Fatal Flaw Part 3

THE BEDROOM window was closed. I shoved it open and scanned the street, slick and black, still wet though the rain had stopped. Nothing. It was three flights down, a fierce jump with nothing to grab on to except the spindly branches of a struggling urban maple. The desperate leap to the sagging tree was not Guy's way, though until tonight I would have said that murder, too, was not Guy's way. window was closed. I shoved it open and scanned the street, slick and black, still wet though the rain had stopped. Nothing. It was three flights down, a fierce jump with nothing to grab on to except the spindly branches of a struggling urban maple. The desperate leap to the sagging tree was not Guy's way, though until tonight I would have said that murder, too, was not Guy's way.

I performed a quick search of the room. I opened the closet, checked the bathroom, threw back the shower curtain. No Guy. He had disappeared from my grasp like a phantom.

How had he gotten away without my knowing? I couldn't figure it until I remembered my remembrances of Hailey Prouix, a reverie that had faded into a dream. I ran back into the living room.

The chain latch of my front door, the chain I fastened each night out of habit, was hanging loose.

The chain latch was undone, as were my plans. I'd had him exactly where I wanted, and then I let him slip away while I was asleep. d.a.m.n it. Now he was on the loose, now he was fleeing to freedom. I shucked on my raincoat, stuffed the plastic bag with its gun into the pocket, grabbed my key, and headed out after him.

He could have gone anywhere, I thought at first, but as I sat in the driver's seat of my car and considered each possibility, I realized that wasn't true. He couldn't go back to his wife. He couldn't go to the offices of Dawson, Cricket and Peale. He couldn't go to the police. His parents were dead, his brother lived in California, his friends had all sided with Leila. Where once the world had been open to him, now his options were completely limited. Who would still embrace him and take him in? Who had his love for Hailey not betrayed? I thought it through, went over one possibility and the next and the next until, suddenly, his destination became clear.

He was going to her, to Hailey.

The old saw holds that criminals always return to the scene of the crime and like most old saws, this one contains a portion of truth. Arsonists are often in the crowds surrounding the blazes they set; police routinely videotape the funerals of the murdered dead to see if they can spot a killer paying his final disrespects. A criminal, by definition, is defined by his crime, and which of us doesn't return again and again to the crucial moment of our lives, where we married, where our children gamboled, where we spent an eventide of abandon that fuels still the fantasies that warm our cold, lonely nights. Guy Forrest had a family, a profession, a circle of accomplishment, but if you asked him about his depths, he would have said simply he was a man in love. If you asked me, I would have told you he was a murderer. Both the lover and the murderer were created in that house, in that bedroom, on that mattress on the floor. He was going back, he couldn't not. And I was going, too.

The b.l.o.o.d.y night was on its way out, the darkness already cracked from the force of dawn. I must have slept longer than I had imagined. I must have been dead asleep. I drove as fast as I dared with a gun in my pocket. I wondered if Guy had seen the King Cobra on my lap as he skulked out of the apartment. Probably not, probably too busy skulking. He hadn't turned on the lights, he hadn't wanted to wake me. He had stayed as far from me as possible as he made his way out of the bedroom and through my apartment door. Who could have imagined he had developed the honed survival instincts of a c.o.c.kroach?

I drove west on Walnut to Sixty-ninth Street, took a right, heading to Haverford Avenue. It was a familiar route, I had driven this way before on the nights when Guy was out of town. Is it cheating to cheat on a cheating b.a.s.t.a.r.d? I had felt bad about it at the first when we made our initial a.s.signation, but it hadn't lasted, the guilt, it hadn't lasted past the first time I tasted Hailey Prouix's tongue. Maybe Guy's guilt over cheating on his wife had died the same sweet death. There were more cars on the road than I expected, the early shift heading into work, the occasional cab. That's what he had caught, a cab. Maybe he even phoned for one from my bedroom before leaving.

"Where to?" had said the cabby.

"To the scene of the crime," had said Guy.

I pa.s.sed a cop car going the opposite direction, and I ducked. I ducked. I had never been afraid of the police before. Working with them or against them had always been simply part of my job, there had never been the fear that I felt now. But then again never before did I have a gun in my pocket. I was not a gun person. Or a cat person. The only time I ever before wanted a gun was to kill a cat. But here I was, heading out in the rain with a gun in my pocket and my quarry on the loose and I was ducking in my car when the police drove past. It was a strange, hard feeling, all of it. And I liked it. I liked it. It's the only kind of feeling you want after you see your lover dead on a mattress on the floor.

Out Haverford Avenue, across City Line, into the twisting suburban streets, old trees leaning over the roadbeds, calm homes still asleep to the rising morn. Down this short road, left at that stop sign, right at the next, up the hill and to the left, and there it was, dark and solitary.

