That night I had dinner with an old friend, Emily Marks Willburton. After dinner, we walked through the Heights to the former carriage house where she lived. Very picturesque. Very private. Very expensive. Inside it was all antiques—highly polished wood glowed in the light from brass, black-shaded lamps. Her husband, Stan, back early from a bar association meeting, got up from a red, brass-studded leather chair, embraced me, and murmured how sorry he was about Nathan.
I sat on the matching leather couch while Stan went for brandy. Emily sat beside me, her long legs tucked under her like a child’s as I told them about the murders and my investigation. It was getting more coherent with each retelling. I wished I could have had it this together when I’d talked to Button.
Stan came in with snifters as I was getting started. He put Emily’s and mine on the coffee table and perched on the edge of the red chair, leaning forward, his elbows resting on his knees.
I’d known Emily since she’d taught Appellate Writing at NYU when I was a freshman law student. Now she had one of the best appellate practices in the city. Nearly fifty, she wore her long, graying black hair in a severe bun, which emphasized the classic lines of her face. Her father was Judge Julius Marks, of the Eastern District.
Stan was a complete contrast. Whereas Emily, with her father’s encouragement, had gone to Harvard Law School, Stan had pushed a hack by day and attended Brooklyn Law School by night. He had an exclusively criminal practice and headed the murder section of the Brooklyn 18-b panel. He was streetwise and tough, and if anyone could give me an insider’s view of Matt Riordan, it was he.
When I finished telling them how Riordan had warned me off the grass, there was silence for a few moments, though each was silent in a different way. Emily sat still, quiet and serene, collecting her thoughts in the same orderly way she wrote her devastatingly thorough appellate briefs. Stan was quiet in the way Nureyev stood still onstage—there was a strong sense of energy contained, of incipient movement.
Characteristically, Stan spoke first. “You want to know whether Riordan’s as bad as this guy Chessler thinks he is.” It was also typical of Stan to go straight to the point. I nodded.
“I had a case with him once. His client was a big-time drug seller. Major cocaine deal. My guy was a poor slob whose only crime was introducing the undercover cop to Mr. Big. Perfect agency defense, right?” He didn’t wait for an answer. I took his word for it. “So Mr. Big cops a plea to three to life. Sale Two. My guy goes to trial. What the hell—he’s got no record, all he did was to tell the cop where he could buy dope if he wanted it, he got about fifty bucks and a taste. Well, the upshot is, he gets convicted on a Sale One and is still doing twelve to life.”
“That just sounds like Riordan made a good deal for his client,” I protested. “Can’t blame him for that.”
“I don’t blame him,” Stan said, “though his clients always seem to get a better deal than anyone else’s. The thing is, his Mr. Big gets the break of a lifetime while the judge comes down really hard on my poor slob after trial, giving him more than the minimum, making all kinds of nasty remarks on the record. You see, Cass, it was the same judge.”
“I get it. He was death on drugs when it came to sentencing your guy, but he treated Riordan’s guy, who was the real drug seller, with kid gloves.”
“Exactly.”
“You think the judge was bought?”
“Who knows? All I know is Riordan gets dream pleas from judges who’d give their grandmothers the maximum.”
Emily spoke up. “I’ve seen several of his records on appeal. He’s a good lawyer. He does sail a little close to the wind, though. A couple of his alibis, for instance.…” She trailed off, but her meaning was clear.
“Phony alibis,” I nodded. “That squares with what Chessler said.”
Stan leaned even further forward in his chair, spreading his stubby hands toward me. “You gotta understand how things are done, Cass. It’s not that simple. Maybe he says to his client, ‘You know, Joe, it would help your case a lot if you had an alibi.’ He doesn’t say, ‘Joe, cook up a phony alibi.’ Nothing that crude. But Joe gets the message. The next day there are twenty guys on Riordan’s doorstep, ready to swear they were playing poker with Joe. See what I mean? It’s a fine line. Riordan doesn’t tell Joe to fake an alibi, and he certainly doesn’t suborn perjury. But he does put witnesses on the stand that he’s got to have serious doubts about. That, however, is not unethical. That’s how Riordan works.”
