Authors: H. Terrell Griffin
Once, a long time ago, I was walking down a jungle path, through an area that had seen a firefight at daybreak. The dead lay where they had fallen: American boys and Vietnamese boys, so different in life, so alike in death. As I rounded a bend in the path I saw a man in the uniform of a North Vietnamese regular, bending over the body of his comrade. He must have heard me a moment before I came into view, because he was already turning and raising his AK-47. I was holding my M-16 at an easy combat ready position, barrel pointing down at a 45 degree angle, finger on the trigger. Before the soldier could get his rifle pointed at me I had a bead on him and was pulling the trigger. It only took a second, from the time I saw him until I killed him. But, in that small space of time I saw it register in his eyes, or perhaps his face. He new that death had come calling, and that he was looking at his killer. I saw resignation, and despair, and regret, and, I think, acceptance.
My shot caught him in the middle of the chest. He was dead before he hit the ground. I kept moving, ever watchful for his buddies, scared as an eighteen year old gets, wondering if this was my day to die. They say that youth is bullet proof, that the young think they will live forever. But I knew better. I had seen too many of my teenage contemporaries die a violent death in that fetid country. I tasted my mortality every day, and on that day, I had killed a man, not for the first time, but close up, like never before. I only had that fleeting glance of my prey, but I have never forgotten him. I wondered often about his life, and about the strings of chance that brought us together on a fine morning in a jungle far from our homes.
Death is random. We never know when or whom it will strike. The healthy young mother who discovers a lump in her breast, the teenager on his way to school who happens to share the road with a drunk driver, a soldier on a jungle path who was a millisecond slower than another soldier on the same path.
But while death is finality for the deceased, it is perhaps only a small memory for the soldier who lived, or the doctor who told the mother she was past hope. And death is grief for those left behind.
So, on a bright spring day, we sat in a bar overlooking the water, and remembered Connie. We told funny stories about her, some larger than the reality, and mourned her in our way. We said goodbye to a woman we all liked, knowing that soon she would begin to fade into the evermore dimming recesses of our memories.
Summer comes quickly in Southwest Florida. One day the humidity drops in like an unwelcome guest, bringing wet air that causes people to sweat as soon as they leave the air conditioning. The sea breezes cross the coasts on both sides of the peninsula driving the thunderstorms that bring the daily rain that, for a time, cools the afternoons.
That year, Summer arrived in mid-May. There had been no rain, and over in the middle of the state forest fires raged. There was turmoil in the middle east, the Democrats and Republicans were fighting over tax cuts in Washington, and a young Midwestern governor named George Wentworth, the son of a former United States Senator, was making his run for the Republican presidential nomination, even though the nominating convention was more than a year away.
It had been a month since Connie’s death, and the island had hardly burped over it. Life moved on. The world does not intrude loudly on Longboat Key, and in a place with as many old people as these islands, death was familiar. I missed Connie, but every day she receded further into my memory. Once in a while, I would walk into a bar, knowing the local crowd would be there on that particular day, and be momentarily surprised at Connie’s absence. We didn’t talk about her much, except to occasionally wonder who could have murdered her.
There had been a flurry of articles in the daily newspapers over on the mainland in the first week after her murder. I read that the police had found Connie’s apartment undisturbed. Her car was parked in her reserved space in the apartment parking lot. There was no sign of a struggle in the car. There were no leads on the perpetrators. It was a real life mystery that caused a lot of gossip on the key. The island weekly ran an article about her death, and the next week a follow up personality profile in which I was quoted. A columnist in Sarasota, who seemed to hate policemen in general and Longboat Key policemen especially, ran a couple of columns castigating law enforcement for not finding the murderer. Logan was never mentioned.
Logan had stayed at my condo for a couple more days until he got a call from Chief Lester telling him he could move back to his own place. On Monday Logan left Sarasota-Bradenton airport on his next business trip and returned to the island on Friday. He and everyone else settled back into their routines.
On a bright morning, the third Saturday in May, Chief Lester called me at home. He didn’t waste any words. “Matt, late yesterday the Manatee County grand jury indicted Logan for the murder of Connie Sanborne. Banion and I are heading to his place to arrest him. I thought you would want to be there.”
“What? You can’t be serious.” I said, stunned.
“Dead serious, Matt. We’re leaving the station now.”
I was wearing shorts, boat shoes and a tee shirt from the key’s most recent annual St. Jude’s festival. I headed for Logan’s, thinking that this was a chickenshit thing for the State Attorney to do. Logan could not possibly get before a judge for a bail hearing before Monday. He would have to spend at least two nights in the lockup. Then it occurred to me that if the State Attorney took the case to a grand jury rather than filing an information, it would be a first degree murder indictment. It was almost impossible to get a judge in Florida to set bail on a murder one case. Logan would probably have to stay in jail until the trial.
