by Angela Hunt
“You’re an attorney?”
“From Chicago. I’m representing Erin Tomassi on a murder charge.”
He tosses her card back over the counter. “I don’t know anyone by that name.”
“I believe you knew her as Erin Wilson. You were in college together at Chicago State University.”
Briley watches as memory hardens his eyes. “I didn’t know her well.”
“You filed a complaint against her with the school authorities.”
“I dropped that complaint.”
“Please, Mr. Haddock.” Briley sets her purse on the counter and leans toward him. “I’m not here to make trouble for you. But I need some honest answers.”
“I don’t want to get involved in any trial, and I don’t have time to go up to Chicago.”
“If you don’t have knowledge of the present case, you won’t have to. But I need to understand a few things about my client’s history, and I believe you can help me.”
Haddock turns to the young woman who’s pretending not to listen from a few feet away. “Nona, I’ll be in my office.”
“Okay, Doug.”
Briley feels the prick of the young woman’s eyes as she steps behind the counter and follows Haddock to a small office at the back of the building. He lifts a stack of real estate brochures from the only guest chair and offers her a seat.
“Thanks.”
He settles himself behind the desk and picks up a pencil. “What can I tell you? I really didn’t know Erin Wilson. I met her at a party one night, she came back to my dorm. Next thing I know, she’s breaking a lamp over my head. I had to get stitches—cost me ninety bucks to get sewn up at the emergency room.” He lifts an uneven section of hair and points to his forehead. “See that scar? Three stitches to close up the gash she left me with. That’s thirty bucks a stitch.”
Briley peers at the faint red line. “Why did she hit you?”
“How should I know? The girl was crazy. She came on all sweet and clingy at the party, but she sure changed once she got back to my room. It was like she was a different person.”
“Did you ever date her again?”
“Why should I date a wildcat?”
“I assume that’s a no.” Briley pulls her notebook from her purse. “Did you have a roommate?”
His eyes narrow. “Why?”
“I thought maybe your roommate drove you to the emergency room. You must have been in quite a bit of pain. And head wounds bleed like nobody’s business.”
“Tell me about it.” He grunts. “After I got stitched up, I filed the complaint, because I wanted my ninety bucks reimbursed. But a few hours later, I was ready to let it go. Considering all the other shenanigans that went on in my dorm, three stitches was really no big deal.”
“You were willing to forget about ninety bucks after only a couple of hours?” She whistles. “Your college budget must have been a lot more flexible than mine.”
“Uh…I must have figured my insurance would cover it.”
Briley searches the man’s eyes. He may be telling the truth, but it’s not likely that a man who can still remember the cost per stitch would easily forgive a debt.
Briley hesitates, pen poised over the paper. “Your roommate’s name?”
Haddock frowns. “He wouldn’t remember any of this.”
“Maybe not. But Erin remembers the incident—just not quite the way you do. Mostly she remembers that a young man made trouble for her in her sophomore year.”
Haddock shakes his head. “You know, I’m not sure I remember that guy’s name. I moved off campus the next year.”
“That’s fine, then.” Briley closes her notebook. “I’m sure the college will have a record of dorm residents. They should be able to find your roommate’s name and address in only a couple of minutes.”
“John Savage.” Haddock lifts his head. “I just remembered. I think he was from Elgin.”
“Thank you, Mr. Haddock.” Briley stands and offers her hand. “I appreciate your cooperation.”
On the drive back to Chicago, Briley calls William, who uses the Internet to track down two John Savages in Elgin, Illinois. Only one is the right age, so Briley recites his number into the car’s hands-free system and hopes she’s found the right man.
Unbelievably, Mr. Savage picks up on the first ring. “Yeah?”
“I’m looking for the John Savage who used to room with Doug Haddock at Chicago State,” Briley explains. “Do I have the right number?”
The man laughs. “Sure do. Are you his wife or his girlfriend?”
“Neither, I’m a defense attorney. A few minutes ago I was talking to Doug about the night Erin Wilson hit him over the head with a lamp. He said you drove him to the emergency room.”
