Kindle County: Reversible Errors Part 30

Gillian did not hear of the ruling until mid-afternoon. She was at the Center City store and Argentina Rojas, who came in for the late shift at the counter, told her what she'd learned on her car radio. It was the first time Argentina had indicated any awareness of Gillian's prior life and she'd clearly broken her own taboo in the expectation she was bringing welcome news, after what had been printed about Gillian in the days following Erdai's testimony. Gillian did her best to thank Argentina, then went as soon as she could to the employees' lounge to phone Arthur.

"Alive," he answered, when she asked how he was. "Sort of." He described the decision. "I didn't expect to get slammed."

"Why don't I take you out to dinner, Arthur?" She had not calculated this in advance, but her desire to console him was intense and she knew how badly he'd wanted them to escape the apartment. Even trampled by disappointment, he was clearly pleased by the prospect. She said she would meet him at the Matchbook, a Center City standby where Arthur could get the steak and potato that remained his preferred fare. When she arrived at eight, he was already slumped at the table, a visible wreck.

"Have a drink," she told him. When they were together, he refused alcohol for her sake, but if there was ever a man in need of a brisk scotch, it appeared to be Arthur.

He had brought her a copy of the opinion, but he did not allow her to read much of it before he let loose his misery. He'd told her several times they would lose, but the reality of it was more than he could bear. How could the judges have done this?

"Arthur, I learned something on the bench. Lawyers see one another in far more accepting terms than they see judges. How many times have you forgiven another attorney"Muriel, for example"saying she's just doing her job? But when it comes to judges, lawyers express outrage. Judges, too, are merely doing their jobs. Doing their best. Someone has to decide and so you decide. You decide even though you're secretly convinced that several of the people whom you pa.s.s on the street on the way to work might do better on particular questions. You decide. At first you're terrified that you're going to make a mistake. Eventually you know you often will, that it's expected, that there would be no need for courts of review if judges were infallible. So you decide. Humbly. Humanly. You do your job. They've decided, Arthur. But that doesn't mean they're right."

"That's comforting. Because it's essentially the last word." Legally, there was more skirmishing left. But as far as Arthur was concerned, only writing on the wall of Rommy's cell would have foretold a more certain doom. "And I can't believe they had the gall to fire me," he added.

"With thanks, Arthur."

"Halfhearted would probably overstate their enthusiasm. And it was so slimy. They just don't want anybody who has the resources to devote to the issues to be handling the case."

"Arthur, they were trying to relieve you and your partners of the burden. Nothing prevents you from representing Rommy directly on a pro bono basis. He can retain you, rather than the court."

"Right. That's just what my partners want. Me in a p.i.s.sing match with the Court of Appeals."

Accepting the fact that no words would comfort him, she fell to a familiar gloom. She was certain that what existed between Arthur and her was fragile. There were a thousand reasons"but now she saw one more. A beaten Arthur would not be able to maintain this relationship. In his misery, he would see less in himself and soon, in consequence, far less in her.

In the few hours she spent back home at Duffy's house each day, Gillian frequently asked herself the question that Arthur had not yet dared to pose. Did she love him? He was, without doubt, the lover of her life. But love? She was startled how quick she had been to conclude that the answer was yes. With him there was something renewing, eternal, essential. She wanted to be with Arthur. And it was with terrible sadness that she had realized again and again that in the long term she would not be. She had wondered for weeks if she would be willing to struggle when the inevitable unraveling began, or simply accept her fate. But no, she would not stand still to be mowed down again. Arthur at his best made better of her. She needed for both their sakes to provide some resilience.

"Arthur, may I ask you a question?"

"Yes, I still want to make love to you tonight."

She reached across the table and slapped his hand. But she was encouraged that his libido had outlasted his disappointment.

"No, Arthur. Is the court right?"

"Legally?"

"Is your client innocent, Arthur? Truly, what do you think?"

Arthur's scotch had arrived now, and he cast a heavy-hearted look toward the gla.s.s, but did not touch it.

"What do you think, Gil?"

