More Twisted: Collected Stories, Vol. II

DOUBLE JEOPARDY

“There is no one better than me.”

“Uh-huh, uh-huh. What’re my options?’

Paul Lescroix leaned back in the old oak chair and glanced down at the arm, picking at a piece of varnish the shape of Illinois. “You ever pray?” his baritone voice asked in response.

The shackles rattled as Jerry Pilsett lifted his hands and flicked his earlobe. Lescroix had known the young man all of four hours and Pilsett must’ve tapped that right earlobe a dozen times. “Nup,” said the skinny young man with the crooked teeth. “Don’t pray.”

“Well, you ought to take it up. And thank the good Lord that I’m here, Jerry. You’re at the end of the road.”

“There’s Mr. Goodwin.”

Hmm. Goodwin, a twenty-nine-year-old public defender. Unwitting co-conspirator — with the local judges — in getting his clients sentenced to terms two or three times longer than they deserved. A rube among rubes.

“Keep Goodwin, if you want.” Lescroix planted his chestnut-brown Italian shoes on the concrete floor and scooted the chair back. “I could care.”

“Wait. Just that he’s been my lawyer since I was arrested.” He added significantly, “Five months.”

“I’ve read the documents, Jerry,” Lescroix said dryly. “I know how long you two’ve been in bed together.”

Pilsett blinked. When he couldn’t process that expression, he asked, “You’re saying you’re better’n him? That it?” He stopped looking shifty-eyed and took in Lescroix’s perfect silver hair, trim waist and wise, jowly face.

“You really don’t know who I am, do you?” Lescroix, who would otherwise have been outraged by this lapse, wasn’t surprised. Here he was, after all, in Hamilton, a hick-filled county whose entire population was less than Lescroix’s home neighborhood, the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

“All’s I know is Harry, he’s the head jailor today, comes in and tells me to shut off Regis ’n’ Kathie Lee an’ get the hell down to the conference rooms. There’s this lawyer wants to see me, and now here you are telling me you want to take my case and I’m supposed to fire Mr. Goodwin. Mr. Goodwin, who’s been decent to me all along.”

“Well, see, Jerry, from what I’ve heard, Goodwin’s decent to everybody. He’s decent to the judge, he’s decent to the prosecution, he’s decent to the prosecution’s witnesses. That’s why he’s one bad lawyer and why you’re in real deep trouble.”

Pilsett was feeling pushed into a corner, which was what sitting with Lescroix for more than five minutes made you feel. So he decided to hit back. (Probably, Lescroix reflected, just what had happened on that night in June.) “Who ’xactly says you’re any good? Answer me that.”

Should I eviscerate him with my résumé? Lescroix wondered. Rattle off my role in the Menendez brothers’ first trial? Last year’s acquittal of the Sacramento wife for the premeditated arson murder of her husband with a novel abuse defense (embarrassment in front of friends being abuse too)? The luscious not-guilty awarded to Fred Johnson, the pretty thief from Cabrini-Green in Chicago, who was brainwashed, yes, brainwashed, ladies and gentlemen, into helping a militant cell, no not a gang, a revolutionary cell, murder three customers in a South-side check-cashing store. The infamous Time magazine profile? The Hard Copy piece?

But Lescroix merely repeated, “There is no one better than me, Jerry.” And let the sizzling lasers of his eyes seal the argument.

“The trial’s tomorrow. Whatta you know ’bout the case? Can we get it, you know, continued?” The three syllables sounded smooth in his mouth, too smooth: he’d taken a long time to learn what the word meant and how it was pronounced.

“Don’t need to. I’ve read the entire file. Spent the last three days on it.”

“Three days.” Another blink. An earlobe tweak. This was their first meeting: Why would Lescroix have been reviewing the file for the past three days?

But Lescroix didn’t explain. He never explained anything to anyone unless he absolutely had to. Especially clients.

“But didn’t you say you was from New York or something? Can you just do a trial here?”

“Goodwin’ll let me ‘do’ the trial. No problem.”

Because he’s a decent fellow.

And a spineless wimp.

“But he don’t charge me nothing. You gonna handle the case for free?”

He really doesn’t know anything about me. Amazing. “No, Jerry. I never work for free. People don’t respect you when you work for free.”

“Mr. Goodwin—”

“People don’t respect Goodwin.”

“I do.”

“Your respect doesn’t count, Jerry. Your uncle’s picking up the tab.”

“Uncle James?”

Lescroix nodded.

“He’s a good man. Hope he didn’t hock his farm.”

He’s not a good man, Jerry, Lescroix thought. He’s a fool.

Because he thinks there’s still some hope for you. And I don’t give a rat’s ass whether he mortgaged the farm or not. “So, what do you say, Jerry?”

“Well, I guess. Only there’s something you have to know.” Scooting closer, shackles rattling. The young, stubbly face leaned forward and the thin lips leveraged into a lopsided smile.

But Lescroix held up an index finger that ended in a snappy, manicured nail. “Now, you’re going to tell me a big secret, right? That you didn’t kill Patricia Cabot. That you’re completely innocent. That you’ve been framed. That this’s all a terrible mistake. That you just happened to be at the crime scene.”

“I—”

“Well, Jerry, no, it’s not a mistake.”

Pilsett looked uneasily at Lescroix, which was just the way the lawyer loved to be looked at. He was a force, he was a phenomenon. No prosecutor ever beat him, no client ever upstaged him.

