The Only Good Lawyer - Jeremiah Healy

by Jeremish Healy

  I turned the knob and pushed, the smell inside yanking me back to grade school, when I had bronchitis and my mother had plastered facecloths slathered in Vicks VapoRub to my chest. The room appeared to be a duplicate of Alan Spaeth's former one overhead, but it contained the clutter of a man who'd minimized the number of steps required for basic existence. Next to a red, seam-burst easy chair were stacks of newspapers and magazines. In front of the chair stood two TV trays, one holding envelopes and papers, a mate with plate, fork, and coffee mug.

  The boarder himself was propped up in bed, three pillows behind his back. An old western movie rolled and flickered on the screen of a dinosaur black-and-white threatening to collapse its rickety stand. The man's face was round and flushed, the gray hair on his head two inches long and bristling in the spikes of a man long between the sheets and short of shampoo. His chest seemed nearly concave under an old robe, the nose running freely from one nostril and not at all from the other.

  "Name?" in the croaking, almost-voice.

  "John Cuddy. I'm a private investigator"

  "Remember your . . . tread."

  "My tread?"

  A jerking nod. "Tread on . . . the stairs." The old man's throat contorted, as though he were swallowing something. "From this morning .... Like a signature."

  "I understand." Dufresne had mentioned his name, but I couldn't remember it. "And you are?"

  "Hank."

  I didn't have the heart to prompt him for a last name.

  "Hank, you might be able to help me, but I want to make this as easy for you as possible."

  The jerking nod.

  After closing his door behind me, I moved deeper into the room. "Can I get you anything?"

  One shake of his head as the index finger of a veined, liver-spotted hand pointed toward a full water glass and half-full pitcher on a nightstand.

  I stopped next to the bed. "Let me ask you mostly yes or no questions, then. Nod or shake, okay?"

  The nod.

  "Did you ever meet Alan Spaeth?"

  Pointing to the ceiling, Hank nevertheless gave a shake.

  "You knew he lived on the next floor, but you never met him?"

  Nod.

  "How about Michael Mantle?"

  Another nod, the pointing finger now aimed diagonally up and toward the front of the building. "The Mick."

  "Right." I looked at the door. "When's the last time you saw Mantle?"

  A shrug of the face, but something like a twinkle in his eye, too.

  "You haven't seen him for a while, but you have heard his . . . tread?"

  The twinkle and a nod, plus a smile that showed two separated canine teeth on top, three others bunched on the bottom.

  "When's the last time you heard Mantle walking?"

  "A week . . . at least." Swallow. "Went down."

  "Meaning down the stairs?"

  Nod.

  "And out of the house?"

  Shrug.

  "How sure are you that he hasn't been back for a week?"

  "Pretty sure .... Can't sleep . . ." Swallow. "Much anymore."

  "Was anybody with Mantle when he left?"

  Shake.

  "Have you heard anyone else walk to his room?"

  “Vincennes .... You."

  I couldn't see what more the man could tell me. "Thanks for the help, Hank. Anything I can do for you before I leave?"

  The jerking nod.

  "What?"

  He raised his right hand, pointing the index linger now at his temple. Using the thumb, Hank pantomimed the cocking and fall of a pistol hammer.

  I looked into the face of old age and illness.

  Shrug. Twinkle. Smile.

  Back downstairs, I knocked on Dufresne's "parlor" door. He opened it, wineglass still in hand, but now full, a woman singing a French ballad on the stereo.

  "The hell took you so long?"

  I gave him back the master key. "Have to be thorough."

  "Thorough."

  "Speaking of which, it seems to me you haven't seen Mantle now for a solid week."

  “About right."

  "You said he had money a month ago. Could he have gone on a trip?"

  Dufresne's honking laugh. "No way. The Mick wasn't a traveling kind of guy. And besides, he'd paid up in advance. Who's he to waste that kind of money by not living here, eh?"

  It was a good question, I thought.

  * * *

  After telling Vincennes Dufresne that I'd still make it worth his while to let me know if he saw Michael Mantle, I decided to visit the bars within walking distance of the Chateau.

