The Dead Room

by Robert Ellis

  He found a space in the garage at One Liberty Place, turned the ignition off, and sat for a while taking in the view of the concrete wall through his windshield. He listened to the silence, the stillness, the sound of his breathing. After a moment, he glanced at his watch. It was after seven and he thought he’d skip dinner tonight. He was numb, but he was also angry.

  This was more than a favor for Barnett. More than shit duty.

  He checked his cell phone and realized it was dead. Digging through his briefcase, he found a fresh battery and snapped it in. When he checked his messages, there were only two. The first was from Jill Sykes, his friend at the firm, updating him on how Brooke Jones made out in court this afternoon. Judge Brey had been disappointed by Teddy’s absence, but it sounded like they won the ruling. Capital Insurance Life hadn’t made a decision to settle though, probably due to the change in attorneys, and the case was scheduled for trial in two weeks. At least for now. The second message was from Jim Barnett, recorded one hour ago. Barnett was on his way home and repeated that they should talk later tonight, then meet first thing in the morning. Barnett must have spoken with the district attorney at some point because he agreed that Teddy should follow Holmes to prison, though not for the same reasons as DA Andrews. Apparently Holmes wasn’t cooperating with Barnett. Instead of talking about a possible deal with Andrews that might include avoiding the death penalty, Oscar Holmes wanted to plead not guilty and take his chances in court. Barnett said he wanted Teddy to meet with Holmes tonight and try to talk some sense into him....

  Teddy switched his cell phone off and slipped it into his pocket. He knew that if he returned Barnett’s call right now and spoke his mind, he’d be fired.

  “Talk some sense into him,” he said aloud. “In what language?”

  Teddy shook it off, climbing out of the car with his briefcase. He took the elevator up to street level, then stepped outside heading for the Wawa minimarket one block south. As he walked in the fresh air, he thought about Barnett’s message and how ridiculous it sounded. There was no way District Attorney Alan Andrews would want to make a deal on this one. Andrews had taken a big hit in the press this morning. Someone he prosecuted for murder and later died by lethal injection had been proven innocent. The Holmes case would clear the table. The crime was horrific enough to change the headlines. And Alan Andrews needed a fresh set of headlines. As big and bold as he could get them, and for as long as he could sustain them.

  Teddy entered the market and poured a large cup of coffee. At the register he hesitated a moment before buying a pack of cigarettes. Then he walked out, heading over to the Criminal Justice Center at Thirteenth and Filbert with a pack of Marlboros in his pocket. The high-rise building was fairly new, and in the past, Teddy had always found it architecturally impressive. It didn’t have the look or feel of a typical government building. Instead, there was a certain elegance about the place, almost as if it were the flagship for a major corporation or even a four-star hotel. Because civil cases had been relegated to City Hall, Teddy didn’t have a chance to spend much time in the building. Still, he knew that preliminary arraignments were held in a high-tech courtroom somewhere downstairs.

  He skipped the view tonight and crossed the lobby, stepping over to a window on the other side of the front desk. An old man dressed in a uniform sat on a stool exchanging tickets for cell phones as if checking hats or coats at a nightclub. Behind him were hundreds of numbered slots where each phone was kept. The man smiled with reassurance, taking Teddy’s cell phone and handing him a ticket marked 407. Teddy glanced at the number, then slipped it into his pocket on his way around the corner to the metal detectors and X-ray machines. Once he was through security, he gathered his things and followed the signs down the wide staircase, surprised they hadn’t noticed his coffee and more than grateful.

  Preliminary arraignments were held twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, and only stopped when the judges were due to make a shift change or in need of a break. The court worked like a deli. You took a number and waited your turn. Teddy guessed it would be some time before Holmes’s number came up, but didn’t mind. He wanted to watch the cases that preceded theirs while he figured out what he was supposed to do. Not in the legal sense. He knew a preliminary arraignment wasn’t much more than a formality, particularly in a murder case because there could be no discussion of bail. Teddy’s concerns were technological. Besides, he was still rattled, still shaky at the core, and he needed time to chill.

