The Kills

by Fairstein, Linda

  “They’ve got a minimum ceiling now,” she said. “If the visibility holds, you’ll get in fine. Stick around the boarding area. They’ll try to turn the plane around pretty quickly.”

  I went through security and down the concourse to the departure gate. There were only three other passengers waiting for the nineteen-seat Beechcraft. I looked for a quiet place from which to make a call and settled into a corner with my cell phone.

  I checked my office for messages, and my home machine as well. Jake had called both places, trying to find out whether I was holding to my plan of flying to the country. Assistants had phoned in updates of the cases on which they were working, and friends had left snippets of social gossip to lighten my spirits. The last voice mail, only fifteen minutes earlier, was from Will Nedim. He had finished his first interview with Tiffany Gatts.

  “Will? It’s Alex. I’m calling from the airport, on my cell. Can you hear me?”

  “So far, so good.”

  “Everything go as planned with Tiffany? You run into any problems?”

  “She’s a piece of work, Alex. But I guess you knew that.”

  “Happy to leave her in your lap. I’ve got all the aggravation I need right now. Did you get anything from her?”

  “I think she’s ready to roll over and give up the boyfriend, Kevin Bessemer.”

  “That’s a huge step. How’d you get her there?” I asked.

  “Don’t give me any of the credit. She hates being in the slammer. She’s only sixteen, remember? It doesn’t exactly seem fair to her that it was Kevin’s idea to go break into Queenie’s apartment, and now he’s running around free, while she’s locked up behind bars.”

  “Does she know where Kevin is?”

  “She’s not sure. He hasn’t signed up for visiting hours yet, so except for her mama’s handholding, it’s lonely in the jailhouse. There’s a piece of Tiffany that wants to Tammy Wynette him,” Will said. “Stand by her man and all that. But her resolve is definitely weakening, and it isn’t helped any by the fact that two of the other prisoners beat the crap out of her the other day because she wanted to watch Oprah while they were tuned in to Judge Judy.”

  “How about specifics, Will? Did you try to squeeze her on what she and Kevin did to Queenie, and why they killed her?”

  “I’ve seen you interrogate teenage girls, Alex, and maybe I’m just not as tough on them as you can be. But I’m leaning toward believing her.”

  “About what?” I asked.

  “Tiffany is absolutely adamant that McQueen Ransome was already dead when they got to the apartment. I couldn’t budge her from that story no matter which way I came at her. She describes exactly how the old lady looked when they went in, how the drawers were pulled out of the dressers and cabinets, with her belongings all messed up.”

  I didn’t speak.

  “Don’t be pissed off at me, Alex. Doesn’t what the kid says mean anything?”

  “That’s certainly the way Queenie’s body-and the apartment-looked when Tiffany left it. Whether that’s what she walked into, I guess time will tell. Did she admit stealing anything?”

  “Well, the fur coat.”

  Good job, Will. It would be hard to lose that larceny count at a trial. “Anything else?”

  “She said Kevin found some things on the floor that were silver and had initials on them. Like cigarette lighters and tie clips. There were a lot of old snapshots-Tiffany said they were ‘pictures of naked ladies.’ Kevin helped himself to those.”

  So much for the pornographic photos. “But she didn’t pick anything up?”

  “Said she scooped up some coins from the closet floor, but they all had foreign writing on them that she couldn’t understand, so she just dropped them back on the floor where they had been. Didn’t think she could spend them on Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard. And one other photograph she said that must have fallen off the night table, right next to Queenie’s body.”

  “What did she do with that?” I asked.

  “Tiffany thought she had it in her pocketbook when she got locked up. Thinks the police gave the bag to her mother when she came to the station house after the arrest.”

  “Does it sound like a photo of anything we need?”

  “Nah. She can’t even explain why she took it. It’s the deceased-McQueen Ransome-and a young boy. Like an adolescent. Tiffany called him ‘a little white boy.’ She thought he looked real pretty.”

