Client Privilege (8 page)

“So what the hell is going on?” she said.

I sighed. “I really can’t even talk to you about it.”

“Oh, come on, Brady.”

“That’s what’s so frustrating. I can’t discuss it with anybody.”

“But this is me,” she said.

“This is I.”

She widened her eyes. “Hoo, boy. Look who’s correcting whose grammar.”

“Reflex,” I said. “Sorry.”

“Those guys look mean.”

“They’re not that tough.”

“They look tough to me.”

“They’re no tougher than me,” I said.

“Than I,” she said.

I lit a cigarette and touched her wrist with my hand. “What’s on this morning?”

“A bunch of desk work. We’ve got a pile of correspondence to answer. You’ve got some calls to make. Several clients who need to hear your reassuring voice. Then there’s Mrs. Covington.”

“Huh?”

“Mrs. Covington. Suing her dentist, remember?”

“Oh, right.”

“Christ, Brady. Where’s your mind?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Those guys’re getting to you, huh?”

“I guess they are.”

“Nothing you can tell me?”

I shook my head. “No. Look. I’ve got to make a couple calls first. Then we’ll get to work.”

After Julie left my office, I called my friend Charlie McDevitt. He’s a prosecutor for Uncle Sam, in the Boston division of the Justice Department. He’s got an office at Government Center. I had to be careful what I said to Charlie, because he knew Pops at Yale when I did. But Charlie’s my best friend. He’s the guy I talk to when I need to talk. He’s also a fine lawyer who understands a prosecutor’s mind better than I do. He’s been on that side of the fence a long time.

I exchanged flirtations with his secretary, Shirley, who’s a dead ringer for the round-cheeked white-haired lady pictured on the frozen-fish packages. I made her giggle and admit she was blushing, as I always did, and then she put me through to Charlie.

“Belize,” said Charlie, instead of hello.

“Christmas Island,” I answered.

“Either one. When?”

“Would that I could,” I said. “Bonefish. Permit. Barracuda. One of these days.”

“The other side of the world, Christmas Island,” he said dreamily. “Heaven.”

“Which makes this side of the world…” I said, leaving the obvious thought unfinished.

“That bad, huh?”

“That bad.”

“You’ve looked out your window, then,” said Charlie.

“I have. Grim out there.”

“We gotta get away.”

“Agreed. That’s not why I called.”

“Business, huh?”

“Sort of. Charlie, I’ve got a delicate problem.”

“Your hemorrhoids kicking up again?”

“Yeah, but that’s not it. Charlie, you’re sort of a cop.”

“Coyne, I find the comparison both spurious and odious.”

“Pardon me. Let me put it this way. You think like a prosecutor.”

“Hell, I
am
a prosecutor. What’s this all about?”

“I think a couple cops are convinced I killed somebody.”

I heard him chuckle. Good old Charlie. Just that chuckle gave me perspective. Brady Coyne, kill somebody? What a laugh.

“Did you?” he said. He snickered again.

“I’m not kidding. The thing is, my alibi, if that’s what you call it, is mixed up with a client.”

“Aha,” he said. “Client privilege.”

“Yeah. It makes me sound kind of guilty.”

“It’s the price we pay sometimes. Generally we are well reimbursed.”

“Yeah, well, in this case it’s damned awkward.”

“Your client can release you, you know.”

“I can’t ask him to. Not under these particular circumstances.”

“Because he—?”

“No, nothing like that.” If I told Charlie it was Pops, he’d understand. But I couldn’t tell him that, and I knew he wouldn’t ask.

“So these cops are on your case,” he said.

“Yes. And already there’s a television guy who’s got wind of it.”

“These cops actually tell you they think you did it?”

“Not in so many words, exactly.”

“That’s cops for you,” said Charlie. “They accuse enough people enough times, somebody’s gonna cave in. Reminds me of something Burleigh Whitt was telling me recently. You remember Burl?”

“The game warden?”

“Right. Tiny Wheeler knows him. Burl’s way up there in the screaming Maine wilderness risking his life trying to track down jacklighters and those dirt-poor folks who shoot themselves a couple cow moose and three or four deer a year to feed the kids. Anyhow, Burl was telling me about this one particular old coot who he knew was poaching deer. Burl pretty well had it figured out that this guy’d get up before dawn and get himself a deer and have it all dragged in and skinned out and butchered before the sun came up, and it was pissing Burl off that he could never seem to nail the guy in the act. Everybody knew he was poaching, and it was bad for Burl’s credibility that he couldn’t catch him.”