  The courtroom was just down the hall. Teddy entered and sat on a bench in the back row. But he wasn’t exactly seated in the courtroom. It was more like an observation room completely enclosed by glass. Speakers were built into the walls so that the public could hear the proceedings. Teddy had read about this courtroom in the newspaper when the building first opened. The court consisted of two tables for the attorneys and the judge’s bench, each furnished with speakerphones. Beside the judge, a platform took the place of the witness chair and a thirty-six-inch Sony television monitor replaced the defendant. The entire proceedings occurred via TV and over a telephone conference call. The defendants spoke to the court from a holding cell in the basement of the roundhouse five safe blocks away—the cell rigged with a camera and telephone as well. Economic and safety concerns that went with the transportation of prisoners were no longer relevant issues for the taxpayers.

  Teddy glanced about, realizing he was the only one in the observation room. He looked through the glass, watching the judge talk to a defendant and listening to their conversation over the speakers. While the judge relied on the speakerphone, he noticed the attorneys held the handsets to their ears. The process seemed straightforward enough. When the prosecutor began speaking to the judge, Teddy opened his coffee, leaned below the view of the bench and sipped through the steam. He was trying to suppress the memory of seeing Darlene Lewis’s mangled body bound to the dining room table, but he couldn’t make it. The look on her face as she was murdered remained crystal clear. And the shock was beginning to give way to fear. At some point tonight, he would have to face Oscar Holmes without the benefit or distance of television. He’d have to talk to him in person. Maybe even shake the madman’s hand.

  Someone entered the room behind his back and he turned. It was ADA Carolyn Powell.

  “They’ve bumped us up,” she said, taking a seat beside him. “Unless the judge takes a break, we’re next. Andrews wants to fast-track Holmes out of the roundhouse and get him into a cell, for his safety as well as everyone else.”

  “Where are they taking him?”

  “Curran-Fromhold,” she said. “They know you’re coming. Everything’s set.”

  Teddy nodded. “Has the house been cleared?”

  “The body’s out, but Vega thinks we should keep the place under seal. I agree. There may be a reason to go back once the science is in.”

  “What about the family?” Teddy asked.

  “They’re in no shape to spend their holiday at the house in Chestnut Hill. Besides, any funeral arrangements will be delayed because of the autopsy. After they make the ID, they’re heading back to the mountains. It’s not much more than an hour’s drive.”

  The attorneys in the courtroom behind the glass were rising from their tables.

  “Come on,” Powell said, motioning him toward the doorway. “The entrance is at the other end of the hall.”

  Teddy gulped down what was left of his coffee, ditching the empty cup in the trash and following her out of the room.

  By the time he was seated at the table in the courtroom, the jolt of hot caffeine hit him square in the eyes and Judge Vandergast had explained how to use the telephones. Teddy picked up his handset, pressed the appropriate button as directed, and turned toward the TV. The camera in the holding cell was locked on a shot of an empty steel chair. Over the phone, Teddy could hear the sound of chains rattling in the background. They were getting louder, moving closer. Then the backs of two cops in uniforms came into view, blocking
the shot as they shackled their prisoner to the chair. After a moment, the cops backed out of the shot and everyone in court got their first look at Oscar Holmes.

  The lighting was poor, but Teddy could see the forty-year-old man twisting in the chair and pulling at the handcuffs and leg irons. Oscar Holmes was a giant—six-feet-five, two hundred and ninety pounds. His body was loose and round, his short-cropped hair a dull brown. The circles beneath his eyes appeared jet-black, his skin as unnaturally pale as Teddy had ever seen. No matter what the standard, Holmes was an odd-looking man. A nightcrawler out of central casting. The kind of man who tried to keep his appetites secret and spent too much time in the dark digging holes to bury them in.

  Someone in the cell told Holmes to settle down and handed him a telephone. The restraints were too tightly drawn to bring the handset to his ear so the big man leaned forward. As he bent down, his forehead blocked the camera lights and his colorless eyes vanished in deep shadow. The effect was terrifying.

