Lou Mason Mystery - 02 - The Last Witness

by Joel Goldman

  Harry had let Mason examine the contents of the plastic box while they waited for the FBI to arrive. Zimmerman and Toland had kept only the best of Cullan’s files, limiting themselves to the dirt on the mayor, Beth Harrell, Ed Fiora, the prosecuting attorney, and a handful of influential businesspeople. They could have released the files on a CD titled Blackmail’s Greatest Hits.

  Mason studied the pictures of Beth, this time focusing on her face, searching for, but not finding, a clue that would bring her into focus. True to form, Cullan had given a set of Beth’s pictures to Fiora, saving his own copy for another time.

  The mayor’s file was surprisingly thin, nothing more than a few ledger sheets that may or may not have been a record of payoffs. Though he had had only a few minutes to study Fiora’s file, Mason hadn’t found proof of any links between Fiora and the mayor.

  Mason’s calculation of the destruction caused by his search for these files rivaled the storm’s devastation. Four men were dead, as many families were ruined. Judge Carter’s career was in shambles. Harry had been suspended. Blues was still accused of Cullan’s murder, and Mason was still under suspicion for the death of Shirley Parker.

  Harry had repeated his question, not certain whether Mason had heard. “Any luck with Cullan’s files?”

  Mason had shaken his head. “There should have been something more in those files, but it wasn’t there. Maybe Zimmerman and Toland were holding back.” He hadn’t known what else to say.

  By Friday morning, the city was crawling back to life. Streets had been cleared, creating minicanyons paved with asphalt and surrounded by curbside walls made of exhaust-blackened, plow-packed snow. Mason was in his office when he got a call from Patrick Ortiz.

  “We’re dropping the charges against your client,” Ortiz said.

  “Thanks. Was it Zimmerman and Toland?”

  “Doubtful. Zimmerman’s wife told us all about his deal with Cullan. They’ve got an autistic kid. She claims he did it because they needed the money to pay for a special school for the kid. Toland just liked the good life—big Harley, women by the hour, booze by the case. Zimmerman’s wife and Toland’s girlfriend of the week gave both of them alibis for Cullan’s murder and they checked out.”

  “Any other leads?”

  “The truth is we don’t have shit on anybody, but tell your client not to get too comfortable. We may refile the charges if we come up with something.”

  “What about Shirley Parker?”

  “You’re off the hook too. She and Cullan are dead-end bookends.”

  Mason permitted himself a small sigh of relief and changed subjects. “What do you hear from the feds?”

  “They skipped the investigation and started with the inquisition. Harry Ryman has as much chance of getting his shield back as I have of getting it on with Jennifer Lopez.”

  “I don’t know. My guess is that the chief will end up begging Harry to come back.”

  “Right, and if Jennifer turns me down, I’ll have her call you. See you around.”

  Mason found Blues in his office, adding up his losses over the last month.

  “I’m going to have to hire strippers and give away whiskey if I get my liquor license back just to pay my mortgage,” Blues said.

  “Don’t give up yet. Patrick Ortiz just called. They dropped the charges against you.”

  Blues leaned back in his chair and looked at Mason, then swiveled to get a look out the window. He stood up, scanning the view down Broadway, before turning back to Mason. He pursed his lips and nodded.

  “Good.”

  “That’s it? That’s not the reaction of a client who’s happy enough to pay his lawyer.”

  “I didn’t belong in jail. Nighttime was the worst. My pillow felt like quicksand. Makes it hard to get excited when it never should have happened. Makes it harder to forget when I know how easily an innocent man can get put away.”

  “Man, you are one depressing son of a bitch when you get philosophical.”

  Blues laughed. “I’ll tell you what will cheer me up. Let’s go see Howard Trimble at Liquor Control and get my license reinstated so I can pay your bill or buy you lunch, whichever costs less.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE

  Howard Trimble’s handshake was fleshy and moist when he greeted Mason and Blues. His office was a disorderly and disheveled, coffee cups and donuts competing for desk space with official business. Trimble gestured Mason and Blues to be seated in the two chairs opposite his desk.

