by Joel Goldman
In a week of tectonic shifts in his world, this was the latest harsh reality to hit Mason. Being the lawyer meant being in control, running the show. Being the client meant finding religion, putting his future in the hands of a stranger. Mason was a true believer in himself and not much else.
"Fine," Mason said, taking a deep breath, trying to hold onto something. "I'll do the legal research and write the briefs. I'll hide out in the library. You'll get all the glory."
"Sorry, Lou. I can't let you do that. You know the law. I'm not worried about that. But no one on trial for murder writes or thinks as clearly as they think they do. You've got one job. Point me in the right direction and I'll do the rest. That's how I earn my fee."
Mason stood, slamming his chair against the table, hands on his hips. "That's bullshit! You think I'm going to sit on my ass and wait for the judge to tell Ortiz to call his first witness? I'm looking at the death penalty. I've witnessed one execution and that was enough for me!"
Smith tilted his chair back on the rear legs, hands folded in his lap. "When was the last time you let a client work up his murder case?"
"This is different. I'm not one of your street thug clients. I know what I'm doing and I'm damn good at it!"
"Then you don't need me. You can represent yourself. I'll refund the unused part of my retainer to your auntie in the morning," Smith said, standing as Mason glared at him. Smith held the stare, his face flat, indifferent.
Mason raised his hands, waving Smith off. "Okay. You made your point. But what am I going to do?"
"You've got other clients besides yourself," Smith answered.
"Not after today. There's no way I can represent a criminal defendant when I'm charged with murder. I'll have no credibility with the prosecutor or the courts until this is over.
I've got a few civil clients, but they won't stick around to see how this comes out. I'm shut down," he said, slumping back into his chair.
"You can take up golf," Smith said, returning to his seat.
Mason managed a small laugh. "You charge extra for the jokes?"
"Depends on how many I have to tell. You ready to get after this?"
Mason put his hands on the table. "Yeah, I'm ready. I don't have a choice."
Smith took him through it, starting with Ryan Kowalczyk's execution, breaking down every conversation, taking notes, and writing down names in the margins. He jumped around, interrupting Mason's narrative, asking what King was wearing when Mason talked to him at Camille's, asking the make and model of the cars that the valets retrieved before they brought back King's car. He tortured Mason for details.
"I didn't count King's molars if that's what you're going to ask me next," Mason said after a couple of hours.
"I was getting to that," Smith said. "The details don't matter as much as whether you remember them. It's all about credibility. Do you remember everything, or just the part that helps you? Did you forget everything or just the part that hurts you? You know the drill."
"I do," Mason said. "But not from this side of the table."
"Get used to it," Smith said. "I think I've worked you over enough for one night."
Mason said, "You left out the one question I thought you would ask."
Smith pried apart the last crab Rangoon, spooning the cold filling out, leaving the fried wrapping. "So ask it yourself," he said, washing the crab down with warm beer.
"Why did I hire you?" Mason asked.
"You tell me," Smith said. "Has to be more than my good looks and charm."
"Sandra had found out something about Whitney and his family that she wanted to tell me but she hesitated because it may have been privileged and because I was on the other side. She was about to tell me when you called her. After that, she shut up."
"You think it had something to do with Whitney King, so you hired me because you think I'll tell you," Smith said.
"Sandra said you were working together on another case. I don't buy that."
"Why? Because she worked downtown and represented big corporations and white-collar crooks and I work on the east side representing people who get collared instead of wear collars? Or maybe it's one of those what's-a-good-lookingwhite-woman-doing-with-a-black-man things."
"Neither," Mason said, ignoring the bait. "Because I knew Sandra well enough to know that she didn't scare easily and she was shaking. She trusted me. That's the last thing she said to me before she was shot. She wanted to tell me something but didn't know how to do it. Whatever you said to her shut her up. I paid you a hundred thousand dollars to find out."
