Murder For Comfort

by John L. Work

  57

  After a few years of work as a police officer or sheriff’s deputy, most men and women who wear the uniform come to the realization that there are two different systems of criminal justice in the United States – or anywhere in the world, for that matter. One system is on the tier reserved for the very wealthy and influential in society. The other is for everyone else. It can be a moment of great disillusionment and the beginning of bitter cynicism for a cop, when the reality sinks into his mind that having a lot of money in the bank really can be a license for one to commit crimes, whether they are misdemeanors or felonies.

  For Welch, his first experience with this great awakening came years ago when, as a rookie in uniform, he was dispatched to assist in breaking up a party that had gotten out of hand in one of Calhoun County’s well to do neighborhoods. In fact, the party was at the home of one of the County Commissioners, who happened to be out of town with his wife for the weekend. The youngest son threw a shindig in their absence, complete with access to his father’s sizable liquor cabinet. There were probably five hundred people who showed up, many of whom received second or third hand invitations. The level of intoxication grew as the night progressed. There was a lot of noise. A couple of neighbors got fed up with it and called the sheriff’s office to complain.

  A minute or so prior to the arrival of the first two unsuspecting deputies, who intended to just have a talk with whoever was in charge of the festivities and try to reasonably resolve the problem, a fist fight broke out inside the house. The action soon spilled out the front door, across the front lawn and into the street. Partying onlookers chose sides with either of the two pugilists and it was only a matter of a few seconds before there was a full scale disturbance in progress, just as the first two cops rolled up on the scene. The neighbors, who by this time had endured more than their share of the Saturday night’s nonsense, really lit up the 911 lines at the sheriff’s office.

  It’s an axiom of drunken brawls that the level of violence will escalate exponentially with the sudden presence of the police. The two officers found themselves face to face with massive, palpable mob intoxication – and flying hand-launched missiles. They began to yell for backup assistance on their portable radios. Drowsy swing shift dispatchers in the communications center, who thought they were about to be on their way home for the night, felt their heart rates jump and keyed their microphones to call in more cops.

  It was into this situation that the rookie deputy J.D. Welch was sent as a backup officer. The street scene was bedlam. People were running around, yelling and screaming. Fists landed on faces, noses broke and bled, teeth were loosened and knocked out. Hard, fast moving objects ricocheted about. One of them, perhaps a Coors light bottle, exploded on the upper window frame as he opened his door to get out of the marked sheriff’s car. The loud popping sound startled him as the shards of glass flew, missing his face by inches. The rocks were landing around him and the other cops. The crowd became even more aggressive and began to overwhelm the deputies. A retreat was ordered by the field sergeant, Richie Jelker. The platoon of first wave cops got into their cars, backed out of the area and met about a half mile away in a parking lot, as the next shift was sent out of roll call early to help regroup and reinforce the first wave for a second response. The 911 switchboard was still blazing with calls from the pissed off neighbors, who were not at all pleased to see the police leave in such a hurry.

  The second time, the cops went in with their riot helmets on, their Koga batons in hand – and they used them. Most of the crowd refused to disperse when Jelker ordered them to do so over his car top public address speaker. A few flying bottles began to explode on impact again and the officers advanced, swinging their hickory weapons with precision and to good effect. The few party animals who were actually struck by the batons or arrested had been given fair chance to go on their way to home and safety. Intoxicated males scrambled to get into their vehicles and leave the area. More than a few of them would get up the next morning to find that somehow the tail lights on their cars had mysteriously broken as they left the party. What they may not have figured out was that the shattered lights were the price some of the veteran officers extracted with their batons as the revelers fled.

  But the hardest lesson in the young cop’s lifelong course of study in misery came when the officers reassembled at the station for a third sally, every one of them frothing to go back and arrest the County Commissioner’s son for disturbing the peace. But, their division chief, who had been monitoring the situation from home, by means of his telephone and the police radio scanner in his comfortable den, wouldn’t allow it. There was a lot of bitter griping among some of the veterans, who really should have known that this would happen. Welch just listened and watched. He hadn’t been around long enough to complain about anything – yet. At that moment he was just happy that his face hadn’t been lacerated by flying glass and the baseball sized rocks that had been chucked at him during the first go-round.

  It was a lesson to be remembered for a lifetime. Had the same event occurred at the home of some citizen without the wealth and influence of the County Commissioner, the police response would have been to arrest the owner of the home – or whoever was the host of the melee. But there were political considerations in this, and in all police actions. A police chief, a captain or division chief could well lose his job if enough pressure were brought to bear on a sheriff or mayor by an angry councilman or commissioner. It was all a part of the rank and file cop’s misery.

