An Unequal Defense (David Adams)

by Chad Zunker

  Weaving through the crowd, David sidled up to a uniformed police officer who was standing off by himself near a barricade.

  “What happened?” David asked.

  The officer turned to him. “Some homeless guy killed a county prosecutor tonight.”

  “How?”

  “Shot him in the head in that alley.”

  “Damn.”

  David glanced a half block down the street, away from the crowd, spotted Murphy’s white Ford Escape parked along the curb of Trinity Street. The faded TCU sticker was still in place on the car’s bumper like it had been all throughout law school. The crime scene did not currently include the vehicle. Maybe no one knew it belonged to Murphy. What had his friend been doing here tonight?

  Seeing the vehicle made David think of Jen Cantwell, his ex-girlfriend, who drove the same model car. A month after David had said his final goodbye to Hunter & Kellerman, Jen had returned home to Virginia to take care of her suddenly ailing mother. It was an excruciating goodbye for both of them, knowing there was no clear timeline for her to return—if ever. Jen had already landed a meaningful job with a nonprofit there and had quickly settled into a new life. They had done a month of phone calls and texts before they both decided it was too damn difficult to stay connected. Even though they’d dated only a short time, he’d fallen fast and hard. Jen was the only woman with whom he’d ever been completely vulnerable. The past five months had been a serious uphill battle. He had not expected to start his new life without her.

  David looked back over toward the crime scene.

  “Any idea what a prosecutor was doing in that alley?” he asked the officer.

  “Hell if I know,” the officer replied. “Getting himself shot.”

  David slipped behind the crowd of onlookers. It was difficult to imagine Murphy being shot and killed in that alley just a few hours ago. One moment here; the next moment gone. What really happened? He thought of his good-natured friend, who was always cracking redneck jokes at his own expense—most of which their elitist law school classmates never understood. It had been several months since they’d last hung out; both of them were so busy. Murphy had seemed happy with his work in the DA’s office and pleased with the life he and Michelle had made for themselves in Austin. Now all that was over. Michelle must be crushed. At the right time, David would pay his condolences.

  David took in the scene again, felt an uneasiness begin to swell in the pit of his stomach. He suddenly realized that tonight’s tragedy had happened in the same dark alley where Benny had been murdered last year. Two of his good friends both gunned down near the exact same spot in a big city.

  Coincidence? Or fate?

  It was time for him to go talk to Rebel.

  FOUR

  David found several TV reporters stationed outside the criminal justice complex, cameras rolling, bright lights blaring in their faces. He made sure to discreetly slip inside the county jail entrance, as he certainly didn’t want any of them trying to shove a microphone in front of him right now and start asking questions. He had nothing to say at this point. He still didn’t know what he was doing there. After passing through security, he checked in with Lolita, a familiar face who sat behind the front desk’s glass partition. In her twenties, Lolita had curly black hair and a snarky attitude and usually worked the late shift. David had been a regular visitor to the jail during late-night hours since a lot of his clients chose to do dumb things in the middle of the night.

  “You sure you want this one, honey?” Lolita asked him, shaking her head. “Those reporters aren’t out there at this hour for kicks. And from what I’ve been hearing in the hallways behind me, this guy’s a real nut job. He’s been bouncing off the walls, talking about alien abductions and other nonsense. I wouldn’t go near it, if I were you.”

  “I just want to talk to him as a favor to someone else.”

  “All right. It’s your neck.”

  “Can you get me a private room?”

  She frowned at him. “You his lawyer?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Well, when you’re officially his lawyer, you can get whatever you need through the proper channels. I have to be extra careful with this one.”

  David leaned in, whispered, “Come on, Lolita. You owe me.”

  She sighed, frowned. “Give me a second.”

  David stopped her. “Hey, one more small thing . . .”

  She glared at him. “What?”

  “Can you also get me a copy of the arrest affidavit?”

  “Damn it, David.”

  She stepped away from the front desk. David had helped Lolita’s nineteen-year-old cousin get probation for a parole violation a few months ago. David had been using it to leverage little favors here and there around the jail.

  Turning around, he noticed one of the male reporters standing right outside the glass doors of the jail and trying to peer inside. David quickly spun back around. The jail’s small lobby was nearly empty at this hour, so his sudden presence inside was likely drawing some attention. They probably suspected he was a lawyer. When he was done talking with Rebel, David planned to escape out a back exit.

  Lolita finally sauntered back up to the front desk and discreetly handed him a folded sheet of paper—a copy of the officer’s written statement for probable cause in the arrest of Roger Eugene North.

  “You’re the best,” he told Lolita.

  “You didn’t get that from me.”

  “Right.”

  “I let the boys know you’re out here,” she said. “Told them you may or may not be the crazy guy’s lawyer, so not sure what that’ll get you as far as any urgency. You’d better get comfortable waiting.”

