Free Dead Man's Thoughts by Carolyn Wheat

unrestrained by having to maintain composure in front of anyone. But I still couldn’t cry.
    Slowly, unbidden, images of Nathan came to me. Nathan at a block fair, trying on a George Raft hat and looking, as I told him, like a Jewish hit man. I saw him in that hat, and I laughed and then cried, sobs bursting from me like an exploding boiler. Nathan at the bench, shrugging, wheedling, schmoozing to get one of his kids into a program instead of Riker’s. And I’d told Button he didn’t have special relationships with clients! What would the detective’s sleazy coplike mind think when he found out Nathan had actually had clients to his house? Then, I recalled Nathan in bed, his gentle hands touching me. Finally, Nathan in death, his body splayed and tied by malicious hands.
    I must have used thirty Kleenexes. I’d used a few twice. They sat in a sodden heap at the end of the bench. I picked them up and threw them into an empty trash barrel, where they fell, with a muffled, hollow thud.
    My grieving over, at least for the moment, I turned my thoughts to the question Dorinda had asked me the night before. If I really believed Nathan had been killed by someone other than a gay lover, what was I prepared to do about it?
    Button wouldn’t listen to me. Why should he? I had nothing concrete, no evidence that any other motive existed for Nathan’s murder.
    Motive. If it wasn’t sexual, what was it? Not robbery—a robber would have hit Nathan over the head or stabbed him or shot him. Not tied him to the bed and wasted time wrecking the place. Ruining things of value instead of taking them.
    No, the cops were right in one sense. The scene had been set to look like the work of a gay pickup who freaked out. The magazines had been planted. The tying up was to complete the picture. Kinky sex gone wrong.
    That’s a defense, kinky sex gone wrong. Flaherty used it once in a trial. The victim—we defense lawyers usually say “complaining witness,” but this was a victim—was raped with a broom handle. It was up to Flaherty to persuade the jury that the woman and his client were into weird sex and things had just gotten out of hand. No rape, just kinky sex gone wrong. It made me sick at the time, but Flaherty just said, “That’s the job, Cass. Do it or don’t do it.”
    Now the cops were fastening that kinky sex label on Nathan.
    I couldn’t let them. I knew the truth, knew that Nathan was not an exploiter, sexual or otherwise. I had to prove it. But how?
    Back to motive. Why does someone kill a lawyer? Could the motive lie somewhere in Nathan’s caseload?
    If so, there was only one case that filled the bill. Charlie Blackwell. Face it, Legal Aid lawyers represent wife-beaters, junkies, muggers, crazies. How often do we pick up a client with heavy mob connections, with information destined for the Special Prosecutor? Information so hot that it puts his own life in danger?
    Only instead of Charlie, they had murdered Nathan. Murdered him because he’d talked to Charlie? Because he knew what Charlie intended to tell the Special Prosecutor?
    My pulse quickened. I had to get to the office—to Nathan’s office—to see Blackwell’s file. To see Charlie himself at the Brooklyn House. I stood up from the bench, stretched my stiff muscles, and strode toward the office.
    On the way, I bought coffee and the paper. The story was on page 7. LAWYER ’ S BODY FOUND IN BKLYN HEIGHTS APT . My name wasn’t mentioned. I supposed I had Button to thank for that. The thought galled me, but I had to give credit where it was due. At least I wouldn’t have reporters calling me all morning, as I had when I arraigned the guy they’d labeled the Bensonhurst Slasher three years ago. When I got to the part where it said the body had been found in a “sunny, plant-filled apartment,” my eyes filled with tears. The plants had been my idea. I’d