Malice (7 page)

“She doesn't have to have a regular to go out and give it away for half an hour, does she?”

“You just don't see it, do you?” Molly said angrily. How could he be so blind and stubborn? He was buying the guy's reputation, without even looking to see what was behind it.

“What am I supposed to see, Molly? We've got a seventeen-year-old girl who shot and killed her father. Maybe she was odd, maybe she was crazy. Maybe she was scared of him, what the hell do I know? But the fact is she shot him.
She
isn't saying he raped her, she isn't saying anything.
You
are.”

“She's too scared, she's too afraid that someone is going to find out their secret.” She had seen it a hundred times. She just knew it.

“Did it ever occur to you that maybe she doesn't have a secret? Maybe this is all your invention because you feel sorry for her and want to get her off, what do I know?”

“Not much, from the sound of it,” she answered him tardy. “I didn't invent that report, or the photographs of the bruises on her thighs and buttocks.”

“Maybe she fell down the stairs. All I know is that you're the only one yelling rape, and that's not good enough, not with a guy like him. You're just not going to sell it.”

“What about her father's partner? Is he going to defend her?”

“I doubt it. He asked about bail, and I said it's not likely in a murder case, unless they reduce it to manslaughter, but I doubt that. He said it was probably just as well, because she had nowhere to go now anyway. She has no other relatives. And he doesn't want to take responsibility for her. He's a bachelor, and he's not prepared to take her in. He said he didn't feel right defending her. Said he just couldn't and we should get a public defender for her. I can't say that I blame him. He was obviously pretty upset about losing his partner.”

“Why can't he use the father's funds to pay for a private attorney?” She didn't like the sound of it, but Grace had guessed that Frank Wills wouldn't help her. And she'd been right, much to Molly's disappointment. She wanted him to help her. Molly wanted Grace to get a top-notch attorney.

“He didn't volunteer to get an attorney for her,” Stan Dooley explained. “He said that John Adams was his closest friend, but apparently he owed him a bunch of money. The wife's long illness pretty much wiped them out. All he has left is his share of the law practice and their house, and it's mortgaged to the hilt. Wills doesn't think there'll be much left of Adams's estate, and he certainly wasn't volunteering attorney fees out of his own pocket. I'll call the P.D. office tomorrow morning.”

Molly nodded, shocked again by how alone Grace was. It wasn't unusual among young people accused of crimes, but with a girl like her, it should have been different. She came from a nice middle-class family, her father was a respected citizen, they had a nice home, and they were well known in the community. It seemed extraordinary to the young doctor that Grace should find herself completely abandoned. And although it was unusual, she decided to call Frank Wills herself that night and jotted down his number.

“What's Dr. Kildare up to these days,” Dooley teased her again as she started to leave, referring to her boyfriend.

“He's busy saving lives. He works even longer hours than I do.” She smiled at Dooley in spite of herself. He drove her buggy sometimes, but most of the time he had a good heart and she liked him.

“Too bad, he'd keep you out of a lot of trouble if he'd take a little time off now and then.”

“Yeah, I know.” She smiled, and left him, tossing a tweed jacket over her shoulder. She was a pretty girl, but more importantly, she was good at what she did. Even the cops she knew admitted that she was smart, and a pretty good shrink, even if she did come up with some pretty wild theories.

Later, when Molly called Frank Wills from home that night, she was shocked by his callousness. As far as he was concerned, Grace Adams deserved to hang for killing her father.

“Nicest guy in the world,” Wills said, sounding deeply moved, and Molly wasn't sure why, but she didn't believe him. “Ask anyone. There isn't a person in this town who didn't love him … except her … I still can't believe she shot him.” He had spent the morning arranging a memorial for him. The whole town would be there undoubtedly, except Grace. But this time, there would be no gathering at the house, no family there for John. All he had was his wife and daughter. Wills's voice broke when he said as much to Molly.

“Do you think there's any reason why she would have shot him, Mr. Wills?” Molly asked politely when he'd regained his composure. She didn't want to get him more upset than he was, but maybe he would have some insight.

