Life Sentence

by David Ellis

  Ben nods but he’s still listening. “Okay. Okay. Keep trying. Hire anyone you need. As many people as you want. We need anything you have, and we need it yesterday.” He covers the phone again, speaking to me: “No luck so far tying Trotter to any communication with Garrison.” Then back into the phone: “Is that all, Cal? Okay, what’s the best for last? You—you did—and?”

  “Ten thousand tax-free is plenty for a career felon with a minimum-wage job at a pharmacy,” I say to Ben, though his attention is on the information he’s receiving over the phone.

  “No,” Ben says into the phone. “Cal, I have no—” Ben’s face colors. He closes his eyes. His mouth parts. He makes a noise, something guttural. He looks like someone has pulled a pin and let out all his air.

  “What?” I ask, pushing him lightly.

  “Are you positive?” Ben asks. “A hundred percent positive?” Another pause. Ben doesn’t say anything further. He simply folds his cellular phone and places it delicately on a stack of papers in front of him.

  “Tell me,” I implore. “Come on, Ben, what’s the—”

  “Rick,” he says.

  My heart skips a beat. “Cal found Rick?”

  “So to speak.” Ben places a hand on the table to steady himself.

  “So to speak? What does that—” I watch Bennett bring his hands to his face. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

  Bennett’s eyes creep over the hands covering his expression. He nods.

  “Jesus Christ, this guy.” I slap my hand on the table. “Trotter just erased the lot of them. This guy won’t stop at anything. He—”

  “Trotter didn’t kill him.” Bennett straightens again, looking me in the eye. “I did.”

  It takes a moment, a moment to ensure that I heard my friend correctly, another moment to recall the name of the person who broke into his house a week before Dale Garrison was murdered. “Brian O’Shea,” I say. “Brian O’Shea is Rick—wait—” I drop my hands on the table. “Oh, for God’s sake.” I hold out my hand. “You get it, Ben? Brian O’Shea is Rick O’Shea. Ricochet.”

  “Brian ‘Rick’ O’Shea,” says Ben.

  “That’s a nickname a bunch of dumb kids would come up with,” I say. “Well, Brian or Rick or whoever—why was he breaking into your house, Ben?”

  Bennett throws his hands up in exasperation.

  “Trotter used O’Shea just like he used Cosgrove,” I say. “He uses the guys from 1979 to do all the killing. So everything would point at me. And make the senator look bad.” I point to Ben. “O’Shea was planning on killing you,” I say.

  “Maybe,” says Ben. “Killing me or hurting me.”

  “Trotter was sending a message to Garrison about the blackmail,” I say. “He picked someone close to Garrison, close to us. He was telling Garrison, this is how it’s gonna be. Violence. Pain. Death. But then it got turned around. You killed O’Shea, not the other way around. So the message wasn’t sent. So Trotter had to take out Garrison. It was the only way to ensure that the Ace would never be public.”

  “But why me?” he whispers.

  “You make sense,” I answer. “It can’t be me, because he might need me later—I’m the guy he set up for Dale’s murder. And you live alone. You’re part of the legal team. Dale knows you. It makes sense, Ben.”

  Hard to read Ben’s expression. He’s doing some serious thinking, but I don’t think he’s trying to connect the dots on this case. I don’t think he’s listening to me at all. I think he’s realizing, for the first time, that the man who broke into his house may really have been a killer. Ben’s shooting was justified. Not just under the law, but in Ben’s own mind now, too.

  I’m glad for that, too, but I’m concerned with more immediate topics. “Ben, listen,” I start. “I know the whole thing being dredged back up—that whole night of the break-in—can’t be easy for you. But the truth is, I need you right now.”

  Bennett blinks out of his trance and looks at me, waving me off with a hand. “I’m fine.” His face is crimson; his eyes are red, almost rabid. If anything, this probably makes him want to take down Lang Trotter even more.

  “I need two things from you tomorrow, I add. “I need you to convince the judge of my innocence.”

  “What else could there be than that?”

  “Make the senator come out okay,” I answer. “He has enough trouble already.”

