Part 13 (1/2)

”Can you explain how you happened to know he had that cameo?”

”Can, but it's a long story. A week or two before Luisa died”” Erno straightened up to correct himself””before I killed her, I was checking on her all the time, spying on her is what it really came down to. But I come in early one morning as she's leaving, and she chews me up one side and down the other about all the thieves I let roam around this airfield. Bottom line, she'd taken this locket off, when it got wound up in her telephone cord, and she'd laid it on her counter. She goes away for a second and when she comes back, there's Squirrel slipping off like a shadow and the cameo is gone. She's cussing me out about this, and crying because it's been in the family for a couple centuries.

”Well, what are you gonna do? So I go hunt up Squirrel. Took a day, but I found him in some h.e.l.lhole in the North End. Course, he said he didn't know nothin about it, but I said, 'Listen, knucklehead, that piece is worth a h.e.l.l of a lot more to that lady than anybody you can peddle it to. Get it back and we'll make it worth your while, no questions asked.'

”Naturally, once I killed her, I didn't think much about that, except I noticed the papers were featuring the cameo as taken off her when she died, which I knew was a crock. I figured Luisa didn't want to confess to Mamma Mia that she'd lost the family treasure. You know, there's always a lot the cops think is true that isn't, but that's another subject.” Erno cast a fast glance at Larry, then reached over to adjust his oxygen. He was starting to look tired.

”Anyway, must have been late September, I run into Squirrel out at the airport. I don't think he could have told you my name but he knew I'd promised him money. 'I still got this here,' he says and takes the cameo out of his pocket. Right there in the terminal. I thought my heart was going to fall out of my chest and roll down my trouser leg, just from shock, you know, because that thing was in the media and I didn't want to be within a mile of it. I told him I'd work on the money, and ran off, fast as if he was leprosy.

”Afterwards, I started in thinking, takin off like that might have been a dead giveaway. Maybe I should have had him arrested and carried on like he was the bad guy. I kind of liked that idea and began researching, you might say, talking to copper friends, pretending I was interested in Squirrel because he was a problem at the airport. Once I found out he had a thing with Gus, too, I started considering it seriously, you know, unloading this on him. Even so, I might not have done it, but then Collins got into that jackpot, and there was Rommy, sort of made to order.

”So far as Collins knew, Rommy was the right guy. I put it that I'd been developing information about Rommy, and I was just letting Collins dress it up a little and pa.s.s it on to get out of this jam. I told Collins I'd send some cops around, and he should make the best deal he could”squirm real hard about having to testify, because I wasn't sure how good Collins would do on the stand. Then, I just waited for a chance to lay all this on some officer, which turned out to be Larry Starczek, when he showed up at the airport a day or two later.”

Erno lifted his hand to point across the courtroom to Larry, who, in the face of this dissection of how he'd been had, seemed finally to be reflecting on the possibility.

”The rest is history,” Erno said.

There was a lull again as Arthur considered his notes. He was going on to Erno's letters to Larry and Gillian, but Erno held up his hand, which, for some reason”his health or the strain”trembled slightly.

”Can I say something here, Judge?” He coughed again, a harsh sound in the silent courtroom. ”It probably won't mean much, but I'd like you to know this, because it's something I always consider. My nephew? He got out in five. Cause he ratted out Squirrel. But he's all grown up. He's come to Jesus, which is a bit much, but he's got a wife, he's got two kids, he's got a little business. I gave him a chance”well, more than one”but he took it. Finally. So in the middle of this horrible mess I made, there's that. I always think about it. I think about it a lot.”

Harlow took this in, like the rest, neutrally, in a mood of somber contemplation. Arthur knew it would be hours before even the judge could puzzle through all the details. But he had a question now. Harlow turned first to Muriel to ask if she minded inquiry from the Court. She answered that she had several questions of her own, but would be happy to let the judge go first. That was the kind of courtroom posturing the judge revered as an art form. He granted her a small smile, before he returned to Erno.

”Before you leave this area, Mr. Raven, I want to be certain I'm following Mr. Erdai's testimony. As I understand what you're saying, sir, you expected to frame Mr. Gandolph, is that correct?”

