Blood of Angels (10 page)

“OK, Mr. Hale,” I say. “Take me through the crime. Let's start with when you got up that morning. Where were you?”

Buchanan interrupts, as if on signal. “What happened was a long time ago. Trying to resurrect these details seven years after the fact is a stretch.”

“Bullshit,” I say. “I want him to tell me what he had on, and I'm talking down to boxers or briefs. I want to know whether or not he shaved that day. I want to know where he bought the shotgun shells and where he loaded the gun. I want
everything.
”

“You want to catch some tiny detail that's not accurate, and use that as an excuse to call him a liar,” Buchanan says.

“Are you telling me that your client is so blasé about killing two people that he can't even recall where he got up that morning?”

“I'm not saying anything of the kind,” Buchanan says, flushing. “But after such—”

“After what, dammit?” Rayburn interrupts. He's been quiet until now, but he can't take it anymore. “The whole thing's a load of shit. Somebody like Hale would have hunted Wilson down like a dog and blown him away. He tried to rip off Thomas's head thirty seconds ago, and everybody in this room saw it. This frame-up job is a crock.”

“When it comes to that, there's more than one killer in the room,” Buchanan spits. “How many have you sent down the river, Mr. District Attorney? You got ninety more waiting to die right now. Compared to you, my client is a choir boy.”

“Goddamn it,” Rayburn says, “if you think—”

We're seconds away from turning into a full-on circus, and I can't actually figure out if that's good or bad. Normal rules don't apply when there's so much at stake. But I don't have the chance to calculate, because Hale's voice enters the argument, as dark and quiet as spreading oil. “I can prove it,” he says. “I can prove what I say.” Rayburn freezes in midsentence. Hale has mastered himself again, and he's sitting with his shackled hands folded in front of him on the table. He is very still inside, his eyes focused straight ahead.

“Now would be the time,” I say quietly.

“The gun,” Hale says. “You never found the gun.”

I look up warily. “That's right. There was an extensive search, but it had vanished.”

“I know where it is,” Hale whispers. “You can match it to the shells at the scene. Case closed.”

I look at Buchanan. “You knew about this?” Buchanan smiles, which means he did. “OK, Mr. Hale. Where's the gun?”

Buchanan touches Hale's arm. “Not this way, Kwame. By tonight, it will be gone, like it never existed.”

“Are you saying we would tamper with the evidence in this case?” Rayburn demands.

“Everybody in this room knows what's on the table here,” Buchanan retorts. “If that gun disappears, it's like Kwame Jamal never happened.”

Carl, until now, has said nothing. I've almost forgotten about him, this mountain of a man, wordlessly listening on my left. He clears his throat, and everybody shuts up and turns toward him. “We are men of integrity,” he says, just those words. Carl Becker is the real deal, and accusations of illicit behavior bounce off him like pebbles off a boulder. He turns to Rayburn. “We can go together to the location, with a forensic team,” he says. “It's not worth fighting with somebody like this.”

Rayburn nods. “Today is Tuesday. Is there any reason we can't do this by Friday?” Buchanan shakes his head. “Good.” Rayburn stands, and Carl and I rise with him. “Ten a.m. Friday, my office,” he says. “Don't make my people wait.”

 

TEN FEET OUT OF
high security, I pull the escort aside. “Take me by Hale's cell,” I say, under my breath. The guard nods, looks up at the officer in the control room, and points to the door. The door snaps open, and we walk across the polished floor to a cell on the opposite side. The guard points to a small window, and I peer in. The metal furnishings are standard prison issue. There are a few posters of girls in bikinis on the wall—apparently, Hale's Islamic convictions only go so far—and a small television set on a table. “When did he get the TV?” I ask.

“About four months ago, I think. The lawyer brought it.”

Five minutes later, we've been released back out into the gravel parking lot in front of the prison castle. The white granite walls behind the prison shine in the sun. If it wasn't a seat of human misery, we would be in a beautiful place.

“He's lying,” Rayburn says. “I didn't know what to think at first, but I swear to God, he's lying.”

“Sure,” I say, agreeing more out of loyalty than anything. “He's lying.”

“Did you see that TV?” Rayburn asks. “There are two hundred guys in that building willing to lie to get something like that.” Rayburn's right; I've had perps rat out their best friends just for the promise of a private cell.

Carl's eyes are locked on the windows of Brushy Mountain Prison. “If he is lying,” he says quietly, “I'd like to know how he got that shotgun.”

