Death on a High Floor (30 page)

“Well, alas,” Oscar said, “the off-the-shelf delete programs aren’t anywhere near as good as the cops’ recovery programs. So the e-mails deleted from both computers are going to be recovered. Or they’ll get them from the firm’s servers, where ScrubBucket likely didn’t delete them. Trust me.”

“Okay, so they recover them,” I said. “So what? Being angry at Simon doesn’t mean I wanted to kill him. If that were true I’d have murdered dozens of people in the last thirty years.”

Oscar looked at me. “Do you usually delete e-mails right after you read them?”

“No. I just let the system delete them automatically from my inbox after thirty days or something like that. My home and office computers are synched, so they get deleted from both.”

“Well then,” Oscar said, “In the hearing, Benitez is going to demonstrate from your very own computer that you don’t normally delete e-mails. Then, also from your very own computer, he’ll point to many e-mails intentionally deleted right after the murder.”

“Okay,” I said. “I get it.”

“I’m not done. To top it all off, and as a kind of
by-the-way
, he’ll point out that
ScrubBucket
wasn’t
loaded on your computer till the day after the murder. Once he unveils the contents of the e-mails, it won’t take a computer scientist to conclude you tried to deep-six them because they showed your motive. It’ll be a new marker of guilt—g
uilty deletion
.”

Jenna looked up from her note-taking, which had been assiduous.

“How will they explain that the e-mails got deleted from Simon’s computer, too, when Robert wasn’t anywhere near it?”

“They won’t have to,” Oscar said. “If they recover the e-mails from Robert’s computer—home, office, or the firm’s server—they don’t ever need to mention what was or wasn’t on Simon’s. At least not in this preliminary hearing, where all they have to show is probable cause. It’s a low burden, folks.” He shrugged.

Jenna brightened, as if she were not herself the cause of the problem. “So, Mr. Quesana, what’s the solution?”

“How about,” he said, “we put you on the witness stand to admit you were the one who used
ScrubBucket
to delete all of them? That should solve it.”

Jenna was silent.

Oscar started tossing his pen in the air and catching it. “Jenna, my friend, you’ve got a big hairy conflict. If you weren’t a lawyer on this case, we’d just call you as a witness and be done with guilty deletion. But since you’re one of Robert’s lawyers, we can’t really do that, can we?”

Jenna got up, too, leaned against one of the bookcases, and folded her arms across her chest. I was the only one left seated.

“Listen, Oscar,” she said, “if you call me as a witness, you know I’ll take the Fifth. It’s a crime to tamper with evidence.”

Oscar’s pen was going ever higher with each toss. “If, if, if,” he said. “If we had ham, we’d have ham and eggs if we had eggs. I suppose we should just cook with what we’ve got. What else do we have on motive, Jenna?”

“Lots, but first I need more coffee. Instantly if possible.”

“Well I need a cigar,” he said. “I can smell that they live here.”

“Used to,” I said.

“Let’s dig them out.”

“You big boys dig them out yourselves,” Jenna said. “I’m going to the kitchen to make the coffee.”

And she left.

I reached into the humidor, took out two cigars, clipped the ends, and handed one to Oscar.

“Oscar, you take the armchair.”

“No, you take it. I’m fine right here.”

“Why, thank you. I will then.”

I sat down in the big leather chair and felt its comfort swallow me up.

“Where’s the cigar lighter?” Oscar asked.

“On the bookshelf to your left, right next to the big dictionary.”

He walked over, found it, and began to light his cigar, turning it so the flame licked the end evenly. Then he handed the lighter to me, and I performed the same ritual. He went and sat back down in one of the swivel chairs at the table.

We both puffed for a few minutes. It felt good. It felt, well, manly.

After a while, he said, “It was nice of Jenna to do that.”

“Do what?”

“Leave us here, just the two of us. She’s giving us a chance to think again whether we really want her on the team.”

“And?”

“It’s close. Inside, she’s a liability. Outside, she’s a liability. But the decision is yours, my friend.”

“I am bothered by the e-mail deletions. Among other things.”

“Bothered enough to tell her ‘thanks, but no thanks?’”

I paused a moment to consider. “No,” I finally said. “Foolish as it may be, I want to keep her on the team, at least for now. If the conflicts get too bad, she’ll go quietly if we ask her to. That’s the way she is. And anyway, she really
is
a great lawyer.” I laughed. “I ought to know. I trained her.”

“Okay. She stays. Again.”

He blew out a long stream of smoke. “Are these Cuban?”

“Of course. They’re still the only decent cigars in the world.”

He took another long drag, let the smoke linger in his mouth, then blew it out again.

“But they’re illegal, eh?”

“You think I’ll do even more time for that?”

“Do you really expect to do time, my friend?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. Let’s face it. I screwed up. The counterfeit coins in my pocket make me look guilty somehow.”

