Eyes of a Child (69 page)

Chapter
14

‘We've got to talk,' Paget told Caroline.

‘Concerning what?'

‘About this eyewitness Victor's putting on tomorrow. And, beyond that, about what kind of case
we
put on.'

They were in the elevator on the way to the underground garage, evading reporters by arrangement with Judge Lerner. Caroline leaned back against the wall, briefcase in hand, giving Paget a curious look. ‘About our case,' she said, ‘there are all sorts of choices. Starting with whether you testify.'

Paget found himself smiling; Caroline had a subtle mind, and he was confident that she had worked out their options to the last permutation. And that, depending on Salinas's final witness, she knew precisely where she wished to go. ‘I just want to keep you from getting confused,' he said.

Caroline gave a sigh of mock relief. ‘Christopher,' she answered, ‘I would just be lost without you.'

Her voice, a parody of admiring femininity, made Paget laugh out loud. ‘If only Mr Slocum could see you now,' he said. ‘A vulnerable woman, tormented by the burdens of her job.'

Caroline flashed a wicked grin. ‘I really didn't like him much.'

‘It showed,' Paget answered, and then the door opened.

They walked to the car. ‘Okay,' she said. ‘Where do we go?'

‘I'd like to check out Carlo for an hour. He's not doing all that well.' Paget got inside the car, adding as Caroline took the driver's seat, ‘I'd ask you over to dinner, but I don't want him to overhear our conversation. For several reasons.'

Caroline nodded. ‘I'd like to shower, anyhow.' She turned on the ignition. ‘Would you mind coming to my place? It would be a little easier, at least for me.'

Paget turned to her, surprised; Caroline drew such a line between her professional and private lives that Paget had never imagined himself inside her home. ‘I don't mind at all,' he said. ‘Tell me where to find you.'

Where to find Caroline Masters turned out to be the penthouse of a four-story building near the top of Telegraph Hill. Wearing gray wool slacks and a black cashmere sweater, Caroline let him in with a faint aura of self-consciousness, and then Paget found himself gazing through floor-to-ceiling glass at the bright outline of the Bay Bridge and the high-rises of the financial district, where Paget and Caroline had their offices – the brightly lit Transamerica Pyramid, the four towers of the Embarcadero Center, moving in a row of staggered heights to the sudden inky darkness of the bay. It struck Paget that he had not seen much daylight lately.

‘This is beautiful,' he told her.

‘Thank you. Care for a glass of wine?'

‘If you have something open.'

‘A Montrachet. Do you mind?'

‘Hardly.' Paget smiled to himself: a fine French wine sounded right for Caroline, stubbornly eccentric, as if drinking California wine would be too easy. He followed her through the living room, noting their surroundings as he went. The decor was tasteful but not ostentatious: Caroline's furnishings combined the very modern with carefully placed antiques – a rocking chair, an oak rolltop desk – which Paget guessed were inherited rather than purchased. It reminded him that he knew nothing of Caroline's background, except that she was a New Englander. But from Caroline's flat he surmised that, like Paget himself, she must have family money: there was simply no way that she could have bought such a place based on twenty years as a public defender or a judge, or, for that matter, even on six months' income from Kenyon and Walker.

The kitchen was spacious and bright and neatly ordered, the cooking space of a single person who knew how she liked to keep things. Caroline passed him a glass of wine. ‘Thank you,' he said.

She sipped her wine without answering, seemingly preoccupied. After a moment, she said, ‘Would you care to go up top? It's a pleasant night, and we've been stuck inside.'

She did not wait for an answer. Following her, Paget saw that one corner of the living room featured a spiral wrought-iron staircase, which climbed through an opening in the ceiling. At the top, Paget discovered, was a small enclosure that opened to a roof garden, with shrubs in wooden containers and a table and four chairs. The garden was walled in by glass, to break the wind; from here, Caroline could see for miles in any direction. It was as if she had arranged the semblance of a perfect world, a kind of retreat. Without Carlo, Paget thought suddenly, he might have lived this way.

