Chapter Four

I sat staring at my autographed baseball.  

“Mickey Mantle” handwritten.  And right below; “NO. 7” also in script. 

Best centerfielder ever.  Maybe the best ball player ever.  I looked at the other autographed baseballs on their individual glass stands on my office credenza.  “Ted Williams.”  “Willie Mays.”  “Duke Snyder”.  Good ballplayers.  Great ballplayers.  But not as good as “The Mic.”   Now there was somebody who had it all.  The bat, the arm, speed.  Oklahoma boy.  Destined at age eighteen for greatness. 

What had I been destined for at eighteen?  I looked around my messy, dusty office.  This?

I needed more coffee but was too weak and nauseated to get out of my chair, walk to the break room, fill the machine with water, measure out the coffee grounds and hit the brew button.  The required maneuvers to make a fresh pot of coffee were too complex, too exhausting considering my present state. Hung over.  Badly hung over.

I thought to dispatch Marta, my paralegal, on the rescue mission.  I would send her forth to capture the boon, the caffeine; substance of wondrous powers, of which I was in such dire need.  But I was afraid.  Upon my arrival that morning, I had snapped at her for nothing more than being too cheerful. Her retribution had been awful, the volume of her voice brutal.  

So now I had isolated myself from one of those who might have loved me, who could have helped me, who might have provided much needed succor and support and who could have mustered me a cup of Joe.  It was not a new predicament that my iconoclastic attitude, an unpredictable mixture of bitterness, disappointment, and self-pitying loathing and perceptions of failure had engendered in me.  Everyone around me seemed always just a little angry with me.  Ready to throw it all back in my face if I asked for anything, be it a smoke or a cup of coffee.  It wasn’t fair.  I swallowed my pride and hit the intercom button on my phone.

“Marta, dear, any chance you could fire up a pot of mud?  My head hurts and I don’t feel good.”  I thought this last bit might solicit a measure of forgiveness, maybe even sympathy from my abused clerk.

“Stick it in your ass, you fucking drunk!”  

I guess sympathy was too much to ask.  Still, I heard her moving toward the break room.   Trailing her was a fusillade of vulgar descriptions of my shortcomings as a lawyer, a boss, a man, and a human being.  All deserved.  But I could now see coffee in my future.  Survival was a distinct possibility.

I clicked the mouse next to my computer.  The screen on my monitor came to life.  I guided, not very well, the little mouse arrow thingy over an icon representing a calendar and clicked again.  My daily schedule popped up.  

“9 a.m.  Meet the Mayor and Mr. Babcock.   Mayor’s office.”

I looked at my watch.  9:45. Uh oh.  I hit the intercom button again.

“Uh, Marta.  Could you get the Mayor’s office on the line?”

“Screw You!”  I heard her yell from the break room. She no longer was bothering with the intercom.  “I’m not your stinking secretary!  I’m a paralegal, Asshole!  Hire some dumb bitch to make your coffee and handle your phone or I’m gonna’ quit and leave your ass high and dry!  I’m not kidding, Nick.”  

She was being very unprofessional. Very.

I put my aching head down on my desk.  I felt like I had when I had pissed Mrs. Mills off in the third grade.  Her loathing had been nearly as severe.  I closed my eyes for a minute and then the intercom was buzzing.  I hit the button.

“The Mayor’s on the line.”

“Thank you, Marta.”  She shut me off.  I picked up the receiver and hit the blinking button.

“Nick.  Where are you?  We’re all waiting.”

“Uh.  Yeah.  Well, I, uh, had an emergency hearing to cover this morning.  Court business. Maybe, we can reset this meeting.  It would take me at least a half hour to get there.  And, ah . . .  ‘

“No problem, Nick.  Let’s say 10 a.m. tomorrow?”

I clicked my mouse and drug the appointment to the next day on the calendar.  Not much else on there, I noticed.  

“Sure.  See you then.”  

I rang off.  I breathed a sigh of relief. It didn’t last long.  I looked up into the wrathful eyes of Marta standing in the doorway to my office.  She was leaning against the doorsill.  My fear of what would happen next, was obviated by the cup of steaming coffee she held hostage in her hand. 

