The Shadow Man (25 page)

And when he’d replied, ‘That’s right. You did,’ she lapsed into an electric quiet, as if the interior of the car was vibrating, but there was no sound. He tried to search within himself for some other words to say to her, but was unable to find any, so remained silent. Once, she gasped, and he’d turned to make sure she was all right, only to see her shake her head and stare out at the glow of the city lights as they swept past.

At her house he’d stood on the doorstep, asking her, ‘Are you all right? Are you sure you’re all right? Should I call someone? You gonna be okay alone?’ listening to her reply that she was fine, and all the time wanting to step inside the apartment with her, and being unable to. Like a goddamn teenager on a first date, he berated himself. Maybe the worst first date in the history of the world. Again he muttered an expletive and opened his eyes. He enched a fist and raised it in front of his face. ‘You going to hit me, or are you saving that for my client?’

Walter Robinson followed the sound of the voice and

looked up at the man speaking. He was a lanky, curly—

headed man with a ready grin at the corners of his mouth

that contradicted an intensity in his eyes. He wore jeans

and running shoes without socks and a white knit sport

shirt that had a stain on it, and Robinson knew he’d

hurried from his bed to get to the hospital. But the attorney

also had a loose-limbed insouciance in the way he leaned

up against the hallway wall across from the detective,

placing himself where there had only been shadows a few moments beforehand.

‘Hello, Tommy,’ Robinson said slowly. ‘What are you doing here?’ He knew the answer to this question, but asked it anyway.

Thomas Alter was about the same age as Walter Robinson. The detective figured they probably would have been friends if he were not a senior assistant in the County Public Defender’s Office, which made him and all the local homicide detectives natural adversaries. One rarely becomes overly fond of people whose job it is to rip and rend one’s work in the protected cloister of the criminal courtroom. Respect, certainly. Often a sort of grudging acknowledgment that they were all part of the same machinelike process. But a genuine affection was impossible.

‘I’m here to make certain that our Mr Jefferson receives proper medical treatment, which doesn’t include giving you a statement until he’s had time to speak with his attorney, which, for better or for worse, happens to be yours truly.’

‘He’s not our Mr Jefferson….’

‘All right. My Mr Jefferson

‘Come on, Tommy. He needs to be arraigned, make a statement of indigency before you get him. In the meantime, if he wants to talk to me …’

‘Yes, ordinarily, yes, Walt. Correct. But not this time. Jefferson was in court just under a week ago on a lousy possession charge, which the state intends to drop because I eviscerated the search warrant. But they haven’t got around to doing it officially, so, Walt, old buddy, I am still attorney of record. There you have it. You cannot speak to him without me or someone from my office present at all times. Got it?’

‘If he wants to—’

‘At all times. You read him his rights, and I’m telling you he isn’t waiving any of them.’

Thomas Alter continued to smile, but his voice had lost any lightness.

Robinson shrugged, trying to hide the irritation that ricocheted about within him.

‘At all times,’ Alter repeated. ‘Got that, Walt?’

‘Yes.’

‘That means around the clock. Twenty-four hours. Seven days a week.’

‘Don’t you trust me, Tommy?’

‘No.’

‘Good. Because I don’t trust you either.’

Alter smiled wanly. ‘Well, then I suppose we’re even.’

‘Nope. The one thing we’ll never be is even, because I wouldn’t be here trying to protect a scumbag like Jefferson.’

‘Right. I guess not. Too moral for that, huh?’ Alter’s voice had a mocking sarcasm attached to it. ‘So how you doing, otherwise? Rough night, I hear…’

‘I would say so.’

‘Too bad about the guy who got shot. Friend of yours?’

“No. Not really.’

Alter nodded. ‘Is Espy okay?’

Robinson hesitated, then replied, ‘Sure. Maybe a little shaky, but she’s fine.’

‘Good. She’s not like some of the sonsofbitches in that office. She’s reasonable. Tough but reasonable. And pretty too. Glad she didn’t buy it out there in the jungle. Sounds like a close call. Wouldn’t go near the King Apartments, personally. Especially after dark. What was she doing out there anyway?’

Robinson didn’t reply.

The young public defender looked over at the detective. He smiled. ‘Go to bed, Walter. You look tired. This mess will still be waiting for you later. In fact, it’s gonna be around for a while.’