There was no yellow tape. I thought there would be yellow tape. There was no yellow tape, there were no police cars, there was no police presence whatsoever. In the city the place would have been swaddled in yellow caution tape like a newborn in its blanket. But this was the suburbs, no reason to make a spectacle for the neighbors, no reason to place property values at risk. The sight filled me with anger. They were going to screw it up, they were going to let him off. It was up to me. All along I had known it was, all of it, up to me.

I parked across the street and waited. The lights were off. I didn't know if he hadn't yet gotten to the house or if he was already inside, doing whatever he was doing in the darkness. I parked across the street and waited. There was no rush. If he wasn't yet at the house, he would be, and if he was, which I suspected, he wouldn't be there long. He would do whatever he felt compelled to do and then he would leave, he would run, he would take the keys from the desk drawer and head straight for one of the cars, his or Hailey's, parked out front. Hailey had driven a new Saab convertible. Guy drove a new black Beemer. Both cars were on the street, waiting for his great escape, and so was I.

Waiting. Waiting. And then waiting no more.

He came out from the back, his shoulders hunched, his black coat turning him almost invisible, his head swiveling this way and that as he checked the empty road for watchers. He carried a large, hard sh.e.l.l suitcase. He was making for the BMW.

I climbed out of my car and stuck my hand in my raincoat pocket so that it gripped the hard hunk of metal. Then I headed off to intercept.

"Guy," I called out.

He looked up at me, startled, before setting his shoulders in a posture of determination and continuing to the car.

"Guy," I called out again, shuffling as quickly as I could toward him. "What are you doing? Where are you going?"

"Don't try to stop me, Victor. I'm getting out of here."

"Why?"

By now he had just about reached his car and I had just about reached him. As he tried to stick his key in the slot, I pulled at his arm. Keytus interruptus. He stared up at me with an unfathomable fear.

"They're going to kill me," he said. "You told me that yourself."

"No, I did not."

"In so many words, yes, you did. They're going to arrest me and throw me in jail and kill me. I'm not going to sit around and let them. I didn't do anything."

"And this is going to convince them of that? Come back with me to my apartment."

"Forget it."

"You can't run, Guy."

"Watch me," he said as he pulled his arm from my grasp and slid the key into the lock. I tried to grab him again. He swung at me with his suitcase, I raised my hand in defense. The suitcase banged into my shoulder. I fell back hard onto my side. The b.u.t.t of the gun dug into my hip.

He slammed the door, locked himself inside, started the engine.

I spun onto my back, tightened my grip on the gun.

Suddenly another car, boxy and brown, just missed running over me as it pulled alongside Guy's Beemer and stopped dead, blocking him in.

Guy slammed on his horn, but the brown car didn't move.

Guy tried to pull forward, hopping the curve and riding on the sidewalk, around a parked car, and back onto the street to get away, but another car, boxy and black, pulled up suddenly and blocked him in again.

From out of the black car jumped Detective Stone, who quickly drew her gun and aimed it at Guy.

Detective Breger calmly exited his vehicle, ambled over to Guy's BMW, and peered in the window. He gestured for Guy to open the lock. As he patiently waited, first one, then two, then three police cruisers appeared on the street, their flashing lights painting acres of aluminum siding red and blue.

I rose from the ground, my hand out of my raincoat pocket. Breger calmly motioned me away, and I stepped back.

Guy did nothing, did nothing, and then, finally, he electronically unlocked his car. Breger opened the pa.s.senger door and leaned inside.

"Going somewhere, Mr. Forrest?"

Guy tried to say something, but Stone, gun still drawn, swung open the other door and cut him off. "Step out of the vehicle, please."

Guy began again to speak.

"Step out of the vehicle, please," repeated Stone.

Guy slowly climbed out, looking at me helplessly for a moment before Stone holstered her gun and jammed him roughly up against the Beemer's side, cuffing his hands behind him.

"You are under arrest for the murder of Hailey Prouix," said Stone when the cuffs were in place. She spun him around and began to read him his rights.

"I'm a lawyer," said Guy halfway through.

"Good," said Stone. "That means there won't be any misunderstandings." She continued.

I walked over to Detective Breger, who, with surgical gloves in place, was rifling through the contents of Guy's suitcase.

"What are you doing?" I said.

"Search incident to arrest," said Breger without looking up from the suitcase. "Chimel v. v. California California."

"I know the d.a.m.n cite. How'd you know he was here?"

"Where do you think you are, Mr. Carl? A woman is found shot dead in her bed, all the doors locked, the windows, no evidence of a break-in, no evidence of a robbery. You think we let the only other person in the house walk without a tail? Stone was following from the moment you left here. Saw him sneak out of your building, grab a cab, take it here, where I had been waiting all night just in case, hoping he would do exactly what he did."

"Well, aren't you the clever pair."

