A Twisted Path

by Steve Winshel

  “You think she did it?”

  Prole didn’t answer, just held his look. “What’s your interest, Furyk? You workin’ for someone? The family estate planner, maybe? Or you hopin’ to cater the trial?”

  Furyk didn’t really have a good answer, so he went with honesty. “When I was on the job, I got a call at the Wick place. Domestic dispute, but everything was fine when I got there.” Prole didn’t seem impressed so he kept going, not sure there was a punch line. “The husband answered the door, wife behind him. It was the kid who’d called 911. She was only six years old. I told them I had to check it out while my partner checked around the property. They didn’t really want anyone to come in, but I insisted.”

  Saying it out loud gave it weight, brought him back to that evening. He still couldn’t put his finger on it and telling Prole didn’t make it any easier. “I went in and the girl was in the kitchen. She was fine and said she’d called the police because Mommy and Daddy were fighting. I asked if they fought a lot and she was quick to say no, that’s why she’d called.”

  Prole was still looking at him like he was full of shit and lying to her. He took a breath and said the one thing no cop should ever say.

  “I had a hunch.” Prole should have laughed but didn’t. “The wife was fine, no marks, no bruises. She seemed a little mousey, not the take-charge kind. But she gave me a look, like she didn’t want me to leave. You’ve seen it, like she’s telling me ‘don’t go, he’s gonna hit me when you leave.’ But that wasn’t it. It was something else, like she didn’t even know she was telling me something. I remembered that look for a long time.”

  Prole just nodded and opened the door, sticking her head out and shouting a name. A couple seconds later a heavy, squat female guard with hair Furyk had only seen on middle-aged black women working at airport security lines, escorted Merrill Wick in. Merrill hadn’t changed into the elegant clothes she’d wear to the hearing in a few hours and the LA County Jail lettering on her jump suit sagged as though she’d lost weight off her already brittle frame. Prole observed from the door as Furyk watched the prisoner look around the room and note only one person there, not a visitor she was expecting. It had been more than ten years since Furyk had visited the Wick household and he guessed the aging process he saw now in Mrs. Wick had mostly taken place in the last three days, not the intervening years. Her features were still fine, the hair thin and pretty, the cheeks not high and sharp but gentle and suited to her face. Merrill’s eyes found Furyk’s and without hesitating a breath, her eyes widened slightly.

  “Hello, Officer Furyk.”

  Prole gave Furyk a hard glare and jerked her thumb at the guard, who followed her out.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Prole was furious with herself. Goddamn Furyk, smug bastard, acting like he owned her. She’d felt her face flush when he’d kissed her lightly on the cheek and she’d wanted to knee him in the groin. But she’d also liked it and that’s what pissed her off.

  It would be a waste of time to head back to the station since she’d just have to be back here in an hour to haul Wick to the hearing. The courthouse was only a mile and a half away but they’d have to cross two freeways and a lot of crowded downtown streets to get there. Normally the deputies handled transport and she wouldn’t even bother showing up until there was an evidentiary hearing, but this was high profile. Last thing she wanted was her face on TV, but worse would have been a circus that got out of hand and blame landing on her for not controlling the environment. The national media had picked up on the story – who knew what the hell caught their attention from day to day – and there were cameras parked outside the court building and a few at the jail waiting to catch a glimpse of the big bad Merrill Wick so they could slo-mo it repeatedly during the 6:00 news. Prole had real police work to do, clues to find and all that, and babysitting wasn’t making her happy. Mrs. Wick was looking like the mouse that roared – quiet little thing doing her wifely duties for a decade or so but seething underneath. Prominent husband, daughter who was daddy’s favorite – a real piece of work, Prole had found the girl to be after a follow-up conversation with the attorney Margolin hovering nearby – and something had snapped in the wife. Maybe the husband banged one too many secretaries or told her how to hang the bathroom towels without appreciating all her hard work. Who knew. She snapped and poked him full of holes like a piece of new sod. Too dopy to even clean up before the cops showed, staying hunched over the body while the daughter walked in and caught an eyeful that would last her through the bad marriage and alcoholic future that probably awaited her. Wick must have wanted to see the last breath squeeze out of the cheating bastard. Not exactly open and shut, but in the absence of any alternative, you go with what you stumble across. She figured the lawyer would go for temporary insanity, maybe the Brentwood Rich Bitch defense. Or delayed post-partum depression, whatever. Maybe Wick was just nuts and flipped. Either way, there’d be plenty for the talking heads and shrinks to yap about. So Prole had to dig more and make sure she could slam the door on this.

