Devil's Corner Read online

  “I am so sorry for your loss,” Vicki said, and Mrs. Bott seemed resigned, and overwhelmingly sad.

  “Thank you very much. You know, I told her, if she comes to the city, things happen. Things like this.”

  And it made Vicki sad, too, that she couldn’t deny it. Even in her hometown.

  In time, she packed Mrs. Bott and Mrs. Greenwood into a Yellow cab bound for the bus station. She offered to buy them an airplane ticket, but they wouldn’t hear of it, and she had to promise if she ever went to north Florida she’d stop in for pecan cookies. She stayed on the corner in the cold, waving to them as the cab drove off, already formulating her next step.

  She hadn’t learned enough about Shay Jackson, and there was someone else who might know more. Cars and SEPTA buses rumbled down the cobblestone patches of Spruce Street, spewing chalky exhaust into the frigid air, and Vicki looked for another cab. She wouldn’t be doing police work, exactly. It was more like an errand.

  She wasn’t suspended from errands, was she?

  TEN

  The sun burned cold in the cold clear sky, but Vicki stayed warm by keeping up, stride for stride, with Jim Cavanaugh. Cavanaugh was tall, thin, and superbly tailored in a gray wool coat he’d undoubtedly bought with his signing bonus. Former AUSAs earned $150,000 to start when they joined the big Philly law firms, so they upgraded their wardrobes, bought a car with excessive horsepower, and demoted the Jetta to “station car.” Vicki experienced paycheck envy. Working for Justice paid one-third of that amount, which proved there was no justice.

  “I need to ask you about one of your old cases,” she said, hurrying alongside Cavanaugh down the busy sidewalk. His tie flew to the side, catching a bracing breeze as they strode down the street. He’d been too busy to meet with her in his office, but she’d insisted, so he’d agreed to let her walk him to his deposition. “The defendant’s named Reheema Bristow, indicted for a straw purchase. You had the case just before you left our office.”

  “A straw case?” Cavanaugh wore hip rimless glasses, and his dark bangs flipped up as he barreled along. Businessmen in topcoats, workers in down jackets, and well-dressed women streamed past them on the sidewalk, laughing and talking, going back to work after lunch. “I picked up a straw case? I thought I was cooler than that.”

  “Two guns purchased, a CI named Shayla Jackson?”

  “No clue.”

  “You spoke with Jackson on the phone?”

  “Don’t remember that.”

  “You must have met her at the grand jury.”

  “Name doesn’t ring a bell. What did she look like?”

  Vicki flashed on the scene of Jackson strafed with gunfire, then shifted to the photos on the mirror. “A pretty girl, black, nice smile.”

  “That’s everybody.”

  Great. “Think about it. The case had a knockout for a defendant. Reheema Bristow. Tall, black, lovely face, killer body. Looks like a model.”

  “Oh, yeah.” Cavanaugh smiled, and breath puffed from his mouth. “Now I remember the case. Who could forget Reheema? She was slammin’. Re-hee-ma.”

  “Yes, Reheema. You held a proffer conference with her, your memo in the file says so. I have it, if it helps.”

  “Let’s see,” Cavanaugh said, and Vicki juggled her handbag to slip the memo out of her briefcase and hold it in front of him while they walked. A kid plugged into a white iPod looked over as Cavanaugh glanced at the memo. “Yes, okay, I remember.”

  “It says her lawyer, Melendez, was there and also your case agent, Partino.”

  “Yeah, they were.”

  “You remember Melendez? Court-appointed, short, a little blocky?”

  “Oh, yeah. Nice guy.”

  Unless he’s suing you. “And Partino. Where’s he, these days? Why didn’t he stay with ATF?”

  “He was a reservist and got called up. Still in Iraq, I think.”

  “So I can’t talk to him.”

  “No.”

  Vicki refused to be discouraged. “Last night, my case agent was killed when he and I went out to see Jackson. Jackson was murdered, too, and she was pregnant.”

  “The CI, I read that online,” Cavanaugh said, and to his credit, he winced. “I didn’t realize it was that case until now. Reheema. So what do you want from me?”

