“So let ‘em.”
“Mitch. You wanna keep the high ground?”
“Don’t be an asshole. Of course I do.”
“Then keep your mouth shut,” answered Fitz. “This is Texas. South Texas. And what I’m saying is that it’s gonna look like you took a lickin’. An old-fashioned, down-home ass-kicking where the Democratic candidate got his clock cleaned by the no-name Republican, who, from a single Goddamn incident, garners statewide name recognition the likes of which no amount of money can buy.”
“You want to let him off? Just let him walk away?”
“Fuck no. I want to wipe his ass off the slate in November.”
“It was assault. That’s a felony, Fitz.”
“Sure it is. But what’s the bigger crime? The SOB makes a name for himself off of your complaint?” Then Fitz couldn’t help himself. “I told you not to go.”
“You think he planned it that way?”
“Hell if I know.”
“Me, too.” All the way back from Benton he had asked himself why. Why would a nominee make such a bad move? Some kind of sick and twisted form of manipulation? It was archaic. Medieval. Downright dumb-assed and stupid.
Or maybe not.
“No. He planned it, all right,” reasoned Mitch. And the more he thought about it, the more sense it made. The helping hand. The lunch. And finally, a beating designed to get Mitch to run scared to the police. To look like a wimp to the electorate. After all, this was Texas.
“I walked right into it,” he said.
“Okay. So he’s no dummy,” added Fitz, tapping his head with his forefinger. “But you ‘n’ me, we’re smarter. And don’t you worry. From now on, you won’t be getting within ten feet of that cocksucker.”
“It kills me to let this guy walk.”
“It’ll hurt you worse to talk about it. From this point on, it doesn’t go past you and me.”
“So how do I explain this?” asked Mitch, pointing to his swelling face.
“You were mugged. Hit from behind. Didn’t see the attacker,” invented Fitz. “In the alley behind the campaign office. Where you park your car.”
“In an alley,” repeated Mitch. That much was true.
“You called for help. The mugger ran. You found me minutes later.”
“Did I get a look at him?” asked Mitch, trying on the lie. It didn’t sit well. The last thing his conscience wanted was to swear out a false complaint.
“He was medium height. Black.”
“He hit from behind. The hell if I’m going to give the Cathedral PD reason to pick up a couple of their—quote, unquote—’male usuals.’ I’ll say I didn’t see him.”
“Fine. And when they ask about his voice, say he hit you so hard, your ears were ringing.”
“I hate this.”
“You’ll live with it.”
“Now, Hollice Waters is gonna know I was up in Benton.” Mitch was thinking aloud. “He had to know about the meeting. Probably tipped off by McCann himself.”
“Fine. You were invited. You had a nice little meeting and you both went your merry way,” Fitz finished. “The attack came upon your return to the office. Timing’s right. It all fits.”
Mitch ran it over again in his mind. “Yeah. It works. Are you sure this is the only way?”
“You’re the boss. We can take our chances with the newspapers. But remember. You’d be doing just what he wanted.”
Mitch nodded. He was stuck. No two ways about it.
“Just think of what that little prick is gonna think when he reads it,” said Fitz, trying to lighten the moment. “ ‘Candidate attacked behind his own office.’ Not a fuckin’ mention of his silly-assed name.”
Mitch was chilled. Only hours ago he’d driven up to Benton so hopeful and smitten with an ideal. Two men. A handshake. And the race would be on. A race, he would admit, that was stacked heavily in his favor. But a race run by honorable men. Now, as Fitz let the nurse and doctor back into the room to stitch Mitchell’s cut face, the candidate felt sullied and ashamed.
At a distance, he could only watch and listen as Fitz made the telephone call to the South County Sheriffs Office to make the initial report. A terrible lie of a report that Mitch would have to corroborate and embellish upon. How many times? he thought. For how long?
Shakespeare McCann had fouled Mitch. Now Mitch would foul himself further with the falsified police report. The first time Mitch had ever lied to the police.
The horse race was on.
