Hangman

by Michael Slade

  From the inside pocket of his rumpled brown suit, Josh pulled a folded photocopied sheet and said, “Read it and laugh, Jeff.”

  I angled the hand-off toward the light behind the bar:

  José Manuel Miguel Xaviar Gonzales … in a few short weeks it will be spring. The snows of winter will flee away. The ice will vanish. The air will become soft and balmy. In short, José Manuel Miguel Xaviar Gonzales, the annual miracle of the years will awaken and come to pass. But you won’t be there.

  The rivulet will run its soaring course to the sea. The timid desert flowers will put forth their tender shoots. The glorious valleys of this domain will blossom as the rose. Still, José Manuel Miguel Xaviar Gonzales, you won’t be here to see.

  From every treetop some wild woods songster will carol his mating song. Butterflies will sport in the sunshine. The busy bee will hum happily as it pursues its accustomed vocation. The gentle breeze will tease the tassels of the wildgrasses … and all nature … José Manuel Miguel Xaviar Gonzales … will be glad … but you.

  You won’t be here to enjoy it because I now command the sheriff or some other officers of the county to lead you out to some remote spot … swing you by the neck from a knotting bough of some sturdy oak … and let you hang until you are dead.

  And then, José Manuel Miguel Xaviar Gonzales … I further command that such officer … or officers retire quickly from your dangling corpse … that vultures may descend from the heavens upon your filthy body until nothing shall remain but bare … bleached bones of a cold-blooded, copper-colored, bloodthirsty, throat-cutting, chili-eating, sheep-herding, murdering son of a bitch.

  I laughed out loud.

  “Is that for real?” I asked.

  “As real as this twenty you just lost,” said Josh as he reached for my money.

  I clamped the Learned Hand. “Not so fast,” I said. “Mickey Spillane, I assume, is your favorite author?”

  “Huh?” grunted Josh.

  “He should be,” I replied. “Judging from your way of judging, I, the Jury is right up your alley. As for me, I prefer a more objective judge.”

  He grinned slyly.

  I grinned back.

  The snake and the mongoose.

  The mongoose and the snake.

  “Point made,” Josh said.

  “Fitting,” said Russ. “A Mexican standoff over a guy named José Gonzales.”

  Josh winked slyly.

  I winked back.

  “Are you a gambler, Jeff?”

  “All lawyers are gamblers, Josh.”

  “Then why don’t you and I gamble on a judge? Next person through the door settles the issue. You tell him the tale of Kinky. I tell him the tale of Gonzales. And we let the luck of the draw decide.”

  “You’re on,” I said.

  “Good. Release my hand.”

  The three of us turned our bar stools to face the entrance of the Brig.

  “A buck says it’s a man.”

  “You’re on,” I repeated.

  “It must gall you,” Russ said, “to no longer have hanging in Canada to bet against. A death-penalty case is the ultimate gamble. Just you and the state playing craps in court for your client’s life. Betting cash is child’s play compared to that. You gotta be one of us to know the execution thrill. Sex won’t get your rocks off with half the blast that gambling with losing your client to the noose or the needle will.”

  “We still play,” I said.

  “How, without a gallows?”

  “We use your gallows and our Extradition Act. As long as life hangs in the balance, the thrill is there to enjoy.”

  “Welshers,” Josh scoffed.

  “Cowards,” Russ sneered.

  “If there’s one thing we hold in contempt, it’s a killer without balls. The way I see it, if you want to kill someone in the States and beat our justice system at trial, that’s your God-given right under the Constitution. But if you play, be prepared to pay. It’s only a welsher who gambles in America, then flees to Canada to avoid the cost of losing.”

  “That’s harsh,” I said. “You set up the game.”

  “What game?” they asked in unison.

  “Cheat the hangman, fellows.”

  The snake and the slither exchanged glances. They were silently trying to decide which one would ask the ignorant question.

  “How’s that?” said Josh.

