I turned back to my client. “The three older kids,” I began, my tone deliberately businesslike, “do they know how to reach you?”
She nodded. “They got my mama’s number. They call once in a while.”
“Good. Because I know for a fact they’re leaving the foster home they’re in now. Maybe the new foster mothers will let you visit them or let them visit you, even if it is against the rules.”
“Best I can hope for, I guess,” Arnette conceded. Then her face brightened into a near-smile. “Hey,” she said, “they their mama’s kids. They don’t hold by the rules too much.”
That had been the easy part. “But the twins”—I swallowed as I said the words—“I’m afraid they’re gone forever. Those parents will never let you see them.”
“I know,” she sighed. “Sometime it seem like a dream that I ever had them. They been gone so long, it’s like they never was part of me noway. I be used to it.”
I wished her luck and watched her walk down the hallway toward the elevators, then I turned toward Mickey. “It’s a tough business,” I said. She managed a wan smile but no answer.
As we walked toward the ladies’ room, I asked her the question uppermost in my mind. “How can you do it? If it kills you this much—”
“I can’t.” She shook her head. “Not anymore. It gets worse and worse the more I do it. I can’t separate my clients from Loretta and Holly Ann and little Michaeline—”
“Michaeline?” I must have missed something, I thought. “Who’s Michaeline?”
“Me,” she replied with a small smile. “I didn’t get to be Mickey till I went to college and my friends told me Michaeline was a white-trash name. I tried to tell ’em I was white trash, but …”
We walked into the lavatory. After we each used the facility, we stood in silence for a minute, each leaning against a sink. I surveyed the graffiti. A gang calling itself the Real Home Girls had done a major decorating job. First they’d spray-painted their names: Sweet Apple, Shaqueen, Brown Sugar, Honey Dee, Cookie T., Diamond Lou, and Lady Love. Then came their motto: We all about love, sex, and puttin’ bitches in check.
My thoughts flashed to Arnette Pearson. She had the same gritty tenacity I’d seen in so many of my clients over the years. She’d need it through the lonely nights and doubtful days of her bleak future.
On the opposite wall, also done by the Real Home Girls, was the following ghetto haiku:
Million Dollar Girls
Chillin’ Hard
In a Zillion Dollar World
I was about to call Mickey’s attention to the lines when she asked, “Did you ever see that movie, King of Hearts?”
“Sure,” I replied, startled. “It’s a classic antiwar film.” In the story, inmates from a mental asylum take on the roles of villagers driven out by German bombs during World War I. The crazies turn out to be a lot saner, and certainly more human, than the rest of us.
“Do you remember the part where the inmates are going back to the asylum?” she asked. There was an intent look on her face that told me we were talking about a lot more than movies.
“As they approach the gates,” she went on dreamily, not waiting for an answer, “each of them begins to drop pieces of clothing. The beauty leaves her picture hat, the general drops his sword, the bishop his mitre, until they’re all just lunatics again.” She turned and faced me, pain in her eyes. “That’s how I’m starting to feel when I come to work in the mornings,” she confessed. “As though on the way I have to leave pieces of myself behind. I’m less and less human every day.”
Ira Bellfield. Duncan Pitt. Todd Lessek. Elliott Pilcher. Art Lucenti. Especially Art Lucenti. Hadn’t each of them done the same? Cutting off parts of themselves in the name of profit or advancement until there was nothing left? They must have left some trail, I thought, borrowing Mickey’s metaphor and picturing a road littered with the virtues and qualities each man had left behind as he turned himself into a success.
Mickey was talking again. “I met this woman,” she said, “when I was working at Willowbrook. You know Willowbrook?”
I nodded. The treatment of mentally retarded patients there had become a national scandal.
“Well, this woman and I were busy signing patients out so they could get community-based care,” Mickey explained, lapsing momentarily into jargon. “But then I noticed a funny thing. This woman I was working with, who’d been a social worker for thirty years, had actually signed some of the same patients in twenty years earlier.” Her face wore a look of intense conviction that reminded me of a few antiwar marches I’d been on. “In, out, it was all the same to her.” She fixed me with her warm brown eyes and said in a low voice: “I’m ready to leave social work if that happens to me.”