SIX
THE SUNDAY funeral for the Honorable Congressman George Alexander Hammond was over two weeks in the making. Not since the death of former Cathedral senator Samuel Watson, an Islander from birth to grave, had there been such a processional. The Strand, the Island’s main drag, was stacked with Islanders three deep and two miles long to watch the original horse-drawn Trolley Car Number One roll at a meager mile or so per hour, carrying the flag-draped casket to St. Anthony’s Cathedral, where a memorial service would follow.
The Gothic cathedral that gave the South County island its name was the antique prize of all Islanders, Catholic or not. And where tourist guides called it a “must-see,” locals simply called it “the Church,” even though the Island had four others, three of them Baptist. Built by a settlement of Spaniards in 1524, St. Anthony’s was topped by a gleaming limestone spire that had provided a sure and welcome landmark to distressed seamen for centuries. Pirates, shrimpers, inexperienced day sailors, and even the occasional wayward Cuban refugee had sought her hallowed sight through many a raging Gulf sky.
The funeral procession was led by six uniformed cops on motorcycles, a horse brigade in full regalia, and the two new fire engines old Hurricane had federally financed through a rider on a piece of Safety Fund legislation only nine months earlier. Behind the trolley followed a black limousine, its windows tinted a dark gray, which carried the immediate family. The rest of the processional was on foot, consisting of pallbearers, more distant relatives, politicians, friends, and respected enemies.
The spectacle was awe-inspiring. A morose rehearsal for Cathedral’s famous July Fourth parade, an event in which Hurricane had usually participated, sometimes riding western style on a borrowed horse, or in recent years, on the backseat of a convertible.
Candidate Mitch Dutton was invited to walk in the death march, a solicitation that he was sorry to decline. Complications with his injuries had left him bedridden for nearly a week with a bruised kidney.
On that Sunday, though, he was up and out of the house. Baseball cap on his head, large sunglasses masking his puffy face, he was going to make some use of his downtime. He was going to prison for a date with a killer. Still, the visitors’ guard instantly recognized him.
“Hell. That you, Mr. Dutton?” said the guard. “Man, you really did take a lickin’, didn’t you?”
“What can I say? Every dog has his day,” he lied. “And he was a big ol’ dog.”
“I think I read about that bad boy,” said the guard. A fierce reminder of the real reason for Mitch’s being a no-show at Hurricane’s Sunday funeral. “They ever catch him?”
“Sorry to say, no,” he said, looking for a way to dodge any more questions. The local and state media had picked up the manufactured story and run headlong with it. Fitz had ordered up copies of the police report and distributed them to just about anybody who’d bothered to ask. For an entire day a campaign volunteer was principally assigned to faxing copies of the falsified report to all news organizations statewide, insuring the reportage would be uniform:
Candidate and de facto front-runner Mitchell Dutton was violently attacked near the private entrance to his campaign office. The motives are still unknown and the perpetrator is still at large.
Miraculously, the police report seemed to be all that was required. Respectfully, the media left the candidate alone in his suffering. Fitz’s insistence on Mitch granting no interviews passed with barely a whisper of impropriety; the beating would be better s
erved if aired without photos or film. Leave the violent images of their beloved candidate to the public’s imagination, Fitz had decided. The actual sight of Mitch might be all too scary for mass consumption and open a new can of worms. A symbol of street crime victimization. Fitz reminded him that he wanted his candidate portrayed as a congressman, not a martyr.
“How you been?” deflected Mitch.
“Can’t complain,” returned the guard. “Been a while since you’ve been around. Guess you been kinda busy.”
“I have,” he said with a smile. “You vote?”
“I vote every time the white man gives me an opportunity,” joshed the affable guard, sealing the envelope in which Mitch had just placed his keys, pens, cell phone, pager, wallet, and money clip. The guard knew Mitch. He was just priming the pump for a little fun.
The candidate, on the other hand, was still stumping. “So who’d you vote for?”
“Like you’re gonna get me to say I voted for you.”
“You’re a Democrat, aren’t you?”
“Twenty-five years,” chimed the grinning guard.
