Let Me Call You Sweetheart

61 Friday, November 3rd

The plea bargaining was not going well for Barney Haskell. At 7:00 P.M. on Friday morning he met attorney Mark Young in his handsome law office in Summit, half an hour and a world away from the federal courthouse in downtown Newark.

Young, head of Barney’s defense team, was about the same age he was, fifty-five, but there the resemblance ended, Barney thought sourly. Young was smoothly elegant even at this early hour, dressed in his lawyer’s pin-striped suit that seemed to fit like a second skin. But Barney knew that when the jacket came off, those impressive shoulders disappeared. Recently the Star-Ledger had done a write-up on the high-profile lawyer, including the fact that he wore one-thousand-dollar suits.

Barney bought his suits off the rack. Jimmy Weeks had never paid him enough to allow him to do otherwise. Now he was facing years in prison if he stuck with Jimmy. So far the Feds were hanging tough. They would only talk reduced sentence, not a free ride, if he handed Jimmy over to them. They thought they could convict Weeks without Barney.

Maybe. But maybe not, Barney thought. He figured they were bluffing. He had seen Jimmy’s lawyers get him off before. Kinellen and Bartlett were good, and they had always managed to get him through those past investigations without any real damage.

This time, though, judging from the U.S. attorney’s opening statement, the Feds had plenty of hard evidence. Still, they had to be scared that Jimmy would pull another rabbit out of his hat.

Barney rubbed his hand over his fleshy cheek. He knew he had the innocent look of a dumb bank clerk, an aspect that had always been helpful. People tended not to notice or remember him. Even the guys closest to Weeks never paid much attention to him. They thought of him as a gofer. None of them had realized he was the one who converted the under-the-table cash into investments and took care of bank accounts all over the world.

“We can get you into the witness protection program,” Young was saying. “But only after you’ve served a minimum of five years.” “Too much,” Barney grunted.

“Look, you’ve been hinting you can tie Jimmy to a murder,” Young said as he examined a ragged edge on his thumbnail. “Barney, I’ve milked that as far as I can. You’ve got to either put up or shut up. They’d love to hang a murder on Weeks. That way they’ll never have to deal with him again. If he’s in for life, his organization probably would collapse. That’s what they’re gunning for.”

“I can tie him to one. Then they’ll have to prove he did it. Isn’t there talk that the U.S. attorney on this case is thinking about running for governor against Frank Green?”

“If each gets his party’s nomination,” Young commented as he reached in his desk drawer for a nail file. “Barney, I’m afraid you’ll have to stop talking in circles. You’d better trust me with whatever it is you’re hinting about. Otherwise I won’t be able to help you make an intelligent choice.”

A frown momentarily crossed Barney’s cherubic face. Then his forehead cleared and he said, “All right. I’ll tell you. Remember the Sweetheart Murder Case, the one involving that sexy young wife who was found dead with roses scattered all over her? It was ten years ago, but it was the case that Frank Green made his name on.”

Young nodded. “I remember. He got a conviction on the husband. Actually it wasn’t that hard, but the case got a lot of publicity and sold a lot of newspapers.” His eyes narrowed. “What about it? You’re not saying Weeks was connected to that case, are you?”

“You remember how the husband claimed he didn’t give his wife those roses, that they must have been sent by some man she was involved with?” At Young’s nod, Haskell continued, “Jimmy Weeks sent those roses to Suzanne Reardon. I should know. I delivered them to her house at twenty of six the night she died. There was a card with them that he wrote himself. I’ll show you what was on it. Give me a piece of paper.”

Young shoved the telephone message pad at him. Barney reached for his pen. A moment later he handed back the pad. “Jimmy called Suzanne ‘Sweetheart,’” he explained. “He had made a date with her for that night. He filled out the card like this.”

Young examined the paper Barney pushed back to him. It held six notes of music in the key of C, with five words written underneath: “I’m in love with you.” It was signed “J.”

Young hummed the notes, then looked at Jimmy. “The opening phrase of the song ‘Let Me Call You Sweetheart,’ “he said.

“Uh-huh. Followed by the rest of the first line of the song, ‘I’m in love with you.’”

“Where is this card?”

“That’s the point. Nobody mentioned it being in the house when the body was found. And the roses were scattered over her body. I only delivered them, then I kept going. I was on my way to Pennsylvania for Jimmy. But afterwards I heard the others talking. Jimmy was crazy about that woman, and it drove him nuts that she was always playing up to other guys. When he sent her those flowers he had already given her an ultimatum that she had to get a divorce-and stay away from other men.”

“What was her reaction?”

“Oh, she liked to make him jealous. It seemed to make her feel good. I know one of our guys tried to warn her that Jimmy could be dangerous, but she just laughed. My guess is that that night she went too far. Throwing those roses over her body is just the kind of thing Jimmy would do.”

“And the card was missing?”

Barney shrugged. “You didn’t hear nothing about it at the trial. I was ordered to keep my mouth shut about her. I do know that she kept Jimmy waiting or stood him up that night. A couple of the guys told me he exploded and said he’d kill her. You know Jimmy’s temper. And there was one other thing. Jimmy had bought her some expensive jewelry. I know, because I paid for it and kept a copy of the receipts. There was a lot of talk about jewelry at the trial, stuff the husband claimed he hadn’t given her, but anything they found, the father swore he gave her.”

Young tore the sheet of paper Barney had used off the pad, folded it and put it in his breast pocket. “Barney, I think you’re going to be able to enjoy a wonderful new life in Ohio. You realize that you’ve not only delivered the U.S. attorney a chance to nail Jimmy for murder but also to annihilate Frank Green for prosecuting an innocent man.”

They smiled across the desk at each other. “Tell them I don’t want to live in Ohio,” Barney joked.

They left the office together and walked down the corridor to the bank of elevators. When one arrived and the doors started to part, Barney sensed immediately that something was wrong. There was no light on inside it. Gut instinct made him turn to run.

He was too late. He died immediately, moments before Mark Young felt the first bullet shred the lapel of his thousand-dollar suit.