The Kills (40 page)

"Helena's
not exactly out of it yet, Alex."

"What
do you mean?"

"I
hope you don't mind what I did. I didn't want to get in a hassle with you while
Battaglia was sitting in your office, so I just went ahead and used my
judgment."

"To
do what, Will?"

"When
Tiffany Gatts called and asked to talk to me, I could tell she was really
frightened. She thinks her life is in danger. Her mother's, too. She begged me
not to tell Helena Lisi."

"So
how'd you get to Josh Braydon?" I asked. "How'd he get into the
case?"

"I
had the court appoint him, Alex. I know you're not going to like this. Josh
Braydon? He's shadow counsel."

"U.S.
Airways announces the departure of flight 3709 to Martha's Vineyard. Boarding
will begin in approximately ten minutes, through Gate Five."

I paused
while the gate agent repeated the information, trying to control my temper.

"What
the hell were you thinking, Will? Shadow counsel? How dare you jeopardize a
homicide investigation with that kind of idea?"

"I
read the leading case, Alex.
People Against
Stewart.
I'm pretty sure-"

"Don't
cite cases to me," I said, trying to keep my voice down as it resonated
through the terminal's seating area. "
Stewart
only speaks to the dismissal of the indictment. The court
never reached the issue of the propriety of shadow counsel. If you had bothered
to read the dissent, Will, you would have seen that one of the jurists not only
called the concept distasteful, but in violation of all ethical prosecutorial considerations."

Will
Nedim was getting defensive. "Well, I'm sorry to disagree with you, Alex,
but the appellate courts haven't-"

"This
is no time to argue. That kind of ruse is not proper and it's not fair. I'd
never think of doing anything like it."

"You
weren't exactly available to check with and-"

"I've
got to catch my plane now, and you've got to undo this. Where will you be
tonight? I'll call you when I settle in at my house in a couple of hours, okay?
I want to know who Tiffany Gatts claimed to be afraid of and everything else
you told the judge to allow this sham to happen."

I
scribbled his home number on the back of my ticket and trudged down the steps,
out onto the tarmac, and up the steps of the small plane.

This was
one more critical thing that Mike and Mercer would have to attend to. Who was
funding Tiffany Gatts's defense? If her mother wasn't paying the bills, and if
indeed she was fearful of letting her lawyer know her intentions, then we had
to find out who was pulling the strings on this puppet.

I ducked
my head to get through the entrance, which was several inches shorter than I
was. I waited while the woman in front of me stowed her tennis racket in the
overhead compartment, and then I sat in the second row, making notes about what
I needed to do in response to Nedim's phone call.

"You
writing a brief, Alex?"

I looked
up and saw a familiar face. Justin Feldman, a prominent litigator in the city
who also had a home on the Vineyard, sat opposite me across the narrow aisle.

"No,
only a list," I answered. "I'm just letting off steam. I'm afraid I
unloaded on one of the young lawyers in the office. Now I'm trying to repair
the damage."

"Nothing
terminal, I hope."

I
respected Justin and had sought his advice in the past, especially on
situations that involved ethical considerations, since he had chaired the bar
association's prestigious committee. "Depends on your point of view. You
know anything about shadow counsel?" I asked.

"Never
heard the term."

"That's
because you practice in a better place," I said, referring to the federal
courts, where judges rarely tolerated the shenanigans that were commonplace
stateside. "I'm only aware of one decision on point."

"What
jurisdiction?" Justin asked.

"A
Manhattan case a few years back. The perp was incarcerated, pending trial or
plea. One day, he calls the prosecutor out of the blue. Claims he's ready to
cooperate and give up his codefendants, but his lawyer has refused to let him
do it."

"What
was the lawyer's beef?"

"Turns
out the defendant claims his lawyer was hired and paid for by somebody else-a
major drug kingpin. When the defendant decides to accept the prosecutor's deal,
he tells the judge that his lawyer actually said that the head of the drug ring
would have him killed if he cooperated. That word would go back through the
lawyer."

"What
did the judge do?" Justin asked again.

"Set
up this charade, this complete fiction. He made the defendant create a record
in court saying that he feared for his life if he fired his lawyer and played ball
with the prosecution. So the case actually went forward with two defense
attorneys."

"Two?
And the first one never knew the second one existed?"

"Exactly,"
I said. "There was the original lawyer, who was being paid by the kingpin
and who told her own client that his life and the life of his family were in
danger. The judge kept her on the case, but completely in the dark about the
truth of the transactions. Then he went ahead and assigned someone new to do
the deal with the prosecution."

"The
so-called shadow counsel?"

"Yes.
The judge used the lawyer he appointed to take the real plea, which was a deal
with cooperation, all the while continuing to pretend that what happened in the
presence of lawyer number one-a mock plea allocution, a sentence, and a resentence-was
true."

"Creating
a complete illusion. Violating all your disclosure obligations, derogating your
ethical responsibilities, communicating with the court ex parte to set this up,
and falsifying the judicial process all along the way." Justin ticked off
every repugnant feature of the arrangement.

