Gates of Power

by Peter O'Mahoney

  “On the computer?” I pointed at the screen.

  “Yes, Jack. On the computer.” She closed her laptop, picked up her bag and made her way towards the office door, only to double back to where I was sitting.

  “And Jack,” she said placing her hand on my shoulder. “You have to turn that off,” she glanced at the still flickering image on the television screen: an elderly woman standing in the foreground against a backdrop of an upscale suburban street.

  In my meltdown, I had forgotten to turn off the television screen, leaving Guthrie’s documentary on pause.

  “You’re right,” I said, reaching for the TV remote.

  “Wait!” she exclaimed, suddenly turning white.

  “What’s up? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “What is that?” she said, pointing at the television.

  “What’s what?”

  “That house, what’s its relevance to the documentary?”

  “It’s where the shooter, Alexander, lived. It’s his family home. That’s a neighbor of the shooter, being interviewed about the kid’s unusual personality and obsession with violent video games. Why, what’s wrong?”

  She paused for a long moment, biting her bottom lip.

  “Jack, I remember you saying Hugh was the first person from the media on the scene after the shooting, that he even got there before the cops arrived. You don’t think there could be a connection between Hugh Guthrie and Alexander Logan, do you?”

  “No, why? I don’t understand, what are you getting at Casey?”

  “That place, that house,” she said, pointing at the house on screen. “I was parked outside of it all morning—it’s directly opposite Hugh and Lizzie Guthrie’s home.”

  Chapter 19

  It ended up being a sleepless night anyway.

  As much as I tried to sleep, as much as I tried to keep my eyes shut, my thoughts kept coming back to the documentary of the school shooting.

  They had used Claire’s photo numerous times on the documentary, the photo where she looked like the innocent angel that she was. That image wouldn’t leave my brain, no matter how many times I smashed my head into the pillow. I tossed, I turned, I played with my phone, I read, but nothing could get me to sleep.

  The cold, empty bed was the worst. That collection of sheets, blankets and pillows was vast in a way; an ocean of desolate loneliness.

  Reaching for someone that wasn’t there, looking for someone that was long gone, was as empty a feeling as I’ve ever experienced.

  The missing touch, the absent warmth of another, the longing for something more was bad enough, but it was the silence, that deafening chasm of blankness, that really hurt me.

  I couldn’t sleep in the bed for a month after Claire was taken. I would fall asleep on the couch, a large blanket keeping me warm, the sounds of late-night television humming in the background. I often woke to the early morning preachers, and I’m sure some of their words sunk into my mind subliminally. There were days where I felt downright holy, and I seemingly could quote sections of the bible that I had never read.

  As the years went by, the nights got better, but there was always a nagging unresolved truth that sat not far from the surface. Some nights were fine, some weeks were okay, some months were manageable, but on the whole, I was missing a lot of sleep.

  But even with that pain, it was these nights, the nights when I couldn’t turn off the thoughts in my own head, that almost sent me over the edge.

  When my phone rang at 6am, I welcomed it, almost jumping with joy for the distraction.

  I shouldn’t have been so welcoming.

  “Jack?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s Betsy-Jane, Alfie’s lawyer. We need you, right now. At Alfie’s apartment. You have his address?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then get down here as fast as you can,” the woman said, abruptly hanging up the phone, not even giving me the chance to reply.

  I hadn’t expected a call from Betsy Jane, least of all one begging me for help, but that’s what occurred in the early hours of the trial’s second day.

  Alfie’s mental state had deteriorated rapidly after his first taste of court, to the extent that his defense team had found him in his penthouse, curled up in the fetal position, rocking back and forth, quietly sobbing to himself, adamant that he would not, could not, go back to face the trial. He was mumbling that he had to get to Mexico, had to run away from it all.

  The only person he would talk to was me, and so Betsy made the call.

  By 7am, I was outside his penthouse door.

  “Come in, Jack,” said Betsy, opening up.

  “Where is he?” I replied. We both knew this wasn’t the time for niceties.

  “His bedroom, but before you see him there’s something you should know. As well as his Mexico plan, he’s been looking at suicide websites, searching for how best to kill himself in a quick and painless manner. We found it in his search history. The pressure’s becoming too much for him. And he received an anonymous letter threatening to kill him, from an inmate of the penitentiary he’s most likely to be sent to if found guilty. Look Jack, I know we didn’t get off on the right foot, you and me, but the plea deal is still on the table. We can get him solitary confinement. He can live through the whole experience. It might be the answer. This might be the only the way he’ll live.”

  It wasn’t the right time for me to get into another argument with her, to lay out all the reasons why she was wrong, and the blatant contradictions in her statement.

  No, my priority was seeing Alfie.

  “I’ll talk to him,” I said, in a non-committal response.

  To be honest, I didn’t really know what I was going to say. After all, I was a private investigator, not the kid’s parent or counsellor, but he’d asked for me, so I’d agreed to give it a shot. I found him exactly as he’d been described on the phone, curled up in a ball in his bedroom.