“But Hammond was your man,” Mitch confirmed, dropping his voice a somber half octave.
“Had my vote every November,” said the guard. “Gonna miss him this year, that’s for sure.”
“Not to worry,” said Mitch. “I’m sure TCPOA will tell you how to vote come November.”
The TCPOA, short for the Texas Correctional Peace Officers Association. Half union, half lobbying group, which usually got the government they paid for. Powerful in Texas and aligned with similar groups throughout the nation. Mitch was on their side. But so had Hurricane been for his entire congressional tenure. Their support was now up for grabs.
So Mitch was politic. “I’m glad you voted. That’s what’s most important.”
“Don’t get me wrong. I’m Democrat my whole life. I vote Democrat for president. I vote Democrat just about every time I can. Just ol’ Hurricane, he done good for all us pokey police.”
“Too bad you had to work. You could have gone to the funeral.”
“Back at you on that one,” said the guard. “Why didn’t you go?”
“With this face?” joked Mitch. “I think his family’s seen enough grief.”
The guard laughed, then got down to business. “Name of the prisoner you want to see?”
“Shoop de Jarnot.”
“That’s what I thought. What’s you got to do with him?”
“He’s a pro bono case.” Mitch smiled. One of his few cases.
“Some charity work, huh?” said the guard, his tone a tad disapproving.
“Charity’s where you find it.”
“Hell of a way to spend your day off.” The guard leaned closer. “Folks know you do this shit?”
“I’m his lawyer. And he has rights.” Mitch shrugged. “That and I left my politics back at the office.”
“Kinda risky, don’tcha think?”
“You gonna call a press conference?”
“Who, me?”
Enough said by the guard. Mitch gave an appreciative smile. He obviously didn’t want anybody sniffing around. Especially when he was dealing with his prize pro bono case, Shoop de Jarnot. A confessed killer who’d called the South Texas State Reformatory his home for the last seven years.
“Have a seat,” said the guard. “Your boy’s in the shower, so he’s gonna be a while.”
Mitch checked his watch. It was five minutes past noon. So have a seat, he did. He found a folding chair parked next to a small table and waited. At that point he wasn’t in a rush. In a law practice that consisted mostly of corporate and special-interest matters, this was his idea of fun and relaxation; the dabbling in criminal and constitutional law when he had the inclination or time.
A conflict for a politician? Maybe, he mused. But in the back of his mind, candidate Dutton was still hoping to be appointed to the bench one day. Even better, a federal court. From there Mitch could deliver justice and fairness on issues that mattered to him—the environment, healthcare, free trade, and immigration.
“If you don’t mind me asking,” called out the guard from his Plexiglas-enclosed booth. “I know some lawyers who like to, you know, lend their time. But you know who you’re working for? That boy’s bad news. Deserves what he gets, too.” He ran a mock knife across his own neck. The implication was clear.
“Deserves what he gets?” Mitch found himself asking. “Who says?”
“I say. God says, too. Eye for an eye.”
“But is it the state’s business to kill?” It was his stock on-ramp to the debate.
“I reckon so. That’s if nobody else is willing to do it.” The grin returned to the guard. “And I know plenty of boys that’s willin’.”
“Screws or cons?” asked Mitch.
“Both,” offered the guard with a sinister wink.
That’s who Shoop was afraid of. The guards as well as the cons. If the state didn’t kill him, he thought surely somebody on the inside eventually would. And if Shoop had the choice, he’d rather the state did it. Painlessly.
In the case of Texas v. Shoop De Jarnot, the state wanted an execution by lethal injection. Years earlier, the case had crossed Mitchell’s law desk as a back-page newspaper clipping from the Cathedral Daily Mirror, sent anonymously for his perusal. The story was pretty simple. Shoop, a native of New Orleans, had chased his wife and her lover along the Gulf Coast for some five hundred miles until he’d caught up with them in one of Cathedral’s famous shoreline no-tell motels. He’d shot dead both her and the man she’d run off with.
