorway, Mick tells Tommy to wait a minute.

  “I want to have a word alone with Martin before he leaves.”

  Tommy and Susan stay inside while he addresses Brenner in the hallway.

  “What now?” Brenner asks when he closes the door.

  “Nunzio,” he says. “You’re done with him. No more threats of convening a grand jury. No more harassing his family. And, of course, no more talking to Susan about it.”

  “But . . . just dropping the case out of nowhere? I’ll look like an idiot!”

  “You are an idiot.”

  He calls Tommy out to the hallway.

  “Tommy, please take Martin into the stairwell. Martin, you’re going to walk to your apartment. You’re going to call the police and tell them you were mugged just outside your building. Right in the middle of the plaza. Undoubtedly by the guys perpetrating the crime wave you’ve learned about at work. You’ll make sure your medical records are peppered with references to your having been assaulted outside.”

  He watches Tommy escort Martin into the stairwell. Then he returns to Susan’s apartment. She’s sitting on the couch, elbows on her knees, staring at the floor.

  “I just don’t get it, Susan. Why didn’t you report Brenner to the police when he started in on you again a few months ago?”

  “And say what? That I’m just some stupid girl who lets herself get played or bullied? I’m not a victim, Mick. I won’t have people see me that way.”

  He wants to grab her and shout, “But you made yourself into a victim by not reaching out for help! By not calling the police or Brenner’s bosses, your former colleagues, or me. You had resources, people who care about you, and you didn’t reach out!”

  Instead, he says, “Why didn’t you at least tell Armand? He looks pretty tough. He could’ve straightened Brenner out.”

  “Armand was a . . . distraction. A pastime.”

  “Was?”

  “It’s over. I went to his house the other night and broke it off. For good, this time.”

  They sit quietly for a while, until Susan breaks the silence. “Your brother. The look on his face when he went after Martin . . .”

  “Tommy’s a scary guy when he wants to be.”

  “And loyal. To you. To Piper.”

  “To his friends, too.”

  Just then, the front door opens, and Tommy walks down the hall to the living room.

  Susan
stares up at him from the couch, and Mick can tell she’s trying to make up her mind about something.

  He gets up to leave.

  “Come on,” he says to Tommy. “Let’s go.”

  “Wait,” Susan says, standing. Then, to Tommy: “Could you stay for a while? In case he comes back?”

  He looks at Tommy, seeing in his brother’s eyes that they’re sharing the same thought: Martin Brenner isn’t coming back, and Susan knows it.

  Mick exits the building. He spots the black Escalade parked behind his car and watches as the driver’s window rolls down. He recognizes Giacobetti and walks up to him.

  “I assume you took care of your problem,” Johnny G. says. “Did you take care of ours, too?”

  “There won’t be a grand jury,” he says flatly. “I don’t like being played.”

  “Says the pipe organ.”

  “Fuck you,” he says, and turns away. From behind him, he hears Nunzio’s enforcer chuckling.

  32

  MONDAY, JUNE 17

  It’s just before 9:00, and Mick is in the holding cell adjacent to courtroom 1007, where Nunzio’s trial will be held and where jury selection is about to start. He’s making one final push to get Nunzio to let him in on the secret strategy the mobster has been holding back.

  “I need to know where our defense is headed,” Mick says. “Otherwise, Pagano’s going to tell a story that I’ll have no answer to.”

  “You can always wait until after the prosecution’s case to give your opening,” Nunzio says.

  “Bad idea. Eighty percent of jurors make up their minds after openings. I need a speech that’s just as persuasive as Pagano’s if we’re going to have any chance here. At the very least, I need enough information to offer up a theme for our case.” Common themes for criminal defense counsel include the “rush to judgment” song and dance used in the OJ case—the idea that the police latched on to the first suspect and never bothered to undertake a full investigation. Another theme, particularly popular in Philly, is “The police are lying.” Mick knows that neither theme will work in this case, though: Nunzio was caught at the crime scene with the murder weapon in hand.