Annie Caughlin – the youngest of them all
“Where were you when you met him, Annie?”
“Coming home along Lee.”
"And what did he say?"
“He asked me if I wanted a ride and I said yes because it was hot and my legs hurt.”
*
Of course! That’s it! This is why my mind was tormenting me. And it was right to. I am a dumb shit!
The Squad Room door swings violently open and Williams burst in. She has changed into black sweats. And she has been running – even at this distance I can see that her brow is glistening and her hair is sticking to her scalp in rats-tails.
She rushes across the room to me. When she reaches my desk, she slams down a piece of paper on it.
“Looks at this,” she says.
It is a map of the town, the pretty one that City Hall sends out to potential new investors. In Beauregard Park there is a picture of the General’s statue, on the river sits a dinky paddle steamer. And there are several black crosses – which Williams has made herself.
“You want to explain?” I ask her.
Williams is breathless, and not just from the running.
“Bobbie is supposed to have left work early, and gone looking for victims,” she says. “But we know he only did it five times and—”
“Might have been more,” I caution her. “The manager of the supermarket didn’t keep records.”
“All right, but it can’t have been more than seven times – tops.”
“Okay,” I agree. “I’ll buy that.”
“And there were five opportunistic attacks. That means that if it was him, he’d have to have been successful nearly every time.”
“Go on.”
“The only way he could have managed that would be to have gone from school to school, looking for a chance, cashing in on a parent’s mistake, taking advantage of a kid’s foolishness.” She points to the crosses she’s made on the map. “The schools in this town simply aren’t close enough together for him to have checked them all out.”
“So you’re saying it couldn’t be done?”
“No, it could be done – but not on foot. I’ve tried it myself. He’d have to have been cruising. He’d have needed a car!”
I hold up the transcript. “Annie Caughlin said her attacker took her for a ride.”
All the way through this investigation, we have assumed that the attacker had a car. Almost everybody in America does have wheels. But Bobbie Hopgood doesn’t. It’s doubtful if the boy who flooded the kitchen while doing the wash is even capable of learning how to drive.
*
Chief Ringman must be the only man in the entire building wearing a jacket, but then he is also the only man in the entire building with an air-conditioner. He sits behind his desk, feet up on an open drawer of his filing cabinet, listening to the theory that Williams and I have come up with. And despite the chilling air which is being blown around, I find myself getting hotter and hotter. Because it is quite clear that Ringman is totally unimpressed.
“It’s interesting,” he admits when I’ve finished, “but look here, I’ve been in police work for thirty years, and it ain’t anything like the biggest coincidence I’ve ever seen.”
“So you’re willing to accept that Bobbie got lucky nearly every time?”
“It happens. Shit, you know yourself how sometimes you can’t do a thing wrong when you go looking for pussy, an’ other times it seems like all the gash in the world has been sewed up tight.”
“This wasn’t pussy,” I say. “This was little children.”
Ringman frowns, like the distinction escapes him.
“Anyways,” he continues, “his luck ran out in the end. Somebody saw him and wrote us that letter.”
“What about Annie Caughlin? She says she was taken for a ride.”
The chief spreads his hands like he’s trying to be reasonable – but I’m making it very difficult for him.
“For Christ’s sake, Kaleta,” he says, “the girl is six years old.”
“Very young pussy!”
“Yeah, very young pussy. She’s been raped, her mind is really fucked up. Who’s to say what she remembers and what she just imagined happened?”
“You don’t want to see it, do you?” I demand. “It’s staring you in the face, and you just don’t want to see it!”
“And you,” he responds, “Michael Kaleta, the shit-hot New York cop, are so fucking smart that you can’t accept the simple answer just because it’s simple. Well, life’s like that sometimes, Kaleta – not complicated, just plain obvious.”
“I want you to kick Bobbie loose,” I say.
Ringman grins.
“Kick him loose?” he repeats. “We’re not gonna release him. Matter of fact, soon as the DNA results get here, we’re gonna charge him.”
At first I can’t believe it – and then suddenly I can.
The politicians have been getting shit from the press, and dumping it right on the Police Department. Then Bobbie Hopgood comes along – the answer to Ringman’s prayers – and the Chief comes up smelling of roses. So what if he’s not guilty? He’s a retard. Let him take the rap.
But I can see one flaw in Ringman’s neat little solution.
“What’s going to happen when the real molester strikes again?” I ask. “What’s going to happen when there’s another attack?”
“There ain’t gonna be no more attacks.”
“You can’t know that for a—”
“There ain’t gonna be no more attacks,” Ringman repeats, and he sounds so sure of himself that I’m almost convinced he’s right.
“Do you know something I don’t?” I ask.
Ringman smiles again – unpleasantly.
“Hell, yes, Kaleta. I know a shitload of things you don’t.”
“Are you taking me off the case?”
Ringman thinks about it.
“No,” he says finally. “I’m not taking you off the case. But I want you to bring me some hard evidence, so that even if the DNA test ain’t conclusive, the District Attorney can nail Bobbie Hopgood but good. Yeah, that’s what I want – not some half-assed theory that he couldn’t have done it because he don’t drive.”
