WHEN YOU COMMIT A MURDER YOU make twenty-five mistakes. If you can think of ten of them, then you're a genius. At least that's what I heard in a movie once. It wasn't actually a murder but more of an act of self-defense. The mistakes, though, are beginning to add up.
I pace around my desk at the office, which is covered with neat rows of yellow legal paper. I've diagrammed the apartment, the body, the clothes, the gun, the bat, the beer cans, everything that I can remember. I've sketched the position of my car, her car and his truck in the parking lot. I've written pages recalling every step and every event of the evening. My best guess is that I was in the apartment for less than fifteen minutes but on paper it looks like a thin novel. How many screams or yells that were capable of being heard from the outside? No more than four, I think. How many neighbors saw a strange man leave just after the screams? Who knows.
That, I think, was mistake number one. I shouldn't have left so soon. I should have waited for ten minutes or
so to see if the neighbors heard anything. Then I should have eased into the darkness.
Or maybe I should have called the cops and told the truth. Kelly and I had every right to be in the apartment. It's obvious he was lying in ambush somewhere nearby at a time when he should have been elsewhere. I was well within my rights to fight back, to disarm him and to hit him with his own weapon. Given his violent nature and history, no jury in the world would convict me. Plus, the only other witness would be squarely on my side.
So why didn't I stay? She was pushing me out of the door for one thing, and it just seemed like the best course of action. Who can think rationally when, in the span of fifteen seconds, you go from being brutally attacked to being a killer?
Mistake number two was the lie about her car. I drove through the parking lot after I left the police station, and found her Volkswagen Rabbit and his four-wheel-drive pickup. This lie will work if no one tells the cops that her car hasn't been moved in days.
But what if Cliff and a friend somehow disabled her car while she was at the shelter, and this friend comes forth in a few hours and talks to the cops? My imagination runs wild.
The worst mistake that's hit me in the past four hours is the lie about the phone call Kelly allegedly made to me after she dialed 911. This was my excuse for being at the police station so quick. It's an incredibly stupid lie because there is no record of the call. If the cops check the phone records, I'm in serious trouble.
Other mistakes pop up as the night wears on. Fortunately, most are the result of a scared mind, most go away after careful analysis and sufficient scribbling on the legal pad.
I allow Deck to sleep until five before I wake him. An
hour later he's at the office with coffee. I give him my version of the story, and his initial response is beautiful. "No jury in the world will convict her," he says, without a doubt.
"The trial is one thing," I say. "Getting her out of jail is another."
We formulate a plan. I need records-arrest reports, court files, medical records and a copy of their first divorce filing. Deck can't wait to gather the dirt. At seven, Deck goes out for more coffee and a newspaper.
The story is on page three of Metro, a brief three paragraphs with no photo of the deceased. It happened too late last night to be much of a story. WIFE ARRESTED IN HUSBAND'S DEATH is the headline, but Memphis has three of these a month. If I wasn't searching for it I wouldn't see it.
I call Butch and raise him from the dead. He's a late-nighter, single after three divorces, and likes to close down bars. I tell him that his pal Cliff Riker has met an untimely death, and this seems to perk him up. He's at the office shortly after eight, and I explain that I want him to scour the area around the apartment and see if anybody saw or heard anything. See if the cops are on the scene doing the same thing. Butch cuts me off. He's the investigator. He knows what to do.
I call Booker at the office and explain that a divorce client of mine killed her husband last night, but she's .really a sweet girl and I want her out of jail. I need his help. Marvin Shankle's brother is a criminal court judge, and I want him to either release her on recognizance or set a ridiculously low bond.
"You've gone from a fifty-million-dollar verdict to a sleazy divorce case?" Booker asks jokingly.
I manage a laugh. If he only knew.
Marvin Shankle is out of town, but Booker promises to
start making calls. I leave the office at eight-thirty and speed toward downtown. Throughout the night, I've tried to avoid the thought of Kelly in a jail cell.
I ENTER the Shelby County Justice Complex and go straight for the office of Lonnie Shankle. I'm greeted with the news that Judge Shankle, like his brother, is out of town, and won't return until late afternoon. I make a few phone calls and try to locate Kelly's paperwork. She was just one of dozens arrested last night, and I'm sure her file is still at the police station.
I meet Deck at nine-thirty in the lobby. He has the arrest records. I send him to the police station to locate her file.
The Shelby County District Attorney's office is on the third floor of the complex. It has over seventy prosecutors in five divisions. Domestic Abuse has only two, Morgan Wilson and another woman. Fortunately, Morgan Wilson is in her office, it's just a matter of getting back there. I flirt with the receptionist for thirty minutes, and to my surprise, it works.
Morgan Wilson is a stunning woman of about forty. She has a firm handshake and a smile that says, "I'm busy as hell. Get on with it." Her office is impossibly stacked with files, but very neat and organized. I get tired just looking at all this work to be done. We take our seats, then, it hits her.
"The fifty-million-dollar guy?" she says, with a much different smile now.
"That's me." I shrug. It was just another day's work.
