Stone Cold

by Joel Goldman

  “C’mon, Alex. You know you’re not helping yourself any,” Rossi said.

  “I know that talking to you without a lawyer is the worst thing I can do,” Alex answered.

  “You’re a lawyer,” Harris said. “Aren’t you good enough?”

  “Like Abe Lincoln said, a lawyer who represents herself has a fool for a client, and I’m nobody’s fool.”

  “How about this,” Rossi countered. “Let us test you for gunpowder residue on your hands. If it comes back clean, that would put you in the clear.”

  “I’ll pass.”

  Rossi sighed. “Then you know we’ve got to arrest you, and when we do, we don’t need your consent to test you.”

  “You’ll have to get a search warrant first.”

  “Counselor,” Rossi said, “we both know I don’t need one after I arrest you. Preserving evidence of gunpowder residue under exigent circumstances is grounds for a warrantless search, and I’d say these circumstances are pretty goddamn exigent.”

  Alex cocked her head to one side, giving him a sly smile. “So why bother asking?”

  “Have it your way,” Rossi said, squaring around to face her head-on. “Alex Stone, you’re under arrest for the murder of Dwayne Reed. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You are entitled to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you. Do you understand these rights?”

  “Better than you do, Detective.”

  Harris signaled a CSI tech waiting nearby. The tech opened the rear passenger door.

  “Step outside the car, ma’am,” she said.

  Alex complied, and the tech pressed the gummed surface of a small block against her hands, her forearms, and the sleeves of her jacket and shirt. When she finished, Rossi tapped Alex on the arm.

  “Hands behind your back, Counselor.”

  He strapped plastic cuffs on her wrists, pushed her head down as he guided her back into the car. They exchanged looks. His grim, hers resigned. Rossi closed the door and clapped his hand on the roof of the car.

  “She’s all yours,” he said to Harris.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  ALEX STUCK TO HER VOW OF SILENCE through each humiliating phase of the booking process. Accompanied by Gardiner Harris, she was fingerprinted and photographed, her belongings confiscated, each step intended to dehumanize her, reducing her to a collection of inked ridges and swirls, a mug shot, and an inmate number.

  She’d seen the work product the process generated countless times in the files that came across her desk. The fingerprints told her nothing about her client, but the mug shot spoke. It told her whether her client was cocky, afraid, or confused, whether he or she was high or had been drinking when arrested or whether he or she was desperate for the next fix. Most important, the mug shot told her whether her client had a face a jury could love or, at best, not hate too much.

  She thought about all of that when she posed for her photograph, worried that she’d had her eyes closed or, worse, that the flash had given her red eyes, devil eyes, her mother used to call them. She wanted to ask for a preview, a do-over. Not because she was vain but because she was, like so many she represented, scared to death, and she didn’t want the world to know it.

  Her next stop would be the county jail, where she’d be made to strip and trade her civilian clothing for an orange jumpsuit and paper slippers. It would be the beginning of a life in which, until she was free, her well-being would depend on the kindness of jailers.

  Instead of taking her across the street to the jail, Harris led her to the third floor, through the Homicide squad room, where the detectives stopped what they were doing as they watched her pass. Being put on display angered her enough to forget her fear.

  “I bet you enjoyed that little parade,” Alex said. “Better than the perp walk.”

  “Nothing beats the perp walk, but yeah, that was pretty sweet.”

  “Then you really need to get a life. So? What now? Why put me in a room when I told you I’m not answering any questions?”

  “So I heard. Sit tight. You’ve got company,” he said, leaving without further explanation.

  Alex barely had time to consider whom that might be when the door opened and Bonnie rushed toward her, swallowing her in an embrace. Neither spoke. They just hugged, Bonnie careful of Alex’s wounded shoulder, each needing the reassurance that came from pressing their bodies so tightly against each other that they could have melded into a single being. Bonnie was the first to let go.

  “How—,” Alex began.

  “Rossi called me. He said they were bringing you here and that you’d been shot but that you were okay.”

