by Martin Clark
Hands was not taking Rudy’s testimony at face value. He was very thorough when he questioned the car doctor. He had a yellow legal pad full of scribbles he’d made during Pauletta’s examination, but he didn’t look at it very often.
“What kind and color car were the policemen driving?” Hands asked.
“I’m not sure. I don’t think it was one with lights and so forth, or I’d recall. But it could’ve been. I’m not sure.”
“You can remember, from a brief conversation months ago, a man’s face, but you missed something as big as a car?” Hands seemed skeptical but was still polite.
“I can remember one man who was very distinctive. I can’t identify the other one. I’m not sure about the car. I’m sorry.” Rudy sounded contrite.
“What kind of driveway is it? Didn’t you have to get past the police car?”
“It’s a little semicircle in front of the trailer. I came in on one side, from Route 813, turned in the first entrance since I was coming from the hospital.”
“I see.”
“They must have been on the other side, used the other entrance. Or I could have backed around them.”
“Now, you and Mr. Wheeling are good friends, correct?”
“Yes.” Rudy nodded.
“Did he know you were coming that day?”
“I told him a day or two before that I’d come by that morning. Then I got tied up in the ER until the afternoon, so I was late.”
“What time was it again?” Hands asked.
“Afternoon, two, three, maybe four.”
“Could it have been later?”
“Than four?” Rudy seemed confused.
“Yes.”
“Maybe, I guess. But I doubt it.”
“Who asked you to testify here today?”
“Pascal Wheeling.”
“When?” Hands looked at his pad.
“About a week ago or so.”
“Were you subpoenaed?”
“No.” Rudy paused. “I mean, not that I know of. I haven’t gotten a subpoena.”
“How did you know when to be here?”
“Pascal told me that his lawyer would call if they needed me. That way I wouldn’t miss work. They called me this morning.”
“Who did?”
“Evers did. Evers Wheeling.” Rudy looked at Evers for the first time.
“Did he discuss your testimony?”
“He asked me if I remembered what time I saw the policemen.”
“What did you tell him?” Hands cleared his throat.
“What I told you and the lady. The same thing I’ve said several times today.”
“Did Mr. Evers Wheeling make any suggestions to you about your testimony?”
“No. He told me to come and which floor and room I needed to find. I had trouble with the directions and had to get a pen. He asked me about the time, about when I saw Pascal. That was it. Then I drove down here.” He crossed his legs and looked at Pauletta.
“Would it surprise you to know that both officers have no recollection of seeing you or talking to you?”
“I’m not sure. I don’t remember one of them, either.” Rudy turned his wrist and looked at his watch.
“No sir. They don’t have a problem with recollection. They are certain, both of them, that you were not there and that you never talked to them. Are they lying?” Hands was very firm.
Evers saw Pauletta start to stand and then sit back down. She glanced across the room at him.
“Sir, I would never say a policeman is a liar. I know what they have to do, and I respect them. I would never say that. I know when I saw them and where. I’ve told you everything I know. If they say something different, and it’s important to what’s going on, then I don’t know what to suggest.”
“They’re not being honest?” Hands said.
Rudy leaned forward and glared at him. “Listen. I’m not a lawyer, and I don’t know what’s going on here. I do know this, however. First, this lady has suggested that I’m guilty of malpractice, and that she knows more than I do about the practice of medicine. Now you’re calling me a liar. I’ve had just about enough of both of you.”
Hands raised his voice. “What did the defendant ask you when he contacted you a week ago? Did he go over your story?”
“He asked me what I recalled, and I told him.”
“You weren’t subpoenaed here today, were you?”
“No,” Rudy snapped. “Haven’t you already asked me that?”
“Just came to help your friend.”
Pauletta objected. Pendleton told Rudy to answer the question.
“I came because I was asked to.”
“Do you have an office practice?”
“No. I don’t.”
Pauletta objected again. “How is this possibly relevant?”
“I think we need to know just what kind of doctor we have here.”
“I think it’s a proper question,” Pendleton said. “And I understand his answer to be that he doesn’t. Go on, Mr. Hands.”