"Congratulations." She's visibly impressed. Ah, the price of fame. I suspect she's doing what every other lawyer is doing-calculating one third of fifty million.
She earns forty thousand a year max, so she wants to talk about my good fortune. I give a brief review of the
trial and what it was like when I heard the verdict. I wrap it up quickly, then tell her why I'm here.
She's a thorough listener, and takes lots of notes. I hand her copies of the current divorce file, the old one and the records of Cliffs three arrests for beating his wife. I promise to have Kelly's medical records by the end of the day. I describe the injuries left by a few of the worst beatings.
Virtually all of these files around me involve men who've beaten their wives, children or girlfriends, so it's easy to predict whose side Morgan is on. "That poor kid," she says, and she ain't talking about Cliff.
"How big is she?" she asks.
"Five-five or so. A hundred-ten pounds dripping wet."
"How'd she beat him to death?" Her tone is almost in awe, not the least bit accusatory.
"She was scared. He was drunk. Somehow she got her hands on the bat."
"Good for her," she says, and goose bumps cover my thighs. This is the prosecutor!
"I'd love to get her out of jail," I say.
"I need to get the file and review it. I'll call the bail clerk and tell him we have no objection to a low bond. Where's she living?"
"She's in a shelter, one of those underground homes with no names."
"I know them well. They're really quite useful."
"She's safe there, but the poor kid's in jail right now, and she's still black and blue from the last beating,"
Morgan waves at the files surrounding us. "That's my life."
We agree to meet at nine tomorrow morning.
DECK, BUTCH AND I meet at the office for a sandwich and to plot our next moves. Butch knocked on every door
of every apartment near the Hikers', and found only one person who might've heard something crash. She lives directly above, and I doubt if she could see me exit the apartment. I suspect what she heard was the column disintegrate when the Babe swung and missed with strike one. The cops have not talked to her. Butch was at the complex for three hours and saw no signs of police activity. The apartment is locked and sealed, and seems to be drawing a crowd. At one point, two large young men who appeared to be related to Cliff were joined by a truckload of boys from work, and the group stood beyond the police tape, staring at the apartment door, cursing and vowing revenge. It was a rough-looking bunch, Butch assures me.
He's also lined up a bail bondsman, a friend of his who'll do us a favor and write the bond for only five percent as opposed to the customary ten. This will save me some money.
Deck's spent most of the morning at the police station getting arrest records and tracking Kelly's paperwork. He and Smotherton are getting along well, primarily because Deck is professing an extreme dislike for lawyers. He's just an investigator now, far from being a paralawyer. Interestingly, Smotherton reported that by mid-morning, they were receiving death threats against Kelly.
I decide to go to the jail to check on her. Deck will find an available judge to set her bond. Butch will be ready with his bondsman. As we're leaving the office, the phone rings. Deck grabs it and gives it to me.
It's Peter Corsa, Jackie Lemancyzk's lawyer in Cleveland. I last talked to him after her testimony, a conversation in which I thanked him profusely. He told me at that time that he was just days away from filing suit himself.
Corsa congratulates me on the verdict, says it was big news in the Sunday paper up there. My fame is spreading. He then tells me that some weird stuff is happening at
Great Benefit. The FBI, working in conjunction with the Ohio Attorney General and the state Department of Insurance, raided the corporate offices this morning and started removing records. With the exception of the computer analysts in accounting, all the employees were sent home and told not to come back for two days. According to a recent newspaper story, PinnConn, the parent company, has defaulted on some bonds and has been laying off loads of employees.
There's not much I can say. I killed a man eighteen hours ago, and it's hard to concentrate on unrelated matters. We chat. I thank him. He promises to keep me posted.
IT TAKES AN HOUR and a half to find Kelly somewhere back in the maze and bring her into the visitor's room. We sit on opposite sides of a glass square and talk through telephones. She tells me I look tired. I tell her she looks great. She's in a cell by herself, and safe, but it's noisy and she can't sleep. She really wants to get out. I tell her I'm doing all I can. I tell her about my visit with Morgan Wilson. I explain how bail works. I do not mention the death threats.
We have so much to talk about, but not here.
After we say good-bye, and as I'm leaving the visitor's room, a uniformed jailer calls my name. She asks if I'm the lawyer for Kelly Riker, then she hands me a printout. "It's our phone records. We've had four calls about that girl in the past two hours."
I can't read the damned printout. "What kind of calls?"
"Death threats. From some crazy people."
JUDGE LONNIE SHANKLE arrives at his office at three-thirty, and Deck and I are waiting. He has a hundred things to do, but Booker has called and schmoozed
with the judge's secretary, so the wheels are greased. I give the judge a flurry of paperwork, a five-minute history of the case and finish with the plea for a low bail because I, the lawyer, will be required to post it. Shankle sets the bond at ten thousand dollars. We thank him and leave.
Thirty minutes later we're all at the jail. I know for a fact that Butch has a gun in a shoulder harness, and I suspect that the bondsman, a guy named Rick, is also armed. We're ready for anything.