”That's the best word for it, I'm afraid,” Erno answered. ”I mean, it was a flier, Judge. I was trying to do what I could for the kid, but I couldn't guarantee anything. I knew enough about how this all goes to realize Collins wouldn't get a real big break unless Rommy went down.”

”Well, that's what I'm wondering about. Your calculation was that you'd accomplish that by having your nephew lead the police to the cameo in Mr. Gandolph's pocket. Correct? That's not much of a case, is it? What happens if Gandolph has an alibi? Or explains how he got the locket?”

”That could've happened, I suppose. Course, I'd never have backed him up on the cameo. And you're forgetting that he had a bad history with Gus, too. But I had a pretty good guess what would, you know, transpire.”

”And what was your guess?”

”My best guess? My guess was that sooner or later I'd hear that Rommy had fessed up.”

”To a crime he didn't commit?”

”I mean, look, Judge.” Erno stopped again, his chest and shoulders heaving. He was smiling faintly. ”I mean, Judge, I've been around. You got a heater case and a sewer rat with one victim's jewelry in his pocket and a motive to kill another. I mean, Judge,” said Erno, raising his worn, sallow face to. the bench, ”this ain't Shangri-la.”

Chapter 16.

June 12, 2001 Back to Court THE OLD FEDERAL COURTHOUSE, a three-sided structure fronted by an arcade of fluted Corinthian columns, had been part of the original design of Center City in DuSable, the focal point of a broad plaza called Federal Square. As Gillian rushed along the granite walkways, pigeons with their s.h.i.+ning heads barely rose into the air, giving ground to her, and a puff of underground exhaust ruffled her skirt. Like most Kindle County public transportation, her bus had been late.

Two days ago Arthur Raven had phoned, characteristically apologetic. He and his young a.s.sociate had decided that if at all possible, Gillian should be at court. They wanted her present in case it was necessary to authenticate the letter Erno Erdai had sent her, or to confirm that she had received it in late March before any news broke about Arthur's appointment, an event which arguably might have inspired Erdai to fictionalize. It was a trifle compulsive on Arthur's part, but she had agreed to accept his subpoena with less reluctance than she might have expected.

Now she hurried up the courthouse's lovely central staircase, a gentle spiral of alabaster, unsuccessfully attempting to force from her mind the last time she had been here. That was March 6, 1995. All of the trials against other corrupted attorneys and judges against whom Gillian had been a potential witness were concluded without the need of her testimony. Her service to the government was complete. At her sentencing, several young a.s.sistant United States Attorneys vouched for Gillian's sobriety and cooperation, and her lawyer begged for leniency. Moira Winch.e.l.l, the Chief Judge here before Kenton Harlow, an icy paragon often compared to Gillian herself, remained horrified by the crime, and sentenced Gillian to seventy months in custody. It was at least one, probably two years longer than she had expected under the federal sentencing guidelines, particularly in light of her a.s.sistance to the prosecutors. Yet Gillian had p.r.o.nounced thousands of sentences herself, rarely with any feeling of absolute certainty that she had weighed all factors perfectly, and to her enduring astonishment, she had found the need to speak two words to the judge when Winch.e.l.l had finished with her. Gillian had said, ”I understand.”

On the top floor, she peered briefly through the small windows in the leather-clad swinging doors to the Chief Judge's vast courtroom. Within, Erno Erdai, with a plastic oxygen apparatus in his nose, gripped the rail of the witness box. On a bench that looked, amid pillars of marble, very much like a baptismal font, Kenton Harlow was studying Erno with a finger laid beside his long nose. Her impulse, which she quickly suppressed, was to open the doors and take a seat. A potential witness did not belong in the courtroom. Nor did she personally. Yet her trip to Rudyard with Arthur had led to nights of turbulent dreams. In their wake, as she'd admitted to Duffy when she left the house today, she'd found herself increasingly intrigued by what Erno would say, and the likely impact his testimony would have around the Tri-Cities and, in consequence, on her.

