Final Judgment Read Online Free PDF Page B

Fish for murder. Neither would give up the prize for the other. Both would designate a liaison with the other to coordinate their investigations, either Griswold or Cates for the cops and probably Dennis Brewer for the FBI. Each liaison would talk with the other just enough to keep up appearances, exchanging scant information and less trust.
    All of which was good news for Mason, who believed in the military salute—confusion to the enemy. That’s why Mason spent the next morning cleaning off his desk instead of bird-dogging Pete Samuelson or nagging Griswold and Cates for information.
    He had mail to open and answer, motions to file and respond to, bills to collect and pay. It was the life of the solo practitioner. He was a one-man band and it suited him just fine. He’d practiced law in other firms, large and small, but settled into his own practice five years ago. He liked the freedom to pick and choose his cases, knowing that he could hold a partners’ meeting in a phone booth or bathroom.
    Technology allowed him to get by without a secretary. His Aunt Claire, who had raised him from the age of three, had insisted that he take typing in the eighth grade, the single most useful course he ever took. That was before computers replaced slide rules as the indispensable educational tool.
    Mickey Shanahan had been the only person on Mason’s payroll, working as his legal assistant. Mickey had hated the job title, preferring wingman because it had more Gen-X appeal. The position was currently open since Mickey had joined the staff of Josh Seeley when Seeley was elected the previous November as Missouri’s newest United States senator. Mickey hungered for a career in politics like a junkie with a jones on.
    Abby Lieberman, Seeley’s chief of staff, had hired Mickey. Mason carried his own pained longing for Abby. They had been in love, still were as far as Mason was concerned. Abby didn’t deny it. She just said love wasn’t enough to overcome Mason’s penchant for violent cases.
    She could accept that he defended people charged with heinous crimes, but she couldn’t live with the violence that poured out of his cases and into his life and hers. More than that, she couldn’t understand why he so willingly dove into the dark water floating around his cases. He couldn’t explain something to her that he scarcely understood himself.
    He hadn’t seen Abby since they had dinner just after the election in November, four months ago. She’d told him she was moving to D.C. Driving home, he had turned on the radio, catching Tina Turner asking, What’s love got to do with it ? The lyric stuck with him, surfacing whenever he thought of Abby. He shoved the song out of his head one more time and refocused on the stacks of paper littering his desk.
    One of the things Mason liked most about his law practice was its sheer unexpectedness. The uncertainty of where the next case would come from, the unpredictability of the story the client would tell him, the jaw-dropping impact when most of it turned out to be true. None of which prepared him for the knock at his door.
    “It’s open,” Mason called out, looking up from his desk.
    Vanessa Carter opened the door, standing in the frame, waiting a moment to be certain that Mason recognized her. She was black, handsome though not beautiful, with a close-cropped Afro flecked with traces of silver. She was neither slim nor thick, but solidly midlife, dressed in a conservative navy suit, a long winter coat slung over one arm.
    The last time Mason had seen her was in her chambers. She had been Judge Vanessa Carter then, a conservative judge on everybody’s short list for promotion from the state trial court to the federal bench, and she had been presiding over the murder case of Wilson “Blues” Bluestone, Jr.
    Blues was Mason’s closest friend, landlord, and tour guide to the world of violent dispute resolution. At the time, he was being held without bail for a murder he hadn’t