Matter of Trust (33 page)

Marshall took a breath and refocused on his current state of play.

Edward Fisk was sweating.

Marshall could see it – shiny little pearls of panic on his distinguished-looking face. The man had been around the traps for decades, charging his clients hundreds of thousands of dollars for his so-called expertise. And they fell for it, thinking that just because the man had the number III after his name, just because his father and his grandfather before him had all graduated Harvard Law with honours, just because he drove a Bentley and was chauffeured in from Somerset County every single day, that he could wave his magic wand and make all those horrible charges disappear. Which was ludicrous, of course – given the odds were always with the prosecutor. And Marshall's odds were increasing by the minute.

‘I'm afraid patience has never been one of my strongest virtues, Mr Fisk,' said Marshall, standing from his uncomfortable plastic chair to pace around the too small interview room. It was Saturday and he was dressed down in a polo shirt and jeans, his heeled RM Williams boots giving him a pleasurable, but not too obvious, ‘lift'.

‘And while I did say that my offer was available until the end of next week, since making said offer, I have been made aware of some new information and . . .' Marshall thought back to Peter Hogan the paver and his eagerness to testify. ‘Let's just say that your window of opportunity has shrunk and I am giving you until Monday morning to decide on whether or not you want to take the plea.'

Fisk looked to his client who was already shaking his head.

‘I need more time, Marshall,' said an exhausted-looking Kincaid.

But Fisk was already holding up his manicured right hand to silence his client. ‘Do the terms still stand?' he asked.

‘Well, yes,' answered Marshall, enjoying every moment of lording it over the fancy lawyer and his famous politician client. ‘In as much as I will agree to reduce the charge to reckless manslaughter. But I must tell you that, in light of this new information, I shall be recommending the maximum term for this offence – that being a sentence of ten years.'

‘
Ten years
,' said Chris. ‘Jesus, Marshall. I am innocent.'

‘Then feel free to take your chances with the jury. I will be happy to lay it all out for them to hear, especially the gem about the battered victim being alive when she hit the water. Goodness knows they'll love that.'

Fisk's hand was up again. ‘I find your attitude insulting, Mr Marshall.'

‘And I find the seconds hand on that gold Rolex you're sporting is now racing toward your new deadline.' Marshall smiled. ‘The thing is, Counsellor, your client here is going to have to realise that there is a huge difference between ten and thirty years. Why, his daughters will have kids of their own by then, and they can all come to visit their granddad in—'

‘What is this new information?' asked Fisk then.

‘All in good time, Mr Fisk. My enquiries are in their preliminary stages.'

‘Well, how do we even know this new information exists?'

‘You don't,' said Marshall.

Marshall had said his piece, and was determined to leave with the last word, and before the other two men rose, given he'd had the advantage of standing height over them for most of the meeting. ‘I'll be in my office first thing Monday, anxiously awaiting your call.'

And with that, his good friend Barnaby in mind, he strode to the door proudly realising that he'd created his own ‘Act III' – plot twist – leaving his opponents speechless with no room to wiggle, and thereby assuring his victory in Act IV.

‘J
ack,' he said. ‘Jesus. What the hell is wrong with you?'

Will Cusack had arrived at the Delgado house moments earlier – a smiling Vicki Delgado warning him that ‘Jackie', as she had always called him, had come down with the flu and was currently resting up in bed. And after asking if Will had had breakfast, and checking how he'd gone in his finals, she gave him a hug before commissioning him to take Jack up a hot mug of cocoa – simultaneously warning him not to get too close, or wake her son if he was finally getting some sleep.

‘Did you know he's been having nightmares?' she asked in a whisper. ‘I heard him just after one this morning, tossing and turning in the room next door. He must have been sweating this flu for quite some time. But now I think the fever's broken, which means he should be on the mend.' Her voice had risen at the end of this sentence turning it into a question, which had made Will wonder if Jack was giving his famous mom more than just a flu to worry about.

