Final Vows

by Karen Kingsbury

  When Chuck and Gene had finished their interview they thanked Suzan and stood to leave. As they did, Suzan also stood up, her useless legs quite capably bearing her considerable weight. She shook both their hands heartily.

  “Pleasure talking with you boys,” she said, her voice noticeably deeper than it had been before. They nodded and made their way to the parking lot.

  “Well, she’s certainly in the right hospital ward,” Gene said as they left. “Like I said, a waste of time.”

  Chuck chuckled softly. “She’s definitely interesting.”

  “Interesting? I had the feeling we were talking to at least two different people in there. None of them Avon ladies.”

  “I keep thinking of the first thing she said.” Chuck paused a moment. “ ‘Dan didn’t do it. I ain’t letting Dan go to prison for something he didn’t do.’ ”

  “The woman is a loony tune, whacko, off her rocker.” Gene was getting excited. “You can’t believe her, Chuck.”

  “She’s strange, all right. But we don’t know if she’s lying.”

  “Oh, yeah? What about her cockeyed Vietnam story?”

  “What about it?”

  “Either she’s lying or we just witnessed a miracle.”

  “You lost me.”

  “Don’t you remember? She lost feeling in her legs back in Vietnam. Then when we leave, she stands up.”

  “You’re right,” Chuck said. “I wasn’t paying attention. Watch her tomorrow and see if she does it again.”

  “What?” Gene looked confused. “We’re going back?”

  “No. You’re going back.”

  “Why?”

  “Because, she didn’t open up to me. You might get her talking. See what you can find out.”

  “Chuck, she’s a lunatic. We’re wasting our time.”

  “Not until we hit a dead end.”

  Gene knew from Chuck’s voice that the subject was closed. He would be back at the hospital the following day.

  The next day Gene and Suzan had been talking for twenty minutes when she began asking about the murder scene.

  “Was it pretty bad in there?” she asked, her face devoid of expression. “You know, bloody and messy and everything?”

  Gene felt a stirring of curiosity.

  “Uh, yeah, I think it was in fact,” he answered.

  “Find much evidence in the hallway or the office, any clues or anything?”

  Suzan had fallen for Gene’s casual style of questioning. Since they’d started talking, Suzan had listened as he shared his own experiences, trying to relax her. Now that her guard was down, Suzan’s curiosity was getting the better of her.

  Gene cleared his throat. He had no intention of telling her anything about evidence left at the scene, especially the empty cash box, which according to Dan was missing eight hundred dollars. The media had never known about the cash box. Investigators on the case had agreed to keep quiet about it. That way, if anyone ever mentioned it the police could reasonably assume the person might be a witness or even a suspect.

  “Well?” Suzan interrupted Gene’s thoughts. “They find anything or not?”

  Gene shook his head. “Nothing at all, no clues.”

  Suzan frowned. “That’s not what I heard. What about the cash box? Beige cash box with a bunch of missing cash?”

  Gene stared at her unable to believe what he had just heard. There was no possible way Suzan Brown had obtained a police report. Even if she had, the reports hadn’t mentioned that the cash box was beige.

  Suzan looked nervous, like she had said something she regretted. After several moments of silence, she stood up.

  “Gotta get going, now.”

  Gene nodded and shook her hand, thanking her as he left. His hunch about Suzan Brown had been wrong. It occurred to Gene that the woman was not only crazy, she was quite possibly dangerous. But more importantly, he thought, Dan Montecalvo was an innocent man.

  Gene burst into his officer—he couldn’t wait to tell Chuck what the woman had said.

  “She did it, I know she did it,” he said after he had finished the story. He paced the small office as he spoke.

  Chuck looked at him calmly. “My, my. This is certainly a different tune from the song you were singing yesterday. What’s our proof?”

  “Proof?” Gene was flabbergasted. “She knows about the cash box. Knows it was beige. What more do you want?”

  “The cash box was mentioned in the police reports.”

  “She’s been in a mental hospital. How could she have seen the police reports? Anyway, the police reports don’t say that the cash box was beige. How did she know that?”

