Mystery Writers of America Presents the Prosecution Rests (8 page)

He drove the length of the parking lot, but the only dark pickup was layered with a foot of snow. It had been there for hours.
He pulled in next to it anyway and carried his milk crate up the long steps to the offices. Two men in heavy brown work suits
shoveled the stone steps and sidewalks: trustees from Magnum Farm, the minimum-security camp a couple of miles southeast.
Neither one of them looked his way.

He balanced the crate against his leg while he opened the big oak door and stepped inside, letting it bump against his back.
He had to wait outside the first set of iron gates for the guard to get off the phone.

“Hey, Jeff. Fun drive today?”

“You bet, Sam. What’s new?”

“That a joke?”

“Anybody been here looking for me?”

“Nobody.” The big guard locked the gates behind him while he signed in, and another guard casually checked his crate for contraband.
That done, the second gates opened into the rotunda.

Prison offices circled the rotunda on two floors. It was Victorian-impressive, reminding a prisoner just what a wretched bastard
he was. As Jeff stood there, two guards escorted a prisoner through the iron gates from one of the blocks. The guy gazed up
into the rotunda like God was waiting up there to smite his ass.

He turned to the left, toward the hearing room, nodding to a couple of guards he recognized.

It took him five minutes to get ready. He pulled the files from the crate and set it in a corner, made sure he had extra pens,
a pad of paper. A pitcher of water sat on the table; the ice had melted. He cleaned his glasses and cracked his knuckles,
then sat at the conference table and waited.

A new guard escorted Roger Batenzcheski into the room. Roger sat in the chair across the table, the only other chair in the
room. It was bolted to the floor. The guard stood to the side, watching.

“Roger,” Jeff said, opening his file while he watched the man. He hid his hope pretty well. He looked fresh groomed.

“Mr. Willett, sir.”

“Tell me what got you in here, Roger.”

He didn’t flinch. “I stole a car out from under a guy.”

“Ever try that before?”

“A motorcycle once.”

“Out from under a guy?”

“From a parking lot.” He was a cool one.

Roger had done everything right since: been a good prison boy, taken a few prison classes, kept his nose clean. He had a job
waiting for him, a girlfriend with an apartment.

“Did you know her before you ended up here?” he asked. It was the women who trolled for prisoner pen pals, thinking they were
going to play savior, who were bad news.

“Yes, sir. We been going together for two years before.”

It was an easy one. “I’m recommending parole,” Jeff told him. Paula had screened Roger’s case at the office and she’d agreed.
“You’ll receive official notification within thirty days. I don’t want to do this again with you, got it?”

“Yes, sir.” He finally gave himself away. “Thank you, sir.”

“I mean it,” Jeff said.

Five more. Three he paroled, two he passed on for another twelve months. One of those lunged forward to upend the table on
top of Jeff, maybe hurt him. Jeff didn’t flinch; the table was bolted to the floor too, just like the chair.

He took a break and grabbed a cup of coffee in the staff lounge. The room smelled like stale popcorn.

“Had a call about you this morning, Jeff,” the warden said, leaning into the room. He was slowing down, getting ready to retire.

“Yeah? What about?”

“Hard to make out. I think she was hoping you were ass-deep in a snowdrift somewhere and hadn’t showed up yet.”

“That’s about what happened.” He dumped powdered cream into his cup. It floated.

“Well, she’s hot to bring you some papers. I don’t know what. She wouldn’t tell me her name, but she knew yours. Mr. Willett,
she called you. Know anything about her?”

“News to me.”

He walked around the old rotunda, listening to voices echo and thinking that if the prison were built today there would be
an uproar against wasted space. For five minutes, he stood in front of a window that faced the road. There weren’t any vehicles
moving out there, but at least the snow was letting up.

When he returned to the conference room, the guard asked, “You want Danny Hartman next?”

“Hold off,” Jeff told him. “I want to look at his file again.”

“Okay. Salzer, then.”

He granted paroles to Salzer and eleven others, rejected four, and was taking one case back to Lansing for discussion. Then
only Danny Hartman remained. He took off his glasses and pinched his nose. “Give me ten minutes,” he told the guard.

