Silent Witness (27 page)

Once more, Tony felt the depression of his return descend on him. ‘Then you know I've got some feeling about this.'

Stella studied him, as if waiting for Tony to protest his own innocence. When he did not, she said, ‘I don't like the feel of your friend Sam – I know why he was there with Marcie Calder, and so do you.' She sounded certain; Tony wondered whether, in this instance, she knew more than she was saying. ‘I also happen,' Stella went on, ‘to believe in the value of every human life – it's a religious and moral principle with me, from abortion to the death penalty. So I can't go along with my friends in this office who see some murders as public service killings and executions as God's will. But the murder of a teenage girl, if that's what this was, hits me harder than most. This girl should
never
have died, and her parents
never
should have had to feel what they're feeling.'

‘That's what I felt about Alison, and Alison's parents.'

Stella nodded. ‘What I'm telling you is this – if I think your friend killed Marcie Calder, and I've got a prosecutable case, I'm going to try my damnedest to nail Sam Robb to the wall. But I'll be careful, very careful, about deciding that. And you'll always get a hearing from me.'

‘That's all I could ask.' Tony paused, curious. ‘Do you still go to Mass, then?'

‘Every Sunday.' A small smile of her own. ‘The Church helped free Poland, after all.'

‘Poland,' Tony could not resist answering, ‘but not women.'

‘That'll come,' she responded crisply. ‘Sometimes I wonder why men and lapsed Catholics want to do my worrying for me.' She paused a moment. ‘Especially ones who may have forgotten where they're from.'

Tony considered his answer. ‘You're right,' he said at last. ‘It's hard to judge someone else's faith – or life. As for my own disaffection with the Church, it's more complex than you could know, and rooted in a particular time and circumstance.' His voice took on a slight edge. ‘Believe me, Stella, I haven't “forgotten” anything.'

Stella gave him a somewhat rueful smile. ‘Sorry. I shouldn't have said that. Actually, you were a little bit of a hero to me – especially knowing where you were from. During law school, when the Carson murder trial was on TV, I watched you whenever I could. I was torn between wanting to grow up to be like you or to be the kind of prosecutor who kept lawyers like you from walking people like Harry Carson. Either way, I admired you for having come so far. So this has been interesting.'

Tony smiled. ‘I'm glad you added that last.'

Stella stood, extending her hand. ‘Anyhow,' she said, ‘welcome back. I hope you're prepared for the media.'

‘Do I have a choice?'

Stella shook her head, not smiling. ‘No,' she said. ‘Not anymore.'

‘Well,' Saul Ravin said, ‘if it isn't Hollywood Tony Lord.'

Tony laughed. ‘Hello, Saul.'

They shook hands, and then Saul stepped back and gave him a mock once-over. ‘Better clothes too, I'd say. Not bad for a Polish boy.'

‘You created a monster, Saul. No question.'

‘A monster I could live with – I've represented several. But a
criminal defense lawyer
 . . .' Saul paused, shaking his head. ‘Oh, well, Tony, it's too late now. So have a seat.'

Saul's office was much the same. Saul was not: his hair was a curly white nimbus, and his paunch had become a belly worthy of a sumo wrestler or a Mafia don. His eyes were still bright, but the red flush to his skin was worrisome and, at a little past two, there was an open bottle of Scotch on his desk. Tony had seen the signs before – the aging criminal lawyer, perhaps still sharp but too mired in drink and cynicism and the fatigue of too many trials for too many years to function in more than short bursts. Tony realized that he had preserved Saul in his memory as the savior, a lawyer at his best, and that part of him still wished this to be so. Instead Tony found himself pondering once more the hidden cost of the criminal lawyer's life – the need to submerge personal feelings to serve abstract principles: the burden of proof, the presumption of innocence . . .

‘Drink, Tony?'

‘No. Thanks.'

Saul eyed the bottle, shrugged, and did not touch it. ‘Slow day,' he said. ‘Ever find this work wears on you?'

So his guess was right, Tony thought. ‘Sometimes,' he allowed, ‘it's stressful.'

