Flesh and Bones: A Jake Lassiter Novel

by Paul Levine

  I told him about my father, too. How a good, strong man can weep, too.

  "I never cry," Kip said, and it was true. He had been abandoned and hurt, and now he had erected a wall to protect himself from more pain.

  "Don't you ever get sad?" I asked him.

  "Nope. Never."

  "When I was your age, I read a book that made me cry," I told him.

  "A book?"

  "Yeah, lots of pages with two covers on it."

  "I know what books are. Uncle Jake. They must have been great before the Internet and a hundred movie channels on the satellite."

  "It was called The Diary of a Young Girl, by Anne Frank."

  "I know it, Uncle Jake. I saw the movie. I thought the TV was fried until I figured out it was in black and white." The shadow of a thought wrinkled his forehead. "It was real sad."

  "The saddest story ever."

  "Okay, is that the uncle-gram for today?"

  "Not just that. One time, on the practice field at Penn State, a row of thunderheads moved into the valley. Big steel-gray clouds were just hanging over the field, but toward the mountains, it was clear and sunny. It started raining, pouring on us, and in the distance was the brightest rainbow I've ever seen."

  "Yeah?"

  "It brought tears to my eyes."

  "Why?"

  "I'm not sure. Maybe because it made me think of my father. I wished he could have seen it. He loved natural beauty. Dolphins jumping together, a waterspout on the bay, sunset in the gulf."

  "What's your point, Uncle Jake?"

  "It's okay to cry. It's okay to show your emotions." I tried to think of an example. "Let's say you're watching a sad movie—"

  "Like Terms of Endearment where Debra Winger dies."

  "Yeah. It's okay to bawl your eyes out if you want to."

  "Uh-huh."

  "Or if something makes you sad, you can talk about it with your uncle Jake."

  It was all he could do to keep from rolling his eyes. "Sure."

  "Anything you want to talk about right now?"

  "No thanks, Uncle Jake, but I'm glad we had this little talk."

  My ancient convertible navigated the interstate, exited in downtown Miami, then picked up the MacArthur Causeway to Miami Beach. As I sped north on Alton Road, passing kosher delis, funeral homes, and Rollerblade shops, the wind finally dried my tears. I turned right on Eleventh Street, passed Flamingo Park, and headed toward Ocean Drive.

  The apartment building had rounded corners, porthole windows, a porch with terrazzo floors, and decorative nautical pipe railings. The walls had recently been painted a color I would call Pepto-Bismol pink but the renovation artist probably described in more decorous terms. Concrete eyebrows hung over the casement windows, and a spire stuck out of the roof like the mast of a fine sailing ship. Tour guides would call the place Art Deco, or Streamline Moderne, but to us locals, it's just an old stucco building with a fresh coat of paint.

  I pounded on the door for a full minute before a light came on. "Chrissy, it's me, Jake."

  She opened the door and peered at me, sleepy-eyed. "Do you know what time it is?"

  "Why do people always say that when you wake them up? Why not 'It's three-thirty-seven A.M. Do you know where your brains are?' "

  "Jake, aren't we due in court this morning?"

  I pushed through the door and grabbed her. She was wearing a Dolphins jersey and nothing else. Number 13. I was relatively certain that Dan Marino, a solid family man, was not hiding in the closet. I had her by the shoulders and pulled her close. She had lied to me. Maybe Schein had implanted false memories or maybe the memories were real. It didn't matter. She had lied to me, her lawyer and her lover.

  Now I wanted to look into those flinty green eyes. I wanted to see her blink when she lied again. I wanted to see her cry.

  "Your eyes are bloodshot," she said. "Have you been drinking?" She looked frightened. Good.

  "We have about five hours," I said. "I want the truth." I thought about Jack Nicholson and Tom Cruise. Could I handle the truth?

  "What do you mean?"

  "I want to know why you killed your father and what that slimy half brother of yours had to do with it. I want to know everything about Schein."

  "Guy's not involved in this. Neither is Larry."

  I squeezed her upper arms and pulled her close.

  "Jake, you're hurting me."

  "I've never hit a woman. I hate the cowardly cretins that do. But if you were a man, right now I'd knock you through that wall and kick your ass across Ocean Drive."

