Mean Streak (26 page)

Which was true, in a way. It was hard for me to understand the degree to which Judge de Freitas was committed to his rock-solid belief in Lazarus's integrity, even in the face of the contrary evidence I'd received from Dom Di Blasi. But then, Di Blasi, like me, was a Brooklyn barbarian who'd gone to the wrong schools and didn't belong to the right clubs.

“Dom Di Blasi's pissed off as hell about your defection,” I mused aloud, “but I still think he'd be willing to cut you a deal if you'd help him nail Lazarus. If you want, I can talk to him.”

“Don't do me any favors,” Singer said. “And close the door on your way out.”

I closed the door and marched out of her office with my head held high and proud, as if I'd actually accomplished something. I guessed I had, if only in a negative way. I now knew that Singer was living in a state of denial that would end only when she realized that this was one situation Judge de Freitas wasn't going to be able to ignore in the name of Southern District gentility. Someone's head was going to be on the chopping block, and Singer wasn't going to admit that head would be hers until it came time for her to kneel down in front of the executioner. And by then it would be too late to cut deals.

I walked out the back door, the one Nick Lazarus had exited from the night Eddie Fitz died. I walked along the little back street that separated the federal buildings from the venerable civil courthouse at 60 Centre Street. When I came to the alleyway between the Federal Correction Center and the church, I stopped and turned toward the plaza.

Man and women hustled through the alley, going to and from the public buildings. A tiny stream of people turned into the gated side entrance to the church's meeting room; a little wooden sign with the letters AA carved into it hung on the gate. I tried not to stare, wondering what I'd do if I recognized any of the city workers who were spending their lunch hour in the dark, dingy room.

I stood at a spot on the sidewalk where I had a clear view of the alleyway, but I didn't step onto the flagstones. I let my eyes travel to the huge red metal sculpture, which was straight ahead.

Okay. I was Nick Lazarus, leaving the office after a long night's work. I just happened to glance to my left as I walked toward Centre Street. I could see the sculpture—could I see Davia Singer waiting in its shadow?

The sun was high and bright and hot; it was hard to picture the way the now-crowded plaza would have appeared at night. But there were lights mounted on poles. I decided Lazarus could have had a good view of his assistant waiting for her lover. Could he, I wondered, have seen Stan Krieger as well, waiting at police headquarters?

I swiveled my head. No. Too many buildings in the way. Then I walked to a closer spot on the pavement. Still no. I walked into the alleyway. For Lazarus to have spotted Stan, he'd have had to walk almost to the end of the church—and if he'd done that, Singer would have seen him.

Next question: Could Lazarus have seen Riordan, who was in the doorway of the little church?

Again, not unless he'd walked almost to where Singer stood beside the sculpture.

I kept walking until I reached the side entrance to the federal courthouse, then continued on to the steps leading to the columned portico where Eddie had died.

Lazarus could easily have slipped past the alleyway, walked up the steps, met and shot Eddie, then walked back down and headed for the subway at Canal Street. While the others waited in their appointed places, he could have—

I stopped cold. A man behind me grunted and moved around me without a word. I looked back toward the corrugated building where Lazarus and Singer worked.

Why was I playing games at ground level, trying to figure out what Lazarus could have seen from the sidewalk, when his office commanded an eagle's eye view of the entire plaza?

If he'd been the mysterious faxer who'd lured Krieger and Riordan to the scene of the crime, he could have determined that they were in their appointed places before he ever left his office. And he could have seen that Singer was in her established place by the sculpture waiting for Eddie Fitz, just as she had been on the other nights they'd worked late.

With all his pieces in place, the chessmaster could have sidled up the courthouse steps and ambushed Eddie Fitz at the top of the stairs. He could have pulled him behind the stone columns, taken out a gun and blown his star witness's head half off, then walked back down to catch his train.

I stood at the top of the steps, slightly winded from the quick climb. I looked down at the busy sidewalk below. My eyes traveled across the street to the many-windowed federal building where Warren Zebart had an office.

Could the Z-man have been the anonymous faxer? Could he have placed the chess pieces in the plaza and then strolled across the street to blow away Eddie Fitz?