  “Could be Queenie and her son, Fabian. She had lots of pictures of him in the apartment. Guess we ought to get it if we can, to corroborate her story. And to make sure we didn’t miss anything else in the handbag. Give Helena Lisi a call and ask her to have Mrs. Gatts bring it in,” I said.

  “I forgot to tell you yesterday. You know, when I was talking to you while Mr. Battaglia was in your office? I could tell you were trying to get me off the phone,” Will said with a nervous giggle. “Helena Lisi doesn’t represent Tiffany anymore.”

  “Well, lucky you. That should make your life easier. Who’s her new lawyer?”

  “Josh Braydon.”

  “Big step up. Maybe you’ll get some real cooperation now. Did Lisi put up a fight when the family fired her?” I asked. “Hope she got her money up front. Mrs. Gatts is in for quite a struggle if she thinks Helena Lisi won’t kick back and scream for her retainer.”

  “Helena’s not exactly out of it yet, Alex.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I hope you don’t mind what I did. I didn’t want to get in a hassle with you while Battaglia was sitting in your office, so I just went ahead and used my judgment.”

  “To do what, Will?”

  “When Tiffany Gatts called and asked to talk to me, I could tell she was really frightened. She thinks her life is in danger. Her mother’s, too. She begged me not to tell Helena Lisi.”

  “So how’d you get to Josh Braydon?” I asked. “How’d he get into the case?”

  “I had the court appoint him, Alex. I know you’re not going to like this. Josh Braydon? He’s shadow counsel.”

  32

  “U.S. Airways announces the departure of flight 3709 to Martha’s Vineyard. Boarding will begin in approximately ten minutes, through Gate Five.”

  I paused while the gate agent repeated the information, trying to control my temper.

  “What the hell were you thinking, Will? Shadow counsel? How dare you jeopardize a homicide investigation with that kind of idea?”

  “I read the leading case, Alex. People Against Stewart. I’m pretty sure-”

  “Don’t cite cases to me,” I said, trying to keep my voice down as it resonated through the terminal’s seating area.

  “Stewartonly speaks to the dismissal of the indictment. The court never reached the issue of the propriety of shadow counsel. If you had bothered to read the dissent, Will, you would have seen that one of the jurists not only called the concept distasteful, but in violation of all ethical prosecutorial considerations.”

  Will Nedim was getting defensive. “Well, I’m sorry to disagree with you, Alex, but the appellate courts haven’t-”

  “This is no time to argue. That kind of ruse is not proper and it’s not fair. I’d never think of doing anything like it.”

  “You weren’t exactly available to check with and-”

  “I’ve got to catch my plane now, and you’ve got to undo this. Where will you be tonight? I’ll call you when I settle in at my house in a couple of hours, okay? I want to know who Tiffany Gatts claimed to be afraid of and everything else you told the judge to allow this sham to happen.”

  I scribbled his home number on the back of my ticket and trudged down the steps, out onto the tarmac, and up the steps of the small plane.

  This was one more critical thing that Mike and Mercer would have to attend to. Who was funding Tiffany Gatts’s defense? If her mother wasn’t paying the bills, and if indeed she was fearful of letting her lawyer know her intentions, then we had to find out who was pulling the strings on this pu
ppet.

  I ducked my head to get through the entrance, which was several inches shorter than I was. I waited while the woman in front of me stowed her tennis racket in the overhead compartment, and then I sat in the second row, making notes about what I needed to do in response to Nedim’s phone call.

  “You writing a brief, Alex?”

  I looked up and saw a familiar face. Justin Feldman, a prominent litigator in the city who also had a home on the Vineyard, sat opposite me across the narrow aisle.

  “No, only a list,” I answered. “I’m just letting off steam. I’m afraid I unloaded on one of the young lawyers in the office. Now I’m trying to repair the damage.”

  “Nothing terminal, I hope.”

  I respected Justin and had sought his advice in the past, especially on situations that involved ethical considerations, since he had chaired the bar association’s prestigious committee. “Depends on your point of view. You know anything about shadow counsel?” I asked.