“Two months ago — on June second — you were hired by Charles Arnold Cabot to mow his lawn and cart off a stack of rotten firewood near his house in Bentana, the ritziest burgh in Hamilton. He’d hired you before a few times and you didn’t really like him — Cabot’s a country club sort of guy — but of course you did the work and you took the fifty dollars he agreed to pay you. He didn’t give you a tip. You got drunk that night and the more you drank, the madder you got ’cause you remembered that he never paid you enough — even though you never bargained with him and you kept coming back when he called you.”

“Wait—”

“Shhhh. The next day, when Cabot and his wife were both out, you were still drunk and still mad. You broke into the house and while you were cutting the wires that connected their two-thousand-dollar stereo receiver to the speakers, Patricia Cabot came back home unexpectedly. She scared the hell out of you and you hit her with the hammer you’d used to break open the door from the garage to the kitchen. You knocked her out. But didn’t kill her. You tied her up. Thinking maybe you’d rape her later. Ah, ah, ah — let me finish. Thinking maybe you’d rape her later. Don’t gimme that look, Jerry. She was thirty-four, beautiful and unconscious. And look at you. You even have a girlfriend? I don’t think so.

“Then you got spooked. The woman came to and started to scream. You finished things up with the hammer and started to run out the door. The husband saw you in the doorway with the bloody hammer and the stereo and their CD collection under your arm. He called the cops and they nailed you. A fair representation of events?”

“Wasn’t all their CDs. I didn’t take the Michael Bolton.”

“Don’t ever try to be funny with me.”

Pilsett flicked his earlobe again. “Was pretty much what happened.”

“All right, Jerry. Listen. This’s a small town and people here’re plenty stupid. I consider myself the best defense lawyer in the country but this case is open and shut. You did it, everyone knows you did it, and the evidence is completely against you. They don’t have the death penalty in this state but they’re damn generous when it comes to handing out life terms with no chance for parole. So. That’s the future you’re facing.”

“Yup. And know what it tells me? Tells me you’re the one can’t lose on this here situation.” Pilsett grinned.

Maybe they weren’t as dumb in Hamilton as he thought.

The young man continued, “You come all the way here from New York. You do the trial and you leave. If you get me off, you’re a celebrity and you get paid and on Geraldo or Oprah or some such for winning a hopeless case. And if you lose, you get paid and nobody gives a damn because I got put away like I oughta.”

Lescroix had to grin. “Jerry, Jerry, Jerry. That’s one thing I just love about this line of work. No charades between us.”

“What’s charades?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Gotta question.” He frowned.

Take your time…

“Say you was to get me off. Could they come after me again?”

“Nope. That’d be double jeopardy. That’s what’s so great about this country. Once a jury’s said you’re innocent, you’re free, and the prosecutor can’t do diddly…. Come on, you gonna hire me and boot that Goodwin back to the law library, where he belongs?”

He flicked his earlobe again. The chains clinked. “Guess I will.”

“Then let’s get to work.”

Paul Lescroix’s résumé had been amply massaged over the years. He’d gone to a city law school at night. Which wouldn’t of course play in the many new stories he fantasized would feature him, so after he graduated he signed up fast for continuing ed courses in Cambridge, which were open to any lawyer willing to pay five hundred bucks. Accordingly the claim that he was “Harvard educated” was true.

He got a job at minimum wage transcribing and filing judicial opinions for traffic court magistrates. So he could say that he’d served his apprenticeship clerking and writing opinions for criminal court judges.

He opened a solo practice above Great Eastern Cantonese carry-out in a sooty building off Maiden Lane in downtown Manhattan. Hence, he became “a partner in a Wall Street firm, specializing in white-collar crime.”

But these little hiccups in the history of Paul Lescroix (all right, originally Paul Vito Lacosta), these little glitches didn’t detract from his one gift — the uncanny ability to decimate his opponents in court. Which is one talent no lawyer can fake. He’d unearth every fact he could about the case, the parties, the judge, the prosecutor, then he’d squeeze them hard, pinch them, mold them like Play-Doh. They were facts still, but facts mutated; in his hands they became weapons, shields, viruses, disguises.

The night before the Pilsett trial, he spent one hour emptying poor Al Goodwin of whatever insights he might have about the case, two hours meeting with reporters and ten hours reviewing two things; the police report, and a lengthy document prepared by his own private investigator, hired three days ago when James Pilsett, Jerry’s uncle, came to him with the retainer fee.

Lescroix immediately noticed that while the circumstantial evidence against Pilsett was substantial, the biggest threat came from Charles Cabot himself. They were lucky of course that he was the only witness but unfortunate that he happened to be the husband of the woman who was killed. It’s a dangerous risk to attack the credibility of a witness who’s also suffered because of the crime.

But Paul Victor Lescroix, Esq., was paid four hundred dollars an hour against five-figure retainers for the very reason that he was willing — no, eager — to take risks like that.

Smiling to himself, he called room service for a large pot of coffee and, while murderer Jerry Pilsett and decent Al Goodwin and all the simple folk of Hamilton County dreamt their simple dreams, Lescroix planned for battle.

He arrived at the courtroom early, as he always did, and sat primly at the defense table as the witnesses and spectators and (yes, thank you, Lord, the press) showed up. He mugged subtly for the cameras and scoped out the prosecutor (state U grad, Lescroix had learned, top 40 percent, fifteen years under his belt and numb from being mired in a dead-end career he should have left thirteen years ago).