  And to add insult to the hazards of responding to calls like this one had turned out, the press corps nearly always sides with the rioting partiers, no matter how much destruction is wrought and who is injured or killed. The news people just want the kids to have some fun. There’s great sympathy for intoxicated mob rule, both in the writings of the extreme political left and within the American press. The media, as did Lenin, love the chaos of violent civil disturbances. The bigger and more destructive the mob, the better the television and news crews like it. Any action the police take in such a situation is going to be the wrong one. Newspaper reporters and television anchors have a finely honed knack for producing participants and former arrestees, either to feature on the nightly news or on the front pages. They are people who will reliably recite the time honored rhetorical claim that the police over reacted – and by so doing actually caused the situation to escalate. However, if the police don’t go into the scene and do something to bring the riot to an end, then the accusations are leveled that the non-response, or an inadequate response, by law enforcement officers emboldened the rioters. So, it was actually the cops’ failure to act that allowed more property damage to occur and further endangered the neighbors. There is just no way for the complaining neighbors and the cops to come out winners when basic civil behavior breaks down in the streets, no matter what or who instigates it.

  Having bottles and rocks thrown at his head wasn’t a sensation that Welch enjoyed. Later in life, when he told some of the stories about being the target of such missiles, people were often rather amused. Some actually thought it was funny – the idea of people throwing rocks and glass bottles at the cops. He wasn’t amused, at all. He’d seen heads split open by well thrown rocks. And after all, in the ultimate rock throwing story of the ages, didn’t David slay the giant Goliath with a stone to his temple? It was still customary for adulterers in Muslim States to be stoned to death. That wasn’t very funny. There was nothing amusing to Welch and other officers in being targeted by rock and bottle throwers. The stones weren’t pebbles, either – they were usually fist sized and capable of permanently disabling or killing.

  So, the cops are always put into no win situations at riots and major disturbances. The only winners are the newspaper publishers, who sell more copies off the racks when a spectacular story breaks – and the lawyers who defend the rioters unlucky enough to have been arrested.

  The next lesson Welch learned in the two tiered justice system was f
rom watching much of the O.J. Simpson murder trial unfold on Court TV. He knew that a common man without the celebrity and financial resources possessed by Simpson wouldn’t have been able to pay the team of attorneys that defended him in the murder of his ex-wife and her male friend. Even so, Welch watched in astonishment as a mountain of inculpatory evidence was piled up in front of the jury by the prosecution. The jury abjectly ignored what should have been obvious to them – Simpson did it. His highly skilled legal team diverted the jurors’ attention from the hard physical evidence – such as the presence of O.J. Simpson’s blood found at the crime scene – to the race-related perjury of a homicide detective on a peripheral issue that was not particularly relevant to the case at hand.

  And the lying detective was apparently not smart enough to recognize that he was being led into a trap when Simpson’s attorney repeated a question two or three times, to pin down the detective’s denial of ever having uttered a particular racial slur. Welch learned fairly early in his investigations experience that any time an attorney more than once asks a question of a witness, he probably knows that the first answer was a lie and, by getting the witness to repeat it a second or third time for the jury, he is helping the witness to cement himself into a corner. So, by the end of the Simpson trial, his defense team had managed to turn the jurors’ attention away from the savage, bloody murders of two innocent people – with all the physical and circumstantial evidence that pointed toward one man’s guilt – toward the arguable racial biases of one of the investigating detectives. And that issue trumped any established scientific fact or forensic material that may have found its way through the race laced smokescreens and into the minds of the jurors. The murder case morphed during the trial to become a swirling vortex about racism within the Los Angeles Police Department – and equally disturbing, the obvious perjury by a detective. But the most significant lesson to learn from all of it was that a skilled team of high dollar lawyers could get it done and set a guilty man free. Simpson had both the money and the celebrity name recognition to purchase a rich man’s trial – and an acquittal.

  Yes, it was true that she also had a lot of money, but Welch had no idea how Marnie McCowell’s wealth would play out in these cases. She didn’t have celebrity – at least not until her arrest for multiple murders. And he didn’t want to be involved in any way with the negotiations that her attorney might solicit from the two Colorado District Attorney’s Offices. He’d long ago decided to stay away from giving his opinions to prosecutors about whether to try a case or make a plea offer, unless they were requested. He appreciated a Deputy D.A. respecting his province as a cop, and in return he recognized the Deputy District Attorney’s purview to either make deals on cases or take them to trial. As far as the Cook County, Illinois prosecutor, there was no way to even make a guess at what might develop in the way of a deal, either for Marnie or Samantha Newsom. That would be something for Frank Stanley to watch, if he had the time. Stanley’s only problem in this enormous mess was the murder of Jim McCowell in Chicago. Since Welch’s case was the root of the rest of it, he was tied into all three investigations and would need to keep abreast of the unfolding developments in each.

