Defending Turquoise (Thaddeus Murfee Legal Thriller Series Book 5)

by John Ellsworth

  “Do you have an opinion whether she shot the bullet that killed Randy Begay?”

  “There’s no way she could have fired that round. Unless she stood on a fairly tall stool and shot with the wrong hand. But how much sense does that make, really?”

  “Thank you, Dr. Myer-Rothstein. I believe that’s all I have.”

  Peter Redwash undertook cross-examination of the expert. Peter was a genuinely nice and polite young man, but he was clearly outmatched from the start. Dr. Myer-Rothstein was polite, charming, and never uttered an angry or defensive word. Peter kept saying, “Help me understand” this or that, and, with the open-ended question before him, Dr. Myer-Rothstein ran a learning academy for the rest of the morning. Realizing, finally, that his sole accomplishment was to allow the expert the opportunity to restate all his opinions yet again, Peter sat down. “Nothing further,” he told the judge with a flourish as if he had just shot a marauding lion. In truth, he was no nearer a conviction than he had been when the trial began.

  Following the afternoon recess, Thaddeus announced that he was calling the defense’s final witness.

  Henry Landers entered the courtroom with no small trepidation, looked about, and saw that it was safe enough even though it was a white man’s court—bane of the Native American elders. He took the witness stand and removed his Stetson almost at the same moment the bailiff was asking him to do just that. He placed the sweat-stained hat at his feet and looked curiously at the jury. Satisfied they were just people like him, he looked and fixed his gaze on Thaddeus—the man responsible for putting him in this uncomfortable setting.

  “Tell us your name, please.”

  “Henry Begay Landers.”

  “And you know who I am?”

  “You’re Thaddeus Murfee.”

  “Where do you live?”

  “Wachuska Mountains on the Navajo Reservation.”

  “Who do you live there with?”

  “Two dogs and two hundred fifty-three Churro sheep.”

  “What is your business?”

  “Sheep.”

  “Do you sell sheep?”

  “I make wool. I sell wool.”

  “Do you sell sheep for food?”

  “Not at all. I wouldn’t do that.”

  “You’re partial to your sheep.”

  “I am to them, they are to me.”

  “Now Mr. Landers—”

  “Henry.”

  “Henry. You have a rather large family, I understand. Would you tell us about that?”

  “I am over one hundred years old. My maternal clan is Towering House and my paternal clan is Tall Man Walking.”

  “And you have many offspring.”

  “Sons, daughters, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, great-great-grandchildren. Who can keep track?”

  “So you don’t know all of them?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know.”

  “Did you have a great-grandson named Randy Begay?”

  “Yes.”

  “And is your great-great-granddaughter my client, Turquoise Begay?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you remember the day Randy Begay was shot?”

  “I remember the day. I was there.”

  “You were there when he was shot?”

  “I was there after. I tried to go inside but the police wouldn’t let me park.”

  “So you never were at the scene of the shooting?”

  “No. They wouldn’t let me.”

  “Why were you in that part of the reservation?”

  Henry looked at the judge. He appeared busy with other things, eyes downcast, writing.

  “I went there to shoot Randy Begay.”

  The judge’s head snapped up.

  “You were there to shoot Randy Begay why?”

  “He was sexually assaulting Turquoise, his niece.”

  “You were going to kill him?”

  “Of course. Her father wouldn’t do it because it was his brother. So I was coming to do it.”

  “Did you shoot him?”

  “No, he was already shot when I came.”

  “Who shot him, if you know?”

  “I saw a lady leaving the trailer. A lady on a motorcycle. Maybe she shot him.”

  “But you don’t know that?”

  “No.”

  “Tell us what you saw her do.”

  “She came down off the porch. She walked to her motorcycle. She rode the motorcycle onto the road and got off. She took a rag from her pocket and began dusting her motorcycle track in the sand.”

  “How do you know she was dusting her track?”

  “Because she was dusting where her bike came from. Same thing.”

  “So you figured—what did you figure?”

  “I figured she was hiding something. So I followed her.”

  “You were in your truck?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you have your gun with you?”

  “Yes. I was going to shoot Randy with my gun.”

  “So you followed her. Where did you go?”

  “Ten minutes up the road is New-Nav Trading Post. She turned in, I turned in and went to the gas pumps. She went to the phone.”

  “What was she wearing?”

