The Law Partners (Michael Gresham Legal Thriller Series Book 3) (20 page)

"What if we sued him for some civil tort and took his deposition," Harley says. "You still don't want to do that?"

"We talked about it before," I say, "but he's not going to admit anything to us in a deposition. Not if he's the shooter. Look, let's get back to the office, have a cup of coffee and let's really think about this. This has to happen. We have to get him served."

"Good idea, Boss," says Marcel. "Have you back to the office in twenty minutes, tops."

Back at the office, Marcel and I loop though the CCTV footage, trying to spot Tory Stormont's arrival in the building wearing a police uniform. We’ve done this before but this time we flip through frame-by-frame. No luck; there simply is no video of Stormont arriving at the building and coming through the lobby wearing a police uniform.

We spot several men who match his build more or less, but out of them we cannot really get good facial shots and both are dressed in civvies. Two are wearing porkpie hats, one made of what appears to be a summer straw and one made of blue sailcloth. The first guy has sunglasses perched on top of his hat; the second guy does not. We then loop ahead and we see second guy get off the elevator on twenty-five. We see him walk out of view from the elevator. He's also carrying a shoulder bag that is large enough to hold a police uniform. Very clever if he did it, arriving in civvies then changing into his police threads. My guess? He probably let himself into Mira's unit and changed out his clothes there. Then when she arrived home he subdued her in order to shoot Harrow, who he knew was close behind her.

But can I prove all this?

Not yet. But I'm sure moving in that direction.

F
riday
, after trial is recessed, we can't come up with a plan, Marcel and I, for getting a subpoena served on Tory Stormont. More than ever, I need him at trial. He's my secret weapon.

When we get back to the office we sit down and wrack our brains. There's just no way to get to someone if they're armed and holed up and don't want to talk to you. In the end we head out for Arlington. I want to take a look at the setup for myself.

We take Marcel's truck. He's driving and I'm riding shotgun without a clue as to what we'll do once we get to Stormont's complex. At the last minute, Harley demands to come along. She's persistent and refuses to be denied, so we finally relent and here she is with us. She's in the backseat of the crew-cab. Before we leave, Marcel has me slip on my shoulder holster and gun. He's already armed, as usual. Harley is told about my gun. We offer to put a pistol in her purse or inside her jacket pocket. But she refuses, saying she won't be getting into the line of fire so she has no need of a gun. She also tells us she knows nothing about combat shooting and asks me whether I do. I have to admit I know very little and that what I do know is what Marcel has taught me out at the range. In true Marcel fashion he began my lesson with the admonition, "First rule of combat shooting is don't get shot."

Right.

Westbound traffic out of the city is heavy. It's Friday night and people who work downtown are racing home to get the weekend started. Plus, many city dwellers are headed west to homes they keep in the suburbs with small horse acreages.

Twenty-five minutes later, we take the Arlington Road off-ramp and head south into the city.

At Essex Road we head west for five minutes and finally arrive at an apartment sprawl that extends along both sides of the street. It's a neighborhood area that is quite old, with huge ancient oak trees and maples, houses set far back from the sidewalks, while the apartments themselves are relatively new--having been built in the last twenty years. The neighborhood houses are probably from the 1940's and earlier.

Friday night is quiet along here. We park on the far end of the street and climb out of the truck without slamming the doors--an unnecessary precaution but we've all seen enough TV that we think that's how it should be done. For just a minute I am astonished at how ridiculous it is for the lawyer in a case to be out chasing down an armed witness. But I let go of that thought. As long as Marcel's willing then I want to be with him to offer my moral support if nothing else. Firing my gun is the last thing on my mind. Nevertheless, its weight below my armpit and thumping against my ribs as I walk is reassuring on the one hand and a reminder on the other hand that I'm way outside my league. This suspect is a cop, someone trained in firefights with guns, someone I have no plans of shooting it out with. I almost wish I hadn't brought the gun along, as if that would somehow exempt me from participating in any fireworks.

"Cross here," Marcel says softly, and we follow him across Essex Road.

