Client Privilege (9 page)

“Whatever. I hear Skeeter recognized the guy right off by his picture. They figure you should have, too.”

“I guess Skeeter’s better at faces than me.”

“And then you refused to tell them what you and Churchill were doing together.”

“Yes, I did.”

“Well, shit. How do you think that looks?”

“That looks to me the way it was. I was there for a client. To them I guess it looks bad. I can’t help it.”

“You talk to this client of yours?”

“Of course.” I hesitated. “Why?”

“You ask him where he or she was?”

“What’re you trying to say?”

He popped his gum. “Maybe I was wrong.”

“About what?”

“Back there I said you ain’t dumb. Now I’m not so sure.”

“I’m not dumb,” I said after a moment. “I know what you’re thinking. What you’re thinking is dumb.”

“If you say so.”

“I do.”

Horowitz hesitated. “You wanna know something, Coyne?”

“What?”

“I don’t think I better talk to you anymore.”

“Why?”

“In fact, I don’t think I should’ve told you this much already.”

“Come on, Horowitz.”

“I mean, look, as a friend, if that’s what I am, I gotta tell you it does look bad.”

“I didn’t kill him, for God’s sake.”

“Well, why the hell don’t you tell them the truth, then?”

“I can’t.”

W
HEN I HUNG UP
with Horowitz, I lit a cigarette, sighed deeply, and prepared to make a pass at the stack of paperwork in my desk. The console buzzed unpleasantly. I picked up the phone. “Yes, Julie?”

“Boy, do you sound grouchy.”

“I’m sorry. What is it?”

“Mickey Gillis called. She’d like you to call her.”

“She say why?”

“No.”

“Okay. I’ll call her.”

Mickey Gillis is a columnist for the
Globe.
The city and its people are her beat. She has more snitches than the cops on
Hill Street Blues.
She has the tenacity of an angry pit bull, the eclectic knowledge of a
Jeopardy
champion, the commonsense smarts of a down-east lobsterman, and the mistrust of human nature of a maximum-security prison guard. What comes to her as a strand of idle gossip leaves her typewriter as hard, well-fortified fact. She has been sued a dozen times. She has never lost. I have defended her several of those times. It has always been a simple matter of reminding a jury of Mickey’s peers of the intent of the First Amendment.

Mickey and I went to high school together. We had been lovers, if that’s what you call two adolescents engaged in violent chemical reactions with each other. She married a guy named Gillis, left the state for several years, and then came back, divorced, to write society for the
Globe.
Within two years she had her own column and carte blanche from the editor to write about what and whom she chose. Mickey Gillis pisses people off. She tells the truth. And she sells a helluva lot of newspapers.

She has two phones in her office. One is listed with the
Globe.
The other is a private number known only to her snitches. Sometimes she talks on both phones at once and hammers at her word processer at the same time. I’ve seen her do it.

The number I dialed was the snitches’ number. She answered, “Gillis.”

“Mickey,” I said. “It’s Brady.”

She chuckled in that raspy, throaty way of hers. Mickey smoked little cigars and drank a lot of whiskey. “Glad you called back, Counselor.”

“What’s up, Mickey? You in trouble again?”

“Nope. You are.”

“Oh, boy. Word gets around, huh?”

“To some of us it does. I bet you want to know about Wayne Churchill, huh?”

“Whatever made you think that?”

“Sylvestro and Finnigan’ve been giving you a hard time, I hear.”

“Do you hear everything, Mickey?”

“You bet your ass I do.”

“You planning to write about me in your column?”

“Hey. A story’s a story.”

“Come on, Mickey.”

“Just joshing, Brady. There’s nothing to write, yet. You didn’t kill Wayne Churchill, did you?”

“Of course not.”

“You been arrested or anything?”

“No.”

“I knew that. Hey, I’m just being friendly here. I hear things, I’ve got sources most people don’t have. I figure, hey, I hear my friend Brady’s name bandied about, I oughta see what I can do for the guy. Right?”

“Right, Mickey.”

“So I figure I’ll give him a call, remind him old Mickey’s here.”

“I appreciate it.”

“So,” she said, exhaling loudly. I pictured her puffing on one of her little cigars. “What would you like old Mickey to find out for you?”

