Behind him, against the plain institutional green wall, stood a large man in a dark suit who I hadn’t seen before. I would definitely have remembered.
Etheridge seemed to shrink in the high, square, oppressive room. The other man looked comfortable to occupy it, but he struck me as the kind of a man who was going to make himself comfortable wherever he was. He stood against the faded green wall with his hands folded in front of him and his feet planted a distance apart. Nice shoes. Under his neat black hair, his chiselled face bore an easy smile, like a contented king of all he surveyed. When he looked at me, his expression was calm and not unkind, but it did look as though he was considering a purchase.
“Mrs. Cullen,” Etheridge said, “this is Mr. Irons. He is, um… assisting me in your case.”
The assistant had an easy arrogance and he was better dressed than the attorney. A single overhead light in the pale green, windowless room would’ve made anyone look like a corpse, but not Mr. Irons. He looked like he could have considered a career as a movie star, but decided the work would be too dull.
When he spoke, his voice was smooth. Polished and assured. “You’re looking anxious, Mrs. Cullen.” He gave me a soft, thin smile. “You don’t have anything to worry about. There isn’t any compelling evidence against you.”
Etheridge said quickly, “We’ll have you out of here in no time, don’t you worry Mrs. Cullen. There’s a good deal on offer from the DA, and we can get your case wrapped up in no time. Just as long as you cooperate.”
I waited a moment before I responded. “Cooperate? With the DA?”
“Exactly.” Etheridge said, “Mr. Doyle and Mr. Maher are the real criminals here. Your evidence will get them behind bars where they belong, and have you back out on the street where you belong.”
He looked at me with anticipation. In no hurry to reply, it occurred to me what a useful courtroom technique that must be for him. His wide eyes, slightly open mouth, and raised chin made you feel like it was your turn. That something was due from you. Something was expected of you. The urge to fill in the gap was strong, but I resisted.
Raising his brows, he nodded encouragingly. Still I didn’t say anything.
“There’s a deal to be made, Mrs. Cullen,” Etheridge leaned forward a little, “I think the DA has worked quite hard to make something favorable for you.”
Up until that point, I’d had practically no dealings with lawyers. Come to think of it, the only lawyers I’d had anything at all to do with were on matters of property. Contracts. Mostly things my husband made me sign. Criminal law is a whole other ballgame. Etheridge clearly wanted something from me. The DA obviously wanted something from me, too. Saying anything at that point, it seemed to me, would be more likely to put me at a disadvantage. For the moment, at least, I decided to stay quiet.
Irons looked at me with increasing interest.
Etheridge was still giving me encouraging looks. Beckoning me with his expression. Nodding to draw me out, hoping that I’d get uncomfortable in the silence, it seemed.
When Irons spoke, Etheridge looked put out at first. Then he turned with a quizzical frown.
“You had some papers you need to clear with the warden.” Irons told him.
Etheridge frowned. Then, like he remembered something, he took a breath. Raised a finger. “Oh, yes.”
He pulled two folders from his case, went and knocked on the metal door behind me. When the guard opened the door a crack, Etheridge whispered and then stepped outside. The door closed him.
Irons left a moment’s silence too. I was becoming convinced this was a regular attorney’s trick. His voice did make me tingle though.
“They’re treating you okay, Mrs. Cullen?”
What was I supposed to say to that? Irons seem to be doubling down on the technique of leaving awkward gaps. This was a gap where you’re invited to say, ‘yes,’ when the truth is clearly a, ‘no.’
While I learned the attorney’s trick, leaving awkward gaps, making you feel like you should talk, I figured out a trick of my own. Waiting. I waited.
When he smiled, I felt like there was some acknowledgment in there. “I understand you got a new cellmate.”
“Strictly speaking, I became a new cellmate.”
“You getting along?”
I looked up from the table at him. “You here for the gossip?”
He smiled. His voice lowered. More seriously, he said, “Everything in here is collateral, Mrs. Cullen. Potential for trade. You’ll probably be safest if you don’t talk about anything except what’s in the present. Don’t talk about where you came from or what you did. Especially don’t talk about anyone you know.” I had the feeling he meant some people in particular.
He told me, “If you don’t take the DA’s deal, are you ready for the alternatives?”
I wondered who Mr. Irons was working for. I couldn’t see him working for Etheridge. And Etheridge looked like he might, at least, be working with the DA, if not for him. At least, the way he talked, it felt like they were part of the attorney’s club. Men with interests in common. It felt hard and sad to be going back to my cell without having anything positive from my attorney, but I was feeling like that was how it was going to be.
