Primal Fear (6 page)

“Still sleeting?” he asked.

“No. But it’s below freezing so it’s not going to melt. Better drive carefully on the way home.”

“I don’t have to drive, Mr. Vail, one of the perks of the job. I have a car and driver. Quite an impressive fellow, actually. Quite well read for a colored. Keeps up on things. I sometimes try out my written decisions on him. Get their side of the picture.”

“
Their
side?”

“Coloreds, Spanish. I like to be fair and open. Hear their side of the story.”

“That’s very commendable. Ever pay any attention to them?”

Shoat did not answer. He just glared at Vail. Then the sneer crept back. He took another long pull of scotch and clamped his teeth around the cigar.

“This case is generating a lot of national attention,” he said, his eyes as lifeless and cold as pebbles. “The bishop was well known all over the world. That means the national press will be here in force. I want this Stampler to have the best defense possible. When we burn him, I don’t want anybody saying he didn’t get the fairest possible trial. And I’m going to give you a lot of leeway, just so there’s no criticism of the justice system here.”

“Sixty days to prepare his trial is no leeway at all. Who’s prosecuting?”

“I have no idea.”

“Yancey doesn’t have a good prosecutor left. Jane Venable’s leaving this month to go into private practice with, you know, Winken, Blinken and Nod or whoever.”

“I assume he’ll find somebody equal to the task.”

Vail walked across the room and back. He had no choice.

“Slam-dunk and I’m the basket,” he said to himself.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Nothing,” Vail said. “Look, I haven’t even met this kid yet. All I know about the case is what I read in this morning’s paper. I want ninety days. I want the preliminary hearing postponed until Friday so I can spend all day tomorrow with my client. I want a subpoena so I can get into the scene of the crime without any hassle. And I want the D.A. out of my hair for the
next thirty-six hours—he’s been working this case since last night. I want the same consideration. And I want full disclosure from the D.A.’s office, I don’t want any bullshit about that.”

“Sixty days, Vail. That’s all you get. We have to get this over with. However, I concede your other points, they’re all reasonable requests.”

“Also I get court expenses, that’s standard.”

“Court expenses yes. Personal expenses, expert witnesses, travel, all your problem.”

Vail finished his cigarette and ground it out in an ashtray.

“Double feature, huh?” he said finally. “Society gets a human sacrifice and you bust my balls at the same time.”

Shoat puffed on his cigar and thought about that for a moment before nodding.

“I like that, Counselor. That’s quite an accurate appraisal of the situation. Double feature—punishment and retribution. My two favorite subjects.”

Outside, it had begun to sleet again. A county worker was sprinkling salt on the icy steps and Vail went down them slowly, hanging on to the brass railing. The fender bender had been cleaned up, but a dark blue limo was now parked in front of the courthouse. Some big shot working late, Vail thought. Maybe it’s Shoat’s car? But as Vail reached the bottom step a face appeared for a moment in the rear window, then moved back into the shadows. It was Roy Shaughnessey. The driver got out, scurried around the car and opened the door.

Vail peered in at Shaughnessey.

“There’s not a cab running in town,” Shaughnessey said. “Get in, I’ll run you home.”

Vail got in. The limo driver got in the front seat and turned back toward Shaughnessey.

“One-oh-two, Fraser,” Shaughnessey said. “It’s out in the Yards.” He turned to Vail. “How about a brandy?”

“Oh, what the hell. Why not?”

Shaughnessey opened a compartment in the back of the front seat. It revealed a small bar stocked with three-ounce airline bottles of liquor. Shaughnessey opened two of them and emptied the contents into old-fashioned glasses.

“Sorry I don’t have snifters,” he said. “Always thought that was a lot of bunk anyway, swirling it around in those glasses
and sniffing it.” He held up his glass. “Here’s to you, Martin—okay if I call you Martin?”

“Sure, Roy.”

“You’re one helluva piece of work,” the old war-horse said, clinking Vail’s glass. “Ever thought about moving up in the world?”

“Up to where?” Vail asked.

“Look, son, you’re tighter than a nun’s pussy when it comes to talkin’ about yourself. I know you come from downstate. No credentials. No family to speak of. Some bad breaks along the line. I pulled the package on you. Hard pull up by your own bootstraps. All that crap.”

