Charley Peterson had been the public defender for the last ten years. He was a bright fellow, an honors graduate of Georgetown, but Charley had developed a void in his life over the years, a dry spot that constantly needed to be refreshed-with vodka. It was his drink of choice simply because he believed the myth that vodka didn’t smell. He kept a bottle in his desk and when he needed or wanted a drink, he locked his door and had one. He was fooling nobody but himself. His penchant for vodka was well known throughout the office and the courthouse. Word around the office was to catch Charley in the morning if you wanted to have a serious discussion about a case. In the afternoon, he was practically incoherent. Oh, he could talk without slurring his words and he could carry on a conversation that seemed to make sense. But if you wanted legitimate answers to questions, see him in the morning.
Perhaps Charley was miscast: Perhaps he should have been a tax lawyer. He certainly looked like one. A short, slightly built man with thinning blond hair, he certainly didn’t inspire confidence at first glance, although Charley had been a pretty good trial lawyer in his early years. Good enough, at least, to secure the appointment as public defender without any political affiliations to speak of. But something happened along the way that caused Charley to fizzle and finally burn out. What it was, nobody knew.
Charley had been following Rudy’s case in the newspaper simply because it was there, usually on the front page. It held no particular interest for him and he had no feeling about Rudy’s guilt or innocence. The last thing he wanted was to be Rudy’s lawyer, but when Tracey James was removed from the case, it was transferred to the public defender’s office.
He could have assigned it to one of his four underlings, but only two of them had any felony experience and neither had ever tried a capital case. Try as he might, Charley couldn’t duck this one. People were watching. People who didn’t want to believe the courthouse scuttlebutt.
It took him two weeks to review the file, including the transcript of the suppression hearing. His first order of business as Rudy’s new attorney was to attend a status conference, at which he told Judge Richardson he would be ready to try the case in a month. Charley’s belief was that he could plea-bargain down to manslaughter or perhaps second-degree murder. After all, it was a circumstantial evidence case and a fairly weak one, although Charley had no idea how weak it really was. He never requested Tracey James’s file, never reviewed her investigative notes, and never saw her last letter to the Fourth. Still, he was confident something could be arranged. He had worked well with Clay Evans in the past, mainly because Clay was as lazy as Charley and they were both partial to working things out rather than having to undergo the ordeal of a trial. Charley didn’t realize until after the status conference that this case was different for Clay. Clay wanted the trial and the publicity.
“I won’t even accept a plea of second-degree murder,” Clay told Charley when they finally had their discussion.
Charley took Clay at his word. In fact, if Charley had offered to plead to second-degree murder, Clay would have had to accept it. Tracey James had pointed out all too well the weaknesses in his case. The possibility of losing was simply too great to turn down such a plea. But the plea never came. Instead, Charley began his preparation for trial. He locked his office door, opened his bottom desk drawer, and took out a bottle and a glass.
PART TWO
Twenty-one
AUGUST 1996
Her heart was racing-she was ten minutes late, the coffee wasn’t done, the newspapers weren’t delivered and she wasn’t sitting at her desk with a big smile on her face like a good cocker spaniel waiting for its master. She was moving in overdrive now, trying to get it done. Not that he would ever acknowledge the work. The son-of-a-bitch barely acknowledged that she was there. But if it wasn’t done, if everything wasn’t perfect, she’d hear about it. Not from him. God knows he never spoke to the help. No, he’d tell his executive secretary, Ms. Corinne Singleton, and she, in turn, would tell Rick Woods, the office manager who supervised the lowlifes below the rank of executive secretary, and Rick would call her into his office for a little talk. She wasn’t a virgin. She knew his spiel verbatim.
“Nancy, could you come to my office for a chat,” he’d say sometime in midmorning after the complaint had been lodged. It was always a casual pass-by of her station. The first time she didn’t know whether to be alarmed or excited. Maybe they wanted to give her a raise or something. But the looks from the other girls quickly dispelled that notion.
“Corinne has informed me that Mr. Tobin’s coffee was not ready when he arrived this morning. And while the Miami Herald and the New York Times were on his desk, the Cobb County Press was missing.” Nancy would just look at him like a defiant teenager in the principal’s office. You can skip the facts, pal. And there ain’t gonna be any mea culpas, so let’s get to the penalty phase. Rick hated that about her. He wanted some genuine remorse. The others always bowed their heads and at least pretended to feel guilty.
This morning was a tad better than her past performances when she had arrived late. She’d almost gotten it done. The coffee was made; a fresh cup was on his desk. And the papers were there-all except for the damned Cobb County Press. They didn’t deliver that rinky-dink little rag; she had to go downstairs to a special store two blocks away and buy it every morning. She could have picked it up on the way in but she was already in a panic by then. Now it was too late.
At nine sharp, she planted herself at her desk, pasted her best fake smile on her face and waited for Old Sourpuss to pass by.
“Good morning, Mr. Tobin,” she chirped at the appointed moment, as she always did. He didn’t look her way-he never did. The only acknowledgment was an ever so slight tip of his head. She hadn’t noticed the head tip her first two months of employment. She was sure he was ignoring her altogether. She only found out after whining to Corinne one morning.
“Oh, he wouldn’t ignore you, dear,” Corinne, the dutiful servant, told her. “He nods. You have to watch closely, but he nods.” As if the nod made any difference.
It wasn’t any easier for Corinne. She would have to take his briefcase and greet him in that sweet, syrupy professional voice she had mastered over the years. An office mommy, Nancy decided, treats him like his mother did when he was two. Only she wears prim and proper dresses and she never scolds. Office mommies don’t have that kind of power.
And every morning he would simply ask, “Do I have any calls?” And Corinne would give him his messages and he’d disappear into his office for the day, never getting anywhere close to cracking a smile or dropping a pleasantry. But Corinne didn’t seem to mind. She had that loyalty thing going.
Jack Tobin was one of the three senior partners (“The Big Three”) at Tobin, Gleason and Gardner, a one-hundred-man Miami firm. The other two, Tom Gleason and Jim Gardner, were dead. Maybe that’s why he walks around so morose all the time, Nancy thought. He knows his turn’s coming. But Nancy knew that couldn’t be true. At twenty-four, she had a fixation for hard bodies and she couldn’t help noticing-although she tried like hell not to-that Jack Tobin, who had to be pushing fifty, was a hard body. The man stood ramrod straight, not an ounce of fat on him. Although his short, almost punk-style gray hair was thinning on top and nonexistent in some places, his skin was taut, slightly tanned and glowing with health. He looked good-ruggedly handsome, like a tough old marine. His eyes were an attractive blue, but they were eyes that had no sparkle.