Shadow of A Doubt

by William J. Coughlin

  It was a modern building that doubled as the sheriff’s headquarters. The stark reception area was tiled, with benches bolted to the floor. It was presided over by a sheriff’s receptionist housed in a bulletproof glass cage.

  The receptionist was a very fat deputy sheriff named Franklin. His uniform was tailored so the fabric didn’t strain against his bulk. Franklin — he never used a first name — looked out at the world with little pig eyes, not hostile, but not friendly either. He knew me. Ironically enough, I represent a number of practicing drunks who beat up their cars or their wives. Small-time stuff, admittedly, but of sufficient volume that I’m well known to the Pickeral Point cops, guards, and court personnel.

  “Hey, Charley,” Franklin said into the microphone in his booth. “What can we do for you?” His voice came out the speaker with a slightly metallic quality as he stared from his cozy cocoon of thick, yellowish glass. Bonnie and Clyde couldn’t have shot their way into the modern Pickeral Point jail.

  “Hello, Franklin.” I smiled. “I’m here to talk to a client.”

  “Who?”

  “Angel Harwell.”

  The little pig eyes narrowed. He hesitated, then spoke. “I’m sorry, Charley. I have orders that no one is to see her. This morning we were ass deep in television cameras and reporters. Shit, I even got a call an hour ago from CBS in New York. Everybody wants to talk to her, even Dan Rather.”

  “I’m her lawyer, Franklin,” I said evenly.

  He frowned, screwing up his face in a manner that passed for thinking, then spoke. “I got my orders, Charley.”

  “Better get hold of the sheriff, then. If I have to get a court order it will complicate life.”

  The tiny eyes narrowed until they almost disappeared. He pursed his fat, rubbery lips, then shrugged. “Hold on. I’ll call.”

  He switched the microphone off so I couldn’t hear, then picked up the phone. He had a spirited conversation with someone, hung up, and switched the speaker back on.

  “Have you filed an appearance?” he asked.

  “Just now, over at court.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “They say I got to let you in.”

  “I think it’s something called the Constitution, Franklin.”

  He chuckled, the soft flesh at his neck wiggling from the effort. “Okay.”

  A loud click sounded as he electronically opened the steel door leading into the bowels of the main jail.

  “Go on in, Charley. Someone will take you up.”

  A woman deputy, looking much better in her uniform than Franklin, escorted me up the stairs to the second floor, the women’s section. She moved with parade-ground precision, quick, sure, with a slightly authoritative swagger. Her uniform trousers were cut snug and she had a very nice ass.

  The building was only a few months old but it had already acquired the aroma of jail: chemical disinfectant, anger, and fear. Nothing else in the world smells quite like a jail.

  A woman inmate called out to me as I passed her cell. To translate into the official language of court: she offered to perform a lewd and lascivious act upon my person if I would just thrust a named body part through the bars. What she actually said in her raspy voice was far less polite but much more to the point.

  “Shut up, Martha,” the deputy snapped, more for show than for effect.

  I was led toward an isolated small cell at the back of the jail. Another woman deputy was seated just outside the cell.

  “We got her on a suicide watch,” the deputy explained.

  Inside the cell a young woman sat primly on a bolted bench.

  “I want to talk to her in private,” I said.

  Just like big-time prisons, the new jail had fancy state-of-the-art interview rooms separating lawyer and client by glass but allowing communication by microphone.

  “We got orders to keep her here,” the matron said. “You can talk through the bars.”

  “So you can listen in?”

  She smirked. “Whatever you got to say, counselor, wouldn’t be worth hearing.” She shrugged. “It’s against standing orders, but I’ll let you into the cell. I’ll sit over there where I can see. Unless you shout, I won’t hear a thing. But don’t give her anything and keep your hands where I can see them.”

  I opened my briefcase, although I wasn’t required to do so, and let her see the contents, which weren’t much.

  She opened the cell door using an electronic device like a television’s remote control. I stepped in. There was the narrow bench and a toilet, but that was all.

  Angel watched me as I approached.

  I have been in dozens of jails, sometimes as a customer, but I have never seen anyone who seemed more out of place.

  Angel Harwell looked very much like her name, an angel. Her hair, stylish and short, was jet black, contrasting with perfect white ivory skin. There was a soft, almost spiritual beauty to her classic oval face, the kind of face that stares out of magazine ads for French perfume. Her eyes were blue, light blue, almost translucent. They had dressed her in a standard jail smock, blue and loose fitting, but she was tall and slender, and even in the concealing smock, she possessed a seductive feminine quality. She wore jail slippers, the paper kind that cheap bathhouses used to issue.

  “My name is Charles Sloan,” I said, holding out my hand. “I’m a lawyer. Your mother hired me to represent you.”

  Her hand was soft but her grip was sure. She moved over so I could sit down.

  At a respectable distance outside, the woman deputy stared at us as if expecting us to begin to fight or make love or erupt into some other act forbidden by jail regulations.

  “Can you get me out of here?” she asked. Her voice was cultured, quietly assured, without the slightest hint of fear or apprehension.

