by Mike Stewart
It took a while. When he had it, a one-line text box popped up on screen. I said, “Type in what I tell you,” and read off the jumbled password Zybo had given me.
And there it was: SERVICES PERFORMED FOR JUDGE LUTHER SAVIN.
There were dates, names, payments, and contacts at Russell & Wagler, as well as jobs for firms in Birmingham and Huntsville. Foxglove used the arrows on the right of the screen to scroll down through what looked like twenty or thirty pages of data.
Foxglove said, “Jeez,” and moved the cursor up to the print icon.
Sully and I yelled almost in unison, “No!”
The befuddled clerk said, “What? What’s wrong?”
Foxglove said, “Bullshit. I’m printing this out.” He clicked on print. The screen disappeared into a swirl, like water spinning down a drain, and filled again with a picture of two women. They were naked and engaged in a private recreational activity. We could only see one of their faces. Foxglove cussed.
I wanted to say, “I told you so,” but kept quiet. The prosecutor at the keyboard was red-faced. We gave him some time.
Finally he said, “Now what?”
“Do we have a deal?”
“Not unless we can get this back and print it.”
I stepped around to the other side of the computer to face him. “You screwed it up. And you’re saying, because it’s screwed up now, we don’t have a deal?”
Sully put his hand on my shoulder. “Tom.”
Foxglove leaned back in the clerk’s chair and exhaled loudly. “Fine. I fucked up. Now what do we do about it? I gotta have this stuff and it’s gotta check out before your guy walks. It’s that simple.”
I said, “Let me go talk to him.”
Zybo smiled. “I knew somebody’d do it. What a dumbass.”
“Congratulations. What do we do now?”
“He gonna give me de immunity?”
“If they can verify any of the stuff on your site. Enough of it to nail the judge and Wagler. Then, yeah, you’re going to walk away from this, Zybo.”
I could almost feel the tension leaving the man across from me. He said, “I need a piece of paper and a calculator.”
I reached into my briefcase and put what he needed on the table.
As Zybo worked, he explained. “De password it only works once. It gets generated new each time with a formula. Letters represent numbers. I gotta transpose ’em, run de formula with de old password, and get de new string. Den I advance by two each number dat used to be a letter and make dat new number a letter.”
“Thanks for clearing that up.”
He punched and scribbled. “Jus’ like a spreadsheet. Change one value and it roll throughout the cells, changin’ all de other values.”
“Yeah. That’s really fascinating. You know we’ve got to let him make copies this time.”
The Cajun dropped his pencil on the table and shoved the paper with the new password at me. “Okay. Here’s what you do. Go ’bout halfway down de report to a place where you see a bold ‘P’ off by itself …”
I started taking notes.
I stood beside a conference table strewn with printouts. Kai-Li’s jury research was stacked neatly in one corner.
“Well?”
Sully was smiling. Foxglove wasn’t. The sourpuss spoke first. “Looks like we’ve got most of the top partners at Russell and Wagler, as well as Luther Savin and maybe half a dozen other lawyers around the state.” He looked up at Sully. “I know you’re grinning because you got your client off, but this is not a happy day.”
I said, “Crooked lawyers are still crooks.”
He just nodded, stood up, and left the room.
Sully pushed back from the table and stretched. “He won’t let Zybo out until he gets something to verify all this. I guess you need to tell Zybo that.”
“How long before they execute search warrants?”
Sully stood and walked around the table. “They don’t share stuff like that with civilians, but my guess is Foxglove is applying for warrants as we speak. As connected as Savin is, they won’t wait to execute on them.”
“Tonight?”
“Probably. Look. Go talk with your client, or whatever he is. Tell him what’s going on, and let’s get the hell out of here.” He glanced around the room. “This fucking place is depressing.”
Thirty-five
Sully and I had hit the Bienville Club to celebrate. Now, as we drove across steely saltwater flats toward Point Clear, I melted into the seat. Good scotch flowed through my veins. Relief flowed over my brain and swept down my body like a woman’s touch, soothing aches and pains and smoothing tense muscles.
