Death Penalty

by William J. Coughlin

  He snorted. “No, it wasn’t wasted. When you’re standing up there and talking to those three black-robed assholes you’ll remember this. You’ll remember that poor bastard, and you’ll do a better job because of it.”

  I didn’t reply, just shoved the accelerator down and sped away.

  Mickey didn’t say anything more for a while, then he turned to me. “Do you remember that movie, The Fly?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Will McHugh reminds me of that movie. He’s trapped in his own kind of web, saying ‘help me—help me,’ that’s how I think of him.”

  “They helped the ‘fly’ in that movie by squashing him, do you remember that?”

  Mickey nodded. “Mercy can be manifested in any number of ways,” he said softly.

  We drove silently for a while and then he spoke again. “God, I hope we win this thing.”

  Mickey was dying, or said he was, so I took pity on him, and we stopped for lunch at a restaurant just past the airport. I had a corned beef sandwich and coffee. Mickey ordered a ham sandwich that he didn’t touch and four manhattans. By the fourth, he was becoming more like his old self. Not jolly exactly, but not deeply depressed either.

  We talked about the case.

  “Any idea who you’ll draw?” he asked.

  “I won’t know that until next week.”

  He sipped his drink. “That’s the key, Charley. Any way you can maneuver who you’ll get?”

  I shook my head. “It’s been tried by better men than me. Unsuccessfully, as far as I know.”

  “You sure?”

  “The judges sometimes try to angle for a case they want to hear. They’re not supposed to, but it’s done. It’s like a game. Unless one of them is really interested, it really isn’t worth the effort. It’s an in-house thing.”

  “Do you think one of your friends over there might take pity and do something for us?”

  I laughed. “I don’t have those kind of friends, Mickey. Besides, no one I know would try something like that. It’s all risk and no reward.”

  “I told you what I heard, about the reward part.”

  “Yeah, you did. But as far as I know, everything is on the up and up over there. Those appellate judges are in a fishbowl, they can’t really screw around with things much. They all watch each other like hawks. You’ve got liberals, you’ve got conservatives, you got all points of political view on that court. Everybody is touchy about their own judicial philosophy. Nobody can go into business for themselves, at least not easily. Too many eyes are always watching. Also, you might be able to fix one judge, but not three.”

  “I wonder.”

  “When I hear who we’ve got, I’ll give you a call.”

  He nodded, then looked away. “You wouldn’t mind if I didn’t go there when you argue, would you?”

  “No. Why?”

  “This goddamn case is driving me bats. It’s just too important to even think about. I don’t think I could bear just sitting there and listen to those judges shoot questions at you. Unless you really need me, I’d like to stay away.”

  “The whole thing will only last an hour, Mickey.”

  “An hour can be a long time if your nuts are on fire. Mine are, Charley. Will you need me?”

  I shook my head. “No. You did the work on the brief. You did your part, Mickey.”

  “Good.”

  He finished the drink. “You told Will McHugh that we’ll win. Did you mean it?”

  “No. We have a good chance, but that’s all. If I were betting, to be frank, I’d say we were even money, no more.”

  “Shit.”

  “You disagree?”

  He sighed. “That’s the problem. I don’t.”

  Mickey walked out to the car ahead of me. He walked slowly, his head down, hands in his pockets, moving a bit awkwardly, like an old man who had no place to go but knew he had to keep moving or die.

  Suddenly the uneasy feeling I had felt about the case escalated to pure dread, a sense that I was staring into an unspecified but certain doom. As in the old stories about cursed seamen, it seemed for a moment to me as if I might have agreed to sail on some kind of death ship.

  The sensation was not unlike the sudden sweaty anxiety that jolts you awake from a half-remembered nightmare.

  I would have liked to get off this ship, but I had signed on.

  Mickey was waiting in the car, staring silently at something only he could see. I wondered if he might be thinking the same thing.

  I started the car and we drove back to Detroit.

