Richard Patterson - Fall from Grace

There was an answering sound, perhaps undergrowth rustling, perhaps only the wind. Then, he thought, a single footstep. Then nothing.

Adam released a breath. Perhaps he had been speaking to his father, or the shadow of his own fear. The night was still now.

Adam walked back toward the house, glancing from side to side. Then he checked his watch, climbed into his father’s truck, and went to see Avram Gold.

Like the Blaines, Avi Gold had a home in Chilmark, and during his summers there, the renowned defense lawyer and professor had discovered a certain affinity of outlook with Adam’s father. Both were to the left of center; neither avoided controversy. In his career, Gold had defended a famous baseball player on murder charges, and a glowering Russian middleweight accused of rape, triumphs sprinkled amid lesser known cases where Gold, without charge, had assisted unfortunates railroaded by the legal system. He stoutly defended civil liberties, no matter the vituperation this attracted, as well as the state of Israel at the most fractious junctures in its history. All this had earned Ben Blaine’s respect.

But in Adam’s brief experience of Avram Gold, he had found a crucial difference from his father: contrary to his combative public image, Gold was one of the fairest and most generous people around, a man at peace with human complexity and disinclined to harsh judgment. With enthusiasm, he had recommended Adam for law school, and encouraged him to consider criminal defense. And so, though they had not seen each other in a decade, Adam sought out Gold’s advice.

Though more rain was falling, the night was temperate, and they sat on Gold’s screened-in porch, the dark pool of the Atlantic visible only by its absence of light. Gold was fresh from a dinner party; among the summer crowd he was known as a great raconteur, and his days and nights were crowded-this time, however late, was what he had. Despite his evident pleasure in seeing Adam, Gold asked for no explanation of what, to him, must have seemed such an abrupt and remarkable change of career plans that some emotional breakdown lay beneath it. Nor did he probe his visitor’s life now. Perched in his deck chair, Gold listened to Adam’s reason for coming, his eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses alert, his lean face-the summary of generations of Ashkenazi scholars-curious and sympathetic.

For a quarter of an hour, Adam related what he knew without disclosing who or what had led him there. “Obviously,” Adam said, “the DA and Mallory suspect that some member of our family caused my father’s death. Among my interests is protecting them from further pain-or worse-and, with luck, persuading the police to look harder at Carla Pacelli. I need your advice, and expect to pay for it. Anything I say to you, or you to me, has to be confidential.” Adam paused for emphasis. “I don’t want anyone to even know we’ve talked. I’d prefer that the people I deal with think I’m only as smart as I am, instead of as smart as you are.”

Silent, Gold nodded his acceptance, though his eyes contained a hint of amusement. “This is more than an estate problem,” Adam concluded, “or even a criminal law problem. This involves my mother’s and brother’s future, and I mean for it to come out right. But before I start playing three-dimensional chess-hopefully, without the other players knowing what I’m up to-I need to think this through.”

“Then let’s start with the obvious,” Gold said at once. “If the DA convicts Carla Pacelli of murder, that solves all your problems. Clarice and Teddy are off the hook, and the assets Ben left Carla go to them. And no doubt Carla has the clearest motive.” His voice took on a cautionary note. “Assuming that she knew about this will-”

“How could she not?”

“You’d think that. But with Ben dead, Carla alone knows what she knew-if anything. Unless the lawyer who drew up the will, Seeley, can put her in the room with Ben.”

“I mean to find that out,” Adam replied. “Whatever way I can.”

For a moment, Gold appraised him. “And then what? The best of motives is no good without evidence that Carla killed him. Okay, maybe she was the woman Clarice saw on the promontory with Ben-on some other night. But maybe not. And the shadowy figure your neighbor saw could have been the abominable snowman.”

Despite the circumstances, Adam smiled at Gold’s bluntness. “The snowman would have left a distinctive footprint. So I think we can rule him out.”

“Unless Carla left a footprint,” Gold responded, “I’m not hearing a case against her either. Granted, people do the most surprising things, including the ones we have reason to know the best. I’ve only met Pacelli a couple of times-understandably, she has little taste for the summer scene. But there’s a certain dignity about her, as well as a vulnerability she seems determined to conceal. She doesn’t strike me as typecasting for a murderer.”

“Maybe she doesn’t play one at cocktail parties,” Adam rejoined. “When I met her, she didn’t seem like someone who’d steal my mother’s husband, then leave her without a penny. But she did.”

“Assuming that Carla planned any of that. But let’s move on to your mother, Jack, and Teddy. None have alibis; all claim that this will was a surprise. Do you believe them?”

“It doesn’t matter what I believe,” Adam said flatly. “The one person who would have told them, my father, is dead. So I figure that part of their story stands.”

Gold arched his eyebrows. “I have to say that I find your detachment interesting.”

“Necessary,” Adam corrected. “Whatever they are, my feelings about this don’t do my family any good. All that matters is what can or can’t be proven. Asserting ignorance of the will is helpful to them.”

“To a point,” Gold warned. “But motive isn’t your problem here. The police have taken evidence from every other member of your family-not only their statements, but clothes, shoes, and DNA. They clearly think one or all of them are lying. If not about Ben’s fall itself, then about some crucial fact.”

“That’s clear,” Adam agreed. “Which brings us to Teddy, I’m afraid.”

Gold’s tone became encouraging. “I can understand how worried you are. You believe Teddy left a footprint and, if so, that he lied about the circumstances. But there’s a lot left to determine. Were there indications of a struggle? How did Ben lose that button? And, critically, what does the pathologist’s report say about whether someone pushed Ben off that cliff? Were there bruises or scratches on the body, and fingerprints on Ben’s skin? Were there traces of someone else’s DNA? And if there were any or all of these, is there some explanation more benign than murder? You just don’t know.”

“That’s what bothers me,” Adam said in frustration. “There’s way too much I can’t get to.”

Gold shrugged. “You can always wait until Hanley makes his move. All too often, that’s what defense lawyers are forced to do.”

“I’m not a defense lawyer,” Adam said simply. “My preference is to influence events, not wait until they overtake some member of my family.”

In the dim light of the porch, Gold regarded him in silence, the only sound sheets of rain driven by the wind. “About Teddy,” he said at length. “A lot of us have imagined patricide, or left an emotional message for some ex-lover. Neither makes Teddy a murderer. I’d be more concerned if you know why, as seems to be the case, he went to the one place-the promontory-he avoided while you were growing up. Do you have any idea of what could have driven him there on this particular evening?”

“No. I haven’t asked him yet.”

“Then consider if you want to. Anything Teddy says to you, or you to him, would be fair game for George Hanley. That means that one or both of you would have the choice of testifying about that under oath-or committing perjury.”