“This court is now in recess until tomorrow morning at nine o’clock sharp! Did everyone hear me? Attorneys? Defendants? Witnesses? Show respect for this court and be here on time!” And with that, his honor Joseph G. Bunch, Richland County Superior Court Judge, brusquely left the bench.
As I stood at the prosecutor’s table packing my files into a box, defense attorney Lee Gasque sauntered from the defense table. “What the hell was that?” he whispered. “Does his honor always pontificate this much on inane, irrelevant things during court sessions? And is it just me, or is the judge a tad on the self-centered side? Please tell me we will not endure that the entire week.”
I smiled. Lee, a couple decades my senior, and I had been friends since my early days as a prosecutor in another part of the state. In fact, my first murder trial had been with him on the defense side. The trial had been a great learning experience, thanks, in part, to Lee. Because he’d “opened the door to the subject,” as lawyers often say, I quietly told him, “You’re right, Lee. Since you don’t normally practice in this part of the state, let me just say, ‘Welcome to Judge Joseph Bunch’s world.’ Yes,” I sighed, “this is typical for one of Bunch’s court sessions.
“Welcome to Judge Joseph Bunch’s world.”
“In the normal course of criminal business, we hear about his life, family, vacations, his most recent election results, and his long history on the bench, ad infinitum and ad nauseam. And I do mean nauseam. It’s become something of a game among the attorneys in the courtroom to guess which of his self-absorbed, recurring anecdotes the judge will repeat on any given day. As someone once said concerning an unknown personage, ‘He’s a self-made man, and he worships his creator.’” I lowered my voice further. “By the way, the ‘G’ stands for ‘Gaseous,’ as you will soon learn, my friend.”
“Great! Just great,” Lee said with a wince. “I’m only here now as a favor to a family friend with a stupid son. I’ll be here forever and with no cash flow to show for it. Meanwhile, paying clients are sitting and cooling their heels in my office. I’m hemorrhaging cash, I tell you!” He paused, sighing audibly. “Well, live and learn, die and burn. The next time I have a case before Bunch, I’ll hike up the fee accordingly. See you tomorrow.”
“Until then. And, Lee, be here on time. Try to show some respect for this court.”
He took my comment with the humor intended. He leaned back in toward me and whispered, “Oh, right. And this from a judge who takes the bench for his nine-a.m. calendar thirty-seven minutes late.”
“If we’re lucky, we’ll have a jury by Thursday afternoon.”
“That might be funny if this wasn’t a simple methamphetamine possession case, if this wasn’t only Monday afternoon, and, given the judge’s verbosity, if it wasn’t a strong possibility. I’ll talk to my client tonight and learn whether he really wants a trial. Can you give any more on the plea recommendation?”
I stopped putting case files in the box and turned in his direction. “Lee, it’s his second offense in the last eight months. The statute doesn’t give me a lot of wiggle room. I’ve reduced the plea recommendation as much as I can and still be able to go back to my office with my head held up. You need to remind your client this judge is very tough at sentencing after a trial. Call me if something changes.”
With my file boxes loaded on my handcart, I made my way back across the street to the district attorney’s office. As the elevator opened on the seventh floor, a coworker was waiting to leave for the day. “The boss was looking for you. Somebody told him you were still in court. I think he’s still in his office.”
“The boss was looking for you.”
No doubt he is, I thought. District Attorney Vincent Strom, a no-nonsense, rigid type at every turn, prided himself on being in the office before dawn and leaving after sundown. The problem was, he couldn’t understand why his assistant district attorneys didn’t want to do the same. Their pesky social lives, to which my younger associates clung, was the problem. Darkness had barely fallen outside, so I was certain the boss was still in his office. I dropped my case files in my office, pulled off my overcoat, and made my way to Strom’s corner of the building. From his door, I saw his reflection in the darkened windows. He was sitting on his corner sectional sofa, talking to someone in hushed tones. I made the obligatory knock and stuck my head around the door to receive his permission to enter. Did I say rigid? Perhaps frigid is more apt.
“Come in, Steve. Close the door behind you.” Not that the district attorney was ever “Mr. Personality,” but his tenor was even more severe than normal. He was sitting with our chief assistant district attorney, Cliff Gossett, and one of the better detectives among the various law-enforcement agencies in the county, Marion Flanders. Marion, for obvious reasons, was known to everyone as “Bud.” When I saw the solemn gathering, my first notion was the prosecution of a case had been dealt with in a manner less than satisfactory to the local gendarme or had otherwise gone astray.
Unfortunately, one seldom heard good news from our boss, so any optimism regarding the reason for being summoned to his office was a wasted thought process. After a long day of the loquacious Judge Bunch and with my overwhelming trial calendar pending, I wasn’t up for a critique of some long-forgotten case. Maybe the detective was here to discuss an evildoer’s most recent enterprise. Walking across the room, I figured I’d just have to deal with whatever had brought on this meeting. Before long, I wished even the former conjecture was the reason for it.
As I approached the sofa, I reached out to shake hands with Flanders and said hello. He seemed almost reluctant to respond with a handshake. I shrugged it off. People often became less gregarious around Vincent, as his inflexible demeanor puts them in a more reserved frame of mind. Nonetheless, I was a little uneasy as I joined the three men, who had about them the aura of a gathering of a bereaved family.
