Final judgment

FORTY-FIVE

Mason didn’t know whether his glimpse of Samantha and Mark Hill was intentional or accidental. Either way, he didn’t like it. That he’d been set up was plain, though the purpose was not. He decided to pretend he’d seen nothing and let Griswold and Cates spin it out for him.

The witness room was furnished with police chic: a wooden table with uneven legs scarred with initials and cigarette burns, metal folding chairs, and windows covered with chicken wire. The sun warmed the room and the wire, casting a checkerboard shadow on the surface of the table. Mason sat with his back to the windows. Cates stood behind him, leaning against the glass. Griswold sat across from Mason.

“Appreciate the help with the lineup,” Griswold said.

“I’ll waive my normal appearance fee.”

“All smart-ass all the time,” Cates said.

“And I thought you were just jealous of my good looks,” Mason said without turning around.

Griswold raised his hands. “My kids aren’t as big a pain in the ass as you two are. Give it a rest, why don’t you.”

Mason held up his right hand in a fist except for his extended little finger. “Hey, Cates. Pinky truce?”

“Asshole,” Cates said, smacking Mason’s hand. “This is a waste of time. Let me know when you get a good idea,” he said to Griswold. “I’ve got better things to do.”

“What can I do for you, Detective Griswold?” Mason asked after Cates left.

“You’re like a cold sore with a personality, you know that, Mason? Annoying as hell but amusing on someone else. Don’t tell Cates, but I liked the pinky truce.”

“Your secret is safe with me. What do you want?”

“Answers. Information. A road map. We know that somebody killed Charles Rockley and left him in your client’s car. Maybe it was your client and he was so busy playing let’s make a deal with the feds that he didn’t have time to get rid of the body. Maybe it was someone who wanted us to look at your client. You got any ideas who might want to set up your client?”

“I’ve got no idea. He’s a nice old man. Doesn’t bother anyone.”

“Cut the crap for five minutes, Mason. From what I hear, your nice old man has been fleecing people all his life, including a bunch that isn’t getting their Florida dream vacation.”

“Those people aren’t out enough money to kill someone and try to pin it on Avery Fish. Give me a break.”

Griswold ignored the holes in his theory and changed tacks. “Why was Johnny Keegan carrying around your name and number when he got clipped?”

“Must have needed a good lawyer.”

“You ever talk to him?”

“Nope. The guy was only a bartender. He couldn’t have afforded me anyway.”

“We talked to the manager of the Galaxy, guy named Al Webb,” Griswold said, consulting the spiral notepad he carried in his shirt pocket. “Webb says Rockley got himself sued in a sexual harassment case over a woman named Carol Hill, who, it turns out according to Webb, was banging Keegan. How about that?”

“Shocks the conscience.”

“Pissed off her husband, too, from what Webb told us.”

“Then why wasn’t Hill in the lineup instead of me?”

“We picked him up for questioning yesterday. He had a lousy alibi and a fat lip so naturally we ask him if Rockley gave it to him and that’s why he popped him, plus the fact that Rockley was pawing his wife. He says he didn’t kill Rockley. Says he was minding his own business, drinking his sorrows away at a bar in Fairfax last Friday night. Said he got into it with someone and that’s how he got the lip.”

“And you think I gave it to him and now you’re going to arrest me for assault?”

Griswold gave him an indulgent smile. “Putting a lawyer away would be a public service, but we’ll wait for something with real bite. We went to the bar to check on Hill’s story. The bartender confirmed that Hill was there last Friday when two guys braced him. Said Hill pulled a knife on one of the guys and the other guy took it away from him and then they hustled Hill outside. One of the waitresses said she recognized one of the two guys from seeing his picture in the paper and on TV. Said his name was Lou Mason. So Detective Cates calls Hill and asks him if he’d like to press charges against the guy who beat him up. Hill says sure and Cates says we’ve got a suspect we want to put in a lineup.”

“That lineup was bullshit and you know it.”

“It was bullshit if we wanted to charge you, but not if we wanted to test Hill’s story and get on his good side, being sympathetic and all that. Just because we like your client for Rockley’s murder doesn’t mean we’re sitting around with our thumbs up our ass. Could be it was Hill. We needed you for the lineup. Guess what?”

