The Hanging Judge (12 page)

“What is the point?”

“The point is, we’re a
team
,” he pleaded. “We’re like Bert and Ernie.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Eva laughed and pulled out a handkerchief. “You’re such a fucking idiot.” She blew her nose with an emphatic honk. For a small woman, she sounded like a very large moose.

“Can I make a suggestion?” Frank asked.

“Please.” Eva sniffed loudly.

“Don’t make a decision now, okay? We don’t know what’s going to happen. Hudson will probably end up pleading to life, right? If he goes to trial, the jury could acquit him, or convict him and not impose the DP. Who knows?”

Eva didn’t speak, so he continued.

“I don’t know what I think about the death penalty. If some creep killed Brady or Trish, I doubt I’d think it was punishment enough to tell him he was a very naughty boy and had to go sit in the corner for the rest of his life.” He stared into the distance, nodding distractedly. “I doubt I’d kill him, but I sure wouldn’t mind if somebody else did.”

Eva looked over at him, and he went on, picking at his mustache.

“Tell the truth, I try not to think about it,” he said. “I know I can’t quit—we need the paycheck—and I know I really, really hope you won’t. I don’t know what else to say.”

They fell into silence; Eva’s tense body was perched on the edge of the couch, and Frank lay crumpled back in his chair. The night deepened outside, and the stoplight at the intersection below carried farther through the more intense blackness, reflecting pale green, then yellow, then red off the ceiling.

“Which one’s the short one?” Eva asked finally.

“That would be Ernie.”

“Okay, Bert,” she said. “We’ll just wait and see what happens. We’ll keep our fingers crossed.” She hesitated. “Do Bert and Ernie even have fingers?”

14

B
ill Redpath stood in the plaza and gazed up at the glass atrium of the Springfield federal courthouse. Another damned smoke-free building. He sighed and stepped in through the revolving door.

The point of the extra trip out from Boston was to see if this Gomez woman might possibly be interested in a plea, something that might allow Hudson, long after Redpath himself was in his grave, to draw breath for a few years as a free man. It wasn’t even clear that his client would plead to anything. But it never hurt to ask; if nothing else, it would give him an idea of how confident the prosecutor was in her case. And if she offered him something halfway decent, he could present it to Moon and find out exactly how sure his client was that he was not guilty.

Redpath had no illusion that after decades as a defense lawyer he could instinctively tell when a client was or wasn’t telling him the truth. Moon said he was innocent, but he said it in a way that sounded as though he didn’t even believe it himself. Something funny was going on with his client. Presenting a possible plea deal to him would force the issue.

The conference with the prosecutor did not get off to a good start. Lydia Gomez-Larsen, wearing black slacks and a blinding coral blouse, looked up from her computer and nodded as Redpath came in. Her fingernails matched her blouse, and she had on her game face.

“So,” she said. “What’s up?”

“Mind if I have a cigarette?” Redpath asked, reaching into an inner pocket.

“Yes,” Gomez-Larsen replied. “I’d mind very much.” As Redpath gave her a wounded look, she added more neutrally, “It’s not allowed anywhere in the building.” She pulled a fresh yellow pad toward her and jotted the date at the top. “Besides, this doesn’t have to take long. What did you want to talk about?”

They eyed each other. She knew what he wanted to talk about.

It was the old poker game. Redpath saw a sharp (maybe too sharp), smartly dressed woman who was doing a good job of looking like she was holding all the aces. Gomez-Larsen saw a rumpled, craggy man with an impressively deep voice and shoes that needed polishing, who was trying to give the impression of being a little off-balance, but whose eyes were probing her for soft spots.

“I was wondering what you all were really looking for, for Clarence Hudson,” Redpath said, looking over at her with lowered eyebrows. “The government’s case has some obvious weaknesses.”

“Really. What weaknesses?”

“Well, I assume you know your driver, that Rivera kid, has some problems.”

“None I’m that concerned about.” She jotted something quickly on her pad, then tossed the pencil on her blotter. “He’s too young to have much of a record yet.” She produced a short smile. “Just another poor soul who wants to do the right thing.”

“What he wants to do is whatever his uncle Carlos tells him.”

“That’s not going to be very easy now, is it?”

