The Hidden Man (32 page)

“Sounds like someone who’s afraid of a lawsuit.”

He looked at me. “Oh, they’ll sue us. That’s a given. It’s just a question of how much we can get back in a counterclaim.”

So much of the business world is like this now. Litigation is just another cost of doing business, no different than payroll and insurance and bribes to city inspectors. “So, Mr. Butcher—”

“Tommy.”

“Tommy, I have a photo for you to look at.”

He drew back. “No fuckin’ foolin’? You found this guy?”

I struggled with that—or pretended to. “I’d rather not, uh, put ideas in your head.”

The message was clear enough. “You found him,” he repeated.

“Can you just take a look?”

Butcher glanced around before he leaned into me. “Mr. Kolarich, I saw this guy a year ago, runnin’ past me. Right? Understand?”

“Tom—”

“Listen, I saw a guy. I told you that. A black guy. That’s the God’s honest. You tell me you did some digging, you found the guy, I say great. You tellin’ me you got your man? Then it’s the guy I saw. You tell me it’s not your man, then it can’t be the guy I saw. Right?”

I deflated. I couldn’t believe I was even having this conversation. The process was being turned on its head. Usually, Kenny Sanders would be a legitimate suspect only if Tommy Butcher saw him that night. Here, Tommy Butcher saw him only if he’s a legitimate suspect. There are some cops, and maybe some prosecutors, who did it this way. I was never one of those guys. I wore that pride like a badge.

“Hey, look,” he continued, raising his hands, “you got a client who did right by his sister, sounds to me like. Guy killed his sister, so he kills that guy. Me, I might do the same thing. But if it’s me on trial, and there was a black guy barreling out of that building with a gun in his belt, I’d want someone to step up and say so. So I’ll say so. Believe me, I got a hell of lot better things to be doin’ than goin’ to court. But I’ll do it, if you found the guy.”

The wind was whipping up, dropping the temperatures to near freezing. I thought of Talia. I thought of Sammy. And Audrey. I thought about justice and fairness and how rules we put forth to guide a criminal justice system don’t always get it right. There was something larger at play here, a higher ethic. If Sammy killed Griffin Perlini, he didn’t deserve to spend his life in prison. And if he didn’t do it, he sure as hell didn’t deserve a single day inside. No rule of law could alter that truth.

“I found the guy,” I said. “But you didn’t hear me say that.” I handed him a copy of the photo of Kenny Sanders.

He took the photo and didn’t even look at it. “Okay, then. I didn’t hear you say that.”

I told him to keep the photo, which was a subtle direction for him to study it, to commit details to memory. I told him the prosecution would fight his testimony hard and probably try to exclude it prior to trial. Then I left him to his construction project, retreating to my car, safe from the wind. I drove off, secure in the knowledge that I now had two legitimate suspects, Kenny Sanders and Archie Novotny. Each of them was a plausible alternative to Sammy Cutler as the killer of Griffin Perlini. I was disavowing everything I was taught about my profession, crossing virtually every moral boundary, mocking every canon of ethics I had once held sacred. I had fabricated evidence, put words into witnesses’ mouths beyond any typical lawyerly cajoling, and I felt absolutely nothing. No regret. No self-doubt. Just the realization that I was now a lawyer in name only, a man hiding behind a title. I would focus on winning and ignore what I had willingly lost.

“ HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU, happy birthday to you.”

Talia sits patiently at the table, wearing that sweet smile and a party hat we have forced her to don for the celebration. I’ve acquiesced in letting Emily carry the cake, dominated by lit candles, from the kitchen to the dinner table. Talia’s parents join in the singing, her mother holding our infant daughter, Justine. Her parents have glasses of wine in front of them, but not for Talia, who is just beginning to show with our third child, a boy.

“Mommy, how old are you?” Emily asks, taking a seat like a big girl at the table.

“Old enough, honey.” She laughs in her self-deprecating way.

“You don’t get any more birthdays,” says Talia’s mother, Ginny. “Because that means
I
get older, too!” Little Justine, in her lap, begins to whine. She is shaping up to be a carbon copy of Talia.

I am cutting the cake, screwing it up as usual, as Justine is handed over the table to Talia. I pause a moment to watch them, mother, daughter, granddaughter, the shared olive complexion and dark Italian features.

When her parents have left and the children are in bed, I take Talia in my arms and drink in the smell of her shampoo, the silky skin of her neck, the dark, watery eyes that always seem to project multiple colors, the forming lump in her belly. My heartbeat pounds against my chest, against her body joined to mine, and it feels like
I love you
doesn’t even begin to cover it.

I BREATHED a sigh of relief when the clock passed midnight, as if there were something magical about the passing of a minute or hour. Sammy’s trial was only two weeks away, and I had many things to do. I had to disclose to the prosecution the additional evidence about Archie Novotny—the photocopies of the checks he wrote to Music Emporium. I had to disclose Kenny Sanders and Tommy Butcher’s positive identification of Sanders. I still had to reach the prosecution’s eyewitnesses—Griffin Perlini’s neighbor and the elderly couple on the street who ID’d Sammy as the killer.

I had to find Smith and the people he represented, because they would probably try to kill Pete and me once Sammy’s case was over.

Two days from now—Tuesday—I would appear in court to argue for the expedited DNA testing of the girls found behind that school, or otherwise a delay in the trial. Smith hadn’t been shy about voicing his objection, and I was still hoping he might back down on Pete—call off his witnesses and let Pete off the hook in exchange for my dropping that motion. Or maybe Smith would make a wrong move and somehow expose himself. It wasn’t much more than a long shot, but it was all I had.

Other than Denny DePrizio, that is. Another long shot.

