Nash cleared his throat. “Barnett shouldn’t have said those things to you, Teddy. I’m sorry. Did he fire you?”
“I don’t know yet. He’s still bedridden. They’ll need someone to do the paperwork and sit at the table with Holmes. I’m not sure anyone at the firm really wants their picture taken beside a serial killer.”
Nash flashed a warm smile. “I’d say you’re right about that.”
“What about Rosemary?” Teddy asked.
“As far as I’m concerned, nothing’s changed. We already knew something was going on between Holmes and Darlene Lewis. Now we know what it was. The confession, based on the man’s state of mind, isn’t even worth reading. But we’re alone. Westbrook called when the bureau got the news from the DA’s office. He’s upset. He said he’ll do anything he can to help, but it will have to remain unofficial now.”
“We know the profile’s accurate,” Teddy said. “From what the manager at the cafe told us, this guy with bad teeth followed Rosemary out the door the night she disappeared. Her gym bag wasn’t found in her apartment. We know she never made it home.”
Nash got up from his desk and sat down with Teddy at the jury table. He’d been collecting press clippings on Alan Andrews since he began researching the DA’s past. He laid several of them out on the table, one beside the next, then bummed a cigarette from Teddy’s pack. He’d never done that before.
“What do you think of this?” Nash asked. “What’s your opinion?”
Teddy counted six clippings. He scanned the copy long enough to get the gist.
“Andrews was an overzealous prosecutor,” he said. “Judges complained, but he ran a hard race and became the district attorney. He wasn’t liked much. Still, the office generated a lot of prosecutions and crime was down.”
“What else?”
Teddy thought it over. “It looks like the press tolerated him. Judges were relieved he wouldn’t be appearing in court as often, if ever, as long as he held the office.”
“Then what?”
“You hit Andrews for sending the wrong man to his death,” Teddy said. “All his faults were in the papers again. But it didn’t last because Holmes was arrested that very day. People got scared. The city was being terrorized by a maniac. As far as they were concerned, Alan Andrews saved them and any mistakes he made in his past were forgiven. So what if the wrong man got the needle. That’s the way people think. The guy was probably a lowlife and deserved to die for something else he’d done.”
Nash gazed at Andrews’s clippings, his eyes more dilated than usual, more sad. “You have to admit that it’s remarkable though. His resurrection, I mean. I thought he’d be booted out of office when my workshop made its findings public. Now it looks like he’ll be rewarded. He’ll become the city’s next mayor, then who knows, maybe even governor. Whether you like him or not, he’s a survivor. You have to give him credit for that.”
“What about your workshop next semester? What about the other cases you’re working on?”
“They’re old,” Nash said, lowering his voice. “Evidence is scarce. In some cases contaminated or even destroyed. Money’s an issue as well.” He blew smoke toward the window, watching the sunlight give the cloud form. “It’s an uphill battle,” he said. “It’ll take time.”
Nash became silent. Teddy watched him smoke the cigarette for a moment, then grabbed his briefcase and stood.
“There’s just one thing I don’t understand,” Teddy said before leaving.
Nash looked at him without saying anything. He seemed tired. Like Teddy, he needed a break.
“I was thinking about it on the drive in from the hospital,” Teddy said. “I know why my boss wanted to make the deal. All he cares about are his own press clippings and what his neighbors think. I even understand why the district attorney thinks Holmes is guilty. If I were Andrews, I might think it, too. Let’s face it, Andrews still has the facts on his side. The case is so strong, I have doubts about what we’re doing every day. But look at these clippings. Just these few clippings tell a different story, and I don’t get it.”
“What part of the story don’t you understand?”
“Why Andrews made the deal,” Teddy said.
A moment passed. Nash had a faraway look going in his eyes, like Teddy had found another fault line in the rocks. A crack in the mountain no one else had seen.
“Why stop the headlines?” Teddy said, pointing at them on the table. “Why make a deal that would end this, especially when everyone on the street wants Holmes dead. If he’d refused to the plea the case, the trial and headlines would’ve lasted until his election. Now they’re gonna go away. Every blood-and-guts idiot in the city is gonna be pissed off at him. It’s not in Andrews’s interest to make this deal. It doesn’t make sense.”
Nash took a second cigarette and handed over the pack, appearing stunned.
“No, it doesn’t,” was all he could say.
FIFTY-ONE
He knew the word was out the moment he entered the lobby. He knew it wasn’t good. Jill filled him in as soon as he reached his office.
Teddy’s stay at the firm was finished.
He’d be kept on to see Holmes through the process, just as he thought, because no one else wanted to be associated with a serial killer. No one in the firm wanted their picture taken beside the Veggie Butcher. Once Holmes pled guilty and received his sentence of life without parole, Teddy would receive his notice. Jill had gotten the news from Barnett’s assistant, Jackie, who’d overheard Larry Stokes on the phone. Stokes had already written the termination notice and would keep it in his desk until Holmes was admitted into a psychiatric facility for the criminally insane. According to Jackie, Stokes told Barnett that he never liked Teddy and was secretly glad to see him go. She couldn’t hear the entire conversation, but thought it had something to do with Teddy’s father and the reputation of his family.
Teddy sat down at his desk. Brooke Jones passed the door without looking inside, but he caught the faint smile branded on her profile.
He opened his briefcase, found the aspirin, and chugged two pills down with bottled water. As he sat back, he went over the events of the day in his head. He remembered the way it had ended at the art museum this morning with Andrews on his back. He’d been too upset to really notice what was going on at the time. Andrews had just nailed Teddy, yet the man couldn’t keep eye contact. Andrews had looked away like maybe he was nervous. Like something else was on his mind.
Why did he do the deal? It didn’t make sense.
Andrews should have insisted on a trial. Fought for it until the bitter end. Instead, Barnett had said it was easy. The district attorney agreed almost immediately. The entire conversation lasted only five minutes.
Why?
Barnett read the profile and initiated the call. Andrews spoke first and told Barnett about the nudes Holmes had painted over that included Darlene Lewis. Then Barnett brought up the profile Teddy and Nash had created and said that they were looking for an artist. A painter or sculptor.
Teddy wondered if it wasn’t the profile. But what? There had to be a reason why Andrews would risk taking heat from the public to do the deal.
He looked at Jill, staring back at him from the computer.
“You think you could do me a favor?” he said.
“Sure.”
“Pull up Andrews’s past cases for the last ten years. Sort them by verdict and print them out. All I need is the list and a summary. But do a second printing and sort them by the crime. Is that doable?”
“It’s easy,” she said.
Her eyes flashed toward the door. Larry Stokes entered the room without noticing her. His face was shut down, his appearance as lifelike as a body in an open casket.
“I’d like to have a word with you,” he said quietly. “In my office.”