Silent Son

by Gallatin Warfield

  The aircraft burbled in an updraft, and Gardner’s head tapped against the window. His thoughts suddenly jumped to Granville. Carole had no reason to stay away now. He’d begged her mother to send them home as soon as the crisis was over, calling from Henderson’s office before they’d even left the barracks. Carole was at the house, he was sure, but she wouldn’t come to the phone. She was still holding out.

  Gardner visualized Granville’s face in the window of Carole’s fleeing car, dazed and confused, his stomach aching. Carole had no right to do this. To keep Granville away. The boy needed to be with his father, now more than ever.

  “Look at him.” Brownie’s voice suddenly cracked into the earphones.

  Gardner twisted his neck and peered back. IV Starke was slumped against the rear of the cabin with his eyes shut. His face was serene, and he was asleep.

  “Doesn’t seem to have a care in the world,” Brownie said.

  Without a headset, Starke couldn’t hear.

  “Yeah,” Gardner replied. “He doesn’t seem to be sweating it.” After signing the waiver form, Brownie had gone back for another try at interrogating, but IV had balked at saying anything. As long as they were going to meet his lawyer, he might as well wait.

  “We still have a problem,” Jennifer whispered into her mike, sneaking a look at Starke to make sure he was still dozing.

  “Yeah,” Gardner replied. “They don’t want to turn against each other.” Roscoe was not acknowledging IV, and IV was not acknowledging Roscoe. Honor among thieves.

  “So we try again on the forensics,” Brownie said. “Get some positive proof of them at the scene. And—”

  “And Granville…” Gardner interjected, “he can help too…” The copter bounced again, and the prosecutor sucked in his breath. “Just got to get him back…”

  Jennifer looked at Starke. His head lay against the fuselage, and his mouth was open slightly. She tried to imagine him at the Bowers’, face-to-face with Addie and Henry as Roscoe pulled the trigger.

  “State line!” the pilot announced, pointing down.

  In seconds they’d crossed over, and IV Starke opened his eyes.

  “You’re in Maryland!” Brownie hollered to him.

  Starke nodded groggily.

  “Welcome home,” Gardner said sarcastically.

  Joel Jacobs stood in the cell block area of the Pennsylvania State Police Barracks, and looked at the empty space where his client had been. Captain Henderson waited beside him in silence. The man had to see for himself. The orders were disobeyed, and Starke was gone, but the lawyer had to see for himself.

  Jacobs put down his briefcase and folded his arms. Henderson still waited in silence, wondering what kind of explosion was going to erupt from the well-dressed out-of-towner.

  The lawyer turned slowly and looked at the trooper. His face was relaxed, and his eyes betrayed no sense at all of what was going on behind them. “Do you have a copy of the waiver?” he asked. There was no hint of anger.

  Henderson said yes, and opened a file he had been carrying under his arm. He handed the paper to the attorney. “Here.”

  Jacobs took it, pulled a pair of reading glasses from his breast pocket, and slipped them into place. “Thank you.”

  Captain Henderson remained silent and at attention by his side. This was not at all what he had expected. The man had sounded like a saber-toothed tiger on the telephone. But the real-life creature was a pussycat.

  “Did you have the signature witnessed?” Jacobs suddenly asked, raising his glasses so he could see the trooper.

  Henderson blanched. “Uh, no. No we didn’t.” He was not aware that the form required it.

  “I see,” Jacobs said softly. “And can you tell me if anyone on your staff actually observed my client execute the waiver?”

  Again, Henderson was stymied. The form had been signed, duplicated, and filed before they had allowed Starke to leave with the Marylanders. There was no rule that said the signing had to be done under surveillance. They received a signed waiver, and that was it.

  “Don’t think so,” the captain said.

  “I see,” Jacobs repeated. “May I keep this copy?”

  Henderson checked his file for a duplicate and nodded yes.

  Jacobs picked up his briefcase and walked to the door. Henderson followed him out of the cell block, and then down the long hall toward the front exit. The lawyer’s gait was slow and even, but the pace was not the product of age. The man was clearly in shape. His walk echoed his manner. Each step, like each word, was measured and deliberate. He didn’t waste energy. But inside the lanky body lay an untapped reserve of power.

