'How do you figure?'
'You knew from taping Aaron all those weeks.'
'Knew what?' asked Parver.
'That hammering on those quotes in the books would cause the switch. You started in, then backed off the quotes. She took the bait, thought you were afraid to get into it, so she did.'
'But you never bought it?' Stenner shook his head.
'You gave Abel a real hard time on the witness stand over that there point. The fugue state 'n' everything,' Harvey St Claire said with a smile.
'I don't remember it all that well,' Stenner said brusquely. 'Ten years does tricks to your memory.'
'How about these here Altar Boys?' St Claire asked. There were five of them. Linda and one of them ran. Two others were killed. There were no witnesses to corroborate Rushman's voice, that's why neither of us would touch it in the courtroom.'
'Killed?' Flaherty asked.
'By Stampler-Roy,' Stenner said. 'We all knew that, too. Venable figured she had Stampler, anyway, why risk trying him for three crimes when one would do.'
'After he was put away, it became moot,' Vail added. 'Part of the plea bargain was that I turned him up for all three homicides. It was an inclusive sentence.'
'There's one more thing,' Harvey St Claire said, interrupting Vail's reminiscence. 'Found it in the bishop's library. His books're in a special collection over to th' Newberry. I didn't have any trouble when I got to page 489. The passage was marked for me.'
'Was it recent?' Stenner asked. 'What I mean was, was it marked recently?'
'I imagine Okimoto could tell us. Looked't' me like it'd been there a while.'
'What was the message?' Vail asked.
'It's from
There was a minute or two of stone silence as Vail thought about the message. '
It seemed obvious to Vail that the quote was directed at him. Was his defence of Stampler tainted? Corrupt? Did his defence obscure the show of evil? Was he just being paranoid? After the Stampler trial, Vail himself had considered the possibility that his clever tactics might have obscured the truth - what the Bard called 'the show of evil'. It had taunted him for months, forced him to appraise his career as a defence attorney, to ponder about the mobsters, drug dealers, cat burglars, and other miscreants who had been his stock-in-trade. In the past he had sometimes balanced the scales in his own mind - good versus evil, truth versus deceit - always tempered with the concept of reasonable doubt. But until now Vail had never given a moment's consideration to the question Shakespeare so eloquently posed to him: Had his voice been tainted and corrupt but seasoned with gracious and masterful conviction?
Thinking back, Vail realized that Stampler himself had raised the question in Vail's mind ten years before, as he was being led away to Daisyland; a devious comment, perhaps made in jest, that had goaded Vail for months. Eventually Vail had assumed the inevitable conclusion: It was his responsibility, as an officer of the court, to provide his client with the best defence possible, and that he always had done brilliantly. And so, eventually, Vail had discarded all these ideas as abstractions.
But not, as Vail now admitted to himself, until after they had influenced his decision to take the job as chief prosecutor.
Now, in a frightening
His thoughts were interrupted by the phone. Naomi stepped out of the office and answered it at her desk. She came back a moment later.
'It's for you, Harve. Buddy Harris at the IBI.'
'What the hell's Buddy want?' St Claire said, half aloud, as he left the office to take the call.
'Kind of an obscure message, that Shakespeare quote,' Stenner said while St Claire was gone.
'Yeah,' Vail answered. 'In the Rushman case, the messages always referred to the archbishop. Now who's he talking about?'
