Bury the Lead

35



THE MEDIA HAVE CALMED down lately, which has resulted in my receiving fewer death threats and crank calls. Unfortunately, the reason that the furor around the case has lessened is that things have been going so well for the prosecution. The public feels secure that Daniel is going to be convicted and put to death, so there’s much less for them to be upset about.

My plan this evening is to shake things up in media land, and I’ve scheduled an interview on CNN. To do so, I simply had to tell them that I was going to be making news, not simply rehashing my view that my client is innocent.

Laurie accompanies me into the city, and we park at a lot near Penn Plaza. The attendant comes over and says, “Forty-one dollars.” I assume he’s making me an offer for the car, but it turns out that’s the flat rate to park for the evening. New York parking lots are a better investment than coffee.

We leave the lot and start walking toward the CNN offices. It’s a typical early evening in Manhattan, with wall-to-wall people on the streets. I’m about half a block from the building when I look slightly toward the right and see something that jolts me.

Tommy Lassiter.

He’s staring at me, smiling, and then suddenly he’s not there, having melted into the crowds.

“Jesus . . . ,” I say, and take a few steps toward where he was standing. A few steps is all I can take because of the masses of people.

“What’s the matter?” Laurie asks.

“I’d swear I just saw Tommy Lassiter.”

“Where?”

I point in the direction, but of course he’s nowhere to be seen. “He just looked at me and smiled and then disappeared.”

“Are you sure it was him?” she asks.

I was sure in the moment, but I’ve never been one to recognize faces, and I’ve never seen Lassiter in person. “I think so. Especially because of the way he looked at me. Like he was taunting me.”

“You’re under a lot of stress, Andy. It may not have been him. What would he have to gain from following you?”

“Maybe to stop my going public with his name. To scare me off. Which would not be that tough to do.”

She shakes her head. “He’s got more effective ways to scare you than smiling.”

She’s right about that, so I try to forget the encounter and we go into the building. About an hour goes by before they are ready for me, and I’m brought into the studio, hooked up with a microphone through my shirt, and we’re ready to go.

The interviewer is Aaron Brown, an intelligent, soft-spoken man who seems to have thrived in cable news despite those qualities. I’ve chosen him because I want my news to be taken seriously, not dismissed as the sensational ramblings of a desperate defense attorney. Even though that’s what it is.

Two minutes into the interview, he comes straight to the point. “I understand that you have something new to reveal tonight.”

I nod. “Yes. I know the identity of the real killer of Linda Padilla, as well as the others.”

He takes this revelation in stride. “And who might that be?”

I reach under the table and get the picture of Lassiter that Pete provided me. I hold it up for the camera. “His name is Tommy Lassiter. He’s a contract killer, a hit man. A very successful one.”

“What do you base this accusation on?”

“A number of sources, some of whom I cannot mention tonight. But one of those sources was Randy Clemens, a former client of mine who was recently killed in prison.” I go on to detail the conversation I had with Randy prior to his death, and the details of that death.

Brown asks me why I am going public with this news, rather than bringing it before the judge and jury.

“Because the people that have confirmed this information to me are afraid to testify. Without any direct evidence, none of this would be admissible. But that is why I am here, to reveal Lassiter’s identity and show his photograph, in the hope that others with information will come forward.”

The interview continues for another ten minutes, and by the time I get outside, other members of the media have created a mob scene in front of the studio. I hold an impromptu press conference, during which I make my pitch again. In answer to a question, I deny that one of my reasons for going public is to have the accusation reach the unsequestered jury. I deny this even though it’s true.

As Laurie and I leave the studio, I’m feeling pretty good about the session and what it accomplished. We walk down Seventh Avenue and then turn onto Thirty-fourth Street toward the parking lot. The streets are far less crowded than they were before, since rush hour is essentially over, but I find myself still looking around warily for another sighting of Tommy Lassiter.

A few steps after making the turn, I hear a slight popping sound and feel an impact in my chest. I hear Laurie give out a short scream, and as I reach for the point of impact, I feel a sticky liquid on my hand. I look down and see that my shirt and hand are a bright red.

I’m not in pain, but rather stunned, and it is this plus dawning fear that sends me to my knees. I can hear the crowd around me on the street yelling, and some people are running for cover. Laurie comes to me to hold me on the ground, and I am literally shaking in fear.

I let her lower me farther to the ground, but I am slowly realizing that I am not hurt. “Oh, my God, Andy. It’s paint,” she says. “It’s paint.” She’s half laughing, half crying. “It’s paint.”

It takes me a moment to realize that my lifeblood is not literally draining from me onto the street. Once I do, I instantly know what has happened. Lassiter has given me a demonstration of his power; obviously, this could have been a bullet, and I would be dead.

“Where is he?” I say, but I know that he is nowhere to be found.

Laurie, no longer worried about me, jumps up and scours the crowd, but Lassiter has melted away. I stand up, feeling some embarrassment, and we don’t wait for the police. We rush to the parking lot, get our car, and head home.

Laurie drives, and I spend the ride trying to reduce my anxiety level. Lassiter was trying to scare me, and on that he more than succeeded. But he was not trying to kill me, merely to demonstrate that he could do so. And his primary goal, I believe, was to have fun, to receive a bizarre diabolical pleasure. Cindy Spodek was right when she said he was insane.