  “She was Carol’s Avon lady. Probably saw it lots of times. Look, Gene, I’m with you on this but we need hard evidence or a confession. Otherwise we don’t have a thing.”

  Gene shook his head angrily. “Montecalvo’s in prison for something he didn’t do. I’m calling Lorn Aiken.”

  He picked up the phone and started dialing.

  “You were right, Lorn, Montecalvo didn’t do it,” Gene said after he’d told him about Suzan.

  The news did not surprise Lorn. He released a deep sigh. “I’m sure Ron Applegate will appreciate your work.”

  Gene frowned in confusion. “Who’s he?”

  “Dan’s new defense attorney.”

  “What? You’re his attorney.”

  “Correction. I was his attorney,” Lorn stated flatly. “He fired me this morning.”

  Chapter 38

  The falling out between Dan Montecalvo and Lorn Aiken came as a result of Dan’s stubborn pride. Early on, Lorn had agreed to file papers granting Dan the authority of propria persona—making him cocounsel.

  Despite the arrangement Lorn never intended for Dan to utter so much as a single word in the courtroom. Defendants who had chosen to help represent themselves were allowed to spend their days in the county jail law library while other inmates were doing work detail. For those benefits alone, in an effort to make Dan more comfortable, Lorn set up the paperwork allowing Dan to be cocounsel on the case.

  The falling out came less than a month before the trial. After months of browsing about the jail’s law library and talking to other defendants who were preparing to represent themselves, Dan began to like the idea.

  “Lorn, there’s a couple people I wanna question in court,” Dan mentioned nonchalantly one afternoon.

  Lorn let out a hearty laugh. “Right.”

  Dan frowned at his attorney’s reaction. “Lorn, I’m serious. I’m pro per now. Legally, I can represent myself. All I’m saying is when Kight and Arnspiger are up there, I wanna ask the questions.”

  Lorn stared at him as if he were the dimmest man he’d ever met. “Over my dead body,” he said evenly.

  That was the moment Dan’s pride overcame his common sense.

  “What are you saying, Lorn?” he said. “Anyone can ask questions. I know what those guys did to me. They framed me. No one could ask questions like me.”

  Lorn shook his head, his dark curls moving with the motion, and his blue eyes blazing brightly. “Maybe you’re not hearing me, Dan. I’m the attorney. I’ll do the talking; I’ll do the questioning; I’ll do everything.” Lorn’s tone was condescending and Dan’s anger grew with each word. “Did you forget? You’re the defendant, the accused. You’re not exactly a sweet-faced choirboy, either. You sound like an ex-con. You look like an ex-con. Open your mouth and you’re finished. Understood?”

  “No.” Dan was livid. “You work for me. You will sit beside me and give me legal help when I need it. And if I want to ask some questions I’ll do it.”

  Lorn leaned back in his chair and stretched his long legs in front of him. “Let’s go back to the beginning,” he said flatly. “This case is no longer about you, it’s about me. I will not walk into that courtroom as cocounsel on some suicide mission. You open your mouth in there and Ben Bernard will eat you for lunch. I wil
l not sit calmly by while you destroy yourself and take me down with you. If you want me beside you, you’ll keep your mouth shut.”

  Dan picked up the folder full of reports in front of him and slammed it shut. “Fine. You’re fired. If you won’t let me ask a few questions, I’ll find someone who will.”

  Lorn knew without a doubt that if Dan opened his mouth in court it would be a major disaster. In all his ignorance, Dan was choosing to defend his innocence and in doing so Lorn feared he might very likely lose his freedom.

  Dan stood up. “You can go now, Mr. Aiken,” he said curtly. “I’m not going to change my mind. You’re fired.”

  “You’re making a big mistake, Dan,” Lorn said, reaching out and shaking Dan’s hand regretfully. Lorn had been looking forward to winning an acquittal for a man he deemed his first innocent client. “Call if you change your mind.”

  Dan did not change his mind in the following days. If anything he became more anxious to take matters into his own untrained hands. One of the defendants he’d met at the jail’s legal library recommended an attorney who didn’t mind sharing the courtroom with his client. His name was Ron Applegate.