“Oh, man.” Savage groans. “Has she finally pressed charges against him?”
“Actually, I’m defending Erin in another matter. I’m trying to gather a few details about significant events in her history.”
“I really didn’t know her.” The man hesitates. “Actually, I’ve always felt bad about that night. It’s been preying on my conscience.”
“Oh?” Briley reaches for the digital recorder in the passenger seat and clicks it on. “You want to tell me about it? I’m recording this, by the way.”
“This isn’t—I’m not going to get Doug in trouble, am I?”
“That’s not likely. Erin is too busy dealing with her current problems to worry about something that happened in college.”
When Savage hesitates, Briley wonders for a moment if she’s lost the connection.
“We were all at this bar,” Savage finally says, “and Doug spies Erin, who was just his type, a real hottie. We talk to her awhile, and when she’s not looking, Doug slips her a roofie.”
Briley tightens her grip on the steering wheel. “He didn’t.”
“Yeah, he did. The girl gets as high as a kite, then we all go back to the dorm and the girl—Erin—passes out. Doug puts her on the bed and goes into the bathroom. I don’t want anything to do with what he’s planning, so I’m in the corner, rummaging in the minifridge for a beer and planning to leave. But the next thing I know, Doug’s stepped out of the bathroom and the girl is awake, up, and swinging a lamp like it’s the bottom of the ninth and bases are loaded.”
Briley turns on her blinker and slants toward the exit lane. “I’m sure Doug was surprised.”
Savage grunts in affirmation. “That’s the understatement of the year. The girl runs out the door while Doug writhes on the bed, carrying on like she’s killed him. He’s bleeding like a stuck boar, but when we get to the E.R. they clean up the blood and we see that the wound is really just a slice. I think it only took three or four stitches to sew him up.”
“And…what happened to Erin?”
“We never saw her again. Doug was so ticked about the money he went down to file charges with campus security, but later I told him that she must have seen him slip the drug into her drink. She couldn’t have swallowed it, or she’d have been out cold for hours. So he dropped the charges and we tried to forget the whole thing.”
A moment of silence spills over the line, then Savage clears his throat. “I know it was a lousy thing he did.”
“It was a lousy thing you both did,” Briley says. “Because you helped him carry her to your room, you could have been charged as an accessory to attempted rape.”
Another interval of silence, then Savage adds, “Whoever said confession was good for the soul…was wrong.”
“It’s not the confession that makes you feel better.” Briley stops at an intersection and stares at the traffic ahead. “It’s forgiveness…and for that, you need to talk to Erin Wilson.”
She thanks him for his time, then disconnects the call and turns toward the office. Dr. Lu may not believe Erin is capable of violence, but Doug Haddock and John Savage have witnessed a display of her temper, and so have several inmates at the Cook County Jail. Hard to believe that violence could reside in a woma
n so retiring and shy, but deep character often comes out when people are under pressure.
How deeply buried is Erin’s violent streak?
Chapter Thirty-One
In the doorway of the interview room, Erin rubs her wrists after the guard removes the handcuffs. At the table, her lawyer is already seated and frowning at a page filled with handwritten notes.
Well…at least the woman has been doing something while she rots in jail.
She pulls out the cracked plastic chair at the opposite side of the table. “Hi,” she says, her voice flat. “Long time, no see.”
Finally, Briley looks up and meets her gaze. “How are you feeling? I heard you were involved in some trouble this weekend.”
The lawyer knew? And yet she did nothing. Obviously Erin’s name is not at the top of this woman’s priority list.
She pushes a stray hank of hair out of her eyes. “I’m surviving. Nobody’s about to vote me Miss Congeniality, but—” She shrugs. “I shouldn’t complain. I can stand this place for as long as it takes to get through the trial.”
The lawyer smiles, but with a distracted, inward look, like a parent who’s afraid to make promises she can’t keep.
Erin looks away. “Did you have a nice Christmas?”