  “Pants, leather coat, helmet, gloves.”

  “What did she do at the phone?”

  “Went inside, closed the door, removed her gloves, talked into the phone.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “She came out and got back on the motorcycle and rode home.”

  “Home where?”

  “Flagstaff. I have a picture of the motorcycle.”

  “Let me show you several pictures.”

  Thaddeus then walked Henry through the photographs he had taken with his phone. Now they were blown up with foam backs and propped up in front of the jury. One by one they went over them—Who, What, When, Where—and one by one they were admitted into evidence.

  Then Thaddeus continued with the chronology.

  “After she parked the motorcycle and covered it up, she went into the house?”

  “Yes. Like I said, I went around front and took the pictures of the TV boys and their trucks.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Yes. I found out her name.”

  “How did you do that?”

  “I looked at a police report you showed me. It had her address. I matched it to her name. I went back and checked the address. It was her.”

  “Who?”

  “Angelina Steinmar.”

  More loose ends were tied up. Cross-examination by the ADA was half-hearted and really could produce nothing. In the end, Henry saw what he saw and did what he did and he was unflappable. His matter-of-fact manner put the jury nearly to sleep, but it didn’t matter.

  Thaddeus rested the defense case.

  Closing arguments could begin. First there would be a thirty-minute recess.

  Thaddeus and Turquoise stood while the jury filed out. Christine had already headed downstairs for a cigarette. She had left him a single sheet of paper with the six points she would like to see him cover in closing. He looked them over and had to agree. She was spot on. As they stood waiting for the last member of the jury to leave, Turquoise reached to her side and took Thaddeus’ hand in hers. “Thank you,” she whispered. He caught a glimpse of her eyes brimming with tears. It had finally hit home. The chances were very good she wasn’t going to end up in jail.

  “Worst part,” she said, “my father didn’t even come. He just didn’t care.”

  Thaddeus could only nod. He didn’t want to express what he was thinking. It was much, much worse, overall, and he would never tell the girl how he really felt about Garcia Begay. Never.

  54

  Years earlier in Orbit, Illinois, Thaddeus had a told a jury in closing argument that “sometimes you eat the bear and sometimes the bear eats you.” Not a very original saying, he’d had to admit, but he thought it made a very valid point, meaning that sometimes bad things just happen.
No one’s at fault, they just happen. He had won that little trial, but it wasn’t dependent on his old, homey saying about bears. Because at the moment he said “bear eats you,” the jury, as one, had looked at him with a look that said they hadn’t the foggiest idea what in the hell he was talking about. Sometimes that just happens when we’re talking to juries, he had told Ilene that night. Sometimes they don’t get it. And when they don’t get it, it’s because I didn’t get it either.

  Turquoise was found not guilty and was placed permanently with Thaddeus and Katy, her foster parents. By now Turquoise was almost seventeen years old and was ready to move on from her life with Garcia Begay, the father that had abandoned her from her tenth birthday on. So, with her new foster parents, Turquoise returned to the trailer to gather her things.

  It was mid-July but cool, at least coming across Flagstaff and dropping four thousand feet to the reservation. At reservation level it was considerably warmer. Thaddeus had everyone roll up the windows and he switched on the air. After a few miles the F250 was cooled off and everyone felt much better. So Katy began singing an old Navajo lullaby and soon Turquoise had joined in. Thaddeus watched the young woman in the rearview mirror as she sang along and began wiping her eyes. The mother she had known long, long ago had sung her that song but then the music had died with her. After that there had been only silence, until now.

  “I’m crying because I’m happy,” she said into the mirror when she realized he was staring. He only nodded and kept driving. It was a trespass into her privacy, his staring, and he regretted it.

  At the trailer, Thaddeus went to the bedroom where Turquoise had slept with Randy. Thaddeus meant to give her support while she packed the last remaining articles she had come to claim for the afterlife. Garcia was nowhere to be found, of course, and no one commented.

  As they passed down the hallway into Turquoise’s room, Katy ducked into the bathroom. She closed the door behind her. Turquoise and Thaddeus were emptying drawers when Turquoise suddenly paused. “Damn,” she said, “there’s never toilet paper in there. Garcia says it’s a waste of money. He uses napkins he steals from McDonald’s.”

  She headed for the bathroom to help and at that moment Katy opened the door. Thaddeus heard them speak briefly, then Turquoise returned to the room.