  Applegate was a liberal-minded former social worker with tall good looks and the rumpled appearance of someone who had been up all night. Over a year had passed since he’d had a drink, but his long, elegant fingers still shook from the effects of alcoholism. Life had not been easy for Ron Applegate. He grew up in Oklahoma City, a shy kid who didn’t feel like a normal teenager until he started drinking. Alcohol seemed to bring him to life and soon he needed it for every occasion. In 1979 Ron discovered that more than 90 percent of the criminals he represented were dependent on either alcohol or drugs. Disgusted, he quit cold and for eight years he avoided liquor. Not coincidentally, his law practice grew both reputable and lucrative during that time.

  Then, in 1987 he represented a client during an out-of-town murder trial. One night, after a particularly grueling day in court Ron met with a few attorneys for dinner. When the time came to order drinks, Ron found himself joining in. For Ron it was like jumping into a deep, dark abyss which seemed for the next two years to have no bottom. Alcohol alienated him from his family, his law practice, and his very self. One evening in early 1989 Ron found himself standing up at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting and saying something he had never imagined saying in all his life.

  “My name is Ron,” he told the others in the room. “I’m an alcoholic.”

  Overnight, Alcoholics Anonymous became the focal point of his life. He attended as many meetings as he could and talked about his addiction with anyone who would listen. By the end of 1989 he was happier than he had ever been in his life, but the income he had received from his law practice was less than half of what it had once been. Ron knew this had happened because his first priority was no longer making money or practicing law, but visiting jails and telling inmates about the pitfalls of alcohol. Quite often, Ron represented those inmates. Word of mouth around the jail’s legal library was that Ron would let a defendant do the talking.

  The day after firing Lorn Aiken, Dan got wind of Ron Applegate and decided the attorney would be perfect for his case. Three days later the two men met to discuss Dan’s upcoming trial. Unlike Lorn, Ron did not care whether Dan was guilty. He was aware that Dan claimed to be innocent, and he had no reason to disbelieve him. Still, he felt the issue was irrelevant. He cared only about whether the prosecution could prove guilt. From what he’d seen of the circumstantial evidence against Dan, he doubted the prosecution could do that.

  Ron was granted a brief extension allowing him just four weeks to prepare for the case. The trial was set to start Monday, September 24. When Lorn Aiken heard this he was disgusted. Ron was completely unfamiliar with the case and Lorn was sure he would need months to prepare it.

  “Dan, you guys will never be ready on time,” Lorn said one morning when he stopped by the jail. He planned to follow the case and keep in touch with the investigators, Chuck Lefler and Gene Brisco. “Ask for three months. Six months. Whatever you can get.”

  “I don’t need your opinion, Lorn.” Dan’s pride was still hurt by Lorn’s refusal to let him work as cocounsel.

  Lorn bent over and stared into Dan’s eyes. “Forget my opinion. It’s suicide for the two of you to go up against Bernard with only four weeks preparation time.”

  “We’ll be ready long before then,” Dan said defiantly. “Applegate knows the law. I know the rest. I’m going to do most of the work, so that’s all that matters.”

  Lorn threw up his hands in mock surrender. “Fine. But don’t say I didn’t warn you. See you at the hanging.”

  Chapter 39

  On the hot, smoggy morning of September 24, 1990, testimony got under way in the case of The People of the State of California v. Dan Montecalvo. Jury selection had been relatively simple, neither side using its allotted twenty peremptory challenges. Ron Applegate seemed to have intentionally filled the jury box with women. This confused Ben Bernard, who had long since decided that women would more quickly convict Dan than men.

  Women would feel the agony of Carol’s loneliness. They would hate Dan for spending his evenings at bars and flirting with other women. Most of all, Bernard believed that women would not trust Dan. Men, however, would understand more quickly how flirting with other women did not make one a killer. So Bernard was surprised when the combined legal intelligence of Ron Applegate and Dan Montecalvo removed one man after another with peremptory challenges. It occurred to Bernard that Dan must truly have believed himself to be a lady’s man, even though he had lost weight and was gaunt and unattractive. In the end the jury was made up of two men and ten women of all different ages.