People in here were always talking about, ‘sending messages,’ or, ‘signals.’ Whenever anyone saw their attorney, the DA or the parole board, all the talk was about messages and signals. The picture was becoming clear. You had to hold on to what you could, and most of the time that would be very little.
Cold air blew on my back as the door opened. I figured it was Etheridge coming back. Irons’ eyes went up, like he thought the same thing.
He leaned on the back of the chair that Etheridge had been sitting on.
“If you keep up that kind of an attitude, Mrs Cullen,” he spoke quickly and quietly. His eyes flashed into mine, “then you’ll be absolutely fine.”
Etheridge was stepping back in behind me. Irons’ voice was barely a whisper, “Hang tough.” He gave me a thin smile, and his eyes narrowed like a cat’s as he stood back against the wall. Etheridge slipped back into his chair and looked at me like an indulgent schoolteacher. One of those, ‘Have you come to your senses yet?’ looks.
He shuffled through his papers some more before he looked back up at me and said, “So, what’s it to be? Can I tell the DA that he has a deal?”
“I need time to think, Mr. Etheridge. I’m going to have to think hard about my position.”
He gave me a sad frown.
“I’ll need to consider my representation, too.” Irons had on the tiny smile as he made a slow nod. I went on, “Think about what’s in my best interests.”
“Think carefully, Mrs. Cullen,” Etheridge said, “there’s going to be a hearing this afternoon.”
Irons’ eyebrows went up at that.
And Etheridge told me, “The police will be talking to you before that.”
As soon as the cell door closed behind me, Zarina jumped up. She spun me around and grabbed me from behind. She held me by my waist and my throat. Pressed into a huge body, I felt like she might envelop me. Swallow me up. Her hot breath moistened my ear and my cheek.
She said, “You’re on your way to the court room now, Little Bird. You need be thinking about how you can be nice to me when you come back.” She squeezed me tighter. Slid her hand from my waist down to my hip.
I turned my head, just to see her profile. “No, Zarina,” I said as I looked into the dark pearl of her eye. “What you need to be thinking about, is the people who asked you to do them a favor, the people told you to look after me.” Her lip curled in a grin. I went on, “You want to think about how much influence they have. They can get to you. They can get to someone even scarier.”
Her big hands spread, as her grip around my body tightened. Her face split into a grin and her voice was a whisper. “Ain’t nobody scarier than me, Little Bird.”
The thought came out of nowhere, but I wondered if Irons might not be scarier than
Zarina.
Before I was hauled off to court, I had to sit in another tiny, square, windowless room. This time I was expecting to see the razor-faced DA. Instead I looked across the metal table at two cops.
Officer Stemple was good-looking, with an athletic build, shaggy brown hair, an easy smile, and a friendly twinkle in his eye. His quiet, comforting manner was at odds with his questioning. It took me a moment to realize he was being the mean cop of the pair.
Kurtz was a pale, thin woman, with a beaky face. Her stern, unexpressive voice didn’t seem to get the ‘nice cop’ character going at all. I wondered whether they decided on the way to switch their natural role, or whether this was a deliberate attempt to come to the end of subject. Still, they both told me how awful my chances in court were going to be if I didn’t provide some helpful information to them. I asked whether I shouldn’t have my lawyer present. Etheridge had already left the jail, I knew. So if I insisted on representation, they wouldn’t be able to finish the interview before the court hearing.
Then I thought, what if they’re able to delay the court until after the interview?
“Look, Mrs. Cullen,” Kurtz opened the proceedings. “We’re here to help you get your best possible chance. We know that you’re not a criminal. We know who the criminals are, and we just want your help to put them away.”
Stemple smiled and said, “You help us, and we can help you.”
I folded my hands in front of me, looked at both of the cops and said, “Shouldn’t my lawyer be here?”
Kurtz told me, “You can have a lawyer here if you want. The choice is yours. Honestly though, my advice, it’ll only get in the way. They complicate things. We only have to get the truth. I know you want to tell us the truth.”
Before I had time to say anything, Stemple said, “How much contact had you had with the killers before that morning, Mrs. Cullen?”
I frowned but I said nothing. He went on, “Did you make arrangements for them to kill your husband?”
“My husband’s dead?”
He looked at some papers in a folder. “How long ahead of time was it that you knew that Mr. Doyle and Mr. Maher planned to kill your husband?”
“Really, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You did know that they were going to do it.”
I said nothing.
“Did you plan it with them, or did you simply ask them to do it?”