Robinson rose. He looked across at Alter, who continued to lean back against the wall. The lawyer glanced down the hallway toward a pair of uniformed officers who sat outside the recovery room. The two cops were watching the detective.

‘Tell’em,Walt.’

‘Fuck you, Tommy.’

Alter grinned again, but his eyes were hard. ‘No,’ he said quietly, ‘fuck you, Walter.’

He raised his voice and called out loudly: ‘Get this. No one talks to Jefferson except authorized medical personnel and representatives from the Dade County Public Defender’s Office! And when you finish your shift, you make sure your replacements know. You got that?’

The words echoed in the corridor, and the two cops stared blankly toward Walter Robinson, who reluctantly nodded.

‘Well, thanks, Walt,’ Alter said briskly. ‘But I think I’ll still tape an order to his door.’ The lawyer removed a letter with the seal of the P.D.’s office on it. ‘Same letter being delivered to the arraignment judge and to Espy Martinez and her fucking boss Lasser, this a.m.,’ he added.

‘You covering all the bases, Tommy?’

Alter glared at Robinson. ‘You think it would be the first time we represented some poor fuck who got the mistaken impression that a homicide detective was his last, greatest, and only true friend in the entire fucking world, and promptly ran his mouth and his ass right onto Death Row? You think it would be the first time some homicide detective that maybe didn’t have the strongest case in the

world walked into court and got up on the stand and swore to tell the whole fucking truth and said, “Yes sir, Your Honor, the defendant orally waived every fucking constitutional right and then confessed to that murder to me. Privately, yes sir, no problem …”? Well, you know what, Walter?’

‘What’s that, Tommy?’

‘It ain’t happening this time.’

Robinson felt drained. He wanted fresh air, hoping for a steady breeze that perhaps might carry him like a sailor adrift, home, to his own bed. He abruptly felt like a man at the end of an all-night poker game, who looks down and sees his stake has dwindled and the cards in front of him are nothing but a useless bluff.

Still, he couldn’t resist adding an angry statement: ‘You

know, Tommy, this is a bad dude. He’s a junkie and a

psychopath and a bad-ass. He’s gonna go down. Don’t

you already have a couple of clients on the Row? How

many. Tommy? Two? Three?’

‘Just one,’ Alter whispered bitterly.

‘Really, Tommy? I could have sworn you used to have more….’ ‘

‘Yeah. I did.’

“Oh, right. I remember. I guess we’d just have to say that one of those clients just fell prey to natural attrition, huh, Tommy? Doesn’t that sound like a nice and safe and eeasonable way to describe someone being strapped into an electric chair?’ ‘Fuck you, Walter.’

‘He was a cop-killer, right, Tommy?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Not much sympathy in the legal system for cop-killers, huh’ That was a tough closing for that jury, wasn’t it?

Trying to make twelve people feel downright nice and cozy

with some bastard that stuck a gun in an undercover cop’s mouth after making him strip naked and told him he had enough time for one prayer, right? One prayer before dying, wasn’t that what the bastard said? But then he pulled the trigger before the cop even got half the Our Father out… Wasn’t that the case, Tommy?’

‘You know it.’

‘Well, my guess is you’ve already started working on your closing for Jefferson’s jury, huh, Tommy? You got something special in mind that maybe explains the really good reason why that rat bastard had to strangle a little old lady? And I’d say our Mr Jefferson is right lucky that all he did tonight was ruin a cop’s arm and his career. But it doesn’t make a difference, does it?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Because he’s going to the same place.’

‘Death Row? Don’t count on it, Detective.’

‘No. I meant Hell.’

‘Don’t count on it,’ Thomas Alter repeated coldly. Now even the corners of his mouth had lost the crinkle of familiarity, replaced with a hard-edged coolness that Walter Robinson recognized from a dozen cross-examinations. He felt out of control, like a car skidding on a rain-slick highway. He knew Alter was a formidable opponent and angering him was a mistake. But he continued, letting all the night’s exhaustions and frustrations guide his responses.

‘No, Tommy. Bet the house. That’s where he’s headed.’

‘Maybe so. But not on this piece of shit case.’

‘Really? I got motive, I got opportunity, I got an after-the-fact accomplice and I got an eyewitness at the scene, and I got fifty says you are just totally fucking wrong, counselor.’

Robinson tried to hold his tongue, but could not.

Exhaustion and frustration pummeled him, forcing him to blurt out information that he knew he should have kept to himself.

