Falls the Shadow (3 page)

The term
WASP
was coined by a Philadelphia professor who grew up among the city’s aristocracy and went on to write learned treatises about his clan. Even if he had never met Whitney Robinson III, the professor would have recognized as a brother the man who answered the door of the rambling stone house in the swankiest section of Philadelphia. Chestnut Hill was a place of great stone houses and ornate swimming pools, of horses and cricket clubs and tweed jackets. If you played tennis in Chestnut Hill, you wore whites and played on grass and wondered why anyone would play the game on anything else. Tall, gray, elegantly stooped, with argyle socks and a dignified sprinkling of dandruff on his dark jacket, Whitney Robinson, now in his seventies, seemed the very personification of the type of Philadelphia patrician who had inherited his seat at the Union League and his sinecure at the family firm. His nose was straight, his face was long, his step light, his manners perfect. I should have hated him as a matter of principle, but I never did.

“Victor, how nice,” said Whitney Robinson in his lock-jawed drawl. “So good of you to come.”

There they were, those perfect manners, making it seem as if I were doing him the favor even though I had asked for the meeting. Manners go further than you could imagine in defusing the natural animosities of class.

“Hello, Whit,” I said. “It’s nice to see you again.”

“And I you, my boy. You’ve become quite notorious in the last few years. And about that, I say good for you. It is always better to be notorious than ignored. I thought we’d sit out back, if that’s all right with you.”

“Of course.”

“Come along, then,” he said as he turned to lead me through the center hallway of his house. “I’ve made my famous lemonade.”

“Pink?”

“You know me, Victor, I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Whit still maintained his chair in the Philadelphia Club, an organization that would sooner disband than admit the likes of me, and his locker at the Germantown Cricket Club, where he was three-time club tennis champion, but he had long ago turned down a partnership in the law firm founded by his great-grandfather a century ago with the sole purpose of ensuring that its rich clients stay that way. Fresh out of law school, he had decided, much as I would decide decades later, to hang out a shingle and make it on his own in the wilds of criminal law. In the course of his colorful career, Whit became a Philadelphia legend, representing high-society murderers and lowborn politicians on the take, socialist terrorists in the sixties and corporate swindlers in the eighties. And through the course of his career, he generously reached out to befriend and mentor scores of young attorneys trying to make it on their own, including a bitter young lawyer of no discernible talent or evident prospects.

“How goes the firm, Victor?”

“We’re still around.”

“Good for you. Surviving is always nine-tenths of the battle.”

“Maybe,” I said, “but it’s that last tenth that’s killing me.”

“Yes,” said Whit, “the final bit always proves to be the devil.”

I had never been in Whit’s house before—we didn’t socialize in different circles, more like different planets—and so, as we proceeded through the house at Whit’s typically brisk pace, I swiveled my head to take a gander. Whitney Robinson was always full of life, he was still, but there was something aged and forlorn about the interior of his home. It was furnished as one would expect of a Robinson manse, old American chairs, French divans, urns, the odd baroque piece up against the wall, but the house looked like it had been set up decades ago and not touched since. The walls were dingy, the fabric dull and faded, the carpets threadbare. There was a thick scent of must, and something else, too, something out of place. It smelled strangely medicinal, like an old hospital where doctors in dark suits sawed at gangrenous legs as blood spurted onto their shirtsleeves. When we passed a doorway, I glanced in and spied, through a dark dining room, another room, and in that room the corner of a hospital bed, a nurse in white leaning over it, a rigid figure rocking back and forth under the sheets.

“Through here,” said Whit, opening one of a pair of French doors leading to a stone terrace at the rear of the house. The lemonade pitcher was sweating on a round table, green-striped cushions rested on the seats of wrought-iron chairs, birds twittered about us. We sat, he poured, the lemonade was sour enough to pucker my cheeks.

“You’re wincing,” said Whit. “Not enough sugar?”

“No, it’s perfect,” I said when my face and jaw had recovered from sour shock. “I’m just having problems with a tooth.”

“That explains the swollen cheek.”

“Is it that bad?”

“Oh, yes. You should have that looked after.”

“You’re right,” I said, “I should.”

“I wanted to thank you for the note about my wife, Victor. It was very kind of you.”

“She was quite a woman, had to have been to put up with you for forty years.”

“You have no idea,” said Whit.

“I couldn’t help but notice the hospital bed.”

“My daughter lives with me. That she is still alive is a miracle, but she is very ill and needs constant care. It has been hard since my wife’s death, but one manages, and after a while, dealing with adversity becomes less a struggle than a habit.”

“You were always your best under pressure.”

“I used to think so. But now, Victor, while I might have time to putter and reminisce, you are quite the busy man these days. So?”

“François Dubé.”

Whit turned his head away from me for a moment, turned toward an expanse of grass that led to a dense wall of rhododendron. It seemed, if only for an instant, that he spied something lurking behind the greenery and among the thick woody stalks.

“Whit?” I said. “Are you okay?”

