What would my colleagues think? Or my students? I thought of all the times I failed students due to plagiarism in their papers, all the ones who swore they were innocent in spite of all the evidence I had before me. Made me wonder, really, if maybe some of them had been innocent. A coincidence? Unintentional recall of something they’d read before? It had seemed so clear in the classroom, and damn near the same here. So obvious, so logical, no matter how loudly I defended myself.
Pamela finally ended my dive into self-pity by showing up with some fresh clothes and a toothbrush. Right behind her, however, was another woman, shorter than Pamela—but since Pamela was six-five, that wasn’t a big deal. I’m sure in real life this woman was perfectly average height. But it did make me feel slightly less nervous to know I had a giant attorney.
I stood. The new woman, Hispanic, brunette and wearing a prim navy suit jacket and long skirt, did not move to shake my hand. She wore tiny wire-framed glasses, but they were nearly invisible on her. She also wore a very slim wedding band, again barely noticeable. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say she was a movie star.
I knew better.
Pamela motioned towards her, said, “Mick, this is Astrid Gustafson from the District Attorney’s office.”
I nodded. “Pleasure to meet you. And don’t take this the wrong way, but I hope you’re really bad at your job.”
They both stopped shuffling papers and stared at me.
“Um,” I said. “Kidding.”
Pamela deflated a bit, and it seemed as if Gustafson’s heart grew three sizes, as the good Dr. Seuss might say.
She turned to Pamela. “You would’ve so owed me twenty bucks if you had bet.”
Pamela shook her head. Great, that was all I needed. My own attorney didn’t think I could shut up.
Gustafson finally looked me in the eyes and said, “You’re not going to make this easy for us, are you?”
“Get to it, Astrid.” Pamela’s voice was deep, throaty.
I said, “Get to what?”
The prosecutor lifted her shoulders. “Look, we know you’re involved, and all we need is time to prove it. Everything’s already falling into place.”
“But I didn’t—”
“Mick, wait for it, okay?”
The prosecutor ticked off reasons on her fingers. “Too coincidental to have both women in your life, and both unavailable to you last night due to interference from other men, end up dead and missing. And your whereabouts are unaccounted for.”
Pamela said, “Is this necessary?”
“Might save us some time if he realizes what he’s up against. His DNA all over the victim’s house, all over the victim—”
“Astrid, he was fucking the victim. They were dating.”
“Until the husband was back in the picture.” Narrowed her eyes at me. “The thought of it killed you, didn’t it? Because you knew once her husband cried a little and told her how much he wanted to be with her—”
“Astrid!”
“—that you were done. And you’d have nobody. So after Stephanie, why not go back and try to reconcile with your wife? But she didn’t want anything to do with you.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. My jaw was hanging, and I reached my hands up behind my neck, stared down at the table. “No, I didn’t.”
“Cut us loose already, please. My client doesn’t have to put up with this.”
“I’m just saying, Pam, work with us now and it’ll be easier one we get a proper start.”
The tone had changed. My hands slid back into my lap. It was sounding pretty good for me after all.
Pamela tapped my elbow and stood. I followed her out of the chair.
Gustafson’s theatrical mask fell. “Two days.”
“Listen, I said I’d tell him, but give us a minute, okay?”
She held up her hands like a magician showing there’s nothing up her sleeve, then gathered her files and backed out of the room, followed by the guard.
“What was that?”
Pamela let out a breath and said, “That’s the sound of your ass being saved. Like I thought, they were pushing really hard because of Frances, but they didn’t have the case against Stephanie in ready enough shape to go. They should have brought you in for questioning rather than actually arresting you. But they thought the pressure from one charge might make you slip about the other. Since you didn’t have anything to do with either one, ha ha, it didn’t work.”
She sat somewhat sideways in her chair, arm draped over the back and one leg tossed over the armrest.
I said, “So we go?”
“Not quite. Astrid wants to delay the arraignment for a couple of days and is offering a pretty sweet deal that would only put you away for four, five years. But only if you told them about what you did with Frances.”