  “I’m trying to find out what happened.”

  “Don’t they have police for that?”

  Best not to dwell. “Okay, let’s talk about Shayla Jackson.”

  “The CI? What about her?”

  “First off, her grand jury transcript wasn’t in the file, and the slip shows you ordered it. You know where it went?”

  “Guilty. I admit it, I wasn’t into filing. Maybe it got misfiled. I love having somebody to do my filing.” Cavanaugh grinned. “I have my own secretary now. Well, the guy I share her with is always out of town. It rocks.”

  “Jackson called you and volunteered to testify, your memo said.”

  “Right.”

  “So she called you out of the blue? It’s weird.”

  “But not unheard of.”

  “I know, but usually there’s a reason.” Vicki didn’t get it. The girlfriend of a drug dealer, calling the U.S. Attorney’s Office to snitch? It didn’t make sense but she couldn’t tell Cavanaugh about the cocaine. “Do you know why she did that?”

  “No.”

  Vicki checked the date of the memo, flapping as they walked. Eight months ago. Shayla would have just found out she was pregnant, if she knew that early. “Did she mention that she was pregnant at the time?”

  “No.”

  “Did she look pregnant then? She wouldn’t have been far along.”

  “I don’t know if she was pregnant. She mighta been a little heavy, but that’s typical. Gold jewelry, tipped fingernails. You know. Ghetto fabulous.”

  Vicki got over her jealousy of his salary and began disliking him on the merits. “Okay, so Jackson came in and testified before the grand jury that Reheema resold the guns?”

  “Yes.”

  “How did Jackson know that Reheema had resold the guns?”

  “As I remember, the defendant told her she resold them.”

  Vicki’s ears pricked up. “Bristow admitted it to her?”

  “Yep.”

  “So they knew each other?”

  “I think that’s what she said. They were best friends.”

  Vicki didn’t get it. She’d asked Reheema this morning if she knew Jackson, and it didn’t seem like the name had even registered. And that was consistent with what Mrs. Bott had said, too. “Who told you that?”

  “What?” Cavanaugh was distracted, exchanging waves with a man he knew.

  “Who said that they were best friends?”

  “The CI.”

  “Jackson?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did Jackson ever call Reheema Mar, or a name like Mar?” Vicki flashed on Mrs. Bott. Actually, she was having separation anxiety.

  “How the hell do you get Mar from Reheema?” Cavanaugh screwed up his nose.

  “Did she?”

  “I don’t know. Christ.”

  “Did Jackson mention a Mar?”

  “No.”

  Vicki felt confounded. “You sure Jackson said Bristow was her friend?”

  “Best friend, she said.”

  “How did they become best friends? Don’t say you don’t know.”

  “I don’t.”

  They barreled down the street, and Vicki shook her head. “It couldn’t be from the neighborhood. Jackson lived in the near Northeast, and from the file, Reheema’s apartment was in West Philly.”

  “If you say so.”

  “Did Jackson have a job?”

  “No idea.”

  “And it couldn’t be from work, even though Reheema worked two jobs.” Vicki was remembering from Reheema’s case file and she suspected that Jackson’s temp job was history, no matter what Mrs. Bott had thought. Jackson was more likely the well-kept girlfriend of a coke deale
r, not a woman who worked. But for some reason, when she got pregnant, she had dimed on Bristow and decided to change her life. “Did Jackson ever mention a Jamal Browning?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know if Jackson had a boyfriend?’

  “What is this, high school?” Cavanaugh laughed.

  “Do you know the names Jay-Boy or Teeg?”

  “They dogs or people?”

  Vicki didn’t fake a smile. “Okay, take me back to the proffer conference. At the conference, did Reheema want a deal?”

  Cavanaugh held up the memo and double-checked it on the fly. “It says she didn’t, so she didn’t.”

  “Did you squeeze her?”

  “I wish.” Cavanaugh laughed. “Re-hee-ma.”

  “Jim, this matters.”

  “I’m sure I did. I used to have a good rap.”

  “It’s odd that she didn’t want a deal, isn’t it? I mean, no priors, so she could get off with almost no time, if she gave up whoever she resold the gun to.”