I arrived at Logan’s place just as the chief and Banion drove up in an unmarked car. I shook hands with both and asked, “What the hell is this all about, Bill? I thought everyone was convinced that Logan had nothing to do with Connie’s murder.”
“I was, Matt,” said the chief. “But new evidence came up, and the State Attorney went for the indictment.”
“What new evidence?” I asked.
“You’ll have to get that from the State Attorney, Matt. I just thought you’d like to be here.”
“Damn, Bill, I wish I weren’t here. Can I go talk to him before you arrest him?”
“Fuck no, counselor,” said Banion. He still smelled of old whiskey and stale cigarette smoke. His eyes were the red of a first rate hangover. “We’re taking that fucker to jail. Now.”
“Bill?” I implored.
“Go on up, Matt. We’ll give you five minutes.”
“What the fuck, chief? You shouldn’t even have called this fuckhead. Let’s get the bastard in the car and take him to the stockade.”
“Go on, Matt. We’ll wait,” the chief said.
I took the elevator to the fourth floor, dreading this message more than any I had ever delivered. I knocked on the door. No answer. I knocked again, and then peered over the walkway railing to the parking lot. Logan’s car was gone. I felt a great sense of relief, and immediate guilt at my relief. It would be better for me to break this to Logan than to have Banion arrest him and haul him off to jail.
I went back downstairs and told the cops that Logan was not at home. “Bullshit,” said Banion.
“Go see for yourself asshole,” I said. “You’re such a genius you didn’t check the parking lot for his car.”
“Fuck you, Counselor,” said Banion.
“He always says that,” I said to the chief.
“Calm down, both of you,” said Lester. “You sound like a couple of schoolyard bullies trying to outdo each other. Do you know where he is, Matt?”
“No, I don’t,” I said honestly and, I hoped, earnestly. “It’s Saturday morning. Maybe he’s playing golf. He doesn’t check in with me everyday. He might be out of town for the weekend. Sometimes his trips keep him out for more than a week. What made the state decide to indict him?”
“DNA,” said the chief. He had apparently changed his mind about telling me about the evidence.
“What?”
“Connie had been raped. We never mentioned it to the public, but the medical examiner found it when he did the autopsy. He was able to get a sample of semen from her vagina and sent if off for DNA testing. We also tested some hair the techs found in Logan’ comb in his bathroom. There was a match. It’s like a billion to one chance that the semen isn’t Logan’s. The results were faxed to us Thursday and the State Attorney took it to the grand jury late yesterday.”
“Something’s wrong here, Bill. You know Logan wouldn’t do something like this.”
“I wouldn’t think so, Matt. But you never really know what people are capable of. The DNA evidence is hard to refute.”
“What now?” I asked.
“We find the mother,” growled Banion, “and we put his ass in jail, and then we try him and put it in the electric chair.” A real hardass.
“Fuck you, Banion. You’ll have to go over me to convict him,” I said. Hardass is a two way street.
“Bring it on, fuckhead,” he said.
“Jesus,” said Bill Lester. “Both of you are nuts. Let’s go Banion. If you hear anything Matt, let me know.”
“Sure, Bill. Listen, if you find Logan, go easy. There’s probably an explanation for all this.”
“I hope so, Matt, but I don’t really think so.”
The two cops loaded into the unmarked and headed back south on Gulf of Mexico Drive, leaving me standing in the hot sun, roasting like a pig on a spit. I was stunned. Logan couldn’t have done this. On the other hand, after O.J., everybody in the country knew that DNA evidence was as solid as you ever get. Including me.
I went back to my condo, and popped a cold Miller Lite. I was restless, not sure what to do. In a fit of little boy pique at that idiot Banion, I had announced that I would take Logan’s case. I guess I could back down, but I hated to lose face in front of Banion. As if it really mattered. I’d probably go the rest of my life and never see him again, and Bill Lester would certainly understand that I was retired and the reasons why I didn’t want to represent Logan. And yet, the juices were flowing. They hadn’t done that in a long time. I was starting to plot trial strategy, thinking about how to get bail set, whose depositions to take, where to hire a DNA expert for the defense. I didn’t want to do this. Should I move for a change of venue? No, I wasn’t his lawyer. A lot of people on the mainland do not like Longboaters, thinking we are all as snobbish as some of the denizens of the high rises on the south end of the key. Would Logan be better off with say, an Orlando jury? Not my call. I was retired. I’d better bone up on the Florida Rules of Criminal Procedure. Why? I wasn’t taking the damn case. The phone rang.
