Reversible Errors

  “And you think that’ll fix things?”

  “Look, I married Talmadge on dubious premises. And I don’t mean because I’m ambitious and he’s ambitious—the truth is, that’s the one part that’s worked and always will. I’m talking about the way I see myself and see him. You’re the one who read me that headline. But I’m going to work that through with my husband, not with you. Wherever that leads. Which, best guess, is probably out the door.”

  She was asking him to stand by, he realized suddenly. She was telling him they might still have a chance.

  “And so what am I supposed to do? See if I can remember the words to ‘You Keep Me Hangin’ On’? I told you I can’t live in between.”

  “I heard that. And I’m not proposing a life of secret passion. For both our sakes, this better stop. I’m just letting you know what I’m thinking. But I haven’t paid my subscription to the psychic hotline. Who knows what happens? You said ten years ago you were getting out of your marriage, and you’ve still got the same address.”

  “Different situation.”

  “You get the point.”

  He did. He looked straight down at the rug. His dick, which had always gotten him in so much trouble, was bunched up like a baby. But that wasn’t the part that hurt. He was desperate to stay angry, because it would keep the rest of it at bay. In the meantime, her grip tightened on his arm.

  “But look—I have to say one more thing. What happened with this case—Gandolph? What was disclosed and what wasn’t? A lot of that’s my fault. I see that now. You told me you weren’t like me and I didn’t listen. There’s a reason people say not to shit where you eat and not to fuck where you work. And I did it anyway. Because I had to know what it was like to be outside my marriage. I wanted to see how it felt.”

  “And how was it?”

  She looked at him a long time.

  “Pretty damn good,” she said. She stayed there one more second. “But it was stupid and selfish, too. And unprofessional. So if there’s blame to pass out on this case, let it land on me. Whatever the impact on my plans.”

  He liked that. He liked a lot of what she’d said in the last few minutes. It was honest. Usually, Muriel could be savage about everyone but herself.

  “By the way,” she said, “speaking of the case, you ready for today’s humor?”

  “I could use some right now.”

  She told him what Aires had said about Gillian copping on the street.

  “No way,” said Larry.

  “I scoped it out a little today. Called Gloria Mingham at DEA. Technically speaking, none of this stuff about Gillian is grand jury, but Gloria still didn’t like talking about it. She just sort of hummed to me.”

  “You mean actually hummed, or a figure of speech?”

  “Actually hummed, as a matter of fact.”

  “What was the tune?”

  “‘Toot, Toot, Tootsie! Goo‘bye.’”

  Larry had a great laugh when he got it. “Gillian tooted? Smoked H?”

  “Apparently.”

  “Makes sense. Can’t get a needle into an iceberg, right?”

  “Gloria said they had allegations, but nothing they could really nail down. The witnesses were all dopers.”

  “God, these people are hypocrites,” Larry said.

  “The feds?”

  “Arthur.”

  “Maybe Gillian never told him.”

  “Great. Is this something else we have to disclose to him?”

  “I don’t think so.” Muriel laughed. “I think a court would find that Arthur had ample opportunity to plunge into that body of information.” She offered a naughty smile, then abruptly took hold of her chin. He could see her mind had gone elsewhere.

  “New idea?” he asked.

  “Maybe. Something to consider for this case. Let me think it through.”

  “And where is this case going? What’s the view from the top today?”

  She took a second, then asked what he’d thought about Collins’s interview.

  “Memorable performance,” Larry said. “Just like his uncle’s. Must run in the blood.”

  “Do you think he was there? At Paradise?”

  “Collins? I know he was there.”

  “You do?”

  “I got Judson’s shoes out of Evidence. Collins was right about the brand. And I beat up on the DNA guys all day. They already had a profile on Collins from Faro’s bloody shirt, and they found plenty of sweat residue inside the shoes. You know, they’d like six years to be definitive, but bottom line, sweat DNA doesn’t match the blood on the shoes, but it has the same alleles as the shirt. They’re Collins’s shoes—not that the DNA guys could have told you that in ’91.”

