A Fool for a Client Read online

  A FOOL FOR

  A CLIENT

  PARNELL HALL

  PEGASUS CRIME

  NEW YORK LONDON

  For Jim and Franny

  1

  “I have a fool for a client.”

  I didn’t doubt it. Richard Rosenberg was one of New York City’s top negligence lawyers, with literally thousands of clients, so it was not surprising that one them should happen to be foolish, particularly since the people who hired an attorney who advertised on TV tended to be less than affluent, less than well connected, and inevitably less than intelligent. Richard didn’t have to tell me he had a fool for a client. Having signed up over half of them myself, I could attest to the fact he had several.

  “You want me to talk to him, Richard?” I said.

  Richard frowned. “Don’t try to be funny. I was trying to be funny. Did you really not get it? Don’t tell me you’re not familiar with that old saw? Let me begin again. I have a fool for an investigator.”

  “Richard—”

  “A lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client!” Richard said. “Can you possibly not know that?”

  “You’re the client?”

  “Sorry. Bonus round is over. You get no credit. Yes, I’m the client. It’s not bad enough I’m in trouble, I don’t even get to joke about it.”

  “You’re in trouble?”

  “No, I fell going into my office and I’m suing myself for negligence. I’m my own client and my own defendant. The only issue now is whether I can represent myself against myself. It will certainly expedite things if I’m the attorney on both sides of the suit.”

  Richard’s sarcasm was legendary. His summaries to the jury were often quoted to first-year law students. A little man with a boundless source of nervous energy, Richard wore opposing counsel down through a barrage of whatever leapt like lighting into his diabolically brilliant mind. In such summations he had been known to talk for five minutes straight without ever coming near whatever the hell it was he was supposed to be talking about, until most jurors had lost track of the case they were trying and reasoned the sheer genius of what they had just heard could not possibly be wrong.

  But even on those occasions he would eventually get to the punch line. I hoped he would here.

  “I’m at sea, Richard. Who are you trying to sue?”

  “Sue?” Richard rolled his eyes. “Stanley, it’s not a civil case.”

  “It’s a criminal case?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re the defendant?”

  “Didn’t I say that?”

  “What’s the charge?”

  Richard sighed. “Murder.”

  2

  I sat up straight in my chair. It was not easy to do. The comfortable overstuffed chair Richard had placed opposite his desk was for the purpose of relaxing clients on the one hand and making opposing counsel feel small and helpless on the other. It was tough to sit up on the edge. Opponents in the know often pulled up a folding chair or opted to stand.

  “Richard, I don’t want to spoil your fun, but could you tell me what this is all about?”

  Richard groaned. “You can’t even do that right. There’s no surer way to spoil someone’s fun than by saying I don’t want to spoil your fun.”

  “You’re charged with murder?”

  “I will be.”

  “Why?”

  “I supposedly killed my girlfriend.”

  “You have a girlfriend?”

  “Not anymore.” He put up his hand. “Sorry. Bad joke. Yes, I had a girlfriend. Maybe that’s too strong a word. We’d been going out for a while. Her name’s Jeannie Atkins. She was a divorcée, worked as a law clerk for Judge Peters.”

  “Judge Peters? You were dating Judge Peters’s law clerk? Isn’t that a conflict of interest?”

  Richard shook his head. “See, that point of law you know. Yes, it might have been a conflict of interest, but Judge Peters doesn’t do negligence work.”

  I knew that. Judge Peters did criminal work, usually high-profile cases of a sensational nature, which is why I knew the name. “He’s not handling this?”

  “I don’t know who’s handling this, but it wouldn’t be him. He’d recuse himself. He’s doing Global Banking, anyway.”

  Global Banking was a case on the magnitude of Tyco or Enron. Clearly he wouldn’t be free for a while.

  “So when was she killed?”

  “Last night.”

  “How did it happen?”

  “How do the police think it happened, or how did it really happen?”

  “Do you know how it happened?”

  “No.”

  “What do you know?”

  “She was killed last night, most likely between midnight and one A.M.”

  “Were you there?”

  “Not when she was killed.”

  “Why do the police think you were?”

  “Because they’re morons.”

  “Besides that.”

  “I was the last person to see her alive.”

  “What about the killer?”

  “He was the first person to see her dead.”

  My mouth fell open. “You can joke about it?”

  “I’m in shock, Stanley. Someone I cared about is dead. Inexplicably—well, maybe not inexplicably—the police think I had something to do with it. I have an acute legal mind, I’m used to rolling with the punches and handling any situation. And I’m utterly lost. I am shaken, and I feel like my fucking head is coming off.”

  Richard paused. His face looked utterly drained. “And I’m scared. Really scared. Something has happened that I can’t handle. It’s personal. And it’s the first time it’s ever been personal. I don’t feel like I’m up to it.”

  “Why don’t you hire a lawyer?”