  Judge Vandergast didn’t even blink, explaining to Holmes what would be accomplished tonight and asking the man if he understood the rules.

  Holmes nodded and groaned, tugging at the chains again.

  Then the judge turned to Powell. The charges were read, and Holmes was cited with the tortured murder of Darlene Lewis, eighteen years of age, from Chestnut Hill. Although details of the arrest and crime scene were excluded for the most part in favor of a dry reading of the statutes involved, the horror and gore were substantial enough that they easily crept through the back door. Teddy was just thankful that any mention of the word cannibalism had been left out, knowing full well it would come up next week at the preliminary hearing. That would be the time when the district attorney’s office would be asked to demonstrate that they had enough evidence to send the case to trial. Three weeks after that, if the judge agreed, and Teddy was certain that he would, Holmes would be formally arraigned.

  Judge Vandergast turned back to the TV and once again asked Holmes if he understood.

  Holmes nodded a second time. “Yes, I do,” he said, his words blurred by a gravelly voice mixed with despair.

  The judge paused as if the weight of the charges were sinking in. He leaned back in his chair and removed his reading glasses. Teddy could hear Holmes’s breathing over the phone and thought his client might even be crying. No one said anything as the judge wiped his glasses off with a handkerchief, slipped them back on, and reached for his calendar. This was the world Judge Vandergast lived in eight hours a day. Teddy tried to compute the number of cases the man heard in a week. Probably hundreds, he thought, working the room with grace and professionalism but thank God for weekends and holidays and any day he could get off.

  “Bail isn’t an issue,” the judge said, paging through his calendar. “How about next Tuesday? We’ll schedule the preliminary hearing for ten o’clock. Judge Reis is available. I think we’ll give this one to him.”

  The judge turned to Teddy with a practiced calm; they were in the eye of the storm tonight, not fighting the heavy winds and swirling sea that lay beyond. Teddy couldn’t help but wonder what Judge Reis may have done to deserve this one.

  “Thank you, Your Honor,” he said. “But I was hoping for a delay of a week or two in order to evaluate my client’s mental competence. I’ve just come from the crime scene. Given the circumstances, it would seem to be a relevant issue in the case.”

  “Maybe so,” the judge said with a twinkle in his eye. “Only it’s not an issue tonight.”

  Teddy cleared his throat. “Thank you, Your Honor.”

  He glanced over at Powell as she agreed on the date and everyone wrote it down. It was obvious from the look on her face that she hadn’t expected him to say anything at all. Because of the weight of the crime and his lack of experience, she seemed surprised by his attempt to stall.

  Powell got up from her chair, still eyeing Teddy as she gathered her papers. Then Judge Vandergast switched the TV off. Once the screen went blank, once the image of Holmes vanished into the night and they were safe, only then did the judge rise from the bench, claiming he and the court would require a brief, thirty-minute break.

  SIX

  The steel door swayed open. Teddy was escorted from the lobby into a small passageway by the assistant warden—a tall, surprisingly gentle-looking man by the name of J.S. Dean.

  “Welcome to the Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility,” Dean said, slamming the heavy door shut with what Teddy considered an overly dramatic bang.

  They waited a moment for the electronic lock to engage. Then a second door clicked open and they started down a wide corridor to the holding area. Prisoners roamed freely here, pushing carts and carrying boxes in both directions. Teddy guessed that privileges were granted for good behavior and that the inmates he saw were on work duty even at this hour.

  Good behavior or not, Teddy kept his eyes on them.

  He’d made the ten mile drive up I-95 to Prison Row without needing directions. Curran-Fromhold was one of four city prisons set side by side on State Road just off the interstate. The sight of the prisons with their high walls, bright lights, and watchtowers could be seen from two miles away. Before leaving the city, he’d returned to the Wawa minimarket for another large coffee to go. He’d even tried calling Jim Barnett’s cell phone once he cleared the parking garage. The attempt had been unsuccessful, which struck Teddy as odd. Either Barnett needed to change batteries on his cell phone, or he’d deliberately switched it off. Given the circumstances, neither possibility made sense or did much for Teddy’s frayed nerves.

