To that end I’ve agreed to Kevin’s request that we meet with a jury consultant this morning. I’ve used consultants before but lately had stopped doing so. It’s not that I don’t believe they can be of value, it’s just that I trust my instincts more than I trust theirs.
I’m making an exception in this case because of my feeling that there’s a lot that I don’t know about small-town Wisconsinites. Of course, there’s a great deal that the jury consultant, a woman name Susan Leidel, doesn’t know about them either, because it turns out that she’s come up from her office in Milwaukee.
What Ms. Leidel proposes is that we do a substantial amount of research within the greater Findlay area to get a handle on what the people think, in general, and how they view this case, in particular.
Once I learn that she has no special knowledge about the area and its people, I mentally disconnect from the meeting and let Kevin carry the ball. I sit there quietly and spend about half the meeting trying to think of a way to find Eddie and the other half recalling last night in bed with Laurie. Kevin is smart enough to make the meeting mercifully short.
While we’re having lunch, Kevin says, “It’s nice to see you and Laurie together like this.”
“It’s sort of a work in progress,” I say. “I’m just not sure what we’re progressing towards.”
“This is not such a bad place to live, you know?” he says.
“You mean except for the part where people kill lawyers?” I ask.
“You know what I mean,” he says. “There’s crime everywhere, but this place sure has less than most. I’m just saying it’s a nice community, and you could do worse, if you decided to stay here when this is over.”
“I’d go absolutely insane, and within a year I’d kill myself,” I say.
He smiles. “But that’s really the only downside.”
Laurie calls right after lunch to tell me that she confronted Mrs. Barlow with the latest news about Eddie but that the woman continued to deny any knowledge of him or his relationship with her daughter. I’m sure she’s lying, and I continue to be amazed that she would be so resistant to finding out the truth about her daughter’s death.
With jury selection rapidly approaching, I head home to start preparing for my opening statement. I jot down little notes and phrases that pop into my head, but I resist the temptation to actually write out the statement. I like to make it as extemporaneous as possible; I feel I connect better with the jury that way.
Kevin, as is his practice, gives me a lengthy memo presenting his view of what should be included in the opening statement. It is a perfect example of why Kevin and I complement each other so well.
If Kevin has a weakness as an attorney, it is that he’s too detail-oriented. This fourteen-page memo brings up every imaginable nuance in the case but perhaps lacks a “big picture” approach. A fair criticism of Kevin, as evidenced by the memo, might be that he doesn’t see the forest for the trees.
I, on the other hand, have a tendency to see only the forest, without even noticing that there are any trees. I pay far too little attention to detail, which is a substantial weakness. Fortunately, it is amply compensated for by Kevin’s working alongside me.
Another of my weaknesses is that, while I make some effort to prepare in advance for things like this opening statement, I find it hard to get really serious about it until it is imminent. So after spending an hour or so at it tonight, my mind wanders and I wind up falling asleep on the couch while watching an NBA game on ESPN. Tara’s head rests on my leg as she sleeps, and that’s how we wake up in the morning.
The phone is ringing when Tara and I return from our morning walk. I rush in to pick it up, and I get it simultaneously with the answering machine.
“Hello?”
“Mr. Carpenter, this is Eddie Carson.”
I’m shocked at this piece of news, but I attempt to conceal that and talk calmly. “Eddie… I’ve been looking for you.”
He speaks haltingly, apparently nervous. “I know… I’m sorry I ran away… but I didn’t know who you were. I thought Drummond might have sent you.”
I have a thousand questions I can ask him, including why he might be afraid of Drummond, but I don’t want to ask him over the phone. I know so little about what is going on that I’m afraid I could stumble upon a question that could scare him off. My sole priority now is to get Eddie in a room.
“When can we get together?” I ask. “All I want to do is talk to you.”
“Okay… yeah… I’m ready to do that. I’m gettin’ real scared.”
“Where are you?”
“You’re the only one coming?” he asks, obviously wary.
“I’ll bring my associate along, if that’s okay. He’s a lawyer like I am.”
A pause, then, “okay.”
He tells me the name of another motel, on a highway about four hours from here. I’m getting a little tired of driving all over Wisconsin looking for this guy, but there’s no alternative. “Just wait for me, okay? I’ll be there around one o’clock.”
He promises that he will, and gives me his room number. Kevin comes into the house as I’m getting off the phone, and I tell him what just happened. As I’m doing so, I get out the map, to figure out what our route will be.
“I’ll call Marcus,” Kevin says, heading for the phone.
“I told him I’d just bring you,” I say.
“Well, you just changed your mind,” says Kevin, and I don’t argue. He calls Marcus and tells him where we are going.
I speak to Kevin while he is still on the phone with Marcus. “Tell him to follow us at a distance.” I want it this way so that Eddie doesn’t see Marcus with us, since that could easily get him to run away again. I also don’t want to have to listen to classical music for four hours.
Kevin and I are in the car within fifteen minutes. I don’t see Marcus, but then again I never do. I trust that he will be there if we need him, but my hunch is that this time we won’t.
This time Eddie has come looking for us.
