The Only Good Lawyer - Jeremiah Healy (37 page)

Nancy shook her head. "It's Sunday night."

"Sunday?"

"Yes. And if a woman hadn't called it in
yesterday morning, you would have frozen to death out there and
joined the other two in the morgue."

Other two. "Trinh and . . . Huong?"

Murphy said, "Both dead. Statics responding from
the old MDC station by the Science Museum said Huong was on top of
you." A broader grin. "Like you were Jack London, and he
was your sled dog."

Over her shoulder, Nancy said, "Lieutenant,
please?"

Sled dog. "I want to . . . thank the lady . . .
with the malamute."

Murphy said, "Who?"

"Rollerblader . . . with her malamute or husky
.... She must be . . . the one who phoned . . . the State Police,
right?"

A shrug. "Beats me. Headquarters just got an
anonymous tip from some woman on the nine-one-one tape. We called the
Staties, then got over there ourselves?

Well, Thank you, anyway, I thought.

Nancy said, “Even without the arctic temperature,
you're lucky to be alive."

"What's the . . . damage?"

"Two ribs, cracked but not broken." She
pointed toward my face. “‘A shot you took to the right cheekbone
closed your eye pretty well, but thank God didn't shatter the bone or
get the pupil. I won't even ask how you feel because the doctor said
the rest of your body looks like it went tumbling down a staircase."

"Close enough."

Murphy was grinning broader behind her. "Let me
get this straight, Cuddy. You had a gun, and they still beat you up?"

Nancy said, "Lieutenant?" again, but never
stopped watching my one good eye. "John, is it over now?"

I didn't even think about shaking my head. "Not
quite."

"Meaning?"

My tongue was doing a lousy job of wetting my lips,
not to mention stringing together words. "Trinh told me . . .
Grover Gant called him . . . saying I was the one . . . who killed
Deborah Ling."

Murphy stopped grinning. "Nugey tried to take
you out for that?"

"In his office . . . Trinh said he loved her
..,. But before Trinh died . . . he also said Grover . . . talked
'funny' on the phone."

Murphy gave me a hard look. " 'Funny'?"

"Yeah."

"So?"

"So maybe it . . . wasn't Grover . . . who
called him."

Nancy canted her head at me. "But who else would
have?"

"I'd count it a real favor . . . if one of you
could find out."

Murphy laughed, Nancy
muttering something under her breath.

* * *

"Sorry," she said, wrestling with the
steering wheel of her Civic hatchback after hitting a pothole neither
of us spotted. "It . . . happens."

Nancy glanced toward me. "You okay?"

"Breathing just takes . . . a little
concentration, that's all."

I'd cracked a rib during the last week of ROTC Basic
Training the summer after my junior year at Holy Cross. In those
days, you had to complete a Physical Combat Proficiency Test that
final weekend, or else effectively "flunk" and have to be
"left back" in boot camp. The PCPT included among its six
"events" a fifty-yard low crawl, a hundred-and-fifty-yard
fireman's carry of another cadet, and a mile run in combat boots. I
wasn't about to repeat Basic, thank you very much, so I did the test
with the rib screaming at me. But I passed.

Of course, I was also twenty-one at the time.

"John?"

"Believe me . . . it's okay."

Nancy went back to watching the light Sunday night
traffic in front of us. "I didn't mean so much being in pain as
. . . zoning out on me?"

"Don't worry, no . . . concussion. I was just .
. . thinking back to the . . . last time I took a hit to the
ribcage."

She nodded.

I said, "I'll be fine."

Nancy nodded again. "The Statics making you come
down to sign a statement?"

"Tomorrow."

Since the scene with Nguyen Trinh and Oscar Huong had
taken place on Metropolitan District Commission land along the river,
technically the State Police had jurisdiction. A plainclothes
investigator and one of the troopers responding to the emergency call
talked with me back at the hospital, Murphy shortening the
interrogation to half an hour by saying he thought the incident might
be tied into one of his homicides. The Staties happily ceded me over
to him as a connected case, but they still wanted a formal statement
to cover themselves.

And they also confiscated my Smith & Wesson as a
weapon involved in a shooting, allowing as how I wouldn't be seeing
it for a while.

Nancy changed her tone. "I can't believe nobody
at the hospital even taped your ribs."

"They used to."

I thought back to the Basic Training incident. After
the PCPT, I finally went to the Infirmary, where two reservist medics
wanted to wrap Ace bandages around me. When they were a little
awkward doing it, I asked them what hospital they worked at in
civilian life. One said, "Actually, I'm a social worker,"
and the other chimed in with "hearing aid salesman." I told
them if they tried to touch me again, I'd knock their teeth out.

Nancy said, "But they don't anymore?"

"What?"

She spoke more slowly. "The hospital doesn't
tape cracked ribs anymore?"

"Oh." Maybe Oscar Huong did leave me with a
concussion.

"No. No, the doctor . . . said today that
studies . . . showed it didn't help the healing."

A coy smile as she glanced at me again. “So you'll
have trouble with any . . . vigorous movements?"

It took me a moment to realize what she meant. "Well,
maybe not . . . if I was less the mover and . . . more the movee."

"I think waiting until after the Spaeth case is
resolved still makes sense. Did Steve Rothenberg ever call you?"

"No, but then he might not have . . . heard
about it yet."

"John?"

"Yes?"

"For most of the last thirty-six hours, you were
probably in no condition to notice, but what happened was all over
the news, especially TV and radio."

"Then there'll
probably be a message . . . for me with the answering service."

