Joel Goldman - Motion to Kill

“Maybe not.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I want to reopen your case. But I’ve got to find evidence to convince the judge to give you a new trial.”

“How are you going to do that?”

“Philpott cheated on his wife and she filed for divorce. I’ll start with her. Maybe she’s mad enough to tell me something that will help. After that, I don’t know. I can’t promise you anything, so don’t get your hopes up. But I think it’s worth a shot.”

“Any hope is more than we’ve had for a while now. Do what you can.”

Tommy pulled the six-pack up into his lap and rolled his wheelchair back up the ramp, his arms and shoulders flexing with the climb. When he reached the top, he turned and gave Mason a slight wave. Not even breathing hard, Mason thought. He smiled and returned the wave.

Kate was sitting on Mason’s front step, scratching Tuffy behind her ears, when Mason pulled into his driveway. Scott had been waiting for him the night before. He couldn’t wait to see who would show up tomorrow. He didn’t see Kate’s car, which meant that she and the dog had walked from her apartment on the Plaza, about a mile away.

Tuffy liked to have the back of her ears scratched, and once the scratching started, she devoted herself to the sensation, refusing every distraction except for one-Mason. The dog was infatuated with him, which infuriated Kate. It was the reason Kate had stolen Tuffy when they split up. All of which he remembered with jealous clarity when he stepped from the car, clapped his hands twice, and caught Tuffy as she bounded into his arms.

“Never doubt a dog’s devotion,” Kate said with a spare smile as she joined them on the driveway.

Mason had the same reaction each time he saw her. He’d do it again even if it turned out the same way.

Tuffy finished licking Mason’s chin and moved on to sniffing his shoes, pants, and crotch to confirm her master’s identity. A squirrel jumped from a tree onto the driveway, daring Tuffy to give chase. She didn’t disappoint.

“She’s a very faithful bitch,” Mason answered.

Kate shrugged off the irony in Mason’s comment. He marveled at her ability to shrug off things and people. He attributed it to her disengagement gene. It was never more apparent than on the day she left the divorce papers on top of the sports section. Mason tracked her down at her office, where she ran a web-design company.

“What the hell is this?”

He slapped the papers on her desk. She’d looked up at him, her perfect black eyebrows arched over her luminous blue eyes. They were the same eyes he was drawn to the night they met. They were an arresting blue that took him into custody on the spot. Then they seemed electric. Now they were ice.

“I’m done. That’s all.”

“Excuse me. You’re done? Don’t I get a vote?”

Kate pushed back in her chair, folded her arms, and shook her head like a teacher whose student just didn’t get it.

“No, Lou. You don’t get a vote. Love isn’t an election. You’re either in or you’re out, and I’m out. Out of love with you and out of the marriage.”

She said it without rancor. It was the way it was. She had disengaged.

It may have been simple to her, but not to him. They had been married three years. The first had been erotic and ecstatic. The second had been quiet and comfortable. The third had been dead and boring. Mason called it a slump. Kate declared it a dead end.

Afterward, he read an article by a marriage expert who said that successful couples developed rituals that helped bind them together. They had none. But he knew they had needed more than a few minutes spent lingering over coffee to trade stories of the day. After the passion, there wasn’t enough purpose. He had been wracked by the breakup. She seemed to have dismissed it. That was the part he never got, though when she snatched the dog, he wondered if it was really just so much water off a duck’s back.

“I need for you to keep the dog for a while.”

They watched Tuffy tree the squirrel. A moment later, Tuffy lost interest when Anna Karelson whistled at her from her front yard and held a dog biscuit in the air. Tuffy flew across the street.

Anna’s husband, Jack, had run off with a nineteen-year-old file clerk in his office and then resurfaced, begging her to take him back. She changed the locks. Worst of all, she wouldn’t let him have his TR6, which she kept locked in the garage. Anna waved at Mason as Tuffy bounded back to his side of the street.

He scratched her behind the ears. “Not that I’m complaining, but why?”

“I’ll be out of town for a month on a road show.”

“You’re going into show business?”

Kate gave him an exasperated smirk. “My company is very hot right now. We’re one of the best in our space and we’re starting to get national accounts. I’m going to a dozen cities to meet with potential clients.”

“Umm. Sounds thrilling. Better sign them up before you lose interest and move on to something else.”

“Keep drinking from that bitter cup and you’ll give yourself an ulcer. I’ll pick up Tuffy when I get back.”

She walked away without a backward glance, arms swinging with a hunter’s purposeful stride.

“Not if I see you first,” he said.

At ten o’clock Tuesday morning, Mason and Sandra Connelly emptied their pockets for the deputy marshals guarding the federal courthouse before heading to Franklin St. John’s sixth-floor office. Mason did a double take when the deputy gave Sandra a claim check for a three-inch knife she carried in her purse.

“I collect sharp things,” she said in response. “It’s a hobby.”

“Ever hear of stamps?”

“No edge to it,” she said with a shrug as they walked to the elevator.

Franklin St. John was a small, spare man, vain enough to comb the few remaining filaments of hair across his bald head. A high, shiny forehead dropped off to a narrow, long nose, thin lips, and a pointed chin. His upper lip curled into a sneer as he greeted them with a smile. Mason couldn’t tell if it was intentional or a cruel trick played by involuntary facial muscles. He didn’t look like a nice man, and Mason bet his face was a disappointment but not a surprise to those who knew him.

St. John was a career prosecutor from a political family whose connections reached to the White House. Originally from Kansas City, he’d been an assistant U.S. attorney in Chicago. When the U.S. attorney position opened up in Kansas City, he got the job.

He stood behind a massive desk, flanked by the seal of the United States and the official picture of the president. Tall floor lamps behind his desk cast an artificial aura behind him.

St. John introduced them to Gene McNamara, the FBI agent who was his chief investigator. McNamara’s face was beefy, with a drinker’s hazy red-veined pattern across his nose and cheeks. He nodded perfunctorily at them and took up a station at the end of the sofa opposite St. John’s desk, his coat opened casually enough to expose the service revolver holstered under his right arm.

“We’re all terribly sorry about Mr. Sullivan’s death,” St. John said.

Mason decided that the best approach was to make nice, put his cards on the table, and convince St. John that he wanted to cooperate.

“Thank you. We appreciate you seeing us on such short notice. We need your help sorting out several matters that Sullivan neglected to tell us about.”

“My office is always pleased to cooperate, Mr. Mason. What can I do for you?”

“We just found out that you’ve subpoenaed the firm’s files on Victor O’Malley and that we’re supposed to turn them over to you on Friday and that Sullivan and the firm are targets of your investigation. We need some idea of what you’re looking for and time to figure out what’s going on.”