The Hidden Man

had a generally overconfident opinion of my courtroom skills. A good trial lawyer thinks he can convince a jury that day is actually night, that up is really down. A good defense attorney adds in a general ability to confuse a situation, to smear the canvas, because he only has to get reasonable doubt.

I decided to place a call to Joel Lightner to keep me alert. I was probably the first driver in history to talk on a cell phone to improve his driving. “Our friend ‘Mace’ is Marcus Mason,” I told Joel. “He’s Tenth Street.”

“Huh.” Lightner gave off a disapproving grunt. The Tenth Street Crew was a pretty rough bunch, even by gang standards. They were particularly sensitive about loose tongues.

“Give me a location on this gentleman,” I requested.

Lightner went quiet.

“Hello?” I asked.

“How ’bout I talk to this guy?” Lightner said.

“No, I’m good. Address and record would be fine.” Marcus Mason wouldn’t be hard to find. He probably had a sheet as long as the Magna Carta. “You find anything on that apartment where J.D. is staying?” I asked, in part to change the subject.

“Nothing much,” Joel said. “He paid cash for one month.”

“He paid?”

“Yeah, sorry.”

Too bad. I guess I couldn’t expect that Smith would write this landlord a personal check. These guys seemed relatively apt at covering their tracks.

“What about Archie Novotny?” I asked.

“We’re watching him. Nothing interesting so far. He works at Home Depot and it looks like he’s doing work on his house. Doing it himself. I don’t know how to connect him to Smith, Jason. Because I don’t know who the hell Smith is.”

“Sure.”

“I don’t see anything in Novotny’s background, at least so far, that suggests mob involvement or anything like that. This guy’s an unemployed union painter who sits home at night and either watches TV or plays his guitar. He owns a small house and an old Chevy, and he doesn’t have much money in the bank.”

“Okay, well, keep at it.” I had trouble picturing it, too. It was hard to see Archie Novotny connected to Smith and company.

When I got to my office, I made my third phone call to the prosecution’s eyewitnesses on the night of Perlini’s murder-the elderly couple who ID’d Sammy running past them on the sidewalk, and Perlini’s neighbor. These people were stiff-arming me, a common problem for defense attorneys. You refuse to talk to a prosecutor, it’s obstruction of justice. You refuse to talk to a defense lawyer, nobody cares.

Don’t worry about the witnesses, Smith had instructed me. But I wasn’t going to take his word for anything. I needed to visit them. I just had to make sure Smith didn’t know I was doing it.

Marie buzzed me and told me that while I was on the phone, I’d received a call from Detective Vic Carruthers, who had investigated Audrey’s murder back in the day. Initially, I’d hoped to prove that Perlini killed Audrey and then find some way to get that evidence before the jury, for no other reason than to make the jury hate the victim. But now I had another suspect-Archie Novotny-whose motive would be based on Perlini’s molestation of Novotny’s daughter. Now, the jury would know what kind of a guy Griffin Perlini was without my having to prove anything about Audrey. Besides, once I pointed the finger at Novotny, based on Perlini’s molestation of his daughter, the prosecution would probably feel compelled to introduce evidence about Audrey to show Sammy’s motive. With any luck, the jury would hear all kinds of ugly things about Griffin Perlini and decide that nobody should go to prison for his murder.

Maybe Carruthers was calling for his file back. I hadn’t had much of a chance to look through it, and now I probably wouldn’t need it at all.

“Detective, it’s Jason Kolarich.”

“Yeah, Jason. Thought I owed you an update.”

“I appreciate that.”

“I wish I had more to tell you. There wasn’t much of anything in the graves. I’d hoped that Perlini left a memento, some souvenir or something, but he didn’t. The girls were buried naked, so I can’t even look back at clothing to match it up with something we know Audrey used to wear-if we could even do that.”

“Bottom line,” I summarized, “we have to wait for DNA testing.”

“Yeah. I’m on these guys to put a move on it, but you know how these things go. It could be months before we have an answer. So your guy Sammy, he’ll have to put off his trial for, I don’t know, maybe another year.”

That was obviously out of the question, but I didn’t care so much anymore. And Sammy had waited twenty- seven years for definitive proof that Perlini had murdered Audrey. He could wait one more.

“Only thing I can tell you,” Carruthers added, “is we have a preliminary take on the age of these girls. They’re all about the age of Audrey at the time. We can’t be precise, you understand.”

I grew up thinking that I couldn’t fathom how difficult it must have been for Sammy’s parents to lose a child in such a violent way. I had a new perspective now. The imagery produced by this conversation, which I struggled to stifle, was not of Audrey but of my daughter, Emily, strapped in her car seat, struggling for air underwater.

I stared at the motion I had drafted in Sammy’s case-the motion for expedited DNA testing of the bodies discovered behind the grade school or, in the alternative, a continuance of the trial until DNA testing could be completed. I didn’t need this anymore. I could use Archie Novotny’s motive to tell the jury that Griffin Perlini was a pedophile. But filing this motion would certainly provoke Smith. Should I do it? It made me think of my brother. I dialed him on the cell phone.

“Bored as hell,” he said.

“Bored is good. I like bored.” I missed bored.

“How’s it coming?”

“Working on it,” I said. “Getting there.”

I hung up and reviewed the motion. It was ready to go.

“Marie,” I said into the intercom, “let’s file this motion in Cutler today.”

I’d be getting Smith’s attention very soon.

34

LESTER MAPP’S OFFICE was on the sixth floor, above most of the courtrooms in the newly refurbished courthouse. He was given one of the plum, cushy spaces, by which I mean that he had walls and even a door. The place hadn’t really changed since I’d left-torn-up carpets, cheap artwork, drab paint, low-grade furniture.

He swiveled around in his chair and nodded to me. He had an earpiece that must have corresponded to a cell phone. He waved me to a chair.

“Sure thing,” he said, but his attention had turned to me. He was appraising his adversary and, I assumed, was probably feeling good about where things stood. It only took a glance in the mirror this morning to see the purple bags under my hazy eyes.

“Sure thing. We’ll follow up. I’ve got someone here.” Mapp reached to his waist, presumably killing his cell phone. “Jason Kolarich,” he said, in a tone that suggested parental disapproval. “You’ve been the busy bee.”

I didn’t answer. Condescension is not high on my list of quality attributes. I’d prefer that he just call me an asshole.

“Archie-Archie…” He fished around his desk, which looked like a model of cleanliness and order compared to mine. “Archie Novotny,” he said, seizing on the document I had faxed him. “Archie Novotny is the man who killed Griffin Perlini!”

He still hadn’t asked me a question. I settled into my seat and looked around his office.