Enough Rope

by Lawrence Block

  “Drugs,” Ehrengraf said.

  “Hey, it’s like you said, Mr. Ehrengraf. Boys will be boys.”

  “Suppose you got hold of some of that EKG.”

  “Suppose I did? I’m innocent, Mr. Ehrengraf. You’re the one showed me how to see that. Anything I do, drunk or sober, straight or loaded, it’s going to be innocent. So what have I got to worry about?”

  He grinned disarmingly, but Ehrengraf was not disarmed. “I’m not sure EKG is a good idea for you,” he said carefully.

  “You could be right. But sooner or later it’ll be around, and I won’t be able to resist it. But so what? I can handle it.”

  Ehrengraf reached for the yellow legal pad, turned to a clean sheet, drew a line down the center of the page. “Here,” he said, handing the pad to McCandless. “This time I’d like you to work with a different affirmation.”

  “How about ‘I am a perfect child of God’? I sort of like the sound of that one.”

  “Let’s try something a little more specific,” Ehrengraf suggested. “Write, ‘I am through with EKG, now and forever.’ “

  McCandless frowned, shrugged, took the pad, and started writing. Ehrengraf, watching over his shoulder, read the responses as his client wrote them. I am through with EKG, now and forever. / You must be kidding . . . I am through with EKG, now and forever. / I love the way it makes me crazy . . . I am through with EKG, now and forever. / I’ll never give it up . . . I am through with EKG, now and forever. / What harm does it do? . . . I am through with EKG, now and forever. / I couldn’t resist it.

  “We have our work cut out for us,” Ehrengraf said. “But that only shows how deep the thought goes. Look at the self-image you had earlier, and look how you managed to turn it around.”

  “I know I’m innocent.”

  “And the world has changed to reflect the change in your own mental landscape. Once you became clear on your innocence, proof of it began to manifest in the world around you.”

  “I think I see what you mean.”

  Ehrengraf handed the legal pad back to his client. The process would work, he assured himself. Soon the mere thought of ingesting EKG would be anathema to young Dale McCandless.

  And that, Ehrengraf thought, would be all to the good. Because he had a feeling the world would be a kinder and gentler place for all if the innocent Mr. McCandless never ingested that particular chemical again.

  The Ehrengraf Reverse

  “I didn’t do it,” Blaine Starkey said.

  “Of course you didn’t.”

  “Everyone thinks I did it,” Starkey went on, “and I guess I can understand why. But I’m innocent.”

  “Of course you are.”

  “I’m not a murderer.”

  “Of course you’re not.”

  “Not this time,” the man said. “Mr. Ehrengraf, it’s not supposed to matter whether a lawyer thinks his client is guilty or innocent. But it matters to me. I really am innocent, and it’s important that you believe me.”

  “I do.”

  “I don’t know why it’s so important,” Starkey said, “but it just is, and—” He paused, and seemed to register for the first time what Ehrengraf had been saying all along. His big open face showed puzzlement. “You do?”

  “Yes.”

  “You believe I’m innocent.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “That’s pretty amazing, Mr. Ehrengraf. Nobody else believes me.”

  Ehrengraf regarded his client. Indeed, if you looked at the man’s record you could hardly avoid presuming him guilty. But once you turned your gaze into his cornflower-blue eyes, how could you fail to recognize the innocence gleaming there?

  Even if you didn’t believe the man, how would you have the nerve to tell him so? Blaine Starkey’s was, to say the least, an imposing presence. When you saw him on the television screen, catching a pass and racing downfield, breaking tackles as effortlessly as a politician breaks his word, you didn’t appreciate the sheer size of him. All the men on the field were huge, and your eye learned to see them as normal.

  In a jail cell, across a little pine table, you began to realize just how massive a man Blaine Starkey was. He stood as many inches over six feet as Ehrengraf stood under it, and was big in the shoulders and narrow in the waist, with thighs like tree trunks and arms like—well, words failed Ehrengraf. The man was enormous.