“What’s your point?”

“Time to let it out. You’re Robin Hood right now. Start capitalizing on that hard road up. Self-made man, overcoming the odds, it’ll sell, know what I mean?”

“I don’t have anything to sell right now.”

“C’mon, son, you know how hard it is to break into these platinum law firms without a pedigree. You’re the best lawyer in the state. Nobody wants to go up against you.”

“Is this some kind of an offer?”

“Let’s just say it’s part of your continuing education. You’ve got to slick up a little.”

Vail laughed. “You mean go legit?”

Shaughnessey laughed harder. “That’s exactly what I mean,” he said, “go legit.”

“Why bother?”

“Because you want to move to the other side of town. You want what everybody wants, bow and scrape, tip their hat, call you Mister and mean it. You don’t want to cop pleas for gunsels the rest of your life. Ten, twelve years from now you’ll have the bank account but you’ll be sick of having scum for clients. You still won’t be legit, as you put it.”

“Is that why you dumped this Rushman case on me?”

Shaughnessey laughed. “Don’t give it a thought. You need a little humility, Martin. Besides, they want a monkey show out of that trial and you’ll give it to them. You’ll make them work for that conviction.”

“So that’s what it’s all about, getting a good show and teaching me a little humility?”

“It’s the way the process works. You don’t go anywhere without help, Martin. You can’t do it alone, you need friends.”

“Oh, so this was a friendly gesture?”

“You’re getting a favor and doing a favor at the same time. Now’s a good time to start planning your future.”

“And how do you suggest I do that?”

“Jane Venable’s moving out. The D.A.’s office is wide open.”

“C’mon, you think Jack Yancey and I could spend more than ten minutes together without killing each other?”

“Yancey needs you. He’s lazy. And he’s lost all his gunslingers. Jack’s balls’re hanging out. Hell, he never did have the stones for that job. He’s a politician in a job that calls for an iceman. He has to do something fast before everybody finds out how incompetent he is. What he wants is to make judge—eight, nine years down the line—and live off the sleeve for the rest of his time. To do that, he needs to rebuild his reputation because you’ve been makin’ him look like Little Orphan Annie. Twice in one year on headline cases and burned up his two best prosecutors to boot. Silverman’s still in a coma from the Pinero case and Venable’s on her way to Platinum City. He needs you, son.”

“I can’t afford to work for an assistant D.A.’s salary. This case alone could cost me seventy-five, one-hundred thousand.”

“C’mon, son, you made a half million off Pinero and you live like a hermit.”

“My nest egg.”

“I have some people who can turn your nest egg into a portfolio worm a million, million and a half over the next few years. That’s where it counts.”

“All of a sudden everybody wants to do me favors.”

“That’s because you’re a winner. You take your beating on this Rushman thing, just shows you’re human.”

“Why is everybody in such a hurry to convict this kid?”

“Because it’s bad for the community, bad for the state. A thing like this? The sooner it’s behind us, the better. Anyway, you see Yancey’s going to get his robes. Then who knows? You play the other side of the street for a while—hell, you might like prosecuting, don’t know unless you try, right?—three, four years from now who knows where it could end? You want to be doing pro bonos when you’re fifty?”

He looked out the car window. “Hell, you want to be a man of the people, do it where it counts. Let them pick up the tab.”

“What the hell’s in it for you?” Vail asked.

“I don’t like to fight people I can’t beat,” Shaughnessey answered.

EIGHT

Charlie Shackleford watched from his cubicle in the rear of the big room as Jane Venable burst out of the elevator. She was huddled in a navy pea jacket, a blue knit cap pulled down over her forehead, a bulky turtleneck pulled up around her ears, galoshes flopping at her feet. As she entered the sprawling, noisy office, she swept the knit cap off her head, loosing a forest of red hair, and stuck a Virginia Slims in her mouth which she lit as she wove her way through the jungle of paralegal desks and file cabinets, nodding to the staff as though she were royalty and they were her subjects. Charlie sighed. She was gorgeous. She was brilliant. She was everything in the world Charlie wanted and knew was beyond his reach. She reminded him of one of those models on TV who demonstrate furs in the international fashion shows. Tall, distant, untouchable, classy, arrogant, self-confident. She had it all. Venable had been her own Pygmalion, turning liabilities into assets and capitalizing on what other women might consider physical drawbacks. Her nose, which was too long, became part of an equine mystique that added to her haughty allure. Her neck, which was too slender, was masked in turtlenecks and high lace collars that became the trademark of her classy appeal. She was almost six feet tall, with irreverent splashes of red hair and a stunning figure she usually disguised inside bulky sweaters and loose-fitting jackets.

