Lou Mason Mystery - 02 - The Last Witness Read Free Page A

they heard, the more they were overwhelmed by one simple truth: there were more people willing to kill than they could stop from killing. Sterile statistics on closed cases couldn’t mask the smell of blood and the taste for vengeance that clung to homicide cops like a second skin.
    Justice was supposed to cleanse them, but the pressure to make an arrest could wash justice down the drain. Even a good cop like Harry Ryman wasn’t immune. If he was going to save Blues, Mason knew he had to slow down the clock.
    Saving Blues also meant taking on Harry Ryman. Mason could remember the days when Harry used to pick him up by his belt loops and swing him up over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. And Mason could remember the day he graduated from law school and Harry bear-hugged him with a father’s pride. Easing his grip just enough to see Mason’s face, Harry told him how to navigate the uncertain waters that his clients would take him through.
    “Just do the right thing. You won’t have any trouble knowing what it is. The only hard part is doing it.”
    Life was never more complicated than that for Harry. He interrupted Mason’s memories.
    “You can see him now. He’s in number three. No one will be watching or listening. And don’t worry about it being my case. Just do your job and I’ll do mine.”
    Blues was standing at the far end of the room staring into a mirror, his burnished-coppery skin, straight black hair, and fiery eyes muted under the exposed fluorescent tubes that hung from the ceiling.
    “You’re not that good-looking,” Mason told him.
    “I get prettier every day. It’s a two-way mirror and this room is wired for sound.”
    “Harry said that no one is watching or listening.”
    “You believe him?”
    “I believe that he’s not that stupid. If they want you for this murder, they aren’t going to fuck it up like that.”
    “Don’t count on it.”
    Mason thought about Wally Sutherland, his first criminal defense client. Wally’s one-thing-led-to-another encounter with a woman he’d met in a bar ended with his arrest for attempted forcible rape. When Mason visited him in jail, he cried for his wife, his mother, and God, in that order. Mason had never seen Blues cry and didn’t expect he ever would.
    “Did they question you?”
    “Nothing official. Harry tried to make it like old times. Good old Harry stroking me, telling me how much easier it would be just to get the whole thing over with. His partner, Zimmerman, tells him to hold off until you got here. Harry says to Zimmerman that I’m too smart to fall for any tricks, especially since I had been such a smart cop, saying that he was just reminding me of what I already knew.”
    “Harry playing good cop with you is—”
    “Stupid. Ryman’s done everything but put a bounty on my ass, and he thinks he’s gonna talk me into confessing because he’s such a damn nice guy. Bullshit.”
    “What do they have on you?”
    Blues leaned over the oak table that separated him from Mason, planting both hands firmly on the surface.
    “First things first. Can you do this?”
    “What do you mean, can I do this? You’ve seen the law license hanging in my office. I’m an official member of the bar. Murder cases are a walk in the park. Besides, at the rate I’m charging you, I can’t afford to take long to get you off. I’ll go broke.”
    Blues didn’t laugh or smile. His face was a death mask. “I’m not asking you about the lawyer piece. You’re as good as anybody I’ve ever seen. I want to know, can you do this?”
    Mason understood the question. “Harry isn’t the issue. He’s not looking at the needle. You are.”
    “Ryman doesn’t just think I killed Jack Cullan. He wants it to be me. Cops who want somebody found guilty know how to make that happen.”
    “Not Harry. He’s hard. He probably does want it to be you, but Harry plays it straight. He doesn’t know any other way.”
    “We get to court, Ryman’s on the stand—can