11
Harrisburg Courthouse, six p.m.
The judge’s bench at the front of the room is still unoccupied, but all the chairs facing it are already taken. I look up and see that even what used to called the ‘coloreds’ gallery’ is crammed to capacity – but this afternoon there are few blacks either there or in the main courtroom. The reason for their absence is obvious. None of the victims of the attacks were Afro-American, and there seems to be a consensus of opinion in Harrisburg that this should be kept as pretty much a white affair.
To kill time, I glance around the courtroom. At the prosecution table sits Brad Blaine, who, at 36, is the youngest DA Harrisburg has ever had. So he is an achiever – but only by default. The town’s real go-getters have gone and gotten it somewhere else long time ago. Blaine is wearing a white seersucker suit, which is to help everybody identify him as the good guy; but the heat of the day has taken its toll, and now the suit looks like it has been slept in for about three days straight.
Behind the DA sit the Board of Elders – Porky in the middle, his closest lieutenants either side him of him, the newest Elders at the edges of the row. I speculate about where Craddock would have been seated if he had attended this special session. On Pines’ right hand, I guess. Or, given his power, it might be closer to the truth to say that Porky would have been sitting on Craddock’s left hand.
But Craddock is not here.
I wonder why.
I turn my attention to the defense table. Maxwell Tait sits calm and confident. If the heat is bothering him, it doesn’t show, and the charcoal-gray suit he is wearing could just have come off the dry cleaner’s hanger. Next to him is Bobbie Hopgood – Bobbie, who only yesterday was sitting in the park watching the ducks and worrying his mom would find out that he’d
lost his job. Since then he’s been chased, arrested, beaten up and interrogated.
The poor kid looks totally bewildered. In his place, who wouldn’t?
There is one more face I recognize – the woman sitting two rows behind Tait. Her hair is no longer in curlers, and the cigarette is missing from the corner of her mouth, but the mean, pinched expression on her face has not changed. She is not here because she wants to be – she’s here because that is what Maxwell Tait wants. I try to imagine how the lawyer could have persuaded her to give up her game shows for the sake of her idiot son, and then I realize it must have been easy – all he had to do was make her today’s lucky winner of the big cash prize.
The bailiff rises.
“This court is now in session,” he says in a voice he’s just got to have copied from the actor-bailiffs on TV. “The Honorable William Hanson presiding.”
He’s missed out the ‘all-stand’ part – maybe he’s nervous about playing to such a packed house – but when Hanson comes through the door, we all get to our feet anyway.
Hanson doesn’t look happy, which is no big surprise. Domestic murder is about the most important thing he’s ever handled, and that is no training for dealing with a sensitive case like this one. As he takes his seat, the expression on his face says he wishes he’d fixed his vacation for a little earlier this year.
The DA outlines the charges against Bobbie in a dry, factual tone, and the spectators start shifting in their seats, because most of them have never been to an arraignment before, and they’d expected more fireworks.
The judge sets a short date for trial. Everybody concerned with this case seems to want to expedite matters as quickly as possible – everybody, that is, except for the two police officers actually in charge of the investigation.
“Any objection to bail, Mr Blaine?” Hanson asks the DA.
Blaine rises.
“Yes, Your Honor. The People wish to vigorously oppose it.”
“On what grounds?” the judge asks. “Do you consider the defendant a risk? Is he likely to flee this jurisdiction?”
Blaine looks at Bobbie, then back at the judge, and shakes his head.
“No, Your Honor.”
“Well, then?”
“We see it more as a public safety issue, sir. Feelings are running high, and if the defendant is released on bail there may well be incidents.”
“Damn right there’ll be incidents!” someone – a man – calls from the back of the court.
“We’ll lynch the son-of-a-bitch when we get our hands on him!” another man shouts.
“Order!” Hanson demands, banging down his gavel hard to deter any of the other spectators from voicing their feelings.
The judge waits ten – fifteen – seconds to make sure that order really has been restored, then turns to the counsel for the defense. “Mr. Tait?”
Tait rises to his feet in one smooth, elegant movement.
“The issue here is not whether my client will need protection if he is released on bail,” he says. “It is whether he is entitled to that bail in the first place.”
He is pointing to his client as he speaks. Bobbie notices and smiles at him. But he is not smiling at the attorney who is arguing a legal point on his behalf – he is smiling at the nice man who brought his stuffed panda, Pooky, to his jail cell.
“Bobbie Hopgood has no previous convictions,” Tait continues, “and even the prosecutor admits he is unlikely to fail to appear for his trial. There are no grounds for refusing him bail.”
Hanson turns slightly to the left. He is looking directly at Mayor Pine – searching for guidance – but Porky has his own gaze riveted to a spot on the ceiling, because he is far too smart to be publicly implicated, even indirectly, in any of this.
The judge hesitates for a second, then says, “Bail will be set at one hundred thousand dollars. Ten per cent cash alternative.”
There is a gasp from the audience. If he is asking that kind of money, then it looks as if Bobbie Hopgood will be staying in the slammer.
“A hundred thousand is perfectly acceptable to the defense,” Tait says – and there is another gasp from the crowd.
