“You sound like you’re preparing for a war, Ron.”
He nodded. “As I said, Jules Halpern is Shafer’s defense attorney. He rarely loses. In fact, I don’t know if he’s ever lost a big case like this one. He turns down all the losers, Alex.”
I looked directly into Coleman’s dark eyes. “We have Patsy Hampton’s blood on the killer’s clothes. We have blood in the bathroom drain, and I bet we’ll have Shafer’s fingerprints somewhere in Hampton’s car before the end of the day. We may have the wire hanger he used to strangle her. Ron?”
“Yes, Alex. I know what you’re going to say. I know your question. It’s the same one I have.”
“Shafer has diplomatic immunity. So why bring in Jules Halpern?”
“That’s a very good goddamn question we both came up with. I suspect Halpern’s been hired to get us to drop the charges completely.”
“We have substantial evidence. He was washing Patsy Hampton’s blood off himself in the bathroom. There’s residue in the sink.”
Coleman nodded and shrank back into his easy chair. “I don’t understand why Jules Halpern is involved. I’m sure we’ll know before too long, though.”
“I’m afraid we’ll know soon,” I said.
I decided to leave the station by the back way that night, just in case there was press lying in wait out front on Alabama Avenue. As I stepped outside, a small balding man in a light-green suit popped out from behind the adjacent stone wall.
“That’s a good way to get yourself shot,” I told him. I was only half kidding.
“Occupational hazard,” he lisped. “Don’t shoot the messenger, Detective.”
He smiled thinly as he handed me a white letter-sized envelope. “Alex Cross, you’ve hereby been served with a Summons and Complaint. Have a nice night, Detective,” he said in his sibilant whine. Then he walked away as surreptitiously as he’d appeared.
I opened the envelope and quickly scanned the letter. I groaned. Now I knew why Jules Halpern had been retained, and what we were up against.
I had been named in a civil suit for “false arrest” and “defamation of the character of Colonel Geoffrey Shafer.” The suit was for fifty million dollars.
Chapter 77
THE NEXT MORNING I was summoned to the District of Columbia Law Department offices downtown. This was not good, I decided. The city’s chief counsel, James Dowd, and Mike Kersee from the D.A.’s office were already ensconced in red-leather club chairs.
So was Chief of Detectives Pittman, who was putting on quite a show from his front-row seat. “You mean to tell me that because Shafer has diplomatic immunity he can avoid criminal prosecution in criminal court? But he can traipse right into our civil court and get protection against false arrest and defamation?”
Kersee nodded and made clucking noises with his tongue and teeth. “Yessirreebob, that’s it exactly. Our ambassadors and their staffs enjoy the same kind of immunity in England and everywhere else around the world. No amount of political pressure will get the Brits to waive immunity. Shafer is a war hero from the Falklands. Supposedly he’s also pretty well respected inside the Security Service, though lately he seems to have been in some trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?” I asked.
“They won’t tell us.”
Pittman was still badgering the lawyers. “What about that clown from the Baltic Embassy? The one who wiped out the sidewalk café? He went to trial.”
Mike Kersee shrugged. “He was just a low-level staffer from a low-level country that we could threaten. We can’t do that with England.”
“Why the hell not?” Pittman frowned and thumped his hand hard against the arm of his chair. “England isn’t worth shit anymore.”
The phone on Dowd’s desk rang, and he raised his hand for quiet. “That’s probably Jules Halpern. He said he’d call at ten, and he’s an efficient bastard. If it is him, I’ll put him on the speaker box. This should be about as interesting as a rectal exam done with a cactus.”
Dowd picked up and exchanged pleasantries with the defense attorney for about thirty seconds. Then Halpern cut him off. “I believe we have matters of substance to discuss. My schedule is rather tight today. I’m sure you’re hard pressed as well, Mr. Dowd.”
“Yes, let’s get down to business,” Dowd said, raising his thick, curly black eyebrows. “As you know, the police have a qualified privilege to arrest anyone if they have probable cause. You simply don’t have a civil case, Counselor—”
Halpern interrupted Dowd before he had finished speaking. “Not if that person identifies himself from the outset as having diplomatic immunity, which my client did. Colonel Shafer stood in the doorway of his therapist’s apartment, waving his British Security Service shield like a stop sign and saying that he had immunity.”
Dowd sighed loudly into the phone. “There was blood on his trousers, Counselor. He’s a murderer, Counselor, and a cop killer. I don’t think I need to say any more on the subject. With respect to the alleged defamation, the police also have a qualified privilege to talk to the press when a crime has been committed.”
“And I suppose that the chief of detectives’ statement in front of reporters—and several hundred million others around the world—isn’t slander per se?”