Angel's Verdict (17 page)

“Stabbed her in the heart, or tried to.”

“Then what happened? Did he take the body to the river?”

“Norris? Hell, no. Said he felt so bad he dropped to his knees and begged her forgiveness. She ran off, he said, and the next thing he knew, they were pulling her out of the drink.”

“The river,” Bree said, just to be clear. “What did the autopsy show? She didn’t drown, according to the newspaper. Although, to be absolutely accurate, she was alive when they pulled her from the water. She may have died from the effects of inhaling river water, I suppose.”

“Stab wounds,” Dent said. “Near as they could tell.”

“Why couldn’t they be certain?”

“You’re the one that’s nitpicking here,” Dent said. “I’m just damn glad you never cross-examined me in court.” He pitched his voice higher. “ ‘Although, to be absolutely accurate, she was alive when they pulled her from the water.’ You sound like Norris’s lawyer.”

“God is in the details,” Bree said with a smile. “And I want to get to Norris’s lawyer in a minute. So the coroner’s office wasn’t certain of the cause of death? What did it say on the death certificate?”

“Alex Bulloch broke into the funeral home and grabbed her body before the autopsy was done. By the time the coroner got it, the chest tissue was pretty burned up. So the cause of death was listed as probable stab wound to the blah, blah, blah. I don’t remember that part. What I do remember is once the death certificate was entered into evidence, Norris was lawyered up, and the lawyer made a big to-do about how she might have drowned instead of bled to death and Norris only wounded her. Got Norris all excited. Didn’t mourn her very long, old Bagger Bill. Recanted his confession. Said he was drunk and didn’t know what he was saying. Blah, blah, blah.” Dent eyed her distrustfully. “So his lawyer did what you just said. Presented an alternative theory of the crime. But the judge didn’t buy it. Condemned Norris to the chair. And to the chair he went.”

“When did you decide he was innocent?”

“Me?” Dent said. “I never thought so. He had the knife, he was covered in her blood, and he said he stabbed her. If I thought he was innocent I would have done something about it. I may have been a drunk, but I would have pulled myself together long enough to keep an innocent man from the chair.”

“But ...”

“That’s what they said at the intervention,” he said. “That I let an innocent man go to the chair. If I’d run a better investigation, he wouldn’t have died the way he did. So that’s why I’m here. I have to fix this. I’ve got to make direct amends to those I’ve offended whenever possible, except when to do so would injure them. Can’t get much more injured than being sent to the chair.

“I need to talk to Bobby Lee. He’s going to remember a lot more than I do. Sober, churchgoing man, Bobby Lee was.”

He was also ninety-two years old. Bree hoped the poor old guy’s brains were in good shape. She scrawled a few more questions to herself on the yellow pad:
Norris atty—Who? Trial trsnpst—Smith?

Dent looked at his watch and shook it next to his ear. It was a large inexpensive one, with a wide chrome band. The dial was labeled TIMEX. “Give it a licking and it keeps on ticking. That’s what the ads say. But it’s stopped.”

“It’s quarter to seven.” Bree got up out of the chair. She was stiff from sitting. “May I ask you to run me down to the shoot? Flurry expects me there around now. We’ve got a dinner date.”

“Mind if I come along?”

“No,” Bree said. “I don’t mind at all. As a matter of fact, it might be a very good thing. I’m not sure how easy it’s going to be to pry those files out of Florida Smith. I’m going to have to wing it. If anything occurs to you, just jump right in. And Dent, try and keep your hands off the waitresses.”

Who can control his fate?

—Othello
, William Shakespeare

 

 

 

 

“Fish tacos, for sure. And a half bottle of a Pinot Grigio.” Florida Smith dropped the menu on the table and looked around appreciatively. “I like this place.”

B. Matthew’s wasn’t overly large—maybe sixty feet long and thirty feet wide, but the tables had been placed so you didn’t feel you were going to back into the diners next to you. The old wooden floor was made of narrow-planked pine, stained a comfortable brown. A long bar ran the width of the back of the restaurant. Large windows looked out over Bay Street. The walls were hung with a variety of found objects from the nineteenth century: cast iron griddles, etchings, sepia-toned photographs of women in wide hoop skirts.

“I like it, too.” Bree looked up at the waitress. “I’ll have the fish tacos, too. And a cup of the black bean soup. And a nice dark beer. Whatever kind you think would be good.”

