Life Sentence

by David Ellis

  “Ben, I was planning on handling these myself.”

  He looks at me with a blank stare. His face is drawn somewhat, sleep-deprived eyes and a sag in his overall appearance. “I said I’d do them.” That is sort of the beginning and end of it for Bennett Carey. He said he’d do it, he’ll do it, even if he just went through a harrowing experience.

  “Go home,” I say, although home might not be the best place for him.

  “What am I gonna do, hide?”

  “Maybe give yourself a break. Go visit your—go do something.” I almost told him to visit his parents. Ben is an orphan, doesn’t even remember his folks after their death in a head-on car accident when he was barely two years old. Ben told me this one time after a night of drinking. It’s the only time we’ve discussed it.

  Ben ignores me, heads out. “I’ve got a few more. They’ll be done by lunch.”

  “Ben—wait.” He stops and turns back. “How’re you doing?”

  He shrugs. “Fine.”

  “Do you want to talk to me?”

  “I’m fine,” he says, before reconsidering. Bennett Carey is not exactly an open book. But jeez, this is no minor event that just occurred. “I thought about his mother hearing the news. Answering a knock at the door and seeing a policeman standing there. Feeling a rush of fear. Feeling her legs give out when she hears the words. Or maybe it’s his wife.”

  “Keep in mind who created the situation.”

  “Oh, I know.” He nods, then casts a glance into the hallway. He takes a couple of steps back into my office and closes the door behind himself. He braces himself a moment, then holds out his hands like he’s shaping pottery. “I know this guy broke into my house. I know he started it. Okay? But did I have to finish it that way? I mean, what the hell did I think this guy was doing? Of course he was leaving.”

  “Dammit, Ben. You couldn’t know that.”

  “Maybe not for a hundred percent, but this guy didn’t seem too interested in engaging me any further.” Bennett deflates. “He was running away from me, Jon.”

  I rise from my chair and move to him. “Ben, this is you thinking about it after-the-fact. Big difference from experiencing it on the spot. The longer you think about this, the more obvious it’s going to seem to you what this guy was doing. But we’re talking about this whole thing unfolding in about, what, thirty seconds? Don’t put knowledge into your head that wasn’t there at the time. He was gonna hurt you bad, and if he’d have gotten away, he would’ve come back.”

  “Even if you’re right—” Ben’s voice breaks off.

  “I am right.”

  “Someone’s still dead.”

  Not much of a response for that one. Ben isn’t being unreasonable here. He understands the circumstances. I think, more than anything, he’s just a little spooked by the whole thing.

  “So how’s the Ace?” he asks.

  “Oh—fine,” I say. Ben seems glad to move on to a different topic. I’m happy to oblige him, though I’m cognizant of the senator’s instructions. Only Grant and I are aware of any possible negotiation with Langdon Trotter about his screwed-up nominating papers. For Bennett’s own sake, I will not share the information. “The legal argument seems to be shaping up.”

  “Garrison’s memo looked good,” he says.

  “Yeah, it did. I’m going to meet with him tomorrow over lunch.”

  “Lunch tomorrow,” says Bennett. “You want some company?”

  “Ordinarily, yeah, but it’s probably better just the two of us. The senator is really concerned about keeping this quiet.”

  “Okay, no problem. I’ll finish up the D-7s and get them to you.”

  “Well, if you’re sure—”

  “I’m sure, Jon. Adios.”

  I watch Bennett leave my office and go through yesterday’s mail in my In box. At the same time I scroll on my computer to the Internet, go online to check the Watch poll that came out today. I already heard the buzz, but I haven’t read it yet.

  If the election were held today, Attorney General Langdon Trotter would receive fifty-four percent of the vote. Senate Majority Leader Grant Tully would receive thirty-nine percent. A third-party candidate, a staunch conservative named Oliver Jenson running under the Conservative Family Party, would get two percent.