"I'm
not totally crazy, am I, to tell my colleague I won't go along with something
like that?" I asked, as the pilot started up the starboard engine.

"You'd
be insane to do it," Justin said, shaking his head back and forth. "I
wonder where some of these lawyers lose their senses," he said. "You
know Marty London, don't you?"

He was
referring to another giant of the New York bar. "Sure."

"I
had lunch with him today. The very same kind of conversation about a bright
young lawyer came up. Marty's representing a guy who's in over his head-runs
the corporate department at a white-shoe law firm. Kept telling his partners
that to keep high-rolling clients happy, he was making contributions to their
favorite charities. Big bucks."

"Some
kind of scam?"

"That's
putting it mildly. He'd tell the managing partner he'd written a personal check
for, say, fifty thousand dollars to some tug-at-your-heartstrings cause. Say
it's children of some war-torn part of the world. Or a struggling dance
company. Or an inner-city art museum. Had to be a personal check, so he'd get
credit with the client for being a mensch. Who'd second-guess him for a good
deed like that? Then, he asked the firm to reimburse him-and they did."

"I
think I see this one coming," I said. "He never wrote the check to
any such charity."

"How
about that the charity never existed in the first place?" Justin said,
shaking his head in disbelief. "Battaglia's going to make mincemeat out of
this guy when he gets his hands on this case. Fifty thousand dollars of the
firm's money in his own pocket every couple of months, on top of his draw of a
few million a year. I don't understand these people, Alex."

Both
propellers were geared up now, and it was impossible to hear over the din. He
settled in with his newspaper and I continued making lists of things to do.

The small
aircraft lifted up from the runway. Within minutes, we had flown into the
enormous billow of cloud cover that had settled over the New York area. I pulled
my seat belt tighter around my waist as the plane bucked in the rough currents.
I tried to concentrate on organizing my evening calls, but the severe weather
made any work effort impossible.

I stuck
my pen in my pocket and stared out the window at the inner lining of the storm
cloud. There were only five passengers on the flight, and all looked as gloomy
as the skies around us. I watched as the woman in front of Justin's seat
fumbled for the airsickness bag, hoping that she would not need to use it in the
close confines of the still cabin.

The pilot
broke in with a short message. "Sorry about the bumps in the road, ladies
and gents. We've got that hurricane blowing in behind us, so we'll rock and
roll like this all the way to the Vineyard. Be another thirty-five minutes till
touchdown. Thanks for flying with us tonight."

I closed
my eyes and tried to think about something pleasant. My lover was in
Washington, altogether too pleased with the freedom of our new arrangement, my
precious home was about to be battered by sixty-mile-an-hour winds, and the
tangle of investigations on my professional plate seemed hopeless. I opened my
eyes and stared off into the wild gray yonder.

I was as
relieved as the woman clutching the paper bag against her chest when the pilot
descended out of the clouds and I could see the lights on the landing strip
glistening in the evening mist. We taxied to a stop and I trotted from the
bottom of the steps into the shelter of the airport terminal. I walked to the
parking lot, where my caretaker had left my car earlier in the week when he'd
gone off-island. Soon I was heading up-island on the slick roadway that curved
through the pastures and meadows of Chilmark.

It was
close to nine o'clock. I was looking for something to eat, but there weren't
many choices. I drove in the direction of Dutcher Dock, but both the Galley and
the Homeport were dark.

I made a
U-turn in front of the old red-roofed coast guard station, now the Chilmark
Police Headquarters, going to the far end of the main road toward the gas
station. Larsen's Fish Market had closed hours ago, so my last hope was the
Bite, a two-hundred-square-foot gray-shingled kitchen from which the Quinn
sisters put forth the best chowder and fried clams on the face of the earth.

There
were two pickup trucks parked in front-drivers eating in their cabs-and I
squeezed my little red convertible in between them. I ducked under the roof of
the small porch to get out of the rain, and Karen spotted me when I picked my
head up.

"Alex?
That you? Haven't got a clam or oyster left. Wiped out."

"Just
a cup of soup." My stomach was still settling down. "To go."

Her
dialect was more Boston Southie than islander. "Better close your house up
tight. Gonna be a wicked bad storm."

"That's
what I came up to do."

She
handed me a brown bag much larger than a pint container of soup. "Take
some with you for tomorrow. Extra chowder, some chicken wings, and my mother's
brownies. You'll be glad you've got this goody bag if nobody opens up during
the hurricane."

I thanked
her and got back into the car and headed for the hilltop high above the water
that surrounded my lovely old farmhouse on all sides, grateful for the
placement the Mayhew farmers had given their home almost two centuries earlier,
as the waves picked up steam on the shores below. I had expanded and rebuilt
the sturdy structure, but it still retained the charm and character that came
from its original bones.

My heart
beat more rapidly as I made the turn off State Road. I thought of my friend Isabella
Lascar, who had died on the very same path just a few years ago.

I was
distracted by the movement of a large dark body in the bushes ahead of my car,
just out of range of the high beams. My foot slammed on the brakes and the buck
leaped directly in front of me, then up and over the ancient stone wall that
ringed my property.