20

THE RECEPTIONIST behind the glass window made us wait in the waiting area.

Mr. Jefferson, the receptionist said, was still in his meeting.

I had called right from the prison and had been told by that selfsame lady that Mr. Jefferson was tied up. I told her it was important, I told her it was urgent, I told her it was about the Guy Forrest murder case and that Troy Jefferson would very much want to speak to me right away.

She repeated her demurrer: “Mr. Jefferson is unavailable at the present instant.”

“I’ll be right over,” I said. “Don’t let him leave before I get there.”

And now here I was.

The receptionist smiled from behind the glass like a civil servant at the end of a long day and told us to please sit and wait. So we sat and we waited.

The waiting area for the DA’s office was in the elevator lobby of the fourth floor of the courthouse. It was a stark and uncomfortable space. It appeared they had bought the furniture secondhand from the office of a failed dentist. You could almost hear the echoes of the screams. A single door with frosted glass, its lock controlled by the receptionist, led to the offices. I tapped my watch, tapped my foot. A heavy woman walked out of the elevator and was immediately buzzed through by the receptionist. I worked on the Jumble in the newspaper left out on the table along with a Newsweek months old. CEZAR was craze. THICY was itchy. But DUGAY,DUGAY. I was stumped on DUGAY. Where was Skink when you needed him?

“Gaudy,” said Beth, looking over my shoulder.

“Enough about my damn ties,” I said even as I filled in the blocks.

The door opened, a man in a suit with a briefcase the size of a filing cabinet stepped through.

“Could you tell Mr. Jefferson again that we are here?” I asked the receptionist.

“I’ve told his secretary,” she said.

“Could you remind her?”

She smiled at me. “She knows. She asked that I have you wait.”

I picked up the Newsweek. I read the review of a movie already out of the theaters. I read of a rising star already fallen. I read of a disaster in China already replaced in our finite capacities for horror by a disaster in Cental America.

The door opened, a small man in a suit stepped through, and I jerked to standing even as my heart sank sickeningly, like the NASDAQ on earnings fears.

“Peale,” I said.

Jonah Peale wore a pained expression like a mask. Behind him, holding the door, stood a smiling Troy Jefferson.

“I’m surprised to see you here, Mr. Peale,” I said.

“Priorities,” said Jonah Peale, nodding brusquely as he brushed by. I was too stunned to say anything, just watched him go.

“Are you ready for me, Victor?” said Troy Jefferson.

“Yes,” I said, though I suspected I was too late, too, too late.

Beth and I followed the prosecutor through the door, down a narrow hall, into his small office. He walked with a slight limp, still. In his office, exhibits and files were piled on the floor, maps were taped to the walls. Among the clutter were two flags, standing next to each another, the flag of the United States of America and the flag of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. All the documents on the desk were facedown. Leaning against a file cabinet were our detective friends, Breger and Stone.

This was not good, I knew. This was not good at all.

“How’s it going there, Victor?” said Troy Jefferson after we all had situated ourselves in the proper seats. “You getting ready to rumble?”

“That’s what I came here to talk to you about.”

“Of course we’ll cooperate to the full extent required by law, give you everything you’re entitled to. But I must say, this case suddenly has my competitive juices flowing. I get the same sense of nervous anticipation before every trial as I had when I played ball. I still play, I suppose. I just play in a different court now. With justice as my goal.”

“We’re not reporters,” said Beth. “Save the patter for the press.”

He grinned and shrugged as if he were already in the statehouse.

“We met today with our client,” I said. “We discussed everything once again. He continues to profess his innocence, but, in light of the overwhelming evidence facing him, he asked I explore further the plea offer you made at the arraignment.”

“Yes, well, I am sorry about that,” said Troy Jefferson.

“Sorry?”

“When I made the offer, it was contingent on our finding no information that would indicate a motive other than the heat of passion.”

“That’s right,” I said. “But we’ve received no notice that you have discovered such information.”

“I faxed notice to your office twenty minutes ago.”

“Twenty minutes ago? We were in your waiting room twenty minutes ago.”

“Were you? We didn’t know.” He reached for one of the overturned papers on his desk, checked it, offered it to me. “Here it is.”

Without looking at it, I said, “We are accepting the offer.”

“I’m sorry, Victor, but it has been withdrawn.”

“You can’t.”

“We have.”

“Offer and acceptance. We have a contract.”

“I don’t think so. All material terms were never spelled out in full, the offer was at all times contingent, the contingency failed, and the offer was withdrawn well before you accepted. Pleas are not governed by the laws of contract but even if they were, your claim would fall.”

“We’ll see what the judge has to say about it.”

“I suppose we will.”

I stared at him. He grinned at me.

“What did you find?” asked Beth.

He leaned back in his chair, webbed his hands and placed them behind his head. “Juan Gonzalez.”

“The ballplayer?” I said, a false confusion in my voice.

“No, not the ballplayer,” said Jefferson.

By the file cabinet Stone laughed lightly. Breger, gazing up at the ceiling, kept his broad face free of expression.

Beth’s features betrayed her shock. I tried to replicate the expression, though it was hard. It was hard. The moment I saw Jonah Peale come out that frosted-glass door, I knew. Of course I knew. I had set the whole thing up.

“Mr. Peale will be added to our witness list,” said Troy Jefferson. “He’s an interesting man, Jonah Peale, with an interesting story to tell.”

“He’ll ruin his practice,” I said.

“Yes, I expect his testimony might do serious damage to his law firm, but still, he feels compelled to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. At one point he wanted to avoid publicity but now he is interested only in seeing that Mr. Forrest suffer the full force of justice.”

“I don’t understand,” said Beth.

“It seems, somehow, that Mr. Peale learned his daughter wants her husband back. Imagine that. Mr. Peale would prefer to lose his business than to allow a murderer to move back in with his daughter and grandchildren.”

I closed my eyes, fought back the nausea. This was all my doing, I had just destroyed my client’s chance to live at least part of his life out of jail. “He didn’t do it,” I said.

“And you’ll have every chance to prove it, Victor. But what we really have now is a simple case of fraud where the co-conspirators fell out over money. Stone here has checked out the finances.”

“Were you aware of the withdrawals by Miss Prouix?” she said.

“Yes,” I said.

“Do you know where the money went?”

“Attorney-client privilege forbids me from saying anything. But I can say that my client was aware that money had been withdrawn and he had no problem with it.”

Breger snorted.

“Sure,” said Stone. “What’s a million bucks among friends?”

“We believe,” said Troy Jefferson, “that we finally understand what happened. They stole the money together, she transferred it out of the joint account for her own purposes without telling him. In a rage over the stolen money, and her dalliance with another, shown by the DNA, he killed her. It happens all too frequently, a sad tale often told. And we’ll tell it well.”