by Adam Mitzner
There was more, but I tuned it out after that. Instead, my mind swirled with the things I wanted to say to Brooks as soon as the service was over.
• • •
As a technical matter, the professional rules governing attorney conduct prohibit a lawyer from communicating with someone represented by counsel. And had L.D. been alive, and there was a chance gathering in which both Brooks and I were in attendance, I would not have spoken to him.
But now that L.D. was dead, I no longer had a client. Besides, I didn’t see much chance of Brooks turning me in to the committee on professional responsibility. More to the point, I didn’t much care.
“Mr. Brooks,” I called out in what I thought was my most serious voice.
He was shaking hands with the priest. Jason Evans stood beside him, looking into the distance as if he were scouring for potential snipers.
“Dan,” Brooks said, walking toward me, Evans a step behind. “I thought we were on a first-name basis.”
I ignored his effort to invoke familiarity between us. “That was quite a performance,” I said.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“It’s a rare man with balls so big that he’ll eulogize a man he murdered.”
“Is that what you think you just heard?” Brooks’s smile told me that he recognized it wasn’t a denial.
“You knew that L.D. was going to testify,” I said. “That’s why you had him killed.”
“Dan . . . I know you want me to be the villain of this story, but it’s just not so. The truth is that getting killed in prison just isn’t all that hard. Especially if you’re a goddamn hothead, like L.D. You know, somebody killed Jeffrey Dahmer in prison, too. That doesn’t mean he didn’t eat all those people. The simple fact is that L.D.’s death had nothing to do with me. He got in the wrong guy’s face, and he paid for it. Simple as that.”
He smiled again at me, and I would have punched that grin off his face but for the fact that Evans would have killed me and that, being this was a funeral, it was hardly the place. “It’s not over,” I said.
“Yes, Dan, it is,” he replied.
Brooks pushed past me, and Evans followed, deliberately bumping me with his wide body. They walked down the hill to Brooks’s waiting Bentley. Evans opened the back passenger door, and shut it behind Brooks. Then he walked around to the driver’s side and they drove away.
50
The time just after trial has its own rhythm. Of course, its cadence will differ markedly based on whether you’ve won or lost.
At Taylor Beckett, a successful verdict always merited a weeklong series of high fives, and a lavish celebratory dinner with the trial team, which included anyone who billed a tenth of an hour to the case. Congratulatory emails would come from friends and firm elders, reporters would call for a pithy quote, and the firm’s PR machine would place articles in legal journals touting your genius. And if all that weren’t enough, you also had the undying love and admiration of your client.
Losing went the other way, but with ten times the force. Every judgment was called into question, and the firm treated you like something of a pariah, with the joke being that instead of paying millions of dollars for a Taylor Beckett defense, the client would have achieved the same result with a legal team comprised of monkeys. Worst of all, the client blamed you, and only you, for his plight, as if the conduct in which he’d engaged bore no relationship to the verdict.
Technically, the result here was a mistrial. The legal equivalent of a tie. But no loss ever felt as empty.
When I returned from the funeral, I called out Nina’s name. Nothing.
For a moment I panicked, but then I saw a note on the dining room table. It was sitting on top of a Redweld filled with trial exhibits.
D—I headed home for a little bit. Need to see what my apartment looks like, pay bills, drop off dry-cleaning. The stuff I haven’t done in forever. Be back soon.
Love you
—N.
I stared at the closing Love you. Nina loved me.
For the first time in a long time, I was again alone. It seemed reason enough to pour myself a scotch.
When I poured myself a second one, I decided that this was as good a time as any to purge my living space of L.D. The files covering my dining room table weren’t going to go away by themselves, and as long as they were out, it was like L.D. was still here, too.
When a case ended at Taylor Beckett, a team of legal assistants cataloged all the documents and prepared an index so if the files were ever needed again they could be easily retrieved. Then the guys in the mailroom boxed everything up and sent them to one of the several off-site, long-term storage facilities the firm used. Before 9/11, the firm used one facility in New Jersey, but after the Trade Center attack, the firm spread out the files, just in case al-Qaeda decided to strike a warehouse in Weehawken next. I’d never had occasion to actually visit any of the storage facilities, but I’d been told they looked similar to the final scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark, nothing but aisles and aisles of identical boxes.
The process of closing a file at Sorensen and Harrington amounted to my throwing everything into a giant box. What I was going to do with the giant box after it was full was still undetermined.
First I threw the Redwelds and exhibit folders into the box without a second thought. Our case research—all the stuff about exclusion of evidence we’d gathered for the motion in limine—went in next. God, Nina had really done a lot of research on that, all for naught, of course.
When I grabbed the pathology report, I stopped short before adding it to the heap. I sat down at the dining room table and started to flip through the pages. I suppose I wanted one last look at Roxanne before closing her up in the box.
The image of her vacant eyes in the autopsy photos was as haunting as ever. It occurred to me that L.D. was not the only person I’d failed in this case.
Underneath the forensic photos was the juvenile record for the other Nelson Patterson. The mug shot was staring up at me. I was about to toss it in with the rest when something occurred to me.
