Nothing Lost Page 4

  Is it grief I feel about Emmett? Or guilt?

  It was thirty-five years since it happened, but now he was dreaming about it again. It. Never a more specific designation. The dream was not exactly a nightmare. Just something that woke him up. Not every night. But more nights than he wished. Often enough so that he came to anticipate it. And to feel relief the nights it didn’t wake him. The dream was like instant replay, viewed from every angle, slo-mo and super-slo-mo.

  Back to the present. The past was too dangerous.

  A live update of the crowds already beginning to picket outside Durango Avenue. There was a thin blanket of snow on the ground, with more promised, and the cameras picked up the frozen breath of the picketers. And the tinted plastic masks of the Capital City riot police who were already in place. He hoped for a blizzard. A blizzard wouldn’t cancel the execution, but snow and below-zero wind chill meant thinner crowds. Thinner crowds might mean no Ted Koppel. And no Ted Koppel meant no Poppy. Poppy, who was going to Durango Avenue to represent the James family.

  The weather was not cooperating. Clear skies, temperatures not expected to drop below freezing.

  Poppy would not be there yet. Poppy was prime time only. Poppy would have a few words to say about what Jesus should do to Percy Darrow. In her role as the representative of the James family. Bringing closure.

  God, Poppy could be a pain in the ass!

  A thought that was constantly percolating beneath the impenetrable imperturbability that J.J. chose to present to the world.

  Another commercial. Then a still of Jocko Cannon in studious black glasses holding three Cap City kindergarteners on his lap at the annual Reach Out Festival the university sports information department conducted at the end of spring practice every year. Followed by a clip of the Reverend Hardy Luther in wire-rimmed aviator glasses leading the Rhino football team in a pre-game locker-room prayer. A second clip of Jocko Cannon in full pads and Rhino black and silver doing a sack dance over the crumbled form of K-State quarterback Kareem Cox. A cut to Dr. John Strong holding a candle at the campus vigil he had organized, protected by a phalanx of Rhino linemen, all holding candles. A head shot of Brittany Barnes circled in a photo of the women’s swimming team, then stock footage of her last-place finish in the backstroke at the conference championships.

  It was as if finishing last justified what happened to her.

  Allegedly happened to her.

  The presumption of innocence must be maintained.

  As Gerry Wormwold had stressed within the hour.

  That investigator of yours is off the reservation, the A.G. had said.

  Miss Vasquez is not my investigator, General. She represents the department. Over which you preside.

  Are you blaming me? She works directly for you.

  I’ll talk to her.

  Call me when you do.

  A weather update, another commercial, then Nathalie Hubbard, as always looking as if her clothes were two sizes too small. Nothing but violations of the penal code on News at One today. J.J. raised the volume slightly. “We’re outside the Criminal Courts Building, Des, where local nightclub owner Bobby Toledo”—film of Bobby Toledo entering the courthouse, head hidden under a raincoat—“accused of the murder of convicted drug dealer Tone Vaccaro . . .” A traveling shot of Murray Lubin scurrying down the courthouse steps. Known as Not-to-Worry Murray, Murray was Bobby Toledo’s lawyer. “You know what I like about murder cases?” Murray Lubin liked to say. “One less witness to worry about.” Murray Lubin said he had no comment, he would try the case in a court of law, not the court of public opinion. “No comment” meant Not-to-Worry Murray was worried. And maybe ready to deal. Tone Vaccaro was no loss. Back to Nathalie Hubbard: “This morning in Department Thirty-three, lead prosecutor J.J. McClure, with his usual flair for courtroom pyrotechnics, ridiculed the defense contention that Mr. Toledo was trying to protect his ex-girlfriend Carmen Capote.”

  Then J.J. trying to push his way past the cameras. Nathalie Hubbard blocked his way. She knew he would stop for her. The legacy of a long-ago post-midnight entanglement in the back of her Volvo station wagon after a department Christmas party. He had bumped his head on a child’s safety seat, and there were Fruit Loops stuck to the soles of his shoes. “J.J., would you characterize this as a good morning or a bad morning for the prosecution, up or down, who was today’s top scorer.” Stop. To the camera. “This is a murder trial, Ms. Hubbard, we don’t keep a running score . . . now if you’ll excuse me.” Over his shoulder: “. . . a drug deal gone bad, no more no less.”

