Brad Meltzer - Dead Even

“My secret list of funny words. I know people’re talking about it. I put a couple on E-mail last week, and now everyone’s clamoring for the rest. I’m not giving them out, though. You’ll have to be satisfied with what you have: salami, wicker, Nipsey Russell-”

“Guff, please listen for a second. Remember when we were in ECAB the day I took the case?” Guff nodded. “When the cases were delivered, you were talking to Evelyn and Victor. So what you never saw was that Kozlow’s case was originally marked for someone else – that’s why I decided to take it.”

“So what’s the big deal? Cops request good ADAs all the time.”

“That’s exactly what I thought. But I just found out that it wasn’t the cop who requested this particular ADA – it was the ADA who requested the case.”

“Which ADA?”

Sara was silent.

“Tell me whose case it was, Sara. This isn’t funny. It can really be-”

“Victor’s,” she finally said. “It was Victor’s case.”

“Oh, no. Why’d you have to go do something stupid like that? That’s like teasing a rabid dog.”

“The delivery guy pulled off the Post-it. He said it was just a request – I didn’t know any better.”

“Obviously not.”

“Guff, I know it was a stupid move, but I can really use your help with this. There’s no one else I trust.”

“I don’t know. I think this one is out of my league. If I were you, I’d go to Conrad.”

“Conrad’ll bite my head off if he finds out I stole a case from another ADA.”

“Listen, it’s your decision. But if I was choosing between the two, I’d take Conrad over Victor any day.”

“How’d it go?” Conrad asked when Sara walked into his office.

“How’d what go?”

“Your talk with McCabe. Wasn’t that this morning?”

“Yeah,” Sara said, trying not to rush into anything. “It was pretty good. Not great.” As she took a seat on Conrad’s olive-green vinyl sofa, she asked, “Where’d you get this sofa?”

“Have Guff call down to purchasing. You’ll get one by next year,” Conrad said. “Now tell me about the interview.”

“What’s to tell? The cop seems like a nice guy, but he made some stupid mistakes. Never got fingerprints; never got an ID.”

“So typical – eighty percenter.”

“Huh?” Sara asked.

“In the DA’s office, twenty percent of the ADAs do eighty percent of the work,” Conrad explained. “The same thing applies to the judges in the courthouse and the cops and detectives on the street. To eighty percent of the people, this is just a nine-to-five bureaucracy.”

“It’s not a bureaucracy,” Sara said. “The people here-”

“Sara, do you know how many open warrants there are in Manhattan? Five hundred thousand. That means there are half a million criminals that we know about running loose on the streets – and then there are all the ones we still haven’t found. For the most part, we’re an assembly line. Eighty percent of the people just want their paycheck. They don’t want to risk their life and family to stop some scumbag criminal, and they don’t want to do what it actually takes to stop crime. It doesn’t make them bad people; it just makes them bad public servants.”

“And for some reason, you think I’m part of the twenty percent?” Sara asked.

“Actually, I do. You’re thirty-two years old, which means you know what you’re getting into. And at that age, like it or not, this is your career. You may be unpolished, and you may be new, but you speak your mind, and Guff trusts you, which, believe it or not, says more than you think. If you can get this indictment and take it to trial, Monaghan will know you’re not here to play around. And since I’m always looking for someone to stand on the twenty percent side of the scale, I’ll do everything in my power to keep you aboard. So tell me what else happened with the cop and I’ll tell you how to fix it.”

“Well, as I said, he never got an ID.”

“No big deal,” Conrad said. “Set up a lineup so the neighbor can come in and pick Kozlow out. If there’s no time, have her do it in the grand jury. Then the jurors can see it for themselves.”

“What about the fingerprints?”

“You’re screwed on that one.”

“Lousy eighty percenter,” Sara growled.

Conrad smiled. “Any other problems?”

Sara’s eyes fell to the floor. “Just one,” she said hesitantly. “There’s something I haven’t been completely honest about: When the case originally came into ECAB, there was a note on it that said, ‘Request for Victor Stockwell.’”

A suspicious crease formed between Conrad’s eyebrows. “What happened to the note?”

“The delivery guy took it off, and I let him throw it away,” Sara said. Before Conrad could interrupt, she added, “I know it was wrong, but I figured Victor gets so many requests, he wouldn’t miss one more. When I interviewed McCabe, though, I found out he didn’t mark the case for Victor – Victor requested the case from him.” As she finished the story, the room was silent. She could barely look Conrad in the eye.

Finally, Conrad leaned forward in his chair. “You really love to make it hard on yourself, don’t you?”

“That’s what I’m good at.” Looking up, she noticed that the crease between Conrad’s eyebrows was gone. “You’re not mad?” she asked.

“Sara, if you knew Victor wanted the case, would you have stolen it from him?”

“Not a chance. I only-”

“Then that’s that. I’d never fault you for trying to race to the front of the pack. If anything, that’s what we need more of.”

Conrad’s reaction wasn’t at all what she expected. Still processing it, she gave him an appreciative nod.

“You don’t have to worry,” he continued. “I’m on your side.”

The way he said it, Sara knew he wasn’t lying. “So what do I do about Victor?”

“Has he said anything to you about the case?”

“I know he’s pissed off, but he hasn’t asked for it back.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“Don’t you think it’s a little weird? I mean, why would Victor even want this junky little case in the first place?”

“How should I know? People request cases all the time – most often because they want to get another shot at a repeat offender or because they know someone involved in the case. Maybe Victor’s the one who first prosecuted Kozlow and he’s still pissed that Kozlow walked. Maybe he’s a friend of Doniger and he wanted to do her a favor.”

“Or maybe this case is about more than just a burglary.”

Conrad shook his head. “You’re still not giving up on the front page, are you?”

“I can’t,” Sara said despairingly. “It’s all I’ve got. Besides, this isn’t just my active imagination.”

“You sure about that?”

“I think I’m sure. I mean, we have a burglary where, of all the expensive things that can be taken, only two small items are missing; then there’s the low-life burglar who somehow has access to the city’s best lawyers; then there’s the fact that of the two firms he hires, one is my old one and the other is my husband’s. And if that weren’t enough, we’ve got the world’s best prosecutor begging for the case and lurking in my office. What else do you need? A big neon sign that says ‘Suspicions “R” Us’?”

“I still think you’re overreacting – there’s a logical explanation for every single one of those.”

“Really? Then how about this one: If everything’s so normal, why didn’t Victor ask for the case back?”

“Wait a minute, what are you accusing Victor of?”

“I’m not accusing anyone of anything. I just think you have to admit it’s worth a look around.”