A Killing at the Creek

by Nancy Allen

  “Yeah, but it always seems to happen to me.”

  “Oh, come on. In Kansas City, ­people got this kind of thing all the time. You’re not so special. Man up, Elsie.”

  Her face started to flush. That particular expression always incited her ire. “That’s easy for you to say, since it wasn’t taped to your door. What if you were the Queen of Swords?”

  Chuck turned back to the keyboard and focused on the computer screen. “Well, I’m not. Because I’m not a queen.”

  “Ha. Funny.” Elsie stepped behind his desk and dug the note out of the trash. She could run it by someone else. Ashlock, maybe.

  “Nope,” she said aloud. She walked back to the nearest chair and sat down. Elsie watched in silence as Chuck finished his e-­mail and hit Send.

  Turning to her, he said, “Are you going to stay here all day? Don’t you have work to do?”

  She gave him a look. “I always have work to do. It never ends.”

  Ignoring her response, he continued, “Because we’re set for trial August 10. That gives us basically zero time to prepare. Quit fucking around.”

  The mention of the approaching trial date sent a wave of panic through her. Even after four years in the office, she always fought anxiety before a jury trial. Once it began, adrenaline kicked in and took over, making the job easier. But knowing that she would have her game face when the time came never helped to prevent the initial sensation of drowning.

  I’m second chair, she told herself. It’s not all on me. I’m the assistant.

  Chuck broke into her reverie. “Here’s the first thing I need you to do. Get the ball rolling on the state’s mental exam of Monroe.”

  “You want me to do the paperwork?”

  “What did I just say? You claim to be the insanity defense expert. Get moving on it.” He opened his desk and pulled out a Clif Bar. As he unwrapped it, he said, “Get us a doctor who will say he’s okay. Fit for trial and sound as a dollar.”

  Elsie’s brow wrinkled. “Chuck, I can’t control the evaluation. The doctor will reach his own conclusion.” Sitting, she waited for him to agree.

  He pulled an impatient face. “Why are you still here?”

  She made for the door, thinking that he acted more like Madeleine every day.

  “Hey, Elsie,” Chuck said.

  She paused in the doorway. “What?”

  He was toying with a pink notepaper; a phone memo, she thought. “I’ve been meaning to tell you. You were right.”

  “What?” she said again, taken aback.

  “About the interrogation. As I recall, seems like you wanted to bug out, leave the room. I guess that would’ve been a good idea. Looking back, in hindsight.”

  “Yeah. A real good idea,” Elsie agreed, but she felt a glow of appreciation at his admission, and her opinion of Chuck rose several notches. “Thanks for saying so.” Took you long enough, she added to herself.

  He tossed the pink phone memo across his desk. “Return that call for me, okay? I need to get that woman off my back.”

  She picked it up and read the name. “Who’s Phyllis Garrison?”

  “Some friend of the murder victim. She keeps calling; like I’ve got all day to talk to the dead woman’s friends.” He snorted and turned back to his computer.

  So I guess I’m the one who has all day to do your grunt work, Elsie thought. “Shit runs downhill,” she said aloud, but Chuck didn’t respond.

  Back in her office, she first made a note to contact Dr. Salinas, to see if he was available. Salinas had an established psychiatric practice in Joplin, Missouri; he made a strong witness for the prosecution. If the juvenile was a faker, Salinas would pick up on it. He could bring the insanity defense down.

  Elsie picked up the receiver of her office phone and dialed Phyllis Garrison’s number, giving the line five rings before she hung up. She had no sooner set the receiver in the cradle before it rang with a vengeance.

  She picked up. “This is Elsie Arnold.”

  “I want to talk to Chuck Harris,” a female voice said. “This is the Prosecutor’s Office in Missouri, isn’t it?”

  “It is, the McCown County Prosecutor’s Office. But you dialed my line; this is Elsie Arnold. I think Chuck’s tied up,” she said, checking the caller ID; it was the number she had just dialed a moment before. “Can I help you?”