Except, of course, in court.

Charlie looked forward to those days when she would perform before the bench in outrageously expensive tailor-made suits designed to show off every perfect parabola of her body—from her broad swimmer’s shoulders to the tight melons of her rear. She would pull her hair back into a tight bun to accent her professionalism. She would slash the air with designer glasses to make her point. Contact lenses would enhance her piercing green eyes. A year of speech school had fine-tuned her voice into a husky, authoritative alto. The men in the jury simply salivated, while the women secretly yearned for just a touch of
her poise and taste. Devastating packaging. Shackleford adored her from afar, hiding his attraction behind sardonic, passionless sarcasm.

She came back to the office a little before three, collapsed at her desk and peeled off her overshoes, then spent five minutes rooting around one of them in search of a stuck shoe.

“Charlie!” she yelled. A moment later, the short, chubby, somewhat joyless little paralegal appeared in the doorway.

“I hate to ask, Charlie, but I can’t walk, my feet are burning up. Will you get me a quick fix?”

“Sure. How’d the affidavit go?”

“Three hours with a sixty-nine-year-old woman dying of cancer, she’s wandering in and out of morphine city the whole time, while I’m trying to get a sane statement out of her. Think about the possibilities.”

“Will the affidavit hold up?”

“She’ll be dead before we ever get to court. It’ll be okay as a posthumous admission.”

“I mean, you know, slipping in and out of this narcotic-induced coma …”

“Don’t put it that way, that’s inflammatory. She was napping and I had to wait until she woke up to talk to her. Don’t be telling people the woman was in a dope-induced stupor.”

“I was thinking devil’s advocate.”

“Yeah, sure. You were bugging me, Charlie. Anyway, her doctor was witnessing most of the time, he’ll testify she was lucid—when I needed her to be lucid. It’s all corroborative, no big thing. But it was a bitch.”

Charlie made her a cup of hot beef bouillon and brought it back to her. “When you finish that, the old man wants to see you.”

“About what?”

“I don’t know, Janie, he doesn’t confide in me. He comes down and says to me, ‘Tell Venable to come in to my office the minute she gets back, okay?’ and I say, ‘Yeah, sure.’ That was the total conversation. I figure after being out in that weather you need a bouillon fix before you face the Pillsbury Doughboy.”

“Thanks, Charlie, what would I do without you?”

“You’re gonna find out soon enough,” he said, and left the room.

She slouched over her desk, rubbing one foot with the other,
and unwound as she drank the warm soup. Then she smoked a cigarette. And finally she sighed, “Shit,” and taking her shoes in hand, she limped down the hall toward Jack’s office.

The blinds were pulled down over the windows in the glass-enclosed office, which usually meant Yancey was hard at work perfecting his putt. She knocked and walked in. Surprise. Pillsbury Doughboy was sitting behind his desk, stripped to his shirtsleeves, reading a slender file. He kept reading as he waved her in. Yancey was an unctuous, smooth-talking con man with wavy white hair and a perpetual smile. He had been a dark horse candidate for D.A. eight years before, supported halfheartedly by the Democrats, who didn’t think he could win. But Yancey, who turned out to be the ultimate bureaucrat, had capitalized on his soapy charm and a natural talent for speaking, and overcame a prosaic legal background to win. Once in office he had become the perfect man for the job, pliable as putty in the hands of the kingmakers and shakers of the state.

