The Closing: A Whippoorwill Hollow novel (The Whippoorwill Hollow novels) (6 page)

“Old Harry has always been quick to make allowances for a weak lawyer.”

“Harry was right. Later on, the sheriff found the real killer. The defendant was innocent.”

“You made a mistake. You pushed too hard to get a conviction. That’s understandable in this business. I don’t see why that cost you your job.”

“There was a lot more to it.”

George paused. Then he said, “We go way back together, Nate. You know you can trust me.”

“All right, George. Here’s the truth. Because of the man’s limited capacity, his confession was worthless without a witness to verify that he confessed of his own free will. I convinced my secretary to sign a statement swearing that the man volunteered the incriminating statements.”

“She wasn’t there when you questioned him?”

“That’s right.”

“She committed perjury. You suborned perjury.”

Nate nodded.

George emitted a low whistle.

Nate wanted a drink in the worst way. He stared at the bottle. “That case wasn’t the only time I crossed the line.”

“How many cases did you mess with?”

“Five, including the Tin case.”

“Does Harry Blackwell know about the other cases?”

“He asked me and I told him.”

“What did he do about those?”

“Tin was released when the sheriff found the real murderer. The other cases were retried. One defendant was acquitted. Three were convicted a second time. The judge tried to keep my malfeasance quiet, but too many people knew. Most of it’s common knowledge in the legal community. I’m surprised you haven’t heard the rumors.”

“I imagine people were reluctant to spread such dirt my way because of my friendship with you. They were right to stay away from me. I might have popped some self-righteous prick in the mouth for talking trash about you.”

A tight smile crossed Nate’s lips. “You’re a good friend, George.”

George frowned. “To tell you the truth, I’m surprised Harry didn’t have you indicted. Harry’s a tough old bird. How did you talk him out of jailing you?”

“I didn’t talk him out of it. I don’t know the reason he spared me.”

“How did Harry keep the sheriff and the new commonwealth’s attorney off your back?”

“He said I wouldn’t be prosecuted, and he kept his word. I don’t know how he did it.”

“Well, needless to say, I agree with his forbearance.”

“You’re kind to say so, George, whether you really believe it or not.”

“No. I mean it. I understand what you did. Prosecution is a heavy responsibility. It grinds you down after so many years. Frustration with the criminal justice system can drive a good man to do bad deeds. What you did was wrong, but I don’t hold it against you.” George turned up his glass of bourbon and drained it.

“Was someone in law enforcement in Buck County driven to do bad deeds in the Deatherage case?”

George filled his glass again. “There were some odd quirks in that case, but no bad deeds I’m aware of.”

“What sort of odd quirks?”

“That motion in limine was odd.” George ran his hand down his face and sighed.

“What else?”

George shrugged. “I’ve said all I care to say about the Deatherage case.”

Nate had never seen George look so tired. “What about you, George? Have you yielded to frustration with the justice system?”

A wan smile crossed George’s face. “Not me, Nate. I’ll admit I’ve been tempted. The burden on the prosecution is too great. The appellate courts interpret the Constitution to ignore the rights of victims and to protect the guilty from the slightest risk of unfairness. You know what they say: Better a hundred guilty men go free than one innocent man be jailed.” George made a wry face. “Tell that to the victims of the hundred guilty men. I’m frustrated, but I haven’t given in to it. I stay inside the lines. I don’t bend the laws.” George glanced at Nate’s scar. “I guess I’m afraid of the consequences.” George extended the bottle to Nate. “You sure you don’t want a drink?”

Nate thought about the bracing fire of straight whiskey. It took all his strength of will to turn away. “No thanks. I’d better be going.”

They stood and shook hands. George said, “Be careful. If you need help, call me.”

Nate walked across the town square toward his car. He stopped in front of a statue of a Confederate officer. Carved in the stone at its base was the inscription “Captain Josiah Bloxton, January 18, 1828 – July 3, 1863.” The legend of Captain Bloxton was common knowledge in southwestern Virginia. He led a unit of fifty Buck County rebels up Cemetery Hill at Gettysburg as part of General Pickett’s charge, and he and most of his men paid for their bravery with their lives.

Nate looked up at the towering piece of carved stone, gunmetal gray with green resting in the crevices. Billowing cotton clouds moved across the sky behind a plumed cocked hat and a stern face. The captain leaned forward, one foot raised in midstride, his arm extended over his head waving to his troops to follow him, leading his men to their deaths, fighting for a losing cause, an unjust cause.

