by Reed Arvin
“Say the words, Stillman.”
“I check with you. Except I’ve already set one up. Should I cancel it?”
I look at my watch; it’s 9:05. “Shit, Stillman, do you ever sleep?”
“Don’t need it. Anyway, I made the call yesterday, while you were…where were you, anyway?”
“Shopping for my daughter.” Stillman shrugs, because he doesn’t have a daughter, or a son, or a girlfriend, or anything in his universe except achieving his goal of ruling the world. “So this meeting you set up. Who’s it with?”
“With the victim’s family. I’ve got the father, the mother, and the victim’s boyfriend.”
OK, probably not a waste of time. “And when is this auspicious meeting to take place?”
“Tuesday, three-thirty, Jackson conference room. If you approve.”
If I don’t watch this kid, he’s going to run all over me. “OK, Stillman. We’ll take the meeting.”
“Thanks.”
I point at the files. “I take it you’ve read this?”
“Yeah, last night.” The smile thins into an ironic line. “Should I have checked with you?” I give Stillman a warning look, and he backs off. “Sorry.”
“So tell me, Stillman. What do you make of our friend Moses Bol?”
“Mr. Bol’s not from around here. Maybe he grew up somewhere where rape and murder are acceptable forms of behavior.”
Stillman’s description is understatement: Bol is from the horribly war-torn country of Sudan, and thanks to the vagaries of international politics, he and 150 or so of his countrymen are now attempting to scrape out their lives in the projects of the American South. This was a world I assumed was just as strange to him as his would be to me. “What’s the victim’s name, Stillman?”
Stillman shuffles through the papers a second. “Tamra Hartlett,” he says.
“That’s right. We claim Bol raped her and then murdered her. What’s the basis for that assessment?”
“Phone records show a seven-minute call between Bol’s apartment and the victim’s less than two hours before the estimated time of death. Eyewitnesses claim to have seen Bol and Hartlett vehemently arguing on two occasions in the days before her death. Another witness places Bol’s car in front of her apartment that night. Forensics claim that a bloody handprint on her body matches Bol perfectly. His DNA was found all over her apartment, and her blood was found in his car. His semen was found on the bedsheets and in her vagina.”
“Why was she found in a bathtub?”
“Women often try to wash off what happened to them in a rape. Hartlett ran into her bathroom, locked the door, and got into the tub.”
“And?”
“Bol broke the door down with a heavy pedestal, splintering it into pieces. Fragments of wood were found on the base of the pedestal, and paint from the pedestal was found on the door.”
“Were Bol’s prints found on the pedestal?”
“His, and only his. Bol and she struggled, and he beat her to death with the pedestal. Not before she got him once, though.”
“Confirmed by?”
“Bol had a nice-sized knot on his own head consistent with a blow from the same pedestal he used to kill Hartlett.”
“Let’s see the photos, Stillman.”
Stillman blithely pulls out a set of horror-show pictures, including the victim collapsed in a half-filled bathtub run red with human blood. Among them is a single picture of the victim while still alive and well. Tamra Hartlett, the picture shows, is a white woman, early twenties, with sexy eyes and breast implants that are definitely not the work of Dr. Michael Sarandokos. She’s at least a EE, and her low-cut blouse leaves little to the imagination. I don’t know what kind of skinny, half-starved women there were trying to stay alive in the refugee camp Bol lived in before he came to America, but it’s a fair bet they were nothing like Tamra Hartlett. It didn’t take a genius to imagine her effect on Bol.
“Tamra Hartlett,” I say. “She’s a part-time dancer, sometime waitress. No criminal record.”
“Bol, meanwhile, is part of a group of recent Sudanese immigrants. His English is marginal. Work skills, apparently nil.” I shrug. “Maybe in Sudan, he’s a genius. He’s probably the greatest cow herder in the history of the African continent.”
“In Nashville, Tennessee, he’s herds carts at Wal-Mart.”
