Almost Mortal

by Chris Leibig

  PRAISE FOR

  “The verdict is in – Attorney Christopher Leibig offers a legal thriller for the ages. Realistic yet unpredictable, with a clever metaphysical twist, Almost Mortal is a thrilling roller coaster ride!”­

  —Robert Dugoni,

  #1 Amazon, New York Times and Wall Street Journal

  Best Selling Author of My Sister’s Grave

  “A poised protagonist leads this serpentine but engaging legal tale.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “When Almost Mortal’s cynical, brilliant but big-hearted public defender offers to take on a legal conundrum worthy of a John Grisham thriller, he uncovers surprising details about his own past and is confronted with a mystery reminiscent of the magical realism of a Gabriel García Márquez tale. A page-turner that you’ll probably want to read twice.”

  —Patricia McCardle,

  author of Amazon’s award-winning novel, Farishta.

  “Leibig invites readers into the creative, chaotic, and often caustic environment of criminal defense work while presenting both its intensely real, human side and engaging our fantastical, supernatural curiosities about good and evil.”

  —Sarah Burke,

  capital mitigation investigator and managing partner of

  Virginia-based investigative firm, Burke and Associates

  “…You will sit down with Almost Mortal and not want to put it down.”

  —AuthorsReading.com

  “Everyone who investigates and litigates serious criminal cases has had that one case they’ll never forget, the one that haunted them, seduced them, or just turned in a completely unexpected direction. This book is about that case.”

  —Phil Becnel,

  Private Investigator, Managing Partner of Dinolt, Becnel,

  and Wells, and author of Principles of Investigative

  Documentation and When Your Lover is a Liar

  “Chris Leibig’s quick moving legal thriller mixes accurate insights into the world of criminal defense attorneys with the unusual and unexpected twists of the novel’s surrounding events. It’s hard to put down and leaves you with much to think about.”

  —John Kenneth Zwerling,

  Nationally known Washington, D.C. Criminal Defense Attorney

  “After narrating five of his books, Chris Leibig has become one of my favorite authors. They’re smart, entertaining, engrossing and addictive. His latest, Almost Mortal, is the jewel in his crown and lives up to all these adjectives. Needless to say, I recommend it highly.”

  —Steve Carlson,

  Audible audiobook narrator, actor and author of Heaven,

  Almost Graceland, and Final Exposure.

  “Chris Leibig takes readers on a surreal and sublime journey to catch a serial killer through the eyes of wickedly clever and cunning hero…”

  —Anne Marie DiNardo,

  2011 Rod Serling Screenwriting Competition Finalist.

  Almost Mortal

  by Christopher Leibig

  © Copyright 2016 Christopher Leibig

  ISBN 978-1-63393-179-4

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other – except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior written permission of the author.

  This is a work of fiction. The characters are both actual and fictitious. With the exception of verified historical events and persons, all incidents, descriptions, dialogue and opinions expressed are the products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.

  Published by

  210 60th Street

  Virginia Beach, VA 23451

  212-574-7939

  www.koehlerbooks.com

  DEDICATION

  This book is dedicated to Janis Elaine Leibig.

  You shall have no other gods before Me.

  EXODUS 20:3 (NKJV)

  Table of CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  PROLOGUE

  AUGUST 13, 2015, HAVANA, CUBA

  Other than the famed Zapruder film of the JFK assassination, it was probably the most viewed video clip of a true-life murder in world history. Rarely had a killing been perpetrated at a moment when its victim was already the focal point of dozens of state-of-the-art cameras and thousands of curious eyes. The perfection of the angle, the crispness of the color, the starkness with which a viewer could watch the transformation of a human body from a vibrant vessel to empty flesh had never before been achieved—at least not publicly. All the networks—local and national—got the footage. But it was the local ABC 7 News that scored the ultimate prize—the shot that actually captured the eyes going blank a fraction of a second before the body collapsed. More spellbinding than the quality of the film, though, would be its significance. It was the mystery that made people watch the clip again and again.

  In the days since its making, the lawyer, despite having been a close eyewitness to the event, had never watched the clip. Nor had he taken part in the international debate, fostered mostly by cable news and religious groups, about whether the victim could possibly have survived the brutal bullet wound. People had survived being shot in the head—but not like that.

  The lawyer gazed across the Plaza Vieja. Three elderly women, evenly spaced, walked slowly across the square through a foraging flock of pigeons. He had never met or seen any of the trio before, but he instinctively knew that all three were widows who had probably been friends since childhood. He could tell from their strides, their pace, and the gestures of the chubby one in the middle, who was likely telling a boring old story about her deceased husband again.

  The lawyer looked down at his tablet. His finger hovered over the link that would show him the video clip of the famous murder. He may as well watch it now. The clock in the corner of the screen showed it was two twenty-five. He sipped his coffee and took a long drag from his cigarette.

  He wondered from which direction his guest, or guests, would approach. If at all. In any other similar situation, he would instinctively know whether someone was running late for a meeting, was not going to show up at all, or whether the person he planned to meet even existed. But here, he knew none of the above for certain.

