The Attorney (30 page)

"I can only tell you we had Crow under subpoena. He was a possible witness, that's all."

"When's the last time you talked to this investigator, Murphy?"

"Two days ago."

"What did you talk about?" I give him eyebrows and a smirk.

"I tried to call him a couple of times today but couldn't reach him, earlier in the day."

"We know. We saw his pager. Your number on it," says Avery.

"It was still on his belt upstairs." This gives me pause to think. Who else has seen this?

"Let's get back to what brought you over here," says city homicide.

"I told you. Three times. Jason Crow was supposed to be in court this morning. He was under subpoena. He never showed up.

I came over to find out why."

"And you let yourself into his apartment?"

"The back door wasn't locked. The door to his apartment was locked, but the catch didn't work."

"Convenient."

"Maybe, but that's what happened."

"I could take you in for breaking and entering," he says.

"And by tomorrow I'd be out. And Lieutenant Avery there would be in front of Judge Peltro downtown explaining why I'm not in court in the morning." Avery gives him a look as if this might not be wise.

"Let's go over it once more," says the detective.

I roll my eyes. "As I said, I rang the doorbell. Nobody answered.

I tried the back stairs. The door was unlocked. The latch on Crow's door didn't catch. When I touched it, the door opened."

"How did you touch it?"

"I was listening at the door."

"What were you listening for?"

"To see if he was inside. If I heard voices. I don't know. Maybe he was asleep, didn't hear the bell."

"I heard the buzzer," he says. "Nobody's gonna sleep through that--unless he's dead."

"You think I knew they were inside?"

"I don't know. Did you?"

"This is getting nowhere."

"I still haven't heard what your investigator was doing here," he says.

"You already served Crow, you say?"

"Right. Two days ago."

"Then why come back?"

"Because he didn't show up in court."

"You knew that?"

"Right"

"But your investigator didn't. Was he in court today?" Harry and I exchange looks. Avery watching. He knows.

"No."

"Then how could he know the witness failed to appear?"

"I don't know."

"So you don't know why he was here?"

"No"

"Tell me again how you got inside the apartment."

"I told you. I had my ear pressed to the door. I touched it accidentally with my shoulder, and it opened."

"Just like that?"

"You don't believe me, have your forensics people check it."

"Okay. Then what?"

"I went in. I found the bodies. I called Lieutenant Avery be cause I had his number. He called you. I went outside, sat in the car and waited.

You showed up. That's everything I know." He looks at his notes. "You say Crow was served two days ago."

"That's right."

"And who did that? The serving of process," he says.

"Mr. Murphy."

"Were you with him?" He takes a stab in the dark. Gets lucky.

"Yes." His eyes light up. "So you talked to Crow at that time?"

"Yes."

"How long?"

"I don't know. Ten minutes maybe."

"What did you talk about?"

"I think I'm gonna treat my partner like a client," says Harry.

"I'm going to advise him not to say anything more."

"You are?" says the cop. "You were sitting out front in the car.

Accessory to whatever we find here. I suppose you have to be in court in the morning as well?" Harry nods.

"Now, what did you talk about?" He turns back to me.

"Murphy handed him a subpoena, and we told him to be in court."

"That took ten minutes?" he says.

"It was a slow conversation. It took Crow a while to understand the document," I tell him.

The cop looks, smiles, his face flushed, fed with enough bull shit for one night. "So now you're gonna tell me you were in there giving him legal advice?" I nod. "Yeah. He was on parole. Wanted to know what the effect was."

"And what did you tell him?"

"I told him if he didn't show up, I'd call his parole officer."

"Crow was gonna be a witness in the Hale case?"

"It was a possibility." No doubt they've already found the subpoena with the caption on it. So this is no secret.

"What was he gonna testify about?" Avery's all ears.

"You don't really expect me to tell you, do you? It's been a long day,"

I tell the cop.

"It's likely to get longer."

"I'm sorry, but I'm not going to be discussing Mr. Crows testimony."

"If there's a coroner's inquest you may have to," he says.

