Дэвид Балдаччи - Redemption

Burlin looked up at him. “I heard you were back in town for a few days,” she said. “You still working for the FBI?” Decker nodded and she looked at Jamison. “I remember you too. I take it you’re still consulting with the Bureau?”

“I’m actually a special agent now,” said Jamison.

“That’s a strange career change, from journalist to FBI agent.”

“Not that strange,” replied Jamison.

“Why?”

“An FBI agent looks to find the truth and make sure the right people are punished. A journalist digs to find the truth and makes sure the public knows about it, and that sometimes leads to bad people being punished.”

“Hmmm,” said Burlin, looking skeptical of this. “I guess that could be.”

“Where’s Ken?” said Decker impatiently. “We’re wasting crucial time here.”

Burlin frowned. “I see that you haven’t changed one bit.” She picked up her desk phone and made the call.

A few moments later she escorted them into Finger’s office. It was large with ample windows. His desk was constructed of dark wood with a leather top. It was strewn with books, legal pads, files, and stapled pleadings. A large bookshelf held old law books and red file folders, neatly labeled. There were chairs set around a coffee table. A credenza against one wall was set up as a bar, and also held two large glass jars of M&M’s. Ken Finger sat behind his desk.

Finger had only been about thirty when he had defended Hawkins against a capital murder charge. There apparently had been no other takers who wanted to defend in court the man charged with brutally murdering two men and two kids.

He was now in his forties and worked as a defense attorney for those who needed it. And in Burlington, like most towns, there were a great many who needed his services. His tidy brown hair was turning gray, as was his trim beard. His pleated trousers were held up by bright red braces and his white shirt had French cuffs. His striped bow tie was undone and hung limply around his wattled neck. His belly stuck out from between the braces.

He rose and greeted them, motioning them over to the seating area around the coffee table.

“I guess I know why you’re here,” he said, after Burlin closed the door behind her.

“Guess you do,” replied Lancaster.

“How the hell are you, Decker?” Finger said.

“Okay,” said Decker as he sat down. “So you’ve heard?”

“How could I not? Burlington’s not that big. And although it’s not like the attack on the high school when you lived here, it’s still newsworthy when a convicted murderer comes back to town and then gets murdered.”

Lancaster said, “Had he come to see you?”

Finger shook his head. “Hadn’t seen hide nor hair of him since he went to prison.”

“You never visited him there?” asked Jamison.

“Well, I take that back. I did go visit him there because we filed an appeal, but it was turned down flat. I mean, we didn’t really have any grounds for an appeal. If anything, the judge went out of his way to accommodate us. And the jury could have returned a death sentence, but they didn’t. I actually told Meryl that his escaping the death penalty was the best he could expect. Why make waves?”

“Were you convinced of his guilt?” asked Lancaster.

Finger shrugged. “It didn’t matter to me one way or another. My job is to defend. It’s the state’s job to prove guilt. I live in the creases of reasonable doubt. All defense lawyers do.”

“But did you think he was guilty?” persisted Decker.

Finger sat back and steepled his hands. “You know that the attorney-client privilege survives the death of a client.”

“I’m not asking for you to reveal any privileged communications,” Decker pointed out. “I’m just asking your opinion on the matter. That’s not privileged and can in no way injure your client. He was already convicted and now he’s dead.”

Finger grinned. “You would’ve made a good lawyer, Decker. Okay, yeah, I thought he’d done it. I think he went over there just to steal some stuff and ran into a whole lot of trouble that he couldn’t handle. It wasn’t like the guy was a career criminal. Hell, he hadn’t had so much as a parking ticket. I think that was one reason he didn’t get the death penalty. I think he lost it and started shooting and strangling, and before he knew it, he had four dead bodies. Then he just got the hell out of there.”

“And no one saw him drive up, enter the place and then leave, or hear the shots?” said Decker.

Finger shrugged. “Who knows? People said they heard nothing.

One house was playing loud music. In the other the folks said they were watching TV or sleeping. The third house the people weren’t home that night, and the fourth house was abandoned. And the houses weren’t that close. And then there was the noise from the storm.” He gave Decker a funny look. “Hell, Amos, you and Mary are the ones that made the case against him. Prints. DNA. Motive. Opportunity. And the murder weapon found hidden in his home. I mean, as a defense lawyer, I had nothing really to work with. I considered it a miracle he only got life without parole.”

“And the stolen goods?” said Lancaster.

“Hawkins didn’t have an explanation for that because he said he didn’t commit the crime. But if you want my opinion, I think he chucked it all when he knew he couldn’t fence them without it tying him to four homicides.”

Decker shook his head. “He had five hundred dollars in his wallet the night he was picked up.”

“And the prosecution suggested that was the proceeds from his fencing the stolen goods. But the stuff that he was supposed to have stolen would have fetched more money than that, I think.”

“And you postulated a theory that Hawkins was planning to use the five hundred bucks to purchase painkillers for his wife, Lisa, off the street. Did he tell you that, or did you just come up with it?”

“Hey, I don’t just ‘come up’ with stuff, Decker,” Finger said firmly. “That’s what he told me.”

“So where’d he get the money?” asked Lancaster.

“He never said.”

“I wonder why,” said Decker. “I mean if he could have come up with a viable explanation that would have taken a big chunk out of the prosecution’s case.”

“Believe me, I tried. But he wouldn’t say.”

Lancaster said, “He’d gotten laid off from his job a while back. They had no money.”

“I’m just telling you what he told me about it, which was zip. And I wouldn’t let him take the stand, so the prosecution was able to bring out the money during the trial. I tried to poke holes at it and brought up him wanting to buy drugs for his terminally ill wife to get some sympathy in the courtroom, but I could tell the jury wasn’t buying it. They were connecting the dots on the money and the stolen goods. There was no way around that. And for all I know the five hundred bucks did come from that. Who’s to say what a fence will pay for hot goods connected to a string of murders? And there was no way a fence would have come forward and gotten involved in the case. So there was no avenue for me to investigate unless Meryl opened up about it, which he never did.”

Lancaster said, “But more to the point, why would he go to a house that early in the evening and that was full of people?”

Decker interjected, “There were no cars out front. David Katz’s car was parked in the back of the house. And Hawkins wouldn’t have been able to see that if he approached from the front, which he had to. The Richardses only had one car at the time and the wife had taken it. The other car was in for repairs.”

“But there were lights on when the first responders got there,” countered Lancaster. “Pretty stupid burglar to hit a house all lit up.”