‘Is he talking?' Will had asked her then, a genuine look of concern on his broad, unshaven face. ‘In his sleep, I mean?'

‘I'm not sure,' she had replied. ‘Why, Will? Do you think he might be worried about Harvard? Of course, I am so thrilled he has been accepted, but perhaps I have pushed him too hard. I mean, it is what
his father and I always wanted for him, but . . .'

‘We're all hung up about the future, Mrs D,' Will had said, managing to offer her a consolatory smile.

‘That's exactly what Connor said.'

‘Connor?'

‘Yes, he came by about an hour ago – only stayed for a little while, so that Jack could get some sleep.'

And that was when Will, who had spoken to Connor last night and heard nothing of his planned visit, took the cocoa from Vicki Delgado's hands and high-tailed it up the stairs two at a time.

‘Jack – wake up,' he said, shaking his friend's shoulder – the fretful Jack now writhing in the bed before him, his brow a sweat-covered furnace. ‘Jack – come on, man.'

Jack Delgado finally opened his eyes. ‘Will,' he said. ‘I was dreaming – about that night. And I think it was a sign – that we have to do something. That we have to tell.'

Will caught his breath. ‘Connor came to see you,' he said, knowing that if he was to control this, he had to take it one step at a time.

‘Yes,' replied Jack. ‘He said his dad's solicitor had called his mom and told her they'd had a meeting with the prosecutor. Said the prosecutor had new evidence and had given his dad a deadline for negotiating a plea.'

‘What new evidence? Kincaid is going to plea?' Will felt the air rush out of him.

‘They don't know what the new evidence is, but Chris Kincaid's attorney is recommending he take the plea because the new stuff teamed with the information the prosecutor had been saving . . . for trial.'

‘Jesus, Jack – what the hell has the prosecutor been saving?' Will's voice was rising, and his hand clenched around Jack's wet T-shirt collar.

Jack winced as he swallowed, his throat rising painfully as if the words were like daggers in his throat. ‘The woman was alive when she was thrown into the river.'

Will released Jack's T-shirt, the full impact of his friend's words sending his brain into a spin.

‘She was
alive,
Will. Do you know what that means? It means that we made a
fatal
mistake. It means that we . . .' Jack tailed off, unable to say the words aloud.

Will's mind was working in overdrive as he tried desperately to make sense of it. ‘We weren't to know,' he said then.

‘The fuck we weren't to know.' Jack met his eye. ‘We panicked, Will – or at least I panicked, and you . . .'

Will ran his hand through his thick dark hair, then shook his head from side to side in an effort to clear it. ‘There's nothing we can do about it now,' he said, knowing it was more important than ever that he provided the guidance Jack needed. ‘You have to man up, Jack. This Catholic guilt thing is bullshit. As hard as it may be, you have to cut the whole “woe is me” act before someone starts asking what the fuck is wrong with you.'

Jack let out a sigh. ‘Jesus, Will.
Aren't you listening to me?
Connor thinks his dad is going to plea. The senator's going to go to
jail
, for at least ten years. He'll kill his career, leave his family without an income.' Jack fell back onto his sweat-soaked pillow. ‘I'm tired, Will. You're the one who is always telling me how invincible I am – well I
am
, or I
was
, but then I started trying to cover for every goddamned father figure in my life and now I have nothing else to give.'

Will tried desperately to quell the anger he felt rising in his belly. Chris Kincaid and his lily-livered son had done it again, managed to stand in front of Will's opportunity to sort things the fuck out. He forced himself to focus.
Jack said something about their income.
And that was when Will remembered he had still not seen
one single cent
from this fucked-up ‘investment'. If Kincaid copped the plea, Will's earning potential was over. He needed to suppress his rage and focus on why they'd started this whole thing in the first place – the
problem that hadn't been solved
.

‘Listen to me,' said Will, his dark gaze set on Jack's bloodshot eyes. ‘Nobody is saying anything, do you hear me? I will find a way out of this – for us –
and
,' he had to brace himself to say it, ‘maybe even for Kincaid. I just need some time to—'

‘But there
is
no time. If Kincaid is going to plea, it's going to happen soon.'