  “Alfie,” I said, reaching out a hand to touch him gently on the shoulder. “We’ve got to get you out of here. We’ve got to get you in court, looking fresh. You need to look innocent for the jury.”

  “I can’t do it, Jack. I’ve had enough. I won’t go.”

  “I know it seems like that. I know it’s hard, but it’s the only way. If you don’t go, they’ll arrest you and drag you there in cuffs, and then you won’t be home here tonight you’ll be in the slammer for breaching the terms of your bail and contempt of court. So that’s the choice. It’s not, go to court or stay here, it’s go to court willingly or get arrested and dragged there.”

  “What’s the point? Why even try? I’m going to be found guilty anyway. I’ve seen the way the jury looks at me, like I did it, like I killed him. They’ve already made up their mind, I can see it. I’m going to die in prison.”

  I recognized the look in his eyes—he was on the tenth floor of his own burning building.

  If he was innocent, if he was guiltless, then the thought of prison must’ve been petrifying. Ten years in prison was paramount to a death sentence for Alfie. I understood his train of thought—why die in there when he could die on the run? If I was facing Alfie’s situation, I’d be reacting the same, or perhaps I would’ve already made a run for the border, knowing what I know about the prison system.

  You see, there would be no quick death in prison for Alfie, instead it would be months of mental and physical torment first, breaking his soul into a withering mess, before landing the killer blow. Yep, no doubt, I would be digging my own tunnel to Mexico.

  “You can’t give up now,” I reasoned. “I haven’t given up, and you can’t either. Look, I didn’t want to tell you this and get your hopes up prematurely, but there’s a significant development in the case, and I’m working on it. But you need to hang in there so I can do my job. Your job right now is to stay strong; you hear me?”

  “What development?” he said, perking up, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand.

  “I can’t say t
oo much, there’s another suspect, and I’m closing in on him. But I can’t do that if you crack now. You have to stay strong, especially now.”

  “You have to tell me what it is, Jack. I have to know.”

  “We’ve got someone else in the television industry that was around the dressing room that night. We’re looking for evidence that proves it, and we’re getting close. We’re almost there.”

  “That’s…” He was breathless. “That’s amazing.”

  “Hey, don’t have a heart attack on me,” I rested my hand on his shoulder. “I don’t want to visit you in the hospital again.”

  “Yes… yes, sir.”

  A flash of optimism flickered momentarily across his face, so I decided to take advantage with some tough love.

  “Man up, Alfie,” I said playfully. “Get yourself dressed and get yourself in that court room. On the double, young man!”

  He leaped to his feet like a new recruit being yelled at by a drill sergeant, a smile across his face.

  I wasn’t going to let him jump out the metaphorical window, nor the literal one.

  Not when we still had a chance.

  Chapter 20

  Despite the developments in the case and my desire to keep chasing the lead, Alfie had pleaded with me to be in court that morning. He said that he couldn’t do it without me there. After a long call to Casey, I agreed to be his support in court, just as importantly, walk him in those courthouse doors, past the crazies that were determined to make a political statement about his case.

  Again, I sat in the back row in the courtroom, tucked away from the judging eyes. Everyone who was there had a reason, and there were no fence sitters. They all had an opinion—hang him from the ceiling or release him right away.

  “The state calls Dr. Christopher Payne,” announced a focused McIntyre when the court had settled in for the morning session.

  The good doctor, an eminent looking physician if ever there was one, made his way to the witness stand.

  “Would you please tell the jury what you do Dr. Payne?” asked McIntyre.

  “I’m the chief medical examiner for district one and part of district two. I’ve held this position for a decade and a half and, if good luck would stay on my side, I’ll do it for many more.”

  “For the benefit of the jury, would you explain what a medical examiner does and a little of your background?”

  “I’m what’s called a forensic pathologist. This means I deal with death of an unexpected and unnatural kind. Instead of disease, I focus on drug overdoses, trauma, shootings, stabbings, road traffic accidents, that sort of thing. And with regards to my background, I first got my degree in 1984 at Oxford University, England, then practiced pathology for five years at Albany Medical Center in New York, then ten years doing forensic pathology for the state of California, after which I took a teaching position in the University of Chicago for five years, and then became a chief medical examiner for the state of Illinois, which I have done for the last fifteen years. I’m certified in clinical, anatomic and forensic pathology.”

  “Can you give an estimate of the number of autopsies you have performed?”

  “It would run into the thousands.”

  “And does your role involve offering an opinion as to cause and manner of death?”

  “Yes, it does.”

  “I want to take you back to the morning of January the twelfth of this year. Could you tell the court what your professional duties were that morning?”

  “I was called to a central location, The Lauderdale Hotel, where a charity event had been held the previous night and a body was found in a dressing room. I entered the premises at around 9:15am and made my initial assessment of the body and its environment.”

  “What did you find?”

  “I found an oddly disturbed crime scene, the body had been dragged from its original location across half of the room, leaving a very clear trail of blood on the beige carpet, indicating its movement from one place to another. And there were blood residues in two locations, a desktop and a table corner. The former of which the head struck, the latter of which it had not.”