  58

  Marnie McCowell was locked into her destiny. Her attorney was pushing for sentencing concessions with the Roberts County District Attorney and the Park County D.A. But virtually no Deputy D.A. will agree to any prior agreement on a plea in exchange for a codefendant’s testimony. To do so can be used by the principal defendant’s lawyer in discrediting that evidence, by arguing that the testimony was purchased through promises made to the witness during the plea deal negotiations. In essence, if Marnie’s charges were dropped to Second Degree Murder, or Conspiracy to Commit Second Degree Murder with an attached shorter prison term, all in return for her testimony at trial against Samantha Newsom, Samantha’s lawyer would have a lot of grist for cross examining Marnie. A good defense counsel could effectively discredit her story by framing questions around the favor she received in exchange for becoming the government’s star witness – not to mention betraying her friend and lover. And it was a sure bet that Sammie’s defense attorney indeed would make much of that act of treachery.

  Marnie couldn’t credibly deny under oath that she received a deal from the prosecution for helping to convict her husband’s actual killer. She’d be forced to admit to the jury that she was selling out Samantha to save her own skin from a longer prison sentence – or from execution. As things stood, she was accused of First Degree Murder, a capital offense in Colorado. The Roberts County District Attorney’s Office hadn’t announced whether or not it would press for her execution, but it was pretty safe to bet The People wouldn’t seek that punishment. Why would she even bother to testify against her lover if she were facing execution on Colorado’s death row?

  For all of the considerations involved in a plea arrangement, a Deputy District Attorney would wait as long as possible, preferably until after Samantha Newsom’s trial, to complete any pleading and sentencing deals with Marnie McCowell.

  On the other hand, Marnie’s attorney, David Talidge, had a lot of leverage in his deck of cards. His client was the only accused defendant who could personally tie the conspiracy together in front of the jury. And the fact that she’d come forward voluntarily to confess would probably be given some consideration by a reasonable prosecutor and judge. It was true that the police had a video tape of her confession, with Talidge present at the interview. But the prosecution really needed Marnie’s live and in person testimony to adequately paint the picture during trial. Talidge had argued vehemently with Marnie not to meet with the police after Jim’s murder. But her mind wouldn’t be swayed, even when facing the possibility of either life in prison or the death penalty. She’d experienced a genuine attack by her conscience because of what she and Samantha Newsom did – and it has been said that there is no greater torture than a guilty conscience. Talidge worried that his client might become suicidal once she realized she was facing the probability of long term incarceration.

  One item that Welch had thought about, but was not overly concerned with, was that Marnie could still tip off Samantha to the cops knowing everything, and that she was about to be arrested in Auckland, as soon as she stepped off that plane. If Marnie somehow decided to do that – the proverbial double cross, it would make things much worse for her own cases. For one thing it would add an Accessory to Murder after the fact charge for helping Sammie to escape from prosecution. And any deal that might have been under consideration in the office of the Roberts County District Attorney would be immediately voided.

  Marnie provided Welch all of her email communications with Sammie, which showed that the two had agreed to meet outside the Auckland customs clearing area after Marnie made it through baggage claim and the customs inspection. Sammie’s flight was supposed to arrive late Thursday morning and Marnie’s on early Thursday afternoon. From the airport they would take a taxi to the Hilton Auckland Hotel, which would place them several hundred yards at sea, out on Princes Wharf. Marnie had made the reservations and purchased one of the most expensive rooms for the lovers’ reunion.

  Welch studied the emails carefully, looking for some sign indicating Marnie might have told Sammie about the cops preparing to arrest her when she deplaned – and he could find none. Of course there could be just a single code word used in one of Marnie’s messages which would let her lover know that it was all over and the police had caught up with her. If it was there, Welch couldn’t locate it.

  He didn’t get into bed until about three o’clock in the morning, after being called out on that damned party shooting. So, he slept as long as he could before spending late Saturday afternoon doing some errands and buying groceries. Then he called his daughter, Kathy, and took her out to dinner and a movie on Saturday night. He had tried to reach Janet by phone earlier in the afternoon, but got her answering machine. He left her a message. He was both embarrassed that their past evening’s rendezvous at he
r place had been interrupted by his pager, and frustrated that their opportunity to make love had ended before it began. The movie ended at nine-thirty. He said good night to Kathy and drove home. He fell into bed and slept.

  59

  He dreamed that he and Janet were dancing slowly, in each other’s arms. They were together in a large carpeted ballroom with a wooden dance floor in front of the stage. There were huge chandeliers hanging above them and the lights were dimmed. The tables were lit with white candles and draped with dark red cloths. Glenn Miller and his band were on the stage, playing one of Welch’s favorites – Serenade in Blue. Ray Eberle sang the lead vocal with Marion Hutton and The Modernaires backing him up. The reed section wailed sensually in a rising and falling countermelody as Eberle and the five voices behind him worked their incomparable magic.

  “It seems like only yesterday,

  A small café a crowded floor,

  And as we danced the night away, I hear you say forevermore…”

  She brushed her lips against his neck and firmly pressed the soft curve of her lower belly against him as they moved. He pulled her even closer, her arms encircled his neck and she looked up again into his eyes, swaying against him, inviting him, arousing him, intoxicating him with unbearable desire. He wanted the moment to last forever.