We step up on the curb and cut across the grass strip, cross the sidewalk, and then catch the concrete walkway leading up to two buildings in the complex. The place is French Provincial, brick exterior, steep roofs, tall second-story windows with arched tops and porches with full balustrades. All of this detail is registering in my mind as the fear uncoils inside my chest. It is as if my mind is taking full inventory of every item before my eyes. Marcel points to a window three down from the front wall and we begin creeping along the walk toward it.

The window is dark; no light is emitted from the rear or other rooms, either. The unit has the appearance of being uninhabited but we know just how deceiving that can be. Again with the TV shows. Marcel ducks below the window and creeps up to the door. With the flat of his hand he pounds the door. Of course there is no response from inside. He pounds harder. Within ten seconds the next door down opens, startling all three of us. I find myself reaching for my gun and then stop my motion with a stupid half-smile on my face. I have no business having the gun with me; that was pure reflex and it was totally out-of-sync with reality, for the head that pops out of the next door belongs to a neighbor lady. She eyes us querulously, as if we have interrupted her TV viewing with our racket.

"He's not home," she says through the screen of her front door.

"Any idea where he's gone?" Marcel asks.

"My husband said he left and asked him to keep an eye on his place. That's why I opened my door. He said some unsavory characters had been trying to roust him out and he was leaving for a few days, that it was connected to police business and we shouldn't be alarmed. But we are alarmed. Do I need to call the police or will you be leaving?"

"What?" says Harley, stepping nearer to the woman. "It's illegal in Arlington for someone to knock on someone's door? I don't think so, lady. Now why don't you get back to
The Voice
or whatever you're watching and let us do our job."

But she doesn't leave. "What job might that be?"

"Actually, we're with the Cook County Court system. This police officer is needed in court and we're trying to track him down."

"You got ID?" she asks, surprisingly persistent. We should all have neighbors like this one when we're away, I'm thinking.

Without missing a beat, Harley produces her wallet from an inside jacket pocket and displays her bar card to the woman.

"That only means you're a damn lawyer," the woman says distastefully. "Show me something that says you're from the court or I
am
calling the cops."

"How about this," says Marcel. "How about you get back inside your own place and mind your own damn business! We have as much right to be on this goddam sidewalk as you do, lady!"

The woman steps back and the door slowly closes behind her.

Marcel turns to us and winks. "Gets them every time, a little sinful cursing."

"Well done," says Harley. "Couldn't have put it better myself."

"Okay, so where are we?" I ask. I'm very uncomfortable being out here at night when there's a chance we have an armed suspect behind the door we're standing around. It's probably not our best thinking that's got us here.

"We have two choices," says Marcel. "We can either go home and forget about it, or we can wait around until we get eyes on the little bastard. Me, I'm for sticking around. But then I'm paid by the hour," he smiles.

"I'm for waiting around too," says Harley.

I start to reply, "I'm--"

When suddenly there's a gunshot from inside the cop's apartment. I turn in time to see Harley's hands fly up to her chest. She teeters on her feet and then, in one motion, crumples to the ground. Marcel and I stand over her, and in the dim light of the courtyard we see a red flower spreading across her chest.

"My God," she says in a small voice, "I'm shot and I'm dying."

"Quick," shouts Marcel, "give me your handkerchief to plug the hole."

He knows I always carry one. I rip it from my back pocket and watch aghast as he slowly threads it into the hole, then he stands straddling Harley and takes her by her wrists. He steps backwards, drawing her prone body up against the wall just down from Stormont's window. A bullet hole the diameter of a cigar can be seen in the window glass, I realize, and I run to the end of the walk nearest where we entered the courtyard.

"Come back!" hisses Marcel. "Help me get her out of here."

With a sudden boldness I push myself from out of the shadows back into the dim light of the sidewalk and approach Marcel and Harley.

"Take her legs up under your arms and start walking backward. She's light."

I do as ordered and soon find myself doing what I never in a million years thought I would ever be doing: carrying one of my employees out of a firefight. It honestly hadn't crossed my mind that there might actually be someone in the cop's apartment after we knocked and there was no answer. It just hadn't registered with me that we three presented an easy target.

