Final Judgment (12 page)

Vince Bongiovanni had the chiseled chin, penetrating eyes, and smoky cool that made women want to take him home and men want to be his pal, hoping some of what he had would rub off on them. He was tall, sandy-haired, and trim and dressed like the million bucks he routinely racked up in fees. One local magazine did a feature on eligible bachelors and labeled him the total package.

“Hey, Lou,” he said, as Mason slid into the booth opposite him. “Buy you a drink?”

“I’ll pass. Sorry I didn’t return your call earlier. I just got your message.”

“Don’t worry about it. I figured I might catch you here. Nice place.”

Mason looked around. Myles Cartwright’s trio was playing mellow sounds on the small stage, the drummer and bass player taking their lead from Cartwright’s piano. The music complemented the soft buzz of conversation. Some people came to hear the music, others just to be near it.

“Your message said it was important.”

Bongiovanni nodded. “It is important. I understand you represent Avery Fish.”

“It’s been in the papers.”

Bongiovanni grinned. “You kill me, man. You get more ink than I do.”

“Ah, but you get the big bucks.”

“Somebody’s got to do it.”

Bongiovanni delivered the practiced punch line, grinning again. Mason didn’t envy Bongiovanni’s success. He’d learned the hard way to stick to the cases that suited him best. He dabbled occasionally in representing plaintiffs, always coming back to the higher stakes of life and death.

“Might as well be you,” Mason said.

“Might as well. I got an anonymous tip that the body found in your client’s car has been identified.”

Mason could understand a newspaper getting an anonymous tip. The tipster got off on seeing his story in print. Feeding the news to the lawyer who was suing the victim smacked of inside baseball. He wondered who would gain by leaking to Bongiovanni.

Mason saw no reason to deny something that would be reported in the morning paper. He’d only look foolish if he did. However, that was no reason to tell Bongiovanni anything else. Bongiovanni would eventually find out what had happened between Mason and Mark Hill, but that would be a tap dance for another day. This was the time to listen.

“I heard that too.”

“Guy named Charles Rockley. You know him?”

“Never met,” Mason said.

“You didn’t miss anything. He worked at the Galaxy Casino. In his spare time, he sexually harassed a client of mine, a woman named Carol Hill. I sued him and the Galaxy. The case was arbitrated last week in front of Judge Carter. We’re waiting for a ruling.”

“That’s good to know. The cops think Fish had something to do with Rockley’s death. I’d like to talk with Carol about Rockley.”

Bongiovanni leaned forward in the booth. “I already talked to her. She had nothing to do with it.”

Mason figured it had been little more than an hour since Bongiovanni was tipped off about Rockley. That wasn’t much time to cross-examine Carol Hill about the murder and hustle down to Blues on Broadway to wait for him. The timing made him wonder if Bongiovanni had known Rockley had been murdered before he got the tip.

The quick denial of Carol’s involvement raised, rather than lowered, Mason’s suspicion. He hadn’t considered Carol as a suspect until her lawyer assured him she wasn’t one. Mason could picture Mark Hill angry and drunk enough to kill Rockley especially if his wife egged him on. None of that led to the trunk of Avery Fish’s car. Still, Bongiovanni’s assurance of Carol’s innocence gave Mason an opening.

“I’m glad to know that. Then she won’t mind talking to me.”

Bongiovanni hesitated, rubbing his palm against his bottle of beer. He frowned long enough to convince Mason that his indecision was rehearsed. “I’ll make her available, but I want whatever you come up with on Rockley.”

“Why? Your case is over. Mine is just beginning.”

“My case is a toss-up. Rockley claimed to be a choirboy, said my client was lying. Carol took some hits on cross-examination. If I can get something good on Rockley, I’ll ask Judge Carter to let me add it to the record before she rules.”

Mason remembered Judge Carter’s comment that Carol and her lawyer were out for blood, not money. He knew that lawyers and clients often changed their appetite after the harsh realities of the courtroom set in.

“Why not settle?”

Bongiovanni tightened his jaw. “Not a chance.”

“You said it was a close case. Sometimes a bad settlement is better than a bad verdict.”

“Carol is family. This isn’t ever going to be one of those times.”

