Blood Orange Page 23

  After church David went to work, and Bailey napped on the couch with her favorite blue and white blanket, her thumb in her mouth. Dana walked around the house, unable to settle down to anything. She turned on the television to check the score, saw the Chargers were losing, and turned it off. She took meat from the freezer for dinner, peeled potatoes and put them in a bowl of cold water. She sat down, tried to read a magazine, stood up, sat down again. She called David and hung up before he answered. Called him again and told him the score of the game. He had the radio on in his office. She stood at the sink and looked at the garage apartment. Something about the church’s newsletter gnawed at a corner of her mind.

  She walked into the entryway and sat on the lower step, where she had been letting the mail accumulate in a basket. Sorting through the junk flyers and one-time-only offers, the ads for contractors and cut-rate dentists, she tossed them into a pile to be recycled later and made a separate pile of catalogs and another of periodicals like The New Yorker and Better Homes and Gardens. The front page of that month’s church newsletter had a picture of Lexy and the landscape gardener St. Tom’s had hired to rehabilitate the garden in front of the offices.

  Dana stared at the picture a long while. As she did, a thread of perspiration slipped from her hairline down her cheek.

  The week after Bailey came home, the church had printed a special one-page bulletin. Dana knew that if she looked she would be able to find it somewhere in the house. Not that she needed to see it to remember. It was a sheet of ordinary print stock with one word written across the top in bold block letters: FOUND. Below this was a picture of David with Bailey in his arms. This was the picture that had come through the mail slot in a manila envelope with a noose drawn around David’s neck, the picture Jason had taken. She remembered Beth saying he was making copies of the bulletin at the copy shop where he worked. He would deliver them in his friend Bender’s van.

  Dana reached for the phone and called Lieutenant Gary.

  avid tried to work, but even when he turned off the Charger game he could not wrestle his thoughts into order. Finally he capped his pen and turned his chair toward the window. Through breaks in Little Italy’s skyline of partially constructed buildings, the San Diego harbor was the color of blueberries and dotted with white sails. When he moved to San Diego he had imagined sailing on the bay, even though he did not know a jib from a spinnaker. Sailing, like tennis, and afternoons at the beach, and a Spanish colonial home, was part of the dream life he and Dana had envisioned.

  A client like Frank Filmore had never been part of his dream.

  He had begun the practice of law with high ideals and believing that every individual deserved the best defense. He remembered once telling his brother, a corporate attorney in Wheeling, that when he paid attention to the circumstances of a client’s life he could not say that anyone was all bad or all wrong. In his practice he had dealt with sociopaths and lowlifes he didn’t want within five miles of his family, but in all of them he had tried to discover at least one redeeming quality-a sense of humor, an admirable resilience, something that would enable him to put his full effort into their defense.

  He had a framed sign in his office: YOUR DEFENSE ATTORNEY, LIBERTY’S LAST DEFENSE.

  He hated to admit how naive he had been when he imagined himself a hipper, thinner, and much better dressed Clarence Darrow defending the powerless.

  Frank Filmore was far from powerless. He had enough money to buy himself any five-star attorney in the country. By contrast, Darrow’s constituency-the desperate men and women crowded into downtown holding cells-were lucky to get the services of an underpaid, overworked, and minimally qualified ninety-day wonder.

  David thought of the bills piled up in the basket by the stairs, of the debts the firm incurred just by turning on the lights every day. He and Dana had talked about a trip to Fiji when they couldn’t even afford a weekend in Las Vegas.

  He needed Frank Filmore to pay the bills.

  David flashed on a mental image of Shawna Filmore at the bottom of a well. He blinked and it was Bailey’s elfin face he saw staring up at him from the green water. A sick nausea arose in him. He did not want to defend Frank Filmore for any amount of money. He wanted to throw him in jail and, make him fight with the rats for bread and water. But if he went to the presiding judge and said he hated the s.o.b., the judge would chuck him out of chambers.

