Redemption (9 page)

“Nothing to be ashamed of,” I had said. “It's a feeling many women have shared.”

It had not been easy to persuade Sarah to come into the case. I talked her into accepting a ten-thousand-dollar retainer. I had investments in the market, my savings, and my pension. I was not poor and I was not being fraternal in my desire to have Sarah on the case. On and off through my retirement years, I had sat in on criminal trials, and it had not resulted in great admiration for criminal lawyers. I admired Sarah.

Tonight, I laid out the situation as it was at the moment: “Liz, Sarah is as familiar with the facts as I am, but I want you totally in on this before we start our discussion. I respect you, and I respect your intelligence. Forensics has determined that Hopper was shot between eleven and twelve midnight. Since the air-conditioning is maintained through the weekend, they can't pin it any closer. On Friday night, the building closes at seven. That's when the lobby guard and the checkout man on the desk leave. Since the lock on the front door can be opened from the inside and then automatically locks after someone leaves, people who so desire can work past seven and let themselves out. But the history of the building is that few take advantage of this. On the four other weekday nights, the building closes an hour later.

“At midnight, the cleanup crew enters the building. They have keys and masters for the offices. The two lobby attendants also have keys. The men in the cleanup crew arrive together in one vehicle. Friday, they arrived at ten minutes after midnight.”

“All together and accounted for?” Sarah asked.

“Absolutely.”

“Do any of them have criminal records?”

“One of them—drug dealing when he was a kid, ten years ago. The cops checked them all out. The cops talked to all of them the night of the murder. For the moment, according to forensics, we can leave them out on a time measure.”

“Who did the forensics?” Sarah wanted to know.

“Manhattan South, state of the art. Without going deeper into the cleaning crew at this moment, we come up with two possibilities. The first is that the killer is employed in the building. He or she—”

“Ike, why ‘he or she'?” Sarah asked. “You don't buy the woman angle?”

“I buy it and I don't. We'll get to that. But man or woman, he or she would wait. Hopper would be working late or he might have arranged a meeting after closing hours at his office. Thereby the killer lets himself out. The second possibility is that Hopper arranged the meeting and let the killer in himself. As for an exit, in both cases it could be before or after the cleaning crew arrived. The cleaning crew couldn't come up with any details about the movements of the elevators. They move the elevators as they require them.

“The long and short of it is that someone carrying my gun ordered Hopper to write a check to Cash and stood behind him with the gun at his skull, and before he could sign the check, shot him dead. No useful fingerprints anywhere, or else too many of them. The detectives came up with nothing useful. Then, using a lipstick, the killer—presumably—wrote these words on a sheet of fax paper that he or she ripped out of Hopper's fax machine, ‘Sweet journey, Billy,' and left the gun on the fax paper.

“Those are the facts as we have them. Forensics says that the lipstick is the same brand and shade that Liz uses—and maybe a million other women. So there, Liz, you have the situation that led to your arrest. The Boston cops filled in some of the details concerning Hopper's treatment of you. Now, Sarah, on the gun?”

I watched Sarah as she listened to all this. She was a very black woman, with a face like cut stone. She had never taken her eyes off my face—never glanced at Liz, just listened to me, her brow furrowing at times.

“Guns travel,” she said. “On the street, a good small gun is like money. It buys cash, or crack, or women, or anything else you need. But the first question, Ike, among ourselves, is this: Did you kill Hopper? I ask that with the understanding that I am both your legal counsel, if you should be so accused, as well as Liz's.”

“No,” I said.

“I ask the same question of her.”

“Not likely,” Liz said.

“You showed me where you kept the gun, Ike. How long since you opened that drawer?”

“Years. At least three. Before Lena died.”

“It was there then?” Sarah asked.

“Yes.”

“And since then, how many people, not your guests, have entered this apartment with you not present?”

“I can't come up with that, Sarah. Painters, paper-hangers, rug cleaners, delivery boys, the super, the doorman, electricians, TV repairmen, a plumbing crew for three days—I could go on and on.”

