The Girl Who Wrote The New York Times Bestseller: A Novel (Thaddeus Murfee Legal Thrillers Book 8)

by John Ellsworth

  "Absurd!" said the judge. "Why would I set bail for a defendant accused of making an attempt on the president's life? Especially a defendant not a citizen of Russia? Why?"

  "Because justice requires it. And because common human decency requires it. Look at her, Your Honor, she has been beaten! Look at the swollen eyes, the broken nose!"

  Avoiding even one look at Christine, the judge replied, "The defendant is accused of attempting to assassinate the president of Russian. Of course, there would be injuries resulting from the intervention of the president's security personnel. Thank all goodness they were there and reacted quickly to stop her!"

  "But she needs medical treatment. There are no medical facilities in prison. None. Her nose will knit and heal improperly. From here it looks as if her hands are injured. And a CT scan should be done of her head, as she has obviously been badly beaten. The court cannot, by law, ignore the prisoner's medical needs."

  "I can order a doctor to look at her."

  "She needs treatment, Judge, not a look."

  "She's breathing and I am told she walked in here on her own. I am going to find as a matter of law there's no indication of an ongoing need for medical attention. It is so noted in the record."

  "What's he saying?" Thaddeus whispered to Zialina. "Give me a quick English translation."

  "No. He's saying 'no.'"

  "Is there a translator? Can I speak to him?"

  "No. There's no translator."

  "Why isn't there a translator?"

  "My motion for a translator was denied."

  Zialina returned her attention to the judge.

  "Your Honor, you're making a finding of medical status without an inquiry into the facts. You're finding as a matter of law there's no need for medical care. You can't do that without taking testimony from the witness, the jailers—"

  "Young lady, this is my court. We do what I say we do inside these four walls."

  "But you're not following the law!"

  "Then appeal my order! Bail is denied. We stand in recess."

  With that—a quick crossover to the hidden door—he was gone.

  Christine pushed up to her feet. She turned to her right to the opening cell door.

  "Wait!" said Thaddeus. "We’re not done talking."

  The two jailers said something to Zialina and continued removing the prisoner from the courtroom.

  "What? What did they say?"

  "They said court is over. They're taking her back."

  "To jail?"

  "To jail."

  Thaddeus fumed. "I cannot believe what just happened! We didn't even get medical care for her?"

  "No, we did not."

  "Zialina, she didn't know me! A woman who's worked with me almost ten years didn't know me after four days in jail. What the hell! What can we do? Can we get a quick appeal?"

  "Appeals take years in Russian courts. It could be five years before we found out anything."

  "Five years? Are you kidding me? Okay. What else can we try?"

  "Mr. Murfee, there is nothing else. Habeas is always a long shot in Russia. I told you that, going in. It ended like I tried to warn you it would end."

  "There has to be someone else. Is there anyone we can call at the prison and beg for help?"

  "There's not even a number."

  "I feel like I'm in a time-warp."

  "Well, welcome to Russia. You can't say you weren't warned."

  35

  After being put in the notoriously overcrowded Matrosskaya Tishina prison in northern Moscow following court, Christine was then moved to the prison's "Special Isolation Unit No. 4."

  Since Christine's arrest, media interest in her living conditions, down to the minutiae of her daily routine and diet, her toilet facilities, and bathing schedule, had been intense. Angelina was filing daily reports with the Chicago Tribune's Moscow office, and the articles were being picked up by AP and run nationwide in the U.S.

  Based on the confidential statements Angelina procured from Justice Ministry officials and prison reform advocates, plus a varied roundup of the day's press reports, a day in the prison life of Christine Susmann was likely to resemble a day in Alexander Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago. In short, her incarceration was less than humane.

  Christine's day began at 6 a.m. in a 5-meter-by-3 meter cell along with her three cellmates, according to Justice Ministry spokesman Boris Kalyagin.

  The cell was equipped with two bunk beds.

  A prison breakfast of fish soup, tea and bread was distributed, according to Kalyagin. Christine was then allowed a meeting with either of her lawyers or the physician Thaddeus had hired to assess her. At this point, she still had difficulty recognizing faces and often struggled to remember who Thaddeus was. After a twenty-minute session, she was returned to the cell, where she negotiated with her cellmates for a place to sit down and sometimes even to stretch out. Cigarettes were the currency of Matrosskaya Tishina prison, so Thaddeus made sure she was amply supplied so she could trade tobacco for favors.

