A Reason to Live (Marty Singer1) (10 page)

"That's right."

"You don't know where he lived, or ate, or what his forwarding address was?"

"Singer, you probably know as much or more than I do. Up until the time I represented him, I hadn't even heard of Wheeler except in the papers. After I was brought on the case, he was in custody during the trial. I visited him a couple of times in lockup to get our strategy straight. After that, the only other time I saw him was when the bailiff marched him over to my table. And that's it."

"And after the trial," I said, still digging. "Nothing? He walked out of the courtroom and out of your life ten minutes after the verdict?"

"More like five, but yes, pretty much. We gave the obligatory statement to the press--it was big news, naturally--and then we shook hands and he took off."

"No phone calls, no visits, nothing?"

She smiled. "No matter how many different ways you ask, Singer, the answer's the same: I never saw Michael Wheeler after the trial."

I tried a new angle. "Don Landis."

The smile dropped off her face like a stone off a cliff. "What about him?'

"No congratulatory handshake? No commiserations? No gloating?"

"Don had just lost a high-profile, must-win case to a first-time criminal defense attorney. Because his own side had dropped the ball. Do I need to remind you? He wasn't going to pat me on the back. And I wasn't going to shove his nose in it. Don was a good lawyer and it could've easily been me, then or later. In fact, it should've been me, except--" She stopped herself.

"Except what?"

Her mouth was so pinched that it seemed as if there were sutures pulling her mouth inward. "The screw-up. I had a decent defense strategy, but I knew I wasn't going to get anything better than a reduced sentence. It didn't matter that your evidence against Wheeler was circumstantial; everyone was howling for a conviction. I told Wheeler to expect the worst, no matter how well I did. But thanks to your bungling, when the case got dumped, it all went away. The evidence, the bargaining, the trial. Everything."

"You don't sound very happy about it."

She re-focused on me, but took a second to answer. "It was bittersweet. I put a lot of work into that case. As you said, my first real client. An important, noteworthy case. Lots of press. I wanted to win it on my own merits. Instead, I got handed a turkey. One that worked for me, but a turkey anyway."

I let the silence spool out. Then, "How did you feel about that?"

"What the hell do you care?"

"I've never gotten this close to a criminal defense attorney before. I'm curious."

She laughed, a short bark that fell flat. "What do you think? It should've launched a career. But it was a lame duck, a gimme. Everyone assumed if I was lucky, I couldn't be good. I got passed over by all but the dumbest or most desperate schmucks you can imagine. No one recognized the work I did on Wheeler's case
before
you guys laid an egg. And, since I was getting lousy clients, my win rate spiraled downward, netting even worse clients than before. So, what do you think it did to me, Singer?"

Despite my innate dislike of Atwater--and criminal defense attorneys in general--I'd never stopped to think how Wheeler's acquittal might've affected her. To me, a win is a win. If a bad guy happens to step off a curb and get hit by a truck instead of going to jail, well…it's harsh, maybe, but to me, justice is served. That's a cosmic balance I can live with. But if your life and livelihood is predicated on intentional hard work that others need to see and respond to and your first display of that calls into question, it could ruin you.

I cast about for a silver lining. "It was still a win. And it was twelve years ago. New clients come along. People forget."

She smiled sarcastically. "Yeah, except I didn't. When you get five years of shit clients, you start thinking it's you. That maybe you don't have what it takes and never did. I've gotten past that, but it took most of a decade for me to start believing in myself again."

I gave her a second, then said, "When I first called you and mentioned Wheeler, you didn't sound angry or disgusted. You sounded scared. Why was that?"

Her face twisted. "Don't you get it yet, Singer? I wasn't scared, I was pissed off. That case represents everything that's gone wrong with my career from day one. And you're the guy who started it all. Then you call and want to chat about it. What the hell is it to you, anyway?"

I watched her face. "He's back."

Atwater became very still. Her face, previously flushed with her anger, turned waxy. "What? What did you say?"

