Blood of Angels (11 page)

“What note?”

“The freaky one about the death penalty.”

“You keep it?”

“Yeah. I don't give a shit about the card, but I don't like this guy hanging around my house. That's a little too close.”

“Or woman.”

“What do you mean?”

“You said guy. It could be a woman.”

“Yeah. Theoretically.”

“You tell David?”

“He's got enough on his plate already. Look, I'm pretty sure it's just some idiot from the Nation warning me not to fuck up.”

“Makes sense.”

“All the same, I was wondering if this thing was worth bringing in. It wouldn't break my heart to figure out who this moron is.”

A pause. “You mean forensically? Since it comes from a florist, whoever sent it wouldn't have touched it. They'd call it in or, better yet, order it online.”

“Right.”

He pauses. “Your number's unlisted, right?”

“Of course.”

“Well, I'd watch your back for the next few days, buddy. Looks like somebody knows where you live.”

DR
.
TINA GESSMAN
, staff psychologist for the Metro Davidson County Justice Department, is smart and insightful. In the looks department, she has a Kathy Bates thing going on—minus the movie money and Hollywood sophistication—which obviates any potential for sexual tension. I've been seeing her once a month for what the DA calls “tune-ups,” and which I call “a total bullshit experience that wastes both my and the good doctor's time.” Except this time, I've seen Kwame Jamal Hale. His confession might actually have the psychic weight to tip me over on my side.

Tina's office is in a nine-story office building on West End Avenue, across from a Burger King and a Catholic bookstore. You park in the back—she doesn't validate—and ride up a small elevator to the fifth floor. Tina opens the door from her inner office, and I walk in. The box of Kleenex discreetly placed near the patient chair testifies to the kind of work she does. Another clue is the back door, which lets people escape with their crying jags without going through the reception area. The Justice Department is a tight little world, where everybody knows everybody, and walking out of the department psych's office in tatters wouldn't be well received.

“Come in, Thomas,” she says. Her voice is soft, every time, no matter what. It's like her volume knob got locked on 3. “Have a seat.”

I fall into one of the two patient chairs and stretch out my legs. “It's a million degrees out there.”

She pulls out her notebook and flips to an empty page. I look around the office; same soothing pictures, same gentle hum out of the air-conditioning, same acrid smell of confession in the air. “So how are you?”

“Great.”

“Glad to hear it. The Zoloft still working OK?”

“Sure.”

“No sexual side effects?”

“You makin' a pass at me, Tina? I'm gonna have to report you to the authorities.”

She smiles. “What's on your mind today, Thomas?”

“How do you know there's something on my mind?”

“You're on time.”

I look at my watch; it's nine sharp. “You're right.”

“Your habitual lateness is a way of communicating your disregard for our sessions,” she says. “You've been on time exactly twice. The first session and today. So this is a special occasion.”

“I went to Brushy Mountain yesterday,” I say. “It wasn't a good trip.”

“What happened?”

“I met a guy who claims I prosecuted the wrong guy in a death-penalty trial.”

Her expression clouds. “I see.”

“It was my first big case with Carl. We got the death penalty, and the guy was executed a few months ago. Everything seemed OK, until this guy from Brushy shows up. Carl, David, and I went out to see him.”

“What does he say?”

“He says we killed the wrong guy. He says he's the one who committed the crime. He says we fucked up.”

“Does he seem credible?”

I look out the window. “Yeah. Maybe. He's a crook, so it's hard to tell.”

“What do Carl and David say?”

“Carl stays above it, somehow. Don't ask me how. David can't let the possibility enter his mind, so he's already decided the guy's lying.”

“And how do you feel?”

The towers at Vanderbilt University are visible about five blocks away. Just beyond is the law school, where a fresh group of lawyers is being minted. “I think he's telling the truth. I think we got the wrong guy.”

“So what are you going to do about it?”

“We've got some evidence to check. It might turn out OK. We might be able to prove the guy's full of shit.”

“Then maybe it's not a good idea to carry that load until you have to.”

“I've got a new murder trial in the meantime. We're going for the maximum.”

Her expression darkens further. “Could you ask David to assign somebody else?”

I shake my head. “He feels like if I back out, it's a capitulation on the other thing. He's worried about a domino effect.” I watch my leg, making sure it's obediently still. “There's a woman,” I say, much to my surprise.

