Thatcher Gray opens the door. Piper’s father is dressed in a long-sleeve white shirt, dark crisply creased slacks, and polished Italian loafers. His gray hair is trimmed close to the sides and top of his narrow head. Piper leans in to kiss her father, her full, red mouth a stark contrast to her father’s thin, bloodless lips. Thatcher extends his hand to me coolly.
“Mick,” he says, his close-set blue eyes scrutinizing me. We shake perfunctorily before Thatcher bends to pick up Gabby. “And how’s the prettiest girl in the world?” he says as he lifts her. Gabby looks back at me and rolls her eyes, clearly thinking, Not this again.
The four of us move through the living and dining rooms to the kitchen, where Helen Gray is preparing dinner. Helen, a petite woman wearing a green cocktail dress, turns as we enter, her eyes and mouth smiling widely. She hugs and kisses all three of us, then offers Piper and me some wine.
“From the cellar,” Thatcher says about the wine, reminding us about the wine cellar he had built into his basement earlier that summer. Piper told me the construction cost almost $50,000—a steep enough price that Thatcher decided to cancel his and Helen’s annual trip to Europe in the fall. According to Piper, her mother was upset by this, but, of course, didn’t share that with her husband. Thatcher Gray suffers criticism poorly.
During dinner, Helen asks how soon it’ll be that Gabby goes off to first grade.
“It’s less than two weeks now,” I tell her. “Gabby has been getting more and more excited as we get close to it.” Our daughter enjoys learning new things, but what she’s really looking forward to is the social component.
“School is imperative, Gabrielle,” Thatcher declares, leaning toward Gabby. “You want to have a nice house when you grow up, and nice clothes and nice friends. School is where you learn the things you need to know to get them.”
Gabby looks down at her plate and pushes around her vegetables as her grandfather lectures her.
“This trout almondine is superb,” I tell Helen. “You’ve really outdone yourself.”
Helen beams, but her smile fades quickly as her husband pipes in.
“I had the best trout almondine for lunch the other week,” Thatcher declares. “In the city, at that restaurant on Rittenhouse Square. The one that’s fitted out like a French bistro. What’s it called? Parc?”
I shoot an annoyed glance at Piper as Helen takes a long draw on her wine. Piper ignores me, asks her father how he’s doing.
“I’d be doing better if it weren’t for the economy,” he answers. “First the Chinese threaten to take down the whole world with their inflated stock market, and now those idiots in England are leaving the EEC, thanks to the millions of low-income voters who have no clue as to how the global markets work.”
If the House of Lords were ever to award seats to Americans, Thatcher Gray would be the first man to get one.
“There were plenty of big-money men who voted to leave, too,” I say. “They have to take some share of the blame.”
Piper’s father doesn’t miss a beat. “Big-money men like the one you’re representing? Phillip Baldwin. That SOB hurt a lot of good people. Including a number of my friends and fellow club members. And you’re trying to get him off scot-free.”
“Actually, he’s going to plead. He’s just signed the agreement. He’ll probably report to prison sometime next week. It’ll be in the papers, I’m sure.”
Thatcher chews on this for a moment. “How long will he get?”
“The term is twenty years, though he’ll likely be out in ten. A full decade behind bars.”
“Ten years! For what he did? That villain should rot until the next ice age.”
Helen comes to my defense. “Ten years isn’t nothing, Thatcher. I’m sure prison will be pretty awful for him.”
Not a man to brook dissent from his own wife, Thatcher shoots Helen a sharp look. Helen picks up her wine and looks away. Piper keeps her own counsel, not wanting to get between her parents. She’s made that mistake before.
We sit uncomfortably for a few minutes, then Thatcher takes another tack. Swirling his wine, he looks over at me and says, “Baldwin going to trial would have brought in a lot of money for your firm, I imagine.”
I try to feign nonchalance. “The firm’s doing well, so the Baldwin thing’s not a big deal.”
