I took the chair in front of his desk. His office had once been a living room. There was a fireplace in the corner into which Zerk had had a wood-burning stove installed. It glowed warmly on this chill February afternoon. A nice homey touch.
Keeping the phone snugged in the crook of his neck, he bent to the bottom drawer of his desk and came up with a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and two glasses. He poured a couple fingers into each and shoved one toward me.
I lit a cigarette and sipped. In a minute Zerk hung up. He reached across the desk and we shook hands.
“Troubles, huh, bossman?” His handsome face crinkled with concern.
I nodded. “Troubles, indeed.”
He grinned. “I expect you’re gonna tell ’em to me.”
“I’d like to.”
He sat back and laced his hands behind his head. “Go for it, then,” he said.
So I did. I told him how exactly one week earlier Judge Chester Y. Popowski, my client, had persuaded me to meet a mystery man at Skeeter’s, and how the mystery man had intimated that he intended to blackmail the judge over some matter concerning a woman named Karen Lavoie, who Pops had admitted having a brief affair with seventeen years earlier, and who, I learned, although Pops had omitted this part, had filed a complaint against him and then dropped it. I told Zerk that the next day a Boston homicide detective and a state policeman appeared in my office to query me about Wayne Churchill the television newsman, who had been murdered and who was the selfsame man I had met with at Skeeter’s shortly before his death. I told Zerk that I had answered some questions inaccurately. Others I refused to answer at all.
I told him that Mickey Gillis and Rodney Dennis had learned that the police were questioning me, too. That someone had leaked the fact that I was a suspect.
I told him the cops had been back twice to interrogate me. On their second visit, they simply rehashed the first interrogation. The third time they came, they had recited my Miranda rights for me. They had taped the interview. And they had brought an assistant district attorney along with them. For purposes of intimidation, I assumed.
I told him a cop or else a reporter in a blue sedan was following me around.
“You answered their questions,” he said, interrupting.
I shrugged. “Just those unrelated to Pops.”
“Just those,” he said, “that might incriminate you.”
“They can’t incriminate me. I didn’t do anything.”
“After I told you not to.”
“Actually, by the time you told me not to it was too late.”
“You didn’t know better.” He rolled his eyes.
“I knew better.”
“Real dumb.”
“I know. I thought I could handle it. I am a lawyer.”
“Shee-it!” he blurted. “They tell you you’ve got a right to counsel. You’re a lawyer, you know how important that is. I even already told you this, not really thinking I needed to. Thinking I was insulting your intelligence by even mentioning it. And you go ahead and talk anyway.”
“I admitted it was dumb. I don’t think I did any harm.”
“You’re one stubborn honkie.”
“I know.”
He sighed. “Glad we agree. So, what else?”
“That’s about it,” I said. “I’m reluctantly assembling the evidence. I think Pops did it. He had a motive. He had opportunity. He even had a patsy.”
“You.”
“Yeah. Me.”
“He sure as hell did.”
“I know. If he planned it that way, it’s damn clever. Elegant, even.”
“And you can’t say a damn thing about him on account of client privilege,” said Zerk.
I spread my hands and lit another cigarette. “That’s about it. You’re the only one I can talk to about it.”
“Because of client privilege,” he said. “You being my client.”
“Yes.”
He leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers behind his neck. He gazed up at the ceiling for a moment, then looked at me. “You just filling me in, or are you looking for advice?”
I shrugged. “I’m not sure. Both, I guess.”
“Well, first off, next time those cops come by, don’t for crissake talk to ’em until I get there.”
“Right,” I said. “Though I haven’t told them anything so far. At least nothing incriminating. Hell. There is nothing incriminating.”
“You haven’t helped yourself by what you’ve told them. Answering some questions, refusing to answer others. You’d’ve been better off saying nothing.”
“I’ve got nothing to hide.”
“Wrong. You’ve got the judge to hide. Looks to them like you’re hiding plenty. You haven’t exactly allayed their suspicions.”
