State’s Evidence Read online

  The room lacked sound and movement. Our collective mind contemplated streets and shadows, men and cars, sounds and movements, the fatal confluence of metal and flesh and bone. Tolson let the images rage, then spoke softly. “What did you do then, Mrs. Blair?”

  “I drove off, at first, because I was so frightened. But then I realized I had to do something for the man who was lying there, so I found a phone and called an ambulance. Then I went back and looked at him. He didn’t move. I was sure he was dead, and when I heard the siren, I got back in my car and drove away. I, well, I didn’t want to get involved.”

  “Did you come forward later and give a statement to the police?”

  “Yes. When I saw in the paper that they’d found the man who did it but that it looked like he might get off because the case against him was weak, I knew I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t tell what I’d seen.”

  Tolson nodded, then stepped back to a place where he could see all the stage and all the characters upon it with a single glance. “Did you get a good look at the man who drove the second car, Mrs. Blair? At the man who ran the first man down?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Is that man in the courtroom this morning?”

  Her eyes darted away from Tolson’s face but couldn’t find a place to land. “Could you be more specific, Mr. Tolson?” she asked.

  Tolson smiled unnaturally. “Is the man who drove the second car the same man who is sitting in the center chair at the next table?”

  She looked squarely at Fluto. He looked squarely at her. Both of them looked infinitely sad. “I’ve never seen that man before in my life,” Teresa Blair said, her words as faint as the flight of arrows.

  16

  The silence in the courtroom was of the quality that death commands. It lingered until it became a presence, a masked intruder that had forced its way among us and commandeered the room. When it was finally broken, it was by the vulgar thrust of Conway Grinder’s curse, made all the more vulgar by the hush from which it rose.

  The curse unloosed a murmur that threatened to become a din until the judge’s gavel stemmed the sound. Everyone knew what had happened and everyone wanted to make sure the rest of us knew it as well. When I looked at James Blair, he was smiling.

  From the instant of the answer, Ray Tolson had been locked in place, as though his witness had delivered a blow instead of a denial. With the sound of the gavel Tolson moved, in three giant strides, directly toward Teresa Blair, to pry the truth from her with fright. “Mrs. Blair,” he roared, “are you denying that Tony Fluto was the man you saw run down Phillip Vincent on the night of June ninth?”

  Her eyes were closed. “Yes. I am.”

  “Do you recall the statement you gave to me a few days following Mr. Fluto’s indictment, Mrs. Blair? Do you recall identifying a photograph of Tony Fluto, the man sitting right here, as positively the man who was driving the car that night? Do you, Mrs. Blair?”

  Loggins leaped to his feet. “Objection, Your Honor. Mr. Tolson is willfully proceeding in violation of the ethical canons, specifically Disciplinary Rule Seven–one-oh-six, in asserting his personal knowledge of facts in issue. Also, he is attempting to testify. Also, he is impeaching his own witness.”

  “Objection sustained. The jury will disregard the last question. You know better, Mr. Tolson.”

  Tolson backed away from Teresa Blair and reeled about the room, his face aflame. His assistant tried to get his attention, but she was a sparrow against the falcon of his rage. He finally staggered back to the witness stand. His nose was less than a foot from Teresa’s Blair’s. “I ask you once again, Mrs. Blair. Is the man you saw run down Phillip Vincent in this courtroom today?”

  “No. He is not.”

  She answered over Loggins’s objection to the question, but it didn’t matter. At least two of the jurors began shaking their heads, from pity or dismay. The judge’s head was bowed.

  Loggins rose again, a smile sliding slowly across his face. “I move for dismissal of all charges against Mr. Fluto, Your Honor. Clearly, the prosecution has attempted to manufacture a case out of whole cloth and the attempt has backfired, thanks to the courage and honesty of Mrs. Blair. There is no alternative to dismissal of the charges and the release of my client.”

  The judge frowned. “Mr. Tolson?”