Lescroix then turned his eyes to a man sitting in the back of the courtroom. Charles Cabot. He sat beside a woman in her sixties — mother or mother-in-law, Lescroix reckoned, gauging by the tears. The lawyer was slightly troubled. He’d expected Cabot to be a stiff, upper-middle-class suburbanite, someone who’d elicit little sympathy from the jury. But the man — though he was about forty — seemed boyish. He had mussed hair, dark blond, and wore a rumpled sports coat and slacks, striped tie. A friendly insurance salesman. He comforted the woman and dropped a few tears himself. He was the sort of widower a jury could easily fall in love with.

Well, Lescroix had been in worse straits. He’d had cases where he’d had to attack grieving mothers and widowed wives and even bewildered children. He’d just have to feel his way along, like a musician sensing the audience’s reaction and adjusting his playing carefully. He could—

Lescroix realized suddenly that Cabot was staring at him. The man’s eyes were like cold ball bearings. Lescroix actually shivered — that had never before happened in court — and he struggled to maintain eye contact. It was a moment. Yet Lescroix was glad for the challenge. Something in that look of Cabot’s made this whole thing personal, made it far easier to do what he was about to do. Their eyes locked, the electricity sparking between them. Then a door clicked open and everyone stood as the clerk entered.

“Oyez, oyez, oyez, criminal court for the county of Hamilton, First District, is now in session. The right honorable Jennings P. Martell presiding, all ye with business before this court come forward and be heard.”

Pilsett, wearing a goofy brown suit, was led cautiously out of the lockup. He sat down next to his lawyer. The defendant grinned stupidly until Lescroix told him to stop. He flicked his earlobe several times with an unshackled finger.

When Lescroix looked back to Cabot the metallic eyes had shifted from the lawyer and were drilling into the back of the man who’d killed his wife with a $4.99 Sears Craftsman claw hammer.

The prosecutor presented the forensic evidence first and Lescroix spent a half hour chipping away at the testimony of the lab technicians and the cops — though the crime-scene work had been surprisingly well handled for such a small police department. A minor victory for the prosecution, Lescroix conceded to himself.

Then the state called Charles Cabot.

The widower straightened his tie, hugged the woman beside him and walked to the stand.

Guided by the prosecutor’s pedestrian questions, the man gave an unemotional account of what he’d seen on June third. Monosyllables of grief. A few tears, Lescroix rated the performance uncompelling, though the man’s broken words certainly held the jury’s attention. But he’d expected this; we love tragedies as much as romance and nearly as much as sex.

“No further questions, Your Honor,” the prosecutor said and glanced dismissively at Lescroix.

The lawyer rose slowly, unbuttoned his jacket, ran his hand through his hair, mussing it ever so slightly. He paced slowly in front of the witness. When he spoke he spoke to the jury. “I’m so very sorry for your misfortune, Mr. Cabot.”

The witness nodded, though his eyes were wary.

Lescroix continued, “The death of a young woman is a terrible thing. Just terrible. Inexcusable.”

“Yes, well. Thank you.”

The jury’s collective eyes scanned Lescroix’s troubled face. He glanced at the witness stand. Cabot didn’t know what to say. He’d been expecting an attack. He was uneasy. The eyes were no longer steely hard. They were cautious. Good. People detest wary truth-tellers far more than self-assured liars.

Lescroix turned back to the twelve men and women in his audience.

He smiled. No one smiled back.

That was all right. This was just the overture.

He walked to the table and picked up a folder. Strode back to the jury box. “Mr. Cabot, what do you do for a living?”

The question caught him off guard. He looked around the courtroom. “Well, I own a company. It manufactures housings for computers and related equipment.”

“Do you make a lot of money at it?”

“Objection.”

“Overruled. But you’ll bring this back to earth sometime soon, Mr. Lescroix?”

“You bet I will, Your Honor. Now, Mr. Cabot, please answer.”

“We had sales of eight million last year.”

“Your salary was what?”

“I took home about two hundred thousand.”

“And your wife, was she employed by the company too?”

“Part-time. As a director on the board. And she did some consulting work.”

“I see. And how much did she make?”

“I don’t know exactly.”

“Toss an estimate our way, Mr. Cabot.”

“Well, in the neighborhood of a hundred thousand.”

“Really? Interesting.”

Flipping slowly through the folder, while the jury wondered what could be interesting about this piece of news.

Lescroix looked up. “How was your company originally financed?”

“Objection, Your Honor,” the gray-faced prosecutor said. His young assistant nodded vigorously, as if every bob of his head was a legal citation supporting his boss.

The judge asked, “Going anywhere real, Mr. Lescroix, or’re we being treated to one of your famous fishing trips?”

Perfect. Lescroix turned to the jury, eyes upraised slightly; the judge didn’t notice. See what I’ve got to deal with? he asked tacitly. He was rewarded with a single conspiratorial smile from a juror.

And then, God bless me, another.

“I’m going someplace very real, Your Honor. Even if there are people present who won’t be very happy where that might be.”

This raised a few murmurs.

The judge grunted. “We’ll see. Overruled. Go ahead, Mr. Cabot.”

“If I recall, the financing was very complicated.”

“Then let’s make it easy. Your wife’s father is a wealthy businessman, right?”

“I don’t know what you mean by wealthy.” Cabot swallowed.

“Net worth of twelve million’d fall somewhere in that definition, wouldn’t it?”

“I suppose, somewhere.”

Several jurors joined Lescroix in chuckling.

“Didn’t your father-in-law stake you to your company?”

“I paid back every penny—”

“Mr. Cabot,” Lescroix asked patiently, “did your father-in-law stake you to your company or did he not?”