He walked to the edge of the garden. ‘Incredible,' he said to Caroline.

‘Do you like it?'

When he turned, she was standing on the patio, some distance away. ‘Very much,' he said.

She walked back to the entrance, flicking on an outdoor light. The effect was to cast light and shadow on the trees and shrubs surrounding them.

As he sat across the table from Caroline, her face came into the light, aquiline and elegant and hard to read. ‘Could you tell me something?' he asked.

Caroline smiled. ‘It depends.'

Paget leaned back on his chair. ‘Why in the world did you become a criminal lawyer?'

Caroline gave him a look of tolerant understanding, as though the question were expected but a little superficial. ‘“What's a nice girl like me . . . ,”' she said dryly. ‘Perhaps I should have been a law professor, writing tomes on the antitrust laws. Or maybe a bond lawyer in a Wall Street firm. Like
you
should have been.'

‘Oh,
that's
different. With the conspicuous exception of Mary Carelli, I've generally defended the kind of people who don't use guns and have never met a street cop – investment bankers and the like. But for the better part of your career your clients were murderers, rapists, armed robbers, and car thieves.'

Caroline sipped her wine. ‘There's no doubt that you represented a more polite class of criminal. Which is why defending
you
has been such a treat.'

Paget laughed in surprise. ‘It's a pleasure to see you laugh,' Caroline said. ‘Even if it's only at some irony of mine, instead of at the joy of living.'

Paget gave a wry smile. ‘That's because, as you point out, you're having all the fun. Incidentally, you never answered my question.'

‘About criminal law?' Caroline turned from him, looking out at the night sky and the distant glow of lights from Marin. ‘There wasn't any plan, really. At some point in my twenties, I understood that what I was doing was redefining myself, choosing things that weren't predestined by who I was or the life I'd been given. So that, in the end, I'd have made my own way. Criminal defense seemed to fit that.' Consciously, she seemed to pull back. ‘Anyhow, I'm pretty good at it.'

The last dismissive phrase reminded Paget of what he had felt about Caroline at other times: the teasing sense that he was on the edge of it, but never would know her. And yet now this elusive woman held all his hopes – and Carlo's – in her hands.

‘Not just “pretty good,”' Paget said finally. ‘Among the best.'

Caroline shrugged and smiled but did not argue with him. Between grown-ups, her silence suggested, there was no point in dissembling.

Paget sipped his wine, dry and flavorful, lingering on the tongue.

‘How's Teresa?' Caroline asked.

He studied his glass. ‘Do you mean how is
she
, or how are
things
?'

Caroline considered that. ‘Both, I suppose.'

Paget told himself that he had no obligation to be candid, and then found that he wished to be. ‘For Terri, things are hard. Part of it is Elena. The other part is what makes it hard for
us
.' He paused, facing Caroline directly. ‘In her heart, she's not sure I didn't do it.'

Caroline gave him an ambiguous glance; Paget sensed her wishing not to look at him. ‘Ambivalence in
lawyers
,' Paget told her quietly, ‘is the norm. It's not so good in lovers.'

Caroline smiled with one corner of her mouth. ‘So I'm forgiven?'

‘Always.'

‘And Terri?'

The question took Paget deep within himself. ‘I don't know,' he heard himself murmur. ‘I really don't know.'

Caroline studied him. ‘She did well for you in court. Remarkably well, if what you say is right.'

In Caroline's voice was an unspoken question: had Terri lied for him? Now it was Paget who did not wish to look at Caroline.

‘When the trial's over,' he said at length, ‘perhaps this will all make sense to me. Perhaps my
life
will make sense. But it doesn't now.'

Caroline waited for a moment. ‘There's a bit to do between here and there. You wanted to talk about it?'

Paget nodded. ‘I did,' he said, and then realized – a glancing thought – that Caroline had once more avoided talking about herself.

‘All right.' Caroline finished her wine. ‘Tomorrow is Victor's last witness – the woman who claims to have seen you leaving Richie's apartment. As of now, where do you think we stand?'