  He opened the folder in front of him and saw the neatly clipped sheaf of papers the old priest had given him. He would read until his guests arrived, or until he figured out where in his past he had seen that writing before.

  CHAPTER 1

  “I JUST SCOOPED HER—just kind of scooped her.”

  As he spoke, Jonathon P. Scarfrowe swung his arm slowly, as if to underhand a softball. He stopped for a moment and focused intently down at his twitching middle finger, which darted out from his hand like a practiced tentacle. Scarfrowe’s pursed lips and excited eyes revealed that he was reliving the event he sought to describe. Deputy Public Defender Sam Young watched Scarfrowe closely. He always marveled at how some of his clients, like Scarfrowe, knew with such utter certainty who they were. They simply l
acked the ability to feel self-conscious. Scarfrowe, short and round with a boyish face and red hair, blinked innocently back.

  The lockup deputy, a beefy sheriff’s department veteran named Plosky, leaned against the wall with his arms folded and rolled his eyes at the ceiling. The dank, cement-walled room between the Bennet County, Virginia courthouse cells and the courtroom could barely hold the small group, given Plosky’s gut.

  Scarfrowe’s gesture had revealed so much more than he likely knew. His lawyers had merely asked him to explain how he knew the surprise witness, whose testimony they were about to face on the last day of trial. Yet Scarfrowe’s dismissive gesture operated as a confession of sorts— perhaps not to the crime for which he was on trial, but to a way of life. Scarfrowe had served time for rape at age seventeen and aggravated sexual battery at twenty-five. And now, at age forty-seven, he was on trial for tackling and groping a woman on a bike path. A quick grope, really, but the victim had described in detail how Scarfrowe’s practiced fingers had found their way down the front of her pants in mere seconds. Scarfrowe’s problem, aside from his criminal record—which set him up for mandatory life in prison, if convicted—was that he had worn a black ski mask at the time and was immediately apprehended by an off-duty cop out for a jog. To make matters worse, eight other women in Bennet County had recently reported similar groping by a masked little pervert in the same vicinity.

  Once tackled by the cop, Scarfrowe had apologized profusely for attempting to grab the woman’s purse. That piece of obfuscation laid the groundwork for his defense—that he was guilty only of simple abduction, not abduction with intent to rape—which would count as a third violent sexual assault and guarantee a life sentence. Scarfrowe was one of those who learned his true nature early and stuck with it, despite the costs.

  “I didn’t make me this way,” he once said.

  Sadly for Scarfrowe, the prosecutor had just come up with a surprise witness—a detective who had interviewed a twenty-four-year-old Scarfrowe after a grope and run at a local mall back in the early 1990s. Scarfrowe had similarly claimed an interest in the purse on that occasion—a statement belied by the victim’s testimony that Scarfrowe had spent considerable energy jamming his hand into her crotch; thus, the emergency lockup conference.

  Sam shook his head, glanced at the deputy, and made eye contact with his co-counsel, Amelia Griffin, a new public defender. She was now second chairing her first big case. And it was about to blow.

  “She’s full of it, Sam,” Scarfrowe said in a crisp whisper. “I swear to it. I never tackled her. It was more of a scoop.” He then seared the moment into Sam’s memory by repeating the scooping gesture with a bit more flair, his tongue wiggling out to mirror the flailing finger.

  Sam pushed Scarfrowe’s hand back down to his side while glancing at Amelia, who blushed but appeared stern and serious, hand on her chin.

  “This is bad, Jon. Real bad.”

  Scarfrowe frowned. “I never tackled her. I scooped her—”

  “Jon, it doesn’t matter whether you tackled her or scooped her.” Sam rubbed his hands over the top of his shaved head and sighed. “The point is the pattern of claiming you just wanted the purse. Follow me? The jury is not going to believe you went for a purse and got crotch—twice.”

  Sam could sense Amelia’s heart rate spike. She was not used to it yet—the emergencies and things not going according to plan, which was always. He put a hand on Scarfrowe’s shoulder.

  “You should have told us you tried the purse gambit before.”

  The odd thing about Scarfrowe as a client was that he always acted like the whole thing was a television show. With him there was no desperation, no pleading, no embarrassment, no blaming the cops or his lawyers. He was who he was. I just kind of scooped her.

  “I’ll cooperate,” Scarfrowe said. But they had been over this before. Scarfrowe regularly offered up the idea that he would become a cooperating witness in exchange for a sentencing deal. The problem was, he didn’t know anything about anyone else’s crimes. He didn’t hang out with drug dealers, scammers, fencers, or any criminal types. He was the apocryphal cable guy who lived alone and kept to himself—most of the time, anyway.

  Scarfrowe leaned close, tilting his head suspiciously towards the deputy.

  “Suppose I got information on the murders.” Sam could see an excited light in his eyes over his usual amused smirk. “A guy on our block confessed to me.”

