“That was your choice.”

“I know.”

“So from now on, butt out.”

“This has worked out quite nicely, don’t you think?” I said. “A pleasant drink with a friend.”

She drained her beer, slapped the bottle on the bar, dropped off her stool. “You’ll cover these,” she said, waving her finger at the empty bottles.

I raised my glass in assent.

“Thanks,” she said. “Don’t worry about me, Victor. Worry about figuring out why your dentist killed Leesa Dubé so we can get François out of jail.”

“That’s what I’m not getting paid anymore to do.”

She stood beside me for a moment and then reached over and tapped the tape. “This doesn’t change anything for you, does it? You’re not going to suddenly take a dive at the trial to protect me, are you?”

I took a long swallow. It was tempting, letting François rot, yes it was. But I had few enough lodestars to cling to in my life, and my obligation to my clients was about the only one I could trust utterly.

“No,” I said. “Once you have me on your side I’m like a leech. I might suck out all the blood I can, sure, but I’m hell to get rid of.”

“Good,” she said. “You may be an asshole, Victor, but you’re a hell of a lawyer.”

Then she leaned down and kissed me on my head before leaving the bar. I didn’t turn to watch her go. Instead I snatched down the rest of my drink and ordered another.

I was just bringing the newly filled glass to my lips when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I swiveled around. Beth was standing there, her head tilted to the side.

“Just out of curiosity…”

I laughed, she joined in, and for a moment it almost felt all right between us.

When she left for good, I tried to think it through again. I was failing to make some obvious step. That night with Bob in this very bar seemed to hold an answer for me. What had he said after all the violence and the blood? Whom did you help today? Yes, right, as if I were the hapless, selfish failure, all of which I admit to, and he was the saint. And then something else. Accidents happen, Victor, remember that. Sometimes even the best of intentions go awry. That’s right. And he said something similar earlier, when I was in the chair. Most murders are accidents of blind happenstance, had said Dr. Bob. Another absurd event in an absurd world. But even Camus knew that the absurdity of the universe could only explain so much. Even if the murder itself was an accident, why was Dr. Bob in Leesa Dubé’s apartment on the night of the murder? What was their connection, other than doctor-patient? What was going on? Why?

In frustration I tapped the black plastic of the videotape with my fingertips. Then I stopped the tapping and looked at the vile thing in front of me. I lifted it up and examined it closely. The black plastic, the French scrawled on the white label, the stains that spotted the paper. The spots. The stains.

And suddenly, strangely, the thing grew hot in my hands.

61

Defense attorneys like weakness. We are always on the prowl for some small flaw we can relentlessly attack, a crack to pound and pry until the whole facade of personality crumbles into dust. That’s why we’re such fun at parties. But Detective Torricelli, lunkhead though he might be, was a surprisingly uninviting target. Not that there weren’t flaws. The man was as ugly as a pig’s foot and had the surly manner of the guy who cleans your sewers. But though he might not have been a stellar detective in the street, he had learned to play one on the stand.

Dalton had called Torricelli to go through his entire work on the case as a review for the jury. But he wasn’t only there for backup, he was also there to add a little kicker at the end, because it was Torricelli who had performed the initial interrogation of François Dubé.

“Did you inform the defendant of his constitutional rights?” said Mia Dalton.

“Sure I did,” replied Torricelli from the stand. “And he signed a form that said his rights had been read to him and that he had understood them.”

“I’d like to show you People’s Exhibit Forty-eight. Do you recognize that exhibit, Detective?”

“Yeah, that’s the form that the defendant signed while he was with me.”

“I move People’s Exhibit Forty-eight into evidence.”

“Any objection, Mr. Carl?” said the judge.

“Only to the detective’s sport coat,” I said, “not to the form.”

“You don’t like plaid?” said the judge.

“I haven’t seen a plaid that blue, Your Honor, since my prom tux.”

Torricelli turned his baleful glare upon me as the jury laughed. I was hoping they’d laugh long enough to miss the rest of his testimony. No such luck.

The statement François gave to Torricelli was very similar to the story François gave me. He had worked late the night before. He was exhausted the night of the murder. He had left the restaurant early and gone home alone to get some sleep. It was a no-alibi alibi, it couldn’t be directly disputed, but because there was no corroboration, it didn’t do much good either. If you believed François, you thought he was asleep in his bed at the time of the murder; if you thought him a lying, murderous son of a dog, then he had no alibi. Torricelli shook his noggin enough during his recitation of the statement to let the jury know exactly on which side of that line he stood.

“Did the defendant say anything to you about the pending divorce from his wife during his interrogation?” said Dalton.

“He told me it wasn’t going smoothly,” said Torricelli.

“Did he mention that he had been accused of physical abuse?”

“No, he did not.”

“Did he mention anything about his daughter?”

“He said that she was what they had been fighting over, more than the money. He said that his wife was seeking full custody and intended to move away. And then he said something I thought a little strange, considering the circumstances.”

“Objection,” I said.

“No editorializing, Detective,” said the judge. “Just answer the questions.”

“What did the defendant, François Dubé, say, Detective?”

“He said, and I wrote this down exactly, because it seemed of interest. He said” – and then the detective recited in monotone – “ ‘I could never let her take my daughter away, don’t you see? She is my life, she is everything to me. Take my daughter and you might as well kill me dead.’ And then he looked at me and said, ‘And I know that Leesa felt the same way.’ ”

“Did you ask him what he meant by that?”

“I did, yes. He simply shrugged and looked away. That was the end of the interview.”

“What do you mean, that was the end? You had no more questions?”

“No, ma’am. I had more questions. But after that he refused to give me any more answers. He said he wanted a lawyer. Mr. Robinson was hired to represent him,” said Torricelli, nodding at Whitney Robinson in his customary seat in the front row behind our table. “After Mr. Robinson came on board, there were no more interviews.”

“Thank you, Detective,” said Dalton, heading back to her seat. “I pass the witness.”

“I didn’t know he was being graded,” I said, to some titters, as I rose, pulled my jacket straight, buttoned it over my yellow tie.

I stood at the podium for a moment, thought about what I was going to do, what I was getting myself into. Torricelli stared at me, at first with wariness and then with a slight smile as he saw my hesitation and mistook it for fear of his undoubted gifts on the stand. But it wasn’t Torricelli I was afraid of just then.

I felt a cold wind flit across the back of my neck. I spun around. A reporter, out for a smoke, had slipped back inside, letting in a draft. He started at my sudden movement, as if he had been caught at something. My gaze slipped over to Whitney Robinson, who stared at me with his forehead creased in concern, as if somehow he could read my exact dilemma.