Death Penalty

by William J. Coughlin

  A big refrigerator truck was coming at a good clip; Villar ran out right into its path.

  The son shouted. I suppose I did too.

  There seemed to be no noise, everything happening like an old silent film, as if in slow motion.

  The driver saw him and tried to brake and swerve. Villar faced him and held out his arms, as if preparing for crucifixion. His mouth was open, but there was no sound; his eyes were fixed on the truck.

  Then there was noise. The truck brakes shrieked and the big vehicle shook convulsively.

  The driver was good, very good: the truck was almost stopped when it hit Vincent Villar.

  Bouncing off the grill, he stumbled backward, sitting down hard on the pavement.

  The driver was out of the truck, screaming obscenities, his body shaking with a mixture of anger and fear.

  Villar just blinked up at him, appearing not to be injured, just surprised.

  A crowd gathered and the police came. I arranged for an ambulance to take Villar to the hospital where they were already waiting for him. Villar began to cry as we waited. His son held him, talking quietly, this time without rage or hatred.

  As for the truck driver, he was still shaking with emotion.

  “What the fuck was he trying to do,” he snapped loudly at me, “kill himself?”

  I NEEDED A DRINK, BADLY, but instead I walked the hundred feet over to the river boardwalk. I gripped the steel safety rail and waited, watching the water until the feeling passed.

  My concentration on the dark flowing waters was so intense that I didn’t realize she was there until she spoke.

  “You’re not thinking of jumping, by any chance?”

  Sue Gillis had taken a position next to mine, looking out at the river.

  “No. I don’t feel like a swim at the moment.”

  “I saw what happened from my window,” she said. “For an elderly gentleman, Villar moves pretty well. He looked like a fat O. J. Simpson running through an airport. You didn’t have a chance of catching him.”

  “I was gaining there, at the end.”

  She smirked. “A word of advice, Charley. If you’re thinking of going out for the track team, don’t.”

  “Thanks for your support. You have the knack of making old men feel young.”

  “You’re not old.” She studied the water. “It’s my fault, really. I should have guessed what he had in mind.” She looked at me. “It’s a pattern of behavior, the offer of a quick plea, anything to get out and destroy the creature that can’t be controlled. Everybody in police work, especially vice, knows that danger. I don’t know why I didn’t spot it this time.”

  “Well, it didn’t work, whatever Villar intended. All he got for his trouble was a bruised behind.”

  “I feel sorry for some of them, the ones like Villar who can’t help themselves. You can understand the suicidal feelings. The shame must be overwhelming. Maybe not long lasting, but strong enough at first that self-destruction must seem the only answer.”

  I looked at her. “You sound more like a social worker than a cop.”

  She smiled. “Maybe. Of course, I never let pity interfere with my duty, counselor.”

  “So why are you here? The social worker side? Or the cop side?”

  “You did a very nice thing back there, Charley. You really tried to save that old man. I was impressed. I thought someone should tell you.”

  “As you say, my speed leaves something to be desired, but I thank you for the good thought. I have in my time performed even greater exploits. If you have time I could buy you lunch and bore you silly with past glories.”

  “You want to take me to lunch?”

  “That’s the idea. How about it?”

  She hesitated. “Well, I do have to eat, don’t I? How about we go dutch, that way no one can say it was some kind of bribe.”

  “Jesus, if cops can be fixed for sandwiches I’ve wasted my entire life. So, I pay or the deal’s off.”

  “I have to go back to the office and get my purse. Where shall I meet you?”

  “How about the inn?”

  “Give me five minutes.”

  BECKY HARRIS WASN’T ON DUTY, which was a plus, since she would have perhaps haunted both of us. The waitress serving the table assigned to me was a Becky clone, a woman nearing fifty, handsome but with that touch of sadness a life of hard experience brings.

  I ordered an iced tea and waited for Sue Gillis.

  It should have been just a mundane lunch between a lawyer and a cop, a chance for both to form an informal network, a business lunch, nothing more.

  But I felt like a pimply teenager out on a first date, and marveled at the feeling.

  She came bouncing into the place, her movements and manner as youthful as any high school girl.

  I was worried that long-latent pimples might pop out momentarily.

  “Sorry to be late, Charley,” she said, sitting down, “but I had to take care of a few loose ends. What is that?”

  “Iced tea.”

  “It looks good.”

  “It doesn’t rival bourbon but it’s not bad.”

  “You don’t drink, I understand?”

  I nodded. “There is an ugly rumor going around that I almost ruined my career, my life, whatever, by booze. The ugly rumor is quite true, Sue. But I am what we in the program call a recovering alcoholic. I go to meetings, and, knock wood, I get through each day without taking a drink.”

  “It sounds pretty grim.”

  “Not really. It was in the beginning. But you kind of get into a rhythm after a while. But someone like me can never let their guard down. We’re all just one drink away from destruction.”

  “God, you are a smooth talker, Charley. I bet with a sure-fire line like that the women are all over you, right?”

  “It is a burden, I admit.”

  She picked up a menu and studied it.

  “Curiosity is a two-way street, Sue. We’ve done business for a while now, rapist here, window peeper there, and everyone always calls you Mrs. Gillis. I presume there is a Mr. Gillis?”

