From Rhyme and Archer in unison: “Forty-two pounds.”
“Not that heavy,” the lawyer continued.
“The spring was a convenience, not a necessity.”
Rhyme liked this one too. Double-barrel legal theories. “They should never have added a spring. Workmen could unlatch the panel and use a hook to pull it up, or just lift it. Good.”
The attorney got a call on his mobile and listened for some time, asking questions and jotting notes in his perfectly linear handwriting.
When he disconnected he turned to Rhyme, Archer and Cooper. “I think we may have something here. But to understand it fully, you need some background in the law.”
Not again . . .
Rhyme nonetheless lifted a please-continue eyebrow and the lawyer launched into yet another lecture.
“Law in America is a complicated creature, like a platypus,” Whitmore said, removing and cleaning his glasses once again (Rhyme could only think of them as spectacles). “Part mammal, part reptile, part who knows what else?”
Rhyme sighed; Whitmore missed the impatience waft and kept up the narrative. Eventually he got to his point: The Frommer case would be largely determined by “case law,” not legislative statutes, and the court would look to precedent—prior similar decisions—to decide if Sandy Frommer could win a judgment against Midwest.
With what hovered near enthusiasm in his voice, Whitmore said, “My paralegal, Ms. Schroeder, found no cases where escalators were considered defective because of the lack of interlocks. But she did unearth several cases of heavy industrial machinery—printing presses and die stampers—in which liability was found when the devices continued to work after safety guards were moved or access panels opened. The facts are close enough to support a finding that Mr. Frommer’s injury occurred because of a design defect.”
Archer asked, “Is it possible to find escalators made by other companies that do have an interlock switch?”
“A good question, Ms. Archer. Also researched by Ms. Schroeder. I’m afraid, though, that the answer is no. Because Midwest Conveyance seems to be the only escalator manufacturer on earth that makes a product with the ill-chosen feature of a pop-up access panel. However, she did find an elevator manufacturer whose cars have a cutoff—to apply the brakes in the event the car moves when a worker is in the shaft with the access panel open.”
“And that would be a good case to cite,” Archer said, “since ‘escalator’ sounds a lot like ‘elevator.’ ”
Impressing Whitmore once again. “It does indeed. I’ve found there’s an art to subliminally guiding the jury to favor your client. Now, again, I don’t intend to go to trial but I’ll include a reference to those cases when I contact Midwest Conveyance about settlement. Now we have our theory. A sound one. A good one. I’ll spend the next few days preparing the complaint. After we file I’ll subpoena the company’s engineering records, history of complaints, safety reports. If we’re lucky we might find a CBA memo that shoots them in the foot.”
Archer asked what that was; apparently her TV show legal education had failed her on this point. As for Rhyme, he had no clue either.
Whitmore added, “Cost-benefit analysis. If a company estimates that ten customers a year will die because of its carelessness in building a product and that it will have to pay out wrongful death judgments of ten million dollars in compensation but that it will cost twenty million dollars to fix the problem ahead of time, the manufacturer may choose to release the product anyway. Because it’s economically more sound.”
“Companies actually make that calculus?” Archer asked. “Even though they’re signing death certificates for those ten people?”
“You may have heard of U.S. Auto. Not too long ago. An engineer wrote an internal memo that there could be gasoline leaks, resulting in catastrophic fires, in a very small percentage of sedans. It would cost X amount to fix it. The management decided it was cheaper to pay the few wrongful death or personal injury judgments. And they went with that decision. Of course the company’s out of business now. The memo came to light and they never recovered from the public relations disaster. The moral of the story, of course, is—”
Archer said, “To make the ethically right choice.”
Whitmore said, “—to never commit decisions like that to paper.”
Rhyme wondered if he was joking. But there was no smile accompanying the words.
Whitmore continued, “I’ll assemble information on Mr. Frommer’s earning potential—how he would have returned to a white-collar job like he used to have. Managerial. To increase our claim for future earning potential. I’ll take depositions from the wife and his friends, former fellow workers. Expert medical witnesses on the pain and suffering he experienced. I want to hit Midwest with everything we can. A case like this, I believe, they’ll do whatever they must to avoid trial.”
His phone hummed and he glanced at the screen.
“It’s Ms. Schroeder, in my office. Maybe some new cases we can use.” He answered. “Yes?”
