Joel Goldman - Final judgment

“His name is Wilson Bluestone, Jr. People call him Blues. He’s a friend of mine.”

Fish shrugged. “This friend of yours, did he kill Rockley?”

“No.”

“Then why does the FBI have his picture and why do I need a new lawyer?”

“The picture was taken outside Rockley’s apartment building. The FBI must have had Rockley under surveillance. Why, I don’t know. You need a new lawyer because that photograph means I have a conflict of interest that prevents me from continuing to represent you.”

Fish hauled himself from his chair, his face reddening with the effort. “So you’ve got another client you’d rather represent than me?”

Mason looked at Fish, surprised at the hurt in his eyes. “Believe me. If there was any way I could, I’d much rather represent you.”

Fish took Mason by the arm. It was a comforting grip, as if Fish realized that Mason was caught between things worse than conflicting clients.

“Don’t quit on me so easily. I need you. Tell Mr. Samuelson we’ll get back to him next week.”

“I don’t know. I don’t think there’s a way around this.”

Fish patted Mason on the cheek. “There’s always a way. Our people haven’t survived for over five thousand years by giving up. You think about it. Call Samuelson. Tell him to have a nice weekend.”

Mason left word with Samuelson’s secretary that they were leaving and that he didn’t need to talk with her boss. When she insisted on transferring his call to Samuelson, he assured her that wasn’t necessary. He and Fish were standing at the elevator when Kelly Holt caught up to them.

“Lou,” she said, arms folded across her chest. “We need to talk.”

Mason gave her a faint smile. “Next week. I’ll call you.”

“Now,” she said, leaving no room for negotiation.

The elevator arrived. Fish stepped in and turned around toward Mason. “Talk to her. What could it hurt? I’ll wait for you downstairs,” he said as the elevator door closed.

“Okay, I’m listening,” Mason said.

“Your client needs to take this deal,” she said.

“Deal? What deal? Help out with some mysterious investigation that’s too top secret to tell us about? Give me a break.”

“It’s important and your client is in deep trouble.”

Wearing slacks and a waist-cut jacket over a blouse, Kelly could have passed for anyone from a soccer mom to an executive on casual day. The giveaway was in her eyes and jaw, where there was no give. He studied her, remembering their past. She was tough then, letting her guard down a little but not enough that he could say he ever really knew her. Her wall was up again and their past was forgotten. Mason waited as one of the elevators opened again and several people got out, brushing past them.

“It’s always important when the government wants to trade lives,” he said. “My client needs more time to think it over.”

“There isn’t a lot of time. What can I tell you to make it easier for him to decide?”

“Other than the details on what you want him to do?”

“Other than that.”

“Okay. Why did the FBI have Rockley under surveillance?”

“We didn’t.”

“C’mon, Kelly,” Mason snapped. “We both know that Blues is the guy in that photograph and that’s how you tied Fish to Rockley.”

“That doesn’t mean we had Rockley under surveillance.” Mason cocked his head, surprised at her insistence. Then he remembered Blues telling him that someone else had been snooping around Rockley’s apartment, talking to neighbors, without identifying himself. The FBI always left business cards.

“So where did you get the picture?”

It was Kelly’s turn to hesitate. She glanced around to make certain no one else was within earshot.

“It was attached to an e-mail we intercepted.”

“It’s hard to get a warrant to intercept e-mail. It’s even harder to get a warrant to hack into someone’s computer and search their stored e-mails. This must be some big case you’re working on.”

“The Patriot Act makes it a lot easier.”

“Are you telling me that Rockley was mixed up with terrorists?”

“The Patriot Act isn’t limited to terrorists.”

Mason knew she was right. The Justice Department had taken advantage of its new powers in a wide range of cases that had nothing to do with terrorism. The ACLU and criminal defense bar had complained, but no one had heard them. The Bill of Rights was eroding against the tide of better safe than sorry.

“So if Rockley wasn’t a terrorist, who was he?”

“A murder victim,” Kelly said.

“Who just happens to pop up in an overnight DNA search? I don’t think so. You have any idea how long it takes me to get DNA results in a criminal case? Months. Every criminal defendant in America wants his DNA tested. There aren’t enough labs to run all the tests and nobody gets results, even preliminary results, overnight.”

“We’re the FBI. We don’t have to wait.”

“I don’t buy that. I don’t think you tested the murder victim’s DNA sample, ran it through the Bureau’s database, and just got a lucky match, all in less than twenty-four hours. The only way you could have gotten the results that fast is if you knew who you were looking for. I think you tested the sample against Rockley’s DNA because you already had his on file and you suspected he was the murder victim. So who the hell was Rockley?”

Kelly shook her head. “You haven’t changed a bit. Still too smart for your own good. Just don’t wait until it’s too late to make up your mind.”

Mason told Fish about his conversation with Kelly as they drove through downtown. People walking to lunch clutched their hats and scarves against a chill wind that whipped along at street level, channeled by office towers reaching for the high arched ceiling of thick clouds overhead. Fish listened without asking questions or offering any comments. The rest of the drive was a quiet one.

“It’s not about me. It’s about you,” Fish said when Mason pulled up in front of Fish’s house.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“That photograph. The one with your friend in it that means I need a new lawyer. That FBI agent-what was her name?”

“Kelly Holt.”

“She was showing that picture to you, not to me.”

“What makes you say that?”

“The two of you, there’s some history there. I can tell by the way you looked at her. Am I right?”

Mason hesitated. “Yeah, we were involved in a case five years ago.”

“So you were involved. Does she know this friend of yours, Mr. Blues?”

“She does.”

“Then it doesn’t matter if I know who he is since you already do. She wanted to see your reaction.”

“I wasn’t exactly cool.”

“You nearly plotz ed. Some poker player you are.”

“Maybe she wanted to see if you would lie about knowing Blues.”

“Why would I tell a lie that could be so easily exposed?” Fish asked.

“Crooks tell bad lies all the time.”

“Not me. It’s bad for business.”

Mason looked at Fish. The old man had been grinding away at Mason’s problem, considering it the way a con man would. What’s the angle? What doesn’t fit? Where’s the hook?

“You still need a new lawyer,” Mason told him.

“What will the government think if you quit?”

Mason shrugged. “That you didn’t pay me.”

“If that was the case, you would have already quit. What else?”

“That we disagreed over the deal they offered. You wanted to take it and I wouldn’t go along. Or maybe that you were going to perjure yourself on the witness stand.”