Judge Carter’s assessment had been dead-on. If the case was a toss-up, Bongiovanni’s deal made sense except for one thing. The better his case got, the harder it would be on Judge Carter to rule in Galaxy’s favor. Still, Mason needed whatever he could come up with on Rockley, and Carol Hill was as good a place to start as any. He had to talk with her as soon as possible while putting Bongiovanni off until after the blackmailer’s deadline.

“I’ll keep you in the loop, but I may not have anything for a while. Depends on how much cooperation I get from the cops or from Galaxy. The sooner I can talk with your client, the sooner I can start putting something together.”

“How about tomorrow morning? We can meet at her house.”

That was the last place Mason wanted to meet, imagining her husband wandering out from the bedroom with a hangover. He shook his head.

“My office. Ten o’clock.”

“Done. I’ll bring the bagels,” Bongiovanni said.

“One other thing. Who do I talk to at Galaxy about Rockley?”

“Forget it. You’ll have to go through Galaxy’s lawyer, Lari Prillman, and there isn’t enough heat in hell to melt her heart.” He stood, clapping Mason on the shoulder. “A Jew and an Italian on the same team. Look out, world.”

Mason waited until Bongiovanni cleared the front door of the bar before he called Rachel Firestone.

“What do you know about Charles Rockley?” she asked him.

“Just because you have caller ID doesn’t mean you don’t have to say hello.”

“Hello and I’m on deadline. My editor said if you don’t give me something on Rockley we might as well start sleeping together since I won’t be any good to him anyway.”

Mason preferred the old Rachel, the one he could confide in, trade tips with, and not worry about what was on or off the record. He couldn’t give her the whole story because he didn’t know which pieces might come back to haunt him.

“Your message was the first I heard about the victim’s identity. I’ll talk to the cops on Monday and give you what I can,” he said.

“That’s it? This guy is murdered, butchered, and dumped in the trunk of your client’s car and you’ve got nothing? I don’t believe it.”

“Best I can do,” Mason said.

“I wouldn’t brag about it,” she told him.

TWENTY-SIX

Mason stayed at the bar, hoping the music would soothe the tension in his neck and shoulders, finally leaving close to midnight. It had been a long day. He felt like a fighter who had spent eighteen hours in a crouch. He hadn’t taken a beating, but his instincts told him one was coming and he didn’t know if he could stay covered up long enough to avoid the knockdown.

He lived in the middle of a block of houses that were statelier and better cared for than his, as were the people who lived in them. His neighbors barely tolerated him, resenting the turmoil that too often followed him into their quiet acreage. He tried to ignore their conscious disregard for him though it had begun to gnaw at him.

He’d lived there all his life, first while being raised by his Aunt Claire, then during the few short years he was married to Kate, and now for the seven years since, when he’d lived there alone. Abby Lieberman hadn’t moved in, though she’d spent enough nights there to qualify for Gold Guest status until she found herself agreeing with the neighbors.

He understood Abby’s reasons for leaving and his neighbors’ reasons for wishing that he would follow. Whether it was stubbornness, inertia, or a blind willingness to sacrifice what he wanted for what he needed, he’d not been able to change. He couldn’t resist lost causes, last chances, or dark water.

When Abby left for Washington and took Mickey Shanahan with her, his world shrunk, its population reduced to Claire; her longtime boyfriend and retired homicide cop, Harry Ryman; Blues; and Rachel. Now he was playing dodgeball with Rachel, wincing as he imagined her redheaded fury when she discovered he’d been holding out on her. Everything felt smaller and isolated—his office, his house, and especially him.

Heading for home, he thought about driving south and west into the Kansas-side suburb of Leawood, where Judith Bartholomew lived with her husband, her children, and her mother, Brenda Roth, but decided against the late-night drive. He’d only recently pried from a very reluctant Claire a slice of his tarnished family history. Mason’s father had had an affair with Brenda when Mason was a small child. His parents had died in a car wreck that had its genesis in their illicit relationship.

Growing up, Mason had idolized his father though he knew that his memories were manufactured, his father dying too soon for honest ones. He didn’t know much about his father’s life except that his father had gone to college; met and married his mother; tried his hand at a couple of different businesses before settling on insurance; and that was about it.

