Just as Newark had become a place of contrasts—modern glass towers next to abandoned buildings and shops, the glorious city hall that housed a nearly bankrupt government—so was the Essex County Courthouse. The first time Kerry climbed its steps as a lawyer, he stopped at the foot of the massive pillared structure, gazing up at the words “Law,” “Justice,” and “Peace” chiseled above the doors, then at the quasi-Greek statuary atop the portico. But the interior, though vast and awe-inspiring in design, had fallen into dinginess and disrepair. Like other assistant prosecutors, Kerry shared a ten-by-ten cubicle along a dim hallway with offices on both sides; crammed within were a filing cabinet, two metal desks with laminate wood tops and rickety wooden chairs that, in the phrase of Kerry’s red-haired officemate, Tommy Corcoran, were cursed by the ghosts of prosecutors past.
Their office faced the inside corridor and sweltered during the summer. For privacy, Kerry and Tommy covered its only window with movie posters, so that the witnesses they interviewed did not grow more paranoid than they already were. But even the lawyers were a little paranoid. Though Newark was a violent city, neither the courtroom nor the prosecutor’s office had security or even a metal detector; like a number of the other prosecutors, Tommy kept a gun in his desk.
Kerry himself had no feeling about guns. But he could not imagine getting shot for prosecuting the endless run of misdemeanors that were a rookie’s lot—traffic offenses, petty vandalism, minor breaches of the peace. And the incumbent county prosecutor, Vincent J. Flavio, was not looking to inflame passions.
“Flavio’s a time-server,” Liam had told him. “The one thing to never forget is how long he’s wanted to be prosecutor and how hell-bent he is to keep it. Threatenthat , and he’s as mean as a snake. Worse, the man knows enough secrets to persuade the last two governors—a Democratand a Republican—to reappoint him. The only way we’ll be rid of him now is to indict him. Unless we make him a judge.”
This last was said with a touch of humor, Liam’s wry acknowledgment of the world’s imperfections. Then his face turned serious. “Vincent’s no admirer of your brother—sometimes I think God created Jamie just to make politicians like Flavio feel resentful. ‘When did he pay his dues?’ they wonder. So make sure you pay yours, Kerry.
“Weknow you’re there to learn your trade. But to Flavio, just the name Kilcannon makes you someone to watch out for, maybe with enough influence to take his job. Treat him with respect, and let him know about whatever seems important. And should some reporter take an interest in anything you do, remember that every mistake is your own, every triumph a reflection of Vincent J. Flavio’s leadership and wisdom.”
Kerry did not think this unreasonable. Better than Vincent Flavio could know, Kerry understood how Jamie could make someone feel inadequate. In many ways, Kerry thought, he had more in common with Flavio than with his brother: education at Seton Hall, the “contact” school which bred Newark’s lawyers, politicians, and judges; deep roots in the community; a sense of his own limits. Like Flavio, all that Kerry wanted was respect.
On his first day, Flavio’s chief assistant, Carl Nunzio—a bald man with a face as creased and hard as a walnut—escorted Kerry to the prosecutor’s office and shut the door behind them. Vincent Flavio sat at his desk. He was a big man, built like Kerry’s father, but there the resemblance ended. His shoes shone, his curly graying hair had a whiff of the barbershop, and his gold cuff links and monogrammed tie tainted his attempted air of gravitas—steepled fingers, raised head—with a touch of vanity.
As Flavio rose to greet him, Kerry sensed that the vanity, far from being droll, marked the most dangerous thing about him. Vincent Flavio’s handshake was firm, his smile so broad that it crinkled the corners of his eyes. But the eyes themselves bored into Kerry’s with an invasive intensity. It was as if, Kerry thought, Flavio had trained his mouth and eyes each to serve different functions. Kerry felt small, uncomfortable.
Flavio sat down again, framed by his own face smiling from the wall behind him, pictures taken with a governor, two senators, and, to Kerry’s surprise, Luciano Pavarotti. “So,” the prosecutor said, “you’re here to become a trial lawyer.”
Kerry nodded. Reticent, he searched for phrases of gratitude and reassurance. “Maybe someday I’ll open my own practice. But this is the only place to learn. I’m lucky to be here.”
