False Convictions (27 page)

“He got paid off all right,” Casey said.

Marty raised his eyebrows.

“Not me,” she said. “Graham.”

“Sure,” Marty said, his face going red before he looked down at the floor. “They’re also saying you got the sample from Nelson
Rivers yourself.”

“That is so sick,” Casey said, clenching the mesh of the cage. “You’ve got to stop that right now, Marty. Get out there and
tell the reporters.”

“They know you flew down there,” Marty said, still averting his eyes.

“I flew down there
after
we got the sample from the hospital,” Casey said. “Tell them that. Have them look at the flight records.”

Marty bit into his lip and wagged his head. “Ralph is saying he flew down with you the first time, before you went with Graham,
that you went under another name. There’s a woman in the flight record.”

“A woman?” Casey said. “A whore. She had to have a passport to come back into the country. Tell them to check.”

“They’re saying it was a fake record,” Marty said. “Ralph is falling on his sword, taking the blame. He says Graham told him
to assist you with whatever you needed and that you insisted on going under a false name and that he was just following orders.
Says he didn’t see how you filled out the immigration papers or what passport you showed the agent coming back in. Graham
is saying he’s appalled. That’s what he said, ‘appalled.’ ”

“But you saw me in the hotel that night,” Casey said.

“I did,” Marty said, nodding, “but no one is listening to me and no one else saw you. Remember? You didn’t even order room
service.”

Casey bit her lip and asked, “They’re talking to the media? When?”

“They had a press conference right after you got arrested,” Marty said. “It looked like a circus, all the trucks and reporters
packing up and heading up the hill in a wave to the courthouse steps. That’s where Graham did it. He’s calling for the police
to take Dwayne Hubbard into custody. Says the reputation of the Freedom Project is at stake now because of you. They’ve got
a manhunt going.”

“He destroyed Patricia Rivers,” Casey said, “now he’s saving his own ass.”

Marty only nodded and looked up, staring at her through his glasses.

“Marty?” Casey said quietly. “Why are you doing this?”

“I want to be a lawyer,” Marty said, “not someone’s bagman because my uncle knows everyone. I want to really practice, write
briefs, make oral arguments, all the stuff you dream about in law school. I didn’t go to get a merit badge that earns me a
six-figure salary, I want to make a difference.”

Casey smiled at him.

“You’re the first person who treated me like I could even do this,” Marty said.

“I wasn’t so nice.”

“You let me help with that brief. No one does that with me. How can you get better if all they ask you to do is get drinks
and sandwiches? I figure, I get in now and I’ll get to be your right-hand man on this thing.”

“You didn’t think I’d hire a first-class criminal lawyer with experience?” Casey asked.

“No,” Marty said, slowly shaking his head, “I figured you’d do this yourself, but you need local counsel, just like you did
for Hubbard.”

“You never heard the saying ‘A lawyer who represents herself has a fool for a client’?” Casey asked.

“Well,” Marty said, dropping his eyes again.

“Right,” Casey said. “So, thanks, and go get me out of here.”

J
AKE’S FINGERS worked the keyboard, and without looking up, he said, “Quinton may wake up tomorrow morning and change his mind.”

“There are more patient men,” Dora said.

Jake got into the secretary of state’s Web site and input the account name and password Casey had set up that morning.

“With a little luck,” he said out loud, tapping the enter key. The computer beeped and the screen changed. Waiting for him
were two PDF files, which he opened.

“It’s the same guy,” he said, pointing to the name and signature on the screen at the bottom of the document.

“John Napoli?” Dora said. “The same guy as who?”

Jake snatched up his cell phone and began dialing Don Wall.

“An old man in a wheelchair who has some goon driving him around town in a silver Mercedes SUV,” Jake said, listening as Don’s
phone rang. “He’s the lawyer for the city on some project, but he’s much more than that…. Don? It’s me, Jake.”

“I’m thrilled,” Don said. “My first two days at home in a month, so I wouldn’t expect anyone else. How may I serve you?”

Jake heard the sound of kids in the background, but pressed on. “Remember that John Napoli?”

Don heaved a sigh and said, “You got a corrupt attorney? Wow. Come out to Des Moines with me and do a story. They’re calling
this guy the next Adam Gadahn.”