. . . I joined the three men, who had about them the aura of a gathering of a bereaved family.
“Have a seat, Steve,” Vincent said. “The detective here has been discussing with us a very serious situation that has arisen in the last several days. He needs to speak with you.” His eyes shifted to his visitor. “Detective Flanders.”
With that ominous introduction, I turned my attention to my pal, who was perched on the edge of the sectional. Early in my tenure in this office, the department had promoted him from a uniform patrol officer to a detective’s position in the Crimes Against Persons Division, investigating murders and other violent felonies. The guy was the size of a sofa with a disarmingly benevolent manner, the combination of which he exploited to his distinct advantage at opportune times in dealing with people. Despite his menacing size, Bud could exude a charm which caused people to trust him, relax, and start talking. As a result, he had proved himself a natural investigator and experienced outstanding success.
* * *
Two years earlier, he had been assigned to work strictly on murder cases within the same unit. He and I had worked on and tried a number of fairly serious cases together over the years, so we had come to know each other pretty well. A murder, a home invasion, or an armed robbery investigation and the ensuing trial, as nothing else I can think of, give you a good idea of a person’s work ethic. This is true from the standpoint of both a detective watching a prosecutor try his or her case and of a prosecutor trying a case a detective has put together.
The big investigator and I had shared alcohol-soaked laughter in victory celebrations and, unfortunately, the harsh despair of a jury’s acquittal. Through it, we had formed an easy, friendly relationship born of mutual respect for the other’s hard work and tireless efforts to achieve justice. I considered us friends, or as close to friends as I ever was with anyone with whom I worked.
* * *
Now, as somewhat punch-drunk as I was after a long day in court, I tried to reflect the apparent seriousness Vincent gave this occasion.
“You have a defendant by the name of Leonard McCrory,” Bud said, more a statement of fact than a question.
“Yeah, Lennie McCrory. He was a no-show at the trial calendar call this morning. I asked for, and the judge granted a bench warrant for his arrest. Is this concerning that cocaine freak? He’s probably on a bender somewhere before he goes off to prison on these charges. He has a terrible record. McCrory will turn up, and he–”
“He’s dead,” the big cop said grimly.
“Really? Some folks will do anything to get out of going to jail,” I laughed as I glanced at the other three men. My prosecutor’s sense of humor, something we tend to develop to refrain from crying at or getting depressed by the sadness, stupidity, and inhumanity the world constantly threw at us, fell on deaf ears. I laughed alone. That feeling of isolation was reinforced as I looked into the dour faces around me. The uneasiness I had felt on entering the room loomed even larger now.
Before I could ask exactly what was going on, my boss spoke again. “Steve, you have to go with Detective Flanders. He has a few questions.”
This had a too-familiar ring to it. A sharp ache flickered behind my eyes, and the skin on the back of my neck prickled. My defense mechanism kicked in with a stunned fury. “Wait a minute! This is starting to sound like an arrest! Somebody tell me what the hell is going on here!”
“Steve–”
I slid to the front of the sofa seat, bristling. “‘Steve,’ hell! Protocol be damned. Now I demand to be told what this is about!” I glanced at Cliff, who remained absolutely still. Cliff was always the voice of reason and calm in the district attorney’s ear. He constantly tried to run interference between the courtroom assistant district attorneys and the boss’ knee-jerk reactions and decisions. Simultaneously, Cliff was too afraid one of those same unthinking conclusions might rain down upon him to buck Vincent openly.
“Protocol be damned. Now I demand to be told what this is about!”
The detective in Bud rose to the occasion and took control. “Steve, McCrory was murdered the other night. Your name has come up in the investigation as a suspect, and we need to clear up some questions.”
“Suspect! My name? How? Why?” I stopped for a second to take in what was happening. I was so filled with disbelief at the absurdity of the idea I inappropriately laughed aloud. “Look, I believe in punishing the guilty, but a drug charge for possession of coke doesn’t carry the death penalty in this state.”
Again, those gathered received my response with sepulchral silence. The detective’s face darkened suddenly, and the muscles in his jaw stood out like steel beams. In the next instant, I resigned myself to working to clear up what had to be the mother of all weird, coincidental misunderstandings. “This is ridiculous, and you know it.” When none of the others expressed agreement with my statement, I turned to the detective and continued, “Okay, detective, where do we go from here?”
“Let’s go to headquarters where we can talk,” he said as he rose from the sofa. As an apparent afterthought, he added, “That is unless you want to invoke your rights.”
I stood in anger. “Hell no! The sooner we talk, the sooner I can get back to focusing on my job and the real criminal element in this county.”
Cliff suddenly came to life and stood. “That’s something we need to face right now.” He looked very uncomfortable, glancing sideways at Strom, who never made a move from his seat. I realized what was coming. I also understood Vincent had put Cliff in the position of being the “bad guy” and delivering unwelcome news to me. “Until we straighten this matter out, you’ll be on administrative leave. But with pay.”
“But for how long?” My investigator friend laid a hand on my arm, trying to defuse the situation.
