The only good Lawyer

don’t know that I was already representing him against his wife.”
    Rothenberg was right. “I thought you did strictly criminal?”
    “Mostly, but I don’t want to do it forever.” A weak smile. “And besides, this economic climate, you have to diversify.”
    Under the circumstances, not funny. “Nine minutes, Steve.”
    The weak smile disappeared. “Okay. The bad news first. A couple of months ago, Gant was taking Alan’s deposition in the divorce case when my client went ballistic. Screamed and yelled in Gant’s conference room and all the way out the door.”
    “Did Spaeth threaten him?”
    “Expressly. In the hearing of half a dozen witnesses and using the ‘N’-word.”
    I remembered Gant had been African-American. “How about the murder weapon?”
    “Left at the crime scene.”
    “Fingerprints?”
    “Not on the revolver itself, but yes on the shells in the cylinder.”
    I felt like standing up again. “Spaeth’s prints were on the shells?”
    “Afraid so. Probably his gun, too.”
    “Probably?”
    “Alan says he filed the serial numbers off one of his firearms, but it was stolen.”
    One of his firearms. “So, Spaeth stole the gun, then—”
    “No, no. Alan claims he bought the thing years ago on a trip—to one of those states where you don’t have to show much?—then he wiped the numbers, and thereafter it was stolen from his room.”
    “His room?”
    “At the boarding-house he’d been living in.”
    “Stolen how long ago?”
    “Four weeks before the murder.”
    Convenient.
    Rothenberg read something in my face. “John, Alan says that’s the reason he moved out of the rooming house, because he thought the owner of the place had stolen his piece.”
    “Moved to where?”
    “An apartment, three or four blocks away.” Rothenberg paused. “Part of the good news is that Alan’s alibi will also confirm the business about somebody stealing the gun.”
    “Spaeth has an alibi witness?”
    “Yeah, one of the other men who lived in the boarding-house.”
    “Steve, I don’t remember hearing about that on the news.”
    Spreading his fingertips, Rothenberg combed the beard with his nails. “He hasn’t come forward yet.”
    I closed my eyes. “Meaning neither you nor the police know where the guy is.”
    “John, I won’t lie to you. Our alibi witness is a drinking buddy of Alan’s. He could be anywhere, but we need to find him.”
    I opened my eyes. “You need to find him, Steve.” Rothenberg clasped his hands on the desk. “I said I wouldn’t lie to you, John. I won’t try to kid you, either. Alan Spaeth was a miserable son of a bitch through most of the divorce case. But we pretty much had it settled—house to the wife, my client to absorb their son’s future college costs, if any. We even distributed some of the money from the marital estate to both spouses.”
    I thought about it. “Kind of reduces Spaeth’s motive to kill Gant.”
    “Exactly. In fact, I thought Alan’d finally adjusted to the situation, had ‘let go of his wife,’ as I’ve heard the shrinks call it. He used some of the money to move to an apartment, start looking for a new job—”
    “New job?”
    “He’d been laid off, before the marriage broke up. One of the reasons it did.” Rothenberg changed his tone. “John, my client’s been made to look like a pariah, especially given our rash of divorce-attorney killings. And because this one was done execution-style, I have to show the jury a somebody else who might have wanted to shoot Gant. Now the man had an ex-wife himself, plus a real questionable brother. And he even prosecuted gang members once upon a time.”
    “Steve—”
    Rothenberg raised his right hand, palm toward me. “All I’m saying is that if we can bring forward Alan’s alibi witness, my version of the story becomes a lot more salable.”
    “Your version.”
    “It’s my client’s version, too.”
    “That a ‘somebody else’ set him up with his own gun?”
    “Do me a favor, John?”
    “What?”
    “Talk to Alan before you make up your mind about taking the case.”
    I gave it a beat. “Why should I, Steve?”
    Rothenberg stared down at his desk. “Because he’s convinced me.”

    The old Suffolk County jail had been called simply “ Charles Street ,” a brown-and-yellow stone monstrosity erected when Americans wearing blue and gray uniforms were still killing each other. Inside, the architecture would have reminded you of a five-story birdcage with the