Thatcher glances quickly at Piper. He’s won the point, and we both know it. Still, he hasn’t cut me deeply enough. He goes for my Achilles’ heel.
“How’s that brother of yours?”
Piper’s father has met Tommy a handful of times. Despite Piper’s best efforts to get her father to warm to Tommy, the older man has shown no interest in befriending my brother, or even acknowledging his right to exist. I smile inwardly as I recall Tommy’s initial description of Thatcher Gray: “Sir Thatcher, a stick up his own ass.”
Before I can answer her father, Piper chimes in. “Tommy’s doing very well. He’s been a great help to me in my gardens, and he’s working hard with Mick on the David Hanson case.”
At the mention of David’s name, Thatcher winces. Like many of the city’s big-firm lawyers, Thatcher isn’t sure how to deal with the charges against David. On the one hand, social propriety requires that a certain distance be maintained. On the other, if David manages to escape conviction and reclaim his old job as general counsel of Hanson World Industries, he will once again control the allocation of millions of dollars in legal work.
When dinner is finished, I volunteer to help Helen with the dishes as Piper and her father repair to his study. After we’re finished loading the dishwasher, Helen and I join Piper and “Sir Thatcher.” When we enter the study, we find the two of them sitting on the tufted leather couch that is positioned in front of Thatcher’s antique mahogany desk.
“Good news, honey!” Piper exclaims when she sees me. “Father’s going to lend us the money to get the new roof!”
As soon as we’ve put Gabby to bed and we’re in our own bedroom, I start in. “What the hell, Piper? I mean, really. What did you tell him when you were alone? That all that stuff I said about the firm doing well was just a bunch of bullshit?”
“I didn’t say any such thing. I just said we needed a new roof, and money was a little tight, that’s all.”
I want to hit something, I’m so frustrated. “For fuck’s sake. We do not need a new roof! The one we have is fine! Why aren’t you hearing me?”
“Why aren’t you hearing me? The roof is not fine. It’s flimsy and it puts our house in danger.”
I don’t even know how to respond to this. It’s just nuts. But then again, I know it’s not really the roof that’s tormenting Piper. My heart is beating a mile a minute as I decide to give Piper a chance to share what’s really going on.
“I don’t know what’s happening with you,” I say. “You’ve been moving away from me for a long time. I can see that. But these past couple months, it’s like you’re running away. You’re always off with one of your girlfriends, in New York, or out for the night, or whatever. And when you are at home, you’re either attacking me or not really here.”
Piper looks over at me, her eyes incredulous. “Me not here? Wow, Mick. Fucking wow.”
I turn away and start to leave.
“Yeah, that’s it. Walk away, Mick. Go somewhere else.”
“Fuck you!” I shout over my shoulder as I stomp down the stairs.
11
MONDAY, AUGUST 20
Finally, some good news. It’s just before noon on Monday. I’m sitting in my office, having just hung up the phone with Arthur Hogarth. A-Hog, as he’s been nicknamed by the bar, is the managing partner at Hogarth, Blumenthal, and Fishbein, Philly’s most successful, headline-grabbing personal-injury firm.
The poorest-kept secret in the legal profession is that the easiest way to make money is to refer personal-injury cases to guys like Arthur Hogarth. Although as the referring lawyer you’re still technically part of the client’s legal team, the A-Hogs and their lackeys do
all the work on the case and, just as important, front all the costs. The end result is that you, as the referring attorney, spend no time on the case, invest no overhead, bear no risk, but reap the rewards when someone like Arthur obtains a settlement or collects on a verdict.
This happened with one of my own clients, Candice Crenshaw, a twenty-two-year-old “performance artist” at Delilah’s Den who was arrested for drug possession three years ago. I’d beaten the charges. A year after that, the young stripper was back in my office, opening her shirt to me. Candy’s left breast was the most perfectly sculpted breast I had ever seen. Her right breast was a pancake and had more stitches than a Raggedy Anne doll. As it turned out, the right-side implant had burst during augmentation surgery, bringing on a massive infection that destroyed the mammary.
