66
It took Emil Gorebian all day to interview lawyers, police, and the employees at the election commission. He sat tapping at his keyboard in the press room at City Hall. It had finally stopped snowing. Leftover sun struggled through the dirty window next to him.
Emil was hardly tired even after such a long day. He wasn’t old enough to retire, he was still going strong. He had the entire story in his head and it poured out as smoothly as olive oil. It would be all over the front page in the next edition. His first exclusive in ten years.
Emil tapped away. Elliot Steere and Jen Pressman had been lovers. They used the organ donor scheme to file absentee ballots with forged signatures. They paid Eb Darning to forge and file the ballots, but Eb began blackmailing them and had to be silenced. Emil had spent all day reading election records and reviewing absentee ballots filed in the last election. There had been at least two others who were paid to file the fake absentee ballots, and he figured there were many more. Gorebian would explain the scheme in a sidebar, so readers could understand.
Emil kept tapping. The best part of the story was that the forged votes hadn’t been filed against the mayor, they’d been filed in his favor. Almost ten thousand votes filed on his behalf. Elliot Steere and Jen Pressman were trying to set the mayor up, so they could leak the driver’s license file right before the election and pin the voter fraud on him. Pressman had planned to betray the mayor and go her merry way. Steere would have defeated his biggest enemy and the price of historic properties would soar. The Philadelphia Renaissance would never blossom.
Emil sipped tea as he skimmed the half-finished story on the computer monitor. He would emphasize in the conclusion how the lawyers had worked to bring Steere to justice and how Bennie Rosato had risked everything to protect a client. The story would take the cloud off Bennie’s law firm and show her to be a hero. The young Turks called it spin, but that wasn’t what Emil called it. He called it truth.
Emil finished the story, tying up the loose ends. He imagined winning a Pulitzer and would settle for reinstatement to the day shift. Emil always knew he was a better reporter than Alix Locke. Sneaking into the chief of staff’s office and stealing her purse. Using Pressman’s keys to get into Steere’s beach house. Emil shook his head. No one had any morals anymore, any scruples. That was the problem today.
Emil hit the PRINT key and sighed happily.
John LeFort watched the telephone lights blinking from his desk chair in his office at Cable & Bess. Sunlight poured through the windows and glinted off the Waterford tumbler in his hand. LeFort never drank during the day, but today was an exception. He heaved a short sigh and picked up the phone. “Hello?” he asked, as if he didn’t know who it was. As if he didn’t know who any of the blinking lights were.
“John, Mo Barrie. I’m at home watching television. Did you see? Did you see it on the news? Steere’s been rearrested. Conspiracy to murder, for hiring a hit man. Vote fraud, trying to rig the mayoral election. It’s a scandal.”
“I know. I was there.”
“We’re calling the notes, John. We’re calling the notes right now. All of them. Those properties are for sale as of this minute. I’m ringing the city right after we hang up.”
“I understand,” John said. He sipped his drink. Mo could be as hysterical as Bunny. How foolish. It was only business.
“All of them, John. Consider them sold, John. As of now. Right this instant. It’s a house of cards, John, and it’s about to come tumbling down.”
“See you in court, Mo,” LeFort said, and hung up. He took another sip before picking up the next call.
Elliot Steere sat behind the wired glass across from his new criminal lawyer. The glass was scratched and smudged, and the interview room at the Roundhouse was far dirtier than the one at the Criminal Justice Center. Steere’s surroundings didn’t matter to him right now. “You’ll plead me innocent of all charges,” he said to his lawyer, who wore costly rimless glasses and a Zegna suit.
“But they have an excellent case for conspiracy in the murder of the security guards. They found Bogosian’s magazine, and there were papers in his apartment linking him to you. They’ll get his phone records and bank accounts.”
“Bogosian will never testify against me.”
“Bogosian is dead. The New Jersey police found his body on the beach.”
Steere paused. “All the better. Then he can’t testify.”
“But Richter will. Carrier will. They have a computer file from your beach house. They’re impounding your boat. They have records from Darning and a suspect in the DiNunzio shooting. He used a stolen car.” The young lawyer consulted his notes. “I expect indictments on vote fraud and election rigging. They’re talking about obstruction of justice, but I don’t know if they can prove it.”
“I am innocent of all charges against me.”
“You’d be lucky to be offered a deal.”
Steere smiled, amused. “Luck has nothing to do with it. Nothing at all. Did you ever hear of a general named Sun-Tzu?”
67
In an anesthetized sleep, Christopher dreamed he was cantering a horse across a snow-covered field, under a warm sun and a crisp blue sky. A fog hovered over the snow, so the horse appeared to be cantering on a bed of clouds. In anyone else’s dream the horse would have been white, an Arabian, but Christopher thought white horses were for show-offs, so it was a brown quarter horse. A large gelding with a white blaze, over sixteen hands high.
