Silent Witness

by Richard North Patterson

  “Drink, Tony?”

  “No. Thanks.”

  Saul eyed the bottle, shrugged, and did not touch it. “Slow day,” he said. “Ever find this work wears on you?”

  So his guess was right, Tony thought. “Sometimes,” he allowed, “it’s stressful.”

  “Suppose that’s what it is? Maybe it’s more the energy you spend trying not to think about stuff that any normal person would think about—like what your client did, or may do next—while you’re keeping the system honest.” Saul frowned. “The other day, I found myself thinking about this child abuser I got off because the kid was scared to testify. Two years later, Dad killed the kid with his favorite set of fireplace implements. To my conscious mind, I hadn’t thought of him in years. But I must have been, all along.…” Slowly, Saul shook his head. “I’m getting sentimental, Tony. The older I’ve gotten, the more important clients like you are to me. You’re one of that elite group I was damned sure either didn’t do it or deserved a better shake than the system would have given him, and then made something of what I helped give him. I hope to God you’re not such a sensitive soul.”

  Tony shrugged. “I try not to be, Saul—for the sake of my clients and my own sanity. Sometimes my wife thinks I’ve succeeded.”

  Saul waved a hand. “Civilians,” he said with irony. “They just don’t understand the higher morality of what we do. I suppose it’s enough for you that she’s talented and beautiful.”

  “It’ll have to do.” Tony smiled. “Although, unlike my first wife, Stacey tries to distinguish between my clients and me.”

  Saul propped his head on one palm, leaning on the desk, and contemplated Tony with silent bemusement. “So,” he said at last, “here we are, brothers at the bar. And now it’s your old friend Sam who’s supposed to have killed a teenage girl.”

  “Stella Marz seems to think so.”

  “Stella—not a woman who’s afraid to try a case.” Saul’s eyes narrowed. “I won’t carry your bags, Tony. I don’t need the money.”

  There was a new hardness to Saul’s voice. Tony’s image of a warm reunion receded a little more; like any trial lawyer, Saul Ravin had a space-taking ego, and the role of avuncular counselor to a teenage boy was clearly more congenial than being overshadowed in his own town by a visiting defense lawyer with a bigger reputation. The fact that Saul might be slipping, and knew it, would only make this worse.

  “There is no money, Saul—at least not enough for a state-of-the-art defense. As you say, they’re friends, and thanks to Stacey’s success, every now and again I can take on a client I believe in, for free.”

  “That’s a nice luxury.” Saul raised his eyebrows. “You feel that strongly about him?”

  “It’s just something I have to do.” Seeing Saul’s quizzical smile, Tony shrugged. “All right, I don’t want Sam to have done it. Maybe for that reason, I can’t believe he did. That’s why I’m here—for spiritual counseling. Just send me a bill for your time.”

  Still smiling, Saul narrowed his eyes and cocked his head, as if weighing this. “I’ll take the bill under advisement,” he said, and then his tone became practical. “Your buddy was fucking her, you say.”

  “Afraid so.”

  Saul shook his head, a man confronted with the incalculable depth of human folly. “Think he fucked her the night she died?”

  “He says not.”

  “Better hope that’s the truth—seeing how he told the cops they were in the park for a little private counseling. Or at worst, pray that he used a rubber.”

  Tony considered that. “Even with a rubber, he might have left pubic hairs, maybe traces of a petroleum-based lubricant. But at least they couldn’t DNA the semen.”

  Saul gave him a sour smile. “Don’t you find it a little funny that we’re the ones having this conversation?”

  “I stopped laughing about an hour ago, Saul. When Stella Marz told me about the blood on Sam’s steering wheel.”

  Saul’s smile vanished. “There are a thousand possible explanations, my son. Even if it’s hers. They can’t convict on that.”

  “I know. But that’s not enough to make me feel better.”

  Saul reached for the bottle, pacing himself a precise two inches, neat, in a tumbler. He sipped it slowly, almost too carefully; all at once, Tony remembered this from before and realized that, even then, the drinking must have begun. “Maybe you should go home to your wife and son, Tony. Hope Stella’s case doesn’t get better. Avoid stirring things up.”

