Defending Turquoise (Thaddeus Murfee Legal Thriller Series Book 5)

by John Ellsworth

  “Tell me about that,” Thaddeus said. “You can speak freely in here. No one’s listening and what you tell me is confidential.”

  She arched an eyebrow. Her looks were natural, no makeup required, and her complexion was unblemished and of light mahogany cast and she reminded him, for some reason, of a wonderful wild raven shining with youthful health and the beauty of childish innocence. She hadn’t outgrown that aspect of childhood, the innocence, Thaddeus saw, and because of its presence in her soul he immediately felt protective of her. Clearly she was guilty of nothing, much less shooting anyone, and he only asked about it because he had to.

  “Did you shoot him?”

  “I don’t even squash spiders. I don’t know who shot my uncle. But I’m glad.”

  “You’re glad he got shot?”

  “I am glad. And I’m glad it killed him.”

  “Did he hurt you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did he rape you?”

  “Yes.”

  “How many times?”

  “Every day.”

  Thaddeus swallowed hard. He couldn’t imagine but had to find out.

  “How long had this daily abuse been going on?”

  “Every day.”

  “I know, but how long? Months? A year?”

  “Since I was ten.”

  “Ten?”

  “He raped me first time on my tenth birthday. I had just got my first bike and he followed me down Weller Wash Road. As soon as I went over the hill he started running, threw me in the sand wash, and tore my clothes off.”

  “Where were your parents?”

  “My mother left when I was so little I don’t remember. Forever, I guess. My dad was passed out. He always gets drunk on my birthday.”

  “Were any other adults there?”

  “No. We just have my uncle and my dad has a sister but she lives in Green Valley with an Apache.”

  “Any siblings?”

  “No. Just me.”

  “Did you ever tell anyone?”

  “I told Mrs. Steinmar. My caseworker.”

  “When did you tell her?”

  “Two weeks ago.”

  “Anyone else?”

  “I called my doctor and told her, the last time he did it to me.”

  “You’re fifteen-sixteen now?”

  “Close enough.”

  Thaddeus thumped his pen against the yellow pad, thinking.

  “Why did you wait six years before you told someone?”

  “I got an STD from him. He gave me the clap.”

  “So you told your caseworker.”

  “Indian Health Services told her. I had to go to IHS for medicine. The doctor put it in my file, my file went to Children and Family Services, and my caseworker found out. Mrs. Steinmar.”

  “Angelina Steinmar?”

  “Yes. She’s very nice to me. She wants me to get moved out of my trailer. But my dad needs me, so I told her no.”

  “When was the last time Randy Begay raped you?”

  “He did it the day he got shot.”

  “Did you tell anyone?”

  “Mrs. Steinmar found out. I didn’t want to tell anyone, but I was bleeding and scared. So I told Mrs. Steinmar. I was afraid I had the clap again. I didn’t know what was wrong.”

  “What did she do when you told her?”

  “She said she would come get me. She was going to take me away.”

  “Did she?”

  “The police found me walking on the road first. Before she could get there.”

  “What did the police do?”

  “They took me back to the trailer. I was going to get clothes. Then they were taking me to wait for her at the IHS. Instead we got there and they found Randy dead.”

  “What did they do when they found Randy?”

  “They asked me who did it.”

  “What did you tell them?”

  “That I didn’t know.”

  “But you didn’t do it.”

  “I’ve never shot anything but coyotes when they’re hunting our sheep. Only then. And I don’t shoot them to kill them. I shoot at them to scare them away. But I make sure I miss.”

  “So you’ve never killed a coyote?”

  “No.”

  “A wild dog? They come after sheep too.”

  “No. I told you, I don’t kill things.”

  “Fair enough.”

  Thaddeus leaned back from the table. At which point the door buzzed and the same deputy reinserted her head. “Time’s up. C’mon, sugar.”

  “Five more minutes?” Thaddeus asked. “Just about done.”

  “Five. You got it.”

  “Turquoise,” Thaddeus said, “has your dad been to see you in jail?”

  “No.”

  “If he comes, don’t talk about the rape or anything with him, okay?”

  “I won’t.”

  “And of course don’t talk about it with the police.”

  “I already talked to the police.”

  “Who else?”

  “The doctor.”

  “Who else?”

  “District attorney. A lady district attorney came to see me. She took my statement.”

  He frowned. Great, he thought, the die is cast, the facts are set in stone.

  “Well, don’t talk to them a second time. It would only hurt.”

  “If you say so.”

  “I say so.”

  “Are they going to keep me in jail?”

  “For now, yes.”

  “Can you get me out?”

  “I’m going to try.”

  “Someone told me they have bail. Can I get that?”

  “I’m certainly going to try.”

  “Mr. Murfee. I didn’t shoot my uncle. Honest.” She began to cry. “It’s awful in here and I miss my friends.”

  “I’m sure. I’ll take you right back into court and ask for bail.”

  “When?”

  “This week.”

