The Hidden Man

by David Ellis

  The other two girls had been part of the case that put Perlini in prison until 2005. Over one summer, while working at a park district, Perlini had abused these girls, who had enrolled in a summer program. The case had gone to trial, which presumably meant the children had to testify. These would not be fun conversations, both because of the obviously uncomfortable subject matter and because I might have to argue, at trial, that one of these sets of parents should be suspects in Griffin Perlini’s murder. I wasn’t sure I had the stomach to do it, to throw salt on already gaping wounds, but it would be irresponsible not to explore it. That’s the kind of thing that makes the general public hate lawyers, especially the criminal defense bar. Much of what we do, to a layperson, is counterintuitive. A guy gets caught with a kilo of cocaine in his basement and the first thing we argue is that the evidence should not be admitted, because of a Fourth Amendment violation. A guy confesses to a crime and the first thing we argue is that the jury shouldn’t hear the confession, courtesy of the Fifth Amendment. We try shaky defenses like temporary insanity or play the race card, anything plausible to free our client. People will carp and moan about every single attorney on the face of the earth except for one—their own, if they ever need one, in which case their view of the Bill of Rights becomes infinitely more expansive.

  I was tired, and thinking about a cup of coffee from the shop downstairs, when my intercom buzzed. Marie, through the speaker: “Mr. Smith to see you.”

  Smith. The last person I felt like seeing. But something inside me told me that I wanted to take this meeting.

  My door, which I’d uncharacteristically closed, opened, and Smith walked in. “Afternoon, Jason.” He looked as polished as last time, a gray double-breasted suit with a charcoal tie, hair sharply parted. But as he moved across my small office, seating himself in front of my desk, I sensed that he was less tentative, more self-assured, than he was at our last meeting.

  “Tell me your name,” I said. “Your real name.”

  “I was hoping for an update on the case,” he said, not answering my question.

  “Hope is a dangerous thing.”

  He forced a smile. “You’re being paid well. Very well.”

  “So are you. Who’s paying you? Maybe we can share information.”

  At this point, it seemed clear that Smith was representing a family that had been subject to Griffin Perlini’s predatory appetites in some way or another. I could understand the desire for discretion, and really, Smith wasn’t my problem. I didn’t care who was paying. My loyalty was to Sammy only, and if someone else wanted to bankroll the defense while cloaked in anonymity, I wasn’t sure I cared.

  On the other hand, I’d assumed that the people tailing me since the day Smith first appeared in my office were connected to him. On the scale of things I cared about, that issue rated a few notches higher. He was keeping tabs on me, and I didn’t know why.

  “There are four aspects to Mr. Cutler’s case,” Smith graciously informed me.

  At least he was capable of counting. The four areas of concern were the eyewitnesses who had Sammy running from the scene of the crime; the convenience store videotape that caught his car parked down the street from Perlini’s apartment; the black-guy-fleeing-the-scene; and Sammy’s statement to the police.

  “From what little I’ve been able to gather,” said Smith, “it sounds as if you have one potentially favorable witness. I don’t recall the name. Butler, was it?”

  Butcher, actually. Tommy Butcher. Again, no need to help him with information.

  “Apparently a black man was spotted near the crime scene,” he continued. “Has Mr. Butler given you a description of this man beyond that?”

  As luck would have it, after I had applied a healthy dose of sympathetic grease, Butcher had seemed willing to go along with the brown-jacket-green-cap story I had pitched him. But Smith didn’t know that, and I wasn’t going to illuminate him. I shook my head and opened my hands.

  “I’m going to help you with that, Jason. The empty chair.”

  Someone to point the finger at, he meant. Someone who was not sitting in the courtroom, who didn’t have a lawyer to defend himself, who didn’t have any constitutional protections. And he was right, of course. If I could place at the scene of the crime a black guy who had any hint of a motive or criminal background, I might have something to show the jury.

  “You’re going to find me the black-guy-fleeing-the-scene, Smith?”

  His head inclined ever so slightly. “I am, yes.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Thanks. And what about the eyewitnesses? Perlini’s neighbor, and the elderly couple that ID’d Sammy running from the building?”