“Just do what you have to do and don’t tell me about it,” I said with some bitterness. “Like Watergate.”
“Right. Which is why I don’t believe Riordan himself would get to Blackwell. He wouldn’t want to know about it if Stone had it done, but that’s a very different thing from doing it himself.”
“But,” I tried to put this into words, “isn’t Stone kind of a special client? I mean, he’s not a dope dealer or anything. He was a respected man, a borderline criminal. In that gray area between sharp business practices and outright stealing. Maybe Riordan wouldn’t pay off a witness for just any client, but maybe he’d go a little further for a Burton Stone.”
“I doubt it.” Stan was firm. “Matt Riordan is the consummate professional. Call him a hired gun if you will, but he does a hell of a job for his clients. But even for Stone, I don’t see him risking his own professional life by getting to a witness.” Emily nodded. It was a strong consensus.
“Okay, so Riordan didn’t do the dirty work himself. Wasn’t Stone out on bail?”
“My memories are fairly shaky,” Emily began, “but aside from the difficulty of anyone who knew Stone getting in to see Blackwell, there’s the problem of competence. As I recall the trial, the questions asked by Riordan were detailed. It would be hard for a layman to build a crossexamination like that and then tell Blackwell exactly what to say. It tailored so perfectly with Riordan’s defense tactics that it almost had to be planned by someone as good at cross-examination as he is.”
“And there aren’t that many people, even lawyers, about whom that could be said,” Stan added.
“All right. So Riordan planned it and somebody else carried messages,” I said.
Stan gave me a wry smile. “You sure want Riordan to be the heavy here, Cass. Look, you’re a criminal lawyer. Who would you trust to take messages like that—and get them right?”
I reluctantly admitted that Stan had a point. But I had one too. “If it wasn’t Riordan, who was it?”
While her husband and I argued, Emily looked thoughtful. “You know,” she said slowly, “what I don’t understand is why Del Parma let Charlie Blackwell go into the system at all.”
“What choice did he have?” I asked.
“I had a case on appeal,” she explained. “My client was arrested and taken straight to the World Trade Center, to Parma’s office, for questioning. He didn’t get arraigned until after he’d made his little deal with Parma.”
“And that was upheld on appeal?” I asked incredulously. “Whatever happened to the right to a speedy arraignment?”
“It didn’t have to be upheld,” Stan cut in. “Parma got what he wanted anyway. But that’s a good question—if the Special Prosecutor was so interested in Blackwell, wouldn’t they have tried to get to him before he had counsel?”
“If they knew about him,” I objected. “He was busted for drugs. They didn’t even know he was still alive until Nathan called to make the appointment.”
“Maybe.” Stan looked skeptical. “But I can’t believe Parma wasn’t keeping tabs on Blackwell in some way.”
The thought was a tantalizing one. If Charlie had been taken to the World Trade Center before arraignment, he might have made his deal before even meeting Nathan. There would be no need to eliminate Nathan to prevent information from getting to Parma because he’d already have it. And Nathan would be alive. It didn’t bear thinking about.
SIXTEEN
“Motion granted. The defendant is hereby ordered released
from custody on her own recognizance.” Justice Harvey Krantz said the magic words that would finally let Digna Gonzalez out of jail. I’d had to go to the Appellate Division to do it, but it was worth it. Not only was Digna free, but it was one in the eye for Di Anci. His father, of course, had excused himself from hearing the case. I wondered idly which way he’d have gone if he’d been there.
I celebrated by stopping at Goldberry’s, the fancy natural food restaurant Dorinda works at. Like many Montague Street shops, it’s located on the parlor floor of an old brownstone. I climbed the iron staircase, my footsteps echoing hollowly, and found a seat near the window. It was late for lunch, so there were plenty of empty tables.
Dorinda saw me and smiled, then came over to my table. I asked her if she could talk. She looked around at the customers with the eye of a practiced waitress and estimated she’d be free in ten minutes or so. I ordered coffee and asked what there was for dessert.
“Carrot cake. Apple walnut cake. And banana tofu pie.”
“What’s tofu?”
“Bean curd.”