  “The whole world thinks I killed Claureen,” Starkey said, “and it’s not hard to see why. I mean, look at my stats.”

  His stats? Thousands of yards gained rushing. Hundreds of passes caught. No end of touchdowns scored. Ehrengraf, who was more interested in watching the action on the field than in crunching the numbers, knew nevertheless that the big man’s statistics were impressive.

  He also knew Starkey meant another set of stats.

  “I mean,” the man said, “it’s not like this never happened before. Three women, three coffins. Hell, Mr. Ehrengraf, if I was a hockey player they’d call it the hat trick.”

  “But it’s not hockey,” Ehrengraf assured him, “and it’s not football, either. You’re an innocent man, and there’s no reason you should have to pay for a crime you didn’t commit.”

  “You really think I’m innocent,” Starkey said.

  “Absolutely.”

  “That’s what everybody’s supposed to presume, until it’s proved otherwise. Is that what you mean? That I’m innocent for the time being, far as the law’s concerned?”

  Ehrengraf shook his head. “That’s not what I mean.”

  “You mean innocent no matter what the jury says.”

  “I mean exactly what you meant earlier,” the little lawyer said. “You didn’t kill your wife. You’re entirely innocent of her death, and the jury should never be in a position to say anything on the subject, because you should never be brought to trial. You’re an innocent man, Mr. Starkey.”

  The football player took a deep breath, and Ehrengraf was surprised that there was any air left in the cell. “That’s just so hard for me to believe.”

  “That you’re innocent?”

  “Hell, I know I’m innocent,” Starkey said. “What’s hard to believe is that you believe it.”

  But how could Ehrengraf believe otherwise? He fingered the knot in his deep blue necktie and reflected on the presumption of innocence—not the one which had long served as a cardinal precept of Anglo-American jurisprudence, but a higher, more personal principle. The Ehrengraf presumption. Any client of Martin H. Ehrengraf’s was innocent. Not until proven guilty, but until the end of time.

  But he didn’t want to get into a philosophical discussion with Blaine Starkey. He kept it simple, explaining that he only represented the innocent.

  The football player took this in. His face fell. “Then if you change your mind,” he said, “you’ll drop me like a hot rock. Is that about right?”

  “I won’t change my mind.”

  “If you get to thinking I’m guilty—”

  “I’ll never think that.”

  “But—”

  “We’re wasting time,” Ehrengraf told him. “We both know you’re innocent. Why dispute a point on which we’re already in agreement?”

  “I guess I really found the one man who believes me,” Starkey said. “Now where are we gonna find twelve more?”

  “It’s my earnest hope we won’t have to,” Ehrengraf said. “I rarely see the inside of a courtroom, Mr. Starkey. My fees are very high, but I have to earn them in order to receive them.”

  Starkey scratched his head “That’s what I’m not too clear on.”

  “It’s simple enough. I take cases on a contingency basis. I don’t get paid unless and until you walk free.”

  “I’ve heard of that in civil cases,” Starkey said, “but I didn’t know there were any criminal lawyers who operated that way.”

  “As far as I know,” Ehrengraf said, “I am the only one. And I don’t depend on courtroom pyrotechnics. I represent the innocent, and through my efforts thei
r innocence becomes undeniably clear to all concerned. Then and only then do I collect my fee.”

  And what would that be? Ehrengraf named a number.

  “Whole lot of zeroes at the end of it,” the football player said, “but it’s nothing to the check I wrote out for the Proud Crowd. Five of them, and they spent close to a year on the case, hiring experts and doing studies and surveys and I don’t know what else. A man can make a lot of money if he can run the ball and catch a pass now and then. I guess I can afford your fee, plus whatever the costs and expenses come to.”

  “The fee is all-inclusive,” Ehrengraf said.

  “If that’s so,” Starkey said, “I’d say it’s a bargain. And I only pay if I get off?”

  “And you will, sir.”

  “If I do, I don’t guess I’ll begrudge you your fee. And if I don’t, do I get my retainer back? Not that I’d have a great use for it, but—”

  “There’ll be no retainer,” Ehrengraf said smoothly. “I like to earn my money before I receive it.”