  Not terribly surprising. Our own numbers aren’t far off. Trotter has held statewide office for almost eight years. His name is all over the place. As much as Grant Tully dominates the political scene, no matter how you slice it, he’s still just a state senator. Everyone knows him in the city, and most people around the state would recognize the name, but his face isn’t ingrained in anyone’s mind yet. Langdon Trotter is the cowboy who sued the tobacco companies and went after the health-care monopoly downstate. We knew he’d be out to an early lead. Senator Tully is going to have to live in the downstate counties between now and November 7, because that’s where the election will be decided, and he’s not a household name.

  Four letters in the mail. First one is a thank-you note from a local alderman whom I assisted on a campaign-finance problem, a correction he needed to file with the city election board. A letter from the symphony house, asking me to re-up for another year’s subscription. I don’t know why I bother; I have to miss most of the shows anyway. Some ad from an electronic legal research outfit that I don’t even open.

  The last one is addressed to me but with no return address, no letterhead. When I open it, a single piece of plain white paper falls out. It’s one paragraph, looks like it was done on a typewriter, not addressed to anyone:

  I guess I’m the only one left who knows the secret that nobody knows. I think $250,000 should cover it. A month should be enough time. I wouldn’t presume your income source, but I imagine if anyone could find a way to tap into the campaign fund without anyone noticing, you would. Or I suppose I could always just talk to the senator. Is that what you want? One month. Don’t attempt to contact me about this. I will initiate all communications.

  Instinctively, I look up, out my doorway. Then again at the letter. What the hell is this?

  My phone buzzes, the intercom from my secretary. I punch the speakerphone button. “Yeah,” I say to my secretary, Cathy.

  “Jon, Dale Garrison’s office called to confirm Friday night at seven o’clock for your meeting.”

  The secret that nobody knows.

  I shake my head. “What now, Cath?”

  “Dale Garrison’s—”

  “What time?”

  “Seven o’clock, Friday night?”

  “What happened to lunch Thursday?” I ask. But Cathy wouldn’t know.

  “I had the impression you were the one who changed the meeting,” she says.

  “Okay—well—whatever. That’s fine. Still his office?”

  “Right.”

  “Okay. Thanks, Cath.”

  Who the hell sent me this? I read the letter two, three times. Then another lawyer down the hall stops in, and I hurriedly toss the note inside my top desk drawer.

  8

  FRIDAY NIGHT, CLOSE to five. Even at a sweatshop like Seaton, Hirsch, there is considerable fallout by the last hour of the workweek. I’m near the end, too. Finish up this brief I’m writing, stop by Dale Garrison’s office, then head home. Senator Tully is leaving in a couple of hours to spend the weekend down in the southern counties, working his thing. There’s a big blue-collar sector down there—union workers—that is the key to the whole election. With the senator out of town, hopefully I can get some relaxation. The closer we get to the general election, the less I’m going to sleep.

  I promised the senator I would get back to him as soon as I get the word from Dale Garrison on our legal argument. I admit, I’m a little put out by having to get the counsel of this attorney. Dale Garrison is sort of an elder statesman, and I know he goes way back with the Tullys, so he’s owed some deference. But he couldn’t possibly know election law like I do. Yet here I am, about to go telling some other attorney that we’ll do “whate
ver he wants”—Grant’s words—regarding our attack on Langdon Trotter’s nomination papers.

  Bennett Carey strides by my office and stops short. His overcoat is thrown over his shoulder, his briefcase in hand. “Staying long?” he asks.

  “I’m here till seven.”

  Ben jabs a thumb behind himself. “Some of us are going for some beers. Flanagan’s.”

  “You?” I ask. “A socialite?”

  “Pity on their part.” He shrugs.

  “Well, Bennett, it’s nice to see you go out for any reason.”

  “Come with,” he says.

  I shake my head. “I’m meeting with Garrison this evening.”

  “Garrison? I thought that was lunch, yesterday.”

  “Nope. He changed it. I get to spend the dinner hour with him. Think he’ll pop for pasta?”

