Prosecution: A Legal Thriller (8 page)

he thought of anyone who had to work outside the only
city in the state that counted.

"No, the case is right here."

"Here? Portland? That's impossible."

"They've reopened the case, Marshall."

"What case?"

"The case of your wife's murder." I leaned against
the hard wooden back of the booth, waiting to see what he would do.
He did not react like a husband who had lost his wife but like a
lawyer confronted with a technical question of law.

"She was killed in Corvallis. The case would be
brought there, not here."

"Your wife was murdered in Corvallis. The conspiracy
to have her killed took place right here, in Portland—just a few
blocks from here, as a matter of fact."

He studied me through narrowed eyes. "Just a few
blocks away? What are you telling me, somebody planned her murder?
Why?"

"I thought maybe you could tell me."

He started to shake his head and then stopped. His
eyes opened wide. "What do you mean?"

"Travis Quentin confessed. He told the police
everything. How you had him brought to your office, how you dropped
all the charges against him, how you had an envelope delivered to
him the day he got out of the county jail with instructions about
where to find her and where to find the money you were paying
him."

A look of astonishment spread across his face. "And
that's the reason you were appointed a special prosecutor?"

Sliding out of the booth, he threw his napkin down on
the table and shook his head. "You've got a major problem on your
hands, Antonelli."

"What's that?"

"I didn't do it."

Chapter Six

"What else was he going to say?" I asked, as Horace
glowered at me.

"Why did you let him say anything? What was the
point?

"I wanted to see his reaction when he heard it for
the first time. Before he had time to think about what he was going
to say."

I was sprawled on a chair in front of Horace's desk.
He was on the other side of the room, pouring a cup of

coffee. "Sure you don't want some?" he asked, as he
sank into the leather chair behind the desk. Cautiously, he brought
the chipped mug to his mouth. "It's been a long day." He sighed.
"The motion calendar was murder. Everybody always has to make their
record. Sometimes, I think that's all we do on the bench, read the
same canned briefs, listen to the same tired arguments from a bunch
of hollow-eyed lawyers too scared of making a mistake to say or
write anything original, or even halfway interesting."

He started to take another sip, and then changed his
mind, his eyes full of malicious wonder. "You should have seen it,"
he said. "One of those guys from the public defender's office—you
know the type: washed-out white guys with terminal depression—is
droning on and on, making an argument on a motion to suppress,
repeating almost verbatim what he had written in his brief."

With a merciless talent for mimicry, Horace let his
head sag to the side as he dragged his eyes listlessly around
the

room, darting them away each time they were about to
land on me. " 'This issue was decided three years ago in the case
of... ,' " he said, imitating an exhausted voice that spoke only at
the end of each labored exhaled breath.

His head snapped up. "I couldn't help myself," he
explained. " 'Isn't that the case that was just overruled?' " I
asked. For the first time he actually looked at me. Christ, it was
like watching a corpse get a transfusion, blood rising into his
face. I turned to the deputy DA. He didn't know anything either,
but you don't think he was going to admit it, do you? Hell, no!" he
roared.

" 'Is that your recollection, Mr. Krueger?' I asked.
The little weasel! He answers, 'I'm sure your Honor's memory

is better than my own.' "

Horace shook his large graying head with sad-eyed
derision. "I turned back to the public defender. 'And what's your
recollection, counselor?' Now, if he had stood his ground, if he
had been prepared, if he really knew what he was talking about, he
could have said, 'No, your Honor, the case has not been overruled,
it's still good law.' Instead, all he can do is fumble around,
letting everyone see he thinks the case he's relying on isn't good
anymore."

Holding his mug with both hands, Horace quietly
sipped some coffee. Under half-closed eyes he stared at something
in the distance. "There used to be a few lawyers around who didn't
spend all their time worrying about themselves," he said pensively.
"Not so many years ago, a DA would have corrected me immediately.
That it didn't help his case wouldn't have mattered. We were all
supposed to follow the law, and it didn't matter whether correcting
someone else's mistake cost you a temporary advantage."

I pulled myself up in the chair. "Things change."

His mouth turned down at the corners as he thought
about it a moment. "I haven't seen too many changes that were for
the better, have you?"

We were looking at each other, caught in our
different memories of the past and the things that had altered our
lives forever. "I suppose not," I replied.

Horace turned away, his hands in his lap, his two
dead legs spread apart, watching out the window. "It's all an
illusion," he said presently. "The whole idea of progress. The
important things haven't changed. They never will." His voice was
barely audible.

"Do you believe him?" Horace asked suddenly.
"Goodwin?" His face turned slightly to the side, away from the
outside light. "You still think he might be telling the truth?"

"I'm not sure I'm ready to take this to trial,
Horace," I admitted.

Shifting his weight, he pulled the chair closer to
the desk and rested both arms on top of it. "When I was DA, there
were times when I wasn't absolutely sure. Sometimes there was a
question, something that bothered me about it." He studied me for a
moment. "You never had that problem, did you? You never had to
worry about whether the defendant was really guilty. I worried
about it all the time. It's the worst thing there is, that fear
that you might convict someone for something they didn't do.
Everybody can talk all they want about letting the jury decide.
You're the one who gets to lie awake in the middle of the night
wondering if you made a mistake. Winning is supposed to be the only
thing that matters, but let me tell you something: there were a few
cases I didn't mind losing."

Searching his eyes, I asked, "You don't have any
doubt about Goodwin?"

"I'm not prosecuting this case. You're the one who
has to decide." With both hands, Horace pushed himself out of the
chair. "Sure you don't want some?" he asked, as he walked in his
rigid stride toward the metal coffeepot on the other side of the
room. After refilling his cup, he moved toward a black-and white
photograph in a simple black wooden frame hanging on the wall next
to where the bookshelves ended.