“I’m not sure, to tell you the truth. Somebody killed the man. It wasn’t me. But the cops seem to be focused on me, which means that whoever did it is getting no attention. If I could just come up with a motive, or an enemy, or some niche in his armor…”

“He was a golden boy, for sure. But you’re right. There was something about the man.” She paused. “You know something about him, don’t you?”

“No, not really,” I lied. Of all people, Mickey Gillis was the last one I could mention Judge Popowski and Wayne Churchill to in the same breath.

“But you wouldn’t mind if Mickey did a little checking, just for old times’ sake.”

“Mickey, listen. I don’t want to find my name in your column tomorrow morning.”

“Aw, Brady…”

“I don’t want to be quoted. You want to write about the Churchill murder, I can’t stop you. Go ahead. But leave me out of it.”

“You’re in it, pal.”

“Then let’s forget the whole thing.”

“You misunderstand, Brady. Christ, I know you didn’t kill anybody. I figure it’d be good for both of us if we figured out who did, that’s all. I intend to pursue this story. I just figured I might share with you. Out of friendship. If you want to share with me, hey, great.” She paused. “If not, well, okay. Either way, I’m gonna pick a few scabs. Would you mind if I did that?”

“I guess I wouldn’t mind, Mickey.”

She paused. I heard the click of a lighter. Then she exhaled loudly. “Remember Granny Hill, Brady?”

“You were a sexy one, all right.”

“Were,” she repeated. “Fuck you, Coyne.”

“You’ve still got great legs, Mickey.”

“I wear the same size dress I did then.”

“Terrific body. You always had a great body.”

“It’s the face, ain’t it?”

“You look wonderful, Mickey. Come on. Granny Hill was a very long time ago.”

“Yeah,” she sighed. “You ain’t the same lean stud you once were, either, you know.”

“Don’t I know it.”

“Well, hell. This Churchill thing’s interesting. Maybe I’ll just roll over a few rocks, see what crawls out. I’ll keep you posted.”

“Appreciate it.”

“You take care of yourself, Brady,” she said softly. “You’re not used to being on the other side.”

“Ain’t it the truth,” I said.

Mickey called back the next morning. “I got some dirt,” she said.

“On Churchill?”

“Yup.”

“Let’s have it.”

“Rather not on the phone.”

“Lunch, then.”

“Can you deduct it?”

“No. It won’t be business.”

“We could do some business.”

“Couldn’t justify it,” I said.

“You are so goddam ethical sometimes, Counselor. Okay, then. I’ll pay. I can deduct it.”

“No you can’t. Not unless you’re working on a story. And if you’re working on this story, then I better not be one of your sources. In which case, you can’t deduct my meal.”

“Okay, okay,” she said. “I know a little place around the corner from the courthouse, right next to the bakery that makes dirty cakes. It’s cheap and quiet and they have great hot turkey sandwiches. We’ll go dutch.”

“Dirty cakes?”

“Oh, yes. They’re a riot. X-rated cakes. They have their regular assortment, or you can have them custom designed. Breasts, asses, phalluses, or any combination thereof.”

“What’s this restaurant like?”

“Not much if you’re looking for ambience. Hole in the wall, actually.”

“Why don’t we meet at the Oyster House, instead,” I said.

“You wanna go for ambience, then.”

“I can’t get excited about a turkey sandwich, that’s all.”

“Ambience it is. Twelve-thirty?”

“Twelve-thirty is fine.”

I thought of calling Pops, then I thought better of it. He couldn’t help me. I thought of calling Xerxes Garrett, the good young defense attorney who had clerked for me for a year while studying for the bar. But at this point, I didn’t figure I needed an attorney. Not yet. If they decided they wanted to arrest me…

I did want to get a line on Wayne Churchill. I wanted to find out something I could give to Sylvestro and Finnigan so they’d leave me alone, something that would provide somebody with a motive to murder him, an enemy, a weakness, a secret. I knew there was something. After all, somebody
had
murdered him.

Mickey was waiting for me at the bar at the Union Oyster House when I got there. Her slim, muscular legs were crossed, and she had hiked her skirt up over her knees to display them to their best advantage. She was hunched over a glass of Scotch. A thin black cigar was burning in the ashtray by her elbow. I eased onto the stool beside her. The young woman behind the bar said, “Sir?”

“Jack Daniel’s on the rocks, please.”