"Correction," Smith said, pushing back from the table. "Your auntie paid me." He walked into the dining room and tapped his foot against the flywheel on Mason's rowing machine. "Waste of time," Smith said, pointing to the machine. "All that work and you're right back where you started when you finish."
"You look like a runner," Mason said, following Smith into the dining room. "You do the same thing."
"Wrong. When I'm running, I'm always going someplace even if I always come back. Sandra was like that. Always going some place. Fact is we were working on another case.
One of her clients was a doctor with big-time gambling debts who'd gotten in too deep with a private lender. He was overcharging his Medicare patients to pay off his debts."
"And you represent the private lender who uses a bent-nose collector to pick up the weekly installment?"
"Her doctor rolled over on my lender as part of a deal with the feds," Smith said.
"Gang bangers, dope dealers, and loan sharks," Mason said. "Quality clientele."
"Don't give me that crap, Lou. You're right down there with the rest of us. Most of the people we represent are guilty. They know it, the prosecutors know it, and we know it. Sandra knew it, too. She knew I had contacts. People that could find out things that other people couldn't."
"She told me that she'd spent the weekend reviewing her firm's files on Whitney King's family. Did she find something that made her ask you for help?"
"She didn't say anything about any files. All she asked was if I would look into something for one of her firm's clients."
"Whitney King?"
"Close. His mother."
"She's in some kind of psychiatric nursing home," Mason said.
"They're separate facilities actually. A nursing home and a psychiatric hospital. Same company owns them. It's called Golden Years. Sandra wasn't sure which one the mother was in, but she wanted to know if the mother belonged in either one," Smith said.
"Don't tell me," Mason said. "You're not a doctor even though you play one on TV."
"You charge your clients for the jokes?" Smith asked.
"Depends on how many I have to tell. What's your nursing home connection?"
"Like you said, I've got a quality clientele. Not all of it is gang bangers, dope dealers, and loan sharks. There's a lot of money to be made taking care of old people. Those Medicare care regulations are a bitch. Going after doctors, hospitals, and nursing homes is easy money for the feds. Damon Parker owns Golden Years. I've kept him open for business a couple times when the feds had other ideas. He liked the fact that I had good contacts in the U.S. attorney's office from my days as a prosecutor."
"So, if Sandra wanted to know something about King's mother, why didn't she ask her or ask King?"
"You said she was scared," Smith said. "Maybe she didn't want King to know she was asking."
"What did you find out?" Mason asked.
"Nothing. I put out a feeler and Parker fired me. That's what I told Sandra when I called her."
"Ask a question and get fired. That makes the point," Mason said.
"Not like getting shot in the face," Smith said.
Chapter 33
It was close to ten o'clock when Dixon Smith left. Mason and Tuffy walked him to the curb, the dog stretching as Smith drove away. Mason kneaded the back of the dog's neck. The wind came in gusts, raising the rest of her coat. Thick layers of indigo clouds had rolled overh
ead, blanketing the stars and promising a storm powerful enough to shatter the heat wave.
He lingered at the curb, the dog nudging him to go inside, uneasy at the weather. At least one of them had the sense to avoid the storm.
"C'mon," he told the dog, who leaped out ahead of him. Mason followed slowly, hands jammed into his pockets.
He did a few slow laps around the first floor, cleaning up in the haphazard way of someone who has no one to clean up for, too restless to sit, reviewing the list of things he'd told Dixon Smith to do.
Run down Sandra's cell phone records and Whitney King's. Check local suppliers of stun guns for sales to King. Forget about Internet suppliers. There were too many and they don't employ real people anyway having figured out how to run a business entirely on e-mail and voice mail.
Find Janet Hook and Andrea Bracco, the last two jurors before they turn up dead. If they were still alive. And find Mary Kowalczyk.
Talk to Whitney King's mother, Victoria. Test her son's alibi. Figure out why Sandra questioned whether Victoria King belonged in either a psychiatric hospital or a nursing home and why Smith got fired for asking if she did.