  Liking your client was not a requirement of a good defense.

  He could hand the job over to Gracie and Larry, but the judge would object to that, too. More to the point, it didn’t matter who took the case; David knew what he knew. Filmore had killed two children and would probably kill a third.

  He opened his middle drawer, took out the Owens Garage receipt, and spread it smoothly on his desktop. This was the evidence that would take Filmore down, but there was nothing David could do with it that did not compromise his ethics. He might as well toss it away.

  He tipped his chair as far back as it would go and tried to relax; he counted his breaths and imagined his mind with branches like a tree and roots that spread wide and deep. Eventually, gratefully, he slipped into a drifting state of half-sleep.

  The ringing of the phone woke him. No one called him on the back line except Dana. He didn’t want to talk to her until he’d done something with the information Marsha had given him the day before.

  Just after three he sat forward and stood up. He gathered his jacket and briefcase, locked the office, walked downtown to the jail, and asked to see his client. After a short wait a guard escorted Filmore into the interview room. He looked healthy and fit; every black hair was slicked back and perfectly in place.

  “What’s up?” he asked in his phony accent. “Has the prosecutor finally figured out I didn’t do it?”

  “No,” David said. “I’ve figured out you did.”

  Frank cocked his head to one side.

  “And if I know, by the time we go to trial next month, Peluso will, too.”

  “I’m innocent. There’s no way they can prove I did it.”

  David wanted to point out that the two claims were not necessarily connected.

  “I took my car to be serviced the other day.” It was the kind of statement it would be easy to disprove if Filmore decided he wanted to sue David for ineffective assistance of counsel. “And guess what? You and I have the same mechanic, Floyd Owens over on Washington Street.”

  “So?” Filmore’s right eyebrow twitched.

  David leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table between them. “If Floyd’s talking to me about loaner cars, it’s only a matter of time until he talks to the cops.”

  David was spinning Filmore. Though it might happen that way, the odds were against it, because ordinary law-abiding citizens were notoriously reluctant to get involved in high-profile cases.

  “And you want me to be worried about this?” Filmore asked the question with the slightly ironic, British inflection that made David want to pop him.

  “What I want is for you to plead out while you still can. I think Peluso’ll settle for life if I can burn the deal before the police find out about Floyd Owens.”

  Frank looked amused. “Your lack of confidence astounds me. I really expected better of you. I’m going to walk out of here. The prosecution’s got no case, and I’ve got the hardest working lawyer in town.”

  “Did you hear what I said, Frank? He hasn’t got a case now, but he will by the time we go to trial.”

  “I think I’ll take my chances.” He rubbed his eyebrow with the side of his thumb. “I’m feeling rather lucky these days.”

  “I wouldn’t if I were you. I can smell the gas on this one.”

  Filmore sat back, scowling.

  David said, “Here’s what you need to know. Peluso is an ambitious man, and he wants to be mayor. After that, who knows, I wouldn’t be surprised if he dreams of being governor one of these days. And you’re his ticket. He won’t rest, and neither will the police, until they
find evidence that links you to the crime conclusively.” David paused a moment to let his words sink in. “But you’ve got more to worry about than that. Even if Peluso ends up going forward with a nothing case, I still don’t like the odds.

  “It’s the nature of the crime, Frank. Most people when they hear about a child being killed, tied up in a plastic bag and dumped over a hill, they react from their gut. There’s pretty much no one in the city doesn’t want to see you go down.”

  David paused again to let his words register. Filmore was vain and arrogant, but he was also smart. David counted on his intelligence to cut through his ego.

  “In a case like this Peluso doesn’t need much to get a conviction, because there’s no way to impanel an honest-to-God neutral jury. Jurors are supposed to assume you’re innocent until proven guilty, but they don’t. Jurors think because the cops arrested you and the judge refused you bail you must be guilty.”

  David counted five breaths. When he spoke he sounded like a man deeply grieved to bring up a painful topic. “They know about Shawria.”

