Death Penalty (42 page)

“So what happens if you get me out of this tomorrow? Do I go to prison?”

“You do until I can get the appellate court to reinstate the bond. That might take a day or two. It depends.”

“Jesus! Have you any idea what you just said? I'm supposed to spend days in prison because of some halfwit bureaucratic system? That's absurd! I'm innocent until proven guilty.”

I smiled. “Technically, you were found guilty of second-degree murder. The appellate bond is not an absolute matter of right.”

“Goddamn lawyers!”

“Anyway, that's not our immediate concern, is it? If they bind you over on first-degree murder charges tomorrow, any bond is out of the question.”

“You're paid to see that that doesn't happen.”

“I'm paid to try my best.”

He frowned. “You'd better do just that. Or face a malpractice suit.”

I smiled. I knew that my smiling always irritated him “Should the worst happen, there are a number of disbarred lawyers in prison who, for the price of cigarettes, will help you draft the pleadings.”

It wasn't the response he expected and it stopped him cold. But only for a moment.

“What happens tomorrow?” he asked.

“You've been through it before, in the Milliard case. It's a preliminary examination. The prosecutor must show that a crime was committed and that there is reasonable cause to believe that you committed it. It's his show. He presents his witnesses. I get to cross-examine, but you don't take the stand, nor do I offer any witnesses.”

“That's asinine.”

“Could be. But this procedure is a safeguard against frivolous charges. The prosecutor has to show he has enough of a case to merit going to trial.”

He was uncharacteristically silent for a moment, then he spoke. “What kind of a chance do I have tomorrow?”

“Doctor, I warned you what might happen if you decided to go back into the euthanasia business, didn't I? Well, they have the check from Miss Doreen. You say it was for research, the prosecutor says it was for services rendered. They have Miss Donna, who saw you with a syringe in your hand, standing over dear old dad, just before he breathed his last. And they have the autopsy report by one of the state's best pathologists. He says, on paper at least, that it was murder. You tell me? What kind of case do they have?”

Some of the arrogance drained out of him. Just some, not all. “Can you do anything tomorrow?”

“I'm going to try, Doctor.”

“Will they be able to bring out . . . the other things?”

“If you mean your conviction for murder, and the allegations that all this happened before, several times, the answer is no. Not formally. But you are a famous man.
Everyone in that courtroom tomorrow will have read about you and your little hobby. They don't have to say a word, you come in tarred with a very big brush.”

“That's unfair.”

“Probably. Fairness is sometimes a relative term.”

“Goddamn lawyers.”

I got up to go. Cork Miller answered my call.

“Try to look humble tomorrow,” I said. “People like humble.”

“Fuck you, Sloan,” he snapped.

I presumed that humble was out of the question.

I HAD PUT OFF CALLING
my office because I was afraid of the kind of message that might be waiting. But it had to be done. Just before five o'clock, the magic hour when Mrs. Fenton disappeared, I called.

It was Wednesday. According to my projected timetable, Sabin and the cops would have met with the attorney general to suggest that I be taken off the streets. Of course, that was my timetable, the one I was anticipating. Things might have been speeded up. Maybe they already wanted me to come in. Or maybe I would be arrested as I went to court in the morning.

Mrs. Fenton let me know she was irritated that I hadn't called until the last minute of the working day. Again, I thought she had mixed up in her mind who was the boss and who was the employee. But I let it go and listened to her recitation of the phone messages and the mail.

The
big
message hadn't come. Sabin hadn't called, nor had the cops, nor had The Bishop.

In a way I was relieved, but in another way what it meant was that it would be one more day of continuing suspense.

My motel was crawling with the media. There were several loud parties going on in several of the units. It was
like a bunch of drunken alumni cutting up before the big homecoming football game.

And it was no place for me to be.