Mickey turned to look at me. Her monkey face broke into a grin, spreading tiny crinkles at the corners of her eyes and mouth. I bent to kiss her cheek, and she managed to get her mouth in the way of my aim. Before I could pull back, she had flicked her tongue out, licking my lips.

“Come on, Mickey. Behave.”

“Ah, you old fart, Coyne. Always were a prude.”

“I never particularly thought so.”

“Trust me,” she said. “You always were a prude.”

My drink arrived. I lit a cigarette. She puffed on her cigar. I noticed that she inhaled it. The blush on her cheeks and the glitter in her eyes told me that the Scotch she was sipping wasn’t her first.

The Union Oyster House is down near Haymarket Square. It’s more than a hundred years old, and it has managed to retain its somewhat down-at-the-heels mystique, which tourists and natives alike continue to find charming. The narrow warren of burnished wood-paneled rooms, the uneven plank floors, and the general aura of earthy good nature are features that, I’m certain, the management nurtures.

I like the food. The seafood is always fresh, well prepared, and priced right. And I confess, I like the ambience, too.

Mickey and I inquired after each other’s health and sex lives. She was a good deal more forthcoming than I on both subjects. When I finished my drink, I said, “Want to eat?”

She nodded, so we found the hostess, who led us upstairs into one of the dining rooms. We ordered more drinks from the waitress. After she left, I said, “What’d you find?”

“Get right down to business, eh, Counselor?”

“It’s important to me, Mickey.”

She nodded. “I suppose it is. Okay. You want to know about Wayne Churchill. Sorry to report, I didn’t learn who killed him. Man in his business, of course, was bound to have enemies. I oughta know. Unfortunately, so far none of them has stepped forward to take credit for it. He had a girlfriend—”

“Gretchen Warde.”

“Right.” She nodded. “The one who found his body. She appears to be the cops’ number one suspect.”

“Where’s that put me?”

“Number two.”

“What’s supposed to be the girl’s motive?”

Mickey shrugged. “The usual, I suppose. Jealousy, whatnot. Rumors I hear are that there were probably other women.”

“Rumors?”

“You know. Things people say. Nothing you can print. I also hear the cops found some coke in his apartment. The man evidently was your average yuppie cokehead. They’re keeping that out of the papers.”

“But you heard it.”

She grinned.

“Isn’t that significant?”

Mickey rolled her eyes. “This day and age, Brady, it’d be more significant if they didn’t find that little Baggie with white stuff in it.”

I sighed. “I guess I’m naive.”

“You said it, pal.”

I shook my head. “And you found out all this overnight?”

She shrugged. “Sure.”

“How?”

“It’s my business to know how to find out stuff like that.”

Our waitress arrived with our drinks. “May I take your order?” she said.

Mickey ordered the scrod. I settled for a big bowl of lobster stew and a tossed salad.

When the waitress left, I said, “So far you haven’t really helped me.”

“Eliminating possibilities helps, doesn’t it?”

“I guess it does. Why do you think they’re keeping the drug angle out of the papers?”

“Usually it means they’ve got their eye on somebody and don’t want to alert them. It could also be stupidity. With cops you never know.”

I nodded. I hadn’t figured out Sylvestro and Finnigan yet. I was reluctant to consider them stupid. “Was there anything else?” I said.

She smiled. “Of course there’s something else. There always is, isn’t there?”

I shrugged.

“Before he came to Boston, Wayne Churchill was anchorman for the evening news on Channel Eleven in Cleveland. Very popular there. Young, photogenic, sincere, with a history of being a solid reporter. He won a couple awards, even.”

“I read that in the paper, Mickey.”

“Sure. Then he came to Channel Eight here in Boston as a news reporter.”

“Right.”

“Well, that struck me a little funny.”

“Why?”

“Think about it. Why would a guy with the best job on television give it up to go back to wearing out shoe leather?”

“Obviously you’re going to tell me,” I said.

“Eventually,” she said. “Anyhow, that’s what struck me. Okay, so Boston is a better market than Cleveland.”

“By a long shot.”

“Not only that, but Channel Eight doubled his Cleveland salary. Not bad, moving from anchorman to reporter. See, Brady, Channel Eight’s in very dire straits. Competition’s tough in Beantown. So they decided to take this flier on Churchill. Gave him this huge salary, plenty of incentives, expecting him to do for them what he’d done in his previous jobs.”