  “Don’t worry about them,” he answered.

  I didn’t like the sound of that, neither the words nor his icy delivery. “Explain that.”

  “Don’t worry about the eyewitnesses. They’re my problem.” He could read the expression on my face, no doubt, so he elaborated. “It’s not what you’re thinking, Jason. It’s just that—memories are a funny thing. Sometimes, if you think back, it wasn’t the way you thought it was. Right?”

  “You’re just going to help them with their memory.” Even as I said the words, careful to show my disapproval, it occurred to me that I had just done the very same thing with Tommy Butcher. I’d fed him all sorts of information to bathe my client in a sympathetic light and then spoon-fed him a description of the black-guy-fleeing-the-scene.

  But that was a little different, I gathered, from what Smith had in mind for the other eyewitnesses. “If any harm comes to any of them, Smith, you’re going to answer to me.”

  He stared at me, losing any trace of a smile. “Don’t ever threaten me, son.”

  “Don’t think I’m going to sit idly by while you murder witnesses.”

  He regarded me for a moment, then a chuckle escaped his throat. “There are ways short of physical force, my friend. Everyone has a pressure point. Everyone. Including you.”

  “And you,” I volleyed.

  He slowly nodded. “Believe me when I say, you don’t want to find it.”

  I didn’t answer.

  “Jason, one of your best friends is on trial for murder, and I’m gift-wrapping an acquittal for you. I’ll find you a scapegoat, and I’ll help you with the eyewitnesses. The only things that remain are the videotape placing Mr. Cutler’s car at the scene, and the statement Cutler gave to the police. Those are the only things that require your help. You’ll need to find a way to finesse Cutler’s incriminating statement, and you and I will have to come up with an innocent reason that Cutler’s car was in the vicinity at the time. Those two things are your only assignments. Anything beyond that is a waste of time and a distraction.”

  I nodded. I thought I understood now. “You’ve been watching the news today.”

  “I have, and I don’t see what you can possibly gain from the discovery of bodies behind a school. What do you intend to prove? That Griffin Perlini killed Cutler’s sister? The judge has already ruled that evidence off-limits.”

  “For now,” I said.

  “For now. For now.” He fell back in the chair. “Don’t make this harder than it is. The trial is only about three weeks away. There is no time for red herrings. This will end in an acquittal if you follow my directions. If you start playing Lone Ranger, you could screw everything up.” He held up two fingers. “Two items, Jason. Cutler’s incriminating statement and a reason why he would have been near the scene of the crime. The confession and an alibi. You’re expected to give us explanations on those two items and nothing more. Nothing,” he repeated, “more.”

  Smith let his speech sink in for me. He was probably wondering why I hadn’t taken notes. This guy, I could see, was accustomed to giving out orders and having people follow them. He shot his cuff links and fixed his tie and said, “Good. We have an understanding.”

  I watched Smith walk to the door before I answered.

  “With just one caveat,” I said. “You will shov
e your retainer up your ass and go crawl under a rock. I will do whatever I think is best for Sammy and we’ll never talk again.”

  Smith’s face dissolved into a frown.

  “Tell me your real name, whom you represent, and why,” I said. “Or you’re out of the picture as of right now.”

  My mysterious benefactor thought for a while, weighing the pros and cons, before answering. The fact that he was even considering responding meant something, I just wasn’t entirely sure what.

  “Obviously, Jason, my clients are a family, or families, who have a particular interest in seeing that Mr. Perlini’s murder go unpunished.”

  “Someone whom Perlini assaulted. Or her parents, or family.”

  He waved a hand.

  “Victims who testified against him in court?” I asked. “Or victims the police never knew about?” Smith didn’t answer, so I added to my question: “Victims who were buried behind Hardigan Elementary School?”

  It had occurred to me, but never so keenly as now: Smith might be representing someone who killed Griffin Perlini, for the same motive Sammy had—a bitter parent, or sibling, of a child Perlini molested or even killed.

  Was Smith here to steer me away from the real killer?

  Was Sammy innocent?

  “I strongly urge you to stick to the script,” said Smith.