  That morning at 9:47, minutes before the trial would begin, Ben Bernard wheeled a shopping cart through the double doors of Division J, Judge Jack B. Tso’s courtroom. In it were six notebooks—each several inches thick—containing 8,600 pages of circumstantial evidence against the defendant. The prosecutor wore a fashionable dark gray suit and smiled warmly at the jurors, who were already in their seats. He had the happy look of a weekend shopper who had just stumbled onto a tremendous bargain.

  As they watched him move the shopping cart toward the left side of the table where the prosecution would set up camp, it was all the jurors could do to keep from waving to him. As it was, many of them smiled and nodded at him.

  The picture Bernard was presenting to the jury was no accident. As far as he was concerned, one started trying a case the moment one walked into a courtroom. But for all his calm appearance, Bernard was intensely focused on the task that lay ahead of him. He had prepared for it better than for any case he had ever tried. Hours had been spent talking with Brian about the voluminous amount of evidence. They had agreed that Brian would sit at the prosecution table because he knew the information better than anyone. That way if Bernard suddenly needed to see the report from a particular bartender who had seen Dan threaten a customer with a gun, Brian would be able to locate it instantly.

  Bernard knew that regardless of how well prepared they were, chances were still high that Dan would be convicted of nothing more than voluntary manslaughter. Bernard had never heard of a first-degree murder conviction based entirely on circumstantial evidence. Next to Bernard, Brian Arnspiger sat ramrod straight, his energy emanating across the courtroom. He wore a navy blue suit that looked uncomfortable on his large frame. Bernard looked at him and decided he might as well be wearing a uniform and badge. The two men shook hands and Bernard sat down, nodding politely toward the jury.

  From the right side of the table, where the cocounsel for the defense were sitting, Ron Applegate and Dan Montecalvo bent their heads and shared some last-minute strategy. Dan was dressed in a black pinstripe suit which on other men might have looked sophisticated. Instead the suit made Dan, who was wearing his black hair slicked back in a 1950s style, look like a two-bit gangster. Ron Applegate looked nervous in a slightly wrinkled bei
ge jacket and dark brown polyester pants. His hands had started shaking the moment Ben Bernard pushed the shopping cart into the courtroom. Now Applegate wondered why they hadn’t insisted on taking more time to prepare. The moment he saw Bernard’s shopping cart of information and the calm look in his friendly brown eyes, Ron Applegate had a feeling of impending doom. If only Gene Brisco and Chuck Lefler had been able to find something concrete in their doubts about Suzan Brown.

  Ron noticed the courtroom filling up with spectators and other attorneys. He glanced toward Ben Bernard and realized that this would probably be Bernard’s last time in a courtroom. He understood why the other attorneys were there. They had come to see his final performance and they expected it to be brilliant. Ron Applegate swallowed hard and tried to regain the confidence he had felt just hours earlier.

  Several members of the press were arriving in the hallway. Cameramen checked the setting on their cameras and reporters looked over their notes. A few minutes before 10 A.M. they filed into the courtroom and sat down in the worn-out theater seats that made up the small spectator section. Any murder in Burbank was a story, but when Dan had been arrested for killing Carol and shooting himself to cover it up, the press had attacked the story with ravenous interest.

  Lorn Aiken also sat in one of those seats. He wore lizard-skin cowboy boots and a tweed jacket with suede elbow patches. He had been unable to resist the drama of seeing Ben Bernard destroy an innocent man. Already he could sense what was about to happen—Dan was about to be railroaded and he was helpless to stop the oncoming train.

  A hush fell over the courtroom as Judge Jack B. Tso walked in without ceremony and took his seat. Tso was a small man of Asian descent in his mid-fifties who stood not quite 5 feet 5 inches. Soft gray hair framed his round face. He had a dark gray mustache and round gold-rimmed glasses through which his deep black eyes peered intelligently. There was something kind about Judge Tso, something that suggested he might make a wonderful grandfather. Until he began to speak, it was not difficult to picture Judge Tso playing with small children or animals.