I just looked back at him. “How much help did you give them? Did you lure him to them? Did you tell them where to find him? Did you tell them his regular movements? What I mean, Mrs. Cullen, is how much help did you give Mr. Doyle and Mr. Maher to set up your husband so they could kill him?”
From what he was asking, I was beginning to think they had no evidence at all.
“Where is your husband’s body, Mrs. Cullen?”
Then Kurtz started. I guess it was supposed to be her encouraging voice when she said, “It’s Courtenay, isn’t it?” “How did they persuade you to travel along with them, Courtenay? Did they use force, at all?”
Still, I didn’t say anything. “Did they threaten you?”
She leaned forward. “You want to do the decent thing. The right thing. I know you do.”
Stemple said, “The DA can go either way with this, Mrs. Cullen.”
“You know,” Kurtz told me, “we only want to help you, Mrs. Cullen”
I smiled.
She said, “You will feel better if you get it off your chest.” Officer Kurtz’s eyelids slowly closed and then opened again.
Stemple told me, “The courts don’t like uncooperative witnesses, Mrs. Cullen. You aren’t really helping yourself here.”
I said nothing. The officers looked at each other, they looked at me, and I looked them, for what seemed like a fairly long time.
I said, “is there anything else?”
Stemple frowned and ran his hand through his hair as he said, “This could go very badly for you, Mrs. Cullen. Accessory to murder is a pretty serious charge.” He cocked his head to one side, “Are you getting to like it here in prison?”
As I was led out, I was sure they had nothing. Over and over I told myself that. Just willing my legs to walk to the prison bus and not collapse under me was probably the hardest thing I had ever done.
The sleek, well fed DA was on his feet reading from a single sheet of paper. The courtroom was quiet. I watched from the side of the room, sitting in prison coveralls at the end of a table, next to Etheridge. About ten feet away, by the adjacent table, Liam and Declan looked straight ahead. As did I. Irons told me not to show any sign of recognition. “Say nothing, admit nothing, don’t give anything away.”
The DA spoke directly to the judge. “Mr. Doyle and Mr. Maher are wanted in Whetstone County, Your Honor, for questioning regarding the disappearance, and presumed death, of Mr. Abraham Braxton. A very badly burned body was found after a huge warehouse fire, and is believed to be that of Mr. Braxton. Mr. Doyle and Mr. Maher are strongly implicated. They are also wanted for questioning in Amity Dale, as is Mrs. Cullen, in connection with the possible homicide of Mr. Cullen, her husband.”
He cast an angry glance to our side of the court, where Liam, Declan, and I sat. Looking back to the judge, he said “The police requested that all three be held in custody, until they can be transferred, because of the potential and, I would think Your Honor, quite obvious flight risk.”
“Mr. Samuelson, you’re representing Mr. Maher and Mr. Doyle, is that correct?” The balding, smartly dressed attorney sitting next to Etheridge stood with a folder in his hand, leaned forward on the table and nodded as he said, “It is, Your Honor.”
“And you’re representing Mrs. Cullen, Mr. Etheridge?”
As Samuelson sat back down, Etheridge stood and he said, “Yes, Your Honor.”
The judge nodded and Etheridge sat.
“I notice that both defense attorneys brought Mr. Irons as their assistant, which strikes me as very peculiar, indeed.”
Irons sat behind the two attorneys, looking just as much like a contented cat as he always did.
The judge sat back in his big chair and looked down at the court. He spoke to the DA.
The judge spoke slowly, his voice like old, smooth stone. “I am very much of a mind to bind all three of these people into police custody, as you request Mr. Rose, and to have them transported to the jurisdiction of Whetstone county for questioning. It doesn’t seem an unreasonable request.”
He looked through some papers.
“Have you some forensic evidence to definitively show the identity of the victim of the fire?”
Rose didn’t say anything. The judge looked back up at him.
Rose’s voice was clear, strong, and cultured. He said, “The body of Mr. Braxton, Your Honor, was tied securely to a chair. Although we can’t be absolutely sure how the fire was started, the fire investigation officer reports that it began in the middle of a plain concrete floor in an unoccupied warehouse.”
The court was quiet as the judge looked at the DA. “Is that all?”
“It is, your honor.”
“Those may be strong grounds for suspicion, Mr. Rose.”
He looked down through the papers again. “Can you show physical evidence that Mr. Cullen, Mrs. Cullen’s husband, has in fact been murdered and has not taken himself voluntarily away somewhere, somewhere he could be perfectly well, having left his own accord and in a manner of his own choosing?”
Three Hitmen: A Triple Bad Boy Mafia Romance (Lawless Book 2) Page 81