“God,” I said at last, “I feel as though I’m listening to a record of myself.” My thoughts traveled back to the long, soul-searching conversations I’d had with Nathan. The ones in which I’d threatened to quit law and go into photography full-time.
“You?” Mickey’s voice was skeptical. “You seem so gungho.”
“I bounced back,” I replied wryly. “Having my own practice, not to mention my own mortgage payments to make, gave me a new perspective.
“I’m not sure that would work for me,” she said wistfully, looking away. “Adding responsibilities to the ones I’ve already got.”
“Responsibility,” I echoed, “but without authority. That’s the real problem, isn’t it? Knowing what needs to be done, but not being able to do it either because you haven’t got the resources or it’s against policy.”
“True,” Mickey agreed, a rueful smile of recognition on her face. “It makes me doubt myself as a social worker when the fact is I’m damned good when I’m allowed to be.” She was silent a minute, and I had the feeling she was trying to decide whether to share a secret.
“I’ve been taking classes,” she confided at last, “in divorce mediation. That’s—”
“I know what it is!” I exclaimed. “I just finished a bar association seminar on alternatives to litigation.”
Mickey laughed. “I thought lawyers didn’t believe in alternatives to litigation.”
“This lawyer does,” I replied firmly. “Especially in Family Court. There’s a lot to be said for working things out instead going for the jugular in court. Particularly when kids are involved.”
“The only thing that bothers me,” Mickey confessed, “is whether I know enough about the law to be a good mediator. I mean, I know people. I know how to help them get in touch with their feelings without letting their emotions take over. But I don’t know the tax laws, or—” She broke off and smiled apologetically. “Why are you lettin’ me run off at the mouth like this?”
I smiled one answer and gave another. “Because I’ve got an extra office to rent,” I said. While she digested that, I added, “And I do know the tax laws and the estate-planning implications of divorce. In fact, I think that together you and I would make one hell of a good divorce mediator. Plus,” I went on, “we’d each have our own clients apart from the mediation practice. That way we’ll have something to fall back on if everyone in Brooklyn suddenly decides to stay married.”
Helping felt good. I liked the warmth of her answering smile, the sparkle in her brown eyes as she began to plan with me. We stood in the ladies’ room a good half hour, building our caseload, setting our priorities. The prospect of sharing had me as excited as the prospect of independence had her.
Finally, Mickey stopped, looked at her watch, and said, “I have to run. I was due in Part 5 an hour ago.”
A sudden doubt assailed me. “You really think we can do it? Work together?”
She looked toward the graffiti-sprayed wall. “What the hell,” she replied. “Aren’t we million-dollar girls?”
I laughed, and walked into the hall with my new partner.
22
“Why in the name of God,” Detective Button exploded, “didn’t that damned kid tell me this before?�
�
“She was afraid,” I said, quiet in the face of Button’s anger. “Afraid you’d think it was another motive for her father.”
“Isn’t it?” he challenged. “You’re the one who told me Brad Ritchie flipped out when he heard his ex-wife was making it with the congressman.”
“I’m not so sure,” I said thoughtfully.
“What do you mean, you’re not sure?” Button snorted. “You were in the courthouse when it happened, weren’t you?”
I shook my head. “That’s not what I mean. I’m not sure Linda was telling the truth. I’m not sure there was an affair.”
“You mean because of the blackmail.”
“How the hell did you know—”
Button leaned back in his chair and let out a rich chuckle. “Because you just told me,” he said, enjoying his cunning. “But, hey, it wasn’t so hard to figure. We already know the deceased was putting the squeeze on half the people in New York—”
“Not to mention Brooklyn,” I murmured.
“—so now you come to me talkin’ ’bout Congressman Lucenti and I got to wonder what busy little Linda had on him, don’t I?” His shrewd, hard eyes told me he expected the whole story and he expected it yesterday.