  “But you’re going to keep that out of the trial, right? It’s irrelevant or prejudicial or something. And even if you can’t, subpoena the records. Get someone to translate for you. The Mexican cops said it was an accident.”

  “Mexican cops don’t have a lot of credibility in San Diego.” David rubbed his jaw. The joint below his ear ached with tension. “You see how it looks? A lousy case, but-“

  “I didn’t kill her.” No English accent now.

  David said, “The way this city feels, I could put God Almighty on the stand to vouch for you and it probably wouldn’t help. The jury is going to want to convict you, Frank. And when Peluso talks to Floyd Owens, he’ll send the cops to go over that other car with a microscope.” David shrugged. “Once they come up with DNA evidence there won’t be much I can do for you.”

  “My wife had the car. The police’ll arrest her.”

  “She was at work all day. Dozens of witnesses.”

  Frank chewed his thumbnail, and sweat popped out on his fore head. David remembered Marsha saying her husband never perspired.

  “Now I get it.” Filmore’s eyes narrowed. “She told you. You probably never heard of Floyd Owens before the bitch opened her mouth. But she paid cash; we always pay cash. There’s no credit card receipt, so there’s no way the cops’ll find out. All I’ve got to do is sit tight.”

  “Maybe.”

  Filmore sat straighter. “I want to testify.” He smiled and ran his hand back over his temples. “I’ll make a good impression. They won’t want to convict me once I tell my side of the story.”

  “Sorry, Frank, I can’t let you do that.”

  “What do you mean? Who the fuck’s paying you?”

  “I can’t let you go on the stand because I know you’ll lie. As an officer of the court and your attorney, it’s my responsibility to see you don’t perjure yourself.”

  “I’ll toss you out.” He slammed his fist onto the metal tabletop. “Defend myself.”

  And if it could happen that way I would bless your name and walk out of this jail a free man. But the judge is a hardnose. He’ll never let it happen.

  Filmore’s eyes lighted. “That’s what you want. To get off this case.”

  David tried to look aggrieved.

  “I’m paying you a lot of money. Every time you come here you’ve got your hand out. I paid for you to defend me, and that’s what you’re going to do.”

  “And that’s what I’m doing. I’m telling you how to keep from tasting gas. I’m giving you the scoop on your chances. As your lawyer, I advise you to take a plea. If you can get one. We’re talking life and death here. You want to roll the dice?”

  David was worn out when he left the jail fifteen minutes later and drove his car across Mission Valley and up the hill to the parking lot opposite the Church of the Madeleine. He rolled all the windows down and let the cool westerly wind rush through the car. The Madeleine Hill was one of the highest points in the city. From his car he looked down on the park surrounding Mission Bay, where jet skiers in wet suits bucked on the choppy water. Slightly south, the Point Loma peninsula extended into the Pacific like a thumb, dividing Mission Bay from the harbor and skyscraping profile of the city. He could see the naval hangars on Coronado Island, the sweeping curve of the bridge, and even farther south an occasional beam of late-afternoon sunlight flashing off the hazy outline of the Tijuana hills.

  He felt like a complete shit.

  And yet as he waited for Les Peluso to join him, he knew he was doing what he had to in order to live with himself. Long ago his uncle had told him that a man could betray anyone in the world and probably get away with it. He just couldn’t betray himself, because he could never walk away from that. David knew that if he went ahead with the trial and got Frank off, he would betray all that was strongest and best in himself.

  The Madeleine was Peluso’s church. He’d know where to come.

  Forty minutes later the prosecutor pulled into the lot and parked his little black Boxster alongside David’s Honda. He laughed as he got in beside David.

  “This is real cloak-and-dagger stuff, man. Feels like TV.”

  “Great view, huh? Once I saw the constellation come in from up here. Huge motherfucker. If the church had to pay taxes on this property it’d be out of business in a minute.”

  Peluso’s wide mouth grinned. “And this is why you’ve brought me up here? To discuss the church’s tax-exempt status?”

