Defending Turquoise (Thaddeus Murfee Legal Thriller Series Book 5)

by John Ellsworth

  He nodded and accepted the file. Before heading into the library, he dusted the snow from his topcoat and stamped his boots on the rubber mat back at the door. Shep insisted: anyone caught tracking snow into his office would be banned. Reason was, Shep liked working in his stocking feet. Snow was violently unwelcome inside his environs for that reason.

  Thaddeus let himself into the library, found the light switch, and removed topcoat and suit jacket. He took the seat at the far end, the head of the table, and began leafing through the file.

  First thing up was a statement from Angelina Steinmar. It was recorded and transcribed by one of Shep’s paralegals, a black woman Thaddeus knew only as Nony. Nony had talked with Angelina on February 4 from 10:18 a.m. to 12:22 p.m. There had been no interruptions and the tape had been changed three times. So much for the metadata, he thought to himself, and flipped up the first yellow page to the summarizing paragraphs.

  Angelina was forty-three years old, married to John Steinmar, the mother of one daughter and no sons. Daughter’s name was Hamilton Steinmar—”Hammy” as the family affectionately called her. Hammy had been in her first year at the University of Arizona when she hung herself. The first attempt with the pills had been a warning. However, counseling had followed that attempt plus hours of discussion. She assured them it was a mistake that wouldn’t repeat. The doctor seemed genuinely satisfied, which somewhat placated the parents. The daughter insisted on returning to school.

  Hammy’s death was the darkest time of Angelina’s life by 100 times 100, as she put it. Thaddeus made a note on his own legal pad to follow up on this. He kept reading.

  Angelina was originally from Pennsylvania and was working on her Master’s in Ed Psych from the University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee, when she had met John Steinmar. He was in Milwaukee for a prosecutor’s conference held in a lakefront hotel. There was a cruise the second night, aboard an enormous catamaran that nosed along the Lake Michigan shoreline. Angelina just happened to be serving cocktails as she was working her Friday night shift for the cruise line. Their meeting was literally an accident: in handing over a grasshopper to the wife of one of the prosecutors, her tray tilted with a swell on the lake and dumped a scotch down the front of John Steinmar’s yellow linen shirt. She couldn’t apologize enough. But he was sporting and made light of the incident and wondered aloud if he, like the boat, had just been christened. Then he wondered aloud if Angelina would be leaving him a tip.

  She was relieved at his sense of humor and thanked him, comping his table the rest of the evening. One thing led to another and she attended the Saturday night dinner as John Steinmar’s guest in the hotel ballroom. She didn’t make it back to her studio apartment that night and two weeks later he flew back into town to repeat the getting-to-know-you process. In love and loving it, they flew to Maui and traded vows on the beach at sunset and didn’t return to the mainland for two weeks. She was pregnant when she again saw the Pacific coast and suffered from morning sickness when they arrived in Flagstaff. They were never again apart.

  Thaddeus took all this in and turned the page.

  The child’s name was Hamilton, obviously not a girl’s name, but the name of John’s father. John wanted the Hammy sobriquet passed along to his own offspring. He didn’t know whether there would be a male heir, so the daughter was chosen.

  Hammy was in trouble with the law her sophomore and senior years in high school, and saw a child psychologist every Tuesday after school throughout her junior year and the following summer. What they discussed wasn’t revealed to the parents, Hammy’s requirement. All the parents knew was that the child had become sullen and withdrawn and had zero patience for any degree of parental control or parental observation about her life. Among her friends it was known she loathed her father and resented her mother and accused them both of some form of unnamed sadism.