“But I didn’t—”
“Jesus, I know that already. Mick, you get squeamish killing ants. I don’t get this. My guess would be that someone has been casing her house and learning her schedule—your schedule with her. A robbery gone bad, that’s more like it.” She held her head back and yawned, her whole jaw and neck getting into it. “Shit, I’m tired. Anyway, we go out to the arraignment, and Astrid tries to dress you like a monster. When I start putting some doubt into the judge’s mind, you’ll still be held over for trial, but out on bail.”
“Can’t you make them dismiss?”
“Small, small chance she’ll self destruct and the judge will toss it. Don’t count on it, though. Astrid wants you to take the deal, I want you to not. Let them prove it. They can’t. So eventually, they’ll float better and better deals. ” She lifted her briefcase. “Don’t speak unless spoken to. Just wait for it to happen. See you out there.”
Pamela was out the door, and I was alone with the too-bright lights again. Only occurred to me after she left to wonder if one of those “better” deals would involve having to turn on Octavia and testify about her marijuana crop. I was sure it was unethical for her to let me do that. As long as both of us were her clients.
Well, there were always other lawyers, and Octavia really shouldn’t have been growing all that pot anyway.
FIVE
It was surprisingly quick and straightforward. Not as fast as on TV, where they have to fit in so much between commercials, but it wasn’t as heavy with legal jargon and highly-technical procedural hoopdedoodle as I had expected. After watching a few lightning round arraignments for seemingly minor crimes, it was my turn. The galley was half-empty. A few bored reporters, some lawyers awaiting their turn. I saw Jennings there, but no Octavia. He watched me, not one flash of emotion, as I was led to the table. I tried getting a message across to him with facial expressions—wide eyes, grimaces—or hoped he could read lips. Oc. Ta. Vee. Ah? Is. She. O. Kay?
He didn’t respond. Just sat there in dark designer sunglasses with one leg crossed over the other in light gray slacks, loafers and no socks, and a light green shirt that must’ve cost several hundred dollars. One extra button left open. Not only did Octavia expect him to look the part of “executive assistant”, but he reveled in it. He was a natural. But right now, I wasn’t getting any sort of vibe at all. In fact, when he glanced at his watch, I thought the whole experience was dull as dishwater for him.
My attention was snapped forward when Pamela opened her case and started talking with the judge, a sharp woman in her fifties who looked better than she should’ve at that age, even by Hollywood standards.
Being arraigned for murder, and here I was sizing up a cougar. What the hell?
My future and freedom was on the line, but I was distracted. Thinking of the judge led to thinking about Gustafson, the Law & Order vibe doing wonders for her attractiveness. That led to Stephanie and how animalistic she was in bed. I was getting a hard-on. The ugly truth about poets and academics—ruled by their lusts, no matter how eco-friendly or how politically correct or how much we espouse gender equality. At the end of the day, I worshipped these women and supp
orted them because I desperately wanted them to spread their legs for me.
“Mr. Thooft?”
I blinked and snapped out of it. I said, “Not guilty.”
Laughs in the courtroom. A downright Medusaesque look from Pamela. What did I do?
The judge lilted her head to the side, and I could tell she was thinking Are you serious? “Mr. Thooft, I said you’re a lucky man. The prosecution is not ready to proceed, so we can go ahead and release you. No need to enter a plea at this time.” She turned to Gustafson. “So we’re agreed Mr. Thooft can be released and pick this all up again in a few days?”
“Yes, your honor.”
She banged her gavel. “That’s a wrap.”
*
On our way out, Pamela told me, “They tipped their hand, got too excited, and you must have some very powerful friends somewhere for the prosecution to even agree to this. Usually they would find a way to keep you in jail, and no judge ever second-guesses them this early in the game.”
“So…someone wanted me free?”
“Either that or you had the dumbest cops in creation handling the case.”
