by Dave Daren
Lamon picked a few more shreds of paper from the label, then studied me.
“You look like shit,” he finally said.
“As do you,” I replied as I took in the dark stains on his dark shirt. “But I’ve been at work all day. How long have you been here?”
Lamon shrugged and then glanced at his watch.
“A couple of hours,” he said.
“And you just called?” I asked in surprise.
“I didn’t think it was a big deal,” he said. “They asked me to come down and answer a few questions. I said I would because I want to help. But I couldn’t answer any of their questions, and then they started asking other questions that made me realize that they think I’m behind it. But I’m not. So that’s when I called you.”
“Okay,” I replied. “So what is it you’re not behind?”
“My friend, Francie,” he sighed. “I’ve known her since we were kids.”
“And now something’s happened to Francie,” I guessed as I tried to guide my client towards something he clearly didn’t want to discuss.
“Yeah,” Lamon murmured. “She’s dead, and the cops blame me.”
So much for Ovitz’s ban on pro bono cases, I thought. There was no way I was passing this one up. And definitely no way I was leaving Anthony Lamon in the hands of a Legal Aid attorney.
Chapter 3
“If the police have questions, then Francie didn’t die peacefully at home,” I noted drily.
Lamon grinned for a moment, then quickly went sober.
“It was terrible,” he said. “I’ve never seen anything like that.”
“We’ll get to that,” I said as I opened my briefcase and started to pull out the pad and pen, as well as my cell phone which served as a handy recorder in a pinch. “But just like our meeting at Rikers, I want you to fill me in on the whole story, from beginning to end, in your own words.”
Lamon nodded then stared at a spot just behind me for several minutes. I could see he was gathering his thoughts, and I waited quietly for him to begin.
“Francie’s full name is Francine Mott,” Lamon started. “We grew up together. We were best friends in elementary school all the way through high school. When we graduated, we went to different colleges, but we’d always catch up over the breaks.”
“Sounds nice,” I encouraged when Lamon stopped talking.
“It was great,” Lamon agreed. “I know some people think it was weird that a boy and a girl would stay friends all that time, but we never wanted to be anything more. I mean, not nowadays. And she knew I’d always be there for her, that she could count on me for anything.”
“So she reached out to you,” I suggested.
“Earlier tonight,” my client sighed as he wiped a hand across his face and brushed a tear away. “She went to a party with some girls she hangs out with. She doesn’t usually like to go during the middle of the week, but some big fashion designer was supposed to be there and was going to be showing some of his new stuff. That part went okay, I guess, but then the fashion show ended and the big name guests left, and it was just the party crowd left behind. There was a lot of drinking and drugs going on.”
“Not surprising,” I murmured.
“Francie likes to have a good time, and she’ll have a beer or two, but she’s not into drunken orgies or taking drugs,” Lamon growled.
“Okay, okay,” I said soothingly.
“She called me,” he continued. “She said that she really wanted to leave even though it wasn’t that late. Some of the guys were starting to hassle her and her friends and she was getting worried. She said none of the guys seemed to believe her when she said she wasn’t interested. So I said I would come pick her up. She gave me the address for a place in Manhattan and told me she would wait inside the lobby door for me.”
“Good,” I noted.
“So I drove to the address she had given me,” Lamon said. “It was one of those converted warehouses in Chelsea, you know, where they have those workshops now. The front door was wide open when I pulled up and people were just wondering in and out. The music was so loud I thought the cops would show up at any moment to shut the place down. I stopped in front of the door and honked, but Francie didn’t come out.”
“Mmmhmmm,” I mumbled as I scribbled on the pad.
“I thought she must not have heard me over the noise, so I double parked and got out of the car,” Lamon sighed. “I stuck my head inside the door but I couldn’t see her. Of course, the place was dark and lit with these weird purple lights that made it hard to see anything.”
“So you went inside,” I guessed.
“I did,” my client admitted. “At first, I was just going to check the area around the door, since that was where she said she would be. I also wanted to keep an eye on the car, since I was double parked and I didn’t want to get a ticket.”
“Not after last week,” I agreed with a quick smile.
“Right,” Lamon snorted. “Only she wasn’t by the door. She wasn’t by the desk. She wasn’t anywhere nearby, as far as I could tell. I tried calling her cellphone but she never picked up and it wasn’t like we could have had a conversation over all that noise.”
“Sure,” I encouraged.
“I finally spotted some of the friends she’d gone to the party with,” Lamon continued. “They were all drunk and being pawed by a bunch of guys I didn’t know, and I could see why Francie had wanted to leave. So I went over to the group to ask them where Francie was. Man, at first they just laughed and told me to relax. I should just have a good time since I was there and not worry about Francie.”
“Oh, dear,” I sympathized.
“So then, I’m starting to get angry, with them, with Francie. I didn’t want to be there and the crappy music was giving me a headache. One of the girls actually barfed on one of my shoes.”
Which explained the smell in the room, I realized. I’d just chalked it up to the usual bad odors in the interrogation room, but I should have recognized that it was a bit too fresh for that. I fought the urge to look under the table, as well as the need to suddenly cover my nose with my hand.