“You have burgers?” Dent demanded.

The waitress was young, cute, and patient. “Be happy to make you some.”

“Make it two, rare, with raw onion and fries.”

“Sweet potato or regular?”

Dent reared back in his chair. “Sweet potato? You’re kidding, right? You have hash browns? No. Then just the regular kind. And a lot of coffee. Black.” He drummed his fingers on the table. “I take sugar in my coffee. You have sugar, hon—I mean, ma’am?”

“Just the Equal. That’s the blue packet on the table. But I’ll see if I can find some real sugar in the back for you.”

She stood at Dent’s shoulder, one hip cocked to help support her as she wrote on her order pad. Dent’s right hand came up, hovered around her hip, and retreated. Flurry and Bree looked at each other.

“Thank you, darl—ma’am.”

She smiled sunnily at him. “A pleasure, sir.”

Bree raised her glass of water in a mock toast to Dent as soon as the waitress was out of earshot. “See? You get happier waitstaff that way.”

Dent grunted.

“Bree’s right. Happy waiters don’t pee in your soup back in the kitchen. Bree! If you’re the one who’s cured him of inappropriate fanny patting, more power to you.” Flurry rummaged in her backpack as she spoke. After setting most of its contents on the table—an HP mini-notebook, an iPod, a Blackberry, two sets of earphones, a half-full bottle of Saratoga Springs mineral water, and a wallet, she withdrew a fat red-brown accordion file. “Here we go.” She handed the file to Bree and returned all the other stuff to the backpack item by item.

Bree picked up the file and set it down again. This was too easy.

“It’s like the magician’s hat,” Dent said. “How did you get all that stuff in there in the first place?”

“We have our ways.”

Bree looked at the accordion file but didn’t open it. “Is this all your research on the Quinn murder?”

“The part of it I haven’t gotten on disk yet. Actually, it’s copies, not originals. I’m scanning those whenever I have free time. I’ve got most of the stuff on hard drive, or stored on flash drives.”

“How extensive is your research?”

“Oh, I went way back. If poor Haydee had lived past the age of twenty-three and achieved something more than becoming a B-girl, I could have written a whole book about her. She was bound for glory, that girl was. As for William Norris—I have a raft of stuff on him, but he’s your average small-time gangster. Hoods, they called them then. A lot of other writers have been there, done that. No, what’s really interesting about this case is the role the Bullochs played in it.”

The waitress set down a half bottle of the Pinot, poured Flurry a sip, waited for her approval, and then poured the wineglass half full. She did the same with Bree’s beer. Dent’s coffee was accompanied by four sugar cubes. The only time Bree ever saw sugar cubes was at Plessey, because her mother loved to soak them in lemon and put them in her tea.

“So what do I have, you ask? I’ve got the transcripts of both trials—the Norris trial for murder and the sanity hearing for Alexander. I’ve got every magazine and newspaper article ever written about the case, or the principals in the case. I’ve got the autopsy report, photos of the crime scene, and photos of the burning cart with Alexander pushing it.”

Flurry paused to drink her wine.

Bree still didn’t open the folder. “What about the murder book?”

Flurry raised both eyebrows in a query.

“The police file,” Dent said by way of explanation.

“The O’Malley-Kowalski investigation? I’ve got photocopies of that. For all the use it is. I mean, sure, I picked up on a couple of witnesses that weren’t mentioned anywhere else. But O’Malley was a drunk. I found a source that said the only reason the commissioner kept him was that they were old Army buddies during the war.” Flurry raised her hands and fluttered her forefingers in tandem. “The Big One. That’s World War II for us girls, Bree. O’Malley wasn’t much use. It looks like the partner, Bobby Lee Kowalski, did most of the work.”

“Marines,” Dent said shortly. “O’Malley was a Marine.”

“Marine, Army, whatever.”

Bree didn’t want to see the look in Dent’s eyes, so she stared straight at Flurry. “Did you get any useful information from Sergeant Kowalski?”

“I only saw him once, but I’m going to go back as soon as I get the time. The old guy’s just this side of the grave, but boy, is he smart. Remembers the case like it was yesterday. I got a lot of good stuff on O’Malley. The guy was a total loser. He’d be out of any decent police force in twenty seconds flat nowadays. It’s amazing to me how much less oversight there was on the cops back then. Some of them literally got away with murder.”