  “I want information on the Glenda Fielder case.”

  “Right; that’s State v. Tanner Monroe.” She checked the pink message again. “Is this Phyllis Garrison?”

  “Yeah. And who did you say you are?”

  “Elsie Arnold; I’m cocounsel on the Monroe case.”

  She could hear the woman huff into the phone. “Finally. I’ve been chasing that Harris guy’s tail for weeks. He won’t talk to me.”

  “How can we help you?”

  “I’ll tell you what you can do to help me. You make sure the guy who killed Glenda gets the death penalty.”

  Elsie rubbed her forehead as she spoke into the receiver. “Well, there’s a legal issue. You see—­”

  The woman cut her off. “I want you to promise me that.”

  Elsie raised her voice slightly and said, “The defendant—­Mr. Monroe—­is fifteen. There’s no death penalty in Missouri for persons under the age of sixteen. It’s the law. But we will do our best to see that justice is done. So, how do you know the deceased, Ms. Fielder?”

  “She was my wife.”

  Elsie sat in silence for a moment, digesting the statement. “You and Glenda Fielder were married?” Elsie had no idea whether gay marriage was legal in Michigan; she knew that the state constitution of Missouri refused to permit or recognize same-­sex unions.

  Elsie heard a catch in Phyllis Garrison’s voice as she said, “Not legally. We were partners, for over eleven years. Married in every way but the law. You know?”

  “Yes. I understand.”

  “I wanted to do it; begged Glenda to go with me to Massachusetts and get married there, back when it was the only place that we could go. But she didn’t want to fight the battle with her family.”

  Gently, Elsie said, “We’ve been in touch with Glenda’s niece, and she never mentioned the relationship.”

  “Yeah, well. They never accepted it. Shit, there we were—­in our forties, living together for over ten years, but had to play some lie for her family, like we were just friends. Roommates. Really good friends.” She laughed into the phone with a hollow sound.

  Elsie asked, “Did you own property together?”

  “We didn’t own much. I’m on the car title. And we both signed the apartment lease.”

  “Good. That’s good.” Elsie’s heart rate increased as the significance of Phyllis Garrison’s revelation hit home. Glenda Fielder was looking better by the minute. Even Billy Yocum would have a hard time convincing a jury that a forty-­year-­old lesbian in a committed relationship was the seductress of a teenage boy.

  “Phyllis, the case has been set for trial, and I’d really like for you to be here. Can you come to Missouri?”

  “You’re goddamned right I’ll be there,” Phyllis said.

  Elsie secured the dates with her new witness and hung up the phone with a smile on her face.

  Feeling thoroughly self-­satisfied, Elsie tilted back in her chair and propped her feet on her desk; but her jubilant mood dissolved when she saw the soiled and wrinkled anonymous message under the heel of her left shoe. In the quiet of her office, she heard a voice whisper in her head: Queen of Swords.

  Chapter 36

  VERNON WANTUCK UNLOCKED the door to the interview room at the McCown County jail. His beefy hand gripped Tanner Monroe’s shoulder. But as the jailer prepared to push the boy inside with a hard shove, he paused. The room was already occupied by a tall man with wire-­rimmed spectacles. Wantuck dropped his hand from the boy’s sh
oulder.

  “Doctor,” Vernon Wantuck said, in a hearty voice.

  The man rose, setting a typewritten report aside. “Mr. Wantuck.”

  “Doc Salinas, I’ve got a live one for you. This is him, Tanner Monroe.” To Monroe, Wantuck said, “Sit down.”

  Tanner shuffled in his cuffs and sat in a folding chair, facing the doctor across a metal table. “Do I get to lose the cuffs?” Monroe asked.

  Wantuck laughed. “I think me and Doc Salinas would just as soon keep them cuffs on you, boy.” He walked back through the door. “I’ll post a jailer outside, Doc. Just knock when you’re ready.”

  The doctor inclined his head in response. He didn’t speak until Wantuck left the room and shut the door behind him.

  “Tanner Monroe, I’m Dr. Salinas.”

