Dead Man's Thoughts (10 page)

Much to my surprise and delight, the library still had real newsprint. Not microfilm. I got my hands dirty, but I didn't care. It was nice to have the feel of yellowing pulp, the sense of immediacy a real newspaper brings, unfiltered by the electronic marvels of the 1980s.

When I'd had enough, I packed my notes into my shoulder bag and went out to look for a restaurant. There was a fancy-looking place in the ground floor of one of the high-rises. I took a table near the window and spread my notes on the butcher block. I ordered a bloody mary and a BLT, thinking of Flaherty as I asked for extra mayonnaise. It would have been good to have someone to do this with, to help me unravel the implications I'd read between the lines.

It was a fairly standard if sordid picture that emerged from the articles. Burton Stone, whom even the
News
(but not the
Times)
called The Fixer, was alleged to have taken bribes from various construction companies around the city. In return for those manila envelopes, Stone used his influence with boards, committees, agencies, etcetera. And he had a lot of influence with a lot of people.

Unfortunately for Stone, one of the construction companies used Charlie Blackwell as its delivery boy. Not only did Charlie tell all when he got busted for a petty scam, but he went to the last meeting wired for sound. Of course, Stone was no dummy. Like the others, the last meeting took place in a men's room, so all the tape got was the sound of running water and flushing. So it came down to Charlie's word against Stone's at the trial. Not that there wasn't secondary evidence—Stone's bank accounts, the votes he'd cast on his numerous boards and committees, the clients he'd represented. It all added up. But the only direct proof that he'd ever taken a bribe was the testimony of Charlie Blackwell. Charlie was guarded like the Crown Jewels. Every other edition had a picture of the sharply handsome Special Prosecutor, Del Parma, promising the public that Charlie would be safe until he took the stand. The papers played it for all it was worth, stressing the danger to Charlie, the significance of his testimony. You got the feeling they were all living for the day when Charlie would be killed. Then they could use the headline “Key Witness Gunned Down.”

As I read, I sipped my bloody mary and made notes for future activities. Just how well had Charlie been guarded? Where had he been kept? Who had had access to him? If Nathan's insinuation had been correct, Matt Riordan, Stone's lawyer, had supposedly gotten to Blackwell. The question was how. I resolved to find out.

The famous cross-examination had been described in all the papers, but I hadn't copied much of it. I preferred to see it whole, in the trial transcript. There had to be things even a reporter might miss that I as a trial lawyer would pick up. I looked forward to reading it; the papers had reviewed Riordan's performance as though it had been Al Pacino's.

As I ate my sandwich, I mentally reviewed what the papers had said about the outcome of the trial. All had blamed it on the Special Prosecutor, pointing out the flimsiness of a case made out solely by a witness who turns out to be not only a professional informer but a free-lance crazy. As Del Parma himself had tried the case, I figured he'd been good and mad. I hoped he was still mad enough eight years later to tell me what I wanted to know. Having his star witness this time destroyed not figuratively by cross-examination but literally by murder might put him in a talkative mood.

Feeling as though I'd put in a good day, I ordered coffee, put the notes away, and tried to think about something else. It wasn't easy.

One of the things I was trying not to think about was Nathan's funeral. It was to be held tomorrow in Westchester, where his ex-wife and children lived. Should I go?

In the end, I decided not to. Instead, I did something I hadn't done since the last time I spent Christmas with Grandma Winchell in Ohio. I went to church. I'm not sure what impulse brought me there. I guess I needed a ritual. I needed to close something. To say goodbye. To take a piece of time and make it special by filling it with Nathan.

At first the service brought me little more than fresh pain. My eyes teared up at every hymn, since they all brought back childhood memories. Then I moved straight into guilt. I had left Nathan deliberately our last morning together, knowing he needed to talk but preferring not to accept whatever confidence he intended to share. Because I liked our relationship light. Because there was a limit to what I felt for him. Because I could no more commit myself to him than to my chosen profession.

As the tears flowed silently down my cheeks, I thought of the last Zen story he had told me. Concentration and compassion. Concentration I would use to the utmost to find the truth, that I resolved. And compassion—could I find that for whoever killed him? I doubted it.

