The Sign of the Book (10 page)

“That's very good. Don't hold back your best stuff on my account.”

I filled the air with invective, one long impossible sentence, and we both laughed.

“Prisoners,” I said derisively. “If he's got more than one prisoner, I'll be amazed.”

“Keep a record of all this,” she said. “Write down everything that's happened since you first laid eyes on him. Did he actually point a gun at you?”

“You think I made that up? But I was the only one who saw him. Even Parley found it hard to believe.”

“Write it all down anyway, dates and times, everything. He sounds really unstable, but maybe we'll want to give him some grief down the road.”

Footsteps came along the corridor. Erin took a deep, shivery breath, her last concession to nerves, and put on her steel face. Lennie held the door open and let Laura come into the room.

She stopped in shock and put her hands over her cheeks. Tears began at once.

Lennie spoke but his voice seemed far away. “So how long's this gonna take?”

“Go away, Deputy,” Erin said.

“Hey, I got my own supper to eat sometime tonight.”

“Then go away and eat it. I'll try to be brief right now, but I'll want to see her again tomorrow morning.”

He grunted and closed the door. Erin waited, listening to his footsteps as he went down the hall. She and Laura looked at each other.

“Don't do that, please,” Erin said. “Don't cry.”

“I can't help it.”

“We don't have time for old tears.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Sit down here.”

Laura sat trembling near her, fighting the tears. “I knew you'd come. I knew it. I've dreamed of this.” She broke down and sobbed into her hands.

Erin looked at me and her eyes were a thousand years old. She reached out and touched Laura's back, not an easy thing for her to do, and I winked at her.

“We can't waste time,” she said. “You heard what Barney Fife said.”

“I'm sorry. God, I'm sorry. I am so sorry for everything.”

“Listen to me. Whatever we do here, that old stuff has nothing to do with it.”

Of course this was not true: she knew and I knew and probably Laura Marshall knew that the old stuff was the cause of everything, but she went on as if none of us knew, staking out her turf. “I don't want to get into any of that. I'm here to talk about your case, not rake over old times. Can we please be clear on that?”

Laura sniffed and dabbed at her eyes but the flow wouldn't stop.

“I just don't want to talk about it,” Erin said.

“Do you hate me?”

“I don't want to talk about it.”

“I'm sorry, I'm sorry.”

Erin looked at me and said quietly, “Is this place secure? Can we talk?”

“It should be. It would be stupid and very rare for them to bug a witness room.” I shrugged. “With a cop like that idiot, who knows?”

“Let's just chat a bit tonight,” Erin said.

On a legal pad she jotted a note.

“How've you been?”

“Not so hot,” Laura said.

“Are they treating you okay in here?”

“I guess so. I'm going nuts. I've never been in jail before.”

Erin wrote something on her pad. Laura said, “Are you going to help me?”

“I'll see if there's anything I can do. But you've got to be straight with us.”

“I will, I promise.”

“No more evasive stuff.”

“I swear.”

“That means everything is fair game. You hear what I'm saying? Everything.”

“Of course.”

“Good.”

Erin started to write something, then changed her mind.

“How long were you out on the meadow before you heard the shot?”

“I don't know, maybe fifteen minutes. I wasn't thinking about it.”

“Think about it now.”

“Fifteen minutes,” Laura said. “Twenty at the outside.”

“Then you heard the shot.”

“And I ran back to the house.”

“And you've said that wouldn't have taken more than a few minutes.”

She nodded.

“And from then until the deputy arrived, you heard no sounds of anyone or any vehicle coming or leaving.”

“I don't know.” Laura closed her eyes. “I don't know.”

“If you do remember anything like that, tell us at once.”

Another half minute passed. Again Erin asked, “Did you see or hear anything that might lead us to believe someone else might have been there?”

Laura looked to be in deep thought.

“This could be important,” Erin said. “If you heard anything, either before or after you went into the house, I need to know exactly what you remember.”

Laura nodded, her face intense.

“Let's go over a few things again,” Erin said. “Why did you tell Mr. Janeway you killed Bobby?”

“I wanted to protect Jerry.”

“You thought your son had done it.”