"That was us," he remarked, tapping his knuckle
against it. There were twenty or thirty men and women, each of them
wearing an identical T-shirt. "Woolner's Warriors." He laughed. "We
were in a softball league. Slow pitch,"

he explained. "I was the manager, I guess because I
could yell louder than anybody else. That's Goodwin, right next

to me. He was maybe the best athlete on the team. He
could run like a deer." His head moved back and forth like a
fighter's. "You know, I liked him. I really did."

I got up and went over to where he stood. "Kristin in
it?" I asked, moving closer until the photograph was right in front
of me. I found her, second from the left in the back row, about as
far away from Goodwin as possible. Everyone in the photograph
worked in the district attorney's office, and nearly half of them
were women, but there was something in her large dark eyes that
drew you toward her and, when you looked away, made you want to
look back.

Horace was watching me. "Maybe she's the motive," he
suggested tentatively.

I kept staring at her, reluctant to stop. "Kristin
could be the motive for a lot of things," I acknowledged, looking
away. "But all he had to do was get a divorce. Why have his wife
murdered?"

"For the money," Horace replied with a shrug, as he
headed back to his desk.

Lingering next to the photograph, my hands shoved
into my pockets, I asked, "You ever notice anything about her?
Anything about the two of them?"

"Everybody noticed her." Horace snorted. "Tough not
to. But between them? No. In fact, if I remember right, she was
engaged to somebody."

"Someone in the office?"

"No one I knew. Actually, I don't think I ever met
him," he remarked, his face turned up toward the light that fell
from the window. "She was almost too good looking. You know what I
mean? Most guys wouldn't think they had a chance with her. When
word got around she was engaged, I'd bet you anything everybody
just assumed it was some rich guy and once they were married she'd
be gone."

Crossing one foot in front of the other, I stared
down at my shoes.

"I almost asked her out once," I confessed.

Horace laughed. "Why didn't you?"

"I don't really know," I said, glancing up. "Maybe
because she seemed just a little too sure of herself."

"Maybe, when it came to her, you weren't so sure of
yourself. I remember some of the women you've been with. Most of
them weren't all that shy."

"I had the feeling that with her everything was a
game."

"She may have gotten herself into a pretty dangerous
game this time," Horace said, frowning.

"Maybe she just thought she was delivering a packet
of information to a witness," I suggested. "She was working for
Marshall, remember."

"It's possible," he replied, without conviction. With
one last glance at her face in the framed group photograph, I
walked back across the room. The clouds bunched together, and the
glow that had burnished the side of Horace's dark face disappeared.
Dim shadows enveloped the room, and the whites of his eyes seemed
to hover, ghostlike, in the air.

For a brief moment I had the strange, disquieting
sense of being watched by someone I did not know. I started to sit
down again and changed my mind. It was getting late and I had to
go. "I need a little more time. There are some details I'd like the
police to follow up on."

The sun shot through again, and Horace turned toward
the light, slowly rubbing the tips of his fingers back and forth
against each other. "It might be too late," he said.
"Gilliland-O'Rourke called late yesterday. I haven't returned it
yet."

As he motioned for me to sit down, Horace picked up
the phone. "Why don't we find out what our old friend wants...

"Gwendolyn!" he exclaimed, as if the sound of her
voice was the best thing that had happened to him all day. "How
nice of you to call. Should have called you back before this, but
I've been in court all day, and you know how that goes."

He pulled the telephone away from his ear and rolled
his eyes."There's no reason for you to get so upset," he said,
wincing. "There was no way they were going to take that chance...
It wasn't a question of whether anyone trusted you.

You have to understand—" His mouth still open, he
looked at me and then, shaking his head, hung up the phone. "It's
like I was saying, some things never change."

"She was upset?"

His head bobbed back and forth, his eyes filled with
amusement. "Let's just say she was a little annoyed. Goodwin told
her, two days ago, right after he had lunch with you. He had
to."

I had not thought about it, but as soon as Horace
said it, I knew he was right. If Goodwin had waited until he was
formally charged, it would have looked like he had tried to hide
something. Whatever the reality, by going to her right away, he
could keep up the appearance of outraged innocence. And now
Gilliland-O'Rourke was outraged as well.

I looked at Horace. "What do you think she's going to
do?"

With a caustic grin, he replied, "You know as well as
I do what she's going to do. She's going to do something so far
beyond the pale, something that after she does it is going to seem
so obvious, we're going to wonder why we hadn't thought of it
before. Right?"

"There isn't anything she can do," I objected.

With his eyes opened as wide as they would go, Horace
looked at me and started to laugh. "You think?"

It was nearly five o'clock and I was already late. I
left the courthouse wondering what Gilliland-O'Rourke could really
do, and by the time I arrived at the hotel I had almost convinced
myself that she would try to turn things around by charging me with
subornation of perjury in the murder trial of Leopold Rifkin.

* * *

Old habits die hard, and some habits do not die at
all. I lived alone, but I had not yet acquired any serious interest
in celibacy. In the year since Alexandra left me, I had begun to
keep occasional company with a woman for whom sex was too exciting
ever to be diluted by anything as generous as love. A tall, lanky
blonde with a shallow chest, she once told me that from the time
she entered college until the day she filed for her third divorce,
she had slept with hundreds of different men and had found none of
them entirely satisfactory. We used each other for pleasure, and
because there were never any expectations, there were never any
disappointments. We became, in our fashion, something more than
casual acquaintances and something less than good friends.