Redpath lifted his large head with a look of concern. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You didn’t know about Carlos?” She jotted something else on her yellow pad. “They found him last week floating in San Juan Harbor. At least they think it’s him. The body is not real pretty.” She tapped the bridge of her nose. “Ten gauge, probably sawed off, in the face, from close up. Didn’t leave much to identify, especially after a couple weeks in the water.” Redpath sat, expressionless. “So Carlos has no worries, and Pepe has nobody to protect.”

“He’s still lying,” Redpath said. “He started out with one crackpot story. Now I take it he’s cooked up a new one that probably makes even less sense.”

“I think he’s finally managed to bring himself around to telling the whole truth. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t put him on the stand.” She reached down into a drawer and pulled out a bundle of stapled pages. “Actually, before I forget, I’ve got a revised FBI-302 for you here. Pepe’s been filling in a few more details about his dear departed uncle Carlos and your guy.”

She handed the new witness statement over to Redpath, who took it, folded it lengthwise, and slipped it into his jacket pocket.

“So he’s getting his memory refreshed,” Redpath said. “I hear you and Captain Daley have been seeing a lot of him. And paying a few visits to his mom, too.”

“He’s a kid, Bill. He’s scared. It’s natural.”

“Flags wouldn’t hire an ex-Flag, especially an African-American, to do their shooting. You know that as well as I do. Hudson’s had no involvement with La Bandera since he got out of prison the last time.”

Gomez-Larsen broke in, “That’s what you say. We know different.”

“Even your cop,” Redpath continued, “the Italian guy, says the shooter was Hispanic.”

“An easy mistake. And he said
possibly
Hispanic.” She leaned forward, tapping with the point of her pencil on the desktop. “Let’s be honest. It’s only my opinion, but I think I could win this case blindfolded, wearing nothing but Mickey Mouse ears and my Maidenform bra, right? I have the driver, I have a reliable third party who saw Clarence running down the alley right afterward with the gun under his sweatshirt, and I have all kinds of folks who will say Clarence had a grudge against Delgado. Plus, I have two people who saw Carlos give your guy drugs two days before the drive-by, and I have Clarence magically in possession of large amounts of pot, coke, and cash right after the shooting. Now maybe I’m wrong, and of course you never know what Norcross might do to us, but I really doubt Clarence’s trial will be all that tough.” She paused, continuing the
tappity-tap
with her pencil on the desktop. “So. I have a lot of stuff on my plate today, Bill. What do you want from me?”

Redpath’s fingers involuntarily strayed toward the inside pocket of his old hound’s-tooth jacket, where his treasure of Luckies lay nestled. The whiff of tobacco from the jacket’s lining was making him ravenous for a cigarette. He pulled his hand away, brushed his lapel self-consciously, and sighed.

“Oh, go ahead and smoke if you have to,” Gomez-Larsen said. “Breathe a little my way. I only quit two years ago. Hold on.”

She dug down into a lower drawer and pulled out a smoke eater. Perched on her desk and plugged in, the little chrome machine made a swishing noise like a discreet vacuum cleaner. Redpath immediately lit up and inhaled deliciously.

“Thanks,” he grunted in his deep voice. “Now maybe I can think.” He cleared his throat and pulled on the sagging flesh under his chin. “I’ve been trying to come up with a way to ask this question that doesn’t seem condescending, or …”

A troubled look passed over the folds of Redpath’s face.

“Doesn’t it seem funny to you that, in five decades, Moon Hudson is the first person in this state to deserve the death penalty, and he also just happens to be a black man who supposedly killed a white woman?”

“He didn’t just kill a white woman.”

“Okay,” Redpath said. “How many black and Puerto Rican males have died in drive-bys in Holyoke and Springfield in the last few years? And how many of their killers faced the death penalty? Do you have an ashtray? I’m worried about your carpet.”

“What are you saying?” She pointed at herself. “I’m part of some racist conspiracy?” She pulled out a lavender seashell and pushed it toward Redpath.

“No, but I’m wondering, coming from your background …”

“Oh, I see, as a Latina, I’m supposed to feel bad for Clarence?”

“No, I mean, in your own life, as a Puerto Rican woman, you must have experienced …”

“Look, I don’t want to keep interrupting, but can I tell you a story, Bill? First of all, I’m not Puerto Rican, I’m Cuban, okay? It’s a small point, but I do get sick of having to tell people fifty times a day. My parents came over on the boat. After they got here, they had me and my brother, so let’s get that out of the way.”

