The Mayor of Lexington Avenue

Twenty-seven

Jack tried several times to get Tracey James’s number from information so he could call her office and make an appointment to see her. Strangely, she was not listed.

Why would a lawyer not be listed in the phone book? It just didn’t make sense. Maybe she’d relocated. Vero Beach was just an hour’s drive east, so early on Monday morning he decided to drive over and make some inquiries. She can’t hide from me, he thought, half joking. And why would she?

His questions were answered soon after he arrived in town. Jack’s professional investigative procedure was to stop at every law office he saw and ask where Tracey James’s offices were located. The receptionists in the first three places had never heard of her, making him begin to wonder if she even existed. He hit pay dirt, however, on the fourth stop. Perseverance pays off, he told himself. He’d been at it for about half an hour.

“I think someone here used to work for her,” the receptionist at Blaine amp; Dewey told him. She gave him a look before she went to find her co-worker-a look that said there was something she knew and he didn’t but should have.

Maybe I’m reading too much into people’s expressions, he thought, forgetting that this was the first meaningful expression he’d seen that morning.

Five minutes later, a short, overweight woman who appeared to be in her mid-fifties stepped into the waiting room with a grim expression on her face.

“Are you the person who asked about Tracey James?”

“Yes. I understand you worked for her?”

“Right up to the end,” the woman replied, her head downcast. “She was a good boss. Paid well.” Everybody who pays well is a good boss, Jack thought.

“Right up to the end-what do you mean?”

“You don’t know?”

“Know what?” He hated the twenty questions game.

“Ms. James was killed in a traffic accident a year ago.”

Jack felt compelled to express some sympathy although he didn’t know Tracey James. “I’m sorry to hear that,” he said. The woman appeared ready to burst into tears at any moment.

Maybe Tracey James really was a good boss, Jack thought. “Do you know who has access to or custody of her files? I’m looking for a particular file on a case she worked on ten years ago-Rudy Kelly?”

The woman just shrugged. “It was probably destroyed. We destroyed all the old files after three years. When she died all her cases were assigned out. I remember that case, but I’m not sure why I remember it. I wasn’t with Ms. James ten years ago. You may want to check with her chief investigator, Dick Radek.”

“Do you know where I can locate him?”

“No, I’m sorry. Wait, I think he mentioned once that he lived in Stuart-by the water. Yeah, he was saying how he got in just before the property values went skyrocketing.”

It wasn’t much but it was a start. Jack thanked the woman and started to leave when he remembered something else-private investigators were usually ex-cops.

“Do you know if Mr. Radek was an ex-cop?”

“Yeah, I think he was,” she replied. “He mentioned one time he was retired from the Miami police department.”

Bingo, Jack said to himself. “Thank you very much,” he said as he headed out the door.

Dick Radek lived in a typical middle-class three-bedroom, two-bath, ranch-type house in Stuart. His just happened to be on the Intercoastal Waterway, where it stuck out like a sore thumb. His neighbors’ homes were all mansions, each one with its own yacht in the backyard.

“I bought at a good time,” Dick told Jack when he saw him noticing the contrast. “They’ve been trying to get me out of here for years. They buy these places and come in and knock down the old homes. I can’t tell you what I’ve been offered for this house.”

They were sitting on old green deck chairs on the screened-in back porch looking out on the water. Dick couldn’t have been more hospitable when Jack knocked on his door a half hour before, ushering him into the house and right through to the porch before the introductions were completed. As soon as Jack was comfortably seated, Dick handed him a beer without asking. He had opened one for himself as well. He’d been fully retired for a year, and although his large frame was still muscular and powerful, it was quite apparent he’d spent a lot of his spare time out here doing just this. His gut told that story.

“Why don’t you sell?” Jack asked.

“I like it here. Besides, I know it pisses all of them off that I’m still around. You know, the white trash in the neighborhood. I kinda like that too. So what can I do for you?”

“I’m representing Rudy Kelly.” Jack just threw the words out there and waited for a response. Dick didn’t say anything.

“Do you remember the case?” he asked after a couple of seconds.

“Sure do.” A draft of cold air had entered the room. The friendly guy who had invited him into his house was starting to clam up. Jack knew instinctively there was something Dick Radek did not want to talk about.

“Do you mind if I ask you a few questions about it?”

“Depends on what you ask.”

“Look, it seems like I’ve hit a nerve here for some reason. I’m trying to save a young man’s life and I’m running out of time. I’m just doing an investigation, trying to find information that might help my client, nothing more. There’s no agenda here, okay?”

Dick seemed to loosen up. “I hear ya. Go ahead, ask your questions. I’ll answer them if I can.”

“Why did Tracey James get out of the case?”

“Money. Tracey never did anything unless there was money in it. Frankly, I was surprised when she took the case. The woman, Rudy’s mother, had no money. I thought Tracey might be bleeding her for whatever she could get out of her.”

“She would do that?”

“Oh, she could be a bloodsucker-but not this time, at least not as much as usual. There was something about this case. It haunted her until the day she died.”

“I’m not sure I understand. She didn’t take the case for money but she got out because of money?”

“That’s about right. Tracey was definitely conflicted when it came to this one. I’d never seen her like that before or since. She really wanted to help that woman and her son. And I’ll tell you something else, she did a damn good job while she was on the case.”

“I know, I’ve read the file. She ripped the chief detective a new asshole during that suppression hearing.”

“Yeah, that’s what I heard. I wasn’t there. You know, she planned on getting back on the case before she was killed.”

“What?”

