“Or what? You still think I did it, don’t you?”
“I don’t know. Listen, it’s not anything against you. I always have to look at these cases with a cynical eye. If I don’t look at them with a cynical eye, then I get into trouble. So yes, I do question it. I’m not going to say I think you’re innocent, not at all. Truth be told, I never know if the people I defend are innocent or guilty. You’re no different. And it doesn’t help that you gave a confession to the cops. That doesn’t help at all.”
“Yeah, dog. I got ya. I was in the joint. All the dudes in there be innocent.” Then he laughed. “Or so they say. I know that almost all of them were good for what they were charged with. Including me. Yeah, I held up that liquor store. I’ll admit it. I did it. I ain’t never told nobody differently. I don’t be telling even the dudes in prison different. So I sure as hell ain’t going to tell you differently. I own up to the shit I do. I always be owning up to the things I do.”
“Well, I hope you’re right. It just doesn’t look so good.”
“You’re acting like this is some kind of a hopeless case. You best not be approaching it that way, though. You best be looking at this case and saying goddammit, I can win this. No way am I going to the joint for something I didn’t do. No fucking way. And if I go to the joint for something I didn’t do, you best know I’m gonna be rolling on Heather for the murder of the good Reverend Scott.” He nodded his head. “That’s what I’m gonna do. I got something up my sleeve, something that’s going to hopefully get my sentence shortened, and that’s rolling on her for that. I know that cops always be looking for a good witness to a murder. So, that’s a fair warning to you. If I go down for this case, I’m bringing Heather down with me.”
“I figured as much. And you’re right, that probably would be a piece of valuable information to the cops. The Reverend has gone missing and it’s been kind of a big deal. Not that anybody is going to miss him, aside from the people who still were brainwashed by him and thought that he was somebody who walked on water. And there are quite a few people still like that. People who still believed in him, and thought that what he said was true. But, since you kind of know where the body is buried, and you probably could lead the cops to the area, you’re right about one thing – that would be valuable information, and, if you do get convicted for this case, you probably can use that to get your sentence shortened.” That was the reality, which made this entire situation extremely precarious for Heather and her mother.
“Yeah, I know the score. So, you want me to keep my mouth shut about Heather, then I suggest that you don’t lose this case. So you better be getting to work.”
“I know. Believe me, I know.”
Chapter 10
The first person I wanted to talk to when I got back to the office about this was Harper. I hadn’t yet confided in her about what was going on, because I was so on the fence about taking the case. Once I found out how serious things were for Heather, I knew that I had to take Beck’s case and I knew that I was going to have to talk to Harper about it.
I got into our office suite and I headed over to her office and lightly knocked on the door. She was on the phone. She was talking quietly, and I heard her daughter’s name, Abby, a lot.
I didn’t want to barge in on her. I knew that she was still having problems with Abby, as far as her having a drug problem. Not that Abby had backslid, but Harper was paranoid that she would, so she was on top of her all the time. They were going through family counseling, and I knew that Harper was finding out that not only was Abby having problems in school, she was also having nightmares about her mother being murdered. From what Harper told me, she had suppressed this all this time. That was why she was so shy and withdrawn before. Rina apparently had a different way of dealing with her mother’s murder. She dealt with her mother’s death by being boisterous and loud and acting like she didn’t give a damn about it. But I knew that she, too, was affected, as much as Abby was.
Since Abby tended to keep her feelings bottled in, she was at a much higher risk of becoming addicted to drugs than her sister was. She was also much more prone to being depressed then her sister was. Harper had confided all of this to me, and I had a great deal of sympathy for her.
I knew what it was like dealing with a child who was sick, and, at the moment, I also knew what it was like dealing with a child who was emotionally unbalanced. Ever since Amelia found out that she possibly was not my daughter, she had been acting out. Acting out in school, and acting out at home. She was becoming a disciplinary problem in both places, and I was at my wit’s end. She was in a private school and she was possibly going to be expelled from that school. She was starting fights on the playground, she was cussing at her teachers, and she even cussed out the principal. We were going to do family counseling of our own, and I got a recommendation from Harper who told me that her therapist, Dr. Morrow, was one of the best in the business. I had an appointment with Dr. Morrow for the following week.
Harper looked up at me, and put her finger up. I nodded my head. She hung up the phone, and smiled. “Sit down, sit down,” she said. “What’s going on?”
“How are things? How’s Abby?”
“Abby is Abby. I just can’t believe that I didn’t see it. I just can’t believe that I didn’t figure out that the real reason why she was doing drugs is because of what happened to her mother. How awful is it to lose your mother at such a young age, and so violently? Of course she was affected by what happened. Of course she was. Anybody would be. Anyhow, the counseling is coming along okay. I’m finding out a lot about the girls, and their feelings about what happened to their mom. Abby started to open up, and her sister has been telling me that she and Abby have grown very close within the last few months. So I guess there was a blessing in what was going on with the girls.”
“There’s always a blessing. In just about anything that happens, there’s a blessing.” I didn’t tell Harper about what was going on with me and Amelia yet. I didn’t know how to put that into words. I didn’t want to acknowledge, even to myself, that I was probably going to lose her. I couldn’t face that, so I didn’t tell anybody about it.
