Butch Karp: Absolute Rage Part 15

The state's attorney had a suite of offices on the second floor of that building and a pretty red-haired secretary to put in it. Aside from that, there did not seem to be much going on in the office, which was, however, nicely paneled and equipped with heavy, old-fashioned oak furniture. Poole greeted the secretary by name (Margie) and asked if Stan was free. He was not, he was in a meeting. Poole made to leave, but Marlene clutched his sleeve. "We'll wait," she said, and sat on a wooden bench under a gla.s.sed print of Washington crossing the Delaware. Poole sat grumpily beside her. She held the sneaker on her lap like a gift cake. The clock on the wall ticked, Margie typed slowly on her keyboard, Poole fell asleep, snoring gently. Marlene let the time flow past, pushed Poole away when his head slumped toward her shoulder, and tried not to imagine herself back in the choking laurels.

After forty minutes, the door to Hawes's office flung open and a large man in a blue suit strode out. He had a big jaw and a nose that looked as if it had been broken. His hands were big and red, as was his face. His hair was pale brown and freshly cut, as if he had just stepped from a barber's rather than a state's attorney's place of business. He was almost out the door when he caught sight of Marlene and Poole. He stopped short and smiled, showing big yellow horse teeth. There was definitely something horselike about him, Marlene decided, the kind of horse that kicked and bit. His voice was loud and confident: "Ernie Poole."

Poole snapped awake. He wiped his chin where he had dribbled on it and blinked at the big man.

"George," he said neutrally.

"How ya doing, Ernie? Catching up on your beauty sleep?"

"I have a hard life."

"Yeah, you want to take it easy, now. Don't strain yourself any."

Some more banter here, George's tone patronizing, hectoring, Poole's dry and his answers minimal. The interesting thing, Marlene thought, was that while George was talking to Poole, his eyes were fixed on her; pale, hard ones, like tin. She met his gaze without flinching.

"Nice seeing you, Ernie," George said, pointing a finger gun-fashion at Poole. "You take care now, hey? Stay healthy."

When he was gone, Marlene asked, "Who was that?"

"That was George Floyd, the business manager of the Mining Equipment Operators Union."

"Oh? I'm sorry you didn't introduce me."

"If you live your whole life without meeting George Floyd, you can consider yourself lucky."

"That bad, huh?"

"Bad? No, I'd say he was just an average degenerate s.a.d.i.s.t and crook. We have worse." He stood up as Margie told them they could go in now.

Hawes was behind his desk looking angry, although not necessarily at them.

"I have court in ten minutes. I hope this'll be quick," he said without offering his hand to them or a chair. Marlene sat down anyway, and Poole followed suit.

"Well, no small talk then," said Marlene. "We've discovered some new evidence in the Welch case and we'd like to share it with you."

"What kind of evidence?"

Marlene placed the sneaker on his desk and explained what she thought it was, how she had found it, and what it implied for the state's case against her client.

He gave it the briefest glance, waited until she had finished, and said, "What is this bulls.h.i.t, Ernie?"

"Well, it's a shoe with blood on it, found near the scene of the crime. I'd say that wasn't bulls.h.i.t. The blood can be tested. If it belongs to one of the victims, I'd say there goes your case."

"Oh, come on! A lawyer walks in here with a shoe that could've come from anywhere with blood on it that could've come from anywhere. That's not evidence. If she thought she found something, she should've gone to the police. As it is, there's no chain of custody. I'll oppose it and the judge'll back me up."

"That's not your role, Mr. Hawes," said Marlene.

He looked at her as if she had just popped out of the ether. "What?"

"That's not your role. Your role is not to disparage evidence but to establish the probative value of any evidence you come across, to make sure you bring the right people to justice. I bring you, as an officer of the court, a sealed bag, the seal signed by me and the son of the victim, in which bag is a shoe smeared with a substance that appears to be dried blood. We propose that it was disposed of by the real killers. Could I have concocted the evidence out of whole cloth? Yes, and opened myself to criminal penalties with a scam that any competent lab could detect. Would I do that? On a pro bono case? It's absurd on the face of it, and just as absurd is the idea that the victims' own son would conspire to allow the real killer to get off. Meanwhile, blood will tell, as the saying goes. They'll DNA it and age it and tell you that it flowed out of the body of one of the victims at about the time of the murders. They'll find carpet fibers that match the crime scene. They'll tell you it's genuine unfakable. It's particularly telling, since your own case rests entirely on finding blood on the shoes of a mental incompetent, which shoes are at least two sizes too small for him."

Hawes indicated the sneaker on his desk, using his chin. He seemed not to want to examine it. "That one'd fit him all right."

