Corpus Corpus

by H. Paul Jeffers

  But in real life Bogdanovic's detective work under the supervision of Harvey Goldstein was followed all too frequently by a bargain struck between a prosecutor and a lawyer for the defendant that restored neither morality, equanimity, nor peace. Sometimes, if the attorney happened to be Theodore Janus, there might not even be a conviction.

  "Condolences on the loss of your friend," Goldstein said as Dane sat before his massive desk.

  "Thank you very much. But Theo was more than a friend."

  "In that regard you certainly are in a unique position to assist John in following the first rule of murder investigation: Know the victim."

  "I doubt that there's anything I can add to what you already know. His life was literally an open book. The man I knew is the one in Janus for the Defense. He was the Theodore Janus you both saw when he jousted with those reporters prior to the Wolfe Pack Banquet and later during the dinner. I thought Theo was amusing, self-deprecating, and thoroughly charming."

  "What I saw," said Bogdanovic, "was conceit, arrogance, and an amazing capacity for duplicity. I saw nothing admirable in him."

  With eyes flashing anger, she answered, "Could that have been because you went to the Black Orchid dinner prepared to find nothing admirable in him?"

  Bogdanovic blinked in surprise. "That's not it at all."

  "Oh I think it is," she retorted. "I believe you are still smarting because Theo got the better of you in the Griffith trial."

  "That is ridiculous."

  "You're like that young reporter who asked Theo how he could sleep at night knowing that he'd gotten so many guilty people off."

  "It was an excellent question, the point of which, I remind you, Janus managed to avoid answering by shifting the blame onto the jury."

  "Blame? Where is the blame in an attorney's zealously carrying out his duty to defend a client whose very life is at stake?"

  "Excuse me, folks," Goldstein said, drumming fingertips on the top of his desk. "As much I'm enjoying this bantering, it is not the purpose of this meeting, is it? We are here in order to benefit from Maggie's special relationship with Janus. I think we can agree he was a controversial individual. The question I have for you, Maggie, is whether you know of anyone who resented him deeply enough to want to see him dead?"

  "He's got a file drawer in his office at his ranch crammed with threatening letters and notes that date back to his earliest cases. As a matter of fact, I started that file while I clerked for him when I was in law school. He had me label it the 'Thou Art Only a Man' file. He told me he got the idea when reading a book about the triumphal processions of ancient Rome. Riding in the chariot with the hero was a slave who held the laurel wreath above the hero's head while constantly saying, 'Remember thou art only a man.' In spite of the flamboyant style Theo affected, he was always aware that he was only a man."

  "After the trial," said Goldstein, "did he get threats?"

  "Sure he was threatened. So was I."

  Gently touching her right hand, Bogdanovic said, "You were not the one shot to death in your Rolls-Royce parked on Gramercy Park East."

  Goldstein asked, "Why did it happen there? Why should the killer pick that location, John?"

  "I thought that was pretty obvious. He was stalking him. He simply followed him from the hotel to the car."

  "That hypothesis requires the killer to have known Janus was at the hotel."

  "If he was stalking Janus, he didn't need to know. He just followed Janus from his ranch."

  "Why bother? It seems to me if he intended to murder Janus he would have seen that he would have a better chance of getting away with it at some secluded spot up in Stone County rather than on a street in Manhattan on a Saturday night. I think the more likely scenario is that the killer was lying in wait for Janus to leave the dinner."

  "That theory rests on the presumption the killer knew Janus would be at the dinner and when and where the Black Orchid dinner was being held."

  "There's no mystery in that," Maggie said. "Wiggins sent out announcements to the news media that Janus and I would be there."

  Goldstein grinned. "Why am I not surprised that Wiggins saw the publicity value in bringing together the lawyers who had held the country spellbound in the trial of the century? Good old Wiggins simply acted on the maxim stated by none other than Sherlock Holmes in 'The Six Napoleons.' 'The press is a most valuable institution, if only you know how to use it.' "

  Dane smiled knowingly. "In fairness to Wiggins, he did warn me that if I accepted the invitation to present Theo the Wolfe award I could expect a lot of press to show up. He told me he'd understand if I chose to opt out."

  "Of course he did. He knew you wouldn't."

  "This is just great," Bogdanovic said. "Thanks to Wiggins and his damn press release, any nut with a score to settle with Janus could have found out where he would be and when simply by reading a newspaper."

  "So, Sgt. John Bogdanovic," Goldstein said, "how do you propose to proceed in this very fascinating investigation?"

  "There's not much I can do until I've reviewed the written reports on the canvass of the neighborhood for possible witnesses. Plus the reports from the medical examiner and the ballistics unit regarding the gun that was used. The Rolls has been impounded for a thorough going-over. The fingerprint section is going to see if lasers can find anything useful in the smudges that were found on the door at the scene."

  "Have you given any thought to motive?"

  "We've ruled out robbery. That leaves three ways to go. One is the mob angle. We can't dismiss as coincidence the fact that Janus was murdered on the same night that Paulie Mancuso went out a window. Next is the possibility someone had a personal score to settle. Who knows how many of the guys Janus defended still did time? One of them could have blamed Janus for not getting him off. And I see no reason why we shouldn't consider the possibility that a member of the Wolfe Pack did it. I never saw so many eyes with daggers in them as I did last night."