When I get home, I get in the shower and scrub off the paint that has penetrated to my skin. Once I’ve done so, Laurie, Tara, and I watch the reaction to my interview on television. It is all that anyone is talking about, and Lassiter’s picture is everywhere. To my surprise, most of the pundits are not dismissing this as a desperation ploy, but rather taking it seriously. The scene on the street goes unmentioned, as if it never happened.

I slowly start to feel like myself again. I have to admit that I’m enjoying the coverage and feeling pleased at my ability to dominate the news. Laurie seems to tire of it more quickly than I do. “Feel like watching a movie?” she asks at about ten o’clock.

“A movie? You want to watch a movie? We’re watching real life, and you’re sitting here with a real star!”

She nods. “And it’s thrilling, just thrilling. But just for a brief break from all this exciting reality, let’s watch some fake life, with a fake star. Shall we?”

Not waiting for an answer, she searches through the movie channels and settles on Witness, with Harrison Ford. “This should do it,” she says. Tara barks her agreement, and I am officially no longer a part of the evening’s entertainment. And though it’s a great movie, and I watch it with them until the end, Ford cannot begin to match my screen presence.

I wake up at seven in the morning to take Tara for a walk. Laurie stays in bed, and my plan is to join her again when we get back. I negotiate with Tara, and she agrees to cut the walk down to a half hour, providing I buy her a bagel. Little does she know that I was going to buy her one anyway. Chalk one up for human shrewdness.

I try to accomplish all this without fully waking up, and I’m doing pretty well until we approach the house. I am horrified to see Vince Sanders pulling up in front. I briefly consider sneaking in the back and then not answering the doorbell, but if Vince is up this early in the morning, he’s not going to give up that easily.

“Vince, what a pleasant surprise,” I lie.

“You got coffee?”

I nod. “In the house. But I’m not drinking it until after the Olympics.”

He holds up a bag. “Good. I got donuts. And wait’ll you see what else I got.”

I let him in the house. “Laurie here?” he asks.

“Upstairs,” I say. “In bed. Which is exactly where I was going to go.”

“You trying to make me feel bad?”

“Yes.”

He considers this for a moment. “It ain’t working. You know I’ve been doing a lot of research on this. Well, guess what? Walter Castle hated Margaret Cummings.”

It could be because I’m still half-asleep, but it takes me a while to mentally process this information and identify Walter Castle. He is the Cleveland billionaire whose company lost over a hundred million dollars when Linda Padilla identified it as having caused a leukemia cluster. It is the connection I wished I would have had Marcus check out while he was in Cleveland. We have since gone over all of Padilla’s possible enemies, but none, including Castle, jumped out at us.

The fact that he even knew, no less hated, Daniel’s wife is a significant piece of news. “Why did he hate her?” I ask.

Now Vince gets smug, knowing his statement has jolted me from wanting him out of my house to anxiously waiting to hear more. “What happened to that coffee?”

I get Vince the coffee and wait while he downs a donut, not too long a wait, since he does so in one bite. “Margaret had a lot of time on her hands, and she tried to put it to good use. So she was active in a lot of causes, the environment, public health, that kind of thing.”

He inhales another donut, taking his time and relishing the fact that he has the floor. “She was the first one to raise the possibility of a leukemia cluster, and she wouldn’t let go of it. Padilla didn’t get in until much later, which made the story go national. And get this: Daniel wrote a story about it.”

He hands me the story and I skim through it. It’s really just a few paragraphs, obviously early on in the health controversy, recommending that it be thoroughly looked into.

“There’s not that much here,” I say.

“Right. But it was Margaret he hated. Daniel was just backing her up. The whole episode destroyed Walter Castle’s reputation . . . his legacy. So he has Margaret killed and then ruins Daniel. The perfect revenge.”

I’m not nearly as confident as Vince that this is the break we need, but it’s certainly an interesting development requiring and deserving much more investigation.

Laurie comes into the room, still in a bathrobe. “Good morning, Vince, want some granola?”

“Are you crazy? That stuff’ll burn a hole in your stomach.”

She goes into the kitchen and comes out a few moments later with a tasty bowl of granola and skim milk. Vince tells her about the Walter Castle connection, and she thinks it’s worth Marcus going back there to check. I agree, and also think I will put Eliot Kendall’s people on it, since it’s on their turf. I call Eliot on his cell phone, and he is excited about the news. He’s on the way to visit Daniel in the jail, and I give him permission to update Daniel on the developments.

For the next hour and a half, Vince peppers me with questions about Lassiter and whether I’ll be able to get my suspicions about him before a jury. He’s pleased, as I am, about the press coverage my interview has gotten. “You were the only thing on television last night,” he says.

“Not in this house. Laurie and Tara watched Harrison Ford.”

Vince puts his finger down his throat in a gagging gesture, which sends Laurie upstairs to put on a sweat suit for her morning jog. I use this opportunity to get Vince out of the house so I can spend the rest of the day preparing for court on Monday. I have a tradition, which is even more important during football season, to rest the day before I open my case, which is why I want to be free to spend Sunday in front of the television.