"Yes, but it changes your theory of the case a good deal, doesn't it? The murder then would involve at least two partic.i.p.ants, one wearing a fairly expensive pair of Rocky-brand hunting boots, size nine and a half, and the other a fairly expensive pair of Nikes. It should be easy to check it. There can't be many pairs of such shoes sold in this county, and I think, in fact I'm sure, you'll find that my client never owned either type of shoe. He's more of a Goodwill dresser. The plain fact is you have the wrong man in custody. My a.s.sumption is you want the right man or men. I a.s.sume you don't want to railroad a poor dummy just to make a case and make nice with this courthouse and the people who run this county." She gave him a sympathetic smile. He did not return it, but did something more revealing. Good G.o.d, she thought, he's blushing. He's in the wrong business.

He cleared his throat. "I don't like the word railroad. "

"Neither do I. But I want you to find who did the crime, and you have to know now that Moses Welch is not going to go down for it. Given this"-she picked up the bag with the Nike and let it thump down-"and given the general weakness of your case, no jury will convict, not with the defense we intend to mount. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you don't seem like the sort of man who wants to retire as state's attorney in Robbens County. Find the right bad guys and everyone will forget about this little excursion. But push this case to the bitter end and you'll end up looking very bad indeed. As in stinky bad. I'm on your side here, Mr. Hawes."

It took a while for him to respond, and as she studied his face, she thought that was a good sign. A lot of lip-biting and brow-knotting there, the signs of an intact moral center working hard.

At last he let out a long breath and began to talk technicalities and legal minutiae, which Marlene was happy to do for as long as he wanted. They left with a receipt for the evidence bag and an a.s.surance that he would have it delivered to the state lab himself.

Outside the courthouse, Poole said, "Do you really think he's going to do what he said?"

"Yes, I do. I think he'll do the right thing. Don't you?"

Poole laughed and rolled his eyes. "h.e.l.l, no, I don't. I think he was on the phone to whoever owns him the minute we were out of there. That d.a.m.n shoe is history."

"How cynical you are, Poole!" she exclaimed, laughing. "You should try to regain some faith. No, I think what we have here is a malleable kid up against his first real test of integrity, and I think he's going to pa.s.s it."

"And if not?"

"If not, I know approximately where the other sneaker is, and I will shout to the high heavens and hire a bunch of guys to find it while the TV cameras roll. Even Mr. Hawes knows that two sneakers make a pair. No, I think we turned a corner here. How would you like to come out to the Heeney place tonight? We'll have a cookout to celebrate."

Poole hesitated, looking away. "I don't know . . ."

"Oh, come on! It'll be fun. We'll get functionally drunk together."

He smiled. "Oh, in that case . . ."

They mounted the red Dodge, stopped off at the Pay 'n' Pack for supplies, and headed out of town on Route 119. After a few minutes, Marlene said, "Say, Poole? Do you know anyone with an electric blue Ford 250 pickup on big wheels?"

"Where?" he said, startled, looking around.

"Right behind us. A couple of guys in the front. They've been driving around me all day. Who are they?"

"I have no idea. Say, you know, on second thought, I'm not feeling too good right now. My stomach. Could you just swing around and drop me at my house?"

"No. Who are they?"

"Cades. That's Earl Cade's pickup."

She checked her side mirror. The big truck was edging closer. Marlene tapped her brake and pulled to the right. The blue pickup came closer still. It towered over the Dodge, its heavy b.u.mper and grille filling her entire rearview mirror. Her gaze flashed up the road, looking for a turnoff or a driveway, but there was nothing useful ahead, only a shallow roadside ditch and a line of phone poles. They had picked this place with care.

In the distance a tanker truck filled the oncoming lane. A grinding thump from the rear. The Dodge shook and swerved. She gripped the wheel, fighting for control. Another thump. Poole yelped and pressed his palms against the dash.

When she looked again, the blue truck was gone from the rearview, to appear immediately in the side mirror. Marlene looked out her window, but the giant tires raised the blue truck so high that she could not see anything but a sheer wall of shiny blue paint and chrome, which came ever closer. There was a crunch and tinkle as her side mirror tore away. Her right wheels were on shoulder gravel now, the pebbles machine-gunning against the underside of the Dodge. The oncoming tanker leaned on his horn. She heard the scream of air brakes.

We're going into the ditch, she thought. A phone pole ripped off the right-side mirror. She jammed on her brakes and jerked the wheel hard to the right. The Dodge fishtailed and plunged into the ditch, leaped into the air, crashed through a fence, and came to rest in a field, festooned with barbed wire.

The engine had stalled. There was no sound but its cooling tick, bird twitters, and heavy breathing. "Well, that was exciting," said Marlene at last.

"They tried to kill us," Poole gasped.

