Steve Martini - The Arraignment

“And your friend?” says Padgett. “I would think you’d want to help us out on that one just out of professional courtesy if nothing else. You know, one shark to another.”

Suddenly I’m out of my chair. Harry is off the credenza to stop me.

Padgett is on his feet, shoulders back, hands ready.

I slowly reach across my desk and take one of my business cards from the little holder on the corner and flip it to him. Pumped with adrenaline, he has trouble trying to catch it in the air, ready for a fight when the test is one of dexterity. If I wanted to nail him, now would be the time.

“Why don’t you call me next time you want to talk,” I tell him. “So I can decide if I want to be in or not.”

Padgett stands there looking foolish, ready for a fight that isn’t going to happen. My card on the floor. He doesn’t know what to do, so he bends over and picks it up.

I use the opportunity to reach for the handheld device, quietly sliding it across the desk and into the center drawer, then closing it. Ortiz is still looking at his partner and doesn’t seem to notice, or if he does, it doesn’t seem to register.

“Then you won’t help us?” He looks back at me.

“If I could help I would, but I can’t. The simple fact is, I don’t know anything.”

Ortiz gives me a mocking smile. He doesn’t believe this. As I study the grin, I get the feeling this is as close as the man ever gets to humor.

“Without talking about specifics, clients, or cases, there are good reasons why a lawyer might decline a case,” I tell him.

“Such as?” says Ortiz.

“Speaking hypothetically?”

“Hypothetically,” he says.

“Perhaps a feeling that the client is not telling you the truth.”

“Metz lied to you?” he says.

“We’re not talking clients or cases,” I remind him.

“Of course not.”

Padgett smiles, still standing at the edge of my desk. Finally getting somewhere. “What did he lie about?” he asks.

I give him a look, like “do you really expect me to answer that?”

“What? You only deal with truthful drug dealers, is that it?”

I don’t take the bait.

“But it was narcotics, wasn’t it?” he says.

“I didn’t say that.”

“You said that’s why you didn’t take his case.”

“He never said anything about Mr. Metz.” Ortiz wants to hear more. Whatever I will tell him.

“Then you wouldn’t have any idea who killed them? Or is that covered by attorney-client privilege as well?” Padgett asks.

“No, I don’t. But if I were you, I’d start by talking to the United States Attorney’s Office.”

“We’ve been there. Like talking to a fucking wall,” says Padgett.

Ortiz shoots him a look to kill. The sergeant’s expression is that of a man who wishes he could inhale his words and swallow them.

The feds aren’t sharing information.

I look up at Harry. We have suddenly learned more than they have.

Bull neck, biceps, and all, Padgett is going to get his ass kicked when Ortiz gets him outside.

“Have you ever heard of a woman named Laura?” says Ortiz.

“In what connection?”

“I don’t know. Maybe a business associate. Perhaps a friend of Mr. Rush?”

“Just Laura, no last name?” I say.

“No. Just Laura.”

I think for a moment. The envelope in Nick’s pocket with the name written on it, with the four thousand in cash inside. This would set the embers of curiosity glowing at Homicide downtown. But the way Ortiz asks the question allows me to sidestep it without lying.

“You say a woman named Laura? Sorry I don’t. Can’t help you.”

“You’re just overflowing with information,” says Padgett.

“If there’s anything else, can we get back in touch with you?” says Ortiz.

“You’ve got my card.”

Ortiz gets on his feet and they head for the door. Padgett is out ahead of him. At the moment I suspect he’d rather stay here, maybe hide under my desk.

“There is one more thing,” says Ortiz. He’s almost to the door, turned, looking at me. “Did you know that Mr. Rush and Mr. Metz were in business together?”

He can tell by the vacant expression on my face, whether true or not, that this thought has never crossed my mind.

I shake my head.

He looks at a piece of paper he has been palming in his hand. “Something called Jamaile Enterprises?” There’s a little uptilt in his voice as he says the word “enterprises.” He looks at me, waiting for a reply.

“Nothing? Nothing?” he says.

I am speechless.

“I was just wondering,” he says, “whether Mr. Rush, being a friend, might have mentioned it to you.”

Though I cannot recall Nick ever having darkened the door of any church, his funeral is held at the old Mission San Luis Rey, a few miles from the coast near Oceanside.

It has been ornately choreographed with three gleaming black funeral trucks hauling enough floral arrangements to look like the Rose Parade behind Nick’s flag-draped coffin in the hearse. No one has explained to me what the flag is doing on the coffin, since Nick was never a veteran, though he was clearly shot in the line of duty. No doubt this is a touch demanded by Dana, who will have it folded and handed to her at the gravesite.

It is a large and hushed crowd that gathers under the hand-hewn beams of the old Spanish baroque church, its thick adobe walls magnifying every cough and the shuffling of shoes on the Spanish tile floor.

We go through the calisthenics of a Catholic service, from the pews to the kneelers and up on our feet again as the priest intones a final blessing over the coffin, sprinkles it with holy water, and swings a giant brass incense burner from a chain as it issues clouds of gray smoke.

The information from the cops has been running through my head like a ticker tape since our meeting-the name Jamaile Enterprises and the assertion that Metz and Nick were in business together.

It is possible they were simply trying to get a rise. If Ortiz and his partner failed in that regard, they did manage to plant a seed that is now sprouting suspicion. The question being: If Nick knew Metz from some prior dealings, why wouldn’t he tell me? I have thought about little else for the past two nights. I have no hard answer, and this is troubling. Was Jamaile a criminal enterprise? It is possible, though knowing Nick he would never be so thick as to put his own name on the documents of formation-unless perhaps he discovered the nature of the business after the fact. This would explain why he wanted to shed Metz as a client. Which leads to another question: Did Nick see the situation as dangerous? I saw no signs of it that morning when we talked in the restaurant. I find it hard to believe he would use me in that way. I am convinced that whatever happened, Nick never saw it coming.

His coffin rests on a rolling gurney centered before the gilded altar above which plaster saints stand like stone guards in their alcoves. A large wooden crucifix bearing the figure of Christ dominates this picture. The odor of incense and burning candle wax hangs thick in the air as if suspended from the rafters.

Harry and I have arrived late and stand in one of the pews near the rear of the church. There are a few political figures here, people Nick knew and worked with over the years, two judges from the federal courts and a city councilman. A few pews up, there is a former state legislator for whom Nick beat a narcotics rap years ago. Nick was sufficiently slick that even the voters acquitted the man at election time, leaving him in office until term limits finally tapped him out.

Senior partners from Nick’s firm take up two rows in the front, right behind Dana, who is decked out in black complete with a veil and flanked by friends handing her Kleenex.