  Bennett smiles. That’s about as much as you’ll get out of him in terms of a sense of humor. At least he’s lightening up a little. I consider asking him for the umpteenth time how he’s holding up, but why bring up the topic? Let him throw a few beers back and put it behind him.

  Bennett leaves. I finish up my work—a draft of our legal argument on the Ace—by six-thirty. I want to have my thoughts coherent before meeting with Dale Garrison. Just in case he’s thinking that he’s going to show me how smart he is. Yeah, maybe I have a bug up my ass.

  I stop by Senator Tully’s office. He’s on the phone, so I wave. He covers the receiver and says, “Let me know.” I nod and head out.

  I stop a few feet from his doorway and almost turn back. There’s another conversation that we need to have. That anonymous letter in the mail. The “secret that nobody knows.” But I catch the tone of Grant’s voice on the phone—agitated, talking to Don Grier—and decide to bring it up later. It’s bullshit, anyway. It must be.

  I catch a cab for the ride across town to Dale Garrison’s office. I don’t know Dale socially but we have had plenty of opportunities to interact over the years. For people who know people, there are plenty of opportunities in this state to supplement one’s income. The state has numerous commissions and task forces set up for various projects, and the legislators’ pets get on them. Not all of them pay, but the ones that do are plum assignments. Typically, they involve one meeting a month, maybe a biannual report or something.

  Dale Garrison has a couple of these deals. He is the chair of COPA—the Commission on Political Appointments—which recommends appointments to the governor for anything from vacant judicial positions to heads of administrative agencies. The job doesn’t pay but gives plenty of people plenty of reasons to be plenty nice to Dale. Until about five years ago, Garrison was counsel to the Health Care Planning Board, which regulates health care facilities in the state. Since leaving the job, of course, he took on several hospitals and cancer clinics as clients and regularly represents their interests before all of his former colleagues on the board. You see him down in the state capital lobbying for them.

  But that’s behind-the-scenes stuff. You ask fifty lawyers in town to describe Dale Garrison’s practice, forty-nine will tell you it’s criminal law. He does plenty of the bloody stuff, but he’s known more for high-end clients, white-collar types charged with financial crimes. A few years back, he represented an alderman in a federal bribery sting. It swept up four or five members of the city council, but Garrison got an acquittal for his guy based on entrapment.

  I nod at the security guy in the lobby of Garrison’s building. Dale Garrison works near the river in the Merchant’s Building. Fifteen floors of offices filled primarily with guys like Garrison, big-time solo practitioners and personal injury lawyers. The building is a turn-of-the-century vintage, square-shaped, overlooking River Street. Garrison’s space is on the street side of the building, L-shaped with eleven offices in total—five on each side with Dale’s office in the middle, the corner office. If memory serves, a few of the offices are filled by associates in Dale’s direct employ and the others by other solo practitioners who work with Dale on occasion.

  I don’t want the senator to have anything to do with blackmailing Langdon Trotter. That’s what it is—blackmail. No need to dance around it. The senator has far too promising a future, whether he wins or loses this race, to throw it away on something so risky. The tough job will be convincing the senator. And Garrison.

  Garrison’s office is down the hall from the elevator on eight. The front door is a piece of frosted glass that bears his name. I open the door into a lobby, a small waiting room. The reception desk is empty at this hour, so I walk past it to the suite of offices.

  I can hear the hum of the music from his office, big-band, Glenn Miller or something. No one else here this time of the week, after hours on a Friday. The associates who work with Dale aren’t getting the big bucks—making connections and getting good trial experience, but not making the salaries to warrant late Friday nights. So it’s just me and Dale, probably just as well.

  Dale’s on the phone when I walk in. First sensation is a hint of odor—mint, more like menthol-rub than candy. I rap lightly on the door but he already sees me. His stooped posture is evident even from his chair. He has only wisps of hair around the ears, age spots on his weathered scalp, very deepset eyes, and a crooked nose. He is in shirtsleeves, revealing his bony shoulders. His fingers stroke his forehead as he speaks into the receiver.