It was an apt riposte"although she hadn't antic.i.p.ated it. She had not tested herself with that question in weeks. In the interval, the reasons to disbelieve Erno, whom she'd suspected from the start, had multiplied. And yet for her the facts of the case remained a swamp"the records suggesting Gandolph might have been in jail, Erdai's account, Luisa's thefts, the question of whether Gandolph had violence in his character. Today, despite her effort to apply cold reason, there were doubts, reasonable ones, and thus, on the current evidence she could send Rommy Gandolph neither to death nor even to the penitentiary. By whatever means, Arthur had persuaded her of that much, although she would hesitate to vouch for Gandolph's innocence, or to criticize her decision of ten years ago, given the proof she saw at the time.

"But I'm of no account now, Arthur," she said, after explaining her views. "What's your opinion?"

"I believe Genevieve. Even Erno admitted that she'd told him that Rommy had threatened to kill Luisa. And every time I go over it, I see that Erno was lying about something else. But I still need to believe Rommy's innocent. And so I do." He wrung his head in misery at the absurdity of what he had said.

"Then you have to go forward. Don't you? As an attorney? Could you really face yourself if you deserted an innocent client at this stage? Do what you can, Arthur. At least try," she said.

"Try what? I need facts. New facts."

Whenever Arthur spoke of the case, as he did constantly, she listened with interest but confined her commentary to encouragement. Yet she'd made her own calculations and there seemed no point tonight in keeping them to herself.

"You know I hesitate to make suggestions," she began.

He waved off her apologies, inviting her to continue.

"You haven't told Muriel that Erno was also stealing tickets, have you?" she asked.

"G.o.d, no," said Arthur. "It only makes Erno look worse. What of it?"

"Well, Erno said that was why he confronted Luisa at Paradise"because he was afraid her activities might lead to discovery of his own. Correct?"

"So?"

"But Erno had had Luisa searched and found nothing. So why did he remain so certain of what she was up to? And if he wasn't having an affair with her, then what brought him out at midnight on a holiday weekend to confront her?"

"That's what I meant about Erno," Arthur said. "I can't even fight my way through his lies anymore."

"Well, perhaps I'm fresher on this, Arthur. But thinking it over, I suspect Erno was watching Luisa"on his own, because he couldn't tell his underlings about his suspicions, for fear it would reveal something about his own thefts. And with his eye on her, he must have caught her in the process of stealing."

"Makes sense. He said he went to Paradise to stop her."

"But why didn't Erno stop her at the airport?"

"He probably wanted to see who she was delivering the tickets to. That's the usual routine in a surveillance, isn't it?"

"Which brings you back to her buyer. Pharaoh?"

"Pharaoh. What about him?"

"Well, he must have been there, Arthur. At Paradise. At some point."

She could see Arthur, almost against his will, revive. His posture improved and his face brightened, but after a second he once more shook his head.

"We can't find him. Rommy said Pharaoh took a major conviction, but Pamela matched the name against court records and we got nothing. Even Erno said he's vanished."

"I know, but one thing caught my attention. Genevieve said she couldn't figure out how Luisa and Pharaoh were able to get away with this. Is that right?"

"That's what she said."

"So Pharaoh had a far more sophisticated means of disposing of the tickets than peddling them on a street corner."

"Rommy said he was pushing them through some company." Arthur took a second to follow her. "What are you thinking? A corporate travel department?"

"Something along those lines."

Together they began to plot possible approaches, and Arthur became more himself, enlivened with hope of the improbable. Then, quite abruptly, bleakness settled in again and his small, soft eyes suddenly stuck on her.

"What?" she asked, thinking there was some new flaw in their reasoning.

Instead, he reached out for her hand.

"You were so good at this," he said.

Chapter 32.

August 7-8, 2001 Obvious SHORTLY AFTER FRIDAY midnight, Erno Erdai died. Arthur received the news when Stew Dubinsky called him at home early Sat.u.r.day morning for a comment. Arthur expressed condolences and then, recalling his duties as an advocate, praised Erno as a man who'd found the courage to set right past wrongs in life's final moments. Rarely had Arthur uttered words with less sense of whether they were true.

