Compelling Evidence m-1 Read online

  By evening, the “K” Street Mall will be given over to its other occupants, an assortment of vagrants, winos, and the scattered homeless. They will wander through the city center on an aimless sojourn between the squalid liquor stores of “J” Street and meals at the rescue mission a dozen blocks to the north. I burrow into the standing crowd stalled at the signalized intersection on Tenth Street. A panhandler works the captive audience at the light with the fluidity of a maestro, his quarry driven by an uneasy embarrassment to a state of feigned inattention. The light changes, the crowd moves, and the beggar drifts off under the shadowed awning to the littered doorway of the five-and-dime to await the next, inevitable cycle of traffic.

  The University Club is housed in a majestic white Victorian. Built as a residence for a railroad magnate during the last century, the structure has served over the years as a private home for wayward girls, a restaurant, and more recently, a funeral parlor. It was rescued from the wrecker’s ball two years ago by the University Club and its board of directors, and now hosts the regular meetings of a raft of civic organizations including the Capitol City Bar Association. Attendance at the bar’s meetings is practically mandatory, an opportunity to rub shoulders with the judges and glean referrals from other attorneys.

  It’s a packed house, standing room only in the walnut-paneled parlor that now serves as the bar. I wedge my way through the crowd, a half-dozen drink tickets in hand.

  There’s a little elbowing and jockeying for position. I order and retreat from the bar, a drink in each hand, to settle into a cushioned club chair in the lounge.

  “Missed ya at the funeral.” It’s a gravelly voice. I look up. Tony Skarpellos was Ben’s partner, and for all purposes now stands to inherit Potter’s influence, the balance of sway in the firm.

  “Tony, how are you?”

  “Didn’t see you there, the funeral,” he says.

  “How could you miss me in that sea of humanity?” I say.

  “Ah.” He nods.

  “How you holding up?” I ask.

  “Peachy,” he says. “Just peachy. My partner blows his brains out, reporters and cops crawlin’ all over the office for a week, and this morning I get a call from this asshole in New York. He’s with the news, one of the networks. They’re callin’ for the deep scoop, you know, the novel approach. The national angle. Sure-shot nominee to the Supreme Court kills himself. What an asshole.” Skarpellos repeats the charge, this time with added conviction. “First question out of the box: ‘How do you feel about it all?’ I tell him, “Well, hell, except for the hair and little bits of gray shit all over the ceiling in the office, it wasn’t bad at all.’ Sonofabitch,” he says.

  In the images of this crude narrative, my mind dwells on the thought that with Ben’s death the firm of Potter, Skarpellos has lost more than its driving force. It is without question missing a vast measure of style.

  Skarpellos comes around to the front of my chair wringing his hands in typical southern European fashion. His high forehead is etched with deep furrows lost in a perpetual tan. He wears an expensive worsted pinstripe suit, artfully tailored to give the illusion of a trim torso. Skarpellos’s wardrobe is always meticulous, proportioned to maximize every inch of his five and a half feet of stature. Lifts in the heels of his shoes do the rest.

  I wonder where he’s left his entourage, for Tony is seldom seen alone. Invariably he trails a wake of indentured subordinates, young lawyers on the move, whose sole mission with the firm, it seems, is the palpitation of the Greek’s ego. Fate shined on me, for Ben spared me this duty during my time with the firm.

  Without asking, Skarpellos drops his body into the chair across from mine. Tony played Eliza to Potter’s Higgins through most of his career. The son of immigrants, he’s a proud man, and in his eyes at least, he has clawed his way to the top-on his own. He’s a natural glad-hander, more adept in the political arena than in a courtroom. It was, in fact, his abilities and influence with parochial governing boards, planning departments, and the myriad city councils in the area that from the beginning secured his place with the firm. Tony has the Midas touch when it comes to real estate. For the right fee he can produce zoning variances like the poor propagate children.