  She took a slug of her beer while she thought it through.

  “That change anything for you?” he asked.

  “Nada.”

  I.e., she already believed Collins had been at the scene.

  “Well, I’ll tell you something I don’t believe,” he said. “I don’t buy the innocent-bystander shit. No kidding Erno told Collins the police would think he was involved in the murders. You telling me you drag around dead bodies when you had nothing to do with the killings?”

  “It’s a strange story,” allowed Muriel. “But family stuff is strange. The only way you know about Collins moving the bodies is because he told you—the same reason you know about the shoes.”

  “So you don’t think he was in on it?”

  “Only Erno’s prints are on the trigger and the handle, and they’re in Luisa’s blood, Larry, right?”

  “Her type anyway. I didn’t pound the DNA guys on Luisa—you can imagine the backtalk I was getting already and the serology was pretty conclusive.” The blood on the gun was all B negative. Only 2 percent of the population were B negatives and Luisa Remardi had been one of them. Judson, Gus, Collins were all type Os. Larry had held out some faint hope that Erno was B neg, but the jail hospital said no. To Larry, though, Erno being the shooter wasn’t the whole story.

  “My big one is still the same,” he told her. “I don’t buy that Rommy had nothing to do with it. Maybe Erno and Squirrel confronted Luisa and Collins together. But Collins is just finishing the job his uncle started, taking Rommy out, because he dummied up for them.”

  “You really see Rommy as a stand-up guy, Larry? He couldn’t even stand up for himself. Besides, there’s just no evidence to back that.”

  Larry had an idea, however. He had half a dozen cadets on standby for tomorrow. He wanted a search warrant that would allow them to dig under Erno’s toolshed in hopes of finding everything taken from the victims at Paradise on the night of the murders. Collins said Erno had recently flirted with having the apron dug up to confirm his testimony, but had realized Collins’s prints were likely to be found on several items. Larry suspected that Erno was also hiding Squirrel’s prints or DNA.

  “You’ll have the warrant by 10 a.m., and I’ll be rooting for you, Larry, believe me. But if we don’t find some speck that ties to Squirrel, it’s going to be one more biggie on their side. All the forensics back Erno and Collins now. If that stuff is there like Collins said and only his prints and Erno’s are on it, we’ll be toast. It’s a new trial, Larry.”

  “A new trial?”

  “We can fool around for a year and a half in front of Harlow, when the Court of Appeals sends the case back, but long story short, if you look at all of it—the testimony, the prints, the DNA, the records suggesting Squirrel was in the can at the time of the murders—” She paused over the magnitude of what she was saying. “Gandolph’s habeas gets granted.”

  She might have been right on the law, but he could also see she didn’t want the bad news bleeding out, making headlines day after day for her election opponent.

  “And that’s not the bad part,” she said.

  “What’s the bad part?”

  “We can’t try this case again.”

  “Because of Collins?”

  “Collins has told two dif
ferent stories, blaming and saving the same guy. He’s a dope peddler and a fraud by his own account, and gets impeached with three felony convictions. He can praise Jesus all he likes. A jury will still hold its nose when he gets on the stand. My problem is how we get the cameo into evidence.”

  “How about the same way we did last time? I testify.”

  “No chance, Larry. A lot of weird stuff happens in a courtroom. I’m not going to say I haven’t had a chuckle or two listening to my own witnesses, but I’ve never put somebody on the stand knowing he was going to commit perjury. And I’m not going to start now.”

  “Perjury?”

  “That’s what they call it, Larry, when you make up stuff under oath.” She was looking straight at him, and not as she had a moment ago. This was Muriel the Fearless.

  “Would you prosecute, Muriel?”

  She looked herself over, still without a stitch on, and said, “I think I’d have to disqualify myself.”

  “Seriously,” he said, “would you call that a crime?”

