The Only Good Lawyer - Jeremiah Healy Read Online Free Page A

to
that day at the law firm. What exactly happened?"
    Spaeth blew out a breath. "I go in, because
Rothenberg tells me they can take my 'deposition,' ask me a lot of
questions under oath. So we're sitting around this table in a
conference room-like where we are here, only a lot bigger and nicer,
view of the harbor and all. And Gant's needling me, really tucking it
under the saddle with his questions."
    "Like what?"
    "Oh, I don't mean the words themselves. Hell, a
couple weeks later, Steve gave me this copy of the thing—a
'transcript'?"
    "Right."
    "Okay, so I read the transcript, and from Gant's
words, you don't get what he was doing. He was too fucking smooth.
No, it was more his . . . like facial expressions, and—what's the
word? 'Inflection,' yeah. The inflection of his voice. Gant was
needling me, and I blew my stack. I said the only good lawyer, like
the only good . . ." Spaeth stopped.
    "That word I've heard enough of."
    "Yeah." A sniff, almost a good-natured
laugh. "Yeah, I called him that and more, storming out of the
conference room yelling . . . yelling I don't remember exactly what.
But I know I said if he kept it up, I was gonna kill him."
    "Kept what up?"
    Spaeth stopped. "Fucking me over."
    Something didn't feel right. "But Steve told me
things settled pretty soon after that."
    "They did. That's what I mean about not killing
the bastard. The divorce was basically over with. And lawyers are a
dime a dozen. Even if I did shoot Gant, Nicole would've just gotten
herself another one."
    Thinking about what kind of witness this defendant
would make, I shook my head.
    "What's the matter?"
    "Nothing," I said. "Let's go back to
the murder weapon. Your gun?"
    Spaeth started to say something, then just, "I
don't know."
    "You don't know?"
    "Look, I haven't seen it, all right? The
revolver the cops say got used. I do know I had one just like it, a
Taurus 85. I bought the thing on a business trip in the South, filed
the serial number off it."
    "Why the hell did you do that?"
    "I read in the paper about the 'Castle Law' we
got here—where the state lets you off if you kill a guy coming into
your house? Only the newspaper said the guy would have to be trying
to kill you, so I figured, anybody ever broke in and I shot him with
one of the guns I bought up here, it'd be nice to have a throwaway
piece for the cops to find on the guy."
    Alan Spaeth kept getting better and better. "How
many other firearms do you have?"
    "When I was living in the 'marital home,' three
more handguns and two rifles. I used to take Terry deer hunting until
all this shit hit the fan."
    "Where are these other weapons now?"
    "Locked away in storage, along with most of my
stuff from the West Roxbury place."
    "But you kept the throwaway piece?"
    "Brought it to the boardinghouse, yeah. For
protection, understand? Only the Taurus got stolen from my room. One
of the reasons I moved out. Fucking owner of the place had a thing
against guns, and I figured Dufresne was the one who took it."
    "Dufresne being the owner."
    “ Yeah. 'Vincennes Dufresne,' the little frog fuck."
    I let that one pass. “Whether it was your weapon or
not, the shells in the cylinder had your prints on them."
    "Steve told me my prints weren't on the Taurus
itself, though. You think I'm stupid enough to wipe my prints off the
gun and not off the bullets?"
    “ Happens all the time."
    "And then leave the thing by Gant's car?"
    Stupider still, granted. "How would somebody get
shells with your prints on them if it wasn't your gun?"
    Spaeth looked at me hard with the good eye. "That's
why I think it was my Taurus, sport. And my shells in it. Somebody
set me up."
    "Dufresne?"
    A stop. "No, that doesn't make sense."
    I felt the twinge again. "Who, then?"
    "If I knew that, I wouldn't need you, right?"
    There was something about Spaeth, down past all the
obnoxious bluff and bluster, that rang true. And it bothered me.
    "Okay," I said. "Steve told me you had
an alibi witness."
    "Damn straight.