Key Witness (20 page)

“What’s the special occasion?” she asked.

“Us,” he replied. She was taking his midlife crisis hard. This was a way of showing her things hadn’t really changed.

“I like that,” she purred.

Black waiters in white coats, bow ties, and dark slacks glided around the room, greeting each patron with familiar deference. The service was unobtrusively soothing; it hadn’t changed an iota since long before Wyatt had first started coming, he thought, and it would go on like this long after he departed. There were black waiters and black caddies at Edgemont, but the only blacks (or Latinos or any other “minorities”—they had finally admitted a handful of token Jews a few years back) out on the golf course or eating in the dining room were guests of members. Wyatt thought the attitude was retro but he rationalized his part in it by ignoring it, a minor glitch in his moral makeup.

Moira leaned across the table and kissed the tip of his nose. “You’re not so bad, as husbands go,” she told him.

They were done with coffee and home by nine-thirty. Michaela was in her room, studying for midterms. This was an important semester for her—she was sending in her college applications, and she wanted high grades. Wyatt wasn’t worried about her—she was going to do well in life. Unlike the poor bastard he was currently representing.

“How was dinner?” she asked, poking her head out her door to greet them.

“Romantic,” her mother told her, kicking off her heels and beginning to unfasten her dress.

Wyatt checked the messages on his private line. There were none, a good sign. A simple dinner with his wife had reminded him how much he appreciated his life: the past few days, dealing with people he normally never came in touch with, amplified that appreciation. Not just the Marvin Whites of this world, but people like Josephine, who had been bowled over by a car-service ride home.

Michaela retreated to her room. Wyatt locked the house up, set the alarm, and followed Moira up to their bedroom.

She was already under the covers. Her dress, bra, underpants, and panty hose were neatly folded on a chair in the corner. He undressed, turned out the lights, slid into bed next to her. They came into each other’s arms, hands and mouths fondling bodies. They knew where to touch to give pleasure; they had been lovers for twenty-five years.

Their foreplay was slow, mutually generous. When she was ready she grabbed hold of him, pulling him close to her, already pumping as he entered her, feeling her orgasm coming, ready to explode.

The phone rang next to their heads, as loud and disconcerting as a fire-alarm. Startled, she started to reach for it. He grabbed her wrist. “Let the service get it,” he whispered in her ear, still moving inside her.

“No one would call this late unless it was an emergency,” she said, still fearful from the burglary next door.

“Shit.” He stayed in her, maintaining his hardness. The phone kept ringing.

She reached over and pulled the receiver to her. “Hello?” She listened for a moment. “It’s for you,” she said. “A woman,” she added, looking at him querulously.

He took the phone. “Hello?”

It was Josephine. “I got you at a bad time, didn’t I?”

“No, it’s all right,” he said. With his free hand he caressed Moira’s breast—she wasn’t happy with this unexpected intrusion from a female voice she didn’t know.

“I’m sorry, but I couldn’t help calling, even though it’s late.” Her voice was shrill, almost out of control.

“What is it?” Cupping a hand over the speaker, he mouthed “The office” to Moira.

“You aren’t watching TV, are you?” Josephine asked over the line.

“No.”

“You’d better turn it on! Channel eight.” There was a quick pause. “I’m flipping through, it’s on all the channels!” She was shouting.

He hung up and slid out off Moira. Grabbing the remote from the bedside table, he clicked it at the television set and sat on the edge of the bed.

“What is it?” Moira asked, not trying to mask her frustration.

“That was the office. Something on the TV they need me to see. I don’t know. …” He stopped talking as the picture faded up on the screen.

The broadcast was a live feed from the mayor’s office. The mayor was standing in front of a bank of microphones. At his side was Alex Pagano, his shirt as freshly starched as if it were eight in the morning. He changed for this newscast, Wyatt thought to himself. Once a politician …

“… the serial killer,” the mayor was saying.

Reporters were firing questions at him. “When did you find out?” a reporter asked from off camera.

“I’m going to let the district attorney answer those questions,” the mayor stated. He stepped to one side, and Pagano took center stage.