  “True.”

  “So why didn’t she want to deal?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Didn’t you wonder why?”

  “Frankly, my dear, I didn’t give a damn.” They stopped at the red light on Seventeenth Street, where Cavanaugh faced her, shrugging in his heavy coat. “You’re new, aren’t you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’ll see what I mean. I was halfway out the door by then and I was burnt out. It gets to you. All of it.”

  Vicki didn’t have to ask what “it” was. She’d seen “it” at the D.A.’s office, but it hadn’t gotten to her. Oddly, she’d only wanted more of “it.” Maybe she’d feel differently if her personal life didn’t suck. Or if she owned a station car.

  “I only went to the proffer because Melendez pushed for it. I was there if Reheema wanted to talk, but she didn’t want to talk. She made a stink at the detention hearing, yelling that she was innocent, and got herself a permanent detention.” Cavanaugh shrugged again. “These people, they make their choice, they live with the consequences. I don’t try to figure out why they do what they do.”

  They. “You think she was too scared to name names?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “She didn’t seem scared to me.”

  “Whatever.”

  “You don’t remember anything other than what you told me, or what’s in the memo?”

  “Not really. When I started this job, I had a brain dump, I swear. I don’t remember much from before.” The traffic light changed, and they crossed the street. Cavanaugh picked up the pace, and Vicki hurried along, roasting in her down jacket. A woman going past seemed to recognize her and started whispering to her friends, but Cavanaugh remained oblivious. “I’ve been at my new firm for a year, and I tell you, it’s a totally different world. This meeting I’m on my way to? It’s multidistrict product liability litigation, with 137 corporate defendants. It’s a city, a country! At issue is a defective disposable syringe, specifically the plunger on the syringe—”

  “Excuse me, but was there any corroboration of Jackson’s story?”

  “It was a circumstantial case, so what else is new? The gun dealer reported that she bought them, and the best friend said she admitted reselling them,” Cavanaugh said, defensively, and Vicki recognized his tone. She often had it in hers. No crime was easily proved, Law & Order aside.

  “Who’d she sell the guns to?”

  “Reheema didn’t say.”

  “You mean Jackson said she didn’t say.” The government’s case was so thin, Vicki was almost doubting it herself. “Did they ever find the guns?”

  “No.”

  “They turn up in a robbery or shooting?”

  “No.”

  “So the only proof in the case really was Jackson’s word.”

  “Yes.” Cavanaugh came to an abrupt halt before a massive office tower of dark glass mirrors, and people streamed into the building next to smokers taking one last drag. “Put it in context. It doesn’t sound like much now, but when the indictment was filed, it did. Handgun crime went through the roof last year, I remember that much, and Strauss started Project Clean Sweep to get handguns off the street. The office was cracking down on straws, big time. We got the list of multiple purchasers from ATF, and we went after ’em. We caught Reheema and a lot of little fish in the net.”

  “So we had our story and we were going with it.”

  “Exactly,” Cavanaugh answered, with a final smile. “Now I gotta get to work.”

  “Thanks,” Vicki called after him, but he had already turned and was flowing with the others into the mirrored tower.

  She stood still, momentarily stumped. Maybe she’d been going about this the wrong way.

  But if she was going to try a new tack, she didn’t have much time.

  ELEVEN

  Vicki checked her watch: 3:15. Not bad. The sky was still a frozen blue, so she turned up the heat in the car and steered her old white Cabrio out of the business district in clogged traffic. She’d gone home to get her car and cell phone, and, with a sick feeling inside, wiped it clean and plugged it into the recharger in the dashboard. Almost immediately the phone began chiming, signaling she had messages.

  Vicki reduced her speed, picked up the phone, and tried to ignore the darker line of dried blood around the keypads while she thumbed through the menu to see who had called. Dan. The three messages were as predicted, and she pressed the button to call back, bound to the recharger like an umbilical cord.

  Dan answered after one ring. “Woman! Holy God, what are you up to? You off your Ritalin?”

  Vicki laughed.

