David Ellis - The Wrong Man

I continued my one-man game of toss. “It’s worse than that. It’s not even impulsive. Tom didn’t have any blood on him. Right? That’s what the police report said. And you saw that pool of blood around the victim’s body.”

Shauna leafed through the photos of the crime scene. “You’re right. He took her purse, her cell phone, and yanked the chain off her neck without getting any blood on himself. That would have taken some work.”

“I know. So it makes our sell tougher. We convey this image of a soldier in the heat of battle, and then he’s carefully helping himself to her possessions.”

“Maybe soldiers really do rob their enemies,” she said. “We need to find somebody who’ll testify to that.”

“Already on my list. Lightner’s working the witnesses right now. Those that aren’t still in Iraq.”

“Whoa. A Mob shooting,” Shauna said.

“Huh?” I looked over at her. She was fondling the mouse to my computer, checking the Internet. Then a light went on and I sat up, popping to attention. “Who was it?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Let me pull it up.” Her eyes moved along the computer screen. “Lorenzo Fowler? Hey, wasn’t he-”

“Shit.” I jumped off my couch and read over Shauna’s shoulder. Lorenzo Fowler, age fifty-two, reputed lieutenant in the Capparelli crime family, found dead on the 2700 block of West Arondale. The article was complete with a photograph of poor Lorenzo slumped against a glass door that read T ATTERED C OVER N EW amp; U SED B OOKS.

“A bullet through the throat and one through each kneecap,” Shauna moaned. “Ouch.”

I revisited our meeting. Lorenzo was in the soup, or so he thought, for the beating of a strip club owner. He wanted to make a trade with the prosecutors, if it ever came to that-the name of the Capparellis’ assassin of choice.

“Do you have an alibi for last night?” Shauna asked me.

“Wow. Lorenzo Fowler.”

“Seriously, Jason. Did he tell you anything that would be helpful to the police?”

“Sure,” I said. “I’ll just run over there and give a full interview with the police and breach the attorney-client privilege. While I’m at it, I’ll stop by the state supreme court’s chambers and turn in my law license.”

Shauna turned back to look at me. “I’m your law partner, pal. The privilege holds. Did he give you anything?”

Poor Lorenzo. Sounds like his fear was well-founded.

“He gave me Gin Rummy,” I said. “The name of a Mob hit man. Actually, he didn’t like that term. He preferred ‘assassin.’”

I read through the article again. Gunshots to the throat and kneecaps. The throat was the only one they needed. The shots to the kneecaps would have been gratuitous. It was punitive.

A message, delivered along with the kill.

I met Tori outside Deere Hall, the primary building in the city campus of St. Margaret’s College. She was wearing the same long white coat, a gray wool cap, and a backpack slung over her shoulder. She appeared amid a flood of students through the Gothic arched doorway, caught my eye, and bounded down the stairs. She didn’t smile-I hadn’t yet seen her smile-but it wasn’t an unpleasant expression, either. Guarded, in a word.

Daylight was evaporating, and it was growing cold as we walked down the street. There were still patches of ice mixed with dirty slush on the walk.

“What do you study?” I asked.

She looked at me. “Math.”

“What do you do with a math degree?”

“You teach. At least, I will.”

“What age?”

“Oh, probably young kids,” she said.

“You like kids?”

She didn’t answer. It was a dumb question. Why would she want to teach kids if she didn’t like them?

“You have any kids of your own?” I tried.

“No kids.”

I took a breath. It hit me that there could be a return volley, the same question put back to me. But she didn’t ask. She just looked me over for a moment as we walked.

“What do you do?” she asked.

“I’m a lawyer.”

“What kind?”

“I represent criminals. Sorry, people accused of crimes.”

“Is that hard?”

“It can be. The prosecution has a lot more resources at its disposal. It’s usually a lopsided fight.”

She was quiet for a moment. “That’s not what I meant.”

“I know. You meant does it bother my conscience?”

She turned to me again. “You like to tell people what they’re thinking, I’ve noticed. That’s a very male thing. Very alpha male.”

“Is it? Am I asserting control?”

“Something like that, yes.”

“Maybe you should be majoring in psychology, Tori.”

“I was thinking the same thing about you.”

“Experience is the best psychoanalysis,” I said.

“Who said that?”

“I just did. I’m the only one walking next to you.”

“That’s not what I m-”

“I know. You meant who was I quoting?”

She shook her head in bemusement. She had just passed a test. The test was whether she could tolerate my bullshit. For at least a couple minutes, apparently, she could.

It was the time of year when the weather couldn’t make up its mind, and people took advantage of any halfway warm and clear day to get out and enjoy themselves before the gloomy blanket of winter took over. Parents were hustling their children across busy streets. Students were loitering like the aimless souls they were, laughing and smoking and chatting into their cell phones. I felt like an outsider, an observer, in every way. I didn’t have anyone to shop for, and I had little in common with young people, with their egocentric cluelessness about the world.

But I wished I did. I wished for all of that. Even the part about being clueless. Sometimes I wished I didn’t understand people.

“You like being a lawyer?” Tori asked me.

A fair question. Should be an easy answer.

“He pauses,” she noted.

“I like competition,” I said. “I liked prosecuting criminals more than defending them. But defending them is harder. More of a challenge. I like the challenge.”

She thought about that for a moment. “It’s not about helping people?”

“That can be a fringe benefit.”

We stopped at an intersection, waited for the light. She probed me with those big brown eyes. Her dishwater-blond hair was curling out of her cap. Cute, which didn’t really fit her. She was older than most college kids, probably late twenties, which meant there was a story there. Usually that story’s not a happy one.

“Have you ever defended a killer?” she asked.

“I’ve handled some murders, yeah.”

“Were they guilty?”

I nodded. “Most of the people I represent are guilty, Tori.”

The light changed. Everyone else entered the crosswalk. Tori didn’t move. She turned and looked up at me. This would be the moment in a movie where she kissed me. Or told me what a swell guy she thought I was. Or told me to fuck off.

“Who sits at a bar all night drinking alone?” she asked.

“You,” I said.

“I did that once. You did it at least twice, and you and the bartender seemed to know each other pretty well.”

“I don’t sleep well. The vodka helps.”

“You don’t have to go to a bar to drink vodka.”

“But if I drank at home, it would feel pathetic,” I said.

She raised her eyebrows at me.

“More pathetic,” I clarified.

Her eyes narrowed to a squint. She was studying me, psychoanalyzing me. I’m not a big fan of that kind of thing, generally speaking, but for some reason it didn’t bother me with her.

She let out a sigh. “I think you’re an interesting guy,” she said. “I think it would be fun to hang out with you. But I’m not looking for romance. That’s just not happening with me right now.”