Client Privilege (25 page)

I nodded. “Agreed.” I hesitated. “Except for one thing.”

He frowned. “What?”

“I know you, Pops. You’re a decent human being. Even if you killed a man, you’re still a decent person. You care what people think of you. You’d be embarrassed to tell me you killed Wayne Churchill, just as you were too embarrassed to tell me about Karen. It’s human nature to lie. To friends, to wives, to lawyers. For all I know, that’s what’s happening right now.”

He stared at me for a minute. Finally he said, “Christ, Brady. I’m not like that. I’m not the kind of guy who goes around killing people.”

I shrugged. “You’re not the kind of guy who diddles with nineteen-year-old secretaries, either.”

W
EDNESDAY. NINE DAYS SINCE
Wayne Churchill had been murdered. I spent the morning in a conference room at the Suffolk County courthouse negotiating, and then persuading the wealthy Anne Covington to accept a fat settlement from the dentist who had, in the process of performing a root canal, permanently severed one of her facial nerves. As a result, Mrs. Covington’s new smile looked like a death rictus.

Anne Covington rarely smiled, anyway. And before her surgery her smile had frightened small children and household pets. The new version could almost have been considered an improvement, something my adversary Carl Dalton, the dentist’s attorney, had the good sense to imply without stating. There was no telling how significant a judge might find that information, as we both knew. A trial would have been a crapshoot. We both considered the out-of-court settlement a victory, which Carl and I celebrated at Marie’s in Kenmore Square over linguini with clam sauce and a bottle of something musty and red.

I did Julie’s bidding for the rest of the afternoon. I left the office a little after six, strode across the square and bought a bedraggled bunch of carnations from the Puerto Rican lady on the corner, and took them back to my car. By the time I got to Mt. Auburn Hospital it was nearly seven.

All the seats in the waiting room were taken. One of them was occupied by Detective Orvitz of the Cambridge police, who nodded to me when I walked in as if he had been expecting me. I jerked my head in the direction of Karen Lavoie Gorwacz’s private room and raised my eyebrows. He got up and came to me.

“The family’s in there with her,” he said.

“Her parents?”

“Yes. And her son.”

“I better wait.”

He nodded. “This is a social visit?” he said, cocking his head inquiringly.

“You suspect the criminal has returned to the scene of his crime?”

“You never know, Mr. Coyne.”

I shrugged. Orvitz returned to his seat. I picked up a copy of
Today’s Health
from a table and scanned an article on colon cancer while leaning against the wall. Uplifting stuff.

After about twenty minutes they came out. Mr. and Mrs. Lavoie looked grim. Paul, Karen’s son, looked angry. When he saw me he stopped for an instant, whispered something to his grandmother, then came to me.

“Hi, Paul,” I said, holding out my hand to him.

He hesitated for an instant, and then took a hard backhanded swipe at my hand.

“Hey!” I said.

“You son of a bitch,” he said. “You dirty prick.”

He grabbed the front of my coat with his left hand and drew back his right fist. I tried to twist away from him. Detective Orvitz was suddenly there, hugging both of Paul’s arms against his sides.

“Easy, there, pal,” said the cop.

“He’s the guy,” said Paul. “He’s the one that beat up my mother.”

“Your mother says no.”

“She’s afraid,” said the boy. “She’s afraid he’ll do it again.”

Orvitz moved in front of Paul, so that he was standing between us. “Now, don’t try something that’ll get you in trouble, son.”

Paul glowered at me over Orvitz’s shoulder. “I’m gonna get that bastard,” he said.

“No you’re not,” said Orvitz softly.

Like a hockey player rescued by a referee from a fight before his manhood was actually tested, Paul gave me one final look that was intended to frighten me and then went back to his grandparents, who had been watching the scene with matching frowns on their faces.

“You okay?” said Orvitz to me.

“Fine,” I said. “Thanks.”

“I expect you could’ve handled the kid. But we don’t want a scene.”

“No, we don’t. Think it’s okay if I go in and see her now?”

“You brought her flowers. You ought to deliver them.” He paused. “I’ll be right here,” he added, which, translated, meant “Don’t start beating on her again.”

As I walked past Mr. and Mrs. Lavoie, I said hello to them. They nodded to me and said nothing.