I left the church with a sense of something too nebulous to be called peace. But I did feel as if the intense mourning had ended—maybe I'd even stop waking up in tears every morning—and the harder task of adjusting to day-to-day life without Nathan would begin.

Flaherty told me about the funeral. “The rabbi was awful, Cass,” he said angrily. “Oily bastard. He'd obviously never even met Nathan.”

“What about the family?” I asked. I'd already explained to Flaherty why I didn't go. I couldn't stand the thought of sobbing in the back pew like the Other Woman in a goddamn Bette Davis movie.

“The ex-wife was there,” he said. “She looked more disgusted than grief-stricken. And there were the two sons. And Nathan's father.”

The Communist. I wished I had gone to the funeral, if only to meet him.

“He was pretty pathetic,” Flaherty went on. “A shaky old guy. He broke down at the cemetery. Refused to leave the grave site. Said he couldn't abandon his son when it took so long for them to find each other.”

“I wonder what he meant by that?”

“Milt said Nathan and the old man were estranged for a long time. Nathan didn't approve of his father's politics, I guess.” So Flaherty knew, I thought. It still struck me as odd. I guess it would anyone of my generation. We, not our parents, were supposed to be the radicals.

The image stuck with me long after I'd hung up the phone. The old man standing beside his son's grave, unwilling to leave lest that leaving become abandonment, forgetting.

T
HIRTEEN

“M
r. Parma will see you in a moment, Miss Jameson,” the receptionist said. “Please take a seat.”

I was on the fifty-seventh floor of the World Trade Center. Looking out the window, I felt distinctly queasy. There are 747s that fly lower than this.

I sat on the imitation leather couch and waited for Parma. I'd pushed hard to get this appointment on such short notice, calling the first thing Monday morning and then taking the day off work. I was glad I had. The Special Prosecutor could give me a lot of information if he wanted to. The trick would be to make him want to.

Maybe the whole concept of a Special Prosecutor is unique to New York City. And Watergate, of course. The thing was, after Serpico blew the lid off the Knapp Commission hearings, it was clear that there were judges and D.A.'s up to their asses in corruption. And how are you going to get those D.A.'s to prosecute and those judges to convict their own? Answer: you appoint an above-suspicion type guy to be Special Prosecutor, give him a hand-picked staff of incorruptibles, let him present all his cases to a Special Grand Jury to be heard by a Special Judge. And so Del Parma's little hit squad came into being. They didn't always get convictions, or even indictments, but the mere mention that they were investigating someone struck fear and terror into plenty of hearts. He got so good at tainting reputations without backing it up with evidence that he was under considerable criticism even from people who wanted to see corruption unmasked. You can imagine what the people who didn't thought of him.

“Mr. Parma will see you now.” I looked up from the week-old
People
to see a fortyish woman with dyed red hair and a generous mouth. As I followed her down the corridor to the master office, I noticed that her straight black skirt and hot pink angora sweater were just a shade too tight. Fifteen, even ten years ago, she must have looked as perfectly ornamental as the girl at the reception desk, but now it was an uphill fight. There were fine lines around her eyes and the clothes that once would have been showy now looked a little cheap. She seemed an odd choice for private secretary to a man as concerned with appearances as Del Parma. I wondered why he hadn't traded her in for a new model.

Parma's office was spacious, carpeted in royal blue with a vast, white-topped, empty desk. It was a mark of his status that although there were two spectacular views—one of the harbor and the other of Lower Manhattan and the bridges—the desk faced away from the windows. The implication was that the views were purely for the tourists; the Great Man was too busy to take notice of their panoramic beauty.

The secretary announced my name and slipped away, leaving me alone with the Special Prosecutor. Parma paced the room like a cat, all sinuous movement and burning black eyes. Barely looking at me, he spoke to the room, and perhaps the world, at large.

“Why can't you people leave me alone? I don't know anything about Charlie Blackwell's death. I've barely heard the man's name in the last eight years. Doesn't anyone understand that?” He gestured theatrically as he spoke. He still hadn't faced me directly. “You finish a case, it's over, you go on to the next one. You don't brood about it. You don't keep in touch with all the witnesses. Okay, Blackwell's dead. I'm sorry to hear it. But it's nothing to do with me. There's nothing I can tell you or any other newspaper.”