It was only midafternoon.
Sully broke the silence. “You drunk?”
“Nope. Just relaxed for the first time in God knows when.”
Up on the right, two old men fished from a flat-bottom boat. I pointed. One of them was reeling in a fish. “Those same two guys were out there fishing a few days ago when I came this way. Looks like they caught something.”
Sully smiled. As we got closer, the one whose line was empty stood and leaned out over the gunwale. He held a net ready for his friend’s fish. Something round and dark came up out of the water. Suddenly, the man with the net straightened up and snatched his head to the side. Dropping the net, the old man pulled a knife from his trousers, unfolded the blade, and sliced through the line.
I pointed. “See that?”
“Yeah. Looked like they hooked into a dead turtle.” Sully glanced over at me. “It happens.”
“I guess.” Twisting in my seat to look back, I asked, “Why do you think they’re the only ones out there?”
“Beats me.” A few seconds passed. “I guess maybe because it’s cold as hell. That’d keep me home. Or maybe they’re breaking the law. Is this even fishing season?”
I told him I didn’t know.
“I’ve been thinking about something,” he said. “What the hell was all that with Thibbodeaux and his website? I mean, what ever happened to safe-deposit boxes? Tom, that was some strange shit.”
“I thought about it too.”
“Decide anything?”
“Yeah. Smart and weird as hell with too much time on his hands.”
Sully glanced over at me. “How long it take you to come up with that?”
“Not long,” I said.
Sully dropped me at home before three. It’s a Wonderful Life was playing on the television screen when I walked in. The sound was off. Instead, Nat King Cole sang about chestnuts through my stereo speakers.
“Hello?”
“We’re in here.” It was Kai-Li’s voice. I hardly noticed the British accent anymore.
I walked through to the kitchen. Kai-Li stood at the stove, cooking something. Joey sat at the table, drinking my beer. He had a pink Band-aid on his chin.
I walked over behind Kai-Li and kissed the back of her neck. She said, “Someone’s been drinking.”
“Yep.”
Joey looked up at me. “Is it done?”
I pulled open the refrigerator door and grabbed a Foster’s. “They’re probably raiding Judge Savin’s house and Russell and Wagler’s offices as we speak.”
Kai-Li turned to face me. “I was afraid to ask.”
“I should’ve called.”
She stepped forward, wrapped her arms around my rib cage, and buried her face in my chest. The bruise Zybo had put there twinged a little when she hugged me. “I’m just glad it’s over,” she said.
I stroked her hair. It felt like silk. “Yeah,” I said, “me too.”
Joey drained his beer and stood. “If you two are gonna stand around gooin’ on each other, I’m goin’ home.” He pointed at the bandage on his chin. “I owe you for this by the way.”
“I had to make it look good. You should’ve ducked.”
He grinned. “I did. Truth is, you’re kinda fast for a pansy-ass lawyer.”
Kai-Li let go and turned back to the stove. I caught J
oey’s eye and nodded at her. “Thanks for keeping an eye on things here. We’re dealing with crazy people.”
“Any time.” Joey stopped in the kitchen door. “You sure y’all are gonna be fine now?”
“I think so. Go tell Loutie Blue hello for me.”
“The hell with that,” he said. “I’m gonna go tell her hello from me.”
And he left.
I stepped up behind Kai-Li and circled her waist with my left forearm. When I pulled her against me, her breathing felt labored and jerky. I reached up. Her cheeks were wet with tears.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know.” She took in a deep breath. “Partly relief, I imagine.” She shook her hair. “Lots of things. Saturday’s Christmas Eve. Sunny’s a thousand miles away.” She motioned over her shoulder at the living room. “Could be the music. Who knows?”
Three or four days after Kai-Li first arrived on my doorstep, I’d noticed that the phone tended to be busy when she was in my office “doing research.” It had taken me a few days more to realize she was talking to her daughter in Iowa. I suppose you don’t think of those things unless you have a kid of your own. At least, I didn’t.