I thought they’d been on top of it, really. Fitzgerald and Labat had the roles down, the lies, the whole routine. They’d been careful with me, giving me the chance to trip over the obstacles I’d constructed on my own. I was the obvious suspect. My DNA, my clothes, some poems in their formative stages I’d taken over to share with her. Motive (sort of) and opportunity (most assuredly). And I was walking out?
“They made a mistake,” I said.
“Sure did. Messing with us.”
“No. I mean, they—”
“Fuck no, Mick, don’t tell me you really did it. I’d quit and become a goddamned park ranger if you tell me you actually did it.”
“I didn’t do it, but they shouldn’t be letting me go. And they know I wouldn’t be stupid enough to lead them to Frances. This doesn’t make any sense.”
Some cops in the lobby gave me the flat eye stare. I felt myself shrink. Pamela shrugged. “Count your blessings. We’ve got three days to find out.”
Out the front door, the sun blinded me and I squinted all the way out to the curb, where Jennings was waiting by the Escalade. My friend’s familiar bulk filled the front passenger’s seat. It was apparent that she’d been set free for some time, as she’d changed clothes, applied her make-up, and wound up her hair into a complicated up-do held together by chopsticks. She wore a thin leather jacket over a shapeless stretchy dress. Socks and Crocs on her feet. It was the sort of thing she wore around the house when no visitors were expected, so I wondered how under the weather she was feeling to be out in public wearing that.
I climbed into the back, followed by Pamela, and reached up, laid my hand on Octavia’s shoulder. “Are you okay?”
She barely turned her face. “Stop looking so guilty. At least we didn’t have to pay bail.”
Jennings closed the door and came around to the driver’s seat, climbed in and got us moving. He said, “Good, because we’ll need the cash.”
One night in the slammer, and I was way out of the loop. Octavia was filthy rich. “What are you talking about?”
Octavia popped her shoulder up and down. I got the message and pulled my hand away, sat back. She said, “Not only did I get pulled in on a bullshit charge—” She cut her eyes to Pamela via rearview. Pamela stared at her fingernails. “—but now they’re freezing my accounts. Not just over this. They’ve got some bullshit insider trading and improper documentation…fuck!”
She slammed a fist against the roof. Then again. Dented the metal. She rubbed her knuckles. “So we’re fucked.”
“How can you be fucked? It’s pot. You’ve got plenty of witnesses to say you never sold it, that it was just a hobby. This should be a big fine and a finger-wagging, that’s all.”
Pamela sighed, then said, “It was a lot of marijuana. No one will believe it was just for personal use.”
Again with the rearview eyes. “I’m not taking the deal.”
“Octavia, hon’, they’ve found the cash, too. And they’ll find the rest. They’ve got a slam dunk.”
Octavia did indeed keep a lot of cash on-hand. She trusted the banks, but still held onto some of the paranoia of her goth days. You never knew when the Big Crash was coming. Plus, if something did go wrong on a computer somewhere, Octavia figured cash would help someone of her, well, stature deal with bankers and businessmen easier than blowjobs. Jennings told me once that she kept nearly a million dollars around the house, stashed in safes and really sneaky hiding places. Plus, she had a few more million in safety-deposit boxes, rental properties, and some unusual places including down in the lake behind her house, in several Minneapolis parks, and even up in Duluth at the secret lake cabin only a couple of us knew about. Even Pamela didn’t know.
My friend was now on the verge of yelling. “What does petty cash have to do with my multimillion dollar investment accounts? Why the fuck are you rolling over on this?”
I said, “What’s the deal?”
Octavia refused to answer, so Pamela finally said, “A year in prison. Eight years probation. Three-quarters of a million dollar fine.”
I whistled. Then it was all quiet.
It didn’t feel coincidental anymore. Someone was attempting to take out Octavia and myself in one fail swoop. I was probably more of a pawn to get to her than an actual target, but that just made it worse. I was expendable.
I said, “They found all of the cash?”
Jennings shook his head. “The safes, and then the one obvious hiding place in your room where we kept enough to make it look like that was our major stash.”
“Shit.” I didn’t know about that one.
Octavia grumbled, “Fuckers.”