"We can talk about that if it happens." He fumes, a long exasperated sigh, studies me with eyes buried deep behind puffy cheeks, like he's deciding whether to haul my ass in or not.

"It's privileged information," I tell him. "It goes to a theory of defense. That's all you have to know. You know as well as I do that if you force the issue, you're only going to get slapped down by the trial judge."

"We know Crow knew Jessica Hale," says Avery. "Does it have to do with their relationship? You can tell us that much?"

"No. I can't." The homicide detective's getting angry. Red face over a tie too tight around the neck. Avery takes him by the arm, leads him off to one side. They whisper for a few seconds. Nothing I can hear.

The problem is the state already has a good idea where we're trying to go with our defense. Our argument on the pretrial motion clued Ryan in as to the theory on Ontaveroz. The fear now is that if he finds out the details, discovers that Crow was my best evidence on this theory, he'll know my case is on the rocks. Ryan will race to the finish line, rest his case and turn to me, a sorry sight, a lawyer with nothing to say.

As I see it now, there are two possibilities. I can turn up the two federal agents, assuming that's who they were. On that score, my only link. Murphy, is now dead.

The second alternative would please Jonah much more. I can find Jessica, and with her, the little girl Amanda. Maybe I get Jessica to testify about her past, tell the jury about Ontaveroz in a persuasive way, which is not likely, short of applying implements of pain.

Unless we can do one or the other, our case for an acquittal is about to hit a wall. It may be that our best chance is now a verdict on a reduced charge.

Over in the far corner the homicide dick gives up a big sigh, shrugs.

Apparently whatever the argument, Avery's won it. They wander back over from the other side of the porch.

"We're not trying to make a problem here," says the detective.

"What it looks like to me, your investigator was on the job. Came by at the wrong time. Caught Crow getting ready to put the needle in his arm.

Crow panicked, they fought for the knife. Crow found a place to plant it. You could help us tie up the loose ends," he says.

"That's how you see it?"

"Yeah."

"You've got at least one problem," I tell him.

"What's that?"

"The fact that Crow had no history shooting up heroin.

Cocaine, maybe."

"How do you know that?"

"Check his arms. Between his toes. I doubt you're going to find any needle tracks. Besides, he was on parole. He was probably being screened for drugs," I tell him. "I'll bet you a month's pay he never shot up heroin."

"So who stuck the needle in his arm, your friend Murphy?"

"No."

"You figure Crow killed him, though?" I give him a shrug as if I'm not sure.

"So what do you think?" says Avery.

I look at my watch. I yawn. "I think it's getting late." Before they can say another word, the screen door opens and one of the evidence techs steps out onto the porch. He takes a deep breath, two hands on the railing, leans over and barfs all over the lawn. The strobes from the TV

camera catching it all. Must be a rookie.

The guy straightens up, out of breath, sucks in some air, and wipes his chin with the cuff of his jacket.

"Last thing you need, contaminate the scene," he says. "Smells like somebody up there killed a cat," he says. "Last month."

"I'm told the man was not a neat housekeeper," says Harry.

"So what did you find?" says the detective.

The tech still catching his breath. "What's left from a piece of Black Tar." A piece is a street term. It's about twenty-five grams, in this case Black Tar heroin. Going price to a buyer is about a thousand dollars.

In this country the supply almost invariably comes out of Mexico.

"Just one question," says Avery. He looks at me. "Do you have any idea what Murphy was doing here?" I shake my head, start to answer.

"Oh, we think we figured that one out," says the tech. "The other guy called him."

"What are you talking about?" I say.

"We're checking phone records right now, see if we can place the time.

We found this right by the phone." He holds up an evidence bag. Inside is a business card, the one Murphy dropped on Crow the night we delivered the subpoena.

"We pressed redial," says the tech. "It was the last number dialed from the phone upstairs."

chapter twenty-Four.

visions of Murphy on the bcd, a blade of steel buried in his chest, dance in a dark web of restless dreams as the night wears on. I doze and wake, unable to find sound sleep, my head tossing on a rumpled pillow. Finally I reach over and move a pile of papers on the nightstand so that I can see the clock.

