California Fire And Life

75

Tom Casey's in with Billy.

"Let me get this straight, Jack," Casey says. "You want to deny a fire claim because a poodle had to take a piss."

"A Yorkie," Jack says. "Because a Yorkie had to take a piss."

Casey turns back from the window and smiles at him with beatific menace.

"Are you fucking with me, Jack?" he asks.

"I wouldn't fuck with you, Tom."

This is definitely true, because not only are Jack Wade and Tom Casey good friends, but Tom Casey is the Meanest Man in California.

This isn't just Jack's opinion; it's an official title Casey won by unanimous vote at a California Defense Bar Association meeting after he gave a now infamous lecture on the fine art of cross-examination.

Casey's lecture was a joke.

Literally. And it went something like this:

"This accountant goes to prison for embezzlement," Casey tells the audience, "and the second he gets to his cell, his cell mate, an enormous, wean-looking guy, says, 'Now, here in this prison we like to play House. Which would you rather be, the husband or the wife?'

"The accountant – who is terrified – doesn't want to be either, of course, but when he considers the various options, he decides he'd rather be the husband. So he manages to croak, 'The husband. I'll be the husband.'

'"Okay, Husband,' the cell mate says, 'now get over here and suck your wife's dick.'"

After the subsequent horrified gasp and burst of laughter, Casey tells the crowd, "And that joke tells you everything you need to know about cross-examination, to wit – when you get to the ultimate question, it shouldn't matter whether the witness says yes or no."

After which, Casey is officially named the Meanest Man in California.

"Goddamn it, Jack," Goddamn Billy Hayes says. He's irritable because Casey has insisted that they meet in the air-conditioned office and there's no smoking in there.

"Whatever the fuck kind of dog," Casey says.

Jack gazes on Casey's sartorial splendor. Today he's wearing a pearl gray Halbert amp; Halbert DB with a two-toned white shirt and red silk tie. Casey's famous for his clothes, especially his ties. The joke around the office is that you can actually take a tour of his walk-in closet at home, and that the bus stops for lunch at the shirt section before setting out for the shrine that is the tie rack.

He lifts his hands in his trademark shrug and asks Jack the same question he often asks (rhetorically) of juries, "I mean, am I missing something here?"

"You're missing a lot" Jack says.

"Enlighten me," Casey says, then he sits down and crosses his legs. His eyes widen in mock innocence. "Please, teach me."

Like, make your case.

Convince me and maybe you can convince a jury.

Don't convince me and I'll advise Goddamn Billy to pay the claim.

Jack knows the drill. He takes out the chart he made and lays it on Billy's desk.

"Bentley's whole overdose theory relies on Pamela Vale smoking in bed and drinking," Jack says. "I have eight witnesses who will swear that she was sober at least as of 10 p.m."

"That gives her half the night-"

"She didn't keep booze in the house."

"She bought-"

"Not anywhere in Dana Point."

"Go ahead," Casey says.

"The same witnesses will testify that Pam was terrified that night," Jack says. "That she told them Nicky was going to kill her."

"Hearsay."

"You can get it in."

Casey smiles. "Maybe."

"You'll get it in."

"Even if I do," Casey says, "so what? Pamela Vale was afraid and alone. Sadly, she fell off the wagon and went back to the one solace she had – the bottle. She drank herself into unconsciousness, the cigarette slipped from her hand, she died of CO asphyxiation or overdose before the flames hit her. A tragic accident."

"But before she passed out," Jack says, "she poured kerosene from the closet, across the floor, over the bed, and under the bed?"

He hands Casey Dinesh's report.

"The formal report will be here in a day or so," Jack says. "Dinesh faxed me the charts."

"You sandbagged me, Jack," Casey says.

"Kerosene," Jack says.

"Volume?"

"Two to five gallons."

Casey says, "Bentley's fucked. Motive?"

Jack lays it out for him.

"It's enough for me," Billy says.

"Not so fast, Cisco," Casey says. "You have incendiary origin. You have motive. But opportunity? You have nothing to put your insured on the scene."

"There's nothing that indicates anyone else had access to the scene," Jack says.

"A boyfriend?" Casey asks. "A lover? Vale says they were going to reconcile. She tells the boyfriend, 'Sorry, Charlie, it was beautiful but now it's over.' The boyfriend is – forgive me – inflamed with rage. Decides, 'I'll show you over, bitch.' Strangles her and lights her up. Perfect revenge on her and the husband."

"So this phantom lover kills her, sets up the fire, gets a key and locks the doors on his way out?" Jack asks. "Why? Besides which, there's no indication anywhere of any phantom boyfriend. And then there's Leo."

"The poodle."

"The Yorkie," Jack says. "Nicky waits until the kids are asleep, until everything is dead on the streets, then he leaves Mother Russia's and drives to the Bluffside Drive house. He lets himself in. The dog doesn't bark because it's Daddy. Of course, Daddy has a can of kerosene with him, but what does a dog know?"

"What time is it now?" Casey asks.

Jack shrugs. "Three. Three-thirty."

"Okay. Go on."

"Nicky goes into the bedroom," Jack says. "Maybe he has a gun, maybe he has a knife – but he forces her to drink. Maybe he rapes her, I don't know. But he smothers her on the bed. Then he takes the kerosene and pours a big pool in the closet, trails it across the room, and pours a bigger pool under the bed and over her body."

"Why?" Casey asks. "If she's already dead?"

"Rage," Jack says. "He pours it from her waist down."

"Go ahead."

"But he just can't barbecue the pooch. Just won't torch little Leo. So he puts Leo outside and shuts the door. We're talking about 4:30 now. He goes back inside and lights the match."

"Timing device?" Billy asks.

"I'm guessing he uses a cigarette tucked into a book of matches. That gives him five to ten minutes before the flame touches off the kerosene. It's a nine-minute drive back to Monarch Bay. The guard sees him come back in around 4:45."

"One minute after Meissner sees the fire," Casey says.

"And the same time Mother sees him checking on his kids," Jack says. "Convenient."

"Will the guard testify?" Casey asks.

"When you subpoena him," Jack says.

"Proving that he could do it," Casey says, "isn't the same as proving that he did do it."

"He lied on tape," Jack says. "Short of Pamela Vale coming back to testify-"

"-this is the strongest case we could have," Casey says. "I agree. The issue is: Is it strong enough?"

The three of them stand there and look at Jack's chart. After a few minutes Goddamn Billy says, "Jack?"

"Deny the claim."

"Tom?"

"I think you're taking a big risk."

He cites Bentley's report and the coroner's conclusion.

"If Vale sues," Casey says, "you'll have to bring two public officials to the stand and make them eat their own reports. Juries don't like that."

Jack says, "If we give Ng the rest of this evidence, he'll be happy to modify his report. As for Bentley…"

"Fuck him?" Casey says.

Jack shrugs.

"I still don't know," Casey says.

"What about you, Billy?" Jack asks. "Where are you on this?"

Billy is suddenly Fuck it on the No Smoking rule. He draws a Camel from the pack, jams it between his lips, lights it, takes a long draw, then exhales.

Saying, "It's your call, Jack."

"Yeah?"

"Yup."

"Then we deny the life claim and the fire claim," Jack says, "void the policies and sue to get the advance back."

"Write the denial letter," Goddamn Billy says. "Inform the insured of our decision."

Oh, yeah, Jack thinks.

I'll inform him.