Runaway Heart (2003)

by Stephen Cannell

  Melissa King banged her gavel, got up, and waddled off the platform. All eyes followed her as she made her way through the back door to her chambers, slamming it shut as she exited.

  Herman was left in the center of the courtroom, his tired body sagging. He began to feel woozy. The opposing attorneys had stopped slapping each other on the back and were now packing up their briefcases. The old men and women in Vulture's Row shook their heads and muttered. They'd been cheated out of the full day's entertainment. "What a gyp," one of them said.

  Herman felt Susan's hand on his arm. "Come on, Dad," she said. "Let's go."

  He moved with her, feeling shame and anger at himself. He picked up the glass box containing the three monarchs and carried it out of the courtroom. Susan and Dr. DeVere followed in his wake. They watched him from the steps of the courthouse as he took the glass terrarium across the street into the park and set the three monarchs free.

  "What happened?" Dr. DeVere asked Susan.

  "Dad took a chance and he lost."

  "You mean we can't get this back into court?"

  "Probably not. She was gonna kill us anyway, but Dad never sees that. Never thinks it will happen. All he sees is what he's trying to do."

  Herman flushed the last orange and black monarch out of the terrarium. The three beautiful butterflies fluttered around his head for a moment as he watched, then two of them flew away. But the third one landed on Herman's shoulder. It posed there, delicate wings pulsing just inches from his nose, almost as if it were saying, "Thanks, anyway, we know you tried." Then it, too, flew away, leaving Herman standing by himself in the park.

  A squat little man with a runaway heart.

  Chapter Ten.

  Herman was back in the cardio unit hooked up to

  flashing, beeping monitors. He had once again been electronically converted, while Susan endured another stern lecture from Dr. Shiller, who scolded her that Herman could easily have a heart attack next time, or even a stroke, and that they couldn't continue to cheat the odds.

  "I'll talk to him about it, I promise," she said, as Shiller was being called into an emergency. He walked off at a brisk gait to fix the heart of a more reasonable patient.

  Susan went back into the C.C.U. and sat with her father. He seemed crushed by the events of the day, his chin down on his furry chest. The hospital gown, printed with strange little red balloon drawings, looked comical and inappropriate, but at least the balloons matched Herman's bloodshot eyes.

  "Dad, you need to get the operation," she said creeping up on the subject carefully.

  "And miss out on all this heart-unit fun?" he said, trying to elicit a smile but getting nothing from her.

  "Dad, they say if you don't you're gonna die."

  "At least that'll cheat Melissa King out of her damn million-dollar fine," he said.

  "Daddy, I can't lose you." She put her head on his chest and hugged him. "You're all I've ever had. You're the person I most want to be like. I need you with me. I need you to teach me."

  "Don't bullshit your daddy," he said, smiling down at the top of her head.

  She looked up at him as he stroked her long blond hair, running his fat, sausage-like fingers through it.

  "Daddy, promise me you'll get this operation."

  "Okay," he said softly. "If the food in here was better, I probably wouldn't. But, I don't think I can eat another cardboard sandwich." She hugged him with gratitude. "But I can't do it till I get this thing squared away with Melissa on the fine." He added, "I gotta get that cut down somehow. She misapplied Rule Eleven. The suit wasn't groundless. I'll work something out with her tomorrow, but we'll probably have to sell some stuff in D.C. the antique cabinets, or some computers, maybe my car. I'll probably have to set up another university speaking tour to get some cash. Once I make those arrangements I'll do the radio ablation thing."

  "Thank you, God," she said softly.

  "I admit there's a strong resemblance, but I'm just his mouthpiece," he teased her.

  There was a knock at the door. The Korean floor nurse appeared with two men wearing Sears and Roebuck suits, brown shoes, and athletic socks. Everything about them screamed "Cop."

  "Yes," Herman said.

  "These gentlemen were asking to see you," the nurse said.