As we steal along the shadowy wall I realize Marcel is talking into his phone, which he is carrying in his breast pocket. Evidently he has called 911 and he's giving directions to us. At that exact second, the cop's apartment door suddenly flies open and I see a shadowy figure emerge and begin running directly away from us. Of course there will be a parking lot out beyond the quadrangle wall he's headed for. There always is. But we cannot abandon Harley and run after him.

Reaching the front of the building, we ease Harley down onto the sidewalk, on her back, and Marcel kneels and listens to her chest. Then he puts his ear to her mouth. Now he pulls her lower jaw open and pushes his index finger around the inside of her mouth. Then he is breathing into her mouth and intermittently pumping her chest with the heels of his hands. Coming out of my stupor I realize he's breathing for her and that he could use my help. So I take over with the hands on the chest while he continues breathing air into her lungs. It's a very primitive CPR when it's done without instruments or cannulas or bags of any kind, but it is reputed to save lives so we continue.

"Harley!" I hear him saying. "Open your eyes!"

The eyes remain closed. I look down at her in shock and disbelief. This beautiful, gifted woman is, I'm realizing, probably already dead and there's absolutely nothing we can do about it.

We keep applying CPR anyway. Then the EMT's are there and taking over and Marcel and I are ordered to stand back. We surrender our positions and watch as the pros take over. There are stethoscopes and moments of listening for pulses and breath sounds, but the EMT's faces remain grim, stony, as if a battle has already been lost. A portable EKG is in place and its leads are attached. The monitor lights up and all eyes fall to its small window and its LEDs. They remain glued there for a good fifteen seconds then, one by one, they look up and resume their CPR and ministrations but this time without much enthusiasm. I only sense this, as the efforts are mechanically the same. But there's a dead woman on the sidewalk before us and their faces show it.

At last the nurse among them calls it.

"She's gone," she says. "No pulse, no breath sounds, flatline EKG. I'm calling it. Time of death is seven forty-eight p.m. Somebody make a note and let's stand aside and let the M.E. in here."

The nurse turns to Marcel.

"The bullet pierced her heart. She was gone before you called us."

Marcel shakes his head and it’s clear he’s losing control. "I should've known! I should've known he was inside."

"Wait here. Lots of police officers are waiting to talk to you."

A sudden rush of tears fills my eyes as the reality comes screaming into my brain. Harley is dead. The words bounce around inside my head and I hear them with diminishing disbelief each time they come around. She really is gone. Her body is small and looks almost childlike there on the cement at our feet. Then I feel a strong hand encircle my upper arm and I realize I'm being steered away from her body. I am moved across the grass strip up over the curb and placed into the backseat of a police cruiser.

I have been detained.

T
en minutes tick by
. I am still detained.

Finally, I look up and try to figure out where they've taken Marcel. And why isn't he right here with me?

Then I think I see him in the next car over, an unmarked black Ford with fat tires. He sits there in the backseat, his chin on his chest, his upper body moving slowly back and forth. I want to rap on my window and call out to him but I don't. Something tells me not to draw attention to myself at this moment.

So I sit and stare straight ahead. It occurs to me--the lawyer kicking in--that they have no right to have me detained. I reach up and try the door handle. It is locked. I really am being detained. So what's that make me, a suspect of some sort?

Looking straight ahead I see the tight knot of cops and medical personnel surrounding Harley's body. A wheeled cart has been pushed into their midst and, even as I watch, her limp body is lifted up to the cart and she is gently placed upon it. Many hands have helped move her from the dirty sidewalk up onto the sterile-looking cart. But it's too late for sterility, I realize as I watch the little drama unfold. It's too late because there will be no more medical effort on her behalf. There is, simply put, no reason to keep her body sterile any longer. At this point it's done out of respect for the dead.

Harley is dead.

My mind cannot even conceive of the ramifications of this news. A small cry works its way up through my chest and escapes my mouth. I realize I am angry and that I am calling out for attention.

"Someone come talk to me!" I cry against the thick glass of the backseat prisoner enclosure.

But no one gives a damn. I'm unsure anyone can even hear me anyway.

So I call out again. This time I see a slightly familiar face turn from the tight clutch of cops overseeing things, and it begins moving toward me. Then I realize. Detective Jamison Weldon.