When Cliff moved a shoulder, giving the slightest hint of a shrug, the boss stepped in again. “Until the detective tells me everything is okay for you to return. I’ll revisit the issue then.” The corners of his mouth turned down harshly.
Angrier still, I started to say something my prosecutorial career would probably regret in the morning. Cliff anticipated it and cut me off by adding, “Look, we’re sure this is a huge mistake. But think it over. How much credibility could you have in a courtroom, meanwhile, with this hanging over your head?”
“Just how many people are aware of this ‘mistake,’ for God’s sake?” I asked, as the enormity of the accusation set in on me.
“Just the four of us.”
“And the rest of the law-enforcement community? This office. And then–” I couldn’t complete the thought. Already I felt overwhelmed. “You’ve seen how things such as this get around.”
“Let’s go talk.”
I held my hands out, trying to show my irritation through sarcasm. “Handcuffs? Aren’t you going to use the cuffs? Departmental procedure, right?”
Using his enormous frame, Detective Flanders placed an open hand against my back and gave me a gentle nudge toward the door. The movement had enough pressure to show I had no choice but to move as directed. As he did, he sighed, “Please don’t make this any more uncomfortable than it already is.” At the door, he turned back toward Vincent. “I’ll be in touch.”
The response was curt. “Just call me if you need anything.” Our boss’s face looked as if he’d sniffed a milk bottle long past its sell-by date.
As we left the building, emotions were racing, chaotically, through my head. Although I believed Bud knew me better than to think I’d be mixed up in a murder, my repeated logic came back to haunt me. In many closing arguments in trials consisting of a parade of defense character witnesses, I had asked the jury to consider just how well anyone truly knows any other person. I liked to suggest to the jury what others think of a person is only his reputation. His “character” is who he really is when the lights are out, when he thinks no one is watching.
* * *
Later, as we settled into an interview room at the police department, the big cop spun a chair around, slid it up to the table, and straddled it backwards to face me. He sat, leaning forward and crossing his arms on the table. I’d never seen this approach to a suspect by him. “Look,” he said, sliding the requisite, all-too-familiar Miranda Rights form across the table toward me, “we know each other too well for there to be any bull between us. I’m playing this straight by the book.”
I nodded my understanding as I fidgeted slightly in a chair not designed for comfort.
He started reciting the rights to me, the way the law required him to do. As he did, I saw the harsh irony of me, a senior assistant district attorney, a murder suspect, sitting in this room with the video camera recording our every movement and word. I couldn’t recall the number of times I’d watched footage of an interrogation or played one from this very room for a jury. Certainly, this question could be resolved easily enough. Suddenly, the detective interrupted my thought process. “Do you?”
“Sorry. What?”
“Do you understand your rights and do you want to speak to me without an attorney present?”
“Yeah. Sure. I’ll speak with you,” I said, signing the form. “Let’s talk.”
Bud got down to business. “For the record, how do you know Leonard aka Lennie McCrory?”
I tried to recall the circumstance of his particular case. “He’s unknown to me in any sense outside the criminal justice process. His case file came across my desk a while back for the preparation of a grand jury indictment on his charges. During my review of the file, I learned he had been a rather successful CPA, but apparently became hooked on cocaine as he enjoyed the ‘fruits’ of his affluent lifestyle. From reading his criminal history, it seemed McCrory’s addiction caused him to sink lower and lower, resulting in more than a few arrests and several drug convictions. Now, he’s just a punk. Covered in tattoos and piercings from asshole to appetite, if I recall correctly. He’s just been living on what he could earn from time to time.”
“. . . it seemed McCrory’s addiction caused him to sink lower . . . . ”
The detective glanced at a document he held, probably one of McCrory’s book-in sheets, to compare with my depiction. “In his most recent arrest,” I continued, “the cops found the drugs on him when they responded to a domestic violence complaint. It was not the first time the police had been dispatched to his residence on that type call. But this was the first case of his I’d dealt with. He called himself Lennie, because he didn’t like his real first name.” I smiled nervously at the man across the table, my implication clear.
He didn’t return my smile and made notes as I spoke. “When and where did you first meet him?” He didn’t look up from the notepad.
“I first came in contact with him in court at his arraignment on these charges. I don’t remember the date. It’ll be on the file jacket.”
“Are you sure?”
I was getting agitated. “Yes, I’m sure! Do you have something that says otherwise?”
Bud ignored my question and continued with one of his own. “What about your relationship with Margaret McCrory?”
“Who is Margaret McCrory? What relationship? Your question implies I know the woman at all!”
“Look, don’t ‘lawyer’ with me! Just answer my questions!” The annoyance in his voice subsided as he took a deep breath and pressed on, “Margaret is Leonard’s, uh, Lennie’s wife.” With that, he slid the photograph of a slender, very attractive brunette across the table at me. Hers was a face you’d remember after even a brief encounter. “That’s Margaret McCrory. She’s the victim in the domestic abuse part of your drug case. Her name has to be in your file’s police reports, and yet you say you’ve never heard of her?”
“Well, the police reports referred to Lennie’s wife as Peggy. So I didn’t get the connection. My mind is not together right now. I don’t recall ever seeing this woman.”