“I’d rather die.” I opted for carrot cake and opened the transcript while I waited. I still hadn’t finished the last few pages.
Redirect was short and aimless. Even on the printed page I could see Del Parma flailing around, trying to hit the note that would erase the damage Riordan had done on cross. He didn’t succeed. And he didn’t introduce the 730 reports. The fact that they contained no reference to flying saucers was a negative inference at best. Maybe none of Blackwell’s shrinks had ever asked him about space travel.
Riordan didn’t bother to recross. No gilder of lilies he.
Dorinda brought the carrot cake and sat down in the chair opposite me, dwarfing it. The chairs were the little wire-backed kind they had at soda fountains in the 1930s. They were painted bright yellow and had white cushions.
“God, this place is a bummer,” Dorinda sighed.
“Bad day?”
“It’s so damned artsy. I mean, look at this decor, for God’s sake.” I murmured something sympathetic through a mouth full of carrot cake. It was rich and spicy. The frosting was lemony with a tangy edge I hoped wasn’t yogurt but probably was.
“And the menus.” She went on. “Pure flower child. J.R.R. Tolkien, for God’s sake.”
“Dorinda, you’ve seen the goddamn menus before. I’ll admit line drawings of Tom Bombadil and quotes from The Fellowship of the Ring are cloying, but.…”
She picked up a menu. It was hand-lettered in a fairly readable approximation of Tolkien’s elvish runes. “Listen to this. “The table is all laden with yellow cream, honeycomb, and white bread and butter. Goldberry is waiting.’ I may puke.”
“I may join you. There’s yogurt in this frosting. I’m sure of it.”
That diverted her. “Yogurt is good for you. I made that frosting myself.”
“Oh. Well, the cake is fabulous. You know I loathe yogurt. But the question is why this place is getting to you today and not yesterday or the day before.”
“It got to me yesterday and the day before. You just weren’t here to hear it.”
“There’s more to it than that.”
“Yeah. I made my brown rice salad for Suzanne. You know, the one you like, with the artichoke hearts. She won’t use it. Says it’s too health-foody. Some natural food restaurant, turning down a dish because it’s too healthy.”
“Seems to me any place that serves pie made out of bean curd—”
“It’s not moving. And it was my idea. When I get my own place.…”
“I hate to say it, Dorinda, but you’ll get your own place the day I get a job as a professional photographer. Which means never. You need capital to open a restaurant. If you’d find yourself an old man with bread instead of the stray artists you’re always picking up.…”
“Are you referring to Claude?”
“Who the hell is Claude?”
“This guy I met at a party in Vinegar Hill. We spent the weekend together. He’s a woodcarver, and he has wonderful eyebrows.”
“Dorinda, for God’s sake. Someday you’re going to be killed in your bed by some guy with wonderful eyebrows.”
She got up to serve coffee to the remaining customers, then brought the pot back and poured us each a cup. I scraped the frosting off and ate the rest of the carrot cake.
“How’s the investigation going?” she asked when she came back.
“It looks as though Riordan is still the only person with motive,” I answered. “He fixed the Stone case, Blackwell knew it, and Blackwell told Nathan. Now they’re both dead.”
“But?”
“But I can’t prove anything. Oh, I know Riordan’s on trial in the building, but he wasn’t there for night court. How did he know Blackwell had even been arrested, let alone that he had something to say to the Special Prosecutor? Nathan said Charlie didn’t even want the judge to know about that. So how did Riordan find out?”
“Isn’t it a public record? Being arrested, I mean?” Dorinda asked.
“Well, sure, but—I see what you mean. Anybody could have seen it on the calendar.”
“And you said this guy split on his friends before,” Dorinda pointed out.
“So it was a safe bet that he’d do it again. Yeah, that makes sense,” I agreed.
“The real question is how did Riordan know that Charlie talked to Nathan?”
“Well, Nathan had to sign a book at the Brooklyn House to see Charlie,” I explained. “If Riordan went over there to see his own client, say, he could have seen the signature and put two and two together.”
“Maybe.” Dorinda looked dubious. “But it seems like a coincidence. Besides, how would he know that Nathan hadn’t already called the Special Prosecutor and told him everything on the phone?”