  We pass a few pleasantries; it’s an awkward context for small talk. There are the obvious regrets, the universal human emotion following any suicide-some expressions of self-recrimination for what we might have done to prevent it. For his part, it soon becomes a litany of reminiscences-nostalgic tales of him and Ben as young men struggling in the jungle of a provincial and crude local judicial system to carve out civilization.

  He stops in mid-sentence, looks at me as if some matter of high consequence has just crawled in from the subconscious.

  “What the hell happened between the two of you, anyway? One day you’re there and the next you’re history.”

  It is as I expected. Ben kept his own counsel in the matter of my affair with Talia. True to form, he was a man much possessed of appearances, and pride. In the eyes of his closest confidants, my departure from the firm continues to be viewed as the result of some falling-out over an obscure matter of business.

  “It was between the two of us,” I say. “One of those things that happens sometimes between friends.”

  “You make it sound like you were pokin’ his wife.” He laughs, turns, and snaps his fingers for a drink. For an instant I think that he’s been talking to an oracle. The waitress is on us before he can look back-before he can read the confession in my eyes. When he finally turns to face me again, his expression is a vacant smile. I breathe a little easier now, confident that Skarpellos, after all, has no special talent for clairvoyance.

  “Let me buy ya a drink,” he says.

  “Got two already.” I hold up a full glass.

  He orders a double bourbon and returns to the subject of the firm and my leaving. I make a mental note to use a different line if asked the reasons for my departure from the firm in the future.

  As it turns out, Cooper was right. Two days after our conversation at the Emerald Tower I was visited by the cops, a quiet FBI agent in tow. They asked me about my conversation with Potter at Wong’s. I bit my tongue and lied, a little white omission. I told them of his disclosure to me, the fact that he was destined for the court. I left out our heart-to-heart about Talia. They finally got to it. They wanted to know why I left the firm. Any disagreement, hard feelings between Potter and me? I denied it roundly and capped our conversation with Ben’s offer to have me serve as the trustee of the Sharon Cooper memorial fund. This was something they could check with the law school, a little corroboration. It lasted less than ten minutes. They seemed satisfied as they left.

  “What the hell was it? You guys argue over a case or somethin’?” says Skarpellos.

  “Something,” I say.

  “You know, you should’ve come to me.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “I had a good amount of influence with Ben. He respected me.”

  I say nothing but our eyes meet, and this time he reads my mind.

  “No, it’s true. Ben did respect my judgment.”

  I wonder what the Greek’s been smoking.

  “We’d been together too long not to have developed a good degree of mutual respect,” he says.

  I remove the smirk from my face, turn serious, but say nothing.

  “There was no reason to lose talent like yours. I’ll bet I could’ve patched it up between the two of you.”

  “Well,” I say. “One thing’s for sure.”

  “What’s that?”

  “We’ll never know now, will we?”

  “That’s true,” he says. “Ain’t that the truth.”

  There’s a translucent quality in his eyes. I can sense that he’s searching for something lyrical, a little poignancy to be remembered later, repeated to others, a message from Ben’s partner to the world. Verse dies on his lips as the waiter arrives with his drink. He takes the glass, and by the time
he looks back he’s forgotten what it was he was searching for.

  “Been meanin’ to call ya,” he says. “Somethin’ we need to talk about.”

  I look at him-a question mark.

  “It’s a little delicate,” he says.

  This has never stopped Skarpellos, I think.

  “You got a client-the Hawley girl?”

  I nod, wondering what interest he could have in Susan Hawley.

  “A good piece of tail, from what I’ve heard.” He gnaws on a little ice.

  “What’s your interest?”

  “Got a client in a little pickle-a little trouble,” he says.

  If Tony’s client knows Hawley, it’s more likely that his pickle got him in that trouble.

  “Maybe this Hawley broad can help,” he says.

  “In what way?”

  “Can’t talk here,” he says. “Maybe my office in a few days. I’m in a good position to deal. Make it worth your while.”

  This is Tony’s idea of lawyering, a quick deal, no ethics asked.