I showed him the contents of Art Lucenti’s file from Linda’s papers. He looked it over, then whistled. “Guy must be shitting in his pants,” Button remarked, “since we got Lessek and Bellfield. He’s just waiting for the other shoe to drop. And now,” he added cheerfully, “that you’ve seen fit to tell me about this here phone call, I’d best go drop a shoe on the honorable congressman.”
“Wait a minute.” I held up a restraining hand. “Let me go with you.” I tried to make it sound like a request instead of a plea.
Button raised his eyebrows to the ceiling. “Why?” he asked.
The answer I gave him was true if not complete. “Because I feel guilty,” I said. “Dawn Ritchie didn’t tell me about that phone call so I could come running to you with it. She meant it to be a secret. I feel responsible. If Lucenti isn’t thoroughly checked out—”
Button’s face was impassive, his voice cold. “Are you going to accuse me of giving him a break because of who he is?”
“No,” I said, and meant it. “But you’ve got an indicted suspect in the can already. It wouldn’t be hard to let Lucenti skate out of this with a little fancy footwork.”
“You’re kind of messing up your metaphors there, Counselor,” Button grinned. “But the answer’s no. This is official police business—no kibitzers.”
“I might remind you,” I pointed out, my voice dropping to a chilly tone, “that I didn’t have to tell you anything. I could have confronted Lucenti on my own and not—”
“So why didn’t you?” Button challenged. “And don’t try to convince me you suddenly saw your civic duty, because I won’t believe—”
“Oh, come off it, Detective,” I interrupted. “How the hell could I go waltzing into Lucenti’s headquarters demanding that people tell me their innermost secrets in strictest confidence when I’ve just been plastered all over the media as the woman who got Todd Lessek on tape? Who’d talk to me? I’m a walking Abscam, thanks to you.”
Button eyed me speculatively, his brow creased with thought. “You know,” he said at last, “that’s not a bad idea. Not bad at all.”
“What’s not bad?” Then a horrible thought struck me. “Oh, no,” I protested, “you’re not going to wire me for sound again, are you? That tape itches like hell.”
Button smiled sweetly. “Only when you sweat,” he pointed out.
“A lady never sweats,” I countered absently.
“I know. I had a grandmother too.” He leaned his backside against his desk and smiled at me in a fatherly fashion I found thoroughly repellent. “No, what I’m thinking is this. Congressman Lucenti’s up to his ass in lawyers. The minute I get to his door, he’s gonna be on the phone talkin’ ’bout warrants and calling the mayor and demanding to know who told us about this here phone call he’s supposed to have made.”
“I see what you mean.”
“But if you’re there with me,” he went on, his eyes gleaming with anticipation, “it’s a subtle way of saying, ‘You play ball with us or you’re gonna be looking at yourself on the six o’clock news and you won’t like what you see.’” The smile that accompanied his words was positively sharklike.
“All that,” I commented sarcastically, “just because I’m there?”
Button gave me a look of feigned innocence. “Hey,” he protested, “I can’t be threatening the man. That might violate his constitutional rights, or something, wouldn’t it, Counselor?”
“Or something,” I muttered. But it didn’t really matter; the important thing was I’d be inside Lucenti’s headquarters and in a position to get my own questions answered.
As we drove on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway in Button’s unmarked car, he hit me with the one question I’d been hoping he’d forget to ask. I should have known forgetting wasn’t in his repertoire.
“Is there anything else in those files,” he asked with deceptive casualness, “that I ought to know about?”
“No,” I answered firmly, having decided long ago that Aida Valentin Lucenti’s pathetic criminal past was something no one, least of all the police, ought to know about.
