Death Penalty

by William J. Coughlin

  “Do you?” It was clear Cecil had an opinion on everything and would express it even if you really didn’t want to hear it.

  “You’d know better than me, but from what I read in the paper and from what I hear, God, I don’t think she’s got a prayer. But you never know,” he said, and grinned at me. “Look at what you did in the Harwell case.”

  I had grown to hate that name but I tried not to show it.

  “Did you know Howard Wordley?” I asked.

  “Is this official?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Mean? Shit, Charley, if you should stick me up on the witness stand as your main witness, there goes my job, my pension, and God knows what else.”

  “Look, Cecil, if you had information that would save an innocent person, wouldn’t you come forward?”

  “Sure.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “Tricks, Charley. They say around town that you’re full of tricks. I don’t want to get my ass in the grinder because of some kind of lawyer trick.”

  “I won’t trick you, Cecil. I promise.”

  He smiled an innocent, trusting smile. I almost felt bad about lying to him.

  “Now, what about Howard Wordleyr?” I asked.

  “Old Howard, he wasn’t such a bad guy. Of course, I been here thirty years, and so was Howard.” Cecil smiled. “Back then, way back, he could never keep that damn thing in his pants. There wasn’t a lady in town, married or single, that Howard wouldn’t take a shot at.” He took off his cap and scratched what was left of reddish gray hair. “Of course, I thought he’d eventually slow down. Age gets to us all, doesn’t it? But apparently not Howard. He was always trying.” He put the cap back on. “Tried once too often, I guess, eh?”

  “Looks that way. What about Mrs. Wordley? Do you know her?”

  He nodded. “Real nice lady.”

  “Did she know about Howard’s little hobby?”

  “She had to. At least I think she did. They live together, or now I guess I should say lived. But they never went out together. She belongs to that fancy country club up here, Peach Creek. He does too, but I understand there was an agreement that it was her club and he was never to come unless invited.”

  Cecil sighed. “As a cop, you see a lot of those kinds of marriages. They live in the same house but they go their own way. A lot of people live like that, rich and poor.”

  I saw a gossipy gleam in his eye. “She’s a Weaver you know.”

  “What’s a Weaver?”

  “One of the founding families up here. Her father, old Don Weaver, owned half the county. I understand he left most of it to his daughter. That’s how Howard got the money for the car dealership. I hear she’s the real owner, he’s just the front man, always has been.”

  “A rich woman all on her own. I wonder why she didn’t just dump Howard, or jerk him in on the golden leash?”

  “Women, they are funny people, you know? I think she actually loved Howard. I don’t know, of course, I don’t run in them circles. I just hear things.”

  “How is she taking the death? Is that one of the things you hear?”

  “Oh, sure. There isn’t much to talk about up here, is there? They say she’s taking it well, very sad, very calm, a real lady. She’s making the arrangements herself. Howard’s going to get a first-class send-off.”

  “Tell me, Cecil, was there ever any police trouble with the Wordleys?”

  “You mean like family trouble runs? Black eyes, yelling, that sort of thing?”

  “You should have been a detective.”

  He thought for a minute, then shook his head. “If there had been, I would have known. I’d remember something like that.”

  He walked me to my car.

  “You going to see Becky?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  “Tell her Cecil said hello.”

  I DID SEE BECKY. She looked even more despondent than before. I wondered about the possibility of suicide, but the sheriff’s people running the jail were two steps ahead of me. An informal suicide watch was already in place.

  Since I was already in the neighborhood, I dropped into the prosecutor’s office to see Stash Olesky.

  He lived in a cubbyhole office jammed with dusty books and piles of yellowed reports. He cleared off a chair near his desk for me and then turned those Polish eyes on me.

  “I saw those photos, by the way,” he said, “the ones showing Wordley’s handiwork on Becky Harris.”

  “In color?”

  He nodded. “For once, you weren’t exaggerating.”

  “I never exaggerate.”

  He merely smiled. “We traced the gun.”

  “And?”

  “It was stolen in a burglary. Your little lady was in possession of a hot weapon.”

  “Bullshit.”

  He shook his head. “Nope. This is on the level. It belonged to some woman in Cleveland. They burglarized her house about ten years ago. It’s the same gun, same serial number.”

  “Doesn’t mean anything. Somebody gave her the gun.”

  “Still a hot gun, Charley. You know juries. God, how they hate those hot guns.”

  “So?”

  “Those pictures don’t mean anything legally, but I am impressed with the amount of damage old Howard inflicted on your lady. Still, she zinged him with a stolen gun. What I’m thinking about here is a plea.”

  “To what?”

  “Just thinking, you understand, not offering. I have to check everything through the new asshole now. New rules. But for thinking purposes only, how does second-degree murder sound to you?”

  “Recommended timer?”

  “No recommendation. It would be strictly up to the judge. Ten chances to one he’ll give her life. Hey, she does eight of that and is back out on the street. Not bad when you think about it.”

  I pretended to consider the offer. “How do you know she shot him?”

  Stash’s smile slowly spread across his broad Polish face. “Nitrate tests all show she fired the weapon. Her cute little prints, only hers, are on the gun and trigger. A video of her actually doing it would be better, but not much.”