“Money, probably. She probably thought he was leaving everything to her, and even if he didn't have a will, it would all go to her as his only survivor. What she didn't figure, naturally, was that legally she couldn't inherit from him if she killed him. I guess she didn't know that.”

“Was there much to leave?” Molly asked innocently, not referring to what she had heard from Detective Dooley. “I imagine his share of the law practice must be quite valuable. You're both such respected attorneys.” She knew that he would like that, and he did, he warmed considerably to the subject after that, and told her more than he should have.

“There's enough. But he owes most of it to me anyway. He always told me he'd leave his share of the practice to me when he died, not that he planned to check out as early as this, poor devil.”

“Did he leave that in writing?”

“I don't know. But it was an agreement between us, and I lent him some money from time to time, to help with expenses for Ellen.”

“What about the house?”

“He's got a mortgage on it, it's a nice place. But not nice enough to get shot for.”

“Do you really think a girl her age would shoot her father for a house, Mr. Wills? That sounds a little farfetched, doesn't it?”

“Maybe not. Maybe she figured it was enough to pay for some fancy eastern college.”

“Is that what she wanted to do?” Molly sounded surprised. Somehow Grace didn't seem that ambitious, she seemed far more homebound, almost too much so.

“I don't know what she wanted to do, Doctor. I just know that she killed her father and she ought to pay for it. She sure as hell shouldn't profit from it, the law is right on that score. She won't get a dime of his money now, not the practice, not the house, nothing.” Molly was startled by his venom, and she wondered if his motives were entirely pure, or if in fact he had his own reasons for being pleased that Grace was out of the way now.

“And who will get it, if she doesn't? Are there other relatives? Did he have other family somewhere?”

“No, just the girl. But he owed me a lot. I told you, I helped him out whenever I could, and we practiced together for twenty years. You can't just pass over that like it was nothing.”

“Of course not. I understand completely,” she said soothingly. She understood a lot better than he thought, or wanted her to, and she didn't like it. She thanked him for his time after that, and spent a long time thinking about Grace that night, and when her boyfriend came in from work at the hospital she told him all about it. He was exhausted from a twenty-hour day in the emergency room, which had been an endless parade of gunshot wounds and car accidents, but he listened anyway. Molly was all wound up about the case.

She and Richard Haverson had lived together for two years, and talked from time to time about getting married, but somehow they never did. But they got on well, and were familiar with each other's work. For both of them, it was the perfect arrangement. And he was as tall and lanky and blond and good-looking as she was.

“Sounds like the kid is screwed, if you ask me, there's no one to take her part in this, and it sounds like the father's partner wants her out of the way anyway, so he can get whatever money is left. Not a great situation from the sound of it. And if she won't admit that the old man was raping her, then what more can you say?” he said, looking tired, and she sipped coffee and stared at him in frustration.

“I'm not sure yet. But I'm trying to think of something. I wish I could get her to tell me what really happened. I mean, hell, she didn't just wake up in the middle of the night, find a gun in her hand and decide to shoot him. They found her nightgown torn in half on the floor, but she wouldn't explain that either. All the evidence is there, for God's sake. She just won't help us use it.”

“You'll get to her eventually,” he said confidently, but this time Molly looked worried. She had never had such a hard time reaching anyone. The girl was completely fossilized into a state of self-destruction. Her parents had all but destroyed her, and she still wouldn't give them up. It was amazing. “I've never seen you lose one yet.” He smiled at her and touched the long blond hair as he went out to the kitchen for a beer. They both worked like demons, but it was a good relationship for both of them, and they were happy with each other.

And at six o'clock the next morning when they got up, Grace was already on her mind again. On her way to work, Molly glanced at her watch and thought about going back to see her. But there was something else she wanted to do first. She went to her office and made some notes for the file, and then she went to the public defenders’ office at eight-thirty.

“Is David Glass in yet?” she asked the receptionist. He was the junior attorney on the team, but Molly had worked on two cases with him recently, and she thought he was terrific. He was unorthodox and tough and smart. He was a street kid from New York who had clawed his way out of the ghettos of the South Bronx, and he wasn't going to give in to anyone. But at the same time, he had a heart of gold, and he fought like a lion for his clients. He was exactly what Grace Adams needed.

