A Witness Above (12 page)

“Okay, Ms. Pavlicek, shall we begin?” Priscilla Thomasen nodded perfunctorily at me, which I took as a hopeful sign, before pushing the button on her machine. “Ms. Pavlicek, could you please state your full legal name for the record.”

“Nicole Mae Pavlicek.”

Mae. My mother's name. I hadn't heard it used in years. Nicole's voice shook as she spoke.

“Let the record show that Nicole Mae Pavlicek is in the room with Priscilla Thomasen, Affalachia County Commonwealth's attorney, Peter Cowan, Affalachia County sheriff, her father, Frank Pavlicek, and Shelton Radley, attorney in private practice representing Ms. Pavlicek.

“We're here to ask you some questions regarding your arrest, Ms. Pavlicek, but before we begin I must ask an important one. Did the arresting officers read you your rights at the time you were taken into custody?”

Nicole looked warily around the room. She nodded.

“Is that a ‘yes’?”

“Yes.”

“Please speak your answers aloud … Do you understand those rights that the officers read to you?”

“Uh-huh.”

“All right then, let's begin.” The prosecutor consulted her notes. “Do you have any voluntary statements to make, regarding your apprehension on Sunday the twenty-ninth of September, at which time you were found to be transporting approximately two kilos of powder cocaine in your car?”

“She doesn't have to make any statements or submit to any questions,” Shelton Radley said, his voice barely above a whisper. He turned to his client. “You understand that too, don't you?”

“Yes,” Nicole said.

“We'd also like to question you about your relationship with one Dewayne Turner, a young man whose body was discovered by your father last week up in Madison County,” the prosecutor said. “Is there any statement you would like to make about that?”

The prisoner shook her head. “No,” she said.

“Since this is all being recorded, I wish the record to be more specific to state that the cocaine was found under the wheel well of my client's vehicle, as opposed to actually inside the car,” the older attorney said. Well, touché, Rad.

“Without objection,” Priscilla Thomasen said. “Ms. Pavlicek, is it still your contention that you had no prior knowledge of the cocaine that was discovered on your vehicle two days ago?”

“Yes.”

“If you had no knowledge of the cocaine then why did you try to evade the police?”

Nicky glanced at the sheriff. “I was afraid they were going to ticket me for speeding. I was afraid I might lose my license.”

“Because you'd already accumulated points on your license?”

“Yes.”

The prosecutor shuffled through some papers in front of her. “Running's no way to keep from adding more. You've also stated that you were on your way from your mother's house to Cahill's Restaurant, is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“Were you going to meet someone at the restaurant?”

Nicole's eyes fixed on me again. “I don't remember,” she said.

“You don't remember? It was only yesterday.”

“This has been a traumatic experience for my client, counselor, as you might imagine,” Shelton Radley said, this time sounding for all the world as if he were whining. “She doesn't have to answer.”

“Un-huh.” Priscilla fiddled with the volume control on the tape recorder.

Nicole remained mute.

Priscilla sighed and pursed his lips. “Okay, let's talk about another subject. You and Dewayne Turner. How well did you know him?”

A look of panic seemed to sweep through Nicole's eyes. She glanced at me then back to the prosecutor. “Not very well.”

“But you were with him the night he was arrested almost a month ago. The sheriff says you two were arguing, that you even threatened to kill him.”

Whoa—this was news to me. What else had the sheriff failed to tell me? What else had
Nicole
failed to tell me? I understood where this might be heading now. They were probing to see if they could build an even bigger case against my daughter.

But Nicole only shrugged.

“Were you arguing with him that night?”

“I suppose.”

“What about?”

“Look,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Dewayne was a good guy, but he could be kind of scary sometimes.”

“Scary?”

“It was just hard to believe that someone could … you know … change that much overnight,” she said.

“Change. You're talking about his conversion to Christianity?”

“Yes.”

Priscilla wrote something down on her legal pad. Then she looked straight at Nicky again. “Did Dewayne ever sell you drugs?”

“A leading question,” Radley mumbled. “She doesn't have to answer.”