“Hey, Matt.” It was Logan, his voice strained.
“Logan. Have they arrested you yet?”
“You know, then. How?”
“Bill Lester called about an hour ago and asked me to go to your condo with them. Where are you?”
“That’s not important, Matt. I need to know if you are going to represent me.”
“What’s going on Logan? Talk to me.”
“If you’re my lawyer I can tell you anything and it will be privileged, right? You can’t tell anybody.”
“That’s right, Logan, unless you tell me you’re going to commit a crime. In that case the privilege goes out the door.”
“Tell me you’re my lawyer, Matt, and I’ll talk to you.”
“Okay. I’ll be your lawyer. But only for now. As soon as we can get things sorted out, we’ll hire you a lawyer.”
“Good enough, for now. I’m in Boston. I called my answering machine this morning, and there was a message on it telling me I had been indicted. I think it was Mary White, but I can’t be sure.”
Mary White was a long time friend of almost everyone on the key. She had come down from Tennessee more than forty years ago, and had been married to a Manatee County cop all that time. He was near retirement, and did not go on patrol anymore. He had some sort of desk job, maybe warrants. He must have mentioned it to Mary, and she felt it was her duty to alert Logan.
“What’s going on, Matt?”
“I don’t know much. Bill Lester said that the medical examiner found that Connie had been raped, and the DNA in the semen matched the DNA from some hair taken from your comb. They just got the test results back. When are you coming in?”
“I’m not, Matt.”
“You’ve got to Logan.” I was alarmed. The worst thing Logan could do was become a fugitive.
“There’s no bail for first degree murder, is there Matt?”
“No, but maybe we can talk the judge into making an exception.”
“I’m not willing to bet on that, Matt. I’ll keep in touch. I didn’t do this, Matt.”
“Logan, I want to believe you, but the DNA is a killer.”
“The semen was mine. We had sex that evening, rough sex. She liked it like that sometimes. But it wasn’t rape, and I didn’t kill her.”
“You told me you hadn’t seen Connie that night after she left Moore’s.
“I know,” he said. “That was a stupid thing to do, but once it was out of my mouth I was embarrassed to tell you I had lied. I’m sorry, Matt.”
“Alright. I accept that, Logan. Give me the name of your Army buddy, the one you were with that night, and I’ll see about getting a statement that will give you a ready alibi. If we can show that the state’s case is weak, we’ll have a better chance at bail.”
“I don’t know his name, Matt.”
“Come on, Logan. An army buddy you spent an evening with and you don’t know his name?”
“I’ll be in touch, Matt. Soon. I’ll call your cell phone at eight A.M. sharp, when I call. If you’re not there, I’ll call back every other hour on the hour until I get you. If you need me, call Fred.” He gave me his brother Fred’s number and hung up.
Anybody with a lick of sense would see that Logan had put me in a tough position. I knew he wasn’t coming back to be arrested, but if I told the cops that, they would get real antsy and issue all kinds of bulletins. The police would know that Logan was from Boston and would alert the department there. They would find his brother, and maybe Logan. But I was a lawyer, and my duties went only to my client. I had no duty to tell the cops anything, and would probably violate my oath as an attorney if I did say anything. It was a no-brainer. Let the cops find him.
I locked up and headed to mid-key for lunch at a bar and restaurant called O’Sullivans’. It was a pleasant Irish country inn sort of place owned by two sisters from County Cork, Molly and Irene O’Sullivan. They were about a year apart in age, both in their early forties. They had worked as barmaids and waitresses in several places on the island for ten years, often working two jobs each and saving their money. About ten years before, they were able to make a down payment on a place that had housed several different restaurants over the years, all unsuccessful. An Irish country inn setting on a beach may seem a little incongruous, but it worked. Because they were well known to the locals, and because the locals appreciated their spunk, O’Sullivans’ was well patronized. The girls, as they were universally called on the island, were doing well, but they were working sixteen hour days to make it go. I had gotten to know the sisters when I was living part-time on the island, and ate at their place as often as possible.
I arrived about two o’clock, still early enough for lunch, but late for the crowd. Glenda, the elegant blond hostess, was behind the bar. I was the only customer. I took a seat at the bar, and ordered the cottage pie, which is beef stew without the vegetables, cooked in a deep dish with a thick crust of mashed potatoes, browned on the top, covering the beef. I ordered a Harp, an Irish beer on tap.
Molly saw me and came over. “Hey, Matt. How are you? I heard they indicted Logan.” Her years in Florida had robbed her of most of her Irish brogue, and all those hours working were taking their toll on what was left of her youth.