Flavio’s smile appeared again, a display of white teeth. “No luck involved, Kerry. Liam Dunn thinks well of you.” Kerry caught the silent message beneath the words; Kerry was here not through his own deserts but on Vincent Flavio’s sufferance, as a favor to Liam. Kerry imagined the long list of supporters whose kids or cousins or nephews had lost this slot to Kerry, and, as Flavio no doubt wanted, he felt defensive.
“I’ll do the best I can,” Kerry said, and disliked himself for it.
As if warmed by Kerry’s discomfiture, Flavio’s voice grew hearty. “I’m sure you will, Kerry. I’m sure you will.” But what Kerry heard washowever good that is .
Awkwardly, Kerry stood. “Thanks for giving me a chance, Mr. Flavio.”
Flavio did not stand. “ ‘Vincent,’ Kerry. As long as you’re here, the door is always open. Keep me informed, all right? Or Carl.”
Leaving, Kerry realized that the prosecutor had never mentioned Jamie. The message was clear enough: Kerry had entered the world of Vincent J. Flavio, where James Kilcannon held no sway.
That was fine, Kerry thought with fresh determination. All he cared about was trying cases.
For the next year, he labored doggedly. There would always be smarter lawyers in the office, he decided, with quicker minds and better instincts. But no one would outwork him. Petty crime by petty crime, Kerry learned to make cops trust him, to deal with the polyglot array of witnesses afflicted by the accidents of urban life, to weather judges so rude and bored and cynical that their courtrooms were a lawyer’s purgatory. Tommy Corcoran marveled at Kerry’s hours, and even Vincent Flavio took notice; by the time the year was over, Kerry had tried more misdemeanors than anyone else. He might not be a brilliant lawyer, Kerry thought, but he was becoming a decent mechanic.
Then Carl Nunzio came to his office and handed Kerry an empty envelope. “It’s for the flower fund,” he said.
* * *
Kerry gazed up at Nunzio, fighting back dismay. He was not Liam’s pupil for nothing; when he returned the envelope, it would not be empty. With feigned innocence, he asked, “What’s the flower fund?”
Nunzio’s eyes, narrowing slightly, signaled his annoyance. “To help Vincent with office expenses,” he said at last. “I’m asking his lawyers to water the flowers, so to speak.”
Kerry was trapped, he realized. Liam lacked the means to get rid of Flavio by himself; in the tacit division of spoils that held the party together, the prosecutor’s office was Italian, and those with the power to get rid of Flavio feared him instead. Kerry wondered whether his money would go toward Flavio’s clothes or to his condominium in Florida, and what part spilled over to Nunzio.
“How much?” Kerry asked bluntly.
Nunzio tilted his head, as though appraising Kerry for something he had missed. “Ten percent of gross pay.”
Silent, Kerry added two hundred fifty dollars a month to the four hundred he already sent to his mother, and realized that he might have to find a cheaper apartment. Nunzio’s tone was deceptively gentle. “It’s voluntary, of course. But we’re hoping for one hundred percent participation.”
Cornered, Kerry filled with anger at his powerlessness. Liam’s friendship and his brother’s name would only save him from being fired; his choice was to go along or face professional death—certain transfer to some office backwater, shuffling paper. Kerry’s training as a trial lawyer would end.
Kerry nodded slowly.
To his surprise, Nunzio took Tommy Corcoran’s chair and sat across from Kerry. “There’s something else.”
Kerry’s instinct for silence was deep. He simply waited.
&nbs
p; “You’ve got a file,” Nunzio went on. “The Frankie Scaline case. It’s up for prelim next week.”
Kerry had numerous cases; he did not know this one. But the name Scaline was familiar. “I haven’t read the file yet,” Kerry said.
Nunzio spread his hands. “Domestic quarrel—wife gets upset, tells a cop the husband whacked her. Who knows?”
Kerry felt his eyes grow cold. “Who cares?” he asked softly.
Nunzio stared back at him. “The case is weak. They always are. I don’t want to waste your time.”
Kerry paused. Voice still quiet, he said, “Give it to someone else, then.”
Nunzio sat back, hands folded beneath his chin. “I think you should dismiss it.”