  Christine was served lunch from 1 p.m. to 1:20 p.m. and dinner from 6 p.m. to 6:30 p.m., Izvestia newspaper reported Tuesday, a schedule that Kalyagin confirmed.

  Kalyagin said lunch consisted of meat and rice soup, a vegetable medley with rice, bread and compote, while dinner consisted of buttered kasha or Russian porridge, tea and bread.

  Christine was allowed to take daily walks in a closed-off courtyard for up to an hour a day. Thaddeus had it from inside sources he paid off that Christine struggled to make it even one time around the courtyard. He learned she often just ventured outside and stretched out on the grass and remained still and silent for her hour.

  Overall, the Russian press did everything it could to make Christine's incarceration sound hospitable and humane, but Thaddeus disagreed violently.

  He proclaimed loudly to the press that the truth was—as in all things Russian—a wholly different matter.

  The physician who saw her twice a week at Thaddeus’ request reported she needed CT workups and an MRI to assess the extent of her injuries—none of which she was getting.

  Thaddeus felt totally frustrated, alarmed, and often went to bed only to toss and turn all night as he couldn’t stop worrying about her.

  Something had to change.

  He set about doing just that.

  36

  FROM: Thaddeus Murfee: A New York Times Bestseller

  Bar-M Cattle Company

  by Angelina Sosa

  Thaddeus was twenty-one, a senior at the University of Arizona. Three nights a week he tended bar at the Bar-M Cattle Company, a steakhouse out on Ina Road. One Saturday night, just before nine o'clock, voices were raised and two men began trading insults.

  They just didn't like each other. In fact, they hated each other. Hated each other's looks, heritage, speech, mannerisms, hairstyles and attitudes. The Navajo guy—he liked the Arizona Cardinals. The Russian guy—he liked the New York Giants. The Navajo guy—he wore his inky hair tousled with mousse. And he proudly wore the camo green of the National Guard weekend warrior. The Russian guy—oiled black hair and alabaster skin, he wore the shiny sharkskin of a Russian Mafioso. The Navajo refinished antiques in a small shop outside Flagstaff, the Russian had an oil company—heating oil—and ran a laundromat/beer hall called Duds&Suds. The one was married and true to his wife, a good father who took the kids to ball games on Saturdays and church on Sundays. The other was thrice divorced, abusive to his drug-peddling sons, and spent Sundays in hangover ICU.

  Their paths crossed in a small lounge off the dining room—in a nothing joint in a mid-rent commercial strip, located in a building that had once housed Teamsters Local #4402. The Bar-M Cattle Company, Inc. was the official name on the legal documents; and it was owned by the same two-fisted-drinking lot as owned the Allstate Insurance Agency located three strip malls north on Ina. This would be two brothers and two sisters engaged in a perpetual feud over the fair-and-square split of the net profits. These were the Nes
bitt clan—Henry, Howard, Helga, and Hermione. The four of them drank and danced with the customers, then pulled the shades and served freebies after hours; while Thaddeus tended bar, remained sober, and watered whiskey bottles per instructions.

  But back to the two men sitting at the bar. The Navajo Guardsman's name was Billy Strawberry. The Russian Mafioso’s name was Tony Folachnaya. Billy had arrived at the bar shortly after 5:15 PM; it was now 7:25. Tony had come off duty at Duds&Suds at 6:10 PM and arrived at The Bar M fifteen minutes later, at 6:25. Billy had put in his eight that day at a local armory, where he had filled out an inch of paperwork on ancient ordnance inventoried for the ten-thousandth time since Operation Iraqi Freedom. His rank was sergeant and his duty was Supply. He was drinking margaritas with three other guardsmen, two guys and a gal. The gal had won three arm-wrestling contests that night. Her handle was Mav; and, like Billy Strawberry, she too was a supply sergeant. Like the other three guardsmen, she was dressed in bloused camo fatigues and shiny boots.