She turned to Elizabeth. “The way I hear it, Liz, you had two identical lipsticks, one in your bag and one in the bedroom. The obvious question, if you are the accused killer, is why you didn't get rid of them?”

“I was accused.” Liz shrugged. “It wouldn't make much sense to keep them, would it?”

“No,” Sarah said, “but Rudge is a sneaky guy and he's going to turn somersaults for a conviction. He'll say you held onto the lipsticks for the same reason you gave me, as part of your innocent plea.”

“That would be something, wouldn't it?” Liz said. “But Ike will tell you I'm not that clever.”

“Put it another way,” I said. “Innocence does not denote stupidity.”

“Ike,” Sarah said slowly, “I've watched you and this woman for weeks. A man's lady wronged—that's passionate stuff. It was your gun, your hate—that son of a bitch did it to the woman you love. Why didn't you kill him? Why didn't the cops arrest you?”

I looked at her for a long moment. “The lipstick?”

“Not enough.”

“Ike would never ask for money,” Liz said. “It would degrade him.”

“The check was not signed.”

“Ike couldn't even ask, and you should watch him when he has to kill a cockroach.”

“I know Ike, too. But my gut feeling is that this is a woman's thing, not a man's. I know a cop at the first precinct, Annabelle Schwartz. Sharp woman. I'll bet she went in with the detectives. I'll talk to her. I imagine it was her gut feeling and that she convinced the detectives.”

“Why is it a woman's thing?” I demanded. “Murder isn't a woman's thing, Sarah.”

“Isn't it? How many battered wives have you defended, Ike?”

“Why didn't I kill Hopper? I had motive. My friends know how much I value Elizabeth. I know what he did to her. The cops questioned most of the people I know well, so they know how much I care for Liz—foolish old man, caught up by this young woman, my gun—”

“What are you two doing!” Liz cried. “Ike didn't kill anyone. I didn't kill anyone.”

“Liz, Liz,” Sarah said gently. “We're working it out. Murder one is not a game or a TV show. This is only the beginning. We have to work through every angle of this. The point is that Ike had every motive you had. He hated Hopper. He owned the gun. You didn't even know that he owned a gun, unless you went poking through the drawers in his bedroom.”

“Maybe I did. How would the cops know?”

“That's it exactly,” Sarah said. ‘That's what we're doing. What do the cops know that we don't know? Do you have any gloves?”

“Three pair. The detectives took them.”

“What kind?”

“Two pair of kid, one of wool.”

“That's by the book. Kid gloves are meaningless. But you see what we must do?”

“Yes, I'm beginning to understand,” Liz admitted.

“And your alibis are worthless.”

“Why? We were both here when it happened, in bed and asleep.”

“The same bed?”

I looked at Liz, who nodded. “That night, Ike was very tired. He went to bed at nine. I wasn't tired, and I couldn't think of sleeping.”

“Why?” Sarah asked. “I mean, why couldn't you sleep? What did you do?”

“Oh, Sarah, I was flying. Ike had just asked me to marry him, and we set the date. I love Ike very much, but he was always arguing that he was too old to get married again and always talking about how his silly libido had shrunk. You can't imagine how much of that I had to endure from this sweet, good man. But Friday he agreed. I told him to go to bed and that I had to walk and breathe some good fresh air, and I went out for a walk—” She paused as Sarah's face suddenly changed.

“You went out for a walk?” Sarah asked.

“Yes. Is that so terrible?”

“Maybe not. How long were you out?”

“Half an hour, forty minutes, possibly even an hour—I don't know. I walked up to Broadway and down to 103rd Street, and then back. My feet never touched the ground. All I could think of was that Ike wanted to marry me.”

“And Gregory, the night man, he saw you come and go?”

Liz hesitated, then said, “No.”

“Why not?”

“I went down on the service elevator and out on the side street. I do that sometimes. I took a piece of paper with me and folded it to keep the service door open until I got back. Everyone does it.”

“Why didn't you go out the front entrance?” Sarah demanded.