  53

  ON MY WAY out of my office after meeting with Bennett, my cell phone rings. I don’t answer in time but there’s a voice-mail message. It’s Tracy. She tells me she’s been out with friends, tried me at home first, was just checking in, wondering how things are going. She says they’re going to the bar at the Washburn, she understands if I’m not up for it—she’s with a bunch of people, no doubt—but the offer stands.

  Yeah. That would be a real hoot for her girlfriends. The arrival of a murder suspect to the party. We can discuss theories, evidentiary rulings, the impact on the governor’s race. Maybe we can speculate on the details of spending the next forty years in prison.

  The thought hits me that Tracy is falling into a pattern that started about two years ago, when our marriage was sliding downhill. Nominally inviting me to things she knows I’ll decline. Not wanting me to come but understanding her obligation to ask.

  But I don’t think so. She came to town for me. But what’s she supposed to do if I don’t call her? Sit home at her friend Krista’s place and hang her head? She should have some fun. She deserves it. It’s about time.

  I find myself avoiding the cabs that slow as they pass me. I’m heading east toward the lake. The walk is enjoyable. It’s unusually mild for October, and even with the wind tunnels we’re famous for, there is little more than a light breeze.

  The Washburn Hotel is like a glorified train station. The place is magnificent, a forty-story palace along the lake. The interior always brings to mind an amusement park, too many things going on in one spot. There’s a restaurant, a lounge, a slot room, a salon.

  The lounge has a sizeable bar, with an interior garden area outside the bar with tables and chairs. The place is hopping, with a couple dozen people milling outside the bar in the garden area and a packed crowd inside.

  I slow my walk and move to the doorway. The bouncer doesn’t bother to card me. I stand practically next to him and look about the place. A once-over produces no sign of her, and I find relief in this fact. But then I see Tracy, sitting with three of her friends near a corner.

  Not surprisingly, she looks terrific, dressed for a night on the town. Her friends Krista, Stephanie, and Katie are with her. They’re all midthirties, all married. Stephanie has two little girls, Krista and her husband have been trying for a couple of years. I haven’t spoken with any of them since the divorce. I don’t think there’s animosity there, just the lack of a common element since their friend, my bride, left town.

  She’s laughing, the way she always did, throwing her head back, a wide smile splashed across her face. A couple of men are trying to work their way into the group, presumably with Tracy in mind, but her body language suggests her indifference.

  Tomorrow, everything will be different. A terrible secret will arise from my past, a secret that not even Tracy ever knew. I suppose there should be some significance in the fact I never told her—that I’ve always known I did something wrong, and that I never completely opened myself to my wife. Was that it? That I closed her out? Hid my emotions? It’s not the first time I’ve wondered, but I always reach the same conclusion, that it’s impossible to look back and identify the source. Because everything is intertwined with everything else.

  There’s no rewind button in life. Like anybody else, I’d do things differently, given the chance. The question is, what would I do differently? Everything seems important at the time. Everything’s a priority. In hindsight, the details of legislation and meetings and backroom deals and elections merge together in a meaningless blur, leaving me only with the fact that my wife is gone.

&
nbsp; This is too much. Overload. It’s not so simple as the fact that I’ve got the trial, no time to mourn our past. No, the truth is I’ve made plenty of room for thoughts of Tracy all along, more so since she returned to town. And it’s not the past I’m thinking of. It’s our future. That’s what scares me. Besides, the wind blows one way and I spend the rest of my life in jail. And I’m thinking about our future?

  I nod to the bouncer, who’s looking at a guy who never left the entranceway.

  “Didn’t find who you’re looking for,” he says to me.

  I turn back to Tracy once more. She’s listening to one of her friends tell a story, her hand rising to her face as she breaks up in laughter. She was always good at listening.

  54

  THE FIRST ORDER of business today is the defense’s motion for a directed verdict. Ben is asking the judge to find the evidence so insufficient that the trial is over. Judge Bridges lets Bennett Carey argue for over ten minutes about the deficiencies in the prosecution’s case. She doesn’t interrupt him, and she has a passable poker face, but it’s not hard to see where she’s going. Especially when she tells the prosecution not to argue in response.