She looks up. “You're dating?”

I laugh. “No. In the case.”

She gives me a curious look. “Oh. The case.”

“Preacher over at Downtown Presbyterian. Her name's Fiona Towns.”

“I see.”

“She's going to give testimony that she was with the accused at the time of the murder. She's his alibi.”

“Good for the kid.”

I give a small smile. “She's lying. I mean, I'm pretty sure she is. Lately things are a little vague.”

She watches me quietly for a while. “Do you hope she's not lying?”

A long pause. “Yeah.”

“Do you like her?”

“She's this anti-death-penalty activist. I think she's lying as a protest over that.”

“Is that a yes or a no?”

“I'm going to have to destroy her on the stand.”

“Then maybe it's better if it's a no.”

Silence, as I twist in her psychological wind. “She seems principled and not entirely out of her mind,” I say after a while. “I can't put my finger on it. But she's decent.”

Tina smiles. “So are you.” She writes for a couple of minutes in her book. “Tell me more about the guy at Brushy Mountain.”

I exhale. “The thing is, I had a little doubt at the time. The jury was wavering, and I had the feeling that I should let it be. Let them figure it out on their own.”

“So what happened?”

I shrug. “It was a high-profile case. The community wanted it. It was there, and I knew I could get it.” I rustle in my seat, wanting to change the subject. “Carl's retiring this week, you know.”

“Is he? That's great.”

“Yeah. I'm damned if I'm going to put a cloud on that. I don't want him thinking over what might have been for the next thirty years.” She nods. “Anyway, you've met Carl. He's a rock.”

She smiles. “I prefer you, actually.”

“I'm half the lawyer he is.”

“I doubt that.” She leans forward. “It's not wrong to have doubts, Thomas. It's human. We've gone over this before.”

“Yeah.”

“My goal here isn't to make you a better lawyer. It's to let you be the lawyer you are and keep your humanity alive.”

“How am I doing?”

“You're my star patient.” She pulls out a card and writes a number on it. “This is my home telephone, Thomas. Let's keep track of where you are on this, OK?”

“Home number. I swear, Tina, I'm gonna slap you with sexual harassment.”

We stand, and she puts her hand on my arm. “You're in a serious situation, Thomas. The jokes are fine. I understand that. But things are probably going to get a little hairy before this is over.”

I push the card into my pocket. “Probably.”

 

JOSH RITCHIE
, the investigator I have working on Bol and Towns, is waiting for me in the small conference room when I show up at work. He's wearing blue jeans, a T-shirt, and a Daytona Beach ball cap. He radiates the kind of mellow calm that enables him to sit for hours on end in his van without going out of his mind. “Yo,” he says. “I got news.”

“What's up?”

“Bol's closest friends are a couple of guys named Luol Chol and Matek Deng. Don't ask me where they get these names.”

“Africa, Josh.”

“Right. Anyway, the three of them are like brothers. They lived in the same village and escaped together. It's the hell-and-back thing, like brothers in arms. If anybody knows why Bol was arguing with Hartlett, it's them.”

“Her boyfriend says Bol was hitting on her and she didn't like it.”

He laughs. “Then he was the only one she didn't like it from. The lady got around, dude. Seriously.”

“How do you know?”

“I sounded out the manager where she waitressed. He said she was taking home three hundred bucks a night in…um, ‘tips,' if you know what I mean.”

I nod. Wherever the money went, it wasn't her apartment. It was typical squalid, badly furnished Nation, right down to the pressed-board coffee table. “Have you managed to talk to Chol or Deng?” I ask.

Josh nods. “I shot the shit with Deng for a while out over at Tennessee Village.” He pulls out a photograph. “I took this from the van. Deng's on the right; Chol's on the left. They're pretty much inseparable. They work the same shift at Wal-Mart.”

“What did they say?”

“Nice guys, very talkative. Right up until I mentioned Bol, I mean. Then it was instant stonewall.”

I nod. “You find out anything on the preacher?”

He smiles. “Florence Nightingale, dude. A real angel of mercy.”

“How so?”

“When she's not feeding the homeless, she's holding computer classes for the Africans. She uses one of their apartments.”

“They've got computers?”

