The Last Witness

Chapter Twelve

The door to Mason's office had a slot in it for mail delivery. He scooped Friday's delivery off the floor, tossed it on the sofa with his topcoat, and opened up the dry-erase board. Using a green marker, he drew a short line down from Ed Flora's name and added Tony Manzerio's name to the board. He wrote Amy White's name in parentheses next to the mayor's name, and underscored Rachel's reference to Jack Cullan's secret files. His conversation with Amy had convinced him that Cullan's files did exist. He couldn't decide whether the files were the motive for Cullan's murder or the reason for the determined effort to railroad Blues- or both.

The words he'd written on the board didn't suddenly come to life and rearrange themselves into the answers to his questions, even though he gave them a good five minutes to spring into action. It was, he reminded himself, a dry-erase board and not a Ouija board.

Mason picked up the mail from the sofa, sat at his desk, and began sorting through the envelopes. He tossed the junk mail into the trash without a second look. Next he opened the envelopes that looked like they might contain checks from clients. There were a few, but not enough to make him open the envelopes whose return addresses were from companies to whom he owed money. He saved those for the end of the month, hoping by then the checks would catch up with the bills.

Buried in the stack, he found an envelope from the Jackson County Prosecutor's office marked Hand Delivery. It contained a motion filed by Patrick Ortiz asking the court to set a preliminary hearing in Blues's case and an order signed by Judge Pistone setting the hearing on January 2. The judge's order was not a surprise. However, Ortiz's motion made as much sense as folding with a full house when no else had placed a bet.

There were a number of steps in the life of a criminal case once a suspect had been arrested. The first was the arraignment, which was to officially inform the defendant of the charges against him and to set bail.

The next step was for the prosecutor to establish that there was probable cause to believe that a crime had been committed and that the defendant had committed it. The prosecutor could meet that burden by presenting the case to the grand jury and asking for an indictment. In the alternative, the prosecutor could ask the Associate Circuit Court judge to hold a preliminary hearing at which the state would present its evidence and ask the judge to bind the defendant over for trial. If the judge found the state's evidence sufficient, the case would be assigned to a Circuit Court judge for trial.

The grand jury met in secret. Witnesses could be subpoenaed to testify and forced to appear without a lawyer to represent them. Taking the Fifth Amendment was the criminal equivalent of a scarlet letter. Hearing only the state's side of the case virtually assured that the grand jury would issue whatever indictments the prosecutor requested.

A preliminary hearing was public. The defendant had the right to attend and listen to the case against him, and his lawyer had the right to cross-examine the state's witnesses and present evidence of his client's innocence. Prosecutors hated preliminary hearings because they were forced to show too many of their cards to the defendant. Secret justice was more certain.

Now, Patrick Ortiz had surrendered the state's right to a secret grand jury. Mason knew that Ortiz wouldn't have made that decision on his own. Leonard Campbell must have told Ortiz what to do, and Mason was certain that Ortiz didn't like it. Ortiz was a career prosecutor who cherished the state's advantages over the accused. He would rather rip out a chamber of his heart than give up the grand jury. Ortiz didn't care about politics or appearances. He fought the battles and let his boss take the credit.

Leonard Cambell was a politician first and a lawyer last. Mason had only one explanation for Campbell 's decision. Rachel Firestone's article, and the media frenzy it had launched, had forced the prosecuting attorney to choose a preliminary hearing to defuse Rachel's accusation that Blues was a victim of political expediency. This was one time Mason appreciated the power of the press.

The date of the hearing meant that Mason would be working on New Year's Eve instead of celebrating, though he didn't really mind. He didn't have anyone to kiss at midnight, and now he had an excuse to skip the sloppy embraces of people he didn't know at parties that he didn't want to attend alone.

New Year's Eve held mixed memories for Mason. It was one of those take-stock moments, demanding an honest appraisal of where he'd been and where he was going.

The best New Year's he'd ever celebrated had been the first one with Kate. They'd been married a month and were still giddy. She'd surprised him with tickets to Grand Cayman, a second honeymoon before they'd finished paying for the first one. The resort Kate had chosen had thrown a party, where they had danced as if they had been possessed, shouted and laughed with strangers, and marveled at the magic in their lives. Shortly before midnight, Kate had led him away from the crowd onto an empty stretch of beach so white it glowed in the dark with the reflection of the moon and stars. They had made love on the beach as the New Year dawned, kept company by the tide washing gently over them.

