Jessie Black Box Set 2

by Larry A Winters

  “Chase her?” Hazenberg said. “I was elbow-deep in Edley’s guts. My clothes—throwaway crap I bought for cash at an outlet store—were soaked with his blood. I couldn’t exactly chase her down the street. But I didn’t think she’d be a threat. She was wearing a wedding ring. She was a cheating slut, just like my wife. Not a person likely to go to the police. So, I finished. Once I was done with Edley, I removed all evidence of the woman from the house.”

  “You thought you did,” Kristina said. There was disgust in her voice. “But apparently you missed some of her hairs.”

  “Apparently I did.” Hazenberg shrugged. “Nobody’s perfect, although I do come close.”

  “Well … now we need to deal with her,” Hal said. He rubbed the skin of his neck, which felt bruised. “We need to find a way to discredit her. Make the jury doubt her story. Otherwise, this could be game over. Kristina, what do you think?”

  “I guess we start with her infidelity,” Kristina said. “Ask her about how she lied to her husband, betrayed her family. Make the jurors wonder if she would lie to them, too. Then maybe we can suggest a selfish motive for her testimony. I’m not sure what she has to gain. I’ll need to brainstorm.”

  “Are you serious?” Hazenberg shook his head. “I can’t believe you losers convinced me to hire you. Always playing defense when we need to play offense. Always seeing problems and missing opportunities. I’d fire you if I thought I had time to replace your sorry asses.”

  Hal stared at him. An opportunity? He considered himself an optimist, but he saw no upside in the prosecution’s surprise eyewitness.

  “How is this an opportunity?” Kristina said.

  Hazenberg’s smile returned. “Maybe Rebecca Runyan isn’t a witness to a murder. Maybe she is the murderer. Think about it. A tawdry, illicit affair between a married woman and this womanizing Lothario. Maybe she wanted more than just sex—women are like that—and Edley wasn’t interested. In a rage, she attacks him. Goes for his very manhood. Mutilates and kills him. And me? Your client?” Hazenberg spread his hands. “I was never there, but the lazy police, influenced by my conniving wife, targeted me anyway. In their rush to arrest someone, they put the wrong man on trial for his life. But luckily for me, the truth finally came to light.”

  “It seems a little far-fetched that a woman of Runyan’s size could inflict that kind of damage on a healthy guy like Edley,” Kristina said. “The moment we move forward with this theory, Jessie Black will call the medical examiner back to the stand to testify that Runyan couldn’t have done it because a woman of her size lacks the strength.”

  Hazenberg waved away her concerns. “None of that will matter if the police find direct evidence that she killed Edley.”

  “Too bad there isn’t any,” Hal said.

  Hazenberg grinned. “There will be. You’re going to plant it for me.”

  “What?” Hal said.

  “You heard me.”

  “We are not planting evidence,” Kristina said, “or doing anything else that violates the law or the rules of our profession.”

  Hazenberg arched an eyebrow. “Is that how you feel, too, Hal?”

  “What kind of evidence?” Hal said.

  “Hal!” Kristina said.

  Hal held up a hand to quiet Kristina. “I just want to hear him out.”

  “Of course you do,” Hazenberg said. “Gotta pay those bills, right? Gotta get back to where you used to be. And you do that by winning. By any means necessary.”

  Hal felt his jaw tighten. “What evidence?” he repeated.

  “How about Kent Edley’s dick and balls? I think it would be pretty incriminating if the police found those in Rebecca Runyan’s house.”

  His smile sent a chill to Hal’s core.

  Kristina stared at Hal as if he were a stranger. “Please tell me you’re not actually considering this.”

  Hal looked at Hazenberg. “Where?”

  36

  The decrepit, broken down building hardly resembled a movie theater, but Hal Nolan knew that’s what it had been ten years before—an avant-garde, independent movie theater designed by a hot young architect named Oscar Hazenberg.

  Despite the elegance of the building, the business had failed, unable to compete with the multiplexes proliferating in the area. The theater had gone out of business. Even worse, the owners had been unable to sell the expensive property. Neglected, it had fallen into disrepair, slowly crumbling on its foundations.

