Lou Mason Mystery - 02 - The Last Witness

by Joel Goldman

  “Don’t count on it.”

  Mason thought about Wally Sutherland, his first criminal defense client. Wally’s one-thing-led-to-another encounter with a woman he’d met in a bar ended with his arrest for attempted forcible rape. When Mason visited him in jail, he cried for his wife, his mother, and God, in that order. Mason had never seen Blues cry and didn’t expect he ever would.

  “Did they question you?”

  “Nothing official. Harry tried to make it like old times. Good old Harry stroking me, telling me how much easier it would be just to get the whole thing over with. His partner, Zimmerman, tells him to hold off until you got here. Harry says to Zimmerman that I’m too smart to fall for any tricks, especially since I had been such a smart cop, saying that he was just reminding me of what I already knew.”

  “Harry playing good cop with you is—”

  “Stupid. Ryman’s done everything but put a bounty on my ass, and he thinks he’s gonna talk me into confessing because he’s such a damn nice guy. Bullshit.”

  “What do they have on you?”

  Blues leaned over the oak table that separated him from Mason, planting both hands firmly on the surface.

  “First things first. Can you do this?”

  “What do you mean, can I do this? You’ve seen the law license hanging in my office. I’m an official member of the bar. Murder cases are a walk in the park. Besides, at the rate I’m charging you, I can’t afford to take long to get you off. I’ll go broke.”

  Blues didn’t laugh or smile. His face was a death mask. “I’m not asking you about the lawyer piece. You’re as good as anybody I’ve ever seen. I want to know, can you do this?”

  Mason understood the question. “Harry isn’t the issue. He’s not looking at the needle. You are.”

  “Ryman doesn’t just think I killed Jack Cullan. He wants it to be me. Cops who want somebody found guilty know how to make that happen.”

  “Not Harry. He’s hard. He probably does want it to be you, but Harry plays it straight. He doesn’t know any other way.”

  “We get to court, Ryman’s on the stand—can you take him on, carve him up, make the jury want to blame him instead of me? Can you tell the jury that Harry Ryman doesn’t know his ass from third base and hates his old partner enough to send him to death row even if I’m innocent? Can you go home and tell your aunt Claire when all this is over that it was just business?”

  Mason had asked himself the same questions as he drove downtown. Hearing Blues ask them reaffirmed the advice Harry had given him years ago. Knowing the right thing to do was easier than doing it. Since Harry was the lead on the investigation into Cullan’s murder, his testimony would have an enormous impact on the jury. Blues’s life might depend on Mason’s ability to turn the case into a trial of Harry and his investigation rather than a trial of Blues’s innocence.

  Mason realized another troubling aspect of Blues’s questions. The criminal justice system was sometimes more about criminals than it was about justice. Innocent people were convicted for any number of reasons. Cops who planted evidence. Lazy defense lawyers. Jurors who believed that only guilty people got arrested, especially if they were black or brown. Being innocent wasn’t always enough.

  That’s why nothing scared Mason more than an innocent client. The gangbanger, the embezzler, the jealous spouse turned killer, all knew in their gut that they’d do the time. They knew that after their lawyer turned every technical trick he had, the system would beat them. The odds favored the house.

  Innocent people didn’t understand any of that. They were just innocent. End of story.

  “I’ll do whatever it takes to beat this. Harry doesn’t expect anything less. He won’t cut either one of us any slack, and he’ll get none from me. Now, tell me what they’ve got on you.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Blues hesitated a moment, then nodded and sat across from Mason.

  “Jack Cullan came in the bar last Friday night, about nine o’clock.”

  “You knew him?”

  “He tried to hire me once. He wanted me to take pictures of a dude playing hide the nuts with the wrong squirrel. I took a pass.”

  “How long ago was that?”

  “Not long enough that he didn’t recognize me when he came in the bar. When he paid for the drinks, he told me that I should have taken the job since it paid better than bartending. I told him it didn’t pay better than bar owning.”

  “Was he alone?”

  “Opposite of alone. He was with a fine-looking woman, early forties, my guess.”