Luckily, the weather today is fine, if one doesn’t mind freezing cold, so the drive is much easier. I’m also anxious to get there before Eddie can change his mind, so my foot is a little heavier on the gas pedal than last time.
The motel that Eddie has directed us to is the Peter Pan Motor Hotel, a two-story establishment that makes the Parker Motel look like a Ritz-Carlton. As with the Parker, the parking lot wraps around the place so that guests can park in front of their rooms. My guess, based on the classiness of the place, is that many of their guests only take their rooms for an hour or so in the afternoon.
Eddie told us his room number, so there’s no reason for us to stop off at the front desk. We park near the outdoor staircase, since his room is on the second floor. I look around for Marcus but can’t find him… business as usual.
Kevin and I walk up the stairs and then around the building toward the room. I feel a flicker of nervousness at what is about to happen. It’s unlikely that Eddie would be leading us into a trap, but there is always that possibility. Kevin was absolutely right to call Marcus.
We reach room 223, and I knock on the door. As I do so, I see that it is only half closed and can be pushed open. I wait for someone to answer, but no one does. I hope Eddie has gone out, maybe for a bite to eat, and will be back soon. I’ll be really pissed if he’s bailed out on us again.
I push open the door and call out, “Eddie?”
No answer, so Kevin and I enter the room. The bed is unmade, there are some papers on the desk, but no sign of Eddie. I go toward the open bathroom door and look in.
There is a skylight in the bathroom, with a metal latch. One end of the rope is tied to this latch, and the other end is tied to Eddie’s grotesquely twisted neck as he gently swings, his feet about eighteen inches above the bathroom floor.
• • • • •
I’VE SEEN DEAD bodies before, both murder victims and otherwise, but it’s not something I’m likely to get
used to any time soon. For some reason the image of Eddie’s shoes, slowly drifting in the air, is one I believe that I will never forget.
Kevin comes to the door to see if I’ve discovered anything. “Holy shit,” he says, mostly to himself.
I close the door with us on the outside of it. I ask Kevin to call 911 as I look around the room, and it doesn’t take long to find the note sitting on top of the desk.
It’s a rambling two-page letter, in longhand but legible. I’m careful to just nudge the edges of the pages so as not to smudge any fingerprints, but there is no way I’m not going to read this. It consists of a confession of guilt to the murders of Liz Barlow and Sheryl Hendricks, as well as an apology to the victims, the victims’ families, and God, for what he has done.
Included are three paragraphs in which he describes the murders as having been committed because Liz broke off their “engagement” and he just went “crazy” at the prospect of a life without her. His last paragraph is a specific apology to Jeremy for the pain he has caused him. He acknowledges burying the bodies on Jeremy’s property, as well as putting specks of the victims’ blood in Jeremy’s truck, which he says was parked in Center City.
Kevin and I wait outside the room for the local police to arrive, since we have neither a desire to contaminate a crime scene nor hang out with a dead body. Four local patrolmen arrive in two cars, and after confirming that we are the ones who called the discovery in, they proceed to enter the room without waiting for any detectives. It is clear that their training regarding crime scenes consisted of watching two episodes of CSI: Miami, but that’s not my problem.
The state police arrive about ten minutes later, and the officer in charge, Detective Woisheski, immediately removes the local officers from the scene, instructing them to set up a perimeter in the parking lot. My guess is, he does this just to give them something to do and get rid of them, and if a perimeter had already been set up, he might have instructed them to open a lemonade stand in the parking lot.
He tells Kevin and me to wait where we are, and it’s about a half hour before he comes out of the room and over to us. “And you would be who?” he asks.
“I’m Andy Carpenter and this is Kevin Randall. We’re attorneys.”
He looks skyward briefly, as if for help. “Just what I need. All right, tell me what you’re doing here.”
“The kid hanging in the bathroom was a potential material witness in an upcoming murder trial in Findlay.”
“The one where the two college girls got sliced up?”
I nod. “The very one; we’re representing the accused. Eddie-that’s the kid in there-has been on the run, and we’ve been trying to find him. He called this morning, told me where he was, and we drove right out.”
“So rather than talk to two lawyers, he hung himself. Makes sense.”
“Sounds like you cracked the case, Detective,” I say.
“Did you read the suicide note?” he asks.
“He left a note?” I say, putting on my best shocked expression.
“Don’t bullshit me, Counselor.”
“I may have read part of it,” I admit.
“Which part?”
“The part where there was writing.”
“So if this is legit, your client walks,” he says.
“I would describe it more as a horrible injustice having been averted.”
“I bet you would,” he says.
He questions us for another half hour, but it’s clear that he sees nothing in the room or situation to make him think this is other than the suicide it seems. I’m not so sure, but I’m certainly not about to tell him that. Before we leave, I reverse the roles and get some information from him, mostly concerning what office will be the base of the investigation, and where the note will be held. That note, as Woisheski correctly noted, could well be Jeremy Davidson’s get-out-of-jail card.
On the way back I call Laurie and bring her up-to-date on what has transpired. She has, of course, not been at the scene, yet she shares my immediate suspicions of it. “Why would he call to talk to you and then kill himself before he was able to?” she asks.