  Just off Broadway near Flanagan's Market, the closest was a tavern in the same sense that a mud hut is a house. If the air at the threshold made you gag, the atmosphere inside urged you to follow through. I managed ten minutes of putting questions to the night bartender (who didn't know who the real "Mickey Mantle" was) and two patrons (each of whom was contributing his own special something to the environment).

  The next place was called "O'B's," a little farther west on Broadway, and evidently part of the area's recent renaissance. The air was clean, the bar top cleaner. The keep behind the taps nodded to me in a "take-any-stool" way as he drew two pints of Harp. The pints were destined for a couple in their fifties at the end of the bar who couldn't have looked more married to each other if they'd been yoked at the necks. I sat down, and after the keep finished with the newlyweds he came over to me.

  "Haven't seen you before, have I?"

  A thick brogue that matched the red, curly hair and the muzzy freckles across his thirtyish cheeks.

  I said, "First time. How's the Harp?"

  "Fresh as a morning's dew."

  “One, please."

  He drew the pint, poured off, and topped it with a quarter-inch of head. Setting the glass on a shamrock coaster, he said, "You've the sound of the neighborhood in your voice."

  "Grew up within blocks of here."

  A hammy hand was extended across the bar. "Paul O'Brien."

  I shook with him. "Paul, John Cuddy. You the proprietor?"

  "I am. Tended bar till I had the hang of it and enough money to open a pub of my own. 'O'B's' for 'O'Brien's.' " He rested both palms on the bar, gave me a measured look. "You'd be police, then?"

  "Not for a long time." I took out my ID. "I'm in business for myself now. Like you."

  O'Brien read the holder's laminated card and nodded in an "I've-seen-enough" way. Expressive nodder, Mr. O'Brien. He said, "Which means you're here for something more than a pint from the auld sod."

  "I'm looking for a man named Michael Mantle."

  "The Mick, you say?" O'Brien turned toward the couple. "Leo, this fella's after the Mick."

  "Good," said Leo. "You find the little weasel, remind him he owes me a round from last Monday."

  I looked over at the husband as his wife said, "Tuesday, Leo. It was Tuesday last."

  The man didn't have the brogue, but the woman did. I said, "You haven't seen him since?"

  Leo closed his eyes briefly. “Moira?"

  She said, "Not since, no. Maybe he's gone down."

  I looked from one to the other. "Down?"

  O'Brien interpreted. "As in 'down the line,' John. To one of the less . . . pricey establishments on the avenue."

  "Mantle drink here often?"

  "Never," said Leo, "at least not until maybe a month ago. Then he'd be in here with a bunch of other guys, buying them rounds."

  Moira put in, "Or them buying him."

  O'Brien waved his hand at the taps. "Guinness, mainly. A black-and-tan upon occasion."

  I went back to the couple. "Any idea where he might be now?"

  Moira said, "Drinking or sleeping, that one."

  "He's not at his rooming house, and probably hasn't been there for a full week."

  "Since last Monday?" said Leo.

  Moira cleared her throat. "Tuesday last. Have you gone deaf on me as well as senile?"

  "Tuesday," Leo agreed.

&
nbsp; O'Brien shook his head. "The Mick, he went through money like a hot knife. Could fool the drop-ins with his birth-certificate routine, but the regulars wised up to his tricks pretty quick."

  "All except my Leo," said Moira.

  Her husband didn't look at his wife. "An act of charity, and she'll never let me forget it."

  I tried to take in all three of them at once. "So, no sign of him here since Tuesday of last week."

  Consensus, but consistency is not always a virtue.

  I said, "Any other ideas?"

  "Try the drunk tank," offered Leo.

  Moira grunted a small laugh. "And you with the word 'charity' falling from your lips not a minute past."

  * * *

  I didn't have any more luck at the other watering holes, so I walked to Alan Spaeth's new apartment building. The address was a three-decker, his name on a yellow Post-it over the second-floor button, no names identifying the other two. I tried the first and third anyway, getting no response for my trouble.