  "Jake, you're acting crazy!"

  I let her go and she pulled away.

  "You thought you were being so smart," I said. "Well, your pal Schein taped you when you thought he wasn't. He's got proof you planned to kill your father. No blackouts, no irresistible impulses. No nothing but a life behind bars."

  She blinked but she didn't cry.

  "And here's another little surprise. Two characters named Faviola and Kent are getting expenses-paid vacations to Miami."

  "Luciano doesn't need the money," she said quietly. "Martin would do anything for a dollar."

  My look asked the question, which she quickly answered. "Luciano Faviola is an Italian playboy. He tried to rape me at a party when I was stoned." She shook her head and said bitterly, "I wish I'd killed him."

  "Perfect trial demeanor," I said sarcastically, "showing your tender, remorseful side. I'm sure the jury will have a lot of sympathy for a coke-snorting, spoiled bitch princess who carries a gun and cries rape at every opportunity."

  "Is that what you think I am?"

  "It doesn't matter what I think."

  "It does to me," she said, her eyes tearing. She walked to the window and stared out at Ocean Drive. "Martin Kent was a playboy without a bankroll. He stole from me. He was just another one of my incredibly poor choices where men are concerned."

  She was talking about Kent, but was she thinking about me?

  "Can they really testify?" she asked.

  "It's up to the judge. I'm more concerned about the tape. It's clearly admissible, and it's damning."

  For a moment she was silent. Then, speaking softly, she said, "If I tell you the truth, will you still help me?"

  I didn't answer. I couldn't. I didn't know.

  "My father did rape me, Jake. You must believe that." We sat at her kitchen table. Chrissy reached for a cigarette and lit it. "I had blocked it out and couldn't remember it. I always had these vague feelings of uneasiness around my father. I knew he'd done something, but I didn't know what. Larry Schein brought it out under hypnosis. It's all true. All I lied about—left out, really—was that I planned to kill him. I planned it, and I told Larry."

  "Who has it on tape," I said. "He's the one who can send you away. If you'd told me, maybe there's something I could have done."

  "What would you have done?" She exhaled, and a plume of cigarette smoke drifted toward the ceiling.

  "I don't know. Something!"

  Chrissy poured a second cup of coffee for each of us. Outside the kitchen window, the sun was blinking through thin streaks of clouds where the horizon touched the ocean. "I wanted to kill my father. I wanted to be cleansed, but I didn't want to go to prison. I'd done some reading. I knew about posttraumatic stress disorder. Damn it, Jake, I had it! I was just able to rationally decide what to do."

  "Rationally?"

  "Yeah. What difference should it make if a woman blows away her abusive husband while he's beating her, or if she does it after sitting down and thinking about it? That's the only difference here. I thought about it for a while, then did it."

  "The difference," I said, "is between manslaughter and first-degree murder."

  "Then they should change the law."

  "Great, write your legislator." Chrissy's coffee was burning a hole in my gut and my mood wasn't improving. "Did Schein ever encourage you in this rational plan to kill your father?"

  "Not in so many words. He did say somet
hing like my father's death could be therapeutic, but phrased real vaguely. He never used the word 'kill' or 'murder.' "

  "What about Guy? Did he know?"

  "I certainly didn't tell him."

  "But Schein did! Don't you see? They wanted you to kill your father. They set you up with a phony defense, then trashed it the night before trial. They want you convicted."

  "Why?"

  "Money! Guy gets the entire estate and you spend the rest of your life in prison."

  She wasn't rattled, and she still didn't cry. "That doesn't make any sense. Guy's rich enough."

  "Some people never are. And there are other reasons, too. Guy never got over the fact that you were the pampered child. He probably hated your father for it."

  "No. The first few years were tough on Guy—he was treated like hired help—but Daddy made it up to him. He brought Guy into the business, turned it over. It can't be that."

  "Then what is it, Chrissy? If it's not money, if it's not anger, what's his motive?"

  "I don't know."

  "You have to know!" Losing my patience.

  She angrily tossed the cigarette stub into her coffee cup. "You don't believe me. You never have. That's why you tricked me into taking the lie detector test."

