Prosecution: A Legal Thriller (6 page)

"Yeah, afraid so." He picked up the phone again.
"I'll get you out of here right away."

I left the concrete labyrinth the same way I had
come. The sound of the steel gate closing behind me still jarred on
my ears as I opened the glass door in front and hustled down the
cement steps to the pavement below. I drove around to the back and
went through the same routine as before, but by myself this time.
Only people on official business came to this entrance; no one else
was allowed inside. Then the guard led me along a short wide
corridor toward a series of open solid doors that led into
glass-partitioned visitation booths.

"No," I said, stopping. "Not in there. I sent word I
wanted him someplace where I could talk to him face to face."

"That's face-to-face," he objected. It was the first
time he had spoken. His voice, a high-pitched whine, seemed oddly
out of place.

I was not in a mood to explain myself, and now that I
was not acting as a defense attorney, I did not have to. "Put him
in a room with a table and chairs."

"You sure?" he asked, the corner of his mouth twisted
down. "I wouldn't want to be alone with that guy."

"I'll be all right," I assured him, while he searched
through his key ring for the one that opened a solid door a few
steps behind us.

Removing a legal pad from my briefcase, I placed it
on the table in front of me and scribbled the date in the upper
left corner. Then, with nothing else to do, I tapped the pen in a
slow, monotonous beat, the sound of it the only tangible proof that
time had not come to a complete and final stop.

Through a door on the other side of the room I heard
the muffled sound of voices, and then a metal key twisted in the
lock. Travis Quentin was shoved into the room. His wrists were
handcuffed behind him, and his ankles shackled together. Wrapped
twice around his waist, a bulky chain hung between his wrists and
down to his ankles and back again, pulling his shoulders back and
thrusting his chest forward. He was held up by two guards, one on
each arm. They sat him in the chair on the other side of the
table.

He looked at me for just a moment, a scowl on his
thick, puffy mouth, and then snapped his head toward one of the
guards.

"Take these goddamn things off me!" he demanded,
lifting himself off the chair far enough to demonstrate what he
meant.

The guard looked at me. I began to tap my pen against
the tablet. Quentin's round head followed the guard's eyes.

"You want to talk to me, mister, you tell him to take
these goddamn things off me." His voice was not quite so loud, and
his tone not quite so demanding.

"You've made a mistake," I replied. "I don't want to
talk to you, Mr. Quentin. I'm here because you want to talk to
me."

Sitting on the edge of the chair, his neck bulged
against the pull of the chains. His right eyelid drooped down. He
watched me tapping my pen on the yellow legal pad, trying to figure
out what I was doing.

In a rough, dry voice he insisted, "Without me, you
don't have a case."

The pen tapped like a metronome, measuring the
intervals between each time I shook my head back and forth.
Abruptly, I stopped and bent my head forward.

"What case, Mr. Quentin? Those allegations you made
to keep yourself out of the gas chamber? Do you think anyone is
just going to take your word for it?"

"The guy hired me to kill his wife," he said.

He was still struggling against the chain, but his
movements were becoming less violent, more like gestures of
contempt.

"Would you like me to ask the guards to do something
about those?" I asked, with a slight nod toward the heavy metal
links draped around his waist.

"What the hell do you think?" he snarled.

Folding my arms across my chest, I sat back and said
nothing. We stared at each other for a moment. Finally, he
relented. "Yeah, I would."

I glanced at the guard who was standing an arm's
length away from him. "You can take them off."

When he finished removing the cumbersome chain, the
guard looked at me, uncertain what to do next.

"Take the cuffs off as well," I said.

His wrists free, Quentin brought his thick hands
around in front of his throat, formed them into fists, and pushed
them hard against each other, stretching his arms until his elbows
were thrust forward. He dropped his arms to his sides, shaking the
circulation back into his fingers.

With the chain draped over his arms, the one guard
motioned to the other. "We'll be right outside," he said, as they
opened the door.

"One of you should stay," I said, pointing toward a
chair in the corner. My eye moved back to Quentin. "Just in case we
have different recollections later on about what is said here."

"I've already told my story to the state cops that
came down to LA. The guy hired me to kill his wife. I killed her. I
admitted it. What else do you need to know?" he asked, rubbing his
arm.

"I read the reports. There's nothing there."

He still did not understand. "What do you mean? How
many times do I have to tell you? He hired me to kill her and I
killed her."

Elbows on the edge of the table, I folded my fingers
together and rested my chin on my thumbs. I looked straight at
him.

"All right. It goes like this. You killed her. He
hired you."

"Yeah, right."

"Then he's guilty of conspiracy to commit murder. But
no one can be convicted in a conspiracy case on the uncorroborated
testimony of a co-conspirator. And that's what I meant when I say
there's nothing there. You don't have any evidence that Goodwin was
involved. Nothing to back up what you say."

"Well, if he didn't hire me, how did I know who she
was or where she'd be?" he asked with a smug grin. "How did I know
any of that?"

"You could have found out who she was after you
killed her. You stole her purse. It had her wallet, her driver's
license, a photograph of her husband."

"Yeah? Then what about the fact he had me in his
office alone for more than an hour and the sweet deal he gave me.
What the hell's that, just a coincidence?"

"The DA's office dismisses cases all the time. The
search wasn't any good. He had you brought in because he wanted to
see if he could use you as witness in a drug case. He made a deal
with you."