“Can’t help it. The point is, I’m innocent.”
Zerk grinned. “Boy, lawyers can be as dumb as anybody when they get in a spot like this. Since when did innocent mean anything?”
I nodded. “I know. You’re right. That’s why I’m worried.”
“You should be worried.”
“This makes me feel much better.”
He smiled quickly. “Did you ask the judge to release you from your obligation?”
“I hinted. He didn’t bite. I can’t ask.”
“You’re right about that.” He frowned. “Worse comes to worst, you can violate privilege.” He fixed me with a stare.
“Nope. Just can’t do it.”
“Didn’t figure you would. Had to ask. Still, I am obliged to remind you of your other sacred obligation.”
“To the law, you mean.”
He nodded. “You’re an officer of the court, Counselor. That imposes some pretty damn important responsibilities, too.”
I nodded miserably. “I know. I’m conflicted, believe me. The thing is, right now all I could say about Pops was that I think he did it. I mean, in my mind, I know he did it. Because it just fits together. But I don’t have anything you could call evidence. Just my theory. Am I obliged to share that with the police?”
“If he weren’t your client, would you?”
I shrugged. “I suppose I would, yes. I sure as hell don’t like the idea of his getting away with this, any more than I’m particularly fond of finding myself a murder suspect.”
“Then you’ve got what we thoughtful types call a moral dilemma.”
“You’re telling me.”
“You probably already knew that, huh?”
“Hell, Zerk. My whole practice is based on the sanctity of the attorney-client relationship. You know as well as I do that I’m not a hot-shot lawyer like you. I’m a decent negotiator, I know my limits, and I take good care of my clients. I pay attention to them. I listen to them. I can nod sympathetically with the best of them. They like to talk to me. They know I can keep my mouth shut. I’m discreet. Discretion is about the only thing I’m really good at. Most of my clients, that’s mainly what they pay me for. Discretion. And client privilege is the taproot of discretion. So right now I’m stuck with protecting Pops. Even if he murdered a man. Even if I end up accused of it. But,” I added after a moment, “it burns my nether cheeks, I don’t mind telling you, and I wouldn’t mind if the cops glommed on to his tail instead of mine.”
“In the name of justice,” said Zerk.
“In the name of keeping my ass out of prison, mainly.”
“What’d you do if you actually did come up with hard evidence against Hizzoner?”
“A murder weapon or something,” I said.
He nodded.
“Why, hell, I’d come to you, Zerk. And I’d ask you what to do.” I shook my head. “I’d be even more conflicted than I am right now. Which is conflicted enough.”
He sloshed some more Jack Daniel’s into our glasses. “Right now, not much I can do for you unless they interrogate you again. Or arrest you. Aside from delivering facile homilies.”
“I know. I just wanted you to know the story and be prepared.”
“If they’re harassing you, I might be able to do something about that.”
“I think they’ve got a tail on me.”
“Can’t do much about that.”
“Wouldn’t want you to. For all I care, they can follow me everywhere. Somebody’s been following me. Either the cops or the media. Either one is okay with me. If they learn something, that’s none of my affair. Matter of fact, I’ve tracked down Karen Lavoie and I’m planning on paying her a visit this evening. They’ll probably follow me there.” I shrugged.
Zerk studied me for a minute. “You said you might be willing to listen to a little advice.”
I nodded. “I’ll always listen.”
“It’s good advice,” he said.
“I know what you’re going to say.”
“I’m gonna say it anyway. Here it is. Cease and desist. Stop your damn sleuthing. Stay away from this Karen. Stop pokin’ around. From what you’ve told me, the cops’ve got nothing on you except a couple of circumstances. Suspicious-lookin’, maybe. But if they had more they’d’ve arrested you by now. They’re not gonna come up with anything more. Unless you do something stupid. Cool it, bossman, and it’ll all go away.”
“Except for one thing,” I said.
“What’s that?”
