Presumed innocent

Chapter 11

As I am leaving for the evening, I see lights on in Raymond's office. It is nearly 9 p.m. and my first thought is that someone is visiting who should not be. My encounter with Kumagai three days ago has left me edgy and suspicious, and I am actually somewhat surprised when I see Raymond at his desk, staring at what seems to be a computer run, and looking uncharacteristically at ease behind the wastrel fog of his pipe. At this point in the campaign this is a rare sight. Raymond is a hardworking lawyer and there have always been late nights when he was here with the stacks of prosecution reports, or indictments, or at least an upcoming speech; but with his job up for sale, most of his evenings lately are spent on the stump. When he's here, Larren and the other moguls of his campaign are with him, plotting. This moment is sufficiently unusual to be taken as private, and so I let two knuckles graze the old oak door as I am passing in.

"Tea leaves?" I ask.

"Sort of," he says, "but a lot more accurate. Unfortunately." He adopts a public tone: "The Channel 3-Tribune poll shows challenger Nico Della Guardia leading incumbent Raymond Horgan, with eight days remaining in the campaign."

My reaction is succinct: "Bullshit."

"Read it and weep." He shoves the computer run in my direction. I can't make anything of the grid of figures.

"The bottom line," says Raymond.

"'U' is undecided?" I ask. "Forty-three, thirty-nine. Eighteen percent undecided. You're still in it."

"I'm the incumbent. Once the public realizes that Delay's got a chance, they'll head his way. The new face is a showstopper in a primary." Raymond's political wisdom is usually Delphic, particularly since it represents not only his insights but Mike's and Larren's as well. Nonetheless, I try to remain upbeat.

"You've had a bad couple of weeks. Nico's played Carolyn's murder real well. You'll come back. You've just gotta let him have it. What's the margin of error on this thing, anyway?"

"Well, fortunately or unfortunately for me, it's 4 percent." Mike Duke, he tells me, is over at the TV station trying to convince them that their story should pitch the poll as reflecting a neck-and-neck race. Larren, dispatched to do the same job with the newspaper, has already gotten an agreement from the editors there, contingent on Channel 3's position. "The paper's not contradicting the TV station on the interpretation of a joint poll," Raymond explains. He puffs his pipe. "And my bet is that's the way it'll run. They'll throw me the bone. But what's the point? The numbers are the numbers. Everybody in town will smell the odor of dead meat."

"What do your own numbers look like?"

"They're crap," Raymond tells me. The campaign hasn't had the money to do a decent job. This poll is the work of a national outfit. Everybody-Larren, Mike, Raymond himself-had the impression that the situation wasn't quite this bad, but nobody can dispute it.

"You're probably right on Carolyn," he says. "it hurt. But it's the whole loss of momentum." Raymond Horgan puts down his pipe and looks straight at me. "We're gonna lose, Rusty. You heard it here first."

I look at the worn face of Raymond Horgan, my old idol, my leader. His hands are folded. He is in repose. Twelve and a half years after he got started talking about revolutionizing the idea of law enforcement, and a year too late for the best interests of us both, Raymond Horgan has finally pulled the plug. It is now all someone else's problem. And to the little incubus that argues that principles and issues are involved, there is, after twelve years, an exhausted man's reply. Ideas and principles are not foremost here. Not when you do not have the jails to hold the crooks you catch, or enough courtrooms to try them; not when the judge who hears the case is too often some hack who went to night law school because his brother already had filled the one slot available in their father's insurance agency, and who achieved his appointment by virtue of thirty years' loyal precinct work. In the administration of Nico Della Guardia there will be the same imperatives, no matter what he's saying on his TV spots: too many crimes and no sensible way to deal with them, too few lawyers, too many calls for political favors, too much misery, and too much evil that will keep on happening no matter what the ideals and principles of the prosecuting attorney. He can have his turn. Raymond's ease at the abyss becomes my own.

"What the fuck," I say.

"Right," says Raymond after he gets done laughing. He goes to the conference table in a corner of the office and pulls out the pint bottle that's always in the pencil drawer. He pours two in the little folded cups from the water cooler and I come over and join him. "You know, when I started here I didn't drink," I say. "I say, I don't have a bottle problem, I'm not complaining, but twelve years ago, I just never drank. Not beer, not wine, not rum-and-Coca-Cola. And now I sit here and knock back Scotches neat." I do just that; MY esophagus contracts and tears come to my eyes. Raymond pours another. "Ain't time a bitch."