“I started to yell, but of course, everybody in the place is yelling because it’s the only way to be heard,” Lamon snorted. “One of them, Jeanine? Jennie? She told me Francie had left already. I asked how that was possible since Francie had called me for a ride, and she said Francie had found someone else she knew and left with them.”
“Huh,” was all I said.
“Now, normally I wouldn’t mind,” Lamon added. “But I’d expect a phone call at some point to let me know that she didn’t need me to pick her up anymore. I’ve had that conversation with Francie before when she would ask me to come get her and then leave before I got there.”
“How many times?” I asked.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Lamon said with a shrug. “She used to do it all the time in high school, and I never said anything then. But it’s not so easy for me to always come get her these days, especially when she’s in Manhattan or such. One time they were out in Jersey at some Sinatra festival in Hoboken. I went to pick her up only when I got there she’d decided to hitch a ride in an Uber with someone she knew from college.”
“And more recently?” I pressed.
“She’s been good,” Lamon replied. “Lately, she would always call if she made other plans. I just figured she was slipping back into her old ways.”
“Okay,” I noted.
“And, yeah, I might have gotten a little angry,” Lamon continued. “I have to be at work early tomorrow, and I even told her before she went out tonight that I didn’t want her to call me real late because I’m supposed to be doing a presentation for my boss and the owners tomorrow.”
The dreaded presentation to the bosses. I’d done my share of those and they never got easier. I tried to picture Ovitz doing her first presentation to a partner and figured she probably looked just as deadly then as she did now. My client, however, didn’t have Ovitz�
��s death glare, and I could imagine that he would be nervous. It explained why he had insisted she not call at a late hour, and why he had been angry when she had apparently left without calling him. So far, so good.
“I wasn’t really sure if I believed them,” Lamon said. “I mean, they were wasted and I didn’t trust them to keep track of their own bodies much less someone else’s. So I did a circuit of the party, but I couldn’t find her. I gave up and went back to my car, and decided I would just make sure she wasn’t nearby. I pinged her and saw that she was back at her apartment.”
“That’s good,” I replied when Lamon stopped again.
“Yeah, I guess,” he said sullenly.
“Did you go home?” I asked even though I knew the answer had to be ‘no’ or the cops wouldn’t have dragged him in.
“I was fed up,” my client admitted. “I mean, part of me was happy that she wasn’t there, but part of me was angry that she’d made me drive all the way there. It was like high school all over again. I tried calling a few times, but she never picked up. At first, I thought she might be ignoring me because she knew I was angry, but then I remembered that none of her friends knew the guy she left with. So then I started to worry. I mean, she’s ghosted me before, but never for very long. She’d at least send me a text saying she was okay and she was sorry.”
“But nothing like that happened this time?” I asked.
“No, nothing,” he moaned.
“So you still didn’t go home,” I prodded.
“I went to her apartment,” he said. “I was still sort of angry, and I wanted to yell at her, maybe a bit, but I also needed to be sure she was okay. So I drove to her place and even found a spot in front where someone was just pulling out. I took that as a good sign, and I got myself all worked up about what I was going to say to her. I managed to get inside the building with a couple of people who recognized me, and we took the elevator together. They talked the whole time but I don’t know what about. I just kept thinking about what I would say. When I got to her door, though, I saw that it was open. Francie would never leave her door open.”
“Never?” I asked.
“Never,” he insisted. “We watched a lot of horror movies when we were kids and I think it made her terrified that some weirdo was going to break in with a chainsaw and cut her to pieces. I stopped teasing her about it when she pointed out that it was almost always the women who get chopped up.”
“What did you do then?”
“I guess I pushed the door open,” he said with a frown. “I walked into her apartment but the lights were all off. I started to call her name, and I turned the light on in the living room. There was a beer bottle on the coffee table, I remember that. And then I went back to the bedroom because I could see the bathroom was empty. That’s where I found her.”
Lamon choked up then and buried his face in his hands. I waited for him to recover, and after a few moments, he picked up the water bottle with shaking hands and carefully opened it. He took a long swig, then brushed the tears from his cheeks.
“She was tied to a chair,” Lamon continued in a hoarse voice. “I remember when she bought that chair. We were getting ready to leave for college for our freshmen year, and she said she’d found this perfect chair to have in her dorm room. We used to laugh about the fact that she still had it, but she always said it was damn near indestructible.”
“You’re doing great,” I said quietly after a long break.
“She was covered in blood and I barely recognized her face,” Lamon sighed. “She had bruises everywhere, too. I ran over to her, and I kept saying I was sorry.”
“Sorry for what?” I prodded.
“That I didn’t get to the party sooner, that I didn’t pick her up in time,” he said. “I kept telling her that while I untied her, and then I laid her on the floor and started to do CPR.”
“Did you call 9-1-1?” I asked.
“No, not then,” he said. “I tried the CPR first, but I couldn’t get her breathing again. That’s when I pulled out my phone. I started to call, but then the police just burst through the door.”
