“You read it,” she said.
Both Woody and Natalie turned to her, confused. Then Woody followed her gaze to the book. He frowned. “I learned the rules, but he still beats me every time.”
Michael smiled with effort, his gaze seeming to float toward but not focus on Amber’s face. “I’ve ... always beaten him. Sports, school....” A dry laugh sifted from his parted lips.
Amber had never liked Michael. The strange hold he had on his younger brother was creepy. Had anyone else called Woody a loser, Woody would never have stood for it. But his only response to Michael was a loving smile. He leaned over the bed, gently touched one bony shoulder, and kissed his brother’s cheek. His lips made a scratchy sound, as if he’d kissed paper.
Amber shuddered. She couldn’t help it. A tremble began at the base of her spine—near the tattoo at the small of her back—and shot upward to the cleft between her shoulder blades.
Natalie caught the movement in the corner of her eyes and frowned with disapproval. Amber ignored her. At this point, the nurse’s opinion of her was just about her lowest possible concern on a very long list.
“Woody.” Michael’s voice had decayed to such a low rasp that his brother had to practically touch his ear to the man’s mouth to hear him. Natalie disappeared into the hallway, leaving Amber to stand alone and watch the discussion like a scene on a muted TV.
In the months before Christmas, observing Michael’s condition had always filled her with sorrow and fear about the fragility of the human body. Now she wondered if the man really lacked the strength to speak—or if he and Woody were simply being secretive.
Was Michael involved in the seventeen-year-old girl’s murder?
Of course he was. Michael’s in charge. Has been from the start. Woody’s nothing but his stooge.
She watched them whisper to each other. In her line of work, Amber met plenty of assholes—met them on a nightly basis. But these two, Woody Butler and his bedridden brother, they took the prize. The longer she watched them, the stronger her intuition became that she was in trouble. Real, major, life-threatening, up shit creek without a paddle trouble. If she didn’t do something soon, she was going to end up as dead as Rachel Pugh.
And no one will care when your body turns up. A dead stripper. Good riddance.
Elliot. Elliot would care.
Her fingers itched to call him right now. Tell him everything. He worked at the DA’s office. He knew other prosecutors, cops—people who could protect her. People who could stop Woody and Michael.
As if he had somehow sensed her betrayal, Michael’s eyes—yellow instead of white around the irises—shifted from his brother to her. “Come here.” The rasp had gained volume, and with the volume, authority.
She stepped closer to the bed, Woody moving clumsily out of her way. Michael raised a bony arm toward her. His hand trembled at the end of it. Reluctantly, she placed hers within its grasp. It felt powdery, like the old men at the club whose fingers brushed her skin when they pushed dollar bills into her garter.
Michael squeezed her fingers with surprising strength. “I appreciate what you’re doing for me, Amber.”
She swallowed. “You’re welcome.” She knew her voice sounded nervous, scared. Both Michael and Woody studied her more closely.
“Rachel ... Pugh was a liar. Did you know that?”
She shook her head. Michael had not released her fingers, but his grip slackened. Slowly, careful not to offend him, she withdrew them from his grasp.
Woody said, “Michael,” but the sick man silenced him with a glare.
“Rachel intended ... to perjure herself. That’s what the police learned after she died. It’s ... sad, what happened to her. But ... it’s justice, too. Every person is entitled to a fair trial.”
“Elliot says Ramsey’s definitely guilty.”
Michael looked up at Woody, questioning.
“Elliot Williams. The assistant DA prosecuting the case. The guy Amber’s been ... watching for us.”
Michael nodded, and a small smile played across his lips. He grunted and leaned toward her, as if he wanted to share a secret. Then he stopped himself. To Woody, he said, “Can I trust her?”
“No.”
Disappointed, Michael relaxed back against his pillow. “Maybe some other time ... I’ll tell you more.”
“I think it’s time we left,” Woody said. “I have a meeting to get to.”
Michael’s eyes swam in his direction. “Remember what ... I told you.”
“I will. And you stay healthy.”
In response to that sentiment, Michael coughed out a grim laugh.
51
There were a lot of things Leary would rather do on a Sunday evening than tail a jackass public defender—or ex-public defender, as the case may be—all over Philadelphia. As he sat in an unmarked car, watching Ackerman withdraw cash from an ATM at a TD Bank on 19th and Market, a whole list of fun activities occurred to him. A beer with the guys. A movie rental and a pizza. Even a phone call to his mother would be better than this.
But who was he kidding? He had a thing for Jessie, and had ever since that damn night they’d slipped out of a bar together and into his unmarked cruiser. It had been dumb, casual sex. He had wanted more. She hadn’t. He just wasn’t her type.
And apparently, Jack Ackerman was.
The thought made him want to puke. He shifted the car out of park when Ackerman emerged from the bank. The lawyer didn’t even glance at the street as he walked up the sidewalk toward Chestnut. Leary drove past him in traffic, then circled around and picked up his trail again walking east.