“How long have you known the defendant?”
“About five or six years.”
“Been in his home, done things with him socially?” Hands asked his questions more quickly now.
“Yes. Occasionally.”
“And you’re sure you saw these two officers at his trailer on this day?”
“It was the day he got a DWI, because he called me.”
“What did you prescribe for his illness?”
“Amoxicillin and Tavist D.”
“Did you give him a prescription?”
“Yes.” Rudy didn’t seem shaken by Hands.
“When?”
“Three or four days before. Maybe five.”
“Was it filled?”
“It was. I called it in. Called it in to Revco at the shopping center. You can check, if you wish. The lady there, Jane, the new pharmacist, I can’t remember her last name, filled it. It was sitting beside the sink in Mr. Wheeling’s kitchen when I went by.”
“You didn’t bring any notes or files or records?”
“No, I didn’t know I’d need them.” Rudy turned angry again. He pointed at the phone on the judge’s desk. “Pick up the phone and call if you want. Nine-one-nine four-eight-six two-three-two-one. Call and ask.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” Hands said.
Hands had Dr. Rudy remain in the room while Greenfield testified again. Greenfield denied ever having seen Dr. Williams when Hands asked the car doctor to stand up and face the detective. Loggins, when he was called to testify a second time, also was emphatic about not seeing the doctor that afternoon at Mr. Wheeling’s mobile home.
Adam didn’t ask Greenfield any questions. When Hands finished with Loggins, Adam at first said he had nothing to ask, then had Log-gins come back and sit down.
Adam stood up. “Let me make sure I understand your position, okay? You say the defendant was not drinking, but we all agree he knocked a beer over on the confession, right? There’s that stain.”
“He wasn’t drinking; he was fine. The can was warm when I picked it up. It had cigarette ashes on the top.”
Adam nodded. “I see. And the defendant wasn’t impaired, even though he signed the wrong name?”
“Right. He was fine.”
Adam nodded again. “And the defendant wasn’t drunk, even though he had a point-one-six blood-alcohol level half an hour later?”
“He wasn’t drunk.” Loggins shifted his weight. His hands were folded across his lap.
“He was not drunk even though within a half an hour of your leaving, two other officers say he was very drunk?”
“Maybe he got that way when we left.”
Adam paused. “And along those same lines, you never saw or talked to Dr. Williams, the man seated there to your left?”
“Right.”
“And even though you truly believe this defendant confessed to a murder, you just drive off, don’t arrest him?”
“We … ha
d to go get a warrant and have our chief approve everything. Didn’t want to take no chances.”
“But you could have arrested him right then and there, and didn’t.”
“We didn’t arrest him.”
“There are a lot of inconsistencies, huh?”
“Some, I guess.”
When Loggins left, Rudy got up as well, and Evers followed them both outside and caught up with Rudy in the hallway. “Thanks,” he said.
“Sure. It was almost fun. I liked the attention and all of the trappings and dignity.”
“I didn’t know you had a beeper. That’s a nice touch.”
Rudy smiled. “It’s a garage-door opener. It was a good prop, though. A nice addition.” He looked up at Evers. “I hope I did okay. You didn’t tell me about the car. I was nervous about that. I figured they would’ve had a plain car, being detectives and all, but I didn’t want to take a chance. You told me not to guess, to just stick to the simple version.”
“You did great.” Evers saw Loggins standing farther down the hall, smoking a cigarette and watching them. “Did you really phone in a prescription?”
“Yeah. Pascal had a nasty bug and fever. Of course, he was pretty much over it by the time all this happened, but I had called in something for him.”
“Great.”
“So I did well?” Rudy asked again.
“Yeah. Now leave before they call you back to testify. And don’t talk to the policemen. Just leave and drive home.”
“Don’t worry. What’s going to happen to Pascal?”
“I’m not sure,” Evers said. They shook hands, and Rudy started walking down the hall. Loggins tried to talk to him when he passed, but Rudy waved his arm at him and kept going. The detective took a few steps after him, then stopped.