  “Funny,” she mused as she resumed packing. “She knew where it was.”

  “Knew where what was?”

  “Knew where Garcia kept the napkins.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He hides them in a drawer. Away from Randy. Randy wasted them so Garcia hid them. I was afraid Katy was in there without any way to—you know.”

  “No way to wipe.”

  “Exactly.”

  “So what happened?”

  “She went right to them. She knew where they were hidden. That’s all.”

  He thought nothing about it. She thought nothing about it.

  Soon the Tide and Seagram’s boxes were topped off with the last of her belongings. They loaded up the back seat, leaving room for Turquoise to fit in wearing a seatbelt.

  Driving back to Flagstaff, it came to him. It was time to eat the bear.

  She knew where the napkins were hidden. Without having to ask.

  She had been there before? But in the bathroom?

  “Katy,” he said, “how did you know about the napkins in the bathroom?”

  Her tone was icy. She looked angry.

  “Don’t ask,” she ordered.

  “You’ve been there before.”

  “Drive,” she said, eyes straight ahead, sunglasses absorbing the glare and shielding her privacy. “Just drive.”

  ———————————THE END—————————--

  Epilogue

  There is probably as much misinformation about American Indian tribes as there is accurate information. Liberties have been taken in this book for fictional purposes. While much research was done, and while the author has acted as attorney in hundreds of cases representing the Navajo and has attended their pow-wows and visited their reservation, the portrayal of Navajo customs, beliefs, lands, mountains, and much more are entirely the figment of the author’s imagination.

  The same could be said for the attorneys and judges of Coconino County and Phoenix, though some of it might ring true for some people.

  In my novel, towns are moved around; distances between places are fudged; driving times under- and over-stated. This is simply to say that what you have read here is fiction, entirely made-up by the author, and when places, buildings, office locations, courts and the rest of it were required for the story, they were simply created. The same may be said of legal routines, state and federal prosecutions, pleadings, statutes, courts and officers, and acceptable or routine processes. While I am a lawyer, the truth is, the accurate representation of legal processes would make a book like this double its length, and for my purposes that’s neither necessary nor useful.

  —John Ellsworth, September 2014

  About the Author

  John Ellsworth was born in Phoenix, Arizona, and practiced law in Flagstaff, Arizona where he was surrounded by Indian reservations and Navajo, Hualapai, Havasupai, Apache, and Hopi peoples and, oftentimes, their legal cases. For thirty years he defended criminal clients across the United States. He has defended cases ranging from shoplifting to First Degree Murder to RICO to Tax Evasion, and has gone to jury trial on hundreds. His first book, The Defendants, was published in January, 2014. Beyond a Reasonable Death was his second book and was published in March, 2014. His third book, Attorney at Large, was published June, 2014. His fourth book, Chase, the Bad Baby, followed shortly after. Defending Turquoise is John’s fifth book and the fifth in the Thaddeus Murfee series. John is presently at work on his next legal thriller, which, it is hoped, will be published before Christmas 2014.

  Reception to John’s books has been phenomenal. All are best-sellers in the Amazon legal thrillers and discussions of movie rights are moving ahead.

  John Ellsworth lives in Arizona, is married with three grown children (musicians and teachers). He rescues guinea pigs, and plays classical guitar when he’s not inventing tales on his keyboard.

  thelegalfiction.blogspot.com/

  johnellsworthfiction@icloud.com

  Also by John Ellsworth

  The Defendants

  Beyond a Reasonable Death

  Attorney at Large

  Chase, the Bad Baby

  Defending Turquoise

  The Mental Case (December 20 2014)

  If you would like to be notified of new book publications please sign up for my email list. You won’t receive email from me for anything but new book announcements.

  —John Ellsworth

  Afterword

  I make my living writing books and I’m very happy about that. The practice of law is difficult and will wear you out in a hurry. But because I make my living writing books, I would really like to ask your help. Book reviews are the lifeblood of what I do, and your review of my book would mean a lot to me. If you would take a moment or two and leave your review on Amazon that would be wonderful. I honestly thank you.

  Last but not least, if you find errors in this book such as typos or inconsistencies, please email me. This will help me fix things that my editors and I might have overlooked and make for a better read for others. In return, by way of showing my gratitude, I will send you a free copy of the next book, with my sincere thanks.

  —John Ellsworth

 

 

 
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