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

you take him on, carve him up, make the jury want to blame him instead of me? Can you tell the jury that Harry Ryman doesn’t know his ass from third base and hates his old partner enough to send him to death row even if I’m innocent? Can you go home and tell your aunt Claire when all this is over that it was just business?”
    Mason had asked himself the same questions as he drove downtown. Hearing Blues ask them reaffirmed the advice Harry had given him years ago. Knowing the right thing to do was easier than doing it. Since Harry was the lead on the investigation into Cullan’s murder, his testimony would have an enormous impact on the jury. Blues’s life might depend on Mason’s ability to turn the case into a trial of Harry and his investigation rather than a trial of Blues’s innocence.
    Mason realized another troubling aspect of Blues’s questions. The criminal justice system was sometimes more about criminals than it was about justice. Innocent people were convicted for any number of reasons. Cops who planted evidence. Lazy defense lawyers. Jurors who believed that only guilty people got arrested, especially if they were black or brown. Being innocent wasn’t always enough.
    That’s why nothing scared Mason more than an innocent client. The gangbanger, the embezzler, the jealous spouse turned killer, all knew in their gut that they’d do the time. They knew that after their lawyer turned every technical trick he had, the system would beat them. The odds favored the house.
    Innocent people didn’t understand any of that. They were just innocent. End of story.
    “I’ll do whatever it takes to beat this. Harry doesn’t expect anything less. He won’t cut either one of us any slack, and he’ll get none from me. Now, tell me what they’ve got on you.”

CHAPTER FIVE
     
    Blues hesitated a moment, then nodded and sat across from Mason.
    “Jack Cullan came in the bar last Friday night, about nine o’clock.”
    “You knew him?”
    “He tried to hire me once. He wanted me to take pictures of a dude playing hide the nuts with the wrong squirrel. I took a pass.”
    “How long ago was that?”
    “Not long enough that he didn’t recognize me when he came in the bar. When he paid for the drinks, he told me that I should have taken the job since it paid better than bartending. I told him it didn’t pay better than bar owning.”
    “Was he alone?”
    “Opposite of alone. He was with a fine-looking woman, early forties, my guess.”
    “Did you get her name?”
    “Not at first. Before she left, she gave me her card. Her name was Beth Harrell.”
    “As in Beth Harrell, the chair of the Missouri Gaming Commission?”
    “Not likely that there’s more than one Beth Harrell who’d be out clubbing with Jack Cullan.”
    “I can’t believe she was out anywhere with Cullan. They’ve been all over the front page of the Star . She’s got to be out of her mind to be out with that guy.”
    “Maybe that’s why she threw a drink in his face.”
    “Okay. You want to take this from the top or just play catch-the-zinger?”
    “You’re the one asking the questions. I’m just the defendant.”
    “Start talking or I’ll give you up to the public defender.”
    “Don’t tempt me. I was on the bar. Pete Kirby, Kevin Street, and Ronnie Fivecoat had just started their set. Weather’s so bad, the place is dead, but they were killing it, really cooking.”
    Mason had heard the trio before, Kirby on piano, Street on bass, and Fivecoat on drums. He’d have happily gone anywhere to hear them play.
    “So Jack Cullan and Beth Harrell are out on one of the worst nights of the year and pick your place to get warm? How does that happen?”
    “People with money come into my place, I try not to ask them if they’re lost. I served them drinks and didn’t pay any more attention to them until she stands up and douses him. Cullan’s old and fat, but that old, fat man jumped up and popped her with the back of his hand.