“When I do and it's dark, Greg gives me a lecture on how dangerous the Drive is at night. It isn't, but he's a nervous Nellie. I was in no mood to discuss it with him. Did I do something wrong? My goodness, you don't think—”

“No, I don't think.” She turned to me. “Ike, what time did Liz get back?”

“I don't know. I dozed off. All I remember is her cold feet when she crawled into bed. I kissed her. I didn't look at the clock.”

“Oh, for God's sake, Sarah, you don't think I went down to Wall Street?”

“I don't think so, but what I think doesn't matter. Did anyone see you, coming or going?”

“No one that I know—no.” Liz's confidence had vanished.

“I think I took a sleeping pill that night,” I said. “I'm not sure.”

“What kind of a pill?”

“A mild one. Temazepam, twenty milligrams.”

“You don't and won't remember!” Sarah said sharply. And then to Liz, “Did you wear gloves when you went out?”

“Yes. Kid gloves.”

“Did you wear gloves when you took the paper for the door?”

Liz, her brow furrowed, thought about it, then nodded. “Yes, the paper was an afterthought.”

“Thank God,” Sarah said, sighing. “If they find the paper, your prints won't be on it.”

“I know what you're thinking,” I told Sarah. “What do we do?”

“Nothing. Liz never left your bed. What did you do with the folded paper?” she asked Liz.

“I threw it away.”

“What kind of paper did you use, Liz?”

“Just ordinary computer paper.”

“Where did you throw it?”

“In the big garbage can.”

“By now, they have it, if they know what it means. To hell with it. You never left Ike's bed, Liz. We never mention this to anyone—anyone—do you understand me? Liz could no more have gotten down to Wall Street that night and shot Hopper and gotten back in bed with you—no! No more than I could.”

Liz was in tears now.

Rising, I walked around the table and kissed her. “We're going to beat this, baby. I promise you. Criminal trials are part evidence, part illusion, and part theater. I hate to be cynical, but the theater part is the most important. Sarah, I think, will agree with me, but when I see someone like you accused of a cold-blooded murder—well, I've known the district attorney for years, and I have a date to see him in his office next week. I'll ask him to drop the whole thing.”

“I have a terrible headache,” Liz whispered.

“Then lie down. Sarah and I can go on with this, and we'll be going over this again and again in the next few weeks. I'll get you some aspirin.”

“And the wedding, Ike?”

“We'll get this trial over with, and then we'll be married.” I took her into her room, embraced her, and said, “Come to my bed. I don't want you to sleep alone tonight.”

“I will, Ike. I'll lie in the dark for a while and get rid of this headache, but I'll be in your bed.”

I kissed her and went back to the kitchen. Sarah was speaking on the telephone, and as I entered, I heard her say, “As soon as you're free, Jerry, but within the week. Right?”

She put down the phone. “That was a man by the name of Jerry Brown, Ike. He's a private investigator but very smooth, very good-looking, and well dressed. The fact that he's black doesn't hurt; they bend over backward these days down on Wall Street for a smooth black man with no attitude. He's properly licensed, and he figures two or three days will do the job. He'll give us the names of any women at Garson, Weeds and Anderson who have been involved in any way with Hopper—and probably a good bit more. He's expensive, eight hundred a day, but we need him; and if you can't handle it, I'll pay it out of my retainer.”

“I can handle it, no problem. But don't you think the cops have canvassed them?”

“Maybe,” she said. “Or maybe not. The problem is the gun. As I told you, a stolen gun travels, and life is filled with coincidences; but still the gun is a mountain. How do we get across it?”

I shook my head hopelessly. “Coincidence. What else?”

“And the DA will not drop it. An election's coming, and this is meat and drink for the media. He wouldn't have put Rudge on it if he didn't want a conviction.”

“We belong to the same club,” I argued. “Every time he has an important contract crime, he lunches with me and talks about it. I never charged his office a dollar. He'll listen to me.”

“We'll see,” Sarah said. “Meanwhile, now that Liz is gone, we must talk about her.” She lowered her voice. “You love her, Ike?”

“More than I ever dreamed I could love a woman.”