In fact, Broken Axe in general was no place for me to be, not if I didn't want to face the working press. I drove down to the nearest town, even smaller than Broken Axe, and had a quick dinner in a small restaurant. The food was good, and in this part of the form world they believed a man worked best on a full belly, so the portions were good too.

After dinner I wanted to spend some quiet time preparing for tomorrow, but there was no place where I could do it. I knew the media people would have my room staked out, at least for a while. I drove back to Broken Axe, then followed the road to the lake and the gold coast homes.

I drove past the Cronin place. Lights were on in many rooms.

A sheriff's car was stationed at the entrance.

I kept driving until I came to a place where I could park and look out over the lake.

It was almost dark. Distant clouds, high above the lake, were washed in a soft red, a parting salute from the sun setting on the other side of the state.

A soft wind whipped up occasional whitecaps on the darkening lake below. Of course, it didn't look like a lake. It looked like an ocean, water stretching all the way to the far horizon. Canada was too far away to be visible. It was a freshwater sea holding in its depths just as many secrets as any ocean. It was a liquid graveyard, its waters concealing hundreds of wrecked ships, a last resting place for their crews.

It was deceptive.

Perhaps anyone driving by might look at me and see a man sitting peacefully in his car, watching the water, a tranquil man thinking tranquil thoughts, a man enjoying the final minutes of a good day. A man without care.

Also deceptive.

I tried to focus on the examination and what I might be able to do tomorrow. But like a radio station encountering interference, thoughts of my own plight kept intruding.

Dr. Miles Stewart, like him or not, was my client and entitled to my full concentration. Guilty or innocent, he was relying on me.

But I kept wondering if Sabin might have indeed met with his boss, and speculated on what they might have decided to do.

My thoughts bounced back and forth between Doctor Death and my own possible fate.

Finally I gave up. I started the engine and pushed a Jimmy Buffett tape into the slot. He sang a melancholy song about a man who wished he had been a pirate, a man who had no future and regretted that he had no meaningful past.

I turned on the lights and started back the way I had come.

The wistful song matched my mood exactly.

Being a pirate would have been far easier than being what I was. At least that's the way it seemed.

Maybe because the parties were still in full swing, I was able to sneak back into my motel room without being discovered.

I lay in the dark, listening to the mixture of sound: laughter, shouts, loud voices, singing, all blended into an alcoholic symphony. Several times people pounded on my door and called my name.

It would have been easy enough to get up and join them. But doing that would spell the end of myself and my career. It was almost worth it, just to end the suspense.

But I didn't.

I lay there. Listening. Thinking.

The parties died out around two o'clock. Shortly thereafter I could hear the occupant in the next unit snoring, a big, loud alcoholic snore.

It must have been the up and down cadence of his lilting nasal rhythm that did it. I drifted off as if I were listening to soft music.

My little travel alarm woke me from a surprisingly deep sleep. If I had dreamt, I had no memory of it. For a moment I lay there, enjoying that wonderful lazy feeling you sometimes have in the morning, or at least you do until you remember what you have to do.

Thursday. Today I would try to help Doctor Death escape the clutches of the law. Also, today, if my projections were correct, the law would finally get around to deciding which set of clutches would eventually grip me.

The lazy feeling blew away like smoke. I got up, danced in and out of the fiery hot shower, shaved, and prepared myself for the day.

They were waiting for me when I stepped out of the unit. They had been as quiet as hunters, but now with the game in sight they were shouting questions, thrusting microphones at me, and cameras were clicking away.

I smiled, nodded, and pushed my way to my car without saying anything but good morning. They tried to block the car but dodged out of the way as I slowly backed out.

Breakfast was out of the question. They would follow me like wolves after a stag, so I drove to the courthouse and encountered another group of media. It was a repeat performance except that the questions seemed sharper and more than a little insulting. O'Malley was with this pack, and his high-pitched voice dripped with venom as he accused me of everything but incest. I think he would have got around to that if I hadn't finally found the sanctuary of the courthouse. A deputy sheriff allowed me in and kept my pursuers out.