  Hal pulled into what was left of the parking lot—now a mess of ruptured asphalt, weeds, and debris. He maneuvered carefully to avoid nails and trash that might puncture a tire or scrape an undercarriage. The last thing he wanted was to get trapped here.

  Hal took a deep breath and tried to steel himself for the task ahead.

  “We don’t need to do this,” Kristina said from the passenger seat.

  “I do. I need to do it. You didn’t have to come with me. I told you that.”

  He reached behind him, to the backseat, for his bag.

  “I’m always going to come with you. Anywhere you go.” Kristina put a hand on his leg and squeezed. “Don’t you know that by now?”

  “This isn’t about love, Kristina. It’s about plausible deniability, in case this blows up in my face.”

  “It’s about love to me.”

  Hal nodded. “Okay. Well.” He offered a smile, but felt it slip. “Go team Nolan.”

  “Let’s go home.”

  “If we do that, we lose the trial. We lose everything.” Hal opened the driver’s side door. A warm breeze kicked dust into the car. “Can you hand me the bag?”

  It was a new canvas gym bag from Dick’s Sporting Goods, one of several stops Hal had made the night before on a last-minute shopping trip when he had realized how unequipped he was for this job. The normal tools of a lawyer—paper, books, brains—would be useless to them once they set foot in the abandoned movie theater. In there, they would need flashlights to penetrate the darkness, gloves to mask their fingerprints, and a crowbar, bolt-cutter, and hand-axe to bypass unforeseen obstacles. Not the kind of equipment taught in law school.

  Hal unzipped the bag and found the gloves. He passed Kristina one pair and put the other on his own hands.

  “I guess you knew I’d be coming along,” she said with a wry tone as she looked at the second pair of gloves.

  “Hope for the best, expect the worst. Isn’t that one of your mottos?”

  “Am I the best or the worst?”

  He wanted to kiss her, but not here. He climbed out of the car. The bag weighed a ton. It swayed heavily as he closed the door.

  Kristina’s door opened and closed as well. He knew she’d meant what she’d said about going where he went. Not as a follower. As a partner. Sometimes even as a leader. That’s how it had always been with them. And he was grateful. Extremely grateful. And that was one of the reasons—maybe not the primary reason, but certainly the most noble—that he needed to win this trial. For her.

  The abandoned movie theater loomed above them like Dracula’s castle from some B-movie horror extravaganza. As they drew closer, Hal noticed bulletins tacked to the walls. Condemned. Danger. Unsafe. Do not enter.

  There was a padlock on the big double doors that had once formed the grand entrance. Hal unzipped the Dick’s bag and pulled out the bolt-cutters.

  “Hold on,” Kristina said. “If Hazenberg really came here after the killing to hide Edley’s body parts, that padlock would already be broken. Maybe this whole thing is a lie. A game.”

  “Or maybe he used a different entrance,” Hal said.

  They walked around the building, and sure enough, found a nondescript metal door with no chain or padlock. A delivery entrance, maybe. Apparently, no one had bothered to secure it. Or maybe it had been secured once, before Hazenberg made his grisly delivery. Hal tried the doorknob and it turned.

  A rank, mildewy odor hit them. Hal tried to ignore it as he looked around. Dust hung in the air of a vast, empty space. A
stained and threadbare carpet, torn away in places to reveal raw floorboards, stretched from wall to wall. Purple, Hal thought, once upon a time. Now it just looked gray. No furniture stood on the carpet—if there had been any, it was gone now—but there was still a box office booth and concession stand. Like the exterior of the building, these fixtures were dilapidated almost beyond recognition.

  Hal wasn’t here to buy tickets or popcorn, though. He looked for a door that Hazenberg had described to him. A door leading down to a basement storage area. After a moment, he spotted it.

  “There.”

  Kristina followed him to the door. It stuck at first, then squealed as Hal pulled it open on its rusty hinges. A stairwell led down into darkness.