At once, Kerry understood. If something later happened to the wife, a reassignment might look peculiar; Flavio wanted Kerry’s fingerprints on this one, not his own. “Maybe I should interview the wife,” Kerry answered.
For a moment, Nunzio was silent. “I understand she’s sorry now.” His voice had an undertone, the hint of patience lost. “No point in bothering this lady. It’sher marriage, not yours or mine.”
Kerry felt his chest tighten. The woman had persisted, and someone had placed a phone call. That was how it was done.
“Let me read the file,” he said.
Nunzio stood. “You do that, Kerry. By tomorrow.”
When Nunzio was gone, Kerry sat very still, staring at nothing. A half hour passed before he picked up the telephone.
“Who’s Frankie Scaline?” he asked Liam.
“Peter Scaline’s boy,” Liam answered. As was typical, he asked no questions.
“That’s what I thought,” Kerry said.
“You should know,” Liam continued evenly, “that Peter is a great supporter of Vincent Flavio. Vincent’s also Frankie’s godfather, if memory serves.”
And you’re mine,Kerry thought. “Thanks, Liam.”
There was silence, Liam weighing his obligations. “Things all right over there?”
Liam had done enough for him, Kerry thought. To intervene with Flavio would squander a piece of the political capital Liam needed for more important matters. “Things are fine,” Kerry said, and got off.
He found the Scaline file in a stack atop the filing cabinet.
According to the police report, Frankie Scaline was twenty-four. His wife of less than a year, Elaine Scaline, had locked herself in the bedroom and called 911. Arriving, the police saw a bruise on her face, a slightly swollen lip. She claimed that Frankie had slapped her for refusing oral sex; her husband, embarrassed and belligerent, claimed that she had tripped. To men like Vincent Flavio, a comedy, a favor to be done.
Putting down the file, Kerry touched his eyes.
It was Elaine Scaline’s second complaint. Through the wooden prose of the report, Kerry had an image of her plight; intuitively, he believed that Frankie was a wife beater and that his wife knew he would grow worse. That was why she had not backed down.
It was the last case Kerry wanted.
He faced the reasons. For others, it would be enough that domestic violence cases were the dregs of the office—losers, pitting one witness against another, often abandoned by the complainant herself. Most of them would gladly do as Nunzio asked. But Kerry knew that his own reasons went far deeper: the habit of silence, passed from his mother to Kerry, the need to forget.
That part of his life was over. He had no wish to go back.
* * *
The morning of the preliminary hearing for Frankie Scaline, Kerry went to court.
Everything went as planned. Speaking for the State of New Jersey, Assistant County Prosecutor Kerry Kilcannon asked that the case be dismissed. Frankie was absent, and so was his wife. The hardest part was done—Kerry’s phone call to Elaine Scaline, explaining that her case was problematic. Frankie Scaline’s lawyer did not have to say a word.
As they left the courtroom, he shook Kerry’s hand and thanked him.
Solitary, Kerry stopped on the courthouse steps. He did not know what he would do, or even where he was going.
At the end of their conversation, Elaine Scaline had started to cry.
Torn between anger and self-hatred, Kerry went to his office. The envelope was still on his desk.
Tearing a scrap of paper from his notepad, Kerry scrawled three words and slid the paper in the envelope. Then he walked the maze of corridors to Vincent Flavio’s corner office and opened the door.
Flavio was on the telephone. Looking up at Kerry, he neither waved him to a chair nor cut short the conversation. Kerry waited.
Hanging up the phone, Flavio studied him, a silent reproach for his rudeness. “What is it?” he demanded.
Kerry walked across Flavio’s Oriental rug and placed the envelope in his hand. As Flavio removed the scrap of paper, Kerry watched his face turn red.
“Statev.Scaline,” Kerry had written.
Kerry’s voice shook. “That’s my contribution, Vincent. It seems like enough.”
Before Flavio could answer, Kerry turned and left.
He did not have long to wait. Within hours, they dispatched his friend Tommy Corcoran to share another office. Tommy’s replacement was a heavyset black lawyer, Clayton Slade, with his own inclination toward quiet.