* * *

Nancy dropped me at the curb outside my condo
building on Beacon Street. Before closing the Civic's door, I assured
her I'd be all right and would call as soon as anything changed
officially in the Spaeth case. Until she pulled away, I walked
steadily up the front stoop, but I took the interior stairs a lot
slower. Once in the apartment, I popped a couple of aspirin and
telephoned my service. The nice woman with the silky voice wasn't
working Sunday nights, but a guy covering the line said there'd been
two calls from a Mr. Rothenberg, who'd left his home number and would
appreciate hearing from me at my earliest convenience.

After dialing, I got a little girl's tentative,
"Hello?"

"Hi. Can I speak with . . . Steve Rothenberg,
please?"

"Just a second." There was a dull, thudding
noise, as though she'd dropped the phone, followed by a "Daddy,
daddy, daddy." mantra that faded more with each repetition.

Then I heard what sounded like adult shoes on a
non-carpeted floor. "Yes?"

"Steve, John Cuddy."

"John! Great to hear from you."

"I just picked up . . . your messages."

A hesitation. "Your voice is—are you okay?"

"A little worse than black and blue . . . , but
I'm functioning. Any news about . . . Spaeth?"

"From the D.A., you mean?"

"Yes."

"I tried calling him, too. Gone for the weekend,
with instructions for no forwarded messages. So I'm going to try
again in the morning. But I can't see you doing anything else for
Alan until I get the new lay of the land."

"Good."

"Will you be in the office tomorrow or at home?"

"I'll see how I feel, but I have . . . to visit
the State Police, so I may as well . . . go into downtown from
there."

"How about if I try you after two?"

"Fine, Steve."

"And John, thanks for everything you've done.
It's all been in a good cause."

I was having a hard time still believing that, but I
told Steve Rothenberg his sentiment was appreciated.
 

Chapter 21

SUNDAY INTO MONDAY, I got at most three hours of
sleep. Partly that was because my brain had been turned off for so
long in the hospital, even though my body probably thought a little
more rest might help the cause. But I don't tend to lie on my back in
bed, so the main problem was that throughout the night I'd awaken in
breath-taking pain whenever some reflex in the subconscious made my
legs roll me over onto the ribcage.

The next morning, my right cheekbone was pretty
tender, and the face in my mirror looked a lot like Alan Spaeth's
after his adventure in the Nashua Street shower. Breakfast tasted
awfully good, even if the entire meal consisted of ice water and the
softest bread in the fridge for toast.

My landlord has cable TV, and I watched the repeat of
a local college football game, thinking it seemed more like a high
school event, including the apparent age of the players when they
took off their helmets. At noontime, I risked some tuna fish on more
of the soft bread, and after lunch I felt recovered enough to call a
cab and visit the State Police near the Museum of Science.

They were pretty gentle with me, so I decided to walk
to my office. The half a mile took half an hour, but the body parts
other than my ribcage started to loosen up and let me feel human
again, at least until I stepped down off a curb or got jostled by
another citizen in a hurry to make that next appointment.

Inside the lobby of my building, I treated myself to
the slow elevator instead of the stairs. Opening the office door,
some envelopes had come through the mail slot along with the junk
circulars. Not surprisingly, the envelopes had canceled stamps or
postage-meter markings on them.

All except one, that is.

I processed the regular mail and pitched the
circulars, then turned the maverick around and over a few times. Just
a plain white, business-sized envelope. No address—or return
address—but sealed and very light in weight.

I opened it. There was a single sheet of photocopy
paper, folded perfectly in threes, an image centered on one side when
I smoothed the paper out. The image was of a xeroxed phone message
from a pad like the one I'd seen at the reception desk of Epstein &
Neely, the generic information printed, the specific in precise
handwriting. It read:

To; DML
From: Ms.
Barber
Tel #: (617) 513-1944
DATE/TIME; September 3rd, 9:51 A.M.
MESSAGE:
Please call her ASAP

Then, under the acronym for "as soon as
possible," there was scrawled a second message, in different,
seemingly hurried handwriting and at a forty-five-degree angle to the
vertical.
It read:

WWG,
Got a closing.
Can you call her back?
DML

I went over the xeroxed image again. It was dated
seven weeks before, or almost six weeks before Woodrow Gant died.
"DWL" had to be Deborah Ling's initials, and "WWG"
Gant's. But the exchange was the same as the law firm's, and the name
"Barber" came up again. The temp Patricia had used it when
she interrupted Ling and me the first time I'd visited Epstein &
Neely. And the same name was repeated by Imogene Burbage at the
reception desk the prior Friday. In her office, Ling had said Barber
was just one of Woodrow Gant's divorce clients anxious to sell a
marital home. Which made sense at the time.

If Ling had been telling me the truth, that is. Which
she hadn't always.

Then I looked at the photocopied message as a whole
and thought about who might have slipped the envelope through my mail
slot. I came up with a pretty good candidate, but I used the
telephone first.

After dialing the number on the message, I heard two
rings and then "Kim Baker."

"I'm sorry," I said. "I thought this
was Ms. Barber's number."

Some breathing on the other end before, "Who is
this, please?"

"I'm returning Ms. Barber's call."

More breathing. "Call for whom?"

I said, "Woodrow Gant at Epstein & Neely."

More breathing still, then just a hang-up.

I dialed again, but nobody answered this time, and no
tape machine or voice mail had kicked in after ten rings.

Opening the drawer of my
desk that held the photo album, I took out my reverse phone directory
and ran down the number.

* * *

The small office building on lower State Street was
just a coin toss from Boston's elevated Central Artery that, once
depressed, will no longer be a "pedestrian-flow barrier"
between the Quincy Market area and our waterfront. I didn't have to
look at the lobby directory for "Harborview Realty Company":