“Um…yes. And you?”
Erin rolls her eyes. “Jolly. The Baptists came in and sang carols. New Year’s was fun, too. In honor of the holiday, someone taped a poster of fireworks to the cafeteria wall. We got to stare at it for almost ten minutes before someone ripped it down.”
Briley says nothing, but beneath the smooth surface of her face Erin sees a suggestion of movement, as if opposite impulses were battling beneath a protective layer. Finally, Briley’s impassive expression twists in a guilty grimace. “I know it’s been a while since I’ve come out to see you—”
“Twenty-one days,” Erin says.
Briley presses her lips together. “You may not believe this, but I am working hard on your case. I’ve had to do most of the footwork myself. I’ve also had to try to keep my boss happy, and he shipped me off to Seattle for three days—”
“I’m not complaining.” Erin winces at the lawyer’s defensive tone. “I know you’re busy. I don’t expect you to put your life on hold because of me.”
“Listen.” Briley’s eyes soften. “You don’t have to always settle for the bottom of the barrel. You’re my client, and I am going to do whatever I can to help you. Unfortunately, you’re not going to see most of my efforts on your behalf.”
Erin shifts her gaze to her hands. “Let’s just get down to work, shall we?”
Briley takes an audible breath, then gestures toward the scrawled legal pad on the table and picks up her pen. “I’ve been conducting a background investigation. I’ve come up with some interesting information—and some contradictions I need to ask you about.”
Erin rubs her chilly arms. “I don’t know that I’d call my life interesting.”
“A lot of people would. You’ve been given a lot of opportunities, met a lot of influential people….”
“Those were Jeffrey’s friends.” Erin hunches forward in her chair. “If not for him, I would never have gone anywhere or met anyone.”
“I met your mother.” Briley’s faint smile holds a touch of sadness. “I learned…we actually have a lot in common.”
Erin stares, momentarily speechless with surprise.
“I grew up in a single-parent home, too,” Briley continues, “but it was my mother who died when I was little. My father managed to stick around until I was fifteen.”
“Did he abandon you?”
“He was taken.” When Briley looks at Erin this time, something fragile has entered her eyes. “An ex-con killed him, five days before Christmas.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“So am I.”
When Briley swallows hard, Erin senses a fleeting camaraderie. For a moment, at least, they are not lawyer and client, but women bound by the shadow of loss.
An instant later, the lawyer returns. Briley flips the page on her legal pad and props one elbow on the table. “Yesterday I had an interesting encounter with a man you knew in college. Do you remember meeting Doug Haddock or John Savage? They were students at Chicago State at the same time you attended.”
Erin sifts through fractured memories. “Were they in one of my classes?”
“They claim they met you at a bar. I don’t know if the bar was memorable, but before the night was over, you sent Doug to the emergency room. He says—and his friend verifies—that you hit him over the head with a lamp.”
Erin grips the table as surprise siphons the blood from her brain. “They said I did what?”
“Surely you remember.” Briley’s eyes scan Erin’s face like laser beams. “Doug filed charges against you with campus security. You mentioned that trouble to Dr. Lu.”
Erin shakes her head, as stunned as if she’d been zapped with a cattle prod. “I remember the trouble, but I never understood what I was supposed to have done. I got a letter telling me to report to the campus security station, but by the time I got there, the guard on duty told me the charges had been dropped. He said it must have been some kind of mistake, so I figured that’s all it was—a mistake.”
The lawyer’s eyes narrow. “You don’t remember meeting Doug Haddock?”
Why is this so important? At the look in Briley’s eyes, Erin struggles against a surge of momentary doubt. She has seen a man’s face, the forehead streaked with blood…. No, that must have been a dream. She shakes her head. “I met lots of guys.”
“You went back to the dorm with this one and his friend. Apparently you three got pretty chummy.”
“I don’t remember that.”
Briley taps her pen against the tabletop. “The roommate, John Savage, says Doug slipped you a roofie. You passed out soon after arriving at the dorm.”