“Yes. But now…”

“Are you willing to accept it if Jerry did shoot Bobby?”

Laura shook her head and looked away.

“Look at me.”

Laura looked up.

“The fact is, we don't know who did it,” Erin said.

“That's right. Janeway showed me it might've been someone else.”

“But right now we have no other suspects.”

“No.”

“You see what I'm getting at?”

“I'm not sure.”

“We have one version of what happened. Yours. Unless Jerry comes to life and begins talking up a blue streak, yours is the one we're going with.”

“But what if that means…?”

“If I take this case, my job is to get you off. That means everything else is up for grabs, everything. If Jerry did it, we'll have to deal with that later.”

“Oh, God, Erin… oh, Jesus…”

“We've got to be clear on this. I will not have my hands tied.”

A long moment unrolled. Erin wrote something on her paper.

“Make up your mind,” she said.

Laura nodded.

“Be sure.”

“Yes.”

“Mr. McNamara will be talking to you again in the coming days. I want you to be as straight with him as you will with me. He's to be told everything you remember, as soon as you remember it. If you think of something you'd forgotten about, I want you to call him. Are we clear on that?”

They stared at each other.

“Okay?” Erin said.

Laura looked unhappily at the wall.

“Okay?” Erin said again.

“Okay.”

“Okay, then. Don't talk to anybody else. No reporters, no lawyers, especially not that cretin who minds the jail. Talk to nobody but one of us. Can you do that?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Refer anything you're asked to me or McNamara. Try to get some sleep, I'll be back early in the morning.”

 

“So what do you think?” Erin said.

“I like her.”

“Yes, she's always been very likable.”

“There's a guarded statement if I ever heard one.”

I pulled up at Parley's house and we sat there a moment letting the car run and the heater warm us. Erin took a deep breath. “Yeah, it is,” she said at last. “I'm trying to figure out what I feel about her after all these years. I may never know.”

“There's something about you two,” I said. “In some ways you're very much alike; in others—”

“—we could be from different species.”

“Yeah. Somehow I can't picture her being you.”

“I think when we were kids she was suspicious of my motives. She never seemed to believe I liked her as much as I did; she always had something to prove. She was dirt-poor, her people had nothing: her father literally worked himself to death. When she was a teenager, she took on a full-time job to help them out, going to school the whole time. Man, I admired her spunk. In time I think she knew that and we became good friends, then best friends. If she had any shallowness, it was a certain preoccupation with the rich and famous. Easy for me to say, I was one of the privileged, but I always thought she was too enchanted with stories of wealthy, fabled people. She seems different now. Different and yet I still see flashes of her old ways. In her face. In her eyes.”

“Do you still hate her for what happened?”

“I never hated her. I just can't do that. I sure tried to, when the hurt was new and raw: I cursed them both a hundred times a week but I couldn't ever come to hate her. I'm afraid in my youth I bought into the old stereotypes. It was the man's fault. He was much easier to hate. What can you expect from a man, you're all a bunch of randy old goats. But it was different with her. She took my man, but women have lost men forever and lived through it. What he took from me was just as priceless.”

“Did he ever try to make it up?”

“Oh, yeah. He called a lot, at first half a dozen times a week. And I did talk to him about it, at least in the beginning. I guess I should say I heard him out. I didn't have much to say, but I thought I owed it to him to hear what he had to say. We had been together for years, we were high school sweethearts, and even before that we were so close. So I felt I should at least listen.”

“What did he say?”

“Oh, he tried to blame her. But it takes two to tango, doesn't it? At least she never tried to duck the blame, I've got to give her that. She cried and said how sorry she was, but never once did she say it was his fault.”

“Well, I think she's suffered for it.”

“Good.”

A long moment later, Erin said, “If I did hate her, this would be the perfect opportunity for me to get back at her. Wouldn't it?”

“If you were that mean-hearted. And a good enough lawyer to be just bad enough to lose her case.”

“What's your guess about that?”

“You're one of those two things. But only one.”

“Thank you, I think.”

“I'm not worried about you. You wouldn't do that. I think you already know what you're going to do.”

Another moment passed, lost in thought.

“I couldn't even say her name in there. I'll have to get over that.”