Light dawned. I explained to Parma that I wasn't a reporter. That stopped him pacing, but then he gave me a look of suspicion, as though I'd come under false pretenses.

“But I am interested in Blackwell's death,” I added hastily. “And in the murder of Nathan Wasserstein. I think you knew him?” I made it a question, though I knew the answer.

Parma was still wary, but he answered. “Yes, I knew Nathan. We worked together in the D.A.'s office many years ago. I was sorry to read of his death.”

“I was a friend of Nathan's. At the Legal Aid Society. He made an appointment to see you the day before he was killed.”

“Oh, yes, I remember. I wondered why he didn't show up. Of course, now I know.”

“Did he tell you what it was he wanted to talk about?”

“I'm not sure that he did. We arranged to have lunch. I assumed he'd tell me then.”

“It was about Charlie Blackwell. He'd picked Blackwell up in arraignments, and Blackwell said he had information for you. And now Blackwell's dead too.”

“And you think there's a connection?” he demanded. I nodded. “But, Miss Jameson, are you sure that's what Nathan wanted to see me about?”

“I'm sure,” I said grimly. That at least I could make him believe. The rest I wasn't so sure of.

“He told you?” Parma persisted. I wasn't sure who he meant by “he,” so I elaborated. “First Nathan told me he wanted to see you about Blackwell, and then Blackwell himself told me he'd told Nathan ‘everything,' whatever that meant. So there's no doubt in my mind that Blackwell had information for you and Nathan was the go-between.”

“And now they're both dead. That's what you're thinking.” He began to pace again, his fine hands darting all over, now pointed at me, now gesturing in the air, now thrust into a pocket, now running through his curly black hair. His whole body emphasized his every word. I'd had a client like that once: he was deaf. “But my God, Miss Jameson, what you're suggesting is impossible. Charlie Blackwell was a very unstable man. If you saw him, you saw that yourself. Nothing could be more natural than for him to kill himself. I'm sure that's what the investigating committee will find—that he hanged himself. And as for Nathan—well, the newspapers said he must have been killed by someone he knew. Someone he let into his apartment. Granted, it's a coincidence both of these things should happen so close together, but, take my word for it, that's all it is. A coincidence. Probably Blackwell had nothing for me anyway. You know how people are—any little thing, they think the Special Prosecutor's the right person to go to. I wouldn't put much stock in this, Cassandra, really I wouldn't.” He stopped to see what effect his words were having. They weren't having much. I had my own reasons for believing Charlie Blackwell wanted to live, and I certainly didn't believe he was the type to cry wolf. He had information the Special Prosecutor wanted. I decided to mention that.

“It's a fact, though, that Charlie could have told you a few things you wanted to know, isn't it? About the Stone trial?”

Parma didn't like the question. “It's true that I had a few questions about that trial I could have asked Charlie,” he admitted.

“In fact, you believed Charlie took a dive on that case. And you wanted to know who got to him.”

Parma smiled, his boyish face taking on a paternal look. “Cassandra, you must go to a lot of movies. It's true I've always wondered if Charlie hadn't been a less enthusiastic witness than I wanted him to be, but I certainly wouldn't allege publicly that he ‘took a dive,' as you put it.”

“Maybe not publicly. How about privately?”

“I think my private thoughts will stay private,” he said coldly. “And now if there's nothing else.…”

“There is.” I was crisp and to the point. If he didn't want to air his opinions, fine, but I still wanted the answers to some questions. “I'm interested in the type of security arrangements Blackwell was held under eight years ago.”

Parma sighed. “Cassandra, all this was a long time ago, and I frankly haven't got the time to spend on it. However, I don't wish to appear unhelpful, so I'll let you talk to one of my assistants. Mr. Chessler will be able to answer any questions.” He looked at his watch. “I'm late for an appointment, so if you'll excuse me.” He stood up, called his secretary and walked me out of the room. We shook hands again, and I thanked him with as much graciousness as I could muster.