"You're getting middle-aged, Rusty. All this fucking looking back. One thing about getting divorced, it stopped that crap for me. You know, I leave this job, I'm not going to spend four months crying in my beer and talking about all the good times."

"You'll be sitting in one of those glass cages on the fortieth floor of the IBM building, with hot-and-cold running secretaries and a bunch of megabuck partners asking you if thirty hours a week is too much time for the privilege of having your name on the door."

"Bullshit," says Raymond.

"Sure," I answer. In wistful moments in the last few years I have heard Raymond conjure just such a fantasy for himself-a few years to build a bankroll, then get on the bench himself, probably at the appellate level on his way to the state supreme court.

"Well, maybe," says Raymond, and we share a laugh. "Will you go?" he asks.

"I doubt I'll have much choice. Delay's going to make Tommy Motto his chief deputy. That's clearer than ever."

Raymond moves his heavy shoulders. "You can never tell with Della Guardia."

"It's about time for me to head on, anyway," I say.

"Can we get you on the bench, Rusty?"

This is a golden moment for me: here at last is loyalty's reward. Do I want to be a judge? Does a bus have wheels? Do the Yankees play baseball in the Bronx? I sip my whiskey, with sudden judiciousness.

"I would sure think about it," I answer. "I'd have to consider practice. I'd have to figure out the money. But I'd sure think about it."

"We'll see how things turn out, then. Those guys'll owe me something. They'll want me to go out smiling. Party loyalty. All that shit. I should have the swag to look after a few people."

"I appreciate that."

Raymond gives himself another.

"How are things going with my favorite unsolved murder case?"

"Badly," I say. "In general. We know a little more about what seems to have happened. That is, if you can believe the pathologist. Did Mac tell you about Molto?"

"I heard," he says, "I heard. What is this crap?"

"Looks like Dubinsky had it right: Nico's got Tommy out there shadowing our investigation."

"Shadowing," asks Raymond, "or subverting?"

"Probably a little of both. I'd guess, for the most part, Molto's just picking up information. You know, calling up old buddies in the department, getting them to bootleg reports. Maybe they've slowed some of the lab work down, but how would you prove it? I'm still not positive what the hell they're up to. Maybe they really think I'm a clown, and they're trying to solve the murder on their own. You know: come up with the whopper before Election Day."

"Nah," says Raymond, "that's just what they'll say. I blast them between the eyes for fucking around with our investigation and they come back with Molto, acting head of my Homicide Section, saying he was worried we would screw things up. Nah," Raymond says again, "I'll tell you why Nico has Tommy out there digging up information. It's surveillance. Very clever. He watches how we're doing and knows exactly how hard he can hit the issue, with very little risk. Every time he sees us stumble, he can turn the knob a little higher on his volume control."

We talk a moment about Kumagai. We both agree it is unlikely that he changed results. He was just holding back. We could have his assistant assigned to go over his work, but it does not seem to make much difference now. When this poll hits tomorrow, we'll be done commanding loyalty in the police department. Any cop who ever called Nico by his first name will be feeding him information, investing in the future.

"So where does this path stuff leave us?" Raymond wants to know. "Who's our bad guy?"

"Maybe he's a boyfriend, maybe it's a guy she picked up. Seems like it's somebody who knew enough about her to realize what to make it look like, but that could be coincidence. Who knows?" I stare at the moon of light on the surface of my whiskey. "Can I ask a question?"

"I guess." It is the natural moment for me to find out what the hell Raymond was doing with the B file in his desk drawer. No doubt that is what he expects. But there is something else I've wanted to put to him. This is bushwhacking, two drinks along, and enjoying the nicest moment that I've had with Raymond Horgan since the last case we tried together, one of the Night Saints conspiracies, years ago. And I know it is unfair to use the investigator's pose to explore my own obsessions. I know all of that, but I ask anyway.

"Were you fucking Carolyn?"

Raymond laughs, a big beefy laugh, so that all of him shakes, making it seem that he's feeling more whiskey than he is. I recognize a practiced barroom gesture, a way to stall when you're getting loaded and you need time to think: the wrong bimbo who wants to go home with you, an assistant ward committeeman whose name you can't recall, a reporter joshing but trying to get a little too close to the bone. If there was any ice in his glass he'd chew the cubes now, so that there'd be something in his mouth.

"Listen," he says, "I gotta tell you something about your technique as an interrogator, Rusty. You beat around the bush too much. You have to learn to be direct."