An hour after Candy appeared in my office, I walked her through the doors of Hogarth, Blumenthal, and Fishbein for a meeting with Arthur. Over the course of the next two years, A-Hog navigated Candy’s “broken boob” case through the legal system. He sued everyone even remotely involved in the enhancement surgery: the surgeon, the nurses, the anesthesiologist, two residents observing the surgery as part of their rotation, the hospital, the implant manufacturer. He mowed down scores of people in depositions. He identified dozens of witnesses ready to testify to what an upbeat, happy, well-balanced, good-natured, responsible, wonderful, doting, and saintly friend, daughter, sister, neighbor, convenience-store customer, mass-transit rider, and God-fearing American Candy was before she was turned into a circus freak. And what a hopeless, despairing, distraught, defeated, deflated, destitute, God-fearing American her deformity had caused her to become. Impressively, Arthur’s witnesses included Leon Auerback, the big-time Hollywood agent (and, Arthur confided in me, his college roommate), who showed up at his deposition to reveal that just before Candy’s surgery, she had been about to sign on for a starring role in an edgy series on HBO.
“The upshot,” I tell Susan as she sits in my office, “is that the case has just settled for three and a half million.”
Susan lets this sink in for a minute. “So our third of Arthur’s third is . . . ?”
“Three hundred and eighty-nine thousand.”
At my mention of the amount, Susan exhales. “Breathing room,” she says. “Finally.”
“Let’s take everyone to lunch,” I say.
In the wake of the unexpected ending to the Phillip Baldwin case, we’d been putting pressure on Vaughn, and our paralegals, Jill and Andrea, to file as many motions, interview as many witnesses, do as much legal research as possible in our other cases, bill as many hours as they could—to generate cash flow. Everyone is exhausted, and the pressure in the office is palpable. We all need a break.
Half an hour later, the whole firm—Susan, me, Angie, Vaughn, paralegals Andrea and Jill, even nineteen-year-old Katrina, our file clerk—are seated around the table in the center of the main dining room of the Capital Grill. As our waiter brings our appetizers, Angie asks where Tommy is.
“Still out chasing alibi witnesses for Terrell Davis.” Terrell Davis’s case is another murder scheduled to go to trial the month after David Hanson’s—and we still hadn’t found the two friends Terrell claimed he was with across town at the time of the drive-by shooting he’s accused of taking part in. It’s not that our client hasn’t done his best to help us. So far, Terrell has given Tommy three pairs of names. But every time Tommy interviews the potential alibis, they fall apart on close questioning. “Terrell’s got to find some friends who can memorize a simple story line,” Tommy had complained.
I share this with the group, and we all chuckle. Then Vaughn tells a story about a call girl he once represented who went by the name of Wednesday. “So I asked her why not pick some other day of the week, say, Saturday or Monday? She looks at me like I’m dumb as wood. ‘Isn’t it obvious?’ she says. ‘Wednesday is hump day.’”
We all burst out laughing. Vaughn’s punch line opens a valve, unleashing the pressure that’s been building inside of us for the past few months. Susan and I take turns regaling the table with our own tales, and I realize this is what I love about practicing in a firm like ours. It is a truism among lawyers that the practice of law would be great were it not for the clients. And criminal-defense attorneys complain the loudest of all. After all, our clients are not only needy and demanding—they are also, for the most part, criminals. Some are violent criminals, sociopaths, or pathological narcissists.
But these are the worst of the lot, and the fewest. Most of our clients don’t find themselves in orange jumpsuits because they harbor a truly malicious nature. They run afoul of the law because their neighborhoods and schools teem with indolence, indifference, and outright criminality. They fail not because they’re unable to adapt to society’s mores, but because they adapt too well to the rules of poverty and violence that govern the world in which they’re raised.
Lawyers like me, firms like mine, do our best to guide these men and women through the intestines of the dragon they woke up inside. If they’re lucky, we’ll get them out the other end before too much more damage is done. If we’re lucky, we’ll get paid fairly and enjoy a few laughs along the way—to go with the tears, frustrations, and outright defeats.