“In a couple weeks Pops’ nomination will be approved by the Judiciary Committee. Then he gets the okay from the Senate. Then he gets sworn in. See, it’s not just my innocence that’s bothering me. It’s his guilt. I don’t want that son of a bitch made federal judge. I don’t want him to get away with this.”
Zerk shook his head back and forth sadly. “It’s not your job to make that decision.”
“But I’m the only one who knows.”
“Look,” he said. “In the first place, you don’t know. You suspect. Just the same way the cops suspect you.”
“Difference is, he’s got a motive. I know he’s got a motive, and I know what it is. Churchill was trying to blackmail him because he did something worse than just have an extramarital affair with Karen Lavoie. Hell, she filed charges against him. Christ, he—”
Zerk reached across his desk and put his hand on my arm. “Leave it be, Brady. Go back, do your job, let the cops do theirs.”
I drained my glass and set it onto his desk with a sigh. “Thanks for the good advice. You’re a helluva lawyer, if I do say so. I trained you well.”
“That,” he said, “happens to be true. All of it. Your friend called me.”
“Suzie?”
He nodded. “She’s pretty scared.”
“I know.”
“Think she did it?”
I shrugged. “She didn’t seem the type.”
Zerk rolled his eyes. “There you go again.”
SEVENTEEN
I LEFT ZERK’S OFFICE around six. I headed down Mass. Ave. toward the Square. If a cop or a reporter was on my tail, I couldn’t spot him.
After a lengthy search, I found a parking slot on Brattle Street that seemed to be legal. I walked about a mile back toward the Square until I came to one of those new restaurants that seem to keep springing up around Harvard Square. This one, like most of the others, featured high beamed ceilings, with lots of shiny wood and brick and glass and chrome. Ferns hung in pots from the beams. I wondered idly who kept them all watered, and if they had to climb around on stepladders to do it. Men and women in business garb were gathered round the bar in the corner. It was too early for most of them to eat, apparently, so I had no trouble getting a table.
I wondered if they drove rusty five-year-old driving machines. Newer ones, probably.
I wondered where the Harvard kids hung out these days.
The menu featured salads and a variety of sandwiches, most of which, by any other name, were hamburgers. Hamburgers with sprouts and guacamole, hamburgers with Brie and bacon, hamburgers, for heaven’s sake, with Newburg sauce.
My waitress, who told me she had a BA in fine arts from Smith and couldn’t find a job that took full advantage of her skill at identifying slide projections of old paintings, agreed to persuade the chef to cook me a burger with a slab of cheddar, although nothing so plebeian was listed on the menu. She also pointed to the place on the menu where plain black coffee was listed among the exotic blends and mixes.
I lingered over my second cup of coffee, and it was a little after seven-thirty when I found a parking slot around the corner from Seventh Street, which was practically in the shadow of the East Cambridge courthouse. In all those years, Karen Lavoie Gorwacz had not gone far.
The street was poorly lit and deserted, except for an old man who was being tugged along from snowbank to trash can by a large leashed dog of complicated ancestry.
Still no sign of my tail. I wondered whether I had inadvertently managed to lose him, or if he was still stuck in traffic back in Copley Square, or if he was more skilled than I had originally given him credit for.
I found the number the phone book had indicated as K. L. Gorwacz’s and rang the bell. In a moment I heard footsteps hollowly descend an inside stairway, and then the door opened. I recognized the Lavoies’ grandson from the pictures I had seen on their television, although he was a year or two older than their most recent portrait. He was wearing black jeans and a black T-shirt that advertised a Def Leppard concert at the Worcester Centrum.
“Hi,” he said. “Help you?”
“I’m looking for your mother.”
“Sure. Hang on.”
He turned and yelled back up the stairs. “Ma. Some guy for you.”
“Who is it?” called a woman’s voice.
The boy turned to me. “Who’re you?”
“Brady Coyne. I’m a lawyer.”
“A lawyer named Brady Coyne,” he yelled up the stairs.
“Well, let him in.”