  Hal unzipped the Dick’s bag and pulled out the flashlights. He handed one to Kristina, then shone the other down the staircase.

  His gut clenched at the thought of descending. He would not have trusted the stairs to hold his weight—the wood looked soft and rotted—but apparently, Hazenberg had ventured down and returned in one piece, so that was something. And really, what choice did he have?

  “Wait up here,” he said to Kristina.

  “No.”

  Hal turned to look at her. “Don’t be stubborn. If these stairs give way—”

  “Then we fall together.”

  Hal sighed. “Let me go first, at least.”

  “Age before beauty,” she agreed.

  Hal tentatively placed a foot on the top step. The stair creaked ominously. He gripped the railing and swallowed hard. Put his other foot down on the next step. Proceeded downward.

  At the bottom, the room was almost pitch-black. What little light filtered down from above barely lit the stairwell itself, and the beam of his flashlight seemed utterly ineffective.

  “I think cheaping out on the flashlights might have been a mistake,” he said.

  “Told you so,” came her voice from above. “I’m coming down now.”

  Once she was beside him, the combined illumination of their flashlights defined the edges and contours of their surroundings. They stood in a cement-walled space littered with crates and boxes. Some of these must have been supplies for the concession stand, Hal figured—the ones with holes chewed through them. He spun, playing his light over the floor near their feet, looking for rats or worse. Other than some droppings, he did not see any animals.

  “Hal.” Kristina aimed her flashlight beam at a table in the corner. “Look.”

  A new-looking plastic container rested on the table’s otherwise dust-coated surface.

  Hal advanced toward the table. He realized he was holding his breath when his lungs started to burn.

  The container looked like the kind of translucent plastic storage bin sold at Target and Walmart.

  He glanced at Kristina. Her face looked ghostly white. Her mouth was a tight line. The light from her flashlight shook because her hand was shaking.

  Before fear could overwhelm him, Hal gripped the box and pried off the lid. The airtight seal broke with a hiss. The escaping odor struck Hal’s nostrils with a strength that made him drop the box and stagger backward.

  The smell was horrific—like spoiled food, like a dead and decaying animal.

  Kristina let out a disgusted sound.

  Hal struggled not to throw up as he looked into the container. At first, all he saw was a blur of color. It was as if his eyes were unable to focus. But the moment passed and his brain made sense of what he was seeing—the remains of a man’s penis and testicles. Rotting, turning to jelly inside the plastic container.

  Don’t puke. Don’t puke. Don’t puke.

  Think about your purpose, Hal told himself. Focus on that. Your purpose.

  He imagined Kristina and him in a TV studio after winning the Hazenberg trial. Under the lights, in front of the camera, sitting across from an interviewer, describing what it takes to be one of the best criminal defense attorney teams in the world.

  He tried to hold onto this vision, but it was slippery and escaped him.

  His mouth filled with a sour taste. He held in the urge to vomit. He could not afford to leave any evidence of himself here. Kristina touched his side, steadying them.

  He slammed the lid down on the box, sealing it. He let out a long breath to steady himself.

  Then he lifted the box off of the table and turned toward the stairs.

  Kristina blocked his path. “What are we doing, Hal?”

  “Saving our firm.”

  “This isn’t us. We don’t need to win this badly.”

  “Kristina, I’m sorry I kept the financial situation a secret. But if we don’t win this—”

  “Then what? What, Hal? I don’t care about our law firm this much. Nothing is worth this price.”

  This price. The price of their souls.

  He had no response.

  Gently, Kristina took the container from his hands. She put it back on the table.

  “We’re leaving now.”

  37

  “All done?” Hazenberg said as soon as the three of them were alone in the jail visitation room.

  Hal glanced at Kristina, who shot him a look back. He noticed she didn’t look intimidated by their client, only disgusted. Hal wished he could feel the same, but the memory of the man’s hand on his throat was very fresh. His throat still ached.

  “Not done,” Hal said. “Not going to be done.” He forced himself to stand his ground as Hazenberg stalked closer to him. “We’re lawyers, not criminals.”

  “Really? You may not be lawyers for long.”

