Alibi (7 page)

I am so close,
thought Suffolk County Acting District Attorney Roger “The Kat” Katz after shutting his office door and telling his amoeba of a secretary that he did not want to be disturbed for the next half hour.

He felt the power within his grasp, and it wasn’t just because his boss had taken an extended leave of absence to care for her mother who, as far as he could tell, was so far down the Alzheimer’s highway to nowhere that she probably didn’t even know it was her own daughter who had taken a dive on her career to sit with the old woman day in and day out. More fool her.

No, it was more than that. This Nagoshi trial was a gift—the perfect case at the perfect time. Sometimes you just got lucky.

Fucking Mannix,
came the next logical consideration in his self-motivated train of thought. If Mannix and his useless freak of a deputy would pull out their goddamned fingers and give him someone, something—hell, anything—to work with, then maybe he would be just where he was destined to be. But they had nothing—bar a couple of unidentified latent fingerprints, a partial shoe print and an extensive interview log with the girl’s family, friends, admirers, fellow students and so forth, which told them absolutely zip.

The call from Nagoshi was not unexpected. Katz had begun by phoning the CEO every day, but then had to reduce his call frequency to every second day and then every third, as there was nothing new to report. And he was furious at Mannix for putting him in such a position. In any other circumstance he would be relishing the opportunity to ingratiate himself with one of the world’s most successful businessmen, but in recent weeks he had had to avoid him.

He took a deep breath, leaned back in his dark brown leather chair, and looked around his modest but meticulously arranged office—the wood-paneled walls, high Victorian ceiling, deep green carpet and serious lack of window space. Despite its insufficient size, he had to admit it carried an aura of success—and not just because of the black-and-white photos that hung on the wall behind him as a reminder of the many celebrated personalities who had admired his work—attorney generals, senators, governors and even the odd movie star. No, the air of accomplishment in this twelve by twelve was largely due to the fact that Katz was the man behind the antique cedar desk, and there were very few attorneys on either side of the legal fence—State or defense—who had the balls to mess with him.

He ran his hands over his shiny dark hair and his tongue over his straight white teeth—involuntary habits that assured his good grooming in the absence of a mirror. And then he felt a slight furrow form in his smooth olive-skinned brow as he realized how patient he had been. He had been playing brides-maid to his less than competent superior, Suffolk County DA Loretta Scaturro for seven long years, which was definitely long enough. He had won her two elections by providing the balls to her banality, giving her platform the edge it lacked, promising and achieving a new high in criminal convictions and devoting his talents to kicking some serious lowlife butt. He treated every case like it was a battle—refusing the pussy plea bargains and going for broke in sensational and highly publicized trials. He fostered his reputation for intolerance and called for long sentences, most of the time nailing the maximum. And he continued to take the ultimate pleasure in watching defense attorney after defense attorney scurry from his courtroom wondering how in the hell their “surefire acquittal client” ended up with a pat on the back and life without parole.

Katz felt himself smile. The self-recognition was deserved, and definitely felt good. Of course there had been glitches—such as the horrendous Rayna Martin trial two years ago. But that was only because his moralistic boss had been afraid to commit to some unconventional but necessary interpretations of the law. Not to mention the fact that Martin’s lawyer, David Cavanaugh, was good friends with Joe Mannix—the lead investigator on the case.

Which brought him back to Mannix. There was no love lost between the two lawmen. In fact, Katz knew that Mannix hated his guts. But Katz was no stranger to animosity and most of the time he thrived on it, and so . . . It was time Mannix and McKay got their acts together. They had to deliver and they had to do it now. For the Nagoshi case was Katz’s ticket to the big time, and there was no way a couple of middle-class cops were going to ruin this for him.

No way.

“I swear to God, H. Edgar,” said a red-faced Heath Westinghouse as he pushed hard against the double glass doors from Tort Room B and bounded out into the parquetry floored corridor beyond. “That man is out to get us. Did you see the way he targeted us?