  “J.J., will you be involved with the Parlance case?”

  “I have no comment on pending cases.”

  “J.J., a question about Percy Darrow, will you be at Durango Avenue tonight . . .”

  Unfortunately, yes. But not an answer he was willing to share with the viewers of News at One.

  He had never seen anyone die. Scratch that. He had seen Emmett drown.

  The door to the conference room opened suddenly. J.J. quickly clicked off the remote. Not quick enough.

  “Don’t you ever knock?” J.J. said.

  MAX

  Allie enters the story here. Allie Vasquez. An investigator in the A.G.’s office. I had hired her when I was still there, and J.J. kept her on, even though the Worm had wanted him to get rid of all my people. Allie was also a student of mine. At Osceola Community Law School. The night division. Allie was bright. If she hung in, she would pass the bar. It might take a couple of tries, but she wouldn’t back off, she’d keep taking the bar exam until she got it right. She was thirty-three, and a single mother. I hate that phrase. She got drunk, she got laid, she got knocked up, she had a kid, she couldn’t tell you who the father was, and so she was a single mother. Or maybe she wasn’t drunk, she forgot to wear her diaphragm or take the pill or the guy didn’t want to wear a rubber. Or maybe the father was a shit or a one-night stand and she didn’t want him around. Her daughter’s name was Rhea. Rhea was six.

  I liked Allie. She could be a bit of a cunt, but she would keep me up on things at the A.G.’s. The gossip. What was going down. Nothing that would compromise a case. Just a touch here, a shading there, a peek at the computer records, if I asked, or a phone call. Sometimes she would say no. Fair enough. She had a kid to support, she needed the A.G. job. Getting fired was not on her agenda. She didn’t expect a break on her grade, and I didn’t give her one.

  She was also a special friend of J.J.’s. Or had been. Anyway, that’s what people said. There were not many secrets in a place as incestuous as the courthouse.

  Some of them were even true.

  “Don’t you ever knock?” J.J. said to Allie.

  “Why? You might find something interesting. You can always say excuse me, you walk in on something you shouldn’t have walked in on.” He doubted she had ever said excuse me about anything. “Watching yourself on the tube?”

  “No,” J.J. said. He straightened his tie and slipped on his shoes. “Of course not.”

  “The remote’s by your hand.”

  “So?” Of course Allie would have noticed the remote. And of course she would have called him on the pointless prevarication. Little escaped her. It was what made her a good investigator. Her in-your-face style had antagonized both her superiors and her male partners when she was a detective in the Cap City P.D. It was why the commissioner was so willing to unload her when the A.G.’s office requested another investigator. And no doubt why Max had hired her. Now the Worm was on her case.

  J.J. stared at her for a moment, then pointed to the sandwich. “What in the name of Christ do you call that?”

  “A tuna on rye, hold the mayo, hold the lettuce.”

  “It tastes like tuna-fish sherbet.”

  “J.J., I’m an investigator, I’m not your fucking waitress; you want somebody to nuke your tuna on rye, get yourself a sandwich babe. Patsy maybe.” Patsy Feiffer was the most junior of his attorneys, just a month or two out of arraignments. “She’s so good
with the precedents and the case law and all that shit, she shouldn’t have any trouble keeping your order straight.”

  “You don’t like Patsy, do you?”

  “What’s there to like? She’s a babycake.” Babycake was the name the nonlawyers in the office called the junior assistant state’s attorneys. Always out of earshot. Except for Allie. She wore her class resentment like a wound stripe. “I forgot. Babycakes don’t do sandwich orders.”

  “What I like about you, Allie, is your gift for holding your tongue.”

  “What you like about me is—”

  J.J. cut her off. Change the subject. Work up to the Worm. “How’s Rhea?”

  “A pain in the ass.”

  “She’s six years old.”

  Allie reached over and scraped away a dab of tuna he had not realized had adhered to his chin. “The only thing you know about kids is you don’t have any. So if I say Rhea’s a pain in the ass, buy into it.” She licked the tuna from her finger. A simple gesture she could make seem salacious. Conversation with Allie was like hand-to-hand combat. Blade to blade. The trick was not to engage. Rhetorical argument led nowhere. “Look, I’m due back in court in an hour, then I’ve got to head out to Durango Avenue.” Be matter-of-fact. Cool. An afterthought. “Bring me up to speed on Jocko Cannon.”