“C’mon. She tells me she’s been in court with Lennie every time he’s appeared on these charges, and she says you two made what she calls ‘eye contact’ the very first time. You had to have seen her in court.”
“First, crime is a very popular occupation hereabouts. The courtroom is always packed with people, as I’m sure you’ve noticed when you’ve been subpoenaed for a motions calendar or for trial. I’ve never seen this woman, and, seeing her photo now, I believe I’d remember it if I had.”
“Exactly! We both know what a hound you’ve been since your divorce!”
“I’m not aware I’ve ever seen her!”
“Well, she says you have. And not just in court.”
I didn’t like the insinuation his statement carried. “What? Wait just a damned minute! Sure, I rarely miss a delicate female form that crosses my radar! And while I admit to being attracted to the opposite sex, I’ve never acted on it to the detriment of my job! And I’ve never crossed paths with this woman or McCrory outside a courtroom.”
“No, you wait just a damned minute! I’ve got a lot of questions regarding the circumstances of this case which don’t add up! And they put you right in the middle of this mess!” Thankfully, the man caught himself and paused to let the heat of the moment recede. He knew I had something of a temper. He stood and walked around to the side of the table, hiking a hip up onto the edge and leaning his two-hundred-plus athletic-looking pounds forward on his hands, closer to me. From this vantage point, I recognized for the first time the effectiveness of his presence on a suspect. “Now let’s take this one step at a time. Do you want to talk to someone, an attorney maybe?”
“No! I am an attorney!” When I said it, I wondered whether I was doing the right thing. As the old saying goes, “A lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client.” I settled back on my chair.
“Have you ever been to the McCrory’s home?”
“No. I have no idea where they live.”
He grunted. “As a matter of fact, they don’t live that far from you.”
My frustration level rose. “It’s a heavily populated county. Many people live near my place. It doesn’t mean I know them, where they live, or have ever visited their homes!”
Bud glanced askew at me with a look with which a teacher might reprove a naughty child and continued, “Where were you at around nine-thirty last Saturday night?” He liked to shift directions when interrogations became heated. It kept the perps off balance. I’d seen him do it dozens of times on video recordings.
“Where were you at around nine-thirty last Saturday night?”
I was getting increasingly annoyed with all these pointed questions, so I counted to ten and took a deep breath to calm myself. The storm passed. “This past Saturday night? Well, you understand how it is sometimes just before trials start. Everything we’ve planned to go to trial on gets continued unexpectedly or falls apart or pleads guilty or whatever, so we go into the ‘scramble mode.’ When it happens, my investigator and I are usually out and about trying to chase down and interview victims or witnesses one last time. Or we’re trying to serve subpoenas on them. That’s what I was doing Saturday night.”
“So, you and your investigator, Rick–it is still Rick, right?” I nodded, certain he already knew the answer. “So you and Rick were out together Saturday night trying to find people?”
“Yes, we were out, but we weren’t together. There were too many MIAs, so we split the work between us.”
“Okay. Where did you go during that time? Who did you speak with?”
“Well, at eight-thirty I was over on Belvedere Highway at a Mexican restaurant looking for the victim in an armed robbery case. The post office had returned his trial subpoena, but a trace of him kept coming back to the same address. According to an anonymous phone call I’d received late Friday, he was supposed to be working at one of the places over there as a server or something.”
“Which Mexican restaurant? Belvedere Highway is like little Tijuana.”
“Well, I drove to several of them over there but was batting zero. So I switched gears, went to his last known address in the apartment complex, Dunedin Court, and waited to see if he showed there.”
“How long were you there?”
“Until eleven-thirty or so. Maybe midnight.”
“Did you speak to anyone while you were there? Did anyone see you there?”
“No. I just sat in my car and waited. Any other time, at least according to the police reports I’ve read, one of your patrol units would have come through the ‘high crime area’ and rousted anyone sitting in a car in the parking lot. But that didn’t happen to me. So no, I didn’t speak to anyone.”
“Funny you should say that. Rick told me you said you’d gone there and staked out the victim’s apartment. So I checked with uniform division. They did, in fact, drive through the complex several times that night. Nobody saw you. And you’re right. Because of the amount of criminal activity there, they’d have noticed and would have stopped to talk with anyone sitting in a car.”
The detective just looked at me, waiting. The work he’d put into checking on me and my whereabouts on Saturday night stunned me.
“Well, I got out of the car several times and knocked on the guy’s door to check if anyone was home or if I’d missed him coming in. The uniforms just missed seeing me.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about getting out of the car before now? Did anyone see you when you went to the door?”
“No. No one I’m aware of. At least I didn’t notice anybody. And no one answered the door when I knocked. As far as not mentioning it, I didn’t think it was important.”
As Bud started to speak, I realized what he was getting ready to say something I’d heard him tell dozens of witnesses and suspects. “Everything is important,” we said in unison.
Any other time, we would have laughed. No laughter this time. I sat and waited as he looked over his notes. Finally, the detective looked up at me, concern in his eyes. “So, let me get this straight. You’ve never met Margaret McCrory, in or out of court. You’ve never been to the McCrory home. And you were out Saturday night by yourself with no one to vouch for your whereabouts at nine-thirty.”