  “Did you get her name?”

  “Not at first. Before she left, she gave me her card. Her name was Beth Harrell.”

  “As in Beth Harrell, the chair of the Missouri Gaming Commission?”

  “Not likely that there’s more than one Beth Harrell who’d be out clubbing with Jack Cullan.”

  “I can’t believe she was out anywhere with Cullan. They’ve been all over the front page of the Star. She’s got to be out of her mind to be out with that guy.”

  “Maybe that’s why she threw a drink in his face.”

  “Okay. You want to take this from the top or just play catch-the-zinger?”

  “You’re the one asking the questions. I’m just the defendant.”

  “Start talking or I’ll give you up to the public defender.”

  “Don’t tempt me. I was on the bar. Pete Kirby, Kevin Street, and Ronnie Fivecoat had just started their set. Weather’s so bad, the place is dead, but they were killing it, really cooking.”

  Mason had heard the trio before, Kirby on piano, Street on bass, and Fivecoat on drums. He’d have happily gone anywhere to hear them play.

  “So Jack Cullan and Beth Harrell are out on one of the worst nights of the year and pick your place to get warm? How does that happen?”

  “People with money come into my place, I try not to ask them if they’re lost. I served them drinks and didn’t pay any more attention to them until she stands up and douses him. Cullan’s old and fat, but that old, fat man jumped up and popped her with the back of his hand. Knocked her on the floor.”

  “And you couldn’t just tell them to take it outside?” Mason asked.

  “Would have been the smart play. But I don’t like it when fat old men slap women around. I grabbed Cullan from behind before he could smack her again, and that little prick scratched me like a cheap whore before I squeezed the air out of him.”

  Blues showed Mason the scabs on the backs of his hands.

  “Was that it?”

  “Almost. I told Beth Harrell that she should press charges against Cullan. She said that wasn’t necessary, that they’d just had a misunderstanding. She was very cool about the whole thing. Gave me her business card, like that was some kind of permission slip for getting punched in public.”

  “And then they left?”

  “Yeah. Cullan was upright and pissed. He promised me that my liquor license would be gone in a week.”

  Mason knew that Blues wouldn’t let the threat go unanswered, and he waited for him to finish the story. Blues looked at the two-way mirror. “You sure they aren’t listening in on this?”

  “Not if they want to see you strapped to that gurney with a needle in your arm. What did you say to Cullan?”

  Blues sighed, looked at the mirror again, and then back at Mason. “I told him that if he tried jacking with my license or ever came in my bar again, I’d twist his head off and stuff it up his ass.”

  “Well, that was memorable and stupid. What happened to being the strong, silent type?”

  “Cullan is used to getting in the last word, shoving people around, pimp-slapping women. No way he walks out of my place like he owned it.”

  “Blues’s Law. What about afterward? What did you do after you closed the bar?”

  “Home, man. By myself.”

  “So you fought with this guy, he threatened you, and you threatened him back. If I know Harry, he’s already talked to Beth Harrell an
d Kirby, Street, and Fivecoat. That makes four witnesses to your threat. And you don’t have an alibi. Can’t blame him for liking you for the murder. The coroner probably found skin and blood under Cullan’s fingernails. It’s too early for Harry to have linked you to that, but when he does, he’s going to like you even more.”

  Mason pushed back from the table and stood.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Talk to Harry and find out what else he’s got.”

  “Aren’t you forgetting to ask me one thing?”

  “What’s that?”

  “If I did it?”

  Mason shook his head and smiled. “I never ask. Besides, you would have told me. Blues’s Law.”

  Blues smiled for the first time. “I guess you can do this.”

  “That I can,” Mason said.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Mason found Harry squeezed into his desk chair, talking on the phone and rolling his eyes.

  “Yes, sir,” he said. “I’m glad it’s all over too, Mr. Mayor. Good-bye, sir.”

  Harry put the phone down and motioned Mason to pull up a chair, pointing at a cup of coffee he’d poured for him.

  “Did you forget to tell the mayor about the trial?”

