Mortal Allies (31 page)

“No, I don’t.”

“For Chrissakes, Katherine, at least our client’s alive.”

“In a Korean prison cell where he’s been beaten, publicly humiliated, and nearly starved. He’s being accused of the most despicable crimes imaginable and he’s facing a death sentence. Don’t get your sympathies confused, Drummond.”

I might ordinarily have continued arguing, except this wasn’t really a debate, because I’d known before I even uttered my first word exactly how she’d come down. It’s how I’d come down, too, but I guess it made me feel better to force her to be the one to make the hard, bitter decision. She was the lead counsel. I was selfishly exploiting that fact.

She knew that, of course.

I said, “At least they won’t be beating him anymore. With only six days till trial, they won’t want him parading in front of cameras with bruises all over his face.”

“Some consolation,” she mumbled.

“Speaking of which, with only six days left, what the hell are we going to say in court?” I asked, reaching across and taking a sip from her beer. Actually, it was a bit more than a sip. I drained the rest of the mug.

She stared down at her empty stein. “I got a call from the prosecutor just this morning.”

“From Eddie Golden?”

“He wants to meet this afternoon.”

“He say what for?”

“No. What do you think? Does he want a deal?”

“If he’s a damn fool. He’s got the best murder one case I ever saw. Not to mention there’s enough ancillary charges, he’s guaranteed a win.”

“Are wins important to him?”

Wins were important to every attorney, but I knew what she meant.

“Like you wouldn’t believe. Son of a bitch even sends a signed baseball bat to every attorney he beats.”

“Sounds like a sweetheart.”

“Put it this way. Imagine a young Robert Redford with a gift for bullshit you’d die for. He once had a court-martial board rise to their feet and applaud when he finished a summary.”

“You’re just trying to frighten me,” Katherine said, with a properly skeptical look.

“I saw it with my own eyes. I was the defense attorney. It was easily the crappiest day of my career.”

“Wow.”

“Katherine, Eddie’s tried maybe seven or eight murder cases. He doesn’t lose. He’s the current holder of the JAG Corps’s Hangman Award. Has been the past five years. I’m not trying to rattle your confidence, but the Army’s got the deck stacked pretty good. A killer prosecutor, a judge who hates defense lawyers, and a case so lopsided, we’re drowning under the weight of it.”

I can’t ever remember seeing any hint of anxiety or self-doubt on Carlson’s face. But I thought I did this time. Just a flicker, but I was pretty sure it was there.

I said, “Say Eddie does offer a deal? Would you take it?”

She brought her hand up to her forehead and began kneading it, as though her head was about to explode into a thousand shards unless she held it together. I never thought I’d feel sympathy for Katherine Carlson, but I did.

“Would
you
?” she asked, staring at me with doleful eyes.

“Depends on the deal, I guess. Wouldn’t take much, though. Anything less than murder one or a sentence less than death, and I’d probably leap at it.”

“Why? Because we’re six days out and all the evidence points at Thomas? Or because you believe Thomas is guilty?”

“Because it’ll keep him out of the electric chair. That’s maybe the most we can hope for at this moment. We can appeal later. Maybe we’ll find something down the road that exonerates him.”

“We, Drummond? As soon as this trial’s over, you’ll be assigned to your next case, right? And OGMM will damn sure try to shift me to my next case.”

“He’ll get somebody to represent him.”

“It’s not an option. Thomas won’t buy it. He told me, no deals,” she said, sounding as distressed as I’d ever heard her.

I reached across and took hold of her tiny hand. I tried to sound soothing. “Take a deep breath and count to ten. You’re taking it too personally again.”

“Damn right I am!” she exploded, suddenly yanking her hand back and giving me a perfectly pernicious glare.

I thought she was going to slap me. I don’t pretend to understand women, and I’m even more perplexed when the woman is gay, like Katherine. But this caught me completely by surprise. This woman changed moods faster than models change clothes.

“Damn it, Katherine, I’m just trying to get you to think rationally. You better know what you’re doing when you meet with Golden. Trust me on this — the guy can take you to the cleaners and have you steamed, pressed, and folded before you blink. He ain’t called Fast Eddie for nothing.”