“Right, so far. What happened at nine-thirty?” At this point I was speaking with caution, not from fear. But, when spoken aloud, the words sounded like the same thing.
“That’s when Lennie McCrory was burned to death on his couch. It’s when Margaret, who claims you were her lover, says you poured gasoline over him as he slept in a drug-induced stupor and lit a match.” As he spoke, the cop watched for my reaction, which was a nanosecond in coming.
“Margaret, who claims you were her lover, says you poured gasoline over him as he slept in a drug-induced stupor and lit a match.”
“What? That’s bullshit! I’m nobody’s ‘lover’! Certainly not hers! I’ve never been near their place! And why would I want to kill this guy?”
He gauged my reaction before responding. “To begin with, how can you say you’ve never even been near their place when you say you don’t know where they live?”
“I haven’t knowingly been near their home!”
“And you claim you haven’t been in their home?”
“Sure as hell not!”
“And, if you aren’t Margaret McCrory’s lover, why on earth would she say that? What does she have to gain?”
“Damned if I know! But it’s not true! Have you talked to anyone who has ever seen us together? You know me–”
Bud held up his hand to stop what he evidently thought might be a play on our friendship.
“No, you wait! You know me well enough to be sure I’d never risk my reputation, my career as a prosecutor for the sake of a little ‘slap and tickle’ with some honey! That’s just not going to happen! How in the hell could you take the word of an ex-con’s wife I had? Now I do feel the need to talk to a lawyer!” I started to get up from the table.
“Fine. It’s your decision to make. But as a friend, before you go, let me just give you one more piece of evidence you’ll have to deal with. The arson investigators I’ve been working with say gasoline was used as an accelerant.”
“Yeah, so?”
“The fire department arrived at the McCrory house in time to contain the fire to the living room, but, unfortunately, not soon enough to save Lennie. In the course of our investigation, we recovered a gasoline can from the garage of the home. According to Margaret’s statement and the preliminary lab test results, it’s the can the accelerant was poured from before the fire was started.”
“Yeah, so?”
“Your fingerprints are on that gas can.”
In that instant, my entire world crashed around me. There was no way in hell my fingerprints could be, should be on the gas can used to commit this crime. But, according to Bud, there they were. I’d handled too many cases involving forensic evidence to doubt what he was saying. To say I sat in stunned silence would be a gross understatement. I couldn’t delude myself. This was terrible. Perhaps the Good Book was right. There is a time under the Heaven for weeping. Maybe this was that moment for me.
Perhaps the Good Book was right. There is a time under the Heaven for weeping.
Finally, he spoke. “Do you have something you want to tell me?”
“Wait,” I fought back. “She told you she saw me pour the gasoline over her husband and light him on fire?”
“Margaret says Lennie was using drugs Saturday night, and they got into an argument over his drug habit. She’s never been involved with the crap, and she hated it. He beat her. After he passed out on the sofa, she called you, her lover, for help. She did so even though she knows you get angrier at Lennie each time the abuse happens. When you arrived at their place, you became uncontrollably furious at the sight of her injuries. Margaret was beaten pretty severely. She stopped you from attacking Lennie and, to distract your rage, begged you to take her away to safety. When she figured she’d calmed you down enough, Margaret went to the bedroom to pack a bag. As she was packing, she suddenly smelled gasoline.
“By the time she ran back into the living room, you’d already emptied the contents of the can, which you’d retrieved from the garage, over Lennie, and had struck a match. You threw the match before she could stop you, and then it was too late. She screamed. You tried to get her to leave with you, but she refused. By this time, she was more terrified of you than of her husband. She was calling 9-1-1 as you were driving away. At first, we believed she killed Lennie as retribution for the beating. Only later did she tell us what’d happened, including your involvement. Your prints on the can confirmed her story for us.”
I felt like an animal trapped without hope. “It looks bad, but not one word of it is true.” I was totally perplexed and dejected, completely at a loss for words. My face must have revealed my anguish.
“What do you want to do, Steve?”
“I need time to think, to figure out how the hell this could be happening to me.” My confidence had drained away like a low tide in the Bay of Fundy. I needed to start at square one and work my way through it. Then an idea returned to me. “I asked you if anyone had ever seen Margaret McCrory and me together.”
“Well, the problem is she says it was a torrid, but clandestine relationship. By their nature, such things are secret. So, no, to my knowledge, no one has seen the two of you together. It could be argued that, owing to the circumstances, it would be in your best interest to keep anyone from knowing anything concerning you two being together. Your reputation, your job. All that was at risk if they ever found you out.”
“I can’t prove a negative. And now my freedom is on the line. That, by the way, is not an admission whatever she’s told you is true.” Again, the enormity of my predicament struck me, and a horrible thought occurred to me. “Oh, God. Am I under arrest for murder?”
Again, the enormity of my predicament struck me . . . .
Bud’s initial response was terse and all business. “Yes, you are.” After a moment he added, “But it’s possible you’ll get a bond under the circumstances, even on a murder charge. It’s happened before. Remember the Carrie Coppage trial? The judge gave her a bond on a murder charge.”