‘Suppose that's what it is? Maybe it's more the energy you spend trying not to think about stuff that any normal person would think about – like what your client did, or may do next – while you're keeping the system honest.' Saul frowned. ‘The other day, I found myself thinking about this child abuser I got off because the kid was scared to testify. Two years later, Dad killed the kid with his favorite set of fireplace implements. To my conscious mind, I hadn't thought of him in years. But I must have been, all along. . . .' Slowly, Saul shook his head. ‘I'm getting sentimental, Tony. The older I've gotten, the more important clients like you are to me. You're one of that elite group I was damned sure either didn't do it or deserved a better shake than the system would have given him, and then made something of what
I
helped give him. I hope to God
you're
not such a sensitive soul.'

Tony shrugged. ‘I try not to be, Saul – for the sake of my clients and my own sanity. Sometimes my wife thinks I've succeeded.'

Saul waved a hand. ‘Civilians,' he said with irony. ‘They just don't understand the higher morality of what we do. I suppose it's enough for you that she's talented and beautiful.'

‘It'll have to do.' Tony smiled. ‘Although, unlike my
first
wife, Stacey tries to distinguish between my clients and me.'

Saul propped his head on one palm, leaning on the desk, and contemplated Tony with silent bemusement. ‘So,' he said at last, ‘here we are, brothers at the bar. And now it's your old friend Sam who's supposed to have killed a teenage girl.'

‘Stella Marz seems to think so.'

‘Stella – not a woman who's afraid to try a case.' Saul's eyes narrowed. ‘I won't carry your bags, Tony. I don't need the money.'

There was a new hardness to Saul's voice. Tony's image of a warm reunion receded a little more; like any trial lawyer, Saul Ravin had a space-taking ego, and the role of avuncular counselor to a teenage boy was clearly more congenial than being overshadowed in his own town by a visiting defense lawyer with a bigger reputation. The fact that Saul might be slipping, and knew it, would only make this worse.

‘There
is
no money, Saul – at least not enough for a state-of-the-art defense. As you say, they're friends, and thanks to Stacey's success, every now and again I can take on a client I believe in, for free.'

‘That's a nice luxury.' Saul raised his eyebrows. ‘You feel that strongly about him?'

‘It's just something I have to do.' Seeing Saul's quizzical smile, Tony shrugged. ‘All right, I don't want Sam to have done it. Maybe for that reason, I can't believe he did. That's why I'm here – for spiritual counseling. Just send me a bill for your time.'

Still smiling, Saul narrowed his eyes and cocked his head, as if weighing this. ‘I'll take the bill under advisement,' he said, and then his tone became practical. ‘Your buddy was fucking her, you say.'

‘Afraid so.'

Saul shook his head, a man confronted with the incalculable depth of human folly. ‘Think he fucked her the night she died?'

‘He says not.'

‘Better hope
that
's the truth – seeing how he told the cops they were in the park for a little private counseling. Or at worst, pray that he used a rubber.'

Tony considered that. ‘Even with a rubber, he might have left pubic hairs, maybe traces of a petroleum-based lubricant. But at least they couldn't DNA the semen.'

Saul gave him a sour smile. ‘Don't you find it a little funny that
we're
the ones having this conversation?'

‘I stopped laughing about an hour ago, Saul. When Stella Marz told me about the blood on Sam's steering wheel.'

Saul's smile vanished. ‘There are a thousand possible explanations, my son. Even if it's hers. They can't convict on that.'

‘I know. But that's not enough to make me feel better.'

Saul reached for the bottle, placing himself a precise two inches, neat, in a tumbler. He sipped it slowly, almost too carefully; all at once, Tony remembered this from before and realized that, even then, the drinking must have begun. ‘Maybe you should go home to your wife and son, Tony. Hope Stella's case doesn't get better. Avoid stirring things up.'

Tony imagined Sam's daily agony, and Sue's – their life a marriage on hold, murder charges looming – then slowly shook his head. ‘I remember what that's like – the waiting eats you alive. I was hoping to give Marz an affirmative reason not to indict, somewhat like you did for me.'