Susan is purring gently, sensuous little snores, her body curled up behind me, a spoon, one arm dangled loosely over my waist.

As gently as I can I move her arm, ease my legs out from under the sheets, and sit up at the side of the bed. It's three-thirty.

I'm wearing pajama bottoms. Susan's got the top, like a trophy.

As I stand up, the bed creaks. She is a light sleeper, so I turn to look. She stirs, adjusts her pillow. Just when I think she's going to drift back, her sleepy eyes open and look at me.

"Hmm." She stretches long, languid legs under the covering sheet.

"What's wrong? You can't sleep? I can fix that." She reaches over, takes me by the wrist and tugs me gently back toward the bed.

Her hands are at the nape of my neck as I hit the sheets, bumping knees and naked thighs, one of my own drawn between hers as if by some invisible polar force. Her nipples are hardened like bullet points pressing against my chest.

Susan is good at this, mesmerizing acts of seduction, until you are no longer certain who is seducer and who is seduced. Like one of the giant predator cats, she owns the darkness, the hours of the early morning.

Her lips are on mine, her tongue between them. Within seconds I can no longer control myself, pajama parts flung in the melee with the force of beasts in the brush. Susan likes to play rough. She has drawn blood on more than one occasion, her teeth now nibbling on my earlobe as I move within her. Her legs are locked around me. She grips me, rises up, arms around my neck. Balanced on the edge, her hands suddenly move, fingernails raking my back.

Susan sends a jolt tingling down my spine until it washes over me, an instant of unsurmountable release.

Susan's not done. She spurs me on, her heels pressing, locked at the small of my back as she falls gently, a leaf in the wind, toward the sheets. The use of her muscles is a mystery to me. The small of her back arches up off the bed, her eyes shut tight, her upper teeth biting into her lower lip.

I move within her one more time before it dies. Susan issues a stifled scream, a rigid shudder passing through her body as she twists in the bedcovers beneath me. True to her word, she has fixed it. I have forgotten what it was that woke me. we are both foggy in the morning, no doubt From our adventures of the previous night. I stand looking in the mirror over the vanity in Susan's bathroom, running my hands through my hair.

"It seems I'm not the only one with a problem sleeping," I tell her.

"What are you talking about?" There are two little bottles of ambien, prescription sleep medication, on the countertop. I pick one of them up and rattle the tiny white pills inside.

"Oh that. I take one once in a while. It's the job," she says.

"Problems at work."

"Maybe your inability to sleep is something else."

"What do you mean?" Suddenly Susan sits up, image behind me in the mirror. There's a defensive edge to her voice, the sleepy tone gone, as if I've hit a raw nerve.

I turn to look at her. "Maybe you're not used to living with somebody else. Strangers in your house," I tell her. "In your bed."

"Oh, that!" She shifts gears. "Don't be silly."

"What did you think I meant?"

"Nothing," she says. Her head's back down on the pillow.

Patting the bed for me to return.

"Maybe Sarah and I should find someplace else?"

"No." She props herself up on one arm. "Not after what happened last night."

"I'm not talking about going home. Maybe a hotel."

"Sarah's not going to be comfortable in a hotel room."

"You're right. I'll leave Sarah here."

"She's not going to be happy without you," she says.

"But she may be safer," I tell her. "I can't get the girl out of my mind." Susan looks at me, a budding question mark.

"Amanda. Jonah's granddaughter. You think they wouldn't do to her what they did to Murphy?"

"I'd almost forgotten about her," says Susan.

"I haven't. Haven't been able to get her out of my mind since last night."

"Why don't you go to the police?"

"No need to go to them. They've been coming to me pretty regularly."

"You know what I mean. Tell them what's happening. Tell them about Ontaveroz."

"Ryan already knows. More than he should. And I still have no evidence."

"You've got two dead bodies," she says.

"Yeah, but the cops have their own theory as to how they got that way.

They're not going to believe me."