I lean back in my chair, thinking that Rayburn has Stillman pegged about right. He’s a courtroom machine, as merciless as the angel of death. “No murder case is perfect,” I say. “What’s wrong with this one?”
Stillman runs his hand through his perfectly coiffed hair. “There was no forcible entry,” Stillman says. “Apparently, she let him in.”
“We stipulate that the two knew each other. They had been publicly arguing. She called him that night, probably to settle things, have it out. She just didn’t count on him killing her.”
Stillman nods. “That works.”
“Anything else?”
“Motive,” he says. “We know they were arguing, but we don’t know what about.”
I smile. “Apparently, Stillman, you are not going to be a total loss on this case.” He relaxes, and I realize that getting my approval is important to him. I hadn’t actually considered that possibility, given his officious posing. “So here’s how I work, Stillman. I only use investigators for surveillance, not to interview.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I go to the locations. I talk to witnesses myself. I don’t show up in court depending on a summary somebody wrote with a twenty-nine-cent Bic pen. I look the witnesses in the eyes and make up my own mind.”
Stillman nods. “OK.”
“That means you and I are going to track down everybody and anybody who can tell us why Bol and Hartlett hated each other.”
Stillman flashes his TV smile. “Rayburn says we’re going for the maximum.”
“We all agreed.”
“So you’re OK with it?”
“Don’t mess with me, Stillman,” I say quietly.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean you’re asking for David. He asked you to sound me out.” Stillman smiles, knowing he’s busted. “Listen to me, Stillman. Moses Bol sat in his apartment and premeditated the murder of an American citizen. He drove the ten blocks to her apartment, entered the premises, raped her, then brutally beat her to death by pounding her head with a weighted pedestal. It took six blows to finish the job, which, as far as I’m concerned, is like reloading a weapon. We are going to try him for murder in the first degree, and we are going to ask that the jury sentence him to death.”
With those words, quiet settles on my office. After a while, Stillman nods. “So what about this new bail hearing? He’s already been denied one, right?”
I shrug. “Rita West tries anything she can to get her clients out of jail, and I respect her for it. She’s dreaming on this one, however. We’ll be there fifteen minutes. The judge will reconfirm our trial date at that point, and we’ll take it from there.”
“Anything you want me to do in the meantime?”
I nod. “Yeah. Go get me a Coke.”
I’M ELBOW-DEEP in Bol’s files when Carl drifts by after lunch. He comes into my office, large and noisy, and sits down in a chair opposite my desk, spilling over the sides a little, like a friendly bear. “I just heard about Stillman. Sorry.”
Every day Carl’s retirement creeps closer, I realize more how much I’m going to miss him. “It’s an improvement over you, Sasquatch.”
“He’s smart, Thomas. He’ll be an asset on this kid from Sudan. Who I met, incidentally.”
I look up, surprised. “You met him?”
“When they brought him in for questioning. The public defender wanted to make a deal, and they needed somebody from the office.”
“That was you? For God’s sake, it was two o’clock in the morning.”
Carl smiles softly. “You know me, Thomas. Becker is always available.”
>
This is true; other than work, it’s hard to find any discernible thing in Carl’s life. It’s one reason he’s so good at it. “So what happened?”
“They processed the kid, but I’m not sure he knew what the hell was going on. The PD’s office assigned that cute brunette to sit with him. The one with the nice behind.”
“Rita West.”
Carl nods. “She was doing her best, but it wasn’t the ideal situation. Bol jumped out of his chair every time the door opened. I think he must have been in jail before, only the kind where the jailers carry cattle prods.”
“Back in the old country.”
“All I know is something sure as hell happened to that kid. He was as jumpy as a poodle at a Vietnamese barbeque.”
I smile; Carl is about as PC as a redneck Baptist preacher, which makes him invaluable over long, dreary cases. “So what happened?”
“Once they got him settled down, I had them bring in a translator. A Dr. Ahmed al-Hasheed, as I recall.”
“Arabic?”
“Yeah. Bol might be from the jungle, but he speaks four languages.”
I raise an eyebrow. “No kidding.”