  "On a relative scale, that should rank somewhat lower than tricking you into committing a first-degree murder." She glared at me and I added, "If they really did trick you."

  "Bastard! How can you defend me if you don't believe me?"

  "I do it every day. It's my job."

  "That's not the way I want it to be," she said, her tone more sad than angry.

  "Fine, I'll ask the judge for permission to withdraw. If he grants it, you'll get a continuance. Maybe another lawyer can figure out—"

  "No! I want you. I trust you, even if it's not reciprocal."

  "I don't know how to try the case. I don't know how to win."

  "Don't change anything. Play the tapes. I'll tell the jury I damn well planned it, and I'd do it again. Let Schein testify I planned to kill Daddy. Let's tell the truth."

  "The truth?" The idea was so preposterous I just laughed.

  "Isn't that what you wanted? Isn't that what you demanded in your holier-than-thou tone? Okay, Mr. Self-righteous. Let's take the truth and go with it."

  "There are times," I said sadly, shaking my head, "when the truth will not set you free."

  21

  I Wanted Me

  I sat in the cushioned chair in front of Judge Myron Stanger's desk. Freshly shaved, my hair still wet from the shower, packaged in my sincere blue suit and burgundy power tie, I almost looked like a lawyer, even with my neck bulging out of my collar. Abe Socolow sat in the leather chair next to me, his sallow complexion set off nicely by his funereal black suit. A young woman sat next to the judge, perched over her stenograph, awaiting the words of jurisprudential wisdom, or at least semigrammatical English, that are occasionally spoken in chambers.

  On the sofa behind us all, beneath dozens of plaques proclaiming His Honor's civic high-mindedness, sat Chrissy, her legs demurely crossed. She was dressed in a charcoal-gray suit over a white silk blouse that she had once wore in a TV commercial while playing a business executive with intestinal gas.

  "Let me get this straight, Jake," Judge Stanger said. "A hundred prospective jurors are cooling their heels in the courtroom right now and you're asking to withdraw from the case."

  "That's correct, Your Honor."

  "And you will not state the grounds for your motion to withdraw?"

  "I cannot, Your Honor, without prejudicing my client's case."

  The judge fingered the latch on a cedar cigar box that occupied a prominent position on his desk. At Christmas, trial lawyers with spirit of giving delivered smuggled Cuban cigars to the judge. "That's not good enough, Jake."

  "All I can say is that my client and I have irreconcilable differences as to the handling of the case."

  "Hell, Jake, my wife and I have had irreconcilable differences for thirty years, but neither of us has cut and run."

  Next to me, Abe Socolow tried to suppress a smile. He enjoyed seeing me squirm.

  "It's not in the best interest of my client for me to represent her," I argued.

  "That so?" The judge removed his yellow-tinted glasses from his bulbous nose and looked toward Chrissy Bernhardt. Myron Stanger had been a personal injury defense lawyer, representing the Southeast Railroad Company, which had an unfortunate habit of hiring alcoholic and color-blind engineers. After thirty-five years of wrongful-death and quadriplegia cases from railroad crossing collisions, Stanger, an avid Democratic party fund raiser, had called in a marker from the governor and been appointed to the bench. Trial lawyers generally liked him because he let them try their cases without too much interference. "How about it, Ms. Bernhardt? Would you be better off with a new lawyer?"

  Chrissy seemed to pout, or was that her usual look? "No, Your Honor. I want Mr. Lassiter. I can't imagine anyone else defending me."

  "Well, that's that," the judge announced, turning to the court reporter. "Motion to withdraw denied. Anything else before we pick a jury?"

  "The defendant moves for a continuance," I said. "There is newly discovered evidence which I have not had an opportunity to fully investigate."

  The judge scowled. "You really don't want to try this case, do you, Jake?" Without waiting for an answer, he turned to Socolow. "What's the state's position?"

  "I don't know what can be so new," Socolow said with his barracuda's smile. "There is no issue as to the identity of the killer. Mr. Lassiter's had several months to prepare his psychobabble defense, and—"

  "I resent that! Your Honor, would you admonish—"

  The judge waved me off. "C'mon, Jake, you know that's just Abe's way of saying good morning. Now, why can't you try the case today?"

