by Diane Capri
I returned his steely look. Ben Hathaway and I had played the power game before. Usually, he only asserted the power he had. He played strictly and professionally by the rules, which wasn’t hard to do because the rules and the resources were stacked in his favor.
For every task there’s the easy way and the hard way. The easy way is, well, easier, but the hard way works just as well.
“You could give me the file if you wanted to, Ben. It’s within your discretion,” I reminded him. “We’ll get it eventually anyway. There’s no harm in your handing it over to me now.”
He gazed at me with an expression I interpreted as consideration, which encouraged me to continue.
“Ben, how much of your department’s resources are directed at finding General Andrews’s killer? Not yesterday, or two days ago, but right now?”
“As much as we need to devote to it.” He sounded a little defensive.
“In other words, nothing. Am I right? You think you have a suspect in custody, arraigned and turned over to Drake’s office.” I tried, unsuccessfully, to control my belligerence. “You have other crimes to solve and you don’t have that much manpower.”
I looked him straight in the eye now, showing him that we both knew the score.
“You’re not even looking for the real killer, are you?”
Ben looked down at his big paws clasped on the government-issue imitation walnut desk. His ears grew more than a little crimson at their tips.
When he raised his head, he answered me slowly, as if addressing someone with poor hearing or less than full mental acuity. Or, maybe, as if he was being watched through the glass walls that surrounded us and his voice was being broadcast directly to his supervisors.
“We don’t need to look for the general’s killer. We found him. We arrested him.” Quietly, he finished, “If you want to see the file, ask Drake.”
I stood to leave. “Chief, you and I both know that George Carson did not kill General Andrews. If Drake wants to take George to trial for this, he certainly can. But if he does, he’ll lose.”
Next, I delivered the truth he tried to ignore. “And Drake will take you down with him. You’ll be the laughing stock not only of Tampa, but the entire country.”
I turned toward the door. “Everyone is watching this, Ben. Everyone.”
“What do you want me to do, Willa? My hands are tied. Drake wanted a quick arrest. He got one. George is on the wrong side of Drake’s ambition.” He held his hands out, palms up, to demonstrate his point. “They’ve done battle before and it’s Drake’s turn to hold the winning cards. It’s out of my hands.”
Now that he’d been softened up, he was ready to hear my real proposal. “I want you to let me look at the file. I’ll make you an offer, just once, right now.”
I waited until he nodded, almost involuntarily. “Here it is: You let me look at the file, help me unofficially and I’ll tell you first when I’ve figured out who killed Andrews.”
His eyes widened but he didn’t laugh. He considered my proposal seriously because he knew me, and he knew how determined I can be.
Still, I sensed he was about to refuse again. “I intend to prove that George did not kill Andrews. When I succeed, Ben, you know how foolish you’ll look? No one will trust you to run your department. You know what a small town Tampa is. You might have to move.”
Watched him thinking it through.
Eventually, he would realize he had nothing to lose and everything to gain by helping me. I was promising not to embarrass him, not to let the situation get out of control if George wasn’t Andrews’s killer. He wanted to believe me.
To give him a little credit, Ben Hathaway does like George. He likes me, too, for that matter. He wanted the killer to be someone else, but he had no reason to believe he’d arrested the wrong man.
Unlike me, Ben was not his own boss. Someone higher up called the shots and that someone wanted a quick solution to this incredibly thorny issue. Bringing down a powerful member of the opposite political party was, for Drake, a bonus that would give him the career boost he’d been seeking for years.
Ben looked past me through the glass partition on the top of his wall, and shook his head, negative. “I can’t do it, Willa. I’m sorry. If President Benson himself asked me, I’d have to say no. I want to help you. But you can’t just march in here, let God and everybody see you, and demand special treatment. I’ve got no discretion in this. The answer is no.”
He did look sorry. He looked like a sorry S.O.B.
I tortured him with my best venomous stare. No impact.
“Ben, you disappoint me. I thought you had some integrity. I’d never have believed you’d be part of a plan to ruin my husband just for politics,” I told him sorrowfully. Before I walked out, I said, “If you change your mind and develop some backbone, you know where to find me.”
The doorknob turned in my hand and the door was forced open, making me lose my footing. I’d been facing Ben, turned away from the door. When I glanced back, I looked right into a hard brown glare from Michael Drake, State Attorney.
Drake was tall and wrinkled. His face resembled a Sharpei but his temperament was strictly Rotweiller. Drake had gotten where he was by tenacity and deference to those who could put him in office and keep him there. He was a party puppet, and everyone around here knew it. Michael Drake was motivated by one thing, and one thing only: shameless self-promotion.
“Hello, Judge Carson,” he said to me, without an ounce of warmth.
The man was repulsive. Standing toe to toe, his eyes revealed the naked ambition that propelled him, a consuming fire that would burn everyone in his path.
“Michael,” I said, refusing to give him the respect of his title or turn away from his searing gaze.
He stared me down a few moments longer with no effect before he gave up and turned to Hathaway.
“Why are you in closed session with the wife of an accused killer, Ben?”