The statue made Nate uneasy. He felt an unwelcome kinship with the captain. Despite the possibility of corruption in Buck County’s justice system, Nate thought Deatherage was guilty. The forensic evidence against him was damning. Like Josiah Bloxton, Nate’s cause was unjust, but unlike Bloxton, if Nate fought hard enough, he might win the war. Deatherage could go free. He could kill again.

“Good day, Mister Abbitt.”

Nate looked up. Judge Herring was walking across the square toward him. The judge was in his mid-sixties, tall and heavyset with white hair parted in the middle. His complexion was gray. He puffed on a cigar and walked with a limp. The judge extended his hand and Nate shook it.

“Welcome to Buck County. It’s good to see you again.”

“Thank you, Your Honor.”

“I was sorry to hear about your automobile accident. You’ve recovered fully from your injuries, I trust.”

“Yes, I’m fine.”

The judge adjusted his wire-rimmed glasses and squinted at Nate’s scar. “I see it left you with a mark. From what Harry Blackwell told me, you’re fortunate you survived. That scar is a small price to pay for the mercy the fates bestowed upon you that night.”

“I guess so.”

“I hear you suffered another blow to the head in the old Callao Coal warehouse.”

Nate was surprised by the comment. He’d assumed only Drinkard, George Maupin, and the man who assaulted him knew about that. Drinkard seemed too afraid of the judge to have told anyone about it and George hadn’t known long enough to tell anyone. “Who told you about my injury, Your Honor?”

The judge puffed on his cigar and narrowed his eyes. “I don’t recall. Such colorful news travels at the speed of light in Bloxton. Everyone seems to know about it.” The judge blew a stream of smoke at the statue and a low rattle rolled up from deep inside his chest. He covered his mouth and succumbed to a string of phlegmy coughs. When the coughing passed, he took a rasping breath and cleared his throat. “You must be careful where you go at night in this town, Mister Abbitt. This isn’t Selk County. We have a distressed economy here. Thievery is rampant.”

“I wasn’t robbed.”

The judge wiped his lips with a handkerchief and shook his head. “There are hooligans in this region who engage in acts of violence for recreational pleasure. We’ve taken strong measures to clean up, but we still have a long way to go. I apologize to you, Mister Abbitt, on behalf of Buck County’s decent people.”

“Thank you for your concern.”

The judge rolled the cigar around in his mouth. “Speaking of Buck County’s hooligans, I understand you represent one of them. I received the notice of your appearance in the Deatherage case. I’m pleased someone of your mindset agreed to represent the man.”

“My mindset, Your Honor? I don’t take your meaning.”

“Mindset isn’t the most specific of terms, I suppose. I meant I’m pleased to see a former prosecutor representing Deatherage. A prosecutor’s perspective is what the case requires.” There was an uncomfortable silence. The judge seemed to be watching Nate closely, measuring his reaction. “So, tell me, what’s your assessment of how we conducted the trial? How did we do?”

Nate wasn’t certain what the rules of ethics required concerning a conversation between appellate counsel and the trial judge. It seemed inappropriate, without his adversary present. “I’m not sure it’s ethical for me to discuss the case with you outside the presence of George Maupin, Your Honor.”

“Yes, of course, you’re probably right. It wouldn’t be ethical, I suppose. Thank you for reminding me.” The judge tossed the butt of his cigar on the lawn. It smoldered in the grass. He cast a stern look at Nate. “You’re an expert on legal ethics, I suppose, Mister Abbitt.” The judge turned abruptly, walked across the town square, and entered the county office building.

Nate drove down Ewell Street and parked near the warehouse in front of the old house where Willis Odoms lived. Drinkard had described Odoms as “a big old colored boy” and “strong as a bull.”

Nate was apprehensive about approaching him. Race relations in Virginia and the nation had been especially tense since Dr. Martin Luther King was shot and killed in April. Riots had broken out in most large cities, and even though rural southwest Virginia was insulated enough from the turmoil that no overt violence had taken place, a change in attitudes on both sides of the color divide was palpable. Anger, fear, and distrust lurked beneath a thin veneer of civility. Nate needed to ask Odoms some hard questions, questions Swiller should have used to cross-examine Odoms and to undermine his credibility.

Nate got out of the car and waded through tall weeds to the house. Its paint had long since peeled away and the front porch leaned to one side. Nate stepped up on the porch and knocked on the door.

“Go way. Leave me be.”

“Mister Odoms?”

“I told you she ran off with it.” The door swung open. A middle-aged black man stood in the doorway wearing nothing but undershorts. He was huge. He looked like he belonged on the cover of a body-builders’ magazine. His face was angry.

“I told you on the phone Rita ran off with the Ford. You want it, you go catch Rita.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mister Odoms.”