“We presented our evidence to the grand jury earlier today,” Pagano said, “and they immediately handed down an indictment, which should assure any doubters that we’re not shooting at clay targets. To be doubly certain, however, we also held a lineup. An eyewitness who was present at the time of last week’s murder placed the suspect at the scene of the crime, within minutes of when it occurred.”

Moira sat up next to Wyatt. The coitus interruptus was forgotten. “The Alley Slasher,” she gasped. “They’ve caught him.”

“Sounds like it.”

“Thank God,” she breathed.

“Yes.” He was as happy, as relieved as she was. Then the thought rose up—how did this relate to why Josephine had called him?

Another reporter shouted from behind the cameras: “You’re positive that you have the right man?”

“We’re sure of it,” Pagano answered. “One hundred percent.”

“Where is he now?” came a voice.

“He’s in custody,” Pagano said, answering the second question first, “and we can tell you his name. He’s from this city, and although he’s young, he has an extensive juvenile record, which points clearly to his having committed these heinous crimes. We have a picture of him, taken earlier today from the lineup.” He pointed offscreen.

The camera panned over to an easel that had an eight-by-ten photo mounted on it. The camera began zooming in on the picture.

Wyatt sat bolt upright. He stared at the face in disbelief. “Jesus fucking Christ!”

“What?” Moira cried in alarm. “What is it?”

The close-up of the Alley Slasher filled the screen: the man they were accusing of raping and killing seven women and turning the entire city into a frightened and revenge-bent mob.

Marvin White wasn’t walking out of that courtroom tomorrow morning. No matter what his million-dollar lawyer had promised him and his mother.

“A
LEX PAGANO FORMALLY
introduced his case at a mob-scene press conference that afternoon in the large rotunda on the first floor of the courthouse. He stood in front of a bank of microphones—at least two dozen of them—with the mayor, the chief of police, every member of the city council, and his own senior deputy DAs standing behind him. He was smiling grimly and shaking his head as he watched the media fighting and jockeying for position, thinking what a bunch of damn fools these people are, they want blood, they want their daily ration of blood.

He held up his hands for silence. Slowly the bedlam became less clamorous. Dozens of microphones on extension poles were thrust into the air to suck up his remarks.

Pagano felt his power. It was large, it filled him, he could feel his own expansion. Even this gradual silence was power, real power. They were all here for one reason—to hear what he had to tell them about the killer who was in his jail, even though any trial was months away and not a shred of specific information had been made public.

“We have identified the killer you have named the Alley Slasher,” he began.

Reporters, unable to restrain themselves, started firing questions at him. Christ, sometimes this is like being inside an insane asylum, he thought. He almost laughed out loud at the thought: wasn’t that, at the core, what his job was all about? Making sure the inmates didn’t take over the asylum?

He answered a few questions nonspecifically but boldly, forcefully, conveying the confidence of the strong professional who does his job well and without undue and unnecessary fanfare. The strong professional who was going to put this murderer on death row, and by doing so begin the drive to put himself into the governor’s chair.

T
HE OFFICES THE DISTRICT
attorney’s division worked out of were conformably bland—the equivalent of a midlevel motel chain, all components interchangeable and indistinguishable, bought by some unknown purchasing agent who was careful with the taxpayers’ dollars. The only signs that individual human beings occupied these spaces were photos, diplomas, a potted plant, or special coffee cup. This was work space, where egos were subordinated (in theory) to the common goal. They occupied the fifth and sixth floors of the Hall of Justice, the main city courthouse. Courtrooms took up the first four floors, a few big, most of them small, dispensing justice nine hours a day, five days a week.

There was only one personalized office upstairs. Alex Pagano’s sixth-floor corner office was ultrastark and spartan. The floors and walls were bare, painted industrial white. Pagano’s desk was a slab of rock, his chair a draftsman’s stool; the space was like an artist’s loft, but without any humanizing colors. This office, in its absolute simplicity, massive emptiness, and lack of warmth, exuded power. It added to the man’s stature.