  “My guy wants to plead.”

  “No kidding.”

  “Take his plea. Give him life forever. Let’s get this thing done with.”

  Peluso chuckled. “I seem to remember I warned you you’d be sorry you left the good guys.”

  “Point of view, Les, point of view.”

  Peluso rested his elbow on the open window. “Why don’t you go to the judge, get him to take you off the case?”

  “Wecker the Wanker? I’d have to be dying of a contagious disease.

  “You were headed for the top in the DA’s office. If you’d given it a little time …” Peluso shook his head. “You ever miss football?”

  “August to January, but never on Monday mornings.”

  “You weren’t that great, but you were better than the idiot they got now. When I think what management paid for him …”

  “Quit stalling. Do we have a deal?”

  “Well, the thing is …”

  “You want the case to go to trial so you can look good. The Sword of the People and all that.”

  Peluso pretended to be shocked.

  “I’m offering you a guy we both know stinks. I’m saving you time, and I’m saving the city maybe a million bucks. You’ll get your camera time.”

  Peluso shook his head. “A case like this, David, I think the people need to see the trial, see justice in action.

  “When the crime is really horrible, a nightmare scenario, a plea doesn’t satisfy the people’s indignation. They need to see justice done. It helps them believe in the system.”

  “I don’t need a civics lesson.”

  “And you’ll excuse me if I’m just a little suspicious. How come you’re copping a plea now, not a couple of months ago, when I might have taken it?” Peluso chewed his lower lip and watched out the window. “It’s all over the news that Marsha Filmore’s living at your place, which makes me think maybe she knows something. I’m thinking I should send the cops over there to chat with her. She might be more forthcoming now.”

  “Another way of thinking is that if you lose this case, you won’t be able to get elected dogcatcher.”

  “You’ve got a point there.” Peluso chewed his lip some more. “Let me think about it. I’ll be in touch.”

  avid did not sleep well that night, and consequently neither ‘did Dana, who lay awake feeling the bed shift each time he turned. Around two he got up and took a pill. Always a bad sign. The next morning he blew up when Guadalupe came through t
he back door at eight A.M. He gestured Dana to follow him out of the kitchen and upstairs. He closed their bedroom door.

  “What’s she doing here again? If you don’t work, you don’t need help five days a week. Every time that woman comes up here from Mexico you have to pay her cash, cash that comes out of our checking account.”

  “What’s got into you, David? I pay the bills. I know how much I’m spending on Guadalupe.”

  “Listen to what has to come out of that account.” Dana watched his jaw grind as he spoke. “The gas and electric, water for your big garden, two cars, insurance and a special school, and-“

  “Honey, your face is so flushed. I think you should check your blood pressure.”

  “I’ve got a resting pulse of fifty-two, God damn it! Don’t make this about me.”

  She began stripping the bedsheets. “If it’ll calm you down, I’ll send her home.”

  “This isn’t about making me calm. It’s about fiscal responsibility.”

  “I said I will send her home.” Like hell.

  “You told her you’d pay her, and now she’s counting on it.”

  “She won’t make a fuss.”

  “Dana, that’s not the point.” He watched her unfold a clean sheet and fit it to the mattress. She knew he was getting ready to blow. “This is about you, about the way you spend money. How’m I supposed to pay for your housekeeper and babysitter and-” He seemed at a loss for words. “We’re not bloody rich, Dana.”

  She had intended to tell him she suspected Jason of sending the hate mail to their home. Immediately after she called Lieutenant Gary, she had tried to reach David at the office, but he hadn’t answered his phone. Before going to sleep she had written a note in lipstick on the bathroom mirror-wake me when you get home important-but either he had not seen it or had ignored it.

  “What about the message?” he said.

  Now he was a mind reader.

  “What was so important?”

  Just because he could shift moods in a minute did not mean she could. She did not want to talk to him about anything; she just wanted him out of the house.