  “There is competent evidence of homicide,” she begins. “Death by strangulation. There is, at this stage, unrefuted evidence that Mr. Soliday was the only person who possibly could have committed the strangulation. None of this is conclusive. I haven’t heard any evidence from the defense. But the motion is denied. Mr. Carey, if you choose to offer a defense, you have the right to your opening statement.”

  My heart sinks, not from surprise at the ruling, but at the words delivered by the person who is the sole finder of fact in this case. Judge Bridges is my jury. She has found competent evidence of strangulation and she believes that I was the only person there. We will point all over the place at motive, but we will never be able to put Lyle Cosgrove or Langdon Trotter in that office with Dale Garrison and me. Not unless Cal Reedy finds something good.

  “Thank you, Judge, I would like to make that opening statement.” Bennett rises and buttons his coat. I want, more than anything, to close my eyes and shut out what’s coming. But this is our offensive, and however uncomfortable it may be, I have to look Judge Nicole Bridges squarely in the eye.

  “I’m going to tell you two stories,” Ben starts. “They will appear to have nothing to do with each other. But the evidence will show that they do. They are quite related.”

  Ben positions himself in the center of the room. “Let me take you to the summer of 1979. Jon Soliday and his best friend, Grant Tully, are seventeen years old. High school grads. They take a drive to Summit County, across the state line. They were attending a party they’d heard about. They meet up with a gentleman there, someone neither Jon nor Grant had ever met before. That person’s name was Lyle. We now know his full name is Lyle Cosgrove.”

  The judge cocks her head. A name she has just recently heard. A man who was murdered. I hear the noise of pen to paper, scribbling, from the prosecutor’s table. I don’t think Erica Johannsen knows this stuff. Maybe Lang Trotter decided not to funnel this stuff to the county attorney yet. Or maybe she’s just surprised that we would bring this stuff up.

  “Lyle had a girlfriend named Gina. Gina Mason. And there was another person there, too. That person went by the name of Rick. As a nickname, he used ‘Ricochet.’” Ben shrugs. “So we have Jon Soliday, Grant Tully, Lyle, Rick, and Gina. And they did what kids who are in their late teens, maybe early twenties do. They partied. They had some beer. Some of them—not all of them—even used drugs.”

  Ben takes a step to the side. “The night is coming to an end, and people are set to go their different ways. The young woman, Gina, she left by herself. Rick drove Grant home. That left Lyle Cosgrove and Jon Soliday.”

  I hold my breath. I have just been connected to a man recently found murdered. The story has to start this way, chronologically at least, but the first impression on the judge can’t be favorable.

  “Lyle and Jon, it turns out, went to Gina’s house. Jon Soliday was intoxicated. Quite intoxicated, more than he’d ever been. He had little experience with beer and none with drugs. So he didn’t know much. But when Lyle Cosgrove pulled up in front of Gina’s house and told Jon to go in, Jon did. He went in.”

  I feel a slow burn run through me. The press in the gallery is silent, but there is bombshell after bombshell spewing forth now. Grant Tully. Drugs. More evil to come. In politics, they say your career is never finished unless you’re found with a live boy or a dead girl. Well, here’s a dead girl.

  “Jon was welcomed into the home by Gina. They were attracted to each other. And they did what some teenagers would do in such a situation. They were—intimate. They had sexual relations in her room.”

  This is golden stuff from a gossip’s perspective. The scribblings of pen to paper—from behind me and from the prosecution—provide a background hum as my lawyer continues.

  “As Jon was leaving the house, the man he came with—they were really just boys—Lyle Cosgrove was leaving his car and going to the house, telling Jon that it was time to go. Jon was leaving anyway. So he left with Lyle. Two days later, Jon Soliday is working a summer job when he’s visited by sheriff’s deputies. He learns for the first time that this young lady, Gina Mason, died that night. A death,” he quickly adds, “that was later determined by the medical examiner to be an overdose.”

