Dead Man's Thoughts (24 page)

He paused. I guessed it was my turn to launch into a spurious apology, so I did so. Di Anci had no choice but to accept it, but it was obvious to everyone in the room that neither of us meant a word we were saying.

After Di Anci stormed back into the robing room, I went up to the bridgeman. “I'm sorry, Phil. I didn't mean to get you in trouble.”

“You shouldn't of looked at it, Counselor,” he said in an aggrieved tone. “You know you got no business lookin' over Pete's shoulder like that. It wasn't right.”

“Hey, what can I say?” I told him. “If I'd known Di Anci was going to come down on us like that, I wouldn't have done it. It just came out of the blue.”

“Yeah,” he agreed, “you got a point there. You never know where you stand with that guy. One day he says, ‘Give the fuckin' reports'—oh, excuse my language, Ms. Jameson—‘to the lawyers and don't bother me.' The next day it's, ‘I'm the judge and you can't give 'em nothin' without I say it's okay.' Never know where you stand. Just wish he wouldn't yell on me in front of the whole courtroom. Makes it kinda hard to tell people what they're supposed to do if they seen me get chewed out like that, you know?”

Pete stepped up, finished with the report. “When do you think you'll be able to call it?” he asked.

“We'll bring him down right away. We'll call him after the first calls. Gotta do my first calls first, you know that, Pete.”

Pete, himself a former court officer, nodded. That gave us about half an hour. I suggested coffee. And a long talk about the case.

We went to the New Deal Coffee Shop, across the street from the courthouse. It was small and dingy, the perfect place to duck into for a quick conference.

“Was it worth it?” There was a hardness I didn't like in Pete's tone. Not for the first time, I found myself wishing I was working with Paul. An old friend instead of a disapproving stranger.

I looked straight into his hazel eyes and decided to answer coolness with coolness. Though I felt anything but cool.

“Yes, it was, as a matter of fact. I learned some very interesting things. Like the fact that the nickname ‘Paco' was right there for anybody to see. And his pattern of ripping off his tricks. Not to mention the time he nearly killed one of them, who happened to come upon him when he was about to make off with his cigarette case. All of which information would have been of immense help to whoever framed him.”

He looked at me appraisingly. “Okay. That makes sense. So you think what—that the murderer just happened to read the probation report and called the kid and pretended to be the guy from the job program? How would the murderer know about that, by the way? It's not in the probation report, since they recommended jail.”

“It's noted on the court papers. I saw it when I arraigned Paco. The judge put it down as the reason for the adjournment.”

He nodded. “All right. But it still seems far out to me, that someone would go to all this trouble.”

“Look at it this way. If someone did, then it paid off. The cops never gave a second's thought to any other possibility. Once they knew about Paco, he was nailed. They never gave the Blackwell thing a chance.”

“It's going to be a real bitch to sell to a jury,” Pete said gloomily, staring into his coffee.

So he was human after all, worrying about the coming trial just like any other lawyer. I gave him a smile. “That's why we got the best lawyer we could find,” I said sweetly.

He smiled back. “Flattery will get you everywhere.”

“Everywhere?”

“Well, it's good for a cup of coffee, anyway,” he said, putting a quarter on the table and picking up the check.

Meanwhile, back in the courthouse, the prisoners were down. Pete and I slipped in to the pens without going through the courtroom. One Di Anci tantrum per day is my limit.

Paco stood in a corner, smoking a cigarette. I went over to him. “Hi, Paco. Remember me?” He nodded.

“So what's doin' today?” he asked belligerently. “How come I gotta be in court again? This is the third time this week they wake me up at five in the morning to come to court.”

Pete explained. “This is your sentence date on the old case. The one Mr. Wasserstein represented you on. The other times you were in court were on the murder case. But you won't be back here again. Today you'll be finished on the old case, and from now on you'll be in Supreme Court on the murder. Understand?”

Paco nodded knowingly. “Goin' upstairs. I never been upstairs before.”