  The juvenile pushed his chair back, making the metal legs screech against the concrete floor. “Okay.”

  “The state has asked me to conduct a mental evaluation of you. To determine whether you are fit to stand trial, whether you understand the nature of the charges against you and can assist in your defense.”

  “I know all that. I’ve been through this before.”

  The doctor raised a hand, a signal that he wanted to continue. “And to determine whether you have a mental disease or defect that prevents you from understanding the nature of your actions, or confining them to the requirements of law.” The doctor paused. “I know that sounds technical, especially to someone so young. I can break it down for you, explain it in a different way.”

  “I’m not stupid.”

  The doctor reached for a pad of paper. “Did you think that I implied that? When I offered to explain?”

  “I’m just saying let’s cut through the bullshit. I know what the evaluation is all about. I did it before. With that other doctor, the one my old dickwad lawyer hired.”

  “Who is your lawyer?”

  “Yocum.”

  “What’s his first name?”

  “Shit, man, I dunno. Old man Yocum. He’s like a hundred years old.”

  “Do you understand that he has been appointed to represent you on a murder charge?”

  “Yeah. I get that.”

  “Do you understand that the state is prosecuting you for the murder of a woman who was driving a bus, who picked you up and gave you a ride?”

  The boy rolled his head back on his neck and gave a weary sigh. “How many times do I have to say it? I didn’t kill her. I. Did. Not. Do. It.”

  The doctor studied Tanner, not evidencing any judgment in his expression. He bent his head and scrawled a note on his pad. Under his breath, Tanner whispered, “Stupid bitch.”

  Dr. Salinas looked up. “What’s that?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Did you just say ‘stupid bitch’?”

  Tanner shifted in his seat, slumping against the metal chair back. “Yeah. Forget it.”

  “Who were you referring to? The bus driver—­the woman who gave you a ride?”

  “Okay. Yeah.”

  “You just told me you didn’t kill her. So, what are your feelings about her?”

  “Feelings? I didn’t even know her.”

  “But her untimely death. How do you feel about that?”

  “She’s not anybody to me. Just a bitch driving a bus.”

  Suddenly, Monroe laughed, his face transformed by mirth. When Dr. Salinas stared at him, Monroe covered his mouth.

  “Can you tell me what struck you as funny?” When Monroe shook his head, the doctor said, “Please. I’d like to hear it.”

  “I was just remembering something. From way back.”

  “Tell me.”

  Tanner sighed, a long-­suffering sound. “Okay. I was a kid in foster care—­for a pretty long stretch, that time. I had to take the school bus to school—­big yellow one, just like the one I ended up in. But it was St. Louis.”

  “And?”

  “And the bus driver was a stone bitch. Goddamn, I can still see her face.”

  “What was so bad about her? What did she do?”

  “She hated me. I got no fucking idea why, she just did. She rode me every day, chewed me out for nothing.”

  The doctor nodded, and Tanner continued the story, anger kindling in his face. “She started skipping my bus stop on the way home, just to jack me around. Made me ride around an extra thirty minutes on that bus, just to fuck with me.”

  The doctor tapped his pad with his pen. “If the driver didn’t like you, why would she want to extend your time on the bus?”

  “Shit, man, don’t ask me to explain it. I can’t get inside that cunt’s head. So one day, after school, I was kind of needing to piss the minute I got on the bus. I was just a kid, man—­maybe third grade. Could’ve been second. And she drove and drove. I came up and asked her to let me off, take me to my street. She passed right by it. Told me to sit my butt down.

  “I held it as long as I could, then finally let go. I couldn’t help it; I pissed my pants, right there in the seat.”

  “That must have been very embarrassing.”

  Monroe’s chin jerked up. “She bitched me out—­can you believe that? Made me the fool right there, in front of everybody.”

  Monroe fell silent, lost in reflection. Then his face lit up. “So I got home, and my foster mother wanted to know, what the fuck? So I told her. Damn, she went off.”

  “She was angry with you?”