Smith had nodded while Mason rattled off his checklist, not taking any notes.
"Thanks," Smith had told him when Mason finished. "Never would have thought of any of that."
"No charge," Mason said. "I appreciate your courtesy," he added, returning the jab.
"A hundred thousand dollars buys a lot of courtesy," Smith had replied. "Let me handle this, Lou. I know what I'm doing."
"Do I have a choice?"
"You've always got a choice. Not a good one, but you've got it."
Mason sat on the rowing machine's sliding seat, rolling forward and back a few times. He got up, a stationary workout not what he needed. Smith was right to keep him on the sidelines, but Mason didn't know how long he could stay there.
He grabbed his car keys and a moment later was southbound on Wornall Road heading for St. Joseph Hospital. Nick Byrnes was supposed to have had surgery earlier in the day. Visiting Nick wasn't meddling in Smith's handling of his case, Mason rationalized. The kid was probably still sleeping off the anesthetic anyway. It was something to do and that's what Mason needed.
The hospital lobby was brightly lit, though the lack of foot traffic and the faintly antiseptic air gave it an abandoned feel. No one greeted him from the information counter. He leaned over the rail above the food court looking for Nick's grandparents, finding only a young couple hunched over a table, the woman comforting the man.
Large signs directed him toward the Surgical Intensive Care Unit. He passed a few nurses on the way, but no one stopped to tell him that visiting hours were over. He found the double doors to the ICU, passed through them, and ran into his first resistance.
"May I help you?" a nurse said from her seat behind a circular workstation with a raised countertop that hid the desk where she was sitting. She was a stout, middle-age woman whose question wasn't a question. It was an order to get out.
Mason stepped up to the workstation, leaning over as the nurse straightened stacks of patient charts. "I'm a friend of Nick Byrnes. I just stopped by to see how he's doing," Mason said.
"Family only," the nurse said.
The ICU was designed in an outer ring of rooms with curtains instead of doors, the curtains drawn halfway. The nurse's station was an inner circle, giving the nurses a view into each room. The rooms were half-dark, lighted by the glow of monitors tracking vital signs. Patients' names were written on dry erase boards mounted at the entrance to each room. Mason scanned the names, finding Nick's on the far side, the words "Family Only" written beneath his name in red.
"How's he doing?" Mason asked.
"All patients in the ICU are considered to be in critical condition," the nurse said.
"Details only for the family?" Mason asked.
"That's correct, sir."
"I'm not family, but I think I qualify for an exception. My name is Lou Mason. I'm Nick's attorney."
The nurse's eyes fluttered as she caught her breath. He was not only in the news, he was bad news. Dropping his name had the opposite effect he had intended. She picked up the phone, holding the receiver to her breast. In her haste, she pushed several patient charts onto the floor.
"Family only," she repeated. "Please leave or I'll have to call security."
"It's all right," a woman said from behind Mason.
Mason turned, finding Esther Byrnes at his side. She looked up at him, her face worn with worry.
"Are you sure, Mrs. Byrnes?" the nurse asked. "I can call security."
"That won't be necessary," Nick's grandmother said. "I'm not afraid of Mr. Mason."
She slipped her arm around Mason's, tugging him gently. "Let's go see Nick," she said.
Mason smiled at the nurse, who held tightly to the phone, her finger poised, ready to dial if he tried anything funny.
"Was the surgery successful?" Mason asked Esther as she pulled the curtain back and they stood at the foot of Nick's bed. He was asleep, an oxygen line clipped to his nose, IV lines plugged into both arms, heart monitors glued to his chest.
Esther clutched Mason's arm with one hand, her other on the rail at the end of the bed. "The surgeon says he got the rest of the bullet fragments."
"Then he'll be okay," Mason said.
"I don't know what that means anymore, Mr. Mason. The surgeon said Nick's spinal cord was bruised, but that should heal and he'll be able to walk. It just takes time."
She squeezed Mason's arm again. Mason covered her hand with his. "Thanks for not being afraid of me," he said.
