by Rex Miller
When he awakens it is deep in trauma and shock and in a netherworld of terror-stricken, paralyzing fear as the shadow behind him moves, releasing him.
The sense of coming to is not the same as waking or regaining consciousness after blacking out, or of feeling the effects of anesthesia wear off. It is more a sense of being able to shift one's thought again, an awareness of control returning.
And the frightened man moves carefully, moving back around the awful curve of the stone and concrete chamber, and as he turns in his mind it is the same as if you had backed out of a darkened tunnel and as you turned you were out in bright sunlight and fresh air again and his face is wet with streaming tears of gratitude and relief at being alive and he winces at the residue of real pain as he unbuckles his pants, still soaked in urine, pitching them as far from him as the cell will allow.
Soon, he thinks, his breath coming in big gulps. His hands are shaking badly. Very soon now. And William “Ukie” Hackabee, as he is known, will do what he must. And pray that it will allow him to survive. Because when you get down to the basics nothing else matters. Survival is everything.
Dallas
The morning started off badly. Eichord awoke with a killer headache, the kind he used to get after a night and a full day of constant and progressively heavy boozing. The thing is, with the exception of imaginary wine, he hadn't had a taste of anything stronger than coffee in the last forty-eight hours. It was a hangover without the fun the night before.
When he finally made it back downtown in one piece, compliments of the friendly folks out there on the Central Expressway, the Dallas cop shop looked like somebody had declared martial law. He asked Wally Michaels, “Wally, what the hell's going on this morning? They find some more graves?"
“Yesterday. Yeah. No, this is from the shooting thing."
“Something on the Grave-digger?"
“No. Unrelated. You didn't hear about the old man?"
“I just got here."
“Obviously you haven't heard or seen any local news this morning."
“Not a drop."
“Okay. Old guy got iced out in Singing Hills. There's a little subdivision out there with a public golf course. Black man was a sort of combination janitor, assistant greens-keeper. Lived in a little house on the course next to the pro shop. Anyway there was a car answered a disturbance call and one thing leads to another, the patrolmen tried to bring him in—he was fried, had a piece waving it around and shouting and what-not. He points and each popped a couple of caps at him. DOA and on the books as ‘mortally wounded while resisting arrest.’ But big problems."
“Not righteous?"
“No, IAD's shooting team said it looked copacetic, but the old gent was fuckin’ eighty-two years old."
“It's a shame, but it happens. So what's the furor?"
“No"—Wally shook his head like he had a bug in his ear—"you don't know the situation here. We've been up to our ass in crocodiles ever since the Jackson case. Young black. Witnesses say it was a murder. The patrolman is being investigated. Currently suspended. Then an eighty-year-old black lady got shot trying to keep a cop from arresting her grandson on a dope bust. We've got another potential Watts here. Last night on one of the local radio talk shows it was like listening to the militant ethnic stations back when King got shot. Very bad vibes. Lots of inflammatory rhetoric on both sides. So we're kind of all on-hold this morning. Just waiting to see where it goes from here. And there's more."
“What?"
“Your new best friend Noel Collier was on the news this morning. Jones-Seleska made it official. They are the attorneys of record for William Hackabee, suspect in"—he looked at the front page on the desk—"the Dallas Gravedigger Murders, according to sources, yatta, yatta, yatta, represented by defense counsel Noel Collier of the Garland law firm of blah blah and so on.” He tossed the paper on his desk and Jack picked it up with a shrug.
“No big surprise, I guess.” He pointed at the phone. “Can I use it?” And at Michaels’ nod he picked up the handset and dialed Jones-Seleska. He had to hold for a minute or so but she finally came on the line and that angelic voice told him it was “Noel Collier."
“Jack Eichord.” A beat. Nothing. “You missed a good spaghetti dinner,” he just couldn't resist it.
“Mmm.” It sounded like she murmured. “Kind of running today, Mr. Eichord. Can we do something for you in particular?” Voice hardening like a tempered blade.
“Congratulations on your new client,” he said.
