Dark and Bloody Ground by Darcy O'Brien Read Free Book Online

arrest. How many other robberies had there been and how much was the total take? The suspects weren’t ratting on each other, not yet anyway. They might have been together long enough to have done many jobs and to have developed loyalties based on who knew how many secrets.
    As Lester excited himself with visions of heaps of cash, he became anxious. It would not be easy to show that he had no idea where his fee was coming from. Every criminal lawyer faced this difficulty, but here it was acute. This crew was unlikely to have legitimate assets. The prudent course would be to pack up and go home.
    Still, if no one knew how much cash there was, who was to know how or how much Lester was being paid? And Roger’s family had money of their own. Obviously they were not rushing to their son’s aid, they were nowhere within sight; but they might prove helpful one way or another once they realized that Roger might be facing theelectric chair. If Roger could get money to them, and they could pay Lester...
    The thing to do, Lester more or less decided in his reverie, was to wait to receive the retainer and go from there. He had gone this far. He had already devoted time and money to this case. He deserved something. Was it his responsibility to know where every penny of his fee was coming from? If it were, what criminal would ever be able to hire a lawyer? This had become a hotly debated aspect of the law, especially because of the enormous cash resources of drug dealers and organized crime figures. A lawyer who knowingly accepted stolen goods could be prosecuted, but to what lengths a lawyer ought to go to ascertain the origin of a fee was not clearly defined. The key to avoiding prosecution and conviction was to be able to show that you had good reason to believe that your client had legitimate assets from which the fee could conceivably be paid.
    When Carol appeared at the coffee shop she was antsy as usual and, this time, irate. There was no way, she said, that Roger would agree to such an outrageous fee. Roger was insisting that she should not pay Lester a cent over a hundred thousand.
    “The money won’t do him much good after he fries,” Lester said. His spiel unreeled automatically; he had been giving versions of it for twenty-five years. “You may not even find another lawyer who’ll take this money. I notice the other two boys don’t have one. What kind of a wife wouldn’t do more for her husband than hire some no-good two-bit shyster who doesn’t know his ass from his elbow about Kentucky and how we do things there? Don’t you love your husband?”
    Of course she loved him, Carol said. Technically, they were not man and wife. Her real name was Ellis. Actually it was Keeney. They had planned to get married. Then this had happened.
    Lester leaned toward her across the table, his face assuming furrows of worry and concern. He was not one to question other people’s domestic arrangements, he said. He and his wife had celebrated their thirty-second wedding anniversary, but not everyone could be so fortunate in these troubled times. Unfortunately, he told her almost in a whisper, not everyone was so broad-minded. The law was a cruel, impartial thing. The law made an important distinction between people who were actually married and those who were not. If she was not in fact Roger’s lawful wedded wife, she would more than likely be called to testify. She could be charged with criminal facilitation, atthe very least. Hadn’t she been making plans to leave the country? If the FBI found out about that, and they were very likely to find out, she could be looking at years behind bars. And there was a more serious likelihood. She could become her loved one’s executioner.
    “You may end up being the instrument that sends Roger to the chair. I have seen it happen. If you’re not his wife, they will compel you to testify against him. I have seen lives wrecked. Even if they let you off, you won’t have much to spend your