Although there might have been legitimate reasons for me to be here, Drake made it sound like I was illegally or unethically in cahoots with Ben Hathaway.
The accusation stung, more so because I had, in fact, come here to ask Ben to do me a favor. I could feel the uncontrollable flush of embarrassment as it crept up my neck and into my cheeks.
But Ben’s eyes narrowed and his nostrils flared. A different flush warmed his face, an angry one. Ben had refused my request for the file, not because he wanted to, but because he’d done Drake’s bidding. Now, he was being falsely and openly accused of treachery. Drake’s fire would burn Hathaway, and me, too, if that’s what it took to move Drake ahead.
Drake had intentionally left the door open and Ben’s outer office was stuffed with eavesdroppers. The exchange would be common gossip before the next hour had passed. Ben was seething; he clutched his fists by his side.
I cursed myself for coming here. Although I’d never thought I’d run into Drake at this hour, in retrospect, it had been a foolish risk.
Ben said nothing in answer to Drake’s question, but the tension in the room jumped up several notches. No biting retort sprung to my lips.
I gathered all of my judicial dignity and left the junkyard dogs to fight among themselves. All eyes in Ben’s outer office were on me as I exited the room. Walking down the hallway, waiting for the elevator, I heard Ben’s office door slam closed and the two men shouting at each other, until the elevator doors closed behind me.
But I’d learned something.
Hathaway and Drake didn’t agree on George’s arrest. Otherwise, Drake wouldn’t have accused Ben in front of me and other witnesses. Now, I knew that Ben had been leaning toward my point of view even before I arrived in his office. He could be persuaded to help us. It was a valuable piece of information. But was it enough?
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Tampa, Florida
Thursday 6:25 p.m.
January 27, 2000
WHEN THE DOORBELL RANG, I looked through the peephole to see
Ben Hathaway standing there. With a briefcase.
I wasn’t totally surprised. After Drake’s open disrespect, and attempts to embarrass Ben in front of his subordinates, I’d expected Ben to rebel and stop supporting Drake, who wasn’t grateful for it. That’s what I’d have done. Ben and I had been allies before, even friends. Neither of us had any great love for Drake. Never underestimate the male ego.
Ben couldn’t openly support us against Drake, but he didn’t have to. All I needed was a little head start by getting a look at the file a few days early. Anyone who assumed George had killed Andrews, which was just what Drake claimed to believe, would realize that sharing the investigative file with us now instead of three weeks from now would not change the truth and should have been no big deal. Ben wasn’t taking any real risk here. Either Drake believed in his evidence or he didn’t. I knew Ben would come to the same conclusion. Eventually.
If I could show the public what a total jerk Michael Drake actually was, so much the better. I let Ben in.
“Okay,” he said, holding up his thumb and forefinger on his right hand. “But I have two conditions of my own. One, you keep me up to date as you go along.” He folded the fore-finger down.
“No problem.” I lied; he knew it.
“Two,” he held up his thumb. “You tell me who you think killed Andrews and I’ll arrest him. None of your elaborate confession schemes.”
I must not have looked properly agreeable.
He said, “I mean it, Willa. I don’t want you or George getting killed over this.”
I reached for the briefcase, and he pulled it away from my grasp.
He tried once more to persuade me. “This guy murdered a decorated army general, for God’s sake. General Andrews was more than able to defend himself. Have you thought about that? If you cross him, the killer won’t let you live just because you’re a judge.”
I nodded; he wasn’t impressed. “I’m serious here, Willa. If you think arresting the wrong guy will get me run out of town on a rail, think what Drake will do to me if I let you and George get killed by the same perp.”
I waited until he offered the briefcase to me, asking nicely, “Do it for me. Please.”
Only because I was beginning to worry that he’d change his mind again, I agreed. Realistically, it was the sleeves out of my vest anyway. What was I going to do with a cold-blooded killer who would shoot Andrews in the head and then just walk away? I had no interest in being a hero.
All I wanted was my husband’s life back.
Ben came fully into the room then, making his way to the only chair that would hold his bulk. I settled across from him, the briefcase close to my side, my hand gripped around the handle in case he changed his mind and tried to take it back from me.
“Let me tell you a couple of things first,” he said. “The full autopsy report isn’t done yet.”
“Okay.”
That wasn’t unusual. Even an expedited full autopsy report still takes several days.
“The science crew in this case was two of my best technicians. These guys know what they’re doing,” Ben told me.
The crew’s job was to locate, identify, preserve and remove for analysis, all substances that might be clues to solving any crime that occurred.
Ben said, “These two criminalists work together all the time. They’re good guys. They have a routine they’ve developed that’s very thorough.”
That didn’t mean they’d found everything, just that they’d likely be good witnesses, able to describe in meticulous detail everything they found and how they found it. If they’d found anything to incriminate George, they’d be able to get it into evidence easily. Half the cases a criminal defendant wins are won because evidence against him is excluded.
Ben’s point was that evidence wouldn’t be excluded in George’s case, and he waited a few moments for his message to sink in.
“Another thing I might as well tell you,” he said. “We knew, almost immediately after we found the body, that Andrews was murdered.”