  “What’s it about?”

  He waves me off with the back of the hand holding his drink. “Harold Stone,” he says. He nods back over my shoulder. “Do you know Justice Stone?”

  I shake my head.

  “A prince,” he says. “Absolute prince. I’ll introduce ya.”

  Oh joy, I think.

  Skarpellos hoists himself out of the chair.

  “Tony Skar-pell-os.” The name emanates from a grating bellows of a voice. Like molten phlegm from Vesuvius, it erupts behind me. Skarpellos is motioning me to my feet. I rise and turn.

  “Harold, it’s good to see you again.” This is the stuff the Greek lives for, prattle on a first-name basis with the judicial brass.

  Stone is an immense man of awkward proportions, a face dominated by sagging, fleshy jowls. Threadlike veins seem to erupt at the surface of loose flesh that wallows like waves on his cheeks as he speaks.

  His expression suddenly turns moribund. It’s an easy transition.

  “My sympathies, Tony. You have the condolences of our entire bench.”

  For a moment Skarpellos looks down at Stone’s hand and I wonder if he’s about to kiss his ring finger. Then I realize that the Greek’s just buying time, the bard, again at a loss for words, this time with a more influential audience.

  “He was a great man, Harold.” Skarpellos sucks a little saliva and completes the thought. “It will be many years, if ever, before this town sees his likes again.” He delivers the lines as if his eyes have just peeled the words from some mystical idiot board.

  Their voices drop deeper, to the diaphragm, as private chatter is exchanged. I begin to feel like the proverbial potted plant, standing here. Finally Skarpellos looks over at me.

  “Harold, I’d like you to meet someone. Paul Madriani. Paul used to be with the firm.”

  A limp hand comes out to meet mine and I get the once-over by Stone. He’s keyed on that all-important phrase-“used to be.” There’s a quick, pained smile, and he returns his undivided attention to Skarpellos.

  “Paul, I think we should talk again, when I have more time.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Not now, later at my office.” Skarpellos has turned me into an unwitting stand-in, an understudy for the usual cadre of office eunuchs that the Greek has somehow managed to misplace-a little show for jurist.

  Stone waits for me to be dismissed.

  “Call my office for an appointment, next week. We’ll have more time to discuss the thing then, the thing with your client.”

  Standing here with nowhere to go, I have but a single thought on my mind-“What an asshole.”

  “I’ll have to check my calendar. It’s pretty full next week.”

  “Well, make time.” It’s the imperial Greek command. He turns before I can say anything, putting distance between us, Stone in tow.

  “I’ll see what I can do.” My words are delivered down into the nape of his neck as he walks away.

  I move away, abandoning a full drink on the table behind me, the price of salvaging a little pride, of saying “I was leaving anyway.” For the first time I realize that perhaps my departure from Potter, Skarpellos was preordained, for even had I survived my affair with Talia, pride would surely never have allowed me to weather Ben’s death and the compulsory primping and preening of Tony Skarpellos, the price of all success in the firm after Ben’s passing. It is, after all, a considerable consolation.

  CHAPTER 8

  I’ve picked the Golden Delicious from the tree behind the house, a whole bag, and brought them with me, a kind of peace offering for my regular visitation at Nikki’s.

  Sarah, my three-year-old, is standing on a chair at the countertop by the sink, turning the crank on the little apple peeler. She is an endless litany of “whys?”-“Why is the apple round?” “Why is it yellow?” “Why does it have seeds?”

  I tell her the ultimate imponderable-“Because God made it that way.”

  She says, “Why?”

  I catch Nikki looking at me from the sink.

  It’s in moments like this, though increasingly when I’m alone in the big house, that the pain is greatest. The realization settles in that Sarah, this oblivious, energized innocence will never have a childhood like my own, two loving parents together with her. My daughter is rapidly becoming the product of a broken home.