“It’s not the kind of thing you say on the phone,” I answered crossly. But it was a good question, and one for which I had no answer.
Back at the office, I ran into Sylvia Mintz. On her way out of the elevator, she said, “Cass, I’ve got a message for you.” Trust Sylvia to put it that way, I thought. You have a message. Not telling you what it is, but making you ask. It turned out that Milt Jacobs wanted to see me. She made it sound like I’d been summoned to the principal’s office.
When I reached his office, Milt was on the phone. I hovered in the doorway, trying to get his attention so I could tell him I’d come back later, but he motioned me in. I sat in one of the guest chairs and looked around the office. It hadn’t changed since the day Milt moved in three years earlier. Still no pictures on the wall, not even posters. No family snapshots. Even the calendar was the one given to all law offices by a major law publisher. Wholly impersonal. Milt could die tomorrow and someone else could move right in without having to clean anything out.
Milt put down the phone and looked at me. Then he picked it up and told Aurora, his secretary, to hold his calls. Whatever he wanted, it was important. And personal.
“I heard you were, ah, close to Nathan.” He wasn’t looking at me. His eyes were fixed firmly on a blank wall. I didn’t know how to make it any easier, so I just nodded.
“Ah, Detective Button was here Monday. You were out on a comp day or something.” I nodded again. I’d been seeing Del Parma. “He asked about Nathan’s caseload.”
I was excited. Maybe I’d been wrong about Button. He might discourage me to my face and then investigate Blackwell behind my back. Which didn’t bother me as long as he investigated.
“He was especially interested in a young man named Heriberto Diaz. Does that name ring a bell with you?”
I shook my head, bewildered. What did this have to do with Blackwell?
“Detective Button seems to think Nathan had a special relationship with this boy. He has evidence that the boy had been to Nathan’s apartment on several occasions. The boy has a—a history of homosexual relationships.”
So Button’s found his scapegoat, I thought. Some poor kid whom Nathan had been trying to
help and who just happened to be gay. I was exasperated.
“Milt, you know Nathan had clients to his apartment. To get them into programs or to help them get jobs. It didn’t mean anything. Okay, so this kid’s gay. That doesn’t mean Nathan was.”
There was a long pause. I didn’t know why. It was obvious Milt hated this conversation. Why was he prolonging it?
“Cassandra,” he finally said. He was still talking to a point on the wall, but now he was addressing it from much farther away. “I am really sorry about this. I didn’t want to be the one to tell you. In fact, I wouldn’t have told you if it hadn’t been for Flaherty telling me about you and Nathan.”
“Yeah, so?” I was more than a little annoyed at Flaherty. He should have consulted me before talking to Milt.
“Cassandra,” Milt said it so softly I could barely hear, “the fact is that Nathan was gay.”
“What?” I couldn’t believe I’d heard correctly. “What are you telling me? Where did you get that idea?”
“It’s true.” He said it with finality. “He was arrested in a men’s room when he was working in Manhattan. His firm hushed it up and put him on sick leave. But he couldn’t stop himself. He seemed compelled to go after boys in the most sordid surroundings. He stopped seeing his old friends. Even Sid Rosen and me. Finally his wife had enough and sued for divorce. The firm fired him. He drifted around for a while, then started seeing a shrink and asked me for a job. I knew about the arrest, but I also knew what a good lawyer he was. A good friend, too. So I hired him. Anything he did outside the job I figured was his own business.” Milt gave the wall a bleak smile. “He wasn’t the first Legal Aid lawyer with an underground sex life. We could run our own Gay Liberation Day parade. The thing is, I hoped he’d be discreet. Not pick up clients. Do you know how bad that would look in the Post, Cass? ‘Legal Aid Lawyer Having Sex with Seventeen-Year-Old Client’?”
“I can’t believe it,” I whispered. “Milt, I just don’t get this. I was Nathan’s lover! Me! Not some kid.” My voice began to rise. I cleared my throat and went on. “I just don’t know where all this is coming from except from Button’s depraved imagination.”
Dead Man's Thoughts Page 10