A pause. Then a sullen “Yes.”

“How much of the company did your wife own?”

“If I remember, there were some complicated formulas—”

“More complexity?” Lescroix sighed. “Let’s make it simple, why don’t we. Just tell us what percentage of the company your wife owned.”

Another hesitation. “Forty-nine.”

“And you?”

“Forty-nine.”

“And who owns the other two percent?”

“That would be her father.”

“And on her death, who gets her shares?”

A moment’s hesitation. “If we’d had any children—”

“Do you have children?”

“No.”

“I see. Then let’s hear what will in fact happen to your wife’s shares.”

“I guess I’ll receive them. I hadn’t thought about it.”

Play ’em right. Just like an orchestra conductor. Light hand on the baton. Don’t add, “So you’re the one who’s profited from your wife’s death.” Or: “So then you’d be in control of the company.” They’re dim, but even the dimmest are beginning to see where we’re headed.

Cabot took a sip of water, spilled some on his jacket and brushed the drops away.

“Mr. Cabot, let’s think back to June, all right? You hired Jerry Pilsett to do some work for you on the second, the day before your wife died, correct?”

Not before she was murdered. Always keep it neutral.

“Yes.”

“And you’d hired him several times before, right?”

“Yes.”

“Starting when?”

“I don’t know, maybe six months ago.”

“How long have you known that Jerry lived in Hamilton?”

“I guess five, six years.”

“So even though you’ve known him for six years, you never hired him before last spring?”

“Well, no, but—”

“Even though you had plenty of opportunities to.”

“No. But I was going to say—”

“Now June second was what day of the week, Mr. Cabot?”

After a glance at the judge, Cabot said, “I don’t remember.”

“It was a Friday.”

“If you say so,” the witness replied churlishly.

“I don’t say so, Mr. Cabot. My Hallmark calendar does.” And he held up a pocket calendar emblazoned with a photo of fuzzy puppies.

A wheeze of laughter from several members of the jury.

“And what time of day was he supposed to do the work?”

“I don’t know.”

“Early?”

“Not real early.”

“‘Not real early,’” Lescroix repeated slowly. Then snapped, “Wasn’t it in fact late afternoon and evening?”

“Maybe it was.”

Frowning, pacing. “Isn’t it odd that you hired somebody to do yard work on a Friday night?”

“It wasn’t night. It was dusk and—”

“Please answer the question.”

“It didn’t occur to me there was anything odd about it.”

“I see. Could you tell us exactly what you hired him to do?”

A surly glance from Cabot. Then: “He mowed the lawn and took away some rotten firewood.”

“Rotten?”

“Well, termite infested.”

“Was it all termite infested?”

Cabot looked at the prosecutor, whose milky face shone with concern, and then at the D.A.’s young assistant, who would probably have been concerned too if he hadn’t been so confused at the moment. Jerry Pilsett merely flicked his earlobe and stared morosely at the floor.

“Go ahead,” the judge prompted. “Answer the question.”

“I don’t know. I saw termite holes. I have a wood-framed house and I didn’t want to take the chance they’d get into the house.”

“So you saw some evidence of termites but the pile of wood wasn’t completely rotten, was it?”

“I don’t know. Maybe not.” Cabot gave an uneasy laugh.

“So there was some — maybe a lot — of good wood there.”

“Maybe. What difference—?”

“But for some reason you wanted Jerry Pilsett to haul the entire pile away. And to do so on this particular Friday night.”

“Why are you asking me all these questions?”

“To get to the truth,” Lescroix spat out. “That’s what we’re here for, isn’t it? Now, tell us, sir, was the pile of wood covered with anything?”

A slight frown. He’d only be wondering why Lescroix was focusing on this fact but the result was a wonderfully suspicious expression.

“Yes. By an old tarp.”

“And was the tarp stacked to the ground?”

“Yes, it was.”

“And you’d put the tarp over the wood yourself?”

“Yes.”

“When?” Lescroix demanded.

“I don’t remember.”

“No? Could it have been just a few days before you hired Jerry?”

“No…. Well, maybe.”

“Did Jerry say anything about the tarp?”

“I don’t recall.”

Lescroix said patiently, “Didn’t Jerry say to you that the stakes were pounded into the ground too hard to pull out and that he’d have to loosen them somehow to uncover the wood?”

Cabot looked up at the judge, uneasy. He swallowed again, seemed to think about taking a sip of water but didn’t. Maybe his hands were shaking too badly. “Do I have to answer these questions?”

“Yes, you do,” the judge said solemnly.

“Maybe.”

“And did you tell him there were some tools in the garage he could use if he needed them?”

Another weighty pause. Cabot sought the answer in the murky plaster heaven above them. “I might have.”

“Ah.” Lescroix’s face lit up. Easily half the jury was with him now, floating along with the music, wondering where the tune was going. “Could you tell our friends on the jury how many tools you have in your garage, sir?”

“For Christ’s sake, I don’t know.”

A sacrilege in front of the jury. Deliciously bad form.

“Let me be more specific,” Lescroix said helpfully. “How many hammers do you own?”

“Hammers?” He glanced at the murder weapon, a claw hammer, sitting, brown with his wife’s stale blood, on the prosecution’s table. The jury looked at it too.

“Just one. That one.”

“So,” Lescroix’s voice rose, “when you told Jerry to get a tool from the garage to loosen the stakes you’d pounded into the ground, you knew there was only one tool he could pick. That hammer right there?”

