Bury the Lead

33



“HE TOLD ME HE KILLED my wife.” Daniel says this after considerable prodding, actually berating, on my part. He says it after I told him that he was going to lose this case unless I knew all the facts, every single one of them. And he says it with a shaky voice, the emotion of that night and the night his wife died coming back to him in torrents.

He seems so upset that I restrain my very real desire to strangle him with his handcuffs. This represents something that was critical for me to have known at the very beginning, not now, at the beginning of the end.

“When did he tell you that?” I ask, maintaining a calm demeanor.

“The night he killed Linda Padilla. That’s what he said when he first called me.”

“What else did he say?”

“That he would meet me in the park. That he would tell me who paid him to kill my wife . . . to kill Margaret.”

“And you believed that he killed her?”

He nods. “He was telling the truth. Absolutely.”

“How do you know that?”

“He knew what she was wearing . . . a bracelet I had given her for her anniversary. He said he took it . . . he described it.” He nods vigorously to punctuate his point. “There’s no doubt, Andy. He killed her.”

“Okay. So you got to the park . . . and then what?”

“I went to the place we were supposed to meet, the steps near the pavilion. He must have come up on me from behind, because the next thing I remember I was lying on the steps and talking to the cop.”

“Why didn’t you call the police in the first place?”

“He said if I did, or said anything to them, I’d never find out who ordered Margaret’s death. I needed to know that . . . I still do.”

“Is that all?”

He shakes his head but is silent for a few moments, apparently weighing his words. “No . . . he said he had the power to frame anybody he wanted for Margaret’s death,” he says, then more quietly, “He said he could make me appear guilty.”

“So that’s why you never told this to the police?”

“Partly, I guess. But mainly, it was because I didn’t want to lose contact with this guy. You’ve got to understand, I never dreamed they would charge me with Padilla’s murder. Hell, when I first spoke to the cop, I didn’t even know she was murdered. When they arrested me, I felt like I couldn’t change my story.”

I’m trying to process all this new information but having a difficult time. Right now all I can think about is what a selfdestructive a*shole my client has been. It would make me feel better to tell him so, but I’m not sure his psyche could handle it.

“You’ve been a self-destructive a*shole,” I blurt out, choosing my feelings over his psyche.

“I know,” he moans, making me sorry I said it. “Is all this too late to help?”

“I don’t know,” is my honest reply. “What else haven’t you told me?”

“That’s it. I swear.”

“Do you believe that someone paid to have your wife killed?”

He thinks this through for a few moments. “I know he killed her, and I doubt very much that Margaret knew him. So I have no reason to doubt that he was paid for it.”

I head back to the office to brief Laurie and Kevin on what I’ve just learned. We talk about the possible ways we can get this information to the jury, but it’s a short conversation because at this point there is just one possible way, and that is to have Daniel testify. It is not something I’m inclined to do, but fortunately, it’s not a decision I have to make right now.

I call Pete Stanton at the precinct, but I’m told that he has the day off. I try his cell phone number, and he answers on the first ring. I tell him that I need to discuss something with him, and I can actually hear his ears perk up through the phone, as his mind races to figure out how he can cost me money. Pete has never really handled my wealth very well, so he tries to reduce that wealth in any way that he can.

“Maybe we can talk after the Knicks game,” he says.

The Knicks are playing the Lakers tonight, and I was thinking of going over to Charlie’s to watch it, so Pete’s request is surprisingly painless. “You want to meet at Charlie’s?” I ask.

“I don’t think so. I’m getting tired of that place.”

“So where do you want to watch the game?”

“Courtside.”

The game is starting in four hours, is completely sold out, and Pete is expecting me to get tickets. He knows that the only possible way I could do that would be to call a scalper and pay a small fortune.

“You know,” I say, “you’re a greedy lowlife who has no understanding of the meaning of friendship.” I didn’t want to have to come down on him so hard, but he needs to understand that I feel strongly about this.

“Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,” he counters. “Pick me up at the airfield at six.”

“You’re still doing that?” I ask.

“It’s more fun than sex,” he answers.

There’s no logical response for that, so I don’t offer one. Pete earns extra money at Teterboro Airport by taking pictures of people while they are skydiving and selling them the pictures if they make it to the ground alive. They are mostly beginners, out for a fun time, and Pete has been skydiving for many years.

I understand skydiving about as well as I understand Swahili and women, which is to say not at all. People jump out of planes so that they can get to the same ground they were safely on before they boarded the plane in the first place. Why is that exactly?