  More tears rolled down her cheeks. He slipped the white handkerchief from his coat and passed it to her. She wiped at her eyes but the tears kept flowing as she cried without sound. He guessed she had cried without sound many times before when her uncle was taking advantage and the father was home and passed out. He realized that she had been taught to cry without noise so no one would know, and she did that now. It touched his heart and he wanted to reach and squeeze her shoulder, but did not. She would take that wrong, probably, and he needed to get close to her, not risk pushing her farther away. His own eyes moistened as he felt her grief. Then he caught himself. You’re not going to allow your own feelings to get in the way here, he ordered himself. For once, you’re going to keep your distance between your heart and your client’s difficulty. Stay professional and stay focused on that!

  The door buzzed and this time was flung wide open. The deputy came in and motioned Turquoise to stand and go with her.

  “I’ll be back tomorrow,” he said to Turquoise as her back disappeared out the door.

  She left without another word, resigned to the world she now found herself inhabiting. Always resigned to her fate, like Indians were always resigned. They had given up so many years ago it had become an epidemic among them, he believed. That accounted for the hopelessness of their alcoholism and drug abuse, for preying on each other and sexual abuse in families. There was just no hope and so no one cared. It was heartbreaking and Thaddeus had to once again remind himself to stay focused and stay aloof. At all costs, he reminded himself. This is an H. Ivan Trautman case and you simply cannot get emotionally involved. Period.

  He sat at the steel table another ten minutes, writing down his thoughts and impressions. One thing had become abundantly clear and that was that H. Ivan wasn’t going to be happy with him. Because there was no way in hell he would ever plead this girl to anything. H. Ivan could go screw himself, as far as Thaddeus was concerned. You want a trial in thirty days? Fine, we’ll give you a trial. But I’m going to need some help—that was his nex
t thought. There was a world to do before he would be ready to try to give her her life back by jury verdict.

  22

  “They’ve got her cold,” he told Katy that night. “They’ve got gunshot residue on her shirt and they’ve got overwhelming motive, with the six-year history of rape.”

  Katy flew into a rage, which alarmed him as he’d never seen her touched off like that. She became furious and cried, she wanted to hear no more. She clambered upstairs and slammed their bedroom door. While she did whatever she had to do, Thaddeus geared up and headed out behind the house, where the property abutted the Coconino National Forest. For miles around that night he could be heard out back, shooting the kitchen rifle at Coke bottles. He more or less kept count of the shots in the back of his mind. He was sure he had run through at least three boxes of ammunition when he returned inside.

  After supper, when Sarai was tucked in bed and stories were read, Katy came back down. “Sit,” she ordered, and he went into the family room and wedged his back against the arm rest of the white leather couch, and removed his hiking boots. He dumped the boots on the floor and then pulled his legs up and stretched out, facing the side windows. Outside the pines loomed large and black against the moonlit sky. He balanced a mug of coffee in one hand and rubbed his temples with the other. He was headachy and not in a very good mood. But he always felt that way after a round with H. Ivan Trautman.

  “This girl—Turquoise is her name?” asked Katy.

  “Turquoise.”

  “Last name Begay?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m related to her. I know her. I know about her uncle. She’s the main reason I dropped out of school this fall. She’s the one I stayed to help, really try to help.”

  “You never mentioned her to me.”

  “She’s a patient. Confidential.”

  “Got it.”

  “And Trautman has appointed you to defend her?”

  “Yes.”

  “And there’s no way you can get out of that?”

  “No.”

  “My father’s cousin.”

  “Pardon?” he absently asked. What was this about her father’s cousin?

  “He was my uncle Randy.”

  “His name was Randy too? I’m afraid I don’t get it, Kate.”

  “I didn’t say that. He was the Uncle Randy of my life. My rapist.”

  “What? This is new information.”

  A dark pain crept into her voice. “That’s because I’ve never told anyone before. You’re the first.”

  “When was this?”

  “In high school. And eighth grade. That’s when it started.”

  “Is this son of a bitch still around?” Thaddeus was the one enraged now. If only he could lay hands on the guy. Like Turquoise, Katy too had grown up on the reservation. In a different part of the state, yes, but it was the same Navajo reservation. Same squalor, he had learned over the years, same hard times.

  “He is still around,” she said. “He lives in Window Rock.”

  “What are you going to do about it?”

  “Nothing. He’s an alcoholic failure at everything. He’s worthless.”

  “But what if he does it to someone else? Then how would you feel?”

  She sighed long and hard. “I’ve thought about that. I don’t have any younger siblings for him to violate in my immediate family. Beyond that, there’s really nothing I can do.”

  “So...have you gotten any help for it ever? Seen a professional to talk about it?”

  “Not yet. Maybe I will someday. I’ve adjusted and learned to live with it. It’s just sort of become a part of my life and I’m smart enough to keep it compartmentalized.”

  “This is awful. I’m so sorry.”

  “Well, back to Turquoise Begay. I’d like to help her.”

  “Sure. What do you have in mind?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll have to think about it. I’ll get back to you on that.”

  “Sure.”

  They talked another five minutes about nothing and finally said good night.

  23

  The next day he visited Turquoise for the second time. He had decided he needed to know more about her before he began his investigation out on the reservation. She came into the conference room, led there by a female deputy dressed in the liver and brown uniform of the sheriff’s office, an unsmiling woman who wordlessly steered the young girl into a seat at the table, where she cuffed her through a hasp that kept her bound to the table. “Why the upgrade in security?” Thaddeus asked, indicating the cuff and restraining hasp.