“If I passed out, how could I remember anything? Honestly, I don’t recall either of those guys. Maybe a picture would jog my memory, but right now those names mean nothing to me.”
Briley glances at her notes. “The roommate, Savage, says you woke up and hit Doug in the head with a lamp. What I’m wondering is how you could do that if you were unconscious…and why you don’t remember anything.” She leans back, a speculative look on her face. “Has anyone ever told you that you walk in your sleep?”
Baffled, Erin shakes her head. “No.”
“Have you ever awakened in a strange place? Ever had memory lapses you can’t explain?”
“No!”
Her voice is sharper and louder than before, but the lawyer doesn’t flinch. Instead, she underlines something on her legal pad. “I suppose I should share this story with Dr. Lu. It could establish grounds for a workable defense.”
Unnerved by the sudden change in topic, Erin huddles in her seat. “What kind of defense are you talking about?”
“The case theory I want to use claims you aren’t guilty because you were unaware of your actions. The ‘sleepwalking’ defense has been used before—sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. In your case, I think it’ll work. But I’ll have to file a brief and argue that the parasomnia is involuntary, even though you took sleeping pills—”
Erin’s breath catches in her lungs. “You think I did it.”
“That’s not what I said.”
“You want to tell the jury I did it.”
“That’s not what I’m saying at all.”
“It is! You want to say I did it, but I didn’t. I didn’t walk in my sleep, and I didn’t kill Jeffrey.”
“How do you know that?”
Erin sits motionless, stunned at the inscrutable expression on her lawyer’s face. Briley Lester has been working hard, all right, trying on one defense after the other because she doesn’t believe Erin’s story about Lisa Marie. If her own lawyer can’t believe her, who can?
After a painful moment of realization, Erin stands and moves toward the door. “I’m ready to go back to
my cell.”
“I wouldn’t advise you to walk out now. We have other matters to discuss.”
“Why? You don’t believe me, and I’ll never be acquitted if you don’t. If I’m willing to trust the lawyer who warned me she wasn’t good enough to handle my case, why can’t you believe in me?”
“The law doesn’t work like that. And I never said I wasn’t good enough.”
“It’s what you meant.” Erin pounds on the door. “Guard! I’m done in here.”
“Stop it.” Briley stands and strides to her side. “There are rules, you know. It’s improper for an attorney to voice her personal belief in a client’s innocence. In the courtroom, that could be construed as inappropriately attempting to sway a jury.”
“I didn’t ask you to voice your belief to a jury.” Erin spits the words like stones. “I asked you to believe in me. Obviously, you don’t.”
Briley leans closer, lines of concentration deepening under her eyes. “I don’t know how much you know about the crime-scene evidence, Erin, but we’re not going to be able to pin this murder on anyone else. In your bathroom trash they found a syringe marked with your fingerprints, no one else’s. Your partial thumbprint is on the plunger, as clear as day. And you know what they say—seeing is believing.”
“Maybe they’ve got it backward. Maybe believing is seeing.”
Briley exhales in a rush. “You’re making no sense.”
“I’m making perfect sense. I didn’t kill Jeffrey, but you’re so blinded by what you see—”
“If you didn’t kill Jeffrey, then who did? And don’t give me that song and dance about Lisa Marie, because apart from you she doesn’t exist.”
The lawyer’s declaration rings in the silence, and Erin cannot answer. How can she explain? She knows Lisa Marie better than anyone, but she’s never been able to explain the friend she cannot see or touch or hear except with her heart….
Her lungs squeeze so tight she can barely draw breath, but she forces words over her tongue: “If you use that sleepwalking defense, everyone in the courtroom—my father-in-law, my brother-in-law, my sisters-in-law—they’ll all think I killed Jeffrey. They’ll think I wanted him dead, and I didn’t. Yes, he was abusive, but I didn’t want to kill him. I only wanted him to stop hurting me. I would have been happy to leave him if I could. He would have been better off without me, because I never knew how to make him happy.”