"You're no more a killer than that other boy, Ryan Kowalczyk," Esther said. "I can tell. It's that Whitney King. He makes everyone else look guilty. That's who I'm afraid of, Mr. Mason."
Chapter 34
The rain had begun while Mason was visiting Nick, blistering the pavement as he ran across the parking lot. He drove home, his clothing soaked, humidity inside the car fogging the windows. Thunder bellowed and the sky jumped with arcs of lightning. Pea-size pellets of hail snowballed into nickel and quarter-size rounds, bouncing off his car like automatic fire. By the time he pulled into his driveway, the front lawn was salted with hail.
Tuffy ran to greet him when he walked into the kitchen from the garage, planting her front paws on his belt, as afraid of the storm as a small child. He dropped to a knee, hugging the dog, stroking her coat, laughing at her name.
"You're more chicken than dog," he told her.
The wind roared outside, fighting the thunder for domination, muffling the rain as it beat against the house. Thunder exploded like a bomb dropped on his roof, shaking the windows. The interior walls glowed in the shadow of an electric blue lightning bolt, knocking out the power to his house.
The dog stayed close as Mason fumbled in the dark kitchen for a flashlight he kept in a drawer. The question was which one. Mason cursed when he pulled one drawer out too far, dumping the contents at his feet. He found the flashlight in the next drawer, shining it on Tuffy who whined and shoved her wet nose into his hand.
Mason looked out his dining room window at the rest of his block. The streetlights were out and the other houses were dark. Peering between the houses across the street to the next block, he couldn't see any lights. The power failure wasn't his problem alone.
A car crept cautiously down the street, its headlights illuminating the rain that continued to fall in sheets. Mason stepped back into the darkness of the room, remembering the last time he'd watched a car come down his street late at night. This car turned into his driveway, the driver getting out, head covered with a jacket, racing to his front door.
Mason reached the door as the heavy brass knocker on the other side smacked against the strike plate. He pulled the door open, shining the light in his visitor's face.
"Nice night if it doesn't rain," Abby Lieberman said, stepping inside.
Mason lowered the light, the beam catching the wate
r dripping from her coat. He took her hand, drawing her closer. She didn't resist, wrapping her arms around him, Mason holding on, not knowing what else to do. They stood like that, the door still open, the storm blowing past them, until the rain began to puddle at their feet. Tuffy circled them, rubbing against their legs, not willing to be left out of the reunion.
Abby finally let go, easing Mason's arms to her side. She crouched next to Tuffy, brushing back the dog's coat, not minding the paws on her shoulder. Standing again, she took the flashlight from Mason and shined it up and down him.
"At least Tuffy knew to come in out of the rain.
"You're a mess," she said. "What were you doing? she asked, closing the front door.
"I was out late. I got caught in the storm when I went to my car," he said, not wanting to tell her he'd been to see Nick or anything else that might send her away. He didn't know what was safe to say or not say, why she was here or whether she would stay. He was still raw from her sudden departure. Their chance meeting at the hospital had salted the wound, not healed it. He didn't know what to make of her return.
"I drove up from Jefferson City," she said. "We had a fund-raiser there tonight. I couldn't get away any earlier."
"I'm glad you came," Mason said.
"Then why don't you invite me into the living room like a proper guest?" she teased.
Abby aimed the flashlight past Mason into the living room, the dining room table casting a shadow against the wall, the bullet hole in the front window whistling with the wind. She gave Mason a sharp look, aiming the light into the dining room, outlining the rowing machine.
She let out a sigh. "Well, that didn't take too long."
"You said you weren't coming back," Mason answered, trying to keep his tone neutral.
The furniture wasn't important to either one of them. It was what it represented. Life with Abby was orderly and proper. Dining room tables belonged in the dining room. Exercise equipment belonged in the basement. Life with Mason was disorderly. Orderly was predictable and safe. Disorderly was unpredictable and dangerous.
