Deadlocked

Chapter 32

"Nice job today, Dixon," Mason said after his company left. "You got a lot of mileage out of Ortiz. You ripped a chamber out of his heart with every question."

They remained in the living room, seated on opposite sides of the table while drawing on cold bottles of Fat Tire Beer Mason had retrieved from the kitchen. The dog was lounging on the floor beneath the picture window that had been punctured by a bullet a week before. It was the first shot fired in what had become a guerrilla campaign. The wind was picking up, whistling through the hole in the glass.

"You know Patrick as well as I do. I snuck up on him today. That won't happen again."

"We'll see what happens at the preliminary hearing," Mason said.

"Not going to be any preliminary hearing," Smith said. "Ortiz called me late this afternoon. Said he was taking the case to the grand jury instead. They meet again this Friday and they're going to indict you for murder. Speedy trial and all that. We'll get a jury by Thanksgiving and a verdict by Christmas."

Mason sucked in his breath. Smith watched him, not blinking, put together like a high-fashion puzzle, callous and cool. Mason had been impressed by how Smith handled the arraignment, satisfied with his choice of counsel even though he hadn't picked Smith for his skill. Mason knew the importance of managing a client's expectations, especially a criminal defense client whose life was on the line. Smith took it to another level, wringing any sentiment out of the equation.

"It's Ortiz's call," Mason said. "He can take the case to the grand jury or have a preliminary hearing. He picked the grand jury because it's secret and you made him look bad today. It killed him to tell the judge that Whitney King denied that he was supposed to meet Sandra and me at his office."

"It may have killed Ortiz, but it's worse for you. King's not going to back up your story."

"There's got to be a record of Sandra's phone call to King. When we get the phone records, no one is going to believe King. Getting that piece out of Ortiz was almost worth the price of admission," Mason said.

"We'll see. I subpoenaed Sandra's and Whitney's records today. I should have them by Friday. But, like I said, Patrick isn't going to let me sneak up on him again. He'll subpoena every one of the people you had over for dinner tonight."

Mason said. "Then we have to get them ready to testify. Let's divide up the work. There's plenty to go around."

"That's not the way I work. I don't divide things up," Smith said. "Besides, I don't want you interviewing witnesses. Every time you open your mouth, you'll create another witness to testify against you. You're the client this time, Lou, not the lawyer. Nothing you say is privileged anymore unless you say it to me."

In a week of tectonic shifts in his world, this was the latest harsh reality to hit Mason. Being the lawyer meant being in control, running the show. Being the client meant finding religion, putting his future in the hands of a stranger. Mason was a true believer in himself and not much else.

"Fine," Mason said, taking a deep breath, trying to hold onto something. "I'll do the legal research and write the briefs. I'll hide out in the library. You'll get all the glory."

"Sorry, Lou. I can't let you do that. You know the law. I'm not worried about that. But no one on trial for murder writes or thinks as clearly as they think they do. You've got one job. Point me in the right direction and I'll do the rest. That's how I earn my fee."

Mason stood, slamming his chair against the table, hands on his hips. "That's bullshit! You think I'm going to sit on my ass and wait for the judge to tell Ortiz to call his first witness? I'm looking at the death penalty. I've witnessed one execution and that was enough for me!"

Smith tilted his chair back on the rear legs, hands folded in his lap. "When was the last time you let a client work up his murder case?"

"This is different. I'm not one of your street thug clients. I know what I'm doing and I'm damn good at it!"

"Then you don't need me. You can represent yourself. I'll refund the unused part of my retainer to your auntie in the morning," Smith said, standing as Mason glared at him. Smith held the stare, his face flat, indifferent.

Mason raised his hands, waving Smith off. "Okay. You made your point. But what am I going to do?"

"You've got other clients besides yourself," Smith answered.

"Not after today. There's no way I can represent a criminal defendant when I'm charged with murder. I'll have no credibility with the prosecutor or the courts until this is over.

I've got a few civil clients, but they won't stick around to see how this comes out. I'm shut down," he said, slumping back into his chair.

"You can take up golf," Smith said, returning to his seat.

Mason managed a small laugh. "You charge extra for the jokes?"

"Depends on how many I have to tell. You ready to get after this?"

Mason put his hands on the table. "Yeah, I'm ready. I don't have a choice."