When Ackerman met another man at the entrance to a bar between Chestnut and 15th, Leary’s work suddenly got interesting. At first he could not remember where he had seen the tall, broad-shouldered man with the goatee before, but a moment later his brain placed him as the guy Leary had seen visiting Dr. Eduard Urlyapov at the hospital. The man whose tightly coiled, malevolent energy had been palpable to Leary as they stood side by side at the nurse’s station.
Leary found a parking space and debated following the pair into the bar. The man with the goatee might not recognize him, but Ackerman certainly would. If Ackerman spotted him, he would know that Jessie was on to him.
But if he didn’t follow them inside, he’d have no chance of eavesdropping on their conversation.
He popped the glove compartment and grabbed the baseball cap he kept there—an unremarkable Phillies cap. Fitting this onto his head, he rooted around for the other half of his makeshift disguise, a cheap pair of reading glasses. The lenses had a limited magnification which would give him a headache if he wore them for too long, but the frames were effective at changing his appearance. Not a foolproof disguise—not even close—but if Ackerman and his friend weren’t looking for a tail, they were unlikely to pick him out of a crowd.
Assuming the bar was crowded.
Let’s hope.
He reached under his jacket and withdrew his 9-mm pistol, popped the cartridge to make sure it was fully loaded, then rammed it home. He did not expect violence, but he left the safety off. There was something about the man from the hospital—Mr. Goatee—that made this feel like a rational precaution.
Blake’s Tavern was not exactly crowded, but it was dark, smoky, and there was a free stool at the bar that would conceal Leary behind a fat trucker type. Ackerman and Mr. Goatee sat together at a small table, the one farthest from the windows. A waitress took their orders. She put one hand on her hip and laughed. Ackerman was flirting with her.
The icy stare Mr. Goatee turned on Ackerman seemed to remind him that they weren’t here to pick up chicks. The lawyer’s smile faltered and the waitress moved on to another table, where a gaggle of middle-aged women were talking excitedly.
“What can I get you, bud?”
A shadow fell over him. Leary turned away from his quarry and looked up at a hulking bartender. If he had noticed Leary spying on his clientele, he didn’t seem to give a shit
. The smile on his ruddy face looked friendly.
Leary smiled back. “Just a Coke, please.”
“Coming right up.”
Ackerman and Mr. Goatee were leaning close to each other over the table. If they were trying to be discreet, they were failing; their body language screamed secret meeting. Whatever they were discussing, the conversation looked unpleasant. Ackerman was practically spitting his words through gritted teeth. Mr. Goatee, listening in silence, looked ready to wring the lawyer’s neck.
Or break it.
Unconsciously, Leary’s hand brushed the butt of his pistol through his jacket. He needed to know who Mr. Goatee was. When the waitress returned to their table with two beer bottles, a plan began to form in his mind.
Mr. Goatee tilted his bottle—Yeungling Lager—to his lips. His thumb pressed against the glass just above the label, leaving—Leary hoped—a pristine fingerprint.
The bartender returned with Leary’s Coke. “You sure you don’t want some Jack along with this?”
“I’ve already got more Jack than I can stomach.”
“Huh?”
“I’m all set, thanks.”
“If you change your mind—”
“You’ll be the first to know.” The bartender shrugged and headed for the other end of the bar where two new patrons had just seated themselves.
Now Mr. Goatee was doing the talking and Ackerman was the one who looked ready to wring necks. Half-standing, his ass in the air, Mr. Goatee thrust his index finger in Ackerman’s face. The women from the next table turned to look at them. When he realized he was drawing attention, Mr. Goatee settled down. Ackerman shook his head, looking disgusted.
Leary felt disgusted himself. He took a swig of Coke. He could accept the fact that Jessie had rejected him. He could even accept that she might find other men more appealing. But Ackerman was going to pay for messing with her heart, not to mention her body. And if he found out that these jerks were responsible for Rachel Pugh’s death, he would hound them to their dying fucking breaths.
He waited. Drank his Coke as the argument at the table died down. A few minutes later, Ackerman put some money on the table and stood up. Leary turned his face in the opposite direction as Ackerman walked past the bar on his way to the door.
Apparently Mr. Goatee did not mind drinking alone. He finished his beer slowly, a thoughtful expression on his face. Then he added more money to the bills Ackerman had left and stood to leave.
Leary waited as long as he dared after the door closed behind Mr. Goatee. A busboy emerged from the kitchen. Leary slipped off his stool, walked to the table, pulled a baggie from his jacket, and, as nonchalantly as possible, took the Yeungling bottle before the busboy was halfway across the room.
Five minutes later, he was back in the unmarked car studying his prize under the dome light. His satisfaction dimmed as he carefully turned the bottle under the light.
No prints.
Leary was sure he had not been spotted. That meant that Mr. Goatee wiped his prints habitually, probably with a shirt sleeve. And that meant he had something to hide.
Leary peered through the windshield at the dark city street. Focused on the bottle, he had not followed the man out of Blake’s Tavern, had not even looked out the window to see his general direction. He had no idea who he was or where to find him.
Damn it. He’d fucked up.