“Um hmm. Thank you."
“Wish you had told me when I was in your office."
“How's that?"
“I mean, that is the case we were talking about. I don't recall you saying your firm would be representing Mr. Hackabee. But I see it's in the papers today."
“Mr. Eichord"—the tone a little irritated now—"I think we need to clarify a couple of things here to avoid future misunderstandings between your offices and ours. First off, that decision was only finalized late yesterday, and the papers were notified by someone else here in the office. I am unaware of any agreement that was made to notify you. Second. The basic purpose of a defense attorney is to defend the accused and so that presupposes that there is a basic conflict of interest between that person and the police and DA or whoever prosecutes. It's a bad-guy-good-guy situation depending on your perspective and it was meant to be that way. The adversarial position is what makes the system cook. You agree?"
“Certainly. But could an official adversary ask a question or two of an investigation-related nature?"
“Shoot."
“Did you come to Ukie or did he call you?"
“Pardon me?"
“Who came to whom first? About representing him? Did your office approach him or did he seek you out? I'm curious for a reason."
“Neither, actually. His brother called us from Houston. He's quite concerned about him, naturally, and Ukie had never so much as contacted him about all this. He read about it in the papers. Called the homicide squad here, got a lot of generalities that he thought were highly suspect considering that he gave them a reference in the Houston PD to check him out with. Anyway—to cut through—he was upset and his contact with the police worried him as much as the headlines had, and he called around and one of the firms in Houston put him in touch with us."
“Ukie's brother have that kind of money he can afford you folks?” Eichord kept a smile in his voice.
“As a matter of fact I don't think our fee is going to be a severe problem for Mr. Hackabee. He has a big, direct-mail firm. Far from indigent. Anything else?"
“I guess we can assume there's a book and movie, after all,” Eichord said, hoping she wouldn't slam down the phone.
“WHAT? Aren't you familiar with the Son of Sam law, Mr. Eichord?” She sounded exasperated at his ignorance.
“Uh,” he stalled, “well—"
“The legislature wrote it out East in response to the outraged public response to a killer making a profit off a work related to his or her commission of homicides. The Son of Sam law makes it impossible for a perpetrator to benefit financially from such a work. All proceeds must accrue to the relatives of the victims. Surely you must have heard of this?"
He could feel himself sinking again. Glad he was on the telephone so she wouldn't see his crimson blush as she began taking him through the intricacies of the law and talking about what legislatures around the country had done and one thing and another. He forced himself to listen. He could hear the disdain in her voice. Noel of his dreams. She obviously wasn't too impressed with the fuzz to begin with but, if THIS was Dallas’ idea of a serial murder expert—he sunk further as he mentally lashed himself.
“The one thing I still don't understand is why would someone of your fame be willing to take such a case? Mind commenting on that?"
“Someone of my fame? What does that have to do with anything?"
“Why would you wish to lend your well-known name and image to an individua
l who is a self-confessed mass slayer? Someone with a situation as cut-and-dried as this one is."
“First off, I'd disagree that it's all that cut-and-dried. Second, I've been drawn to the case since I first saw a story about it on the evening newscast. I'm fascinated and repelled naturally at the same time. Fascinated by certain legal aspects."
“But Ukie has given us dozens of bodies. What sort of a defense is even worth considering? I mean, I'm not asking you if you're going to plead him insane but—"
“Now we're getting back to that adversarial position,” she said.
“And certainly that has to be respected but in a GENERAL way."
“In a general way I say there is an outside chance he's not guilty. Did you ever th—"
“Oh, come on, Miss Collier, gimme a break. How can you even say he might not be the killer?"
“Not to try the case over the phone,” she sighed and didn't try to cover it, “but how much have you really investigated all the possibilities of accomplices?"
“We're looking into that all the time."
“You may be looking into it all the time but how MUCH time or manpower can you people devote to those avenues? There are only so many pieces in a pie. My point is, you have—oh, for example—this incontrovertible evidence. So circumstantial it's pathetic. A witness whom I could DESTROY on the stand—just to give you random examples. You've got a crime profile we can have a field day with in any court in the land.