  Then I thought of something. According to Spaeth, he and Mantle had been drinking together upstairs. If Mantle were hiding from something—or someone—maybe he'd use his friend's empty apartment. I pushed the middle button, but got nothing again.

  I was about to leave when the front door opened on a chain and yanked taut, a dour woman in her forties looking out tentatively through the four-inch gap.

  "What do you want?"

  "The name's John Cuddy." I held up my license folder. "I wonder if I could ask you a few questions."

  "It's about that horrible man on the second floor, isn't it?"

  "Maybe if I could come in—"

  "Not a chance. I can tell you all I want to through this chain." She glanced behind her. "I live on the first floor here. I was coming in from a shift at the hospital, dog-tired and dirty, when that man tried to proposition me."

  Alan Spaeth, making friends wherever he goes. "Look—"

  "He wouldn't take no for an answer, either."

  "I'm sorry. Truly, Ms .... ?"

  "No. No, I'm not giving you my name. He's a horrible man, and I'm glad he's in jail."

  "Did you hear anything upstairs last Wednesday evening? It's very important."

  She chose her words carefully. “I was on the four-to-midnight, but we had a carryover case, so I didn't get home until almost one A.M. Then all the commotion with the police woke me up at five." Careful yielded to petulant. "Only four hours of sleep after the night I had at the hospital. Now, I ask you, is that fair?"

  "It sure isn't. You know of anyone else here I could talk with?"

  "There was a nice old lady—Mrs. Crawford—who lived on the third floor, but she died two months back, and nobody's moved in yet."

  Last hope. "You said you live on the first floor and Mr. Spaeth on the second?"

  "That's right. Had to keep my door to the back stairs locked because of him trying to proposition me. Never needed to do that before."

  I waited until she finished. "Since Mr. Spaeth was arrested, have you heard anyone moving around up there?"

  Her features scrunched together. "That . . . really . . . sucks."

  "I'm sorry?"

  "Scaring me with 'Is anybody living up there in secret?' That really sucks, you know?"

  "Look—"

  "I mean, this is my home you're talking about. My life, even, and you have to ask me that?"

  "But have you heard—"

  "No. No!"

  The door slammed hard enough in my face that I felt the vibration through my shoes.

  * * *

  After walking back to the Prelude, I drove past another three-decker. There were no lights burning in Nancy's third-floor apartment. Given my luck so far that night, I didn't stop.

  Reaching Back Bay, I left the car in its slot behind the corner brownstone and went around to the Beacon Street entrance. Upstairs in the living room, the fuzzy glow from the street lamp outside seeped through the stained-glass windows. The polished, oak-front fireplace hadn't been used since early spring, but it was comforting to think of Nancy and me, curled up on the rug with a couple of birch logs crackling and snapping.

  What wasn't comforting was to look at the answering machine. The "0" in the message window meant none from her.

  Two hours later, I went to bed with the telephone squared toward me on the night table. Figuring, Nancy might still call.

  Might, but didn't.

  Chapter 11

  "STEVEN ROTHENBERG."

  "John Cuddy," I said into the phone Thursday morning, trying to keep my irritation at Nancy out of my voice while balancing a bowl of cornflakes on my lap.

  "Can I get back to you, John?"

  “Probably not."

  A sigh combined with the rustling of paper. "Okay, shoot."

  “I'm calling from my apartment because I want to drive out to Woodrow Gant's old prosecutor's office, maybe talk to some people who knew him when."

  "When he was prosecuting?" said Rothenberg.

  "Yes."

  "What do you have so far?"

  "You're pressed for time, right?"

  "Right."

  I gave Rothenberg a summary of what little I'd developed, leaving the Gang Unit out of it except to say, "I also have a lead on the restaurant I want to follow up."

  "What lead?" he said.

  "I'd rather get more information first. But there's something we need to talk about with your client."

  "Our client, John."

  "Barely."

  Rothenberg paused. "I'm not liking the sound of that."

  "You'll come to like it even less, I think. Can we see Spaeth at the jail today?"

  "Is that necessary?"

  "Maybe vital."

  Another pause. "I could make it by, say . . . eleven-thirty?"