  Blues led off. “I’m Wilson Bluestone. This is my attorney, Lou Mason. You sent me this notice that my liquor license has been suspended,” Blues added as he handed Trimble the notice he had received in the mail.

  “That’s because you violated our regulations. From what I’ve seen in the news, your liquor license is the least of your problems.”

  Trimble showed no interest in Blues’s situation. He was simply reporting the news with the inevitable disinterest of civil servants.

  “I haven’t violated any of your regulations.”

  Mason heard the edge creeping into Blues’s voice. Blues had less patience with regulations and regulators than Mason did.

  “Well, now,” Trimble said, sensing the rising tension. “Liquor control regulations require that a license holder be of good moral character. That generally excludes murder, don’t you think?”

  Mason stepped into the conversation between Trimble and Blues. “Mr. Trimble, all charges against my client have been dropped. The city is about to erupt in a major political scandal. You’ve got a chance to avoid getting caught up in that mess by reinstating my client’s license.”

  Trimble considered Mason’s advice. “You don’t mind if I check your story, do you, Mr. Mason?”

  “By all means. Call Patrick Ortiz at the prosecutor’s office.”

  Trimble dismissed Mason’s suggestion. “I don’t mess with the middleman, gentlemen. I go right to the top floor of city hall. The mayor’s chief of staff is a personal friend of mine.”

  Trimble called Amy White while Mason and Blues gazed around his office, examined their cuticles, and pretended not to eavesdrop. Trimble cupped his hand over the receiver and turned his head to muffle his end of the conversation.

  “Good news, Mr. Bluestone,” he said after hanging up the phone. “I’ll reinstate your license just as soon as I can.”

  He spoke as cheerfully as a man could who had just lost the perk of giving bad news.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Trimble’s hands fluttered in a failed effort to be casual. “It’s just a matter of completing the paperwork. It’s all about forms, you know.”

  “Well, let’s get it done right now. I’ve got to be open tonight and I can’t take the chance that some overexcited cop busts me because he didn’t get the word.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’ll see to it myself.”

  Blues wasn’t satisfied, and Mason didn’t blame him.

  “I want to see my file,” Blues said.

  A red stain began to creep up Trimble’s neck as he tugged at his collar. He was devoted to the bureaucratic dodge but was running out of places to hide.

  “I’m afraid that’s not possible.”

  Mason interjected, “I’m afraid that’s not possible. Mr. Bluestone’s file is a public record and we have an absolute right to see it. My client has been held in jail for a month for a crime he didn’t commit. You suspended his license and put him out of business. There’s a lawsuit headed your way, Howard, if you don’t come up with that file now.”

  Trimble hitched up his pants to untangle his underwear. “There’s no need for threats, Mr. Mason. I’m not refusing to show you Mr. Bluestone’s file. I just can’t. Not right at this moment.”

  Blues asked, “And why not?”

  Trimble shifted his weight and lifted his butt off his chair, grimacing as if he’d just given himself a wedgie. “Amy—Ms. White—has your file.”

  “Which regulation says it’s okay t
o give my client’s file to the mayor’s chief of staff but not to my client?”

  Trimble stuffed his hand down his pants, rearranged his balls, and wiped a thin film of sweat from above his lip.

  “Listen to me,” Trimble said. “I’ve known Amy White since she was a young girl. Her father, Donald Ray White, was the director of liquor control when I came to work here. Amy and her sister, Cheryl, used to come down here to visit their daddy. They took to me like I was some kind of an uncle. Then things turned bad for them. Amy had a hard road and has come a long way. I’m real proud of her, and I don’t want her to get into any trouble.”

  Mason’s gut tightened as he wondered what Trimble was getting at. He chose a conciliatory tone, hoping it would keep Trimble talking.

  “How could she get in any trouble over my client’s liquor license? The file is a public record.”

  Trimble let out a sigh. “Her having the file isn’t a problem. I mean, I know you want it right now, Mr. Bluestone. And I don’t blame you.”

