Over the years, I’ve found that visits to clients in prison fall roughly into two categories. First, there are those where the visitee shows some combination of hostility, fear, sullenness, whatever, but also a hefty flavoring of embarrassment at being confined in housing that does not exactly reek of honor. The second involves those where the disgrace aspect of the confines is as far removed from the outlook of the client as anchovies from a chocolate milkshake. My guess is that the second group has its own moral code that exists on a nonintersecting plane with that of “the system.” They have therefore not failed under the system; they’ve merely been caught by it.
When Anthony walked into that sterile interviewing room, he still looked like a classic example of the first type. While some slip into prison garb like a loose bathrobe, it seemed to clash with every aspect of Anthony’s bearing, as if the clerk had dressed the mannequin in the wrong suit. He was beginning to show the wear of confinement with an excess of time to suffer the bombardment of negative thoughts. He forced a smile that said acting was not his forte.
“All things considered, Anthony, how’re you doing?”
“I’m OK, Mr. Knight. How are you?”
I was impressed that he asked.
“Good. We’re covering all the bases. I hope you know that Mr. Devlin is the best there is. And this is the only case I’m working on. So you have our full attention. Have you heard from your dad?”
“He’s been in every day.” His voice was full of something that I took for shame.
“How’s he taking it?”
“I don’t know. I couldn’t see him.”
“What do you mean?”
He shook his head. He was looking somewhere between the table and his shoes, and I think if he looked up, I’d have seen drops of moisture.
“I can’t… I let him down so much. I just can’t be what he is.”
“Did he ever say you should?”
He thought about it and shook his head rather than try an unsteady voice.
“Did you ever think that what he wants is a son, not a clone? Maybe he just wants you at your best, whatever direction you take.”
He looked up, past me to the ceiling. I was right about the moisture. There was some despair in there, too.
“I guess my direction is pretty clear now.”
I caught his eyes and brought them back to mine.
“Anthony. Did you murder Mr. Chen?”
He seemed surprised at the question. “No, Mr. Knight. I didn’t.”
“Then don’t even consider giving up. Mr. Devlin and I can do everything for you except keep your spirits up. That’s your full-time job right now. Maybe seeing your father would help both of you.”
I can’t say that I made any inroads, but he looked as if he was thinking.
“Anthony, I’d like to have the luxury of being able to lead up to this slowly, but I’ve got to make every minute count. For your sake. I was over at Harvard. I talked to Gail and Rasheed.”
For the first time in the conversation I saw the lights go on. “And the Big Bopper, Abdul.”
I even caught the makings of a grin on that one. I regretted having to get heavy.
“They told me about the suicide attempt.” So much for the grin. “You don’t have to explain it. I just feel terribly sorry about the pain you must have been in at the time. What I’ve got to ask you now is this. Is there any chance at all that you could be there again?”
The tears had dried. He was looking right at me, which helped with the belief factor.
“No.” He shook his head for emphasis. “Whatever pain my dad’s going through, I won’t put him through that.”
I had to make a judgment. I came down on the side of running the risk. “OK, Anthony. I haven’t said anything to anyone here. I won’t.”
He just nodded, but I think the trust meant something.
“Do you need anything?”
He shook his head. “I appreciate everything you’re doing, Mr. Knight.”
You have no idea, Anthony. I was thinking about Harry and Red Shoes.
I stood up and reached across to put a hand on his shoulder.
“I know that between the two of us, you have the tougher job, Anthony. But try to keep up your confidence. You might use some of that heavy time for praying.”
“I do, Mr. Knight. A lot.”
“Then you’ve got three of us working for you. And think about what I said about your father.”
He stood up, too. Before we went in opposite directions, I thought I’d double-check something.
“Last Sunday. You said you went into Chinatown about two. You wanted Chinese food?”
“Terry came by. He wanted to go in. So I went with him.”
“His idea.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you picked the Ming Tree Restaurant. Why?”
“No, sir. He did.”
For some reason it wrangled me that the two disagreed on the probably minor point of who suggested the Chinatown trip.
“Had you been there before?”
“Not that I can remember. It was just convenient to everything that was going on.”
“The New Year’s business.”
“That’s right.”
I toyed with the idea of confronting him with the disparity between their stories, but on intuition I decided to file it for another day. While I had him, I thought I’d get out a thought that had been making shuttle trips between my conscious and subconscious.