“You don’t think the police had anything to do with Haydee’s death?” That sort of stuff happened, back in the day. And it wasn’t confined to the South.

Flurry emptied her wineglass and poured herself another. “I’ve got this theory. More than a theory. A conviction.” She thumped her slender chest.

“Based on more than hearsay, I hope.” Bree’s voice was dry. She was stinging over the insults to Dent.

“Oh yeah. The cops turned up a witness that never appeared in court. I’ve got the interview notes.”

“From Kowalski?” Bree guessed. They didn’t tape interviews back in the ’50s, did they? The junior partner took notes by hand.

Flurry smiled and shook her head. “Not another word out of me, Bree. We’ve got some negotiating to do.”

“The cops turned over every piece of evidence that they had to the DA,” Dent said abruptly.

“How would you know?” Flurry wasn’t being rude, just inquisitive. She looked at Dent, really looked at him, and for a moment, Bree wondered if she’d make the man at last. “Were you a cop in a past life, Dent?”

“It’s their job,” Dent said shortly.

“Ha,” Flurry snorted. “Like crucial evidence that makes the cops look bad doesn’t go missing every day of the week.”

“You’ve been watching too much bad TV,” Bree said. “Or reading the wrong newspapers. Every system, in every year going back to Day One and going forward to the Last Trump has or will have corrupt human beings in it. It’s who we are. The human race. But it’s not pervasive, and it’s not worse now than it’s ever been.”

Flurry put her hand over her heart. Then she saluted. “Hear you loud and clear.”

Their food arrived. Dent picked up his hamburger and put it down again. He slumped in his chair and stared at the bottle of Pinot Grigio. Bree was glad it wasn’t rye whiskey. Rye whiskey had helped bring poor Dent to his current state. She nudged the conversation back to the case. “Crucial evidence, you said. From this unknown witness.”

“Yep. It’s going to make one hell of a book, one hell of a book. Did I tell you I got interviews with two of the three Bulloch granddaughters, too? I got them before Sammi-Rose Spiderwoman slammed the door shut in my face. Marian Lee’s pretty lame. She married a guy who runs a very successful car garage. He’s a perfect sweetie. But she’s miserable, just miserable, not living the life of a Bulloch. Now, Dixie Bulloch’s pretty cool. She never married, and she remembers her grandmother pretty well. She’s the oldest, and she also remembers that her folks fought over Haydee when she was a little kid. Haydee had been dead for years. She claims that Alexander never got over her.” Flurry picked up her fork and stared at her fish taco. “Isn’t that the saddest thing? I mean, this guy fell in love with a woman when he was nineteen and that was it. He never fell in love again. The rest of his life was just going through the motions.”

Bree, who was not particularly sentimental, tended to doubt stories of everlasting love. Now, everlasting guilt was another story. Hatred lasted, too. She’d believe in a heartbeat that Alexander never got rid of his sense of guilt.

“Anyhow, I’ve made up a time line, tracking the chief suspects twenty-four hours before and twenty-four hours after Haydee kicked the bucket.” Flurry bit into her fish taco, chewed, swallowed, and said, “This food is
fabulous
!”

Dent had reconsidered his hamburger and eaten his first one, and was now moving on to his second. Bree added a little mango salsa to her own taco and began to eat with the others.

“So,” Flurry said, after a long moment spent on the food. “What do you think? I prepared all this because I want you to be so impressed with my researching skills, my writing skills, and my all-out competence that you’ll agree to an interview about Franklin Winston-Beaufort. What do you say?”

“I’m not sure I’d be any help at all.”

“Of course you will. He’s a bit of a mystery, you know, even to folks I’ve found in the court system who knew him well. Haven’t been able to dig up a whole lot about him. He had a pretty decent run as a state court justice. Seemed to have been respected by his peers, as they say. But I’ve got nothing on his private life. Why did he agree to take on the sanity hearing? You knew the man. You could take a guess. How close was he to the Bullochs? Did he ever socialize with them after Alexander went off to the booby hatch? How much did he know about who really killed Haydee Quinn? He was a young, struggling attorney when the Bullochs handed him this high-profile case. After that, his reputation and his revenues soared.” She regarded Bree over the rim of her wineglass. Her smile was steady, but there was a determination in her eyes that made Bree wary.