  She headed to the dingy wooden door down the hall from the interview room where the smell of burning coffee got stronger. The door opened before she could bang on it and a heavy deputy leading with his belly appraised her before recognizing her as his superior and kept going, pushing open the self-locking door for her. She went into the break room where a middle-aged uniformed Sheriff’s deputy slouched on a faded red Naugahyde couch in the middle of a space that was no larger than a small hotel room. His feet, up on the cracked linoleum surface of the long coffee table, didn’t have his government-issued shoes on them. White socks with gold on the toes. He looked up from the day-old sports section folded and resting on his stomach and gave her a wide smile. A snarky smile and her mood worsened.

  “Hey, Detective, not surprised to see you here. I saw Furyk’s name on the visitor log.” He wasn’t making small talk but setting her up. He didn’t make detective and she did when they worked together in the LAPD and instead of turning into the gray-haired loser everyone knew couldn’t make the grade he’d switched to the Sheriff’s department right after. It’d been five years. “You still bangin’ him?”

  “That hooker on Figueroa still trading you hand-jobs for not running her in? And how’s the wife, shithead?” Prole watched the deep red starting at his neck work its way up. She should have left him there to stew alone, but she was in no mood and went for a Styrofoam cup and the ancient coffee maker instead. The deputy didn’t say another word, just slapped his paper around and breathed heavily until the tension in the room was thicker than the sludge in the bottom of Prole’s cup. He sat up and pulled on his shoes, not bothering to lace them before stomping to the door. She knew a parting shot was coming and she left her back to him so he could deliver it and escape. As the door started to swing shut after he pushed it open with his backside, he spewed the one word that made “bitch” seem like an endearment. The word stung Prole’s ears but she held still. The door clicked shut.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Margolin’s cell phone rang. He recognized the number and flipped it open while one hand stayed on the wheel. The traffic on the 10 freeway heading downtown had been pretty light the first few miles but it slammed to a stop at Vermont and now he was lucky if the speedometer crept over five miles per hour. The inside of the S-class Mercedes was as silent and filtered as a submarine a mile deep in the ocean. Except for the light background of the strains from a classical music CD he didn’t really like but thought important to listen to, there was nothing but the slight hum of the air conditioner.

  Deep breath and he pushed the Talk button to complete the connection. “Yes, Gerald.” The call waiting on his home line the previous night had been the Napoleonic little film director, Larry Brecker. That conversation had been comparatively easy. But this call was different. Gerald had heavy political clout.

  “What does it mean, Margolin? What does it mean to me?” No greeting, but the lawyer didn’t expect any.
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  “Nothing. Nothing at all. You just go about your day.” It sounded innocuous, but he needed to be more clear. “Nothing has changed and there is no cause for concern. But better if you don’t call me for a while.”

  There was silence on the other end and Margolin could feel him thinking, sense the man’s mind racing. He could almost smell the mix of fear and anger.

  “There better not be, there better be nothing to worry about. Because if there is, then…” The man was used to being listened to, used to being heeded. Margolin knew there was a threat there, lurking beneath the conversation, but it had to be unspoken. It was too early for threats and that would only lead to bigger problems. The traffic picked up a little and Margolin had to put some of his attention to the road. He lost the rhythm of the conversation for a second, and it made the impact all the harsher.