Although, actually, we called him Fast Eddie because he could get into and out of a girl’s pants faster than any human being on earth. Not that I worried about that part with Katherine, because, after all, her electrodes were upside down.

Her face was still surly, but she said, “Maybe you’d better come along.”

“Love to,” I said, although actually I wouldn’t love to at all. In fact, I’d be perfectly happy if I never saw Eddie Golden again for the rest of my life. A man’s got to know his own limitations, and Eddie had amply demonstrated mine, twice, before a jury of our peers. The truth was, Eddie scared the hell out of me.

I
’ll give Katherine credit; she collected herself with inhuman speed. She was as cool as an ice pick when we got to Eddie’s office. She bounced with confidence as she walked through the door, entered like she owned the place; as though
she
was the one who had the judge and every piece of evidence in her hip pocket.

Unfortunately, Eddie wasn’t easily flustered. He stood behind his desk and flashed his most Redfordesque, gorgeous-boy-next-door, I’m-gonna-cut-your-ass-into-tiny-pieces smile.

“Miss Carlson, I can’t begin to say what a great pleasure it is to finally meet you,” he announced, warmly shaking her hand and playing the perfect gentleman to the hilt. Then he tilted his head and looked at me curiously. “You’re, uh, Drummond, right? Haven’t we met before?”

Eddie Golden, if I hadn’t mentioned it before, is a master at playing mind games.

I nodded shyly and said, “We’ve . . . uh, we’ve met twice, Eddie.”

“Oh yeah,” he said, like he wouldn’t have recalled it if I hadn’t jogged his memory. “The Dressor case, back in, uh . . . When the hell was that? The summer of ’95, right? And . . . uh, Clyde Warren, back in ’99? You were defending them, right?”

Depend on Eddie to remember everything about every case he ever won.

“That’s right, Eddie. I’ve got two of your baseball bats stored in my closet at home.”

“Heh-heh,” he chuckled, like, What a silly habit, but, aw shucks, I just can’t help myself. “Well,” he said, returning to his most-charming-host-in-the-universe routine. “Won’t you be seated? Can I get you anything? Coffee? Soda?”

“No, nothing,” Katherine said. “This isn’t a social visit.”

“Of course,” he replied, still smiling, but with just the right amount of sympathetic edge on it.

Katherine and I sat side by side. She pinched my leg to remind me to let her handle this, especially since Eddie had already used our past history to pound me into place.

She said, “So what is it you want, Major Golden?”

“I just thought we should get to know each other before the trial convenes,” he replied with a dimpled grin I would’ve dearly loved to wipe off his face.

“I already know about you. What is you want to know about me?”

“Oh, you don’t need to explain anything about yourself, Miss Carlson. Anybody who’s read a newspaper or magazine these past eight years knows about your brilliant legal exploits. I can’t say what a great pleasure it is to finally meet you. At the risk of sounding redundant, it will be the honor of my life to tilt with you in court.”

Had that come out of anybody else’s mouth, it would’ve been instantly recognizable as an obnoxiously oozy, completely insincere sentiment. Not from Eddie’s lips, though. He was the master. He could get standing ovations from juries. You had to look at his face, his physical bearing; you could swear he was being presented to the Queen of England.

I was praying Katherine wouldn’t succumb to this unctuous horseshit.

I stole a glance in her direction, and Jesus! She was beaming and blushing like a high school freshman being asked to the senior prom by the captain of the football team. She crossed and recrossed her legs once or twice. She twiddled her fingers.

“Thank you, Major Golden. I’m looking forward to it also.”

“Call me Eddie, please.”

“Of course, Eddie. And I’m Katherine.”

“Of course you are. Are you sure I can’t get you something to drink?” her new buddy Eddie asked again. I was getting sick.

“No, really. With this heat, I’ve been drinking all day,” Katherine said, giving him a blast of her most angelic smile.

If I didn’t mention it before, Katherine’s a beautiful woman, but in a way you’re almost afraid to touch, like a delicate porcelain doll. She’s not the type you dream of taking to a cheap motel for an afternoon of wild, raunchy sex; she’s the type you pray Mom sees you with.

Of course, she’s also a lesbian, so Eddie’s sexual charms and sterling good looks should’ve fallen on blind eyes. That’s not the way it was going down, though. She was melting in his hands.

