Peter Spiegelman - Red Cat

“You were downtown for a long time,” I said.

“There was a lot of sitting and waiting,” he said. His voice was ancient.

“How did it go?”

He rubbed his eyes. “Stephanie was nervous, even with the drugs, and the cops were cops. McCue played hard-ass, which was typecasting, and Vines tried gal-pal rapport, which was almost funny. They went at her a dozen different ways about her movements Tuesday night- when she left home, what route she took walking, the weather- they even quizzed her on the movie. And of course they wanted to talk all about her trips to Brooklyn, and Holly being pregnant. All in a very informal way.”

“How did she do?”

“I’d give her a B, maybe a B-minus. She was fuzzy about a few things on Tuesday night, and the anger came through when they played the video of her talking to Holly.”

“They didn’t show her the stuff with David, did they?”

“They tried to- Vines claimed she clicked on the wrong file- but I stopped it.”

“How was Flores?”

Mike shook his head. “Hard to read. She asked some questions, but I couldn’t tell you if she liked the answers. Mostly she just watched.”

“Trying to figure out how Stephanie would play to a jury, no doubt.”

“No doubt.”

“You have a view on that?”

Mike sighed. “Neither one of them would elicit a whole lot of compassion. David comes across as cold and arrogant, and Stephanie is wrapped way too tight- you get uncomfortable just watching her. And, of course, they have too much money.” He dragged a hand down his face and looked at me. “Still, I’m hoping we won’t get to that,” he said. “Tell me I’m not kidding myself.”

I told him about watching Holly’s videos, saying nothing about their provenance, and about my conversation with Gene Werner. He didn’t interrupt, but shook his head and sighed at several points. When I was done, he rose and stood by the big window. He put his palm on the glass, on the palm of his reflection.

“You checked the alibi?” he asked.

“I’ve started making calls. The only one I’ve spoken to so far is the manager at the Lyceum, and he confirmed the basic story- that Werner filled in for an actor that night, and that he was in the theater from around six until close to eleven. He even remembers Werner leaving with a bunch of the actors afterward.”

“You know if the cops confront him, Werner will deny everythingespecially when he finds out you have no witness. He’ll claim he never said anything about a fight with Holly, or he’ll claim that you coerced him. And he’s probably out dumping her equipment as we speak, if he hasn’t already.”

“Already dumped, apparently. He says he got rid of everything right after he sent the disk to the cops.”

“You believe him?”

“Not even about the day of the week, but it’s a reasonable thing to have done.”

Mike sighed again. “Too bad your witness story was bullshit.”

I nodded. “I did what I could with Arrua. He remembers ruckuses at Holly’s, and maybe one around that time, but he’s vague on dates. And he swears he didn’t see anyone.”

Mike nodded. “How did you know Saturday was the day Werner went there?”

“An educated guess. Stephanie told me Holly was fine on Friday- no bruises- and Coyle got a call from Holly on Sunday morning, telling him not to come over, no explanation why. I figured it was because she didn’t want him seeing her injuries- she didn’t want him going after Werner and maybe landing himself in jail again. That made it Saturday.”

“A good guess,” Mike said.

“A thimbleful of luck, in a large ocean of crap.”

Mike was quiet for a while, staring out. His narrow frame was perfectly still, and his pale face floated above the city like a ghost. “You’ve noticed that, have you?”

My jaw tightened. “I’ve noticed that all I’ve managed to discover in the last forty-eight hours is that our two best alternatives are non-starters, if that’s what you mean. I’ve also noticed that we’re fresh out of other candidates.”

Mike turned around. “Which leaves us where we started, with David and Stephanie.”

I took a deep breath and pain pulsed in my fingers. “Where is Flores going with this?” I asked.

“I don’t know what she’s going to do,” Mike said. “There are plenty of reasons why a case against either of them would be a dog to prosecute: no witnesses, no physical evidence, the victim’s lifestyle, her history- the list goes on. An ADA as smart as Flores wouldn’t usually be in a hurry to roll the dice over something like this. But we don’t have ‘usually’ here. Here we have sex tapes, adultery, a beautiful white victim, and wealthy, prominent, unsympathetic suspects- a cable television wet dream. Flores is ambitious, and…” He shook his head. “I just don’t know.”

“Best guess, then.”

“I’m not in the guessing business.”

“As a favor to a friend.”

Mike looked at me with bloodshot eyes. “I don’t know if it’s any favor,” he said, “but best guess is we’re circling the drain.”

His words stayed with me in the taxi home, and they were with me still as I sat at the table, staring stupidly at my notes. My memories of Pitt Street, and of Rita Flores- her stares and questions and body language, her nods to Vines and McCue- took on an ever more menacing cast, and it was hard to shake the feeling that there was doom written all over this thing. There was nothing yet certain about the case going to indictment, I told myself, much less to trial, and nothing sure in what a jury might do, even if the case did go that far. But if it did, I knew, there would be one all too predictable outcome- public humiliation for David and Stephanie, and professional and personal ruin. I remembered something Stephanie had said: “There’s a part of him that’s been waiting for all this…to get caught, to be punished.” Was this what David had had in mind when he’d answered those ads?

I opened my laptop. I could wonder and worry all night, and it wouldn’t be of any use to David or Stephanie- not that there was much useful to be done at this point. There were more calls to be made, to check on Werner’s alibi, but Friday night isn’t the best time to reach people, and especially not theater people. There were loose ends in my notes to tie off. And there were the other backup disks, and the DVDs, that I’d taken from unit 58 at Creek Self-Store- hours of depressing video, sitting on my kitchen counter. I knew I should watch them, but just then, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Circling the drain.

I sighed, and tapped my splints on the table, and thought of something else Mike had said: “Have you considered the possibility that the cops may be looking in the right place?” It was a reasonable question, a prudent question, the right one to ask. It was the kind of question I’d asked before, about plenty of other clients. But not about this one, not seriously. Was that because I thought I knew the answer, or because I didn’t want to know?

“Shit,” I said out loud, and I heard a key in the lock.

Clare opened the door and stood at the threshold, looking at me. After a while, she shook her head. “Get your coat on,” she said. “If there’s a long night of brooding ahead, you’re at least getting some air and a meal first.”

She walked me south and west, to Doctor Wu’s, the New York branch of a trendy LA burger joint, and a favorite of the fashion crowd. It’s usually impossible to get a table there any evening, much less a Friday, but Clare worked some magic and we were seated in ten minutes.

I ordered a ginger ale and Clare had wine, and the candlelight wrapped around us, and the chatter of the crowd covered us like a tent. The warmth and darkness and noise of the place made for a kind of privacy, and I was drifting into silence and fatigue and the scramble of my own head when Clare took my wrist. I looked up. Her hair was loose around her shoulders, and nearly white against her black sweater. Her face was luminous, and her fingers were smooth and cool.