best criminal defense lawyer in the city, and few could name a close second. Over the years Jack D'Jarvis had dismantled at least two dozen ironclad cases Thomas had brought to the DA. It was said that when Jack D'Jarvis died, he'd spend his time in heaven springing all his former clients from hell.
The doctors examined Joe for two hours while Thomas and D'Jarvis cooled their heels in the corridor with the young patrolman manning the door.
"I can't get him off," D'Jarvis said.
"I know that."
"Rest assured, though, the second-degree murder charge is a farce and the state's attorney knows it. But your son will have to do time."
"How much?"
D'Jarvis shrugged. "Ten years would be my guess."
"In Charlestown?" Thomas shook his head. "There'll be nothing left of him to walk back out those doors."
"Three police officers are dead, Thomas."
"But he didn't kill them."
"Which is why he won't get the chair. But pretend this is anyone else but your son and you'd want him to get twenty years."
"But he is my son," Thomas said.
The doctors exited the room.
One of them stopped to talk to Thomas. "I don't know what his skull is made of, but we're guessing it's not bone."
"Doctor?"
"He's fine. No cranial bleeding, no loss of memory or speech disability. His nose and half his ribs are broken, and it'll be some time before he urinates without seeing blood in the bowl, but no brain damage that I can see."
Thomas and Jack D'Jarvis went in and sat by Joe's bed and he considered them through his swollen black eyes.
"I was wrong," Thomas said. "Dead wrong. And, sure, there's no excuse for it."
Joe spoke through black lips crisscrossed with sutures. "You shouldn't have let them beat me?"
Thomas nodded. "I shouldn't have."
"You going soft on me, old man?"
Thomas shook his head. "I should've done it myself."
Joe's soft chuckle traveled through his nostrils. "With all due respect, sir, I'm happy your men did it. If you'd done it, I might be dead."
Thomas smiled. "So you don't hate me?"
"First time I remember liking you in ten years." Joe tried to raise himself off the pillow but failed. "Where's Emma?"
Jack D'Jarvis opened his mouth, but Thomas waved him off. He looked his son steadily in the face as he told him what had happened in Marblehead.
Joe sat with the information for a bit, turning it over. He said, somewhat desperately, "She's not dead."
"She is, son. And even if we'd acted immediately that night, Donnie Gishler was not of the disposition to be taken alive. She was dead as soon as she got in that car."
"There's no body," Joe said. "So she's not dead."
"Joseph, they never found half the bodies on Titanic, but the poor souls are no longer with us just the same."
"I won't believe it."
"You won't? Or you don't?"
"It's the same thing."
"Far from it." Thomas shook his head. "We've pieced together some of what happened that night. She was Albert White's moll. She betrayed you."
"She did," Joe said.
"And?"
Joe smiled, sutured lips and all. "And I don't give a shit. I'm crazy about her."
" 'Crazy' isn't love," his father said.
"No, what is it?"
"Crazy."
"All due respect, Dad, I witnessed your marriage for eighteen years, and that wasn't love."
"No," his father agreed, "it wasn't. So I know whereof I speak." He sighed. "Either way, she's gone, son. As dead as your mother, God rest her."
Joe said, "What about Albert?"
Thomas sat on the side of the bed. "In the wind."
Jack D'Jarvis said, "But rumored to be negotiating his return."
Thomas looked over at him, and D'Jarvis nodded.
"Who're you?" Joe asked D'Jarvis.
The lawyer extended his hand. "John D'Jarvis, Mr. Coughlin. Most people call me Jack."
Joe's swollen eyes opened as wide as they had since Thomas and Jack had entered the room.
"Damn," he said. "Heard of you."
"I've heard of you too," D'Jarvis said. "Unfortunately, so has the whole state. On the other hand, one of the worst decisions your father has ever made could end up being the best thing that could have happened to you."
"How so?" Thomas asked.
"By beating him to a pulp, you turned him into a victim. The state's attorney isn't going to want to prosecute. He will but he won't want to."
"Bondurant is state's attorney these days, right?" Joe asked.
D'Jarvis nodded. "You know him?"
"I know of him," Joe said, the fear apparent on his bruised face.
"Thomas," D'Jarvis asked, watching him carefully, "do you know Bondurant?"
Thomas said, "I do, yes."
Calvin Bondurant had married a Lenox of Beacon Hill and had produced three willowy daughters, one of whom had recently