I write Rick a check for five hundred dollars for the bond, and I sign all the paperwork. If the charges against her are not dismissed, and if she fails to appear for any court dates, then Rick has the choice of either forking over the remaining ninety-five hundred dollars, or finding her and physically hauling her back to jail. I've convinced him the charges will be dropped.
It takes forever to process her, but we eventually see her walking toward us, no handcuffs, nothing but a smile. We quickly escort her to my car. I've asked Butch and Deck to follow us for a few blocks just to be safe.
I tell Kelly about the death threats. We suspect it's his crazy family and redneck friends from work. We talk little as we hurriedly leave downtown and head for the shelter. I don't want to discuss last night, and she's not ready for it either.
AT 5 P.M. TUESDAY, lawyers for Great Benefit file for protection under the bankruptcy code in federal court in Cleveland. Peter Corsa calls the office while I'm hiding Kelly, and Deck takes the news. When I return a few minutes later, Deck looks like death.
We sit in my office with our feet on the desk for a long time without a word. Total silence. No voices. No phones. N(o traffic sounds below. We'd been postponing our discussion about how much of the fee Deck would get, so
he's not sure how much he's lost. But we both know that we've gone from being paper millionaires to near insolvents. Our giddy dreams of yesterday seem silly now.
There's a flicker of hope. Just last week Great Benefit's balance sheet looked stout enough to convince a jury it had fifty million bucks to spare. M. Wilfred Keeley estimated the company had a hundred million in cash. Surely there's some truth in this. I remember the warnings of Max Leuberg. Never trust an insurance company's own figures because they make their own accounting rules.
But surely somewhere down the road there'll be a spare million or so for us.
I don't really believe this. Neither does Deck.
Corsa left his home number, and I finally muster the strength to call him. He apologizes for the bad news, says the legal and financial communities up there are buzzing. It's too early to know the truth, but it looks as though PinnConn took some heavy hits trading foreign currencies. It then started syphoning off the huge cash reserves of its subsidiaries, including Great Benefit. Things got worse, and the money was simply skimmed by PinnConn and sent to Europe. The bulk of PinnConn's stock is controlled by a group of American pirates operating in Singapore. It sounds like the whole world is conspiring against me.
It's quickly evolving into a huge mess, may take months to unravel it, but the local U.S. Attorney was on TV this afternoon promising indictments. A lot of good it'll do us.
Corsa will call me in the morning.
I relay all this to Deck, and we both know it's hopeless. The money's been skimmed by crooks too sophisticated to get caught. Thousands of policyholders who had legitimate claims and have already been screwed once will now get it again. Deck and I will get screwed. Same for Dot and Buddy. Donny Ray got the ultimate screwing. Drum-
mond will get screwed when he submits his hefty bills for legal services. I mention this to Deck, but it's hard to laugh.
The employees and agents of Great Benefit will get screwed. People like Jackie Lemancyzk.will take a hit.
Misery loves company, but for some reason I feel as if I've lost more than most of these other folks. The fact that others will suffer is of small comfort.
I think of Donny Ray again. I see him sitting under the tree trying gamely to be strong during his deposition. He paid the ultimate price for Great Benefit's thievery.
I've spent most of the past six months working on this case, and now that time has been wasted. The firm has averaged about a thousand bucks a month in net profits since we started, but we were driven by the dream of paydirt on the Black case. There aren't enough fees in our files to survive another two months, and I'm not about to hustle people. Deck has one decent car wreck that won't settle until the client is released from his doctor's care, probably six months from now. At best, it's a twenty-thousand-dollar settlement.
The phone rings. Deck answers it, listens, then quickly hangs up. "Some guy says he's gonna kill you," he says matter-of-factly.
"That's not the worst phone call of the day."
"I wouldn't mind getting shot right now," he says.
THE SIGHT OF KELLY lifts my spirits. We eat Chinese again in her room, with the door locked, with my gun on a chair under my coat.
There are so many emotions hanging around our necks and competing for attention that conversation is not easy. I tell her about Great Benefit, and she's disappointed only because I'm so discouraged. The money means nothing to her.
At times we laugh, at times we almost cry. She's worried about tomorrow and the next day and what the police might do or find. She's terrified of the Riker clan. These people start hunting when they're five years old. Guns are a way of life for them. She's frightened at the prospect of going back to jail, though I promise it won't happen. If the cops and the prosecutors pursue with a vengeance, I will step forward and tell the truth.
I mention last night, and she can't handle it. She starts crying and we don't speak for a long time.
I unlock the door, and step quietly through the dark hall, through the rambling house until I find Betty Norvelle watching television alone in the den. She knows the barest details of what happened last night. I explain that Kelly is too fragile at this moment to be left alone. I need to stay with her, and I'll sleep on the floor if necessary. The shelter has a strict prohibition against men sleeping over, but in this case she makes an exception.
We lie together on the narrow bed, on top of the sheets and blankets, and hold each other closely. I had no sleep last night, a brief nap this afternoon, and I feel as though I haven't slept ten hours in the past week. I can't squeeze her because I'm afraid I'll hurt her. I drift away.