“To say the least.”

“On the other hand, I didn’t do it.”

He ignored my renewed protestation of innocence. “Truth is, Robert, you screwed up by playing detective on your own case. Period.”

“I admit it. And I’m giving it up for Lent.”

“Lent’s not for another couple months.”

“Okay, I’m giving it up now.”

“Good.”

We smoked again in silence for a while, savoring the cigars. With a good cigar in hand, you don’t need to talk.

Finally, Oscar said, “Is there an ashtray around somewhere?”

“On the bottom shelf of the bookcase, the side next to the windows.”

He walked over, found the big glass one, and brought it back to the table. He flicked his cigar ash into it.

“Well, Robert, I think we’re at the point where maybe we ought to talk turkey here.”

“Meaning what?”

“We ought to talk plea bargain.”

I turned the cigar in my fingers and regarded the growing ash on the end. I’m a long-ash guy. After appropriate turning, and a pause I deemed worthy of Clint Eastwood in
A Fistful of Dollars
, I said, “I’m not pleading to goddamn anything. Because however it looks, I’m not goddamn guilty.”

“Hear me out.”

“Alright.”

“They’ve nailed your motive. You look like a counterfeiter trying to off a fraud victim to shut him up.”

“There’s an explanation about how I came to have the two fake coins in my pockets.”

“I’ve heard it already from Jenna. Candidly, no one’s gonna believe it, because it’s just your and Jenna’s word about where you found them. And if you want a shot at someone believing you, one of you has gotta testify about it.”

“Serappo could testify.”

“That’s only half the story, and it won’t help. You brought him the coins to look at.”

“I guess you’re right.”

He tapped more ash into the ashtray. “And they’ve nailed the physical evidence that links you to the crime. The crime lab report says the red stain on your office couch wasn’t wine. It was Simon’s blood.”

“Somebody else put it there.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know.”

“There’s another problem.”

I took another long drag on my cigar. The length of the ash was growing critical.

“Bottom line it for me, Oscar.”

“You’re beginning to resemble toast.”

“Is that a technical legal term?”

“In a way, yes.”

“What’s comes next after toast?”

“Burnt toast.”

“But I’m not that yet?”

“Not quite.”

“Can I borrow that ashtray?” I asked.

“Sure.” He flicked the ash from his own cigar into it again, got up, and brought the ashtray over to me. Then he went back to his swivel chair.

I looked again at the still growing ash on my cigar end. It could wait a tiny bit longer.

“So you think I should plead?”

“I don’t think one way or another. I’m just presenting the option. If we plead now, you might do only ten years. It will be a hell of a lot longer if we wait until after we lose the prelim.”

“Did you already talk to the DA about it?”

“Yeah.”

“The rumors in the papers weren’t wrong then.”

“No, they were. The first time I talked to the DA about it was this morning. The DA leaked those rumors to send us a message: ‘Come in and talk.’”

“You didn’t get my consent to talk to him.”

“Robert, did you ever think a civil case should be settled? And say to the lawyer on the other side, ‘Hey, I don’t have any authority from my client, and they might tell me to stuff it, but what would you think, just talking lawyer-to-lawyer, about settling this damn thing before it bankrupts everyone?’”

“Sure.”

“This is no different. I told the DA you might tell me to stuff it.”

I drew on the cigar and then blew out a long trail of smoke. I was finally going to have to flick the ash in the ashtray or risk it getting all over me. I flicked. As decisively as you can flick.

“Tell him I told you to stuff it.”

“Why?”

“I’m sixty. In ten years I’ll be seventy. Stuff happens to people in their sixties. I could die in prison. Screw the odds. I want to try to beat this.”

“And we
can
beat it.” It was Jenna. She had been standing in the doorway listening.

Oscar put down his cigar and sighed audibly. “Okay,” he said, “let’s get busy trying to beat it.” Then he muttered, in a barely audible voice, “Against all odds.”

Jenna joined Oscar at the round table. I unlimbered myself from the leather chair and moved myself and my still-lit cigar over to the table, too.

“Could you guys please put those out?” she said. “It’s one thing for you to give yourselves oral cancer. But
I
don’t want to get lung cancer from the second-hand smoke.”

“There’s no persuasive evidence second-hand smoke causes lung cancer,” I said.

“Put out the cigars!”

Oscar duly stubbed out his cigar. I reluctantly did the same. We have entered into that twilight of personal rights when guests can ask you to stop smoking in your own home and expect your compliance.

“You know,” Oscar said, “there’s something that doesn’t compute about all of this.”

“What’s that?” Jenna asked.

“Well, if the last time Robert heard from Simon was the Tuesday before the murder, why did Simon stop bugging him after that? Did he just suddenly decide to blow off getting his money back? Or did he change his mind about the coin being a fake?”