“And there’ll have to be restrictions on his movements,” the judge says. “He’ll have to promise to stay within three blocks of his family home.”
It takes a while for the pinch-faced, mean-eyed Mrs Hopgood to realize just what Hanson means by ‘family home’, but the second she does she springs to her feet.
“I ain’t having that filthy pervert in my house!” she shouts at the judge.
Bobbie turns around and sees her for the first time.
“Mom …” he begins.
Mrs Hopgood swings round to face her son.
“It ain’t enough you screw up my life!” she screams. “You gotta mess with little kids as well, don’t ya? You disgust me. You dirty bastard – you animal!”
Bobbie buries his head in his hands and sticks his thumbs tightly in his ears. Several of the spectators stand up and start waving angry fists. Everyone is shouting at once – “You dirty bastard! You filthy animal!” – and the judge’s calls for order are drowned in the general sea of noise.
I look at the window at the back of the courtroom – and see Bobbie Hopgood’s one and only chance of getting a fair trial in Harrisburg fly out of it.
*
The judge has returned to his chambers and the prisoner to his cell. The spectators have slowly drifted away, still discussing Mrs Hopgood’s sensational outburst. Now, the courtroom is empty but for a janitor who is sweeping up, and a Polish-American police lieutenant who has some serious thinking to do.
I try to approach the facts in a logical order:
One: Mrs Hopgood didn’t seem to give a shit about her son while we were searching his room, or when Malloy rang her to suggest she get him a lawyer. Therefore, she would never have come to court without Tait persuading her to.
Two: Tait put forward a pretty solid argument for Bobbie being let out on bail, and bail would have been granted but for the fact that …
Three: Mrs Hopgood went wild and said she wouldn’t have ‘the dirty bastard’ anywhere near her home.
So why did Tait arrange for Mrs Hopgood to be here?
I try to give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he thought that having his mother in court was the only way Bobbie could get bail?
No – Tait could have argued that he was willing to put Bobbie up at a motel, where the same three-block restriction would apply.
The janitor bangs his brush noisily against the seats in the row in front of mine, and when I don’t take the hint, he says: “You gonna be much longer, Lieutenant?”
“Couple of minutes,” I promise him.
I have to think this thing through now, while it’s still fresh in my mind.
Okay, Mrs Hopgood wasn’t Bobbie’s only chance of getting bail, but was it possible that Tait figured she was still the best?
Was it? After he’d seen her? After he’d spoken to her, and heard how she felt about her son?
No way!
The janitor moves to the row behind mine, and bangs his brush some more. I ignore him.
Why didn’t Tait tell Mrs Hopgood that he was going to ask for bail so that Bobbie could go home? Why leave it as a surprise? It’s almost like he was engineering her outburst in court.
“I’m lockin’ up in two minutes, Lieutenant,” the janitor says. “You really gotta go.”
“Sure,” I agree, rising to my feet.
There’s really no point in staying, because I have reached a dead-end in my figuring.
As far as I can see, Tait has made all the right moves – and all the wrong ones.
So just what is this smart lawyer from Boston trying to pull?
12
Most people think they know two things about Virginia tobacco – that it is grown exclusively in Virginia, and that it needs rich fertile soil. They are wrong on both counts.
Of course, some of the bright-leaf
tobacco is grown in this state, primarily in Pittsylvania County and (once-upon-a-time) Harris County, but most of it is produced further south, in North Carolina, which named its state capital after Walter Raleigh, the man who poisoned the world.
And it doesn’t need rich soil. On the contrary, it needs thin, sandy soil – soil which is no good for growing anything else.
I think about this as I drive along one of the country roads beyond Prosperity Park – a road flanked by fields which once fed the Bronco tobacco factory, but now are brown, bare and desolate.
I speed past decaying farmhouses and rusting agricultural equipment, and then – suddenly – I am in a different world. Just ahead of me lies a Georgian-style brick house, with a sharply sloping slate roof and four chimneys. The house is surrounded by green fields which seem impossibly lush, and in those fields graze horses which, to my untrained eye, look like thoroughbreds – but then, what do I know?
I pull into the driveway in front of the house, and see a man working on the long, thin flowerbed running parallel to the front veranda. He is wearing a leather apron over his shirt and pants, and has a straw hat on his head, though it is long past the hour when he needs protection from the sun.
The gardener does not look up when he hears the sound of my engine, nor even when I slam the car door shut. It is only when I walk right up to him that he even decides to recognize the fact that I’m here, and by this point I can see that the man under the straw hat is Craddock himself.
“Ah, Lieutenant Kaleta,” he says. “How pleasant to see you.”
“You sound like you’re surprised,” I reply. ‘I’m here because you asked me to come.”
He did. There was a message waiting for me on my desk when I got back from the courthouse. But even without an invitation, I’d have come to see Thurston Craddock soon.
Craddock peels off his gardening gloves – leather, again.
“Shall we step inside, Mr Kaleta?” he suggests. “I always find it easier talking business indoors.”
“Just what kind of business do you think we’ve got with each other?” I ask.
“All in good time,” Craddock tells me. “All in good time.”
Violation Page 8