  Alex gestured to the four walls. “Well, I wouldn’t call this being okay, but I am alive.”

  “First things first. Let me have a look at you.”

  She unbuttoned Alex’s shirt, slipping it off her shoulder, and lifted the bandage, peering at the wound and examining the surrounding skin, nodding when she was done.

  “You’re a lucky girl,” Bonnie said. “The wound looks exactly like the paramedic described it to me. He did a nice job.”

  “You talked to the paramedic?”

  “Of course I talked to the paramedic. What kind of girlfriend do you think I am? And by the way, you didn’t make a very good impression on him, joking about Dwayne the way you did.”

  Alex shrugged. “Not one of my better moments. Getting shot has turned me into a ghoulish smart-ass.”

  “It’s a coping mechanism. It won’t last. You’ll be back to your normal smart-ass self before you know it.”

  “That’s not very reassuring, Doctor. But I’ll try to be more politically correct until I’m fully recovered.”

  “So what happened?”

  Alex opened her mouth, about to answer, when she caught her reflection in the two-way mirror mounted on one wall.

  “Did Rossi tell you to come down here?”

  Bonnie arched her eyebrows and shook her head. “Tell me? No. He invited me. He said that normally they’d take you straight to the county jail but after all we’d been through with Dwayne threatening me and you killing him, Rossi thought I’d like to see you first. I admit I was surprised but I wasn’t about to tell him no thanks.”

  Alex sagged and took a step back, dropping her arms to her sides. It was the first time she’d heard anyone say that she’d killed Dwayne. Hearing Bonnie say it was as shocking as the words themselves. People were calling her a killer, would always call her a killer. That was hard to take, especially from Bonnie. She took a deep breath, cramming the words and the moment into a tight little compartment in her brain, a tumor to be examined another time, needing to focus on the here and now.

  “Really? Rossi told you that?”

  “Yes, really. You know, he’s not nearly the asshole you made him out to be.”

  Alex faced the two-way mirror, hands on her hips. “Oh, I assure you he’s every bit of that and more.” She gave the mirror a one-finger salute. “You’re busted, asshole,” she said to the glass.

  “Who are you talking to and what are you talking about?” Bonnie asked.

  “See that?” she said, pointing. “That’s a two-way mirror. Rossi and his partner are on the other side watching and listening. They probably came in their pants when you unbuttoned me.”

  Bonnie’s face reddened. “Why would they do that?”

  “Come in their pants or spy on us?”

  “I get the first but not the second.”

  “Because I told them I wouldn’t talk without a lawyer, so they put you in here with me hoping I’d tell you what I wouldn’t tell them. And, since there’s no such thing as a privilege to not testify against your girlfriend, they can subpoena you at my trial and make you tell the jury everything I told you.”

  Bonnie sucked in a quick breath, spitting it out. “Asshole doesn’t begin to cover it.”

  Rossi opened the door. “Don’t take it so personally, ladies. Just doing my job. Let’s
go, Counselor.”

  “If I hear one more person say they’re just doing their job, I’ll—,” Alex said.

  “You’ll what?” Rossi asked. “Shoot them?”

  Alex glared at him. Rossi didn’t flinch. Alex looked away, talking to Bonnie. “I need a lawyer. Call Claire Mason.”

  “I already did. She said she’d meet you at the jail.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  ROSSI WAS IN THE Chapman and Henderson murder room, shifting his attention between case files and cold pizza. It was close to midnight. He was working late and Alex Stone was spending her first night in jail. Rossi doubted either of them would get much sleep.

  Dwayne Reed’s death hadn’t ended the investigation into the murders or made solving them any easier. If anything, it made closing both cases harder, because whatever Dwayne might have told them would be buried with him.

  Rossi knew that breaks came from digging deep and then digging deeper, finding the link that connected the dots, whether on the street, in the lab, or in a stack of paper. And sometimes the break came not from what was in the stack of paper but from what wasn’t there.