Rhyme noticed that the attorney had stopped moving. Completely. Not a twist of neck, shift of weight. He stared at the floor. “You’re sure? Who told you? . . . Yes, they’re credible.” At last a splinter of emotion crossed the man’s face. And it wasn’t one of pleasure. He disconnected. “We have a problem.” He looked around the room. “Is there any way we could set up a Skype call? And I need to do so immediately.”
“You have a minute?” Nick Carelli asked Amelia Sachs.
She was thinking, manically because of her shock at his presence, how odd it was that he didn’t look much different, all these years later. All these years spent in prison. Really only his posture had changed. Still in good shape otherwise, he was now slouching.
“I . . . I don’t . . .” Stammering and hating herself for it.
“I was going to call. Thought you’d hang up.”
Would she have? Of course. Probably.
“I came by, gave it a shot.”
“Are you . . . ?” Sachs began. And thought: Finish your goddamn sentences.
He laughed. That low, happy laugh she remembered. Took her right back, a wormhole to the past.
Nick said, “No, I didn’t escape. Good behavior. Called me a model prisoner. Parole board, unanimous.”
Summoning reason, at last. If she got rid of him fast, maybe he’d try to come back later. Hear him out now. Be done with it.
She stepped outside and closed the door. “I don’t have much time. I’ve got to get my mother to the doctor’s.”
Shit. Why say that? Why tell him anything?
His brow furrowed. “What’s wrong?”
“Some heart issues.”
“Is she—”
“I really don’t have a lot of time, Nick.”
“Sure, sure.” Looking her over fast. Then back to her eyes. “I read about you in the paper. You’ve got a partner now. The guy used to be head of IR.”
Investigation Resources, the old name of the division that Crime Scene was part of. “I met him a couple times. Legend. Is he really . . . ?”
“He’s disabled, yes.” Silence.
He seemed to sense niceties were clinkers. “Look, I need to talk to you. Tonight, maybe tomorrow, could we get coffee?”
No. Gate closed, window shut, water over dam, under bridge.
“Tell me now.”
Money, a recommendation for a job? He was never getting back on the force; a felony conviction precluded that.
“Okay, I’ll make it fast, Ame . . .”
Using his pet name for her grated.
He took a breath. “I’ll just lay it all out for you. The thing is, about my conviction? The ’jacking, assault? You know all the details.”
Of course she did. The crime was a bad one. Nick had been busted for being behind a string of hijackings of merchandise and prescription drug shipments. In the last one, before he was caught, he’d beaten a driver with his pistol. The Russian immigrant, father of four, had been in the hospital for a week.
He leaned forward, eyes drilling into hers. He whispered, “I never did it, Ame. Never did a single thing I was arrested for.”
Her face flushed, hearing this, and her heart began throbbing. She glanced back through the curtained window that bordered the door. No sign of her mother. She’d also looked away to buy a moment to wrestle with what she’d just heard. Finally she turned back. “Nick, I don’t know what to say. Why is this coming up now? Why are you here?”
And her heart continued beat frantically, like the wings of a bird cupped in your hands. She thought: Could it be true?
“I need your help. Not a soul in the world is going help me but you, Ame.”
“Don’t call me that. That’s the old life. That’s not now.”
“Sure, sure. Sorry. I’ll tell you fast, I’ll explain. Donnie was the one working the hijackings. Not me.”
Nick’s younger brother.
She could hardly comprehend this. The quiet one of the two siblings was a dangerous criminal? She recalled that the hijacker had worn a ski mask and never identified by the truck driver.
Nick continued, “He had his problems. You know.”
“The drugs. Drinking, sure. I remember.” The two brothers were so very different, not even resembling each other. Donnie was almost rat-like in manner and nature, Sachs remembered thinking back then, feeling uneasy with the spontaneous image. In addition to the looks, Nick got the confidence, Donnie the uncertainty and anxiety—and the need to numb both of those. She’d tried to engage him in conversation when they went out to dinner, tell jokes, ask about his continuing-education classes but he’d grow shy and evasive. And occasionally hostile. Suspicious. She believed he was envious of his elder brother for having a former fashion model girlfriend. She remembered too how he would disappear into the men’s room and return buoyant and talkative.
Nick continued, “The evening it all went down, the bust . . . Remember, you were on night watch?”
She nodded. As if she could ever forget.
“I got a call from Mom. She thought Donnie’d started using again. I asked around and heard he might be meeting somebody near the Third Street Bridge. Had some deal going down.”
The ancient bridge, over a hundred years old, spanned the Gowanus, a sludgy canal in Brooklyn.