“So, what brings you here?” Harper asked. “You look kind of worried.”
I took a deep breath. “I don’t know how to tell you this, except to come out and tell you. But Heather is possibly in trouble.”
Harper blinked rapidly. “Oh God, why? What’s going on with her? Is she drug running again? Goddammit, I told her not to do that anymore. I told her that she was going to get caught for that. Don’t tell me, she came to you to represent her because she got busted for drug running. Is that it?”
“No, that’s not it.”
“Then what is it? What happened?”
Another deep breath. “She’s in trouble, because…”
Harper’s face changed. “This is about the Reverend Scott, isn’t it? I’ve been reading in the news that he’s been missing for the past few weeks. He didn’t show up for his trial, and people who knew him were telling the police that he’s been gone a while. This has something to do with him, doesn’t it?”
“Yes. It does.” I didn’t know how Harper changed gears so quickly, but she certainly did hit the bulls-eye rather quickly. I was impressed.
“Oh, God. Please tell me that she didn’t kill him. Please.” Harper hung her head. “Heather has been like a third daughter to me. I’ve always felt very maternal towards her. She’s so lost, and she has such a hard shell. But underneath it all, there’s a good woman in there. She’s gone through so much in her life. Please tell me that she’s not going to have to go to prison for something like killing Reverend Scott. Not that he didn’t have it coming, because if anybody in the world needed to be killed, it was him.”
“Heather won’t go to prison if I can help it.”
“So did she hire you to be her attorney?” Harper looked hurt. “I don’t know why she came to you to hire. Why didn’t she just come to me? In fact, why didn’t
she tell me anything about any of this? All this time, and she never mentioned a word about it.”
“Well, I think that she didn’t want to disappoint you. But no, I’m not representing her.”
“Who is representing her, then? Who did you find for her?”
“Nobody. As of now, nobody knows what she did. In fact, I don’t even know exactly what she did. She told me a story, but I think that it was a lie. I think that she was covering up for somebody. What I think happened was that her mother, Louisa Garrison, killed the Reverend and Heather took the fall for it. What happened was that my current client, Beck Harrison, helped Heather get rid of the body. Heather told Beck that she was the one who killed the guy. The story that she gave me, and I believe the story that she gave Beck, was that the Reverend Scott came into her house with a gun. She struggled with the Reverend to get the gun out of his hand, the gun went off, and he was killed. At least that’s the story that she told me. The real story, I think, is something else. I don’t quite know what, but the story that she told me doesn’t make any sense.”
Harper shook her head. “No, it’s not making sense. She knows better than that. She knows that she has a right to kill Reverend Scott if he’s threatening her or somebody else, or if he was just in their house. Even if he was in their house without a gun, she had the right to kill him. All she had to do was call the cops.”
“I know that. What she told me was that she was afraid that she was a two-time loser, and that the police would never believe her. Or the jury would never believe her. So she panicked, and she enlisted Beck to help her bury the body in the Arizona desert. Now, I think that the story is something else. I think it’s much more serious. At any rate, Beck has the goods on her, and he told me that he’s more than willing to serve her up on a platter, if his case goes south.”
“And what is his case?”
“His case is that he’s accused of killing a transgendered woman, Adele Whittier. I admit that his case is a dead dog loser. At least, at the moment it is.”
“Why is it a dead loser?”
“It’s a dead dog loser because, number one, he confessed to the crime. He claimed that he confessed after he asked for an attorney and he was refused. They kept questioning him. He told me that he knew his rights, and that he figured that if he gave them a confession after he asked for an attorney and his request was refused, the confession would be thrown out. Which is true. If we can prove that he asked for an attorney, and it was refused, that confession is going to be gone. That’s the rub – we have to prove that that happened.”
“Why did he confess?”
“He told me he confessed because the cops were telling him that they got the goods on his younger brother, Matt, who is 15 years old. Beck knows that he’s been dealing drugs, and the cops know that too. They told Beck that if he confessed to the murder of Adele, they wouldn’t press charges against his younger brother. He figured that since he asked for an attorney and was refused, his confession wouldn’t be valid, so he might as well sign the confession to get his brother out of trouble.”
“I suppose that’s reasonable. Any other reason why he would confess? Was he coerced?”
“No. Unless you consider the fact that they were offering his brother’s freedom in exchange for his confession to be coercion, but that’s not really the case. It’s on the line, but not over it. And, as it turned out, it was a lie. The brother wasn’t really in trouble. So, the cops lied to him. What’s new?”
“So that’s how you’re going to get the confession thrown out? We have to show that the cops violated his Miranda Rights? Is that it? Is there anything else about this case that’s going to be challenging?”
“That’s one reason why I think that the case is a loser, but that’s not the only reason why.”
“What other reasons do you think that?”
“Well, Adele’s body was found by his apartment complex, and the story was that he and Adele were at the Zoo Bar, and they went out to his car to mess around. He said that he felt a lump in her crotch, and that was when he kicked her out of the car. In other words, he said that he didn’t take her home, so how did her body end up next to his apartment complex? And no, she doesn’t live around him, either.”