“Charlie—”

“No, listen. This is relevant. Burl decided he was gonna nab the old geezer red-handed. So he got up at two
A.M.
one morning and hid himself in the bushes by the old-timer’s cabin. Sure enough, about maybe four the light went on inside the cabin, and a few minutes later wisps of smoke began to come out of the chimney. Then the old guy came out onto the porch. ‘Mr. Warden,’ he called. ‘No sense of you layin’ out there gettin’ all cold and damp in them bushes. Whyn’t you come on in here and get yourself a nice cup of coffee.’ So Burl cussed himself and got up and went in there, had a cup of coffee with the old guy.

“Burl remembered he’d told a couple guys in his office what he was gonna do. Figured one of them must’ve let it slip. So he waited a few weeks, and this time he didn’t tell anybody what he was up to. Again, got up early and hid outside the cabin while the moon was still high. The cabin was dark. He huddled there, freezing his ass off, and finally a light went on in the cabin. Then smoke appeared from-the chimney. Then the old poacher came out onto his porch. ‘Hey, Mr. Warden,’ he yelled. ‘Don’t go catching cold out there in them bushes. You come on in here, have some coffee and get warm.’ So Burl, very embarrassed, went in and had coffee with the old codger, and after that he gave up trying to catch him. He just admitted to himself that the old guy was too smart for him. You still with me, Brady?”

I sighed. “I’m with you, Charlie. Is this going someplace?”

“Course it is. Well, about a year later, Burl hears the old poacher’s had himself a coronary. He’s laid up in the county hospital. The scuttlebutt is that he’s not gonna make it. So Burl goes to visit him. ‘Nice you could come visit me,’ wheezes the old guy from his bed. ‘Sorry to hear about your sickness,’ says Burl. ‘Ain’t gonna make it, they tell me,’ says the poacher. ‘Sure gonna miss the woods.’ Burl hitches his chair closer to the bed. ‘You’ve got to tell me something,’ he says. ‘Those times when I was hiding out there in the bushes waiting for you. How in hell did you know I was there?’ The old geezer turns his head and grins. ‘I didn’t know you was there, son. Every mornin’ for thirty years I went out on my porch and yelled the same damn thing.’”

I lit a cigarette and didn’t say anything.

“You still there, Brady?”

“I’m here, Charlie.”

“You get my point?”

“You’re saying these cops’re like that old poacher. They go out on their porch every morning, so to speak, and yell accusations, and sooner or later someone’s going to be hiding in the bushes, thinking they’ve been found out. You’re saying I should ignore what they say to me. Just stay hunkered in the bushes.”

“You got it, pal.”

“Difference is, I’m not guilty of anything.”

“That doesn’t make it different at all,” said Charlie.

“Okay. Thanks for the advice.”

“That’s why you called, wasn’t it? For advice?”

“Yes.”

“Well, remember about that old poacher, then.”

“Thanks, Charlie. Anything else I should be thinking about?”

“Sure. Though I hesitate to mention it to you.”

“What is it?”

“Well,” he said. “If I know cops, they think they’ve got themselves a hot one.”

“Me.”

“Right. And while they’re chasing you around, the real bad guy’s feeling better and better about things. Because nobody’s chasing him around.”

“And somebody ought to be chasing him around,” I said. “Like, for example, me.”

“Jesus, Brady. I didn’t say that.”

“Who else?”

Charlie had no answer for me.

After I hung up with Charlie I tried Detective Horowitz’s number at State Police headquarters at 1010 Commonwealth Avenue, not really expecting him to be in. But he was. I gave my name to his secretary, and a minute later he came on the line.

“Horowitz,” he mumbled.

“You got a mouthful of Bazooka?” I said.

I heard a bubble pop. “Nasty habit,” he said.

“You should try cigarettes.”

“Coyne,” he said, “I ain’t got time for a bunch of shit. What do you want?”

“What do you know about the Churchill killing?”

He popped a bubble. “I know what there is to know. Just for one thing, that you seem to have stepped into some moderately deep shit.”

“I hope you told your friends about me.”

He snorted through his nose. “Would you really want me to do that?”

“Come on, Horowitz.”