  Sitting in the small lobby as far from the front windows as possible, David quickly read over the officer’s brief arrest statement. There wasn’t much to it, which was normal with these reports. At approximately ten thirty, police had received a 911 call from a man named Brad Shaw, who identified himself as an employee at Burnside’s Tavern on Sixth Street. Shaw stated he was taking a smoke break when he found a man who looked to be shot dead in the alley directly behind the bar’s back door. Moments later, Shaw said he heard a gunshot in the alley, maybe twenty feet away. He then spotted a man wearing a green jacket and a black hat toss something into a dumpster and run the opposite way out of the alley. Officers promptly responded and found the suspect on the sidewalk a few blocks away. The suspect tried to flee and appeared to be in some kind of drug-induced rage. He spoke in a rapid and incoherent fashion and had to be restrained by three officers. The gun believed to be used in the killing, which the suspect admitted to firing, was recovered from the alley dumpster a few minutes later. Shaw, the witness, then confirmed the suspect was the same man he’d spotted in the alley, at which point the suspect was booked.

  David sat back, pondered the written statement. By all indications, it sure as hell looked like Rebel had shot and killed Luke Murphy. Why?

  David waited nearly an hour before a deputy finally pushed open an ugly blue door to the back and called out for him. He was then led down a long hallway, where the deputy opened the door to a private room with a small table and two chairs.

  “You sure you want to be alone with this guy?” the deputy asked him.

  “Is he that unstable?”

  “Yep. Let’s keep him cuffed.”

  “All right.”

  The deputy disappeared down the hallway. David paced in a tight circle around the room. Thinking of Michelle Murphy, a brand-new widow, he felt really uneasy. What would she think about him sitting down with the man who had just shot and killed her husband? Two minutes later, the deputy arrived with Rebel in tow, hands cuffed in front, ankles shackled, wearing the same standard black-and-gray-striped jail jumpsuit that David had seen on several other clients over the past few months.

  Rebel was thirty-seven, according to the arrest affidavit, and had a full head of reddish-brown hair that flowed down to his shoulders, along with a thick mustache
that would give Tom Selleck a run for his money. David’s first thought was that Rebel had a movie-star look about him. Nice hair, clear blue eyes, strong jaw, and a ruggedly handsome face, though a bit weathered. Standing around six feet, Rebel seemed lean and muscular under the jumpsuit. He did not have the gaunt and shaggy appearance of so many others who lived out on the streets full-time. He was not at all what David had envisioned.

  The deputy made Rebel sit in the chair across the table from where David stood.

  “Don’t give us any trouble,” the deputy warned Rebel, before telling David he’d be right outside if the inmate tried anything stupid.

  David nodded, waited for the deputy to shut the door. He then turned his attention to Rebel, who’d had his narrow eyes set on David from the moment he first entered the private room.

  “You one of them?” Rebel immediately asked.

  “Who? The police?”

  “Nah, man,” Rebel scoffed. “I ain’t worried about the police.”

  “Why not?”

  “Police can’t touch me. I’m a free bird, and they’re clueless. Now answer my question. You one of them?”

  “I don’t know to whom you’re referring.”

  “CIA,” Rebel hissed through clenched teeth.

  David sat in the chair opposite the table from Rebel. “No, I’m not with the CIA. My name is David Adams—”

  “You Russian intelligence?” Rebel interrupted him. “You do have the look of a Commie. You damn Russians been trying to take me out for years.”

  “Why’s that?” David asked, not yet sure how to navigate this early exchange. He was already being fed a heavy dose of the conspiracy-theory nonsense Doc had mentioned earlier. He thought it might be good to let it play out some so he had a better idea of how Rebel’s mind worked.

  Rebel smiled wide, showing incredibly straight teeth. “I know everything.”

  “About . . . ?”

  Another small grin and shrug. “About Russia’s infiltration of America. Commie agents everywhere. A list that could fill up a damn phone book. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.” He glanced at the door, leaned forward on the table, lowered his voice. “I know who really found Osama bin Laden. Believe me, the news folks got it all wrong. Did you know the CIA paid two hundred million to get us credit for it?”

  “Paid who?”

  Rebel’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t try your tricks with me, Commie. It won’t work. I’ve seen them all. I’m a cowboy.”

  David tried to hide his dismay over how far gone the man seemed to be right now. “I’m a lawyer, not Russian intelligence.”

  “A lawyer?” Rebel eased back a touch. “What the hell do you want, Lawyer? My money? I ain’t giving you no money, I can tell you that for damn sure.”

  “I don’t want your money. Do you understand why you’re in jail tonight?”

  “Do I look stupid to you, Lawyer? They say I shot a man.”

  Rebel didn’t expound, as if it were no big deal.

  “And . . . ?” David asked.

  “And what, Lawyer? Haven’t you been listening? It’s all a big setup. The CIA wants to drag me back to the dragon’s lair. But I ain’t going. Mark that down, you hear me? They might as well strap me in the chair and stick me with that deadly poison right now. Because I ain’t never going back there again. You know what they do to people in that place?”

  David was afraid to even ask about the dragon’s lair. “Can we talk about tonight? And what happened?”

  Rebel ignored him. “It ain’t just regular people they got locked up over there, either.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “They also got aliens hidden there that they torture for information. I’ve seen them creatures with my own eyes. Been having nightmares about them for years.”

  “Did you shoot the man in the alley tonight?” David asked directly, trying to steer the conversation back to reality.

