The Judgment Read online

  “Nice speech. Give it often?”

  Those eyes hardened even more. “Harry Mickleberg was going up and down Gratiot Avenue, killing and robbing the owners of small stores. He was good at it. That’s how he got your fee, by the way, from one of those robberies. We knew it was him who was doing the killing, from informers and other information, but none of it good enough to make a case, at least under your rules. Mickleberg grew up in reform school and spent more time in prison than he did out. He had nice hobbies like sodomizing his sister. Did you know that? If you were making a list of undesirables, you’d have to put Harry pretty high up there.”

  Those damn eyes of his had an almost hypnotic effect. He continued in his command voice. Crisp, professional, no nonsense.

  “We caught him with a gun that had been used in a murder. It wasn’t his gun, and he hadn’t done the killing, but we took the bastard down anyway. I took him down. I was the homicide detective in charge, as you recall. I told a few small white lies on the stand, as we both know. Even you couldn’t shake me, which is the real reason why you don’t like me. I beat you. But from my point of view, I took that prick off the streets for life and saved a few lives in the process. I didn’t play by your neat little rules, but justice got done anyway.”

  I could feel anger rising and I knew my face was reddening.

  He looked past me at my view of the river. “I don’t need you to like me, Sloan. But I do need a good lawyer. An honest one.”

  “I don’t want the case.”

  “You don’t even know what it is. Don’t your rules call for some measure of fairness?”

  “Yes, unlike yours. Mine are called professional ethics.”

  “You still off the stuff?” he asked.

  “Booze, you mean?”

  He nodded.

  My problem had often been headlined in the newspapers, and not so long ago. It was all a matter of public record, though I resented the question. But I answered him, to show, I think, that it didn’t bother me.

  “I’m what is termed a recovering alcoholic. What that means, as a practical manner, is that I don’t drink today. Sobriety is a day-to-day thing. So far, I’ve been successful for quite some time.”

  He nodded slowly. “You’re something of an enigma to me, Sloan. You were once one of Detroit’s courtroom big shooters, then the booze got you and you got disbarred. You seem to have licked your problem but you’re still tucked away up here. Why?”

  “I wasn’t disbarred. They suspended me from practice for a year. To lawyers, there’s a big difference between disbarment and suspension. Disbarment marks you for life. I escaped that.”

  His chuckle was devoid of humor. “Tennis rules, like I said.”

  “If that’s how you look at it. In any event, after the year’s suspension, I came up here to live a quiet life and to stay out of trouble.”

  “You’ve had some big cases since, then,” he said. “And you won them.”

  “I’m good at what I do. I’m a trial lawyer, and experienced. That’s all I have to offer as my stock-in-trade. And, when I want to, I pick my cases.”

  He smiled, exhibiting perfect white teeth. “Years ago they whispered you were crooked, that you weren’t above pulling a few dishonest tricks to win. You know, a little bribe here, a little bribe there.”

  That was the media. It made a better story. And, frankly, at that time, it was good for business. “Everybody wants a lawyer who can put the fix in. I didn’t then, and I don’t now.”

  “I know that.” Those eyes of his seemed to almost glitter. “I’d know if you were crooked, believe me. You’re honest. And that’s what I need, an honest lawyer.”

  “There are a lot of them around. I told you, I don’t want your case.”

  “But you haven’t heard what it is yet. At least give me that courtesy.”

  “You’d only be wasting your time”—I paused—“and money,” I added, to remind him that this was business and I didn’t have to sit there and listen to him for free.

  He nodded. “It’s my time.” He smiled. “And my money.”

  “If that’s what you want to do, go on.”

  He shifted slightly to make himself more comfortable in the old chair.

  “The mayor appointed me as deputy chief in an off moment just to make sure the department wasn’t run into the ground or sold to France.”

  “I know the situation.”

  He paused. “Am I protected here, the lawyer-client thing?”

  I nodded. “For this visit only, you are my client. I will charge you for my time. What you say here is privileged and can go no further.”

  He blinked, then continued. “I knew what I was getting into when I took thé deputy chief job. The department has been my life. I watched it go from a spit-and-polish outfit to a Turkish bazaar. Half the cops have something going on the side. It’s like being the chief operating officer of a mall. Everybody is doing a little business.”

  “If you knew that, why did you take the job?”

  “It was important to me. I thought, over time, I might be able to make things better.”

  “Sure.”

  He smiled. “I mean it, whether you believe me or not. Anyway, I think in the past couple of years I’ve done some good. We don’t have the money or the people to do a proper job, but I like to think we have come a long way.”

  “How about crooked cops?”

  He raised his hands as if in surrender. “There are a lot fewer than when I took over. There’s a lot of money out there on the street. Sometimes, especially for a young cop, temptation overcomes common sense. Anyway, I cleaned up Internal Affairs, put my own people in there, and we’ve been weeding out as many bad cops as we can, as a practical matter.”

  “A practical matter that can cover a lot of territory. Or very little, depending on your point of view.”

  “I’ll get down to specifics,” he said. “My boss, on paper anyway, is too stupid to steal. That’s done for him by others.”

  “Oh?”