  Harry was pushing sixty, with half-gray sawdust hair, a soft-squared face, flat on the top and round on the sides. His bulk was more muscle than fat, and his hands were like catchers’ mitts.

  “That’s like the next election. Mayor Sunshine will worry about that tomorrow. Today he’ll tell the public that the case has been solved and make it sound like it was his collar.”

  “I never saw a politician get so much out of his last name. Anybody who can campaign on the slogan ‘Let the Sunshine in Kansas City’ with a straight face wouldn’t break a sweat solving a murder.”

  “The people elected him. William ‘Billy’ Sunshine. His Honor the Asshole.”

  Mason sipped and grimaced. He was an occasional coffee drinker, never quite developing an appreciation for the bitter brew.

  “Get yourself some cream and sugar,” Harry said. “Make it sweet like when you were a kid. You’ll like it better that way.”

  Mason set his cup down, wondering whether Harry intended his remark to be a gentle paternal reminder of their long relationship or just idle chatter. There would come a time when he’d have to tell Harry that their relationship was irrelevant to this case. He wasn’t looking forward to that moment.

  “It’s fine. The mayor been pushing you guys pretty hard?”

  Mason intended the question to sound casual, even innocent—more concerned about Harry than about the implications for the rush-to-judgment defense he was planning for Blues.

  Harry gave him a wise smile. “Lou, I’m going to handle this case like every other one. It doesn’t matter to me that Bluestone is the defendant or that you’re his lawyer. I’ll tell you what you’re entitled to know and that’s it. Everything else you can get from the prosecutor in discovery.”

  Mason felt like the little boy again. First Harry told him how to drink his coffee, and then he told him that he’s not so clever after all.

  “Fair enough,” Mason said. “Tell me what I’m entitled to know, but don’t leave anything out, because it won’t be fun for either one of us if I find out the hard way.”

  Harry shuffled through a stack of reports on his desk, humming under his breath until he found the one he wanted. He put on a pair of gold-rimmed glasses and studied the report.

  Mason had been a spectator to many of Harry’s cases, listening to his take on the bad guy of the month, his no-good defense lawyer, and the ballbusting judge, always marveling at Harry’s command of the nitty-gritty. Harry didn’t miss much, and he forgot even less.

  Mason had no doubt that Harry knew everything about Cullan’s murder by heart and could recite it backward in his sleep, his pretense of unfamiliarity a dodge meant to encourage Mason to underestimate him. He figured Harry was doing it more out of habit than out of any expectation that Mason would take him lightly. Harry put the papers back on his desk along with his glasses.

  “Housekeeper found the body when she came to work on Monday morning around eight o’clock. She had a key. The alarm was off, which surprised her because Cullan was never home when she got there and he always left the alarm on. She had the code. Said he ate breakfast in Westport every morning with a bunch of his cronies.”

  “Where did she find him?”

  “On the floor in his study with a .38-caliber bullet hole in his right eye. Your client was a good shot.”

  “Or the killer was just lucky,” Mason said, not taking the bait. “Did the coroner fix the time of death?”

  “That part is a bit tricky. The killer turned the heat off and opened the windows in the study. You could have hung meat in there. The cold temperature makes it tough to determine the time of death. Coroner says that it could have been any time from Friday night to Sunday night.”

  “That’s a lot of ground to cover.”

  “Maybe. But we detectives like clues, and we found some good ones.”

  “Don’t make me beg, Harry.”

  “Too soon for that. Begging comes during the sentencing phase. Cullan’s bed was made, hadn’t been slept in. The housekeeper says she made the bed on Friday. The Saturday, Sunday, and Monday newspapers were on the driveway, and the Saturday mail was in the box. Best bet, Cullan was popped on Friday night. Your client wasn’t as smart as he thought.”

  “Any signs of forced entry?” Mason asked, ignoring Harry’s jab.

  “No.”

  “How did you get to Blues?”

  “We traced Cullan’s movements last Friday. His secretary, Shirley Parker, kept his schedule. Shirley says that he was in meetings all day and that she had made reservations for dinner for two at Mancuso’s.”