  Captain Henderson followed Jacobs to the front door, and turned to retreat back to his office.

  “Captain!” Jacobs was at the exit, but he hadn’t gone through.

  Henderson turned around.

  “I told you not to let my client go.” The words were soft, but there was a foreboding in the way they were uttered.

  Henderson shrugged his shoulders as if to say sorry, and waited for a follow-up.

  But Jacobs said nothing. He stared coldly for a moment, then set his shoulders and marched out the door.

  It was well past midnight, and Gardner and Jennifer were just now getting to bed. They had secured IV Starke at the detention center, checked their messages at the office, picked up a bite to eat, and finally dragged themselves back home. It had been a long twenty-four hours, and they were both exhausted.

  Jennifer slipped on her blue silk nightie and crawled in beside Gardner. He cranked his arm around her neck, and let her settle against his rib cage.

  She could feel the throb of his heart as she pressed her ear into his chest. The pulse was rapid.

  “It’s just beginning,” he said softly, nuzzling her hair with his lips.

  She held him tight.

  “Tomorrow the gloves come off…”

  Jennifer kept gripping, and listening to his pounding heart.The easy part was over, and tomorrow the real struggle would begin. Bond hearings. Motions. Discovery. The labyrinth they had to traverse before they could convict. One psycho defense attorney was in town, and another was on his way. And their case was as weak as a cobweb.

  “We’ll get through,” Jennifer whispered.

  “Yeah,” Gardner mumbled sleepily. “We’ll get through.”

  And soon they were both asleep.

  twelve

  It was 8:45 A.M., and bond hearings for Roscoe Miller and IV Starke had been added to the morning docket at the courthouse. But there was no sitting judge available to hear them. Two civil cases had carried over from yesterday, and the juries were waiting to resume deliberations. That left only the chambers judge, Carla Hanks, to preside over the hearings. It was to be Her Honor’s first appearance in court.

  Gardner and Jennifer marched into courtroom three and took their places behind the counsel table. Gardner sported the trademark navy blue pinstripe suit and red tie he always wore on the first day of a big trial. His face was fresh, but his eyes showed fatigue.

  Jennifer was also wearing her number one court outfit: a red linen blazer flared neatly at the waist, and a black cotton skirt. Her hair was pulled back, and her eyes were alert behind her spectacles.

  The defense attorneys were already in the room when the prosecutors entered. Kent King and Joel Jacobs sat side by side like Roman Centurions. As Gardner passed, King whispered in Jacobs’s ear, and the New York lawyer shifted his gaze to the State’s Attorney. This was the flip side of the prosecutor-police alliance. Defense attorneys had their own secret society. In the presence of a prosecutor, it was us versus them, and they conspired constantly against the state.

  Gardner put down his file, and Jacobs walked over to the prosecution table. “Mr. Lawson?” He extended his hand. “Joel Jacobs.” He was nattily turned out in a gray double-breasted suit.

  “Glad to meet you,” Gardner said, crushing his adversary’s hand as tightly as he could. “This is Jennifer Munday,
my assistant.”

  Jacobs released Gardner’s hand with a strong snap of his wrist and extended his hand to Jennifer. “It’s a pleasure,” he said with a twinkle in his eye. King had obviously told him the attractive female was more than an “assistant.”

  Jennifer exchanged pleasantries with the lawyer, and allowed Jacobs to refocus on Gardner.

  “I hear we had a conversation yesterday,” the lawyer said.

  Gardner knit his brow, but didn’t answer.

  “Tell me, was I that cooperative?” Jacobs continued. The sarcasm was thick.

  Gardner glimpsed King smirking over his shoulder. These two were going to make quite a pair. “Yeah,” the prosecutor said flippantly. “You were real cooperative.”

  Jacobs smiled. “I’m not always that way. Sometimes, I can be downright uncooperative.”

  “All rise!” The clerk’s announcement interrupted the face-off. “Her Honor’s court is now in session. The Honorable Carla Hanks presiding.”