  “I strongly urge you to go fuck yourself.”

  Smith played that around on his lips. “You’re making a mistake,” he said. “When you change your mind, I’ll be in touch.”

  I detected a hint of a smile cross his lips.

  “When I’ve changed my mind?” I asked.

  He nodded at me. “When,” he said, as he walked out the door.

  18

  MY OFFICE MATE, Shauna Tasker, stuck her head in around six o’clock. She mentioned dinner, and I soon found myself at one of the new trendy restaurants in town, a Spanish place called Cena. We ordered a couple of tapas—dates wrapped in bacon and an omelet of potato and onions—after which Shauna ate a pork chop stuffed with goat cheese, while I pushed a piece of black grouper around the plate and avoided the mushrooms, which I hate and didn’t realize were part of the dish.

  I’d had a few vodkas and sensed danger. I didn’t use alcohol to escape so much as to change the landscape, to alter something. Maybe there was no difference. But I felt my emotions destabilize, and I also sensed something hanging between Shauna and me.

  Shauna seemed to be appraising me, which I didn’t particularly enjoy, but she had her subtle ways of doing so that made it hard for me to be angry. She had a gift for that sort of thing. She could operate in any circle, the wealthy client or the poor, men or women. She had delicate features combined with silky blond hair that might be described as pretty, but not in a threatening way. Other women liked her and most men both liked her and lusted after her. She knew all of this and thrived accordingly. On the surface she was generally regarded as sincere, open, trustworthy, sometimes passionate. But those pretty blue eyes were skeptical. She had an internal barometer that cautioned against intimacy, that generally distrusted others. She was the best judge of character I’d ever known, which is what made me uneasy when she trained that judgment on me.

  She asked me what I’d been doing yesterday, when I was once again AWOL from the office. The truth was there were still many days when I just couldn’t function, when I was no use to anyone, when I couldn’t stand the pity, when I couldn’t concentrate, when I just didn’t give a shit about anything. I simply told her I’d been “reading at home,” which was true if you counted paperback novels. She didn’t seem to think much of the answer.

  “You talk to Pete lately?” I asked her. She hadn’t known Pete particularly well. Shauna was my age, so she didn’t go to high school with Pete, who was a freshman when we graduated. But she’d gotten to know him a bit after Talia and Emily died, when they tag-teamed on the Jason Kolarich Sympathy Tour, taking turns making sure I had company while I was nursing my wounds.

  “Not recently,” she said. “Why?”

  I shook my head. “I think he’s back to his old tricks. Scoring.”

  “Cocaine? No, I don’t know about that. I’m not sure I would know.”

  “Yeah, Pete’s pretty good at keeping it under wraps.”

  “Is this serious? Or is it just when he’s out partying?”

  I didn’t know. “I’m not sure I make that distinction,” I said. “Sometimes it’s hard to keep recreational from becoming addictive.” I lifted my empty glass of vodka to the waitress, signaling for another. Shauna was still working on a glass of wine and shook her head. “I’ve had my back turned, Shauna. I’ve been so caught up in myself—first that Almundo trial and then Talia and Emily—I haven’t been watching that kid. I feel like I’ve—”

  “Please don’t finish that sentence.” Shauna raised a hand. “Just—please don’t say that you’ve let your brother down.”

  She went quiet. I didn’t know what to make of the hostility, which she took out on the remaining piece of pork on her plate, shaking her head in disgust as she did so.

  “The hell is your problem?” I asked.

  “No problem here, Kolarich. Not a care in the world.” She finished the rest of the pork chop, and I tired of focusing on the fish I had no intention of eating. The waitress brought me a fresh vodka and Shauna watched me.

  “Say something,” I said.

  “Say something?”

  “Yeah, say some goddamn thing.”

  “Okay. Okay.” She wiped his mouth with her napkin. “Get off your ass, Jason.”

  “Come again?”

  “Snap out of it. Get off your ass.”

  “Oh, wait. Is this the get-busy-living-or-get-busy-dying speech? My wife and child died, but I didn’t? They’d want me to get on with my life? That about cover it?”