Nonetheless, his role as Rommy's representative required him to attend the funeral ma.s.s for Erno on Tuesday morning at St. Mary's Cathedral. Summer, this year especially, was a slow news time, and Erno's death occupied center stage in the local press, notwithstanding Genevieve's revelations and the Court of Appeals' opinion. Given that, it was no surprise that the Reverend Dr. Carnelian Blythe had somehow been engaged to eulogize Erno. The Archdiocese had also rallied to Erno, and Monsignor Wojcik, the rector at St. Mary's, officiated. But the star was Blythe, who was magnetic in the preacher's role that had first brought him to prominence nearly forty years ago.

Reverend Blythe was a genius in many ways. Most white people in Kindle County had laughed at Blythe at some point, amused by his excessive rhetoric and his twenty-four seven state of rage. Arthur was no exception. Yet he also remained mindful of Blythe's many achievements, not only the legendary feats, like walking with Dr. King and forcing desegregation of the county's schools, but less celebrated accomplishments, such as a free breakfast program for poor children and several redevelopment projects that had changed the faces of neighborhoods. Perhaps what Arthur admired most was the voice of hope and ident.i.ty Blythe had long provided to his community. Arthur could still remember at the age of eleven and twelve tuning in the Reverend Blythe's Sunday broadcasts to listen to him lead a congregation of thousands in intoning, I AM A Man. I AM Somebody.

As Carnelian Blythe's voice rocked from his depths, young Arthur felt every bit as inspired as the members of the Reverend's flock.

But Blythe's apt.i.tude for engaging the press might have been his most unrivaled skill. If Blythe was there, so were the cameras"he was good for fifteen seconds on the evening news any time he opened his mouth. Arthur could hardly object. The Reverend had kept Rommy's story on the front page, when the media would almost certainly have lost interest were his cause championed by anyone else. Yet Arthur still felt his client would be better served if he kept his distance from Blythe's fulminating.

After the final hymn, Blythe followed Monsignor Wojcik and the family from the Cathedral, bowing his bald head as Erno's casket, bearing a spray of white flowers and the Stars and Stripes, was delivered to the hea.r.s.e. The photographers, never with any sense of propriety, crowded in. Collins, the nephew whom Arthur recognized from his mug shot, was the first of the six pallbearers. In his suit and tie, he appeared every bit the solid citizen he was said to have become. He lifted a gray glove to his eyes as the box disappeared into the vehicle, then went to comfort his aunt and his mother, both dressed in stark black. Together, the three moved toward the limousine that would follow Erno's remains to the cemetery.

As soon as the family was on its way, Blythe began repeating much of his eulogy verbatim for the cameras that surrounded him on the Cathedral steps. Arthur snuck away, stopped by the lone reporter who recognized him, Mira Amir from the West Bank Bugle, who beat Stew Dubinsky to almost any story of note. In response to her questions, Arthur a.s.sured her that Gandolph would be filing a motion for reconsideration of the Court of Appeals order dismissing the habeas. Arthur prophesied success, but had little to say when Mira pressed him for the specific grounds he would raise.

Returning to his office, he was glum, discouraged about Gandolph's case and, inevitably, morose with the feelings for his father that had arisen from the occasion. On his desk, Pamela had left a stack of doc.u.ments at least eight inches high and an explanatory note. For the last two days, following up on Gillian's suggestion, Pamela had been attempting to identify anyone in the travel industry in Kindle County who had been referred to as Pharaoh, or by any name that might have sounded anything like that. She'd had no luck after spending much of yesterday on the phone, and at Arthur's suggestion, had journeyed today to the Department of Registration to examine the rolls of travel agents in the state.

The records she'd a.s.sembled were carefully grouped: the rosters of corporate travel departments, the membership of a local travel industry trade a.s.sociation, and microfiche copies of the registration forms of four travel agents. Here, unlike most states, travel agents were licensed by law, a process that required an a.s.sociate's Degree, a pa.s.sing grade on a statewide exam, and proof of good moral character, which, generally speaking, meant no history of felonies or of stealing clients' money. According to a vivid account in her handwritten note, Pamela, in order to identify travel agents licensed in 1991, had had to return to the predigital era in the Department bas.e.m.e.nt, where the mold count had nearly been enough to choke her and the microfilm reader had left her with a brutal headache.

