“There are guys in the office,” volunteered Slocum, his voice soft and surprisingly serious, “who say that anyone can convict the guilty, but only a real prosecutor can convict the innocent. I’m not one of them. Last thing I ever want to do is fry someone who didn’t do it. If something smells I won’t cover it up and hope nobody notices as some poor fool rots in jail; it is up to me to find out what exactly is smelling and what I need to do about it.”
“What smells in your murder case against Concannon?”
“I had no choice but to drop the indictment against Councilman Moore,” said Slocum. “After the testimony of your brilliant witness the DA herself ordered the case dismissed. But I heard your little friend testify and if you ask me she was lying. The DA wants me to put her on the stand to hammer the last nail in your boy’s coffin. The thought of it makes me sick.”
“You should go into private practice,” I said with a bitter laugh, “where anything goes and there’s nothing to trouble your conscience except where to cash your checks. Maybe then you could buy yourself a car with a window that actually goes up and down.”
“Wouldn’t know how to handle all that luxury. Besides, the knife you gave me seems actually to have been the one that sliced Chuckie Lamb’s throat. There was blood on the spring. What tests we could do showed it matched his type. We’re holding Wayman right now. Someone sure did a number on him before we got there.”
“So you’re maybe starting to believe the stories I’ve been spinning?”
“I’m starting to listen. That’s as much as you’re going to get.”
“That’s all I want,” I said.
When Walnut Street ended he turned right onto 63rd Street, dipped under the tracks of the Market Street elevated, and headed north, alongside trolley tracks, past dark decrepit houses into the dark fall night.
“So what I’m saying,” he went on, “is that I’m willing to go this far with you because I think it’s my job to find the truth. But no further. I’m going to catch hell for this as it is when word gets out, which it will, and it might even cost me my job. My boss was an obscure common pleas judge before Moore put her up for DA. Now she thinks she’s going to be a senator.”
“I appreciate it,” I said.
“I’m not doing it for you. I’m not even doing it for Concannon. But I’m not going in front of a jury to ask for death if I’m not sure.”
We were in Wynnefield now, still the city but there were no longer row houses along the dark wide streets, instead large stone homes with wide porches and peaked roofs. There were lawns and nice cars and, though it was all just a little shabby from age, even the shabbiness was a nice touch. Slocum pulled up in front of a large stone colonial with stained-glass windows across the front door. There were bright lights gleaming from the top of the house, illuminating the broad front lawn, and the windows were lit as if a party was roaring inside.
“You been here before?” I asked.
“Fund-raisers,” he said. “It’s better to shell out now and then to the boys in power than to be ringing up head-hunters.”
He slipped out of his car and I followed, carrying my briefcase with the bullet hole in one flank. At the door with the stained-glass windows Slocum stepped aside so that I could do the knocking. “It’s your show,” he said.
I lifted the large brass knocker with the head of a lion and let it drop.
There was nothing for a few minutes and I dropped the knocker twice more before the door opened slowly. It was Renee, Leslie Moore’s sister, dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt, her face heavy with liquor. No late night on the town for her tonight. “Well, lookee here, it’s that thief Chester Concannon’s lawyer,” she said, swinging slightly as she leaned on the door. “Sorry, Mr. Carl, but Jimmy’s not here right now. Maybe you should come back in your next life.”
“I’m not here to see Jimmy, Renee. I’m here to see Leslie.”
“She’s not here either,” she said in thickened syllables, but her glance back and to the left gave her away.
“Why don’t you ask her if she’ll talk to me,” I said.
“No, I won’t,” said Renee, but even as she said it the slight figure of Leslie Moore, in print dress and low heels, her arms crossed tightly across her chest, appeared behind her.
“I thought you’d come,” said Leslie softly. “I just didn’t know when.”
I looked up at Renee and she shrugged in resignation and swung with the door as it opened, letting Slocum and me inside.
Leslie took our coats and led us to a formal living room with red walls and fancy couches. The fabrics were striped and elegant, with maroons and hunter greens and golds, and underneath everything was a rich oriental carpet in a deep navy blue. Everything was in place in this room, the prints of hummingbirds in the gold-leaf frames, the formal photographs on the end tables. There were no bottles or half-drunken glasses or any signs of recent habitation. This was the room where Jimmy hit up the wealthy for contributions, where the show was put on. There was another room somewhere in that large stone house, I was sure, where Renee and Leslie did their drinking when the councilman was out on the town without them, and that room was undoubtedly not so tidy.
Slocum and I sat side by side on a couch. Leslie sat across from us on a thin upholstered chair, Louis the Something I figured. Renee stood alongside the now cold fireplace like the lord of the manor. There was a long moment of silence.
“Can I get you something to drink?” asked Leslie finally.
“No, thank you,” said Slocum.
“Coffee would be great,” I said. I was in no hurry to leave.
Leslie looked up at Renee, who widened her eyes and then gave her a little snort.
“Excuse me,” said Leslie, and she left to make the coffee.
“The councilman’s in Chicago,” said Renee.
“I know,” I said.
“Of course you know. You wouldn’t have the guts to show up here if he was in town.”
I shrugged.
“He’s at the National Urban Conference. He’s a featured speaker. He’s going to be on the dais with the President.”
“Imagine that,” I said. “The same President whose administration indicted him for extortion and racketeering just six months ago.”
“Well, now that that little misunderstanding is cleared up, thanks to you,” said Renee with a drunken sneer, “I guess the President is starting to think about the twenty-three electoral votes that might just hinge on the half-million voters that CUP can deliver.”
“I didn’t know you were so politically keen, Renee.”
“Someone has to watch his back from the vipers out to bring him down. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? But you’re too late. They’re together again, like lovebirds. She’s moved back into his room, so your little scheme’s not going to work.”
“We’re just here to ask some questions,” said Slocum.
“Oh, I know who you are, Mr. District Attorney. You should be ashamed, all that Jimmy’s done for your people and now you plotting with this shyster.”
Slocum slowly took off his glasses and lifted the end of his tie to wipe off the lenses. Very carefully he cleaned, first one side, then the other, then the first again. He put his glasses back on. In the time it took to clean his glasses the jumble of quivering muscle at the edge of his jaw subsided. With his glasses back on he said calmly, “I don’t plot. And the only shameful thing in this room, ma’am, is you.”
“I made some for you, too, Mr. Slocum,” said Leslie, bringing in a tray with a porcelain teapot and four matching cups.
“Thank you,” he said.
She poured three cups. We both leaned forward to pick up a cup and saucer and then leaned back into the couch. Renee stayed by the fireplace, now seeming to inspect the mantelshelf for cracks with her fingertips.
“I’m here to take you up on your promise, Mrs. Moore,” I said before taking a sip of the coffee.
“She didn’t make any promise to you,” said Renee sharply.