Two days later, Carl Nunzio called Kerry to his office. “I’m giving you a new assignment,” he said, and waited for Kerry’s question.
There was none.
“We’ve been taking some heat on domestic violence,” Nunzio went on. “Vincent thinks we need a specialist.” For once, amusement played on his wizened face. “Of course I thought ofyou , Kerry. After all, you’ve got experience.”
TWO
Two weeks later, the Musso case came in.
Bridget Musso was the victim. When the cops arrived, her husband was gone; she was sprawled on the living room floor, unconscious. Her face was bruised and several teeth were broken. But the detail Kerry found most chilling was that her eight-year-old son sat next to her, so uncommunicative that at first they thought he was retarded. His only words to the police were “I think my mommy’s dead.”
They rushed Bridget to the hospital and her son to a Catholic home for boys. This made sense to Kerry; in the Vailsburg apartment house where the Mussos lived, the father had a reputation for drunkenness and fits of temper. When the police tracked down Anthony Musso in a bar, he claimed that his alcoholic wife had tripped in the bathroom, smashing her face against the sink. He did not ask about his son.
The second problem, it seemed, was Bridget herself.
The admitting report from the hospital showed traces of drugs in her system, and a blood alcohol content well above the legal limit. The drugs were prescribed for epilepsy but, combined with too much alcohol, they produced an incapacitating haze.
That was how the neighbors frequently saw her—dazed, remote, with a vacant stare that made them feel invisible. It seemed John Musso had no parents worth the name.
The other thing it meant, Kerry knew, was that a good defense lawyer might impeach Bridget Musso. That drunks can stumble and injure themselves was emblazoned in Kerry’s memory.
Before anything else, he must interview Bridget.
When they discharged her from the hospital, she was afraid to go home. She and her child were living in a shelter run by the city; over the telephone, Kerry confirmed that she was drinking again. He reserved a witness room and sent the police to escort her in.
* * *
She was red-haired, Irish-looking, and the file said she was thirty-five. But ill health and addiction seemed to have sapped the life from her. There was a softness to her chin, a slackness to her face and body: her pale skin was blotchy, and Kerry noticed burst blood vessels beneath the surface of her cheeks. Though it was eleven-thirty in the morning, Kerry could smell whiskey on her breath.
“Can you tell me what happened?” he asked.
She touched her face, as if this would help her remember. Beneath her delicate fingers,
the swollen bruise was fading to green-yellow. When at last she spoke, Kerry saw her ruined teeth, the stitches on the inside of her lip. “Anthony did this,” she said dully, and then she shrugged. “He’s no different than anyone. Sometimes men get angry.”
The words left pinpricks on Kerry’s neck. “Your father beat your mother?” he asked gently. “Or you?”
For a time, she just looked past him. “Both.”
Sweet Jesus,Kerry thought in despair. But he stifled the impulse to ask about this; already, she seemed enervated. “That night,” he asked, “what did your husband do to you?”
For almost an hour, question by question, Kerry negotiated the minefield of her memory—bursts of vivid clarity, surrounded by black holes. The memory of a drunk.
By the time it was over, Kerry was exhausted, the night, as he pieced it together from Bridget and the file, indelible.
* * *
She was alone in the shabby living room. John was probably in his room—about this Bridget Musso had no curiosity. The light from the living room lamp receded into darkness. The acrid smell of burned pasta sauce reminded her, vaguely, that she had not turned off the kitchen stove.
Anthony had not come home for dinner.
Waiting, Bridget poured more whiskey into the plastic glass. The music on the soft-rock station seemed to come from far away, a note at a time. She barely heard the sound of a key opening the apartment door, the door softly closing.
Her husband was a large form in the darkness.
Bridget jerked upright. He stood over her, very still, his face still in shadows. “Why do you do this to me, Bridget?”
His voice was mournful, a whisper. That was how Bridget knew to fear him.
Numb, she shook her head.
“Why?” he asked again.
His eyes were dark pools, his beard a neglected stubble. Like her father’s . . .
Frozen, Bridget felt the urine run down her leg.
Her husband gazed at the stain she had made, spreading across the cushioned chair. “Like an animal.” His voice was hoarse now. “A dog.”
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