  “Our mayor is a multimillionaire. He had to borrow car fare when he was elected. Does that tell you anything?”

  “The feds have tried to nail him, and each time they failed. He’s either honest or smart as hell.”

  “Smart. He has the mind of a twelfth-century Italian merchant. And he has his hand in almost everything that goes on in this town.”

  “So arrest him.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  He smiled, but it slid into another sneer. “Because of lawyer rules, mostly. We know who his bagmen are. Who his drug contacts are. We have everything, except a willing witness, or something to convince a jury of a payoff.”

  “Did you actually start an investigation?”

  He nodded. “With my own selected people, or so I thought, called the Untouchables. We have more spies at headquarters than the CIA ever did in Russia. Some report to the drug dealers, some to me, some to the mayor.”

  “What’s all this got to do with your problem?”

  “If you had a bloodhound on your trail, what would you do?” He paused only for effect. “You’d shoot the dog, right?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Well, this is the mayor’s version of shooting the dog. He can’t fire me. That would raise too many questions, and it would be embarrassing if I told what I know. That leaves murder, which is messy, especially if you don’t need to resort to it.”

  “Are you saying the mayor is trying to frame you?”

  “God, you’re quick, Sloan.”

  “And just how does the mayor propose to do this?”

  For the first time he looked nervous. Those eyes seemed to have lost some of their intensity. “They say I stole from a police department fund, a fund founded with confiscated drug money.”

  “Aren’t those things audited?”

  “Not this one. It’s all cash. We use it to pay informers. The city has been after us for years to have their auditors take a look.”

&
nbsp; “And you resisted, obviously.”

  “Sure I did. That would open a whole list of informers for the mayor’s inspection.” He smiled. “Hell, the first thing he’d do is sell that list to the highest bidder. We’d have bodies all over the street and no one would ever give us the time of day again.”

  “You must have some procedure for keeping track?”

  “I did. My own auditor. The Mouse. Remember him?”

  It would be hard to forget the Mouse. He was a policeman but looked like a mountain. Six and a half feet and three hundred pounds. He had played one year for the Green Bay Packers but injured his knee, probably in someone’s throat, an injury that cut short his football career. He had become a Detroit cop and had attached himself to Conroy and had become his very large shadow, his aide, and possibly Conroy’s only friend.

  “The Mouse any good at keeping track of money?”

  He chuckled softly. “He may look stupid, but he isn’t. He kept books, in code, but every dime is accounted for.”

  “Well, if that’s the case, you don’t have anything to worry about.” I paused. “If you’re honest.”

  He nodded. “I’m told the Mouse is going to be the chief prosecution witness against me.”

  I whistled. “That puts a different color on the horse.”

  “I’m also told the mayor is arranging everything, like the producer of a Broadway play. He’ll select the judge, the prosecutor, everything except the color of the courtroom walls.” He paused. “He’d like to select the defense attorney, too, if he could. Short of that, he’ll try to get to whoever defends me. This is one case he doesn’t want lost. Pick a good man, and the mayor won’t touch him.”

  “Wally Figer is one of the best. He wouldn’t be able to get to Figer.”

  Conroy’s eyes began to glitter once more. “That shows how out of touch you’ve been. Wally is the mayor’s personal attorney.”

  “Really?”

  “Anybody who’s any good has some connection with His Honor. Power and money pulls you in like a magnet. I want to be able to go to trial without wondering if this is the day my own lawyer makes a small but intentional mistake that will send me to prison. Like I said, I need an honest man.”

  “Someone unlike yourself?”

  He raised an eyebrow.

  I continued. “How much did that suit cost? Or the shoes? You must have several thousand dollars on your body. That’s not the kind of clothing one associates with an honest, hard-working cop.”

  He chuckled, plucking at his suit. “So you think this is drug money?”

  “It’s a short jump to that conclusion.”

  He shrugged. “Do you know how much the city pays me in salary?”

  “No.”

  “Ninety thousand a year. On top of that, I teach as an assistant professor in criminal justice. Part-time. That brings in another twenty thousand. My wife is a commercial artist, a good one. Pick up any fashion magazine and you’ll see her work. She brings in another hundred thousand plus. We have no children, Sloan. I can afford the clothes, plus a Mercedes, if I wanted one. I spend on clothes, and that’s about all.”

  “Have you ever dipped into the fund?”

  He shrugged. “Once or twice. But it always went back the next day. And the Mouse always knew about it. He handled the money, physically. I left all that to him.”

  “How about his books?”

  “He explained the code to me. Every so often we’d go over how much we had. Informers don’t come cheap anymore. Other than that, I had no connection with the money or with the books.”

  “Just the Mouse.”

  “Yeah.”

  “If you’re on the level, the Mouse must have been stealing.”

  “I doubt it.”

  “You do? Even if he’s going to testify against you?”

  He looked past me again. “That’s the part that’s screwy. The Mouse controlled the books and the code. Even if he was looting the damn fund, no one would know, not even me, and certainly no one could prove it. Why he’s testifying I don’t know.”

  “The case will be a circus, you realize that?”