"Wheeler's here, counselor. He looked up Brenda Lane's daughter and left her a not-so-subtle reminder of her mother's death. You remember Brenda, don't you? The woman he murdered, no matter what the court said?" I leaned forward and stared at her. "He's after Brenda's daughter and I have to find him. I need to know where he is. I need to know anything you do."

She swallowed. Her hands squeezed each other so hard that, just like they say in the books, the knuckles turned white.

"Get out, Singer," she said. "Your thirty minutes are up."

. . .

I left Julie Atwater sitting on her couch, tight of lip and rigid of body. No amount of cajoling or implied threats would get her to talk and she kept repeating that I should leave until, after the sixth time and with her voice starting to crack, I figured she meant it. I jotted my number down on a scrap of paper I found near the penny bowl by the door. It would probably end up in the trash by the end of the day, but I'd had less likely leads pan out before.

It sure would be nice if she called, since our encounter had raised a hell of a lot more questions than it had answered. That she didn't know where Wheeler might be was natural. It had been the longest of shots to begin with, the kind of jackpot question you have to ask in case you get lucky. It was her behavior that had me stymied. Like on the phone, her reaction first to Wheeler's name, then to the news that he was in DC, wasn't sarcasm, or irritation, or dismissal, or any number of other reactions I would've expected from a woman who, at the heart of it, hated my guts. It was fear. And that didn't make sense for a twelve year old case where the defendant had walked out free as a bird because of her.

So the long shot was one reason to leave my number. The other was, if Wheeler was around and had already threatened her or she thought he would, she might wise-up and give me a call when she realized she couldn't handle it herself. It wouldn't hurt to be thought of as her temporary guardian angel…as long as it led to Wheeler.

But I went over the conversation again in my head as I tucked my hands in my jacket pockets and headed back to my car. Something wasn't sitting right. Atwater might've turned white when I told her Wheeler was back in town, but the first chink in her armor had appeared when I mentioned Don Landis, the prosecutor on Wheeler's case. Not that I had a fond recollection of the man, either. I had worked with Don on the investigation and would've preferred to forget all about him. But the ghosts of the case weren't that easily laid to rest. So when I got to my car, instead of putting it in gear and driving off, I turned on the heat and sat, thinking about a case I shouldn't have lost.

The case against Wheeler took almost a year to put together and get to trial. This is considered light speed in the world of criminal trial law, but his defense seemed so paper thin, the man himself so smug with guilt, that I had trouble believing we hadn't already tried, sentenced, and buried him in the first month. I remember waking up some of those days, thinking about the work ahead of me, planning it out, and being astonished--toothbrush or razor frozen in hand--when I realized Wheeler's case was still at the top of my list.

Despite my bias, I was still a professional. I went about my business and conducted as thorough an investigation as I could. Interviews, diagrams, background checks, ballistics results, spatter reports, more interviews. Phone calls, long hours, late nights. We paid special attention to the case, did what we could, though we were stretched thin. Those were the heydays when DC led the nation in homicides.

Assigned to the case from the legal side was Don Landis, a silver-haired attorney in his mid-fifties with a decent reputation. Unlike the rest of the country, the District is a federal jurisdiction, so the United States Attorney's office does the prosecuting instead of a district attorney. It sounds like a big deal, but the situation is identical to that of the rest of the law-abiding world, including the sometimes complicated relationship between cops and prosecutors. Some of them are crazy about getting involved early on, showing up at the scene to make sure everything is done right, micro-managing the site until the cops on the ground go crazy. Others don't move until the investigator's report starts to yellow and curl up at the corners.

There were worse cards you could pull from the deck. Landis fell solidly in the middle. I'd worked with him on other investigations and found him to be thorough, if uninspired. He did the minimum amount of work to see a case through, but at least he did it. The apathy meant he wasn't climbing any political ladders or looking for headlines despite a ton of trial experience under his belt. He was a clock-puncher, a nine-to-fiver. I expected a competent job from him and not much else. Consequently, I was astonished when I got a call at the break of dawn from him the day after Brenda Lane was killed.