Karen’s bed had been cranked up so that she could sit. Her hair had been brushed and she was wearing a pale blue robe over a lace-trimmed nightgown. The bruises on her face had darkened and spread so that the entire left side of it was a uniform purple. The swelling had increased. She looked considerably worse than the previous morning when I had first seen her.

I held out the carnations. “Hi, Karen,” I said.

Her swollen lips tried to smile. It came out one-sided. “Hi,” she croaked. “Pretty,” she added, referring to the carnations. “You can stick ’em in that vase.”

A large cut-glass vase perched on the windowsill beside her bed. It contained a spectacular bunch of pink roses. I went over and jammed the carnations in with the roses, then returned to Karen’s bedside. A pair of straight-backed chairs had been drawn alongside. I sat in one of them.

“How are you feeling?”

“Oh, boy,” she said. Pain pinched her face, and her voice was hoarse. “Like an elephant stepped on me.”

“Your family. How are they taking it?”

“Scared. They’re frightened. They think someone wants to kill me.” Her smile worked only on one side of her face. It looked cynical.

“Hard to blame them.”

She looked at me through her one good eye, then shrugged.

“Have you told the police yet who did it?”

She turned her head away from me.

“Karen,” I said, touching her arm. “Was it Pops? Did the judge do this?”

Slowly her head rotated back. She stared at me for a long moment. Then the tears came. “Please go away,” she said.

“I know all about the two of you,” I persisted. “Pops told me. I know about Paul. I know that Wayne Churchill found out. Whoever did this to you is probably the same one who killed Churchill, you know. You’ve got to let the police do their job.”

She was shaking her head back and forth. “I told them you didn’t do it, Mr. Coyne. So please. Just mind your own business.”

“Karen—”

“Go away. Leave me alone.”

I looked at her for a moment, then shrugged. I stood up. She was looking toward the vase of flowers, away from me. “Well, good-bye, then,” I said. “I hope you feel better.”

I started for the door.

“Mr. Coyne,” she whispered.

I turned.

“Thank you for the flowers.”

I smiled and nodded. Then I left.

The crowd in the waiting room had thinned out. Orvitz was still in his seat. Mrs. Lavoie was sitting beside him, staring blankly at a magazine that was spread open on her lap. Her husband and Paul were not there.

She looked up at me with her eyebrows upraised. I nodded to her. She got up and went into Karen’s room.

I went into the corridor to the elevator and pushed the button. The elevator was on the third floor. It was moving down. It would have to complete its trip down before it came back up. It would be a while. I leaned my back against the wall to wait.

A minute or two later, Mrs. Lavoie approached me. Her head was bowed. She held a handkerchief in her hand. She stood beside me and looked up at the lights.

“I already poked the button,” I said.

She turned to look at me. Her eyes were red and her cheeks glistened with tears. She had not been crying when I had seen her in the waiting room.

“Are you all right?”

She nodded and looked away.

“I hope you know,” I persisted, “I didn’t do this to Karen.”

The handkerchief went to her eyes. “Oh, I know that,” she said with a sort of short choking laugh.

“It must be very difficult for you and Paul and your husband,” I plowed on, feeling awkward but abhorring a conversational vacuum.

She glanced at me, then looked up at the elevator lights.

“I don’t understand why Karen won’t tell the police who did this to her,” I said.

“I’m sure you don’t, Mr. Coyne,” she said, still studying the lights.

The lights indicated that the elevator had begun to ascend. We watched them blink their way up to our floor. The elevator stopped with a muffled clunk and the doors slid open. Mrs. Lavoie and I stepped aside to allow two doctors to get off. Then she and I got in. I jabbed the button for the lobby.

“Where’s your husband?” I said to Mrs. Lavoie as we rode down.

“He took Paul home. The policeman suggested it’d be better if he didn’t stay there after…”

“He’s upset. It’s understandable.”

“We didn’t want a scene anyway. John drove Paul back to our house. He’s staying with us while Karen’s—until she can go home.” She looked up at me and tried to smile. “It was nice of you to come visit her.”

I shrugged.

“We—my husband and I—I hope you don’t think we’ve been rude to you.”

“No. I understand. Your privacy is important. It’s just—”

“I know. I appreciate your point of view. I hope you can appreciate ours.”