He opened the file as if it might give him a new clue. Danny wasn’t anything special. The 7-Eleven was his first major offense.
The problems began after he landed in Marquette. Disobeying orders, fighting, being out of place, contraband alcohol—the typical
laundry list of a malcontent. The guard ushered Danny Hartman into the room. He was twenty-eight years old, slight. Sullen
and hunched. He sat with knees pressed together and looked over Jeff’s left shoulder. Nobody’s home, Jeff thought.

“Danny.”

He gave a single curt nod.

“Tell me what got you in here,” Jeff said.

Danny shrugged. “The Seven-Eleven, I guess.”

“You’ve had some trouble here.”

“Some.”

“Do you have plans when you get out? A job? School?”

The kid shook his head, still looking over Jeff’s shoulder.

“Anybody out there have a job for you?”

“Not that I’ve heard.”

“You have family waiting for you?”

“Nobody.”

Jeff moved papers as if he were reading Danny’s file. “What about your mother?”

Danny stared back, hard. “My mother doesn’t have anything to do with this.”

“But she’ll help you?”

He shrugged. “It’s not her problem.”

“I’m beginning to think you like this place,” Jeff said, leaning back.

“It sucks.”

“Then it’s up to you to have a plan for resuming your life after prison,” Jeff said, and waited. He closed the file. Sometimes
that scared them and got them talking.

Finally, Danny mumbled, “It was supposed to be set up.”

“Who by? What was it?”

“It didn’t work, that’s all.”

Jeff waited again, but Danny’s lips pinched tight. The kid was done. That’s all she wrote.

“Anything else you’d like to say?” Jeff asked.

“Nothing.”

“Then the board is extending your term for another twelve months,” Jeff said as he wrote out the terms. “You’ll have another
hearing then. This gives you a year to clean up your act. Obey the rules, straighten up. Put together a job, a place to live,
school, whatever. A solid plan.” Jeff thumped his finger on the table. “Help me out here. Are you hearing me?”

Danny nodded, and there was nothing else Jeff could do but let him go. He nodded to the guard, who motioned for Danny to stand
and then escorted him out. Danny didn’t look back.

“Late day,” Sam commented when Jeff signaled for him to open the iron gate.

“Yeah. I got a late start. Things look pretty quiet around here.” He shifted his milk crate to get past Sam.

“Like the tomb. I saw a plow go by an hour ago, but I’d stay in town tonight if I were you. See you in a few weeks.”

It was dark outside, but the snow had finally quit. By the prison lights he couldn’t see if the sky had cleared up or if more
snow was on the way. Six inches of snow was piled on his car. He brushed the worst of it off with the scraper from his glove
compartment and got in. The Cavalier’s engine cranked twice before it started, rough at first. Then he drove to a motel on
the edge of town, drank two glasses of bourbon, ate a bag of Cheetos from the machine in the lobby, and slept until nine the
next morning.

He found the sheriff’s phone number at the front of the motel’s phone book. “I gave a middle-aged woman a ride partway up
the Seney stretch yesterday,” he told the woman who answered. “She struck off on her own, and I was concerned about her.”

“What’s her name?”

“She didn’t tell me.”

“I haven’t heard about any lost women, so she’s probably okay. You can call back later if you want, once all the plows have
been out.”

“Thanks.”

He drove slow between Marquette and Shingleton. The plows had pushed the snow into banks and the traffic had picked up from
yesterday. He wore sunglasses against the bright white and squinted into every pickup he met. He passed two sedans and a semi
off the road before he reached Shingleton.

The lights were on in Steve’s Tavern, and he pulled in. The parking area was the best-plowed spot in town. It looked sculpted.

“Old Milwaukee,” he told the bartender, who obviously lived behind the small bar. “Are you Steve?”

“Bill. Steve’s my dad. He died ten years ago.” He was using a rag like the one under Jeff’s car seat to wash beer glasses.

“Were you working yesterday?”

“Ain’t nobody else
but
me.”

“I gave a woman a ride. Her car went off the road on the Seney stretch. She was heading to Marquette.”

The man rolled his eyes. “Big? Nose like this?” He pushed his nose to the side with a forefinger.

“That’s her.”

“Fenn Schultz brought her in. I can tell you, she didn’t get to Marquette yesterday. She spent the whole day in here with
Fenn, tossing’em back and shooting pool. They left together about six.” He shook his head. “And that’s all I know.”