“Have you called Sunny today?”
She nodded.
Placing my hands on her shoulders, I turned her toward me and gently kissed her lips. “Bad timing.” I put my arms around her waist. “I wonder if we’ll ever feel … you know, at the same time. Just a couple of emotional wrecks, huh?”
Kai-Li reached up and wiped the tears from her cheeks. She hooked her hands over my shoulders and leaned back to focus on my eyes. “Speak for yourself, Thomas. I’m sad, not dead.”
And, with that, she turned off the stove and led me by the hand through the living room, up the stairs, and into the bedroom, where holding each other was only the beginning.
I stood before the beachside windows in the living room, wishing it were warm enough to step out onto the deck. Broad strokes of purple and lavender, blended with a thousand shades of blue and gray, swept the glass square of sky before me. It was amazing. Outside, standing at the edge of the deck, it would have been something like a religious experience. Or maybe it just would have been nice. I was in an expansive mood. Not, apparently, expansive enough to walk out in thirty-degree weather in gym shorts.
Kai-Li’s bare feet made swishing sounds on the stairs. She came up behind me and circled my stomach with her arms, resting her chin on my shoulder from behind.
“Nice.”
“Yes,” I said, “it is.”
“What are you thinking about?”
I turned and slipped my arm around her waist. She stood next to me now. “Is this where I get in trouble if I say ‘nothing’?”
“Jerk.”
I smiled. “I was thinking it was too easy today.”
She pulled away. “I beg your pardon?”
“No, no. I don’t mean that. The thing with Zybo. That was too easy.”
“Oh.” She walked toward the kitchen. “I’m thirsty. You want something?”
I shook my head. She came back bringing me a Foster’s. I guess she didn’t believe me.
She took a sip of something brown from a tea glass. “You really are not a well man. Think about it, Thomas. You lost your license, almost got killed three times, and were dragged off by a Cajun murderer—I gather to witness his extermination of two law clerks.”
“You don’t know that. And only one of them was a law clerk. Young Billy was Savin’s demonic seed.”
“Colorful.”
“Thank you.”
She looked out at the sky. “Let’s see. You planted Loutie in the law firm, put Joey on this pretty much full-time, and engaged one of the finest psychologists in the country …” Kai-Li turned back to face me.
I held up my hand, palm down, and wiggled it from side to side.
“So,” she said, “just what in Hades was too easy for you.”
“Well, not the whole thing. Just the end.”
“The end is always easy. It’s how you know the problem is solved.” She poked my shoulder with her index finger. “Think about it.” Her eyes moved over my face, as thoughts dodged around in her skull. “But there’s something’s bothering me, too. Something you know and I don’t.”
I started to tell her not to bring up Chuck and Billy, but she anticipated my objection and waved it off.
“No. It’s not what you’re thinking. I’m just not sure I have a complete understanding of what you and Joey did here.” She took a sip of her drink. “I know you set Zybo up to be arrested, but I don’t understand why you’d take the chance. You couldn’t know he had information on the judge and Russell and Wagler. And you couldn’t know he’d turn state’s evidence.”
I turned the last few weeks over in my mind, deciding how much to tell her. Finally, I said, “Okay. You understand that I needed to get somebody—the judge, the law firm, or Zybo—to turn on their partners?”
She nodded.
“Well, I asked Sheri to fire me so I could get her into the law firm’s camp. That didn’t do us much good. Some, but not much. Loutie Blue got us almost everything we needed there—you know, the routing envelope and various bits of information. So that left Judge Savin and Zybo, and I started out trying to work both of them.
“When I first met with Judge Savin at the Mandrake Club, Zybo showed up the next day demanding to know what we had talked about. So, I knew then that he didn’t trust the judge. Then, when you and I had dinner with Judge Savin and Dr. Adderson, somebody who was not Zybo broke into my house and tried way too hard to make it look like another visit from the Cajun.”
She nodded. “Right. So then you knew that the judge was setting up Zybo to take the fall in case things went south for him.”