  “Mr. Trimble, you sure sound like a man who’s trying to tell us something without saying it. Like I told you, the charges against my client have been dropped. If that’s what this is all about, you’ll help yourself and Amy if you just tell me why she has the file.”

  Trimble hesitated, struggling with his answer, uncertain whether he should give it up but not strong enough to hold it in.

  “I hope you’re right. Amy called me at home late one night last month. It was a Friday night.”

  Blues looked at Mason, silently telling him to take the lead as he got up from his chair and took a slow tour of Trimble’s office.

  “You remember the date?” Mason asked.

  “December seventh,” Trimble said. “Pearl Harbor Day. I remember because my grandfather was killed at Pearl Harbor.” He kept his eyes firmly on the floor.

  It was also the night of Blues’s confrontation with Cullan at the bar, Mason thought to himself.

  “Did she tell you why she wanted the file?”

  Trimble shrugged, kneading his hands like a kid who’d been caught shoplifting. “She only told me who wanted it, not why. She said Jack Cullan wanted it. It was late. I asked her why it couldn’t wait until Monday morning. She said that Mr. Cullan wanted it right away. So, I met her down here and gave it to her.”

  “What time was that?”

  “Around midnight, a little after.”

  Amy had told Mason that Cullan had called her that night and demanded that she get him Blues’s liquor license file. She had told Mason that she had put Cullan off until the following Monday. Trimble’s version could put Amy in Cullan’s house the night he was killed if she had picked up Blues’s file and taken it to Cullan. Yet that didn’t square with Amy still having the file.

  “Do you know what she did with the file?”

  Trimble shook his head. “I didn’t talk to her about it again until today.”

  “What did you mean that Amy had a hard road?”

  Trimble looked up at Mason, uncomfortable with answering but more uncomfortable with being pushed.

  “Amy’s father died when she was fifteen. A tough time for a girl to lose her father even if he wasn’t much of a father. That’s when I took over this job. That was eighteen years ago.”

  “How did he die?”

  Trimble sighed again. Mason thought Trimble would hyperventilate and pass out if he did it one more time.

  “Amy’s sister, Cheryl, shot him to death.”

  Mason had been trying to keep his interrogation casual. Blues was roaming around Trimble’s small office, reading the diplomas and certificates that traced Trimble’s career. Both of them came to attention at Trimble’s explanation.

  “What happened?” Mason asked.

  “Cheryl was three years younger than Amy. Their father was arrested for abusing Cheryl. His lawyer got the charges dismissed and hushed the whole thing up so Donald could keep his job as director of this department.”

  Trimble tilted his head back as if trying to expel his memory of Donald Ray White. He continued the story, biting off each word.

  “When Donald Ray was released from jail, he beat Cheryl so severely that she was permanently brain-damaged. Somehow, Cheryl managed to get ahold of Donald Ray’s pistol and killed her father. Amy’s mother hired the same lawyer who got her husband off to get her daughter off. Cheryl wasn’t prosecuted because she was a brain-damaged child. Their mother drank herself to death a few years later, and Amy has taken care of Cheryl ever since.”

  “Who was the lawyer?”

  “Jack Cullan,” Trimble answered, aiming his words at a blank spot on the wall.

  Mason put his hand on Trimble’s shoulder. He wanted to thank Trimble for telling him the truth, but from the broken expression on Trimble’s face, Mason knew that he didn’t want any thanks.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY

  Mason pushed the button for an elevator going up as Blues pushed another button for one going down.

  “I’m going to see Amy White,” Mason said. “Don’t you want to come along?”

  “My guess is that she bolted right after Trimble called her. I’ll wait in the lobby just in case she decided to clean her desk out first. I’ll follow her if I get the chance. You can call Mickey for a ride back to the bar.”

  Mason stepped off the elevator on the twenty-ninth floor and into the mayor’s suite of offices. Though the city was officially open, many people had taken another day off, leaving the office with a skeleton staff.

  The one secretary who had come to work confirmed Blues’s guess. Amy White had left without saying when or if she would be back. Mason was composing a lie he hoped would convince the secretary to give him Amy’s home address when the mayor opened the door to his office.