“I think he's in the back somewhere,” the receptionist said. She recognized Molly from other cases she'd been on and she waved her back into the inner sanctum.

Molly wandered the hallways looking for him for a few minutes, and then she found him in the office library, sitting next to a stack of books, sipping a cup of coffee. He looked up as she walked next to him, and smiled when he saw her.

“Hi, Doc. How's biz?”

“The usual. How's by you?”

“I'm still working on getting the latest ax murderers off. You know, same ol same ol’.”

“Want a case?”

“Are you assigning them now?” He looked amused. He was shorter than she was, and he had dark brown eyes and curly black hair, and in his own way, he was nice-looking. What he had most of all was personality, which overcame any shortcomings he might have had in terms of looking like Clark Gable. He had sex appeal too. And from the way his eyes danced when he talked to her, it was obvious that he liked Molly. “When did they let you start dishing out cases?”

“Okay, okay. I just wanted to know if you were up for one. I'm working on it, and they're going to assign a P.D. today. I'd really like to work on it with you.”

“I'm flattered. How bad is it?”

“Bad enough. Possibly murder one. Could even be the death penalty. A seventeen-year-old girl shot her father.”

“Nice. I always love cases like that. What did she do? Take his head off with a shotgun, or have her boyfriend do it for her?” He had seen plenty of ugliness in New York, out here, though, things were a lot tamer.

“Nothing quite so picturesque.” She looked at him with a worried frown, thinking of Grace. “It's complicated. Can we go talk somewhere?”

“Sure.” He looked intrigued. “If you're willing to stand on my shoulders, we can go talk in my office.” His cubicle was barely bigger than his desk, but at least it had a door and some privacy, and she followed him there, as he juggled his books and his coffee. “So what's the story?” he asked as she sat in the room's only extra chair and sighed. She really wanted him to take it. And for the moment, Grace was doing absolutely nothing to help herself. She really needed someone as good as David.

“She shot him at slightly less than two-inch range with a handgun that she says she ‘found in her hand,’ and then it went off, and she shot him. According to her, for no reason in the world. They were just one happy family, except for the fact that they'd buried her mother that day. Other than that, no problems.”

“Is she sane?” He looked interested, but only mildly. Most of all, he loved a challenge. And he liked kids in particular. All of which was why Molly wanted him to take the case. He was the only chance Grace had. Without him, she was lost, if she even cared. But Molly cared, a lot, she wasn't sure why, but she did. Maybe because Grace seemed so beaten and so helpless. She had already given up everything, all hope, even her own life seemed unimportant to her. And Molly wanted to change that.

“She's sane,” Molly confirmed to him, “deeply depressed and not without neurosis, but I think for good reason. I think he was abusing her, sexually and otherwise.” She described the kind of internal damage and bruises they had found, and her state of mind when Molly saw her. “She swears he never touched her. I don't believe her. I think he raped her that night, and I think he'd done it before, maybe even for a long time, and maybe without her mother there, she'd lost her only protection and she panicked. He did it again, and this time she lost it and shot him. He had to be right on top of her for her to shoot him at that range. Think of it, if he'd been lying on top of her, raping her, and she had the gun, it would have been just that kind of range when she shot him.”

“Has anyone else thought of that?” He was intrigued now. “What do the cops think?”

“That's the problem. They don't want to hear it. Her father was Mr. Perfect Community Loved by Everyone Attorney. No one wants to believe that the guy might have been sleeping with his own daughter, or worse, forcing her. Maybe he held the gun on her, for all we know, and she got it away from him. But something has gone on in that girl's life, and she just won't tell me. She has no friends, no life outside of school. No one seems to know much of anything about her. She went to school, and she went home, and took care of her dying mother. The mother died a few days ago, and now the father's gone, and that's it. No relatives, no friends, just an entire town who swears the guy is the most decent man they ever knew and couldn't possibly have hurt his daughter.”