  Tony imagined Sam’s daily agony, and Sue’s—their life a marriage on hold, murder charges looming—then slowly shook his head. “I remember what that’s like—the waiting eats you alive. I was hoping to give Marz an affirmative reason not to indict, somewhat like you did for me.”

  Saul took a long sip of Scotch. “Suppose Marcie was seeing a psychiatrist? Her shrink would know whether she had another boyfriend. Or if she was self-destructive.”

  “Or that she was sleeping with Sam.”

  Saul nodded. “That,” he answered, “is part of what I meant by not stirring things up.”

  Tony stood, walking to the window; suddenly he remembered doing this on his first visit to Saul’s office, gazing at the smokestacks, which now had vanished with the jobs they once symbolized.

  “What a place,” he murmured.

  “Unimpressed by Steelton’s renaissance, are you? The Ice Capades comes every year now. Or were you referring to your old hometown, the Disney World of decency?”

  Tony did not turn. “I need a picture of Marcie Calder—from her parents, her friends, or whoever else. I don’t want to leave Sam Robb to fate, in the person of the Lake City police.”

  Tony heard the splash of whiskey pouring, and then Saul drifted to the window, standing next to him with a fresh drink in his hand. Tony could see his ruined profile; the crepe of his chin, burst vessels on his cheeks, the chafed-looking skin. In the midst of this deterioration, his eyes seemed terribly sad, painfully lucid.

  “Can I give you some advice?” Saul murmured.

  “That’s what I came for.”

  Saul seemed to gather himself. “Don’t treat your case as the paradigm for this one. You knew that you were innocent. You don’t know that about Sam Robb, and you can’t. And for what it’s worth, my gut tells me you shouldn’t.” Pausing, he turned to Tony. “He may be guilty, Tony. I don’t envy you the moment, if it comes, when you realize that’s so. The only thing that could make that any worse for you is if you’ve blown his defense, and lost your identity as a lawyer, because you’d forgotten to distinguish between Sam Robb and Tony Lord.” Saul’s voice softened. “Unless they’re completely amoral, most good defense lawyers are two people, Tony—they have to be. This case could hurt both of you.”

  Tony was quiet; what Saul said was unanswerable. Saul looked at him and put his drink on the windowsill. “All right,” he asked, “what about the wife?”

  “Sue?”

  “She wasn’t home, didn’t you say? At least she didn’t answer the phone when Sam called her.”

  “He says not.” Like a delayed reaction, Tony felt his own incredulity hit him. “And you’re not serious.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I know her, for Christ sake.”

  Saul’s face changed; for an instant, his eyes held the merciless dispassion of a recording angel. “You really don’t have to try so hard,” he said softly, “just to make my point.”

  Tony felt stung. “Look, Saul—the last thing that marriage, or Sam’s defense, needs is for him to point a finger at Sue. What Sam needs more than anything is a very loyal, very quiet, wife.”

  Saul looked unimpressed. “I didn’t say you couldn’t rationalize your biases. Only that you have them.” He seemed to have forgotten about his drink. “How much does Sue know?”

  “Very little, I think.”

  “That’ll take some handling. Especially if there’s a trial.”

  “I know that. But you don’t kno
w Sue.”

  “Do you, still? After twenty-eight years?”

  Tony nodded. “I think so. It feels like that, anyhow.”

  Slowly, Saul turned to the window, hands in his pockets now. “You seem surer of her than of him.”

  Silent, Tony took inventory of his emotions: Saul’s questions, he realized, had served the purpose of reminding him how far away he was from who he tried to be, the lawyer as surgeon. “At times I think I know her better,” Tony said at last. “Maybe that was always so, but I never really saw it before. Or maybe it’s just that, in certain ways, there’s less complexity than with Sam. There’s certainly a lot less that’s disturbing.”

  Saul surveyed the city—glass towers, empty lots, abandoned factories—the wreckage of an economy in decline. “You’re right,” he said. “Some days this place looks like fucking Beirut.” He paused a moment. “All I was saying is to watch yourself. Too much of this case is too much about you.”

