James Grippando - Last to die

“I swear, I didn’t lay a hand on Colletti.”

“I told you this morning when Colletti served his papers on us: It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters to me,” said Tatum, his voice rising.

“For purposes of this hearing, I’m telling you, it doesn’t matter if you’re innocent.”

“Did you get a look at Colletti’s face?” he said, scoffing. “Work of a fucking amateur. If it was me who done it, I can tell you this much: He wouldn’t have been switchin’ on his computer to check his e-mail this morning. It’d be a week before he could remember his name, let alone his password.”

“Is that our defense, Tatum? Is that what you want to tell the judge?”

“I don’t have to tell the judge that. I just wanna tell him I didn’t do it.”

“That’s my whole point. If you get on the stand, you will be cross-examined. Colletti’s lawyer could throw anything at you.”

“Nothing I can’t handle.”

“Oh, really? Try this on for size.” Jack stepped closer, role-playing as Gerry’s lawyer on cross-examination. “Mr. Knight, the first time you ever met Mr. Colletti was at the reading of Sally Fenning’s will. A week ago Tuesday, correct?”

“That’s right.”

“Less than two weeks after meeting you, Mr. Colletti is in the emergency room.”

“I didn’t put him there.”

“Mr. Knight, since you’re a beneficiary under Sally Fenning’s will, I’m assuming you also met her at some point, right?”

“Yeah, once.”

“When?”

“A couple weeks before she died.”

“You mean a couple weeks before she was murdered, don’t you?”

“Yeah, whatever.”

“So you met her once in your life, and two weeks later she was shot in the head.”

“So what?”

“Let me ask you this, sir: How many other people have ended up dead or in the hospital within two weeks of their one and only meeting with you?”

Tatum shot a cross look. “Too many to fucking count.”

Jack stepped out of his role. “Good answer, Tatum.”

“Shit, Jack, I just want to take the stand and tell the judge I didn’t do it.”

“It doesn’t work that way. I’m sorry, but if you testify, Colletti’s lawyer will grill you. Before you know it, everyone in that courtroom is going to know what you used to do for a living, know about the meeting you had with Sally Fenning, and know that she tried to hire you to put a bullet in her head. Now, unless you want to leap to the top of the list of suspects in Sally’s shooting, I suggest you take my advice.”

Tatum was seething, but Jack seemed to be getting through. “What you want me to do, exactly?”

“Keep your secrets to yourself,” said Jack. “Don’t take the stand. We’ll stipulate to the entry of a restraining order.”

“How’s that gonna look?”

“I’ll put the best spin on it I can. I’ll tell the judge that Mr. Knight vehemently denies the allegations, but he has absolutely no need to come within five hundred yards of any of the other beneficiaries anyway. So we’ll stipulate to the restraining order.”

Tatum walked to the window and stared out at the parking lot below. “You know, I don’t have to tell them about the meeting with Sally.”

“If you take the stand and perjure yourself, you’ll be looking for a new lawyer.”

He let out a mirthless chuckle. “Theo warned me you were a goody-two-shoes.”

“Theo warned me plenty about you, too. And here we both are. So what’s it going to be?”

He turned away from the window and faced Jack. “Fine. We’ll stipulate. There’s just one thing you need to understand.”

“What?”

“If that pussy Gerry Colletti ends up with all this money, I’m gonna beat the living hell outta both of you.”

“I don’t take threats, Tatum.”

He gave his lawyer a big smile and a pat on the shoulder. “Just kiddin’, Jack buddy.”

Jack didn’t return the smile. He just opened the door and started back toward the courtroom.

Jack thought he was being watched, and he was right.

After the probate hearing he’d said good-bye to Tatum at the courthouse doors, and he continued alone to his car. Two men matched him step for step across the cracked and buckled asphalt, all the way into the fenced-in parking lot. The younger one walked with a cocky roll, chin aloft, his eyes catching his reflection in each tinted car window they passed, as if the title song to Shaft were on continuous playback in his head. The older man had a slight stoop and the dour expression of someone who worried too much about problems he couldn’t solve, problems that kept him working late, kept him up at night, and kept his bar tab running. Even if Jack hadn’t known Rick Larsen, he would have guessed he was a veteran homicide detective.

They weren’t exactly friends, but Jack and he shared a certain mutual respect. Plenty of good cops had given Jack the benefit of the doubt over the years, if only because Jack’s father had been a cop before embarking on a long political road that culminated with two terms in the governor’s mansion. Jack’s personal history with Detective Larsen ran deeper than that. As a much younger detective, Larsen had worked the file on Theo Knight, part of the team that had put the wrong man on death row. Not until the DNA tests were back could he confide in Jack-off the record, of course-and tell him that his rookie doubts about Theo’s guilt had been squelched by his supervisors.

“Who’s the new partner?” asked Jack as he turned to face them.

Larsen smiled as he pulled the unlit cigar plug from between his teeth. “You mean Calvin Klein here?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” said his partner.

“If you don’t know, you got no business being a detective.” He gave Jack a wink and asked, “Got a minute?”

Jack set his briefcase atop the hood of his car. “Sure. What about?”

“Sally Fenning. As I’m sure you know, I’m on her murder.”

“Yeah, I was glad to hear that.”

“Why?”

“You guys never caught her daughter’s killer. Seemed the very least she deserved was a detective on her case who was good enough to catch hers.”

“I’m working on it.”

“Which leads you to me,” said Jack.

“Actually, no. It leads me to Tatum Knight, which leads me to you.”

“You want to interview him?”

“Love to. But he won’t talk to us.”

Jack hid his surprise. Tatum had neglected to tell him the police had contacted him. “Did you ask nicely?”

“Of course. I told him he could play ball or be the ball. Either way, I intend to smack a home run.”

Jack chuckled. “I gotta hand it to you, Larsen. You’re the only detective I know who can say that line with a straight face.”

“And sometimes it even works. But all kidding aside, if your client won’t talk, I am going to turn up the heat.”

“What do you want to know?”

He removed his sunglasses, as if to look Jack in the eye. “Did he kill Sally Fenning?”

“The answer is no.”

“Does he know who did?”

“No.”

“Do you expect me to take those responses at face value?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Did he beat the crap out of Gerry Colletti?”

“No.”

“Then why didn’t he take the stand and tell Judge Parsons that he didn’t do it?”

“That was his lawyer’s decision.”

“What are you hiding?”

“Nothing.”

“I watched the hearing. You’re hiding something.”

“Rank speculation on your part.”

On the other side of the fence, a transit bus rumbled down the street. The air was suddenly thick with diesel fumes, but the detective didn’t miss a beat. “Tell me this much: Why the hell did Sally Fenning name a thug like Tatum Knight in her will?”