She didn’t enter the room immediately.  It was like she hadn’t reach a definite decision on whether she would let me have the cup.  Desperate, I prayed a little.  I dutifully gave silent thanks when she began moving toward my desk.  She sat the cup down just out of my reach. I had to stretch over to pick it up.  Just the smell perked me up.  I hazarded a grin at her.  Not my best.  Considering how bad I felt, it was good as I could offer.

“Uh, Marta.  Sorry about his morning.  Lots of stress.  Guess it got to me a little.”

“Yeah, lots of Scotch, more like it, to be more accurate.  You don’t know anything about stress.  But you need to focus on business, Nick.  Stuff is getting out of control around here.  You need to pay attention.  Leave off the booze for a while.”

“Okay.  Message received.”

“Yeah, well, here’s another one.”  She dropped a pink slip on my desk.  A call.  It was from my ex-wife.  I looked around for sharp objects to end it all right now.  Fortunately, Marta had collected them the last time I had a suicidal episode.

She dropped another message on my desk.  I picked up the second slip.  It was from the Chief of Police.

“We have the subject in custody.  Am awaiting instructions per out previous conversation.”  The good chief was being professionally discrete I supposed.  I looked at the time on the message.  9:15.  

Time to practice a little law. 

“Marta, could you get the Chief on the line?”

“Fuck you.  Hire a secretary.”  

She turned and walked out of my office. I watched her ass.  She sashayed nicely when she was being a total bitch.  I was definitely feeling better.  The coffee was doing its wonders. I picked up the receiver and punched in the number on the slip.

Chapter Five

I arrived at the jail just before the mid-day feeding.  

Every day, Monday through Friday, the lunch fare at the lock up was Bologna sandwiches and cherry Jell-O. The hungry inmates, after biting into a jailhouse sandwich and re-experiencing what it was like to swallow cardboard, once again eschewed consuming a jailhouse sandwich ever again.  They angrily tossed the sandwiches between the bars out in the hallways, sucked down the Jell-O and then spun the plastic container out on the cement to accompany the discarded sandwiches.  

Trustees came along precisely at 12:15 with brooms to sweep the pieces of stale white bread and green bologna into a pile at the end the dorm where another trustee used a flat shovel to dispose of the refuse in a huge metal can.  Still another trustee would move down the hall mopping the bologna grease off the cement floor.

Sullen, resentful, still hungry, more convinced than ever that the world was against them, and understandably so, they hissed, griped, but when called out of their cells never ever, resisted conversation about legal matters.   

I knew all this from my defense attorney days.  Ironically, feeding time was a good time to see a client.  They were alert from the sugar in the Jell-O.  And with the smell of the green bologna still in their nostrils they were anxious to get out of jail.  It made them receptive to accepting any plea deal I proposed if it meant they could return to the streets reasonably soon and have a decent meal over at McDonalds.  They were never as attentive or compliant as right after the mid-day feeding. 

I had called the Chief of Police and arranged for him to have my prisoner kept in an isolated interview room until I arrived.  When I walked up to the reception desk, actually a ten-foot high bullet proof glass encased enclosure that overlooked everything on all sides, it appeared I had not been expected.

At this jail entrance, in order to present one’s identification one had to actually reach upward and slide it through a slot in the wall at eye level.  Those manning Reception, on the elevated floor behind the glass encasement, stood peering down at visitors like disapproving Gods. When I slid my State Bar card into the slot, a familiar Sheriff’s sergeant frowned down at me the way he always did when I appeared at the jail to see one of my never do well clients.  

But today I was not there to see a client.  “Special Prosecutor” Indeed! I was the representative of the state.  Law enforcement.  I felt I was entitled to more deference than was being shown.  A “Special Prosecutor” extraordinaire needed to be shown some respect. 

I frowned back at the Sergeant.  Not a hard thing to do considering my hangover and headache.  Any smile I had tried that day had been a pathetic “help me, Stranger, by dropping a buck in my cup” type.  Hence, I gave the Sergeant an attitude grimace.  His eyebrows went up and he seemed confused at my rebellious attitude.  Just then the Chief of Police appeared beside him and bent down to press a button that released the large metal door to the side of the encasement.  I pulled it the rest of the way opened and entered.  I climbed a short stairway and there was Chief Fry, his hand extended, stepping forward to meet me.  

I shook the hand that had been offered and looked harshly over at the Sergeant who appeared to be considering early retirement.   His orderly worldview had just decomposed before his very eyes.  His careful categorizations of “them” and “us” were powder, dust particles, snowflakes melting as they floated earthward.