  “I never heard of anybody like you, Mr. Ehrengraf.”

  “There isn’t anyone like me,” Ehrengraf said. “I’ve thrilled to watch you play, and I don’t believe there’s anyone like you, either. We’re both unique.”

  “Well,” Starkey said.

  “And yet you’re charged with killing your wife,” Ehrengraf said smoothly. “Hard to believe, but there it is.”

  “Not so hard to believe. I’ve been tried twice for murder and got off both times. How many times can a man kill his wife and get away with it?”

  It was a good question, but Ehrengraf chose not to address it. “The first woman wasn’t your wife,” he said.

  “My girlfriend. Kate Waldecker. I was in my junior year at Texas State.” He looked at his hands. “We were in bed together, and one way or another my hands got around her neck.”

  “You engaged Joel Daggett as your attorney, if I remember correctly.”

  “The Bulldog,” Starkey said fondly. “He came up with this rough sex defense. Brought in witnesses to testify that Kate liked to be hurt while she was making love, liked to be choked half to death. Made her out to be real kinky, and a tramp in the bargain. I have to say I felt sorry for her folks. They were in tears through the trial.” He sighed. “But what else could he do? I mean, I got out of bed and called the cops, told everybody I did it. Daggett got the confession suppressed, but there was still plenty of evidence that I did it. He had to find a way to keep it from being murder.”

  “And he was successful. You were found not guilty.”

  “Yeah, but that was bullshit. Kate didn’t like it rough. Fact, she was always telling me to slow down, to be gentler with her.” He frowned. “Hard to say what happened that night. We’d been arguing earlier, but I thought I was over being mad about that. Next thing I knew she was dead and I was unhooking my hands from around her throat. I always figured the steroids I was taking might have had something to do with it, but maybe not. Maybe I just got carried away and killed her. Anyway, Daggett saw to it that I got away with it.”

  “You didn’t go back for your senior year.”

  “No, I turned pro right after the trial. I would have liked to get my degree, but I didn’t figure they’d cheer as hard for me after I’d killed a fellow student. Besides, I had a big legal bill to pay, and that’s where the signing bonus went.”

  “You went with the Wranglers.”

  “I was their first-round draft choice and I was with them for four seasons. Born in Texas, went to school in Texas, and I thought I’d play my whole career in Texas. Married a Texas girl, too. Jacey was beautiful, even if she was hell on wheels. High-strung, you know? Threw a glass ashtray at me once, hit me right here on the cheekbone. Another inch and I might have lost an eye.” He shook his head. “I figured we’d get divorced sooner or later. I just wanted to stay married to her until I got tired of, you know, goin’ to bed with her. But I never did get tired of her that way, or divorced from her, either, and then the next thing I knew she was dead.”

  “She killed herself.”

  “They found her in bed, with bruises on her neck. And they picked me up at the country club, where I was sitting by myself in the bar, hitting the bourbon pretty good. They hauled me downtown and charged me with murder.”

  “You didn’t give a statement.”

  “Didn’t say a word. I knew that much from my first trial. Of course I couldn’t get the Bulldog this time, on account of he was dead. Lee Waldecker walked up to him in a restaurant in Austin about a year after my acquittal, shot him in front of a whole roomful of people. I guess he never got over the job Daggett did on his sister’s reputation. He said he could almost forgive me, because all I did was kill Kate, but what Daggett did to her was worse than murder.”

  “He’s still serving his sentence, isn’t he?”

  “Life without parole. A jury might have cut him loose, or slapped him on the wrist with a short sentence, but he went and pleaded guilty. Said he did it in front of witnesses on purpose, so he wouldn’t have some lawyer twisting the truth.”

  “So you got a whole team of lawyers,” Ehrengraf said. “The press made up a name for them.”