  “I am going to try. May I call you Angel?”

  “If you like. Are you a criminal lawyer?”

  “Well, I do a lot of things, criminal defense is one of them, Angel.”

  She fixed those appraising blue eyes on me. “Are you any good?”

  “Some think I am,” I said. The opposite was equally true, but that wasn’t something you usually said to reassure a prospective client. I took out a yellow pad from my briefcase. “Angel, they have you here on an open charge of murder. Do you understand that?”

  “I really want to get out of here. I can’t urinate without one of those bull-dyke guards staring at me. Can you do something about that? It’s quite humiliating.”

  “We’ll discuss all that, Angel. But first let me tell you some things about the charge and some of the possible defenses.”

  “Don’t you want to know what happened?”

  I nodded. “Yes, but first, I want you to know your legal position.”

  “You’ll tell me what to say, right?”

  I smiled indulgently, but she had hit the nail right on the head. I couldn’t come right out and tell her what to say — that would be illegal and unethical — but I could lecture and by so doing let her see the best way to go. It was a delicate technique and every criminal trial lawyer had to know where to draw the ethical line in such situations. Some occasionally went over the line, as I had in the past, but I was no longer willing to take unnecessary risks. I had lost my law license once, and if it happened again I knew I would never get it back.

  “Angel,” I began, ignoring her comment, “in Michigan, there are three possible charges when a felonious killing has occurred. Taking it from the top, the most serious charge is first-degree murder. They bring that when the killing was planned and maliciously carried out, or committed in the course of a felony. Second-degree murder is charged when the killing is intentional but without what the law calls malice — in other words, it wasn’t planned. The least serious charge is manslaughter. That’s the charge when the killing is done while acting instinctively in the heat of passion. In this state, the law —”

  “Cut to the chase,” Angel said crisply. “What am I charged with?”

  “So far, it’s an
open charge. A degree will be fixed by the prosecutor and he’ll have to back it up in a court hearing.”

  “This is all terribly fascinating, but can you get me out, or can’t you?”

  “That’s why I’m telling you this. If they charge you with first-degree murder, I can’t. Bail isn’t allowed in first-degree cases. But if they charge you with second-degree, the court can set bail. The same is true with the charge of manslaughter.”

  “Go on.”

  “When someone has been killed, a number of defenses may apply. For instance, self-defense. If someone is about to seriously harm another, that person has a right to defend herself, even take a life if it’s a reasonable act. And then there’s insanity.”

  She looked into my eyes. “What has Robin told you?”

  “Not much. We didn’t have time.”

  “She told you I was crazy, didn’t she?”

  I paused. “She said you were nervous and that you had been treated for emotional problems.”

  “She said I was insane.” Angel paused and looked away. “Well, perhaps I am.”

  “Tell me what happened,” I said.

  “How much do you know?”

  “Practically nothing.”

  She nodded. “We have houses all over the country, did you know that?”

  “No.”

  “We do. Wherever Daddy built a factory he bought a house. We hardly ever came up here to Michigan, except for a few days every year. Our main place is in Florida, that’s where I consider home. We came up here for a few days because Daddy had business.”

  “Do the three of you always travel together?”

  She shrugged. “Lately we have.”

  “What happened last night?”

  “Nothing. Well, that’s hardly true, is it? Of course, something happened. My father died. I found him, did you know that?”

  “As I said, I know very little.”

  “I was upstairs in my room. I haven’t been sleeping well. I think it’s this new medicine I’m taking. I went downstairs for some milk and I saw the light on in Daddy’s study.”

  Her tone was conversational and without emotion. “I looked in. I almost didn’t see him. He was lying on the floor just behind his desk. There was a knife in his chest and he was all bloody.” She looked at me. “He was dead.”

  “What happened then?”

  “At first it didn’t seem real, like something on television. You see it but you know that it isn’t real, it’s just some actor done up by the special effects department. That’s how it seemed to me.”

  “Unreal.”

  She nodded. “Of course, I realized it wasn’t. I tried to help Daddy. I tried to get the knife out, but it was all slippery and I couldn’t.” She stopped and shook her head, then continued. “I didn’t know what to do. It still seemed like a dream, a nightmare. The blood was all over everything. He was dead. I ran back to my room. I was there when the police came.”

  “Did you tell anybody?”

  “I was too shocked. Really, I couldn’t even think straight.”

  “I understand the police found you in your room.”

  “I wasn’t hiding, if that’s what you mean.”

  “What did you tell the police?”

  “I said my father was dead downstairs.”

  “That’s all?”

  “They asked me how we got along, my father and I.” She shrugged. “I said we got along fine.”

  “That’s all?”

  “Are you a good lawyer?”

  “Pretty good. What else did you tell them?”

  “You must understand I was still in shock.”

  “Yes, I understand. What did you tell them?”

  She paused. “I’m really not sure.”

  “Did you tell them you killed him?”

  She shook her head. “Not like that.”

  “Like how?”

  “I’m very confused. What’s your name again?”

  “Sloan. You can call me Charley, if that’s easier.”