“You’re the ree-po man, Hansen, right?”

“I’m Nate Abbitt. I’m an attorney. I represent Kenneth Deatherage.”

Odoms smirked. “You’d be better off you was the repo man.”

“I’d like to ask you some questions about the murder.”

“I told it all to the judge at the trial.”

“I’m interested in the circumstances surrounding your testimony. Would you mind walking through the crime scene with me and explaining what you saw?”

Odoms stared at Nate. “Ugly scar.”

“I was in a car accident.”

“Musta been a bad one.”

“It was.”

Odoms studied Nate’s face. Nate waited. Odoms turned away and disappeared inside the house. In a few minutes, he returned clad in a khaki work shirt and jeans and stepped out on the porch. “What you want to know?”

“You testified you came home from a party the night of the murder? Had you been drinking?”

“It was Friday night. Everybody was drinkin.”

“How many drinks?”

“I drink em. I don’t count em. I see what you’re gettin at and I don’t appreciate it. I wasn’t drunk. I know what I saw.”

“All right, Mister Odoms. I’m not accusing you of anything. You and your wife got home. What happened then?”

“We went to bed. I had my time with Rita, only thing she’s good for. I opened the window cause it was hotter’n hell. A little bit later, Rita and me heard the woman cry out.” Odoms said he told Rita to call the sheriff. He got his gun and a flashlight and headed to the warehouse.

“Why do you own a handgun, Mister Odoms?”

“I’d be a damned fool not to own a gun.”

“Why is that?”

“Good old boys, white boys with the Confederate flag plastered across the back window of their pickup trucks, have their high old times in the warehouse late at night. They get drunk and rowdy and think they’re man enough to beat up on somebody, but they don’t ever get so drunk as to pester a man owns a gun.”

“Have you ever had trouble with the law, Mister Odoms?”

“There ain’t a colored man in Buck County hadn’t been roughed up by Sheriff Feedlow and his boys.”

“Any criminal charges?”

“Long time ago they locked me up for beatin up Rolly Jackson when I was drunk and he came on to a girl I was with. The Buck County jail didn’t suit me. I ain’t been back, and I ain’t goin back. I watch my step. I stay away from trouble.”

“Did you know Darlene Updike?”

“I didn’t know her. I never seen her till they hauled her dead body out the warehouse and put it in the truck.”

“You ever have trouble with Deatherage?”

“Him and me didn’t mix.”

“I get the impression you don’t like Deatherage.”

“Nobody likes Deatherage.”

“Why do you say that?”

“He’s a mean drunk. Beats up on people smaller and weaker than him, like his wife and his little boy. He’s the kind of white boy can get a colored man in trouble. I stayed away from him. There was nothin between us. I saw him in the warehouse window. He ran. I chased him and caught him. That’s all there was to it.”

Nate was impressed with Odoms’ straightforward manner. His take on his position in Buck County society seemed honest and credible. Nate said, “Would you mind showing me where you were when you saw Deatherage?”

Odoms led Nate through the yard to the front of the warehouse. He stopped about fifteen feet from the front door. The noonday sun glanced off a puddle of rainwater under the warehouse windows. Honeysuckle vines climbed the wall. Yellow jackets swarmed over a hole in the mud by the door. It was a blazing hot day. Nate wiped sweat from his face with a handkerchief.

Odoms pointed at a window in the center of the wall. “I flashed my light at that row of windows. When my light hit that one there, I saw the white boy peekin out at me like a scared rabbit. He dove down and I figured he would run. I started to go inside, but I stopped when Henry came out the door.”

“Someone came out of the building?”

“Henry Crawford. He’s an old bum who sleeps in the warehouse.”

“This man came out of the building after you saw Deatherage?”

“Henry came out carryin his stinkin old shoes. Barefoot. Grinnin at me like a fool. Walked down the dirt road and sat in a foldin chair in front of the motel.”

Nate was shocked. “Why did you let the man walk away? He could have been the killer.”

“Henry’s harmless. He wouldn’t hurt a livin soul.”

“Did you tell the police about this man?”

“When Deputy Jones drove up, he saw Henry sittin in the chair down there at the motel. Everybody knows Henry sleeps off his drunks in the warehouse.”

“Did Jones question him?”

“Jones talked to Henry, but Henry didn’t know anything. He was drunk on rotgut. I could smell it on him strong enough to knock me back.”

Deputy Jones’ report about the arrest was an exhibit at Deatherage’s arraignment. The report did not mention Crawford. “Did Randolph Swiller ask you about Crawford?”

“First time I ever saw the lawyer was in the courtroom when I testified.”

