Final Appeal (3 page)

Michael opened his mouth to play the game. It was the only way. Then he saw how Dr. Bowman was leaning forward in rapt fascination. His eyes were unblinking, and he seemed to be having some trouble breathing. The rasping sound of the air passing between his colorless lips reminded Michael of something in his past, something ugly.

It took a moment, but then he started to remember. Aunt Alice had taken them to a county fair. While she'd gone through the exhibit buildings, they'd explored the midway. Stan had gone off to buy them some cotton candy, and Michael had waited by the brightly colored posters advertising the wonders inside the tents. He'd stared at the pictures of the two-headed snake in a bottle, the half-man half-woman, and the bearded lady, wishing that he could go inside to see them. Then a smiling man had approached with an extra ticket. Would Michael like to go inside?

Michael had known he shouldn't. Stan had told him to stay put and not move. He glanced at the cotton candy booth and he could see that there were a lot of people ahead of Stan in line. That meant he had time to see the wonderful things inside the tent and be back outside before Stan even reached the counter.

It was just too much of a temptation for a little boy to resist.

As soon as the tent flap had closed, the man who had seemed so friendly had changed. He'd grasped Michael's hand and held it tightly. And pulled it forward to touch something Michael knew he shouldn't touch. He'd kicked and broken free, but he still remembered that the man in the tent had been breathing exactly like Dr. Bowman was breathing right now.

“Don't block it out, Michael. I know what's best for you.”

Dr. Bowman moved his chair closer and reached out to take Michael's hand. “You'll feel so much better when you tell me all about it. Carole hurt you deeply. Of course, you wanted to punish her, to see her suffer. To cause her the kind of . . .”

The thought hit his mind like a sledge hammer. The perverted bastard was getting off on Carole's murder!

Someone must have jerked on the balloon string, because suddenly Michael was flying up out of the green plastic chair to fasten his fingers around Dr. Bowman's neck.

 

Stan stopped to glance at his Rolex and then resumed pacing across his new brown and gold Aubusson carpet. His secretary had put in a call to Jerry Bowman more than an hour ago, and the doctor still hadn't called back. No one ever kept Stan Gerhardt waiting that long!

As he covered the length of his large corner office, Stan was aware of the luxury that surrounded him. The offices of Gerhardt, Merrill, and Davis had recently been redecorated by Ralph of Brentwood, at considerable corporate expense. Several original oils hung on the walls, a secure investment that would surely double or even triple in the next ten years. Stylish but comfortable swivel chairs covered in natural chamois flanked the solid rosewood conference table. The floor-to-ceiling windows were draped in a heavy, natural silk that filtered in just the right amount of light, and a brass sculpture of Lady Justice, complete with blindfold and scales, dominated the corner by the marble fireplace. The statue had been commissioned from a leading artist, and it glowed with a soft sheen from the reflected light.

Stan smiled briefly as he thought about his confrontation with Ralph. The prissy little decorator had strutted through Stan's offices like the Queen of the May, disturbing junior and senior partners alike with his palettes of paint samples and fabric swatches. At least he'd had the foresight to leave Stan alone—until that day when he'd actually interrupted one of Stan's weekly staff meetings with a crisis. A decision had to be made immediately between robin's-egg blue and pale melon. Stan had smiled and told him to go with the melon.

Since Ralph's work for Gerhardt, Merrill, and Davis would be featured in several prestigious magazines, the decorator had been a tyrant for absolute perfection. The furniture had already been selected, a painstaking process that had taken months. Every piece had to fit into Ralph's framework for the complete conceptual environment. When the receptionist's designer phone had been delivered in ivory instead of cream, Ralph had gone into a full-scale tizzy, screaming at the delivery man as if he were personally responsible. That was when Stan had decided it was time for a power play.

He'd left the office at noon and gone to a secondhand furniture store that advertised overnight delivery. When Ralph had arrived the next day, Stan had presented him with a phalanx of battered, decrepit, glass-enclosed lawyer's bookcases he claimed had belonged to his grandfather. Oh, hadn't he mentioned them before? An oversight on his part, his apologies. But surely Ralph was flexible enough to work them into his design. Of course, Stan was no expert on interior decorating, but he thought the bookcases should be dispersed, say one in each office? His heirloom antiques would lend a sense of tradition and continuity to his relativity young law firm.

Ralph had sputtered, and his face had turned red. Then he began to wheeze. It seemed Stan's “family antiques” had brought on an emotionally induced asthma attack.

Naturally, they hadn't used the secondhand bookcases. Stan had capitulated in the end, claiming that he had been swayed by Ralph's artistic judgment. But not before he'd given the phony little decorator some very anxious moments.

