Angela Petrakos first – she’s your executive assistant, I understand?”
Max nodded.
“She was shot this afternoon in Riverside Park, a little after two o’clock.” Max thought there was a prissy tone in McCullough’s voice and he noticed that the man’s teeth were capped. The caps were bad news. They were a sign of self-absorption, the last quality in the world you wanted from your lawyer.
“Who shot her?” Max asked
“They don’t know yet. They haven’t had a chance to speak with her. She’s still in critical condition at Columbia Presbyterian.”
Fuck, Max had been hoping she was dead. If she lived, it would be a freakin’ disaster. The police would grill her and, in her condition, she’d probably spill everything. Wasn’t he ever gonna catch a break?
“So, do they think she’s gonna make it?” Max asked, praying the answer would be no.
“It’s hard to say,” McCullough said. “Her injuries are quite severe.”
“Shit,” Max said, hoping “severe” meant brain damage or something like that.
“Unfortunately, that’s not all the bad news,” McCullough continued, reading from his pad. “About an hour ago, the police entered Angela’s apartment on East Twenty-fifth Street and discovered a body decomposing in her bathtub.”
Max blinked. “A body?”
“Apparently the neighbors had complained about the smell. According to the police, she or someone else had poured Drano all over the corpse.”
Jesus Fucking Christ. She was a psycho. It was as simple as that. Max couldn’t believe he’d fallen for her. If he’d just had a thing for flat-chested women none of this would have happened.
“The police haven’t been able to get a positive ID on the body yet,” McCullough said, “but going by some other evidence they found in the apartment, they’re almost certain the dead guy is Thomas Dillon. Does that name mean anything to you?”
Max tried not to have a reaction. If he’d learnt one lesson in business, it was never show the person sitting across the table from you what you were thinking. He shook his head slowly.
“They’ve talked to some people who’d seen Dillon around the neighborhood, and they said he used to carry a book around with him, a book about Zen. They think it’s the same book they found on your desk in your office.”
“Wait a minute!” Max said. “Angela gave me that! This morning, she said it was a fucking gift.”
“Unfortunately, she’s not in a position to corroborate that right now. In the eyes of the police, it’s a connection between you and Dillon.”
Max shook his head miserably, thinking, What next?
“The police also found a gun in the apartment,” McCullough said. “A Colt Lady. 38. They think this was the gun that was used in the three murders.”
“So Angela killed my wife?”
“Or Dillon,” McCullough said, “or both of them. The police definitely don’t think it was just a coincidence that Angela works for you. They think you were having an affair with her and conspired with her, or with her and Dillon, to kill your wife.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Max said.
“Well, we’ll have to convince a judge of that,” McCullough said. “Which means we need a better explanation for what happened. For instance, maybe Angela had the idea to rob your house, talked Dillon into doing it, and gave him the code to your alarm, but then your wife and niece came home during the robbery and everything went to hell. I don’t know how that cop got killed, but I’m sure he’ll fit into the picture somehow.”
Max hesitated for a second, then said, “There’s one problem you need to know about. A big one.”
McCullough looked at him, waiting. Max wasn’t sure he could trust the guy, but what choice did he have? He had to figure out some way to take care of Rosa and he couldn’t do it if he was spending the rest of his life in jail.
Max leaned close to McCullough and whispered through the bars, “The problem is, it’s true, I was having an affair with Angela. And there’s this guy – his name’s Bobby Rosa – he has these pictures of Angela and me…”
“What kind of pictures?”
“He got into our hotel room the other night,” Max said, “while Angela and I were… well. We were in bed, and he took photos. Then he came to me and asked for a quarter million dollars. I said no, of course. What am I gonna do, start paying off a blackmailer, right? But if those photos get out, it would be bad. I mean, wouldn’t it?”
“The detectives told me about that hotel room. They say they have surveillance video from the hotel showing the two of you going into the room. I don’t know that having photos of you actually in the room would make things a lot worse.”
Max didn’t have an answer to that. He wanted to tell McCullough the rest, wanted to tell him about the cassette Rosa had played for him, about Dillon admitting to Rosa on the tape that Max had hired him to kill his wife. But he couldn’t.
“I agree the affair makes things a little more complicated,” McCullough continued, “but your case isn’t impossible. If it turns out Angela’s the one who killed Thomas Dillon and poured Drano on him, it’ll be easy to show she’s unstable. As long as you’re telling me the truth, I think we’ll be able to build up a solid defense.”
As long as you’re telling the truth. Always a goddamn catch.
“What about Bobby Rosa?” Max said, trying again.
“So he has some pictures of you having sex. So what? It’s not like he has pictures of you killing somebody.”
This was hopeless. He’d have to find a way to handle Rosa himself.
Max shot a glance at the homeless guy on the floor and lowered his voice further. “Do me a favor, don’t tell anybody about Rosa, all right?” He hated that he was almost pleading with this teenager, this freaking child. “Forget I ever mentioned his name.”
“Mr. Fisher, if it’s going to come out, it’s better if we’re the ones who disclose it-”
“Don’t. Just don’t.”
“But-”
“No.” Max wanted to grab him and bang his head against the bars, get him to fucking pay attention for Chrissakes.
“What if Rosa had something to do with the shooting? What if he was working with Thomas Dillon-”
“Look,” Max said, “we didn’t discuss your fee yet, but you came highly recommended and I’m willing to pay top dollar for you to take me on as a client. But if I’m your client that means you work for me. Those pictures Rosa has could be a big embarrassment, especially if turns out Angela is involved with the murders. I don’t want the police finding the pictures and the whole story going public. Do you get it?”
Reluctantly, McCullough agreed not to bring up Bobby Rosa’s name to the police. He stayed with Max for a while longer, discussing strategy, then an officer came and led them into a small interrogation room with a square table. Ortiz and the tall detective sat on one side of the table, and Max and McCullough sat across from them on the other. In the middle of the table a little recorder was going. Ortiz began grilling Max, asking many of the same questions he’d asked the other night. Before answering each question, Max looked at McCullough, but McCullough had a blank expression, like a kid in the back of the class who didn’t do his homework assignment, and didn’t interrupt one time. These days it seemed like they handed out law degrees on street corners – you can probably get one online; answer a few questions and, boom, you’re a lawyer. Max just hoped this McCullough knew what the hell he was doing. But Max had to take it easy. He knew the cops would love it if he started chewing out his own goddamn lawyer in front of them. His lawyer was his ace, his only good card in a shitty hand. His father, a poker addict, used to say, Doesn’t matter about a bad hand, it’s playing it badly that matters. Max finally understood what the hell the bastard had been talking about.
Then Granger, the tall detective, asked Max if he was “involved” with Angela Petrakos.
“Yes,” Max said. “We’d been having an affair for the past few months.”
“How come you didn’t tell me that the other night?” Ortiz asked.
“I didn’t want it coming out,” Max said, “out of respect for my dead wife and her relatives.” He made sure he hit the right somber note. He didn’t go overboard, wiping at his eyes and sniffling, but he let the words hang there.
Max looked at McCullough who blinked once as a sign of approval, or maybe just to show he was actually