Sure, he could have, I decided. But why would he?

I decided to postpone my impromptu conference with Lani and stroll across Centre Street to the FBI man's lair and find out.

He looked up with a scowl when I entered the big room with the file-laden desks. “Can't you just go to court like other lawyers?” he asked. “Do I have to see you every time I look up?”

“Anything new on Eddie's murder?” I said, sliding into the chair at the side of the big man's desk. “I know you took the case away from the city cops,” I went on. “So what are the preliminary findings?”

“Anything that can be made public,” Zebart replied, “will be in the newspapers. Anything not in the newspapers is not for public consumption.”

“I remind you, Agent Zebart that I am not just a member of the public. I am an attorney representing a man you've chosen to treat as a suspect.”

“Get a subpoena, you'll get the information,” the agent said, ostentatiously turning his attention back to the paperwork on his desk.

“I guess that means that whatever you've turned up doesn't point to Riordan as the killer,” I remarked. “If it did, I'm sure you'd be only too pleased to rub my nose in it.”

“When I'm ready to move against your client, Counselor,” the agent promised, “you'll be the first to know.”

I didn't like that
when
. I didn't like it at all. “Don't tell me Matt's gun matched the bullets you pulled out of Eddie's body,” I said, not bothering to conceal the note of very real fear in my voice. I didn't think for a minute Matt would be stupid enough to shoot Eddie Fitz and then walk around carrying the murder weapon, but I couldn't think what else would have filled the agent's voice with such rich self-satisfaction.

“It might interest you to know,” Zebart said, “that we compared the bullets we found in Detective Fitzgerald with the slugs that killed TJ and Nunzie Aiello. And we got a nice match on the bullets that killed TJ, even with the mushrooming. I always said your client had a good strong motive for that shooting. But he made a mistake keeping the gun and using it again. It would have been smarter to ditch it. But he didn't, and I'm going to find that gun if it's the last thing I do. It won't be long before I'll be at Matt Riordan's fancy office with a warrant for his arrest.”

C
HAPTER
F
OURTEEN

Courthouses have back corridors, secret passageways, an underground railroad of connecting points that lead from chambers to private elevators to those rear doors in the courtroom that judges pop in and out of like black-robed jacks-in-the-box. I knew my own back roads, in the courthouses of Brooklyn, like the proverbial back of my hand—but this was Manhattan, and I was lost.

I had turned left three times. I was totally convinced that one more left turn would take me to Judge de Freitas' chambers. It didn't. Instead, the turn stranded me in a cul-de-sac with a window that faced onto the Chinese park behind the Criminal Court building.

It was a Chinese park because across the narrow street stood Chinatown. I looked out the window; kids played in the dusty little park; old people with wrinkled faces and almond eyes sat on the benches, dressed for winter in spite of the July heat. A band started playing a long, slow tune with lots of trumpets. I craned my neck; sure enough, a white sedan laden with flowers proceeded along the street. It was followed by people on foot, dressed in white; on the car a giant blowup photo reminded the mourners of the man they were on their way to bury. The Chinese mourned in white; I wondered idly if they wore black to weddings.

“Lost, Counselor?” a voice said in my ear. I jumped; I hadn't heard footsteps.

The voice was familiar, but it wasn't until I turned that I saw it was Nick Lazarus.

I wasn't about to admit to Lazarus that I couldn't handle his courthouse. “Just taking in the view,” I replied. “There's a Chinese funeral out there,” I added for good measure.

He shrugged. “There's always a Chinese funeral,” he said. Then he added with a wry smile, “Either that or an Italian feast.”

I'd wanted to see him. I'd wanted to confront him, truth be told. But I didn't want to do it unprepared. I didn't want to do it on his turf.

I wanted to do it when I thought I could win.

This wasn't the time.

This wasn't the place.

“Speaking of funerals,” I said, “there've been quite a few connected with this case, haven't there?”

“You mean Eddie, I suppose,” he replied, then added with a frown, “And that cop who killed himself. What was his name?”

That did it.
What was his name
?