Josh nods. “A couple of tired-out laptops. The door was open, and I walked in and acted like I was in the wrong apartment.”

I lean back in my chair. “What does she think they're going to do? Go work at Microsoft?”

“Got me. Oh, and one more thing. You don't want to go into the Nation anytime soon.”

“So I've heard.”

“It's gonna get worse. That dude on the radio is doing a thing today on the influx of third-world immigrants in town. He's gonna use Moses Bol as his feature. I heard an ad for it this morning.”

“Dan Wolfe?”

“You know, the guy who says the best thing about a tree is what you can make out of it after you cut it down.”

“That's him. His listeners call themselves the Wolfe Pack.”

“Right. Anyway, I figure once the Nationites get a load of that, it's gonna be a party over in Tenn Village.” He stands. “I got to run, dude. I'll call you when I get more.”

Josh leaves, and I sit for a second, taking stock. Dan Wolfe is a moron, but he's our moron, which seriously complicates matters from time to time. He's resolutely pro–law and order, but whatever human gene that's supposed to keep him from saying every damn thing in his mind apparently got left out of his genetic soup. He is, in a phrase, the kind of friend your enemies love.

I walk toward my office, and Stillman silently materializes on my flank, falling into step as I round a corner. I pull up sharply. “Dammit, Stillman, how do you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Nothing. Come on in.”

He walks in and drops a stack of files on my desk.

“What's all that?” I ask.

“Moses Bol,” he says, stopping by my door. “His lawyer has just sent another truckload of evidentiary requests.”

I unlock the door and walk in, Stillman following. “She's trying to delay. She's got her man out on bail, so she'd just as soon have this trial in the next century.”

“She's asked for—”

“—every scrap of evidence we have, plus some she knows we
don't
have, because even those will take time to deny.”

Stillman pulls out an official-looking paper from one of the folders. “I think you'll find this one pretty special,” he says, a smile on his face.

I take the page and scan the first few lines. “An ex parte request for money to send psychiatrists to Sudan?”

Stillman nods. “The psychiatrists say they need a minimum of three weeks to bond with any remaining family members. There are cultural sensitivities that need to be understood.”

I drop the page onto my desk. “Well, la-dee-frickin-da.”

“Ginder already turned her down. He says the trial date stands.”

“Good man.”

“So I hope you got over your preoccupation with Hodges.”

“Not exactly. I'm going over to Hiller's Body Shop in a few minutes.”

“Then I'm going with you.”

I look at my watch. It's 9:45. “Lemme ask you something, Stillman. What's the first thing you did when you came to work today?”

“I don't know. Why?”

“It's a simple question, Stillman.”

He exhales. “I saw Rayburn.”

“And the topic of conversation just happened to be?”

“You.”

“Ah. So Rayburn agrees with you on this thing.”

“He might have suggested I stick close to you today, yeah.”

“Because he thinks I'm freaked out about the Hale thing.”

“In so many words.”

“Stay here.” I walk out the door and head to Rayburn's office. I motor past Dolores, push open the door, and stand in front of the district attorney. “So I'm now assigned a babysitter?”

Rayburn looks up calmly. “Something on your mind, Thomas?”

“Lots. Right now, it's secret meetings between you and Stillman telling him to keep tabs on me.”

Rayburn leans back in his chair. “Thomas, you're a superb lawyer who is under an incredible amount of pressure right now.”

“I can handle it.”

“Thing is, it's my job to keep this office running. That's what I do. If I'm a little merciless about it, you, of all people, ought to understand that.”

I stare, deeply annoyed, because Rayburn has just made an unanswerable point: “a little merciless” is exactly what I have been in court. It is, in fact, the
ethos
of the office, and the fact that Rayburn does his job the same way I do mine gives me precious little room to complain. “Fuck,” I say, putting things about as succinctly as possible.

“Exactly.”

“OK, then.” I walk back out, go to my office, and see Stillman sitting in one of my wing chairs, legs stretched out, toes pointed to the ceiling. “All right, dammit,” I say. “You can come.”

 

HILLER BODY SHOP
is three miles out Charlotte Avenue, a ten-minute drive from the Nation. There are two garage bays, and the half-dozen wrecked cars scattered in its parking lot look permanent. Stillman whistles. “Looks more like the Hiller Wreck Shop.”