  The men entered the room clawing at their back pockets like bubbas about to pay for the last round of beers, but coming out instead with faded brown badge carriers, flopping them open, flashing gold shields.

  "I'm Sergeant Lester Cole and this is Detective Investigator Dusty Halverchek," the heavier and shorter of the two said. Sergeant Cole was about Herman Strockmire's height, but with a muscular, weightlifter's body and eyes so tired they seemed to hold disgust for everything they saw. Dusty Halverchek was younger. Blond, in a tan suit. He was average in all respects: height, weight, and coloring. Beige. Nondescript. Dusty.

  "We're with the San Francisco PD."

  Oh, shit, Herman thought. Roland got himself busted.

  "I wouldn't normally bother you under these circumstances, but this can't wait," Sergeant Cole said, his eyes flickering across the beeping, flashing table full of monitors.

  Halverchek was checking out Susan, staring at her, undressing her with his eyes as if he'd never seen a pretty woman before.

  "This is my daughter, Susan," Herman said, trying to interrupt Halverchek's ten-second fantasy.

  The beige cop shook her hand eagerly. "We're with Homicide," trying to impress.

  Herman's spirits plunged. Roland. Homicide?

  "Did you have someone named Roland Minton working for you?" Cole pulled Roland's California driver's license out of his pocket and showed it to Herman. The d-1 picture of Roland was thin, geeky, with punk hair.

  "Yes," Herman nodded. "Please don't tell me he's dead." The sentence wheezed out of him, like air through a broken pipe.

  "Dead barely covers what happened to him," Halverchek said with an easy, almost friendly calm. "He was ripped apart. Pieces of him spread all over his damn hotel room."

  Susan put her hands up to her mouth and started sobbing.

  "Jesus," Sergeant Cole said, looking at his young partner. "Why don't ya just lob a grenade at 'em?" He turned back to Herman. "I'm sorry. He's only been on this detail a month."

  "How? You say he was ..." Herman took a breath. "He was . . ."

  "Mutilated." Cole finished the sentence. "We're still trying to get a handle on exactly what happened. It's a little strange. We're not exactly sure how the room was accessed. There were video cameras on every hotel floor, but according to the hallway security tape nobody went in or out of his room at that time in the morning. There is no way down from the roof, no balconies real whodunit."

  "Roland is dead?" Herman tried to make it stick in his spinning brain, thinking this was easily the worst day of his life. He felt responsible. He had sent Roland up there.

  "Sir, I'm sorry to have to do this while you're in here with heart problems, but in a homicide investigation time is everything and we have to move quickly. I need to know in what capacity Mr. Minton was working for you."

  "He was an electronic forensic investigator," Herman said evasively. "Sometimes, when we're in a trial and aren't able to get data from a defendant that we've subpoenaed information from, I would employ Roland to help me locate it."

  "You mean steal it, don't you? You hack it off someone's computer," Sergeant Cole said.

  "No," Herman fudged. "He would access Web pages, read corporate reports, try and make an informed guess as to which computer or company might have the stuff we're looking for. Then I would file a new discovery motion and try to get my hands on the electronic data."

  "And he had to go to San Francisco to do this? The Internet

  is everywhere."

  Herman didn't answer. He just shrugged.

  "Have it your way, but I wasn't born yesterday, Mr. Strockmire. My take is, he went up there to steal some corporate documents, then sent them down to you, so you could deci
de if they were worth going after then you'd write your discovery motions. If that's what happened, I want whatever he sent you, and I want it now. It's evidence. It might contain a motive."

  "I received nothing," Herman said. "And I resent the implication that I would cheat to win a case." A lie, but what choice did he have?

  "And I resent the way this guy was murdered," Cole shot back. "Mr. Minton is in a morgue refrigerator in six separate rubber bags. I'm looking for evidence in a murder. Computer crime is way down on my list, so relax. Whoever did this is a vicious son of a bitch. We're still trying to figure out how the body was ripped apart like that."