  “I think it’s wrong, Larry. Really wrong. And I’m not going to let you testify you found that cameo in Squirrel’s pocket when you didn’t.”

  As long as he’d known her, he’d never been certain how firmly Muriel stood on principle. She meant what she said. But she’d never fully remove self-interest from her calculations. If she let him fib, he’d always have something on her.

  He thought through the alternatives. With Arthur’s agreement, they had given the cameo back to Luisa’s daughters in June, so there was no way to print it now to prove it had been in Squirrel’s hands.

  “What if I admit I lied before?” he asked.

  “That’s moral turpitude on the job, Larry. They fire your ass. And you’ll have to hold a farewell party for your pension. And you still wouldn’t have a chain of evidence putting the cameo in Squirrel’s pocket unless the copper who stole it gets up there to admit that, which won’t happen unless he doesn’t like his pension either. We’d be screwed anyway.”

  “How so?”

  “You’d be admitting you lied to get a conviction, right?”

  “To convict a multiple murderer.”

  “Then who’s to say you wouldn’t do it again? You’re the only witness to a lot of what went on between Rommy and you at the station house in October ’91. Next time around, Arthur’s going to say that confession was coerced somehow. All we’ll have is a perjuring police officer to say no.”

  “We lose the confession?”

  “Good chance. And the cameo. And ruin you. I mean, worst-case here, Larry, if we admit you lied about the cameo, and somebody figures out you shit-canned Dickerman’s report, the U.S. Attorney’s Office will probably prosecute you for obstruction of justice.”

  “The feds?”

  “We’re in federal court, Larry.”

  “Shit.” They indicted cops for sport over there, part of the never-ending conflict between federal and state law enforcement.

  “We can’t try this case again, Larry.”

  He hated this stuff, the law—and Muriel when she was its mouthpiece. He squeezed his arms around his knees and asked whether they could make a deal with Gandolph for a long prison term.

  “That’s the best option,” she said. “But what was it you called Arthur? Crusader Rabbit? Crusader thinks he has an innocent client. Crusader’s probably going to hang tough and take him to trial.”

  “What happens then?”

  She didn’t answer. Larry, suddenly on all fours, gripped her arm.

  “I don’t want to hear about time served, Muriel, or anything like that. I don’t want to have to look at this guy on the street. I’d rather take my chances in court, lose my pension, obstruction, whatever. This is me to you, Muriel. I mean it. Promise me you’ll stand in there.”

  “Larry.”

  “Promise me, damn it. What’s the name of the Greek guy pushing the rock up the hill and never getting to the top? Sisyphus? I’m not Sisyphus. That was a curse, Muriel. They did that to that guy as a curse. And that’s what you’d be doing to me.”

  “I’m trying to save you, Larry.”

  “Is that what you call it?” he asked as he grabbed his clothes.

  But he’d suddenly lost her attention. She was far off again. It took him a second to realize that she thought she’d found the way to do that.

  40

  AUGUST 24, 2001

  Heroin

  THE RECEPTIONISTS at O’Grady, Steinberg, Marconi and Horgan recognized Gillian by now. She walked in with a wave and moved through the pale halls of the law firm, receiving the tepid smiles of those who either didn’t know her or knew her too well. As she’d predicted, Arthur had not made a choice of companion popular among his partners. Rather than respond, Gillian kept her eye on a new serpentine-chain ankle bracelet she had bought this morning. During her lifetime, her feelings about this fashion accessory had varied. Her mother had told her ankle bracelets were trashy, which meant Gillian insisted on wearing one throughout her teens, and had eschewed it thereafter as juvenile. But in the late summer, when even she had acquired some semblance of a tan and could go without hose, the thin chain had a promising sensuality against her bare skin. Slender evidence of something. It reminded her for indeterminate reasons of Arthur. She rapped on the doorsill of his office and craned her head about the metal frame.

  “Dinnertime?” she asked.