In the center of his room sat a big black conference table with canvas tube chairs around it. Six people sat at it—four men and two women, Pagano’s senior trial attorneys. Thelma Fuller, the original deputy on the case, wasn’t one of them. This was above her, way above.

In the corner, Pagano’s trusted senior deputy, Cy Lofton, the man who had been with him when they’d met with Dwayne Thompson, sat watching. He would take notes and check pulses.

“Well, boys and girls,” Pagano commented, stating the obvious, “this is a juicy one.”

The six senior deputies stirred in their chairs. They knew that for a fact. They also knew this would be the biggest case to be tried in the city in decades, a career case.

“So … who wants it?”

Six hands shot up, six voices rang out. “Chief, it’s my turn.” “This is exactly my kind of case, Alex.” And so forth.

Pagano, in his shirtsleeves at the head of the table, sat back and watched the fury. There are a lot of ways to play God, he thought gleefully. This was one of the most enjoyable ones. Pagano loved doing this—pitting them against each other. He only did it a couple times a year, when passion for the cause was of major importance. It was like setting fighting cocks in a ring—only the strongest one would survive.

He put up a hand for quiet. “Okay. I’m going to give each of you two minutes to tell me why this should be your case instead of anyone else’s.”

“Shit,” one of them muttered. They could all feel the rumblings in their stomachs, the beginnings of the acid wash.

They went clockwise around the table. Talking about experience, preparation, presentation, talent, each touting personal strengths, not so subtly belittling the others’ shortcomings.

Pagano leaned back in his chair, shooting his cuffs, listening and watching. He had tentatively made his choice, in his gut; but he needed to hear all this. More importantly, he needed to hear what his choice had to say, to make sure that his instincts were right. This trial, almost certainly, would be the make-or-break benchmark of his administration. If they won—especially if it was a big, juicy win—it could propel him into the stratosphere. If—God forbid—they lost, it would be a quick ride back to private practice, and a lifetime of anonymity and recriminations.

Helena Abramowitz, sitting to his immediate right, was the last to speak. In her late thirties, Abramowitz was Sephardic-dark, brooding, flamboyant, aggressive. She had tried and won over half a dozen capital cases. She stood up, looked at each of them in turn briefly, then turned to Pagano and fixed his gaze with hers.

“It should be a woman,” she began, “because these are crimes against women, the worst nightmare a woman has, outside of losing a child. The person who tries this will be speaking for every woman in this city, in this state. From the heart, the gut, the soul! Only a woman can truly speak for another woman, can make her feel that she, the millions of
shes
out there, are truly being taken care of, nurtured, shielded. Which leaves me and Betsy,” she said, nodding to the other woman deputy, seated across the table from her. An attractive woman, about her age. Her physical opposite—tall, blond, with a sunny disposition and great legs.

“That is utter bullshit!” one of the men sang out. “Gender is irrelevant here. These have been crimes against the entire community.”

Helena looked at her associate, smiling slightly. Then she turned to Pagano. “Normally I’d agree,” she answered, “but not this time. This time, chief,” she said directly to Pagano, “gender is everything. And when you think about it, you’ll know it, you’ll feel it in your bones. I know you, chief—you’ve got great instincts for this kind of thing.”

Pagano watched her, his face a noncommittal mask.

“So,” Helena went on. “Me or Betsy. We both have the experience, we both have the talent, we both have the fire in our bellies.” She paused, as if giving an important part of a summation. “There’s only one thing Betsy has that I don’t. And most of the time I envy her for it, but in this case a great husband and two wonderful little kids are an impediment. This is going to be a twenty-four-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week case.” She turned to Betsy. “Marcia Clark almost lost custody of her son in a situation like this. You don’t want that to happen to you.”

“Marcia Clark was divorced,” Betsy shot back. “My situation is different.” She appealed to Pagano. “I resent this kind of gutter politicking, chief,” she said with heat. “It’s uncalled for, and personally insulting. I’ll do whatever it takes to win. You know I will.” She smiled at him, a charged smile.

Pagano nodded. “Duly noted,” he said mildly. He looked at Helena. “Is there anything more you want to add?”

“No. There’s nothing more that’s necessary.” She sat down.