  “I’m telling you, Margolin, it better not be a problem. Because if it is, then you can be goddamned sure I’ll make it your problem and you’ll wish it had been you instead of Wick.” The words surprised him, the lack of subtlety, the directness of the threat. The gorge rose in his stomach and threatened to crawl up his throat. He could feel the burning in his esophagus. The phone, still against his ear, had the dull silence that told him the connection was gone. Angry now, with the first hint of fear he’d felt since Carl’s death, he instinctively looked in the rearview mirror. A motorcycle weaved between cars, riding the line dividing the freeway lanes in the way only California permitted. As the low-slung Harley approached the tail of the black sedan, Margolin didn’t edge to the left to make extra room for the bike to pass. Margolin didn’t even stay in the center of his own lane to keep the space between himself and the car in the lane to the right constant. With a small, sharp twist of the wheel he cut the space down to nothing and heard the squeal of rubber and looked back into the mirror to see the motorcycle swerve and break, almost losing balance and toppling in the quickening traffic. The rider righted his motorcycle and gunned through the space Margolin inadvertently created as he went back to the center of his own lane. Instead of slamming a fist into the Mercedes’ window or pulling out a handgun and shooting Margolin in the head, the rider passed quickly in order to get away from the lunatic and shook his head as he went by. Infuriated, Margolin extended his middle finger and twisted his face into an ugly grimace, pumping his outstretched hand with the fuck-you message so hard he almost cracked it against the windshield. Margolin sped up to get to Merrill’s hearing in time and still have a few minutes to let murderous thoughts dissipate.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The razor sliced into his neck, right below the jaw where the skin was starting to sag. He snapped shut the cell phone in his other hand and cursed the mirror that showed a quick pool of blood welling up in the quarter inch gash. Tossing the phone onto the sink he unwrapped the towel around his waist and blotted the blood, which only seemed to make it flow faster. A staccato string of epithets continued out of his mouth as he blamed the lawyer who’d told him not to worry. He reached for the styptic pencil that was supposed to instantly stop the bleeding from small, asinine cuts like this but as he dabbed the white stick at his face, it just became covered with blood. All he could do was press hard against the cut with the towel until the bleeding ebbed. Through the mirror he could see his wife walk into the master bedroom from the hallway and peer into the bathroom with a gentle smile on her face.

  “Honey, you should get a move on. The Council meeting is at 10:30 and I know you hate to be the one showing up late – especially with Sam breathing down your neck.”

  Stupid cow. She was at least 10 pounds heavier than when he’d married her, before the three kids and the thought of being desperate enough to have sex with her the previous night sickened him. He smiled back at her in the mirror. “Okay, sweetheart, I know. I’m just about there. A little cut, that’s all.”

  She started to move toward the bathroom, but he waved her off and pushed the door shut with his foot. “Just some coffee, please. I’ll be down in five minutes.” He said it before the door closed and he caught her sweet return smile beaming at him. The Councilman looked down at his naked body, thinking he wasn’t too shabby for a guy in his mid forties who spent more time being successful than working out, and thought about the soft, young flesh on the girl he’d been with two weeks ago. The thought faded as he looked at the cell phone next to the sink and he shot an expletive at Perry Margolin. He’d make the goddamn lawyer squirm if this didn’t go away.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  “I’m sorry to see you again under these circumstances, Mrs. Wick.” Furyk nodded to the chair in front of her but she either ignored him or was too surprised by his appearance to pick up on the gesture.

  Merrill looked down, embarrassed and suddenly very aware of her surroundings, her orange outfit and County sandals, and why she was here. Embarrassed because except for the family attorney, this man was the first visitor she’d had since Carl’s death.

  “It’s okay, Mrs. Wick. Go ahead and have a seat.” He didn’t go around the table to pull out the chair. The one-way mirror on the wall to his left gave a deputy, probably the woman who’d brought Wick in, a clear view of the room. California law was a little hazy on the point of listening in to visitors’ conversations with prisoners but there was no confusion about physical contact. The only reason the guard wasn’t in the room was probably because Prole had said it was okay. Merrill didn’t look up but pulled back the chair. The squeal of metal against concrete startled her. Sitting, she leaned her elbows on the table and hung her head over them, hair obscuring her face. Furyk sat and waited a moment until she looked up and pushed her hair behind her ears.