  "You're sure it was him? That it was Roland?" Herman asked. "If the body was . . . was mutilated, maybe his license was planted on someone else's body."

  "We have his head," Halverchek said. "It's a match."

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "He was decapitated." Dusty Halverchek seemed to be enjoying this. It was as if they were discussing ball scores. "His head was ripped off and thrown on the bed."

  Susan turned and ran out of the room in tears.

  "Shit, Dusty," Cole said.

  Herman was wondering how he would get through the next few minutes. Miraculously, his heart stayed on rhythm, although the bedside monitor beeped ominously.

  "What kind of information was he after?" Cole asked.

  "He was looking for information regarding a case we had in court. We were suing three labs and a handful of federal agencies over careless testing of bio-enhanced corn."

  "I see," Cole said, looking over at Halverchek, who shrugged. "And you say he sent you nothing?"

  Herman nodded. "He hadn't contacted me in two or three days, which is unlike him. I was expecting to hear yesterday, because we started trial this morning. When he didn't call I got worried. I didn't know what could have happened to him."

  "He died sometime around five this morning," Cole said. "You're absolutely sure he gave you nothing? Sent you nothing? No material or anything that might suggest who could have killed him?"

  "How many times do I have to tell you? We were expecting him to call. He didn't. I was getting worried."

  "I see." Cole looked at Halverchek again and they had some kind of silent cop moment. Then Cole turned back to Herman. "Anything else you can think of that might be important?"

  "He has a mother. Have you notified her?" Herman asked.

  "Not yet. We didn't have any next of kin. If you have her number, we'll do it."

  "I'd like to be the one to call her. He was her only child."

  "Sorry," Cole said. "We have to do the notification of death, then you can contact her. Where does she live?"

  "Washington, D.C."

  "You can call her sometime tomorrow after lunch."

  Herman wrote the number down and handed it to Sergeant Cole.

  "We'll need a list of names of the corporations and agencies you were suing."

  "It's in my briefcase ... on the top. They're listed on a motion I filed yesterday. It's a copy, so you can have it."

  Halverchek opened the briefcase, found the motion, and held it up for Herman to see. He nodded. Then the nondescript cop folded it and put it in his side pocket.

  "Okay, then you have no further knowledge of who or what might have killed him?" Cole asked.

  "Did you say what might have killed him?" Herman furrowed

  his brow.

  "The body was ripped apart. Shredded," Cole said. "There was no surgical intervention. He wasn't cut apart, is what I'm trying to say. We know of nothing that would have enough strength to disjoint a man physically like that. . . pull him limb from limb. Our ME is telling us it would take more than a thousand pounds per square inch to accomplish that. Also, the window frame was bent open. We can't imagine the killer got in that way, because there was no balcony to stand on, but the window was pried. No human would be strong enough to do it. There was urine mixed in with all the blood. It doesn't match the urine left in the deceased's bladder, so whoever or whatever did this urinated on the body parts."

  Herman's mind was wrestling with what Sergeant Cole had just said.

  "Okay, Mr. Strockmire. I'm going to end this now because your doctor says it's a terrible time for this interview, and he wanted us to keep it short. But I'm going to have to ask some follow-up questions later. I may require you to come up to San Francisco. Would that be possible?"

  "Yes."

  "Here are my numbers," Sergeant Cole said, handing him an embossed card that was a lot nicer than the flat, cheap Institute for Planetary Justice cards that Herman gave to his clients.

  After Sergeant Cole and Detective Halverchek left Herman lay quietly in the hospital bed listening as his heart beeped hypnotically from the bedside monitor. He was horrified about Roland, feeling responsible and full of remorse. But his mind kept coming back to Sergeant Cole's statement:

  We know of nothing that could have enough strength to disjoint a man physically.

  With all that he knew about the abuses of the federal government, Herman had a few ideas of his own. But he dared not even contemplate their ramifications.

  Chapter Eleven.