* * *
Flanders was right. To my utter shock, I got a bond, even though the charge was murder. I’d worked closely with several of the bonding companies over the years, approving extraditions when they found their bail jumpers, letting them know about missed court dates, and so on. So finding someone to post my bond wasn’t as difficult as I’d thought it might be. The bond conditions required, among other things, surrendering my passport and wearing an electronic ankle monitoring device. That didn’t matter to me. Just because I was on leave from my job didn’t mean I was going anywhere.
By the time I arrived home after making bail, it was still early in the morning, but I was too wide awake to sleep. Instead, I sat and tried to sort through what had happened to me in the last eight hours. Nothing made any sense. Of course, the idea of Margaret McCrory and me being lovers was absurd. And I swear I’d never seen or recalled seeing the woman in or out of court. As I saw it, as far as any witnesses went, the case boiled down to her word against mine. I could deal with that. But the inescapable fact was my fingerprints were on the “murder weapon.” It could not be possible. How the hell could I explain it? More important, how the hell did they get there?
Nothing was more gratifying to either a cop or a prosecutor than to have a suspect deny emphatically ever having been in a certain location only to have their fingerprints or DNA show up there. However, in this case, the prints were on a movable object. This was a slightly different circumstance than prints on a windowsill, in a car, or on a kitchen counter, for example. Even so, my prints were somewhere I couldn’t account for. I had lived in an apartment since my divorce ten years earlier. During that time, I had not even owned a gas can. So it wasn’t a matter of my gas can showing up somewhere else. I just could not see any way this had happened. I could wait to prove my innocence at trial, but I knew a criminal trial can be a blunt instrument for ferreting out the truth.
Several days passed as I waited to see what might happen next. I didn’t contact a defense attorney right away. It was because I kept thinking either I’d wake up from this bad dream or Bud would call to tell me it’d been a terrible mistake, and it was over. Mine was a lonely existence during that time, locked away in my apartment. Not meaning to sound too maudlin, but I was drowning in my solitude. Ironically, the one phone call I received was from Lee Gasque.
Mine was a lonely existence during that time, locked away in my apartment.
He’d heard of my plight and wanted to know whether there was something he could do. He was truly concerned. The call was more from a friend than a colleague. I assured Lee it was a gross misunderstanding and I’d call him if I needed anything. His contacting me helped lift my spirits somewhat, but it was short-lived. No other calls, no visitors, nothing. Although I couldn’t blame anyone for staying away under these circumstances, it still hurt.
Over the next few days, the weather turned even colder than it had been the entire winter. The accompanying dark-gray sky only added to my gloom. I spent much of my time contemplating what was to become of me. It perplexed me. Even if a jury found me innocent of the charges, there seemed no way I could continue in the district attorney’s office.
No matter how optimistically Cliff had put it that night in the boss’ office, I didn’t see how Strom could welcome me back. Vincent was not one to give anyone sympathy, least of all those accused of crimes. A career prosecutor himself, he firmly, yet myopically believed such a person was guilty until proved innocent. Officious little prick. My mind raced with the uncertainty of the situation. I’d never been a quitter, and I wasn’t giving up now, but I saw no way around my dilemma at this point.
So, after I cleaned out my refrigerator, which took just under fifteen minutes, I started passing my time watching an old movie channel. The showings were only a temporary diversion. My plight was never far from my immediate thoughts. Even so, the movies were something to do. However, when one particular offering I’d seen before, The Wrong Man, came on, I suddenly felt the burning need to leave, to get out. The movie, starring Henry Fonda, is the story of a man wrongly accused and convicted of a crime he didn’t commit. To many people, it’s probably the most harrowing of Alfred Hitchcock’s movies simply because it’s based on a true story. Anyway, it was my sign I needed to escape from the apartment for any reason.
I called the people monitoring my ankle device and received permission to go to the supermarket. Although it was the same place I always shopped and I knew several people there and they knew me, it just wasn’t the same experience now. By this time, the story of my arrest for the murder had hit the local papers, and there was a decided difference in people’s manner when they saw me. Even the cute little pharmacist there, with whom I always flirted, gave me a stern, disapproving look. I was glad to grab my groceries and get out of the place.
By this time, the story of my arrest for the murder had hit the local papers . . . .
I stopped to fill my car with gas on the way back home. Since I wasn’t going anywhere much, I’m not sure why I topped off the tank. The idea of going back to the apartment just didn’t appeal to me much, so, subconsciously, this was probably my way of delaying the inevitable. The day was metallic cold. As I stood there pumping gas, my breath making gray clouds in protest to the freezing temperature, and observing the comings and goings of people bundled against the cold, it hit me. In my excitement, I stopped pumping gas before my tank was even half full and almost forgot to replace my gas cap. I had to get home as quickly as possible!
As soon as I went through my front door, I threw the bags of groceries on the kitchen counter and reached for the phone. I was too upset, too excited to think straight at that moment. So I thanked God I’d programmed Bud’s office number into my phone’s speed dial several years earlier. As luck would have it, the man wasn’t at his desk. I didn’t want to leave a message on his voice mail, so I hung up and called his cell-phone number. He answered on the third ring.
“Detective Flanders.”
“It’s Steve Wood. I need to talk to you right away!”
“Are you sure?”
“I think I have some answers, but I need your help to check on them.”