  “He’s a fat fuck.”

  A predictable response. “That’s not an indictable offense.”

  “All right. He’s a three-hundred-pound All-American nose-tackle, fat fuck.” Allie scratched her cheek. “What’s a nose tackle anyway?”

  She knew what a nose tackle was as well as he did. In South Midland, schoolchildren practically learned to call defensive signals for the Rhinos as part of their curriculum.

  “Think of a walking Coke machine that falls on people,” he said.

  “And hurts them.”

  “If that happens, nobody gets too twisted out of shape.”

  “That explains it then. He was doing what comes naturally. And nobody got too twisted out of shape about it.”

  J.J. did not respond.

  “So,” she said finally when he kept staring wordlessly at her, “this walking Coke machine dragged . . .”

  “Allegedly dragged . . .”

  Allie didn’t pause. “Brittany Barnes . . . sophomore, nineteen, no, twenty last Thursday, athletic scholarship, swimming team . . .” She consulted her notebook. “. . . down three flights of stairs in Rhino Hall . . . leaving her with . . .”

  “The injuries are established. Whether Jocko Cannon is the perp is not. Or whether there even was a perp. Eyewitnesses?”

  “Jesus, J.J., of course there’s no eyewitnesses. A national championship’s on the line. New Year’s Night. Moon over Miami.” She syncopated a cheer. “ ‘We’re Num-ber One.’ BFD.” Big fucking deal. Allie Vasquez’s mantra. “The people I talked to in Rhino Land all have the same fucking story. She got loaded and jumped from the fourth-floor stairwell. Bombed on Ecstasy, with a Diet Coke chaser.”

  “Any evidence backing up her story?”

  “Clumps of her hair were found on all three landings.”

  “Blood test?”

  “Negative on both alcohol and controlled substances.” Allie closed her notebook. “Then there’s fallback position two.”

  J.J. massaged his temples. He knew what was coming next. The Worm had floated the possibility when they met. “Which is?”

  “She was working her way through the football team. Having already serviced the basketball team. And the track team is in the starting blocks.”

  The A.G. had missed the track team. “And she still wants to go ahead with this?”

  “Wouldn’t you?”

  “Just give me a yes or no, Allie,” he said irritably.

  “She’s not going to withdraw the charges.”

  “Jocko’s lawyered up, you know.”

  “He was lawyered up before anyone dialed 911. Which means no DNA or hair samples without a court order. No way. Every judge in the state has season tickets at Rhino Stadium. Comped. Prime location.” Allie leaned close. “Look, J.J., you don’t have to spell it out. The Worm wants a way out of this; he doesn’t want to take Jocko to the grand jury.” J.J. discouraged his subordinates from calling the A.G. by his nickname. A restriction Allie did not think applied to her. “He wants to be governor. Without the support of Jocko’s old man, he’s dead. Q.E.D. You’ve got me spinning my wheels so it looks like we’re doing something.”

  The point was not arguable. The Worm could not afford to incur the wrath of Ralph Cannon, Sr. Which is why he wanted Allie Vasquez fired. For overstepping her authority, he had said. It’s your responsibility, you’re her immediate superior, take care of it. Thus getting Ralph Cannon, Sr., off the A.G.’s case. And Jocko in the Orange Bowl. “Tell me about your meeting with Strong.”

  “I make an appointment, I go see him. Surprise. He’s got a university lawyer there.”

  “Leo Cassady.” A regent and full-time university enabler to the state legislature. “Enabler” was a kind word for “fixer.”

  “Leo. That’s the one. And some dude from the sports information department. I sit down, I say, ‘Mr. Strong, I have a couple of questions,’ and the flack interrupts and tells me I have to call him ‘Coach.’ Or ‘Doctor.’ And that he prefers ‘Doctor.’ Doctor of what, for Christ’s sake?”

  “Sports psychology.”

  “I thought you had to take a pulse to be called ‘Doctor.’ ”

  Another unarguable point. “What happened then?”