“Surprise me.”

“He didn’t pick you even though we stacked the deck. What do you make of that?”

Mason was wearing the same jacket he’d had on Friday night. Hill’s knife was still in the inside pocket. He wasn’t going to get out of the witness room by denying what had happened in the bar. He pulled the knife from his pocket and laid it on the table.

“We didn’t lay a hand on him.”

“We?”

“Blues and me. We went to the bar to talk to Hill. He pulled the knife on me and Blues took it away from him. We went outside and talked. He left and wrecked his pickup on the way out of the parking lot. Ran into a car parked across the street. The driver got out and decked him.”

“Blues as in Wilson Bluestone, the ex-cop?”

Mason nodded.

“They still talk about him around here. Not the way I’d like to be remembered. I don’t suppose you got a license tag on the other car or that you can identify the other driver?”

Mason was following two of the cardinal rules he gave his clients. Only answer the question asked and don’t forget that the guy on the other side of the table isn’t your friend.

“No tag. Tall guy, blond, works out a lot.”

“You’re a big help, you know that?”

“Best I can do. Sorry.”

Griswold shrugged his shoulders and leaned forward in his chair. “It’s like this, Mason. We didn’t find out that Rockley was the stiff in your client’s car until a reporter called us Friday night. By then, you’d already been to see Mark Hill. So me and Cates wonder what led you to him and we can only think of one thing. You knew that Rockley was the stiff and you knew about the sexual harassment case. Al Webb says he ran into you Saturday night at some Republican Party blowout and that you knew all about Rockley, Keegan, and Carol Hill. When we talked to you Friday night, you claimed you never heard of Johnny Keegan. You starting to see the problems me and Cates are having with all of this?”

Mason had been leaning back in his chair, the front legs off the floor. He eased the chair down. Griswold’s refrain was the same as Vince Bongiovanni’s. The only thing they were both missing was the picture of Blues outside Rockley’s apartment.

“You think the only way I could have gotten to Hill was if someone told me about Rockley, and you think Fish is that someone because he killed Rockley.”

“Head of the class, Mason. That’s right where you’re headed.”

“Except Fish had no connection to Rockley and he didn’t kill him. Whoever did had his own reasons for dumping the body in the trunk of Fish’s car. That was Fish’s bad luck, period.”

“If Fish didn’t tell you about Rockley, who did?”

Mason met Griswold’s gaze, then looked away and stood. He couldn’t keep ducking Griswold’s questions without inviting more suspicion. He was willing to trade partial answers for information Griswold might have.

“You really didn’t know that Rockley was the murder victim before Rachel Firestone called you?”

“It’s not your turn to ask questions.”

“It is if you want any answers from me.”

Griswold hesitated, tapping his coffee cup on the table. “No, we didn’t know. Made us look like rookies.”

“Who leaked Rockley’s ID to the press?”

“Had to have been the FBI. Who else could it have been? We sent them the DNA sample.”

“Did you call them on it?”

“Damn straight! I’m the liaison with the Bureau on this case. My counterpart is an agent named Kelly Holt. Good looking but cold. She said it wasn’t them. But you knew it was Rockley before the Star came out with it, am I right?”

Mason hesitated but saw no edge in denying the obvious. “Yeah, I knew.”

“When did you find out?”

Mason sighed. “Friday morning.”

“Friday fucking morning! Who told you?”

“Kelly Holt.”

Griswold stood and stepped toward Mason until their chins were almost touching. “Listen to me, Mason-and this is Griswold’s gospel. Kelly Holt got her skirt dirty once before and they ran her out of the Bureau. No one seems to know how or why she got back in. She wouldn’t have told you about Rockley without getting something in return. I’d be real careful before I put your client’s life in her hands. You tell Fish that if he killed Rockley, he’ll never get a better deal than if tells me all about it right now.”

“And if he didn’t kill Rockley?”

“Don’t get in bed with Uncle Sam. They’ll fuck you for sport.”

“What do we get if we climb in bed with you?”

“A kiss in the morning.”