Since leaving court, Paget realized, he had thought of little else. ‘You have to take this a piece at a time,' he said. ‘And our
first
defense is that Richie killed himself.

‘Salinas has done well there. Liz Shelton was strong on the medical evidence of murder, and no one Victor put on – whatever damage they did to Richie's posthumous reputation – believes that he was suicidal. Neither, in truth, do I.' Paget paused. ‘We should still make use of suicide as a defense. But if you asked the jury what they believe, odds on they pick murder.'

‘I agree,' Caroline said with dispassion. ‘Which would leave us with reasonable doubt.'

Paget nodded. ‘That breaks down on several parts. The first is whether I had a motive. That's kind of a wash. On the one hand,
if
I were homicidal I certainly had reason enough to kill him. But so did Terri, she made clear – whether I wanted her to or not. And you've done a very good job of making the case that I would
never
kill this guy, if only because of Carlo.'

Caroline considered this. ‘Also,' she said then, ‘you've never owned a gun. Not unless your family passed it down – which would explain the age of the bullets and gun. But they've found no proof of that.'

‘True.'

‘So let's take the evidence they
do
have,' Caroline went on. ‘They thought they might have you with fibers in the house, but Terri explained those. Ditto the fibers in the car.' She looked at him intently. ‘And of course, there are the fingerprints on the answering machine, which Terri neutralized so neatly.'

When Paget did not comment, Caroline continued as if she had not paused. ‘In terms of your whereabouts, you're weak on the night before you left for Italy. If anything, Carlo hurt you there – the fact that it looked like he was lying underscores the fact that no one can say you
were
home.' She looked at him sharply. ‘Except, of course, you.'

It was a probe, Paget knew. Again, he chose to ignore it. ‘On the other hand,' he countered, ‘you've parlayed Richie's ten-thousand-dollar payoff from Colt into murderous drug dealers and homicidal politicians, who have gone undetected because of the meddling of a biased D.A. and a self-promoting reporter. Whose source, we both agree, is far more useful as a phantom suspect than as a witness.' Paget sat back in his chair, stretching his legs in front of him. ‘If my whereabouts are a loose end, so are the implications of Richie's cash. As even Monk admitted.

‘Finally, you've taken Richie from a struggling Hispanic underdog to the kind of slimy con man who sometimes lives a very short life.' Suddenly restless, Paget stood. ‘I doubt that anyone on the jury is lusting to avenge him. And it may well have occurred to them that Richie is someone whom people routinely imagine murdering.'

Caroline smiled a little. ‘Suppose,' she said after a time, ‘the jury were to vote tomorrow.'

Paget had an answer, although it made him apprehensive to speak it aloud. ‘I've been wrong before,' he said finally. ‘But on
this
evidence, I think they acquit me. Lerner might even direct a verdict.'

‘Agreed.' Caroline spoke more quietly now. ‘What if tomorrow's eyewitness swears beyond doubt that she saw you leave Richie's apartment.
And
I can't shake her?'

Paget began pacing. ‘Then everything changes.'

‘Then
,' Caroline said behind him, ‘you have to think about testifying. Or whether you take Mac's deal and plead to voluntary manslaughter. Because you'll be in real trouble.'

Paget felt the words in the pit of his stomach. He did not turn. ‘Suppose,' he said finally, ‘that you
can
shake this lady. What kind of a defense do I put on
then?
'

'What do
you
think?'

He turned to her. ‘None. That's how you've been figuring it, all along.'

Caroline raised an eyebrows. ‘Have I?'

Paget nodded. ‘The whole pattern of your cross-examination has been to put our case on through Victor's witnesses. Pretty much the way we'd do it if I choose not to testify.

‘First, we'd consider calling a forensic expert to quarrel with Liz Shelton. But we can't find a good one who doesn't agree with her on the essentials, and you've already done the best you can on cross. For the jury, Shelton was a long time ago, and a bad expert of our own might only remind them of how persuasive she was. So in the end, we wouldn't call one.

‘What we
would
do is try to damage Richie. Which, of course, you've already done.'