“Assuming you didn’t do it, which I do, and there are two witnesses who say they saw you do it, it’s got to be either a mistake or a frame-up. I have trouble with mistake. In that neighborhood, you don’t exactly blend. That means frame-up. Why you?”
“Maybe that’s why. I’ve been thinking about it. I stood out like a sore thumb. People would believe the witnesses if they said they noticed anything I did, even with everything going on. I was convenient.”
“That’s true. But if someone were planning to murder the old Chinese man, they really lucked out to have you pass through the neighborhood at the right moment.”
“If it weren’t me, I guess they would have picked someone else.”
“I guess.” And someone else would be on trial, and I’d still be doing nasty little errands for Whitney Caster.
I replayed every card, shuffled the deck, and re-replayed them again and again in my mind over a good scrod dinner at the 99 down by the Boston Globe offices. I was up to my eyeballs in nagging little questions and inconsistencies, like, Whose idea was it to go to Chinatown? Who picked the restaurant? And who cares? Except, why do they disagree on such a minor point?
Assuming Anthony was not guilty, why would someone decide to frame him, when it was mere chance that brought him to that neighborhood, let alone to the right spot on the right street at the right time? Why in the world would anyone shoot the old man anyway? Was the old man the real target, or a means of getting at Anthony-or Judge Bradley? Another possibility was that the shooting was what Mike Loftus’s column in the Globe intimated-another act of random violence. On the other hand, I’ve never seen random violence result in a carefully constructed, almost airtight frame-up.
Then there was the card I didn’t want to turn up, but it was certainly there in the deck. What if Anthony were guilty? That would, in fact, simplify things by giving simple answers to most of the other questions, leaving only the question, “Why?”
Two eyewitnesses with no apparent reason to lie, plus Anthony’s having the perfect opportunity in the middle of Chinese New Year’s pandemonium, were on the side of “guilty.”
As I chased the raisins through a bread pudding for dessert, I realized that the only real argument on the side of “innocent” was the straight-up look in Anthony’s eyes when he said he didn’t do it. And even lie detectors can be fooled by a clever subject.
There was one other thing, and this was the itch I couldn’t scratch. Why would poor, sweet, defenseless Red Shoes risk, and in fact give, her life to get me to help cool, together, unruffled Mei-Li, who seemed about as blissfully problem-free as Barney?
When I got home, I called Harry Wong.
He was slightly out of breath. I gathered it was not from jogging-more likely from getting to the phone while keeping his breathing as shallow as possible not to disturb the rib cage.
“How’s the recovery? Those ribs must be painful.”
“I’ve seen healthier ribs with barbecue sauce. What’re you up to, Michael? How’s the case going?”
“Well, it’s like this, Harry. I’ve got enough questions to keep Jeopardy on the air for a year. But there’s one in particular. I have just a hunch that if I can find an answer to this one, a lot of other things will fall in line.”
“Mei-Li.”
“Bothers you, too.”
“That girl actually died to get that fortune cookie to you. And for what? It was certainly wasted on Mei-Li.”
“I keep wondering what kind of help the fortune-cookie waitress was promising me. She knew I was there about the murder of Mr. Chen. She was listening to my conversation with the witness through the interpreter. Three-quarters of it was in Chinese. I think there’s only one way to find out.”
“We go back to Mei-Li.”
“One of us does. I don’t think you’re ready for another round.”
“Really, Mike? How’re you going to talk your way past the Dragon Lady?”
“I haven’t worked that one out yet.”
“I think I have. It’s going to take nerve. I know you’ve got plenty of that.”
“So tell me the plan. I’m open to suggestion.”
“It’s also going to take a knowledge of Chinese. How’re you fixed in that department?”
“Less than adequate. You’re still on the bench, Harry.”
“There’s no way you can do this without me, Mike. You’re stuck with me.”
I thought about the way Harry looked the last time I saw him. He’d have had to improve to die.
“I don’t think so. Out of curiosity, what’s the plan?”
“Here it is. You pick me up here tomorrow morning about nine.”
“Yeah.”
“That’s it. You pick me up about nine.”
“And then what?”
“And then I tell you the rest of the plan.”
“You could tell me the rest now.”
“That’s right, I could. Then I could pick up the Globe in the morning and read about how parts of some unidentified Puerto Rican-WASP were found in six different places. When they put the jigsaw puzzle together-guess who?”
“I’ll pick you up about nine.”