  Thaddeus read the starred footnote at this point in the recitation, which explained there was a suicide note from the daughter included as the last page in the file. He flipped back and read: “Don’t play like you don’t know, mother. I’m doing it because of you. You play ignorant about his sexual abuse but any fool could see. Fuck you both. I hate you and hope this kills you. Goodbye.” Followed by a sub-text explaining the original of the note was in police custody, and that it had been found pinned by a silver brooch to her shirt. As for Hammy, the sub-text explained, she had hanged herself with a coat hanger wired to her closet door--where she was found leaning, knees buckled in death, face purple and tongue swollen and fully extruded. There was a pack of Winstons on her desk and a half-smoked one in the ashtray, lipstick on the filter end, although the daughter was never known to smoke and seldom wore lipstick and was wearing none at death. This was a conundrum that neither the detectives nor the parents had solved.

  As for the truth of the note: the phrase “his sexual abuse” was ruled by the grand jury to be ambiguous and insufficient proof of anything by which anyone could be prosecuted. The mother, however, understood her daughter’s message and it ignited a persistent, raging hatred for John Steinmar. Angelina vehemently insisted on an autopsy but the vaginal swab and exam produced nothing. There was no physical evidence of sexual abuse, no evidence of trauma of any nature to any inch of her body. Dr. Neal Gordonet, the chief medical examiner, made sure by personally performing the autopsy and personally examining every square inch of skin under magnification for even the slightest hint of trauma. Angelina believed her daughter and had no doubt the abuse had occurred, but she had no proof. Inside she raged and “wished him tortured and snuffed”—her words.

  Hammy was a bright child and was majoring in chemistry at the university when she died. The suicide took place six months prior to the death of John Steinmar by gunshot from the his own gun.

  The next section of the file contained a half inch of medical records surrounding the presence and treatment of bite marks on Angelina’s body the morning she shot her husband. Color photographs were included, mounted inside plastic sleeves and numbering 184. They’d been taken by a children’s photographer who was also certified in forensic photography and who had been summoned to the hospital by Shep the morning John Steinmar “ate the bullet”—again, Angelina’s words.

  She described the morning of John Steinmar’s death. The digital clock’s numbers were green in the pre-dawn light when she first opened her eyes. They slept in twin beds on either side of their huge bedroom. She had been awakened by his hand on her breast at 6:05 a.m. The hand was massaging her breast and toying with her nipple. She became sleepily aroused but then remembered where she was and that the man touching her was her husband, who she was ninety-nine percent certain had been sexually abusing Hammy. Revolted, she reached and ripped his hand away and told him, “No way!”

  But he persisted. He waited until she had drifted back to sleep and then began again, touching her breast and again toying her nipple erect. She awoke with a start and this time batted his hand away and swung at his crotch with her first. He was totally nude and vulnerable, but stepped back just in time to avoid a very painful punch.

  He laughed and cried, “Why not me, Angie? I’m your husband!”

  He was tall, 6’3”, and weighed over two-twenty, much of it muscle. He worked out most afternoons at Flagstaff Fitness Center. He could bench press 205 and chin himself twenty times. There he stood, taunting, a half-smile playing across his mouth. His white translucent skin and albino hair made him seem an apparition lowered down out of the clouds to frighten her. She was at once revolted and terrified.

  She came upright in her bed and pulled the blankets around her. “Back off, fuckhead,” she cursed. But he was aroused and came at her again.

  He seized her shoulder and shoved her back against the headboard. With his other hand he gripped her around the throat. He squeezed hard and she couldn’t cry out again. Both her hands flew up to her throat. She wrestled and tried prying his hand away. But he was stronger and she realized he was going to choke her and meant to render
her unconscious. It was working; she couldn’t draw a deep breath.

  Finally she brought both hands overhead and slammed them down into his hand, successfully dislodging his grip on her throat. Her larynx ached and she coughed and coughed. She gagged. Tears washed through her eyes, making it difficult to see. But she could see his silhouette and again swung toward him with her balled fist. This time she connected, hitting him decisively in the “nut sack” (her words) and he crumbled to his knees. “What the fuck, Angie!” he cried several times. It gave her enough time to unwrap from the blankets and run from the bed.

  She headed for the bedroom door, intent on making it downstairs to her cell phone where it was charging in the study.