  “Are you here to interview me, Officer? My attorney says I’m not supposed to talk to anyone. I’m not supposed to say anything about that night. I’m sorry.” She gave him a wan smile, sincere and weak. “I don’t want to be rude, not to you since you were so nice.” She remembered clearly the sympathetic officer who’d come to the Wick home that evening and who’d asked a lot of gentle, slightly shaded, difficult questions. She’d answered them all honestly, but something in the way he had looked at her, had paused before leaving and not said anything for a moment, made her comfortable. Made her feel a little safer. She looked at him now and felt the same way. He was a few years older, a little more worn out than that night, but he looked just as strong – maybe stronger.

  “That’s okay, Mrs. Wick, I’m not here to do that. I’m not with the department anymore.” He could read the sequence of thoughts passing through her mind – surprise that he wasn’t a cop any more and then confusion about why he was there. He let it sit for a few seconds while he finished a mental evaluation of the woman in front of him. She seemed to be holding up pretty well, not breaking down or panicked. Either that had happened earlier or was down the road. The main thing he saw was a mild confusion – not disorientation from shock or being a fish so far out of water it might have been the moon they were on, but a lack of focus. No surprise, since she’d either just killed her husband or hadn’t but was being accused. A scratch around her left eye and some reddening on her neck told him she was learning jail wasn’t a slumber party. He’d say something to Prole.

  “Then…then, why are you here?” It was a simple question and he didn’t really have an answer. “You were very, well, you were…very kind…that evening. I – ” She ran out of words and just smiled instead. She felt lost and reverted to an attempt at small talk: “So, what are you doing now?” The incongruity of the innocuous question resounded off the walls.

  Furyk smiled quickly and instinctively. “I run a sandwich shop.” Merrill nodded as though they were at a cocktail party and he’d just told her he worked on Wall Street. “But I do a few things on the side.” She continued to nod, just as lost as she’d been when she’d walked in the room.

  “Mrs. Wick, did you kill your husband?” Her eyes widened and the cocktail party was gone. “I need to know, if I’m going to help.” She did
n’t ask the obvious question, about how an ex-cop with a temper and kind eye who made Hoagies for a living could help her out of the hell that was closing in on her, burning her skin and her lungs with the threat of a future in a cell. She looked down again, shoulders suddenly hunched, and the hair fell from behind her ears again. Furyk could only see the crown of her head and he waited. A drop fell to the table, and then another tear next to it, and they pooled together. But then no more. Merrill looked up, hair clinging to the moisture on her face, and caught his gaze. She was still slumped, looking beaten and lost, but the confusion in her eyes was gone.

  “No. No, I don’t think I did.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  An hour later Perry Margolin signed the visitor’s register at the LA County Jail to see Merrill before the hearing. He noticed the name three lines up – not a lot of people stopping by to visit loved ones in the middle of the week – of B. Furyk as a visitor to see prisoner M. Wick. It wasn’t a name he recognized.

  In the attorney’s interview room – different from the one Merrill had been in earlier, with no one-way mirror to invade the attorney-client privilege – Margolin sat with a Merrill Wick who looked different from the one Furyk had seen. Though no jewelry was permitted, the cream-colored silk suit was elegant and transformative. A little makeup covered the scratches around her eye and hid the gauntness of the cheeks that had settled in from not eating jail food. Ignoring the rules, Margolin pulled his chair next to hers and sat, knees touching, and put a hand on her shoulder.

  “Dear, this is just a preliminary hearing. We want the judge to give us a bail so you can get out of here and prepare your defense.” He noted the marks under the makeup and the pleading look on her face, but didn’t ask for specifics. Merrill saw him looking over her face and waited for him to ask what happened, how horrible had it been. He said nothing.