‘Really?’ The attorney imitated Robinson’s voice. ‘And you’re covered, Detective.’

‘Well, we’ll see, won’t we.’

‘That’s right, Walter. We’ll see.’

The two men glared at each other. Alter spoke first.

‘You know they saved his leg. But that’s it. Just saved it. He’ll maybe walk about a bit, but that leg ain’t never gonna

work no more like it used to___’ The lawyer slipped into

a familiar street talk, as if to diminish the seriousness of what he was saying.

‘Breaks my fucking heart,’ Robinson replied.

‘Yes. Well, I wouldn’t expect a man who’s going to spend the rest of his life in pain and limping about to cooperate a whole helluva lot with the folks that did that to him.’

‘We don’t need his cooperation. All we need is for him to take his rightful spot on Death Row.’

Alter smiled again. ‘You couldn’t be more mistaken, Walter.’ He spoke with the overblown confidence of a snake-oil salesman.

Robinson shook his head and turned his back, thought it was almost morning, and if he were fortunate, the sun would just be rising over the edge of the Beach as he drove over the causeway to his apartment, filling the air around him with blades of clear light, slicing away all the stale anger of the night passed, allowing him to think freely about Espy Martinez.

For two days she had been the toast of the State Attorney’s Office. Toughness in a courtroom was one thing; toughness in the real world gained a completely different level of

respect. The other assistants had busied themselves with a search through a variety of nicknames - Deadeye, Quick-draw, Make My Day Martinez - trying to find one that might stick.

Even Abraham Lasser had made one of his rare pilgrimages from his own office through the warren of desks and cubicles to applaud Espy Martinez on her success, which was an odd thing, when she thought about it; her boss, her coworkers, all congratulating her for not being shot and killed. Lasser had stuck his wiry-haired head around the corner of her door and sang out in a creaky voice: ‘Ahh, the young Annie Oakley, I presume?’ And then, after shaking her hand and clapping her on the back, lifting her arm up like some fighter in a championship ring, he whispered to her that she should make certain that she nailed Leroy Jefferson to the maximum, a penalty he did not have to spell out for all listening. Then, later that day, he had circulated a memo throughout the office, praising Espy Martinez for her quick-thinking - though she did wonder idly what she had managed to think quickly about - and reminding all the other assistants that they too were sworn law enforcement officers and should arm themselves appropriately, at appropriate moments, so they could take appropriate action, under appropriate circumstances, after using appropriate judgment, as she had. He did not define what he meant by appropriate.

Espy Martinez enjoyed the attention, let it distract her from what she was doing. When Walter Robinson called her, she felt a rush of excitement, as if he was the key part of what had taken place.

‘So, Espy, how’re things?’

‘Well, the guys in the office next to me persist in whistling the tune to High Noon every time I walk past. Other than that, things are okay.’

He laughed. He could hear a vibrancy in her voice.

‘We need to get together, start wrapping the case tight.’

‘I know,’ she said. ‘I haven’t been concentrating.’

‘Have you spoken with Tommy Alter?’

‘Not yet. Well, actually, just once. Jefferson was arraigned in absentia. The hospital won’t release him to the jail for another week or so.’

‘I took his fingerprints this morning. Alter was there, but wouldn’t say anything. He just watched. Jefferson looked like he was in pain, which isn’t so bad. Leg’s still in traction, but it goes into a cast tomorrow. The doctor said he’s looking at maybe two, three more operations down the line. I told the doctor it would be a waste of time. Real loud voice, so that Jefferson and Alter could hear me.’

‘That’s cold,’ she said, laughing.

‘Hey, what do they say? All’s fair in love and war, and this sure ain’t one of those things___’

‘What’s next?’

‘Well, I’m taking the prints to be checked. We should be able to put him right in the apartment. I took his mug shot and made a photo lineup and showed it to my bus drivers and they put Jefferson on the right bus at the right time. I’m gonna take the same photo lineup over to Mr Kadosh tomorrow morning. Because the bastard’s in the hospital, a real lineup’s out. Then we have the pawnshop owner to testify to the stolen goods. I filed a truckload of charges on poor old Reginald and young Yolanda too. Most of them were bullshit, but enough to keep the two of them toeing the line. Lion-man will be all over their action anyway, to make sure. The search of the King Apartments didn’t turn up anything from Sophie’s place. He must have dumped it all at the Helping Hand. But still, all in all, it seems pretty right to me.’