Robert Tanenbaum - Absolute rage

Karp remembered about talking slow. He let a little silence descend, after which he said, "Mr. Hawes… Stan, if I can call you that?"

Hesitation, a short nod and a grunt.

"Good. I'm Butch. We seem to have got off on the wrong foot, so let's roll the tape back and start again. If I were you, I'd be pissed, too. You picked up the biggest murder case in the last decade, and all of a sudden I show up, a big-time out-of-town prosecutor, and it looks like the big boys in Charleston think you can't handle your job. And on top of that, it's becoming more and more likely that you indicted the wrong guy."

"I can convict him."

"Well, you might be able to and you might not. That's not the point. I'm just now starting a complete review of the forensic evidence, and I would bet your next two paychecks that we come up with enough material to absolutely exonerate Moses Welch and shine a pretty bright spotlight on a couple, three other people."

"Who?"

"Earl, Bo, and Wayne Cade, plus George Floyd. Since Floyd works for Lester Weames, I'd assume he gave the order."

"Where'd you hear that?"

"It's around. Amos Jonson says that's how it went down."

"Hah! Jonson would say the Cades killed JFK."

"I agree. But the fact remains that Bo and Earl tried to kill my wife the other day and came around the Heeney place with weapons, in the hours of darkness. That's suggestive to me that Jonson or whoever was not just whistling 'Dixie.' Now here's a prediction. We will find their fingerprints at the crime scene, and on cans and bottles found at a lookout place above the crime scene, and we will find that the blood-covered boots that are virtually your whole case against Moses Welch were purchased by a member of the Cade family, and if we're a little lucky, we might get DNA evidence off the two pieces of footwear we have that were soaked in the victims' blood, evidence connected to the bunch that we like for it. That would constitute a pretty good case, wouldn't it?"

"A lot of ifs." Sulkily.

"Uh-huh. Look, Stan, I know you wish I would just dry up and blow away, but I'm not going to. So there's two things you need to know about me. One is, I've tried and won over a hundred homicide cases, some of them against the best defense lawyers in New York. I am extremely good at this, not because I'm a genius or a better lawyer than you are, but just because of that experience. Two is, I have absolutely no political or ego-building agenda here. As far as I'm concerned, this was your case and it's still your case, and I will direct the PR lady that the governor sent down to present it that way to the press. I am perfectly content to lurk in the background while you win it." Karp's face broke into a grin. "You're looking at me like I'm trying to sell you a condo in Florida."

Hawes's face relaxed a trifle. "It is a little rich. Why the hell did you come down here, then?"

"The truth? I got some political problems with my job in New York that I'm not ready to deal with yet, and this was an opportunity to carve out some space. The main reason, though, is Saul Sterner. You know who he is?"

Hawes shrugged. "The union lawyer?"

"That's the one. He's an old friend. I studied under him in law school. He asked me to do it, and it's kind of hard to keep from doing stuff Saul asks you to do." Karp paused and was relieved to see that Hawes was working this over in his mind, that he was entertaining the idea that this was maybe not going to be a complete disaster. A rather too transparent face for a lawyer, Karp thought, but in the circumstances an advantage.

"So do we have a basis here?" Karp asked. "For now, you're willing to accept that I'm not bullshitting you?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"There's always a choice. In your case the choice is cooperating with me and learning something about your profession and ending up a hero, or being a hard-ass and nursing a wounded ego and ending up looking like a jerk. But I don't think you're a jerk, and more important, I think you're basically honest. My wife, who you've met, has the best scumbag detector in North America, and she says she's getting a low reading in your case. However, to be frank, I think you're a good bit brighter than she thinks you are. I mean, Moses Welch? For that kind of crime?"

Hawes flushed a little and dropped his eyes, but said nothing.

Karp went on, "And as long as we're being frank, I have to say this, too: nearly everybody who starts out in this business makes the mistake you made. The cops bring in a guy and they say, 'He's the one,' and you look at the guy and the evidence and who's on D and you make an assessment: Can I win? The answer looks like yes and so you go forward, because it's a hot case, and you need a win. And when new evidence starts to show up, like it did here, that your guy is wrong, you start to figure out ways to get around or to discount that evidence, so as to keep your case in the win column. It's done every day. It's lazy and it's rotten, and it's the reason why the prisons in this country are filled with innocent mental retards who were defended by drunks or incompetents and prosecuted by people who wanted a win more than they wanted to honor their oath of office."

"Thank you for the lecture."

Karp ignored the sarcasm. "You're welcome. I expect it'll be the first of many. The fact of the matter is, you swung at a sucker pitch and fucked up, and what you do when you fuck up in this business, if you're a mensch, is you admit it and bust your hump finding the right scumbag the next time. As it is, you're getting off easy. You should try fucking up big-time in New York City, when you got four major networks and the New York Times putting you in the crosshairs. What kind of ball did you play?"

Hawes goggled at this change of pace. "Who says I played ball?"

"Every prosecutor I ever met played a competitive team sport."

After a long beat, Hawes said, "Baseball. High school and college."

"Varsity?"

"Yeah. Third base. I had a tryout with Charleston. The Alley Cats, Class A with Toronto."

"How'd you do?"

"Good field, no hit. I went to law school instead. Let me take a wild guess: you played basketball."

"You got it. High school all-American and two years at Cal before I screwed up my knee. You're a local boy, I take it."

"Born and raised. My dad managed the Exxon out on Lincoln at 130."

"So you know the situation: the unions, the miners, all the corruption horseshit."

Hawes nodded.

"And you wanted to be state's attorney so you could clean up the evildoers and bring civility and justice to benighted Robbens County. Is that a bitter laugh, Stan?"

"My main goal was to last long enough to get a decent job a long way away from Robbens County. And it ain't horseshit, neither. These guys don't fuck around. And I got a wife and two kids." Hawes's eyes passed briefly over a framed picture on his desk.

"You were actually threatened?"

"I was talked to in a friendly fashion."

"By who-Weames?"

"No, Weames don't do the talking. Floyd."

"My wife's met him. I hear he's a sweetheart."

"Mm. If I ordered a carload of sons of bitches and they just sent him, I'd sign the invoice."

"You think he's the type who'd pull a trigger?"

"I don't know about trigger, but George likes to hurt folks."

"How about the sheriff? I assume he's up to his ears in it."

"Oh, yeah, but Swett's in a different class. Swett's a good-natured slob, good-natured for a Cade, I mean. His mom's Ben Cade's cousin, which would make him a second cousin of your alleged perps."

"Ben Cade being the Cade patriarch."

"You got it. Then we have Judge Murdoch. He's a Hergewiller."

"Not a Cade."

"No, the Hergewillers are a lot more high-tone than the Cades. Rudy Hergewiller was the sheriff here during the first Robbens County war. His people've been on the more legal end of union busting around here ever since. Your boy Poole is a Hergewiller on his mother's side."