  Again, Rebel didn’t answer him. “Why should I even talk to you, Lawyer? Every lawyer I ever knew was out to screw me. Either working for the government, or trying to go after my money. Was a stupid lawyer that turned my wife on me, made her think I was crazy. I should’ve shot him, I tell you what.”

  “Look, Rebel, I’m here trying to help, okay?”

  The man leaned forward, cuffed hands on the table, voice again at a whisper. “How the hell do you know my name?”

  David guessed no one inside the jail facility tonight was calling him Rebel. That was his street name—it wasn’t in his file. He hoped it might be an entryway toward a more normal conversation, if that was even possible.

  “Benny was a good friend of mine,” David explained.

  Rebel’s eyes remained locked on him. But he didn’t say a word.

  “I heard you two were also friends,” David added.

  “Who told you that?”

  “Doc. That’s why I’m here. Doc asked me to come see you.”

  The mention of both Benny and Doc seemed to snap Rebel out of whatever conspiracy fog had been controlling his mind. David could practically see the hard edge around his eyes begin to soften, as if a switch had suddenly flipped. The man’s whole face relaxed.

  “Doc is good people,” Rebel offered, nodding, easing back.

  “I agree,” David replied. “So was Benny.”

  Rebel stared off into the corner of the room, an easy grin gradually covering the length of his tan face, as if he were thinking about better days. “Benny always made me laugh. Everyone tries to say I’m crazy, but, nah, man, Benny was the crazy one. While we’re all out there saving ourselves, Benny was trying to save us, one by one, with all that God talk. Not sure I believe any of it, but I liked some of what he had to say. Heaven. Grace. I liked listening to him, too. Doesn’t seem right that he’s gone. Benny always treated me fair. I wasn’t always the best to him. I regret that now.”

  “Benny was a forgiving kind of man.”

  Rebel’s eyes shifted back over to David. “You were Benny’s lawyer? The one I heard about?”

  “I’m not sure what all you’ve heard, but, yes, I was Benny’s lawyer.”

  “Now you want to be my lawyer?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  Rebel pulled his cuffed hands back into his lap, seemed to relax even more. It was almost as if David were looking at a completely different person. “I didn’t shoot anyone tonight, Lawyer.”

  David leaned forward. “Then tell me what happened.”

  Rebel shrugged. “Not really sure. I had a spell. Don’t remember much.”

  “A spell?”

  “Been happening for years, ever since I escaped the dragon’s lair. They messed me up real bad inside there. Everything just goes dark for a while, here and there. I lose track of things.”

  “You’re saying you blacked out tonight?”

  He nodded. “Woke up in that alley. Not even sure how I got there. I was wearing a jacket and a black hat I didn’t even recognize. Found a gun in the pocket of the jacket. Startled me, and I accidentally fired that damn thing off. The sound of that gun going off scared the hell out of me, so I took off running. Next thing I know, I’m being tackled by a couple of goons in uniforms.”

  “What did you do with the gun?”

  “Tossed it. I don’t need a gun. I can handle myself just fine.”

  “Police are saying that gun was used to kill a man in that same alley only a few minutes before a witness saw you throw it in the dumpster.”

  “I know what they’re saying, Lawyer,” Rebel replied, calm and measured. “Couple of meathead detectives damn near shouted it at me for over two hours trying to get me to straight-up confess.”

  “What did you tell them?”

  “Same thing I’m telling you. I didn’t shoot anyone.”

  David sat back. “These blackouts. How long do they usually last?”

  He shrugged. “Sometimes a few minutes. Sometimes a half hour.”

  “And you don’t recall where you were or what you were doing right before you had this spell
tonight?”

  He shook his head. “Nope.”

  “Is it normal for you to not remember what happened before a blackout?”

  He shrugged again. “Ain’t nothing normal about me, Lawyer.”

  “Did you know Luke Murphy?” David asked, trying a redirect. He watched Rebel carefully, wanting to gauge his response to the victim’s name.

  “Who?”

  “The man who was killed in the alley tonight.”

  “Like I told the cops, I don’t know that name. Means nothing to me.”

  “How do you think you got that gun, Rebel?”

  “No clue.”

  “Are you trying to convince me that someone planted it on you while you were blacked out?”

  “I ain’t trying to convince you of nothing.”

  “Well, you have to admit it all sounds a bit far-fetched.”

  David’s response seemed to flip the same switch again in the man’s brain, taking him right back to frantic conspiracy land. Rebel’s eyes went from soft to hard in a split second. “I’ve been telling you already, Lawyer, it’s the damn CIA. Why the hell ain’t you listening?” He quickly grew even more agitated. “They the ones that must’ve planted that gun on me! This is all a big setup so I won’t tell the whole world what I know about them!”

  “Calm down a sec, Rebel,” David urged him, trying to get hold of the situation again. But it was too late. The man was already off the rails.

  Rebel suddenly stood, sending his metal chair flying back and banging hard against the room’s outer wall. Then he started yelling even louder. “Hell, Lawyer, the Russians could be working with the CIA on this one, I tell you! They want to take me back to the dragon’s lair, but I sure as hell won’t go without a fight!”