  “Dragging a body like that, would it be easy?”

  “Certainly not. The deceased weighed two hundred and forty-three pounds, to be exact, which is a significant weight to attempt to drag across a room. Most people don’t realize how difficult it is to move the deadweight of a body. When a person is conscious, even to a small degree, you could say they ‘assist,’ to a certain extent, in their own movement by another person, by ensuring that their weight is distributed to the other person’s core. Whereas the floppy deadweight of a body is very difficult to distribute to your core muscles and, therefore, problematic to move.”

  “So, it would take a big strong person, to do it?” said McIntyre, glancing towards six-foot four-inch Alfie.

  “Yes, it would, or even two people.”

  “You mentioned that the deceased’s head struck the edge of a table. Could you please give the court your opinion as to the cause and manner in which this occurred?”

  “Brian Gates’ body displayed two clear signs of trauma: the first was classic blunt trauma to the back of the skull, indicative of a percussive effect from a fixed object, the second was a more serious trauma to the side of the skull, which was cracked in this locality. It is my professional opinion that he was either shoved backwards or punched in the face causing him to fall and hit his head on the table This injury was then followed up with the mortal blow, delivered by a champagne bottle with such force as to kill him. His body was then moved in an inept manner to try and obscure the true cause of death.”

  McIntyre spent the next fifteen minutes questioning Dr. Payne, getting him to reiterate several times the central objective of her cross-examination, that it would have taken a strong person to move the body, while, oh, look over there ladies and gentlemen of the jury, a big strong man—Alfie Rose. It was simplistic, but straight out of her normal play book, having once remarked in an interview that, to secure a nail, you have to hit it more than once.

  I left before the end of the cross examination, it was going around in circles and what’s more, I needed space to think. Alfie was running out of time and I needed to formulate a plan; a plan to snare Packman once and for all.

  I stood outside deep in thought and lit up a cigarette, inhaling deeply while staring at the cloudless sky. Packman was on my mind, but he wasn’t the only one. I tried to focus on him but who was I trying to kid?

  There was another presence too, and an unwanted one at that: Alexander, squatting there like he always did, but this time accompanied by another: Hugh Guthrie.

  What did their close residential proximity mean? I wondered. Did they know each other, and if so, how well? Thoughts and theories swirled around my head in bewildering complexity but nothing seemed to make any sense.

  The phone buzzed in my pocket and I looked at the number.

  Laura.

  Not this time, old girl, I reasoned with myself.

  She would have to wait until I could give her something solid. I was closer than I had ever been, but would that satisfy her? Definitely not.

  She rang a second time, and still I ignored it.

  When her third attempt to call came through, I conceded.

  “Jack.” She didn’t even give me the chance to answer the phone. “My time is running out and you haven’t called me. I can almost hear the clock ticking, it’s so loud. I need information, Jack. I need you to solve this.”

  “Today is a good day, then Laura. I’ve got something. A connection.”

  “Between who?”

  “Between two people that were there that day. It’s an unusual connection, and I’m going to chase it, but right now, I’m due back in court.”

  “Good.” She believed me this time. “Chase that lead. Don’t let anything stand in your way.”

  She hung up the phone without so much as a goodbye. I didn’t blame her for the push; if anything, it was what
I needed.

  I made it back inside the courtroom for the afternoon session, and arrived just in time to catch the last witness of the day: Stuart Craft, the backstage security guard at the charity event, a man who was taking a little too much glee, for my liking, at pointing the finger squarely at Alfie.

  He was a funny looking fella: short with stick thin legs but a giant beer gut that flopped over his belt and wobbled like jello, and an oddly creased although shiny-smooth bald head.

  Maybe it was to make a point, or maybe he’d just come from work, but instead of normal court attire, he sat in the stand answering questions in his standard-issue black ‘security’ T-shirt, with said words printed in large letters across the front and back, as if to announce: look at me, I’m a security guard.

  “So just to reiterate, Mr. Craft,” asked McIntyre after ten minutes of testimony about his whereabouts on that day. “You began your shift at 3pm and concluded it at 10pm?”

  “Yeah, that’s right. I finished at 10pm. That’s when I went home.”

  “And you saw the accused, Alfie Rose, enter Brian Gates’ dressing room just before the end of your shift?”

  “Sure did.”

  “And what time was that?”

  “I’d say about five minutes till ten.”

  “Did you observe Alfie Rose’s manner as he entered the dressing room?”

  “His manner?”

  “His demeanor or emotional state, whether he looked happy or sad, calm or aggressive, that sort of thing.”

  “Oh, yeah, I got a good look at his manner, alright. Shifty looking, that’s how I would describe him. He looked shifty, like he was up to something, up to no good, and maybe a bit angry too. Yeah, that’s right, angry.”

  I glanced across at Alfie, who by this stage was shaking his head in despair.

  It was clear to me that the security guard was embellishing, reveling in his little moment of power over Alfie, but as I looked towards the jury my heart sank: they were lapping it up.