By now, it was almost noon. When Evers stepped back inside, Judge Pendleton was reading the cases that Pauletta had submitted. Hands wanted more time for research, but Pendleton didn’t seem inclined to go along with the request. As soon as the judge laid the file and Pauletta’s cases on his desk, Hands started speaking. “Judge, you’ve got two officers’ reputations at stake in this thing,” he said.
“Which two, Judge?” Pauletta shot back. “Maybe we need to have another trial on the DWI.”
“Judge, this is—”
Adam cut Hands short. “Judge, I don’t know how this plays into things, but she was terminally ill anyway. Her autopsy showed that she had a significant, irreversible cancer problem.”
Hands slapped the arm of his chair. “That’s not even remotely relevant to what we’re doing here. Sick people aren’t fair game for killers just because they’re sick. Murder is murder, for heaven’s sake. I guess you get a free assault if the victim has a cold, right, Adam? We’re talking about a technical point here, not the facts. I can’t believe you’d bring that up, Adam.”
“Is it true, Granger?” Pendleton ignored what Hands had just said.
“She did have cancer in her throat, but as far as we know, she was unaware of it. For that matter, I may have it myself, right now, but certainly that doesn’t entitle you to shoot me. In fact, Judge, it makes the crime worse, like taking a dollar from a poor man. It’s depriving someone who has very little left.”
“I just thought the judge should know,” Adam said.
“Well, that’s not—”
Pendelton interrupted. “I gave you a chance to get out on this one, Granger. There’s just too much against you, and it’s your burden of proof. The statement’s out. I’m excluding it. I’m going to lunch, the jury will be back at one o’clock. We can start then if you want.”
“Judge, without this confession, we have no case against a man who admitted to a killing.” Hands was red-faced. “Aren’t we overlooking a lot of substance and facts in the name of some legal niceties?”
Pendleton picked up a pen and pointed it at Hands. “This ain’t no goddamn technicality. You can’t take a good statement from a man who’s out of his mind. And there’s plenty of lying going on, and from everything I can see it’s just as good a chance it’s coming from your boys as anywhere else.” Pendleton raised up in his chair and stretched toward Hands. “For a murder case, a lot of this seemed awful surprising to you. Maybe if you were a little bit more prepared, this would go better. I don’t want to hear another word about it. You made me call it and I did.”
Hands stared at the judge for a moment and then started jamming his legal pad and books and files back into a leather satchel. He walked out of the room quickly, leaving the door open behind him. The rest of them sat in Pendleton’s office for a few minutes longer, until the judge got up from behind his desk, picked up his bag lunch and blue blazer and stomped out without saying anything else. Adam and Pascal went off to find a soft drink and a snack. When Evers and Pauletta left Pendleton’s chambers and walked out through the courtroom, Aimme and Clifford were sitting in the front row of the gallery. Aimme stood up and pointed her middle finger at Evers, pumping her hand up and down. “Fuck you, Evers,” she shouted. Mrs. Covington was sitting away from them, near the end of the bench.
“You guys get the judge paid off?” Clifford said. “Even if you and your piece-of-shit brother get out of this, we’re going to sue you civilly. We already talked to Mr. Wolf. You and Pascal will never, ever rest. Do you understand me?”
Evers slowed for a second but kept moving. He was about even with Jo Miller’s family. “Well, Cliff, this one’s pretty much over for you,” he said.
“Fuck you, Evers. Mr. Hands said that Pascal’s looking at twenty years in jail.”
“How about twenty minutes?” Evers stopped walking. He had gone past the Covingtons and was looking back at Aimme and Clifford.
Aimme put her hand down and turned toward Pauletta. “And you’re scum, too, lady. Just common shit. Helping killers and dope fiends. I hope you’re real proud.”
Pauletta set her briefcase on the floor. “Ma’am, Judge Wheeling may be willing to sit here and listen to you curse him and attack him, but I am not.” Pauletta worked on every word, didn’t get in a rush. She pointed at Aimme. “If you wish, if you want to, if you feel strongly about it, if you want to continue this encounter in that kind of nasty vein, then I will come over the back of that seat and flat beat your ass. I will. I’m not as passive and thick-skinned as most of my brethren. You call me shit, and I’ll punish you for it.” Pauletta’s face looked like a dark sketch, tight and compact, all the bones apparent, her muscles spring-loaded, all the turns, curves and lines sticking out.