  Jacobs nodded to Jennifer and bowed to Gardner before joining King at the other table. King whispered in his ear, and both men smiled.

  “Be seated!” Judge Hanks declared, giving the gavel stand a tentative whack with her mallet. She then settled into the high-backed leather chair and looked out from behind the bench. “Call the case, Mr. State’s Attorney,” she barked to Gardner.

  The prosecutor stood up. “We call State v. Miller, and State v. Starke for bond hearings, Your Honor.”

  Judge Hanks shifted her attention to King and Jacobs at the defense table. They immediately stood up.

  “Please identify yourselves for the record,” Her Honor said.

  “Kent King for Roscoe Miller.”

  “Joel Jacobs, 215 Park Avenue South, New York City, appearing on behalf of Mr. Wellington Starke the fourth.”

  “Uh, are we ready to proceed, gentlemen?” the judge asked.

  The defense attorneys nodded, and the judge turned to Gardner. “Any preliminary remarks, Mr. Lawson?”

  “Yes, Judge,” Gardner replied. “As soon as the defendants get here…”

  “Where are they?” Judge Hanks asked.

  “On their way up from detention,” the clerk answered.

  In a moment, the defendants entered. Miller was first and Starke followed. They were dressed in blue denim detention center uniforms, their hands and feet cuffed, chained together at the waist. Even with those encumbrances, Roscoe still managed a foot-dragging saunter down the aisle.

  In contrast, Starke walked with a preppy’s gait. Next to Miller he seemed out of place. Their facial features showed a resemblance. But that was as far as it went.

  “The defendants are present in court,” Gardner said loudly as the two prisoners sat down. It was time to get his own show on the road. “May I be heard, Your Honor?”

  Judge Hanks nodded.

  “Thank you, Your Honor. Mr. Joel Jacobs entered his appearance on behalf of defendant Starke and listed his address as New York. May we then assume that he is not a member of the Maryland bar?”

  Judge Hanks had still been digging through paperwork when she got the call to sit on this case. No one had said anything about qualifying out-of-state attorneys to practice. She looked at Jacobs.

  He stood up. “I’m a member of five state bars, Your Honor, but Maryland is not one of them.”

  “Object to his appearance in this case, Judge,” Gardner argued. “He’s not a member of our bar, and he’s therefore unqualified to practice here.”

  King rose to his feet. “I’ll sponsor him, Judge. An out-of-state attorney can practice on a per-case basis if a member of the bar sponsors him and moves his admittance for that particular case.”

  “Conflict of interest,” Gardner interjected. “This is a two-defendant murder case. For the attorneys to have any formal relationship with each other is improper, according to the Canons of Ethics.”

  Judge Hanks was sinking into confusion. “Does anyone have any specific law on this point?”

  Joel Jacobs stood up. He’d been listening, but it was now time to cut in. “That won’t be necessary, Your Honor.” He pulled a piece of paper from his briefcase and showed it to King.

  “Withdraw my offer of sponsorship,” King said with a grin.

  Jacobs approached the bench and handed the document to Judge Hanks.

  She perused it and waved Gardner up. “I believe this resolves any question you may have as to Mr. Jacobs’s qualifications.” Her voice was mildly sarcastic.

  Gardner took the paper from her hand. The letterhead said “Maryland Court of Appeals.” And below it: “VIA TELEFAX.” He read the text.

  To whom it may concern:

  Please accord Mr. Joel Jacobs of the State of New York, and member of the New York bar, all of the privileges and rights of a Maryland attorney. He is hereby duly admitted to practice in all proceedings, criminal and otherwise, involving Mr. Wellington Starke IV. He is granted this admission without reservation, and without the need for individual sponsorship.

  Signed: John J. Biddington, Chief Judge, Maryland Court of Appeals.

  Gardner whistled inwardly. Jacobs was connected. Big time. Here was a personal endorsement by the highest ranking judge in the state. The case had barely begun and already strings were being pulled. Gardner dropped the paper on the bench. “Objection withdrawn,” he said. And on the way back to the counsel table he wondered just how deep Jacobs’s connections actually ran.

