Mean Streak (22 page)

“What do you want to do about them?” I asked Matt.

“I don't mind telling them I was here,” Matt replied. “For one thing, someone may have seen me. Why get myself hung up if I don't have to? Might as well cooperate.”

But when we walked back toward the table where Rodney and Lam waited, we discovered they'd been joined by a third law enforcement officer: FBI Special Agent Warren Zebart.

Zebart was all iron fist; if he'd ever owned a velvet glove, he'd mislaid it years ago.

“For a lawyer,” he said heavily to Matt, “you sure as hell don't like letting the system do its job.”

I gestured to Matt to keep quiet, but he pretended not to notice. “Just what do you mean by that?” he demanded.

“I mean it's amazing to me how many cases in which you're involved end up closed on account of murder.”

Matt shrugged. “When you represent a certain type of individual,” he replied, “murder is just part of the package.”

I tuned out for a dangerous minute as the full implication of Zebart's remarks sank in.

Closed on account of murder
.

You can't cross-examine a corpse
.

The case against Riordan was effectively over. Judge de Freitas would have no choice but to grant my motion for a mistrial; without a full opportunity to cross-examine Eddie Fitz, Riordan couldn't get a fair trial. And with Eddie dead, there would be no retrial.

I'd just won the case.

And Matt's motive to kill Eddie loomed as large as the massive Municipal Building that overshadowed the plaza.

“Stop,” I said, holding up a warning hand. “Whatever you two are saying to one another, please stop.”

Of course Riordan was way ahead of me. He'd understood from the moment I'd told him Eddie was dead that this meant he'd be acquitted. I'd still been in shock from the grisly discovery I'd made at the top of the stairs. I hadn't been parsing out the legal implications of a New York City detective with his brains splattered all over the white granite of the federal courthouse.

“You,” I said to Zebart, putting a finger closer to his face than politeness permitted, “stop interrogating my client. I haven't heard Miranda warnings, and yet it's obvious you consider him a suspect. Either arrest him or leave him alone.”

Then I wheeled on Riordan. “And you,” I continued, moving the finger in his direction, “shut up. Stop showing everyone how cool you are in the face of intimidation. These people, in case you've forgotten, are not jurors you have to impress. They're law enforcement officers who'd like nothing more than to march you away in handcuffs.”

I took a deep breath and looked up at the top of the courthouse steps. Bright yellow crime-scene tape surrounded a large square area; the cops had brought blue sawhorses for crowd control. The reporters and minicams had arrived; they stood at the foot of the stairs, waiting for someone to come down and give them sound bites.

“One thing about working for the Bureau,” Zebart said with a wolfish grin, “they've got one hell of a support staff. Anything you ask for, you can get in record time.”

I wasn't sure where the big FBI man was going with this, but the complacent look on his face told me it wasn't going to be anywhere I wanted him to go. I was certain of this when he pulled an official-looking paper out of his jacket pocket and handed it to me.

“What's this?” I asked. I opened it, read it, and handed it to Matt.

“It's a search warrant,” I said in a tone dulled by shock. “It authorizes Agent Zebart to search you for a weapon.”

Matt opened his silk-lined suit jacket to reveal a shoulder holster. Zebart reached in and gingerly pulled out the sleek black gun in a practiced two-fingered hold that was designed to preserve any fingerprints.

“We'll just take this along to the lab,” the agent said. “See if it's been fired recently, see if the bullets match the ones that blew Detective Fitzgerald's head to bits.”

I felt like a prize idiot. Why hadn't I asked my client if he'd come armed to the plaza the night before?

Was it because I was afraid to hear the answer, afraid to acknowledge that Matt's rage at Eddie Fitz could very easily have driven him to the top of the courthouse steps? That to a man who viewed a criminal trial as nothing less than war, acquittal wasn't victory enough?

Only death would do.

“I'm not getting your point,” Lani protested. I'd broken through the gantlet of reporters and made my way to her office for a little coffee and sympathy. Coffee, I had. Sympathy, I was still waiting for. “The ballistics people will test Matt's gun and they'll realize it's not the one that killed Eddie, so what's the problem?”