Almost as though she’s been reading my mind, Susan looks at me and says, “Not like being a DA, is it?”
I smile and shake my head.
“Would you ever go back?” asks Vaughn.
I don’t even have to think about it. “No,” I answer. Nothing more. Just no.
The waiter delivers our entrées, and the conversation lulls. We order more drinks and desserts as well. By the time we stand to leave, we are stuffed and loopy. The sun makes us squint our eyes as we leave the darkened restaurant and head back to the office for what we all know will be an afternoon of zero productivity.
After wasting an hour at my desk, I’m about ready to pack it in when Vaughn and Susan enter and turn on my TV. Devlin Walker stands behind a walnut podium, solemnly explaining that the investigating grand jury has recommended charges be brought against seventeen members of the Thirteenth and Fifteenth Districts of the Philadelphia Police Department, all of whom, he announces, were arrested at their homes in the early-morning hours. Devlin drones on about no one being above the law. Then he begins to read off the names of the officers arrested.
An hour after the press conference wraps up, Angie buzzes me. “Devlin Walker’s on the phone,” she says. “Line one.”
I lift the headset and punch the button. “McFarland.”
“You saw?”
“I saw. And?”
“It’s time, Mick. Get Hanson to plead. I’ll accept involuntary manslaughter. Heat of passion. But I need the laptop. More names could be on it. More bad cops.”
“Hanson doesn’t have the laptop. Because he didn’t kill Yamura.”
“Just remember, the laptop has to be pristine. I don’t want a single file touched. Not a single document. You hearing me?”
“You have a nice day,” I say.
“Goddamn it, Mick! I’m giving your client an easy way out.”
“Easy?” It’s my turn to shout. “Plead to a crime he didn’t commit? Go to prison? Lose what little is left of his reputation? Produce a computer he doesn’t have? Exactly which part of that is the easy part?”
“Just do your job and convey the offer. A few years for manslaughter, or the rest of his life for murder one. And don’t forget about the computer. It’s the only reason I’m even talking to you.”
“We’ll see you at trial.”
I hang up the phone, lean back in my chair, and close my eyes. Devlin’s obsession with Jennifer Yamura’s laptop, and his insistence that it be turned over completely untouched, tells me that he knows something about the computer that I don’t.
12
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 4
Two weeks after the indictment of the crooked cops and Devlin Walker’s call, Vaughn enters my office. “Tommy was right
about the robberies,” he says. “The police records show that the week Jennifer Yamura was killed, there were three daylight burglaries close to her house. Two of the robberies happened before Jennifer was killed, one after.”
“Police catch anyone?”
Vaughn shakes his head.
“I’ll tell Tommy to get statements from the property owners. We’ll list them as witnesses.”
Vaughn smiles. “I’m starting to smell reasonable doubt.”
“We’ve a long way to go.”
Vaughn leaves, and I call Tommy and tell him that the cop who tipped him off to the mini crime wave was right. “We have the addresses and owners’ information,” I say. “I’ll e-mail them to you now. Swing by and get their statements.”
“Sure,” Tommy says. He sounds tired.
I ask how Lawrence Washington is holding up, and tell him I’m concerned about him harboring an AWOL witness wanted by the police. The idea that Devlin Walker will find out that Lawrence has been holed up with Tommy scares the shit out of me. If Walker found out about Tommy’s link to Lawrence, he might figure out that Tommy was involved in the drug ring. I like Lawrence, but I don’t trust that he would go to jail to keep Tommy out. And I won’t allow my brother to be taken back to prison.
“You don’t have to worry about Lawrence,” Tommy answers. “He knows how to keep a secret.”
“Sure—just ask his buddies in the drug ring.”
Tommy says nothing on the other end, but I can feel the tension.
“Look, if the prosecutors find out Lawrence hid your involvement, his plea deal will be voided, and he’ll be staring at a long prison sentence. They’ll use that to turn him against you.”
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