  She never made it.

  He tackled her from behind and immediately shoved his hand up between her legs. She was wearing nothing from the waist down and he seized her genitals and forced his thumb inside her. “You will service me, bitch!” he cried. She was horrified at the assault and pleaded for him to stop. But he couldn’t be deterred—tears meant nothing to him, as she put it.

  He tried to rape her and the only reason he didn’t was that he couldn’t bring himself fully erect. “Bitch, let me taste you!” he screamed at her again and again, and rolled her over onto her back. He slid up the carpet so as to position his mouth between her legs. He chomped down hard on her labia, then reached down to touch himself. Seeing her chance, with his hand beneath his own body, she shot up to her feet and headed for the stairs. By now she had decided she would go for his gun and warn him away. He was assaulting her and she had the marks to prove it. In fact, her crotch was on fire from the bite and she was still gasping for air from the choking. Figuring he would stop at nothing now, she pounded down the stairs.

  The gun was hidden inside the roll-top desk, right top drawer. She located it, unfastened the leather safety strap from the hammer, and drew it from the holster. It was a nickel Colt .38 Detective Special, Fourth Series, loaded with six dum-dum rounds capable of dropping a charging man. She spun the cylinder and assured herself it was fully loaded.

  At that exact moment he came charging into the study and saw her holding the gun pointed directly at his heart. He knew she was trained and range-qualified and he froze. “Let’s talk,” he said, and collapsed to the floor. His head fell forward and he began sobbing and crying their daughter’s name. “Hammy, Hammy, my God, what have I done?” he repeated again and again. It was then she knew. He was expressing his guilt over what he had done to their precious child and she had to admit that at that exact moment she would gladly have blown his head off if he made the slightest move toward her. Then he moaned, “Please, Angie, let’s talk.”

  She lowered the gun and sized up her predicament. He was cross-legged on the floor, nude and looking vulnerable and meek. She turned to replace the gun in the drawer. No sooner had she turned away than he lunged and managed to seize her right ankle. The gun flew from her hand.

  She flew head first onto the floor and hit her chin hard, biting her tongue—which was corroborated by the ER records. “Laceration tongue, right anterior.”

  He immediately followed through with his hand, again seizing her genitals as he rocked up on his knees. She tried to get to her knees and was half-successful, managing to turn onto her back and kicking at his head. He dodged and bobbed and avoided her flailing foot.

  Suddenly he drew back his right fist and slammed it against her genitals. A scream began deep in her chest and her head flew back in horrendous pain. Incapacitated, she went down on her back, whereupon he came up on her with his mouth and began biting, working inside her legs, labia, and up her body. “He was marking me as his,” she told Nony. Writhing in pain, she turned and twisted but was unable to ward him off. He bit her perhaps four or five times and then crawled forward and bit her breast, breaking the skin and drawing a wide smile of blood.

  She flung her hand up behind her head and patted the carpet, trying to locate the weapon. Then her hand connected, she came forward with the gun and, like she had been taught, coolly squeezed the trigger. The bullet entered the top of his head and traveled down through his cranium before exiting just below his right jawline.

  The biting stopped and she managed to pull away from his dead body.

  Shaking and whimpering, she climbed to her feet and blindly backed away from her dead husband. Reflexively she replaced the gun in its leather holster and carefully hid it in the drawer beneath a notebook. Later she would wonder why she did this, especially when the police asked her if she were trying to hide it. She had told them no, reminding them that it was she who had called the cops and it was she who had told them where she placed the gun when they asked.

  She was acting within a cocoon of total shock.

  Carefully she climbed back upstairs to their bedroom. She looked around the room and, incredibly, made her bed. She then stepped in the shower and shaved her legs and armpits. She dressed in the nice outfit she would wear to court later that morning, and returned downstairs. She made coffee.

