Death Penalty

by William J. Coughlin

  The show was good. Merle Haggard hypnotized the crowd, which moved and danced to his thundering songs of broken barroom loves and homesick prisoners. His act and his band were professionally slick, but they appeared really to get into it just as much as the crowd.

  Sue got into it as much as anyone, jumping up, dancing to the rhythms, moving with the agile grace of youth. I watched, first amused, then, aroused. Even the baloney sandwiches failed to curb my fired-up imagination. It was seldom that I lusted after cops, but this was one of those exceptions.

  After the performance we found our car and waited in a river of other cars as the thousands slowly began the trip back home.

  Sue, still on a high from the music, found a country and western radio station to continue her mood.

  “Did you have a good time, Charley?” she asked as we inched slowly toward the highway.

  “Sure.”

  “Really? You didn’t look it. Mildly amused, that’s how you looked.”

  “More than that, Sue. I enjoyed the music, but I think I enjoyed watching the people more. Some of those folks looked like they’d just stumbled out of the backwoods. Others looked like they had come from a country club. Dogpatch and debutantes. It’s a fascinating mix.”

  “So that’s all it was for you, people watching? Didn’t you at some point want to stand up and dance?”

  I glanced over at her, but she was smiling.

  “Sue, to tell you the truth, I haven’t got up and danced around since the day I got discharged from the army. It’s not my style.”

  “I guess you thought I was a bit ditzy.”

  “Oh, I already knew that. Everybody in Pickeral Point knows that.”

  She laughed. We finally reached the interstate, and traffic began to move along at the usual suicidal rate.

  But while the speed picked up, conversation didn’t. One of those uncomfortable long pauses happened, and it was still an hour’s drive back to Pickeral Point. I hoped it wouldn’t be driven in silence. Finally, she spoke. “What made you want to become a lawyer, Charley? A childhood dream?”

  “I never really thought about being a lawyer. I didn’t know what I wanted to be. I got a liberal arts degree and still had no idea what I wanted to do.”

  I laughed. “I worked in a couple of factories, did some construction, that sort of thing, while I was going through college. I did learn, though, that hard, sweaty work didn’t call out to me as a life’s occupation.”

  “So, then what happened?”

  “I was giving serious thought to becoming a dentist.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me. There’s nothing wrong with that, obviously, it’s just that you don’t seem like the type, frankly.”

  A big semi went barreling by. “A friend of mine had enrolled in dental school.” I glanced over at her and smiled. “Listen, if you’ve earned your money digging ditches as I did, the idea of wiggling a little tool around in someone’s mouth and getting big bucks for it sounded like a pretty good idea. I could get into dental school. My grades weren’t good enough for medical school, but I had a shot at the other.”

  “What changed your mind?”

  It was as if I could still remember every detail. “I went down to St. Benedict’s to register for dental school. In those days St. Benedict’s had a law school and a dental school and they were in the same building. I saw someone there I knew, and he said he was in law school. He said he liked it and suggested I give it a try. He made it sound more interesting than teeth, and perhaps even easier work.

  “So I went to the law office and got the paperwork to register there.”

  “No aptitude test or anything?”

  “Not in those days. At least nothing I couldn’t handle. I think they were more interested in whether you could scratch up the tuition. I could, so they took me in.”

  “And so began a great career.”

  “Not right away. Oh, I passed everything the first year, but I was just getting by. Then the second year I took criminal law.”

  “And you liked that?”

  “A lot. I think the main reason was the professor. He was, and is, a judge, and he was a tremendous teacher.”

  “Would I know him?”

  “Maybe. He’s on the court of appeals. Judge Franklin Palmer.”

  “I’ve heard the name or read it,” she said. “Does he know that he was such a big influence in your life?”

  I nodded. “For some reason, I really don’t know why, he took a liking to me. The criminal law course then numbered about a hundred students, give or take. Anyway, he seemed to pick me out. He arranged for a clerk’s job in a law firm for me during school, and later, after graduation, as a clerk to another appellate judge.”

  “He was, as we cops say, your rabbi.”

  I nodded. “Later, I got pretty successful in trial law in Detroit and we sort of drifted apart. Also, I was getting pretty successful as a drunk, and that may have had something to do with it too.

  “But when they were about to disbar me, I asked him for help and he helped arrange it so that I only got a year’s suspension.”

  “He sounds like a favorite uncle. Do you see him much?”

  “I never did, really. It was never a social relationship. To this day I don’t know why he helped me.

  “In fact, I argued a case before the appellate court this week and he was the presiding judge. He never gave an indication he had ever seen me before.”

  “Well, it sounds like you’ll get his vote no matter what.”

  I shook my head. “Palmer isn’t like that. He’ll decide the case on the issues and the law. I’ll get no special preference.”

  She was quiet for a moment. “He sounds like a strange bird to me.”

  “Maybe. But if it wasn’t for him, I’d be back selling shoes, or real estate.”

  “Shoes?”

  “While I was suspended from practice I sold shoes. And I did some real estate work.”

  “Men’s and ladies’ shoes?”