Suddenly she said, “I've got to get her off, Cliff. I've got to get her off.”

We sat up past midnight in a three-headed council of war. Erin sent Todd to bed early—“Go read a book,” she said, “we have some lawyer stuff to hash out”—and he departed cheerfully for the third bedroom down the hall. Most of our talk until then had been about tomorrow's agenda. “I want to go to the jail as soon as deputy whatever will let me in,” Erin said. “I don't think I can count on getting in there much before eight o'clock. And I've got to see that kid before I leave. I know he doesn't speak but I need to spend a few minutes with him anyway.”

“What do you want me to do?” Parley said.

“You come with me, if you will. That might make it easier for you to work with her after I've gone. All billable hours now, so keep track.”

“Would it be out of line to ask who's paying for this?”

“Nothing's out of line. Until she gets out and decides what to do, I'll pay the bills. Is that a problem?”

“Not for me it isn't.”

“Good. I think it'll be best if just the two of us see her tomorrow. You understand that, Cliff… just the lawyers and the client this time around?”

“Do I look like I'm getting my feelings hurt?”

“In the afternoon, after I'm gone, Parley can bring you up on what was said.”

“I could also put this time to good use. At some point I've got to spend a day with her books. Make a list of what's really there. And we've got to get those books out of that house. I could rent us a U-Haul, go on up there, and spend the day packing 'em up, doing the donkey work while the brain trust does whatever it does down here.”

“I don't know. Somehow that strikes me wrong.”

“Why, for God's sake? What's the downside in that?”

“I don't know. At the moment, we're the only ones who know about those books.”

“That doesn't necessarily change just because we've moved them.”

“It tells the other side something I might not want them to know yet. I don't think we should move them without noticing-in the DA on what we know, and I'd like to at least ask our client about them first. I know you mentioned them to her, but let's see what she says when we get more specific.”

“Can I at least have the keys so I can go up and take another look?”

“Can you make an inventory just by looking at the titles on a shelf?”

“I can make a
list.
I can do that much, which is a helluva lot more than we've got right now.”

“A list, then. If you need to take something off the shelf, fine, but then put it back where it was.”

Parley handed me the keys.

“Erin,” I said in my pleading voice, “we are going to feel mighty stupid if anything happens…”

“I know… I know. Let me think about it, how to proceed. You go on up early tomorrow and make your list, then we'll talk again.”

“We could be fairly inconspicuous, if you want to move 'em,” Parley said. “Let Cliff inventory and box 'em up and then we go up there after dark and load up the truck.”

“And put 'em where?” I said.

“What's wrong with right here? I've got a room that's not being used.”

We looked at each other for half a minute. Then Erin said, “I'm just not comfortable with us going in there at night and stripping the library. I know we
can,
that's not the question: legally the house is back with us, we've got the keys, we can
do
what we want with it. But that kind of thing can come back to haunt us. If you're right about the books and they're worth real money, that becomes a potential motive.”

“Against our client,” Parley said drily.

“It could cut both ways. This could be a motive for anybody.”

“So if this anybody killed Bobby, who and where is he and why hasn't he made some attempt to get the books?”

“That's what we don't know,” Erin said. “Maybe he's afraid to go up there now. Maybe he's afraid of a trap.”

“You could almost make that feasible, if we had some other name to work with.”

“Who else might benefit from the victim's death?”

“Well, I've been all through the DA's file,” Parley said. “I've looked at every scrap of evidence they've got, and I don't see anybody there who'd fill that bill. They're going with a fairly simple and straightforward case. The blood was all over her dress, and most damning of all, she confessed. Never mind that she might've had second thoughts about the confession later, she still confessed. Where's Mr. Anybody figure into all that?”

“I don't know. Look, the books have been there three weeks now and nobody's touched them. It's possible that they'll only be in jeopardy if you call attention to them. That's the wonderful thing about books, isn't it? They never look valuable to an unwashed second-story man.”

I sighed with exaggerated patience. “Erin, we've got to get them out of there. We might as well take out a
STEAL THESE BOOKS
ad in the newspaper.”

“But what's likely to happen when we do that? More to the point, what happens to the books as evidence in some future action we may take, based on facts we don't yet know?”

