“You speak as if you have knowledge,” I say.
“No. No. No, Counsel. I don’t need no subpoenas slipped under the door of my office,” he says. “I don’t know anything about the specifics of the arrest. But I hear things. A lot of reports cross my desk. Nothing official, of course. But from the history, your man nurtured a very seamy side.”
Tell me something I don’t know.
“If they do the thing in the courtroom, with the TV,” he says, “all that swill’s gonna come spillin’ out, all over people’s living room floors.”
“Well, I guess we can just hope the prosecutors check with the station censors before they put on their case,” I tell him.
“Yeah, right,” he says. “But at least they’re investigating a bad guy this time, as opposed to-”
“That’s a matter of opinion,” says Lenore.
“As opposed to what?” I ask.
Lano gives her a dirty look, then finishes the thought. “As opposed to the good guys,” he says. “The boys in blue.”
“I think the D.A.’s office has enough time for both,” I tell him.
All of a sudden I’m getting arched eyebrows, the kind of smile from Lano that tells me this is an opportunity for him to deliver bad news.
“You haven’t heard?” he says.
I shake my head.
“The D.A. dismissed the grand jury. Case closed.”
“What are you saying?”
“The association has a clean bill of health. Acosta’s witch-hunt died with the man,” he says.
What he’s saying is that with Acosta’s demise, and the way he went down, the legal power structure has now regrouped, its collective tail between its legs.
“Your day in the sun,” I tell him. “Enjoy it while it lasts.”
He looks at me, a grin that could only be called vicious.
The conversation is over and he starts to move away. Igor nearly trips over him when Lano stops short and turns back to look at us one more time.
“Oh, by the way,” he says. “I almost forgot to tell you.”
“What?”
“The carpet fibers,” says Lano. “The ones found on the girl’s body. Seems they’re a perfect match to the stuff in the trunk of Acosta’s car.” Lano’s pipeline has no limits, even unto the sanctity of the county’s crime lab.
“Thought you’d want to know,” he says. He gives a little finger wave. This I think is aimed more at Lenore than at me.
“Bye.”
CHAPTER 10
With Acosta’s scalp hanging from his belt, Lano possesses a fear factor that can be measured only by the collective knocking of knees on the Richter scale. Under these circumstances it is not likely that elected officials will open another grand jury probe into the affairs of his association.
I had hoped that we could ride on the back of the official investigation, revelations that could be used to mount a defense on behalf of Acosta, a crusading judge, set up and framed by dirty cops. This undoubtedly will be a major theme of our defense. Now we have a problem. Prosecutors will be able to argue that while at one time there may have been an investigation, no evidence of corruption was found. If there’s no dirty linen, nothing to turn up, why would the cops go out of their way to silence a crusading judge?
The other half of our case is to put a face on the real killer. As much as I dislike the man, I don’t believe that Acosta is a murderer. Lenore and I are still engaged in mental casting calls for that role.
If I had to hazard a guess at this moment, it is that Brittany Hall’s death is related not to the judge, but perhaps to a jealous lover, a random burglary that went awry, or a sex crime. The problem with the cops’ current theory as it regards the last two is that she knew her killer and let him in.
It is Friday night, and I am working in the office late. We spent the afternoon, the three of us, Harry, Lenore, and I, poring through more documents of discovery, including videotapes of the investigation in the alley where the body was found, and later shots outside Brittany Hall’s apartment. Some of these have been taken by police photographers, others we have subpoenaed from two local television stations.
I am bleary-eyed. Lenore left early because of a social commitment. Harry pitched it in an hour ago and went home.
It is nearly ten when I hear a key in the lock to the outer office door, some clicking of the latch, and then the door closing.
When I look up, Lenore is standing in my doorway, in a sleek black evening dress, tight at the hips, with a hem that ends at midthigh, her bare shoulders aglow. She holds a pair of three-inch spiked heels, made of black patent leather, hooked on two fingers of one hand.
“Got anything for blisters?” she asks.
Lenore has been partying, a social engagement that she committed to months ago, before she left the D.A.’s office, some prosecutor’s bash.
She shows me a hole in her nylons, worn through at the heel on one foot.
“Walked half a mile,” she says.
“So how was the date?” I ask.
“You don’t want to know.”
I feel better already. Standing in my doorway, a slender hip thrust against the frame, with tasteful gold earrings dangling from her ears, and lips glossed to a sexy sheen, Lenore is a remarkably beautiful woman. Tonight her hair is up, lending an air of mystery.
“I take it you didn’t hit it off with Herb?” I try not to sound too satisfied.
Herb Conners is one of the supervisors in the prosecutor’s office, a corporate climber and tight-ass extraordinaire. We had a bet, Lenore and I. She bet Conners would find some excuse to break their date. Lenore figured she was damaged goods, a social liability for any ambitious climber in the office since Kline had fired her. I told her that in any contest between career and libido, lust always wins out. It seems I was right. I think Lenore kept the date herself only because she refused to be cowed by Kline, who would most certainly be present.
“Conners grew hands from every appendage on his body in the car on the way home,” she says.
“Horny devil,” I tell her.
“Not anymore.” Lenore gives me a wicked smile, leaving me to wonder what she did to him.
“I got out four blocks from here, tried to hail a cab, and missed. So I walked. Saw your light on.”
With the visage of this woman in my doorway, Conners is no doubt now huddled in a cold shower somewhere.
I’m fishing in my drawer for a Band-Aid. I find it and hand it to her.
She drops her shoes on the corner of my desk, and the fragrance of her perfume envelops me like mustard gas on a doughboy in the trenches.
Lenore is one of those women who can turn her sensuality on and off like a light switch. One minute she is all business, with the lawyer’s professional eye and gnashing teeth, the next minute she is a vamp, as she is tonight. Unfortunately, now, when I am mired in the details of work, Lenore does not have her business switch turned on.
“You’re burning the oil awfully late,” she says. “You ought to go home.”
“Somebody has to work,” I tell her.
“Still trying to figure out how we pick up the pieces of the broken cop show?” She’s talking about the abandoned grand jury probe.
“You got it.”
“Any ideas?” She talks to me while she rubs the calf of one leg, her foot now raised onto the seat of the client chair across from my desk, the hem of her tight dress hiked nearly to the top of one thigh. I’m getting lots of ideas, none of them concerning this case.
I make an effort. “We can try to subpoena the grand jury records, the transcript, all their investigative files,” I tell her.
“Lotsa luck on that one,” she says. Lenore is right. Grand jury investigations, particularly those that are closed without indictment, are classified, something on the order of a missile silo’s nuclear code. It would take a court order from a senile judge to pry them open.
“We can hire an investigator, see what we can find out on our own,” I tell her. “It would take a lot of legwork.” I’m staring at her own right now.