  “I heard you tried to kill a defendant! I say, who’s got a problem with that? We all clean the streets our own way. Judge not, lest ye be judged!”

  “I didn’t try to kill her.” After last night, Vicki would never again use that word so lightly. “I just wanted a little information, is all.”

  “So you tried to kill her for it?”

  “Not true!”

  “Bale’s walking around the office with steam coming out of his ears. It’s not a good look for him.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “You’re definitely right about that Botox. He’s completely pissed off and he still isn’t frowning.”

  Vicki felt a guilty twinge and switched lanes.

  Dan said, “Isn’t that a perfect vision of hell? Having all that anger and not being able to express it?”

  “Sounds like work.”

  “Or marriage.”

  Vicki let it go and passed Thirtieth Street. “At least he didn’t fire me.”

  “Congratulations. Your career is really going places.”

  “Thanks for your support.”

  “So what happened? Tell Daddy,” Dan said, and Vicki filled him in completely. “Quite a story. So where are you now?”

  “In the car, going to learn a little more about Reheema. She should get out of jail free in a few hours, and I wanna see what I can see before then.”

  “You think it’s a good idea? Coke? Guns? You? One of these things is not like the other.”

  Vicki smiled. “The most dangerous thing I’m doing is talking on the cell and driving.”

  “Why do you want to know more about Reheema?”

  “I’m curious, is all.”

  “Curiosity killed the Cabrio.”

  “Puns are beneath you, Dan.”

  “You overestimate me.”

  “That’s a given.”

  “No, I mean it.” Dan’s voice turned serious, and Vicki could imagine exactly how he’d look when his handsome features darkened. Basically, he’d look even handsomer. “You’re doing this for Morty.”

  “No, really?” Vicki accelerated when she saw open road.

  “The cops are on it.”

  “Oh yeah? I just met with the CI’s mom, who didn’t even get a call from them. God knows when they’ll get in gear, and I’m not stopping them, anyway. I’m learn
ing about my own case. If anything, I should have known it before.” Vicki swallowed hard, checking traffic in the rearview. A gypsy cab was riding on her bumper. “If I’d taken the time to get that transcript, I would have known the stuff I found out today.”

  “You were on trial. Don’t blame yourself.”

  “I’m at fault.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “Enough.” Vicki braked at the light at Thirty-eighth Street. She was going back out to West Philly again. Penn students crossed the street in scruffy jackets, mingling with university employees wearing plastic ID badges on lanyards. A white police cruiser pulled next to her, and the cop gave Vicki a nasty sideways look, disapproving either of her cell phone or her penchant for police work. “I should go.”

  “Call me as soon as you get home.”

  “I will.”

  “The minute you get home.”

  “Yes, dear,” Vicki said, as if she were kidding. She pressed end, flipped the phone closed, and tossed it onto the seat beside her. When the light turned green, she accelerated. She was almost there, even if her thoughts were elsewhere.

  With Dan.

  TWELVE

  “You’re a lawyer?” the manager asked skeptically, which dispelled Vicki’s concern that he’d recognize her from the TV news. His name was Mike Something and he was maybe thirty-five, his face dotted with old acne scars. He wore a ratty blue sweater with jeans, and his short, dark hair was gelled and spiky, so it stuck up like an unfortunate crown. His eyes were narrow and blue, his nose straight, and his teeth stained with nicotine. Vicki stood in the door to his tiny, windowless back office, and he took way too long to eye her up and down.

  “Yes, I’m a lawyer,” Vicki answered.

  “You don’t look like a lawyer. You’re so little.”

  “I’m a little lawyer.”

  Mike smiled crookedly. “You watch The Practice? I used to watch The Practice. I don’t know why they took it off.” They were in the back office at Bennye’s, a raggedy sandwich shop in West Philly. The paneled walls were covered with an old Miller High Life ad, a taped-up 2001 calendar from a local heating oil company, and an obscene Lil’ Kim poster, which was redundant. The office reeked of leftover cooking grease, and Vicki couldn’t fight the sensation that even the air was sticky. Mike sat behind a small desk cluttered with old newspapers. “I liked the blond chick on The Practice, you know which one?”