“The bodies of victims. That's what you have and they are irrefutable, sure, and no question he knew WHERE they were but who says he put them there? Who's to say he's the one who killed them? What if—"
“All that's well and good but what is the attraction to you personally? Why would you want to get involved in something like this?"
“I'm just drawn to it, Mr. Eichord. Professionally there's something compelling about the case. It is just the way it all fell together. Almost nothing to do with the suspect you have in custody. Nothing fits. Nothing's right."
“I can't argue that."
“Also, what if William Hackabee is insane?"
“He should still suck gas—he's a mass killer. Or let's abolish capital offenses for capital crimes."
“Just to save some time let's leave it like I said before—let's not try the case on the telephone."
“Just to save us some time—you're going to plead him insane, right? I mean, that's the reason for the verbal smoke screens and all the goofy word games. He's just messing with everybody's head—right?—laying foundation for you, eh?"
“Come on.” She laughed. “You could say that about the whole legal system.” A B-I-G sigh again. Almost a moan.
“Huh?"
“Sure. The whole game. It's all a headfuck if you want to look at it like that."
He couldn't believe she'd said the word. “A headfuck,” he repeated with a sigh.
“That's the name of the game. Sorry, got another call.” And the line to Jones, Seleska, Beagle, Legal, and Eagle went dead as last New Year's bubbly. She'd named the tunes, all right. This whole enchilada had turned out to be a total, class-A mind-raper from the git-go.
Jack hung up the chunk of plastic he was clinging to and looked over at Wally Michaels, who raised his eyebrows in question.
“Batshit, catshit, ratshit."
Wally Michaels looked at him sympathetically. It was good to see the kid, which is still how Jack thought of him. He'd been one of those at Quantico that were a little more than just nameless young faces. He was one who'd shown a talent for it. Jack had no sense of being part of the Big D Police Department in the way he had in other cities. He'd been injected into a case that already appeared solved. And a PD under siege is like nothing else.
Ever since the world had watched Jack Ruby, the perennial “buff” of cop buffs, waltz up to the world's most infamous murder suspect and gun him down in front of all the shields and scribes and cameras that could be crammed into a hallway, the cop shop had tightened its belt in the security department. And this racial flare-up and the problems with community relations in general had only made a bad situation worse. Jack assumed it was akin to the situation in Atlanta, although MCTF had never reached out for him on that one. You had a scared community, polarized and angered by a parallel sequence of unrelated events, and a kind of dingy rep that still lingered from the 60s. Add it all up and it made a volatile, unfriendly mix.
“Check it out,” Michaels said and laid a file story in front of him. It was a pictorial piece on Noel Collier's spa. It had a waterfall in it. “Pro bonos didn't pay for that baby.” They talked about bad lawyers. About the public-defender system. They talked about good lawyers. There were good, young moral attorneys out there. Some. A few.
It made Eichord think about what he'd said to Noel.
“I asked her what sort of a defense would be worth considering, it being so apparently dead-bang. Nothing but guilty. But she shot that right down. Like pleading insanity might not be the route she'd go, which frankly surprised the hell out of me. I thought we had everything but the smoking gun—I mean, wow, that's a lot of info about bodies."
“Accessory to murder. Sure. Have to be. But if she could insert the element of doubt into a jury's collective head about Ukie doing those people. And the probabilities of one or more accomplices. Or if she can prove him to be insane at the time of the crimes and so-called confessions. Or if she could show that—"
“His rights were violated,” Jack offered.
“Uh huh. Or if she could show that the surrounding counties were so prejudiced against Ukie because of all the hoopla in the press that Mr. Hackabee could no longer get a fair trial.... Okay, here's the scenario, Noel is the attorney of record, she files a motion for a change of venue, the court says no and denies the motion and she goes, ‘Gotcha’ and laughs quietly ‘cause she knows that she wins either way. She goes to trial. If a jury finds Ukie guilty beyond a reasonable doubt she files for a mistrial for the motion of change of venue being denied. If she wins she wins. It's no gamble."