“Right,” Jake said, “Al Qaeda in America. I’m serious. Napoli’s plugged in.”

“Jake, listen to yourself,” Don said. “D’Costa? Fabrizio? Napoli? You think everyone whose name ends in a vowel is plugged
in with organized crime? I told you, D’Costa was a cop who now runs a seventy-million-dollar business.”

“At this moment,” Jake said, “I am looking at a certificate of incorporation with Napoli’s name on it for a company that owns
a billion dollars in gas leases in the Marcellus Shale Formation.”

“In the what? What is that, French?” Don said.

“It’s an underground geological formation,” Jake said, “in the Atlantic states. Lots in New York. One of the biggest natural
gas reserves in the world. Napoli is tied in with Robert Graham and a bunch of other names who are trying to keep the courts
in New York from ruining their chance to get it out of the ground. There’s some environmental issues, and these guys have
enough at stake that Graham just spent a lot of time and money to ruin the person next in line for the court, Patricia Rivers.”

“Rivers? I saw that in the airport last night on CNN,” Don said. “Figured that Graham guy couldn’t get his dad to play catch
in the yard growing up and he just needed some attention.”

“There’s a lot more to it,” Jake said. “I’ve got information about Graham that goes back for years. He’s had some mysterious
silent partners, and now this. The game within the game.”

“Sounds interesting, Jake, and when I get back to Des Moines, I’ll ring you up and we can chat, but I’ve got Melissa showing
me the five-hundred-dollar bill she just got for hitting Free Parking and it’s my turn.”

“Don, wait,” Jake said, using his shoulder to pin the phone to his ear so he could work the computer. “I’m coming there. I
need you to get me the old organized crime files from Buffalo. Anything with Napoli. Something’s got to be there, somewhere.
You said you had a guy in Philly who used to work western New York. He’ll know. The cops there said something about Buffalo
twenty years ago. I need that stuff. I need Napoli’s role. I need the other names, and I bet half of them are on the list
I’ve got from the political action committee that tried to bribe the judge Graham just destroyed.”

“Look,” Don said, “I’ll get to it, Jake.”

“I know,” Jake said, his fingers dashing across the keys, “I just found a flight to Reagan National out of Syracuse that arrives
at five-thirty. We can have dinner at the Legal Sea Foods right there in the airport. I’ll be sitting down to a pint of Sam
Adams and a bread bowl of that chowder they serve at the inaugurations by six o’clock. Did I mention I’m buying?”

“I’m not having dinner with you, Jake,” Don said, anger creeping into his voice. “I haven’t seen my family in three and a
half weeks and I’ve only got two fucking days before I fly back to Bum-fuck.”

“Remember that agent who was giving you a hard time?” Jake asked. “The one who got personally involved with that stripper?”

“And I thanked you repeatedly for that,” Don said.

“And you owe me,” Jake said. “That would’ve added a lot to my piece. But you asked me to think of his family while he was
out with dollar bills in his teeth and all you really wanted was something to hold over his head.”

“What the hell, this is it?” Don said, raising his voice. “This is your marker? I’ve got hotels on Boardwalk and Park Place
and you’re sending me into the office? You’re calling in your marker? ’Cause you don’t get two of these, my friend.”

“You ever get the oysters at Legal’s?” Jake said. “I love those things.”

“For the record, he didn’t put the dollar bills in his teeth,” Don said. “But I think he stuck ’em everywhere else.”

J
AKE PACKED everything he had and left Dora to line up interviews with Judge Rivers and Martin, if she could, or at least quiz
them for the names of other people from the past who could verify their version of what happened. He tried Casey’s cell phone
on his way to the airport. He got her voice mail and left a message before checking in with Marty, who updated him on the
likelihood of her being released by four o’clock.

“Make sure she calls me right away,” Jake said. “My flight is supposed to leave at four-ten. Tell her if she doesn’t get me
that I’ll call when I land. Tell her I’m heading to Washington. I’ve got a file waiting for me down there that requires some
personal attention. With any luck, I’ll be back late tonight, but tell her if she can’t get me to head for the place we talked
about staying. I’ll meet her.”