Will knew that if he was going to salvage this situation, and make the money he should have made in the first place, he needed to come up with a new plan. ‘Then we have to move quickly,' he said.

‘We did that before, remember?' said a now depleted Jack. ‘And look where that got us.'

For once, Will was speechless, as the calamity of the situation finally hit home.

‘I will fix this,' he said, rising from Jack's bed.

‘I'm not sure you can,' said Jack. ‘Connor said his dad was resolute. He's like a suicide bomber, Will, and everyone knows they are the one group that can't be stopped when their hearts are set on self-destruction.'

‘Then we have to go to someone who has a vested interest in making sure Kincaid understands he has to act in the best interests of his family – someone who'll be dragged down with him if he . . .'

‘That would be us, Will,' said Jack, his wide-eyed, sucker-punched face now flushed with defeat.

‘Not just us,' said Will, the fog finally clearing. And then, ‘I have to go.'

W
hen David Cavanaugh was a small boy he used to love to crawl into his mother's bed and nestle into her shoulder. On the best of these nights, she would allow him to first fish under her bed for the old photo albums, and he would rummage through the pile until he found the oldest-looking one of the bunch – the one that contained pictures of his mom and dad when they were not much older than him.

‘It's not fair,' he would say.

‘What's not fair?'

‘That I can see you when you were little but you can't see me when I am old.'

‘Well, that's not how life works, honey,' his mom would laugh. ‘What you'll look like when you're older – that's one of life's surprises – and if I saw it now, it would spoil it.'

‘Spoil what?'

‘The feeling I'm going to get when I look at you as a man. The pride I'm going to feel, the joy it's going to bring me.'

‘Will you recognise me?' he'd asked.

‘Well, of course I will.' She would smile as she wrapped her arm around him to squeeze him tight. ‘People never lose the child inside of them, Davy. Sometimes it's harder to see in some people than others, but
it's always there – if you look closely enough.'

David would nod. ‘Then I'm always going to look, Mom.'

‘I'm glad – because the child part, that's often the best part of a person, the one thing that makes them who they are. You remember that Davy, and you'll never lose sight of just how good human beings can be.'

Chris Kincaid rose from his chair as soon as David and Sara entered the tiny cinderblock room. He looked tired, like a man who had been stripped of all his former achievements, as if fate had finally consumed him, and left him bare.

‘David,' said Chris, taking a small step toward him but then stopping short as if unsure whether he had earnt the right to approach. In that moment, David saw the boy he once knew. That boy had not been there in January, lost inside the maze that was Chris Kincaid the man, but he was here now, David was sure of it, and so he moved forward with his arms outstretched.

Sara stood to the side as the two men embraced, as Chris cried into David's shoulder. And time stood still until Chris finally pulled back and looked toward her, and David moved to take her hand and look back to his friend to say, ‘Chris, this is my wife, Sara.'

Chris took her hand in both of his own. ‘It's so good to meet you at last.'

‘Likewise,' smiled Sara.

‘I am sorry,' he told her, ‘for that time back in January, when I took him away from you and asked too much.'

‘It's okay. That's what friends are for,' she said.

‘A lesson I've learnt the hard way,' he said, before turning back toward David who gestured for them all to sit.

‘Rebecca called you,' said Chris after a time.

‘Twice in the last two days.'

‘I told her not to.'

‘She disobeyed you.'

‘A first,' he said. ‘I don't deserve her.'

‘But you can.'

‘No. It's over, David.' Chris's head was down and shaking. ‘I'm on a twenty-four-hour deadline. I'm going to take the plea.'

‘No you're not, Chris.'

‘I've been told my chances of winning are practically nonexistent. I have to trust my attorney.'

‘No, they're not and . . . yes, you do.'

Chris's head stopped shaking, his dark eyes lifting to meet the green complements of his old friend's.