Redpath nodded and scratched the back of his neck. “Sorry.”

“No problem. I grew up in Miami, okay? And I had a lot of boyfriends, mostly nice Cuban guys. Some not so nice. Now, back in those days, my mother is happy because she thinks I’m not going to have any trouble finding a handsome Cuban husband with major bucks. Then I come home from law school with this Norwegian geek from Iowa named Greg. That’s a name with a real hot Latin swing, huh? Greg.” She looked down at her desk. “My dad won’t talk to me, and my mother starts making noises like she’s giving birth to a Volkswagen. My brother, Carlos—same name as the Flag floater—wants to take my fiancé for a walk in mom’s herb garden and snip off his kazoo with the hedge trimmer. You think I’m kidding? This was not a joke.”

“Just enjoying the kazoo bit,” Redpath said, pulling back a smile.

“Then Greg and I graduate and move to Springfield for Greg’s residency, where his Anglo friends patronize me because they think it’s cute that somebody named Dr. Larsen has this enchilada for a wife. That’s okay, but most of the Spanish speakers in town are Puerto Rican, and a lot of them think I am a stuck-up Cuban bitch who talks funny. Now I have this death penalty case and, it’s terrific, the whole community has come together at last: They
all
hate me. Greg’s Doctors Without Borders friends don’t invite us to dinner anymore. Our anti-death-penalty governor is probably never going to touch me for a judicial appointment, which, to be honest, I was sort of hoping for. Plus, my own kids think I’m Dracula. So don’t talk to me about wondering how I can do this, okay? I’m starting to wonder myself. Can I bum a cigarette? Even the nuns are giving me looks.”

Redpath held out his crumpled pack of Lucky Strikes and shook one toward her. Gomez-Larsen’s selection had a twenty-degree bend in the middle, which she pulled straight.

“I need a light.”

Redpath handed over his Bic, and they puffed away for some time, while the smoke eater filled the room with its swishing sound. Muffled footsteps came down the hall, paused in front of Gomez-Larsen’s door, then returned in the original direction. Redpath stared at the carpet looking like an old bloodhound. Gomez-Larsen tapped her cigarette on the lavender seashell and waited.

“You told me a story,” he said finally in his cavernous voice. “Now I’ll tell you one.” Ash fell on his knees, and he brushed it off. “When I was seventeen, I joined the marines and got sent to Korea. My parents wanted me to go to college, but I wanted an adventure, and I was afraid if I didn’t sign up right away I’d miss the war.”

Gomez-Larsen turned her head to pick a piece of tobacco out of her mouth.

Redpath continued. “Things were a mess. By the time I arrived, the North Koreans had grabbed practically the whole peninsula. I got to see a lot of fighting.”

He inhaled deeply and blew out a stream of pale gray smoke. “I had my adventure but good. Now I can’t stand listening to people talk about how we have to kill this person or execute that person, people who’ve never seen anyone die, or even seen a body outside a funeral home. People who will be sitting home watching TV, eating Cheese Nips when we put the needle in.” He mashed out his cigarette in the shell. After one more puff, Gomez-Larsen did the same.

“So here we are,” he said.

“Right, and what are you saying we should do?”

“I don’t know.” He couldn’t tell her his real fear, the one that tightened the hole in his stomach: that he could blow this case somehow, stupidly, and end up killing Moon. That with some bad decision he’d lose the chance to save his client and bring one of those dead Chinese boys back to life.

“What do you think of the death penalty, Lydia?”

“None of your business.”

The sun had moved around and was now shining right into the prosecutor’s window, darkening her silhouette and making her features dim. The voice that emerged from this obscurity was so steady and careful it sounded depersonalized, as if it were coming from a telephone answering machine.

“Bill, listen to me. I’m going to take a chance here. Maybe, just maybe, we can settle it in this room, right now, just you and me. Let’s put us both out of our miseries and plead this loser. I’ll ask Washington for permission to drop the capital designation. Assuming they agree, Hudson gets life without parole. It’s over. We go home.”

Redpath just looked at her for a moment. “I don’t know if I can do that,” he said, in the same almost automatic cadence.

“Why not?”

“The problem is,” Redpath said with a sigh, “I’m worried Moon isn’t guilty. I don’t see how I can plead him to a life sentence without parole for a crime he never committed.”