Jane Venable had no respect for Yancey as an administrator but liked him personally. What wasn’t to like? His popularity had grown through the years even though he was not a litigator and never had been. He had no stomach for the rigors of courtroom battle, and years of plea-bargaining had left him a talker rather than a fighter. Instead, Yancey had surrounded himself with a small cadre of tough prosecutors who made him look good. And since Venable was the best of the bunch, she had pretty much called the shots for the six years she had been assistant D.A. It had been an acceptable compromise until recently. As long as he had Venable, Silverman and Torres to keep him afloat, Yancey was in the driver’s seat. But Torres had left earlier that year and Vail had destroyed Silverman. A month ago, Venable also had decided to escape the crumbling empire, seduced by the promise of a comer office on the twenty-eighth floor, a six-figure salary and a senior partnership in one of the city’s platinum law firms.

Most of the rest of Yancey’s bunch didn’t know a writ from a birthday card, so he was in trouble and looking at another election eighteen months hence. But if he was worried about his future, he didn’t act like it. He was his usual smiling self. He waved to a chair and Venable sat down across from him, crossed one leg over the other and massaged an aching foot with her hands.

“Listen, so you’ll know,” she said, “I just spent the morning in a hospice talking to a dying woman, it’s about twenty degrees outside, the city’s turned into an ice skating rink, and my feet are killing me. I’m not in a real good mood so whatever’s on your mind better be good news.”

“Oh … well, maybe we can wait until later when you—”

“No, no, Jack. Don’t give me that. You started, you can’t stop now.”

“I really didn’t start yet.”

“Of course you did, when you invited me down here for this intimate little chat, so just spit it out. What’s on your mind?”

“A little favor.”

Venable eyed Yancey suspiciously. After six years, she knew him too well.

“I don’t think so.”

“Don’t think what?”

“I don’t think I’m granting any favors today.”

“I haven’t said anything yet!”

“I know, but I don’t really have to hear any more to know the answer is no. You know why? Because I don’t trust you, Jack. You’d lie to yourself if it was expedient. So whatever you’re going to ask, if it requires this little sit-down, the answer is definitely no. N-fucking-O. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got work to do. I’m out of here in twenty-eight days and I have a lot of cleaning up to do.”

“It’s the case of a lifetime.”

“Case?
Case!
I don’t have time for any case. In twenty-nine days I will be in my own comer office on the twenty-eighth floor, making a vast sum of money as a partner in—”

“I’ve already talked to Warren.”

“Warren? You talked to Warren Langton? About what?”

“Just listen to me. I’ll farm off all your other cases. Forget them. I want you to concentrate on just one thing until you leave.”

“Which is?”

“The Rushman case.”

“The Rushman case? What Rushman case?”

“You haven’t read the morning papers?”

“I saw about two minutes on TV. Rushman murdered, suspect in tow.”

“It’s yours. It’s your only problem. Get it done and you leave with my blessing.”

“Archbishop Rushman. You’re giving
me
the Rushman … damn it, I have a job to go to in less than a month! That thing could go on forever. For Christ sake, the poor man just got done in last night. He hasn’t even been buried and you’ve got me in court already.”

“This case is going to trial as fast as the judge can get it on the calendar. Everybody wants it over and done with.”

She jumped angrily to her feet.

“I’m sorry,” she bellowed. “I can’t do it. You can’t do it to me. I’m on notice. You’ve got me for twenty-eight more days, period. Then I am out of here, Jack.”

“Look, Blanding, Langton, et cetera, et cetera, will eat this up. You go in a hero. Lots of publicity for the firm… national publicity.… This is a headline maker, Janie. Hell, I thought you’d be delighted.”

“I don’t have time!”

“Sure you do, Janie—”

“And lay off that Janie soft talk.”

“Warren and I are in perfect agreement. This case is too important for you to pass up. You don’t start with them until it’s done.”

“God
damn
you! Did it occur to anyone to talk to me about this? It’s my career you’re screwing around with.”

“You’re mine until the jury brings in the guilty verdict, my dear. May as well get used to it.”

“You did this to get even with me for leaving.”

“Look, it’s open and shut—we just can’t afford to take any chances. We cannot screw this one up in any way, shape or form.” He paused for a minute, then added, “And I did it, as you tenderly put it, because you’re the best prosecutor I’ve got … and I wanna be damn sure we gift wrap this little son of a bitch up and strap him in the hot spot, understand? Hell, you ought to be flattered I picked you for the job.”