The intercom buzzed, and Stan hurried to answer, wincing a bit as his secretary's amplified voice echoed in his ear. There had to be a way to turn the volume down. He'd have her call a technician immediately.

“I have Dr. Bowman for you, Mr. Gerhardt, line five.”

Stan sat down in his leather desk chair and held the phone a good three inches away from his ear. “Thank you, Joyce. Call a repairman for this damn phone system, will you? I want it fixed today. And you'd better tell Professor Zimmer that I've been unavoidably delayed. Offer him coffee or something.”

“Right away, Mr. Gerhardt.”

As Joyce clicked off Stan reached into the upper left-hand drawer of his rosewood executive desk to take out a fresh yellow legal pad. Michael had been up for release, and no one had told him. He had to get things straight with Bowman.

Stan jabbed the button for line five so savagely the phone jingled, yet he forced his voice to sound perfectly cordial. He knew Bowman would have to be replaced, but he wasn't quite ready to tip his hand.

“Hello Jerry, I understand you had a bit of trouble with my brother this morning?”

Stan's face looked even more haggard than usual as the doctor related the incident. There was a time when he'd considered plastic surgery to correct his prominent nose and the labial lines that were the curse of the Gerhardt's, but in the past ten years, since his brother hadn't been around, he'd shelved the idea. Michael had always been the handsome one, but where had it gotten him in the end? Stan had concluded that brainpower always won out over looks, and if people didn't agree with him, they were fools.

The doctor reached the end of his recital at last, and Stan put down his pen. “Thank you for sharing this with me, Jerry. Naturally, I'm relieved you weren't badly hurt. And you say my brother's sedated now?”

He listened as Bowman described the medications he'd prescribed and the restraints they'd put on Michael. Then it was time for him to play a little hardball.

“Something concerns me, Jerry. Why wasn't I notified that my brother was up for review? I thought we'd agreed that it was in Michael's best interest to keep me fully informed.”

The doctor went into a lengthy explanation, and Stan's eyes narrowed.

“I see. New secretaries can be very unreliable. Perhaps, in the future, you'd do me the courtesy of making that call yourself?”

Bowman was really backpedaling now. Stan smiled at the man's obvious discomfort and let him rattle on for a moment. “Yes, Jerry, I'm sure you will. Sorry I don't have time to chat, I have a client waiting.”

Stan ended the call and pushed the intercom button, remembering to hold the phone away from his ear as his secretary came on the line. “Joyce? Would you check my appointment schedule and clear me for tomorrow afternoon? I'll be out of the office from eleven on. And then you can bring in the professor.”

He gave a sigh as his thoughts turned back to his brother's doctor. He knew Bowman was incompetent. It was no wonder he'd opted for running a state hospital rather than going into private practice. Stan planned to drive up to Oakdale tomorrow and drop in unannounced. It ought to be easy to find some irregularities if he arrived unexpectedly, and Stan had friends in high places. Perhaps the social worker who'd called could steer him in the right direction. While he was there, he'd visit Michael. Stan chuckled as he pictured his brother trying to choke the starch out of Bowman. Michael's actions might be crazy, but he'd certainly had the right man!

There was a knock on the door, and Joyce ushered in Professor Zimmer. Stan got up to shake hands. He remembered him only vaguely from Michael's trial, a thin, nervous man with thick glasses and an irritating habit of grinding his teeth. He had refused to say what he'd wanted over the phone.

“I thought I should come to you immediately, Mr. Gerhardt.” Professor Zimmer's voice matched his size, tentative and small. “Quite by accident I've come across some evidence that gives your brother an alibi for the night of the murder.”

Through a supreme effort of will, Stan kept his expression neutral. Perhaps it was nothing. He seemed to recall that James Zimmer had been the excitable type.

“You say you have evidence?”

Professor Zimmer nodded and took a DVD out of his briefcase. “I've spent the past five years at Gateway University researching television news and its role in society. My contention is that networks set public opinion by choosing to air, or not to air, selected interviews. It's fascinating work, Mr. Gerhardt, simply fascinating. And naturally, it's of paramount importance to assess the influence the television medium has on—”

“Excuse me, Professor.” Stan interrupted what was sure to be a lengthy monologue. “Michael was interviewed on television?”

“No, that's not it at all. You see, I gained access to the complete footage of the KLAX man-on-thestreet interviews. The station donated them to the college. I studied the segments they ran, but I also viewed what they call the outtakes. Those are the segment the network decided not to run for various reasons, some of them mechanical, others because”—Professor Zimmer leaned forward conspiratorially—“if my contention is correct, the opinion of the interviewee did not fit into the preconceived framework of the network.”

