Disclaimer: These characters aren't mine and I make no profit from them.

Author's Note: This Fortnight's Episode is "Man in a Glass House", in which retired mobster Joe Cadillac publishes a tell-all memoir. He's banking on his trunk-full of evidence to keep his old cronies off his back. Cadillac's Caddy ends up impounded, awaiting a court ruling before it can be searched. His son, a priest, is kidnapped by a hit man who was hired by his former mob partners, angry about the book, and Cadillac is forced to turn to his old nemesis, Hardcastle, to retrieve the impounded evidence and rescue his boy. When the dust settles, the evidence is back in the hands of the authorities, and Cadillac's son has been saved.

Confessions

by L.M. Lewis

The one thing Mark learned in his first month at Gulls Way was that the case was not closed when the handcuffs went on. He'd already known that, in a personal, sitting-in-jail-awaiting-trial sort of way, but his own pedestrian career as an accused criminal couldn't hold a candle to the high-profile types they were dealing with now.

Martin Cody owned a whole stable of lawyers, of course, and the DA was proceeding with all due caution. Mark figured that the call that Monday morning from the assistant DA asking for the judge was yet another in the pile of wrinkles that needed ironing out. Hardcastle took the phone, but his end of the conversation was just a couple of uninformative grunts.

After that he hung up, returning to the breakfast table looking peeved. Mark waited what he thought was a decent interval before becoming impatient and blurting out, "What now?"

Apparently Hardcastle was the only one entitled to be disgruntled. He shot a surprised look at McCormick that seemed to indicate as much.

"Well, he was my friend," Mark said indignantly. "I think that gives me the right to be interested."

"Huh?" Hardcastle now wore a look of perplexity. "I thought those mob guys just annoyed you these days."

Mark's expression mirrored the judge's for a moment and then he uttered a small, "Oh . . . Cadillac, not Cody."

The former mobster was Hardcastle's bete noir. Mark bore him no particular ill-will. The old guy had rather nobly pledged to hand himself over to the authorities if the evidence was lost in the process of exchanging it for his son. But he hadn't actually sworn to plead guilty if the evidence hadn't been lost. Caveat emptor, Mark figured.

"So what's he up to now?" He asked airily. "Don't tell me somebody's offering him six-figures on a movie deal."

"Hah. No . . . the only audience he's gonna be telling his life story to anytime soon is the grand jury. That was Delfonso letting me know the DA is asking them to handle the indictments."

"How come?" Mark frowned.

Hardcastle scratched his nose and then shrugged. "Lots of reasons, I suppose. They do it sometimes for high profile cases. Cadillac having just trotted out that piece of slop and all—it's on the best seller list, for Pete's sake . . . but I'm guessing the DA wants to question some witnesses under oath."

Mark paled slightly.

The judge squinted at him for a moment, then grunted, and said, "Don't worry, you're not the one with the mens rea—"

"The what?"

"Guilty mind—sheesh, what kind of a jailhouse lawyer are you, anyway?"

"One who speaks English, Kemosabe."

"Okay, well, anyhow, we're both off the hook for that. And I hate to say it, but the more I thought about it, the gladder I was. If we'd taken that evidence before Judge Hightower had made that ruling we might as well've left those file boxes to go up in smoke."

"And then Joe would've had to turn himself in and confess? I wonder if he really would have."

Hardcastle seemed to be pondering that one. He finally said, "Cadillac plays by his own set of rules—but he sticks to them, and on his side of the fence a man's word is all he's got. It's not like those guys can haul their disputes into civil court."

"Nah," Mark said, "they just hire a hit man like Deseau."

"Well, not as often as you think. That kind of action brings the heat down on everybody, and the one thing Cadillac was good at was keeping the heat off his operation."

"Not that good—you put him away, didn't you?"

"Yeah, but that was penny-ante stuff. Corruption—a bribery charge. He only served two years."

Mark felt his face go rigid. It was the casual expression "only two years" that had done it. He thought he'd been getting better at stifling his resentment, but it still popped up at unexpected moments.

Hardcastle didn't seem to take any notice, in fact his own expression had gotten a little stiff and preoccupied.

"You got some hedges to get to, don'tcha?"

Mark knew a dismissal when he heard one. He thought it was a good idea, anyway, before he went and said something he'd regret. After only the barest civil nod, he was on his feet and putting his dishes in the sink.

A few minutes later, after he'd retrieved the clippers from the garage and was launching another desultory attack on the hedges out front, he saw Hardcastle hunched behind his desk working the phone. There was no eavesdropping through double-paned thermal glass, but the man's body language appeared argumentative. Mark sighed. Mens rea or not, he wasn't too keen on the idea of going before a grand jury.

00000

The one thing Mark learned in his first two months at Gulls Way was that it wasn't ever going to be dull. He couldn't really blame the Teddy Hollins debacle on the judge, though, and he'd more-or-less horned his way into the thing with Tina Grey. But J.J. Beale had been all Hardcastle's.