I nodded. “Sure.”

We came to a stop and the doors slid open. We walked out into the lobby. Mrs. Lavoie touched my arm. “Mr. Coyne, you don’t happen to know where there’s a pay phone?”

I shook my head. “You can ask over at the desk. Look, do you need a ride?”

“I can call a taxi.”

“I’d be happy to give you a ride.”

“Thank you anyway. I can get a cab.”

“Really,” I said. “It’d be no problem.”

She cocked her head to the side, hesitated, then nodded. “If it wouldn’t be out of your way.”

“Not at all,” I said.

We walked out of the hospital and headed for the parking lot. “This is very nice of you,” she said.

“I’m a nice guy.” I smiled.

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, I think you probably are.”

We found my car. I unlocked the passenger door and opened it for her. After she got in, I went around and got behind the wheel. I pulled onto Mt. Auburn Street and turned right, heading for the Square. Mrs. Lavoie sat rigidly erect beside me, gazing fixedly straight ahead.

“Mrs. Lavoie,” I said after a minute, “I want you to know that I know about Karen.”

She continued to stare out the windshield. “It’s really not any of your business,” she said softly.

“Well, perhaps. Except a man was killed, and I thought—I think—it’s related to what happened to Karen. Karen and Judge Popowski.”

I watched her as I said this. She didn’t flinch.

“You know about her and the judge, don’t you?” I persisted.

“We know,” she whispered.

“I felt I had to find out,” I went on gently. “And I believe that this is related to what happened to Karen the other night.”

I glanced at her when she didn’t reply. She was nodding.

“Do you believe that also?”

The handkerchief materialized in her hand. She dabbed at her eyes with it.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I know you’re upset.”

We drove in silence for a while. I negotiated the complexity of traffic lights, loops, and one-way streets in Harvard Square and headed west on Mass. Ave.

“Mrs. Lavoie,” I said, “did Karen tell you who beat her?”

She said nothing. From the corner of my eye I saw the handkerchief flutter at her face.

“Was it the judge? Was it Chester Popowski?”

“No.” Her voice was a whisper, but at the same time emphatic.

“Then—?”

“Mr. Coyne,” she said quietly, “please.”

I shrugged.

There are at least a dozen stoplights on Massachusetts Avenue between Harvard Square and Route 16. Every one of them was red when I got to it. I cracked my window and lit a cigarette. Mrs. Lavoie continued to stare straight ahead. Her fingers alternately stroked and strangled the handkerchief she was holding in her lap.

I turned onto Route 16 heading for Medford. “I don’t know what to do,” she said.

“There’s a vicious criminal out there.”

“I know that.”

“He’s killed a man. He almost killed your daughter.”

“You don’t think I know that, too?”

“Then why—”

“Do you think it’s been easy all these years? Trying to keep a family together, seeing my little girl…

Her voice trailed away. The handkerchief dabbed at her eyes again.

“Wouldn’t it be better to get it off your chest?” I said carefully. “Wouldn’t you feel better?”

“It’s not that simple, Mr. Coyne. I wish it was, but it isn’t.”

“But for Karen’s sake…”

“It’s not that simple,” she repeated. “I told you. You just couldn’t understand.”

“You know, don’t you? Karen told you just now, when you went in to say good-bye to her after I was in there, didn’t she?”

“She told me.” Her tone had changed. Her voice was flat, devoid of affect.

“You must tell me,” I said.

“I already knew,” she whispered. “I didn’t want to know, but I knew.”

“My God,” I said.

Because then I knew too.

I
N THE MIDDLE OF
the morning on Friday, Julie cracked open my office door and stuck her head in. “That policeman is here.”

“Just one?”

“Yes. Lieutenant Sylvestro.”

“Send him in, please.”

Her head disappeared for a moment. Then she pushed the door open all the way. She held it while Sylvestro shambled in. I stood up and went around my desk. We shook hands in the middle of the room.

“You made an appointment this time,” I said.

He smiled. “This one’s a little different from the others.”

I returned his smile and gestured toward the sofa. “Have a seat,” I said to him. “You look beat.”

“Tough couple days,” he said with a sigh.

“Coffee?”

“Yeah. Good.”

“I’ll get it,” said Julie from the doorway.