He pulled the door all the way open and stood aside. I entered a tiny foyer at the foot of a long flight of stairs, the entire length of which was illuminated by two bare bulbs, one at the top and one at the bottom of the stairs. I held my hand to the boy.
“Paul Gorwacz,” he said, gripping my hand firmly. He was nearly as tall as I, and painfully thin, with wavy black hair down around his shoulders and an active case of acne. He was nurturing a fuzzy black mustache that looked more like a smudge of soot than hair on his upper lip.
I followed him up the stairs, which opened into a living-dining-kitchen area. The faint aroma of boiled cabbage lingered in the air.
Karen Lavoie Gorwacz was seated at the kitchen table, which was littered with envelopes and scattered papers. They looked like bills and unanswered correspondence. She appeared considerably older than her wedding picture, which made sense since she had been married about seventeen years earlier. Deep frown lines were etched between her eyes. Her dark tousled hair was lightly streaked with gray. She wore glasses, and a pencil protruded from behind her ear. A coffee mug and an ashtray and a pocket calculator sat among the papers on the table in front of her.
The sink was stacked with dirty dishes. Newspapers littered the floor of the living room area.
Paul wandered in among the newspapers and flicked on a small tabletop television. Karen slouched back in her chair and looked at me over the top of her glasses. “I guess I was expecting you,” she said.
I stood across the table from her uncertainly. I had unbuttoned my coat but had not taken it off. “You were?”
She nodded. “My father told me you’d probably try to talk to me. He told me not to.”
“And?”
She shrugged. “Sit down, if you want. Coffee?”
“Sure. Thanks.”
I draped my coat over the back of a chair and sat at the table. She rose from her seat with a sigh. She was wearing a shapeless sweatshirt and baggy blue jeans. She was not as slim as she had looked in her wedding picture. She went to the stove and turned on the gas under an old-fashioned aluminum coffeepot.
She came back and resumed her seat. She took off her glasses and lit a cigarette. “I proba
bly shouldn’t’ve let you in,” she said after exhaling a long plume of smoke, “but I’m sick of doing what my daddy tells me all the time, you know?”
I nodded.
She peered at me with her eyebrows arched. “Well?”
“Well what?”
“Well, you gonna tell me what you want from me?”
I nodded. “Yes,” I said. I glanced over my shoulder at Paul, who was sprawled on the floor behind me watching the TV.
“Paul,” said Karen, “you go into your room and do your homework.”
“For crissake…” he muttered. But he got up, flicked off the set, and disappeared behind a door. He closed it with more vigor than was necessary, and in a moment the loud, insistent beat of rock music vibrated from his room.
Karen looked at me and shrugged. “Kids,” she said. “Hard enough with both parents to boss ’em around. Paul’s a good boy, though. He and I’ve gotten close since…”
Since his father left, I thought. I nodded and smiled.
“He goes to school, keeps to himself,” she said. “Got a good job at the sandwich shop. Rindge and Latin’s not a bad school if you steer clear of the bad element, which, thank God, Paul’s got sense enough to do. I’d like him to go to college, but, tell you the truth, I’ll be happy if he graduates, maybe goes into the navy or something.” She stopped and smiled. “That’s probably not why you’re here, huh? To hear about my kid?”
I shook my head. “No.” I paused. I wasn’t sure how to approach it with her. I sensed if I started wrong I’d learn nothing.
“You once worked in the courthouse,” I said.
She stared at me for a moment and then stood up and went to the stove. She poured some coffee into a mug. “Cream and sugar?” she said.
“Black, please.”
She put the mug in front of me and sat down again.
“What were you saying?”
“I mentioned that you used to work over at the courthouse.”
Fetching my coffee had given her a minute to think about it. She watched me through narrowed eyes. “Yes. I once did. It was a long time ago.”
“You knew Judge Popowski?”
“He wasn’t a judge then.”
“But you knew him.”
She shrugged. “I suppose. He was an A.D.A. You got to know all the A.D.A.s.”
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