  “Never heard the term.”

  “That’s because you practice in a better place,” I said, referring to the federal courts, where judges rarely tolerated the shenanigans that were commonplace stateside. “I’m only aware of one decision on point.”

  “What jurisdiction?” Justin asked.

  “A Manhattan case a few years back. The perp was incarcerated, pending trial or plea. One day, he calls the prosecutor out of the blue. Claims he’s ready to cooperate and give up his codefendants, but his lawyer has refused to let him do it.”

  “What was the lawyer’s beef?”

  “Turns out the defendant claims his lawyer was hired and paid for by somebody else-a major drug kingpin. When the defendant decides to accept the prosecutor’s deal, he tells the judge that his lawyer actually said that the head of the drug ring would have him killed if he cooperated. That word would go back through the lawyer.”

  “What did the judge do?” Justin asked again.

  “Set up this charade, this complete fiction. He made the defendant create a record in court saying that he feared for his life if he fired his lawyer and played ball with the prosecution. So the case actually went forward with two defense attorneys.”

  “Two? And the first one never knew the second one existed?”

  “Exactly,” I said. “There was the original lawyer, who was being paid by the kingpin and who told her own client that his life and the life of his family were in danger. The judge kept her on the case, but completely in the dark about the truth of the transactions. Then he went ahead and assigned someone new to do the deal with the prosecution.”

  “The so-called shadow counsel?”

  “Yes. The judge used the lawyer he appointed to take the real plea, which was a deal with cooperation, all the while continuing to pretend that what happened in the presence of lawyer number one-a mock plea allocution, a sentence, and a resentence-was true.”

  “Creating a complete illusion. Violating all your disclosure obligations, derogating your ethical responsibilities, communicating with the court ex parte to set this up, and falsifying the judicial process all along the way.” Justin ticked off every repugnant feature of the arrangement.

  “I’m not totally crazy, am I, to tell my colleague I won’t go along with something like that?” I asked, as the pilot started up the starboard engine.

  “You’d be insane to do it,” Justin said, shaking his head back and forth. “I wonder where some of these lawyers lose their senses,” he said. “You know Marty London, don’t you?”

  He was referring to another giant of the New York bar. “Sure.”

  “I had lunch with him today. The very same kind of conversation about a bright young lawyer came up. Marty’s representing a guy who’s in over his head-runs the corporate department at a white-shoe law firm. Kept telling his partners that to keep high-rolling clients happy, he was making contributions to their favorite charities. Big bucks.”

  “Some kind of scam?”

  “That’s putting it mildly. He’d tell the managing partner he’d written a personal check for, say, fifty thousand dollars to some tug-at-your-heartstrings cause. Say it’s children of some war-torn part of the world. Or a struggling dance company. Or an inner-city art museum. Had to be a personal check, so he’d get credit with the client for being a mensch. Who’d second-guess him for a good deed like that? Then, he asked the firm to reimburse him-and they did.”

  “I think I see this one coming,” I said. “He never wrote the check to any such charity.”

  “How about that the charity never existed in the first place?” Justin said, shaking his head in disbelief. “Battaglia’s going to make mincemeat out of this guy when he gets his hands on this case. Fifty thousand dollars of the firm’s money in his own pocket every couple of months, on top of his draw of a few million a year. I don’t understand these people, Alex.”

  Both propellers were geared up now, and it was impossible to hear over the din. He settled in with his newspaper and I continued making lists of things to do.

  The small aircraft lifted up from the runway. Within minutes, we had flown into the enormous billow of cloud cover that had settled over the New York area. I pulled my seat belt tighter around my waist as the plane bucked in the rough currents. I tried to concentrate on organizing my evening calls, but the severe weather made any work effort impossible.

  I stuck my pen in my pocket and stared out the window at the inner lining of the storm cloud. There were only five passengers on the flight, and all looked as gloomy as the skies around us. I watched as the woman in front of Justin’s seat fumbled for the airsickness bag, hoping that she would not need to use it in the close confines of the still cabin.