  The assistant warden pointed to the right and they started down a ramp into a second corridor. As they walked, J.S. Dean recounted the history of the prison and how the city chose its name.

  “It happened twenty-nine years ago,” Dean said, looking him over.

  Teddy was twenty-seven. That would make it 1973.

  “Not here, but at Holmesburg Prison,” Dean said. “Holmesburg’s closed now, but you can see it from the parking lot.”

  “Just on the other side of the interstate,” Teddy said.

  Dean nodded. “Two inmates had a grievance over religious services and scheduled a meeting with Deputy Warden Fromhold in his office. But when they showed up, it turned out they didn’t really want to talk about religion at all. Instead, one of them grabbed Fromhold and held him down while the other stabbed him to death with a homemade knife. Unfortunately, Warden Curran just happened to be passing in the hall and heard the struggle. His lucky day, huh? When he walked in, they were ready for him and ended up stabbing him to death, too.”

  Dean waved at an inmate pushing a cart past them and said hello. Teddy didn’t find reassurance in the story or its timing.

  “That’s how the place got its name,” Dean went on. “Curran-Fromhold. It’s funny, but I haven’t told that story in a long time. Must be because of your client.”

  “How so?”

  “His last name’s Holmes,” Dean said. “Makes me think of Holmesburg Prison, I guess.”

  Teddy nodded, feigning interest. Dean seemed like a good guy, but listening to him talk about two more murders was a strain. Teddy had seen and heard enough for one day. All he wanted was to get this over with and point the car home.

  By the time they reached the check-in area he’d pulled himself together and had a look around. Two guards manned the booth next to the garage, and Teddy could hear the assistant warden being told that Holmes had arrived ten minutes earlier and was ready to go. Teddy turned to the holding tank and looked through the bulletproof glass. Three prisoners he didn’t recognize were huddled on the far bench, staring at something on the floor as if they were trying to keep their distance. When Teddy moved closer, he spotted Holmes lying on the concrete in chains with his eyes closed.

  He took a step back as two more guards entered from the hall, one armed with a taser. On the assistant warden’s nod, the two men opened the holding tank door and called out Holmes’s name. Holmes opened
his eyes, getting to his feet without assistance. Then he was led out of the tank and guided across the hall to the property desk. His handcuffs and leg irons were removed. As he rubbed his wrists, he turned and looked Teddy directly in the eye.

  It was a long, dead stare. Teddy tried not to flinch, but thought maybe he did. Holmes was bigger in person, and far more powerful. If Darlene Lewis had put up a struggle, it couldn’t have lasted very long.

  One of the guards gave Holmes a nudge. Holmes finally looked away and began emptying his pockets. The assistant warden joined Teddy by the holding tank door.

  “At this point he’s only been searched for weapons,” Dean said in a lower voice. “His cash is counted and goes into an electronic account. If he’s carrying contraband, it’s taken away and forgotten. But after this it’s illegal. After he signs off on the inventory, possession of contraband is a crime. That includes cigarettes.”

  For one fleeting moment Teddy wondered what the penalty might be for possession of cigarettes. But in the end, he wasn’t really listening. He was staring at Holmes’s massive hands. He hadn’t noticed before. Holmes had been wounded, his hands wrapped in gauze and tape.

  The man behind the property desk printed out the inventory, and Holmes signed at the bottom without reviewing the list. Then one of the guards pointed to a pay phone mounted on the wall.

  “You’re allowed one call,” the guard said. “Collect.”

  Holmes grunted, approaching the phone and dialing a number. He gave the operator his name. As he waited for the call to go through, he turned away, shielding the phone from the guards and staring at the concrete wall in search of some degree of privacy. After several moments, he began whimpering into the handset. Teddy could barely make out what he was saying, but it sounded like Holmes was pleading with someone other than the operator to accept the call.

  “But I need to talk to her,” Holmes said in a louder voice. “I really need to talk to her.”