  Tony no longer felt like arguing. “Stella Marz knew who I was. From before.”

  “Of course she did. You may have left all this behind, but you didn’t become a different person.” Saul faced Tony again. “You’re bringing some publicity that may not be so helpful to your client, or pleasant for you—‘Killer defends killer.’ ”

  “Maybe. But I’m old enough to deal with that, and they need me. Besides, the price is right.”

  Saul picked up his drink. “Maybe for them,” he said.

  SIX

  There were fresh flowers on her grave.

  Nearly thirty years had passed; this corner of the Lake City cemetery, preserved for John Taylor and his family, was now circled by newer, fresher graves. From a distance, only the empty space surrounding her granite marker denoted that she had died far too young.

  “Alison Wood Taylor,” the marker read. “May 4, 1950—November 3, 1967.” It was strange to have forgotten her middle name.

  The flowers haunted him. They bespoke the living presence of the Taylors; their ineradicable loss of Alison. However imperfectly, Tony had been able to leave her here. Her parents would be with her to the end.

  He stood with her now, beneath the shade of an oak tree, watching the shadows encroach on the gentle light of a spring afternoon.

  The press had found him. There were two messages at the Arbor Motel, the only one in Lake City; both requested interviews. He could expect the first stories tomorrow.

  Knowing that, he knew there was one thing left to do.

  * * *

  Standing on the Taylors’ porch, Tony found himself wishing that no one would answer.

  The door cracked open. An old woman stared at him, mouth parting; as he watched her realize who he was, he saw in her face, white as chalk, the woman who had been Alison’s mother.

  “I’m sorry to come here,” he said. “But I felt I should.”

  Her silence pained him. She looked like a stroke victim, he thought, who could think, or speak, only with great effort. The one sign of comprehension was in her eyes.

  “May I speak with you a moment?” he asked.

  “Let him in,” a harsh voice said. The door opened behind Katherine Taylor, and Tony saw the true cost of his return.

  John Taylor’s face was gaunt, desiccated, cross-hatched with lines and wrinkles; his gaze at Tony was like that of a bird—unblinking, cold. The room behind him had not changed much; the antiques were the same, the silence museum-like. On the mantel were new swatches of color—photographs of Alison’s sister as a bride, then a mother. Between them, forever caught in the year 1967, was Alison. Tony felt himself wince at the contrast.

  John Taylor remained as still as Alison’s photograph. Katherine Taylor retreated to her husband’s side, silent.

  “I’ve come to help Sam Robb,” Tony said softly. “I’m afraid the press will dredge up what happened, all over again.”

  “They’ve already called us.” John Taylor’s lips seemed barely to move. “We thought it ironic.”

  “That occurred to me.” Tony paused, and then forced himself to go on. “But I was innocent, and I assume no less about Sam—”

  “Innocent.” John Taylor’s voice rose. “Do you know who you remind me of? O. J. Simpson, offering a reward to whoever finds the person who killed his wife. Perhaps, as with Alison, it will be a man who can answer no questions—”

  “John.” It was his wife’s first word, barely above a whisper. Yet it made John Taylor flinch.

  Tony felt his stomach knot; perhaps he would never face these people without feeling what he had felt at seventeen, the fear of either speech or silence. “I loved her,” he said at last. “More than you ever knew. But I could never truly understand all you lost, and what you’ve gone through, until I had a child of my own.”

  John Taylor nodded, the fierceness of his eyes undiminished. “Then you know how we feel about you, Anthony Lord. And always will.” His voice was soft with anger. “One way or the other, you caused my daughter’s death.”

  Silent, Tony made himself imagine what Christopher’s death might do to him. He could not quite: his only certainty was that, could Alison but see it, she would hate what her death had done to them. But this was not his to say.

  “I’m sorry to have disturbed you,” Tony said, and left.