Three years later, Kate had left him. She had run out of love, she had told him. It was a concept he couldn't understand. Love wasn't like oil, he had told her. You don't wait for the well to run dry and start digging someplace else. Unless you were Kate.

Since then, Mason had done his share of digging, though the relationships he had explored had proved too shallow or fragile to last. He was glad to use work as an excuse to skip New Year's Eve and the annual audit of his personal account.

It was after nine o'clock that night before Mason had finished rowing another ten thousand meters across his dining room. There was nothing smooth about his workout. His strokes were rough, his timing off. He felt as if he were rowing upstream. He blamed it on Blues's case since it was making him feel the same way. The only thing the rowing machine gave him that the case didn't was the opportunity to sweat a bucket, though he expected the case would eventually pull even on that score.

As he neared the end of his workout, his breathing turned ragged, punctuated by a deep grunt each time he hauled the rowing handle deeply into his belly. Tuffy didn't like what she saw, and let Mason know it as she paced back and forth in front of the rowing machine, ears up and tail down until he finished. Mason wondered if his dog had a date for New Year's. That kind of devotion was hard to come by. He was still heaving when the doorbell rang.

Mason staggered to his feet, mopping his face and neck with a towel. His house was fifty years old, and the front door was a massive arched slab of dark mahogany set into an entry vestibule with a limestone floor and deep-burgundy walls. Instead of a peephole, it had a small window that was covered by a door. When he opened the door to see who had rung the bell, his heart rate jumped back to the pace of the final hundred meters of his row.

Beth Harrell was on his front doorstep, facing the door while glancing to her right and then to her left. She kept her head down, sneaking a peek at the window as she bundled herself into her arms to keep warm.

Mason pulled the door open, and for a moment they stared at each other. Mason tried to remember the last time he'd seen her, and the best he could do was to guess between a bar association lunch and a law school alumni dinner. Either way, it had been a couple of years. He was struck by how differently people appeared when they were encountered out of context. Beth Harrell had always carried herself with a born-to-the-manner style that was both regal and relaxed. Her posture was always straight, but there was playfulness in her slender arms and easy smile. She had dressed stylishly while giving an enticing hint of a passionate woman. She had a thing for strong, hold colors-particularly deep blues and reds-accented with a fragrance that lingered after she'd gone.

At the moment as she stood in his doorway, the winter wind buffeting her as she pulled a scarf tightly around her throat, she seemed swept away by more than the weather. She looked at him with searching eyes, trying to gauge his reaction to her unannounced visit and predict what he would say to her when he knew why she had come.

Mason recovered from his surprise, helped along by the prickly sensation of sweat freeze drying against his skin. "Beth," he said. "Come on in before we both freeze to death."

He closed the door behind her and took the heavy down-filled coat she handed to him. In the soft light of the entry hall, the red rubbed into her cheeks by the cold wind rose high in her face. She pulled her gloves off and pressed her long fingers against her cheeks as if to transplant the warmth of her hands to her face.

Folding her arms to her body, she surveyed the empty living room and the rowing/dining room. Tuffy made a pass at Beth, sniffing Beth's feet, nuzzling against Beth's thighs, and brushing her whole body against Beth until she broke down and scratched Tuffy behind the ears. Tuffy immediately sat down, pushing her head against Bern 's hand, giving her the unspoken command to keep on scratching. Mason knew that Tuffy was a terrific icebreaker.

"She's beautiful," Bern said.

"She's shameless and will give herself to anyone who scratches her behind her ears," Mason said.

"We should all be so easy," Beth said.

Mason was grateful for the small talk. He assumed that Beth had come to talk with him about Blues's case and that she would get to that subject when she was ready. He didn't mind waiting. He did mind that she looked fabulous even in faded jeans and a bulky cream-colored cable-knit sweater and that he looked like yesterday's dirty laundry in a pair of gym shorts and a sweat-stained Kansas City Rowing Club T-shirt. He knew that he smelled worse than he looked, but he was afraid she'd leave if he told her he was going to take a shower.