  “I have to go to the store for a few minutes. I may not be here when you two get back.” There’s an edge to Nikki’s voice. Watching Sarah and me, she’s caught herself teetering on the precipice of happiness in my presence. But my wife is nothing if not resilient. Quickly she recovers her balance and is again the image, the very soul, of indifference.

  “I was just going to take her to the park. I thought you might want to come along. We could have lunch out.”

  “I don’t think so.” The apathy of her voice is overshadowed only by the aloof language of her body huddled over the sink, her back to me. “The two of you should have some time alone.”

  “I think she’d enjoy it.”

  “No. I have some things to do.” Nikki is now emphatic.

  I don’t pursue it. She is painfully civil toward me. But increasingly I sense that any relationship that remains between us now revolves around Sarah, locks of auburn hair, pink pudgy cheeks, and dark brown eyes like olives. She is the link that binds us.

  I have tried on numerous occasions to have Nikki take the house. I have offered to move into her apartment. But she will have none of it. This is a point of stubborn pride with Nikki: It was her decision to move out.

  She’s priming the dishwasher with soap now. “Tell me,” she says. “How’s the practice going?”

  “Haven’t missed any support payments, have I?”

  “That’s not what I meant.” She turns to look at me, a pained smile on her face. “You always manage to twist what I say.”

  I can’t tell whether she’s angry or embarrassed.

  “Just a joke.”

  “No, it was a dig.” She is hurt, silent as she looks at me. They’ve become like deadly clouds of cobalt between us, these monthly payments mutually agreed upon to keep the lawyers out of our lives, a form of alimony to keep the wolves away from her door. Without intending it, I have unleashed Nikki’s perpetual nemesis. It’s a demon I have never managed completely to comprehend. She will stand her ground in arguments on the most meager point or principle until more timid minds capitulate. But place her in circumstances where she is required to ask for money and she becomes an instant, stammering wreck. I suspect that if I ceased my support payments she would suffer silently until the county, in a miasma of welfare payments, hunted me down and hung the collar of contempt about my neck. It’s as if the creator of all things dependent had omitted some vital element in Nikki’s makeup that permits her to ask when there is a need.

  For the moment she has reclaimed the soul of her autonomy. Nikki now works for a small electronics firm, programming computers. L
ogic, it seems, is her second love, after Sarah. She would have me believe this is a position she secured as a result of fortunate last-minute training before our separation. But I know now that it was more the product of design than fortune.

  Her return to academia revealed a certain master plan, a plot to leave me long before she actually stepped out of the marriage and pulled the rip cord. I’m now afflicted by a sort of melancholia on these visits whenever I am reminded of how obtuse I’d been not to see the signs. Still, I am sure in me deep recesses of my soul that had I known, it would not have changed the ultimate result.

  “I’m sorry about Ben Potter. I know you’ll miss him a great deal.” It’s delivered with meaning. But I’m reminded of Clarence Darrow, who admitted that while he never wished for the death of another man, there had been a few obituaries he had read with some pleasure. I think that Ben’s passing is such an event for Nikki.

  “The two of you spent a lot of time together,” she says.

  More time, she means, than I spent with her.

  Nikki still does not know the reason for my abrupt departure from Potter, Skarpellos. Whether she doesn’t care, or simply hasn’t mustered the brass to ask, I’ve yet to discern. She is packing a considerable burden of pain these days, masked by a cool indifference that I know is only skin deep. With our separation I have finally come to concede, at least in my own mind, that I had relegated my family, Nikki and Sarah, to some secondary place in my life. Nikki could not win in this war with my career, and she has always taken that as her own special failing in life.

  “The firm was a busy place. It’s the nature of law practice.”

  “I know. But if it means anything, I just think that he appreciated the fact that you never let him down.” She locks on my eyes for a fleeting instant, reading the pupils like tea leaves. “All those long hours, briefs to write, prepping for trials into the early hours of the morning. Whenever he called, you were there. It was a little more than just work,” she says. “It mattered what he thought of you. It mattered to you. That was important.”