  Tony Folachnaya had taken one nip of his neat Stoli when he witnessed Mav whipsaw arm-wrestler number three. He wished to buy her a drink. He also wished to bed her. The cordiality was a first step in that direction. When the bartender placed the fresh margarita before Mav and announced it courtesy of the man three stools down, who should suddenly take offense but Billy Strawberry. "Keep your lousy drink," Billy muttered, and jerked it from Mav's hand. It was sent skidding back down the bar toward Tony Folachnaya, where it bit the lip of the bar and spilled into his lap. Billy, it seemed, had the same designs on Mav; and the surge in competition among the lounge's habitués just pissed him off no end.

  The hatred was mutual, intense, and spilled out of the men.

  "Screw you," Tony muttered, and picked ice out of his lap. He flung the crystals at Billy, but they sailed right past and landed on Mav. She brushed them from her camo and ignored the disagreement.

  Tony glared into the mirror and found Billy's twisted face. "It's for the lady," he said into the mirror. "What's it to you, anyway?"

  "You just insulted the uniform of our country, grease ball."

  "How's that?"

  "Nobody here likes grease balls."

  "Say what?"

  "We don't like guineas. Wops. I-talians. This is the West, friend. I-talians find us very unfriendly."

  "That's okay because I'm Russian."

  "Russian mafia, I'm guessing."

  "Well, look at you," said Tony, again into the mirror. "If it ain't Running Elk all into his big self."

  Billy stood up from his barstool and folded his arms. "One more word, mister," he snarled.

  Tony shoved up from his seat and walked out.

  Everyone left behind was amazed, most of all Billy, who was suddenly the new man what am, the top gun, king of the hill, badass mofo of the Bar M. Witnesses bought him drinks, clapped him on the back, and called him Sarge. He thanked everyone and headed for the restroom. "Time to drain the snake," he told Mav and swatted her on the ass when she leaned over the bar to dump her ashtray. "Be right back; don't go away, pretty lady."

  The cops would have found it predictable that when the Bar M crowd heard the "pop-pop-pop!" of the nickel pistol they would stampede away from the threat and huddle in the furthest corner. But no, that's not what actually happened. When the pistol barked, everyone went silent. Then, three seconds later, the Bar M crowd rose like a wave and poured out the door into the valet parking slots. They went running to examine the ruckus. There hadn't been a barroom shooting in Tucson since 1997 following the Bob Dylan concert. They certainly weren't about to miss this one.

  They didn't have far to go. Twenty paces south of the Bud sign over the Bar M's door they surrounded Billy Strawberry. He was sprawled on his back, his right arm folded impossibly beneath his body, his eyes glazing over, a tiny red three-tap draining serious blood from his shredded aorta while his heart flopped about, sensing the morbid drop in blood pressure. The shooter, Tony Folachnaya cast a long shadow over Billy's failing body. The silver Colt dangled from his hand, muzzle still pointed at Billy. Jocelyn Conway would later swear she saw smoke wisp from the barrel. She would recite all this to Winston Warren of the Arizona State Police. Winston was a newly striped sergeant and this was his first 10-16 (homicide). "It was thick," she would say of the smoke. "You could smell it inside the bar, like firecrackers."

  "I wouldn't say that," said Gloria, Jocelyn's drinking companion. "I couldn't smell it from the bar."

  "I thought you said you were coming down with a nasty cold."

  "Maybe that's it."

  "See?" Jocelyn said to Trooper Winston. "I did smell it inside."

  It took five minutes to Code 3 to the scene, but Trooper Winston hit the ground running outside the Bar M. He galloped to the valet stand. Trooper Winston asked the crowd to move back. He jumped down beside Billy. He tilted his head to listen for breath sounds. He neither heard nor didn't hear breath sounds; rather, there was a falsetto gurgle. So he began CPR. "One-two-three—" he counted.

  "He's dead," someone offered. "Call the widow."

  "You'd best stay off the crime scene," said Jocelyn to the cop. "You already moved Billy's beer bottle."

  Trooper Winston ignored the comments and continued giving CPR. He remarked to himself how thankful he was for his training and how he hoped to God it paid off now. While he compressed and released, compressed and released, he tried to shut out the chatter.