“You’ve been in plenty of weird scrapes, Coyne. Christ, you killed a guy with your gun a few years back.”

“You know about that. You investigated that one.”

“Sure. You were defending the virtue of a woman. Still, you can see how it looks.”

“What’ve they got on me?”

“Look, Coyne. You are pushing what is already a tenuous friendship to its limits. You follow me?”

“Spell it out.”

“Hell, you’re a witness in a homicide.”

“That’s it?”

“Okay,” he said. “You’re a possible suspect. How’s that?”

“That’s not very good.”

“They haven’t got anything more than circumstance right now. They come up with much more…” He paused. “Will they?”

“Will they what?”

“Come up with something else?”

“Of course not.”

“Well, I didn’t really think so. Still…”

“Look,” I said. “What the hell is going on?”

He sighed. “I guess I won’t be screwing anything up if I tell you what I’ve heard. The papers got most of it anyway. You got the right to know.”

“Thanks.”

“This’ll cost you something fancy at the Ritz when it’s all over.”

“Fine. Gladly. It’ll be worth a celebration.”

He cleared his throat. “This girl found Churchill’s body on the living room floor in his condo on Beacon Street. He was—”

“What girl?”

“His girlfriend, I gather. She had a key to the place. Name of Gretchen Warde. Warde with an
e.
Works over at Channel Eight. Assistant producer or something, which means glorified gofer. Anyhow, she went in and found the body. Called the cops.”

“What time?”

“Little after midnight. Gather she and Churchill spent the night together now and then.”

“She’s not a suspect?”

“Of course she is. She’s the main suspect. She’s a better suspect than you. They grilled her. She didn’t seem to have her times straight. Holes in her story. Nothing like hard evidence, from what I hear. Like they didn’t find a weapon. The M.E. looked at the body, estimated how long it had been dead, and I guess they figure she could’ve done it after she left the station. They’re shy motive, but they’ve got opportunity.”

“Same as me,” I said.

“That’s what I hear.”

“So how’d they glom on to me so quick?” I said.

“This is why I don’t think you did it,” said Horowitz.

“Why?”

“Churchill had a piece of paper in his pocket. It had your name, the name of the bar you met him at—”

“Skeeter’s.”

“Right. And the time. Nine o’clock.”

“How’s that get me off the hook?”

“It gets you off the hook with me. Not with Sylvestro and Finnigan. See, I know you, and for all your shortcomings, I know you ain’t dumb. If you shot Churchill to death, you would’ve gone through his pockets. You sure as hell wouldn’t have left that piece of paper there. In fact, it occurred to me that whoever did shoot him might’ve stuck the paper into his pocket afterwards.”

“Who’d do a thing like that?”

Horowitz laughed. “Make a list of your enemies, Coyne.”

“He had that paper there because we had a meeting set up at Skeeter’s for nine o’clock. That’s how the cops knew to go and question Skeeter.”

“Whatever you say,” said Horowitz.

“So they went to Skeeter’s, and they found out that I had been there with Churchill, that we’d had a discussion that wasn’t exactly amicable, and that we both left around nine-thirty. And since I was basically unable to account for my time between then and eleven-thirty, by which time Churchill was already dead, I could easily have followed him home, or gone with him, and plugged him, and had plenty of time to get back to my place by the time I called Gloria.”

“Well, all of that sounds about the way I’m hearing it around here. They haven’t got a weapon and they haven’t figured out your connection to Churchill. They do have this Warde woman. But they’ve also got you. I know Finnigan. I’ve worked with Sylvestro a couple times, too. They’re good. Dogged. They think they’ve got a hot one, they don’t give up. They’ll work their asses off till they dig something up. I hear you weren’t especially cooperative when they braced you yesterday.”

“They were back this morning.” I said. “I tried to be cooperative.”

“Well, good. You should be.”

“I told them what I could,” I said.

“I gotta tell you, Coyne,” he said. “They came away from that little interrogation more suspicious than when they went into it.”

“I imagine they did.”

“The way I hear it, you fudged awhile before you admitted you’d been with the guy.”

“They showed me his picture and told me his name. When I met Churchill he was wearing sunglasses and a fake mustache. I didn’t know his name. Once I figured out he was the guy I met at Skeeter’s, I readily admitted it.”

“They thought it was odd, you didn’t recognize his picture or latch onto his name.”

“Suspicious, you mean.”