  While the bond hearing was going on, Brownie was hard at work in the crime lab. He had been up late the previous night, processing IV Starke and getting him bedded down at the detention center. Then he’d gone back to the police department and checked the return on the search warrant. That was the document that listed the items that had been seized in the search. The contents of the safe were grouped together under the headings “Personal Papers,” “Receipts,” and “Tattoos.” Unfortunately, the items themselves were locked in the evidence vault, and the custodian had gone home. Brownie had to wait until morning to get his hands on the actual items.

  Brownie opened the top envelope and pulled out a sheaf of papers. The first was a photocopy of IV Starke’s birth certificate. Brownie scanned it and locked in on the date. “Huh?” he said aloud, making a quick calculation in his head.

  According to the date of birth, IV Starke was twenty years old, still in high school, and not even graduated! The kid seemed bright. There had to be a reason why he was taking so long to get his diploma. Maybe it had something to do with the case.

  Brownie put down the paper and moved to the next several documents. More birth certificates. One for Wellington Starke III, IV’s father. Born 1946. Another for the grandfather, Wellington Starke, Jr. Born 1910. Beneath that was a certificate of death, certifying the grandfather’s demise in 1978. A copy of his will was attached.

  Brownie ran through the wherefors and the whereases and got to the meat of the bequests. “Whew!” he whistled. Millions and millions and millions. He’d never seen so many zeros behind a dollar sign. Grandfather was loaded to the hilt!

  Brownie read on to the bottom line. A substantial part of the family fortune had been left in trust to Wellington Starke IV. And when he turned twenty-five years of age the trust was due to terminate, and he was entitled to draw the proceeds.

  Brownie whistled again. In a few years, IV Starke was going to be the richest man in his cell block. Hell, he was going to be one of the richest men on earth!

  Brownie shook off his surprise and moved to the next set of documents. They were school records, yellowed and creased, obviously quite old. They belonged to IV Starke’s father: Wellington Starke III.

  Brownie stared at the school logo on the father’s records: Prentice Academy. This was a new revelation, but no shock. Families often trod the same academic turf. Brownie scratched his chin. Maybe this accounted for the headmaster’s nervous attitude and the hiring of Kent King. The Starkes were deeply invested in the school. Not just one generation, but two. No
wonder Charles was acting up. He had a major investment to protect.

  Brownie sifted through the evidence pile until he came to the tattoos. Of all the things in the safe, these were the most puzzling. Temporary tattoos. Inked images that adhered to the skin. Kids wore them to look cool, but they were just playing. The things washed off without a trace.

  Brownie laid the four sheets out on his table. Each contained three flesh decals. Daggers. Sexy sirens. Screaming eagles. The same pictures that Roscoe liked. But there was no death’s-head.

  Brownie studied the tattoos. IV Starke obviously idolized Miller. He was a rich kid who wanted to play tough, but not go all the way. That’s what it had to be. He was trying to emulate Miller’s wildness. The aristocrat had a secret fantasy, and he was acting it out. IV Starke had no reason to kill anyone. He had all the money in the world. He certainly didn’t need Henry’s stash. But maybe in his misguided fervor to mimic Roscoe’s lifestyle, he had gone along for the ride. And gotten in way over his head.

  Carla Hanks was still presiding over the bond hearing. After the qualification of Jacobs to appear in her court, she read the defendants the charges against them. Now it was time to cut to the chase.

  “What is the state’s bond recommendation as to defendant Miller?” the judge asked Gardner.

  Gardner stood up. “No bond, Your Honor.”

  “No bond?” Hanks looked confused, as if she didn’t know such a category existed.

  “That is correct, Judge,” Gardner replied. “Under the Maryland code, you have the authority to deny bond in certain cases.”

  Hanks nodded.

  “Here we have a person of no fixed address,” Gardner continued. “He ran when police attempted to arrest him, and he has been charged with not one, but three murders.” The prosecutor glanced at King. “And that’s grounds in itself to deny bond.”

  King stood up. “That’s assuming they can prove the case,” he said, “but they have no evidence. Absolutely nothing that places my client at the scene of the crime.”