  “Yup.”

  She giggled. “Charley, tell me the truth. Did you ever peek up the ladies’ skirts?”

  I looked at her for a moment before I answered. “Only if they asked me, officer.”

  I SUPPOSE WE BOTH KNEW it was going to happen. We were adults, free, and not without experience. That so thoroughly modern condition.

  But despite that, it came as kind of a surprise to me. I was invited up for coffee, and that led to more conversation; and then, as if following a mutual script, we had ended up in bed.

  We made love, not like strangers but as if we had spent years together, an easy and satisfying time.

  I awoke on Sunday in her bed, awakened by the aroma of toasted muffins and fresh coffee.

  Breakfast was followed by more explorations of our mutual lives and likes, and then more soft and satisfying love.

  Sue Gillis’s sense of humor made her fun to be with.

  We spent the entire day in bed.

  Reluctantly, I finally went home to my own place, an apartment that seemed as empty as an abandoned cave.

  I opened a ginger ale and sat in the dark, sipping it slowly and thinking.

  I wondered if I might be falling in love.

  I wondered if I even knew what love was.

  MONDAY I GOT UP LATE, still thinking, and when I finally wandered into my office I encountered the silent wrath of Mrs. Fenton. It was a good thing she worked for me and not the other way around, because from the fire in her eye I knew if things were reversed I would have been fired instantly.

  “You’ve missed some phone calls,” she snapped, thrusting the messages at me. “One was a judge.” She said it with an icy tone that implied my tardiness had probably just ended what little career I had left.

  The message was from Jeffrey Mallow.

  “He’s a former judge,” I told her. “The title is only honorary.”

  She seemed disappointed.

  The other message was from Sue Gillis. She was at work.
<
br />   I called her immediately.

  “It’s me,” I said when she answered.

  “Hi,” she said. “I suppose you find this call something of a surprise.”

  “A pleasant one. Official?”

  “No.”

  “Good.”

  She giggled. “I’m embarrassed. I shouldn’t have called, but I’ve spent all night thinking about you. Are you flattered?”

  “Who is this again?” I said.

  There was an intake of breath and then she laughed. “You can go straight to hell, Charley.”

  “Before I go there, how about dinner tonight? Or is that rushing things?”

  “Not from my point of view. But I can’t. The sheriff is sending me to Lansing to work with a state police team up there on a case where we think there might be a local connection. I should be back Wednesday.”

  “How about dinner Wednesday then?”

  “Okay.” She paused. “Will you miss me?”

  “Who is this again?”

  She laughed and hung up.

  To my surprise, I realized, as a matter of fact, how much I would miss her.

  I called the number Mallow had left.

  “Slatmore and Mallow,” a nasal-sounding woman said, pronouncing the names like a conductor announcing the next train stop.

  “Mr. Mallow, please?”

  “Judge Mallow,” she corrected me. “Who shall I say is calling?”

  “Charley Sloan.”

  “Has this to do with a case?” she asked. “Are you a client?”

  I guessed she was charged with screening out creditors and other nuisances.

  “I’m a lawyer,” I said. “I’m returning the judge’s call.”

  “Please hold,” she said, her tone indicating that she didn’t believe me for a minute.

  I was patched into recorded music and listened to Johnny Mathis telling me how my chances might be until he was cut short in midcroon.

  “Just a moment for Judge Mallow,” the woman said. It was not a request, it was a command.

  Finally he came on the line. “Charley,” he boomed. “By god, you country lawyers keep cushy hours. How are you?”

  “Fine, for a Monday. What’s up, Judge?”

  “As I told you, I looked into that matter we discussed. I think I have a little information that might prove useful.”

  “Good. What is it?”

  “Well, I have to run now. Will you be here in Detroit in the next couple days?”

  “I have to attend a sentencing in Recorder’s Court tomorrow morning.”

  “Ah, lost a case, did you?” His tone was jocular but there was a nastiness just under the surface.

  “Pleaded to a lesser offense. Everybody’s happy. Especially my client. Anyway, I’ll be there in the morning.”

  “We should talk,” he said. “Unfortunately, I’m booked for lunch. I have a deposition to take at an office in the Ren Cen in the morning.” He was talking of the huge riverfront complex that had become the new centerpiece of Detroit. “Tell you what. When you get through with Recorder’s Court, meet me at that bookstore. You know, that big chain place in the middle of the lobby just off Jefferson.”

  “What time?”

  “Whenever you get there. You may be first, or I may. It’s not a bad place to kill a little time in case we don’t connect immediately. I’ll see you there tomorrow.”

  “Well, maybe some other day might be more convenient. We could have lunch—”

  “No, Charley. No. This really won’t keep. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  He hung up before I could even reply.

  10

  Recorder’s Court, Detroit’s criminal court, once was my second home, the place where I had made my reputation—and my fortune. Subsequently, I had lost both, of course, but even for old times’ sake I had never really wanted to go back to that judicial factory where it had all begun for me.

  It wasn’t the kind of place that inspired nostalgia any more than a rectal thermometer evoked happy memories for an overworked nurse.