"Yes, but they didn't succeed. You should never try to kill anyone. You should either kill them or play nice." She opened the door.

"Where are you going?"

"Checking the dog and the truck," she called over her shoulder. The dog was fine, the truck less so, but drivable. She started it, shifted to four-wheel, and backed across the ditch and onto the edge of the road.

"They might try again," said Poole.

"I'm sure, which is why it's time to call for help."

9.

"I WAS JUST TRYING TO GET YOU, " SAID K ARP. "Y OUR CELL PHONE DOESN'T WORK ?"

"This is West Virginia, the Mountain State," said his wife. "Here in Robbens County we have no TV except satellite and no cell phones."

"It sounds like my kind of place."

"No bagels, however, and I looked."

"They barely have bagels in New York anymore. How are you?"

"Not bad. The case is going well, but somebody just tried to kill me. That's why I called."

A silence. "How serious was it? You're not hurt?"

"Shaken up. They tried to run us into a phone pole on the road. I was with Poole, the local defense counsel."

"Maybe it's time to come home."

"Oh, it's just starting to be fun," she said lightly, knowing the tone would irritate him. It was a little game they played, had played for years. In philosophical moments she wondered why they didn't get beyond it, or if it was permanently fixed in the structure of their marriage, like a trilobite in chert. He said nothing, so she continued, "But why I called is, I was wondering if you got any information from Sterner. Whether the feds are going to move on the murder."

"They may, but the state is in it for sure. The governor would very much like to preempt federal involvement, in fact. They're appointing a special prosecutor with full powers, bringing in state cops. The governor's more or less decided to clean up Robbens County."

"That's a change. Any idea why?"

"It's time, I guess. The global village. People are starting to get more sensitive to killing and corruption, even in the backwaters. They want wild and wonderful West Virginia to be a little less wild and a little more wonderful."

"I'm impressed," she said. "Have they picked the guy yet? Or girl?"

"Not officially," replied Karp after the briefest pause. "The governor wants to examine the cut of his jib, but for all practical purposes, according to Saul, it's a done deal."

"Do you know who it's going to be?"

"Yes." Two beats. "Me."

"No, I mean really."

"Really," said Karp, aware of a rush of faintly s.a.d.i.s.tic pleasure. She was always pulling sneaky surprises on him, and this was a delicious turnabout. "I'm flying down to Charleston tomorrow. They're actually sending the state plane to pick me up at Teterboro."

An even longer silence. "Marlene?"

"I'm gaping. Wait a minute-you're leaving your job? What about the kids?"

"I'm not leaving my job. Jack was more than happy to lend me. The crocodile tears were falling so fast he had to wring out his tie. And Lucy can handle the twins until you get back there."

"Who says I'm going back?"

"Well, if I'm in charge of the prosecution, it's clearly impossible for you to be a.s.sociated with the defense."

"Yeah, but the guy I'm defending isn't the guy. The case against him is a joke."

"If that's true, we'll obviously quash the indictment. And then you can go home."

"Home?" She said it like a foreigner trying an unfamiliar word.

"Yes, home. You know, among your pet children, your beloved dogs, the familiar felons. You can do the laundry, cook nutritious meals, and in the evenings embroider by the fire."

"You're loving this, aren't you?"

"Since you ask . . ."

"Rat! When is this all scheduled to happen?"

"Oh, you know, it's state bureaucracy, so figure weeks, not days. Will you promise not to get killed until I rescue you?"

"You know me, dear. It'll take more than a bunch of hillbillies to do me in. As a matter of fact, I might have this whole thing wrapped up by the time you get here."

Karp's tone changed. "No, be serious! There's no reason to poke into anything anymore until I get down there with the cavalry. Besides, you could screw up something." Oh, G.o.d, that was a mistake, thought Karp, the instant the words had pa.s.sed his lips.

"Oh, well, I'll certainly try not to screw things up for you, dear. But I don't know, I'm such a total klutz, when it comes to legal procedure and all the other boy things. I swear, I don't know how you men keep all that stuff in your heads."

"I didn't mean it that way, Marlene, and you know it. You're just spoiling for a fight because you're miffed because you're going to have to give control of this thing over to me, which as you know has absolutely nothing to do with any a.s.sessment of your abilities. I'm sorry I said you might screw things up. I'm sure everything you've done down there has been in accord with the highest standards of legal procedure."

"Oh, I hate it when you try to wriggle out of it, when for once your true thoughts manage to slip out from under all the hypocrisy. Why don't you admit it? You really want a little wifey safe at home."

"Marlene, that is such total bulls.h.i.t! I can't stand that whenever you're p.i.s.sed at me, you trot out this absurd feminist cant. How long have we been married? In all that time, have I ever once-"