“No…. I mean, I don’t know what he used—”

“You didn’t know he used that hammer to loosen the stakes?”

“Well, I knew that. Yes. But… “The eyes grew dark. “Why’re you ac—?”

“Why am I what, sir?”

Cabot sat back.

Lescroix leaned toward the witness. “Accusing you? Is that what you were going to say? Why would I accuse you of anything?”

“Nothing. I’m sorry.”

The judge muttered, “Okay, Mr. Lescroix. Let’s move along.”

“Of course, Your Honor. And therefore, as a result of directing him to use that hammer, his fingerprints are now on the murder weapon. Isn’t that the case?”

Cabot stared at the prosecutor’s disgusted face. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

Sonata for witness and jury.

“Maybe it’s true. But—”

“Sir, let’s go on. On that day, the second of June, after Jerry Pilsett had mowed the lawn and loaded the wood into his pickup truck to be carted off, you asked him inside to pay him, right?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“And you asked him into your living room. Right?”

“I don’t remember.”

Lescroix flipped through a number of sheets in the folder, as if they were chock full of crime scene data and witnesses transcripts. He stared at one page for a moment, as blank as the others. Then closed the folder.

“You don’t?”

Cabot too stared at the folder. “Well, I guess I did, yes.”

“You gave him a glass of water.”

“Maybe.”

“Did you or didn’t you?”

“Yes! I did.”

“And you showed him your latest possession, your new stereo. The one you later claimed he stole.”

“We were talking about music and I thought he might be interested in it.”

“I see.” Lescroix was frowning. “I’m sorry, Mr. Cabot, but help me out here. This seems odd. Here’s a man who’s been working for hours in the summer heat. He’s full of dirt, sweat, grass stains… and you ask him inside. Not into the entry hall, not into the kitchen, but into the living room.”

“I was just being civil.”

“Good of you. Only the result of this… this civility was to put his shoeprints on the carpet and his fingerprints on the stereo, a water glass, doorknobs and who knows what else?”

“What are you saying?” Cabot asked. His expression was even better than Lescroix could have hoped for. It was supposed to be shocked but it looked mean and sneaky. A Nixon look.

“Please answer, sir.”

“I suppose some footprints were there, and his fingerprints might be on some things. But that doesn’t—”

“Thank you. Now, Mr. Cabot, would you tell the jury whether or not you asked Jerry Pilsett to come back the following day.”

“What?”

“Did you ask Jerry to come back to your house the next day? That would be Saturday, June third.”

“No, I didn’t.”

Lescroix frowned dramatically. He opened the folder again, found another important blank sheet, and pretended to read. “You didn’t say to Jerry Pilsett, and I quote, ‘You did a good job, Jerry. Come back about five tomorrow and I’ll have some more work for you’?”

“I didn’t say that. No.”

A breathless scoff. “You’re denying you said that?”

He hesitated, glanced at the prosecutor and offered a weak “Yes.”

“Mr. Cabot, His Honor will remind you that lying under oath is perjury and that’s a serious crime. Now answer the question. Did you or did you not ask Jerry Pilsett to come back to your house at five p.m. on Saturday, June third?”

“No, I didn’t. Really, I swear.” His voice was high from stress. Lescroix loved it when that happened since even the saintliest witness sounded like a liar. And qualifiers like “really” and “I swear” added to the cadence of deception.

You poor bastard.

Lescroix turning toward the jury, puffing air through cheeks. A few more sympathetic smiles. Some shaking heads too, revealing shared exasperation at a lying witness. The second movement of Lescroix’s performance seemed to have gone over well.

“All right,” the lawyer muttered skeptically. “Let’s go back to the events of June third, sir.”

Cabot put his hands in his lap. Purely a defensive gesture, again in response to the stress that he’d be feeling. Yet juries sometimes read another message in the pose: guilt. “You told the court that you came home about five p.m. Correct?”

“Yes.”

“Where had you been?”

“The office.”

“On Saturday?”

Cabot managed a smile. “When you have your own business you frequently work on Saturdays. I do, at any rate.”

“You came back at five and found Jerry Pilsett standing in the doorway.”

“Yes, holding the hammer.”

“The bloody hammer.”

“Yes.”

“It was bloody, right?”

“Yes.”

Another examination of the infamous file, this time looking over a document with actual writing on it. “Hmm. Now the police found your car on the parking strip fifty feet from the door where you allegedly saw Jerry. Is that what you claimed?”

“It’s where the car was. It’s the truth.”

Lescroix forged on. “Why was the car that far away from the house?”

“I… well, when I was driving up to the house I panicked and drove over the curb. I was worried about my wife.”

“But you couldn’t see your wife, could you?”

A pause. “Well, no. But I could see the hammer, the blood.”

“Fifty feet away’s a pretty good distance. You could actually see the hammer in Jerry’s hand?”

Calling him “Jerry,” never “the defendant” or “Pilsett.” Make him human. Make him a buddy of every member of the jury. Make him the victim here.

“Sure, I could.”

“And the blood on it?”

“I’m sure I could. I—”

Lescroix pounced. “You’re sure you could.” Just the faintest glissando of sarcasm. He scanned another page, shaking his head. “Your vision’s not very good, is it?” The lawyer looked up. “In fact, isn’t it illegal for you to drive without your glasses or contacts?”

“I… “Taken aback by the amount of research Lescroix had done. Then he smiled. “That’s right. And I had my glasses on when I drove up to the house. So I could see the bloody hammer in his hand.”