  Finally she called the police. “Oh no, he’s quite dead,” she calmly told the 911 operator. “Dead and turning stiff already. How do I know? I kicked his arm and it was like wood.”

  The police arrived and she was transported by two detectives to the ER. Two wounds were bleeding and infection was feared from the bites. Plus, they wanted the ER staff to make records of her injuries and take pictures. More than that was done: they took her blood, made her pee in a bottle, and swabbed her genitals for semen and saliva and DNA. The bite marks were likewise swabbed because DNA profiles would be attempted at any point where marks remained. Unfortunately she had bathed, the ER doc explained to the cops, and much of the transfer DNA would have been washed away. But he did what was indicated and they could only hope for helpful results.

  Of course she was in shock. The ER doctor confirmed as much in the ER notes. She knew where she was but couldn’t come up with the date or month. She knew Obama was the president but had no idea about the vice president and never could recall her dead husband’s middle name.

  Thaddeus read the account of the killing and then read it again. This time he went much slower and made notes on his pad. Finally he had made his way to the back folder. Exhaling a long sigh, he stretched and blinked hard. He was glad that little task was done.

  He then stood and went into the waiting room. He informed Wendy that he was ready to meet with Shep. She nodded without looking up from her computer screen, but reached across for the phone.

  “He’s ready,” she said into the receiver. “Will do.”

  She looked at Thaddeus.

  “Go on in, Thad. Big guy’s ready.”

  Shep slumped behind his kidney-shaped desk, cut from ironwood and inlaid with mother-of-pearl. To his left was the flag of the United States; to his right the state flag of Colorado—Durango transplant that he was. Shep took off his rimless spectacles and pinched his nose between his eyes. He watched as Thaddeus took a client chair and assembled himself and legal pad. Shep twiddled his thumbs and Thaddeus noted the showy turquoise ring on his right middle. He was drinking from a Starbucks cup and puffing a Winston from a hard pack, one of four packs scattered across the ironwood. He picked up an envelope, placed it against his forehead like Johnny Carson’s Carnac, and said, “What is ten times five and lots of zeroes.”

  Thaddeus took the bait. Carnac was able to divine unknown answers from unasked questions. Thaddeus played Ed McMahon. “What’s ten times five and lots of zeroes?”

  Shep tossed the envelope across the desk and said, “A check for fifty thousand dollars.”

  Thaddeus smiled and slipped the envelope in his shirt pocket. “Much obliged, friend.”

  “So you read the file?” A sly grin played at the criminal lawyer’s mouth.

  “I did,” said Thaddeus. “Reads like a John Grisham novel.”

  “Naw, Grisham would be much more creative than our client Angelina Steinmar. He’s a great writer. She’s a damn poor liar
. But she’ll do in a pinch.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “Hell, Thad, she’s made the whole thing up. I spotted that immediately.”

  “What? It passed my BS-sifter test.”

  “That’s right. We can sell it to a jury, but I’m telling you damn little of that crap actually happened. Truth be told, she capped the old boy and then bit herself.”

  “What?”

  Shep twiddled his thumbs. “I’m going to have to spell out the entire thing for you. I’m saying once he was dead, she used his mouth.”

  “You’re saying she bit herself with his dead mouth.”

  Shep’s eyes narrowed to slits. “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

  Thaddeus shook his head. “Slow down, please. Where are you getting all this from?”

  Shep pushed back from the ironwood desk. “She told me.”

  “She told you.”

  “That she did, Thaddeus, my boy. Our job is to sell the script you just read, to a jury.”

  “I find the script much more believable than what you say she told you.”

  “Thank you. Script took some doing, but it’s all my creation.”

  “Son of a—”

  “Right, son, old Shep made up every word of it.”

  “You know, if I didn’t actually need this fifty grand I would pass this envelope back to you, Carnac, and run the hell out of here. But sad to say, I need the money.”

  “You’re about to get schooled in how criminal cases really get won. I figured it was time for you to come to grips with how the real world of criminal defense works.”