“I knew something bad was going to happen, if it hadn’t already. That ’hood? Had to be. I headed over there right away. I didn’t see Donnie but around the corner was the truck, the semi, parked, the doors open. The driver was on the ground, bleeding from his ears, the truck was empty. I called nine one one from a pay phone, anonymous, reported it. Then I went straight to Donnie’s apartment. There he was, stoned. And he wasn’t alone.” He was now staring into her eyes; his were fierce. She had to look down. “Delgado, remember him? Vinnie Delgado.”
Vaguely. A gangbanger in BK. Bay Ridge, maybe. Not really connected, not high up anyway. A piece of scum, acting like the Godfather, even though his base of operation was a dive of a magazine/tobacco store. Dead, she also believed—executed for encroaching on a serious crew’s turf.
“He got Donnie to work for him. Helping Delgado’s crew ’jack and move some stuff off trucks, get it to the fences, middlemen. Promised Donnie all the ’ludes and coke he wanted.”
Sachs was furiously assessing. Then told herself: Stop. Truth or lies, none of this was her business.
“Delgado and his minder told me there was a problem. Apparently one of the Five Families wasn’t happy about the ’jackings Delgado had been running, the Gowanus in particular. They’d had their eye on that truck. Huge score of prescription drugs, remember? Delgado said somebody needed to take the fall. He gave me two options. Point the finger at Donnie, in which case Delgado would have to take him out, since he’d spill everything in prison. Or . . . me. Who could do the time and keep his mouth shut.” A shrug. “How’s that for a choice?”
“You didn’t contact OCT?”
He laughed. The NYPD Organized Crime Task Force was good—but it was good at marshaling big cases against high-profile mobsters. They could have done little to keep Donnie Carelli alive.
“What did Donnie say?”
“When he sobered up I talked to him. I told him what Delgado had said. He was crying, gone all to pieces. What you’d think. He was desperate, begging me to save him. I said I’d do it for him and Mom. But it was his last chance. He had to get clean.”
“What happened then?”
“I took some of the merch Donnie had and some money, threw it in my car. Wiped the piece Donnie had, the one he’d beaten the driver with, and got my own prints on it. Then made another anonymous call, reported my tag number being at the scene.
“Detectives got me the next day at the station house. I just confessed. That was it.”
“You gave everything, your whole life? Your years on the force? Just like that?”
He whispered harshly, “He was my brother! I didn’t have any choice. Signing his death warrant?” Then his face softened. “You remember what we talked about then? About me being on the force, not sure about it?”
She did. Nick didn’t have blue in his soul. He wasn’t a cop the way she was, or her father was . . . or Lincoln Rhyme had been. He was biding his time until he could find something else—a business, a restaurant. He’d always wanted a restaurant.
“I wasn’t meant to be a cop. I was going to get out sooner or later. I could do the time and live with that.”
She thought back. “And Donnie did get clean, right?”
After he’d gone to jail Sachs had stayed in touch with the family, though not Nick. She’d attended Harriet Carelli’s funeral and Donnie had indeed been sober there and every other time she’d seen him. She and the younger brother fell out of touch, however, after she met Lincoln Rhyme.
“He did. For a while. But it didn’t stay that way. He didn’t do any more work for Delgado that I heard but he went back on C and then H. He died a year ago.”
“Oh, no. I’m sorry. I didn’t hear.”
“Overdose. He hid using pretty good. But they found him in a hotel in East Harlem. Been there for three days.” Nick’s voice caught.
“I did a lot of thinking inside, Amelia. I thought I did the right thing, and I guess I did. I kept Donnie alive for a few years. But I decided I want to prove I’m innocent. I don’t care about a pardon or anything like that. I just want to be able to tell people I didn’t do it. Donnie’s gone, Mom’s gone. I don’t have any more family might be disappointed to hear the truth. Delgado got capped years ago. His crew’s gone. And I want you to know I’m innocent too.”
She saw what was coming.
He continued, “There’s evidence in the case file that’ll exculpate me. Contacts, detectives’ notes, addresses, things like that. There’ll be people out there still who know I didn’t do it.”
“You want the file.”
“I do.”
“Nick . . .”
He touched her arm, lightly and fast. His hand receded. “You’ve got every right to walk right back inside and close the door. Never see me again. After what I did.”
And the sin wasn’t just the crime. What he also did was cut everything off from her, from the instant of his arrest. Yes, he’d done it to protect her. He was, by his admission, a crooked cop. And waves spread from people like that, lapping against anyone nearby. She, an ambitious, rising star on the force, might have been tainted if they’d remained in contact.