  “She’s been talking about killing herself. She’s on suicide watch. I’ll be right outside the door but I’ll be watching through the window. You’ve got five minutes, mister.”

  “I’ll take as long as I need, thank you.”

  “Five minutes. Then she’s got to be somewhere else.”

  “BS. I’ll knock when I’m done.”

  The door closed just as quickly as it had opened and Thaddeus was alone with Turquoise. The girl’s eyes were red and swollen. Crying and who knew what else, he thought, and he immediately wondered what he might have to say to a teenage girl bent on killing herself.

  “Suicide watch?” he began, slowly, then stopped. He looked at her, waiting to see if she would swim to the surface.

  “I hate myself,” she said in a whisper. “They all think I killed Uncle Randy.”

  “But you know you didn’t. I know you didn’t. I think I might have a suspect in mind, but I can’t tell you that yet.”

  “When I left the trailer that day, he was alive. I could hear him snoring in the back bedroom. I hated how he snored. Sometimes he would pull me close after he raped me. And make me sleep with his arms around me, touching me all over. I hated him. I wanted him dead. But I didn’t kill him. I don’t even kill spiders.”

  “I believe you, Turquoise. So we need to talk about who else might have been mad enough at Uncle Randy to shoot him.”

  She looked up from the table. “I know he did drugs. Maybe one of those people he knew.”

  “How do you know he did drugs?”

  “He used to make me take things.”

  “What kind of things?”

  “He made me snort cocaine five times. He said the sex would be better.”

  “What else?”

  “I took ecstasy lots. He said it made me sexier to him. I didn’t feel sexier, so I don’t know.”

  Thaddeus was making his notes. “Anything else?”

  “I just know he was always outside taking pills. Especially when my dad was home. He never took drugs around my dad. He always went outside in the driveway for that. I watched him out my bedroom window.”

  “You could see him outside?”

  “Uh-huh. My bedroom is in front.”

  Thaddeus stopped writing. “I want to make a deal with you, okay?”

  “I guess. What kind of deal?”

  “If you promise me you won’t kill yourself, I promise you that I will get you out of this.”

  She looked suspicious. Her eyes narrowed and she reluctantly looked more alert. “How are you going to do that? Everyone thinks I shot him.”

  “Even if you shot him, I will get you out of this.”

  “But I didn’t!” she cried. “I didn’t shoot him, Mr. Murfee.”

  “I believe you. I’m only saying that I will get you out of this no matter what—if you will promise me you won’t kill yourself. Can we have a deal?”

  She pressed her fingertips together. Her eyes fell back to the table and she slowly nodded. “If you promise. But one of the matrons told me I was going to spend my life in prison and I should start reading the Bible. I don’t want to read the Bible. I want to go home and go back to my school and see my friends. I hate the Bible.”

  “Do us both a favor and don’t talk to anyone else while you’re here. If someone like that matron starts in on you again just politely tell her your attorney has asked you to discuss nothing—incl
uding reading materials. Because that’s what I’m asking you to do now. Whether you read something or not is nobody’s business but yours and mine. Are we cool on that?” He thumped his pen against his yellow legal pad, waiting.

  “We’re cool. If I was going to read anything, it wouldn’t be that.”

  “So, do you want me to bring you something to read?”

  “Yes. I like stuff about girls my age, please.”

  “Listen, let’s do this. My wife wants to meet with you. Her name is Katy. She wants to work with you and work on your case. She’s Navajo, like you. Not but about ten-twelve years older than you, either. She can bring books.”

  Again, the narrowed eyes and head tilted to the side. “Why does she want to meet with me?”

  “You’ll know her when you see her. She’ll tell you what she has in mind. My question is, would you like to meet with her? Check her ideas out?”

  “I’ll check her out. If it makes you feel better.”

  He sat back and spread his hands. “Hey, Turquoise, this isn’t about me. This is about you. Everything we’re going to do is about you.”

  “That’s cool. I’m okay with her coming and talking.”

  “I’ll pass it along. She’ll be here in the next couple of days.”

  “Am I going to be here two more days? Really?”

  “Just until we can have a bail hearing. I’ll be filing that motion today and then I’ll get word back to you about a hearing date. After that we just might get you out. We’ll see.”

  The matron rapped on the glass with her keys. “One minute!” she cried through the glass. Thaddeus nodded.

  “Remember,” he said gravely, “knock off the suicide stuff. We want you around for a long time. Besides, we’ve got a deal. Do you remember our deal?”

  She sighed. “You’ll get me out if I don’t kill myself. Even if I shot him. Which I didn’t.”

  “Good. You’re a smart young lady. And you’re tough if you lived through the hell of Uncle Randy since you were ten. Tell the truth, you had every right in the world to shoot the son of a bitch and I wouldn’t blame you if you had.”

  For the first time in two days, she smiled. “That’s what I’m thinking deep down. Son of a bitch had it coming.”

  “My sentiments exactly. One other thing: Do you have a boyfriend?”