“Maybe he wanted to turn himself in because of his feelings of guilt, but then those feelings became so overwhelming he couldn’t deal with them,” I say. “Or maybe he would rather be dead than in prison.”
“Maybe,” she says, not believing it. “Did the scene look legit to you?”
“Pretty much,” I say. “Though hangings are not in my area of expertise.”
She asks if I’ll give her a formal statement when I get back, and I agree, providing it’s over dinner. I am a hell of a negotiator.
Kevin and I spend the drive back kicking this around from a legal standpoint. I debate whether to inform Lester of what has happened, but decide against it. I’d rather he find out from Judge Morrison, who we plan to tell tomorrow morning. We are going to tell him about it in the form of a motion to dismiss the charges against Jeremy Davidson.
Kevin and I are still discussing our legal strategy when Laurie arrives, and she volunteers to make dinner for us. We include her in the conversation, since we trust her completely. Also, whatever strategy we decide on will soon be part of our motion and therefore no secret from anyone.
During one of our breaks I turn on CNN, only to discover that Eddie’s suicide is the lead story. A quick switch to the other news stations finds the same thing; it’s all anyone is talking about.
I have to assume that the leak came from either the state police or the local police that arrived on the scene. I’m not happy about it; I would have preferred to spring it on Lester. But it’s not all bad, since this will certainly elevate the pressure on Judge Morrison to strongly consider a dismissal of the charges against Jeremy.
There’s also another benefit to the TV coverage. The cable networks have called in what seem like hundreds of former prosecutors, former judges, and current defense attorneys to comment on the developments, in the same fashion they always called on me. Since the goal is to foster disagreement among the expert guests, at least half disagree with my position. The half that agree provide their legal reasoning for doing so, and it’s actually somewhat helpful in our preparation. The legal issues are fairly thorny ones, and in a way it’s as if we are able to consult and pick the brains of all these people. One of them, Doug Burns on Fox News, just about provides my entire oral argument for me.
Richard Davidson calls, having just heard the news but not wanting to believe it until I have confirmed it for him. I do so and honestly say that there is a chance, but only a chance, that Jeremy will be set free. Either way, I tell him, Eddie’s bad news appears to be very good news for Jeremy.
I call the court clerk first thing in the morning, asking her to inform Judge Morrison that I am requesting an urgent meeting with him and Lester. The judge is attending to personal business early this morning, but a callback tells me that I should be in his chambers at noon. The speed of the response means that it’s likely the judge has also seen the news.
Kevin and I stop at the jail so that we can bring Jeremy up-to-date on what is going on. Unfortunately, his father has spoken to him already, and based on Jeremy’s euphoria, Richard must have substantially overstated our prospects for success. I think if I were to hand him a cell phone, Jeremy would use it to try to get a date for Saturday night.
The only slight glimmer of worry that I see is when he says, “So this guy Eddie was her boyfriend?”
“Apparently so,” I say.
“And he admitted he did it? His letter says he killed Liz?”
“Yes.”
“If he lied for some reason, if he didn’t do it, what’ll happen then?” he asks.
I detect doubt in Jeremy’s voice, so I call him on it. “Do you have reason to think he lied about it?”
“I don’t know… I mean, I never met the guy. It’s just hard to imagine that anybody who knew Liz could have killed her like that.”
Jeremy’s statement moves him
up a major notch in my mind and increases the pressure on me to use these recent events to get a dismissal.
When Kevin and I get to the courthouse, Lester and his staff are already there, attempting unsuccessfully to look confident and unconcerned. This case was going to make Lester a star, and there’s a decent chance that it is suddenly going to cease to exist.
Judge Morrison calls us into his chambers precisely at noon and basically turns the floor over to me. I relate in substantial detail the events that led to our finding Eddie in the motel bathroom yesterday, and I describe the note as I read it.
After I do so, I state my modest goal for this meeting. “At the very least, Your Honor, these are events which can have an enormous impact on this case. I would request that this court instruct the state police to turn over all relevant information and that a hearing then be held to consider it.”
It’s a simple request, and perfectly logical, but Lester has brought some verbal ammunition with him, and he lets fire. “Your Honor, we are dealing with an uncorroborated confession, and a hearsay one at that. This case has received substantial media coverage, and as I’m sure you are aware, confessions in such situations are frequent and notoriously unreliable.”
Morrison offers me the opportunity to respond, and I say, “That would be the main purpose of the hearing, Your Honor. We could collectively examine the events of yesterday, including the veracity of the confession.”
“It is for our jury to examine those facts, should they be ruled admissible at trial. I am sure that we will choose a jury quite capable of doing so,” Lester says.
I let my annoyance into my voice. “If Eddie Carson killed these two young women, we shouldn’t be choosing a jury. We should be setting Jeremy Davidson free, so that he can go back to college and get on with his young life.”
Judge Morrison comes down on our side, which is really the only thing he could do. He instructs Lester to deal with the state police and secure all current investigative information about Eddie’s death, including independent handwriting analysis. He tentatively schedules a hearing for next week and moves jury selection back to a time to be determined.
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