“Yeah. I didn’t know Tracey had a conscience until Rudy Kelly came along. When he got convicted, she was sick about it. She knew the public defender fucked everything up and she just couldn’t let go.”

“Wait a minute. I’m not following you here. She got out of the case almost ten years ago-and you’re telling me she planned on getting back into it?”

“That’s about the size of it.”

“Why after all these years?” Jack felt like he was pulling teeth again.

“Somebody contacted her, I don’t know who it was. She wouldn’t tell me. But whoever it was gave her some information that she felt would free Rudy. She tried to contact Rudy’s mother but found out she had died. That’s when she really got motivated-she felt she let that woman down. So she called that detective, Wes Brume.”

“Why’d she call him?” Jack asked, surprised at what he’d just heard. His surprise was about to turn to shock.

“I think part of it was just to let the little peckerhead know she was coming back. She always thought that Brume set Rudy up. She knew she got to him in that suppression hearing and she wanted to plant a seed in his brain, hopefully, to give him a few sleepless nights.”

“You said part of it was just to let him know she was coming back-what was the other part?”

“I’m not sure-maybe she wanted to squeeze him to come clean. Maybe she thought what she had was good enough to do that. It was a stupid move on her part.”

“Sounds like you advised against it?”

“Oh yeah. There was no purpose to the call. It’s pretty hard to squeeze a bad cop. They’ll kill you first, which is exactly what I think Brume did. I should have been more forceful in my advice but I wasn’t paying attention, wasn’t piecing everything together like I should have. I was working on something else at the time. A week after she called Brume, she was dead. Hey, how about another beer?”

Radek had just dropped a bombshell, and Jack was desperate to learn more-he couldn’t have cared less about another beer. But he could tell this was hard on Radek; Jack sensed that the old cop was probably trying to hide his emotions. He probably blamed himself for Tracey’s death.

“Sure,” he said to Radek’s back-he was already halfway to the kitchen.

“I usually have a cooler out here,” he told Jack when he returned from the kitchen with two more beers. “It keeps the beer colder. But I ran out of ice yesterday and I haven’t gotten out yet today.”

“It tastes plenty cold to me,” Jack replied after taking his first sip.

“That’s because when I take two out, I put two in the freezer.” It’s going to be a long night, Jack thought to himself. “By the way, what’s your interest here?” Dick asked, once he was comfortably seated again in his favorite deck chair.

Jack smiled and took another sip. “Rudy’s father was my best friend. He’s dead now. Let’s just say I’m repaying a debt.”

“I hear ya.”

“I’m trying to locate Tracey’s file,” Jack said after a few more minutes of silence. Dick didn’t answer. “It must still exist if Tracey was getting back into the case,” Jack persisted. Still there was no response from Radek. Jack tried to stay cool although he was boiling inside.

“All right, let’s assume a certain person has it but they don’t want to give it up. Maybe I could get a copy? It might just save a young man’s life.”

Still he just sat there, looking out at the water in total silence. Finally, after several agonizing minutes, Dick spoke.

“As I told you a few minutes ago, I think that fuckin’ fleabag cop killed Tracey over this case.”

“I thought she died in a car accident.”

“She did, but it was a mighty suspicious car accident. Two o’clock in the morning-what was she doing out at two o’clock in the morning on a weeknight? I knew this woman’s personal habits-she never went out during the week. There was no other car involved and no brake fluid in the brake line. Although the investigator said that it probably leaked out because of the accident, I went over that accident scene thoroughly and I couldn’t find any traces of brake fluid.”

“So you really think Brume killed her to shut her up?”

“I don’t know. No-yeah, that is what I think. She was probably shaking him down and he’s a cop. If he’s dirty, he’d kill her first.”

It didn’t make sense to Jack. From what he knew of the case the cops had definitely fucked up and had overreached with Rudy, but it wasn’t something to kill someone over-especially a high-profile attorney like Tracey James, unless she had information that would nail him to the wall. But if she had that kind of information, why make the call at all?

“I’ve been gnawing on this like a bone,” Dick told him. “I wasn’t crazy about Tracey. She was a good boss-she paid well.” Jack knew that line. “But like I said, most of the time it was about the money, and she could be a real hardass. But still, I’m a homicide detective. You can’t kill my boss and expect me to go quietly into the night. I’ve got to find out.”

“You think there’s something in the file to help you?”

“I don’t know. I’ve been over it a hundred times. I can’t find anything. But that doesn’t mean it’s not there.”

“What about the person who contacted her? Have you tried to find out who that is?”

“Have I? I checked the calendar-checked out everybody who came to see her the month before her death. I talked to all our employees. I checked the telephone records to her home and the office. I couldn’t check them all. We had twenty adjusters and five lawyers at the time, ads all over the state, receptionists, telephone solicitors-I’m talking about thousands and thousands of telephone calls in a month. I checked out every call from and to Bass Creek, every call in Cobb County, all the long distance calls; and I did a random sampling of the rest. I came up empty. Nada. Zilch. The only thing I have left is that file and I’m not letting it go.”

It was Jack’s turn not to answer right away. He knew he needed to offer Dick something to get that file-or even a copy of it.

“Maybe we can help each other. Look, you think this cop killed your boss. I want to get Rudy free. We’re not in conflict. If I discover something, I’ll give it to you. You do the same. But let me copy the file.”

Dick thought about it for a moment. “All right, there’s a copy place down the road. I’ll go with you in the morning and we’ll copy it.”

He stood up and headed for the kitchen, returning moments later with two more beers.

“There’s another person you might want to talk to,” he told Jack after he handed him a beer and sat down.

“Who?”

“Joaquin Sanchez.”