“Your defense attorney should do it.”
“I don’t have one. And, if I’m right about something, I won’t need one. But I really need your help to confirm a simple fact. This is something I can’t do myself. Can you come by my place to talk?”
The air stirred at the other end of the phone line. “If you insist on talking, you’d better come to our office.”
Yeah, right. Get it on video. “Okay. Let me call the monitoring people and get permission. When’s a good time for you? I don’t have anything else to do and the sooner the better for me.”
“I’m out working on something right now. How’s three o’clock this afternoon sound?”
“I’ll see you then.”
Four hours from now, I thought as I hung up the phone. An eternity. I relaxed, though only a bit, and tried to be optimistic. As I stood at my kitchen sink, drinking water from an old glass decorated with a cartoon character, I realized there was something critical I had to do before our meeting. When it occurred to me, I nearly choked on the water! What was I thinking?
I spent the next hour rummaging through old credit-card receipts. When I located what I hoped might be my salvation from this misery, I became calmer. Some of my appetite returned. After scrambled eggs and toast, I sat and watched the clock for the next two hours. In my anticipation, I nearly forgot to call the monitoring people and get permission to go to police headquarters. The guy I spoke with sounded uncertain as to why I’d want to go there under my circumstances, but he gave me leave to do so.
At two forty-five, I was sitting in the police department lobby. I’d been there many times before as a prosecutor and had never given it a second thought, feeling a part of a team. Conversely, it felt unfriendly and forbidding to me now, even with the newfound optimism to which I clung. Several officers I’d worked with in the past walked through the lobby as I sat there. I was invisible now. This feeling I was experiencing hurt profoundly. I’d always taken a great deal of pride in my chosen career, believing I was on the side of right in the criminal justice system.
Several officers I’d worked with in the past walked through the lobby as I sat there. I was invisible now.
Many people think the term “justice” simply means justice only for the accused, but, to a prosecutor, it also means justice for the victims and their families. Almost everyone recalls “Lady Justice” is depicted as blindfolded and holding the balance scales. Most people seem to forget she also holds a sword, not only to mete out punishment to the guilty but to protect the innocent, especially victims. As I sat there, I wondered whether her sword would protect me or fall on me.
At three o’clock exactly, Bud stuck his head out of the door leading to the detectives’ area and beckoned me with a jerk of his head. As we walked through the Crimes Against Persons Division, the hurt I’d felt at the coolness I’d encountered in the lobby swept over me again. I received cold, sideways glances from the detectives there. Although I’d worked with each of them at one time or another, no one acknowledged my presence. Not even nods of recognition. Once inside an interview room, we sat at the table.
“Is the tape rolling?”
“Listen, I don’t have time for grief. I’m doing my job and meeting with you only because you asked for a get-together. Your rights still apply. What do you want?”
I recognized his exasperation with the circumstances. My smart-assed comment hadn’t helped any. “I’m sorry. I want to give you copies of these gas receipts.”
“What the hell! Are you confessing now?”
With the certainty of innocence, I continued, “Please listen. To begin with, I have nothing to confess to. Second, if you look at the receipts, you’ll see the amount of gas purchased each time was over twelve gallons. Although you didn’t say what size gas can was used in the murder, I’m willing to bet it was not a twelve-gallon can. Because that’s more than sixty pounds of gasoline, if I remember my weights correctly, it would be a more than a little awkward to carry around.”
He pushed back from the table and folded his arms across his chest. “So you pumped part of the gas into a car and part into the gas can. If you pumped it! That’s not the answer. Next story.” The detective’s face was solemn, disbelieving.
Having a temper of my own, I was getting agitated again. I silently counted to ten and pressed on. “Look, even if someone put part of the gas in a car and part in the can, it wasn’t me. Around a month ago, I stopped for gas where I always do, being the creature of habit I am. The day was as cold as a well digger’s toes in Minnesota, and I was in a hurry. It’s one of those stations that has pumps on opposite sides of each other at the same island.
“As I stood there at the pumps hopping from one foot to the other trying to stay warm, a car pulled up to the pumps on the opposite side. I didn’t pay much attention. Anyway, a woman got out of the car and came around her car to the pumps. After a short time, she stuck her head around to my side of the island and asked if I could get the top off her gas can. I took the can, messed around with it, and, after some effort, got the cap off. Then I handed it back to her and finished filling my car.
After a short time, she stuck her head around to my side of the island and asked if I could get the top off her gas can.
“When I’d finished pumping the gas, I paid, as always, with my credit card, jumped in my car, and drove away. I never thought anymore of it until this morning when I was filling up with gas again. Then I remembered what had happened. I didn’t get a good look at the woman, but she was definitely a brunette. Some of her hair was sticking out from beneath a toboggan hat. And she didn’t have on any make-up.
“I remember thinking it was too bad about the make-up, because, fixed up, she was probably fairly hot. That’s why I didn’t recognize her from the photo you showed me in here the other night. I believe the woman was Margaret McCrory. She was around five feet seven inches tall, although, at the time it was hard to tell. She was kind of slumped over with the gas can. Relatively slender build, too. I could tell that even with all the clothing she was wearing.”
