David Ellis - The Wrong Man

“Exactly. You have him trying to find this mysterious hit man, Gin Rummy. I’m just wondering if that’s time well spent.”

The light changed and I started driving again, but she had me thinking.

“I mean,” she went on, “what’s your best-case scenario there? Let’s say Joel can do better than the FBI and figure out who this person is. Okay, then what? You call him to the witness stand and what?”

“He denies everything,” I said. “He takes five. He refuses to talk. I see your point. He could assert the Fifth and never even take the stand.”

“What if you build a case against this guy who works at Global Harvest-Manning? Can’t you do that without trying to prove who actually pulled the trigger?”

I played it all out. I’d wanted to find Gin Rummy and put him on the stand and go after him on the similarities between the murders of Lorenzo Fowler and Kathy Rubinkowski. I was counting on my ability to tie him in knots and get something out of him-not an outright confession, of course, but enough to make the jury wonder.

But beyond my inability to even find this asshole, I also had to deal with Judge Nash, who would make me build a pretty damn strong evidentiary link before he’d let me parade witnesses before the jury who were not previously disclosed to the prosecution. The chances were good he’d never even let me put this guy on the stand.

“Jesus, you’re right, Tori,” I said. “With the amount of time I have left, that’s a much cleaner approach. Fuck Gin Rummy. I don’t need him. I show the jury that Randall Manning or Bruce McCabe or both had something to hide, then I make the case that the murder of Kathy Rubinkowski was a professional hit, not an amateurish robbery gone bad.”

“That’s all I was thinking,” she said.

“That’s all you were thinking? Then keep thinking, kid, because that’s very helpful. Really, Tori. I could kiss you.”

I picked up my cell phone and dialed Joel Lightner. “Hey,” I said, and then listened while Joel blew off some steam. “I know, I deserve that, Joel. I deserve that, too. Okay, that was a little overboard. Listen, Joel, stop with this Gin Rummy shit. Focus on Randall Manning and Bruce McCabe and that other guy, Stanley-the SK Tool and Supply guy. Keane, Stanley Keane. Look for anything you can. I mean anything. Right, I know. I know, Joel. Yeah, the bleeding elephant, that was a low blow. No, I know, and to set the record straight, I do think you could find a Jew in Israel. I’m sure of it.” I looked over at Tori and rolled my eyes. “I get it, Joel. You’ve put all this information together on Gin Rummy. Okay, so send it to me, and then move on to these other guys. We’re out of time otherwise. Full throttle on those three guys and their damn companies. So are we still sweethearts? Tell you what, when this is over, manicures and pedicures are on me. Yeah, she’s here. I’m driving her home. I’ll ask her.” I turned to Tori. “Joel wants to know if we’re going to sleep together tonight.”

“No,” she said.

“She said no.” I listened and then turned to Tori again. “He wants to know, if I don’t do it for you, does he have a shot?”

Tori laughed.

“She thought that was funny, Lightner. She actually laughed at the notion of sleeping with you. Okay, bye.”

I punched out the phone. “Underneath that rough exterior is a cuddly teddy bear,” I said.

“I know. I like Joel.”

“I meant me.” I pulled up to the curb. Tori lived in a high-rise on the near-north side, about ten blocks southeast of me. Her apartment on the eighteenth floor, which I’d never seen, probably offered a breathtaking view and the approximate space of a shoe closet.

Tori shifted again, so she was facing me. “Oh, I’ve got you all figured out, Kolarich.”

I put the car in park. “Do tell.”

“You’re a do-gooder. A crusader.”

“Perish the thought.”

“Perish the thought? You told me you liked the competition. The challenge. That’s what you said. I’m not buying it.” She wagged her finger at me. “Let me ask you a question. How much are you getting paid for this case?”

“Objection,” I said. “Irrelevant.”

“Irrelevant. You aren’t getting paid a dime, are you?”

This lady was getting way too far into my head. It was a dangerous place to be.

“Aunt Deidre, she has problems of her own,” I said. “Her husband’s an invalid. She can barely scratch together a car payment each month. And Tom doesn’t have squat for money.”

“Hey, I’m not criticizing you. I think it’s very noble. You’re expending all these resources and not getting anything back. You’re tearing yourself up over a client who isn’t paying you. You’re actually losing money and you seem to be losing your mind, too.”

I sighed. “I’ve still got my health.”

Smart-ass comebacks weren’t going to do it for her, not this time. She held her stare on me. With the tortured look on her face, I was beginning to expect her eyes to well up. But tears weren’t really Tori’s thing, not so far as I could tell. She’d built an impenetrable wall between herself and hurt, whatever that hurt might have been.

Still, she was feeling some of the tension I was experiencing. This math major, who spent her days with impersonal numbers and equations and theorems, was buying into this criminal defense case. And I was beginning to think she was buying into me, too.

“You’re not what I expected,” she said.

I had several clever responses in tow. That was my trademark, right? Everything’s a joke. But I wanted to give her a real answer. I wanted to talk to her. I wanted to find out what made her wait until age twenty-seven to start college, what had happened to her. And what had made her restart her life, what kind of hope must be propelling her beneath her defensive facade.

But before I could say a word, she pushed the door open and got out.

Peter Ramini watched the whole thing from his car, parked on the cross street to the high-rise building. He didn’t need to bother tailing Kolarich tonight. He knew where the girl lived-her street address and her apartment number, 1806-and he figured Kolarich would end up here with her.

But Kolarich didn’t go in. She got out of the car alone and walked up the ramp into her building. Kolarich’s SUV drove away into the night.

Ramini coughed and cleared his throat. He wasn’t looking forward to what would come next. But his instructions from Paulie, via Donnie, had been clear enough.

How had this become so complicated?

Tom Stoller happily chowed down on turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, and split-pea soup. Aunt Deidre spent little time on her food, deriving her own pleasure from Tom’s.

We were in the visitation room. Deidre had charmed the guards over the eleven months Tom had been here, and when she mentioned there would be plenty of her home cooking left over, and she sure didn’t want to haul it all the way back home, they were putty in her hands. Deidre, I thought, was pretty good at getting what she wanted.

It was paper plates and plastic cutlery, but to look at my client’s contentment, you’d think he was sitting around the family kitchen table. I knew very well that Tom had a low opinion of the cuisine at the Boyd Center, as it was about the only thing he was willing to freely discuss.

The levity was severely undercut by the circumstances, naturally. This was in many ways like a last meal for Tom. But for God’s sake, if they could manage to find some enjoyment for an hour or two, let them.

I wished I had my cell phone. I was coordinating with Tori, whom I was going to pick up in an hour. We had a field trip scheduled.

Deidre left Tom to his chomping and pulled me to the far end of the room. “Do you have someplace you have to be, Jason? It’s okay. It’s Thanksgiving, after all.”