Joel Goldman - Deadlocked

The deep-sea diver stared back at him, alone in the tank.

Mary was alive. That was the only conclusion Mason could reach. No one else would have bothered to retrieve the fish. He discounted the possibility that the fish died and someone else threw them away. He raced through his reasoning, checking for flaws, hitting one head on. If the police were investigating Mary's disappearance, they could have gotten a warrant to search her house, discovered that the fish were dead and disposed of them.

He paced back and forth in front of the aquarium, flipping open his cell phone and calling Samantha Greer on hers.

"Sam, it's Lou."

"How could you be so stupid?" she asked.

"About what?" he asked, stunned by her vehemence.

"The grand jury!" she said, unable to hide her exasperation. "Ortiz couldn't wait to tell me. Honest to God, Lou. What were you thinking?"

"That I'm innocent. That I've gotten nothing to hide and that the system protects the innocent."

"Fractured fairy tales and you know it as well as anyone does," Samantha said.

"Hey, you're supposed to be on Ortiz's side, not mine."

"I know," she said. "I am on his side. I investigated the crime scene. I found your gun. But I don't want you to be guilty and, even if you are guilty, I don't want you to make it so easy for Ortiz to nail you."

"I had to spot him a few points to make it a fair fight," Mason said.

"Don't even try that crap with me, Lou," she said. "Ortiz is very good and you're not defending yourself. You're the defendant. Dixon Smith is your lawyer."

Mason forgot about Mary's fish for the moment. "You make being defended by Dixon sound almost as bad as being arrested. What do you hear about him?"

Samantha hesitated, cleared her throat. "Nothing. Forget it," she said. "He's fine, from what I hear."

"Okay," Mason said. "Now get back on my side and tell me what you really hear."

"He's your guy," Samantha said. "Why did you hire him if you're worried about what I've heard?"

"Remember me? I'm the guy charged with murder who waived my right against self-incrimination. You think I'm smart enough to pick the right lawyer to defend me?"

Samantha laughed. Mason was pleased at the sound of her voice. In spite of their luckless romantic history, he and Samantha had been able to hold onto their friendship. He needed that now.

"Good point," she said. "Okay, I hear that he practices at the edges. Maybe gets too close to his clients."

Mason knew what she meant. Criminal defense lawyers were not immune to the temptations sometimes offered to them by their clients, especially those whose illegal operations generated wholesale amounts of cash, drugs and women-or men-depending on the lawyer's gender and inclinations. A lawyer who got too close to his clients could end up in business with them whether he liked it or not.

"Any particular client?" Mason asked. Samantha hesitated again, Mason pressing her. "C'mon Sam," he said. "If I've got a problem, I need to know now, not when I'm writing appeals from death row."

"Damon Parker."

"The guy who owns Golden Years, the nursing home guy?" Mason asked, the muscles in his neck tightening.

"Yeah. That Damon Parker. He's made a fortune developing something he calls Life Care Communities. He builds condos, assisted living apartments, nursing homes, and psychiatric hospitals with Alzheimer's disease units. All under one roof. Signs people up for the last part of the downhill slide. All the way from independent living to the graveyard. When their insurance or Medicare kicks in, he moves them back and forth from the hospital to the nursing home as each round of coverage runs out."

"What's illegal about that if the insurance companies or Medicare are supposed to pay for the care?"

"That's not the problem. The problem is billing for care that isn't given, like therapy given to dead patients, or care that isn't needed, like claiming that everyone over the age of seventy has Alzheimer's. It's a federal investigation so I only know what I hear."

"Then how do you know anything about it at all?" She didn't answer, Mason filling in the blanks. "Ortiz told you after Dixon Smith waxed him at my arraignment. Ortiz has friends in the U.S. attorney's office. They must have told him. Smith used to be an assistant U.S. attorney until he quit and started his own practice."

"He didn't quit, Lou," Samantha said softly. "I'm sorry, but that's all I can tell you and I shouldn't have told you that much."

"I'm glad you did," he said. "You have to admit, though, he did a great job for me at the arraignment."

"So what? He got you out on bail so you could hand Ortiz your head in front of the grand jury!" she snapped, before apologizing. "I'm sorry, Lou. You've got enough problems without me yelling at you too, but it's not too late to hire someone else."

"I'll keep that in mind," Mason answered, remembering that he'd given similar advice to Sandra Connelly, telling her she could quit representing Whitney King. Sandra wasn't ready to let go of King and he wasn't ready to fire Smith.

Smith's story that Sandra Connelly had asked him to look into whether Whitney King's mother belonged in a nursing home was suddenly more interesting to Mason. Especially the part about Smith's client firing him when he made the inquiry. His Aunt Claire's lesson about mixing truth and lies reverberated again. If he fired Smith, he wouldn't be able to separate those facts from fiction.

"You didn't call to get a reference for your lawyer," Samantha said. "What do you want?"

He'd stopped pacing without realizing it, finding himself staring again at the aquarium. "Has anything happened with the missing person's report I filed on Mary Kowalczyk?" he asked.

"I talked to the detective on the case today. Her name is Barbara Wilson. She's got a stack of reports and yours is on it."

"At the bottom?" Mason asked.

"Dead last," she answered. "She's got more to read than she'll ever have time for. She does a great job with the cases she gets to, but she's overworked and underpaid."

"That's great!" Mason said.

"You're kidding," Samantha said. "How can that be great?"

"It's a real fish story. Remind me to tell you later," Mason said.

The online world was open for business every second of every day, converting distances formerly measured in miles to download times measured in seconds. Mickey Shanahan had convinced Mason to buy a laptop with a wireless Internet connection to use at home, explaining to Mason that he could be online whether he was working at his desk or sitting on the toilet.

"I've got the Kansas City Star if I need something to do with my hands when I'm on the can," Mason had told him.

"Think globally," Mickey had said. "You could read the New York Times and the Washington Post instead."

"I'm a creature of habit. My bowels are used to the local paper," Mason told him.

"Be careful, boss," Mickey had said. "Once you start planning your life around your bowels, you're doomed. You'll skip middle age and go straight to a soft food diet. You'll end up with one of those seven-day pill packs filled with fiber pills, vitamins, and stool softeners. You won't be able to shack up away from home because of all the crap you've got to take before you go to bed each night."

It was easier to buy the laptop than argue with Mickey about his future. He and Abby had stocked each other's bathrooms with travel sets of their toiletries. It had been a gradual process, a few things added at a time, proving Mickey's point that spontaneous sleepovers became more difficult after the age of forty. After a while, he'd cleared a dresser drawer for her night things and underwear and she'd done the same for him. They had been easing toward living together while avoiding a decision whether to move into his place or hers. Mason had left her things where they were, unable to pack them up.