  “I request a recess, Your Honor. The testimony is a complete surprise, diametrically opposed to earlier statements from the witness. Other evidence may well be available. In the interest of justice I request a recess to explore other avenues. And to inform Mrs. Blair of the consequences of her behavior this morning.” The look he gave her was one of unmasked hatred.

  “In the interest of justice I insist that all charges be dismissed immediately,” Loggins said.

  The judge thought it over, her chin resting on the heel of her hand. The attorneys glared balefully at each other. Tony Fluto looked thoughtfully at Teresa Blair, perhaps to divine her motive for exonerating him. Tolson’s assistant got up, went over to him, and whispered in his ear, then nodded and trotted out of the room without looking back.

  The judge banged her gavel once again. “This court will be in recess until nine tomorrow morning. At that time the State will be prepared to proceed or a motion for dismissal will be entertained. Is that clear?”

  “It is, Your Honor,” Tolson said.

  “The jury is directed to report back to the jury room at nine as well. You are discharged for the rest of the day.” The jury filed out looking puzzled but relieved.

  “I ask the bailiff to detain Mrs. Blair,” Tolson said after the jury had gone. “Ms. Epley is on the way back with a warrant for her arrest. The charge is perjury.”

  Teresa Blair gasped audibly. The judge nodded and smiled with what looked like regret. “I’ll be in chambers,” she said, and left the bench.

  The clerk trotted off after her. The court reporter folded her Stenorette with sounds of breaking bottles. Loggins and his partners whispered to each other, then gathered up their papers and prepared to leave.

  For some reason Tony Fluto seemed reluctant to depart. Loggins leaned down and whispered to him but Fluto shook his head and stood up. With a shrug he pulled away from Loggins’s grasp and walked over to the witness box and leaned down and said something to Teresa Blair. Tolson noticed the whisper and hurried toward them, but by the time he got there, Fluto was on his way out of the room. Tolson went back to his table and began to thumb through the file.

  I stood up and looked at Teresa Blair. When she noticed me, I widened my eyes in a question. She shrugged listlessly, on the verge of collapse and tears. Her forehead gleamed with seamless sweat.

  I walked toward her, memories of my own days as a trial lawyer welling up as I pushed my way through the bar of the court and walked to the witness box. “Are you all right?” I asked.

  “I think so.”

  “You’re going to be arrested, you know.”

  “I know.”

  “The charge is perjury. Can they make it stick?”

  I was really asking if she had told the truth. She knew it but she evaded. “I don’t know,” she replied. “Can they?”

  I looked at her. “Even if you were lying, they’ll have trouble making a case. Perjury’s tough to prove, partly because to prove you were lying when you said Fluto wasn’t the guy in the car they’ll first have to prove he was. But you might have made a little mistake.”

  “What?”

  “You didn’t just say that Fluto didn’t do it, you said you’d never seen him before. If they can prove you have, even in the check-out line at the Safeway, they may try to convict you, as an example. And because Tolson’s so mad he could eat rocks.”

  “I see.”

  “You should get a lawyer.”

  “Should I?”

  “Do you know any?”

  “No. Wait. A man named Cosgrove. He was kind of a friend, once. In high school. He might help, if he remembers.”

  “Where does he
practice?”

  “Here. El Gordo. But I haven’t seen him in years.”

  “I’ll call him. Wait here if you can. If they take you away before I get back, don’t say anything at all to anyone unless Cosgrove is with you.”

  She nodded silently. I patted the back of her hand and got out of the courtroom without Tolson noticing. James Blair had already gone. There was a pay phone at the far end of the hall and I put a call in to Mason Cosgrove, senior partner in the firm of Cosgrove and Wilty, Attorneys and Counselors at Law.

  He was in, and when I mentioned Teresa Goodrum Blair, his voice slipped out of formality and into concern. “Teresa. God. It’s been years.”

  “How well do you remember her?” I ventured.

  “I was in love with Teresa Goodrum from the time I was fourteen until the day she left town with Trudy Valente. For two years after that, even. I went to Las Vegas once to watch her dance. The most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen and I see it again every time I have more than two drinks. Is she all right?”