“Lani, don't be naive. Of course Matt's gun didn't kill Eddie. At least,” I amended, “the gun he carried in that holster didn't.”

“I repeat, if Matt's gun didn't kill Eddie, then—”

“Matt Riordan is one of the smartest people I've ever met,” I retorted. “Of course he's not going to kill the chief witness against him and then carry a smoking gun around with him the next day. If he killed Eddie, then he did it with another gun. A gun that can't be traced to him. A gun he got rid of as soon as he used it. A gun that—”

“Why wouldn't he just throw the gun down next to the body?” Lani asked. “I've heard of Mafia guys doing that. They use an untraceable gun and then just leave it for the cops, knowing it won't do them any good.”

“Hell, maybe the killer
did
toss the gun,” I replied glumly. “I wouldn't be surprised if someone saw it lying there and stole it.” Then I remembered Eddie's ankle holster. It would be hard to accept a thief stealing the murder weapon and leaving a perfectly good gun on the corpse.

“So the FBI has Matt's gun,” Lani persisted. “It'll come back clean, and Matt will be in the clear.”

“Your simple faith is so touching,” I remarked. “In the first place, who's to say the Bureau isn't going to fudge the results to nail Matt? But even if they don't, Zebart stood there in the open plaza and searched him. They treated him like a mutt. I know at least one of the reporters saw what they were doing. I won't be surprised to see pictures spread over the front page of the
Post
. If they can't destroy Matt with real evidence, in a courtroom, they can ruin him in the media. How many people want a criminal defense lawyer who's been searched in public by an FBI agent?”

“You don't think his future clients will feel a bond with a man who's been the victim of mistaken suspicion?”

“I do not. And neither do you, if you think about it. Hell, Frankie Cretella already has a new lawyer, and I don't think he's coming back to Matt no matter what happens.”

“So even though you've won,” Lani summed up, “you've lost.”

“And you can finish that thought and say you told me so,” I went on. “You can remind me that you warned me I'd be tarred with the same brush if I defended Matt. You can—”

“What I
can
do,” my old friend said in a tone that could slice day-old pumpernickel, “is let you in on the latest courthouse gossip about Nick Lazarus. That ought to put the roses back in your cheeks.”

“Only if the latest courthouse gossip says that Nick Lazarus walked out of his office late last night packing a gun and used it to blow away his star witness,” I retorted.

“Almost as good,” Lani promised. I perked up. She sat at her desk in a characteristic pose, nyloned feet propped up on an opened drawer, Bass loafers on the floor beside the desk. Her dark hair was an uncombed mop; she raked her short fingers through it, making an even bigger mess, then began her tale.

“Word is that Lazarus threw one of his famous shit-fits last night,” she said. “The whole courthouse heard him. Or at least,” she amended, “those who were still here at about ten or so. Which, before you ask,” she added, holding up a warning hand, “didn't include me. I was home in the bosom of my little family.”

“How is Lil?” I asked. Lani's lover was a civil court judge.

“She's fine,” Lani said. “Now stop interrupting and listen. This is going to make your day.”

I complied. A kind of calm settled over me, the first peace I'd felt since I'd stumbled upon Eddie's corpse that morning. I'd get through this, I decided; I had friends, and with friends all things were possible.

“I heard he ripped Singer up one side and down the other for not telling him about Eddie—and that she screamed back that he'd known all along and if he thought he was going to hang it all on her, he had another think coming because she had contemporaneous notes.” Lani gave a conspiratorial grin and said in a wry voice, “Isn't it amazing to hear a fight between lawyers? Even when we're threatening one another, we do it within the rules of evidence. ‘Contemporaneous notes,'” she mocked, “‘past recollection recorded.' As if in the very moment she's defending herself against Lazarus, she's got one eye on admissibility of evidence.”

“Well, hell,” I protested, “there's every reason to think this will end up in court. And Singer's too smart not to realize Lazarus would try to dump it all on her. I can hear him now: ‘Your Honor, I didn't know what my assistant was up to. I never would have countenanced such a thing if I'd been informed.'”

“Well, in any case, it was a shouting match that was heard three floors away. And the upshot of it was that Lazarus started screaming that he ought to indict Eddie for perjury.”

