Final judgment

FOUR

Clients never tell their lawyers everything. Mason knew that. Expected it. He tried different things to encourage their candor. He worked hard to build rapport that translated into trust. He provided a sympathetic audience of one ready to receive confessions without passing judgment. He extolled the sanctity of the attorney-client privilege, assuring his clients that their darkest secrets would remain locked in his ethical vault.

But he knew better than to be disappointed or surprised when a client held something back. It was a self-protective human impulse, the remnants of a primordial survival instinct. Knowledge is power. Confession is weak. Truth is a commodity to be bartered for freedom.

Avery Fish had raised the bar for holding back to new heights. A dead body wasn’t easy to overlook or ignore. One parked in the trunk of your car was positively unforgettable, however unmentionable.

Samuelson and Brewer left them in the conference room, Brewer telling Fish to stay put until the police arrived. Mason cracked the door open a moment later. A deputy U.S. Marshal stared at him from the hallway, motioning him back into the conference room with one hand, the other resting on the butt of his service weapon.

Mason closed the door and turned to Fish, who was slumped on the table, his head on his folded arms.

“I’ve got at least fifty questions I could start with,” Mason said.

“Do me a favor,” Fish mumbled. “Pick an easy one.”

Mason needed answers before the cops arrived. There wasn’t time for Fish to fall apart. Regardless of what Fish said he knew, the cops would assume that he knew more. Mason had to get a feel for the truth, which he assumed was somewhere between what Fish would admit and what the cops would suspect.

“Sit up and look at me.”

Fish lifted his head, his eyes glassy as if Mason had woken him from a drunk, strands of thin white hair drifting over his brow. He rubbed his meaty hands across his jowls, pulled off his glasses, and massaged the corners of his eyes.

“Okay, already. I’m sitting up. I’m looking at you. Ask your fifty questions.”

“Whose body is in the trunk of your car?”

“I don’t know.”

“How did the body get there?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t put it there.”

“How long has it been in your car?”

Fish took a deep breath and clutched the edge of the table with his hands. “It wasn’t there last night when I got home around six o’clock. It was there this morning when I left the synagogue.”

“You knew there was a body in the trunk of your car when you drove downtown?” Mason asked, not certain he’d heard Fish correctly.

Fish nodded with a sigh, avoiding eye contact with Mason.

“Avery, I’m not being critical here, but why didn’t you call the police instead of parking a dead body at the Federal Courthouse?”

Fish leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms over the top of his belly and forcing his considerable stomach outward an inch or two like a blowfish puffing itself up to ward off attackers.

“That question I can answer, Mr. Smart Guy Lawyer. After services this morning, I opened the trunk to get my briefcase, only the body was on top of it. You told me not to be late and even though I thought this was a good excuse, I didn’t think the U.S. attorney would agree. Besides, a dead body is hard enough for an average citizen to explain and these days I’m not exactly an average citizen. So I kept my mouth shut, hoping you would get me out of here in a hurry. Then I’d figure out what to do. I was going to ask your advice, if it makes you feel any better.”

Mason let out a breath. “It always makes me feel special when my client drops an asteroid-size shoe on my head in the middle of negotiating a plea bargain.”

“Your head?” Fish asked, coming out of his chair. “Your head? Listen, boytchik, it’s my head that’s going to nestle into a prison pillow every night for the rest of my life. Not yours!”

“You can count on that if you keep me in the dark! The U.S. attorney figures I either knew about the body and didn’t say anything or that I have no control over you. Either way, my credibility takes a hit, and when that happens, your penitentiary frequent-guest points start stacking up. So make me really feel better. Tell me who it was.”

Fish fell back into his chair. “I told you. I don’t know.”

Fish’s voice was suddenly reedy; his burst of anger evaporated, a fearful desperation taking its place. Mason liked him and wanted to believe him. He wasn’t a terrorist, bank robber, or dope dealer. He was a gonif, a swindler, a con man, and he was good at it, having made a nice illegal income for a long time. That required a fair measure of charm, which Fish had in abundance, and an easy capacity to lie about anything to anyone. Mason hoped his client wasn’t lying to him now.

“Man or woman?” Mason asked.

“Man.”

“Okay, fine. You didn’t know him. What did he look like?”

Fish shrugged. “Not much. He was white. Probably around six feet, like you. Nothing special.”

“His face, Avery. What did he look like?”

Fish answered slowly, his hands covering his eyes before he dropped them in his lap in surrender, the memory too fresh, the day’s events piling up. “He didn’t have one.”

“C’mon, Avery,” Mason said, annoyed that Fish would try to play him. “If you knew the victim, the police will eventually figure that out.”

“Somebody cut off his head. And his hands,” Fish whispered, the words catching in his throat as tears spilled from his red-rimmed eyes.