  "Good for me," I said.

  "John, basically what's the matter?"

  "Spaeth told his son that Daddy thought Mommy's lawyer was hitting on her."

  "Is that all?"

  I nearly took the phone away from my ear to stare at it. "Isn't that enough?"

  "John, you don't work a lot of divorce cases, do you?" "Not if I can help it."

  "Well, when the wife's lawyer is a male, the husband tends to see him as a competitor for the position the husband used to occupy with her. It's a psychological thing."

  "Is it a 'psychological thing' for that husband to report the wife's lawyer to the Board of Bar Overseers?"

  A dead silence this time on the other end of the line. "Say it ain't so."

  "I thought I'd stop at the Board, too. See if I can find out whether there was a formal complaint filed."

  "I doubt they'd tell you," said Rothenberg. "But, shit, if there was . . . . . then whether or not Woodrow Gant and you negotiated a settlement in the divorce case, Spaeth believing strongly that Gant was involved with his wife would enhance your guy's motive for killing the man."

  " 'Enhance' doesn't quite capture it, John."

  * * *

  I was just getting into my suit jacket when the phone rang back. The bedroom extension was closest.

  "John, it's me."

  Somehow, despite being disappointed over no contact since Tuesday night at Thai Basil, I wasn't prepared for the sound of her voice. “Nance, I'm glad you called."

  "Don't be so sure. We need to meet, talk this through"

  "How about dinner tonight?"

  "No. No, I was thinking lunch, today. Can you make it?"

  I wouldn't not make it. "Where?"

  "Cricket's by Quincy Market."

  Tourist Central. "Not very . . . private, Nance."

  "I know."

  Okay. "When?"

  She said, "It would have to be at one o'clock."

  "Cricket's at one," I said, trying to keep my temper while taking her dictation.

  "See you then, John."

  Nancy hung up before I could say anything more. After a few moments of squeezing the receiver so hard my hand cramped, I did the opposite of what I
wanted to and set the plastic instrument gently back in its cradle.

  The drive to Gant's former county almost let me push Nancy out of my mind. The purple flower that blooms in late summer still covered the marshland bordering the Charles River, contrasting with the red, gold, and orange leaves of October. After some suburban twists and turns, I found the building with the district attorney's office and parked in the rear.

  At the reception counter upstairs, a male security guard in a blue blazer sat next to a female in a polka-dot dress, an elaborate console of buttons and lights in front of her.

  The guard was already sizing up whoever had come in behind me when the woman said, "Can I help you, sir?"

  "Hope so. I'd like to see a prosecutor who spells his first name 'T-H-O-M.' The last name might begin—"

  "That's Thom Arneson. And you are?"

  "John Cuddy."

  "Is he expecting you?"

  "I doubt it."

  Both the security guard and the woman looked at me then, but she punched a button, anyway.

  My identification holder came sliding back across the desk. "So, you're 'John Cuddy, Private Investigator.' Why are you darkening my door?"

  I started to answer when Arneson's phone jingled and he held up his hand. As he took the call, I looked around the small, shared office. There was another, identical desk against a second wall, no one sitting at it and no windows for either prosecutor. Arneson had stacks of red manila case files on two corners of his desk, a computer on a third, the telephone on the fourth. Talking in staccato jargon, he swung through a twenty-degree arc in his chair under a poster entitled "THINGS INVENTED IN NORWAY," the list below the title including skis, paper clips, and fishnet underwear.

  Arneson himself was at least thirty-five, with a widow's peak of nearly platinum hair and fainter eyebrows. I pegged his height at six feet and change, weight about two hundred if he maintained the sort of shape all over that the rolled-up sleeves revealed. His jawline was strong, and the cleft in his chin approached Kirk Douglas proportions. The general impression leaned toward ruggedly handsome, but a "me-first" glint playing around Arneson's eyes also suggested you might not want him covering your back in an alley.

  Saying, "Then he does the max, Don baby, and you don't make a dime more on it." Arneson hung up the phone and returned to me. "Sorry, but I hate it when defense lawyers whine."

  "Any lawyer."