“There's a three hundred and sixty degree turn for you,” I observed. “Lazarus indicts his star witness.”

“That would be one way to distance himself from Eddie's corruption,” Lani suggested. “It would be telling the world he didn't approve of Eddie's lies, and that he didn't cover them up.”

“But it would also open a huge can of worms,” I argued. “Judge de Freitas would take the U.S. attorney's office apart, making sure there was nothing in there that pointed to Lazarus or Singer's having known the truth about Eddie. No judge wants to be made a fool of, and if Lazarus put Eddie on the stand knowing he was a liar and a scumbag, de Freitas is going to flay Lazarus alive. What Mart's just been through will look like a Sunday school picnic,” I added, with more than a touch of relish.

“There is, believe it or not, more,” Lani said. She smiled, and her plain face lit up with mischief. “I was going to tell you this earlier, but I didn't get a chance. I wasn't sure what you could do with it, but I thought you ought to know, anyway. Guess who was shacked up with Eddie every night?”

“Not Davia Singer!” I was genuinely shocked. When will women lawyers learn not to sleep with witnesses?

Then I dropped my eyes, remembering Matt and me the night before.

When we learn not to sleep with defendants
, I answered myself in a rueful inner voice.

Lani nodded. “And my sources tell me this had been going on for a while. They also tell me Eddie, who you may recall was married, was about to break it off, and that Singer was pissed as hell. I'm not sure it qualifies as a
Fatal Attraction
situation, but it is nice and messy.”

“So that's who Singer was waiting for by the sculpture,” I mused aloud. “She must have stood there every night, waiting for Lazarus to let Eddie go home. Then the two of them would waltz off to her place and—”

“And do the horizontal mambo,” Lani finished. “Like I said, I don't know how this helps, but—”

“Does she have a gun?”

“She
could
,” Lani pointed out. “U.S. attorneys are authorized to carry weapons. And I know Lazarus has one; remember, he was attacked a few years ago, and went very public about buying a gun and learning how to use it.”

I nodded. So now we not only had four suspects wandering through Police Plaza the night Eddie died, all four of them had the right to carry a weapon—and the means to find a weapon that couldn't be traced to them. And they each had motives: Lazarus would find it considerably less messy to kill Eddie than to indict him; Singer was the classic dumped woman; Krieger knew Eddie could send him to jail; and Matt Riordan wanted not just to win his case, but to destroy his enemies.

I made a token visit to Judge de Freitas' chambers on the way out of the courthouse. He'd adjourned the case to give the prosecution time to respond to my motion to dismiss, but there was little real doubt that with Eddie dead he'd have no choice but to throw out the charges against Matt. We hadn't finished cross-examination, and without a full cross, Matt wouldn't have received the fair trial guaranteed by the Constitution.

Afterwards, I dragged myself back to Brooklyn, emotionally and physically exhausted. I walked into the Morning Glory and told my troubles to Dorinda—who began explaining to me why I shouldn't be upset that Riordan had deserted me for his lemon-haired lady the night before.

“Stop pouring oil on troubled waters,” I muttered, poking a newly unwrapped straw into my cherry milkshake. “I
like
my waters troubled.”

“Yes, but how do you like the milkshake?” Dorinda countered, her hands on her hips. Her apron sported giant shadow-print cherries on a sky-blue background. It was one of her many Lassie's-mom vintage aprons.

“Sweet,” I replied after a hefty swallow. “And thick. It's hard work to get this stuff through the straw.”

“I think you have a piece of cherry stuck in the bottom,” she remarked with an air of expertise. “That happens a lot with fresh cherry shakes.”

I was drinking a cherry milkshake in honor of the Morning Glory's Second Annual Cherry Festival. Dorinda had grown up in the lakeside town of Traverse City, Michigan, and she had fond memories of her hometown's annual early July homage to the red fruit. She had drawn the line at serving the cherry meatballs that had won her mom a third prize one year in the entree category, but her menu overflowed with cherry shakes, sundaes, pies, tarts, danishes, muffins, and scones. She had even mashed up a cherry-and-cream cheese concoction for spreading on a bagel, and she had tried to interest me in a cherry-flavored iced tea instead of my usual iced coffee. Fat chance.