"Clothes," he said as he continued his search through the suitcase, "toothbrush, a prescription of"-he held the bottle away from his face and squinted at the label-"v.i.a.g.r.a. Antic.i.p.ating some fun, was he? And what is this? An envelope filled with cash. It's not the three thousand, we already logged that, and it was much slimmer. Whoa. Ten, twenty, maybe fifty, sixty. Our Mr. Forrest had plans. Oh, and look, how sweet, his pa.s.sport."

"Is that what you were hoping to find?"

"It is what I was expecting to find. The coroner called in a preliminary report. Said Miss Prouix was beaten before she was killed. Her left eye was bruised."

I fought to keep my emotions in check, I bit the inside of my cheek and fought to bat not an eyelash as I heard about the bruise. I stood stone-still and watched as Breger kept searching the suitcase and then, disappointed, started in on the car, the glove compartment, the back seat, the trunk. Finding nothing, he called over to Stone, "You pat him down?"

"Only a wallet," said Stone, leaning against the side of the car into which she had deposited Guy.

"What are you missing?" I managed to get out.

"The gun. We still have not found the gun. I figure the gun is the final rail in your buddy's prison cell."

"Is that what you figure?"

I didn't wait for an answer, I simply turned and walked toward one of the police cars with its lights still flashing. Guy was sitting forward in the back seat, his mouth tight, his fists clenched behind his back. He looked at me angrily when I came over, and I looked away, hoping to hide what it truly was I felt about him.

"I didn't do it," he said through clenched teeth. "Victor, I swear I didn't do it."

"Don't talk," I advised him while surveying the scene, purposely avoiding his gaze.

"I loved her, you know I loved her. How could I have killed her? Victor, I swear I didn't do it."

"What did I just tell you? Don't say anything to anybody, especially when you're sitting in a police car. Don't talk to the cop driving you to the station, don't talk to the cop processing you for admittance, and for heaven's sake don't talk to whatever greaseball they happen to stick you with in the lockup. Do you understand?"

"Will they let me out today?"

"Do you understand what I said?"

"Yes. I understand. I was in the same d.a.m.n Criminal Law cla.s.s as you, Victor. Will they let me out of jail today?"

"You were running away. You had sixty thousand dollars and a pa.s.sport. They're going to charge you with murder. No judge, even a suburban judge, is going to grant you bail. You're in till your trial."

"I am so cooked."

"Yes you are."

"Will you represent me?"

I turned to stare at him.

"I'm desperate," he said. "I need someone I trust. At least for now. I need someone who understands. Victor, I'm begging you. Will you represent me?"

It didn't take me a moment to make up my mind, it didn't take me a moment to run through the implications and make up my mind. "Yes. I'll represent you."

He gave me a wan smile.

I returned it along with a chuck on the shoulder. "Now there's something I need to do, all right? So do as I say, and I'll see you at the arraignment."

I waited as one of the uniforms shut the car door and another climbed behind the wheel. With the lights still on, they drove Guy away, into the dying night. I suppressed a smile and headed over to Breger, who was continuing to search through the Beemer.

"You might want to know, Detective, that Guy Forrest just asked me to represent him on more than a temporary basis, and I agreed."

"Bully. You get a retainer?"

"I was hoping it was in that envelope you found."

"That envelope, along with its contents, is evidence. Evidence, as you well know, stays in our custody all the way through appeal."

"Too bad," I said as I reached into my pocket. "It would have looked nice in piles on my desk. Still, we'll see what the judge has to say about it. But I have something for you. I can't tell you how I got this, attorney-client privilege now in full force and effect, but I believe I'm obligated as an officer of the court to turn it over, as it may be material to your investigation."

I pulled my hand out of my coat pocket and offered what was in its grasp to Detective Breger. The detective's eyes bulged.

"Is that...?"

"You have tests to identify it, don't you?"

"Yes. Of course."

"Well, then."

He took the bag with the gun and hefted it in his hand, and something suddenly went out of me, something ugly and hard. It was as if a brutal rod of steel had been extracted from my spine.

"I might have been rude back there," said Breger, still gazing at the gun.

"Are you trying to apologize for your manner, Detective?"

"I want you to know that I am sorry if I was rude. I should not have been rude. You're a guy just trying to do your job. It has been noted that you went after him when you discovered he sneaked out of your place. It has been noted that you tried to stop him from running and he knocked you down with his suitcase. It has now been noted that you turned over what might prove to be the murder weapon. The law says you need to turn it over, I know, but still, nine out of ten would have buried it. So all of that has been noted, and I am sorry if I was rude back there."

"Okay," I said.

He nodded and, without saying another word, headed off to show his shiny new prize to his partner.

I stayed at the scene until all the police, car by car, had left, until the dawn had fully broken through and the morning stretched and twittered and came alive. I thought about what had happened that night, what I had lost, what I had just done, what I had just set about to do. I felt my weary sadness turn to determination. I was glad the gun was gone. It was all wrong for me, a gun, like boxing gloves on a poet. But that didn't mean it was over, that didn't mean I was through.

How can you defend a man you know is guilty?