“Heads I win, tails Ukie gets another shot and so does Ms. Collier."
“Exactly. That's just one possible deal of the cards. Let's say—and I don't know the statutes for sure and I don't know the law that well—but let's say a judge gets a wild hair and issues a denial of her motion, and she slaps a supersedeas I think it's called on the court so that it stops the execution of the denial—some kind of goofy writ bullshit—and then blah-blah-blah, and there's a fucking mistrial. Or she loses and appeals endlessly. Or she gets a jury that loves beautiful women. I mean the scenarios are endless."
“You're saying a lawyer has a shot with the most improbable clients, that the facts of a murder case don't matter?"
“In a way I think that is precisely what I'm saying. Want some proof? Would you have bet money that the most famous lawyer in the country would have taken the case of a man who murdered the most famous assassin since John Wilkes Booth, and correct me if I'm wrong but didn't he shoot the fellow on TELEVISION? I mean, we are talking about the most flamboyant and publicized defense lawyer living and he JUMPED at the case. And if I remember right he won the sucker. I think he got a reversal and people were going, ‘If you want to prove it rolls uphill call HIM,’ and he was Mr. Magic. That's got to be a heady magnet for these big-star lawyers. Look at the size of the egos involved."
“Yeah. I know. But Noel Collier didn't seem ... Aw, hell, I dunno. I just didn't read her that way. I could be wrong. It wouldn't be the first time. It's just hard to see her in that kind of situation. She's so pulled together from my impression.” He wasn't saying half of what he really felt.
“I don't know, Jack. You remember that kid that shot the old woman in the store? The boy named—what was it—uh, Ivey-yeah. The Ivey kid. Noel Collier took that and won it. Jones-Seleska couldn't have made five dollars off it. But that's the case that really put her name out front. And, like we were saying, may be these rich lawyers just say to themselves once in a while, ‘I
t's the right thing to do. We owe the public this one.’”
“Maybe so."
The phone rang and Wally Michaels reached over and answered it, “Michaels.... Okay. Right now? ... ‘Kay, I'll tell the man.... No, he's right here.” He covered the mouthpiece. “Ukie Hackabee's hollerin’ for Jack Eichord. Says it's real important. Want to see him now?"
“Sure,” Eichord said and gestured with a shrug. “Why not? Can't dance."
Eichord felt like he looked, and he looked like week-old tacos. He remembered his old pard Jimmie Lee telling him how he resembled the ole nasty brown stuff and how he was boozing too hard. How he wasn't getting enough sleep. How he was irritable and apprehensive about nothing and just generally felt and looked awful. Thing is, he hadn't been boozing lately and he still looked like shit and be thought he felt worse. He still wasn't sleeping. He was still irritable and apprehensive about nothing and he felt worse than ever.
And his cheerleader fantasy wouldn't let go of him. He refused to see it for what it was. One of those no-way-Jose deals that he couldn't face. Noel Collier was his housewife fantasy, his movie-star fantasy, his nun fantasy, his teenybopper fantasy, and his—to use her sophisticated word for it—headfuck all wrapped up in one strong, overachieving, Dallas-dyno-mite knockout of a lady.
Most really choice women—the top-of-the-line beauties—they have something, some small flaw you can concentrate on that helps take the sting out of the fact you'll never possess them for your own. You see the obvious cap job, or they wear a mask of makeup that stops at the throat giving them that orange-and-white look, or their limbs are too thin—to the point of anorexia—or they're stupid when they speak, or the voice grates, or the lips are not quite right, or ... You can find something.
Not Noel Collier. Lady was A-1 USDA prime from top to bottom, he thought, and I do mean bottom. She was what they call out on the Coast your real QUIM. This was Nastassia Kinski, full-lipped, hi-hipped, leggy, juggy, double-bongo super-zongo finger-lickin’ good Dallas quim, and quim just flat don't get no better.