“Well, sir, if that’s the case, then why did an officer bring them to you in the house later that evening? When he needed you to look over some items in the house. He found them in your car.”

It was in the police report.

“I don’t… Wait, I must’ve… I probably took them off to dial the cell phone in the car — to call the police. They’re distance glasses. I must’ve forgotten to put them back on.”

“I see. So you claim you saw a man in your doorway with a bloody hammer, you took off your driving glasses and you called nine-one-one.”

“Yes, I guess that’s about right.”

He didn’t notice the “you claim” part of the comment; the jury always does.

“So that means you called nine-one-one from inside the car?”

“I called right away, of course.”

“But from inside the car? You claim you see a man in your doorway with a bloody hammer and yet you park fifty feet away from the house, you stay in the safety of the car to call for help? Why didn’t you jump out of the car and go see what was going on? See about your wife?”

“Well, I did.”

“But after you called nine-one-one.”

“I don’t know. I… Maybe I called later.”

“But then your glasses wouldn’t have been in the car.”

Cabot was now as disoriented as a hooked pike. “I don’t know. I panicked. I don’t remember what happened.”

Which was, of course, the complete truth.

And, accordingly, of no interest to Lescroix.

He walked ten feet away from the witness stand, stopped and turned toward Cabot. The jury seemed to be leaning forward, awaiting the next movement.

“At what time did you leave the office on Saturday, June third?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, you arrived home at about five, you claimed. It’s a ten-minute drive from your office. So you must have left about four-thirty. Did you go straight home?”

“I… I think I had some errands to run.”

“What errands? Where?”

“I don’t recall. How do you expect me to recall?”

“But you’d think it’d be easy to remember at least one or two places you stopped during the course of two hours.”

“Two hours?” Cabot frowned.

“You left the office at three p.m.”

The witness stared at his inquisitor.

“According to the video security tape in your building’s lobby.”

“Okay, maybe I did leave then. It was a while ago. And this’s all so hard for me. It’s not easy to remember…”

His voice faded as Lescroix opened the private eye’s report and found photocopies of Cabot’s banking statements and canceled checks.

“Who,” the lawyer asked pointedly, “is Mary Henstroth?”

Cabot’s eyes slipped away from the lawyer’s. “How did you know about…?”

I do my goddamn homework, Lescroix might have explained. “Who is she?”

“A friend. She—”

“A friend. I see. How long have you known her?”

“I don’t know. A few years.”

“Where does she live?”

“In Gilroy.”

“Gilroy’s a fifteen-minute drive from Hamilton, is that right?”

“It depends.”

“Depends? On how eager you are to get to Gilroy?”

“Objection.”

“Sustained. Please, Mr. Lescroix.”

“Sorry, Your Honor. Now, Mr. Cabot, on June third of this year, did you write a check to Ms. Henstroth in the amount of five hundred dollars?”

Cabot closed his eyes. His jaw clenched. He nodded.

“Answer for the court reporter, please.”

“Yes.”

“And did you deliver this check in person?”

“I don’t remember,” he said weakly.

“After you left work, you didn’t drive to Gilroy and, during the course of your… visit, give Ms. Henstroth a check for five hundred dollars?”

“I might have.”

“Have you written her other checks over the past several years?”

“Yes.” Whispered.

“Louder, please, sir?”

“Yes.”

“And did you give these other checks to Ms. Henstroth in person?”

“Some of them. Most of them.”

“So it’s reasonable to assume that the check you wrote on June third was delivered in person too.”

“I said I might have,” he muttered.

“These checks that you wrote to your ‘friend’ over the past few years were on your company account, not your joint home account, correct?”

“Yes.”

“So is it safe to assume that your wife would not be receiving the statement from the bank showing that you’d written these checks? Is that correct too?”

“Yes.” The witness’s shoulders dipped. A slight gesture, but Lescroix was sure a number of the jurors saw it.

They all saw the prosecutor toss his pencil onto the table in disgust. He whispered something to his sheepish assistant, who nodded even more sheepishly.

“What was this money for?”

“I… don’t remember.”

Perfect. Better to let the evasive answer stand than to push it and have Cabot come up with a credible lie.

“I see. Did you tell your wife you were going to see Ms. Henstroth that afternoon?”

“I… no, I didn’t.”

“I don’t suppose you would,” Lescroix muttered, eyes on the rapt jury; they loved this new movement of his symphony.

“Your Honor,” the prosecutor snapped.

“Withdrawn,” Lescroix said. He lifted a wrinkled piece of paper from the file; it contained several handwritten paragraphs and looked like a letter, though it was in fact an early draft of a speech Lescroix had given to the American Association of Trial Lawyers last year. He read the first paragraph slowly, shaking his head. Even the prosecutors seemed to be straining forward, waiting. Then he replaced the letter and looked up. “Isn’t your relationship with Ms. Henstroth romantic in nature, sir?” he asked bluntly.

Cabot tried to look indignant. He sputtered, “I resent—”

“Oh, please, Mr. Cabot. You have the gall to accuse an innocent man of murder and you resent that I ask you a few questions about your mistress?”

“Objection!”

“Withdrawn, Your Honor.”

Lescroix shook his head and glanced at the jury, asking, What kind of monster are we dealing with here? Lescroix paced as he flipped to the last page of the file. He read for a moment, shook his head, then threw the papers onto the defense table with a huge slap. He whirled to Cabot and shouted, “Isn’t it true you’ve been having an affair with Mary Henstroth for the past several years?”

“No!”