  In his chair, his back was to her and his face lowered. She thought he must have been reading, but when he revolved she could see he’d been crying. Arthur had been as good as his word. He wept all the time. She felt no alarm whatsoever until he spoke a single word.

  “Heroin?” he asked her.

  He said it several more times, but she never found her voice to reply.

  “This morning,” he said, “Muriel made an emergency motion before Harlow to reopen discovery and depose you.”

  “Me?”

  “You. The motion said you appear to have information favorable to the defense. It was so ridiculous and low, I refused to upset you by mentioning it. I came through the courtroom door firing hot ammo. ‘Cheap.’ ‘Theatrical.’ ‘Unethical.’ ‘Scummy.’ Words I’d never used in public about another lawyer. The idea of trying to make this case personal! And finally, when I was done carrying on, Muriel asked the judge for ten minutes and handed me six affidavits, all from people who sold you heroin or saw you buying it. Even so, I wasn’t going to take the word of smack whores. But I met two of them this afternoon, Gillian, face-to-face. Both had kicked. One’s a drug counselor. I mean, they weren’t happy to say it. They didn’t have a beef with you—one of them had showed up in your courtroom years ago and you gave her probation, and she had a damned good idea why. I mean, they were just telling the truth. Telling me the truth about you. Can you imagine how that felt? I mean, Jesus fucking Christ, Gillian, heroin?”

  There was probably no word for this exactly. She’d taken a seat in a tweed armchair, but she hadn’t any idea how she’d made her way there. She felt as if she was on an elevator that had dropped dozens of stories and then slammed to a halt. She’d descended at high velocity and had been flattened. For a trifling instant, she’d felt an impulse to deny what he’d said, which made her despair even more over herself.

  “Arthur,” she said. “It makes everything so much worse, Arthur.”

  “It certainly does.”

  “For me. It makes everything so much more disgraceful. And I’d had all I could bear, Arthur. You know that. You understand that much.”

  “Gillian, I mean, this was the first thing I asked you. You told me you were sober at the time of Rommy’s trial.”

  “I answered your question. I told you I hadn’t been drinking to excess. I was a witness, Arthur, an educated one. I answered the question.”

  “And then? Some time in the last four months, you didn’t think—I mean, don’t you realize what a fucking problem this is legally?”

  “Legally?”

  “For R
ommy. Legally. He was tried before a heroin addict.”

  “He’s not the first defendant whose trial judge was impaired. The case was appealed, Arthur. Twice. There have been endless post-conviction proceedings. No court has ever found anything near reversible errors.”

  “And what about the Constitution?”

  She couldn’t follow the reference. “The Constitution?”

  “The Constitution, Gillian, promises every defendant a fair trial. Do you think that means a trial before a judge who’s committing a felony on a daily basis? Not only a judge whose thinking is bound to be disturbed, but who’s out on the street and, therefore, has a powerful motive not to antagonize the prosecutors and the police?”

  Ah. She sat back. She had not thought of this part at all. She’d given the whole subject brief contemplation the first day she met Arthur for coffee, reasoned a bit with Duffy, and stowed it away. The only justice that had concerned her was her own. But had she reflected with just an instant of discipline, she could have recognized the implications for Gandolph, exactly as Arthur laid them out. She was as guilty as Arthur found her.

  “Muriel’s already called to ask what I’m going to do,” he said.

  “And?”

  “And I told her I’m going to move to amend my complaint for habeas corpus to allege that your addiction violated Rommy’s right to a fair trial.”

  “You’re going to put me on the witness stand?”

  “If I have to.”

  She was about to suggest he was being histrionic, or impulsive. How could he interrogate the woman he was sleeping with? But that answer, too, was plain. She really was not as fleet with all of this as she had once been, she thought sadly. Obviously, she was no longer the woman he was sleeping with.

  “My God, Gillian. I can’t even bear the idea. You in doorways, copping from hookers—and then going back to sit in judgment of other human beings? I can’t imagine this. And you? Who in God’s name are you?”