What the hell?

He's supposed to be home, escaped from the courtroom where we've all been pent up all week. So what in the world is he doing out here at this homicide scene?

Which is the moment I realize. Detective Weldon and Officer Stormont are connected. I don't know how--I haven't made it that far yet--I only know that it's true. There is a link between them of some kind. And I suddenly know that if I can understand that link then I will be very close to solving the mystery of the murder that occurred in my client's living room. No, Weldon isn't here in an official capacity as the detective on call. Hell, this is Arlington. He's not a member of their police force; he's Chicago PD. But who called him?

Then it comes into focus for me. Stormont called him. Probably before the shooting incident. He was probably on his way over to lend a hand to Stormont, to run us off from his front porch. But where were the other cops, the ones we were told were watching out for Stormont 24/7? That in itself is a mystery. But Weldon
is
here. That picture is becoming clearer by the minute.

My mind keeps going over it: Stormont and Detective Weldon. The murder happened on Weldon's watch because that's when it was supposed to happen so that Weldon would be the one to answer the call. That's why Weldon's partner was off sick that day. He was supposed to be off sick. There it was, neat and tidy. They were in it together. That's how Stormont got away with the murder weapon in his back pocket. Otherwise he would have been questioned about Mira's purse and gun after he searched her bedroom. Weldon knew Stormont would find the gun. And he knew Stormont would remove the gun in order to place it inside the trunk of my car.

But why me? They sure as hell didn't know I would be on the scene to help Mira.

Of course it didn't matter who came to help her. Whoever it was, they would be framed with the planted gun. Only I had gone a step further and even given them a second shot at me with the cigarette butt. They must absolutely love me, I'm thinking, as Weldon approaches the car where I'm being held.

Then a funny thing happens. He comes up to where he's standing just outside my window when he looks down on me and I can see his face up close and in focus. He gives me a fierce smile from ear to ear. Then he shakes his head and walks on by. No one saw him do it and there are no witnesses standing around watching.

But the message is clear.

They knew we were coming and they had been ready. Now one of our trial team is dead and the other is being held on a Friday night in the back of a cop car in connection with--God knows what. A murder? In the next second I realize the holster beneath my armpit is empty. They have seized my gun. And why wouldn't they? It is evidence. Evidence of my plot to come here and shoot Tory Stormont. Terrified for his life, he had shot one us first. Then he had fled, running for his life. I can hear the story already. We are about to be prosecuted under the felony-murder rule which says that one who is participating in a felony crime at the moment someone dies is guilty of the murder as if he pulled the trigger himself. It doesn't matter that I was only standing outside the door, waiting for someone to answer. There was a shooting and I was there, engaged in the crime of--what? They will figure out what. Obstruction of Justice, maybe, a Class Four felony in Illinois. There is a whole book full of felonies to lay on me and Marcel. They only have to choose. Then we can be charged with murder and Mira's trial will go to a mistrial.

And there's more coming into focus. She will lose the election and Lamont Johnstone will step in. Lamont, friend of the police union, friend of Tory Stormont, the poor cop who was threatened and had to shoot his way out of his home to avoid being attacked.

Suddenly my head drops to my knees and I throw up.

Then I repeat.

I lay my face on my knees and the pain starts surging up through my chest, into my eyes, sweeping across my face as I am wracked with the horror of what I have stumbled into. Not only is the trial lost, not only am I lost, but Harley is dead.

And, according to the law they're going to pull out and use against Marcel and me, we killed her.

We are guilty of murdering one of our own.

It's a short jump from there to visions of a long prison term.

At that very moment, I feel like I deserve no less. My own stupidity, my own need to win Mira's trial at any cost, brought me to this place. Brought me here with a gun hidden on my person.

And in the next breath it all comes rushing out in a long, pained cry.

The gun, my gun, hidden on my body.

I have no license to carry a concealed weapon. The application to do so is still in my office, beneath a stack of papers that had priority, waiting to be filed.

Weldon's face appears again outside the window. Only this time it is all in my mind.

I am losing control and then, in a rush, I am gone, unable to think another thought that would require that I consider the reality that has grown up all around me.

I am finished.