The Lost Years

47

On Rikers Island, Wally Gruber sat in an attorney conference room listening sourly as Joshua Schultz related the conversation that he had had with Assistant Prosecutor Peter Jones.

“You’re telling me I should hand him the sketch of the guy who wasted that professor and all I get out of it is some half-baked promise that he’ll put in a good word for me before the judge buries me?” Wally shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

“Wally, you’re not in much of a position to call the shots. Suppose you come up with a picture of someone who looks like Tom Cruise and say, ‘That’s the guy I saw’? Are they going to say thanks a lot and give you some kind of free ride?”

“The guy I saw did not look like Tom Cruise,” Wally snapped, “and I bet you a million to one that when I sit down with that artist, we’ll come up with someone the family recognizes. Why do you think that guy had his face covered? Maybe he thought that if he ran into that old lady, she’d know who he was, even though she’s nuts.”

Joshua Schultz was beginning to wish he’d never taken the case of State of New York vs. Wally Gruber. “Look, Wally, you have a choice,” he began. “Either we take our chances with the prosecutor, or I call the old lady’s lawyer. If you think he can somehow pay you off or fight to get you probation, forget it. That won’t happen.”

“There’s a reward of a hundred grand out there from the insurance company for any leads about the jewelry I took,” Wally pointed out.

“And you have the nerve to think they’re going to give it to the person who took it in the first place?” Schultz asked incredulously.

“Don’t get smart with me,” Wally snapped. “What I’m talking about is they probably think that the gems have been pried out of the settings by now. I know they’re still just like when I got them.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because the fence I deal with has a lot of customers in South America. He told me he was going to take the stash to Rio next month. He told me it’s worth a lot more intact than it would be broken up. The Scott woman is a jewelry designer, right? Suppose I give up the fence and they get the jewelry back. The insurance company would be off the hook. That Scott woman would be thrilled. And on top of all this, I give the face of the killer to the husband, who’s defending the old lady. They’ll all be ready to forgive and forget. They’ll make me man of the year.”

“Sounds good on paper, Wally, but you seem to ignore a couple of very important points. First, the lawyer for Kathleen Lyons is also the husband of the woman who owned the jewelry. He’d have to disqualify himself from the murder case because he’ll have a world-class conflict, the likes of which I’ve never seen before. Second, your information about the fence and jewelry would have to go to the prosecutor, because they’re the ones who would have to investigate it further. So what you’re suggesting is that we give some information to Lloyd Scott and other information to the prosecutor. That’s not going to work.”

“All right. I’ll give the prosecutor another chance. We’ll start with him, and when he sees I can give him the lowdown on the jewelry, maybe his attitude will change. Then we decide if we stay with him on the murder case or go to Lloyd Scott. One way or the other in the next few days, I’ll be sitting down with a cop.”

“Then you want me to call the prosecutor and tell him you’re also willing to provide information about recovering the jewelry?”

Wally pushed back his chair, clearly impatient to end the conversation. “You got it, Josh. Maybe this will convince him that I can solve the murder for him too.”