“Flattered hell, you don’t have anybody else. Thanks forever, Jack. All I know about Archbishop Rushman is the two minutes I saw on Channel Four this morning.”

“We’ve got the suspect cold. But you know how the public can be. They want blood. An eye for an eye, so to speak.” He chuckled at the cruel joke, although Venable was not yet aware that the archbishop’s eyes had been plucked out during the attack.

“Ah hell,” said Venable, “he’ll probably plead guilty anyway.”

“Won’t happen. The public wants this guy charbroiled. We won’t buy a plea. He burns no matter what.”

“If his lawyer decides to plead him there’s nothing we can do about it.”

“Sure there is. Our stand is, he goes to the chair, period. If his lawyer pleads him guilty, we still want the max. Unless his counsel’s a devout idiot, he’ll go to the wall with us. He’s got nothing to lose.”

“Does he have a lawyer yet?”

“I don’t know. Shoat’s appointing one.”

“Is Shoat hearing the case?”

“Probably. There’s going to be a lot of ink in this so he’ll probably run with it. Look, everybody wants it to be over as soon as possible. The hearing’s tomorrow, I’d say we go to trial in sixty days. So you lose what? A month before you move? Here, read this.”

He slid the afternoon paper across the desk to her and she reluctantly sat down and read the story.

A nineteen-year-old ex-resident of Savior House and one of Archbishop Rushman’s favorite “rehabs” was arrested early today and charged with the mutilation murder of the Catholic prelate, police reports said.

Police named Aaron Stampler, of a Region Street address, as the “Butcherboy,” which police have nicknamed the brutal killer. Police said he will be charged with premeditated murder.

An unnamed source in the police department reported that Archbishop Rushman, known as the Saint of Lakeview Drive, was “sliced up like a piece of meat” with his own carving knife in the bedroom of the rectory at St. Catherine’s Cathedral. According to Lt. Abel Stenner, the murder occurred about 10
P.M.
Monday. Stenner declined further comment.

“In 20 years on the force I never seen anything like it,” the source told a
Times
reporter. “It was horrifying and disgusting …”

The rest of the story was mostly a bio of the victim. She threw the paper back across the desk.

“Is it really as cut-and-dried as it sounds? I mean, if it’s that
easy there’s no glory in it. Jack, I could be construed as a bully before it’s over.”

“There’s plenty of juice there, darlin’. Besides, this crazy kid claims he’s innocent.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“I thought you had him cold.”

“We do, but he still says he didn’t do it.”

“What’s happened so far?”

“Stenner and his team have been on it since last night. Ask him, he’s on his way up. Then make up your mind.”

Venable had always found Stenner a very uncomfortable man to be around. He was a great cop, but working with him was like working with a robot.

“He gives me the chills,” she said. “I mean, he’s a nice man and all but… he gives me the chills.”

“He’s the best damn cop in the city.”

“I don’t care. I like people with a little blood in their veins.”

“Here he comes now.”

The stem-faced Stenner tapped on the door, then strode into the room carrying a cheap imitation-leather briefcase. He nodded to Yancey and Venable and, adjusting his wire-rim glasses, got straight to business. He put the case on the corner of Yancey’s desk and snapped it open.

“I have copies of the initial report and a follow-up—more detailed—which I did,” he started off, taking each folder out as he spoke about it. “First draft of the forensic findings, which is fairly basic; we really need to wait for the final on that, which should be Friday, maybe Monday … a sketch of the scene and the grounds around it … a mug shot of the alleged, Aaron Stampler, white, male, nineteen. Stampler was close to the victim and lived at Savior House until just before Christmas, when he got a one-bedroom with kitchen and bath at 2175 Region Street. A sixteen-year-old named Linda Shrieber also left Savior House at the same time and moved in with him. Apparently she moved out on him about two weeks ago. We haven’t turned her up yet, but I don’t believe she’s on the run, we just haven’t connected.… I have preliminary interviews with several of the residents at the House who know Stampler—nothing significant there, so far.… Also fingerprint samples from the scene and a match with the accused and footprint matches. I also have
two and a half hours of taped recordings of our interviews with him.”