After Dark

by Phillip Margolin

  "Then Deems tried to kill Abbie. I saw him go in the cabin. I was paralyzed. I had to save her, but I had no idea what to do.

  When Abbie ran into the woods I followed.

  "My father taught me how to move through the forest without making noise. I waited and watched. I saw Deems searching for Abbie. He was so close that he would have seen her if he turned around. I did the only thing I could think of. I used the flash on my camera to distract him. He chased me, but it was easy for me to elude him in the dark. He must have panicked, because he only searched for a short time, then he went to his car.

  "Up to this point, I had no idea that it was Deems who had tried to kill Abbie, because he wore a ski mask. I followed him to find out his identity. Deems drove to a bar and made a call. Then he drove to Portland to the far end of a motel parking lot. The lot was deserted, but there were streetlights. I took a photograph of Deems meeting Robert Griffen."

  "I know," Tracy said. "I saw the photograph."

  "Then you understand what that meant, Tracy. Griffen had hired Deems to kill Abbie.

  "My first thought was to go to the police with my photographs. They would arrest Deems and he would tell them about Griffen. But I couldn't do it. I'd have had to explain why I was in the woods outside Abbie's cabin in the middle of the night. The police would have told Abbie that I was . . . was stalking her.

  She would have despised me and I would have lost her forever.

  "That's when I first considered killing Justice Griffen. But Deems would still be alive and I wasn't certain about his motivation. Was he helping Griffen just for money or was it also revenge that motivated Deems? The problem seemed insoluble until . . ."

  "You realized that you could get rid of Griffen and co-opt Deems," Tracy said. "Yes."

  "And you also realized that you could be with Abbie all the time if you were her attorney and she was in jail or under house arrest."

  Reynolds nodded. "I would be the only one she could confide in. We could meet and talk every day. I hoped that over time she would forget what I look like, and I hoped that when I saved her, she would be grateful enough to . . . to love me."

  "How could you be certain she'd hire you?"

  "I couldn't. But I would have volunteered if she hadn't come to me."

  "What if she turned you down?"

  Reynolds blushed. "She would never reject my offer of assistance. I am the best at what I do. Everyone knows that. Abbie always knew that."

  Tracy shook her head. "What if you misjudged? What if Abbie had been convicted?"

  "I would have confessed. But I knew I could control the trial.

  Especially with Chuck Geddes prosecuting."

  "You couldn't know that Geddes would assign himself to the case."

  "That was my only sure thing," Reynolds answered with the tiniest of smiles. "Chuck Geddes would never turn down a highprofile case like this and a chance to have his revenge on me for his previous humiliations. No, that part of the equation was the simplest."

  "How did you know so much about the bomb?"

  "The bomb was of simple construction and I heard Torino testify about it at Deems's trial."

  "And the strip?"

  "Deems wanted me to represent him when he was charged with the murder of Hollins and his little girl. Before I decided against taking the case, I looked at the evidence. I saw the strip with the notch. I saw it again when Paul Torino explained its significance at Deems's trial.

  "To fool the police, the evidence had to be so convincing that they wouldn't think they needed to conduct more sophisticated tests. I took two pieces of steel from different manufacturers. I checked with the companies to make sure that the composition of the two pieces of steel was different. Then I put the pieces side by side in two vises and I cut them at the same time. I took the front part of the first strip and used it with the bomb. I took the end of the second piece and left it in Abbie's garage after luring her to the rose garden. I knew the strip I used on the bomb would be mangled in the explosion and that the piece in the garage would look enough like a match so that the police wouldn't bother with any other tests."

  "What if Jack Stamm hadn't called Torino to search the house and garage for explosive devices?"

  "Deems was supposed to tell the police that Abbie wanted him to make the bomb in her garage. They would have searched it."

  Tracy shook her head. She could not help admiring Reynolds's brilliance even though he had put it to such a twisted purpose. Reynolds was a chessmaster who had thought out every move and anticipated every possible problem.

  "You knew how to get in touch with Deems by using the phone numbers in the old file."

  "Yes."

  "How did you convince someone like Deems to cooperate with the police?"

  "I left copies of the pictures from the coast and from his meeting with Justice Griffen in a bus-station locker. We spoke on the phone, so he never met me. I told him that the police would arrest him for the attack on Abbie and the murder of Justice Griffen if I sent them the photographs. Evidence of prior similar criminal conduct is admissible, even if a person has been acquitted of the crime, as you well know from your research in Abbie's case, if the prosecution has evidence of a signature crime. The notches in the bombs were unique. I explained to Deems that no jury would acquit him once they heard the evidence about the Hollins murders.