But Nicole looked at the two attorneys as if Priscilla's query were the dumbest anyone had ever asked. “I don't use drugs,” she said flatly.

“Dewayne used to sell drugs though, and you knew that, didn't you?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Yet you were still friends with him.”

“Not really friends, like I told you … I … he …” She looked around the room for a moment. “He asked me out.”

Priscilla showed no reaction to this revelation. “Did you? Ever go out with him, that is?”

“No. That was before.”

“Before … you mean before he became a Christian, when he was still selling drugs?”

“Yes.”

“So if you didn't go out with him before when he was selling drugs and he wasn't really a friend, what could you two possibly be arguing about?”

Nicole looked at her lawyer. Radley cleared his throat and said: “Does the sheriff's department have any hard evidence, other than the cocaine, which could have easily been planted, to accuse my client of anything?”

No one said anything.

“She has no motive,” the old attorney said.

Sheriff Cowan finally spoke, still leaning against the wall. “How do we know she has no motive when she tried to get away after seeing the deputy's lights and she won't even answer all the questions?”

Priscilla turned to the sheriff. “You used the warrant you obtained to search the rest of her car and her room out at Sweetwood?”

The sheriff nodded.

“Find anything else?”

“Sent some latents off to the lab,” Cowan said. “That's it so far.”

The Commonwealth's attorney looked at me. “How about you, Mr. Pavlicek, you have anything to add to this discussion?”

Nicole stared straight ahead, didn't even glance at me.

“No,” I said.

The CA turned back to the prisoner. “Okay, Ms. Pavlicek, no more questions for now. But you should be aware that our office looks favorably on any defendant who cooperates with an investigation. Are you sure you can't tell us anything else about the cocaine that was found under the wheel well of your car, about who you were going to meet that day, why you tried to evade arrest, or about why you were arguing with Dewayne Turner on the day he was arrested?”

Nicole gave no answer.

“Then that will end this statement. The time is ten forty-three
A.M.,
Monday, October first.” She switched off the tape recorder. “Sheriff, let's get someone to take her back to her cell. We'll arraign her tomorrow morning on the drug charge.”

“What about bail?” I asked.

“That'll be up to the judge, but I wouldn't get my hopes up. We may have probable cause for murder here too.”

“She's not a flight risk. You can release her into her mother's or my custody.”

“Tell it to the judge. Mr. Radley, I would like to meet with you and the sheriff in his office, if you don't mind. Mr. Pavlicek, I'm sorry, but you'll have to sit this one out.”

Cowan went and opened the door. A female deputy came in. Nicole stood, her head bowed, as the woman took her by the arm to lead her from the room. I tried to read my daughter's face as they left, but there was little to decipher. The eyes of a ragged doll appeared instead of hers, where an expression should have been. I thought of pink horses and playthings. In the chalk of the walls, or maybe the dullness of too many years, those images were all I had left of my little girl.

13

Atop a summit in a grove of hundred-year-old oaks, the Rhodes mansion presided over acres of open land. Quarterhorses grazed behind board fence. Brass signage, affixed to a stone wall at the entrance, proclaimed it
SWEETWOOD FARM.
Nicole's home for over ten years was federal brick with large doric columns, a circular drive, blue-green lawn that extended around back to a swimming pool, and a clay tennis court. Camille must have had the pool area redone since my last visit. A new guest house ran along a sculpted hillside with a little waterfall and large flat stones arranged in such a way that gave them the effect of tumbling into the water beneath.

I braked the truck to a halt in front. As I opened the door a whiff of honeysuckle drifted across my nostrils. The site commanded a view worth a whistle: a forested valley stretching toward a shimmering reservoir in the distance. From somewhere came the sound of a weed trimmer, probably the gardener. I climbed the steps to the massive front door and rang the bell. No response. I rang it again.

After a minute Camille herself, looking a little disoriented, opened the door.

She stifled a yawn. “Well, well, w-ell. If it isn't my old hubby.”

“Hello, Camille.”

“Lucita's off today. I'm not used to answering the front door.”