  The court was something like a thermometer of the community’s health, rectal or otherwise. The docket reflected a violent society cannibalizing itself, where stories of cruelty and horror were so commonplace they attracted no special notice unless there was some unusual novelty connected with the atrocity.

  I went to the line of lawyers showing their credentials. All others had to pass through airportlike metal detectors. I jammed my way into an elevator with other lawyers, prosecutors, muggers, murderers, and thieves, the usual morning collection of participants in the American judicial system.

  The judge, an old law school chum, was running through the sentences like St. Peter after a worldwide epidemic. There were just too damn many and not enough time.

  My man got probation and a fine for something that would have put him in prison for a decade twenty years ago. Before I could even say thank you on the record, the next customer was being sentenced.

  Detroit was the place where the assembly line had been invented. Old habits are hard to break.

  The whole thing had taken only minutes. I regretted telling Mallow I would meet with him. Waiting around seemed like a complete waste of time.

  In the old days, of course, it wouldn’t have been. I would have located a friendly tavern, struck up several acquaintances and struck down a number of ounces of expensive liquor and hardly minded the wait.

  Those were, I hope, the old days. Now killing time was healthier but not nearly as much fun.

  I walked south, taking a stroll through what Detroiters call Greektown, a block-long stretch of Greek restaurants and stores, one of the few tourist attractions left in the old city.

  It was a pleasant morning, not too hot, not too cool, like Goldilocks’s porridge, just about right. I decided to leave my car where I had parked it, a city parking structure, next to a church. There were other reasons for locating the structure there, but I suppose it didn’t hurt that you could duck in and say a prayer that your car would be there when you got back.

  I walked toward the Renaissance Center. It was a duplicate of the huge glass towers in Atlanta, sticking up into the sky like a challenge to God. God apparently wasn’t impressed, since the place had been losing money from the first day it opened.

  Still, it looked good.

  Approaching the towers from Jefferson was like coming up on an enemy fort. It had walls just like a fort, except there were no cannons mounted on top. The explanation was that building electrical equipment, heating plants were all housed in those forbidding walls. It might have been true. But no one really believed it.

  Detroit had been under a number of flags—French, English, American—and each time an enemy force approached, history tells us that Detroit promptly surrendered.

  The current rumor was that the mayor was hoping for an enemy force so he could finally get rid of the place. The fortresslike walls would provide a picturesque place to hand over the sword. But there wasn’t much hope anybody could be suckered into accepting.

  I walked up the incline through the walls and entered the main tower of the Ren Cen.

  I like bookstores, I always have. I prefer the old-fashioned kind where the owner knows you and sets aside books he knows you’ll like, but though such stores still exist they are growing increasingly rare.

  Chains, albeit impersonal, offer a good selection of whatever subject grabs your interest.

  I actually looked forward to spending an hour or so just nosing through the books, but he was already there, waiting for me.

  “Charley,” he said, this time almost in a whisper, an attitude very different from his usual barked-out greeting.

  He hurried out of the bookstalls and grasped my hand. “I’m glad you could make it.”

  I thought his hand felt slightly sweaty.

  “That damn deposition fell through,” he said, gripping my elbow and steering me toward the exit to the street. “But that happens, doesn’t it? Annoying, but something we
all have to live with, eh?”

  It was the kind of question that required no answer.

  He continued to steer me past the walls, down Jefferson, past Mariner’s Church and toward the riverfront plaza.

  “I love to walk, Charley,” he said. “God knows, I hardly have time for it anymore, but it is one of life’s true pleasures, don’t you agree?”

  “What did you want to see me about, Judge?”

  He smiled as we walked past the Dodge Fountain toward the river. “Oh, many things, Charley, many things.”

  He gestured toward Canada on the other side of the river. “Beautiful, isn’t it? I come here often. It’s peaceful.”

  A ragged man had been eyeing us. Finally, he made up his mind and approached.

  “Say, could you gentlemen help a fellow out?” he asked, his jagged smile exhibiting missing teeth.

  Judge Mallow smiled back. “Get the fuck outta here,” he said in a conversational voice.

  I think the man was more surprised than offended. He shrugged, said something under his breath, and shuffled off.

  Mallow didn’t even notice. “A foreign country, right on our doorstep,” he said, gesturing across the river as if he had just discovered Canada. “A peaceful border. No cannons, no soldiers, just friends.”

  I said nothing. I realized he was waiting for a young couple who had been standing at the river railing to move away. Finally they did.

  “As I promised,” he said very quietly, “I looked into your McHugh case.”

  “You didn’t have to.”

  “I know.” He turned so that his back was against the river railing. He looked directly at me. “Frankly, it doesn’t look too good for your side of things, Charley.”

  “Oh?”

  He paused. “You’re not stupid, Charley. You realize that as a former chief judge of that court I still have a lot of power there.”

  Actually, the opposite was true. Mallow had been in trouble, and trouble was something other politicians moved away from like baskets of snakes. He was almost without friends now, but apparently reluctant to admit, or perhaps even acknowledge, this brutal truth to himself.