  "To sweeten the pot, I told him I would pay him fifty thousand dollars if he testified against Abbie and told the exact story I made up for him. I let him think I was someone Abbie had convicted. A criminal with a grudge. I convinced Deems that the best revenge would not be to kill Abbie, but to make her suffer on death row for a crime she did not commit."

  "Did you tell Deems to say that Abbie had shown him the dynamite in the shed and suggested he use it in the bomb?"

  "Yes."

  "Why did you do that when Abbie didn't tell you about the photos until after she was arrested?"

  "I saw her take the pictures. I knew she'd shot some footage behind the house. If she hadn't remembered about the undeveloped film, I would have led her to remember it."

  "Just as you tricked her into loving you?" Tracy said, not meaning to be cruel, but unable to help herself.

  Reynolds reddened. "This was my only chance to let her see past this face. To let her know that I love her. To give her a chance to love me for what I am."

  "It was a trick, Matt. You brainwashed her. You arranged to have her placed under house arrest. You isolated her and made her dependent on you. You . . . you trained her, the way you train a dog. That's not love she's feeling. It's something you created. It's artificial."

  "No. She does love me," Matthew answered, shaking his head vigorously.

  "Love is something that comes from your heart. Would she still love you if she knew what you did?"

  Reynolds looked stricken. "You can't tell her," he said desperately.

  Tracy gaped at Reynolds. "Not tell Abbie? My God, Matthew.

  This is murder. You killed a man. I'm going to have to tell the police. I came here to give you a chance to do that. If you confess, Jack Stamm may not ask for the death penalty. You can hire an attorney to negotiate for you."

  "No."

  "What choice do you have?"

  "You can keep it a secret, the way you did with the photograph. I'll quit my practice."

  Tracy leaned forward until her face was inches from his. Was it possible that Reynolds did not understand the magnitude of what he had done?

  "Are you insane?" she asked. "Do you think this is some minor ethical violation like commingling funds? This is murder. You used a bomb to kill a Supreme Court justice."

  Matthew started to argue with Tracy, to use the powers of persuasion that had saved so many lives in the past, but he stopped and turned away, realizing suddenly that the moment he had feared had arrived. He was part of the case he could not win and the life that would be lost was his own.

  "I'm going to give you two days to turn yourself in," Tra
cy said. "Then I'm going to the police."

  Reynolds turned back. He looked desperate.

  "I'll destroy the evidence. I'll say you're lying. I'll deny we ever had this conversation. Last week you claimed Deems killed Griffen. This week it's me. Stamm won't accept your word against mine."

  Tracy wished she could just walk away and do what Matthew wanted, but that was impossible. She shook her head sadly.

  "I have the pictures, your bankbook and the faked photo of the shed. If I give them to Jack Stamm, you run the risk that he will believe Abbie was in this with you. If you confess, you can save her from having to go through a second trial."

  "Griffen was a murderer," Matthew implored Tracy. "He killed your friend Laura Rizzatti, and he paid Deems to kill Abbie.

  Can't you let this be?"

  Matthew's eyes pleaded with Tracy, but she stood up and turned away. As she did, she remembered the question Matthew had asked her the firsttime they met: "Tell me, Miss Cavanaugh, have you ever been to Stark, Florida, to the prison, after dark?"

  That image of. visiting the prison after dark and leaving before dawn with her client dead had haunted Tracy. When she was with Matthew in Atlanta, when she was sitting beside him during Abbie's trial, when she worked on the brief in the Texas case, she had been driven by her fear that someday the image would become reality if she did not give her all every moment of every day.

  Silent tears rolled down Tracy's cheeks as she closed the door to the hospital room behind her. In the moments she had spent just now with Matthew Reynolds, she had finally learned how all those brave attorneys felt in the prison, at the very end, after dark.

  EPILOGUE

  Abbie parked in the visitors' lot of the Oregon State Penitentiary, then walked down a tree-lined lane to the front door of the prison. On either side of the street were friendly white houses that were once residences but now served as offices for the staff.

  Looming over the charming houses and their neatly trimmed lawns was the squat, square bulk of the prison with its thick eggyolk-yellow walls, barbed-wire fences and gun towers.

  After checking in at the visitors' desk, Abbie walked through a metal detector, down a ramp, through two sets of sliding steel bars and down a short hall, where she waited while her escort unlocked the thick metal door that opened into the visiting area.

  Abbie identified herself to a guard who sat on a raised platform at one end of a large, open room crowded with prison-made couches and wooden coffee tables. The guard called Matthew's cellblock and asked for him to be sent down. While the guard spoke on the phone, Abbie looked around the room. Along the far wall, a prisoner was waiting in front of a vending machine for a paper cup to fill with coffee. The prisoners were easy to identify in their blue jeans and work shirts. They played with children they saw once a month, leaned across the coffee tables toward their parents or stood in the corners of the room pressing against a wife or girlfriend, trying to steal a few moments of intimacy that would help them forget the dreariness that pervaded their prison lives.