I couldn’t believe it. I stared down at the photo of this fifteen-year-old Nelson Patterson.
Why hadn’t I seen it before? But Nina and Kaplan had apparently missed it, too. And, of course, it wasn’t something L.D. told us, although he undoubtedly knew as well. Ironically, it wasn’t a lie that angered me. If anything, this lie made me proud of L.D.
• • •
I drove straight to Brownsville and headed directly for the Tilden Houses, building number three. The door was still propped open and the elevator still didn’t work. The smell in the staircase hadn’t improved either.
“Remember me?” I said when Nuts opened the door.
“Lawyer dude, right? Where’s the hot chick?”
“Just me today.”
“Don’t know why you here, but you better get to the point fast.”
“I know that you’re the real Nelson Patterson,” I said in a flat but sure voice.
He hesitated for a moment, which I took to be a good sign. It meant I couldn’t be that off base.
“Do you mind if I come in?” I said. “There are some things I need to talk to you about that require privacy.”
He didn’t say anything, but when he stepped aside, I walked by him. Then he shut the door behind me, still without saying a word.
“How’d you find out?” he asked, all bravado vanished.
“The mug shot,” I said.
He laughed, a borderline maniacal cackle. “Shit. I figured all black guys look alike to white dudes.”
“After I saw you at the funeral this morning, I was putting away the file and I came upon the mug shot, and it clicked. But it’s not the only picture of you that I have, Nelson.”
“Don’t call me that.”
He said this with anger. For a moment I thought he might lash out, even before I got to the stuff that I thought might actually make him take a swing at me.
I
slid the manila folder out of my coat pocket and handed it to him. “These were taken by Matt Brooks. Long lens, probably infrared.”
He opened the clasp, his hands moving almost in slow motion. I watched his eyes carefully, looking for any type of tell.
It was very minor, but he twitched at the first picture. It was the kind of reaction that would have been a full-fledged flinch but for my presence. He flipped through the last two, and when he was finished he let the subtlest smile slip through.
The smile gave it all away. He was pleased that his face wasn’t visible.
“What the fuck do I care if L.D. liked to suck cock,” Nuts said.
“Not going to fly anymore, Nuts. I know.”
“Yeah? What the fuck you think you know?”
“Changing your name doesn’t change the way things are.” I waited a beat. “I know that’s you with L.D.”
“Like fuck it is.”
He took a step toward me. At that moment it occurred to me how ill conceived my plan had been. No one even knew I was here.
He pushed me against the wall. His massive forearm was under my chin, pressing against my throat.
“Hold on. I’m not the enemy here.”
He pushed in even tighter, and I could feel his weight against me, my throat even more constricted. He snarled, spraying spit in my face.
“I’m pretty much your best friend right now,” I managed to squeeze out.
“How you figure,” he said, spitting as much as speaking.
“The way I see it, the best thing you got going for you is that, right now, I know you and L.D. were lovers, but Matt Brooks doesn’t.”
There was a momentary standoff. I could almost see the wheels turning inside Nuts’s head. How sure was I that it was him in the photos? Would I really tell Brooks? And if I did, what would Brooks do?
The increased pressure on my larynx made me realize that he might just conclude that the safest out for him was to eliminate that possibility by killing me right here.
“Brooks gave me these pictures,” I said, finding it difficult to speak with his forearm crushing against my windpipe. “It was his effort to convince L.D. not to testify. When L.D. wasn’t persuaded, Brooks had him killed. What do you think will happen if I tell him that you were L.D.’s lover? You think he won’t figure that you and L.D. shared secrets? Some pillow talk? And that means that he’s coming for you next. You’re just as much a threat to him as L.D.”
“That’s reason enough for me to make sure you don’t tell him.”
His forearm pressed harder against my throat.
“Back the fuck off me!” I barked. “You think my partner—the hot one—doesn’t know I’m here? You think I didn’t tell her to tell Matt Brooks and then the cops everything—in that order—if I don’t call her in ten minutes?”
I pushed him hard. He felt like iron, and barely budged. But then, having nothing to do with my effort, he stepped back.
I swallowed a few times in rapid succession, and then rubbed my throat. I could feel my heart rate begin to settle down, my fight-or-flight response returning to normal.
From the look in Nuts’s eyes I could tell that he’d folded to my bluff. He wasn’t going to attack me again.
“So what do you want?” he said in a defeated voice. “Money?”
“No, I don’t want your money. I want your help. I want you to make things right.”
51
When I got home, the apartment smelled like garlic. Nina was in the kitchen, wearing one of my old T-shirts and my blue sweats. Her hair was unruly, and she didn’t have on any makeup, a look that led me to conclude that she hadn’t yet showered. And wouldn’t you know it, she looked spectacular.
“I’m making lasagna,” she said. “I knew today was going to be tough for you, and I was feeling a little guilty about bailing on you . . . so I figured that the least I could do was make you some comfort food for dinner.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“Do you want some wine? I bought a nice bottle of Chianti.”
“Thanks, but do you mind if I pour myself a scotch?”
“You’re back to that? I was kind of hoping I’d weaned you off the hard stuff.”
“Like you said, today was kind of a tough day.”