Hard work. She had come a long way since the night I had first seen her cheerleading on a Westchester high school football field. Back then she cared little for appearances; it was one of the things I had loved about her. But eventually, it seemed, she came to care for little else. All through the early years of our marriage, before Nicky came, while I was working my way up the detective ranks, she had toiled at the Manhattan headquarters of a large commercial bank, earning enough money to allow her to dress well and for us to dine out, often above our means.

Now, standing in the vestibule of her castle, she wore a peach princess dress beneath French-twisted hair, blonde when it used to be brunette. Her green eyes were red-rimmed, but the rest of her face appeared softly put together—just the right amount of blush and liner and fuchsia lip gloss. She seemed more pale than I remembered, and though she had always been slender, she was exceptionally so now. Some might even call it borderline anorexic.

“If I'd known you were dropping by, detective, I'd have sexied myself up. I've been meaning to ask you, do they still call you that—detective, I mean? Is it a permanent title, like royalty or something?”

“I'm here about Nicky, Camille.”

“I know.” She let the door swing wide. “Come on in.”

I stepped through the foyer and onto a tile floor. In front of us a stairway swept in a wide semicircle toward the second floor. Down the steps came a young brute, about six-two with sandy hair, wearing khaki shorts and a golf shirt with a V-neck cardigan to go with his sardonic smile.

“Frank, I don't believe you've met Kevin Weems. Kevin, this is Frank, Nicole's father.”

We shook hands firmly.

“I've heard a lot about you from your daughter.” His eyes took my measure. Charming now. Not the same Kevin I had spoken with earlier.

“I hope all to the good,” I said.

“Of course.”

Camille switched gears into charming too. “I don't think you've been in here since we redecorated, have you, Frank?” She was right. The walls were painted a new yellow and white. A crystal chandelier hung overhead. “It may seem a bit grandiose at first, but I'm pleased with it. Can we offer you something to drink? We have iced tea, or something stronger if you'd like.”

“Tea will be fine, thank you.”

“Kev, why don't you show Frank into the den while I fix the drinks.”

She disappeared toward the kitchen. I followed Kev down a long hall past the dining room and into the den. It was a richly appointed man's room—bookshelves, mahogany, a trophy elk, and several plaques—all George's, not the boyfriend's of course—lining the walls. The floor was carpeted in green pile.

We sat in leather club chairs in front of a well-stocked bar. Framed pictures of Nicole, Camille, and George filled a round corner table like an altar. Unlike on the stairwell, the new man of the house looked uncomfortable with the surroundings.

“Been with Camille long?” I asked.

He drummed his fingers on the leather. “Eleven months.”

On the way in I had noticed a green Porsche in front of the barn, Georgia plates. “Where you from originally?”

“Atlanta.” His accent sounded more like Mississippi.

“Saw your car out back.”

He said nothing.

“How'd you and Camille meet?”

He was looking out the window now. “We met at a horse auction over in Lexington.”

“Ah-h-h.” I waited for him to elaborate, but he didn't. “If you don't mind my asking, what'd you used to do for a living down in Atlanta?”

“Sales.”

“And now you work for Camille.”

He finally turned to look at me. “George's old company, actually. Vice president, Marketing.”

The marketing must have been going pretty well for him to be padding downstairs at eleven
A.M.
My own abbreviated career in sales had taught me that those who were truly successful worked most of the time. Others spent as much time playing golf or hitting the bars. And then there were the hangers-on, those who drifted from situation to situation, camouflaging their lethargy. Maybe Kev was one of those. Of course when you were sleeping with the owner, all bets were off.

“Kevin gave me the message that you called this morning,” Camille said, whirling into the room. She carried a tray with three tall glasses and set it down on a table next to us. She passed out the glasses, then nervously smoothed her dress as she took a seat on the couch and crossed her legs. “Anyway, I know you'll want to get right down to business. Have you been by to see Nicole?”

“Yes, and the new sheriff and the prosecutor and her lawyer as well.”

“Shelton? Oh, I do hope that man does a decent job for her. Are you working with the police?” Her eyes never left me as she sipped her iced tea.

“Not really. I'm here of my own accord. What I'm trying to understand is exactly how our daughter could have gotten herself into such a situation.”