“Dwight Straub,” I said. Loudly, clearly, with more than a touch of ice in my tone. “His name was Dwight Straub. And I was thinking of him, but not just him. There's TJ as well. I'm not sure anyone gave TJ much of a funeral; I wouldn't be surprised if they rowed him out to Hart Island and dumped him in a pauper's grave. They still do that, you know,” I added conversationally, “put people in pauper's graves. There's still a Potter's Field on this little island, up in the Bronx.”

“As long as you're saying
kaddish
for the dead, Ms. Jameson,” Lazarus countered, his thin voice sharp, “you might remember Nunzie Aiello. They buried him from a little church in Brooklyn. I remember because I was there. You might think Nunzie would have had a Mob funeral, all black limos and white lilies, but you'd be wrong. He had his mother and his Aunt Marie and his retarded brother, Vito, and me. That's it. That's all the people who stepped forward to remember Nunzie Aiello. Frankie Cretella wasn't there, Matt Riordan wasn't there. Now, Nunzie wasn't what you'd call much of a citizen, but for my money, he deserved better than that. But you give your loyalty to the Mob, you give it to rats. You give it to people who use you up and throw you away.”

“The way you used up Eddie Fitz?” I said. I said it softly, but I let the challenge hang in the air.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” His voice wasn't raised. It was inflectionless. But Lazarus wasn't a man who used obscenities unless he was seriously rattled. He prided himself on being a gentleman. So my heart leapt a little when he lapsed into the F-word; I had struck a nerve.

“I'm talking about Eddie the ambitious little sleazebag. First he rides the gold shield express to the top of the heap as a narcotics detective, then he lives off the fat of the land, and as soon as he sees that it's all going to come crashing down on his head, he runs to you and cuts a deal. A deal that had him in the witness box while all his buddies stood to warm a seat at the defense table. He used you and you used him.”

Lazarus looked at me with the air of a man giving his enemy enough rope. He was letting me talk for only one reason: to find out how much I knew.

I only hoped I knew enough.

I plunged ahead. “You overlooked the corruption he was into because you wanted the convictions he could make. You even overlooked the sudden disappearance of TJ; with him out of the way you thought Eddie could withstand even the kind of cross Matt Riordan could put him through.”

“I've already told the court that I evaluated this TJ as a low-level drug dealer with a motive to incriminate Detective Fitzgerald. I saw no reason to give credence to anything a man like that had to say.”

“But you told Eddie Fitz he'd come to see you,” I guessed. The scenario became clearer and more convincing as I voiced my suspicions aloud. Zebart was wrong—Matt hadn't eliminated TJ. Stan Krieger had, and then used the same gun to kill Eddie Fitz.

“You'd have to,” I continued. “You'd have to see what Eddie would have to say. But what you were really doing was fingering TJ, telling Eddie that unless he got TJ out of the way, the whole thing was going to explode in both your faces.”

“This is preposterous,” Lazarus said, going into bluster mode.

“Is it?” I returned. “If you hadn't told Eddie that TJ came to see you, Eddie and his cop friends wouldn't have stuffed TJ's body into the trunk of that car. You as much as told Eddie what he had to do to be safe from TJ. And Eddie did it, and you thought you were safe.”

“Ms. Jameson,” Lazarus began, his tone patronizing, “this is patently—”

“But then I showed up with the tape TJ made across the river,” I finished, raising my voice to cut through his polite protestations. “Which led to Judge de Freitas' asking questions about you and TJ. And since we know how loyal the late Eddie Fitz was to his friends, it was clear to you that Eddie was less dangerous dead than alive.”

“I can see why you're such an effective trial lawyer, Ms. Jameson,” the prosecutor remarked. “You have the kind of imagination that sways juries. Fortunately, Judge de Freitas is not a man who responds well to emotional appeals. You'll need solid facts for the judge, and since I had nothing to do with Eddie's death, there are no such facts.”

“Is that a negative pregnant?” I asked, using a legal term of art I hadn't thought about since my law school days. “Are you denying you killed Eddie, but admitting you had TJ eliminated?” Perhaps the trigger man wasn't Krieger, but Lazarus himself.