A plan was gelling in her mind. It wasn’t the sort of scheme that would be found in the books, but it was the best she could come up with. She found her file of eavesdropping warrant requests and filled in the blanks with as much material from the file — augmented by her conversation with McNamara — as she could. She signed the form and dialed Judge Corwin’s number.
His voice was, as ever, solemn, steady, and unruffled. “Hello.”
“Judge, Lori Prewitt. May I come over with an eavesdropping warrant request?”
“Sure, if you can make it before my favorite TV program at nine.”
“I’ll be there in half an hour.”
Twenty-six minutes later Lori was watching His Honor give the papers his customary cursory study, with the usual distant gaze that seemed to Lori to mean that he was almost lost with such warrants. Twenty-one minutes after that she was explaining to the sheriff’s chief deputy what she wanted in the setting of the bugs in Archer’s apartment in the seedy Riverfront section of town. And in another nineteen minutes she was home with her cat.
Lori’s third telephone call at a little before eight the following morning confirmed that the bugs had been securely set in Archer’s digs while he was at his job overnight.
Her next call was to Archer’s lawyer, Don Lewerke, the hotshot who was rapidly acquiring a reputation for being the least cooperative and most arrogant lawyer in four counties. Three years out of Yale, where he was near the top of his class, he had joined the practice of the Graves brothers, who were in their seventies. When they left their practice, feet first, five months apart, Lewerke ran with dozens of files, milking the firm’s connections for a bunch more. He was much that Lori was not, haughty and overconfident. A bachelor and a workaholic, Lewerke would be at his office before heading out to court.
“Lewerke here.”
“Don, Lori Prewitt.”
“Okay, oppressor of the poor and humble, what are you dealing?”
“Are you ready for the Archer case? It’s third on the list, and the other two may sugar off.”
“Settling everything, are you?”
“Your guy’s last chance. I’ll ask for the maximum terms.”
“My guy isn’t inclined to plead.”
“He’s looking at ten years on each count, and I’ll ask for consecutive terms. I’ll take pleas to serious assault, two counts, four years on each, consecutive.”
Lewerke laughed.
“Run it by him.”
“Not before trial. He doesn’t respond to my letters.”
That was a help. Lori licked her lips, thinking. She said goodbye and dropped the receiver. She worked with other case files, and shortly before nine called Lewerke again.
“I’ll send out a warrant for his arrest. That’ll make sure he’s here for the trial,” she told him.
“You can’t do that.”
She pretended to read from a mythical paper: “Defendant’s attorney states defendant does not respond to attempts to contact. Attorney is not able to communicate county attorney’s offer of compromise to defendant. On information and belief—”
“Okay, okay, give me today, and I’ll see what I can do.”
Lori was settling down to her salad at the Golden Corral a little before six that evening when Lewerke strode along the aisle.
“I found him,” said Lewerke. “He says to stick it.”
Lori began moving greens into her mouth. “Sit down.”
“Can’t. I’m going back to the office.”
“Why is he so blind. Twenty years is tougher than eight. Doesn’t he know about the eyewitness?”
“He just won’t do it. He thinks he can beat it, and his money’s good.”
Lori put down her fork and stared at Lewerke. “I’m tired. You have me in a moment of weakness. How about one count, five years? Last chance for him to get out cheap. The victims were drug dealers, they’re in no position to complain about easy justice.”
“He won’t go for it.”
“You’ll run it by him?”
“Sure. If you’ll go for disorderly conduct.”
She frowned, giving him her best pretending-to-be-angry scowl. “Last offer. If I have to go through the headaches of dealing with my cast of X-rated witnesses and setting up the case, I’ll withdraw all offers and there’ll be nothing less than the charges on file. I won’t even ask for a jury instruction on lesser-included offenses.” She threw her fork into her half-full salad dish and looked past Lewerke at the waitress approaching with her rib-eye. “My main course is coming, and I don’t want your crummy client interfering with my appetite.”
“Okay, okay,” said Lewerke, a hand extended, palm open. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“Make it by noon the next day. I have a busy day out of the office tomorrow.” She would make it be true by being everywhere but in the office; Lori didn’t want to make herself into a liar, should one of the judges grill her on her chicanery and trickery on the Robert Archer case.
Late the next afternoon Lori was in the conference room of the sheriff’s office, a store-bought sub sandwich, soda, and bag of chips before her, looking at a pile of tapes and a tape player. Munching away, Lori listened through the first few tapes at high speed of miscellaneous irrelevant sounds, muffled and difficult to understand because the bugs were centered on picking up Archer’s end of the telephone conversations. Lori ate her evening meal amid conversations that probably had to do with drug transactions, similar telephone conversations, long patches of silence, and words of affection between Archer and a woman he called Flopsy, mingled with sounds of squeaking bed springs, grunts, and groans.
Later tapes included an argument between Archer and Flopsy over a joint, more telephone calls, and muffled attempts at conversation over meals and otherwise. Then came a telephone call that Lori backed up the tape on, and listened to at regular speed.
Archer: Yeah?
Pause.
Archer: I forgot. It’s on for the nineteenth, huh?
Pause.
Flopsy in background: I’ll work on the joint.
Archer: Yeah, go ahead, it’s my lawyer. I ain’t worried, they can’t prove a thing.
Pause.
Archer: He won’t put me there.
Pause.
Archer: Tell her to go — I don’t care what she says, he won’t put me there.
Pause.
Archer: Because he’s dead. I heard it on the news, he’s dead, dead. Knifed in Worcester two, three nights ago.
Pause.
Archer: Sure, you don’t have to tell her why, just say I ain’t going to plead, and without Ricetti she ain’t got a case.
Pause.
Archer: Yeah, I’ll be there. Two days before, at one in the afternoon, your office. And no, I won’t plead.
Pause. Flopsy muttering something muffled that sounded like “a quickie before I pick up the kids at school.”
Archer: I’ll have your money then, sure.
Lori made notes, then ran fast through most of the rest of the tapes, slowing one down to listen intently to a muffled and disjointed conversation between Archer and someone who arrived at a little before midnight. Archer called him Gonzo.
Archer: Your money, Gonzo, [inaudible] thousand.
Gonzo: It wasn’t [inaudible] took a while, he [inaudible] a lot of grass, to soften him up.
Archer: [inaudible] stuff as a bonus. Keep out of sight for a couple of weeks.
Scuffling around the door.
Gonzo: Be in Boston till the [inaudible]. If you need anything, you know [inaudible].
Archer: So long.