I thought back to the Saturday afternoon of the Blue Coat, when I’d listened to Hathaway’s report on the radio.
“Why did you say it was a suicide, then?” I asked, a couple of beats before I could answer my own question. “Drake’s idea, right?”
Ben nodded. “Drake thought it would give us some time to find the killer, if he felt secure enough to hang around.”
My ire bubbled up. “So Drake thinks George is stupid, too? If George killed Andrews, why would he go around telling everyone he was sure Andrews had been murdered, and play right into Drake’s hands?”
It was one thing to think George was a killer, but quite another to think George was a stupid killer. Drake was a jerk.
Ben chose not to respond to that. He rose and made his way toward the door. “I’m going downstairs for a late dinner. I’ll be back in two hours.” He gestured toward the briefcase. “I’ll pick it up after.”
George always said people would do the right thing if you gave them a chance.
“I’ll keep it right here until you’re finished,” I said, but I couldn’t find it in my heart to smile at him.
Before Ben left, he gave me two more rules: No copies; and never tell a living soul he’d done this.
I thanked him and he left me to my work. He wasn’t really doing anything wrong by helping me. I couldn’t force him to give me the file, but he could release it voluntarily. Still, Drake wouldn’t like it, which made it a big risk.
I took the briefcase into the den and opened it. The official police file, labeled People v. George Carson, was nothing more than a five-inch Redweld jammed full of papers. A note on the top that said the file was scheduled to go the prosecutor’s office shortly, which meant Drake hadn’t seen it all yet. Timing is everything.
I reached into Aunt Minnie’s desk drawer and pulled out my headset. It would be faster if I dictated what I found as I went along.
My legal training had not deserted me. I’d already set up my own shadow file. Organization is the key to a lawyer’s life. Legal documents multiply like rabbits in the dark. They’re worse than rats and telephone pink slips.
As I’d done hundreds of times as a lawyer, I reviewed the file. Like most legal work, it was slow, tedious, and solitary.
First, I went through and dictated a list of the file’s contents. Things have a way of disappearing from police files once they’re turned over to the prosecutor. I’d had a number of experiences like that as a lawyer. Since I’d been on the bench, lost evidence happened in my cases more often than I’d like to admit.
I’m not big on conspiracy theories. I don’t believe that AIDS was deliberately transmitted to the gay population by the CIA as a test of biological warfare; the Government introduced drugs to the black community; or the defense department is concealing aliens in Roswell, New Mexico. I don’t even believe that President Kennedy was killed by a conspiracy of his political enemies.
But I know that things legitimately get lost and over-zealous lawyers sometimes fail to look hard to find them when they pull out all the stops to win a case.
Which was what Drake would be doing here.
Competitiveness, the desire to win at all costs, is alive and well in America, and it pervades our entire culture, not just professional sports.
When I went through the file the first time, I saw a normal homicide investigation file. If anything, the file was maybe a little more complete than usual.
I flipped quickly through the initial report of the first officers on the scene: crime scene photographs, autopsy photographs, toxicology report. A few interview notes with members of the victim’s family, George, friends, colleagues. Inventory of Andrews’s pockets where they’d found the suicide note, the boat. Pictures of the gun, ballistics report.
When I’d finished the list, I returned to the beginning and went through more slowly, wishing technology had developed to the point where I could scan everything. Someday.
CHAPTER THIRTY
-NINE
Tampa, Florida
Thursday 6:55 p.m.
January 27, 2000
THE HOMICIDE SQUAD AND the medical examiner’s office had been called at the same time. Regardless of the cause, where a death is unattended or a death certificate cannot be issued by a competent physician, someone from the medical examiner’s office has to examine the body to estimate the time and probable cause of death. Nothing unusual about that.
The photographs of the scene weren’t too gruesome. Mostly they were pictures of Andrews slumped over in the boat. The photos were taken from every angle, though, and revealed that he’d slumped due to the hole in the side of his head.
The fingerprint reports listed fingerprints appearing on almost every flat surface. Most of them belonged to members of the Andrews family and Andrews himself. A few were unaccounted for, so far. George had been finger printed when he was arrested, but none of these prints were his. That was a break.
They’d bagged the gun and taken samples of the bloodstains.
Physical evidence was limited, but what existed had been gathered, photographed and sent to the various laboratories for analysis.
Except for the body, of course, which had been sent for autopsy by the medical examiner.
There would be no DNA to match at this crime scene. The killer left no bodily fluids. If skin cells or hairs were left behind, they’d been blown away by the wind.
Around the Andrews’s back yard, investigators found nothing remarkable. No footprints or car tracks that the killer might have left. But it’s pretty dry here in January and the ground would have been hard, resisting imprints of any kind.
Butterflies, which felt more like disgusting squirming maggots, returned to my stomach when I read the next page into my microphone.
The gun found on the bottom of the boat was a snub nosed .38 caliber Colt revolver, serial number Y327141, which had five shells in the cylinder, one having been fired. I had to stop a second and swallow hard before I could continue: “Registered to George Carson.”
