Steve Martini - The Arraignment

“No need to decide now. Pick your moment.”

Adam doesn’t want to take no for an answer.

“The arm?” He motions to the bulge under my right shirtsleeve, puffed out by the bandage. “I assume that’s where he got you, the other guy. What was his name?”

“Saldado.”

“You could have told me about Espinoza.” Adam looks hurt.

“At the time I couldn’t.”

“Lawyer-client?”

I nod.

“The papers are saying he was connected with Nick’s shooting.”

“There’s a lot of speculation,” I tell him. “Actually, Espinoza was out of the country at the time.”

“I assume you’re trying to get answers?”

“I admit it wasn’t a good way to go about it. Harry warned me.”

“Harry must be the better half of the partnership. The part with judgment,” he says. “Did you learn anything?”

“Espinoza was killed before I could.”

“You weren’t troubled by the possibility of a conflict? Representing him?”

“You sound like my partner.”

“He has a point.”

“Why are you so interested in this?” I ask him.

“I have an interest in protecting the firm,” he says. “Yours, I assume, is driven by some perceived obligation you feel toward Nick?”

I look at him, but I don’t answer.

“You don’t have to explain. I understand. It’s why I called. I assume you’re up a dead end.”

“Looks like it.”

“What do you know about this other man, the one who attacked you?”

“Not much. I got a good look at him.”

“Did Metz ever mention him?”

“No.”

Adam sits back in the chair, looking at me, wondering, I suspect, if I’ve told him everything. “There is something else,” he says. “But before I tell you, I have to know. Is there anything else, anything you haven’t told me?”

“About?”

“Nick’s death.”

“No. I don’t think so.”

Adam looks at me from behind the dark glasses, a pair of expensive aviation shades with gold rims, trying to mind meld with me. Lawyers know there is always a little something every other lawyer holds back, if for no other reason than to corner the market on secrets.

“So what is this revelation?” I ask.

“I shouldn’t tell,” he says.

“You came all the way over here for you not to tell me?”

“All right. Fine. I’ll tell you, but I want your word it doesn’t go beyond this table.”

“You got it.”

“It’s a letter. It was mailed to Nick at the office. It arrived two days after he was killed.”

He lifts the large linen napkin that has lain folded neatly in two even halves on the table in front of him since my arrival. Underneath it is an envelope. He hands this to me.

There is a mailroom stamp from the firm on the envelope, showing the date of receipt on the outside.

“One of the secretaries found it. Somehow it got sorted off into a box downstairs. Never made it to Nick’s office from the mail room. Everything being in chaos after he got shot. The police got some of the stuff from his office, but it seems they never checked the mail room.”

“When did you get it?”

“This morning,” he says. “One of the secretaries going through the box found it. As soon as she saw Nick’s name and the cancellation date on the stamp, she brought it to me. So naturally I opened it.”

“Naturally.”

“It was sent to the firm.” Adam is a little defensive on this point.

There’s a foreign stamp up in the corner, something in Spanish. Adam is up-front about the date.

“I’ve checked it. The man is real. Quite prominent. According to my information, he owns a chain of banks and resort hotels in Mexico.”

I open the envelope, remove the letter, and unfold it, heavy parchment. It is typed, written in English, and dated four days before Nick was killed. The letterhead is embossed, a seal, what looks like an ancient warlord’s helmet and under it a phone number, a single digit area code (9) followed by three numbers and a dash, two more numbers, another dash and two numbers. I have seen this particular sequencing of phone numbers before. They were on the cellular telephone statement of the man Saldado, sent to me by Joyce the collector, though there they included the country code for Mexico.

There is what appears to be an address: something called Blvd. Kukulcan, Km. 13 Z.H., and a city, Cancun, Q. Roo, Mexico, C.P. 77500.

The letter itself is brief. Two short paragraphs.

Dear Mr. Rush:

I am given your name by associates. I have been told you are a prudent man of business, a lawyer. I write so that you will know that I am informed of the recent activities of my sons. As a father I am not pleased with their undertaking. I wish to take the opportunity to assure you that they will not be permitted to continue. So that you know, I am pledged to this.

I assure you that I will deal with my sons in an appropriate manner. I would ask that as a man of judgment you consider this with regard to any future actions you might wish to take.

Yours truly,

Pablo Ibarra

I finish reading, study the letter for a moment, then read it again, trying to capture the import of the message.

“What do you make of it?” he says.

“I don’t know.”

“It sounds to me like he’s trying to get Nick to back off from going after his two boys. The part about assuring Nick that he will deal with his sons in an appropriate way. Sounds to me as if he’s trying to say there’s no need for you to do it. I’ll do it. Doesn’t it to you?”

I read it again. “It’s possible.”

“If he was… I mean if Nick was in some fashion going after the sons, it’s possible they could have killed him.”

I concede the point with a look.

“That’s why it’s important that you tell me everything you know about this man Ibarra.”

“What makes you think I know anything?”

“Because you knew Nick. You interviewed Metz. You’re the only one who may know how the pieces fit.”

“What pieces?”

“Is there a drug connection? You don’t have to be prescient to read the signs. The letter comes out of Mexico; the sons are in some kind of trouble. Nick’s expertise is in narcotics cases. Connect the dots,” he says.

“Have you told the police about this, the letter I mean?”

He shakes his head, almost ignoring me, occupied with other problems at the moment. “I wanted to talk to you first. Avoid getting blindsided.”

“Wonderful.” I drop the letter and let it float like a leaf onto the table between us.

“What’s the problem?”

“The problem is my prints are now all over the letter.”

“Yes?”

“You can be sure the cops will dust it for prints when you turn it over,” I tell him. “Something like this coming to them late in the game, they’re sure to. They’ll want to know where it’s been all this time, and who’s touched it.”

“I didn’t think of that. So what do we do?”

Two lawyers sitting at lunch in a swank restaurant trying to figure how to cover their tracks on a piece of concealed evidence in a homicide case. Not exactly a question you’d want to see on the bar exam.

“You can tell I don’t do criminal work,” he says. “But we’re in the soup together. I touched it too.”

“Except that your prints will be easy to explain. The letter came to your firm. You had to open it to see what it was. Whether it was covered by some client confidence. Now the cops are going to want to know why you brought it to me.”

He takes his glasses off, puts them on the table. Looks at me as he rubs his chin with one hand, contemplating the problem. “We could wipe it with a cloth or something.”

“Not a good idea, Adam.”