“Would you ever go back?” asks Vaughn.
I don’t even have to think about it. “No,” I answer. Nothing more. Just no.
The waiter delivers our entrées, and the conversation lulls. We order more drinks and desserts as well. By the time we stand to leave, we are stuffed and loopy. The sun makes us squint our eyes as we leave the darkened restaurant and head back to the office for what we all know will be an afternoon of zero productivity.
After wasting an hour at my desk, I’m about ready to pack it in when Vaughn and Susan enter and turn on my TV. Devlin Walker stands behind a walnut podium, solemnly explaining that the investigating grand jury has recommended charges be brought against seventeen members of the Thirteenth and Fifteenth Districts of the Philadelphia Police Department, all of whom, he announces, were arrested at their homes in the early-morning hours. Devlin drones on about no one being above the law. Then he begins to read off the names of the officers arrested.
An hour after the press conference wraps up, Angie buzzes me. “Devlin Walker’s on the phone,” she says. “Line one.”
I lift the headset and punch the button. “McFarland.”
“You saw?”
“I saw. And?”
“It’s time, Mick. Get Hanson to plead. I’ll accept involuntary manslaughter. Heat of passion. But I need the laptop. More names could be on it. More bad cops.”
“Hanson doesn’t have the laptop. Because he didn’t kill Yamura.”
“Just remember, the laptop has to be pristine. I don’t want a single file touched. Not a single document. You hearing me?”
“You have a nice day,” I say.
“Goddamn it, Mick! I’m giving your client an easy way out.”
“Easy?” It’s my turn to shout. “Plead to a crime he didn’t commit? Go to prison? Lose what little is left of his reputation? Produce a computer he doesn’t have? Exactly which part of that is the easy part?”
“Just do your job and convey the offer. A few years for manslaughter, or the rest of his life for murder one. And don’t forget about the computer. It’s the only reason I’m even talking to you.”
“We’ll see you at trial.”
I hang up the phone, lean back in my chair, and close my eyes. Devlin’s obsession with Jennifer Yamura’s laptop, and his insistence that it be turned over completely untouched, tells me that he knows something about the computer that I don’t.
12
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 4
Two weeks after the indictment of the crooked cops and Devlin Walker’s call, Vaughn enters my office. “Tommy was right about the robberies,” he says. “The police records show that the week Jennifer Yamura was killed, there were three daylight burglaries close to her house. Two of the robberies happened before Jennifer was killed, one after.”
“Police catch anyone?”
Vaughn shakes his head.
“I’ll tell Tommy to get statements from the property owners. We’ll list them as witnesses.”
Vaughn smiles. “I’m starting to smell reasonable doubt.”
“We’ve a long way to go.”
Vaughn leaves, and I call Tommy and tell him that the cop who tipped him off to the mini crime wave was right. “We have the addresses and owners’ information,” I say. “I’ll e-mail them to you now. Swing by and get their statements.”
“Sure,” Tommy says. He sounds tired.
I ask how Lawrence Washington is holding up, and tell him I’m concerned about him harboring an AWOL witness wanted by the police. The idea that Devlin Walker will find out that Lawrence has been holed up with Tommy scares the shit out of me. If Walker found out about Tommy’s link to Lawrence, he might figure out that Tommy was involved in the drug ring. I like Lawrence, but I don’t trust that he would go to jail to keep Tommy out. And I won’t allow my brother to be taken back to prison.
“You don’t have to worry about Lawrence,” Tommy answers. “He knows how to keep a secret.”
“Sure—just ask his buddies in the drug ring.”
Tommy says nothing on the other end, but I can feel the tension.
“Look, if the prosecutors find out Lawrence hid your involvement, his plea deal will be voided, and he’ll be staring at a long prison sentence. They’ll use that to turn him against you.”
“Lawrence owes me, Mick. That’s the difference between me and those other cops. And a long prison term isn’t in Lawrence’s future—no matter what happens.”
I don’t get the insinuation, and I tell Tommy so.
“Lawrence has liver cancer. It’s metastasized to his lungs and his brain. He wants to enjoy his freedom while he still can. I told him he can stay at the trailer as long as he wants. I’ll keep going up whenever I’m able. Bring supplies, help him. Keep him company. Until . . .”
“You really want to go through this again?”
“Hey. I’m the rock. The Slab. Remember?” Tommy tries to sound lighthearted, but his voice is tinged with bitterness.
I can’t recall exactly when I first became cognizant of my father’s coughing. I want to say it was in tenth or eleventh grade. At first, Tommy and I made jokes about the old man’s smoking. But as time went on and the hacking worsened, we got more serious with him, pressuring him to quit. He did, finally, when I was a senior in high school and Tommy a sophomore. By then it was too late, though none of us knew it. And it wouldn’t have made any difference if our father had quit cigarettes years earlier—or never even started smoking. It wasn’t the smokes that killed him but his job at Manheim Newbestos, the asbestos plant where he had worked for twenty years as a machinist.
When I left home after graduation, Dad was coughing as bad as ever, but he was still working and looked healthy enough to wrestle a bear. Throughout my freshman and sophomore years in college, Dad still looked pretty strong, though he often seemed to have a hard time catching his breath. I remember being home during the summer and tossing a football around with Tommy and our father in the field behind our house, and Dad going out for a long pass and then being bent over at the knees, sucking air after he’d caught the ball. Tommy and I exchanged concerned glances, but Dad shrugged it off and told us it was no big deal. When summer was over, I went back to college for my junior year. Whenever I called home, Tommy would tell me Dad seemed to be getting worse, but when I returned for Thanksgiving and Christmas and Easter, he appeared energetic enough and had a positive attitude. I’d asked him more than once when Tommy wasn’t around how he was doing, and he said that, apart from the cough and the wheezing, he felt fine.