“Right now we don't know what the hell's in there. My opinion is based on a ten-minute walk-through. Do you have any idea how unprofessional that is?”

“No, but I'll bet you'll tell us.” She smiled sweetly and made a short list of notes, structuring the next day. “I'll bet Parley will tell us his opinion as well.”

“Jerry shot Bobby, just like Miss Laura said.”

“As theories go, that's not bad. I'm certainly not above using it if we have to, even though it'll make our defendant very unhappy.”

Erin shuffled through her pad. “I guess we need to talk about a change of venue.”

“I can't see any downside to getting it out of here,” Parley said. “This county is way too small, not to mention small-minded.”

“But if we move for a change of venue, that would delay the trial. Adamson's almost certain to want to continue it, and I don't think he would grant it anyway. We'd have to appeal the delay, waive our right to a speedy trial, and how will our defendant like being locked up an extra two to four months while all this is going on? She's strung out as it is.”

“I sure don't like the idea of trying it here.”

“Neither do I, but it may be the lesser of two evils. We need to get things moving, especially if we think they've got a weak case.”

“I don't know,” Parley said. “I'm glad you're here to make that call.”

Erin pondered what we had said. “Look, their case starts with that stupid deputy. I've only had the briefest pleasure of his company but I think he'll be a weak link right out of the gate. From what I've seen so far, the investigation is pathetic.”

“The DA thinks it's in the bag.”

“Let him think that. I'd like to hold his feet to the fire and see what evidence he's actually got; we may find out he's not as well prepared as he thinks he is. We know they have no written confession. Their investigating officer is a certified wild hare, and he did everything during that first critical hour by himself. I'd like you to file a boilerplate motion to suppress everything he did and found up there. Let's push for an early trial date, hold their feet to the fire before they realize there are all kinds of holes in their case; before they have a chance to prepare.”

She studied her notes. “Cliff, it would help if you can find out anything new about our friend Lennie—what his movements were that day, what he did, who he talked to and what was said, where he was when he got the call, whether he took a leak at the scene and where—you know the routine. Make a chart showing all that. Give us anything that shows him as a wild man. And you'll need to interview him as well.”

“That'll be fun.”

“Parley, you could set up the interview, then take Cliff with you when you go.”

“Ambush the bastard.”

Again the room went suddenly quiet. Then Erin said, “I don't know how you work, Parley, but I like to start with my own theory of what really happened. Even if it's early, even though this'll all change as new facts come to light. Puts the onus on us and gives me a focal point to carry into the next day's work.”

“So what's your current theory for this one, as if I didn't know.”

“The victim was killed by an unknown assailant. The alternate suspect theory. That gives us an excellent place to dig around.”

“Some third party did it. Great defense if we can sell it.”

“You know how the alternate suspect idea works. I don't have to name names or prove it, but if I can get it planted that Bobby had enemies and that someone else might have been at or near the house that day, they'll have to deal with it.” She looked at me. “Let's see if we can find who might have done this, who might have had a reason to shoot Bobby. That would be a fine use of your spare time. And if you actually find such a creature, I will swoon into your arms with delight.”

“Now you know why I work so cheap,” I said to Parley.

He shook his head. “I don't think we've got diddly-squat along those lines.”

“Not yet,” Erin said. “But we do need to find out if anyone had a motive and opportunity, and who that might be.”

She wrote some notes. “Maybe a jealous husband, someone who lost his shirt in a business deal with Bobby, maybe some real estate venture that went sour.” And at last she said, “And the books could be a motive.”

“Wow, the books could be a motive,” I said. “Why didn't I think of that?”

“Because you're too busy being a wise guy.”

“So if the books are a potential motive, we need to find out where Bobby got them,” I said. “Who'd he buy them from? Why? Was he buying them to resell? If so, where was his market?”

“Whatever you can find that backs up the alternate suspect theory. If we can do that, we've got something to work with.”

“And if we can't,” Parley said, “then we're back to Jerry.”

“But for today let's believe somebody else was in that room before Jerry came in and picked up the gun.”

“Jerry and Laura… they're both innocent.”

“They're both innocent.”

“Lots of luck.”