The horse’s hooves crunched through the snow as its canter accelerated without warning to a gallop. Though Christopher hadn’t kicked the horse to gallop him, he didn’t object to the change of pace until horse and rider were racing toward a wooden rail fence that appeared from nowhere. The fence was high, almost four feet, and Christopher didn’t know if the horse could jump it.
The horse’s hooves reached farther into the snow as it galloped full tilt, nostrils flaring, straining against the bit. The fence raced toward them. It was crazy to jump at this speed, but if Christopher halted he’d fly over the horse’s neck. He lifted into position and tightened the reins, but the leather slipped from his hands and flapped against the horse’s wet neck. The jump zoomed up to meet them. The horse leapt into the air. They’d never clear the fence.
“No!” Christopher shouted, waking up. He looked around him. Everything was white, but it wasn’t snow, it was a hospital room. He wasn’t crashing into a fence, he was lying on a hospital bed. And the touch on his hand wasn’t a loose rein, it was a woman. Megan Gerrity, the redhead from the jury, was sitting at the edge of his bed. Christopher blinked, groggy, and cleared his parched throat.
“It’s all right, Christopher,” Megan said. She squeezed his hand, and Christopher squeezed back, easing into the soft pillow with a sigh.
“You almost stabbed Elliot Steere! Do you realize that?” Bennie said as she stormed down the long hospital corridor. The late afternoon sun glowed through the large windows, but its residual warmth was lost on Bennie. On either side of the hall hung polished plaques listing the names of hospital benefactors, but she couldn’t have cared less. Bennie was walking so fast she didn’t notice anything and was so angry she didn’t care if Marta could keep pace.
“I agree, it never should have happened,” Marta said, bedraggled, as she rushed along. Her boots squashed and her snowpants rustled with every step. She felt whipped, out of gas. She had spent a long day at the Roundhouse being questioned by the cops, and the night before that had been eventful even for a criminal lawyer. “I’m sorry. Sorry for all of it.”
“Sorry?” Bennie didn’t break stride. “For attempted murder? You can’t say you’re sorry for attempted murder. There are lots of legal excuses for attempted murder, but saying you’re really really really sorry isn’t one of them. If the cops had known what you were up to, you’d be in the slammer right now. And if I hadn’t palmed that fucking knife—”
“Pritchel.”
“Gesundheit.”
/> “No. It’s a pritchel, not a knife.”
“What? What the fuck do I care?” Bennie fumed, her jacket flying as she charged ahead. “What the fuck difference does it make? You tried to stab the man!”
“I wouldn’t have gone though with it. I didn’t, did I?”
“Oh, please. Only because I stopped you. You could have stabbed me!”
A passing nurse glanced over nervously and quickened her pace. Marta whispered, “I didn’t even know you were there. How did I know you’d jump in front of him?”
“I wasn’t gonna let you kill him.” They reached the elevator bank and Bennie punched the up button. “You could have known that, couldn’t you? First rule of solo practice. Do not kill the clients. They don’t come back, for one thing.”
“I already said I’m sorry. What else can I do? Open a vein?”
“I should’ve left you in jail. In another hour they would’ve brought out the rubber hose. I would have brought out the rubber hose.”
“I said, “Thank you.’” Marta rolled her eyes. “Listen to me. “Thank you.’ ‘Sorry.’ ‘Please.’ I’m like a fucking Hallmark card.”
Bennie started hitting the elevator button like a video game. It made a clikclikclik sound. “I should’ve let you rot there.” Clikclikclik. “Let you wait for a public defender.” Clikclikclik. “Thrown you to the press.” Clikclikclik. “Sent you up for Bogosian.”
“That was self-defense. They knew it, they were just working me over.”
“And what about the jury tampering, huh? You owe me big-time on that. Community service?” Clikclikclik. “You know what, I’m charging you. I’m billing you for my fucking time.” Clikclikclik. “Where is the goddamn elevator?”
“Okay, fine. Bill me, no problem. Thank you, thank you, thank you,” Marta said, meaning it. She’d have a lot of time on her hands in the next few years. She might buy a house, fix it up, and actually live in it. But she’d need to do a little legal work on the side, if only to prevent ring rust. “You know, I’ve been thinking that you might need help getting the firm back up on its feet.”
Clikclikclik. “If I even have a firm anymore.”
“You do. You will.”
Clik. “Hmph.”
“Maybe I can make it up to you. Help rebuild Rosato and Associates. It’s the least I can do. Draft briefs. Teach the associates.” The elevator arrived and the doors slid apart. “Behind the scenes, you know.”