  “I don’t trust lawyers! They’re a sleazy bunch of scum-sucking, bottom-feeding opportunists, perverting the law to further their own interests! There’s not one of them I would trust not to sell me out for a nickel!”

  “You’re a lawyer.”

  “I rest my case.”

  It was as human a moment as I’d ever seen from Richard. Like he’d let down all his defenses and laid his soul bare. It must have embarrassed him utterly, because he’d covered immediately with his diatribe about lawyers. Which I played into, setting him up with you’re a lawyer so he could bounce back into repartee with I rest my case.

  I hoped, having gotten all that out of the way, he’d be able to relax and tell his story.

  He was.

  3

  “Last night we were out on a date. I took her out to dinner. Peter Luger’s, you know it?”

  I knew of it. I’d never been there. New York City’s most famous steak house was out of my price range. It was also out of my neighborhood. Peter Luger’s is in Brooklyn, you have to make reservations years in advance, and you don’t order off the menu, you just tell the waiter how many people and he brings you your steak. Well-to-do big eaters often inflate that number—a couple will order steak for three or even four.

  My wife and I sometimes order Thai food for two. It’s delivered right to our door.

  “That’s in Brooklyn, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How’d you get there?”

  “Car service.”

  “Limo was in the shop?”

  “I don’t have a limo. I wasn’t going to take my date on the subway. I hired a car service.”

  “How’d you get home?”

  “Car service.”

  “You called another?”

  “Same one.”

  “You had them wait?”

  “That’s what they’re paid for.”

  “What time was that?”

  “Nine-thirty. Mayb
e a little before. I made a reservation for seven. It was a leisurely dinner. We lingered over cognac. Then I drove her back to her apartment.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Fifth Avenue and Seventy-seventh.”

  “Nice.”

  “Just a small one-bedroom.”

  “You pay for it?”

  “No, I don’t pay for it. She got a nice divorce settlement.”

  “You handled the divorce?”

  “I don’t do divorce work.”

  “So what time did you drop her off at her apartment?”

  “Around ten.”

  “You went in?”

  “Just to say goodnight.”

  “What time did you leave?”

  “Around eleven.”

  “You took your time saying goodnight.”

  “I was looking for just the right words.”

  “So you left at eleven?”

  “Eleven. Eleven-fifteen.”

  “How’d you get home?”

  “Car service.”

  “He waited for you?”

  “Yeah.”

  I sighed. “So what’d you tell the cops?”

  “I told them to go fuck themselves. I’m a lawyer, Stanley. I told ’em I know damn well I have the right to remain silent, and I’m exercising that right. Charge me or release me, and hurry up about it, I got a law practice to run.”

  “You didn’t tell ’em anything?”

  “Of course not. I may have a fool for a client, but luckily that fool’s got a hell of a lawyer.”

  “So what do you want me to do?”

  “I would like to know about the case. Unfortunately, no one will tell me about the case because I’m the client so I can’t talk about the case. You, on the other hand, are not the client.”

  “Richard—”

  “You are an investigator hired by the attorney to dig out information for the client. You can talk to anybody and it will not reflect upon the client because you will not be making damaging admissions that can be used against the client in the event of a trial.”

  “And what sort of investigations did you have in mind?”

  “Well, it would be nice to know what the police have. And not just because I might be accused of the crime. I’m upset. I want to know who did it, and I want to make damn sure the police don’t pick the wrong guy, whether they pick on me or whether they pick on some other poor schmuck who didn’t actually do it.”

  “And how do you expect me to find out?”

  “Well, we need an inside track. We need to know what’s happening.”

  “You want me to talk to MacAullif.”

  “Well, you know MacAullif.”

  “You want me to abuse my friendship with MacAullif to get him to tell us something.”

  “That’s not the way it is.”

  “That’s the way he’ll see it.”

  4

  Sergeant MacAullif scowled. “You want to abuse my friendship and get the inside dope on the Atkins murder?”

  “I told Richard that was how you’d see it.”

  “Richard asked you to abuse my friendship?”

  “Richard insisted you wouldn’t see it that way.”

  “Richard’s a lawyer. He’ll claim up is down and make it sound good. He’s bent out of shape because someone bumped off his girlfriend. So he wants to play martyr and avenging angel all at once. So he sends his ace investigator out to pump the cops.”

  “You don’t think he did it?”

  “Not unless he grew a pair of balls. Can you imagine him killing anyone?”

  “No. Can you?”

  “I can’t imagine him fucking anyone. But someone was. If it’s not him, he’s got nothing to worry about. Except looking like a wimp when it comes out.”

  “You’re all heart, MacAullif.”

  “Not according to my cardiologist. I got hardening of the arteries, thickening of the heart wall. To hear the guy go on, you’d think I’m a flight of stairs away from bypass. I cut down on the beer, the weight is under control—well, maybe not.” MacAullif jerked open his desk drawer, took out a pair of cigars, began drumming them on the desk. That was a good sign. He didn’t smoke them anymore, but he played with cigars when he was talking something out. As if he didn’t get rid of a little nervous energy, heads were going to roll.