Drawing back from the table, I crossed my ankle over
my leg and locked my fingers around my knee. "They might even argue
that you made the deal— offered to testify in a drug case to save
yourself from ten years in prison—and then, when you were free,
decided to show him that you had the real power. Now, when you're
facing the death penalty, you decide it wasn't enough to kill his
wife, you're going to say he paid you to do it."

Narrowing my eyes, I added, "You have any idea what a
good defense attorney can do to a confessed murderer on the stand?"
Shaking my head, I got to my feet and walked away. The guard
crouched in the corner, his forearms on his thighs, staring at the
floor.

"What did he say to you when you were in his office?"
I asked, leaning up against the cinder-block wall.

"Nothing. He asked me if I'd like to plead guilty to
possession and do a month in the county jail. I said something like
'Who do I have to kill?' He said something like 'We'll take that up
later.' And I knew right then."

My hands in my coat pockets, I crossed one foot in
front of the other. "What did you know?"

"He wasn't kidding; it was a deal. He was going to
keep me out of prison, and I was going to take care of someone for
him. It was the look he had."

"You were there for at least an hour. What did he
talk to you about before you knew he wanted you to kill
someone?"

"About my record, mostly."

"What about your record?"

"Everything," he replied, with a caustic laugh that
rattled in his throat. "From the first time I was arrested. He went
right down the list, asking me what happened. He said he wanted to
know everything he could about me."

His half-closed right eye twitched unconsciously as
he thought about what had happened. "I kind of liked the guy. I
didn't trust him," he added quickly, and let me know by the way he
said it that he never trusted anyone. "But I kind of liked him. He
reminded me of one of those defense lawyers who tell you how
they're going to win your case and you don't know if they're just
lying or they're really so stupid they believe it."

He paused for a moment, as if he was weighing
something in his mind. Then, a blank look on his face, he shrugged
his shoulders. "At least they don't treat you like the first thing
they're going to do after they talk to you is go wash their
hands."

Coming back to the table, I turned the chair around
and, with one leg on each side of it, draped my arms over the top.
"Was he particularly interested in the manslaughter
convictions?"

"Yeah. He wanted to know how I felt about it."

"How you felt about it?"

"Yeah," he replied, his head turning slightly to the
side. "He wanted to know if I ever thought about anyone I'd
killed."

"What did you tell him?"

"Nothing much." He shrugged as he looked away.

"What did you tell him?" I asked again.

Ignoring me, he scratched the side of his pockmarked
face and mumbled something inaudible.

"What did you tell him?" I insisted.

His head snapped around and he glared at me, his eyes
filled with a strange, almost kinetic malice. "I didn't tell him I
was sorry, if that's what you're thinking."

"You're not sorry you dropped that boy ten stories
off a roof?" I shot back.

"I was just a kid," he said, curious that I should
even mention it. "It wasn't anything. Nothing like what I did with
Goodwin's wife." Most criminals disparage their crimes to make them
seem smaller, less significant, less worthy of punishment, than
they really are. Travis Quentin had no desire to slander his own
accomplishments. There could have been no doubt in Marshall
Goodwin's mind that in Travis Quentin he was dealing with a man
without a conscience.

"After you were taken back to jail, you never had any
contact with him again?"

"Never."

"And the day you were released, someone gave you a
package? That was how you knew what you were supposed to do?"

"Yeah. I walked out of jail and this woman came up to
me. Doesn't say anything, just hands me an envelope and walks
away."

"What do you remember about her?"

A stupid, garish grin cut across his face. "She had a
body that wouldn't quit."

"What color hair?"

"Hell, I don't know."

"What was she wearing? How was she dressed?"

"Don't remember, but she was dressed good, in some
kind of suit."

"A professional woman. Good. How old?"

"Late twenties, early thirties."

"And she didn't say anything? Didn't ask you if you
were Travis Quentin? Didn't tell you she was delivering something
from the DA's office, something from Goodwin?"

"I told you," he said irritably, "she just handed it
to me and left."

"And that's all you can tell me about her?"

"No, that's not all I can tell you," he snarled. "I
can tell you who she is."

"A moment ago you couldn't even tell me what color
her hair is."

"I don't know what color her hair is. But I know who
she is."

Out of patience, I slapped the table with my open
hand. "Then why didn't you say something about it before? Why isn't
it in the transcript of the interview you had with the police?"

"They never asked me, that's why."

"All right," I said, trying to control myself.
"What's her name?"

"I don't know her name."

Glowering at him, I shoved myself up from the
chair.

"She was in court the day they arraigned me. I saw
her standing at the table just before they brought me in. A real
looker, not someone you could forget anytime soon."

"She's a lawyer, a defense lawyer?" I asked,
incredulous.

"No," he replied, the lines in his forehead
deepening. "She isn't a defense lawyer. She's a prosecutor."

Grabbing the back of the chair with both hands, I
stared at him. "You're sure? You're absolutely sure?"

"Like I said, she wasn't somebody you could forget.
Not with that body." In the corner, the guard looked up from the
floor.

"She had dark hair and big dark eyes. Five feet four
or five, slender, right?" I did not pay any attention to what he
said in response. It didn't matter. I knew who it was. I was sure
of it.

Chapter Five

Under a lowering sky I left the prison and headed
back to Portland. After two hours with Travis Quentin it was no
longer a question whether I would do what Horace Woolner had asked.
That question had somehow answered itself. I found myself wondering
instead about what it was going to be like, starting up for the
second time.