Robert Andrews - A Murder of Justice

“Maybe he’s worried that the same person who killed Gentry and Skeeter is coming after him.”

“That means some kind of connection between Gentry and Skeeter.”

Jose watched Frank think about that.

“Figure it this way,” Jose offered. “Pencil was okay about Skeeter gettin’ waxed… I mean, Pencil wasn’t exactly tearing out IVs and beatin’ feet just because of Skeeter. It wasn’t until that reporter hooked Skeeter to Gentry that Pencil went apeshit.”

“More than that, Hoser. We know that Pencil had his hands on that weapon sometime before he and Skeeter got shot with it.”

“Yeah.”

“It just might be that what got him up and gone was the realization that the weapon that he loaded… and that was used… to kill Gentry was the one that killed Skeeter and wounded him.”

“I guess we better talk with Pencil,” Jose said.

Frank stood up and pulled on his jacket. “I guess we better find him first.”

Dinner had started with a simple salad, lemon vinaigrette dressing. A garlic-marinated hanger steak had followed, accompanied by a Frog’s Leap Merlot and Brussels sprouts sauteed in sweet butter. Tom Kearney had helped Judith Barnes clear the table and bring in cognac and dessert-a strawberry tart.

Barnes circled the dining room table, pouring dense black coffee from an antique silvered copper pot with a beaklike spout.

“Qahveh,” she explained, filling Kate’s demitasse cup, then Frank’s. “The Turks pave their streets with it when they run out of asphalt.”

Frank sipped the thick, pungent coffee. “I’m surprised anybody in the country ever sleeps.”

“Lower caffeine than the stuff you manufacture,” Tom Kearney said. He pushed his chair back from the table. “So your survivor jumped ship.”

Frank stirred his coffee. “Gone.”

“You’ve set the dogs out for him?” Barnes asked. “Or whatever it is you do?”

“I wish we could. No charges on him unless the Hospital Center claims he skipped payment.”

“But it shouldn’t be too hard to find him.”

“Not as easy as you think. Look at all those kids they put on milk cartons. Pencil’s got money, and he’s got what’s left of Skeeter’s outfit to run interference.”

“Then what do you do?”

Frank rolled a hand over and back. “Go out, talk to people on the street.”

Easier said than done. Crawfurd’s house had turned up cold. And then they’d spent a long afternoon, touching the bases, passing the word. Show enough that people know you’re interested; don’t show so much that they think you’re desperate.

You seen Pencil? We got something he might want to know. He could help us, we could help him.

Barnes leaned forward. “Snitches?” she whispered, eyes bright with excitement. She suddenly looked worried. “That is what they call them, isn’t it?”

The little-girl way she said it made Frank smile.

“Well, isn’t it?” she insisted.

“Yes, Judith, that’s what they call them. There’s also sources.”

“The difference is…?”

“Motive. You always have to be looking for the snitch’s motive. He’s telling you something to get something for himself.”

“Like money.”

“If the motive’s money, that’s at least straightforward. When it isn’t money, things get more complicated.”

Tom Kearney cut in: “Sometimes a snitch wants to settle a score. Or he gets manipulated by a cop. I saw cases where a snitch was cutting a deal for a reduced sentence for his own crime. Fingering some poor bastard to get a few years off his own time.”

Barnes looked at Frank and Tom in frustration. “Then why listen to them?”

“Because,” Frank said, “you have to. You get a piece of information from a snitch. You know it might not be straight. Even so, it might help you if you can figure out the motive… understand what’s behind it.”

“Double-think?”

“Double- and triple-think. Like somebody said about the spy business… it’s a wilderness of mirrors.”

Barnes asked. “And you can get the truth out of this… this mess?”

“Sometimes.” Tom Kearney sipped his cognac. “Sometimes,” he repeated. He turned to Frank. “You wanted to know about Al Salvani?”

“Yes.”

“He was a junior staffer in the Senate when I was counsel on the Judiciary Committee.”

Kate cocked her head. “I didn’t know you’d been on the Hill.”

“Just two years,” Tom Kearney said. “After I left private practice and before I joined the bench. A tour of the sausage factory… a necessary pit stop in the education of a cynic. If the outside of big government frightens you, the inside will scare the hell out of you, once you see how it works. I can recall one day-”

“Al Salvani?” Judith prompted softly.

Tom Kearney pulled up abruptly and gave her a small smile of embarrassment. “So many good stories, so little time… Al Salvani… I was an old man for a Senate staffer… fifty-four, fifty-five. Al was much younger-”

“He’s sixty-two now,” Frank said.

“Damn kid. Anyway, Al was already a fixture on the Hill. One of those guys goes up to the Hill and stays. When I signed on, he’d been there ten years or so. New Jersey. Heavy-duty Catholic. Old-line Democrat down to his bones. He knows the two basics of Hill politics.”

“Which were?” Kate asked.

“Which are,” Tom Kearney corrected. “Which are: Know who’s with you, and know who’s agin you.”

“Pretty basic,” Frank said.

“Wasn’t for me.” Tom Kearney smiled ruefully. “Sides shift minute to minute up there on the Hill. Being a judge was more my line. Truth’s not as slippery in the courtroom.”

“I don’t think I’m going to have an easy time with him.”

“What do you have to do?”

“See if Kevin Gentry was into anything that’d make somebody want him dead.”

“And Al isn’t happy about that.”

“No.”

“You can’t blame him. You’re an outsider. You want to come digging. And on the Hill, there’re things buried that people want to stay buried.”

“But Tom,” Judith protested, “they’re looking for a killer.”

“Like I say, kiddo, bodies aren’t the only things some people want to keep buried.” He turned to Frank. “Free advice?”

“I’m afraid to hear what it is.”

“Don’t underestimate the importance of staffers like Al. Guys like him run the Hill.”

“Senators and congressmen don’t?” Kate asked with a touch of sarcasm.

Tom Kearney took another sip of cognac. “They’ve been hoisted on their own political petards. The pols have made government so damn big that they have to rely on their staffs to find out what’s going on and to draft legislation. There’s just too much going on for a congressman or senator to get their hands on. Hell, when I was on the Hill over twenty years ago, the senator I worked for got two to three thousand letters a week from his constituents. It’s probably gotten worse, what with e-mail.”

“You aren’t going after us poor Democrats, are you?” Judith asked.

Tom Kearney laughed. “Republicans grow government almost as much as the Democrats-they just don’t advertise it as much.”

“And Salvani in all this?” Frank asked.

“He’s a major player. He knows how to make himself indispensable to those with the elected egos. At the same time, he makes certain they get the credit. He stays offstage.”

“The invisible man.”

Tom Kearney drained the last of his cognac, looked thoughtfully at the empty snifter and reluctantly set it down on the table. “The invisible man,” he said, trying out the description, and finally nodded, as though deciding he liked it. “He can help you a lot, or he can hurt you a lot. Either way, he can do it without leaving any tracks. You want, I can give him a call.”