  “Your car is ready, Mr. Mayor,” the secretary told him.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  Though the mayor was known for his unflappable good humor and insistence on shaking every hand, he walked past Mason, his face cold, his smile buried in a snowdrift, his hands jammed in his coat pockets.

  “I don’t have time today, Mr. Mason,” he said over his shoulder.

  Mason caught up with him at the elevator. “Thanks all the same, Mr. Mayor. Actually, I was looking for Amy White, not you.”

  A panel on the wall with columns for each elevator and numbers for each floor kept track of the vertical routes of the four elevators that serviced city hall. As each elevator passed a floor, the number for that floor was illuminated so that anyone waiting for an elevator could watch with growing frustration the tortoise-paced progress of the cars. The mayor gave his full attention to the flashing lights, shutting Mason out.

  “Amy asked me to find the file Jack Cullan kept on you,” Mason said as if he and the mayor hung out together all the time. “Ah, but she probably didn’t bother you with stuff like that.”

  The mayor chose not to hear Mason until he cleared his throat as if he were about to cough up a lung.

  “Sorry about that. It’s this damn weather. Makes me drain like a leaky faucet,” Mason explained. “Anyway. I came by to tell her that I did find your file, but the FBI snagged it before I did. Man, you should have been at the lagoon when that cluster fuck broke out. I’ll bet the chief of police, the prosecuting attorney, and Amy tripped all over each other to deliver that piece of good news to you. Luckily, I did get a chance to read your file. So tell Amy to give me a call and I’ll tell her what’s in it.”

  The mayor turned to Mason, his mouth and eyes fighting over which could open wider. “You read my file?”

  “Cover to cover, Mayor Sunshine. Though I have to tell you, it was a disappointment. I mean, I was expecting more than some lousy ledger sheets that a pencil-necked bean counter will probably weave into a money-laundering and bribery indictment. Still, it was almost like someone had taken the good stuff out of the file and left just enough behind to chap your ass.”

  The mayor glared at Mason. “What do you want?”

 
“Not much. At this point, I’d settle for Amy’s home address.”

  “Go fuck yourself.”

  “Is that an apartment or a house?”

  An elevator arrived. Mason stepped in, turned around, and waved good-bye to the mayor as the doors closed. Blues wasn’t in the lobby, and Mason assumed that he was following Amy White. He tried Blues’s cell but didn’t get an answer, then called Harry with the same result. His next call was to Claire, and she answered.

  “How’s Harry doing?”

  “Everybody takes their turn in the barrel. This is his turn,” she said. “He went to see Carl Zimmerman’s wife. She wouldn’t let him in. He’s out roaming and he doesn’t want company.”

  “Have him call me on my cell as soon as he surfaces. It’s important.”

  “It always is,” Claire said.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE

  City hall had an ancient boiler that generated too much heat and an unbalanced ventilation system that created a worldwide array of climates throughout the building. The lobby felt like the tropics cooled with bursts of cold air drawn inside each time the revolving doors spun around.

  Mason called Mickey, promising him lunch in return for a ride, lingering next to a cool marble column near the entrance. His cell phone rang, rupturing his fantasy of lying on a beach next to a suddenly heterosexual Rachel Firestone.

  “You looking for me?” Harry asked.

  “Yeah. Do you have any friends left in the department who would do you a favor?”

  Harry snorted. “Like what? Box up the stuff in my desk and mail it to me, postage due?”

  “That’s an option. Would they do you a favor that might make them unpack your box?”

  “Talk to me.”

  Mason explained to Harry what he wanted. “Is that doable?”

  “It’s a long shot on a good day, and this ain’t a good day. I’ll see what I can do, but don’t be in a hurry. This may take a while.”

  Mason and Mickey stopped at Winsteads, home of the steakburger, and fortified themselves against the cold with double cheeseburgers with everything and grilled onions, crispy French fries, and chocolate shakes. They dipped their last fry into a pool of ketchup before navigating back to the office.