Harper nodded her head. “Well, I suppose it’s pretty obvious. Somebody had it in for Beck, and also wanted to kill Adele. For whatever reason. That’s usually how these cases go – somebody kills somebody else and frames another person who they’re mad at. So, as usual, you have to look for the intersection between who might have had it in for Beck, and, at the same time, had it in for Adele. Now you say that Adele was a transgendered woman? Is that right?”
“Yeah. She was.”
“Well, I suppose you can look for somebody who has it in for Beck, who might or might not have known Adele. As long as the person has a hatred for transgendered people, that would be two birds with one stone right there. Tell me a little bit about this Beck person. What’s his background?”
“He was imprisoned for 5 years. Rob One. While he was in there, he joined the Aryan Brotherhood. He told me that the reason why he joined was for protection. He said he was getting jumped by black guys inside, and he needed protection. So he became a part of that gang.”
“Okay. Well that’s not tragic. From what I understand, the official creed of the Aryan Brotherhood has nothing against LGBTQ. They’re mainly focused on racial differences, and, at the moment, they’re also a part of organized crime. You probably know this. You were in prison.”
“Yeah, I know that. I knew quite a few people in the Aryan Brotherhood when I was in the joint myself, and you’re right, for the most part, they could care less about gay people or transgendered people. Regardless, because he has been involved in a hate group, prosecutors were able to charge it as a hate crime. So that’s another wrinkle in the case.”
“What else do you know about this Beck person? What does he do for a living?”
“He works for a sanitation plant. So you might say that he has a shitty job.” I laughed. “Sorry, bad pun.”
Harper laughed as well. “But it was funny. Anything else you can tell me? I mean after all, if he was part of the Aryan Brotherhood, he’s probably involved in some kind of activities on the outside. You should look into that. See if he’s got any connections with drug runners or things like that.”
“Well, I know he has at least one connection, and that’s Charlie, Heather’s ex-boyfriend. Charlie was the one who sent Beck over to Heather’s house, when Heather called Charlie to come and help her get rid of Reverend Scott’s body. So, Beck and Charlie are friends. I don’t know what that means, necessarily, but I suppose it’s a good bet that Beck is probably into drug running on the side.”
“Find out what you can about him,” Harper said. “Of course, the problem is that since Adele was transgendered, it could very well have been a random person who killed her. There are a lot of people out there who have it in for transgendered people. And obviously you can possibly narrow it down by finding out who in Beck’s circle would have done something like that, because she ended up outside his apartment complex.”
“I agree. Do you want to second-chair this?”
“That goes without saying. Of course I do. I don’t know how Heather will feel about that, however. After all, she didn’t come to me to tell me about what was going on. She’s probably too embarrassed to tell me about what kind of trouble she’s in. But that’s okay. I’ll let her know that I love her unconditionally. Maybe she’ll tell me the truth about what happened to the Reverend Scott if she knows that I won’t judge her.”
“I don’t think she’ll tell you the truth about that,” I said. “You’re not her attorney. I’m not her attorney, either. I can’t be her attorney, because of the conflict of interest issue. And, since you’re in the same office as me, you can’t be her attorney either. So, if she told either one of us the truth, we’re going to have to testify against her if it came to that. We can be compelled. The story
that she gave me indicated that she committed a crime, but not a serious one. What she told me was that she helped dispose of the body. On the facts of what she told me, however, it wasn’t murder, which is why she felt comfortable enough to tell me about it. However, I think the truth is much more serious than that. I have a feeling that there’s a first degree murder involved in this whole scenario, and there’s no way she’s going to tell either of us about that.”
Harper looked pensive when I said these things to her. She looked down. “You’re right. Of course. She would be open to liability if she tells either of us the truth. I don’t think that we should try to find out the truth. It’s not our business. And, I think that you can agree, that that guy got what was coming to him.” She chuckled. “That’s been the story lately, hasn’t it? Victims who are better off dead. Sometimes, you just want to give a person a medal for killing somebody like your father or the Reverend Scott. He was definitely somebody who needed to be dead.” She nodded her head. “Some people just need to be dead. That’s a fact of life. Reverend Scott was one of those people, as was your father.”
“Well, I thought I would just tell you about what’s going on with my case.”
Harper sighed. “We have to win this. We have to win this, or else Heather is going to be in big trouble. So we’re going to have to really throw ourselves into this. Leave no stone unturned. If Beck doesn’t get convicted for murdering Adele, then he won’t have any reason to roll on Heather for anything.”
“True. So yes, I’m going to have to throw everything I can into this case. And you will too. You’ll help me, right?”
“Goes without saying.” She shook her head. “If Heather gets in trouble, I don’t know what I’ll do. I’ll feel like I lost one of my daughters.”
When she said that, it was like she stabbed me in the heart. After all, I was possibly the one who really was going to lose my daughter. Not to cancer – thank God, she was still in remission– but to Baron Wicker.
The Hate Crime Page 7