  “I think so,” I said. “But she’s in trouble. The DA’s so mad he can’t see. He called her as a witness and she blew him out of the water. She’s about to be booked for perjury.”

  “Which DA?”

  “Tolson.”

  “She does have trouble. He’s good and he’s tough and he never forgets or forgives.”

  I told Cosgrove the story, or at least its outlines, and he promised to leave for City Hall right away. “I’ll probably fall in love all over again the minute I see her,” he said with a dry chuckle.

  “You probably will,” I said. Speaking from experience. When Cosgrove hung up without asking about his fee, I knew his sentiments were real.

  When I got back to the courtroom, everyone had gone except the bailiff. “Your name Tanner?” he asked as I stood at the back of the room trying to decide what to do. After I admitted it, he smiled broadly. “Tolson wants you to meet him in his office.” The smile became a chuckle. “Shit really hit the propeller today, didn’t it?”

  “Something like that. Where’s Mrs. Blair?”

  “Being booked.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Basement.” The bailiff raised his gunbelt off his belly, then let it flop back into place. “A man like Tony Fluto,” he said reflectively, “they ain’t never gonna put him away.”

  “I guess not.”

  “Just as well. Hell, those guys, the mob, they just give folks what they want. Women and booze and a roll of the dice.”

  I decided Mason Cosgrove could find Teresa Blair quicker than I could so I took the stairs to Tolson’s office. He and Conway Grinder were there. Each looked as though he had been blaming the other for what had happened, but when they saw me they both got ready to toss the blame my way.

  “What the hell, Tanner?” Tolson exclaimed as I walked in. “You brought her in. Did you know she was going to pull that shit?”

  “No.”

  “Well, what the hell?” he repeated. “What’s going on?”

  “Fluto got to her,” Grinder growled. “He bought her or he scared her. Either way, Fluto walks.”

  “Maybe that’s what happened,” I said. “But maybe not. She doesn’t need money and she doesn’t scare easily from what I can see. Could she be protecting someone else?”

  “I don’t know who,” Tolson said.

  “By the way,” I went on, “you didn’t happen to mention that this was a murder case. Who the hell was the dead man? Why did Fluto take him out?”

  “Never mind that,” Tolson said. “I don’t want you involved in that at all. Syndicate operations in El Gordo are my problem, not yours. What you know could get you killed.”

  “What I don’t know could, too.”

  “Leave it, Tanner. It doesn’t matter now, anyway.”

  “You know, Tanner,” Grinder said, “you don’t seem all that upset. It occurs to me that maybe you told the Blair broad to back off. Maybe you wanted to make sure Tony didn’t mess up that body of hers. Maybe you wanted to keep it just the way it was this last weekend. While you were shacked up with it.”

  “I didn’t tell her anything, Grinder, except to steer clear of you. Which is the same advice I’d give anything above an amoeba.”

  “You know what this is, don’t you?” Tolson interrupted.

  “I know,” I said. “The perfect crime.”

  Tolson nodded as though the phrase had dazed him. “Fluto and that woman set me up. Suckered me into going to trial, into thinking I had a case, and like a fool I fell for it. The minute that fucking jury was sworn, jeopardy attached; now if he’s acquitted or if I have to dismiss the case he can take an ad in the Chronicle and confess he killed Vincent and there’s not a damned thing I can do about it. Well, the Blair woman’s going to pay, I’ll tell you that. Her tits will have sagged to her knees by the time she gets out.” Tolson rubbed the back of his neck as though his bruised and battered ego was housed somewhere deep within it.

  “What’s this new evidence you told the judge you’re going to turn up by morning?” I asked.

  Tolson shrugged listlessly. “Hell, I just wanted to make Fluto sweat one more night.”

  “What about the other witness? The lush?”

  Tolson flipped his hand in a gesture of dismissal. “Across the hall. He’s okay for corroboration, at least if we can keep him away from the sauce for another day. But I can’t go with him alone. I’d be laughed out of the profession.”

  “How about the kid?” I asked.

  “What kid?” Tolson said wearily, then answered his own question. “You mean the one who supposedly saw the whole thing? The one we never found?”