We rode in silence. My stomach grumbled. Octavia heard it, glanced back at me.
She said, “Something to eat? Maybe some Vietnamese?”
I didn’t feel much like eating, but I knew well the healing power of a good bowl of Pho.“I can eat. Quang?”
“God no. Not today.” She turned to Jennings. “Kinhdo. Won’t cost as much.”
Quang had been named the best in town, and it was a favorite of hers, I knew for certain. I’d dined there several times with Frances. Loved it. Kinhdo’s food was also very strong stuff, and I’d been there more than I had Quang, but the location in Uptown and atmosphere made me think it didn’t feel like her kind of place. For Octavia to be worried about how much her meal would cost meant she was in serious trouble, but both seemed reasonably priced to me. I suspected it had more to do with who ate there than the price. She couldn’t bear to face the power players and hipsters she usually lorded over.
Pamela said, “Look, guys, I’ve got work to do. How about you let me out back at the office, and I’ll drop by the house tonight. You are going home, right? Because if you fly to fucking Guatemala or something—”
“It’s my ass on the line, bitch, not yours.”
Jennings put his hand on Octavia’s knee and she sulled up like a petulant kindergartner. He said to Pamela, “I’ll make sure they both get home and stay there.”
Our lawyer started to say something else, but then she rolled her eyes and slumped in her seat, staring out the window.
As we headed to her office, I asked, “Is there any way we can let me get a shower first?”
Octavia gave me the once over, then said, “No one cares. After this, you’ll smell like chilies and garlic anyway.”
Hearing that made my stomach lurch, but not enough to empty it. I figured that whatever I ate this afternoon would come right back up later, so I might as well binge eat my grief away.
SIX
For all the talk about a neighborhood in ascendance, Uptown still had a wonderful bohemian vibe that I hoped would never fade—plenty of exotic cuisines, organic everything, old-school record shops, used bookstores, and “vintage” clothing shops, but right next to trendy salons where it costs eighty bucks for a hai
rcut, and franchise juice joints that were supposed to be the “friendly” version of corporate raiding. Hey, as long as they sold whatever was en vogue, the youngsters disposed that income, for sure.
Unfortunately, all that was bohemian had become mainstream in the past decade, bringing more money in to the area as the hipsters became affluent, thus attracting more affluence in this giant snowball of affluency, which would no doubt bland out the interesting little nooks and crannies, but I was hoping this was a neighborhood where we would always find some resurgent alternative pushing against the pricks.
Kinhdo was beneath a piercing parlor. The green awning’s yellow font looked more appropriate for Disney’s Jungle Book than an Asian eatery. Inside, it was plain. A long rectangle, some booths, some tables. Yellow walls, some paintings and flower arrangements here and there, but nothing more. The food was the main attraction. The restaurant was simply where you ate it.
Fine by me. I didn’t need ambiance. I felt resurrected by hot tea, steamed spring rolls, and a giant bowl of Pho. My eyes were much bigger than my stomach, as always, and I wussed out on the binge, stopping halfway through. My mouth was on fire from all the heat I’d pitched in, but I was finally relaxed after two solid days of gut crushing anxiety and emptiness. Jennings stuck with mostly veggies, mostly raw. Octavia ate like a death row inmate knowing it was the last time she would ever taste anything. She didn’t want to talk about jail, but I pretty much forced her. Having never witnessed her in such dire straits for years—since the devastating break-up with her drummer boyfriend in college—I needed to hear how the experience effected her.
After pulling in a deep breath through her nostrils, she said quietly, “It was humiliating. Wasn’t it for you?”
I propped my elbows on the table. I had to consider that. “That’s not the right word. I was crushed. Stephanie’s gone. Frances, missing. It’s bad enough they think I did it, but who can I go to now? A couple of times I thought, Well, Stephanie’s going to love hearing about this, but…I guess not.”
I blinked away tears, pretended the heat of the chili sauce was to blame. Octavia took a bite of spring roll she had dipped in sauce and made a face. Like I said, not her usual kind of place.
Choke on Your Lies Page 21
