Singing? I searched his face. Close up, he looked grim, in need of cheering up. “I’m gonna bust you outta here, Mr. Big.”
“Yeah?” he said, playing along as well as good breeding allowed. “How?”
I held up my briefcase. “See dis? All you have to do is eat it. I baked a file inside.”
“What a plan.” He dropped the accent, so I did, too.
“You get what you pay for.”
“Does this mean I have a criminal lawyer?”
“No, you’re stuck with me.”
He brightened. “Are you staying on? Truly? I want to pay you, you know. I insist on it.”
“Forget it. I’m yours despite the fact that you called Mack on me.”
“Perhaps I shouldn’t have done that.”
“No perhaps about it, Fiske.”
He paused. “Did he tell you to represent me? Is that why you changed your mind?”
“I’m here on one condition. We have to have an agreement, you and I. You have to tell me the truth from now on. With everything, every detail, no matter how small. The very next lie, I’m outta here and you get a lawyer who knows what she’s doing.” It sounded less threatening than I’d hoped.
“I agree.”
“Pinky swear?” I held up my pinky. “Hold up your finger. I make all my felons do it.”
“I swear to God, Rita.”
“That’ll have to do. Now what do I do at the arraignment? Act like I know what I’m doing?”
“Yes.”
“My specialty. Did you get this affidavit they’re talking about? What’s it say?”
He repeated what Dunstan had told me, about the witness ID, the black Jaguar, and the license plate. Then he mentioned the fingerprints.
“What fingerprints?” I asked him, surprised.
He retrieved some papers from his bed and thrust them at me through the bars. “My fingerprints were found at Patricia’s carriage house. In the living room.”
Shit. I skimmed the affidavit, which stated in general terms what I already knew.
“You know why, Rita, I told you Patricia and I had met there once or twice. But I wasn’t prepared to tell the police why my prints were there. That’s when they decided to charge me.”
Stupid. “Fiske, how could you let them question you without a lawyer?”
He stiffened. “I am a lawyer, and I didn’t commit a murder. I had nothing to be afraid of, I didn’t need anybody to hide behind. And it wasn’t my car either. It couldn’t have been.”
“GARDEN-2? A vanity plate on a vanity car?”
“It’s my plate, but it wasn’t my car. I took my car to work that day. I parked it under the courthouse, in the secured lot. Nobody could have gotten it out but me.”
“But Patricia was murdered at the end of the day and you took it out around five o’clock. The police were underwhelmed by your alibi.”
He faltered. “I went for a drive. I told you that.”
So fucking lame. “Work with me on this, would you?”
“But it’s the truth, I swear it! I went for a drive. I needed to think.” His voice rose, and I considered the wisdom of discussing his alibi here. Or discussing it at all.
“We’ll discuss it later,” I said.
He ran a veined hand through silvered hair. “Does the press know about the witness?”
“I doubt it, but they know you’ve been arrested. They’re outside right now. I tried to run them over but there were too many.”
“So it’s public.”
“Very.”
“I can’t believe this, Rita,” he said, then looked down at his hands. On each fingerpad was a black smudge. “This is a nightmare.”
“Buck up. Your mug shot’s got to be better than your driver’s license. Now, we have to get you out of here. Then I want to cram criminal law. You can quiz me.”
“No. We have to get to the carriage house. I want to see it.”
“What do you mean?”
“We should view the crime scene as soon as possible.”
I knew that. “Wait a minute, Fiske. First I plan to get you out of jail, then I plan to get you acquitted. How I get from point A to point B I haven’t figured out.”
He squeezed the iron bars like a born convict. “But the best way to prove me innocent is to catch the real killer.”
“Take it a step at a time. I’ll bail you out, then I’ll go to the crime scene. You’ll go home and take care of Kate.”
“But I should go with you.”
“Would you take a client with you, in my position? Of course not. At least not initially.”
“But-”
“I call the shots, Fiske,” I said sharply. He looked startled, and I admit I startled even myself. I make it a point to question authority, but I’d never yelled at a federal judge. “Look, I may not know exactly what I’m doing, but I will soon. The only way we can work this case is if you take direction from me. You can’t play my hand for me, got it?”
“Play your hand?” he said, in a way that made it sound stupid and vulgar.
“You heard me.”
He lifted his strong chin slightly. “But you won’t mind if I give you my thoughts, from time to time.”
“Your thoughts are welcome, your orders aren’t. My job is to run the case. Your job is to tell the truth, smile for the camera, and get back to work. You’re not stepping down from the bench, are you?”
“No. The Constitution applies to me as well.”
“Fine.”
“And I am innocent. Do you believe that?”
Sure, except for the witness ID and the license plate. “I’m going to get you acquitted. Isn’t that enough?”
“No.”
“It’ll have to be.”
“But how can you get me acquitted if you don’t believe in me?”
“I’ll act like I do and play the cards as they fall.”
He looked puzzled.
“You don’t play poker, do you, Fiske?”
“You know chess is my game. I dislike gambling, all games of chance.”
“Get over it. It’s time for the short course.”
He looked none too pleased.
12
After depositing Fiske at home with a distraught Kate, I went to Patricia’s. The carriage house was at the back of a property of at least six wooded acres, set well behind the main house, a white stucco mansion. A winding, paved driveway led from the street through the trees to the carriage house, a tiny clapboard cottage, painted ivory with blue trim. Just the sort of place that would appeal to artists, lovers, and plaintiffs.
I eyeballed the distance from the carriage house to the mansion. A hundred yards. Then the distance from the carriage house to the street. Seventy-five yards, through the trees. The driveway curved close to the back of the main house at only one point. A witness standing at the street or in the house would be able to spot a Jaguar, but would have a harder time identifying its driver with absolute certainty, especially in the downpour we’d had yesterday. I wondered who the witness was. I resolved to visit the owner of the main house as soon as I could.
I looked back at the carriage house. It stood two stories tall and was almost obscured by the grove of oak trees surrounding it. Its first floor was an ivy-covered garage, and a runner of English ivy over the door told me it hadn’t been opened in a while. Maybe Patricia used the garage for storage. I flashed on the painting she testified about at her deposition, the one of me and Paul. Maybe she kept her canvases in the garage.
“Can I get a look in the garage, too?” I asked my baby-sitter, Officer Johanssen. Until the police released the crime scene, Lieutenant Dunstan had decreed I’d need an escort to inspect it, even outside. And each visit had to be logged in, recorded.
“Yes,” Johanssen said.
We walked past the garage and around to the left, to a slate patio where the front door was tucked under a white trellis covered with purple clematis. The door was in good condition, except that its blue paint was alligatored with age and water. How did the killer get in?