  I nodded.

  Grinder sat up straight. “What the hell do you know about the kid?” he asked suspiciously.

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “You sure?”

  “As sure as I am that you need a new blade in your razor.”

  Grinder started to frame a retort but turned to Tolson instead. “I’ll go down to Oswego Street and try to come up with something on the kid. Maybe after all this time someone will have forgotten there was a reason not to talk about what happened that night.”

  Tolson nodded. “It’s the only chance we’ve got, I guess. You got any ideas on the subject, Tanner?”

  “Maybe one or two.”

  “You willing to spend another day on this?”

  I thought it over. I didn’t really care whether they got Fluto or not. He was a minor hood in a world that’s full of hoods, so the sun wouldn’t shine more brightly on my block if he went to jail. And if I helped put him there, and he knew it, my apartment might get real warm all of a sudden, the way my office had. Plus, Tolson hadn’t played straight with me, even at the beginning. Plus, I wasn’t comfortable working with cops like Grinder, cops with their backs to the wall, desperate for a conviction. That’s when the rules get bent, when the conscience gets calloused, and the vision blurred. All of a sudden things are overlooked that were spotted easily when they first joined the force. But there was one thing they had that I could use, something I decided to shoot for. “How about a trade?” I asked.

  “For what?” Tolson replied. “The only thing I got to trade is justice, Tanner. The only ones who want to trade for that are scum. You weren’t supposed to fall in that category.”

  Grinder mumbled something that I ignored. “I’ll spend the next twenty-four hours trying to come up with that kid,” I said. “But if I find him, will you drop the perjury charge against Teresa Blair?”

  Grinder laughed evilly. “She must throw a mean fuck.”

  I took a step toward Grinder but Tolson held me back. “Shut up, Grinder,” he said, then looked at me. “I’ll drop the charge,” he went on. “What kid you got in mind?”

  “I’ll tell you when and if I know more than I do now. I’d like to talk to your other witness. The lush.”

  Tolson shrugged. “Help yourself. Room across the way. We cleaned him up some, but he still sme
lls like a wet rug.”

  I crossed the hall to a storeroom filled with piles of tattered law books and mounds of broken furniture and stacks of unused copy paper and file folders and adding-machine tapes. And one other thing. A man. Slumped almost prone in an upholstered chair that tilted oddly on its three functioning legs. His eyes were closed, his lips quivering with his breaths. His wrists and ankles extended well beyond his clothes, which I suspected had been worn by at least one man before him. His skin was jaundiced and dull, as though he’d been gathering dust for years. He was brown-haired and younger than he should have been to be in that condition. He was my age.

  When the door banged shut behind me, he opened his eyes and blinked. “Time?” he asked. The words were formed with cracked and thickened lips.

  I shook my head. “There’s been a complication. You won’t have to testify until tomorrow. If at all.”

  “Then I can get out of here.” He curled his legs under him and started to roll out of the chair. His socks flopped down below his knobby ankles.

  I held up a hand. “I can’t let you leave yet,” I told him. “That’s not my decision to make. Tolson will be in later to talk to you. I just want some information.”

  “About what?”

  “About what you saw the night Phillip Vincent was killed.”

  He sighed and rubbed his lips. “I’ve told it all a hundred times. It just makes me thirsty.” His eyes narrowed. “You don’t happen to have a pint on you, do you? A pint of anything?”

  I shook my head. “My name’s Tanner,” I said cheerily. “What’s yours?”

  “The name is Lufkin. Colin Lufkin. Known to the denizens of Rutland Avenue as Scabs.”

  “Why ‘Scabs’?”

  “This.”

  He raised the left leg of his slacks. The white skin over his shin was broken by a score of red-brown sores, some still festering, the rest crusted over in flaking mounds of dried blood and pus. Scabs smiled as he watched me view the leg, smiled with the smile of a man who knows exactly what will happen next in the world. But I didn’t say anything. “Aren’t you going to ask me how I could let myself get this way?” he prompted. “Everyone does.”