"Singer," I answered from the bed. Even shut, my eyes were burning. I'd trawled the scene most of the night and hadn't gotten back until after three.

"Marty," came the phlegmy, pack-a-day voice on the other end. "Tell me about Mike Wheeler."

"Don?" I said, surprised, eyes opening.

"The one and only."

"You drew the short straw, huh?"

"You could say that," he said without humor. "At least it'll be more entertaining than the gangbangers and drug hits we usually get."

"Press been after you?"

"I got a couple calls in the middle of the night from friends at the Post. They only needed a couple lines for the morning blotter, but if I don't have a statement by this afternoon they'll be out for blood."

"Mighty nice of them."

"So what do you got?"

I described the scene and Wheeler's statements. I did my best to stick with the facts but, as far as I was concerned, Wheeler was guilty as hell. I was so convinced that I found myself speaking of him in the past tense. And I expected Landis to feel the same way. I was talking to the prosecutor, for crying out loud. He should've taken my cue that this was about as open and shut as you could get. We were beyond the what and the why; we should've been talking about the how and how long.

Instead, Landis asked, "Wheeler had some prior contact with this woman?"

"Yeah, scuttlebutt has it that she'd called the station a half-dozen times to complain about him hanging around. Borderline harassment. And the switchboard told me we've got a recording of her calling last night a minute before he shot her."

"Can you get me that tape?"

"Once I listen to it myself, yeah. We'll get it to you."

"This lady--"

"Brenda," I said. "Her name was Brenda Lane."

"Sure," he said. "Did she ever file charges on Wheeler? About the harassment?"

"Not that I heard asking around last night," I said. "We'll know more today."

"You don't know?" he asked, his voice peeved.

"I've been on the case for six hours, Don," I said. "And I've been asleep for three of them."

"If she didn't file charges, that's going to weaken the case."

"It's important, but that's not going to make or break this case. You talk to this guy once and you'll smell the stink coming off him."

"As in a confession?"

"No, not as in a confession," I said. "As in a string of goddamn lies. A two year old could see through the crime scene."

"Why don't you walk this two year old through it, then?" he said, his voice sarcastic.

I pinched my eyes with a finger and thumb until I saw stars. "There's no way the shooting could've happened the way he said it did. He calls it self-defense, but I walked through it and, physically, it doesn't work. The lab can give you the floor plan. You can see for yourself. As for the gun she was supposed to be pointing at him, unless she's got connections to a black-market arms dealer, it's a plant. And, for Christ's sake, the guy
thanked
me, like I was his sponsor at communion or something. He damn near came out and asked me to cover for him. I'm telling you, Don, he stinks."

His voice became brittle. "Marty, you might be able to play a hunch, but I need something more than how the guy smells. The union is coming out with a statement of support later today and the mayor's office is expected to comment after that. Half the city is going to want Wheeler swinging from the 14th Street bridge, the other half is planted directly behind him. If I'm going to prosecute this guy the right way, I can't afford to blow it on guesswork. It's my ass on the line when we go to court and I'm not going to let someone else fuck this up on my behalf."

It was obvious who he thought the someone else was. And I didn't appreciate it. "If this case goes down in flames, prosecutor, it's not going to be my team's fault."

Those were still the days of landlines and phones with bells in them and the base made a nice ringing sound when I slammed the receiver down hard enough to crack the plastic casing. It's not like today where you have to punch a button to hang up and all you get is a "beep," no matter how angry you are. You have to throw the phone across the room to get any satisfaction.

Then again, if I'd known where the case was going, I would've slammed the phone down
and
thrown it across the room.

. . .

Twelve years later, I found myself gritting my teeth as I remembered the memos Landis had sent to my office. The words "insufficient" and "inadequate" peppered most of the messages. The language was negative and harsh, criticizing my team and its work, while constantly urging us to double and triple our efforts. This on top of the three dozen or so other cases we'd been assigned. Only in books, TV, and the movies do cops get to work on a case at a time. And it seemed even more inequitable than usual for us. While other teams were going home at five, we were canceling vacations and sleeping in the office to handle the work load.