“His e-mail says he was traveling,” Jenna said.

“Yeah, but e-mails, cell phones and texts work from almost anywhere.”

“What’s your point, Oscar?” I asked.

“My point is that unless Simon was a give-up kind of guy, something happened six days before the murder.”

“Hmm,” Jenna said, “like maybe he decided that Robert wasn’t the bad guy. Or at least not the only bad guy.”

“Maybe,” I said. “But to turn the tables on you Oscar, the only way we can get into evidence that Simon stopped hassling me about the coin is to put either me or Jenna on the witness stand.”

“Or to hope the DA recovers the e-mails,” Oscar said. “Which might actually help if they show that Simon stopped being interested in you returning his money. Then we can argue the inference that he stopped thinking you were the cause of his problems.”

“There might be another problem with the e-mails,” I said.

“Which is what?” Oscar asked.

“It stems from the old days when I was my own detective.”

“Which,” he said, “just ended a few minutes ago.”

“Yeah. Well, back in the old days, and based on Jenna’s advice, I told both Harry and Stewart that I had gone ahead and picked up the
Ides
from Simon’s office desk drawer, like he invited me to do in the e-mail. And that I did it on Saturday.”

“And the problem is?”

“Both of them went out of their way to mention they saw the
Ides
at Simon’s condo on Sunday. So they may well think I’m lying.”

“That could be a problem,” Oscar said. “But only if Harry or Stewart told the cops that and end up testifying.”

“I could testify and set the record straight on that, too,” Jenna said. I thought I detected the ghost of a smile on her face.

“You could,” Oscar responded, “but I don’t even have to think about putting you on the stand right now, because we won’t be putting on any witnesses in the prelim.”

“Why not?” I asked. “That seems utterly wrongheaded.”

“Because in a preliminary hearing, the prosecution puts on its case for publicity’s sake, and we try to poke holes in their witnesses, also for publicity’s sake. Plus maybe we learn how to bore better holes in their witnesses at trial.”

“We do nothing with our own witnesses?”

“Nope. We save our own key witnesses—those whose testimony will help us— for the trial itself. That way, the DA doesn’t get to find out in advance what they’re going to say at trial.”

“Oh,” I said. Never having done a criminal case in my whole life, I was learning things. Things that were obvious if you thought about it, except that I had never thought about it.

“Well,” Jenna said, “I don’t think we can do much more with motive right now. The cops found the coins in Robert’s pocket, and unless one of us testifies, it’s going to be hard for us to show that they got there innocently. So let’s move on to
opportunity
and
physical evidence
.”

I found to my surprise that I didn’t want to participate in moving on to
opportunity
and
physical evidence
. I excused it in my own mind by saying that if Jenna and Oscar were going to be a team, they needed to bond, and they didn’t need a lawyer-turned-client getting in the way. Perhaps, in truth, I just couldn’t take discussing my own fate and prospects in a dispassionate way any longer. I was morphing into a true client.

“You know,” I said, “Jenna knows all of this pretty well. You can always come and get me if you have questions. But if it’s okay with you, I’m exhausted, and I think I’ll take my leave for a while.”

To my surprise, neither one of them made the slightest objection.

Awhile turned into more than three weeks. My study became a war room. Oscar taught Jenna about criminal law. Jenna taught Oscar how to use her notebook computer. Sometimes I thought they were going to get married. They consulted me as needed, and I was the tiebreaker on a few things, but for the most part I read books and magazines and watched TV. Daytime TV seemed especially well suited to anxiety relief. I also watched a lot of old movies I hadn’t seen since they were first released. My favorite was
Night of the Living Dead.

The only break in my routine occurred one day when some very official looking people brought a video camera setup into the living room. Oscar told me it was to be my arraignment, hi-tech style. I put on a set of headphones and listened to a judge ask how I wished to plead. I looked into the camera and pleaded “not guilty.” Then I listened to the judge say a bunch of mumbo jumbo and set a date for the preliminary hearing. Jenna later told me it was a first. That no one else had ever been arraigned remotely at home. That, in fact, it couldn’t legally be done that way. But somehow, in her newfound relationship with Benitez, the two of them had arranged it with the judge. Frankly, I didn’t care. The whole thing had interrupted
Treasure of the Sierra Madre
in the middle, and I wanted to get back to it.

Other than that brief transit of my image to the outside world, I never left the house the whole time. On some odd level I felt like I was away at camp.

Christmas came and went—I got many fewer cards than usual and didn’t send any—until, one evening, Oscar and Jenna made me stop watching a rerun of
I Love Lucy
so they could present an outline of their final strategy plan for the prelim. The hearing was scheduled to start the next day. I approved the plan with a few tweaks. Then I went to bed to await the morning. Camp was over.