“The judge wants to see you, Mr. Sloan,” he said, taking up a position at the door like Horatio at the bridge.

I went through the empty courtroom to the judge's chambers. The door was open.

“Hey, Charley! Come on in.” Rudy Hathaway sat behind his desk, his feet up and looking as relaxed as if he was about to play a round of golf.

Eddie Rand sat on the judge's leather couch. He was dressed in a well-cut suit, and his long hair had been carefully brushed back. He looked like a hippie about to apply for a job in a bank.

“Have some coffee, Charley. And help yourself to the doughnuts. They're courtesy of Cork Miller. He's got a guy over there who's the greatest baker this side of Paris.”

I poured coffee into a Styrofoam cup and gratefully bit into a doughnut. The judge was right. It was delicious.

I nodded my approval. “How come this guy works at the jail? He's really good.”

Hathaway's rapid-fire cackle preceded his answer. “He doesn't work there, he's a resident. Every ninety days we let him out. He's good for about a week, then he gets drunk and beats up on his old lady. I put him back in for another ninety days. Boy, I miss those pies and cakes when he's free. But nothing's perfect, right?”

I helped myself to another doughnut.

“Charley, I'm delighted to see you, but I won't be sorry to see you go.” Hathaway grinned. “I've had news people up the ass. One camera crew even came out to my place last night. I ordered them off—it's the folks' old farm, I got it when they passed on—and they still wouldn't go. Cork had to come out and run them off.”

“A guy from Australia?”

“Yeah. Little runt, but with a big mouth. The whole gang of them are a bunch of pests. It's like having an invasion of locusts.”

“They'll come up again, for the trial,” Eddie Rand said,
sounding as if he didn't find them quite as annoying as the judge.

“Oh, shit. Don't remind me.” The judge looked at me. “Listen, Charley, are you going to play things straight today or am I going to have to sit on you?”

“My reputation precedes me?”

“Something like that.”

“Rudy, you can relax. This is going to be straight down the line, no tricks, no circus.” I paused. “By the way, I expect to win.”

Rand laughed. “Fat chance.”

The judge frowned. “I thought you said no tricks. I'm not prejudging, but it sounds to me like they got your boy with the meat in his mouth, so to speak.”

“Judge, I will be asking for no favors. Just a straight ruling on the law. A straight, fair decision is all I ask.”

He cackled. “Shit, I haven't rendered one of those for years. Well, let's see what happens, shall we? You about ready, Charley?”

I nodded.

“How about you, Eddie? You got all your witnesses ready to go?”

“They're all waiting in my office.”

Hathaway got up and slipped into his robe.

He grinned at both of us in turn.

“Showtime,” he said. “It's showtime.”

The courtroom quickly filled to capacity. One television crew, a pool camera, was set up at the side of the room to film the proceeding. The spectator section consisted of a mix of newsmen and locals all jammed together, eagerly waiting for the curtain to rise.

Judge Hathaway made a short statement about what was going to happen, with a warning that he expected the crowd to sit quietly and listen.

And then it began.

Eddie Rand called the deputy sheriff who had been first on the scene. He had interviewed Donna Cronin and had then arrested Dr. Miles Stewart.

I stood up when Rand was finished and announced I had no questions of the witness.

I heard an angry snort from my client, which wasn't hard to do, since he was sitting directly behind me.

The next witness was a state police detective who had come down on loan and was, in fact, the officer in charge of the case, if not officially.

He was a smart young cop, and Rand led him through the steps of his investigation quickly but carefully. I knew what he would say, since Rand had let me read his report.

This time I did have some questions.

“You said Doctor Stewart was already packed and about to leave when he was arrested, is that so?”

“Yes.”

“Was his luggage searched?”

“The officers had reason to believe a murder had been committed. A legal search was done.”

I didn't quarrel with legality. I think that surprised him.