  He jerked open another drawer, took out a file, flipped a page. “Somebody fucked the broad. She had semen in her.” MacAullif squinted closer at the report. “No, that’s semen on her. So it might have been a hand job. Or a blow job that wasn’t swallowed.”

  I tried to crowd the images out of my head. It was hard to reconcile them with Richard.

  MacAullif flipped a page. “Decedent was due for a deposition this morning, didn’t show up. When she didn’t answer the phone, they sent the super up to check. He went in with a passkey and found her. She was stark naked, hacked to pieces with a steak knife from her kitchen. The body was spread-eagled on her bed. Blood was everywhere. The coroner puts the time of death most likely between eleven and one A.M.”

  “Outside of a snuff film, who takes a steak knife to bed with a woman?”

  “You watch snuff films?”

  “I’ve heard of snuff films. Don’t get sidetracked.”

  “I don’t know how you get someone in bed naked with a steak knife. Hold ’em at knifepoint and tell ’em to take their clothes off?”

  “I don’t know, MacAullif.”

  “It seems a radical approach.”

  “How’d they get on to Richard so fast?”

  “Car service gave him up. Driver thought he recognized her picture on TV.”

  “Great.”

  “According to the driver, Richard came out 11:45 and he drove him home.”

  “11:45?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Sure it was that late?”

  “According to the report.”

  “So Richard came out at 11:45.”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “That’s not good.”

  “No shit. It’s a wonder he’s out walking around. Apparently he’s got a hell of an attorney.”

  “So when he came out, did he seem agitated?”

  “How the hell should I know?”

  “You got the report.”

  “It isn’t in the report.”

  “Anything about his manner? How he seemed?”

  “No.”

  “Well, was he covered in blood?”

  “There’s no mention of it.”

  “That’s the kind of detail a cop would be apt to include.”

  “You’d think.”

  “Well, what kind of details are there?”

  “None. Other than he came out and the guy drove him home.”

  “Did he say anything on the ride?”

  “If he did, it didn’t make the report.”

  “Got the driver’s name?”

  MacAullif looked up from the paper. “See, this is where I get fucked every time. I’m a nice guy, give you what I got. Then you ask me for some totally innocuous something or other that means I’m in a world of shit. If you go talk to the driver it’s gonna blow up in your face, you’re gonna get hauled in for meddling in a police investigation, and they’re gonna wanna know where you got your lead.”

  “MacAullif, calm down. Richard hired the fucking car. You are not the only source of the information. I could find out the guy’s name just by calling the car service.”

  “They might not give it to you.”

  “Are you telling me the police would have told the car service to withhold vital information from the defendant?”

  “Are you asking to be thrown out on your ear?”

  “No, I’m just pointing out if the police make it hard for me to get the information, I will get it another way. Of course when I do, the cops will think you gave it to me, but there’s nothing I can do about that.”

  “God save me from a wiseass.” MacAullif picked up the sheet again. “The guy’s name is F
reddie Baldar. Would you like his address and phone number?”

  “I was hoping for his astrological sign.”

  MacAullif read off the address. I copied it into my notebook.

  “Anything else I can get you?”

  “What else have you got?”

  “I got a hot tip. Attorneys don’t like Richard Rosenberg much. He’s a smug son of a bitch, makes ’em look bad in court. There’s a bunch of ADAs just waiting for him to trip on his dick. I don’t know which one will get assigned to this case, but I think you can count on a fairly zealous prosecution.”

  “What about the doorman?”

  “Doorman?”

  “A Fifth Avenue apartment, surely they have a doorman.”

  “They don’t mention one.”

  “Why wouldn’t they take a statement from the doorman, identify Richard as the man who went up to her apartment?”

  “That’s fairly well established by the driver.”

  “He didn’t go in. For all he knows, Richard hung out in the lobby for two hours.”

  “They’re not building a case in court. They’re investigating the crime.”

  “Oh, you think it’s the ADA who goes out and finds the doorman?”

  “No, I think the cops do. It doesn’t happen to be in this file, but they just got the case. Doubtless they’ve interviewed the doorman by now but didn’t feel the need to inform me. I’m sure if they knew you were dropping by for an update, they’d have faxed it over.”

  “Oh, thank you. Richard was understandably off his game, so it’s good to get my daily requirement of sarcasm.”

  “It’s good to get mine,” MacAullif said. “It takes my mind off the four homicides I have pending. None of which happens to be this one.”

  “You don’t have the case?”

  “If I had the case, don’t you think I’d know a little more than I know now?”

  “You might have it and just not tell me.”

  “It’s good you know that.”

  “But that’s not the situation.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “You told me it isn’t your case. You wouldn’t tell me that if it was. You’d deflect the question. Manage not to answer. But you wouldn’t lie. You tell me flat out it’s not yours, I can take that to the bank.”