For nearly an hour, she waited across the marble hall in the narrow room reserved for witnesses, still reading about the Peloponnesian War, until the sudden commotion in the corridor made it evident that court had broken. Out of habit, she stood to use the small wall mirror, adjusting the shoulders on her dark suit and centering the largest pearl on her choker. Ten minutes after that, Arthur Raven arrived. He appeared earnest as ever, but there was a light about him which Gillian could not keep from envying. Arthur was triumphant.

He began with apologies. Muriel had just made a great show of telling Judge Harlow that she'd been bushwhacked, demanding twenty-four hours to prepare for cross-examination of Erdai.

”Are you saying I need to come back tomorrow?” Gillian asked.

”I'm afraid so. I'd ask Muriel if she even wants you, but frankly I don't think she'll talk to me at the moment about her plans. t.i.t for tat.”

The wounds of war. Gillian remembered.

”I can give you another subpoena if you need an excuse at work,” Arthur said.

”No, I have an understanding boss.” Ralph Podolsky, the manager who hired her, was the younger brother of Lowell Podolsky, a former P.I. lawyer, who'd crashed and burned in the same scandal that led to Gillian's downfall. Ralph had not mentioned his relations.h.i.+p to Lowell until her first day on the job, and never returned to the subject after that.

Gillian retrieved her purse. Arthur offered to show her how to escape downstairs, unnoticed by the reporters who, he said, were busy flagellating Muriel. In the elevator, she asked how it had gone with Erno Erdai.

”Amazing,” said Arthur.

”Erno did well?”

”I thought so.”

”You look exultant.”

”Me?” The notion appeared to shock him. ”All I've been feeling is the burden. It isn't just losing when they kill the client for your mistakes. I wake up three times a night. This case is the only thing I think about. You know, I've been in the trenches, digging for dollars, for years now”commercial stuff, big companies blaming each other for deals that hit the rocks. I like most of my clients, I want them to win, but there's not much at stake beyond that. If something goes wrong here, I'll feel like somebody sucked the light out of the universe.”

The elevator sprang open. Behind it, Arthur showed her a pa.s.sageway she'd never have found on her own, then followed her out onto the street, eager to exit before any of the print reporters saw him. He said he'd agreed to give his first interviews back at his office to the two leading TV stations. Morton's was three blocks from the courthouse, on the way to Arthur's office in the IBM Building, and he walked beside her.

”What did the judge make of Erno?” she asked. ”Any idea?”

”I think he believed him. It almost felt like he had to.”

”Had to?”

”There was just something that came into the room.” Arthur reflected. ”The sorrow,” he said. ”Erno didn't wallow”he wasn't going to ask anybody to be sorry for him because he did horrible things. But there was a sadness to every word.”

”Yes, sorrow,” said Gillian. Perhaps that was why she had wanted to hear Erno. The foot traffic was light in the lull before evening rush hour. They strolled on a mild day, strikingly bright, as they weaved in and out of the shadows cast by the tall buildings on Grand Avenue. Gillian had pulled her sungla.s.ses from her purse, but found Arthur eyeing her.

”You didn't do what he did, you know,” he said. ”It wasn't murder.”

”Well, that's something to say for myself.”

”And you've paid the price.”

”I'll tell you the terrible truth,” she said. She was aware that yet again she was on her way down a path with Arthur she steadily refused to tread with others, but you could not deflect Arthur Raven with subtlety or indirection. He cried when he was sad and in other moods laughed like a child. He was plain, his kindness was plain, and interacting with him required the same kind of unguarded responses. That was never an easy task for Gillian, and down at Rudyard she'd been surprised by how near at hand certain emotions”a canyon-deep sense of loss, especially”had been in his company. Yet by now he was well established as trustworthy.

”It's not what I did I feel worst about, Arthur. You'll take this the wrong way, and I don't blame you a bit, but I don't think the money changed the outcome of any of those cases. No one can say for sure, least of all me, and that's what makes what I did so insidious. But it was a system, Arthur, almost like a tax. The lawyers got rich, so the judges were ent.i.tled to a share. I was never conscious of taking a fall on a case, not because I was so honorable but because no one would ask me to. None of us wanted to risk arousing suspicions. I'm ashamed of the condition I was in during those years. And the ma.s.sive violation of trust. But you're correct, the years away seem a reasonable penance for that. It's the waste that consumes me.”