“You?” Bennie’s mouth dropped open. “You? Stay in Philadelphia?”
Marta began to laugh as the doors closed, and the sound of her laughter echoed all the way up the shaft.
Marta and Bennie stood at the threshold to Mary’s hospital room. The associate had been moved out of intensive care and her condition was finally stable. Mary looked drawn against the thin hospital pillows, and an IV snaked to a shunt in her arm. The DiNunzio family surrounded her like an embrace, and Judy sat among them. She grinned tiredly when she saw Bennie and Marta. “Hey, guys, isn’t this cool?” Judy said. “Mary’s alive.”
Bennie smiled with relief. “Wonderful. That’s how I like my associates. Breathing.”
“It’s the only way they get any work done,” Marta said, leaning against the doorjamb. “By the way, they are hired back, aren’t they?”
Judy held her breath. Mary blinked.
Bennie thought a minute. What ran in her veins, ice? “If they got a license, they got a job,” she said, and Mary smiled to herself.
It’s not a job, it’s an adventure.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Rough Justice is a work of fiction, but a number of people helped enormously with the research and I want to thank them here. Any mistakes are entirely my own.
First and very special thanks to Mayor of Philadelphia Ed Rendell and his former chief of staff, David Cohen. I am a huge fan of these two men, who have worked wonders for my favorite city and inspired all of us. They permitted me access to the mayor’s office and to other areas of City Hall for this book, and David Cohen gave generously of his time, energy, and intelligence, as is typical of him. Thanks, too, to Robin Schatz, for the insider’s tour, and to Ginny Kehoe.
Thank you to Larry Fox, president of the Litigation Section of the American Bar Association, who helped with the ethical questions herein, and thank you to criminal defense experts Frank DiSimone, Glenn Gilman, Burton Rose, and Mike Trigani for their on-the-spot advice.
Thank you to the detectives of the Homicide Division of the Philadelphia Police Department, who continue to help me in so many ways and gave me the coolest sweatshirt ever. Thanks to Mark McDonald of the Philadelphia Daily News, who took me through the lovely press area in City Hall and spent time teaching me about newspapers and how they work. Thanks to Dr. Andrea Hanaway, an emergency surgeon who taught me the details of some truly heinous injuries.
Thank you to Richard Clark, Jr., a farrier who answered all my stupid questions while trying to reset the shoe on a cranky mare. Thanks to all at Thorncroft Equestrian Center, for all of their good work, and especially to Diana Johnson, who teaches me about horses and life.
Thank you to Kevin Sparkman of the DVTO, who helped me a great deal. Also, thank you, Chuck Jones, for your friendship, hunting advice, and general expertise. I also want to acknowledge a fascinating translation of Sun-Tzu by J. M. Huang, which served as a source for Rough Justice.
Equally important as the research is the writing, and I had experts to help with that, too. Heartfelt thanks to president and CEO at HarperCollins, Anthea Disney, to my editor, Carolyn Marino, and to my agent, Molly Friedrich of the Aaron Priest Agency. I marvel constantly at the brilliance, talent, and generosity of these women, who are like literary Power Rangers. They improved this manuscript in countless ways, and supported me throughout all. I am the luckiest author in the world to be able to tap their time and expertise. I can’t thank them enough and won’t bore the rest of you by going on longer here.
Thanks, too, to Paul Cirone, Molly’s assistant, for his hard work and terrific sense of humor, and to Carolyn’s assistant, Robin Stamm, who understands the importance of the comma. Special thanks to production editor Andrea Molitor, who cared enough to get it right.
Thank you to Gene Mydlowski, associate publisher, for his efforts and eye, and to Laura Leonard, publicity manager, who, besides being a dynamo on her job, is one of the sweetest people in the world. Thanks to Laura’s assistant Caroline Enright, too.
Personal thanks and love to my family and friends, as well as my husband, Peter, and daughter, Kiki. They had to put up with pizza for dinner while I wrestled with this book and, worse yet, they had to put up with me.
About the Author
Lisa Scottoline is a New York Times best-selling author and former trial lawyer. She has won the Edgar Award, the highest prize in suspense fiction, and the Distinguished Author Award, from the Weinberg Library of the University of Scranton. She has served as the Leo Goodwin Senior Professor of Law and Popular Culture at Nova Southeastern Law School, and her novels are used by bar associations for the ethical issues they present. Her books are published in over twenty languages. She lives with her family in the Philadelphia area and welcomes reader email at www.scottoline.com.
Also By Lisa Scottoline
The Vendetta Defense
Moment of Truth
Mistaken Identity
Legal Tender
Running from the Law
Final Appeal
Everywhere That Mary Went
Lisa Scottoline, Rough Justice
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