Carl nods. “Arabic, Swahili, Dinka, and English makes four. Because the kid’s English wasn’t that bad. I think he was understanding more than he let on. You could see it in his eyes, how he followed the conversation. Word to the wise, Thomas. The kid is smart.”
“Noted.”
“We got the translator anyway, just to avoid a basis of appeal later on. West would be all over that, saying he couldn’t comprehend what he was agreeing to.”
“Sure.”
“Anyway, with the translator’s help the kid makes a statement, and it doesn’t hold up. He says he wasn’t there at the time. He says he’s got no idea how his car got to the victim’s apartment.” Carl pauses. “You know about the eyewitnesses, right? He had been seen arguing with Hartlett a couple of times, and it got pretty vehement.” I nod. “Even that early on, they had his prints all over the place. So everybody in the room knows he’s lying his ass off. I look over at Rita, and I can see it in her eyes. She knows the kid’s toast.”
“She wants to make a deal.”
“Brilliant, Dr. Watson. I take Rita out of the room to talk things over. You know, leave the kid alone for a while, let him stew in his own juices. So I tell Rita, look, let’s do everybody a favor here. We both know the kid’s in over his head. He doesn’t know where the hell he is, or what the consequences are of his actions. I’ll drop the aggravated charge circumstances, which will save the kid’s life. With a few breaks the kid could be out in twenty, twenty-five.”
“What’d she say?”
“She put up a fight, but she was just going through the motions. The kid’s a foreigner, and he’s accused of raping and killing a citizen. That’s a combination that’s going to really piss a jury off. So she says, fine, let’s go with it. But naturally, we got to sell it to Bol.”
“Right.”
“We all go back in, me, Rita, the translator, and a detective. I explain the concept to the kid, about how he’s agreeing to the lesser charge in exchange for a lighter sentence. I could tell he didn’t know what I was driving at for a while. He just kept shaking his head and asking questions. I’m going through everything slow, real patient. The thing’s being videotaped, and I want to make sure everything is clear. Finally, it sinks in for him. Which is when all hell broke loose.”
“What do you mean?”
Carl shrugs. “The kid looks over at me with an expression that would curdle milk, and he went el loco. The detective had to physically restrain him from ripping my head off. Rita’s backing up to get clear of the chaos, and I’m trying to get the kid’s hands unglued from my necktie. A couple more cops come in and settle the kid down, and everything gets under control again. The whole thing only lasted a few seconds, but it was definitely interesting.”
“What set the kid off?”
“The translator said that in this kid’s culture, he’s like a prince or something.”
“A prince?”
“Prince, shaman, witch doctor.” He pauses. “Benywal. That’s it.”
“What the hell’s a Benywal ?”
“How do I know? Anyhow, I deeply insulted him with my offer of a plea deal. The kid said I was the devil, anyhow.” He pauses. “Not the devil, now that I remember it. Just a devil.”
“No kidding.”
“I told the kid he had me all wrong. I was trying to help him. He looked like he was going to spit in my face.” Carl shrugs. “It was pretty obvious we weren’t going to get the deal, so I went home. I wasn’t in the mood to be told I was a devil anymore, anyway. It was amusing for a few minutes, but it lost its appeal pretty fast.”
I shake my head. “Looks like we might be in for quite a show.”
Carl sighs. “You’re in for the show,” he says quietly. “They’re leading me to pasture, Thomas. I’ve got good years left in me. Maybe not great, but good.” He looks at me helplessly, which is a new expression for him. He is so good at what he does—so finely tuned, for such a precise purpose—that neither one of us can imagine his next act. He’s only sixty-five, which means he could be looking at twenty-five years to fill.
“You think any more about that teaching job?” I ask. “Any law school in the country would be lucky to have you.”
“I have a very serviceable revolver at home, Dennehy,” he says. “If you ever see me sitting around a bunch of twenty-three-year-olds telling my old war stories, please use it on me.”