 

THE MILES REVERSE
themselves as we head back in Rayburn's car, returning us to an office filled with workers who don't know anything about our visit to Brushy Mountain. Carl and I are ostensibly taking one of the fifty or so vacation days we have accumulated, and Rayburn is supposedly off raising money for his reelection campaign. About thirty miles from Brushy Mountain, I ask the obvious. “How long can we keep this quiet? If we find the gun, I mean.”

“Nothing's conclusive until we run the ballistics,” Rayburn says. “I can stretch that out at least a week. Maybe two.”

“You know Buchanan's going to want his own lab to do the test,” Carl says.

“Yeah, and he can kiss my ass. Anyway, if we get a positive, he's not gonna complain.”

“You think Buchanan is going to keep his mouth shut until then?” I ask.

Rayburn stares ahead at the road. “It's like that Geraldo thing. The one with the vault. Remember that?”

“Al Capone's vault in Chicago,” Carl says from the back. “Huge TV numbers, and there was nothing there. Geraldo looked like a moron.”

“It's been more than seven years since the murders,” I say. “A lot of things can happen to a gun in seven years. It can get found, or destroyed, or even paved over, depending on where it is.”

Rayburn drives on silently for a second, then pulls off the road. He parks on the gravel and turns in his seat. “This guy Buchanan's got an ego. Think about it. Uncovering the murder weapon that proves, for the first time, the wrong person was executed in this country. It'd be on every news outlet on Earth.”

“He's not going to risk a Geraldo,” I say. “He wouldn't be doing this unless he knew the gun was there.”

“That's my point. I'd bet my pension he's
been
to the site. He
knows
what's going to happen. And if he's been to the site, it's potential evidence tampering.”

“Gentlemen,” Carl says, “we might be into a full-blown Geraldo-type situation. He probably already has some choice media contacts in the loop, waiting to pounce.”

“Jesus H. Christ,” Rayburn whispers. He slips the car into gear and floors it.

WE SHOW UP
at the office about 3:30, half expecting to find an army of reporters waiting on us. Rayburn even makes us come up the elevators separately, to dispel the notion that we've been together. But it's wasted effort; we slip into the office without a blip, and nobody asks where we've been. “Calm before the storm,” Carl says, when we meet in the hall a few minutes later. “Something's coming. I can feel it.”

I head back to my office, and Stillman materializes beside me—he's developed the talent of appearing out of nowhere—and follows me inside. He's dressed immaculately, as usual, and he carries a Coach briefcase that costs 450 bucks. I know this because I priced it myself and decided it was too expensive. He flops into a chair and somehow manages to keep his clothes perfectly in place.
This
guy is going to last six months,
I think.
Then it's Jeff Stillman, reporting from Hollywood on the latest washed-up actor accused of whacking his wife.

“You look good, Stillman. Your parents rich or something?”

“Good clothes are an investment.”

“For what? You already got the job.”

“So,” he says. “What happened up there?”

“Shut the door.” He shrugs, closes the door, and turns back to me. “Nothing happened, Stillman. The professor told us what's on his mind, and we're going to check a few things out. Other than that, it was a big washout.”

Stillman looks disappointed. “Really? That's great.”

“Meanwhile, we're keeping our mouths shut. So unless there's something else, Stillman, I'll catch you tomorrow.”

“You forgetting the pretrial conference?”

I exhale. “God, I forgot. With Tamra Hartlett's family.”

“They're already here. They're waiting in the small conference room.”

“Sure. Give me a second, OK?” Stillman doesn't move. “I mean alone.”

“OK, but they're waiting.” I motion for him to close the door behind him.

I spin my chair around to the window and look down on downtown Nashville.
I'm going to have to come to terms with Stillman,
I think.
I can't keep treating him like shit.
The traffic is light on Second Avenue; a handful of tourists are wandering around, probably wondering why Toby Keith or somebody isn't standing on a street corner playing guitar. What I have to do, I realize, is figure out where in my brain to put Kwame Jamal Hale for a few days. Problem is, the time I have to do it in is the thirty seconds it's going to take to walk between my office and the conference room. It seems about four hours short.

Hale didn't seem like a lunatic.
That's what's pissing me off, I realize. He just seemed your garden-variety evil lifer, a guy who's been in and out of jail a dozen times before he fell off the edge and got sent up for good. We had taken comfort from the TV in Hale's cell; the stuff about inmates selling out their mothers for favors wasn't just blowing smoke, after all. Once you're in for life, your personal economy boils down to what fits in a ten-by-ten concrete room. But the TV doesn't mean Hale was lying. Buchanan is exactly the kind of man who would think the whole idea of a jail cell is inhumane, and he probably knows enough people who think like he does to take up a “Buy poor Kwame a TV” collection. I swear to God, there are times when this job drives me crazy.