But the issue wasn’t murder. Shoop had done the deed and never, ever, denied it. What was at issue were the words that had passed in the motel room long before shots were fired. Earwitness testimony revealed excited shouts and breaking objects. Yet a Texas jury had still seen fit to convict Shoop of plotting the crime. The evidence being the distance he’d traveled. Their verdict? Murder in the first degree. A crime that, in Texas, carried an automatic death penalty.
Shoop, a poor Creole boy with no means whatsoever, filed his first appeal with die help of a court-appointed attorney who, in Mitch’s opinion, botched the action by citing erroneous case law. Even worse, the appellate judge had no guts. He should have returned the action back to the legal sender for another try based on malpractice of law. Instead, the judge upheld the first court’s decision and left it for the Texas Supreme Court to decide.
The facts of the first, fouled appeal infuriated Mitch, matched only by his loathing of state-sanctioned executions as a means of punishment. His opinion put him in a vocal minority. But in his bones, he believed a civil society required a moral ethic. The state’s sponsorship of murder was the worst example a government could set for its citizens—not exactly the popular view in Texas. It had given Mitch’s opposition an easy target in the primary. The issue produced an early match of wills between Mitch and Fitz:
“It’ll be what buries you, Mitch. They’ll hang you by your fucking balls.”
“You want me to lie? You want me to say I’m for it?”
“I want you to spin it, pal. Talk about justice. Talk about crime and punishment. But for Christ’s sake, don’t say you’re against the death penalty!”
“But that’s who I am. That’s part of the package.”
“Why not say this: While you’re against some of the principles behind capital punishment, you’ll uphold the mandate by the people—”
“The people are wrong.”
“Then they’ll brand you some kind of an elitist. And they’ll kill you with that.”
“Let ‘em kill me, then. I won’t change how I think to get elected.”
“Listen to Mr. High and Moral Character. You like saying you want to win. But if you won’t do what it takes, you’re a loser. Plain and simple.”
“The high ground, Fitz. We had a deal. If you don’t want the job, there are others who do.”
Shoop appeared in the meeting space. He was
a large man. Solid features. But with melancholy eyes. Hardly looking like the killer he’d confessed to be. His face was drawn as if he hadn’t slept in days. Still, his smile betrayed the way he looked and felt. He liked Mitch and was always glad to see him. Mitch was hope, and hope was all he had left.
“What happen ta you?” asked Shoop, his native Creole infecting his English.
“Had a run-in with a bad guy. That’s all.”
“Fellah dat deed it? Mebbe he oughta be in de jail. I’d show ‘im de right side a de line ta walk on.”
“Someday. Maybe,” said Mitch. “You been okay?”
But Shoop didn’t answer. He had something else on his mind. “I watched you on de TV las’ week. Guess dis means I’ma gonna be needin’ a new lawyuh?” He rubbed his hand across the smooth, metallic surface of the table that separated him from Mitch. “But I can deeg a man’s ambition, ya knew?”
“Won’t matter who presents die case. An appeal is in the writing,” Mitch assured him. “And I’m gonna write you a ticket back to New Orleans.”
“Yeah. I’ma gonna be home?”
“That’s the plan.” Mitch gave an encouraging smile, despite what he knew as fact. Death penalty verdicts were almost never overturned even with evidence of bad legal counsel. And a successful writ of habeas corpus was a rare bird indeed.
In Shoop’s case, not only would Mitch cite the correct case law, something a first-year law graduate would know enough to do, but he would also offer up a juicy morsel of jurisdictional evidence. Voters in Louisiana had recently passed an anticrime referendum that tied the recent purchase of a gun to the felony committed with die weapon. Shoop had bought his gun retail, waited the legally allotted time before possession was granted, and then done his crime in the week that followed. Mitchell was not only going to argue Louisiana law, but also that all characters involved in the crime were Louisiana natives, Creoles at that. And coupled with the new Louisiana gun law, Texas’s right to the case was only a matter of geography. There had been no crime against the state or its constituents or property. Thus there was no jury of peers; instead it was made up of some of the local unemployed and retirees who looked down upon Shoop and his swamp-flavored diction.
Dark Horse Page 7