He sounds tired, like he’s already bored with doing the nothing he has staring at him for the next two or three decades. “I had to get out of my office for a while,” he says. “It’s like a parade in there. Everybody wants to say good-bye. It’s all sad faces and moist eyes. Nightmare.”
“I can’t believe you have to come back next Monday for one last day.”
“Yeah, and I have to wait until the next Friday for the party. The great state of Tennessee is forcing me to use four days vacation.”
“Just as well. Knowing the group around here, nobody is going to be in shape to come into the office the next day.”
“Speaking of the party, no speeches, Thomas. I’m serious.”
“Fine by me, but Rayburn never met a microphone he didn’t like.”
Carl’s eyes widen. “God, I hadn’t thought of that. Look, want to meet me before at Seanachie’s? I can’t face David Rayburn with a microphone sober.”
“Sure,” I say, smiling. “And listen, Carl…”
I don’t get the sentence finished before he’s out of his chair and heading toward the door. “Like I said, no speeches.”
CHAPTER
3
IT’S FIFTEEN MINUTES BEFORE nine the next morning when I arrive at the New Justice Building for Bol’s hearing. The old building, over on Union—a street conspicuously renamed by the conquering northern army shortly after the end of the Civil War—was an aging money pit of a structure, but it was a repository of extraordinary memories, both glorious and infamous. The new building, by contrast, is a high-tech paean to the power of the state. Architecture, I’ve found, often contains clues to the intentions of the people behind the structure. From the immaculate, unscalable walls of the exterior to the invisible, bomb-sniffing sensors in the entryway, this is a building bereft of history, thoroughly committed to the present and future. It sits a city block wide on the banks of the Cumberland River, testimony to the burgeoning prison population of metropolitan Davidson County. By the time I arrive, Stillman is already there—God, he’s an eager beaver—and the two of us walk up the concrete stairs to the big, revolving doors of the main entrance.
Stillman and I clear security together. Stillman is looking nifty in a well-tailored, gray linen suit, white shirt, and bloodred tie. He jokes with the guards like an old hand, even though he’s going to court for about the fifth time in his life. One of the guards, a huge black man everybody calls Hap, motions m
e over. “You going up to Ginder’s courtroom?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I say. “Another day in paradise.”
“What’s goin’ on today?” he asks. “The United Nations is up there.”
“What do you mean?”
Hap shrugs. “I haven’t heard a word of English the last half hour, except a lot of brothers want to know the way to Ginder’s room.” I glance at Stillman, who gives me a blank look. We take the elevator to the second floor and Judge Joseph Ginder’s courtroom. Ginder is a decent guy whom I know well, since I’ve spent about a thousand hours arguing cases before him. He’s generally fair, although he has a temper. This doesn’t usually present a problem, because most of the prosecutors know how to avoid his hot buttons. These mostly have to do with respect issues, along the lines of treating him like he’s a god. He’s got an election coming up in three months, and he’s been on his best behavior, making sure he gets the endorsement of the trial lawyers’ association.
Stillman and I come around the corner and see a crowd of about twenty white people standing around with pissed expressions on their faces. Most are male, under the age of twenty-five, and dressed in this summer’s version of Caucasian street thug. Stillman pulls up short. “Is it just me, or did a trailer park just empty out around here?”
I smile. “Welcome to the Nation, Stillman,” I say. “That’s with a capital N.” I point to the crowd. “I probably had five cases with this crowd my first year. They live in the whitest and poorest forty square blocks of Nashville. Their parents worked low-end manufacturing jobs, except there aren’t any anymore. So now they have lots of time to decide whom to blame.”
“Why do they call it the Nation?”
“All the cross streets are named after states. Indiana, Kentucky, Florida, that kind of thing. They don’t look happy, do they?”
“No.”
“What’s bothering them, Stillman, is the fact that their little place in the world is now completely surrounded by Laotians, Ukrainians, Hispanics, Cambodians, and God knows what else. These are not the kind of people who like to hear Croatian at the corner grocery store. The city planning commission has been dumping immigrants on their borders, and they’re freaked.”