  If true, Scarfrowe’s plan could work. Lead the cops to the only serial killer in Bennet County history, right? Three murders. Three savagely butchered women in three months in the relatively wealthy Washington, DC suburb. Despite the police department’s best efforts, the press had anointed the mysterious sicko as the Rosslyn Ripper, a blend of the infamous Brit and the business district just over the bridge from Georgetown.

  “Who confessed?” Sam asked.

  Scarfrowe hesitated. “Suppose I told you it was Morris Talberton.”

  “Won’t work. Morris Talberton has been locked up since October. He couldn’t have murdered anybody.”

  As a seven-year veteran of the Bennet County public defender’s office, Sam knew most of the regular clients and a lot about their pending cases. “I’m sorry, Jon.”

  Scarfrowe shrugged. “Nah, I’m sorry. Shouldn’t have tried to bullshit ya.”

  “That’s okay. You’re under a lot of pressure. I get it.”

  “Don’t worry about me. We’re gonna win. Five years. I can see it from here.” Scarfrowe rubbed his fingers against his chin, exuding a creepy confidence. “Juror number six, Ms. Buttertree, and Juror number nine, William Hasbrow—they’re dead sure I was going for the purse. Ain’t no changin’ their minds. And Hasbrow’s likely to be the foreman. Them others are lost souls.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Sam said.

  “Strange days,” Scarfrowe said, more to himself than to Sam. Scarfrowe loved to say strange days. He used the phrase casually, the same way a hipster might say good times.

  While Sam and Amelia waited for the deputy to buzz the door open, Scarfrowe spoke up again, raising, as he often did, a topic that had nothing to do with the problem at hand.

  “Hey, Sam, I hear you’re gonna represent Gilbert Hogman.”

  “I haven’t heard that. Who’s Gilbert Hogman?”

  “Got booked last night. He’s at the jail. Mental health unit. That shitbird’s crazy. So watch out.”

  “Thanks for the advice.”

  Deputy Plosky buzzed the door, allowing himself, Sam, and Amelia to re-enter the courtroom. “That guy’s a piece of work,” Plosky said.

  “We’re all pieces of work,” Sam said.

  He flipped through his notes. He had about five minutes left to craft a cross-examination of the cop who would likely sink the case against Scarfrowe.

  As he and Amelia crossed into the courtroom, Sam heard Scarfrowe speak to the deputy.

  “Court’s gonna go late. Can you call over and have ’em save my dinner?”

  His dinner. Back at the jail. Funny.

  •••

  One hour later, with Scarfrowe’s chances of dodging the sex offense conviction severely reduced, Sam and Amelia stood in front of the courthouse, reflecting on the miserable trial. The sticky July day started to cool. Sam smoked a cigarette as Amelia rattled through ideas for her closing argument. The courthouse lights went off, all but the large, round spotlights that illuminated the high columns atop the front steps.

  “At least the judge gave us until Thursday to prep for the closing argument,” Sam said.

  “Let’s say I end with the reasonable doubt part. They have a choice between two equally viable options, and with no particular reason to choose one over the other, they have to choose the one that favors the defendant,” Amelia said. “That’s our system. It’s better that ten guilty persons go free than one innocent suffer—”

  “Work on that, Amelia,” Sam said. “Make sure you have enough emotional stuff in there, not just
legal concepts. Sympathize with what’s her face. Be her, even. They have to like you. They can hate me; they can even hate Jon. But they have to like you. Be sympathetic. You can only imagine how horrifying it is to be attacked like that, at night, alone, from behind. What’s her name shouldn’t even be expected to remember exactly how it happened. And do not say the thing about the ten guilty people. The do-gooders on the jury don’t agree with Blackstone on that one. They hate the idea of guilty people on the loose.”

  Sam studied Amelia under the fluorescent courtyard lights. He impulsively reached out and lightly touched the side of her head, adjusting her wig. The otherwise flawless, straight blonde hair that Amelia had sported for the last six months had slipped out of place ever so slightly, perhaps due to the humidity and her animated gestures.

  She looked down. “Oh.”

  “You’ll be great. Don’t stay up all night on this; you have all day tomorrow to work on the closing. Get enough rest, and besides—”

  “Sam, you fucking promised!” Promised never to refer to her illness. Promised never to feel sorry for her. Sam held up his hands defensively.

  “Mr. Young?”

  A woman stood near them. Just far enough away to not be rude, but close enough to politely interrupt the conversation. Had she come from the courthouse?

  “My name is Camille Paradisi. I work at Church of the Holy Angels.”

  She extended her hand. She looked about thirty-five, if that, and wore a black beret and a long, dark tunic that hung loosely around her figure. It obscured, judging by her thin face and lower legs, a svelte, fit body. Long black hair twined around both shoulders as if blown there from behind. Holy Angels? Her sultry pose—hand on one hip, back slightly arched, and one high heel aimed off to the side—did not match her church employment. She was a beautiful young woman who conveyed a confidence beyond her age. Maybe the body language was learned. Part of an act, like cursing too much, speaking too loudly, or chomping on gum to affect the overdone nonchalance displayed by lots of young lawyers and cops. But Sam didn’t think so.