“I’m terribly sorry about the case you’ve been handed,” Eddie said. “It’s really a raw deal.”

“Why’s that?” Katherine asked, smiling sweetly.

“Well, there isn’t a reasonable defense, is there? It wasn’t self-defense. He wasn’t framed. And the sexual perversions, Jesus! That isn’t going to sit well with a board of Army officers.”

“Some cases are more difficult than others.”

“I’ll say,” Eddie replied with an agreeable grin.

“Of course, there’s a great deal you probably haven’t discovered yet,” Katherine said, smiling coyly.

“Like what?”

“Come on, Eddie, a girl has to have a few secrets.”

He chuckled amiably. “Right, of course,” he said, as though this were complete baloney, but if Katherine wanted to fence, it was all good fun for him.

“So, Eddie, is there something specific you want to talk about?”

He took his eyes off her for the first time since we’d entered and toyed with something on his desk. He looked reluctant, like he really didn’t want to talk business, he just wanted to bask and reflect in Katherine’s glory. I mean, the guy was really, really good.

He finally said, “Actually, yes. I want to discuss the possibility of a deal.”

“A deal?” she asked, as though the very notion couldn’t have come as a greater surprise.

“I need to start by telling you,” Eddie swiftly said, lifting his arms helplessly, “my bosses are opposed to this. They want a full-blown trial. They want to use the trial to bolster Korean faith in the American legal system. They want Whitehall punished. Severely punished. They won’t be happy with anything less than a death sentence.”

Katherine swiftly bent forward and her eyes grew wide. “The death sentence? Oh my God.”

“That’s right. Only a trial’s a complete waste of time and needless trouble. You know that, right? And I know that, right? The outcome’s obvious, isn’t it? Besides, frankly, I’ve never been a fan of the death sentence. What does it accomplish? It doesn’t bring the victim back to life, does it? It doesn’t undo the crime, does it? So what’s the point?”

This was part of Eddie’s style. He liked to coax you into agreement by asking a thousand rhetorical questions that allowed you to think you were coming up with the answers. I thought it was a tacky stunt. It worked for him, though. I’ll say that.

And he was playing to Katherine’s obviously liberal tendencies, knowing damn well she must be opposed to the death sentence. He was trying to show they had common ground.

It was just a damned good thing he was having this conversation with her instead of with me, because I would’ve felt duty-bound to point out that Eddie’s Hangman Awards were owed substantially to the fact that he’d achieved something like four death sentences. He had more death sentences on his record than any other three Army lawyers combined.

But Katherine was nodding right along, completely mesmerized, under the thumb of the spellbinder.

“So what’s the deal?” she timidly asked.

Eddie leaned back in his chair and hooked both his thumbs under his belt. He sighed and appeared completely distressed by this whole thing, like the weight of the world was on his shoulders. It was an unbelievable performance. Truly remarkable. I have to admit that.

“Plead guilty to all counts. He’ll get life, no chance of parole.”

“All counts?” Katherine asked, in shock.

Eddie’s hands came out of his belt and he bent way forward, nearly all the way across his desk. His hands were palms up, beseeching the heavens, and his eyes were so sympathetic you could swear he was bleeding internally for her.

“Katherine, Katherine, I have to tell you, I’m going way out on a limb for this. I swear I am. He pleads to all counts or I can’t get a deal.”

Now he was wheedling and cajoling like a car salesman — like, Hey, I’d love to sell you this car; you only have to come up a little in price so I can persuade that tightfisted, asshole manager in the back room.

Katherine was seated pertly in her chair, her eyes riveted on his. “All counts?” she repeated, as though maybe she had a hearing problem.

“Hey, I’m sorry. I truly am. It’s all or nothing. But think about it. What’s the difference? He pleads to murder one, who gives a crap about the other stuff? You get a life sentence for murder, the rest is peachfuzz, right? Doesn’t really add a single year to his sentence, does it? It’s as generous as I can go. Think about it.”

Katherine’s expression turned pleading. “You’re sure, Eddie? All counts? You couldn’t drop something as insignificant as the engaging in homosexual acts? Not even for me?”

He somehow came even farther across the desk, literally out of his chair, until his absurdly handsome face was within inches of hers.

“I’m sorry, Katherine, this is the way it has to be,” he whispered.