And no matter whose fault it was, life with the judge wasn't boring . . . except maybe for the occasional off-day, spent spreading fertilizer among the roses. That's where he was that afternoon—and Hardcastle away conferencing with some crony or another—when a strange car pulled into the drive.

It was a station wagon, and not even a late model. Mark frowned at it, but decided trouble didn't usually arrive in such a mundane vehicle. He straightened up slowly, wiped his hands on his pants, and cocked his hat back on his forehead.

The driver had the door open now, and Mark's first glimpse brought a puzzled smile to his face. It was Father Atia, climbing out and looking around uncertainly. He obviously hadn't spotted the hired help down in the rose garden.

"Over here," Mark hollered. "But if you're looking for the judge, he's not home."

Atia was smiling, too. "I should've called, but I was up here visiting an old colleague of mine and I saw the sign over the gate as I was driving home. Pop told me about this place." He looked around appreciatively. "It's beautiful."

Mark felt an odd twinge. It wasn't his back, which hurt plenty. It might have been just an inkling of pride—after all, he'd put enough hours into the place this past couple of months. He grinned.

"On behalf of the gardening staff, which is me, I thank you," he said with a slight duck of the head. "We could go inside; I've got some ice tea." He glanced down at his watch, knocking some of the dirt off it. "He should be home soon."

"That's okay—I can't stay that long. Wednesday evening is Pre Cana class." He scratched one ear thoughtfully. "That might've been one of the few upsides of being kidnapped. It was a Wednesday."

Mark snorted, picturing the very young priest opting for a death threat over his marital counseling duties. "Come on," he gestured toward the guest house, "we both need something to drink . . . maybe some cookies, too."

The priest followed him, falling quiet until they were inside--Mark gesturing toward the sofa.

"Sit. I'll just be a sec." He stepped into the kitchenette, washed a couple layers of dirt off his hands and arms, and returned with glasses and pitcher. "Unless you'd rather have a beer?"

Atia shook his head but took the proffered glass willingly. After one long swig, and Mark settled across from him in the chair, he shrugged slightly and said, "I guess I just wanted to thank him."

"I think he'd probably say 'Aw shucks, 'tweren't nothin'," Mark said with a smile. "Anyway, you already thanked us. Once is enough."

"Oh, not the rescuing part," Atia said with a smile, "not even timing it for Thursday morning . . . it was the other thing."

Mark lifted one eyebrow in question.

"The grand jury—one of dad's lawyers told me about it."

Mark swallowed hard. It had slipped his mind. "I forgot. When's it going to be?"

"You didn't know?" Atia gave him a puzzled look. "It isn't. They decided against it. I don't understand much about this sort of thing, but according to dad's lawyer Hardcastle had something to do with it. He's the one who convinced the DA it was a bad idea."

Mark concealed his confusion in another slug of tea, then said, "Well, it must've been one then—a bad idea, I mean."

"It sure would have been for me," Atia said quietly.

"Huh?"

"Well, I'm the one the DA was after for questioning."

"You?" Mark frowned. "But you didn't do anything wrong."

"It wasn't what I'd done," Atia said quietly, "it's what I knew—or, really, who. "

Mark sat staring for a moment and then let out a long, slow, "Ahh . . ."

There didn't seem to be much to add to that. The possibilities spun themselves out unspoken. But finally he couldn't help himself. He had to ask.

"So, you know . . . stuff?"

Atia cocked his head as though he were thinking about it and then said, "Not much, really, but it'd be a very tough choice. Nothing he's ever said to me has been in the sanctity of the confessional, and lying is a sin. But, well . . . he is my father."

"Yeah, I suppose." Mark pondered that for a moment, too—what it might have been like, having a famous mobster for a father.

"It must've been weird—growing up."

"No . . . well, maybe some. You know they didn't tell me who he was, not when I was little. I guess they didn't trust me to keep my mouth shut. He never even told me he was my father, though I'd pretty much figured that out by the time I was eight or so. But he never admitted it back then. I kept hoping he would—that he'd show up at a ball game I was playing in or at the school play and there I'd be." Atia shook his head slightly and fronted a sheepish smile. "I almost asked him outright a couple of times but . . . no. Maybe I thought if I backed him into a corner he'd deny it. Better just to live in hope."

"No," Mark said sharply, "I think it's better to know for sure."

"Well," Atia sighed, "eventually I did. I was a junior in high school—seventeen—when pop got busted. His picture was all over the news along with all the charges. There were lots of things they couldn't prove, but that's when he got sent up for a couple years. I finally get the truth out of my mom. She was pretty sick by then—she told me the whole story. I think she knew she wasn't going to make it long enough to see him again."