“ ‘Perhaps you are unfamiliar with the concept of the need for inventive approaches to capital growth, Mr. Westinghouse,’ ” mimicked Westinghouse. “I mean, what the hell was
that
supposed to mean?”

“He’s just jealous,” said H. Edgar.

“You bet your ass he’s jealous. He has one of those ‘short’ man, ‘poor’ man, ‘I’m a little asshole with a miniscule dick’ man complexes whereby his sole purpose in life is to persecute those more fortunate. What a freaking pig.”

They were talking about Professor Karl D. Heffer—a new member of the faculty who was teaching a recently introduced series of subjects related to corporate law and the concepts of entrepreneurial application. The aim was to teach the budding attorneys ways of “thinking out of the box”—looking for new ways for both client and attorney to make fresh capital on top of the existing billing practices.

“You have to come at it from his perspective, my friend,” said H. Edgar. “The man probably comes from some middle-class burb in Iowa. He’s small, overweight and seriously lacking in any compensatory form of charisma. He sees us sitting there and thinks we’ve had it easy—that we have sat on our proverbials for the past twenty-odd years getting Mommy and Daddy to fund our entire parasitic existence.”

“The fuck they did. If I recall correctly, it wasn’t my dad scoring top one percent in the SATs or touchdowns on the football field.”

“Exactly, but the chip on his less-than-substantial shoulders tells him otherwise.”

Heath stopped then, right in the middle of the main building front doors, to turn to his all-too-sensible friend. Right now he was simply wishing he had chosen the “Regulation of Financial Institutions” elective like his other law school friend James Matheson, rather than stupidly corralling himself in Heffer’s stable and being forced to listen to the likes of some big assed, miniature brained professorial impostor.

“How the hell can you be so calm about this?” he said at last. “Heffer is not just slandering us, but our parents.”

H. Edgar said nothing, just paused for a moment as if trying to decide the best way to explain things to his obviously frustrated friend. Then he took Heath’s arm, guiding him beyond the door and out of earshot of the river of students flowing in and out of the building on their way to their next class.

“Don’t you see, Westinghouse?” he said at last. “Heffer is ripe for the picking. These sorts of Epsilons can’t be told the truth of things, they need to be
shown
.” H. Edgar loved calling those he considered inferior “Epsilons,” after the lowest of the intellectual low in Aldous Huxley’s
Brave New World
.

“What do you mean
shown
?” asked Heath.

“He insinuates we have no entrepreneurial skills because we are from families of privilege. He thinks we lack the ability to do anything inspirational simply because our parents are successful. It is a case of blatant ‘wealthism.’ ” H. Edgar had once assured him this was a valid term coined by some dude with a PhD in social justice.

“So what do you suggest we do?” asked Westinghouse.

“We use his ludicrous assignment,” said H. Edgar, his pale blue eyes now shining with the glow of what had to be a brilliant idea taking form in the recesses of his highly inventive brain. “And show him just how entrepreneurial we are.”

Heffer had just given them a project whereby they had to work in pairs to come up with new and unusual ways to make money independent of a typical law firm’s usual means of income. While just hypothetical, the students had to outline their ideas in detail—showing concept, aims, execution and results, listing all outlays and incomings as if their schemes actually existed.

The pair realizing the highest profit at the end of their imaginary strategy would gain a distinction and course credits as well as a sign-off from the professor to “make” law review. Becoming a law review member was the be-all and end-all at Deane, and most other prestigious law schools around the country. More important, it was a huge asset on your applications to blue-chip law firms, and a must-have for the hallowed Top Ten. James Matheson had already scored himself a front-page article on the Montgomery case and the entire student body had been talking about it for weeks.

“You want to come up with something spectacular for his banal assignment?” asked Westinghouse. “Somehow I don’t think that’s gonna change his mind about us being spoiled little . . .”

“It will if we come up with the money for real.”