Of course, they are given equipment that guarantees their safety. Specifically, that equipment consists of a pack of nylon that they open up while hurtling toward the ground at about twelve million miles an hour. Now, I had never realized what an incredibly powerful substance nylon is. For instance, I’ve never heard of prisoners in maximum security prisons trying to cut through their nylon bars in a futile attempt at escape. Nor have I overheard a father at the lions’ exhibit at the zoo telling his frightened son not to worry because the nylon cage provides all the protection they could ever need.

Of course, the nylon is not the last resort. Sky divers also wear a little helmet for protection. Since they don’t wear body armor, if the nylon doesn’t open or hold up, are they supposed to try to land on their heads?

Death-defying acts like this are to me nonsensical. Why would I do them? What is the upside if everything goes perfectly? That I live? I can do that at home on the couch.

I arrive at the airfield just as Pete floats down. He sells his pictures and is in my car by six-fifteen. We’re at Madison Square Garden in less than an hour, first stopping at the will-call window so I can pick up the eight-hundred-dollar courtside tickets left by the good people at Irwin’s Ticket World. We then head for the seats, stopping only so that I can buy Pete a pair of thirty-six-ounce beers, one for each hand.

The first half is a disaster. The Knicks commit fourteen turnovers, are outrebounded on both ends of the floor, and head to the locker room down by sixteen, which represents one point for every hundred dollars I spent on the tickets.

The arena is understandably quiet during halftime, so I try to address the reason I’m here in the first place. “So let’s talk,” I say.

“Now? In the middle of Madison Square Garden? Come on, man, let me enjoy the game. We can go to Charlie’s afterwards and talk all you want.”

“I thought you were tired of Charlie’s.”

He nods. “I was, but I’m over that now.”

The Knicks are down by twenty-seven at the end of the third quarter, which is also when they stop selling beer, so I’m able to get Pete to leave. I start our talk on the way, since I’d just as soon this date not turn into an all-nighter.

“Do you know anything about Tommy Lassiter?” I ask.

He becomes instantly alert, no small feat considering he’s carrying around a bathtub full of beer in his gut. “What have you got to do with him?”

“He murdered Linda Padilla.”

He shakes his head. “He’s a contract killer; the best there is. But he’s not a serial killer.”

“I’m not speculating, Pete. I’m positive.”

“So take the proof that makes you so positive, show it to the judge, and get your case dismissed.”

“I have nothing to show the judge. But there’s no doubt in my mind.”

“Tell me how you know,” he says.

“We got one of the prisoners at County to talk. He said Lassiter arranged Randy Clemens’s murder.”

“You got someone to turn on Lassiter?” he asks, not concealing his incredulity.

I nod. “Marcus was persuasive with someone.”

He knows Marcus, so no further explanation is necessary. “So what are you asking me?”

“To help me catch him.”

Pete laughs, not the reaction I was hoping for. “Okay,” he says, “park over there and wait, and I’ll chase him toward you.”

“I’m serious, Pete. This guy keeps killing people; now might be a good time to get him off the streets.”

He’s now controlled himself to just a few chuckles. “Is he currently in the area?” he asks.

“I don’t know. I’ve got a feeling he might be. I know he was here the nights those people died.”

“Andy, you don’t know if he’s within a thousand miles of here. You have no evidence that he killed those people. What the hell do you want me to do, close the state borders?”

“Isn’t Lassiter already wanted for murder?” I ask.

“Of course. He was born wanted for murder.”

“So I’m a credible source telling you that I have information that he was recently in this area. Isn’t that enough for you to put out an APB or whatever the hell you guys put out?”

“You want me to go to my captain with this?”

I nod. “And tell him that somebody you trust, a goddamned officer of the court, came to you with this. Get him to send his picture out to every cop in the state. And get me a copy of his picture as well.”

“Come on, Andy . . .”

“What’s the downside, Pete? That he’s gone and we don’t find him?”

He nods. “Okay.”

Satisfied with this concession, I bail out of the trip to Charlie’s and drop him off at his house. When I get to my house, it’s almost midnight and Laurie is already in bed.

“Hi,” she says sleepily. “How did it go?”

“He said he’ll do the best he can.”

She smiles. “Good. Come to bed.”

I start to get undressed. “I forgot to tell you. Cindy’s getting married.”

“That’s nice,” she says, though I think she’s more intent on falling back to sleep than hearing what I’m saying.

“She says that when you know, you know.”

“Mmmm” is all she can muster, now almost completely out of it.

“I think she’s right about that. Don’t you?”

“Mmmm.”

I’ll take that as a yes.