  Gloria Temple was a case in point. Rossi was worried about her. He suspected she was the one who had given Wilfred Donaire’s gold necklace to Dwayne Reed, which could have put her on Dwayne’s get-even hit list. If so, the reason no one could find her was that she was dead. Best case, Dwayne had missed her and she’d gone to ground. Now that Dwayne was gone, he hoped she’d surface.

  The one time Rossi had spoken with Gloria, he’d found her hanging on a street corner, straight and sober, a slender young woman with close-cropped hair, dark coffee skin, and a mouth that roared, showing off to her friends, telling Rossi to go fuck himself. When he asked where she lived, she told him to do it again if he could get it up twice in one day, her friends dissolving into laughter.

  She had a record for petty stuff, the worst being possession of marijuana. She pled guilty, got probation since it was a first offense, and agreed to go to drug counseling. She lived at Chouteau Courts, a public housing project on Independence Avenue. He’d gone there hoping she’d talk more and strut less if her friends weren’t around. When he’d knocked on the door, an elderly woman had answered, saying that Gloria stayed there sometimes but not regularly and she hadn’t seen Gloria in a while.

  Rossi called Gardiner Harris, waking him on the third ring.

  “You asleep?”

  “Not anymore,” Harris mumbled.

  “How’d you make out on Gloria Temple?”

  “You woke me up to ask me that?”

  “And you can go back to sleep as soon as you tell me.”

  Rossi heard a woman’s voice in the background. “Who is it, honey?”

  “Rossi.”

  “Why can’t he be like normal people and sleep at night?”

  “Because he ain’t normal.”

  “Can I butt in here?” Rossi said.

  “Sorry. My wife has this crazy idea that I’m entitled to a good night’s sleep.”

  “Go figure.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “So?”

  “So I got sidetracked after the lawyer capped her client. I’ll take a run at her tomorrow,” Harris said and hung up.

  Rossi was jealous of Harris, wishing he were home in bed with a wife to keep his bed warm instead of digging out the list of Kyrie Chapman’s known associates. He circled Gloria Temple’s name and underlined the signature of the detective, Denny Trumbo, who’d prepared the report. Trumbo was new to Homicide and Rossi barely knew him. His next call was to Dispatch.

  “This is Detective Hank Rossi. I need you to find detective Denny Trumbo and have him call me on my cell. You got my number?”

  “It’s on our caller ID, Detective. You want me to tell him it’s urgent?”

  “It’s the middle of the night. What do you think?”

  Trumbo called ten minutes later. “What’s up, Rossi?”

  “I am, and I’d rather be home in bed.”

  “This about the Chapman case?”

  “Yeah. Your list of Chapman’s known associates includes a woman named Gloria Temple. Where’d you get that information?”

  Trumbo thought for a moment. “Chapman’s grandmother.”

  “What’d the grandmother say about her?”

  “Just that Chapman thought Gloria was his girlfriend but Gloria didn’t agree.”

  “Did you try to find her?”

  “No.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  “Thought that was your job, Detective,” Trumbo said, not hiding his irritation at being woken up and yelled at. “All I was supposed to do was make a list.”

  Rossi held back, knowing that Trumbo was right. Mitch Fowler kept new guys like Trumbo on a short leash, telling them to do what they were told and leave the thinking to more experienced detectives. Besides, the more he growled at Trumbo, the less he’d get out of him.

  “Okay, I hear you. Fucking Fowler still making you raise your hand before you go to the john?”

  Trumbo chuckled, backing down. “Yeah. Gotta wave one finger or two.”

  “Try the middle finger next time.”

  “Will do. Anything else?”

  “Yeah. I’m looking at the list of names. Which one is the grandmother?”

  “Virginia Sprague.”

  “Where can I find her?”

  “Same place I did. Chouteau Courts over on Independence Avenue.”

  “Thanks,” Rossi said. “Go back to bed.”

  Rossi called it a night, deciding against waking Virginia Sprague at that hour, betting she was the elderly woman who’d answered the door when he’d gone to Chouteau Courts looking for Gloria Temple. He’d update Harris in the morning and go with him to talk to the grandmother.