52
Jessie arrived at a courthouse packed with reporters. The mob lent the corridors of the CJC an excited buzz. The media knew that today might well be the climax of the Ramsey trial—the defense might rest, the trial might end, the jury might even reach a verdict—but that it was equally possible that Goldhammer might draw things out for another week, eliciting tedious testimony from character witnesses or, even worse from a news standpoint, more experts. The best case scenario for them, of course, would be if Ramsey took center stage and testified in his own defense. That would give the talking heads enough content for days. Jessie did not share their uncertainty. She strode through the media throng with the confidence that there would be no surprises for her. She had inside information, straight from the horse’s—or jackass’s—mouth. Jack and Goldhammer had clearly indicated that Ramsey was not going to testify. That meant the trial would end today.
She joined Elliot at the prosecution table. “How are you holding up?”
“Not bad, considering.” His body seemed to vibrate as he arranged and then rearranged his files. Both his exhaustion and his excitement were evident in every move. They had worked from dawn to dusk the day before, crafting a closing argument that would hammer the nails into Ramsey’s coffin. “I guess my moment in the spotlight is finally here.”
The thought of Elliot delivering the closing argument instead of her made her nervous, but she’d seen his abilities improve over the course of the trial, and knew he could handle it. He turned in his chair as the courtroom door opened. “Here comes Goldhammer,” he said.
The defense attorney strutted toward them, his entourage of lawyers and assistants trailing behind him. His suit looked expensive—even more so than the others he’d worn during the trial—and the expression on his puffy face was smug.
“He looks pretty confident.” Elliot’s voice barely rose above a breath.
Goldhammer stopped in the aisle between the tables, smiling cheerfully. “Jessie. Elliot, good morning.”
“You look pleased with yourself,” Jessie said.
“I’m pleased that this trial is almost finished. And that, with this victory, you’ll be seeing a lot more of me in the Philadelphia courts.” He winked at her, no doubt anticipating a victory that would serve as a prime advertisement for the city’s drug kingpins and gang leaders.
“You haven’t won yet, Gil.”
“Not yet, no.”
“Are you planning to rest your case today?” Jessie strained to sound innocent.
“Yes. After I’ve called my final witness.”
“What final wit—”
As if on cue, the side door opened and two sheriff’s deputies escorted Ramsey into the courtroom. His entrance was accompanied by the usual murmur in the gallery, but he did not look in that direction. He walked straight to his lawyer.
“Are you ready?” Goldhammer asked him.
“I hope so,” Ramsey said with uncharacteristic nervousness. The sudden vulnerability that flooded his features almost made Jessie sympathize with him. Almost.
“Wait a second. He’s testifying?” Jessie said.
“You look surprised.” Goldhammer adjusted Ramsey’s tie. His voice was casual. “Were you expecting something different?”
Elliot’s earlier excitement had turned into something more alarming—panic. He leaned close to her ear. “I thought you said there was no way he would take the stand—”
“I was wrong.”
She ruffled some papers, tried to ignore Goldhammer’s knowing smirk. She rearranged the documents on the table, for no reason other than to look busy. To look prepared.
“I’ll cross,” she said.
“No, I’ll do it.”
“Elliot, we didn’t prepare for this.” She had been so damn sure, after overhearing Jack and Goldhammer, that Ramsey would not take the stand, that she had focused all of her energy—and Elliot’s—on the closing argument.
“No, listen. I know you said he wouldn’t testify, but I worried he might surprise us, so after I got home last night I studied his statement to the police. I reread the transcripts of his trial and the PCRA hearing. I’m prepared to cross him.”
Jessie was stunned. She knew Elliot had come a long way as a trial lawyer since she’d first met him, but she was still impressed by his initiative. “Are you sure?”
He nodded. “I can do it.”
She took a deep breath and nodded. “Okay. I trust you.”
The packed courtroom was absolutely silent as Frank Ramsey took the stand. Even Judge Spatt leaned forward to peer more closely at the defendant. The man accused of
being the infamous Family Man, the man who, when he’d first been arrested over a year ago, had been a gruff and physically imposing fireman, still retained much of his physique. But even though his muscular frame filled his designer suit, his face showed the effects of his time served in prison. Two haunted brown eyes glared from sockets in cadaverous gray flesh. No fancy suit could disguise the fact that Frank Ramsey had been to death row and back, and bore the scars of his journey.
“Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”
Without hesitation, he said, “I do.”
53
“Mr. Ramsey, I know it’s been difficult for you to sit here in court with us,” Goldhammer said, “remaining silent as the prosecutors accused you of unthinkable crimes. Now you will have the opportunity to tell the jury your side of the story.”
Ramsey leaned forward, looked at the jurors. From her seat at the prosecution table, Jessie could see their faces. Some looked angry and judgmental, some skeptical, some unreadable—but none friendly. Goldhammer’s tricks had failed. Kate Moscow had failed. Certainly Ramsey, whom she knew to be a less than articulate speaker, would fail as well. He had lost his first trial and he would lose this one, too, for one reason.
He was guilty.
“Mr. Ramsey, did you kill Robert Dillard?” Goldhammer stepped closer to the jury, his body language implying that he was on their side, an aid in their quest for truth.
Ramsey inclined his body toward the jurors. When he spoke, his voice was strong and sure. “No, I did not.”
[Jessie Black 01.0] Burnout Page 25