She didn’t acquiesce, but didn’t say no either. That was good enough for me.
As I was pouring, she said, “I’m sorry I didn’t go with you. I just couldn’t.”
“No, you were right. Brooks gave the eulogy. I wanted to throw up.”
Nina smiled at me, and my mind flashed on the day I met L.D., the first time I took true notice of Nina’s smile. It still made me weak.
Love you—N.
“It wasn’t a total waste,” I said. “I got us a new client.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really. I figured we either had to get a new client or go out of business.”
“So you just went out and picked one off the client tree? Who is it?”
“A gentleman you know by the name of Nuts.”
“Whoa. L.D.’s Nuts?”
“How many guys named Nuts do you think there are?”
She rolled her eyes at me. “And what are we doing for this fine citizen?”
I laughed. “Give you one guess as to the identity of L.D.’s mystery lover?”
Her eyes widened. “No.”
“Yes. But wait, there’s more. Guess who’s really in that old mug shot of L.D.?”
“That’s Nuts? You’re kidding, right?”
“Far from it. They go back a lot of years. Even before L.D. and Mercedes. Nuts told me that after Mercedes got pregnant, L.D. asked her to marry him, but she already suspected that he was gay, even if he hadn’t fully admitted it to himself yet. Apparently, he and Mercedes were together during that period when he thought he could will himself out of it. She told L.D. that the best thing for her, for their baby, and for him was that he be true to himself. And so L.D. went back to Nuts to live happily ever after. Fast-forward a few years, and Matt Brooks tells him that he couldn’t be Calvin Merriwether and be a rap star, and so L.D. and Nuts agreed that L.D. would just take his name and backstory.”
“And Nuts just admitted all of this to you?”
“First he thought about beating the hell out of me. And he nearly did, too. But I suggested a way he could avenge L.D.’s death, and then he calmed down.”
“How can he do that?”
“By giving Lisa Kaplan proof about Matt Brooks’s affair with Roxanne.”
“What proof?”
“He wouldn’t say. But what he did tell me was that he had it and it was ironclad.”
“And L.D. didn’t know about it?”
“Nuts said that he did.” I chuckled. “When all is said and done, L.D. turned out to be quite chivalrous. He wanted to keep Nuts out of it, even if that made it more likely he’d be convicted.”
“So why’d Nuts tell you?”
I smiled at her. “Because I threatened him.”
“With what?”
“I think the technical term is bluffing,” I said with a sly grin. “I told him that I knew he had proof of Brooks’s affair with Roxanne because L.D. had told us that he did. His reaction told me that it was actually true. So then I told him that he had one of two choices: tell the DA everything he knew and live out a happy life in the witness protection program, or I’d make sure word got out to Brooks about what he knew, and then he was a dead man.”
“And Nuts didn’t tell you what he had?”
“Nope. I told him that I didn’t want to know until we were with the ADA. I didn’t want anyone claiming that he’d been coached. But whatever it is, he said that only he knows about it, and apparently he’s got some corroborating proof too.”
“Even if Nuts can prove Brooks was sleeping with Roxanne, what does it matter now?”
“Our favorite assistant district attorney thinks it matters a lot. While I was sitting with Nuts, I called Kaplan and told her what Nuts had told m
e. She was very interested to hear all about it. So much so that if Nuts’s information stands up, she’ll empanel a grand jury and get Brooks’s pubic hair. And once that happens, a lot of pieces are going to fall into place.”
“So what are we doing in all of this?”
“We’re escorting Nuts down to Lisa Kaplan first thing tomorrow morning. Eight thirty.”
• • •
Dinner tasted as good as it smelled. I took seconds on the lasagna, and before I had swallowed the last bite, the bottle of wine was empty.
After dinner, before we cleaned up, Nina led me by the hand to the bedroom. We stood at the foot of the bed, when Nina took a step back and pulled the T-shirt over her head. In a fluid motion, she kicked off the sweatpants.
“Isn’t it my job to undress you?” I said.
“Are you complaining?” she said back.
“A little. It’s couples in a rut that don’t undress each other.”
She favored me with a seductive smile. “I didn’t know that. Then permit me to undress you.”
• • •
I was awakened by Nina’s rustling. When I opened an eye, she was pulling on her shirt.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“I need to run to my apartment to get clothes for tomorrow. I’ll be back in a flash.”
“Don’t go,” I whined. “Get them in the morning.”
“You said we’re meeting at eight thirty. You want to wake up at six?”
“We’re just going to the DA’s office. Wear what you have here.”
“Your stained undershirt and sweatpants? Go back to sleep. You won’t miss me at all, and when I come back, I’ll make it worth your while.” Then she flashed that smile.
It took her less than forty-five minutes to make the round-trip. I was at the computer when she returned. She entered the bedroom wearing the suit I suspected she’d put on again in the morning, and wasn’t carrying anything else.
“You travel light,” I said.
“As you know, I don’t do pajamas. What are you looking at?”
“Travel sites. I was thinking that maybe we should go away. I’d originally thought we’d take a trip after the trial was over . . . and now maybe we just push it back a little bit and go as soon as the Nuts situation is finished.”