  “I assume his secretary knew who he was having dinner with.”

  “You assume right. Cullan had dinner with Beth Harrell. She’s the one who’s head of the gaming commission. So we talked with Ms. Harrell. She said that she and Cullan went to dinner and then stopped at Blues on Broadway to listen to Pete Kirby’s trio. She wasn’t real busted up about Cullan.”

  “She used Kirby’s name?”

  “Yeah. So what?”

  “You’ve got to be a hard-core local jazz fan to know Pete Kirby’s trio. That’s all. Did she tell you anything else?”

  Harry grinned. “That’s all she told us the first time we talked to her. Kirby and his guys gave us a blow-by-blow on the fight she and Cullan had at the club and how Bluestone broke it up. My favorite part was when Bluestone threatened Cullan.”

  Harry hadn’t said anything about the scratches on Blues’s hands. Mason didn’t know whether Beth Harrell or the musicians hadn’t noticed the scratches, or whether Harry was holding out on Mason, waiting for him to raise the subject.

  “So you went back to Beth Harrell and jogged her memory?”

  “Early morning is a good time to question people. She didn’t have her makeup on yet, and the bruise Cullan had given her was just turning yellow. She said she didn’t tell us about the fight because it was too embarrassing, but she did say that Bluestone scared her more than Cullan.”

  “Why was that?”

  “Because Cullan was old and mean but she could handle him. When Bluestone threatened Cullan, she didn’t think anyone could handle him.”

  “None of that places Blues at the scene.”

  “We’re working on that. Try this for starters.”

  He tossed Mason the coroner’s report, Mason’s stomach sinking when he found the information he knew would be there. Blood and tissue had been found under Cullan’s fingernails. According to Blues’s police department personnel file, the blood type found under Cullan’s fingernails matched Blues’s blood type.

  “DNA match will take a while, but we both know it’s his blood,” Harry said.

  “C’mon, Harry. You talked to four witnesses who saw Blues grab Cullan from behind to stop him fro
m beating up Beth Harrell. Cullan scratched the backs of Blues’s hands. He’s still got the marks. You’ve got to do better than that.”

  Harry didn’t hesitate. “None of the witnesses saw Cullan scratch your client’s hands. They only saw him squeeze Cullan until his eyes started to bug out.”

  “That doesn’t change a thing. They just didn’t see the scratches. I’ll bet none of them told you that they looked at Blues’s hands afterward and didn’t see any scratches. Because you didn’t ask them that question. Did you? Your case sucks without something that puts Blues in Cullan’s house Friday night. Tell me what you’ve got, Harry.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Harry listened as Mason turned up the volume, his blank expression giving no clue whether Mason’s antagonism bothered him, whether he had the evidence Mason was demanding, or whether he’d even heard a word Mason had said. Harry waited until the silence pressed down as heavily as unspoken bad news.

  “I’ve got enough that the prosecuting attorney was happy to sign the arrest warrant. He says he might ask for the death penalty. Your client’s first court appearance is tomorrow morning at nine in associate circuit court.”

  “This isn’t a death-penalty case. It’s barely a murder-one case. Even if your take on Blues is right—and it’s not—you’ve got him killing Cullan because Cullan pissed him off. That’s murder two on a good day. Where are the aggravating circumstances that would make it a death-penalty case?”

  “You’ll have to get that from the prosecutor in discovery. His orders, not mine.”

  Mason knew better than to press. Harry never deviated from the chain of command.

  “So who drew the short straw in the prosecutor’s office?”

  Leonard Campbell, the prosecuting attorney, limited his court appearances to accepting high-profile plea bargains and trying cases with dead-certain guilty verdicts. He was more of a politician and bureaucrat than he was a trial lawyer. Mason assumed that he would assign one of his senior deputies to Blues’s case.

  “Campbell says he’s going to try the case. Nobody here believes that. He may sit at the counsel table so the TV cameras can get a good shot of him, but Patrick Ortiz will be lead.”