I stand. “So,” I say out loud. “Let's go meet the bereaved.”

 

RHONDA HARTLETT
, Tamra's mother, is forty years old. She has her daughter's pale skin, bleached hair, and depressing, overextended sexuality. Her lingering handshake isn't personal; it's like a nervous tic, something she doesn't think about anymore. I say hello, and she bats her eyes like a soap actress, then settles into a long stare at Stillman.

Tamra's father—never Mr. Hartlett—is a day laborer named Danny Trent. He lives in Chattanooga, hasn't seen his daughter in more than a year, and isn't a material witness. About fifty years old, he has moody eyes that stare at me from beneath a Titans ball cap. His teeth are stained with tobacco juice, and a pack of Skoal is visible in his shirt pocket. He nods wordlessly when I shake his hand.

Sitting to Trent's left is Jason Hodges, Tamra's boyfriend. Jason is a key witness, certain to come up on the stand. He's twenty-four, never been in trouble with the law, and has a nervous, eager expression on his face, like he knows this is serious and he doesn't want to screw up. He's about five foot ten, with short brown hair combed straight down over his forehead. He is a Nationite, down to his toes.

“It's your meeting, Stillman,” I say, taking a seat. Stillman looks up, surprised.
Yep, I've declared pax, Stillman. Show me what you got.

“OK,” Stillman says, flipping open his notebook. “I've read your testimony, Rhonda,” he says. “For today we'll just review a few things. You saw Tamra the day before the incident, about ten a.m. She loaned you fifty dollars. You talked about Jason, and she said everything was going fine. She was upbeat, happy.”

“That's right,” Rhonda says. She looks like she wants to eat Stillman between pieces of Wonder Bread. “That's just exactly right.”

“OK. So, Jason, I think it's going to come down to you,” Stillman says. “You're the closest to Tamra, and your testimony is going to have the most weight.”

Hodges looks up, eyes wide. “OK.”

“It says here you work at the Hiller Body Shop.”

“That's right.”

“When you ain't high,” Rhonda says, under her breath.

Hello.
I look over. “Is that right, Jason?” I ask. “Do you have a drug problem?”

“I ain't got no drug problem. I'm a skilled welder. That takes steady hands.”

Rhonda rolls her eyes but says nothing.

“How about Tamra?” Stillman asks. “Did she do drugs?”

“I don't see what difference it makes now.”

Stillman leans forward slightly. “It's important you answer the question, Jason.”

“A little weed. Coke, when she could afford it. Big fuckin' deal.”

“Did she owe anyone any money over drugs?”

Very good, Stillman. You're thinking like the defense, staying ahead.
Hodges looks annoyed. “What's this have to do with anything? She's dead.”

“We have a good case against Bol,” Stillman says. “That means the defense will be grasping at straws. They'll try to create reasonable doubt. They'll want to find alternative reasons how she might have died.”

“Bol killed her.”

“If she owed money, the defense will say those people might be the ones who killed her, not Bol.”

“She didn't owe no money.”

Stillman nods. “Good. That's good, Jason.”

“OK, then.”

“I'm going to ask you another question now, Jason. You aren't going to like it.”

“What?”

“Did you ever hit Tamra?”

“Anybody says that, I'll fuckin' kill him.”

“Hang on, people,” I say, quietly. “Let's just stay calm.”

“But why's he got to say that? You got to hang that shit on me?”

“I think Mr. Stillman here was just giving you a little test.”

“He can shove that test up his ass, too.”

“He's just pointing out that you have to stay calm.
No matter what.
If you show anger, that sticks in the minds of the jury.”

“That's a bunch of shit, too,” Hodges says. “I never hit no girlfriend.”

“The defense is fighting for Bol's life, Jason. In their minds, everything's fair. If they lose, Bol dies.”

“He wins, I'll kill him myself.”

I exhale. “It's very important you don't say anything like that on the stand, Jason. Do you understand what's happening here? If you let yourself look dangerous, you plant doubt in the minds of the jury.”

Hodges stares. “Yeah. OK.”

“Fine.” We sit quietly a few seconds, but the air is malignant with Hodges's outburst. “There are witnesses that say they saw Tamra and Bol arguing in the week before the murder,” I say. “Do you know what that was about?”

“For him to keep his damn distance,” Hodges says. “Not to mack up on her.”

“Was he macking up on her, Jason?”

“All the time,” he says. “Made me sick. I told him to back the fuck off.”

Stillman looks at me. “OK, then,” he says. “It fits, too. Gives him motive.” He turns back to Jason. “Did you confront him?”

“Damn right.”

“What happened?”