“Yeah, well, you're goin' up the hard way, kid.” Pete's voice was harsh. “Most people work their way up to murder. You started at the top.”

Pete talked to Paco for about half an hour. The iron gates clanged open and shut as the other prisoners went into the courtroom and came back again. Pete didn't learn any more than I'd already told him, but I didn't grudge him the right to hear it first-hand. Finally, he turned to me and asked if I had any questions.

I did. “Don't get mad, Paco, but I have to ask you about this. What about the guy you beat up in the Village last year?”

He looked blank. I tried again. “You know, the guy who caught you taking his cigarette case, so you beat the shit out of him.”

The blank look was replaced by a look of animal wariness. “Yeah. Whatchou want to know?”

“I want to know what went down. Why you came down so hard on the guy.”

“Like you said, I took the cigarette case and the dude seen me, so I gotta fight with him. No big deal.”

“No big deal! Paco, you stomped on the guy. He was in the hospital for three weeks. He lost a fuckin'
kidney
. And you're tellin' me no big deal.”

“Yeah, I done time for that. They can't go throwin' that in my face no more. It's finished, man.” As if to prove to himself just how finished it was, he walked away from me, to the other side of the cell.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the court officer assigned to the pen tense up. Next to me Pete murmured something. Probably telling me to leave his client the hell alone.

But I couldn't let myself deal with either of their concerns. The story was another nail in the kid's coffin. Proof that he was a hothead who would strike out viciously when confronted by a ripped-off victim. Unless there was more to the story. Something that would show why he'd attacked that particular guy. Some personal thing between him and Paco which would have no bearing on his relationship with Nathan.

“Paco, listen to me,” I said. “I'm on your side. But that story is a killer. All a jury has to know is that you beat up this guy with no reason, just because he saw you with his stuff, and they'll believe you murdered Nathan for his watch. You want that to happen? You want them to convict you without leaving the fucking
box?
Look, man, you could have hit that guy once and gotten away. Why did you do a number on him?”

“You wanna know?” Paco shrieked, “you really wanna know?” He turned toward me, face contorted. People started rushing into the room. Court officers, lawyers, I recognized Bill Pomerantz. There was a lot of shouting, very little of it making sense. Some of it seemed to be directed at me, trying to get me out of the room before there was trouble. I had no intention of leaving.

“Yeah, I wanna know, Paco,” I shouted back above the din. “I wanna know why you nearly wasted that dude. Did it make you feel like a big man, beatin' up on a faggot?”

“You bitch!” He screamed it with all his might, then turned to the wall, clutching his head in his arms.

The court officer turned on me. “Will you for Christ's sake stop tuning him up! We don't want any trouble in here. Let him get calmed down before you talk to him.”

“I don't want him calmed down,” I said between clenched teeth. “I want him like he is.”

He was about to argue, maybe even throw me out of the pens, when Paco crumpled in his corner, sliding to the floor with his arms still wound around his head. Huge sobs racked his body. He rocked himself back and forth on the hard floor like a blind child.

He cried for about five minutes. Pete and I stood and watched. The court officer hustled everyone else out of the pen. Finally, Paco subsided and in a muffled voice said, “He called me names.”

“What kind of names, Paco?” I asked softly.

“He said I was—” The voice broke. “He called me his lover. Said how could I steal from him when he loved me and I loved him.”

“And that's what made you want to kill him? That he said he loved you?”

Paco raised his tear-stained face. “He ain't supposed to love me,” he said sullenly. “Just fuck with me. I ain't got no men for lovers, that's for sure.”

Well, I had done a wonderful job. For the prosecution. Before we had had a story which could have given a little boost to the theory that Paco had killed Nathan for the gold watch. Now we had Button's theory on a silver platter. Paco had tried to kill one man who thought he could be his lover. What if he thought Nathan felt the same way? I was sick. I'd been trying to help, but all I'd done was make things even worse.

I went back into the courtroom and sat in the first row. I scarcely noticed what was happening at the bench. Paco stood at the counsel table, head bowed, thin wrists clamped into handcuffs. I woke up and paid attention when the sentence was pronounced.