Question marks. I had plenty of them. And I was running out of time.

43

S
MITH FINGERED A BREADSTICK, considering it but unable to bring himself to eat. The private room in Locallo’s was dark but warm, a comfortable setting, and the rigatoni was the best he’d ever had in the city, but his appetite eluded him this evening. He replayed the entire course of events leading up to today, wondering if he could identify a particular misstep on his part. The only misstep, he decided, was in underestimating Jason Kolarich.

“The fuckin’ guy knows how to play poker,” he said. “That motion he filed for the DNA testing and to delay the trial. He knows he’s hit a nerve. He’s trying to force our hand.”

“He’s desperate.”

“Yeah, but so the fuck are we,” Smith said. He drained his Scotch and felt worse for doing so. “The question is, does he know
why
we’re desperate?”

“No.”

“You don’t know that. You
hope
that.” Smith looked squarely at Detective Denny DePrizio.

“I’m telling you,” said DePrizio. “He doesn’t know which way is up. He’s desperate, but he doesn’t have a clue. He basically told me he was waving the white flag. He said you had him boxed in. He said he had no way of finding you, unless you accidentally left your fingerprints on that briefcase or the cash inside.”

Smith didn’t know his adversary sufficiently. That had been his problem all along. Jason Kolarich hadn’t been his choice; he was Sammy Cutler’s pick. And Kolarich was proving to be more difficult to manipulate than he’d thought.

“That guy’s a stubborn prick.” Smith looked at DePrizio. “I don’t think we have a choice now. Do we? I think he’s going forward with that motion in court. The judge is going to move the trial date and let him do DNA testing. With all the publicity after those bodies were found? Of course she will. We don’t have a choice.”

“He’s bluffing,” DePrizio said. “He’s taking a free shot at getting you to let his brother off the hook. He won’t go through with it.” DePrizio scooped up a healthy fork full of linguine and shoved it into his mouth.

Smith pushed away the plate of rigatoni, which now revolted him. “Goddammit. This wasn’t supposed to happen like this. All that asshole had to do was follow instructions and we’d be fine.
Now
look at us. Look what we’re thinking about doing here. This was never supposed to happen.” He looked over at DePrizio, who was dishing more food into his mouth. “Denny, I’m real glad this isn’t spoiling your appetite.”

DePrizio shrugged. “Hey, nobody asked
me
if this was a good idea.” He swallowed and wiped his mouth. “This whole thing, from day one, was pretty much a clusterfuck, right?”

That didn’t make Smith feel any better. He reached for another stomach pill and washed it down with water. “What other choice did we have? You tell me, Denny. What the hell else were we supposed to do? This is the only thing we could do.”

“Okay, it was the only thing you could do.” DePrizio poured himself some more wine. “I mean, I get you. You want to control the outcome of this trial and keep the spotlight off Carlo. So you do what we do, right? You throw some money at him. Only that didn’t work, he still does whatever he wants. So then you apply pressure. That’s how it works. Only you got this lawyer who isn’t being real compliant.” He took a healthy drink of the Merlot, a nice bottle from 1994. “So yeah, I think you’re right, you don’t have much of a choice now. You gotta up the pressure. You gotta move on that brother of his.”

Smith had always regarded DePrizio as something of a lightweight—a valuable asset, given his position, but not the brightest bulb. Still, Smith wanted some validation for his idea. He needed to hear that someone agreed with him.

Because Smith, himself, was out on a limb. This was a very quiet operation. Carlo turned to Smith not only because of their long-standing relationship, but because he wasn’t telling Smith anything he didn’t already know. They’d borrowed a handful of guys to do the heavy lifting, but those guys didn’t know shit. No, in the end, it was Smith and Carlo, and Carlo, with his sick granddaughter and his daughter in pieces over it, was in no position to decide on details.

This was all on Smith, and it wasn’t going so well.

“Look at it this way,” DePrizio added, helping himself to Smith’s rigatoni. “When this trial was over, you were gonna do it, anyway, right? You were gonna move on the lawyer and his brother. Am I wrong?”

Smith looked away. He hadn’t shared those kinds of details with the detective. DePrizio served a limited role here. Still, Denny was right. After Sammy Cutler’s trial, it was inevitable that Carlo would want the garbage collected. Jason and Pete Kolarich could not remain as threats.

Smith found himself warming to the decision. DePrizio had said it correctly. They’d have to come for Pete Kolarich sooner or later—sooner, in all likelihood, once Cutler’s trial was over. They wouldn’t be doing anything they hadn’t already planned on doing. They’d just be moving up the timetable.

Smith watched DePrizio devour the remainder of his rigatoni. “Jesus, Denny. It’s like you don’t have a care in the world here.”

“I don’t.” The detective sat back and patted his stomach. “Because I did my part. What can blow back on me? Anyone says I pinched that kid on a bogus charge, I say prove it. I say I caught him in the act. Who’s gonna say I didn’t? Now you, my friend, that’s another story.”

“The hell is
that
supposed to mean?”

DePrizio poised the glass of wine at his mouth. “Not for nothin’, but maybe you should start thinking about what happens if this doesn’t turn out so well. You think Carlo’s gonna remember how good a friend you’ve been?”

Smith made a face. “You’re out of line, Denny. You’re drunk.” But the thought, of course, had been on Smith’s mind. And things were about to escalate. It was one thing to set up the idiot brother on a drug and guns charge. All that took was DePrizio and some money thrown at Pete’s drug supplier, who wouldn’t be able to identify Smith because he’d never laid eyes on him. So far, Smith had remained invisible. Insulated. He wouldn’t be meeting with Kolarich face-to-face any longer, and he was calling him from an untraceable phone. He was clean. So far.