“What?”
said Westinghouse with a half-smile, wondering what the hell was the scheme his conniving friend had come up with now. “You want us to work in imaginary law firms and realize an actual profit.”

“If you remember, Westinghouse,” said H. Edgar, now pulling his friend farther down the walkway toward Building C and their next lecture on corporate finance and taxation, “the professor’s hypothesis did not specify that we had to work in an existing firm, just that we operated within the legal fraternity to make legitimately acquired funds.”

“And how do you suppose we . . . ?”

“Jesus, Westinghouse,” said H. Edgar, looking at his watch, quickening his step and urging his friend to speed up alongside him. “I’m not a fucking computer. I need a little time to think about it.”

“Well,” said Heath, his sour mood now eased by his friend’s uncanny ability to whip intellectual ass, “think away, my friend, because whatever you are proposing, you can count me in.”

“Been a while since you dragged me here,” said David Cavanaugh, as he approached his friend Joe Mannix at the end of the bar of one of Joe’s preferred drinking spots, a small, smoky Irish pub in South Boston known as The Idle Hour.

“Not that I’m complaining, but what’s wrong with Bris tow’s?” he asked, running his hand through his sleet-soaked, sandy-colored hair. “At least it’s close, and the clientele are . . . um,” he paused to look around, “. . . still breathing.”

“Very funny,” said Joe, already on his second beer and shifting slightly in his seat to allow his attorney friend to slide onto the other well-worn green velvet stool beside him.

David knew Joe liked it here—the cozy, dark wood-grain ceilings, the stained glass windows, the 1950s jukebox, the regular clientele, and the thirty-odd clocks fixed on 6 p.m., which allowed happy hour to run forever. He also knew this was the kind of place Joe suggested when he needed to talk—in private.

David took off his scarf, gloves and coat before ordering two Heinekens, which prompted a strange look from the pepper-haired barman who spent the next three minutes trying to find the icy green bottles way at the back of the cooler. They sat in silence, enjoying the first few sips of the freshly opened brew—David knowing that if Joe had called him here to tell him something, he would need to do it in his own time.

“Late October and already as cold as hell,” said David.

“Yeah. Apparently they’re predicting another blizzard, like the one in ’78. All I remember from that seven-day snowstorm was not being able to leave the house for a week.”

“Jesus, that’s all we need.”

“How’s Sara?” asked Joe after a pause.

“Great,” answered David with enthusiasm. “She’s working on setting up a pro bono arm of the firm. Her background at AACSAM means she has a lot of experience with clients who might not necessarily be able to afford private representation. In fact, she already has her first client—a young waitress being sexually harassed by her restaurant owner boss.”

Before Sara joined their firm last year, she had been employed by AACSAM, the African-American Community Service Agency of Massachusetts. While working at the respected community service agency, Sara spent her days helping African-Americans and other minority groups negotiate everything from legal aid and insurance payouts to health benefits and educational assistance.

“She’ll kick ass,” said Joe. “She has the heart for it.”

“That she does,” said David.

They sat in silence for a moment, settling for two more beers from the tap—the new stronger, harsher lager somewhat jarring after the light imported brew—before David sensed Joe was still unsure as to whether or not he would share what he had intended to when he called David and asked him to this little get-together earlier that afternoon.

More often than not, Joe’s inclination to clam up was due to his desire to protect David, his professional obligations and the possible repercussions of brainstorming with a cop. David was a defense attorney after all, and Mannix, despite his abhorrence for ADA Katz, was meant to be an extension of the prosecutor’s team.

But whatever was bugging Joe tonight, David was sure there could be no conflict of interest. David’s only current case was a health insurance dispute, and Sara was working on the pro bono thing so . . .

He knew his detective friend had been working on the high-profile Nagoshi case, but he also knew there had been no arrest, and according to his other friend and sometime drinking buddy,
Boston Tribune
deputy editor Marc Rigotti, no new public release of information. But maybe that was the problem, David thought. Maybe Joe was jammed up because there was nothing to report. Which also meant he was probably . . .