“He backed off, but I couldn't be there all the time. And when I wasn't, he did his thing on her.”

Stillman looks over at me. “You have anything?”

“No.”

“OK,” Stillman says. “I know this is all difficult for you. If there's any question you have about the process, now would be a good time to ask.” The father shifts in his seat, like he wants to ask something. “Go ahead,” Stillman says.

“I was just wonderin' if we can watch.”

“Of course,” I say. “There are seats saved for you every day.”

The father shakes his head. “No. I mean when they kill him.”

 

STILLMAN USHERS HARTLETT
'
S
family out of the room and comes back in, smiling. “Damn, Mr. Trent's pretty fucking gung-ho.” “Yeah.”

“Of course, he's got a right to his anger.”

“He hasn't seen his daughter in months, and all the sudden he wants to watch Bol fry?”

Stillman's quiet for a while. “So we ready to go on this thing? Ready to put the bad guy away?”

“Yeah, Stillman. We got what we needed. Bol and Hartlett were arguing because Bol wanted what she did not want to give. It's airtight.”

“So we're gold.”

“One problem. Jason Hodges has a hair-trigger temper.”

“So?”

“So before I put that walking hand grenade on the stand, I'm going to find out everything I can about him.”

Stillman stares at me. “This thing is on a silver platter, Thomas. We don't have time to go on a lot of snipe hunts.”

“Rita West is a good lawyer, Stillman. It's going to take her about ten seconds to figure out that Jason Hodges is a nice, juicy alternative to her client. And she doesn't have to prove a thing. All she has to do is put a question in one juror's mind.”

“Yeah.”

“Not to mention the fact that you're one of four people in this office who knows that Kwame Jamal Hale is a few days away from possibly reopening every death-penalty case in this state. So there is no way that we are going to fuck this up.”

 

THERE
'
S A LIGHT DRIZZLE
on I-65, making traffic a bitch. I sit in the cocoon of the Ford, crawling home at twenty miles an hour, watching the wipers sweep warm rain off the glass before me. It's been a hell of a day, bookended on one side by Hale's confession and a victim's family on the other.
There it is,
I think.
The yin and yang of the job. Professor Buchanan trying to make Wilson Owens a martyr, and a father so bent on revenge he wants to watch Bol fry.
In between these two forces, I'm going to try to practice a little law.

I drive into the garage and park. Indy greets me with his swishing tail and mewing hunger, and halfway through feeding him I realize that it's the most satisfying thing I've done all day.
Feed the hungry cat. Now that's a simple, entirely positive thing to do. If I don't sell BMWs, I'll become a professional cat feeder. I'll just find hungry cats far and wide, and make their days wonderful with fucking Fancy Feast.

Dinner is something overly salted and previously frozen. A cook, I'm not. Bec could cook. She made fabulous chorizo, and she hand-rubbed her roasted
pollo
with garlic and stuffed it with oranges. My daughter, I miss 24-7. Bec, I miss mornings and dinner. Dinner for the food, and mornings for her sweet, funky smell and the sight of her breathing peacefully beside me. A woman comfortable in a nightgown—it doesn't have to be something from Victoria's Secret, it can just be a big T-shirt—has always had power in my book. Tonight, I push a fork into some kind of brown mystery that Swanson's has the arrogance to call meatloaf.

The rain stops in a half hour, and I walk out to get my mail. I open the front door and practically trip over something as I walk out. A wreath of white flowers is at my feet. I reach down and pull off a note. There's a message:
Sorry for your loss.
I look around; there's nobody in sight.
What damn loss? I haven't lost anything.
I turn over the card, and see my name and address, and the name of the florist. I check my watch; it's nearly 7:00 p.m., probably too late to call the florist. I take the wreath inside and set it on the dining table.
White flowers and a note. This is a funeral wreath.
I stare at it awhile, thinking I've been pulled into some cheesy made-for-TV movie.
You gotta be kidding me. Are the fucking Nationites trying to send me a message?
I pick up the phone and call Paul Landmeyer, and his wife, Jenny, answers. Jenny puts Paul on the phone. “Hey. It's Thomas. You busy?”

“Nope. I'm watching
Millionaire
with my kid. Maybe he'll learn something, since he can't be bothered with school.”

“Something weird happened tonight. I wanted to run it by you.”

“Shoot.”

“There was a funeral wreath left on my door.”

A silent pause. “Hang on. I'm taking you into the study.” He carries the phone away from his family. “OK. Talk to me.”

“Not much else to tell. It's a local florist, with a note attached.
Sorry about your loss.
”

“Who do you think sent it?”

“Offhand, I'd say it's the same guy who left the note on my car.”