Pauletta started through the benches toward Aimee, and Clifford stopped her, put his hands on her shoulders. A police officer, standing with a group of people near the back of the courtroom, shouted at them, and Pauletta said, “I’ll kick your pathetic white ass, too, Clifford. Take your skinny hands off me.” Pauletta slapped Clifford’s hands; the skin-on-skin sound—a pop, like a child’s cap gun firing—was sudden and loud in the courtroom. The officer trotted past Evers and wedged himself between Clifford and Pauletta; Aimme’s mouth was open and she was close behind Clifford, looking at Pauletta over his shoulder.
The policeman seemed more amused than alarmed, and he patted Pauletta several times in the middle of her back after he walked her out of the benches and into the aisle.
“Thanks,” Evers told him. “Sorry to cause trouble for you.”
“No problem. It’s hard to keep getting called every son of a bitch in the book and just take it all the time. Believe me, I know.”
Pauletta looked back at Aimme before she walked on, and Pauletta’s face caused Evers to think of a goddess, a boiling, irate, spectacular deity, standing up from a simple throne, provoked into impatience, bolts and thunderclaps on the tips of her fingers. The policeman escorted them out of the courtroom into the hall, wished them well and left. Evers took his suit coat off and folded it over his arm. He and Pauletta began walking down the hall, toward the elevator. Right behind them, Mrs. Covington opened the door of the courtroom and call
ed Evers’ name.
“Just keep walking,” he said to Pauletta. “She’s too old for you to thrash. Don’t turn back, don’t say anything. By the way, I think you could’ve taken Cliff.”
“I’m still angry. We should not have to listen to personal attacks for doing our jobs. I wonder how many accountants and physicians get mauled and called ‘motherfucker’ and ‘piece of shit.’ I’m not going to put up with it.”
“For what it’s worth, it’s a side of you that I appreciate. You look like equal parts Joe Frazier and Nelson Mandela. Very noble anger. In a feminine way, of course. You weren’t looking like a brute or anything.” He put his arm over her shoulder.
“Evers! Miss Qwai!” Mrs. Covington had walked into the hall and was pacing Evers and Pauletta.
Evers and Pauletta continued on toward the elevator. “And I am going to resist being treated poorly by fools and imbeciles for honorably practicing my trade.” Pauletta was breathing hard, Evers noticed. A few strides away from the elevator, he looked around for the steps leading to the ground floor. He didn’t want to be trapped in front of the elevator staring wistfully at the illuminated down arrow while Mrs. Covington chewed on his ears and wagged her finger in his face.
“It’s like banging the lion’s cage with a stick,” Pauletta continued. “We get attacked because people know we won’t respond.” She was exhaling small, abrupt snorts out of her nose.
“I thought that we were above certain kinds of conduct,” Evers chided her. “I seem to recall your scolding me in West Virginia for defending myself.”
“We are—”
“Evers, I want to talk to you. I’m trying to help,” Mrs. Covington shouted. She wasn’t running, wasn’t really chasing Evers and Pauletta, but was just walking along behind them, getting farther and farther away at the other end of the hall. A young girl and a man with a long beard looked at Mrs. Covington when she yelled at Evers. Evers and Pauletta both glanced back, and Mrs. Covington kept coming, her purse swinging in time with her steps. She walked up to Evers and stopped in front of him. Evers pushed the button to call the elevator.
“You want to help us?” Evers was apprehensive. He was leaning back, and his legs were stiff and his fingers were touching his palms, folded into loose fists. “Help us to do what?” He was watching Mrs. Covington’s hands and her purse, worried about a gun or knife or something sharp in one of her pockets. Or she might throw something on him, throw acid into his eyes. He’d read about a case in South Carolina where a victim had thrown acid on the defendant’s face right before court started.