“Thanks.”

Jeff drank his beer and glanced now and then at a soap opera on the television above the bar. He used the men’s john, which
was cleaner than he expected, and when he came out, the bartender was waiting for him. He held a thick white envelope.

“This might sound crazy,” he said, “but the woman you mentioned? She dropped an envelope on the floor. It’s addressed. You’re
the only one who’s asked about her. You wouldn’t be Jeff Willett, would you?”

Jeff waved at him and headed for the door. “Sorry.”

In the parking lot he transferred his milk crate to the trunk and drove straight through to Lansing.

BY CHARLIE DREES

I
set the compact tape recorder on the scarred table and watch Dexter Bass pace back and forth in the cramped room. He’s six-three—give
or take an inch—with a sinewy build and long, sun-bleached blond hair. The police file indicates he’s been a guest of the
state on two prior occasions, but his muscles appear to come from hard manual labor rather than from pumping iron on a prison
bench. Watching Bass, I feel more like an audience than his court-appointed attorney. He catches me glancing at my watch and
slides into the chair on the other side of the table.

“Am I boring you?”

“Mr. Bass, I’ve been appointed—”

“I’ve had lawyers like you before,” he says, fixing me with his charcoal-colored eyes. “Just going through the motions—and
I did the time.”

I settle back in my chair. Due to a shortage of public defenders in our jurisdiction, judges pick from a rotating pool of
defense attorneys and assign them to defendants who can’t afford legal counsel. And they frown on attorneys who do a less
than stellar job with the assignment. As luck would have it, I’m at the top of the list this week. I can’t afford to annoy
the judge, so I swallow my pride. I haven’t had much practice, and the words stick in my throat.

“Mr. Bass, I apologize. I’m not bored. I’m just eager to get started.”

Bass studies my face, checking for any sign of deceit. It’s hard to fool an ex-con, but he’s overmatched and he looks away
after a few seconds. Hey, I’m a lawyer. I’ve had plenty of practice looking sincere.

Bass brushes his blond hair off his forehead. “What do you want to know?”

I click on the tape recorder and grab his file. “Let me go over what’s in the police report, then you can tell me your version,
okay?”

“Sure.” He glances at my briefcase. “You got any cigarettes?”

“Sorry. It’s a no-smoking facility.”

Bass snorts. “Figures. They want me healthy so they can stick a needle in my arm.”

Like most cons, Bass knows the law. I open the case folder. “You were arrested early this morning at the Shamrock Bar following
a fight with Cletus Rupp. Rupp died from injuries he sustained during this fight. Witnesses claim you two had been arguing.”
I peer at Bass over the top of the file. He’s busy scrutinizing something trapped underneath his fingernails.

“After your arrest, the police discovered a gym bag in your car containing ten thousand, three hundred dollars in cash. They
also found a hammer covered with blood and strands of hair, a man’s Rolex watch, and a wallet containing sixty-three dollars.
The driver’s license and credit cards were issued to Steven Toscar.”

Everyone knows who Steven Toscar is. Was. Toscar made tons of money in real estate. Two years ago, he shut me out of one of
his projects, costing me a chance for a big score. It upset me at the time, but I got over it. It appears not everyone is
as forgiving as I am.

“Toscar’s wife called nine-one-one at eleven thirty-eight p.m.” I rustle the pages until Bass looks at me. “The police are
checking to see if your fingerprints match the ones found on the hammer. So what’s your story?”

“Rupp was self-defense. He attacked me. But I swear I didn’t kill Toscar.”

“The evidence suggests you did.”

“Cops plant evidence all the time.”

“Are you saying that’s what happened here?”

“All I’m saying is I didn’t kill Toscar. Somebody must’ve planted that evidence.”

A con’s typical defense. I lean back in my chair. “Why don’t you tell me what happened.”

Bass rests his hands on the tabletop. They’re large hands, tanned and callused as though they’re used to hard manual labor.
Like swinging a hammer.

“Two months ago,” he begins, “I’m sitting in a bar, having a few drinks, minding my own business, when this guy grabs the
stool next to me and orders a beer. I don’t pay any attention until he pays for it. That’s when I see the hook.”