His head snapped back in my direction. “Yes? Oh, my. Sorry, Victor. What do they call those, ‘senior moments’? When you get to my age, sometimes the memories seem more real than the reality. François Dubé, you say?”

“He was a client, I believe.”

“Yes, he was. Sad story, really. What’s this about?”

“He wants me to ask for a new trial. I’m trying to figure out if there is anything there.”

“I wouldn’t think so, though I wish him all the luck.”

“What was the story?”

“He was in the middle of an ugly divorce. There was a daughter involved, custody was at issue. It was a pity, the whole thing. They made such a beautiful couple, but that might have been the problem, don’t you think?”

“Fortunately, I’ve never had to suffer the torments. So the divorce was getting out of hand?”

“Charges flying back and forth like eggs on hell night, splattering everyone who got close. But this one had a particularly ugly edge. He accused her of rampant drug use, argued she was an unfit mother. She claimed that he had sexually abused their daughter.”

“A pleasant time for all.”

“Yes, well, unfortunately, such accusations were a common tactic for a while back there. Things were getting very heated, all of it reaching a fever pitch, when they found the wife dead. Shot through the neck, blood everywhere. A brutal crime.”

“Who was the lead detective?”

“Torricelli.”

“That lunkhead?”

“He searched François’s apartment and found the murder weapon rolled up in a shirt covered with her blood.”

“Convenient,” I said.

“Certainly was. And of course François’s fingerprints were all over the crime scene. It was grim for him from the start, yet I think I could have dealt with all that. As you know, there are always ways. But there was another most intriguing piece of evidence not found by Torricelli. In her death throes, the wife—her name was Leesa, I think—the wife grabbed something and clutched it in her hand. By the time they found her body, rigor mortis had set in. They had to pry her fingers back at the morgue. And there it was.”

“What?”

“I did everything I could to exclude it, called it unduly prejudicial, called it hearsay, everything. But Judge Armstrong let it in, found it to be a dying declaration, and that was the case right there.”

“What was it?”

“A picture she had kept, a picture from happier times, a picture of François.”

“Like a message from the dead.”

“That’s what the prosecutor argued. In fact, it was our estimable district attorney, trying her last case before she ran for the big seat. Oh, she had a grand time marching back and forth in front of the jury with that creased and bloodied photograph. The jury returned in less than a day.”

“The newspaper accounts said there was a witness that put him at the scene.”

“Yes, a young man. He testified he had seen François leaving the apartment building on the night of the murder.”

“Any way to discredit him?”

“We asked for everything the state had on him, and nothing came up. But I don’t think he had much impact. He wasn’t the real problem.”

“Then what was?”

“Besides the photograph? There were no other suspects. There was no one else who would have done it. There was no robbery, there was no rape, there was no string of burglaries in the neighborhood. Whatever I argued about the evidence being weak, or planted, or explainable, there was no other theory of the murder I could put forward that would have been believed. It became a reasonable-doubt case, and those are very hard, especially when you have a message from the dead.”

“I can imagine. What was he like, your client?”

“Have you met him?”

“Yes.”

“Then you know. Difficult, manipulative, arrogant. Very smart, but not as smart as he thinks he is, obviously.”

“Obviously?”

“If he was as smart as he thought he was, he would never have gotten caught. Why are you taking his case anyway?”

“He’s paying me,” I said.

“Of course, what better reason is there? I’m sure you two will work fine together, though I wouldn’t start racking up the billables until the money is in the bank. After the trial I ended up prosecuting his appeals pro bono. By then he had no funds left, as far as I could tell.”

That was interesting and disheartening both. How did François get the five hundred he had paid me for the meeting, and how was he going to get me my retainer? I hadn’t asked in the prison—he’d said he could pay me, so I just assumed he could—but as always, when it came to money, it was wrong to assume anything.

At that moment, still thinking about the money, I glanced behind me, to the rear of the stone house. Ivy was climbing the walls, digging into the crumbling mortar for purchase. And framed by a tiny square window was a face, long and pale, with a white nurse’s cap pinned atop its dark hair. The mouth was a thin, straight gash, the eyes were black and staring, staring at me. When I cocked my head out of curiosity, the face disappeared.

“So, Victor,” said Whit, dragging my attention away from the window, “what grounds are you considering for the new trial?”

“I don’t know yet. We’re still looking into it. I’ll of course want to talk to the witness.”

“That might be difficult. He died a few years back.”

“How?”

“A tragedy, really. Shot during a drug deal, apparently.”

“Was he on drugs at the time of the trial?”

“Not that I knew of, and like I said, we asked for any information the police had on him. He came back clean. Quite the wholesome young man, so we all thought.” He glanced over his shoulder for a moment, as if to that window. “Not much there, I’m afraid.”

“I suppose then I’ll have to comb through the record for something else to hang our hat on. And my partner, who’s also working on the case, thinks we should, well, you know…”

“Blame me,” said Whit, nodding with a touch too much enthusiasm. “Of course she’s right, you should. Anything for the client. I’ll help out, too, if you want. Put me on the stand, I’ll have a senior moment for the judge. You can claim me as senile.”