At the airport, Jake used the time he had waiting to board for making calls to his best and closest contacts in television.
Those he couldn’t reach, he left vague messages of warning. Those he reached, he urged to hold back on their criticism of
Casey, saying he knew firsthand that Graham was distorting the truth. The reaction he got left him despondent as he handed
his ticket to the woman at the gate, and nearly certain that—if anything—his efforts had only made things worse. Even the
good reporters he spoke with couldn’t completely disguise their giddy delight in such a salacious story.

The plane landed on time. Jake got to Legal Sea Foods before six and, as promised, ordered oysters, beer, and the famous clam
chowder. The chowder cooled. Jake ate his and made three unanswered calls to Don’s phone. He finished his first pint and drank
Don’s, ordering two more and telling his waitress that nothing was wrong with the oysters as far as he knew, he was just waiting
for a friend.

He looked at his watch and punched in Don’s home phone. If he had to, he’d show up at the door. He’d knock until Don answered
or his wife let Jake in. Sarah was his wife. She’d invite him in and chastise Don, three weeks on the road or not. Sarah loved
American Sunday
, and she knew the favor Jake had done for Don, saving the career of a friend who probably didn’t deserve it.

He looked at his watch again and hit send when the chair across from him barked out and Don slumped down in it.

“I called you three times,” Jake said, snapping his phone shut. “My next step was the doorbell.”

Don crimped his lips and nodded that he expected nothing else. Jake leaned over and peered at the briefcase Don held in his
lap.

“For me?” Jake asked, forcing a big stupid smile.

Don nodded his head and took a long drink from the pint glass in front of him.

“Oyster?” Jake said, tilting the silver tray, its ice reduced to a pool of cold water that dribbled onto the table.

Don stabbed one with a small fork, slathered it in cocktail sauce, and slurped it down. He ate three more before taking another
drink, leaning back, and meeting Jake’s eye. He lifted the briefcase and extracted a file, holding it up.

“You can have this,” Don said. “It’s all stuff you’d ferret out sooner or later if you found the right old-timers, but I can’t
talk about Graham. I can’t give you anything on him.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Jake asked, his mouth going slack.

Don stared hard at him and his eyes flickered around the immediate area. “It’s an active investigation. I can’t.”

“Active?”

Don nodded. “And that’s all I’m saying.”

“Because he is connected to these guys, these old mobsters turned legitimate, or more legitimate, anyway,” Jake said.

“They used to be called the Arm,” Don said, pushing the file past the plate of oysters, “an extension of New York’s five families
with a seat on their council. At their peak, they ran all of upstate New York and Ohio, and they had interests in Vegas. Napoli
was never out front, but my guy said he had Niko Todora’s ear, and as Todora’s star rose, Napoli was always right there with
him. He was a lawyer and a master at staying just this side of the law, stretching things, directing Todora’s muscle and showing
him how to make money without having to worry about wearing prison stripes. Napoli could have been consigliere if he wanted,
but he never stepped into the spotlight, and then the whole organization dropped out of gambling and whores and drugs.

“My guy from Philly said it was like they just one day disappeared from the world of crime, cashed in their chips, and started
legitimate businesses: plumbing fixtures, chicken wings, a travel agency, insurance, casinos, porn. It didn’t take long for
others to fill the void: Asians, blacks, a couple motorcycle gangs. The Italians just let it go.”

Jake opened the file and saw black-and-white photos of Napoli taken at a distance, before he needed the wheelchair, standing
outside a sandwich shop with an arm on the shoulder of another man in a suit who was as big as a bear, and both of them wearing
grimacing expressions somewhere between humor and death.

“That’s Napoli with Todora,” Don said, sucking down another oyster.

“You’re telling me everything without telling me,” Jake said, “but I don’t have time for a treasure hunt. It’ll take weeks
to dig through these businesses and unravel everything to find the connection to Graham, and I don’t have time.”

Don sipped his beer, staring over the lip of the glass. He shook his head.

“You can follow me home and sleep outside my bedroom door,” Don said, wiping his mouth with the napkin and rising from the
table, “but I’m not going there with you. Did you not hear me? It’s an
active
investigation. All the strippers in Newark couldn’t save me if I leak this. I gave you everything I can, and more than I
ever thought existed, and now I’m going home to finish Monopoly and probably lose because my son will have stolen about three
thousand dollars from the bank. Thanks for the oysters.”