  I WAS INVITED to meet with the prosecuting attorney. Summoned was more like it. His secretary, a new woman whom I didn’t know and who sounded so stuffy that I felt I was better off that way, had frostily informed me that the subject to be discussed was my client Becky Harris.

  The prosecutor was new. Judge Collins had slumped over dead during a particularly boring trial. It came as a surprise, especially to Judge Collins. In Michigan when a judge quits, gets convicted, or dies, the governor appoints someone to fill the term. The new judge has to run but election is almost a certainty, and without scandal the job becomes lifetime, at least de facto. Even before the mortuary wagon carted Judge Collins away, local lawyers went after the vacancy like starving cats diving for a fat fish. When the dust cleared, my old courtroom opponent, Mark Evola, the county prosecutor, had his big teeth firmly in the belly of the fish, and the governor appointed him.

  That, of course, left the prosecutor’s job open, a position to be filled by appointment, by law, by the county’s three circuit judges. But each judge had a different candidate, and they couldn’t agree. The delay in selecting someone became politically embarrassing. Finally, they decided that none of their personal favorites could win so they appointed an outsider, a lawyer none of them really wanted, but who would at least keep the chair warm until someone more suitable could beat him in the election.

  Their selection, P. Daniel Parkman, a local probate lawyer who didn’t know very much about criminal law or politics, was as vulnerable as a one-winged duck in a fox pen. Lawyers were already lining up to try and defeat him, a fact that did not escape the notice of P. Daniel Parkman. He was being as careful as a nearsighted man in a mine field.

  I had met Parkman socially. His predecessor had been a backslapping politician who never met a voter he didn’t like. Parkman, on the other hand, was short, stout, and scowling, and looked more like a grouchy loan manager than someone running for office. He was young for the job, just a few years past thirty, but thinning hair and a paunch made him appear much older. He sported a little scraggly mustache that looked more like a chocolate milk stain across his stern upper lip.

  Sue Gillis, everybody’s badge-toting cheerleader, was waiting for me when I got to the prosecutor’s office. We didn’t even get a chance to gab but were ushered immediately in to see Parkman.

  That hadn’t changed, except the walls seemed obscenely bare. The many framed photos of Evola with politicians had been removed.

  Parkman, seated behind the big desk, didn’t stand but waved us to two chairs in front of his desk. He frowned at us, and I wondered if he thought he had our votes tied up.

  I shook hands with him before I sat down. He seemed reluctant even to touch another human.

  “What’s your connection with the Harris woman?” he said, growling at me.

  “A client.”

  He nodded slowly, as if I had just said something puzzling or profound, but he wasn’t sure which.

  Then he spoke again. “I trust you know, Sloan, that the prosecutor’s office is not a private collection agency?”

  “Are you thinking of going into that business?”

  His scowl deepened. “You know what I mean.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t.”

  “Your client and you are using this office to squeeze Howard Wordley for money.”

  “Oh? Who says?”

  “Victor Trembly.”

  I glanced at Sue Gillis. Whatever s
he was thinking was concealed behind her placid schoolgirl face. But I thought I saw amusement in her eyes.

  I looked then at Parkman. “That, to put it bluntly, is horseshit. Trembly is defending Wordley. That’s his idea of terrific pretrial tactics.”

  “There’s nothing to defend,” Parkman said. “We haven’t charged anyone with a crime. Yet.”

  “Did you see Becky Harris’s throat?”

  He nodded. “I saw the photos.”

  “The flesh is even worse. The doctors who treated her say she came within an inch of getting strangled. You don’t think she did that herself, do you?”

  “She’s got a record as a whore,” he snapped. “God knows what she’d do.”

  “Trembly called me,” I said. “He wanted to talk about the case and a possible settlement. I thought he might pull something like this so I refused. The guy has a reputation for being a sleaze.”

  “Like yours?” Parkman’s smile was an accusing grimace. “Judge Evola told me to watch out for you.”