  The pilot broke in with a short message. “Sorry about the bumps in the road, ladies and gents. We’ve got that hurricane blowing in behind us, so we’ll rock and roll like this all the way to the Vineyard. Be another thirty-five minutes till touchdown. Thanks for flying with us tonight.”

  I closed my eyes and tried to think about something pleasant. My lover was in Washington, altogether too pleased with the freedom of our new arrangement, my precious home was about to be battered by sixty-mile-an-hour winds, and the tangle of investigations on my professional plate seemed hopeless. I opened my eyes and stared off into the wild gray yonder.

  I was as relieved as the woman clutching the paper bag against her chest when the pilot descended out of the clouds and I could see the lights on the landing strip glistening in the evening mist. We taxied to a stop and I trotted from the bottom of the steps into the shelter of the airport terminal. I walked to the parking lot, where my caretaker had left my car earlier in the week when he’d gone off-island. Soon I was heading up-island on the slick roadway that curved through the pastures and meadows of Chilmark.

  It was close to nine o’clock. I was looking for something to eat, but there weren’t many choices. I drove in the direction of Dutcher Dock, but both the Galley and the Homeport were dark.

  I made a U-turn in front of the old red-roofed coast guard station, now the Chilmark Police Headquarters, going to the far end of the main road toward the gas station. Larsen’s Fish Market had closed hours ago, so my last hope was the Bite, a two-hundred-square-foot gray-shingled kitchen from which the Quinn sisters put forth the best chowder and fried clams on the face of the earth.

  There were two pickup trucks parked in front-drivers eating in their cabs-and I squeezed my little red convertible in between them. I ducked under the roof of the small porch to get out of the rain, and Karen spotted me when I picked my head up.

  “Alex? That you? Haven’t got a clam or oyster left. Wiped out.”

  “Just a cup of soup.” My stomach was still settling down. “To go.”

  Her dialect was more Boston Southie than islander. “Better close your house up tight. Gonna be a wicked bad storm.”

  “That’s what I came up to do.”

  She handed me a brown bag much larger than a pint container of soup. “Take some w
ith you for tomorrow. Extra chowder, some chicken wings, and my mother’s brownies. You’ll be glad you’ve got this goody bag if nobody opens up during the hurricane.”

  I thanked her and got back into the car and headed for the hilltop high above the water that surrounded my lovely old farmhouse on all sides, grateful for the placement the Mayhew farmers had given their home almost two centuries earlier, as the waves picked up steam on the shores below. I had expanded and rebuilt the sturdy structure, but it still retained the charm and character that came from its original bones.

  My heart beat more rapidly as I made the turn off State Road. I thought of my friend Isabella Lascar, who had died on the very same path just a few years ago.

  I was distracted by the movement of a large dark body in the bushes ahead of my car, just out of range of the high beams. My foot slammed on the brakes and the buck leaped directly in front of me, then up and over the ancient stone wall that ringed my property.

  Seconds later, the doe and two small deer followed him, trailing off through the woods on my neighbor’s land.

  I drove on to my house and parked the car. Usually, my caretaker came ahead and lighted the entrance and living area for me, cutting flowers in summer to place around the rooms and stocking the refrigerator with basics. This time, because he had already left the island, I was faced with a dark, cold shell that seemed strangely unwelcoming.

  I unlocked the side door and walked quickly into the kitchen and small parlor beyond, flipping on every light switch. I rested the bag of food on the countertop, opened the cabinet to grab a glass, and filled it with ice. In the living room, I pressed the CD player button for random select. By the time I poured some Dewar’s, Simon and Garfunkel reminded me that I was fakin’ it, and as I was well aware, not really makin’ it. I clicked the remote, content to wind up on the bridge over troubled water.

  Mike Chapman’s home number was on my speed dial. I settled onto the sofa with my drink and waited for him to answer.

  “Hello.”