  “With me? Hell, no; she was pissed at the bus driver. So she got me and her out that night, and we walked the streets of our hood, and picked up every piece of dog shit in a six-­block square. Put it in a plastic bucket.”

  With more animation in his face, he continued. “And she was standing there by me the next morning, when the bus pulled up, and the door opened, my foster mother swung that bucket, and dog shit went flying. Right inside the bus, all over that driver. In her face and on her hair and everything. You should’ve seen her face.” Monroe laughed out loud.

  With a shrug, he added, “They didn’t let me ride the bus after that. But it was worth it, man.”

  “How did you feel about the woman? Your foster mother?”

  “Her? Oh shit, man, she was kind of nuts. But she had my back. She was better than the ones who came later.” Lost in the memory, he snorted.

  The doctor leaned toward Tanner, resting his forearms on the desk. “So what connection does that memory have with the deceased in this case? Glenda Fielder?”

  “Huh? Nothing, I guess. No connection.” When the doctor made a note on the pad, Tanner’s voice took on a defensive note. “It’s just a story, man. You asked me.”

  Dr. Salinas nodded and said, “Tell me about your family relationships.”

  Monroe snorted. “That won’t take very long.”

  “I’d like to hear about your parents. Tell me how you get along with them.”

  “You tell me something first. We can trade some information, okay, man?” Tanner returned the legs of the chair to the floor. Leaning forward, he rested his hands on the scuffed table. “What’s it like at the state hospital?”

  In a quiet voice, the doctor persisted. “From the history provided to me, I see that you lived primarily with your mother in St. Louis, but you had moved out. Did something happen that made you decide to leave home? How would you describe your relationship with your mother?”

  The boy rubbed the tattoos on his left hand before balling his fingers into a tight fist. “I want to hear what it’s like. If a person ended up there, what kind of a vibe there is. You ever been there?”

  Relenting, Dr. Salinas said, “I did an internship there. Years ago.”

  “What kind of hospital is it? Is it pretty nice, or is it a shithole?”

  “It’s a prison. Just like the Department of Corrections.”

  “Yeah, I get that.
But is it easy time?”

  “No, I wouldn’t say so.”

  “Is it better to go there? Or to DOC? That’s what I’m asking. I need a straight answer. Solid.”

  The doctor watched him in silence before answering. “If an individual suffers a mental disease or defect that made him commit a crime, the state hospital is the proper place for him. Is it easy to be locked up at the mental hospital? No. Not at all. Now tell me about your mother.”

  Monroe cocked his head and squinted, scrutinizing the doctor’s face. “Are you from Mexico? You look Mexican.”

  The doctor offered a slight smile. “South side of Chicago.”

  “Salinas sounds like a Mexican name.”

  “It is.” He picked a typed document off the table and placed it next to his notepad. “Have you been having any more intestinal issues?”

  “Huh?”

  “Stomach trouble, bathroom trouble. Spiderwebs. You reported that spiderwebs appeared when you went to the bathroom, when you had bowel movements.”

  “Where’d you get that? Have you got that other guy’s report, the one Yocum set me up with?”

  Dr. Salinas sat quietly, watching.

  Monroe ducked his head, thinking, toying with the fabric of his county jail scrubs. At length, he looked up at Salinas. “Yeah, I probably need to clear that up. I was fucking with that guy.” Tanner Monroe smiled broadly, exposing his protruding eyetooth. “Just messing with him.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  “He was a dumbshit.”

  “He was hired to help you. Why would you want to mess with him?”

  “For fun.”

  The doctor scratched on the notepad with his pen. Looking up, he said, “You had a roommate at Juvenile Hall.” He checked his notes. “Barry Bacon.”

  “Oh man—­not that douche bag.”

  “Why do you call him a douche bag?”

  “Okay, he was a loser—­do you like that better? I’m sick of ­people pinning that on me. Back at juvie, they all acted like it was my fault. That kid was depressed. Seriously mental. It’s not my fault if he wanted to tie a sheet around his neck and jump.”