"Can I get you something to drink?" he asked her.

Beth answered, "That would be great. Something hot would do the trick."

Mason led her to the kitchen. Tuffy figured out where they were going and raced there ahead of them.

"I've got tea," he said as he searched the pantry. "Never developed a taste for coffee, so I don't keep it in the house."

"Tea would be good, perfect."

Mason boiled a cup of water in the microwave, and a few minutes later they were seated at his kitchen table. Beth stirred her tea, pressing the tea bag against the side of the cup. Mason drank from a long-necked bottle of beer and pressed the cool glass against his neck.

"I read about you in the paper last year. That thing with Sullivan & Christenson," she began. "We didn't teach you that in law school."

"We've both been in the papers," he said. "All things considered, I prefer the comics."

"Amen to that," she said.

The color in her face had evened out to its natural soft, barely tan hue. A slight patchwork of laugh lines had crept into the corners of her mouth and eyes, the unavoidable markers of passing years. Mason decided that the lines looked good on her. He had first met Beth when she was nearly thirty, when her smooth, unlined face was an open invitation full of promise. Then, her beauty lay in her youth. Now, in her early forties, her beauty lay in the fulfillment of that promise, the quiet confidence of things done well and the grace to withstand things gone wrong.

"Was it difficult?" she asked him.

"Was what difficult?"

"Killing that man," she answered, looking at him intently.

Mason paused before answering. He'd come to understand the reluctance of men who'd gone to war to discuss their battles. Heroes, he'd decided, were for bystanders. Soldiers killed so that they could live. He'd done the same thing and found no reason to glory in it.

"It's done," was all he said. "I called you yesterday. You could have just called back. I would have come to your office."

"I was out of town yesterday and today. When I got home I read this morning's paper and saw you and the mayor on the six o'clock news. I decided a house call would be more private. I live at the Alameda Towers and the press has practically camped out in the parking lot."

"How did you get away?"

"Our building is connected to the Windcrest Hotel. I parked in the hotel garage and walked through the hotel. The press can't get past my doorman and they haven't figured out my secret entrance."

"Gee, that's a better setup than having Alfred and the Bat Cave."

Beth laughed. "You were always good at that in law school. I used to watch you with your friends. You were always the one who made everyone laugh."

Mason couldn't hide his surprise. "You watched me?" he asked her, remembering how he had gawked at her when he hoped she wasn't looking.

Beth bit her lower lip and nodded with a grin that nearly took them both back fifteen years. "You were younger than me but not by much. What is it? Five years? I was your teacher, but I wasn't dead."

"Is it too late for me to ask you for extra credit?"

She answered his question with her own. "Is it too late for me to ask you for help?"

Mason drained the last of his beer and carried it to the sink. He leaned back against the kitchen counter, his hands cupped along its edge, and looked at her. She had drawn him in with a mix of vulnerability and flirtation that he found engaging, flattering, and potentially irresistible. The five years that had separated them when he'd been in law school, and their teacher-student relationship, were insurmountable hurdles to any other relationship. Now the difference in their ages didn't matter. What did matter was that she was a key witness against Blues.

"Beth, you taught ethics. The governor hired you because you were an expert on right and wrong. You know who my client is and why I called you. When this case is over, I could represent you. But not now."

"Lou, I'm not asking you to be my lawyer. I know better than that."

"Then what do you want?"

"I want you to protect me."

"From what or who?"

She rose from her chair, crossed the room to where he was standing, and stopped less than a foot from him. He could almost feel her under her thick sweater. She stood, trembling faintly, silently begging him to hold her.

"Protect you from what?" he repeated. He waited for her answer, not trusting himself to raise his hands from the counter.

She dipped her head, looked away, and then turned her back to him, her arms loose at her sides.

"You're right," she said. "I shouldn't have come here. The office would have been better."

"Beth, if you tell me who or what you're afraid of, I may be able to help you. But you realize the position we're both in here."

She took a deep breath that stiffened her, and shook her head. She walked back to the kitchen table, sat down, and dabbed the corners of her eyes with a napkin. "Let's stick to your business, Lou. I'll take care of mine."