  “He’s still pissed because I ended his political career by knocking his ass off in the courtroom.”

  “There’s no need to be vulgar,” Parkman said, nodding toward Sue Gillis. “I presume your client will pursue this matter in civil court.”

  “That’s possible. At the moment she’s pursuing it in criminal court, or trying to. Are you going to recommend a warrant in this case, or not?”

  He shrugged. “She has a record as a prostitute. Mr. Wordley’s story is quite believable. It was self-defense, as I see it. I do not intend to go forward, not without stronger evidence.”

  I sat back and studied him for a moment. “I do admire your courage. Not many elected officials would have the kind of guts you have. As soon as all this hits the newspapers, every woman in the county will be up here after your scalp. But, as they say, duty is its own reward.”

  “What do you mean, newspapers?”

  “I will have to bring a civil action if no warrant is issued. I’ll try to keep it out of the newspapers, but you know how they are, always checking new lawsuits and the like. Everyone in the media seems to be going in for the tabloid approach lately. Sex, rape, rich car dealer, you know how it is. I shudder when I think of that woman’s throat being shown in color photographs. Front-page stuff. God, I hate that kind of sensational exploitation.”

  “You wouldn’t dare do something like that,” he said. “The woman is a whore!”

  “One little conviction a long time ago in a city far, far away. A mistake. She pleaded guilty because she didn’t know any better. A victim. Like now.”

  I thought he was turning pale.

  “Of course, if you were a coward and issued a warrant you could avoid all that bad publicity. But I know you wouldn’t think of taking the easy way out. My heroes have always been politicians who did the right thing, even though it cost them their jobs.”

  “I didn’t say I wasn’t going to recommend a warrant.”

  “Oh?”

  “I’m just not sure what charge to bring.”

  I nodded, as if agreeing. “When might you decide?”

  He tried to smile. “Oh, these things take time. A week or two.”

  “I had better go ahead then and bring a civil action. I wouldn’t want to let those terrible injuries fade away before the news photographers could shoot them.”

  “Tomorrow,” he snapped. “I want to talk to my staff. I’ll take action tomorrow.”

  “Good. Just so it isn’t a slap on the wrist. Let me know. If the charge is substantial, I’ll recommend to my client that we not bring a civil action just now.”

  He looked like he might cry. “That’s all,” he said.

  “Have a nice day,” I said.

  Sue Gillis walked me out. “That was mean, Charley. The poor bastard is afraid of his own shadow. Were you a school yard bully when you were young?”

  “I only picked on small kids. Cripples, if possible. I like to play things safe.”

  She laughed and waved good-bye.

  When I got back to my office, Mrs. Fenton handed me a telephone message from Becky Harris.

  I wanted to tell her the news, maybe brag a little, so I called immediately.

  She answered on the first ring.

  “Hi, Becky. Charley Sloan. How are you doing?”

  “Very good, much better,” she said brightly.

  “Good. I just came back from a meeting with the prosecutor, Becky. Tomorrow—”

  “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

  “Yeah, anyway, tomorrow they will recommend that Wordley be arrested.”

  “Oh no!”

  “No?”

  “Can you stop it? Howard and I have talked things over. He was very sweet.”

  “Sweet?”

  “He’s been under so much stress. After he explained things, I understood everything.”

  “Like nearly getting goddamned murdered?”

  “It wasn’t that bad. Anyway, Howard feels just terrible about everything. He’s going to make it up to me. I think he just might leave his wife. He hinted that he was thinking about it.”

  I sighed. “Did he offer money?”

  “No.” She sounded offended. “He bought me a beautiful diamond ring, a really big one. He didn’t say so, but I think he intends it as a kind of an engagement ring.”

  “What about the quick sex in the parking lot? Are you going back to that again?”

  “Howard explained. His business has been in trouble. That’s all it was, just stress. I understand now. Everything is going to be just fine.”

  “And the criminal charge?”

  “I don’t want to bring a charge. Can you take care of that?”