“This way, Mr. Easley.”

I followed the Chief through a side door, which lead to rather nice conference room.  One I hadn’t seen before and didn’t know existed. The rooms where I usually interviewed clients were small, cramped, with peeling paint on the walls and a disgusting dank dusky smell that seemed to stick to your clothes and physically encase you once you left the building.   But this room had nice appurtenances, chairs with real cushions, and a smell redolent of Lemon Pledge. 

A man and a woman were waiting for me.  I recognized them both as detectives with the police department.  Nevertheless, the Chief formally introduced us to each other, and there was a further all around shaking of hands.  

“Have a seat Mr. Easley.”  The Chief pointed to chair at the head of the conference table.    I could get used to such deference. I resolved to enjoy to my new status.  

“We thought it would be helpful to bring you up to speed, brief you, you know, on what we have so far before you speak to the individual we arrested.”

I directed a question at the detectives.

“Has he asked for an attorney or done anything that could be implied he didn’t want to speak to us?”  I was asking my questions in the presence of the Chief to make sure I was getting as straight as scoop as possible.

“No.  He’s been pretty cooperative.  A little subdued but not resisting at all.  It’s like he wants to get this over with.”

The detective speaking was the female. She was large.  At least 6 foot tall, buxom, big shoulders. 

Wanda Staring had been around.  She was rumored to like straight whiskey and men when the mood hit her.  People said it didn’t hit very often but when it did, she binged on both.  

Good detective though.  I had had a few cases with her.  As straight a shooter as you could hope for.  Few were the officers who didn’t shade the police reports and “observations” a little.  She did as well.  But in general, she held pretty steady.  Perhaps there would be an exaggeration here and there but all within acceptable parameters of truth at least as the concept of truth was recognized in our local criminal justice system.  

Wanda was indeed a big girl.  Bigger than Brenda had been before she lost all that weight and had been murdered.  Wanda’s chest was massive and impressive.  Her hips were big, her thighs stretching the pants of her slacks to the busting point.  Her hair was big too.  Dyed a dull black you can only get from a bottle and ratted up high on her head, held stiff with hair spray.   Not exactly the current style.  I looked at her hands. It had been a while since she had had her nails done.  I imagined she hadn’t graced the interior of a salon of any kind for some time.

“So, what do we have?  Who is this character?  And how’s our evidence.”

I noticed the other detective, Maurice Wiley, shift in his chair, take a look at his female partner and at a nod of her head, opened up a binder in front of him.  He took a picture out of the inside pocket and slid it across the table to me.  He didn’t say anything.  Not unusual.  I had known Wiley a long time.  He was a slight, wiry detective who was taller than he seemed, but because of his frame and a habitual bent back seemed shorter and smaller than he was.  He didn’t like to talk.  He opened his mouth only reluctantly and then for only the briefest of statements.  He was very difficult to cross-examine.   You got so little information from him he was hard to read, and that made it doubly difficult to challenge him on the substance of his reports. 

I smiled at Detective Wiley.  He didn’t smile back.  I looked over at Wanda and smiled as I drug the picture toward me.  She smiled back at me brightly.  I held the picture up and stared at it.  There was something familiar about the face.  

The subject in the picture was a mess.  He had dirty stringy hair.  At some point there had been an attempt to smooth it over a baldpate.  His blotted face was adorned with a scrawny beard that didn’t know if it wanted to be goatee or a full face shaggy hirsute.  The eyes looked a little dead. A little drugged.  But the face.  I knew this person, but who was it?

I flipped it over and looked at the other side.

“Drew Staten”  

I turned the picture back over and examined the face again.  Drew.  It was hard to believe.  But it was him all right.   One of the science guys.   Well, well.  He was one of our old math and physics teacher’s favorite students.  All the chemistry and math nerds.  Old Mrs. Vuitch’s groupies. 

Her eyes used to light up when Drew answered one of her indecipherable algebraic questions in class.  He was definitely one of her star pupils.  And he had gone on to be an even bigger star in the outside world.  

In the scientific community he had become famous.  I had read a profile of him printed back a few years in the local rag, The Sunville Gazette.  Famous alright.  Drew had been Ivy League famous.  According to those who would know and were actually interested in such things he had made incredible discoveries and all that.  Then came the weird stuff.  