Saul took a long sip of Scotch. ‘Suppose Marcie was seeing a psychiatrist? Her shrink would know whether she had another boyfriend. Or if she was self-destructive.'

‘
Or
that she was sleeping with Sam.'

Saul nodded. ‘
That
,' he answered, ‘is part of what I meant by not stirring things up.'

Tony stood, walking to the window; suddenly he remembered doing this on his first visit to Saul's office, gazing at the smokestacks, which now had vanished with the jobs they once symbolized.

‘What a place,' he murmured.

‘Unimpressed by Steelton's renaissance, are you? The
Ice Capades
comes every year now. Or were you referring to your old hometown, the Disney World of decency?'

Tony did not turn. ‘I need a picture of Marcie Calder – from her parents, her friends, or whoever else. I don't want to leave Sam Robb to fate, in the person of the Lake City police.'

Tony heard the splash of whiskey pouring, and then Saul drifted to the window, standing next to him with a fresh drink in his hand. Tony could see his ruined profile; the crepe of his chin, burst vessels on his cheeks, the chafed-looking skin. In the midst of this deterioration, his eyes seemed terribly sad, painfully lucid.

‘Can I give you some advice?' Saul murmured.

‘That's what I came for.'

Saul seemed to gather himself. ‘Don't treat your case as the paradigm for this one. You knew that you were innocent. You don't know that about Sam Robb, and you can't. And for what it's worth, my gut tells me you shouldn't.' Pausing, he turned to Tony. ‘He may be guilty, Tony. I don't envy you the moment, if it comes, when you realize that's so. The only thing that could make that any worse for you is if you've blown his defense, and lost your identity as a lawyer, because you'd forgotten to distinguish between Sam Robb and Tony Lord.' Saul's voice softened. ‘Unless they're completely amoral, most good defense lawyers are two people, Tony – they have to be. This case could hurt both of you.'

Tony was quiet; what Saul said was unanswerable. Saul looked at him and put his drink on the windowsill. ‘All right,' he asked, ‘what about the wife?'

‘Sue?'

‘She wasn't home, didn't you say? At least she didn't answer the phone when Sam called her.'

‘He says not.' Like a delayed reaction, Tony felt his own incredulity hit him. ‘And you're not serious.'

‘Why not?'

‘Because I
know
her, for Christ sake.'

Saul's face changed; for an instant, his eyes held the merciless dispassion of a recording angel. ‘You really don't have to try so hard,' he said softly, ‘just to make my point.'

Tony felt stung. ‘Look, Saul – the last thing that marriage,
or
Sam's defense, needs is for him to point a finger at Sue. What Sam needs more than anything is a very loyal, very quiet, wife.'

Saul looked unimpressed. ‘I didn't say you couldn't rationalize your biases. Only that you have them.' He seemed to have forgotten about his drink. ‘How much does Sue know?'

‘Very little, I think.'

‘That'll take some handling. Especially if there's a trial.'

‘I know that. But you don't know Sue.'

‘Do you, still? After twenty-eight years?'

Tony nodded. ‘I think so. It feels like that, anyhow.'

Slowly, Saul turned to the window, hands in his pockets now. ‘You seem surer of her than of him.'

Silent, Tony took inventory of his emotions: Saul's questions, he realized, had served the purpose of reminding him how far away he was from who he tried to be, the lawyer as surgeon. ‘At times I think I know her better,' Tony said at last. ‘Maybe that was always so, but I never really saw it before. Or maybe it's just that, in certain ways, there's less complexity than with Sam. There's certainly a lot less that's disturbing.'

Saul surveyed the city – glass towers, empty lots, abandoned factories – the wreckage of an economy in decline. ‘You're right,' he said. ‘Some days this place looks like fucking Beirut.' He paused a moment. ‘All I was saying is to watch yourself. Too much of this case is too much about you.'

Tony no longer felt like arguing. ‘Stella Marz knew who I was. From before.'

‘Of course she did. You may have left all this behind, but you didn't become a different person.' Saul faced Tony again. ‘You're bringing some publicity that may not be so helpful to your client, or pleasant for you – “Killer defends killer.”'