  She put the menu down. “There was.”

  “Divorced, I take it?”

  She shook her head. “I’m a widow.”

  “Children?”

  “No.”

  “Recent widow?”

  “You certainly are nosy.”

  “Hey, I’m not going to fork over good money for a lousy chicken salad sandwich unless I know all.”

  One small eyebrow went up like a railroad crossing arm. “You drive a hard bargain.”

  “We have ways of making you talk.”

  She sighed, a theatrical sound. “Oh well, in that case.” She stopped and took a roll from the basket, tore it in two but didn’t eat. “This is all pretty boring, frankly.”

  “Bore me. I love it.”

  “I was a nurse. I had a degree from Mercy and went to work at Pontiac General. I met a wonderful man, two years older than me, an engineer. He worked for General Motors. It was one of those magical things, frankly. We met in a singles saloon, and three months later we got married. My parents were ecstatic, so were his. Could grandchildren be far behind?”

  She still fingered the roll as she talked, but she was looking out the window at the river.

  “It was like out of the movies, as far as I was concerned. We had candlelight suppers, the whole romantic ball game. We did all the silly things people do before their lives shake down into dull routine.”

  She was looking at the river but she wasn’t seeing anything. “Then one morning he came out of the shower. He told me he had a small lump under the arm.”

  She paused for a moment, then continued. “I thought it was nothing. And that was good enough for him, since I was after all a nurse. But to be safe, I told him, we should have it checked.”

  “And?”

  “It wasn’t nothing. It was cancer. We were hurled into the center of a nightmare, with surgeries, pain, medication, the whole ugly thing. He went fas
t, at least that was a blessing of sorts. Six months from lump to end.”

  Her iced tea had been delivered, and she took a long sip. “After that I couldn’t bring myself to work in another hospital. I got a job as a cop and ended up here.”

  “Jesus, I’m sorry.”

  “About me ending up here?” She laughed.

  “No. You know what I mean.”

  “Life is funny. Not hilarious, maybe, but funny. Being a cop helps you cope. You realize you’re just along for the ride. It can be smooth or it can get choppy, but you basically have no real control, the ride takes you where it wants to go.”

  “Fatalist?”

  “More or less, I suppose I am. Most cops are.”

  The waitress took our orders. Sue had the perch and I ordered the special, brook trout. Fish was always a big item at the inn, since the river itself suggests the menu.

  “Okay,” she said, “you’ve sat through my life story. It seems only fair that you get your turn.”

  “You probably know much of it, since a lot of it is public record.”

  She smiled. “Let’s hear your version.”

  I finished the iced tea. “I worked my way through St. Benedict’s law school in Detroit. Then, I got a job clerking for an appellate judge, and then, later, I got hired as an assistant prosecutor in Wayne County. Mosdy, I did City of Detroit felony trials.”

  “Were you any good?” Her eyes danced with merriment.

  I pretended annoyance. “Madam, I was so damn good felons stood up in open court and confessed.”

  “Maybe you were just boring and they wanted to get it over with. Ever think of that?”

  “It never entered my mind. I left the prosecutor and opened my own office. I hope this will impress you. I ended up with an entire floor on the Buhl Building, a dozen partners, and a platoon of associates. I was, to put it mildly, making a fortune.”

  “Married?”

  “Several times. Three, if you like precise figures. One child, a girl, now a student at the University of Pennsylvania.”

  “So? What happened? How did you get to our restful shores?”

  I took a roll, pulled it apart but also didn’t eat. “I began drinking when I was, I think, fourteen. There was always plenty of the stuff around the house. Mom and Dad, God bless them, were full-fledged alcoholics. I had an enormous capacity, at least then. But at some time, down the road, my tolerance level dropped. I became the classic drunken bum, money or no money. And I drove my automobile into lots of things and places, including one hospital.”

  She listened, but said nothing.

  “I ended up in a number of tanks, so-called, and finally I got with the program. In the process, the wives, the fortune, even the kid, until lately, were all gone. They suspended me from practice for a year. I sold real estate and other things. I wasn’t very good at it. When I got my license back I moved up here and did nickel-and-dime stuff to survive.”

  “Until the Harwell case,” she prompted.

  “Yes. After that, things have brightened somewhat.”

  “Girlfriends, Charley?”

  “A few. The last one just jumped ship and moved to Tampa.”

  “So, and this is important to all women like me, you’re free?”

  “I suppose so.”

  The waitress brought our meals.

  I picked at mine, my mind full of thoughts and perhaps a speculation or two.

  I noticed that she pushed around her perch as well.

  “Do you like country and western music?”

  I nodded.

  “Merle Haggard is giving a concert a week from Saturday at Pine Knob. I have a couple of tickets. Would you like to go?”

  “Sure. I’d like that very much.”

  “Do you know where I live?”

  “No.”

  She took out a notepad, wrote down her address, and handed it to me.

  “Pick me up about seven, okay? It’s about an hour’s drive to Pine Knob from here.”

  “I know.”

  The waitress came back and looked at our plates and then at us. “Not hungry today?”

  We both nodded.