“I see.” Stan took a deep breath. Professor Zimmer could be here for an hour, just getting to the point. “And Michael was the subject of one of those interviews?”

“Not the subject. Mr. Gerhardt. Another man was being interviewed, but your brother was in the background watching. Since a person can't be in two places at once, it proves he couldn't have killed his wife.”

“Is this footage dated and time-stamped?”

“In a way,” Professor Zimmer smiled. “The interview concerns the nurse's strike at County General, and there are several shots of nurses carrying placards. If you'll recall, that strike was settled overnight so the date has to be October second, nineteen seventy-nine.”

“How about the time?” Stan leaned forward. Perhaps the professor really had something here.

“The time is a bit of a problem. There's no actual mention of the hour, per se.”

Stan shook his head. “Without the exact time, Professor Zimmer, we don't have a prayer for an—”

“Wait, Mr. Gerhardt. I haven't told you everything. The interview takes place on the steps of the hospital. There's a bus that stops in the middle of the interview, and they have to wait for it to unload and load. The camera keeps rolling, and the number of the bus is clearly visible. It's a Rapid Transit Division Nine B.”

“Go on.” Stan leaned back. It was futile to try to rush the professor.

“I looked through the company records and discovered that Nine B was a special. It stopped at the hospital only at seven forty-five and eight fifteen.”

“You've certainly done your research, Professor. But which one of these times was it?”

“Aha!” Professor Zimmer raised his eyebrows as if he were answering a question from a particularly slow student. “You see, Mr. Gerhardt, it doesn't matter. If your brother was in front of County General at either of those times, he couldn't possibly have murdered his wife. The drive from the hospital to his apartment takes over thirty minutes under optimum conditions. If your brother left the hospital at seven forty-five, right after the Nine B pulled out, he couldn't have arrived at his apartment before eight fifteen. And since Mrs. Hart's friend heard the shot and placed the time of death at eight o'clock precisely, that proves your brother is innocent.”

Stan could do nothing but agree. “I see. And if Michael left immediately after the murder, he couldn't have arrived at the hospital before—”

“Eight-thirty.” Fifteen minutes too late to be in the picture with the bus. Do you have a machine in your office? I want you to watch the footage for positive identification. I took the liberty of showing it to another juror, and we're both sure the man in question is your brother.”

Stan watched the footage and was silent as he removed the disk. The man was definitely Michael.

“Well?” The professor beamed proudly. “What do you think, Mr. Gerhardt?”

Stan cleared his throat. “It does look like Michael, no doubt about that. Did you try to locate the cameraman who filmed the interview?”

“No, but I'll be glad to try.”

“That's quite all right, Professor, you've done enough. I can take it from here. KLAX, is that right?”

Professor Zimmer nodded, and Stan took the disk, dropped it in an envelope, and handed it to the professor.

“Could you seal this envelope, please, and write your name and the date on the outside? That's to certify that the disk in the envelope is the same one we've both seen today.”

The professor signed his name and wrote the date. Then Stan took the envelope and buzzed for his secretary. In a moment, she appeared in the doorway.

“Joyce? Take this envelope and lock it in the safe. Log it in as Exhibit A. Michael Hart.”

After Joyce had left with the envelope, Stan turned back to the professor. “I'd like to thank you for all you've done, Professor Zimmer. You've come across something that could clear my brother. Frankly, I'm surprised and pleased that you didn't go straight to the police.”

“The police?” Professor Zimmer frowned. “I didn't even think of them. I came to you because you handled your brother's defense.”

“And it's a stroke of fortune that you did!” Stan gave him a smile. “If you'd taken your tape to the police, they would have reopened their files. That always causes a flurry of publicity. The fewer people who know about your discovery, the better it is for Michael.”

The professor looked confused, and Stan hurried to explain. “The evidence you've given me is almost certainly the basis for a retrial, but there's a lot of legwork to do first. I'll have to find the cameraman and get his sworn testimony that he taped the interview. Then I'll need an affidavit from the station stating that they gave Gateway University their outtakes. And a letter from Gateway administration explaining that you, as their employee, had access to this particular outtake. Of course, I'll attempt to locate the other people in the segment on the off chance that they might remember talking to Michael. Then I'll gather positive identification by expert bone structure comparison based on a freeze frame from the footage and photographs of Michael. Once everything's in order, it should be a simple matter to take this clearly exculpatory evidence—evidence that wasn't available at the time of Michael's conviction—and petition for a new trial.”