Atia sat there contemplating, and then he spoke, surprisingly hard. "I hated him. I blamed him for my mom's death and for me never having a real father. I was crazy, mixed-up, confused."

Mark nodded. It was more than theoretical understanding. "But you get along okay now, don't you? What happened?"

Atia shrugged. "I think I grew up. It didn't happen right away. Pop eventually got out of prison. I'd gone into the seminary. It's a funny thing; there I was trying to be a man of God and I hadn't learned the most important lesson—how to forgive."

"But you did."

"Yeah, it eventually dawned on me—I really was important to him somehow and all that time he'd only been trying to protect me. Of course I wouldn't have needed protecting if he hadn't been in the Mob."

"True," Mark admitted.

"Anyway, I convinced him to retire. That was hard for pops. He'd been in charge of things all his life—a powerful man. I'm not even sure he quit for the right reasons. I think he did it for me."

"It must be nice," Mark said thoughtfully, "to be that important to someone."

"We're all that important to God."

"Yeah," Mark said with chagrin, "but you weren't hoping He'd show up at your ball game, huh?"

The sheepish smile was back. "No, I suppose not." Atia looked down at his watch and started to stand. "I've got to get going. Maybe you could thank the judge for me?"

Mark nodded, getting to his feet as well, to see the other man off.

00000

He was back at it, hands as filthy as before but the job nearly done, when he heard the distinctive rumble of the judge's old GMC coming up the drive. He spread the last shovelful out, then grabbed the empty bags and headed toward the garage.

Hardcastle was already out of the truck, surveying the rosy part of his domain. There might have been the slightest sigh of regret that there was nothing obvious to grumble about—all the fertilizer was properly apportioned. Mark shoved the bags down into the trash can and closed the lid before finally turning toward him.

"Hey," he said casually, "somebody stopped by to see you a little while ago, but he couldn't stay."

"Yeah," Hardcastle lifted one eyebrow, "who?"

"Father Atia. Remember him? Cadillac's son."

Hardcastle's expression froze, then thawed slightly, enough to allow a cautious, "Oh? What'd he want?" to slip out.

Mark seemed to segue. "Hey, whatever happened to the grand jury getting involved in that case?"

Hardcastle mumbled something then halted. Mark had been leaning forward slightly, obviously ready to say he couldn't hear. The judge pitched his voice a little louder and said, "The DA called that one off. They do that sometimes."

Mark smiled knowingly. "Atia had it on good authority that it was your doing. That's what he stopped by to thank you for."

Hardcastle's initial hummph was non-committal, but under Mark's steadily appraising gaze he finally shrugged and admitted, "Might've been something I said."

"What? How'd you convince 'em?"

"I told 'em it might be a bad idea to trot Joe's kid in front of a grand jury—him being a priest and all. Might've gotten him lot of sympathy . . . Cadillac, I mean. They might've wound up with no indictments at all."

"Really? I thought grand juries usually do whatever the prosecutor tells 'em."

Harcastle shrugged again. "Mostly, but you never can tell."

"Well," Mark said, "thanks . . . from both of us."

Hardcastle shook his head impatiently. "I toldja, you didn't have anything to worry about. It was Atia they were after—a chance to see what they could shake loose from him. Just fishing, plain and simple."

"He wasn't looking forward to it."

"I didn't think so," Hardcastle said sternly. "Hard for somebody in his line of work to lie, period, let alone under oath."

Mark nodded and then added, with a grin, "For me, on the other hand, lying is an art form, but I wasn't looking forward to it either. So, like I said, thanks." Then his grin slipped back into puzzlement. "But I haven't heard much at all about the trial."

"Nah, you won't for a while. Lots of pretrial maneuvering."

"He's out on bond?"

Hardcastle scratched the side of his nose and said, "Yeah," with no particular vehemence.

"You don't seem real upset about that," Mark pointed out.

He got another shrug from the older man. "They took his passport. He's not leaving the country. And his face is plastered on the front of all those books. It's not like he could make a break for it. Anyway, the guy's retired. All he'd be doing would be taking up a bunk down in Men's Central and eating at the county's expense. On top of everything else, they'd probably have to puree his three squares for him."

There was a sudden dawning of light and Mark blurted out, "You fixed that, too, huh?"

Hardcastle drew back in indignation. "I didn't fix anything. Amicus curie, that's all. Can't help it if what I said made sense. You got a problem with that?"

Mark waved one hand, "No, no . . . maybe he can even spend a little time with his kid, now. No reason for secrecy anymore."

"Yeah," Hardcastle said consideringly, "might do 'em both some good." He seemed to think about that one for a moment longer, then broke free from it, glanced around at his newly-fertilized rose beds and hooked a thumb toward the bags in the truck. "I got some steaks. You wanna fire up the grill?"

"Sounds like a plan," Mark said and, still smiling, he added, "You gonna want yours pureed?"