  SEVEN

  The Calder family lived in a brick bungalow not unlike the home of Tony’s youth—a one-story rectangle on a postage-stamp lawn, in a neighborhood so neat and uniform that it was hard to distinguish one house from another. Coming from the Taylors, Tony had sat in his rented car in front of the Calders’ house, reluctant to intrude on parents whose grief was so fresh. But Nancy Calder had agreed to see him; waiting for tomorrow—with its inevitable headlines—would be foolish. At a little past eight o’clock, Tony rang the doorbell.

  The first few moments had an unnerving veneer of normality. Nancy Calder answered the door; except for the shadows beneath her eyes, the drawn look to her face, she could have been greeting an insurance agent, whose presence in her home was one of life’s requirements. She offered Tony coffee and sat on the couch in the tiny living room, tightly holding a cup of her own. The room was orderly, and so was she—in slacks and a sweater, she seemed a fortyish version of the pretty, dark-haired daughter in the photographs. And then her husband entered the room, and without looking at him, Nancy Calder began silently to cry.

  Tony stood. Everything about Frank Calder, he thought, seemed spare and grudging: the crew-cut brown hair; narrow blue eyes; a hard Irish face—thin lips, high cheekbones, skin so close to the bone that it seemed to have been stretched. But it was Calder’s wife, Tony found, who made him regret the need to be here.

  “Nancy wanted to see you,” Calder said abruptly. “I didn’t. Why in God’s name should we talk to his lawyer?”

  Tony steeled himself. “I’m just trying to understand this,” he answered. “Sam Robb is an old friend, and he seems devastated by what’s happened. But if I ever became certain that Sam Robb harmed your daughter, I’d leave Lake City in a heartbeat.” That much was true; Tony had defended guilty clients before but could not do so if this man, his friend, had murdered a teenage girl. His last moments with the Taylors, his time at Alison’s grave, had settled that for him.

  “ ‘Harm,’ ” Frank Calder repeated. “Is that what you call it?”

  Calder seemed to have forgotten his wife, Tony saw; it was as though hostility were a permanent part of him, their grief an overlay. She fingered the crucifix she held, as though striving to withdraw from her husband’s rage. Facing her, Tony murmured, “If there’s some better time…”

  Slowly, Nancy Calder shook her head. “There will never be a better time,” she said, and Tony saw that her tears had stopped.

  Without looking at Frank Calder, Tony sat across from her again. Softly, he said, “I’m sorry I didn’t know her, Mrs. Calder.”

  Nancy Calder grimaced. “The last two years, I was working, Mr. Lord. So maybe I didn’t, either.”

 
; It was better just to listen. “Tony,” he said gently. “I go by Tony.”

  Blank-faced, Nancy Calder nodded. “I was never home after school,” she said after a time. “That’s when the girls are fresh, when they tell you about their day.…”

  “We were saving for college.” Sitting next to his wife, Frank Calder spoke in a harsh voice. “You know what college costs these days.”

  Again, Tony heard a strange defensiveness; he guessed that to Frank Calder, the failure to provide for their family by himself was galling. Calder was an accountant, Tony recalled from the newspaper clippings he had read, for a large trucking concern; though Stanley Lord had been far gentler, Tony sensed the same trapped grievances, the frustration of feeling like a rat in the corporate Skinner box, of a man serving out his time.

  “Well,” Frank Calder said to his wife, “we won’t have to save for her now.”

  It could have been cruel; but to Tony, it was his first acknowledgment of their shared loss, and the edge to his voice was submerged in weariness. His eyes were bloodshot.

  Quietly, Tony asked, “Was there any sense in which she worried you? In the last few weeks, I mean.”

  Silent, Frank Calder turned to his wife. “She seemed more distant,” Nancy Calder said at last. “Like she was somewhere else.”

  “Nothing more specific?”

  Nancy Calder shook her head. “Her grades were down a little. But she still went with us to Mass—there wasn’t the kind of rebelliousness or questioning Father Carney, our priest, sees in so many young people. She was so good to her younger sisters—” Nancy Calder stopped abruptly, and then finished in a different voice, flat with repressed anger. “And she still loved track, of course. The last time I saw Sam Robb, he made a point of telling me how hard she was working.”