“Why didn’t you tell the court about Crawford during your testimony?”

“Deputy Jones told me to answer the questions the lawyers asked me and to keep my big mouth shut otherwise. I did what he said. Nobody asked me about Henry.”

Nate was amazed. Crawford’s presence in the warehouse might have created a reasonable doubt in a juror’s mind about Deatherage’s guilt. “Where can I find this Henry Crawford?”

“Daytime you find him drunk in a ditch somewhere or lookin for pop bottles to turn in for drinkin money. Most nights you find him sleepin on some old mattresses in the warehouse.”

“I saw a man in the warehouse last night. His beard was down to his waist.”

“That’s Henry.”

Nate stared at the warehouse window. If Crawford normally slept on the mattresses, his hair and fibers from his clothing would have remained on them. If Updike was murdered on the mattresses, as Deatherage claimed, that evidence and Crawford’s presence in the warehouse would have made Crawford a suspect for the murder. If Nate’s attacker was “part of it,” to use Deatherage’s phrase, he’d attacked Nate because he didn’t want him to learn Crawford was in the warehouse the night of the murder.

Odoms wiped sweat from his brow and flicked it away with a jerk of his hand. “Let’s get this over with. Hot as hell out here.”

“You mentioned that Crawford slept on mattresses in the warehouse. Where were the mattresses the night of the murder?”

“Piled up under the window where I saw Deatherage.”

“You’re sure of that.”

“I didn’t actually see em there that night. I didn’t go in the warehouse and look, but those old mattresses were piled up under that same window for years.”

“Last night the mattresses were stacked against the rear wall of the warehouse.”

“Henry dragged em back there after the killin. He was scared to sleep up front near the windows.”

“Why was he scared?”

“Henry said he saw the dead girl’s ghost by the windows. He’s afraid she wants to take him across the river Jordan. He said the girl blames him for not helpin her and the law blames him, too.”

Nate stiffened. “Did he say how he knew the law blames him?”

“He said he told the law he was too drunk to know what happened to the girl but they wouldn’t leave him alone about it. Said they pestered him somethin fierce and kept askin him what he knew.”

“Who talked to him? Deputy Jones?”

“I doubt anybody talked to Henry about the girl. He sees people that ain’t there, hears voices that ain’t talkin to him.”

“Did he name anyone from the law he thought talked to him?”

“No. He just raved about the law and how they were pesterin him. He’s crazy drunk all the time and I didn’t believe a word of it.” Odoms wiped sweat from his face and sighed. “Get on with it, lawyer. It’s mighty hot in the sun.”

“Let’s go inside the warehouse for a moment.” Odoms pulled open the rusty door and Nate followed him inside. Nate pointed to the back wall. “That’s where I saw Crawford and the mattresses.”

Odoms looked around the room. “Where’d they go?”

“Somebody removed them from the warehouse last night,” Nate said.

“Why would anybody steal those old mattresses?”

“Did you see anyone around the warehouse last night?”

“Some men were here late, about eleven or so.”

“Did you see who they were?”

“I didn’t see em, but I heard their foolishness,” Odoms said. “They yelled and hollered so loud they woke me from a dead sleep. I turned on my porch light and I saw a pickup parked by the warehouse, but I didn’t see anyone. They got quiet, and I went back to bed. They must be the ones who stole Henry’s mattresses.”

“What kind of truck was it?”

“A junkheap. Beat-up old Chevy. Red. Big dent in the driver’s door.”

Nate looked around the warehouse. The passage of time had washed away all traces of the murder. If Swiller had inspected the warehouse after the murder, there was no record of it in his file. Nate would never know what a competent investigation would have revealed.

“Are we done?” Odoms said.

“Just a few more questions. Deatherage ran from the warehouse and you caught him and held him until Deputy Jones arrived, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Did Jones search him?”

“Yeah.”

“Did he find anything?”

“The white boy was clean. No gun. No knife. Nothin.”

“Did Jones find a scarf in Deatherage’s pocket?”

“He didn’t find anything on Deatherage.”

“You’re sure?”

“I was standin next to them. The white boy didn’t have anything in his pockets.”

Nate thanked Odoms for his help. Odoms went inside his house and Nate went to his car. He sat in the car and took stock of what he had learned. The nature of Judge Herring’s relationship with Darlene Updike was unclear, but his visit to her motel room the night before she was killed should have caused him to recuse himself from the trial. What’s more, if Odoms was telling the truth, Deputy Jones’ testimony about the scarf was perjurious. Deatherage was apparently correct; he had been framed. The question troubling Nate was whether Buck County had framed a guilty man.