  "Again, Your Honor, I cannot be more specific without prejudicing my client's case. I'll simply say that our main expert witness is . . ." I searched for the right word. "Unavailable."

  Socolow snorted. "Unavailable or unhelpful?" He was enjoying this so much, I wanted to strangle him with his black silk tie.

  "If forced to go to trial today," I said, "we may call Dr. Schein as an adverse witness because of his hostility to the defense. This is a new development, and we need time to prepare for this turn of events."

  I hadn't seen Socolow smile so broadly since the last time one of the miscreants he had prosecuted was strapped into the hot seat at Raiford. "Sounds like Jake hasn't done his trial prep," he said, "but that's no grounds for a continuance."

  "That's not fair, Your Honor," I protested. I hated displaying my wounds prior to trial, but I didn't have any choice. Besides, Socolow's case was so straightforward, it wouldn't matter. He'd put on the bartender and a couple of witnesses to the shooting, then a forensics guy who would discuss the prints on the gun and the powder marks on Chrissy's hands, the paramedics who'd taken Bernhardt to the hospital, the surgeon, the nurse, and an assistant medical examiner as to cause of death.

  The state rests.

  Call your first witness, Mr. Lassiter.

  The defense calls Dr. Lawrence Schein. On second thought, just let me fall on my sword.

  "You know, Jake, I tried a lot of cases in my day," the judge began. Like a lot of jurists, Myron Stanger enjoyed reminding the lawyers that, before he became Caesar, he'd been a gladiator. "And I know everything doesn't go the way you plan it. Hell, nothing goes the way you plan it. So you've got to prepare for the unexpected."

  I nodded my deep appreciation of the old fart's hoary cliché.

  "Witnesses disappear, die, or change their minds," the judge continued. "But I can't let the jury venire sit out there on its collective ass while I try to scrape up another trial for today. Now you boys were specially set, and—"

  "But, Your Honor—" I interrupted, sounding whiny even to myself.

  "No, listen up, both of you. When you two walk into the courtroom and see the venire, you're thin
king jurors. But when I hand them certificates for doing their constitutional duty, do you know what I see?"

  "Voters," I suggested.

  The judge gave me a cautionary look. "Neighbors. Good honest citizens with a sense of values. I'm not going to mistreat them. Motion for continuance denied. Gentlemen, let's pick a jury."

  Juries.

  I've read books on how to pick them. I've hired psychologists, sociologists, and psychics. I've relied on Marvin the Maven, a retired shoe store owner from Pittsburgh, who told me to avoid men in polished wing tips—too conservative and respectful of authority—and go for women in sandals with red-painted toenails. "Their minds will be as open as their shoes," Marvin advised.

  For Chrissy's case, I hired a psychologist to run a community attitudes survey. Without revealing the name of the case, Dr. Lester (Les Is More) Weiner mailed a questionnaire to several hundred demographically correct households. We learned to stay away from parents, especially those estranged from their adult children. We learned that accountants, marine biologists, meteorologists, and other scientific types would scoff at our defense. Not surprisingly, we learned that jurors who had gone through therapy would be preferable to ones who ridiculed mental health treatment. Anyone who derided psychiatry was out. Dr. Weiner advised that women would be more sympathetic to our case, but I disregarded the advice. Call me a chauvinist pig, but in my experience, women jurors are unkind to younger, thinner, sexier women litigants.

  I wanted men who would fall in love with my client. In other words, I wanted me.

  I am a regular guy. I don't wear an earring or a gold chain. I don't carry a pager or a purse. I don't belong to a private club or a mystic cult. I don't go to La Voile Rouge to smoke fancy cigars, and the next time some overweight stockbroker in suspenders and French cuffs drops ashes on me at a bar, I will jam his stinking stogie down his throat. There is no one so intolerant as a reformed sinner.

  I consider myself a decent judge of character and knowledgeable in human relations, but I am constantly surprised in jury selection. I have a standing bet with the old bailiff, Clyde Thigpen—a pot of his conch chowder for a jar of Granny's swamp cabbage—as to the foreperson. I always pick the guy in the dark suit, but Clyde has seen thousands of trials, and he doesn't rely on clothing. He can sense the authority figure.