In the immortal words of Dick Cavett, politics bores my ass off. There’s something about a room plastered with posters of the smiling candidate that seems to me irrevocably phony. Yet I had to admit, looking around Art Lucenti’s campaign headquarters—soon to be transformed into his neighborhood office—that Art had a perfect political-poster face. An open smile, dark wavy hair, laugh lines around the eyes offset by a strong masculine jaw that spoke of unbending integrity. He was shown laughing with a senior citizen in a yarmulke, buying bread from a beaming Italian matron, holding a jump rope while two black girls did Double Dutch routines, sitting in solemn conference with a group of Puerto Rican teenagers wearing anti-drug T-shirts. Each picture showed a side of Art I had to respect. Too bad, I thought, that other photos hadn’t been displayed as well: Art selling out his tenant clients by secretly working for Todd Lessek, Art cutting himself in on the waterfront deal, Art paying blackmail money to Linda Ritchie.
I watched while Detective Button flashed his ID at the girl behind the desk. He seemed amused at her flustered speed as she dashed into the congressman’s office to inform him of the official visitor.
The congressman wasn’t nearly as impressed as his underling. He strolled out of his office, stretched out a hand in instinctive political fashion, and invited us into his sanctum.
“This is Ms. Jameson.” Button indicated me with a wave of his hand. “She’s here at my request.”
Art’s smile never faltered, but there was a hint of irony when he said, “We’ve met. At Linda Ritchie’s funeral, wasn’t it?”
I nodded. I wasn’t sure I had a speaking part in Button’s little play.
“I have a few more questions about Mrs. Ritchie’s murder,” Button began. I was irresistibly reminded of Columbo, who kept coming back and coming back with his “few more questions” until he’d thoroughly trapped his quarry. The image of Button as a black Peter Falk almost put a grin on my face. I clamped my jaws shut and listened.
“A sad business,” Art sighed. His heart was no longer in it; hypocrisy had tired him. Or perhaps the arrest of his pal Lessek had replaced the tragedy of Linda’s death in his thoughts.
“New evidence has just come to my attention,” Button went on smoothly, “and I thought I’d better check it out. I wouldn’t want anyone to say”—he glanced at me pointedly—“that the police were treating a congressman any differently from any other citizen.”
Art got the message. The quick look he gave me from under his long eyelashes was shrewd and penetrating. He licked his lips and said, “Of course, I’m always willing to cooperate with the authorities.”
“Good. A witness has come forward who
says Mrs. Ritchie called you here at your office the night of her death and asked you to come to her apartment. Is that true, Congressman?”
“Who”—Art bleated, pale and stunned—“who is this witness?” He looked at me, and this time his eyes gleamed with malice. The smooth political façade had cracked. “And what is she doing here? I think I’d better call my lawyer,” he concluded, his voice gradually moving from bluster to decisiveness.
“By all means,” Button said, gesturing toward the phone on the cluttered desk. “Go ahead and call. As for Ms. Jameson, she represents the family of the witness I mentioned.”
I gave Button full points for guile. As Marcy Sheldon’s lawyer, I supposed I could be fairly represented as the attorney for Dawn Ritchie’s “family,” but the way Button put it was misleading in the extreme. A fact that bothered me not at all as I looked into Art Lucenti’s scheming face.
“Congressman,” Button continued with inexorable logic, “we can and will get the phone company’s records for the numbers in this office. If a phone call was made on the night of the murder on one of these phones to or from Mrs. Ritchie’s number, we’ll find out about it. If I have to do it without your assistance, I will, but rest assured your lack of cooperation will be duly noted.”
If Art Lucenti had been a lesser mortal, the line would have been “We can do this the easy way or the hard way.” I began to sense that part of my function here was to stand as a symbol of the perils of the hard way. The arrest of Todd Lessek had to be much on the congressional mind this morning.
Art Lucenti’s thought processes weren’t moving very swiftly, I thought unkindly, attributing the delay to the absence of political advisors to weigh the pros and cons with him in some smokey back room of the mind. But finally his eyes met Button’s, and he said, “Okay.” Then he flashed me a contemptuous glance and said, “But I’ll talk to you alone. Not to her.”
I opened my mouth to protest, then sat back complacently. That was the advantage, I thought, in coming with the cops. You couldn’t be thrown out.
Where Nobody Dies Page 21