  A sufficient murmur arises behind me, sufficient that Judge Bridges bangs the gavel lightly for silence. Hearing this in public makes it all the more tangible. What a sordid affair, and what a tragic conclusion.

  “There is an investigation,” Ben continues. “The police and the prosecutors in Summit County investigate. They investigate the possibility of homicide, of rape. They speak to Lyle Cosgrove. They speak to Jon Soliday. They review the medical evidence. And they conclude that this young woman died by overdose. There was no murder. There was no rape. A very unfortunate situation but not a criminal one.”

  The understatement of the year, one that is certainly not lost on the judge. She casts a sour glance in my direction. My heart is pounding against my chest. This isn’t working out so well. She’s going to hate me before she hears anything that helps me.

  “Lyle Cosgrove, by the way, retained an attorney during this investigation. The same attorney who would serve him in 1988, when he is charged with violent crimes. The same attorney who helped him get parole this year. An attorney named Dale Garrison.”

  For a moment, the judge is too taken aback to note the clamor in the courtroom. She looks at the prosecutor for some reason. I do, too. Erica Johannsen is waving to someone, a clerk or another assistant prosecutor, to come to her. She begins whispering feverishly. Finally, the judge calls the courtroom to order.

  Ben pauses a moment, returns to the defense table, and takes a drink of water. He casts a look through me, wipes some sweat off his brow, and returns to the center of the room.

  “The news isn’t public because all of the boys are juveniles,” he continues. “But among law enforcement, you better believe it’s a juicy bit of gossip. The son of Senate Majority Leader Simon Tully, connected, however indirectly, to a scandal? It’s at the top of any gossip list. Does the prosecuting attorney in Summit County mention it to some of his prosecutor buddies? You bet. Who was among the people who find out about it? The Rankin County Attorney at the time—Langdon Trotter.”

  I keep my breathing even. My eyes begin to well but I stay composed. The judge’s face reads horror and intense curiosity. She is leaning forward with her hands propped under her chin. The press behind me must be in a feeding frenzy. Now we’ve thrown in Langdon Trotter as well. But we will never prove that Lang Trotter heard about the 1979 incident. We can suppose it, but it will never be a fact. And that’s the lynchpin of our theory. If Lang Trotter didn’t know about 1979, he wouldn’t know to use Rick and Lyle, so it doesn’t make sense that Trotter was behind these murders. Which points to me.

  �
��Trotter can’t do anything with the information,” Ben continues. “It’s a sealed juvenile case. But he stores the information away. He keeps track of the players—Lyle and Rick. He waits for the time that the information can prove useful.” He opens his hands. “That’s the first story. Now, the second.”

  Okay. At least we’re on offense now. Steady as she goes.

  “This year,” says Ben. “The governor’s race. Attorney General Langdon Trotter coasts to victory in the Republican primary. No one runs against him. No one looks at his nominating papers. But when Senator Grant Tully wins the Democratic primary, his attorney, Jonathan Soliday, does look at the papers. And what does he find? He finds a mistake. A major mistake. A fatal mistake. Langdon Trotter did not submit the original statement of candidacy with the board of elections. He submitted a photocopy.”

  Erica Johannsen probably doesn’t even understand this. Judge Bridges does. She had to file one of those when she ran for judge. But she might not understand the legal point, the deficiency in the papers.

  “The failure to file the original statement of candidacy renders the statement invalid,” Ben says. “And without a statement of candidacy, there is no candidacy.”

  The judge nods.

  “And this was not only the conclusion of Jon Soliday, who is probably the single foremost expert on election law in this state. It was also the conclusion of another lawyer whom Senator Tully consulted—”

  The judge could probably say the name along with Bennett.

  “Dale Garrison.”

  Ben comes over to the table and removes a copy of Dale’s memo on the Ace. “Defense number two for identification,” he says. “We will introduce a memorandum prepared by Dale Garrison on this very point. It’s on Mr. Garrison’s computer. The prosecution has had it in their possession all along, though it’s notable that they’ve never mentioned it.” He turns and looks squarely at Erica Johannsen. She had her head down writing something but looked up when Ben referred to her, and she appears unsure of any response.