Prime Witness

Chapter Twenty-eight

“Why didn’t you tell us about the phone call?” Claude is more than a little perturbed with me, my failure to inform him about the earlier telephone threat.

He tells me this in muted tones, over salad and soup at the Lettuce Patch, a luncheon spot near the courthouse for secretaries and other watchers of weight. Dusalt is on a diet, though I’m at a loss to understand why.

“I thought it was just a crank,” I tell him. “Nikki took the call, so I didn’t hear the words myself.” This is a point of some regret with me now, my initial reaction that perhaps Nikki had made more of the phone call that night than was warranted. I make a little bluster about prosecutors and threats. “More common than rain in April, and mostly idle,” I say.

“You think this is idle?” Claude’s examining the letter and the photograph, each of which I have encased in clear Ziploc bags, and delivered to him here over lunch.

“I don’t know,” I say. “Somebody went to a lot of trouble to scare the hell out of my family. Whoever did it has my full attention. In a word, even if it’s a prank, I’d like to have their ass.” I must admit that my “dago is up,” the flare of the Italian temper.

He smiles. “You take this very personally,” he says.

“You bet.”

“A little advice?” He’s offering.

I listen.

“You are now personally involved. You should leave this to me.”

“That’s why we’re talking,” I say. “Still, I don’t like people jerking my family around.”

Claude passes a single hand over the table, as if to calm troubled waters.

“You are right to take this seriously.” He reminds me that in this state threats against law enforcement officers and prosecutors are considered crimes, prosecutable even without overt moves to carry them out.

“How does your wife feel about all this?” he says.

Nikki is now a basket case. She will not let go of Sarah, even to have her go so far as to her room. I put a face on it, tell him simply that she is “upset.”

He nods like he understands.

“Where is she, and your daughter? You didn’t leave them home alone?”

“Not today. They’re with friends, a guy who works nights, retired cop, and his wife. They live across town, in Capital City,” I say.

“Good.” He says it like at least on this point I have thought clearly. “Give me the address and phone number,” he says.

I write down the information on a napkin and Claude excuses himself from the table, leaves me sitting there chewing on greens. He is gone for five minutes and when he returns I’ve hardly touched lunch, a measure of how tightly strung I am after the events of last evening, and a sleepless night.

“I’ve made a phone call, across the river. Capital City Police,” he says. “There’s an unmarked unit on its way. They’ll park outside the house and keep an eye,” he says, “until we can make more permanent arrangements.”

“What kind of arrangements?”

“I would suggest,” he says, “that you move your family out of town until the trial is over. To another location where they cannot be traced,” he says, “just till then. To be safe.”

Great. Something that will only serve to heighten Nikki’s already intense level of paranoia.

“Is that necessary?”

He looks at me.

“I mean my daughter has school. My wife has a job.”

“Somebody will have to talk to the school, and with your wife’s employer, and hope they’ll understand,” says Claude.

“How do I tell my wife?”

“Talk to her, explain,” he says. He doesn’t know Nikki, or understand the tenuous nature of my marriage at this moment. But what is clear is that Claude sees this episode as more serious than I, something beyond a harmless and nutty asshole with scissors and glue.

I ask him if he does this every time a deputy DA gets a threatening piece of mail. If so, he would have little time for anything else.

He makes a face. “We take precautions. They vary with the case.” He looks at the envelope through its plastic bag.

“This sender’s not shy,” he says.

“You wouldn’t expect some shrinking violet to do this?” I say. “I mean take pictures of my daughter and send us thinly veiled death threats.”

“You miss my point,” he says. “I mean, the fact that it has no stamp, that the envelope was hand-delivered to your mailbox.”

“Oh.”

Claude’s talking about the boldness of the act, coming nearly to our front door. I’d not considered this point of near invasion until now. It is becoming clear to me that I am rattled, no longer focusing on significant details. It’s what happens when you become personally involved. Like a lawyer representing himself, you tend to lose your edge.

He holds up the letter. “And a nice touch,” he says.

“Emm?”

“The little hint of bigotry,” he says. Claude’s referring to the description of Iganovich as “Ivan.”

He smiles at this, like he’s amused. He and I have never discussed social issues and I wonder whether this appeals to some darker side in Claude. Then I realize again I have missed his meaning.

“Makes it sound like the writer has a thing for immigrants,” he says. “Maybe. But I think it’s a lot of smoke.”

“What do you mean?”

“You really think Joe-six-pack reads enough to care how many counts are in an indictment? I mean Iganovich is already charged with four capital murders. After all, how many times can you execute a man?”

Claude thinks we either have the world’s most scrupulous redneck here, or whoever delivered the letter and photo is pumping sunshine up our skirts.

“Then you think maybe this isn’t serious?” I say.

“Oh no. I think it’s very serious.” He says this with meaning. “I think it’s possible that whoever sent this,” he’s tapping the plastic bags on the table, “perhaps has killed, twice already.” He looks directly at me, engaging eyes. “If so,” he says, “they would not hesitate to do so again.”

The mind of the cop, always thinking motivation, studying the act for its calculated effect. Who would have a greater stake in seeing Iganovich charged with the Scofield murders than the person who actually killed them? I am beginning to think that Claude may be right. I want Nikki and Sarah out of town today.

“My turn,” he says. Claude picks up the check and drops a tip. We wend our way through the tables, past the booths, toward the register at the front door. Halfway there Claude slows a little, leans back into my ear and whispers.

“Wouldn’t you like to be a fly on the wall?” he says. He’s gesturing with a hand, subtle, keeping the movement below his waist, as we walk, motioning toward one of the corner booths off in the distance. I’m in no mood for gossip. My mind is on other things, missing sleep. But I look. There at the table is Adrian Chambers, fitted out in a three-piece suit, his face illuminated under the chin by candle light, the visage of some evil genie. Next to him with his back to me is a head of silver-gray, nodding in animated conversation. As I focus, this has me doing a double take, uncertain whether my eyes have deceived. But as I look again, first impressions are confirmed. Sitting at the table with Adrian, indulging himself in boisterous conversation, is Roland Overroy, the two men laughing, in synchronous harmony, no doubt, I suspect, at my expense.