Bud was eyeing me with what I could best describe as a cynical look. After a couple of seconds, he asked, “Okay, if you were dressed for the severe cold, I assume you had on gloves. I’ve seen you wear them. How’d your prints get on the can?”
“Yeah, I was wearing heavy layers of clothing, but I don’t wear my gloves when I pump gas. I always take them off in the car beforehand. My gloves are leather and, if they get gasoline on them, the odor will never come out. So I wasn’t wearing gloves.”
“This is so far-fetched. What are the odds? How do you prove something such as that?”
“That’s why I brought the credit-card receipts.” I tapped the receipts lying on the table between us as I spoke. “They have the date, time, and station number on them. If she used a credit card to buy gas at the same time, it shows what I’m saying is true. She was there. And with a gas can. I brought these three receipts, because I cannot remember which date it happened.”
“And if she paid by cash?”
“Well, maybe the clerk will remember her. Or possibly she’ll be on a security video from the station even if she paid at the pump.”
Bud responded with considerable asperity. “Yeah, maybe. You know full well, half the time, we can’t find witnesses who can remember what a perp looks like an hour after a crime. And almost a month later you expect the clerk at a busy gas station to remember this bundled-up woman. And that’s if she paid inside!”
“I’m willing to take the chance if it proves my innocence.”
“But I have to do the work.”
“Yeah, to see justice is done. Deuteronomy 16:20. Remember?” That verse had become my mantra during my time as a prosecutor, and I liked best the version from the Torah.
“Okay,” he sighed. “I’ll see what I can find out. But don’t get your hopes up, even if you’re innocent. This is a long shot, and you know it. If, and I mean if, something turns up, I’ll call you. By the way, they design most gas stations with the pumps on both sides of the same island now. Try a different one sometime and you’ll see.”
I wanted to smile at his parting shot, but it seemed too early to be happy about anything just yet. I simply said, “Thanks.”
* * *
Try as I might, it was difficult to be optimistic Flanders might get anywhere with my information. I knew he was right. It was a long shot, an extremely long shot. But it was the only hope I had. So I sat and waited.
* * *
Four days later, my telephone rang. “Steve.” Bud’s voice revealed nothing. My heart was pounding so hard I swear I could hear it.
“Yes?”
“Well, you need to go buy a few lottery tickets, old buddy.” His voice was subdued, regardless of his message.
“Are you serious?” His implication was clear enough to me, and it relieved me to the point of tears!
“Yeah. Just as you said, I ran Margaret’s credit-card purchases. She was stupid enough to use a credit card in her effort to frame you for her husband’s murder. She was at the gas station on the nineteenth of the month at the same time you were. Better than that, she was on the security video, as you’d hoped, handing you the gas can.
“Fortunately for you, the station had security video and the station’s manager had not recycled the recordings yet. We had to get the video enhanced to get a decent picture of her and of her car’s license plate, but it’s her, right enough. When I brought her in to question her and confronted her with the evidence, she caved. She’s not a practiced criminal, because her conscience had been killing her. You’re a lucky man. If we hadn’t come up with this lead and the evidence, you’d still be looking pretty good for this murder.”
“When I brought her in to question her and confronted her with the evidence, she caved.”
“I still don’t understand how or why she did it.”
“Well, the ‘why’ is simple. You were going to put her husband’s worthless, drug-using, wife-abusing ass in prison where he belonged. As a result, she’d have no money coming in. And then she’d have to drag her lovely butt out into the workplace, struggling and scraping to earn a living for the lifestyle, as they say, to which she had become accustomed. The alternative was to kill him, blaming someone else, and collect the sizeable insurance policy he’s had since he was a more productive citizen before the cocaine took hold.
“As far as who to blame and how, it was either you or his drug dealer. The drug dealer was way too cautious to be set up. And you, my friend, were way too easy, being the self-described ‘creature of habit’ you are. Simply put, she was desperate to salvage her life. Having seen you in court without you realizing it, she merely studied your routine for a couple of weeks and followed you, trying to ‘get something’ on you, to use her phrase. The rest was easy. She just set it up and acted when the opportunity presented itself. Luck was with her when you didn’t have an alibi. In her mind, it was poetic justice two of the three men who had made her life a living hell would be ‘punished’ by one act.”
“My, God, but she gave this a lot of thought, a lot of planning. She must have really hated me.”
“Apparently so. But she also had a lot of luck on her side, too.”
I sat in silence for a moment, thinking of how the events of the last two weeks had altered my life forever.
“Steve, are you there?”
“Yeah, I’m here. But where am I now … really?”
The detective’s voice seemed quietly sad when he answered, “Yeah, I know.” He paused for a couple of seconds. “Listen, I’ve got to go.”
“Okay. Thanks for the call. And, as always, thanks for your hard work.”
We hung up. As I replaced the receiver, I was simultaneously thankful and depressed. I didn’t know where I’d go, what I’d do from here. I was just grateful Margaret had a conscience and folded when Bud confronted her. Then something occurred to me which brought a smile. For all his verbosity, Judge Bunch was correct in one thing. During sentencing, he often told defendants, if they wanted to have a successful career as a criminal, they couldn’t have a conscience. At least, he was right in that assessment. ©