Arthur picked up the gray Copies of the registration forms she'd printed out. Ferd O'Fallon ('Ferd O?' Pamela's paste-on note read). Pia Ferro. Nick Pharos.

Faro Cole.

It took him only a second to place the name and he ran up the stairs to Pamela's office. She was on the phone and he jumped around, waving his hands until he had forced her to get off.

"That's the guy Erno shot!"

To be certain, he made Pamela dig the police reports from the shooting out of the file drawers in the corridor. Once she had, they sat in her spare office, a narrow s.p.a.ce in beige laminate, where every flat surface had been surrendered to irregular piles of cases and statutes and draft briefs. In a corner, she'd added a Shaker rocker, adorned by a bold red blanket bearing the st.i.tched image of the University of Wisconsin badger. She used the chair as a resting place for her coat and stray volumes she hadn't gotten around to returning to the firm law library and Arthur cleared it off, laying the blanket over the metal heat registers with the tender reverence Pamela thought it was due. He sat and Pamela rested her feet on a desk drawer. Together, as they'd done for hundreds of hours before, they noodled. It was Faro, not Pharaoh. A travel agent It seemed so obvious now. Pamela, in fact, was chagrined with herself.

"Rommy said it was F, a, r, o," she said, "and I laughed at him."

"If your worst mistake as a lawyer is not taking spelling lessons from Rommy Gandolph, your career's going to turn out okay," Arthur told her. There was a more important question than trying to figure how they'd been so dumb. "Where do we find him?" Arthur asked.

Sick of dusty bas.e.m.e.nts, Pamela urged paying one of the Internet search companies that had compiled a database of public records in all fifty states. His partners had begun to question the expenses mounting in a losing cause, but Arthur was even more impatient than Pamela for answers. What came back, however, after Faro Cole's name was entered and various detailed searches were ordered hardly seemed worth the $150 they had spent. There was a sketchy credit report showing little more than an address from 1990 and the data, last updated in 1996, that had appeared on Faro's driver's license. As for the myriad additional records QuikTrak supposedly canva.s.sed, there was not a further hit in the fifty states. Faro was no longer licensed as a travel agent here, or in the other thirteen jurisdictions which certified agents. Faro Cole had never been to court"never sued, never bankrupt, never divorced, never convicted. He had never taken a mortgage or owned real estate; he had never been married. In fact, if QuikTrak was correct, he had not even been born, nor had he died, anywhere in America.

"How is that possible?" Pamela asked after they'd submitted the last search for birth information.

Arthur watched the screen. As before, once you saw the answer, it seemed obvious.

"It's an alias," Arthur said. "Faro Cole is an alias. We're looking for somebody else." And with that, one more thing was obvious, too.

They were nowhere.

On Wednesday, Larry was off, as he had been most days since the court's decision, burning the comp time he'd acc.u.mulated chasing around nights on the Gandolph case. He and his guys were finishing a new house near the top of Fort Hill and today Larry's taper hadn't shown. He had to don the face mask himself and sand drywall all day, dirty, tedious work in which the fine plaster dust seemed to penetrate even his pores.

Around noon, he felt his pager vibrating. The number went back to McGrath Hall. Police bra.s.s. If he'd been doing something worthwhile, he'd have ignored it, but today he took the break. At the other end, the secretary answered, "Deputy Chief Amos's office." Wilma Amos, Larry's long-ago partner on the Task Force that investigated the Fourth of July Ma.s.sacre, was now Deputy Chief for Personnel. As far as Larry was concerned, Wilma and the job deserved each other, but she had maintained a rooting interest in the Gandolph case and had called a couple of times after Erno surfaced to get the inside stuff. Larry thought she might have been delivering an attaboy on the Court of Appeals decision, but when she came on the line, she said she had some news that might interest him.