We laugh. But I say nothing. If he wants off the hook, he'll have to wriggle.

"Let's say that the decedent and I were both single and both adults," he says finally, looking down into his cup. "That isn't any kind of problem, is it?"

"Not if it doesn't give you any better idea who killed her."

"No," he says, "it wasn't that kind of thing. Who knew that dame's secrets? Frankly, it was short and sweet between us. It's been history, I'd say, four months."

There's a lot of chess here, many poses. But if Carolyn caught Raymond at the quick, he doesn't show it. He seems to have been let down easy. Better than I can say. I look again into my drink. The B file, some of her son's comments, all were hints, but the truth is that I'd guessed at Carolyn's relationship with Raymond a long time ago, just watching the telltale signs, how often she trotted down to the office, the hours the two of them left. Of course, by then I was familiar with the local customs. I'd made my own journey to Carolyn's quaint country-and an abrupt departure. I had watched their doings with my own burning mix of tourist nostalgia, and a yearning far harsher. Now I wonder why I risked the offense of even bothering to hear it all confirmed.

"You knew some of her secrets," I say. "You met the kid."

"That's true. You've talked to him?"

"Last week."

"And he blew Mommy's cover?"

I say yes. I know how much a man in Raymond's shoes wants to believe he was inscrutable.

"An unhappy kid," Raymond observes.

"You know, he told me that she wanted to be P.A."

"I heard that from her. I told her she had to work the vineyards a little. Either you got to have professional standing or political connections. You can't just walk into it." Raymond's tone is casual, but he gives me a penetrating look: I'm not as dumb as you think, he is saying, I can see the forest for the trees. A dozen years of power and flattery have not dulled him that much. I feel, with pleasure, a gust of pride and respect again for Raymond. Good for you, I think.

So that's the way it worked. Four months ago they ended, Raymond said.

Well, the arithmetic fits: Raymond announced and Carolyn went her own way. She had figured, like everybody else, that Raymond wasn't running, that he could hand the mantle to anyone he chose. Maybe he could be persuaded to make it a woman-depart with one final gesture in the direction of progress. The only puzzle is why Carolyn's train to glory had stopped first with me. Why tarry with the local when you're ready to hop the express? Unless it was all a little less calculating than it now seems.

"She was one tough cookie, that one," Horgan says. "A good kid, you know. But tough. Tough."

"Yeah," I say, "good and tough and dead."

Raymond stands.

"Can I ask one more?" I ask.

"Now you want to get personal, huh?" Raymond smiles, all Irish charm and teeth. "Let me guess: What the fuck was I doing with that file?"

"Close," I say. "But I understand why you didn't want it floating around. Why'd you give it to her in the first place?"

"Shit," he says, "she asked. You wanna be cynical? She asked and I was sleeping with her. I guess she heard about it from Linda Perez." One of the paralegals who read the crank mail. "You know Carolyn. Hot case. I suppose she thought it would be good for her. I considered it bullshit all along. What's the guy's name?"

"Noel?"

"Noel, right. He rainmade this guy." Swindled. Kept the money. "That's my take. Don't you think?"

"I don't know."

"She looked at it, went out, and shoveled through the records in the 32nd District. There was nothing there. That's what she told me."

"I would like to have heard about the case," I say, with the dilitning tongue of a quick drunk.

Raymond nods. He drinks more of his whiskey.

"You know how it is, Rusty. You do one dumb thing, you do another dumb thing. She didn't want me to talk about it. Somebody asks why I gave her the case and pretty soon everyone knows she's balling the boss. The boss didn't mind keeping that one to himself, either. You understand. Who'd it hurt?"

"Me," I say, as I have meant to do for many years.

He nods at that one, too.

"I'm sorry, Rusty. I really am. Shit, I'm the sorriest son of a bitch in town." He goes to a sideboard and looks at a picture of his kids. There are five of them. Then he goes to put on his coat. His arms and hands move unevenly; he has a hard time smoothing down the collar. "You know, if I really do lose this fucking election, I'm just gonna quit. Let Nico run the show, he wants to so bad." He stops. "Or maybe you. You wanna do this job for a little while?"

Thanks, Raymond, I think. Thanks a lot. In the end, maybe Carolyn had the right approach.

But I cannot help myself. I get up, too. I turn down Raymond's collar. I shut off the lights and lock his office and point him down the hall in the right direction. I make sure that he will take a cab. The last thing I say to him is "Your shoes are too big to fill." And, of course, old habits being what they are, when the words come out of me, I mean them.