  Shauna looked away, that expression of distaste that she used effectively. “I haven’t said anything for—what—four months now. Four months, I’ve watched you beat yourself up. Blaming yourself for Talia and Emily. Not pitying yourself. That, I could understand. But you’ve managed to rewrite the script so that everything is your fault.”

  I took a healthy drink of the Stoli that the waitress placed before me. It went down harsh, a burn in the back of my throat.

  “And now you’re doing the same thing with your brother, who, last I checked, is nearly thirty years old, which I believe puts him in the category of adult.”

  “I see.”

  “Don’t belittle what I’m saying. Don’t do that.” As she spoke, the sleeve of her shirt dipped into some sauce on her plate. “Look, I know you feel bad about getting caught up in that trial when Emily was born. I know it was hard on Talia, and I could sense that you guys were having a few problems. The timing was terrible. Your baby’s born just as you’re second-chairing a monster trial that could make your whole career. Okay. So the trial comes first. It has to. You were doing this for your family.”

  “Was I?”

  She drew back. “Of course you were. What, you’re gonna tell me you enjoyed it, too? You got an ego boost? You were enjoying the thrill of a headline case? You got off on seeing your name in the paper? Is that supposed to be a crime? You liked what you were doing, Jason. That’s allowed.”

  “Tell that—”

  “—to Talia, and Emily. I know. I get it. I’ve heard it fifty times now. You would have made it up to them, Jason. I know you. I know you would have. But you never got to, because something really tragic happened. But that doesn’t make it your fault. See the difference there? So when you go the cemetery every single day at lunch to talk to your wife and daughter—”

  I recoiled.

  “Yes,” she continued, “I followed you once, and I really don’t care if you don’t like it. When you go visit them every day, you can tell them how much you love them and how much you miss them. You can tell them that you were planning to make up for lost time if you’d had the chance, but do not take responsibility for their
deaths. Okay?”

  At the neighboring table, a woman was having a birthday. The waitress delivered a piece of fried custard with a single candle on it as the table broke into song. Everyone seemed to enjoy making a big spectacle of it.

  Talia’s birthday is next week.

  I gestured to Shauna. “You dragged your sleeve through your plate.”

  “I know and it sucks. I just bought this.” She dabbed her napkin into her glass of water and we both laughed.

  I TOOK A CAB HOME. My head was a little foggy from the vodka. I had some of the case file at home with me, but I wasn’t in the shape or the state of mind to focus on it.

  I walked into Emily’s room. My heart did a small leap as I flicked on the light, a fancy little chandelier Talia had purchased for the room. The whole nursery was pink and green, from the wallpaper and paint to the crib, even a custom rocking chair Talia had ordered. I sat in the chair and rocked, my eyes dancing when I closed them. I thought I could still smell her, the baby lotion we used, the cream we used on her tush. I had a distinct image of her face, her eyes alighting when I lifted her into the air.

  I opened my eyes and shook my head fiercely. My chest filled with emotion, heavy, suffocating. Love, for me, was always suffused with pain, with vulnerability, the accompanying fear of losing what you love even as you immerse yourself in it. But now they were dead, so there was no fear of loss, only the love that remained, now unadulterated, pure, overpowering.

  I got out of the chair, turned off the light, and left her room. I stripped my clothes and got into bed. Sleep did not come immediately. I stared at the ceiling and thought about what Shauna had said. To some extent, she was right. I was merging two things, my guilt for time lost with my family because of work, and remorse for their loss, but letting the former overpower the latter, making myself to blame for their deaths.

  Still, I couldn’t let go of one very clear fact: I was supposed to go with Talia and Emily downstate that weekend. I’d cleared it with the boss, with the client. We were nearing the end of the trial, the defense was about to rest its case, and I’d completed the witnesses I was assigned. Go spend time with your family, Paul had told me. That’s a direct order. But I had to be the hotshot. I’d caught a lead. I’d found Ernesto Ramirez, the ex-Latin Lord, who had information that could blow up the government’s case, who could pin the murder of the neighborhood businessman on a rival street gang, not the gang whom the government had tied to Senator Hector Almundo. The government has the wrong street gang, we would have told the jury.