“Isn’t it true that you were afraid if you divorced your wife you’d lose control of the company she and her father owned fifty-one percent of?”

“That’s a lie!” Cabot shouted.

“Isn’t it true that on June third of this year you left work early, stopped by Mary Henstroth’s house in Gilroy, had sex with her, then proceeded to your house where you lay in wait for your wife with a hammer in your hand? That hammer there, People’s Exhibit A?”

“No, no, no!”

“And then you beat her to death. You returned to your car and waited until Jerry Pilsett showed up, just like you’d asked him to do. And when he arrived you took off your glasses to look at your cell phone and called the police to report him — an innocent man — as the murderer?”

“No, that’s not true! It’s ridiculous!”

“Objection!”

“Isn’t it true?” Lescroix cried, “that you killed Patricia, your loving wife, in cold blood?”

“No!”

“Sustained! Mr. Lescroix, enough of this. I won’t have these theatrics in my courtroom.”

But the lawyer would not be deflected by a mule-county judge. His energy was unstoppable, fueled by the murmurs and gasps from the spectators, and his outraged voice soared to the far reaches of the courtroom, reciting, “Isn’t it true, isn’t it true, isn’t it true?”

His audience in the jury box sat forward as if they wanted to leap from their chairs and give the conductor a standing ovation, and Charles Cabot’s horrified eyes, dots of steely anger no more, scanned the courtroom in panic. He was speechless, his voice choked off. As if his dead wife had materialized behind him and closed her arms around his throat to squeeze out what little life remained in his guilty heart.

Three hours to acquit on all charges.

Not a record but good enough, Lescroix reflected as he sat in his hotel room that evening. He was angry he’d missed the last of the two daily flights out of Hamilton but he had some whiskey in a glass at his side, music on his portable CD player and his feet were resting on the windowsill, revealing Italian socks as sheer as a woman’s black stockings. He was passing the time replaying his victory and trying to decide if he should spend some of his fee on getting those jowl tucks done.

There was a knock on the door.

Lescroix rose and let Jerry Pilsett’s uncle into the room. The lawyer hadn’t paid much attention to him the first time they’d met and he realized now that with his quick eyes and tailored clothes this was no dirt jockey. He must’ve been connected with one of the big corporate farming companies. Probably hadn’t had to hock the family spread at all and Lescroix regretted charging him only seventy-five K for the case; should’ve gone for an even hundred. Oh well.

The elder Pilsett accepted a glass of whiskey and drank a large swallow. “Yessir. Need that after all of today’s excitement. Yessir.”

He pulled an envelope out of his pocket and set it on the table. “Rest of your fee. Have to say, I didn’t think you could do it. Didn’t even get him on the burglary charges,” the man added with some surprise.

“Well, they couldn’t very well do that, could they? Either he was guilty of everything or guilty of nothing.”

“Reckon.”

Lescroix nodded toward the fee. “A lot of people wouldn’t’ve done this. Even for family.”

“I’m a firm believer in kin sticking together. Doing whatever has to be done.”

“That’s a good sentiment,” the lawyer offered.

“You say that like you don’t believe in sentiments. Or don’t believe in kin.”

“Haven’t had occasion to believe or disbelieve in either of them,” Lescroix answered. “My life’s my job.”

“Getting people out of jail.”

“Protecting justice’s what I like to call it.”

“Justice?” the old man snorted. “Y’know, I watched that O.J. trial. And I heard a commentator after the verdict. He said it just goes to show if you have money — whatever your race — you can buy justice. I laughed at that. What’d he mean, justice? If you have money you can buy freedom. That’s not necessarily justice at all.”

Lescroix tapped the envelope. “So what’re you buying?”

Pilsett laughed. “Peace of mind. That’s what. Better’n justice and freedom put together. So, how’d my nephew stand his ordeal?”

“He survived.”

“He’s not at home. He staying here?”

Lescroix shook his head. “He didn’t think he’d be too welcome in Hamilton for a while. He’s at a place on Route 32 West. Skyview Motel. I think he wants to see you. Thank you in person.”

“We’ll give him a call, the wife and I, take him out to dinner.” The man finished the whiskey and set the glass down. “Well, mister, it’s a hard job you have. I don’t envy you it.” He appraised the lawyer with those sharp eyes. “Mostly I don’t envy you staying up at night. With that conscience of yours.”

A faint frown crossed Lescroix’s face, hearing this. But then it blossomed into a smile. “I sleep like a baby, sir. Always have.”

They shook hands and walked to the door. Jerry’s uncle stepped into the corridor but then stopped and turned. “Oh, ’nother thing. I’d listen to the news, I was you.” He added cryptically, “You’ll be hearing some things you might want to think on.”

Lescroix closed the door and returned to the uncomfortable chair and his sumptuous whiskey.

Things I want to think on?

At six he picked up the remote control and clicked the TV set on, found the local news. He was watching a pretty young newscaster holding a microphone in front of her mouth.

“It was this afternoon, while prosecutors were asking freed suspect Gerald Pilsett about the role of Charles Cabot in his wife’s death, that Pilsett gave the shocking admission. A claim he later repeated for reporters.”

Oh, my Lord. No. He didn’t!

Lescroix sat forward, mouth agape.

Jerry came on-screen, grinning that crooked smile and tapping a finger against his earlobe. “Sure I killed her. I told my lawyer that right up front. But there’s nothing nobody can do about it. He said they can’t try me again. It’s called double jeopardy. Hey, their case wasn’t good enough to get me the first time, that ain’t my fault.”