A year. The maximum. And a self-satisfied little smile from Di Anci to tell me it was his way of paying me back for reading the report. Now even if I managed somehow to clear Paco of the murder, he'd still be in jail. And there'd be nothing I could do about it. Di Anci had seen to that.

Only one thing could have made me feel worse. On the way into Supreme Court, I ran into Button. Almost literally. He came bounding out of the revolving door just as I was about to go in.

He was apparently so preoccupied he didn't recognize me, just apologized mechanically. I was about to leave it that way and go right into the building, when he suddenly said, “Oh, it's you.”

“Gee, I love your tone of voice,” I said. “As though you were saying, ‘Oh, there's a roach in my soup!'” I was still pissed off from my encounter with Di Anci. All it would take was a spark from Button to ignite my anger.

He lit the spark. “That kid who killed your friend—wasn't he up for sentence today?”

“He got a year. Which really ought to make your day.” I swung away from him, ready to disappear into the revolving door, when I felt a strong hand grip my arm.

“Look, Miss, I'm getting tired of the attitude you've been copping on this case. I'm not looking to railroad anybody, and I don't need your snide remarks.”

I pulled myself free and faced off against him. “Are you so sure, Detective Button? Are you so damned sure of yourself that you haven't got a single doubt about that kid? Not even now that Del Parma is dead?”

“What the hell has Parma got to do with it?” Button was yelling now. “You trying to give me that shit about the guy hanging himself in prison again? Is that what you're trying to do?”

“Oh, Jesus, I don't know why I bother. You don't see anything you don't want to see. Or maybe it would be too dangerous for you to see it. It's a lot easier to convict some Puerto Rican kid with an 18-b lawyer than to take on a big shot who can afford the best, isn't it? Who knows, there might even be money or a promotion in going along with the frame.”

For a moment I thought he was going to hit me. His fists were clenched, and his mouth was a taut, thin line. White around the edges. Then he laughed, a soft, bitter laugh that scared me. “You white liberals,” he said, “all alike. I got stepped on my whole life in the cops because I was one of Them, because I might be too sympathetic to some poor black kid shot to death by a racist cop. And now I get it from the other side. I'm not liberal enough for Miss Cassandra Jameson. When was the last time someone called you ‘nigger,' lady?”

Well, what do you say to that? If you're smart, nothing. I was smart. He cooled down on his own. “All right,” he said finally. “All right. Let's have this cockamamie theory of yours. All at once. Right now. I'll be as open-minded as hell.”

“Here?” I asked, looking around for the first time at the steps of the courthouse. People had been jostling us for the past three minutes, all but pushing us out of the way to get to the revolving doors.

“Over here,” he said peremptorily, gesturing toward the slabs of stone that flanked the steps. I followed him and sat on the cool stone, trying not to think about what it was doing to my beige pantsuit.

I took care of old business first, refreshing Button's memory about the Stone case. Then I moved on to my talk with Riordan and the confirmation I'd gotten from Jesse Winthrop. As I suspected, Button had read the Winthrop article, but discounted it as the ravings of a mad liberal.

I went on to describe how I'd convinced myself Parma was the murderer. Only now Parma was dead.

Button was suitably impressed. “Jesus, lady, who else you gonna link up to this thing? The mayor?”

“Button, it hangs together,” I protested. “Three people have been killed, and all three were connected with the Stone case.”

“Maybe,” he sighed heavily. “But it still looks like one fag killing, one suicide by a flaky skell, and one subway-pushing. Give me one single piece of evidence, for Christ's sake. Just one!” There was a desperate note in his voice that puzzled me.

Then I understood. He believed me. At least a little. Enough that for him to live up to his own image of what a good cop was he'd have to do something. And he wished he didn't feel that way. I smiled to myself. I knew the feeling.

“About that towel.…” I began. I was partly thinking aloud and partly trying to give him the piece of evidence he wanted.

“Towel?” Button's voice went so high with indignation that it squeaked. “What are you talking about a towel?”