  "The mob, a vengeance-minded former client, and the Wolfies at the banquet," said Goldstein. "You've got your work cut out for you, John. Where will you begin?"

  "I was hoping I might continue to enlist the assistance of a person who knew Janus better than anyone," he said as he turned toward Dane. "That is, if Maggie's got the time."

  As the men looked at her expectantly, she said, "I happen to be on a well-deserved vacation. Nothing would please me more than helping John bring Theo's killer to account."

  Goldstein beamed. "Good. As of now, Maggie, you may consider yourself an official consultant to this office."

  "I'M PROBABLY WAY out of line," Boganovic said, clearing a chair for Dane by removing a stack of computer discs and piling them on the floor, "but I do feel, since we're going to be working closely on this case, that I should know what you meant when you told Goldstein that you and Janus were more than friends."

  "Are you asking if Janus and I were lovers?"

  Sitting at his desk, he took a deep breath. "Yes."

  "You're not out of line. It's a fair question. The answer is that we were not. What I meant when I said Theo was more than my friend is that I feel I owe him for my career in law. Whatever successes I have achieved could not have occurred without his constant encouragement and frequent counsel."

  "Was he upset when you became a prosecutor?"

  "As far as Theo was concerned, we were opposite sides of the same coin. I'll never forget his saying to me on the day he arrived in L.A. to lead the defense in what the press persists in calling the trial of the century that with me prosecuting and him defending there could be no question the defendant and the people would get a fair trial."

  "Yet most observers believe the people didn't get one. They blame the outcome of that trial on Janus's slick lawyering in the way he maneuvered the judge into excluding crucial evidence that would have let you win the case."

  "That is utter nonsense. Theo won the case by accepting the rules that both sides had agreed on at the start of the trial an
d then using them to his advantage. In short, he outlawyered me."

  "If you say so. But at least you've had the satisfaction of winning the case in the court of public opinion."

  "That's exactly what Theo said to me."

  "He wasn't upset by the beating he took in the press and on all the TV talk shows?"

  "Theo was a realist and a fatalist. You have to be if you're a defense attorney and the public's decided before the trial even begins that your client is guilty. He used to say that losing in the court of public opinion was as inescapable for a defense lawyer as the inevitability of one's death. He liked to joke that at times he envied prosecutors because they faced only two things in life that they could not avoid-death and taxes, whereas every defense lawyer had been cursed with a third: losing a case. He hated the fact that the prosecution had so much at its command. In a criminal trial the district attorney has money, police, crime labs, the FBI, and every kind of expert to testify in every branch of science. And public opinion on his side. What does the defendant have? Most of the time it's a single defense attorney who is likely to be a public defender with a hundred or more other cases to handle at the same time."

  "How did you feel about the gangsters he defended?"

  "The last time I checked it, the Constitution of the United States did not bar a gangster from claiming the right to have the services of a lawyer."

  "Neither does it require a lawyer to represent everyone who rings his doorbell."

  "The only thing Theo cared about when the doorbell rang was that the person pushing the button was cloaked in the presumption of innocence."

  "Even when he knew the guy at the door was guilty?"

  "But I would also hope they would tell me that because they'd had a competent lawyer, they'd gotten the fair trial they were entitled to."

  "Isn't that also the responsibility of the prosecution?"

  "Of course it is. But thanks to the wisdom of the founders of this country, anyone who stands accused of a crime will have a defense attorney to make sure the prosecutor does not shirk that responsibility. Unfortunately, although the Constitution grants an accused person the right to have an attorney, very few get the benefit of being defended by a Theodore Janus. His death is a terrible loss for the cause of justice. And I've lost a beloved old friend."

  "When's the last time you saw him prior to last night?"

  "After the trial he took me to dinner at my favorite restaurant up in the Hollywood hills." "What was his mood?"

  "He was very happy, except for the fact that he was down to his last Havana cigar until he returned home. He was eager to get back to New York to work on what he said might be a break-through in the correction of a great miscarriage of justice."

  "Did he provide any details?"

  "No. He said he was flying to Watertown to interview a man in prison."

  'Janus didn't even hint what great miscarriage of justice he was hoping to correct?"

  "Naturally, I tried to wangle it out of him. But he told me that the case was so potentially dangerous—"

  "Potentially dangerous?"

  "His exact phrase. He said it was so potentially dangerous that he could not go beyond what he'd told me. He said I would have to wait and find out along with everyone else when he was ready to go public."

  "Did he indicate how long that might be?"

  "No, but I sensed that he expected to make the breakthrough when he talked with the man in Watertown. Since he did not go public with anything, I assumed that his trip turned out to be nothing but a chance to take up his Mooney."

  "It's the guilty guy who most needs a defense attorney. The glory of our system of justice is that there are men and women who are prepared to defend the rights of the guilty in order to safeguard the rights of the innocent who are wrongly accused."

  "Which rarely happens."

  "If it occurs once, that's too often."

  "I'm certain if you asked everyone who's now in prison, and that person told you the truth, you'd learn they're all guilty of what they were convicted of."