  He nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Frankly, I don’t want the case. I’ve had enough of these courtroom circuses to last a lifetime.”

  He shrugged. “I can’t blame you, I suppose.”

  “Have you talked to the Mouse?”

  “No. He’s disappeared. I put some of my best people out on the job of finding him. He doesn’t want to be found. Like I said, he may look like a dumb mountain, but he’s smart, street-smart.”

  “Obviously, you know the game plan. When are you supposed to be arrested?”

  “Tomorrow morning, at Police Headquarters. I’m supposed to surrender there with a lawyer. They’ll take me to Recorder’s Court and set bond.”

  “Who told you all this?”

  “The prosecutor. I don’t think he’s in on any of this, but it’s his office that’s bringing the charge. Like he said to me, he’s just doing his job.” Conroy sighed. “I’m to be released on personal bond. I will be given a leave of absence without pay until a jury makes the final decision.”

  “It sounds like they have a pretty good case.”

  “You think I’m guilty?”

  “What I think doesn’t matter, does it? It’s up to the jury.”

  “You have any suggestions about who I can get to be my lawyer?”

  “Are you interested in making a deal?”

  “I told you, they won’t go for anything. Nor will I, for that matter.”

  “I don’t mean with the court, I mean between you and me.”

  “What kind of deal?”

  “If I take the case, I can drop it anytime if I think I want out.”

  His eyes bore into mine, and he paused before replying. Finally, he nodded. “Okay.”

  “My services won’t come cheap.”

  “I know that.”

  “I’ll need a ten-thousand-dollar retainer.”

  He took a checkbook from his inside pocket and quickly scribbled out a check and then handed it to me.

  “You still don’t like me, do you, Sloan?”

  “If you want love and affection, you’re at the wrong store.”

  He laughed. “I got the right store. Can you be at my office at eight in the morning?”

  “Sure,” I said. “Oh, one more thing. Wear your dress uniform and don’t say anything. From here on in, I’ll do the talking.”

  He got up and walked to the door, then turned. “I feel better already,” he said. “Thanks.”

  Then he was gone.

  I looked at the check and wondered why I had taken the case. I didn’t like him, and the case sounded like a loser, a big, public loser.

  Still, defending people was what I did for a living. I stuck the check in my wallet.

  2

  Maybe Conroy was right. Perhaps my office did look like it should be lighted by gas lamps. But I felt comfortable in it, and most of my clients didn’t care if I practiced out of the back of a truck. They had far too much trouble in their lives to even notice what kind of furniture their lawyer owned.

  But my office, decrepit and a bit musty, had a feature that compensated for any shortcomings. You couldn’t beat the view. The office had been built, almost as an afterthought, on top of a squat marine insurance agency building located on the river, hence the outside wooden stairway was the only way up.

  My window looks out on the magnificent St. Clair River, the connector between Lake Huron and Lake St. Clair, part of the Great Lakes waterway chain. On the other side of the river is Canada, but not the pretty part. It is a Canada of chemical factories, miles of them, looking like a set for a science fiction movie. I tend to ignore that far shore—it is the river itself that I enjoy, nearly half a mile wide, providing a waterway for everything from canoes to ocean-going freighters.

  I swung around in my slightly tilted office chair and looked out upon my private view.

  I tried
to think of how I might defend Conroy, but I was distracted by a large ore carrier as it approached, tossing a white plume in front of its huge prow. It was coming from Lake Huron and I was surprised to see that part of its superstructure was covered with ice. Soon the Great Lakes shipping season would come to a halt. It was the beginning of November, that month when ships would be in the greatest danger from winter storms on the lakes. Things could get very deadly when, as the song goes, the witch of November went riding. It seemed that the huge ship would be immune from any force of nature, but it only looked that way. Nature, like fate, unpredictable, played according to its own laws.

  Reluctantly, I turned from the window. I had things to do. One of which was to call Sue Gillis and find out what time I should pick her up.

  I’m not married, not at the moment, anyway. If the institution of marriage paid veteran’s benefits, I would have done all right, having been married three times. All to beautiful drunks who managed to sober up long enough to take me for everything I had at’ the time. Then it didn’t matter, the money just kept rolling in, so I waved goodbye to each wife and fortune, knowing a new wife and fortune would be just around the corner. But eventually alcoholism and near ruin had been waiting around that corner.

  My first marriage produced my daughter, Lisa, raised until recently by her mother. Lisa, a drunk like dear old Dad, is also a member of the double-A club now. I was proud of her. Having taken honors at the University of Pennsylvania, she is a student at Columbia Law School. Lisa was living with a fellow student, a boy whom I had yet to meet. A test marriage, I guess you’d call it. I never asked. She was an adult. It was her business.

  I wonder at my own reluctance about marrying again. Sue Gillis, a cop, had her own apartment. So did I. Most nights we slept together, either at her place or mine. She was in charge of sex crimes for the Kerry County Sheriff’s Department. Looking much younger than her forty-plus years, she had the pep of a blond and bouncy cheerleader and was just as cute. Almost. Once, she had blown the brains out of a robber and that had earned her within the department the kind of respectful awe the people of Dodge City used to show Wyatt Earp.