  The office is a shrine to someone who’s practiced in state and federal court for over forty years. Framed photographs of Dale at various stages of his career with politicians, judges, and celebrities wallpaper the wood paneling in the room. Picture windows on each side of the corner show the state courthouse and the heart of the commercial district, the banks and options exchange.

  Dale hangs up the phone like he does everything else, slowly. He looks up at me with no discernible expression. “Hello, Jon,” he says, as he pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

  “Dale.” I take a chair across from him. “Guy your age shouldn’t be working so late.” I’m kidding but it immediately hits me, the rumors of his cancer, and the joke seems inappropriate.

  Dale laughs in his way, a grunt and a tremble in the shoulders, a hint of amusement in his watery blue eyes. He wags a crooked finger at me. He turns in his swivel chair to the radio behind him—a beat-up brown rectangle that looks older than me—and turns off the trumpet solo in the song. Then he turns back to face me. He rests his elbows on an oversized desk with stacks of papers, a dictaphone resting in the center of the desk. He has a computer, too, probably state-of-the-art, though I doubt he uses it.

  “Well,” he says. “Quite a…thing we have here.”

  “It’s a bombshell, all right.”

  “I agreed with your take on it.” A nice touch by Dale. Answers to no one, but still doesn’t hurt to stroke Senator Tully’s top lawyer.

  “I think we can agree that we’re right on the law,” I say. “Trotter’s papers are invalid. But the senator wants your take on how this will play before a judge.” The senator, not me.

  Dale wets his lips and stares at me a moment. “Throwing out the leading candidate for governor…on a technicality.”

  “Judge won’t have a choice,” I start.

  Dale raises a hand and smiles at me. “Never tell a judge he doesn’t have a choice.” He stares at me a moment, perhaps awaiting a response that is not forthcoming. “I’m not saying you’re wrong, not saying you’re wrong….” His voice trails off. He peers over my head, eyes squinted. “Be the judge a minute. You’re knocking someone…off the top spot on the ballot.”

  “Almost every judge in the election division’s with us.”

  “Doesn’t matter what they do in the circuit court,” says Dale. “This is going to the supremes.”

  “Sure.” No doubt Dale is correct, any ruling on Trotter’s candidacy will be appealed to the state supreme court.

  “The Republicans will stay with Trotter,” Dale continues. “Four Democrats on the court rule against the senator’s o
pponent…the press rips them apart.” Dale laces his fingers together. “So the question is…do we want to ask them to make this decision right now?”

  “Hmm.” Dale makes a decent point here. Next year, we will go through our legislative redistricting that comes along every ten years after the census—based on the new population figures, new districts are drawn from which elected officials run. It’s the big issue for next session. Both political parties try to manipulate boundaries to make their districts safe for their incumbents and add new districts to their total. Whoever wins has a strong chance of ruling the legislature for the next decade. The Democratic Senate and the Republican House will never agree on a map, and no bill will make it to the governor’s desk.

  Which means the state supreme court will draw the map, which raises Dale’s point. Right now, four of the seven supreme court justices are Democrats, a one-vote majority. And we will ask the 4–3 Democratic majority to see things our way. These things usually split down party lines, but all things considered, you still don’t want to be asking the Dems on the court for too many favors as the redistricting battle nears. If one of them feels the heat for knocking off Trotter, he might be reluctant to rule for us on the map.

  Well, score one for Dale. Hadn’t occurred to me. The question is, does Grant Tully care more about the governor’s race or the map? We both know the answer.

  “Okay,” I say. “Maybe—maybe we decide not to file a challenge. You know the other option. Going to Trotter with this.”

  Dale waves his hands in the air, slow-moving theatrics. “Trotter waits ten years to run for governor…he can’t even put his nomination papers together without a mistake.”