“They found you with Francie then?”
“They did,” he agreed. “They were yelling, but I wasn’t really listening to them. I was still dialing 9-1-1. I don’t why. I think I wanted to tell them to send an ambulance instead. Someone answered, but then the cop yanked the phone from my hand, and another cop pulled me from the room. I had to sit in the living room while they removed Francie, but they took her out with the sheet over her face, so I knew she was dead. They kept asking me questions, but I just tuned them out. All I could think about was that I should have gotten there sooner.”
“What did you say to them at the apartment?” I pressed.
Lamon frowned as he tried to recall those moments in the apartment.
“I think I said something about taking too long to pick her up at the party and they had to find the guy who had given her a ride home,” he said. “I told them her friends were probably still there and could tell them what the guy looked like.”
“And what did they say to that?” I asked.
“That they would look into it,” he snorted. “I guess it was a slow night in the city tonight because it looked like every cop in Queens was there. They started dusting for prints, and someone asked if they would find my prints in the apartment. I said of course they would. I was usually there once or twice a week.”
“What else?” I prodded.
“One of them asked if Francie was a drug user,” Lamon replied. “I said she used to do a little in high school, and she had a stretch in college where she was doing a lot of e and drinking heavily. But her parents threatened to bring her home and make her go to community college, so she got herself cleaned up, at least enough to bring her grades up. Sometimes she’ll still take something if she’s at a party, but she never takes a lot. In fact, she told me that she was going to give it up because she was worried about taking something that was tainted.”
“Why did they ask about drug use?” I asked.
“That detective said she had heroin in her system,” Lamon said with a shake of his head. “I told him that wasn’t Francie. She never used heroin in her life. She hated needles. If she took a drug, it had to be a pill.”
“It sounds like whoever tied her to that chair probably injected her,” I mused.
“Why would someone do that?” Lamon demanded. “Everyone liked Francie!”
“I don’t know,” I replied. “But I do find it curious that the police arrived when they did.”
Lamon considered that for a moment.
“They said someone called 9-1-1,” Lamon replied.
“Why?” I asked.
“What do you mean?” Lamon puzzled.
“What triggered the phone call to 9-1-1?” I asked. “Did they hear something? Did they see someone who was covered in blood running from the building?”
“I don’t know,” Lamon replied. “The detective didn’t say.”
“We’ll get to the bottom of it,” I replied. “In the meantime, not another word to the police. There will be a hearing tomorrow, probably in the morning since this a homicide. We’ll plead not guilty. I’ll argue for bail, though it might be high given the charge.”
“I guess I’m going back to Rikers,” Lamon sighed.
“For tonight, certainly,” I agreed. “But we’ll see what we can work out about the bail.”
“Sure,” Lamon agreed in a disheartened tone.
“It’ll work out,” I tried to assure him. “We’ll figure out what really happened, and have you out of Rikers again long before this ever even goes to trial. The first thing we need to do is work on your alibi.”
“Yeah, lots of people saw me,” Lamon agreed. “The girls at the party, and the guys they were with.”
“They’ll be helpful,” I agreed. “But it will depend on what time Francie was killed. Tell me, how long do you think she had been dead when you found her?”
“Um, I don’t know,” Lamon replied.
“Just think back for a moment,” I urged. “Was she still warm?”
“I… Yeah, I think so,” Lamon admitted. “I mean she might have been on the cooler side, but she wasn’t like ice cold.”
I nodded, but didn’t press. If Lamon was right, then the ME’s report wasn’t going to be much help to us as far as time of death. The prosecutor would argue that Lamon had driven straight to Francie’s, where they had argued and he had killed her. Our best alibi would be the fact that Francie had been tied up and beaten, which takes time. Not a lot, but more than Lamon had.
“I can’t believe she’s dead,” Lamon said quietly. “I just can’t seem to grasp that.”
“I know,” I said just as quietly.
I gave my client a few moments to compose himself while I repacked my briefcase as slowly as I could. When I had dragged that out for as long as I could, I snapped it shut, then studied my client.
“Should I call Joey again?” I offered. “And the brewery?”
“If you don’t mind,” he sighed. “Though I doubt I’ll have a job at the brewery much longer if I don’t get out of here soon.”
“One worry at a time,” I told him.
I stood up and gave my client a reassuring pat on the back. That contact seemed to draw him out of the funk he found himself in, and he shook himself all over, then gave me an awkward smile.
“Let me get Detective Gomez,” I said. “If we’re lucky, they won’t charge you tonight, but unfortunately, they seem determined to arrest you for this.”
I opened the door, and peered down the hallway. A patrol cop stood nearby, and when I looked in his direction, he quickly found a few sheets of paper to shuffle. I could see him say something to someone else, and a moment later, Detective Gomez strode down the hallway.
“Does your client want to talk?” Gomez asked.
“My client has nothing else to say at this time,” I replied.
Gomez didn’t look surprised, but he did look disappointed.
“We’ve got him at the scene, plus the victim’s blood is all over his clothes,” Gomez pointed out. “Fingerprints are all over the place, too.”