  “If we move quickly, we can still negotiate a plea deal,” Kristina said. “I’ll call the prosecutor. It’s your best chance at this point.”

  Hazenberg looked from one of them to the other. “Where is it?”

  “Where is what?” Hal said.

  “You know what. The box.”

  “Right where you put it,” Hal said. “For now. But one call to the police….”

  Hazenberg laughed. “Counselor, have you forgotten your duty to me under our attorney-client relationship? You can’t tell the police anything you learned from me, including the location of Kent Edley’s body parts. Everything I told you is privileged and confidential. So don’t make threats—”

  “There are exceptions to that rule for criminal behavior,” Hal said.

  Hazenberg’s laughter filled the room, shrill and grating. “I forgot your wife is the brains of the operation. What’s the law say, Kristina?”

  “Unless you tell us about a crime that is going to be committed in the future, we are bound to secrecy,” Kristina said with obvious reluctance.

  “Correctamundo,” Hazenberg said. Hal bristled at his tone, at how clearly pleased he was by his own armchair lawyering.

  You’re the lawyer. This guy is in jail and likely heading for death row. Let him make all the smug jokes he wants.

  “You left the container on the table in the storage basement?” Hazenberg said.

  Hal nodded.

  “Then I guess that’s where it will stay. Until some homeless person finds it. Maybe a runaway kid. That would be fun. Maybe some starving, homeless little boy will find it and make a meal of it. We can hope.”

  “And what about you?” Hal said. “Have you given any thought to your last meal? You get to choose whatever you want, the night before the execution.”

  Hazenberg watched him. The laughter was gone. “Tough words. I bet you didn’t sound so tough down in that basement, though. I knew you two losers wouldn’t have the necessary resolve, the grit. I only gave you my plan as an experiment. I was curious to see how far you would go before chickening out. Turns out not too far. Did you even open the box? Did you see what was left of the man who fucked my wife?”

  Hal felt a shiver coming, but he held himself rigid, unwilling to give Hazenberg the satisfaction. “It’s not fear that holds us back. It’s humanity. We’re done here.”

  “Call it whatever you want, Hal. But we are not done here. Yo
u’re still my lawyer and you still have a job to do.”

  “Fine. We’ll call the prosecutor like Kristina said. And we’ll come back here with a deal. We’re professionals. We’ll do our best. And for your sake, I suggest you strongly consider whatever offer we’re able to get.”

  “Don’t bother. I’m not interested in any deal. Like I said, I never expected you to implement my plan. And I didn’t care. Because I had a backup plan.” He looked utterly, coldly confident, watching their reactions. “The trial is almost over, and I will be acquitted of all charges.”

  Hal didn’t want to ask the obvious question, but what choice did he have? “What backup plan?”

  Hazenberg only watched him and Kristina with the knowing smirk they’d become all too familiar with.

  Kristina broke the silence. “We’ll be back with an offer for a plea deal.”

  As always, the moment they stepped out of the jail they felt physical relief, like a headache lifting, or a weight removed. Hal turned his face up to the sunny sky and breathed in the city air, grateful to be out of his client’s presence.

  Kristina looked at him, deadly serious. Now, away from Hazenberg, she showed her fear in her wide and nervous eyes. “Do you know where Ivan Coakley is?”

  Hal hadn’t given much thought to Hazenberg’s ex-con buddy. Now he felt his blood run cold. He took out his phone and tried to call the man. He heard a recording tell him that the number he was trying to reach was no longer in service. He ended the call and put away his phone.

  “He could be anywhere.”

  “Call the police,” Kristina said.

  “What about attorney-client privilege. You just agreed with Hazenberg that we have to keep his secrets.”

  “And I told him the exception for crimes we learn about that he intends to commit in the future.”

  “Is that what you think this is?”

  “Call the police.”

  38

  Leary maneuvered through traffic. The tuxedo rental shop in King of Prussia was closing in an hour. He longed for the days when he could slap a light bubble on his roof and force everyone out of his way. He was swerving around a minivan when he got a call from Jessie.