  “What about the cartridges?”

  “What about them?”

  “You know what they are, don’t you, Stash? Little metal things that hold the powder and the slug and when fired the powder explodes, the slug goes zip and in the kind of gun in this case the empty shell is ejected.”

  “Thank you for the lesson,” he said sourly. “I had always wondered about how that worked.”

  “I presume you found her prints on the empties? I mean, to show she loaded the weapon and all?”

  “Fuck you, Charley.”

  “Well?”

  “The only fingerprints on the brass was Wordley’s. Sometime or other he must have loaded the gun for her.”

  “How about that night maybe? Maybe he was trying to kill her, and his scheme went awry.”

  He sighed. “I presume you don’t want to talk plea at this time?”

  “We’ll talk, Stash, but not now.”

  “Anytime, Charley. Just remember I’m under new rules. Everything I do or agree to has to be cleared with the new boss.”

  “I liked the offer or whatever it was you made, Stash, but if there is a plea, I think we can work out something much better than what you suggest.”

  He laughed. “When this is all said and done, Charley, you’ll have old Wordley committing suicide.”

  He grinned, then paused. “Hey, wasn’t that the shit you used in the Harwell trial?”

  AFTER STASH I popped in on Sue Gillis.

  “Charley, this doesn’t look good, you coming here to see me like this.”

  People were watching us, but I thought they seemed more amused by Sue’s discomfort than the situation itself.

  “How about I slip you some cash openly, then they won’t think this is some kind of sexual bribe.”

  “Charley, please.”

  “Or ton
ight maybe, I could slip into dark clothing, grease my face, creep over the golf course, and then slither up to your balcony. Would that make you feel better?”

  “Slither?”

  “I’m good at it. I took lessons. But, in lieu of that, how about dinner tonight? We could sneak off to some far and exotic place like Mt. Clemens, that’s if you really want mystery and seclusion.”

  “I can’t tonight,” she said.

  “Everybody eats, Sue. What do you mean, can’t? Do you have another date?”

  “I should say yes, but it isn’t that. I have to pound out reports on the work I did up in Lansing. It’s important work, Charley, and I can’t say more than that. I’ll grab a quick sandwich here. How about tomorrow night?”

  “I’ll be in Detroit tomorrow night. I usually am on Thursdays.”

  She raised a quizzical eyebrow.

  “I go to an AA meeting on Thursday nights. I’ve been going to the same one for years. I could skip, of course.”

  She shook her head quickly. “No. What about Friday?”

  “Okay by me.”

  “Me too.”

  “Shall I pick you up at your place?”

  “Seven?”

  I grinned. “Done.”

  I got up to leave, then stopped. “Oh, by the way, could you bring along the Becky Harris file? That’ll give us something to talk about.”

  “They have an asshole contest every Saturday over in Richmond, Charley. If you enter, I think you have an excellent chance at winning.”

  MRS. FENTON HAD GONE by the time I got back to the office. She left the telephone messages for the day on the corner of my desk. Mallow had called three more times. He left his home telephone number, and each message was marked either urgent or important.

  I turned in my lopsided chair and watched the river.

  An enormous ore carrier was gliding by, its majestic prow sending up a wave at least ten feet high. In the resulting wake, some damn fool in a small outboard was bouncing over the crests like a Honolulu surfer.

  He drew ever closer to the stern of the big boat, and occasionally the great propeller could be glimpsed churning in the white water.

  If the boater got much closer, that white water would be turned instantly crimson.

  I wondered what prompted people to dance so close to obvious destruction.

  I looked again at Mallow’s messages and then pitched them into the circular file.

  14

  Thursday looked like an easy day, which in one way was fine, but easy days don’t produce much profit for lawyers like myself, single practitioners, which was the price that lay on the other side of easy days. Mrs. Fenton didn’t even say hello when I showed up at the office. Her thin lips were clamped tight as she thrust a telephone message at me.

  Jeffrey Mallow was up early. She wrote down the message in quotation marks to convey his growing anger.

  I smiled at Mrs. Fenton and wondered how much longer the silent treatment would be applied.

  I didn’t call Mallow back, hoping that by now he was getting the message that I wasn’t going to participate in whatever scheme he had thought up.

  All I had scheduled was a real estate closing in Mt. Clemens. I represented the buyers. I dug out the file and drove to Mt. Clemens.

  There are a number of interesting names of cities in Michigan. Bad Axe, Battle Creek, Grindstone and the like. But Mount Clemens was named after a mountain that never existed.

  A fur trader named Clemens canoed up the Clinton River and established his camp on a high bank, ten or fifteen feet above the water. He traded there with the Indians and trappers for fur. He came every year and always pitched camp in the same place. The area is so flat you can shoot pool on it, but Clemens had a sense of humor and named his little lump on the water Mount Clemens. The Indians thought it was hilarious, but the mapmakers didn’t know it was a joke, and its nonmountain became official.

  While it had gone on to grow to be a fair-sized city, it was still just as flat.

  I parked my car and went into the bank where the closing was to be held.