Still and all, he had once been one of our high school’s star pupils.  Then, he went on to become the State University’s star researcher.  But alas he became, what was the phrase, oh yes, Synthetic Human Genome’s star flop.  Only scientific term I could remember.  It had been pasted across the front page of the Gazette.  

And now I was getting ready to charge him with murder, maybe double murder.  Perhaps soon he would be a star of a different kind. 

Chapter Six

“Did you do a toxicology on him?”  

The photo of our suspect couldn’t have made him look any more like a drugged-out weirdo.  A fertile playground for defense attorneys.  Like me.  I had played on that field in plenty of cases.  I knew the game.  The game of looking for ways of lessening a client’s responsibility for their acts.  Make it involuntary, make it an illusion, make it a mistake, make it stupid, make it the result of a drug addled mind, make it anything but the conscious decision of a sentient human being.   

Not that I knew all there was about psych defenses.  No.  I wasn’t a wizard at the mental states of a criminal.   But, on the other hand, I had presented a few broad implications of mental disease to a few juries, even been successful at selling the tripe a few times.

“We did.” The female detective answered.  “We had the tech draw some blood when we processed him early this morning.  The lab still has to run it through their machines.  I told them to give it priority. They’re usually pretty good about that.  I think we will have something by tomorrow morning.”

“Thank you, Detective Staring,”

“Please, call me Wanda.”

I again noted the massive jugs.   And the big arms, shoulders, legs.  A guy could get hurt.

“Uh. Yes.  Well, uh Wanda, did you put anything in your report about his ability to perceive, understand, you know?”

“Afraid not.  Didn’t really think to do it, but he understands okay enough.  I can tell you that from the conversation we had.  A little far out, but he’s connected to reality.  Knew what we were asking.  Oriented, you know?”

“Sure, that helps, but be sure to cover that in a supplemental report.  The defense attorneys, whoever they turn out to be, are going to be all over this on a mental capacity theory.  Let’s be prepared for that.”

“Okay, Nick.”  There was a lack of formality in her response.  Not Mr. Easley, but rather Nick. She called me Nick.  That was being very familiar.  I was going to have to be careful.  If her reputation was anywhere near the truth, at the first whiff of a whiskey I better be exiting.  If she held me down with those giant thighs, I could be crippled for life.  I found such thoughts strange.  And strangely stirring.

“Well, let’s bring him in here and take a look.”

Wiley got up and left the room, ostensibly to retrieve Drew Staten.  Wanda scooted her chair over closer to mine and leaned over my shoulder to read the reports at which I was glancing.  One massive breast was pressed flush into my deltoid.  I had always preferred a slatternly little submissive like Tammy J.  Brenda was no submissive.  No sir.  My throat was tightening with panic before the door thankfully opened and in shuffled Drew Staten followed by Detective Wiley.  

Drew shuffled because he was wearing ankle chains.  He was dressed in dirty, stained jailhouse overalls.  His hands were handcuffed in front of him.  I studied him as he pushed across the floor and over toward a chair and sat down with a hard thump and release of air from his lungs.  It had obviously been physically exhausting for him to make his way in chains and handcuffs from his holding cell to the interview room.

We all waited while his heaving breaths slowed down.  Finally, he lifted his eyes and looked up and around the room.  When he saw Wanda, he gathered enough strength to scoot his chair an inch or two away from her.  It was ineffective.  She could still have reached out and smacked him dead with a backhand, a fist, or her lethal boob.

I decided to get the interrogation started.

“Drew.”  I had to call his name twice before he looked away from Wanda to me.  I wondered what had happened between the two to make him so cautious of her.  I looked for evidence he had been smacked around.  None was visible.

“Drew,” I said again to get his attention. “I think you know these detectives.  Drew, do you know who I am?”

For the first time, he stared at me.  He looked weak.  A very white pallor, his hair matted and glued by sweat to his forehead and noggin.  His goatee actually had visible particles of some kind in it.  I didn’t know what they were, but they had to be remnants of a past meal. 

“I knew you once.”  I waited for more.  I got it.  