  At 9:45 the next morning Herman was still in the

  hospital. He had changed into his regular clothes, waiting to be released, and was sitting on the side of the bed talking to Roland's mother on the phone.

  "I'm so sorry, Madge." His voice cracked. Tears stung his eyes. "I feel like ... I don't know. I feel like . . . like I sent him to his death."

  There was a long silence on the phone while Roland's devastated mother evaluated that admission. "No," she finally said. "It wasn't you."

  But he knew it was. He would never forgive himself. He had really come to like Roland. More than like, even Roland had been a treasured friend.

  He remembered his first meeting with the geeky hacker. They'd been in the attorney's room at the D.C. federal lockup. Roland Minton had been convicted of federal computer crimes. He'd penetrated the White House Budget Office mainframe for some harebrained reason that was never fully explained. Cod only knew what he had been up to. What the feds were doing with the national budget was bad enough without having Roland in their damn computer, screwing around with the data. Herman had agreed to represent the skinny little hacker whose mother was a motel maid.

  Herman wondered why Roland didn't get a job, didn't do something to help Madge and his two sisters, instead of doing show-off criminal hacks but that was beside the point. Herman had been hired to get Roland's conviction overturned on appeal. If he didn't get it reversed, this skinny, vulnerable kid was going to end up at Raiford, and Herman didn't wish that on some computer geek with purple hair.

  That was four years ago. Herman had found a loophole in the search and seizure of Roland's computer, which the original trial judge had wrongfully admitted as evidence. Then Herman did a standard "fruit of the poisonous tree" defense, which dictated that all evidence or testimony resulting from an illegal search and seizure was inadmissible. After that, the government's case came apart like antique stitching and Herman had Roland back on the streets.

  During the appeal he discovered the skinny hacker was much more intriguing than he would have guessed. Roland had a sly sense of humor and a world-class IQ. As a high school student Roland also had no friends, so he and Herman compared locker stories. Roland was so smart that he became bored easily and withdrew into his computer world. His criminal hacks began a year later. He and Herman began matching wits. Herman usually won on theory and abstract thought, Roland on anal logic and X-over-Y deductive reasoning.

  Herman often tried out his legal arguments on Roland and found, to his surprise, that the young hacker could almost always find embellishments and improvements. His mind was so logically

  bulletproof that Herman was often put to shame.

  They soon learned that they shared the same latent anger and sense of disenfranchisement. They began to bond with each other for support... or for protection? Or both?


  Now his friend was gone.

  He could hear Madge sniffling on the other end of the phone, in her little walk-up apartment in Washington, D.C. He could picture her chapped, dishwater hands, her soft-but-wrinkled complexion, her tired gray eyes.

  "Madge, I'm going to find out who killed him," Herman promised, not using the pronoun what, as Sergeant Cole had. Not wanting to add the specter of some savage, unearthly beast ripping and shredding her only son.

  "Herman, it's not your fault," she repeated, sniffling. But Herman shook his head, vigorously denying that, even though she couldn't see him.

  "He was killed trying to get information that I asked him to get. How can it not be my fault?"

  "The police said I couldn't have his body yet. . . that they . . . they ..."

  "I know," he said, interrupting, trying not to put her through that sentence. "Madge, I'll get his body back for you. It'll be the first thing I do, okay?"

  "Would you?" she said softly. "Please it would mean a lot. I feel . . . it's like . . . it's not finished until he's home with me."

  "I promise. They can't hold it for long. Once the medical examiner is through I'll make them release it. I'll go up there myself if I have to."

  "Thank you, Herm."

  They were both silent, listening to each other's sad breathing on the phone. Madge finally spoke: "You know, he loved you, Herman. It was strange, the effect you had on him. He told me once that you were the most special person he had ever known. I guess that even included me."

  "No, Madge, not you. You were his mother. I was ... I was just somebody he could try stuff out on. I was like his intellectual godfather, or something."

  "I've got to go now," she said. He could tell by her voice that she didn't want to talk about this anymore.