  Jocelyn turned to Gloria. "See, at the end of the movie, where Bambi's mother gets shot and dies, I cried." She pointed at Billy Strawberry's body. "Dead is dead. Deer or human being."

  "I cried, too."

  "I always cry there. Then in the next scene Bambi's all grown up and he has a huge set of horns and he's looking down from a mountaintop."

  "This badder than bad," muttered Trooper Warren.

  It was Jocelyn's turn to ignore him. She'd had four Pink Ladies and was feeling no pain. She extended her arm. "Talk to the palm, officer."

  "We got a dead guy here."

  "So quit thumping on his chest."

  Jocelyn turned from the cop back to Gloria. "See, in the end is when Bambi has made it. He's a full grown adult male and he's OK in the world."

  "Except he doesn't have his mother."

  "Bingo! No one ever taught me that I could be tough when I was all grown up, sure, but that I would still miss my mother."

  "How old were you?"

  "When she died? Eleven."

  "That's young."

  "I cried myself to sleep for a year. But I never let my dad know that."

  "You couldn't."

  Jocelyn leaned up against the hallway wall. "Woot! I've gotta slow down if I'm driving home. I love me some Pink Ladies."

  "You said you didn't let your dad know you were bawling every night."

  "Exactly. 'Cause there was nothing he could have done about it. Basically, I was screwed and knew it."

  "Which is what the Bambi movie doesn't get."

  "It's what Disney doesn't get. So it's not 'til I'm an adult that I realize: I'm gonna miss her the rest of my natural days. It sucks, but there it is."

  "Like Billy Strawberry." She called across the crowd, "Is he dead?"

  A male voice shouted back, "Wel,l he hasn't asked my wife to dance for nearly an hour now."

  Jocelyn craned to see through the bystanders. "He's not moved since we got out here. My guess is yes."

  "Dead?"

  "Yep."

  "Why don't they cover him up?"

  "Probably waiting on the detectives to do their thing. Don't you watch CSI?"

  "Who has time?"

  Jocelyn feigned a two-gun quick draw and said, "All right you mothers, stay the hell outta my crime scene."

  "I need another drink."

  "Me, too. It'll be hours before they get this mess cleaned up. Let's go back."

  They retreated to the bar, where they found their stools and ordered fresh drinks. "Bartender," said Gloria, "the whiskey pours lik
e glue in here!"

  "All right, you mothers, stay the hell outta my crime scene!" shouted Jocelyn to everyone and no one.

  By now Trooper Winston Warren had given up on the CPR. He stood up, wiped his bloody hands on his pants, and saw Tony Folachnaya still standing there, patiently waiting. The murder weapon was still dangling from his shooting hand.

  "Easy," said the trooper. "Let me have it, please."

  Tony extended the gun and Winston gently took it away. He looked around and saw no place to put it. So he dropped it in his pants pocket. Without a word, he put Tony Folachnaya in cuffs. He steered the suspect over to the corner, clicked on his cell's recorder, and stuck it in Tony's face. Tony was calm and "looked peaceful," said those around him.

  "So, Tony, did you shoot Billy Strawberry?"

  Tony nodded.

  "Speak into the recorder, please."

  "I shot Billy."

  "Why did you shoot him?"

  "He was going to throw me in front of oncoming cars. It was self-defense."

  "One shot might have been self-defense, Tony, but you fired three times. How's that self-defense, number two and number three?"

  "I wanna lawyer."

  Trooper Warren pulled his Miranda card from his shirt pocket. "You have the right to remain silent..." he began reciting. His voice was a drone against the buzz of excited conversations ringing the decedent. Finally he finished, "...can and will be used against you in a court of law. Do you understand these rights?"

  "Yes."

  "And do you waive your rights?"

  "I wanna see a lawyer. The cuffs are too tight."

  Trooper Warren turned Tony around. His handling of the prisoner was rough. He checked the space between the handcuffs. "Feel loose enough to me."

  "No, the cuff part is cutting off my circulation."

  "Mister Folachnaya, you cut off Billy Strawberry's circulation big time tonight and now you want someone to worry about your wrists?" As he said this, Trooper Warren was glad the shooter was in cuffs. It was unlike him to talk smart to an arrestee and he didn't know why he did it now. Except everyone was watching. More or less.