  “Becky, after today, I don’t think they would believe me. I tell you what, you call Sue Gillis. Remember her?”

  “Yes.”

  “Call her and tell her you don’t want to prosecute.”

  “All right.” She paused, then spoke. “Mr. Sloan, how much do I owe you?”

  I thought of the enemy I had just made in the county’s top law office. What was that worth? And I hated the thought of Victor Trembly laughing at me.

  “Nothing, Becky, you owe me nothing, it’s just something to be chalked up to experience.”

  “By me?”

  “No. Me.”

  I hung up.

  MOST OF US LIVE our lives according to the dictates of routine, some more than others, some less. I was no exception. I had been routinely devoting my Thursday afternoons to St. Benedict’s law library. The McHugh case was getting closer by the day, and I needed to anticipate anything that might be asked by the judges. In addition, although my brief was in, I needed to study the law concerning the issues in Dr. Stewart’s case. Almost daily, courts across the country were issuing opinions in cases with issues similar to Doctor Death’s. Some were favorable and supported our position, some were flat-out disastrous. I had to know each and every one so I could use the language in support or be prepared to defend against it. The prosecutor’s answering brief was due, and when it came in I wanted to write a quick reply and get the case set for hearing.

  So on every Thursday, unless I was caught up in court, I drove into Detroit, worked the afternoon at the law library, then caught a quick dinner so I could make the regular weekly meeting of the club in the basement beneath St. Jude’s Church.

  It was a rather tranquil way to live, and Thursday was fast becoming my favorite day of the week.

  I was in the school’s law library reading a North Dakota case almost identical to the McHugh facts. It was a new decision, just in. Part of it hurt us, but part of it helped. I was lost in complete concentration when I felt a strong grip on my shoulder. Like a vise. So strong I was immediately at the edge of pain.

  I turned and looked up.

  “Charley Sloan. What a pleasant surprise.” The words seemed to echo in the quiet library.

  “Hello, Judge.” His fingers bit even deeper into the flesh around my s
houlder.

  Students glanced up at the disturbance and frowned their disapproval.

  “Got a minute, Charley?” he asked.

  I marked the page for the North Dakota case and followed him out of the library.

  He wore a tailored, gray pinstriped suit in place of a toga, but he looked the way I thought Roman senators probably had. Tall, wide-shouldered, and powerful, he had the fleshy build of a football player. Everything about him was big, muscular. His snow white hair was brushed back so smoothly that it resembled a white helmet until it curled regally around his expensive collar. His florid features could have graced a Roman coin. Although he was nearing sixty, his manner was youthfully energetic, his walk was two points away from a strut.

  Judge Jeffrey Mallow.

  Judge was a title of courtesy. He had resigned from the court of appeals to go into private practice. To make a little money, he had told the newspapers at the time. But his career off the bench had been stormy.

  “Coffee, Charley?”

  He put his big arm around my shoulders and led me toward the student lounge down the hallway.

  “Damn, I love this place, don’t you?” His deep baritone voice was unnaturally loud in the quiet hall. “They’re going to surrender to the goddamned Jesuits and close this place down. Perhaps by the end of this school year. It breaks my heart.”

  He gripped me as if he thought I might try to escape. It was awkward to try to walk in step with him but there was no alternative.

  “This place was the dream of our fathers, wasn’t it?” The question was rhetorical. “Without this place you and I wouldn’t have had much of a prayer, would we?”

  I said nothing, mostly because I didn’t get the chance.

  “Were you one of my students, Charley?”

  “No. You taught procedure here after I graduated.”

  He nodded and guided us through the door into the lounge. The few students there glanced up, probably wondering who we were and what we were doing there.

  He released me. “What do you take, Charley? Cream? Sugar?”

  “Black.”

  He nodded and played the coffee machine until he came up with two steaming cups.

  “How about over there?” It was in the form of a question but it was really a command. We took a small table well away from everyone else.