Steve Martini - The Arraignment

“You want to know if I think Dana killed Nick?”

He makes a face. “I suppose. In a word,” he says. “I’ve dragged my feet, covered some things. And I have my neck stretched out, just a little at the moment. I did it to protect the firm. But if there is something, and the police start looking, well, they’re going to find the checks she forged. And then I’m going to have to explain to the bar, and possibly to the police, why I didn’t report it.”

“I understand.”

“I thought you would.”

“Unfortunately, I can’t help you. Not because I don’t want to,” I tell him. “The fact is I don’t know. She says she didn’t have anything to do with it. She says Nick left her high and dry. That’s the only reason she took the checks from his desk.”

“Do you believe her?”

I laugh without doing it out loud. “I gave up trying to read those entrails long ago. She did know about the insurance. She had a copy of the policy. She told me she didn’t find it until we spoke the first time. But to be honest, I don’t believe her. She had to know Margaret’s name was on the policy.”

“So she lied to you.”

“More than once.”

“And the issue of double indemnity?”

“She didn’t know what it was called, at least that’s what she led me to believe. But she picked up the theory pretty quickly as soon as I told her Nick’s death was an accident. I don’t think this was news to her. She had to be reading the papers, following the investigation. The police were already speculating in public. Whether she might have talked to somebody else who gave her chapter and verse on a claim, I can’t say.”

“But your instincts. You’ve certainly developed those if you’ve dealt with criminal defendants. What do they tell you?”

I give him an expression like maybe I’d rather not say. But then I do. “My instincts tell me Dana is trouble. I’m not saying she killed her husband. I’m saying that you’d have a hard time trying to figure out what’s going on behind those blue eyes at any given moment. Is she capable of it? I suppose. I don’t mean pulling the trigger.”

“You mean hiring somebody else?”

“It’s been known to happen. But…”

“But what?”

“These people were professionals.”

“How do you know that?”

“I was there. I heard the shots. If Dana hired somebody to kill Nick, it would probably be somebody she met someplace, in a bar, maybe a wayward lover she recruited. That kind of person usually doesn’t have access to automatic weapons, semiautomatic maybe. But what killed Nick and Metz was a submachine gun. Nine millimeter. I saw some of the spent cartridges on the ground. They were ejected out of the car window when he fired.”

“Hmm.” Tolt sits back in his chair, chewing a piece of pheasant slowly as he considers this.

“So you don’t think she did it?”

“I’m not saying that. She certainly had motive. And it’s possible she’s more resourceful than I think. She could have crossed the border. Flashed some money in the right places down in Tijuana, and you can probably find cops who will introduce you to people with Uzis, AKs, as well as the talent to use them. They might even do it for you themselves if you pay them enough. It’s the thing about San Diego, the proximity to the southern border creates a whole new dynamic,” I tell him.

“Then she could have done it?”

“It’s possible.”

“What you’re saying is that anything’s possible.”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

“Unfortunately, that’s not going to allow me to sleep much better at night,” he says.

“It is what it is,” I tell him.

We finish the main course and they bring on creme brulee for dessert, along with coffee and a little cognac. He offers me a cigar and I pass.

“Nick used to love them. Smoked them like a chimney at the last Christmas party,” he says.

“That’s the difference between us,” I tell him.

“Not the only one,” he says. “I feel bad for Nick. I don’t mean just because he’s dead. He wasn’t treated as well as he should have been while he was here at the firm. And I blame myself for that. I set the tone, and over the last year or so it’s been one of not caring. But my wife was sick.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Yes. Cancer,” he says.

“I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s all right. She beat it,” he says. “But you never know how long you have to spend with those you love. So for the past two years, I’ve spent what extra time I had with her instead of here. And I’m afraid Nick-he was one of our newest additions-I’m afraid he fell through the cracks. I can’t but think that maybe whatever he got involved with… Metz I mean… well, that perhaps it was the result of his seeing his potential here as somehow limited. You knew him best. Did he ever say anything?”

“He… ahh… well there’s no denying he was disappointed,” I say.

“So he told you. I knew it. And I have to blame myself. I was just too damn busy to pay attention.”

“You can’t help something like that,” I tell him. “I know. I’ve dealt with it.”

He looks at me, a question mark.

“I lost my wife to cancer six years ago.”

“I didn’t know.”

“It’s all right. I know what it’s like. The time it takes. Your life stands still. But time doesn’t. You stop living for a while. It took almost a year after she died before I could function fully again.”

“Then you do know. Thank God I didn’t have to go through that. But you live with the constant thought that maybe you will. And in the meantime, the firm kept going, growing. It’s what happens when you get too big. You start going for quantity instead of quality.”

“You’re saying Rocker, Dusha is getting too big?”

“I hope not.” He smiles. “All the same, Nick got caught up in that machine. No doubt he viewed his problems as a bad mix with corporate chemistry, that he didn’t fit in. After all, he came here from a solo criminal practice. He may have fit better than he knew. But I wasn’t around to tell him.” At the moment Tolt is not looking at me as much as through me, to the wall beyond, taking personal stock, and not pleased with the picture he is seeing.

“Twenty-nine years with the firm. I’m sixty-seven years old. Pretty soon they’ll put me out to pasture. And I suppose I should go gracefully. Still, I’ll think about Nick and wonder whether if I’d been here he might still be alive.”

“Perhaps you need to be a little more fatalistic,” I tell him.

“What do you mean?”

“Lincoln had to get out of bed every morning knowing that before his day was out, he would likely have to review casualty reports. He considered himself lucky if these contained thousands of names, and not tens of thousands. After a year of this, he came to view the war as the result of God’s hand at work, punishing the nation for the sin of slavery, and that he was just a tool. Lincoln came to believe that no matter what he did, or how he exhorted his generals, he couldn’t end the war until God was ready.”

“So you think I should be more like Lincoln?”

“Oh. I think everybody should,” I say.

“You’re not a fatalist, you’re an idealist,” he says.

“No. I’m a cynic because I know it’s not going to happen. But I understand your feelings.”

“I thought you would. You’re different than Nick,” he says.

“In what way?”

“You see what is practical, what’s doable. Too many of the people here don’t. I can’t judge Nick, because I didn’t know him well enough. So I won’t. He and I may have been better suited than I’ll ever know, because I didn’t take the time or have the time. I don’t want to make that mistake again. Life is too short not to know the people you work with. So I’ve been giving this a lot of thought,” he says, “and I’d like to get to know you better. I would like you to come to work for the firm.”