  On the way home, he thought about Alex Stone. He’d have bet a month’s pay against her killing Dwayne Reed and he would have lost. Ballistics and the gunpowder residue test had confirmed what had been obvious when he burst into Odyessy’s living room. Alex had fired the fatal shots.

  Rossi had heard three shots as he stood in Odyessy’s driveway—two in rapid succession, the third coming after a short pause. CSI found the bullet from Dwayne’s gun lodged in the ceiling, suggesting that Dwayne may have been falling to the floor, already hit, or even been on the floor when he fired. That was consistent with Alex firing the first two shots, making her the aggressor. It was even possible that Alex had shot Dwayne and then taken his gun, put it in Dwayne’s hand, and fired the shot into the ceiling, but he couldn’t give Alex credit for that kind of cool-headed thinking, not the way she was acting when he burst into the house.

  Alex would have to claim she acted in self-defense. In the statement she gave at the scene, Odyessy Shelburne said that Alex shot her son in cold blood, but Odyessy would make a lousy witness. Proving that she was telling the truth would depend on the rest of the evidence, most of which was circumstantial.

  Rossi recalled the night after the Donaire trial ended when he’d rousted Dwayne and Alex had come downtown to get him out of jail. He’d followed them to the street, watching as they talked, Alex bending over and throwing up as soon as Dwayne left.

  Rossi figured Alex vomited because Dwayne admitted to her that he had murdered Wilfred Donaire. He may not just have made her vomit in the street. He may have made her sick enough to want to kill him, especially since, according to Alex’s permit, she bought her gun the day after the Donaire trial ended.

  Six weeks later, Dwayne was the main suspect in the Chapman and Henderson murders and he had threatened to rape Alex’s lover. It was easy to flesh out the rest. Filled with guilt and enraged at Dwayne’s threats, Alex tracked him down and killed him. That wasn’t self-defense. It was premeditated murder.

  To convince a jury that it was self-defense, Alex would have to testify. She’d have to reveal what Dwayne had told her that night on the sidewalk and explain why she’d bought a gun the next day and why she’d taken it with
her when she went looking for her client. She’d have to convince the jury that she’d fired first because Dwayne had made her fear for her life and not because she was avenging the murders Dwayne had committed or because she was protecting her lover. And that prospect, Rossi knew, would give her more than one sleepless night.

  Chapter Thirty

  FEMALE INMATES WERE HOUSED on the sixth floor of the county jail. Politicians called it by its proper name, the Jackson County Regional Detention Center. Everyone else called it what it was—the jail.

  The entire floor was one big cell where women slept on modular bunk beds arranged barracks-style. Square tables that seated up to four people, a medical treatment room, and a communal bathroom and shower filled the rest of the space. Lit by ceiling fluorescents and rectangular windows, it was antiseptic in daylight and dyspeptic at night.

  Alex was assigned a top bunk on a modular unit set against one wall, the elevation and back support making it prime jailhouse real estate. She arrived in time for dinner. The food was her second disappointment since entering the facility.

  The first was not finding her lawyer, Claire Mason, waiting for her. Claire’s nephew, Lou Mason, a disbarred criminal defense lawyer, was there instead. She’d known him before he was disbarred and to say that they weren’t close was an understatement.

  Years ago, they had represented two defendants who were accused of a series of home invasions on the city’s east side. They were tried together. Alex was in her second year of practice. Mason was a veteran. He suggested that she put her client’s defense on first. When she rested, Mason called his client to testify. Alex listened in stunned silence as his client fingered hers as the ringleader who’d threatened to kill him if he didn’t participate in the robberies.

  The jury bought Mason’s defense and his client walked. Hers got twenty years. She confronted him afterward.

  “You sandbagged me! That’s why you wanted me to go first. How could you do that to me?”

  “I didn’t do a damn thing to you. I represented my client. He had a story to tell and I thought the jury deserved to hear it.”