“Some things, Whit, are too beyond belief for even me to argue.”

“Oh, Victor, I doubt that.” He laughed. “I doubt that very much.”

On our way out, we passed again through the faded hallway of his house. The medicinal smell leaked from the side room like a dark secret. With the front door open and the two of us in the entranceway, he put his hand on my shoulder. “Victor, really now, you must take care of that tooth. Let me give you the name of a dentist.”

“I’m not much for dentists,” I said.

He took a card and pen from his jacket pocket, scribbled a name and a number. “He’s a miracle worker, trust me.”

I reached for my tooth with my tongue as I looked over what he had written. A name, Dr. Pfeffer, and a phone number.

“Give him a call.” He smiled at me and nodded, and just then a scream came from the back room, and the sound of something crashing to the floor. I glanced at Whit. Some strange emotion played itself on his face, something fearful, shameful.

“My daughter,” he said. “I should go to her.”

“Of course you should. Thank you, Whit,” I said, shaking his hand. “Thank you for everything.”

“Keep me informed of Mr. Dubé’s status.”

“I will.”

He started away and then stopped, turned toward me, almost lunged as he grabbed my shoulders and leaned into me. I recoiled from him, thinking for a moment he was going to kiss me for some reason, but that’s not what he did. He grabbed my shoulders, leaned close, and whispered in my ear as if cadres of eavesdroppers were close by.

“Leave him where he is, leave it be. For your own sake. You can’t imagine the price.”

Then he let me go and lurched off down the hallway and was gone.

You know that stuff they sell in drugstores, the goop you put into your mouth to stop your toothache? Well, it doesn’t work. I know this because I slathered three times the recommended dosage onto my throbbing tooth, hoping for just a moment of relief, but the pain was getting worse. It was as if a mole were burrowing into my gum, digging and chewing. But the goop, all it did was numb my tongue, leaving me to talk as if sky high on paint thinner.

So I was sprawled on the couch, a towel full of ice on my jaw, drooling from my numb tongue, looking every inch the suave man-about-town, when the phone rang.

“He likes you,” said Beth from the other end.

“Who likes me?”

“François. He called me from the prison today while you were out at Whit’s. He said he’s very grateful you agreed to take the case and that he likes you.”

“That makes my day.”

“What’s wrong with your voice? What are you, drunk?”

“Hardly. I’m having a situation. Remember when that thug socked me with his gun on that old boat? My teeth have never quite been right since.”

“You should have them looked at. I know a dentist—”

“Yes, it seems everyone knows a dentist.” I took out of my pocket the card Whit Robinson had given me and thumbed over the name. “If it gets any worse, I have someone to see. I hear he’s a miracle worker. But I’m sure it will take care of itself.”

“A bit of dentophobia, Victor?”

“Hey, nothing wrong with a healthy fear of men with hairy forearms who want to stick sharp metal implements into your gums. What did Shakespeare say, ‘First thing let’s kill all the dentists’?”

“I don’t think that’s quite it. Anyway, I called to remind you that you have that hearing in family court tomorrow.”

“I know. I talked to the boy’s mother on the phone and arranged to meet up with her before we go to the judge.”

“Good. You’ll be in and out. Judge Sistine told me the case shouldn’t take much time.”

“And it pays so well, too. Pro bono, Latin for ‘no cable.’ ”

“Doing a little good in the world will do wonders for your soul.”

“My soul’s fine, it’s my wallet that’s a little thin. Since you spoke to your boyfriend—”

“Stop it.”

“Did he say when he was going to get us our retainer?”

“He said soon.”

“Because the word is, he couldn’t pay for his appeals. The word is, François Dubé doesn’t have a cent to his name.”

“Where did you hear that?”

“Whit.”

“Did he say anything else of interest?”

“Not really, though our meeting ended a little strangely. But he did mention that François ran out of money at the end of the trial. So I’m naturally wondering how the jerk is going to pay us.”

“I don’t know. He didn’t say.”

“Be a dear and find out next time he calls, won’t you? It would be nice if we got paid for something some time this month. The landlord has been leaving notes.”

I hung up the phone and looked again at Whit’s card. Dr. Pfeffer, miracle worker. Just then things weren’t going so well in my life. My business was precariously perched on the brink of bankruptcy, my anemic love life was the stuff of a Sartre treatise—
Being with Nothingness
—my car could use a tune-up, my apartment could use a scrubbing, my body could use some exercise, though who would give it that was a mystery to me. I was too young to feel old, and yet there it was, the despair of middle age, hanging around my neck like a noose. And now I had a client who couldn’t pay me but who was calling my partner from prison to say how much he liked me. Let me tell you, hearing from a convicted murderer serving a life sentence in an all-male prison that he likes you doesn’t exactly make your day. And on top of it all, there was a mole digging a burrow into my jaw. My life could sure use a miracle. If my tooth didn’t get any better soon, I was going to have to give that Dr. Pfeffer a call.

But first, lucky me, I had an appointment in family court.