  She nodded. “They asked me a lot of questions, Charley. I felt responsible because I had left him there all alone. I think I said something like that. That I was responsible.”

  “Did you say you stabbed him?”

  That angel face now seemed almost serene. “I don’t think so.”

  “But you don’t know.”

  “If I did, they’ll tell you, won’t they?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, they will, Angel. That you can count on.”

  “Can you get me out, Charley?”

  I had the feeling that not even Jesse James or the Marines could get Angel Harwell out. Not now, not ever.

  “Did you stab him?”

  “No,” she said, but blandly, with no more feeling than if declining cream and sugar.

  “Angel, is there anything more I should know? Did you and your father really get along?”

  “I loved my father. Will they let me go to the funeral, do you think? They should.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “I suppose they’ll want those damn doctors to talk to me again.”

  “Again?”

  She sighed. “No matter whatever happens, I end up talking to doctors.” She smiled slowly, but there was a sadness in it. “But they never really seem to understand.”

  “Do you need anything?”

  She shook her head. “Not at the moment. Just some privacy.”

  “I don’t want you to talk to anyone about the case, Angel, not the police, not the prosecutor, not anyone — not even the guards or the other prisoners or even the doctors. Not unless I’m right there with you. Do you understand that? It’s important.”

  She nodded.

  “I’ll check out a few things, and then I’ll come back. Don’t worry. We’ll do everything we can for you.”

  “Just get me out.”

  I closed the briefcase and stood up. “I’ll work on that, Angel, trust me.”

  She looked up, her beautiful face devoid of animation.

  “Do I have any other choice?”

  2

  THE PICKERAL POINT POLICE DEPARTMENT CONSISTS of a dozen or so glorified traffic cops, more comic than commanding, their main job being to keep the tourist traffic flowing nicely by mindlessly enforcing the city’s parking laws. If you double-park you have to worry about the city police, but if you’re a really serious criminal they are absolutely no threat. They wouldn’t know what to do. All serious transgressions, real felonies, are quickly turned over to the Kerry County sheriff’s office. The sheriff has some honest-to-god cops on the payroll, mostly retired Detroit detectives enjoying two paychecks and a view of the river, each of them happy to be in a much gentler city than the one that pays them their pension.

  The sheriff’s detectives are older, but they are very good at their trade. They are hard-eyed professionals, and trying to get them to tell me anything about the Harwell case at this point would have been as productive as asking my equally hard-eyed banker for an unsecured loan.

  So I went to the county building and walked up the stairs to the second floor and the offices of the Kerry County prosecutor, Mark Evola. Evola could be a pompous ass at times, but basically I liked him. He was honest and that put him a couple of notches up on some prosecutors I’ve known.

  Evola had proven to be something of an empire builder. His staff now numbered twelve assistant prosecutors, who did most of the lawyer work; a chief investigator, who was Evola’s political brain; and a support staff of absolutely gorgeous women.

  I always liked coming to Evola’s office. It was like watching the Miss America contest; the beauties were clothed, of course, but an active imagination corrected that.

  The word was out that Evola, a Republican, would challenge the district’s Democratic congressman in the next election, and the common wisdom had it that he wasn’t a sure thing, but had a healthy chance.

  Caesar’s main fault was ambition, history tells us. Mark Evola was possessed by the same kind of hung
er.

  He had a wife, young and pretty, and two little photogenic kids. He had a mistress, also young and pretty, who served as his personal secretary. He apparently managed to keep both women happy. Congress, I think, could use a talented man like that.

  His mistress/secretary showed me into his large office. It was decorated with pictures of himself with other smiling politicians, plaques, and athletic awards from his basketball days at Michigan State University.

  Mark Evola was young, thirty-five, and tall, about six feet six, blond, with blue eyes and a hint of a smile that seemed permanently painted on his smooth face. He took my hand. Evola shook hands with everyone as if he had just found out they were his long-lost cousin. If manufactured sincerity was liquid Evola would have drowned everyone he had ever met. Despite that, there was steel beneath the smile but he seldom let it show.

  “Charley,” he said, grinning and pumping. “Gee, it’s good to see you. I’m always glad to see such a distinguished brother at the bar. You’re looking especially dapper today.” He managed to pat my back vigorously as he let go of my hand. It was like getting slapped by a bear.

  I was relieved when he finally returned to his chair behind his big ornate desk. “Charley, is this visit social or business?” His smile exhibited perfect teeth. They didn’t look false, but they were. Like many basketball players, he had had the real ones knocked out by assorted elbows under the basket during his playing days.

  “Who’s assigned to the Harwell case?”

  The big smile retreated to the usual smaller and enigmatic one. “Why?”

  “I’ve been retained to represent Angel Harwell.”

  One blond eyebrow went up like a rising bridge, slow and deliberate. “Have you filed an appearance?”

  I nodded.

  “Tragic case,” Evola said. “She’s a beautiful girl. Have you seen her?”

  “I just came from the jail.”

  “Beautiful, but a monster.” He sighed. “Charley, a lot of these crimes I can understand, but killing your own father, that’s against nature.”

  “Also the law. Who are the detectives assigned?”