“Yeah. At least, I think it was the judge. I’d be surprised to learn that it wasn’t Billy Savin who bashed in the back window of the Land Rover that night.”
“No finesse.”
I agreed. “None, except maybe for the word IOWA scratched into the Safari’s paint job. That showed some level of thought. But it was still too heavy-handed for Zybo, and I figure that whoever did it—probably Billy or maybe Chuck, no way to know—was following the judge’s instructions. So, anyway, that’s where we stood. Zybo didn’t trust the judge, and the judge was beginning to set up Zybo. Unfortunately, Judge Savin figured out what I was up to, which I should have anticipated. Whatever else he is, the man’s very smart.
“At any rate, once the judge was onto us, we had to move fast before he either hired someone else to finish what Chuck and Billy started or figured out a way to frame me for everything that had happened.”
Kai-Li’s bright eyes shot around the room as her mind worked over the chain of events. “So you manipulated Zybo—using the routing envelope from Russell and Wagler and his arrest record with Judge Savin’s fingerprints all over it …”
I interrupted. “I doubt he checked for fingerprints, but making sure the judge had his literal, as well as his figurative, prints all over the arrest record was a nice added detail.
“So,” I said, “getting back to why we set up Zybo for the arrest …”
“You didn’t have much choice.”
She was right. “Not much. But Joey had a friend with the ABI in Montgomery call the Mobile cops about a ‘Cajun hit man’ so, number one, the cops would have someone besides us raising Zybo’s name and, number two, it helped to put Zybo under more pressure. The fact that the ABI tip came from Montgomery—where Judge Savin lives—was just a little added push for Zybo.
“In the end, we set up a meeting with Foxglove in the DA’s office to work all this out before Zybo was even arrested. So the only real chance we were taking was that Zybo might not cooperate for immunity.” I drank some beer. “The computer records were great, but we could have done the same thing with his testimony. It just would’ve taken longer.”
Kai-Li seemed to relax.
I asked, “Anything else?”
She shook her head. “I’ve got it.”
Outside, through the window, purple and lavender haze had fallen beneath the soft black blanket of night. I took a swallow of beer and felt a chill run along my spine. “It’s been a long day.” I turned toward the staircase. “I think I’ll go up and get a shower before dinner.”
“You aren’t getting depressed now that this is all over, are you, Thomas?”
“No. Just cold.”
She trotted after me. “Good. I’d say, after the other night, you owe me a good frolic in the shower.”
As she passed and jogged up carpeted stairs ahead of me, I said, “I hope you’re talking about sex. ’Cause I’m not sure I actually know how to frolic.”
Thirty-six
I’ve always liked courthouses, especially the ancient ones with dark shellac, worn marble floors, ceiling fans, and courtroom balconies. In every county in America, citizens stream through dusty courthouses, buying licenses to fish and hunt, to get married or drive a car. People fight over wills and ice on driveways and who’ll get the kids after the divorce. Sometimes they even get married there, in some judge’s chambers between summary judgment arguments. It’s like somebody boiled life down to all the important stuff and built a creaky old building to hold it.
Now it was just after lunch, and we stood before the Honorable Toby Pithway. He was not a happy man. Lawyers had been indicted. The Chief Judge of the State Court of Criminal Appeals had disappeared driving home from his office the night before—he’d vanished just fifteen minutes before he would have been pushed into the back of a police car, his hands cuffed, his humiliation taped for the morning news.
Judge Luther Savin had dodged the handcuffs and, with his contacts and resources, was probably halfway to Brazil by now. Not much he could do about the morning news programs, though. He was a star—his embarrassment exacerbated by a report that his only son had been found asphyxiated, lying nude in the backseat of a car with his father’s law clerk.
Now the cops would have to do something about finding who called Luther Savin to warn him away. Sooner or later, Judge Pithway would have to do something about all of it. For the present, he was called upon to grant prosecutorial immunity to a hired killer while fellow members of the bar sat weeping on metal cots in the county jail.