  It turned out not to be easy. Everyone ended up screaming at everyone else. Deposits, set asides, taxes, there wasn’t an item that wasn’t contested. The sellers’ attorney threatened suit. I threatened countersuit. The bank’s attorney threatened to sue everybody. It was not a pleasant morning, and the pitched battle continued on into early afternoon.

  The deed and the other papers finally got signed, but it was more like two bitter armies drawing temporary treaty lines than the happy buying of a home.

  I didn’t get out of there until three. My clients weren’t speaking to anyone, not even me, although they got everything they had demanded.

  Fortunately, I’d been paid in advance.

  I grabbed a hamburger at a fast-food place and choked it down, then drove on into Detroit and to St. Benedict’s law school.

  IT WAS ALMOST AS IF Caitlin Palmer had been waiting for me. She came up to me as I cleared the guard at the law school entrance.

  “Well, how did it go, Charley?”

  “What?”

  She smiled. “The case you argued before my father. He said the case had been heard. Do you think you won?”

  “I don’t know. Did your father give you a hint?”

  Caitlin’s smile faded slowly, not out of offense, but more out of puzzlement. “He just said he thought you had done a very good job.”

  “How did my name happen to come up?”

  She paused. “I told him I had seen you.”

  “At the boat?”

  “Yes. I’m an adult, Charley. I told him I had invited you as my date.”

  “What kind of a reaction did that provoke?”

  “Frankly?”

  “Yeah.”

  She looked away and then spoke. “He said you were much too old for me.”

  “That’s all?”

  “Dad brought up all the other business.”

  “You mean, my drinking, marriages, and near disbarment?”

  She still did not meet my gaze. “Something like that.”

  “In other words, he didn’t approve.”

  Surprisingly, she laughed as she looked at me. “Let’s say he wasn’t wildly enthusiastic.”

  “There goes my case.”

  “Charley, my father would be fair no matter what. He’ll make up his mind on the law, nothing else. You don’t have to worry about anything personal having a bearing on the outcome.”

  “But if he feels . . .”

  She frowned. “He’s my father and your judge. He will do both jobs to the best of his ability. And as far as my personal life is concerned, I make all the decisions.”

  “I wonder if anyone can be quite as fair as you say he is.”

  “Believe it. How about dinner tomorrow night?”

  I smiled. “I thought we agreed that we wouldn’t see each other socially until the decision comes out. Especially now, Cat.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Charley, in some ways you’re more of a puritan than he is.”

  “Still. . .”

  “We’ll see,” she said as she turned and walked away.

  I thought about things from her father’s viewpoint. I wonder what I would do if my daughter, Lisa, said she was interested in a recovering drunk, a three-time loser in the marriage wars who had almost lost his law license once, a man who would be one drink away from destruction for the rest of his life. And a man twenty years older than my daughter, who, in addition to everything else, lived from fee to fee with no worldly goods to endow anyone with.

  I doubt I’d be ecstatic.

  I was absolutely sure Judge Franklin Palmer wouldn’t be either.

  Poor Will McHugh.

  I FOUND A LITTLE CUBBYHOLE in the law library and was almost halfway through the assisted suicide essay when it seemed as if a mountain had blocked off my light.

  I looked up into the florid face of Jeffrey Mallow. A very angry florid face.

  “There you
are,” I said, whispering cheerfully. “I’ve been trying to get hold of you.”

  Lying is often an excellent defense, although I didn’t think it was going to work this time.

  “I want to see you,” he snapped, teeth clenched. “Now.”

  I started to get up.

  “Take your things,” he commanded.

  I shrugged, deciding to humor him. I slipped the article into my briefcase and snapped it shut.

  This time there were no bear hugs. He moved ahead of me like a blocking back, so swiftly that I was having trouble keeping up. He exited the library and moved down the hall to a darkened classroom. He tried the door and opened it, motioning me to go inside. The only light was from the outside through the classroom windows, but it was sufficient, since a big gas station across the street was brighter than any moon.

  “Sit,” he said, tossing a one-armed student chair at me.

  Anger can be contagious; now I began to feel the urge to respond in kind.

  He half stood, half sat on an instructor’s desk about five feet away.

  “What the hell’s the matter with you, Sloan? I’m breaking my ass trying to do you a big favor and you don’t even have the courtesy to answer my phone calls?”

  “It’s been a busy time for me,” I snapped.

  His face was mostly in shadow, including his eyes, so I couldn’t read any expression in them.

  “Besides,” I added, “I’m not looking for favors.”

  “You may not be looking for one, but, by God, you need one.”

  “You mean, in the McHugh case.”

  “I mean exactly that.”

  “What kind of favor are we talking about?”

  He hiked himself up on the desk, hunching forward, his face closer, but still in darkness.

  “You saw the memo?”

  “Yes.”

  “It could go either way, but the memo indicated the court should favor the position of the other side.”

  “I saw what it said.”

  “There’s a lot of money at stake here,” he said. His voice had dropped to a near whisper. “A lot of money.”

  “So?”

  “Money can talk, very loudly.”

  “Then I’m going to lose because Ford Motor has a hell of a lot more money than I do. If there’s going to be an auction, I’m in no position to bid.”