Mason said, "Good enough," though he kept his place at the counter. "Tell me about last Friday night. Why were you out with Jack Cullan?"

"He asked me out. We're both single. He was a very interesting man, well read and charming when he wanted to be."

Mason heard the words but didn't believe them. "You're telling me that in the middle of a scandal that has Cullan bribing you, the two of you decide to go out on a date? Are you nuts?"

Beth leaned back in her chair. "I'm forty-three years old. I've been married and divorced twice and I have no children. I don't even have a damn dog! Most men act like they're afraid of me. I must come across as a blond beauty bitch. Jack Cullan asked and I said yes. There's no crime in that."

"There's no sense in it either."

"We didn't talk about the Dream Casino or any other Gaming Commission business. Rachel Firestone was the only one beating the scandal drum, and no one was listening to her. Until Jack was killed, the rest of the media wasn't paying any attention. We would have had a pleasant evening and no one would have written or said anything about it."

"If it was all so pleasant," Mason asked her, "why did you throw a drink in Cullan's face?"

"I said that Jack could be charming if he wanted to. He could also be crude when he made certain suggestions. I told him I wasn't interested. He called me a cock-teaser."

"That's it? He called you a name?"

"He threatened me. He threatened to ruin me."

"How? I've heard that Cullan collected dirt on his friends and enemies to make certain they did as he asked. Did he have a file on you?"

"He didn't say and I don't know. I haven't led a perfect life, but I never took a bribe. He just said he would do it, that I wouldn't see it coming, and that no one but the two of us would know that it had been him. That was too much. I'd had two husbands who had tried that crap on me, and I wasn't going to put up with it from him."

"So why didn't you press charges after he hit you?"

"Having dinner with Jack and listening to music afterward was a nonevent. Filing criminal charges against him for assault would have been a media circus. No, thanks. It was better to chalk it up to one more bad judgment about the men whose company I keep."

Mason moved from the counter to the table, choosing a chair close to hers. "My client is the owner of the bar. His name is Blues and he's my friend. He saved my life and I'm trying to save his. Did you see Jack Cullan scratch the back of Blues's hands when he grabbed Cullan from behind?"

Beth thought for a moment and shook her head slightly. "I'm sorry, Lou," she said. "I was pretty upset. I just don't remember."

Mason waited for her to say more, but she didn't. "Okay. What happened after you left the bar?"

"Jack took me home. He dropped me off. He didn't apologize and I didn't invite him upstairs."

"Did you stay home the rest of the night?"

The red returned to her face, though not from the cold.

She stood and circled around him, stopping back at her chair. "My God, Lou! You're asking me if I killed him?"

"I'm doing my job, Beth, and you know it. I'm sure the cops asked you the same question."

Beth glared at Mason and headed for the door. He followed her. She jammed her arms into the sleeves of her coat and twisted her scarf around her neck. "I didn't kill him. I'm sorry I went out with the son of a bitch, but I didn't kill him. I'm sorry I came here tonight."

"I'm not sorry," Mason said without thinking. "I don't want it to be you."

Bern 's eyes moistened again. She wiped them with her gloves and left him without saying another word.

Mason walked into his living room and sat cross-legged on the hardwood floor next to Tuffy's bed. She trotted onto her pillow, turned three times, scratched at the pillow, and lay down, her head on Mason's leg. He scratched her behind her ears and thought about the last two days.

His working theory was that Cullan's murder was linked to the Dream Casino deal, a theory that led to three suspects-Ed Fiora, Billy Sunshine, and Beth Harrell. Fiora had refused to talk to him but had sent Tony Manzerio to deliver a message. The mayor had played politics and had sent Amy White to plead his case and ask Mason to protect him from whatever was in Cullan's secret files.

Beth Harrell had made a house call and come on to him every way possible without taking her clothes off. Though she was long on motive and short on alibi, Mason had meant it when he had told her that he hoped it wasn't her. He slipped his hand under Tuffy's face and aimed her head at his.

"What do you think? Can I save Blues and still get the girl?"

Tuffy raised her paw and pushed his hand away, then pawed him again until he resumed scratching behind her ears.

"It's all about you, isn't it?" he asked the dog. "Well, at least you're honest about it. No one else is."