"My sister Rose works at the Department of Registration," Wilma said. "A little girl came in there yesterday who said she was a lawyer in Art Raven's firm. Looking for information about travel agents in 1991."

"Nineteen ninety-one means Gandolph, right?"

"That's why I'm on the phone, Larry."

"And does your sister know what Arthur's a.s.sociate got?"

"Rose helped her print out the registration forms. Made copies. I was going to send them over, but they said you're off, so I thought you'd appreciate the page."

"I do, Wilma."

She was ready to read him the names on the forms. Larry got a pencil from Paco, his chief carpenter, but he stopped writing once she mentioned Faro Cole.

"c.r.a.p," said Larry. He explained who Faro was.

"What does it mean that he's a travel agent?" she asked.

"It means I missed something," Larry answered.

Agitated, he went back to work. At first he thought he was upset because he'd fanned on something as obvious as Faro being a travel agent. But there was more to it. With nothing else to preoccupy him, he kept thinking it all through as he bossed the sandpaper over the seams. By the end of the afternoon he was stuck on an idea he didn't especially like.

Around four, Paco and his two guys knocked off, and Larry decided to walk the three or four blocks down to Ike's, the cop hangout where Erno had plugged Faro Cole. Maybe if Ike's wasn't nearby, he wouldn't have bothered. But there were worse ideas than having a cold one on a hot day and putting his mind at ease.

Larry did his best to clean up, but a floury dusting of plaster remained in his hair and on his overalls as he headed down the hill. The area was yuppying-up in a hurry. A lot of the locals were arriving home early to make the most of the daylight, and the men and women with briefcases looked like they'd been to the golf course, not the office. Larry's college degree was in business. Now and then, over the years, when he'd thought about the money he might have earned, one of his comforts was that he didn't have to half garrote himself every morning with a necktie. What a world. You just couldn't count on anything.

Ike's was no more than a bare-bones tavern. No ferns or hardwood here. It was a long dim room with poor acoustics and the distinct yeasty odor of spilled beer. There was an old mirrored bar of cherry, booths along the wall upholstered in red plastic, and picnic benches in the center of the floor. Ike Minoque, the owner, was an ex-cop who'd gotten shot in the head and gone on disability in the early '60s. Guys from Six began to hang out to help him out. Now Ike's was a destination for anyone on the job in Kindle County. There were two groups who arrived here during the week"cops, and ladies who liked them. When Larry came on in 1975, one of the old guys had said to him, 'You get two things with this job you don't get with most others"a gun. And girls. My advice is the same both ways. Keep it in the holster.' Larry hadn't listened. He'd shot two guys, albeit with justification. On the other score, he had no excuses at all.

The Code said n.o.body ever talked about what went down at Ike's"the tales told or who you left with. And as a result, you learned stuff here they couldn't teach in the Academy. Guys lied a lot"they covered themselves with false glory. But there were plenty of boozy confessions, too: when you hadn't covered your partner, when you got so scared your body failed you. You could cry about f.u.c.king up, and laugh about the world of bean brains who were out there just waiting for the police to find them.

When Larry entered, several voices rang out. He shook hands, taking c.r.a.p and giving it, and worked his way back to the bar, where Ike was drawing drafts. The two projection TVs in the barroom were showing reruns of Cops.

As several other men and women had done already, Ike congratulated Larry on the outcome of the Gandolph case. This thing with Erno had bothered a lot of people"it always did when anybody who called himself part of the brotherhood went bad.

"Yeah," said Larry, "I didn't shed any tears when Erno took off on the highway for h.e.l.l." The morning paper was on the bar next to him. Below the fold, there was a photo of Collins and the others rolling Erno's casket into the hea.r.s.e. It had taken all Larry's self-control not to go down to St. Mary's yesterday with a sign reading 'Good Riddance.'

"Son of a buck was not my cup of tea, either," Ike said. "Something about the way he missed the job. You know, like mom kept him home when the other boys went out to play. I thought he had the wrong idea about things. Easy to say now. But," said Ike with a smile, "Erno wasn't all bad. Bought a h.e.l.l of a lot of beer in here."