  “The flack puts a tape recorder on the table. ‘To verify the accuracy of the interview,’ he says. ‘Policy of the sports information department.’ ‘Fine,’ I say, ‘I’ve got no problem with that,’ and I take a Sony M-405 out of my bag, slip in a microcassette, and click it on. ‘It’s better if we both have a record,’ I say. The flack says that won’t be necessary, they’ll provide me with a copy of their tape, and it looks like it’s all over before we get started; there’s no fucking way I’m going to use their tape. Then Strong shakes his head at the flack, and he says, ‘No, Larry’—that must be the flack—‘this young lady represents the legal establishment of this great state, and we assume its veracity, as we have learned not to assume any such thing with your brethren in the press.’ Then the million-watt smile. ‘So anytime you’re ready, young lady.’ He’s jerking me around.”

  As if she were a wide receiver he was recruiting. “Get on with it, Allie. Without the editorials.”

  “I was just . . .”

  “Allie . . .”

  “You want to hear my tape?”

  “Your own words.”

  “Okay.” She paused for effect. “I said I had a couple of questions about Ralph Cannon, Jr., aka Jocko Cannon, and the lawyer . . .”

  “Leo Cassady . . .”

  “Leo, right. Leo says no charges have been filed against Mr. Cannon, and the flack says he’s a leading contender for the Outland Trophy, whatever the fuck that is . . .”

  “Collegiate interior lineman of the year.”

  “I should’ve known you’d know that, J.J. It’s a guy thing, right.”

  J.J. picked at a soggy crust of rye bread. Allie’s version of the story was not going to improve.

  “Anyway.” Allie consulted her notebook. She was enjoying this. “The lawyer, what’s-his-face, Mr. Fixit . . .”

  “Leo Cassady . . .”

  “So you said. Sorry. Right.” She paused. “So Mr. Fixit, he says that Ralph Cannon, Sr., is a prominent alumnus, a figure of some importance and influence in this state, so on and so forth, and I say that Ralph Cannon, Sr., did indeed honor this great state, it was a privilege being allowed to walk on the same ground he did . . .”

  “Allie, for Christ’s sake . . .”

  “. . . but that this important and influential man was not the reason I was there, what I wanted to know was why Dr. Strong—I called him ‘Doctor,’ J.J., it’s on the tape—twice felt he had to suspend Ralph Cannon, Jr., t
he aforementioned Jocko, from the team, and the flack said that was covered in the press at the time, and I said, right, I read the clips, but on both occasions Dr. Strong said he would not entertain any questions from the media, so I’d just like to hear him talk now in his own words about these incidents—you know, in a kind of shoot-the-shit way, ‘That Jocko, he’s some kind of dude,’ don’t give me that look, J.J., of course I didn’t say that—and the flack says they weren’t ‘incidents,’ and I said, Okay, we’ll call them ‘suspensions,’ like the press releases did, and the flack says Dr. Strong doesn’t air team matters in the press, and Leo says, ‘Let me give you a little background, which I think will allow you to put this situation in some perspective . . . ’ ”

  Leo Cassady thought everyone had his hand out. It was only the amount that had to be decided. He hadn’t met anyone like Allie in years. If he ever had. “And you said . . .”

  Of course he knew what she had said. Broad strokes via the Worm.

  “I say, What you call a situation, Section 242 of the Penal Code calls battery, to wit, ‘Any willful and unlawful use of force or violence upon the person of another.’ And he says, this Leo character, ‘I’m an attorney, Ms. Vasquez, and I don’t need a night school law student to explain the penal code to me.’ ” Allie permitted a smile. “I give him that one, he did some checking on me; how does he know I go to law school at night? I bet the Worm had something to do with it.”

  Her instincts were like gold.

  “I wonder what else he knows.”

  He pretended not to hear.

  “I mean, he’s not as dumb as I thought.”

  “Allie . . .”

  Another smile. Point made. “So I say to Mr. Fixit, Okay, I’d like to get your heads-up on this ‘situation,’ this ‘perspective,’ you mention. And he points to Strong—he’s sitting there like he’s the fucking pope, and just as infallible—and he says, ‘What I see in Dr. Strong is thirty-five years of good judgment in the service of his God, his country, this state, and this university.’ The band was there, it would’ve broken into the Rhino fight song. Then he gets all confidential, Leo, and he says, ‘I have greater access to information than either you or the general public regarding Mr. Cannon, and I am in complete agreement with Dr. Strong and the action he took. This action,’ he’s practically whispering, like he’s talking to a jury when he knows his client is hip-deep in shit, ‘this action doesn’t say what happened was right, this action says that if it happened to John Q. Student, John Q. Student would not be banned from extracurricular activities for as long as he was a student.’