Smith took him through it, starting with Ryan Kowalczyk's execution, breaking down every conversation, taking notes, and writing down names in the margins. He jumped around, interrupting Mason's narrative, asking what King was wearing when Mason talked to him at Camille's, asking the make and model of the cars that the valets retrieved before they brought back King's car. He tortured Mason for details.

"I didn't count King's molars if that's what you're going to ask me next," Mason said after a couple of hours.

"I was getting to that," Smith said. "The details don't matter as much as whether you remember them. It's all about credibility. Do you remember everything, or just the part that helps you? Did you forget everything or just the part that hurts you? You know the drill."

"I do," Mason said. "But not from this side of the table."

"Get used to it," Smith said. "I think I've worked you over enough for one night."

Mason said, "You left out the one question I thought you would ask."

Smith pried apart the last crab Rangoon, spooning the cold filling out, leaving the fried wrapping. "So ask it yourself," he said, washing the crab down with warm beer.

"Why did I hire you?" Mason asked.

"You tell me," Smith said. "Has to be more than my good looks and charm."

"Sandra had found out something about Whitney and his family that she wanted to tell me but she hesitated because it may have been privileged and because I was on the other side. She was about to tell me when you called her. After that, she shut up."

"You think it had something to do with Whitney King, so you hired me because you think I'll tell you," Smith said.

"Sandra said you were working together on another case. I don't buy that."

"Why? Because she worked downtown and represented big corporations and white-collar crooks and I work on the east side representing people who get collared instead of wear collars? Or maybe it's one of those what's-a-good-lookingwhite-woman-doing-with-a-black-man things."

"Neither," Mason said, ignoring the bait. "Because I knew Sandra well enough to know that she didn't scare easily and she was shaking. She trusted me. That's the last thing she said to me before she was shot. She wanted to tell me something but didn't know how to do it. Whatever you said to her shut her up. I paid you a hundred thousand dollars to find out."

"Correction," Smith said, pushing back from the table. "Your auntie paid me." He walked into the dining room and tapped his foot against the flywheel on Mason's rowing machine. "Waste of time," Smith said, pointing to the machine. "All that work and you're right back where you started when you finish."

"You look like a runner," Mason said, following Smith into the dining room. "You do the same thing."

"Wrong. When I'm running, I'm always going someplace even if I always come back. Sandra was like that. Always going some place. Fact is we were working on another case.

One of her clients was a doctor with big-time gambling debts who'd gotten in too deep with a private lender. He was overcharging his Medicare patients to pay off his debts."

"And you represent the private lender who uses a bent-nose collector to pick up the weekly installment?"

"Her doctor rolled over on my lender as part of a deal with the feds," Smith said.

"Gang bangers, dope dealers, and loan sharks," Mason said. "Quality clientele."

"Don't give me that crap, Lou. You're right down there with the rest of us. Most of the people we represent are guilty. They know it, the prosecutors know it, and we know it. Sandra knew it, too. She knew I had contacts. People that could find out things that other people couldn't."

"She told me that she'd spent the weekend reviewing her firm's files on Whitney King's family. Did she find something that made her ask you for help?"

"She didn't say anything about any files. All she asked was if I would look into something for one of her firm's clients."

"Whitney King?"

"Close. His mother."

"She's in some kind of psychiatric nursing home," Mason said.

"They're separate facilities actually. A nursing home and a psychiatric hospital. Same company owns them. It's called Golden Years. Sandra wasn't sure which one the mother was in, but she wanted to know if the mother belonged in either one," Smith said.

"Don't tell me," Mason said. "You're not a doctor even though you play one on TV."

"You charge your clients for the jokes?" Smith asked.

"Depends on how many I have to tell. What's your nursing home connection?"

"Like you said, I've got a quality clientele. Not all of it is gang bangers, dope dealers, and loan sharks. There's a lot of money to be made taking care of old people. Those Medicare care regulations are a bitch. Going after doctors, hospitals, and nursing homes is easy money for the feds. Damon Parker owns Golden Years. I've kept him open for business a couple times when the feds had other ideas. He liked the fact that I had good contacts in the U.S. attorney's office from my days as a prosecutor."

"So, if Sandra wanted to know something about King's mother, why didn't she ask her or ask King?"

"You said she was scared," Smith said. "Maybe she didn't want King to know she was asking."

"What did you find out?" Mason asked.

"Nothing. I put out a feeler and Parker fired me. That's what I told Sandra when I called her."

"Ask a question and get fired. That makes the point," Mason said.

"Not like getting shot in the face," Smith said.