  "He'll be down in a few minutes," the guard told Abbie. "You can use one of the attorney rooms."

  On the left, outside the large visiting room, was an open area.

  Along two walls were windows. Behind several of the windows were prisoners deemed too dangerous to be allowed into the visiting room.

  Their visitors sat on folding chairs and spoke to them on phones.

  Also in this area were two glass-walled rooms where prisoners could meet their lawyers. Jack Stamm had called the superintendent and obtained permission for Abbie to use one of these rooms. She closed the door and waited for Matthew, dreading the meeting, but knowing that she had to see him, no matter how painful the visit might be for both of them.

  Abbie did not recognize Matthew at first. The starchy prison food had caused him to gain weight. His face had filled out and his hips and waist were fuller. She even detected the beginnings of a paunch. When he entered the room, Abbie stood up and searched his face for a clue to his feelings, but Matthew was keeping his emotions hidden. When he paused in the doorway, she thought he might change his mind and leave.

  Instead, he offered his hand. She took it and held it for a moment.

  Then they sat down.

  "Thank you for coming to see me," Matthew said. "Aside from Barry and Tracy, I haven't had many visitors."

  "How are you getting along?" Abbie asked, not ready yet to talk about her real reason for visiting.

  Matthew smiled. "Quite well, actually. There's a real demand for my skills here. I was most frightened of physical assault when I came to the prison, but I'm under the protection of the prisoners. It seems I have many friends here. People I've helped. And there are many more who can use my assistance."

  Abbie laughed. "I guess putting a criminal lawyer with a mission in prison is a little like letting a kid run loose in a candy store."

  They both smiled. Then Abbie sobered.

  "You know why I didn't come sooner, don't you?" she asked.

  "Tracy told me what you said to her."

  "I hated you at first, Matt. It was the pictures. When I learned about them . . . About the spying . . . It was such a shock."

  Matthew looked down. "I wish I'd never taken them, but I couldn't help myself. I was so in love with you and there was no way I could tell you. To me, you were unobtainable. I just couldn't believe that anyone so beautiful would even look at me, let alone fall in love. I'm surprised you don't hate me still."

  "Tracy told me what you did when Deems chased me in the woods and that you killed Robert to save my life. She explained why you framed me for Robert's murder. She wanted me to talk to the judge at your sentencing, but I couldn't. It's taken me a while to accept that you did everything for me so I would love YOU.

  Abbie looked up at Matthew. He leaned forward expectantly.

  "Jack let you plead guilty to manslaughter because of everything that came out about Robert and, mainly, because you killed him to save my life. You're eligible for parole anytime, since there isn't a mandatory minimum sentence for manslaughter. I've written to the parole board. I told them I want to be present to speak on your behalf when they meet to decide your case. I know that you never wanted to hurt me and I want you to know that I forgive you."

  Matthew slumped forward as if he had been struck in the chest. "Thank you," was all he could manage.

  "Are you okay?" Abbie asked.

  "Oh yes," he answered.

  Abbie noticed the guard announcing the end of visiting hours.

  She had intentionally come toward the end so the visit would be short, in case it went badly. Abbie stood up.

  Matthew took a deep breath and composed himself.

  "Will you visit me again?" he asked.

  "I don't think so."

  "I understand. What are you going to do?"

  "I'm not sure. I've quit the district attorney's office. I'm thinking about traveling for a while. I still need to put some space between myself and what happened." A guard knocked on the door.

  "I've got to go now. I'm not going to wish you good luck. I don't think you need it, because I know you're going to come through this."

  "I'll always love you, Abbie. Everything I did was for you."

  Abbie reached out and touched his shoulder. "I know that, Matthew."

  She took one last look at Matthew, then she opened the door and joined the line of people leaving the visiting area. Matthew knew that he would never stop loving Abbie and that he had lost her forever. He understood that there was no way she could love him now. Even so, he did not feel sad. He had saved Abbie's life and that made everything he had gone through and was going to endure worthwhile. And even if it was only for a little while, she had loved him and that was more than he ever hoped for.

  And now he had been forgiven.

  FB2 document info

  Document ID: c4d77fb4-db27-4804-b48c-c9cbf56c61c6

  Document version: 1

  Document creation date:
12.9.2012

  Created using: calibre 0.8.67, FictionBook Editor Release 2.6.6 software

  Document authors :

  Phillip Margolin

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