Lescroix’s skin crawled.

Back to the blonde newscaster. “That very lawyer, Paul Lescroix, of New York City, created a stir in court earlier today when he suggested that Hamilton businessman Charles Cabot himself killed his wife because he was in love with another woman. Police, however, have discovered that the woman Lescroix accused Cabot of having an affair with is Sister Mary Helen Henstroth, a seventy-five-year-old nun who runs a youth center in Gilroy. Cabot and his wife frequently served as volunteers at the center and donated thousands of dollars to it.

“Police also dispelled Lescroix’s other theory that Cabot might have killed his wife to take control of the company of which he is president. Even though he owned a minority of the shares, a review of the corporate documents revealed that Patricia Cabot and her father had voluntarily handed over one hundred percent voting control to Cabot after he paid back fifty thousand dollars her father had loaned him to start the business five years ago.

“State prosecutors are looking into whether charges can be brought against Lescroix for defamation and misuse of the legal process.”

Furious, Lescroix flung the remote control across the room. It shattered in a dozen pieces.

The phone rang.

“Mr. Lescroix, I’m with WPIJ news. Could you comment on the claim that you knowingly accused an innocent man—”

“No.” Click.

It rang again.

“’Lo?”

“I’m a reporter with the New York Times—”

Click.

“Yeah?”

“This that gawdamn shyster? I find you I’m gonna—”

Click.

Lescroix unplugged the phone, stood and paced. Don’t panic. It’s no big deal. Everybody’d forget about it in a few days. This wasn’t his fault. His duty was to represent a client to the best of his ability. Though even as he tried to reassure himself, he was picturing the ethics investigation, explaining the matter to his clients, his golfing buddies, his girlfriends….

Pilsett. What an utter fool. He—

Lescroix froze. On the TV screen was a man in his fifties. Unshaven. Rumpled white shirt. An unseen newscaster was asking him his reaction to the Pilsett verdict. But what had snagged Lescroix’s attention was the super at the bottom of the screen: James Pilsett, Uncle of Acquitted Suspect.

It wasn’t the man who’d hired him, who’d been here in the room an hour ago to deliver his fee.

“Wayl,” the uncle drawled. “Jurry wus alwus a problem. Weren’t never doing what he ought. Deserved ever’ lick he got. Him gitting off today… I don’ unnerstand that one bit. Don’ seem right to me.”

Lescroix leapt to the desk and opened the envelope. The full amount of the rest of the fee was enclosed. But it wasn’t a check. It was cash, like the retainer. There was no note, nothing with a name on it.

Who the hell was he?

He plugged the phone in and dialed the Skyview Motel.

The phone rang, rang, rang.

Finally it was answered. “Hello?”

“Jerry, it’s Lescroix. Listen to me—”

“I’m sorry,” the man’s voice said. “Jerry’s tied up right now.”

“Who’s this?”

A pause.

“Hello, counselor.”

“Who are you?” Lescroix demanded.

There was a soft chuckle on the other end. “Don’t you recognize me? And after our long talk in court this morning. I’m disappointed.”

Cabot! It was Charles Cabot.

How had he gotten to Jerry’s motel room? Lescroix was the only one who knew where the man was hiding out.

“Confused, counselor?”

But, no, Lescroix recalled, he wasn’t the only one who knew. He’d told the man impersonating Jerry’s uncle about the Skyview. “Who was he?” Lescroix whispered. “Who was the man who paid me?”

“Can’t you guess?”

“No.”

But even as he said that, he understood. Lescroix closed his eyes. Sat on the bed. “Your father-in-law.”

The rich businessman. Patricia’s father.

I’m a firm believer in kin sticking together.…

“He hired me?”

“We both did,” Cabot said.

“To defend your wife’s killer? Why?”

Cabot sighed. “Why do you think, counselor?”

Slowly, Lescroix’s thoughts were forming — like ice on a November pond. He said, “Because there’s no death penalty in this state.”

“That’s right, counselor. Maybe Jerry’d go to prison for life but that wasn’t good enough for us.”

And the only way Cabot and his father-in-law could get to Jerry was to make sure he was acquitted. So they hired the best criminal attorney in the country.

Lescroix laughed in disgust. Why, Cabot was the one playing him in the trial. Acting guilty, never explaining what he might’ve explained, cringing at Lescroix’s far-fetched innuendos.

Suddenly the lawyer remembered Cabot’s words: Jerry’s tied up right now…

“Oh my God, are you going to kill him?”

“Jerry? Oh, we’re just visiting right now,” Cabot said. “Jerry and I and Patsy’s dad. But I should tell you, I’m afraid he’s pretty depressed, Jerry is. I’m worried that he might do himself some harm. He’s even threatened to hang himself. That’d be a shame. But of course it’s a man’s own decision. Who’m I to interfere?”

“I’ll tell the police,” Lescroix warned.

“Will you now, counselor? I guess you could do that. But it’ll be my word against yours, and I have to say that after the trial today your stock’s none too high ’round here at the moment. And neither’s Jerry’s.”

“So what’re you buying?”

“Peace of mind. That’s what.”

“Sorry to cut this short,” Cabot continued. “I think I hear some funny noises from the other room. Where Jerry is. I better run, check on him. Seem to recall seeing a rope in there.”

A low, desperate moaning sounded through the line, distant.

“What was that?” Lescroix cried.

“Oh-oh, looks like I better go. So long, counselor. Hope you enjoyed your stay in Hamilton.”

“Wait!”

Click.