  "His what?"

  "Theo has-had-his own plane. It's a single-engine four-seater. He parks it at the Stone County Airport. He welcomed any opportunity to fly that plane, so I suppose the flight to Watertown was a pleasant time for him, even though it apparently did not result in the big breakthrough he was hoping for. That is, if he actually made the visit."

  "We can find that out easily enough," he said, reaching for his phone. "The prison will have a record of his visiting in its computer."

  Easing back in her chair to observe him at work, she again felt she was in the presence of an incarnation of Archie Goodwin. Handsome, impeccable in attire, direct, impatient, and assertive, he was the man of action conveying a restless urgency even when seated at a desk.

  Connected, he switched on a speakerphone.

  "Watertown Correctional Facility, Officer Mike King."

  "This is the office of the Chief of Detectives, NYPD, Sergeant Bogdanovic. Shield number eleven, twenty-six, seventy."

  "How can I help you, Sergeant?"

  "I'm checking on whether there was a visit to an inmate of your facility."

  "Inmate's name and number?"

  "I'm sorry, I don't have that information. But the visitor's name was Janus. Theodore R. Janus."

  "The big-shot lawyer?" "Yes."

  "Do you know the date of the visit? "No I don't."

  "Hang on a sec while I bring it up on the computer." "Thanks."

  "Yeah, here it is. Janus, Theodore R. He was here on several dates starting in July. On all occasions the inmate refused to see him."

  "What's the inmate's name?"

  "Let's see. Elwell, John. Nickname of Jake. Oh holy hell."

  "Holy hell what?"

  "I'm sorry to tell you, Sergeant, but the day after Janus was here, Elwell was stabbed to death."

  "Stabbed to death? By whom?"

  "I'm afraid we've not determined that. No one's talking."

  "Do you know the circumstances?"

  "Again, no one's saying. It happened in the showers. We have to assume somebody had some kind of beef to settle with him."

  "I GUESS THAT explains why Theo never made an announcement of a big breakthrough," Dane said, her face grim as Bogdanovic hung up the telephone and switched off the speaker-phone. "Theo never talked with Elwell."

  "But someone found out he'd been there. Then it became the old, old story of the dead man telling no tales. An inmate beef my foot. Elwell was murdered because Janus had been there to see him. There's more here than a coincidence in the killing of a prisoner a day after Janus went all the way to Watertown to interview him. When Janus told you he was working on something potentially dangerous, he wasn't simply engaging in a bit of his famous lawyerly hyperbole."

  "The immediate question is what was there about Jake Elwell that made him so important?"

  "The name does not ring a bell for you, Maggie?"

  She shook her head slowly. "If Jake Elwell was a client, it was after my time in Theo's office."

  Swinging around in his chair, Bogdanovic faced a device that she supposed would have been welcomed by Archie Goodwin and viewed with suspicion by his employer, had the creator of Archie and his curmudgeonly employer lived longer.

  Bogdanovic gleefully turned on the computer. "Let's have a gander at what the late Mr. Elwell's rap sheet can tell us."

  Prompted by a few keystrokes and a decisive punching of the Enter button, the monitor screen flashed:

  ACCESSING DATA. PLEASE STAND BY.

  With a smile and wink at Dane, Bogdanovic said, "Good old data bank!"

  A split second later as the screen provided the file Dane saw his expression turn to disbelief as the screen produced only a few lines of information.

  "What the hell is going on here?" he demanded of the screen. "This is . . . it?"

  Insistent fingers seemed to assault the keyboard, commanding the system to provide more, only to produce the same file.


  "This can't be right," he said, angrily. "According to this, the son of a bitch had only one arrest. One charge of grand larceny in the second degree. He pleaded no contest."

  "If it was grand larceny in the second degree," Dane said, thoughtfully, "it was theft of more than fifty thousand dollars, or larceny by extortion. The no contest smacks of plea bargain."

  "Which suggests he was in it with somebody else," Bogdanovic said. "He cut a deal to testify against whoever that was. What's the normal sentence for larceny two?"

  "It depends on the type of larceny. If it's embezzlement, for example, and it's a first offense, the judge would have wide discretion. He could even give probation with the stipulation of restitution. But that offense also covers, as I said, larceny by extortion. If the extortion was accompanied by the instilling of fear of physical harm, you're talking about serious prison time. But the criminal procedure law covering second-degree grand larceny also includes the use or abuse by a public servant of his official duties, such as failing or refusing to perform duties, thereby affecting some other person adversely."

  "So what could Janus's interest have been in what looks to me like small potatoes?"

  "It's small potatoes if Elwell was charged with a second-degree larceny. But I'd bet he wasn't. If he bargained to get off with second degree, he was probably looking at first degree."

  "I'm listening, counselor."

  "Grand larceny in the first degree involves property exceeding one million dollars."

  "Therefore, if Elwell testified against someone charged with first degree, his testimony probably put whoever it was in prison for a lot more than five to ten. Such a person or persons might go a long way to take out revenge on Elwell, such as have him hit in the shower room."

  "Why hadn't the revenge been taken sooner? Why now?"