  “The Proud Crowd. Each one thought he was the hottest thing going, and they spent a lot of time just cutting each other apart. And they sure weren’t shy about charging for their services. But I’d made a lot of money all those years, and I figured to make a lot more if I kept on playing, and the Wranglers wanted to make sure I had the best possible defense.”

  “Not rough sex this time.”

  “No, I don’t guess you can get by with that more than once. What’s funny is that Jacey did like it rough. Matter of fact, there weren’t too many ways she didn’t like it. If the Bulldog was around, and if I hadn’t already used that defense once already, rough sex would have had me home free. Jacey was everything Daggett tried to make Kate look like, and there would have been dozens of people willing to swear to it.”

  “As it turned out,” Ehrengraf said, “it was suicide, wasn’t it? And the police tampered with the evidence?”

  “That was the line the Proud Crowd took. There were impressions on her neck from a large pair of hands, but they dug up a forensics expert who testified that they’d been inflicted after death, like somebody’d strangled her after she’d already been dead for some time. And they had another expert testify that there were rope marks on her neck, underneath the hand prints, suggesting she’d hanged herself and been cut down. There were fibers found on and near the corpse, and another defense expert matched them to a rope that had been retrieved from a Dumpster. And they found residue of talcum powder on the rope, and another expert testified that it was the same kind of talcum powder Jacey used, and had used the day of her death.”

  “So many experts,” Ehrengraf murmured.

  “And every damn one of ’em sent in a bill,” Starkey said, “but I can’t complain, because they earned their money. According to the Proud Crowd, Jacey hanged herself. I came home, saw her like that, and just couldn’t deal with it. I cut her down and tried to revive her, then lost it and went to the club to brace myself with a few drinks while I figured out what to do next. Meantime, a neighbor called the cops, and as far as they were concerned I was this old boy who made a couple million dollars a year playing a kid’s game, and already put one wife in the ground and got away with it. So they made sure I wouldn’t get away with it a second time by taking the rope and losing it in a Dumpster, and pressing their hands into her neck to make it look like manual strangulation.”

  “And is that how it happened?”

  Starkey rolled his eyes. “How it happened,” he said, “is we were having an argument, and I took this hunk of rope and put it around her neck and strangled the life out of her.”

  Ehrengraf winced.

  “Don’t worry,” his client went on. “Nobody can hear us, and what I tell you’s privileged anyway, and besides it’d be double jeopardy, because twelve people alre
ady decided they believed the Proud Crowd’s version. But they must have been the only twelve people in the country who bought it, because the rest of the world figured out that I did it. And got away with it again.”

  “You were acquitted.”

  “I was and I wasn’t,” he said. “Legally I was off the hook, but that didn’t mean I got my old life back. The Wranglers put out this press release about how glad they were that justice was served and an innocent man exonerated, but nobody would look me in the eye. First chance they got, they traded me.”

  “And you’ve been with the Mastodons ever since.”

  “And I love it here,” he said. “I don’t even mind the winters. Back when I played for the Wranglers I hated coming up here for late-season games, but I got so I liked the cold weather. You get used to it.”

  Ehrengraf, a native, had never had to get used to the climate. But he nodded anyway.

  “At first,” Starkey said, “I thought about quitting. But I owed all this money to the Proud Crowd, and how was I going to earn big money off a football field? I lost my endorsements, you know. I had this one commercial, I don’t know if you remember it, where Minnie Mouse is sitting on my lap and sort of flirting with me.”

  “You were selling a toilet-bowl cleaner,” Ehrengraf recalled.

  “Yeah, and when they dropped me I figured that meant I wasn’t good enough to clean toilets. But what choice did they have? People were saying things like you could just about see the marks on Minnie’s neck. Long story short, no more commercials. So what was I gonna do but play?”

  “Of course.”

  “Besides, I was in my mid-twenties and I loved the game. Now it’s ten years later and I still love it. I got Cletis Braden breathing down my neck, trying to take my job away, but I figure it’s gonna be a few more years before he can do it. Love the city, live here year round, wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. Love the house I bought. Love the people, even love the winters. Snow? What’s so bad about snow?”