  “How about coffee, or dessert?”

  “Just coffee for me,” she said.

  I nodded my agreement, and the waitress left.

  It was one of those awkward silences. Both of us found places on the river to look at. Finally I spoke.

  “What was your husband’s name?”

  She paused for a very long time, then she spoke.

  “Charley.” She said it softly.

  6

  The McHugh case was coming up and so was my anxiety. I kept remembering Will McHugh, tied eternally to his wheelchair, and the memory of his pleading eyes haunted me.

  All lawyers know it’s imperative that an attorney not become emotionally involved in any case, at least not so much that it interferes with judgment. I tried to put out of my mind the fate of Will McHugh if I lost.

  It was becoming tougher by the day as the court date came closer.

  I was back at St. Benedict with enough law books in front of me to build a pretty good fort. They all were opened to product liability cases of various kinds. My notepad was almost filled and I had lost track of time.

  “I wondered who was hiding behind all these books.”

  I looked up and saw Caitlin Palmer smiling down at me. “Want to take a break?” she asked. “It looks as if you could use one.”

  I nodded and followed her out to the hall.

  “Coffee, Charley?”

  “Sounds good.”

  We made the usual small talk on our way to the student lounge. I poured two cups and then joined her at a table.

  She seemed a little more feminine this time. The business suit had been replaced by a good silk blouse and a skirt, fashionably tight, that demurely clutched each seductive curve.

  I sipped the coffee. Some things never change. The law school coffee was a constant. It was terrible.

  Caitlin didn’t taste the coffee. She smiled again. “I’m having an informal get-together Saturday night, Charley. Mostly faculty people from here. I was wondering if you’d like to come?”

  “Sure.”

  “I’ve borrowed my father’s boat. We can’t take it out. He only trusts me so far. But it’s moored at the yacht club, and it’s sort of a pretty place to hold a party.”

  “Cat,” I said, “your father’s on the panel that’s scheduled to hear the product liability case I told you about. I don’t think it’d be such a good idea for him and me to meet socially, not at this point.”

  She smiled even wider. “That’s no problem, Charley. Dad’s going to be in Reno at a judicial conference. He’s the main speaker. So, if he’s your excuse to say no, you just lost it.”

  “Still, it might not look so good. He might feel . . .”

  She held up her hand. “Charley, I’m an adult woman. I’m throwing a party on my father’s boat. I doubt even the longest-nosed prude in the bar association would think there was any impropriety. Please say you’ll come.”

  “Shall I bring a date?”

  The smile flickered. “I rather hoped you’d be my date.”

  “Oh?”

  “Is that a problem? Is there someone, Charley?”

  “Not at the moment, no.” I thought of Sue Gillis, but one casual lunch didn’t seem like much of a binding commitment.

  She stood up. “Then it’s settled. It’s at the Fountain Yacht Club. I’ll leave your name at the gate so you’ll have no trouble. The boat’s named the Sirocco II, not very original, but Father never did have a wild imagination. Seven o’clock, Saturday?”

  “You got it. I look forward to it.”

  She left me there.

  Thinking about her.

  And her father.

  Suddenly, I wished I hadn’t agreed quite so fast.

  I GOT TO THE QFFICC CARLY for a change, an event that seemed to surprise my secretary. It was Friday, motion day in our circuit, and I ha
d a few motions to argue. I gathered up the files I’d need and was preparing to leave when Miles Stewart, M.D., made a personal appearance, unannounced and with his usual air of supreme arrogance.

  “It’s customary to make an appointment,” I said as Mrs. Fenton ushered him in.

  “I was in the neighborhood.” He said it as if no other explanation was necessary.

  “I have to go to court now,” I said calmly, remembering how much it pleased him to rile me. “What is it you want?”

  “What’s the situation as far as my appeal?”

  “Nothing’s changed. It is progressing, and almost all the briefs are in. I’m waiting for a reply from the prosecutor. When I answer that, the case will be ready for hearing. Then, depending on the docket, the court will give us a date.”

  He frowned. “I’ve been talking to some people. Informed people. They say it should all happen much more quickly than this.”

  “Knowledgeable people, I take it?”

  He smiled, all teeth and superiority. “Very.”

  “Good. Have them take over the case. Now I have to go.”

  “You should try to develop more patience.” His eyes glittered. “I didn’t say I was dissatisfied, did I?”

  “It sounds that way.”

  “It isn’t. Despite the trial’s outcome, I still have confidence in you.”

  “How nice. Now I do have to go.”

  “Nobody died, by the way.”

  “Pardon me?”

  “You seemed worried that someone might pass away while I was being entertained up north. No one did.”

  “Good. Now you’ll have to excuse me.” I shoved the files into my briefcase.

  “I have another invitation.”

  “Where?”

  “I West.”

  “A sick industrialist, by any chance?”

  “An old friend. Since you seem to be in a hurry, I’ll leave the number where I can be reached with your harridan out there.”

  “Good-bye, Doctor.”

  As I raced down the steps, I wondered what the real purpose had been of his unexpected visit. He was always working some angle.

  But I had other things to think about.

  Doctor Death would have to move to the back burner for a while.