“You were always kind of a stupid kid.  Well, maybe not stupid, but not very bright.  Popular, but one of the walking, living dumb of the school.  Heard you got to be a lawyer.  Couldn’t imagine you passing the Bar Exam.  But guess you got through somehow.  Dumb luck probably. All you guys were always dumb lucky.”  

And then so I wouldn’t miss his point, he reiterated. “Dumb.”

I never liked this little shit in high school, I thought to myself.  I don’t like him now.  Maybe I’ll spoil his day a little by telling him I’m going to charge him with murder.  No. Wait.  Plenty of time for that kind of gloating later, but right now I needed to stay focused.  

Drew looked over quickly at Wanda like he just remembered she was in the room and within striking distance.  He seemed to be wondering if she was going to backhand him.  Wanda was smiling an enigmatic smile.  I would wager she intended to smack him.  But, not now.  She wouldn’t do it right now.  She would wait until I was gone. I think Drew too realized he was going to receive a few licks.  I wondered if he was regretting his candor in evaluating my intelligence from our long-ago high school days.

“And I knew you once,” I replied.  “You were a leading light in science, but I’ve got to say, Drew, you don’t look so good now.  You look like you’ve been having some hard times.”

“Yeah, well.  I’ve been some places where it can get rough.  You wouldn’t look so good yourself.  If it is yourself anyway.”

That last statement zipped right over my head.  Not sure what he meant by that, but I figured no matter, it was time to get him talking about the killings.

“And you knew Brenda?”

He paused.  He looked down at the shiny tabletop.  He ran his fingers lightly over the varnish. 

“Yes, Nick, I knew Brenda.  I know Brenda.”  I was distracted by the ease with which he used my name, but then I realized what he had just said though I didn’t understand why he said it that way.

I decided to cut to the chase.

“Did you kill Brenda?”

“Sure, Nick, I killed Brenda, or a thing called Brenda.  But not the Brenda you are thinking of.  She’s not even here.  Not yet.”

I couldn’t help but think how I would use such nonsense as a defense if I were representing Drew.  It was a definite mental defense case.  But I wasn’t representing him.  It was my job to charge and convict Drew.  I knew I needed to keep going.  Just didn’t know which direction to take.

Wanda decided on her own to fill in the silence that was stretching out as I tried to get my bearings.

“Where’d you get the Ax?” 

Drew frowned.  He might know he was going to get knocked around later by those big paws, but he was mustering up enough manhood to be defiant of this Amazon.  

“The Ax was her’s.  She brought it with her when she came back.  She wanted to use it herself, but she got pulled back.  So, I used it.  The more of them we end the stronger we will be when it counts.  An Ax is a good tool.”

“And you used it to kill Brenda Dickey, didn’t you?”  It was a logical next question.  I was giving Wanda her head.  An image flashed in my mind.  Bad choice of words: bad image.  Better phrase would be to say giving Wanda her lead.

Drew looked down and tried to erase the smudges his hands had made on the polished table.  He turned the palms up and seemed to be studying the handcuffs. 

“Yes, I used the Ax.  And yes, I killed with the Ax.  But that wasn’t Brenda.  I killed it for Brenda.  She can get free.  She can come back now.”

“Come back from where?” Wanda asked.

Drew didn’t look up at Wanda.  He dropped his head even further. His neck all but disappeared in his shirt.  He mumbled something.  I didn’t quite hear it.  Evidently, neither did Wanda. 

“What did you say?”

“The other side.  The other side of the barrier, the door, the big door.  It’s not easy.  But she’ll cross back now.  Now she can.”

This is going nowhere logical, I thought.  But, legally, I did have an admission in the bank.  Evidence.  I could convict on that alone if I could undermine the mental defense.  I was anxious to clean up the rest of the case. 

“How about the other one?  Kill him too, like you did Brenda?”

He paused.  Something was different.  

“I did.  This all had to stop.  It never would as long as he existed.”

“And the nail gun?  Why a nail gun?”

“It was in the back.  I found it after I followed them there.  In the maintenance room: in the back.  I still don’t know why that particular Brenda went there.  But I do know he was following her. Maybe she knew he was.  And I was following him.”

“And you did them both?”

“I got them both.  It had to end.”

“And this ended it?”

“I thought it did.  I was wrong.  I didn’t know.”

“You didn’t know?”

“I didn’t know about the others.  The others like him.  They are still there.  You need to find them.  The children mustn’t be released.  Or this will never end.”