He hadn’t needed the details to craft his family myth, imagining his father as a strong, silent hero, resolute and doomed though unaware of his fate. Claire had a picture of the three of them, his father wrapping one arm around his mother, the other arm draped over Mason, who hugged his father’s leg. The picture fed his childhood fantasies of what might have been, all of them dependent on the legend he’d imagined about his father.

The remnants of his myth had given way to the harsh reality that his father had cheated on his mother. He wondered how his father had justified the betrayal, knowing that it didn’t matter then or now. His father had crossed a line; his parents had been killed by the implacable rule of unintended consequences.

Sifting Claire’s revelation, he couldn’t shake a queasy wonder about Judith Bartholomew. He’d seen her outside her house. From a distance, he thought that she bore a soft resemblance to him, perhaps real, perhaps imagined in the knowledge that she was born at a time when his father and his mistress could have conceived her. He still longed for his father, to understand him and to forgive him. Perhaps, even to redeem him. He wondered if Judith Bartholomew was part of that.

Mason knew that he too had crossed a line, breaking the law when he had asked Ed Fiori to strong-arm Judge Carter. He hadn’t used those words, hiding instead behind euphemism and rationalized need. Now the words and the reasons didn’t matter; only the consequences did. Redemption was too remote a prospect at the moment. He just wanted to survive.

A car was parked across the street from his house when he pulled into the driveway, the windows fogged, the motor running. Two men got out as he waited for his garage door to open. They walked toward his car, their hands in plain sight and empty, their faces red in the glow of his taillights. It was the homicide cops, Griswold and Cates.

The garage door rose. Mason parked, killed the engine, and took his time. Cates lit a cigarette and started for Mason’s car. Griswold took his arm, telling him something Mason couldn’t make out, though it was enough to make Cates wait a little longer. Mason thought about hitting the remote for the garage door, letting it slide back down the rails as if he hadn’t noticed the cops. It would have been worth it just to see Cates swallow his cigarette. He got out instead, meeting them on the driveway.

They wore dark suits and tan overcoats left open for quick access to the guns they wore under their jackets. Their shift had ended a while ago and the late hour showed in the sag of their faces. Cates had beer breath. Griswold had mustard on his white shirt. They were working Fish’s case off the clock, meaning they were close to arresting him or that it had gotten personal.

“Place is a mess or I’d invite you in,” Mason told them.

Griswold nodded. “You’re a compulsive smart-ass, Mason. Not that we mind. Sometimes you’re even halfway funny.”

“Like midnight on Valentine’s Day?”

“Not yet.”

“It’s been a long day. Give me a minute to get warmed up,” Mason said.

“We got an ID on the body in your client’s car,” Cates interjected.

Mason doubted they had camped out in front of his house just to tell him that.

“I’m listening.”

“Charles Rockley,” Cates said. “What do you know about him?”

“You think my client killed him and you expect me to answer that question? I should be asking whether you’ve got anything that links my client to this guy.”

Griswold put his hand on Cates’s arm again. “It’s late, we’re all tired. You could do your client some good if he’s got any reason for us to believe he’s not connected to Rockley.”

“You’re right about that, only I haven’t had a chance to tell him about Rockley. But you didn’t wait here just to tell me about Rockley. Monday would have been soon enough. What do you want?”

“We want anything you’ve got on Rockley,” Griswold answered, sticking to his story. “We know he worked at the Galaxy Casino.”

Cops didn’t ask a suspect’s lawyer for information on the victim unless they really had nothing to go on or they thought the lawyer was dumb enough to help them out. Mason rejected both possibilities, knowing the cops would get to the point when they were ready.

“That’s not much. A lot of people work at the casino. You’d do better to talk to them.”

“This guy worked there too, only he isn’t talking,” Cates said, handing Mason a photograph of a man lying on the pavement, the side of his face pressed against the ground, his one visible eye wide open, the back of his head blown away. The time and date stamp in the bottom right hand corner said the picture had been taken two hours ago.

“Who is it?” Mason asked.

“Thought you might know,” Cates said.

“Why would I know him?”

“He had a piece of paper in his hand with your name and phone number on it.”