slow death.”
“I know, Mike. Don’t worry about the bill. You’ll never see it.”
“That wasn’t the idea, Tom.”
“Hey, Mike, you’re not the only one owes the old man.”
If I had the option of skipping any quarter hour of that particular day, the next fifteen minutes would have been goners. I knew I was skating on thin to no ice at all.
Mr. Devlin’s secretary was at least not surprised to see me. She nodded to the open door. I started to knock, but he saw me and waved me in.
“What did you get from his Harvard buddies?”
Great start. For openers I got to tell him that I hadn’t been there yet.
Let’s face it. The only way through a difficult situation is to plough through the front door.
“I’m going over to Harvard after we finish here. I’ve got to talk to you about a couple of things.”
I warmed up by telling about Red Shoes and Harry Wong. I could see the distress carved in the lines of his face. It needed more time to sink in, but there was no time. I had to get at the main event.
“I’ve got something very personal, Mr. Devlin. We’ve got to get it off the table.” He pushed back in the heavy desk chair. Without doubt, I had his full attention. The thought of sitting down would have relieved a couple of shaking legs, but I had to do this one standing up.
“I went to the court clerk’s office this afternoon. I dug out the Dolson file.”
Those two beacons of eyes registered some mix of anger, pain, betrayal. I couldn’t tell.
“I had to. I think there may be a connection. I need to ask you a question.”
His expression was granite. But he didn’t tell me not to.
“The assistant DA was going after Dolson for a felony-murder conviction. A life term. There was a hung jury. All of a sudden the charge was reduced to simple arson, and there was a deal for a sentence that may have let him out on parole in two years. I know that’s not unusual, but there’s always a quid pro quo. One possibility is that Dolson got off lightly for information on the people who hired him. I’ve got to ask it, Mr. Devlin. Is that what happened?”
I wasn’t sure whether he was going to speak or not. I think he first had to decide whether he was going to dignify the question and the questioner with an answer or just squash me like an ant.
His expression never changed. When he spoke, it was quieter than I expected.
“No. There was no information. Dolson claimed he didn’t know anything.” He took a breath as if he were going to say more, but nothing followed.
“Then the other possibility was that the prosecutor was afraid of a weak case. I know that sometimes happens after a hung jury. But…” Now I was grasping for words. I finally decided no more grasping. Say it, and put us both out of our misery.
“… I know there was rumor of a fixed jury on the first trial.”
Our eyes were locked. If he flinched, I didn’t see it. I didn’t flinch either.
“They’ll never fault you for guts, sonny. There isn’t a lawyer or judge in this city that would brace me with that question. What the hell makes you think…”
“Because maybe I care more than they do, Mr. Devlin.”
I didn’t know what to follow that with, but it stopped the train. Those eyes were still riveted into mine, and I didn’t have a clue what was going on behind them.
Six years went by in the next few seconds. Then his weight went back into the chair, and his head went back against the cushioned rest. I had the feeling that he was coming to a decision, and I gave him time to carry it out.
When he spoke, he was looking at the ceiling.
“You’ve just come about as close to the center of my sanity as anyone since my wife passed away. God rest her. I never said this before to anyone. I never had the chance. It was taken out of my hands, and then it just… festered away.”
He rocked forward out of the chair and walked over to the window. “Dolson had some kind of a deal going. He confessed once to arson. Then he pulled it back when they found bodies. I defended him. That was the case that ended in a hung jury.
“Two things happened after that. The assistant DA offered a plea with a light sentence. I never bargained for it. It was just dropped on the plate. Dolson was never required to ante up any information. It smelled. I didn’t like it, but Dolson grabbed it. I think he was paid to take the fall-at least that much of a fall. He told me as much, but wouldn’t or couldn’t say who paid him. Then when I raised hell with him about fraud on the court, he said he was just joking about the payoff. I had nothing concrete to take to the court, so the plea was up to him.”
He took a breath. I don’t know what he was looking at out the window. I don’t think he did. I didn’t move.
“The other part…”
After a second, he walked back to the desk. He was looking me right in the eye. But that look couldn’t have been meant just for me. I think he was looking at every bar-rail, gossip-mongering lawyer at the trial bar. The voice was strong, and it carried the weight of ten years’ suffering.
“Get it out, sonny. You’re the only one in ten years had the guts to ask me to my face if I fixed that jury. Give me the real question.”
He was in court. He was on the stand, and he wanted the question to come from every one of his peers. The office door was open, but we both ignored it. I put the question.
“Mr. Devlin, did you have anything to do with fixing the jury in the Dolson case?”
He was at full height now, and it came from the bottom of his soul.
“I had nothing to do with it. Whether that hold-out juror was fixed or not, I never knew. Before Dolson pleaded guilty, there was supposed to be an investigation by the disciplinary committee of the bar, or the DA, or both. After the plea, they were both squelched. I went to both offices and demanded a full investigation to clear the rumors. I couldn’t get to first base. The case was closed. Nobody wanted to hear about it, except in the bars and the chambers when I wasn’t there to speak in my own defense. I’ll say it now, for the first time in ten years, in the hearing of another lawyer. I had nothing to do with it. ”
When he sat down, he didn’t fall into the chair. He sat down. The dignity and the immensity of the man’s aura poured over me until I felt a knot the size of an orange in my throat.
There were no more words to say, if, in fact, I could have gotten them out. I could see in his face, as he could see in mine, there was no question of belief.
My voice croaked when I reached the door and said, “Thank you, Mr. Devlin. I’ll do that Harvard run.”
There was a ten-ton silence in the corridor as I walked to the elevator, but it wasn’t tension. They had just heard the sound of justice, and it overwhelmed them.
15
It was pushing five by the time the train pulled into Harvard Square. The afternoon chill had dipped into an early-evening freeze. Crossing Mass. Avenue at rush hour from the island that houses the “T” station took skill, cunning, and the pretense of not looking. The trick, of course, was not to face a driver who was also pretending not to look.
There was always the alternate course of waiting for the light at the crosswalk, but then, why stand out from the crowd? It would only confuse the drivers.
I walked down Dunster Street, which led to the student houses on the Charles River. I found the door of a relatively modern building that housed the offices of tutors and PhD candidates. Barry Salmon fit the latter category.
I had heard from classmates over the years that after we graduated, Barry had practiced his acquired art of classical philosophy for some years at a private high school. Inevitably he came back to John Harvard for a PhD He was well into his second year at this point.
The plug-in letters on the directory board told me that they had filed Barry in room 412B.