  “Let’s go back to 1972. In Furman v. Georgia, the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed the death penalty in America. That was the ultra-liberal era of the Warren court in the United States, so the outcome of the Furman case was no surprise. The current extradition treaty between the U.S. and Canada had been signed the year before, in 1971. Foreseeing Furman, U.S. negotiators feared that capital punishment would be abolished in the States while Canada still had the gallows as the lawful sentence for murder. That’s why the provision you think so unfair was put in the treaty. So you could demand we guarantee not to execute fugitives extradited from the States to Canada.”

  “Son of a bitch,” said Russ.

  “You gotta love the irony in that twist of fate,” I said. “The treaty was ratified and came into force in March 1976. In late June of that same year, Canada’s law makers voted to abolish hanging. A few days later, in early July, your Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in Gregg v. Georgia.

  “What goes around, comes around, as they say. Your chickens have come home to roost, as they say. You made your bed, now lie in it, as they say. You reap what you sow, as they say.

  “So, hey, guys. We’re all lawyers here. Isn’t the name of the game to get our clients off however we can? And if America made a mistake by giving Canada a way to cheat your hangman—by demanding that you guarantee not to execute a fugitive killer extradited from Canada to the States—do you not think it just good counsel work to ram that mistake up your ass?”

  “Whoa,” said Russ. “Here come de judge.”

  All eyes locked on the door to the bar, for there stood the woman I had seen talking with the Mountie in the dining room after Ethan, Justin, and Alex came over to join me for dessert.

  She looked tough.

  I like ballsy women.

  “Hey, Detective,” called the Learned Hand. “Would you resolve a bet for us?”

  The cop came over.

  “I’m busy, Josh.” She eyed me. “Are you Jeff Kline?”

  “The one and only,” I said.

  “Then it’s your lucky day. Have I got a client for you.”

  I looked around.

  “Where?”

  “In the brig.”

  “We’re in the Brig.”

  “The real brig. The ship’s holding cell.”

  “Who?” I said.

  “Come with me and you’ll see.”

  I stood up and grabbed my twenty off the bar.

  “You owe me a buck,” I said to Josh. “First person in was a woman.”

  “In your dreams,” he said.

  “Welsher,’ I replied.

  * * *

  Every ship has a brig of one sort or another. In the good old days of rum, sodomy, and the lash, it was a rat-infested hole where prisoners languished until they were dragged out to be flogged, keel-hauled, or hanged from the yardarm. On a ship as upscale as the North Star, the brig was a windowless cabin on the lowest deck, occasionally used to confine belligerent drunks or compulsive bottom-pinchers harassing women on the dance floor. What made it a brig was the bolt was on the outside of the door.

  “Mind if I frisk you?” the detective asked.

  “No,” I said, holding out my arms.

  Maddy ran her hands over and under my barrister’s robes.

  “My turn,” I said as she finished patting me down.

  “Touch me and I’ll break your arm.”

  “I do believe you could.”

  “And would,” she said, pulling back the bolt to unlock the door.

  “Who’s in there?”

  “A surprise. Knock when you’re through
.”

  She opened the door, let me in, then shut the door behind me and engaged the bolt.

  “Christ, am I glad to see you!”

  Ethan made a wobbly attempt to stand, but his legs refused to support him.

  “What have you done, Eth?” I said. “You look like a refugee from a slaughterhouse.”

  My office partner was covered with blood. Spatters dotted his face like terminal smallpox. His black robes were soaked with blood, as if he had been sleeping in a pool of gore. A bruise darkened his forehead around the temple, and his bleary eyes had the terrified look of a fox being hunted by hounds. Ethan sat slumped on one of the beds several feet from me, but the smell of alcohol off him reached the door. Light a match in here and the room might explode.

  “I didn’t kill her, Jeff.”

  “Kill who?” I asked.

  “Alex Hunt.”

  “What!” I exclaimed.

  “They think I’m the Hangman. She was hanged, Jeff. They found me passed out on the floor by her feet. Near a hangman game on the wall.”

  “Where?” I asked.

  “In my cabin.”

  “In your cabin?”

  Ethan nodded.

  “Is this a joke? Are you putting me on?”

  “Does it look like a fucking joke?” he exploded.

  “Eth, you’re drunk.”

  “I was drunk, Jeff. This nightmare is sobering me up fast.”

  “Why was Alex Hunt in your cabin?”

  “I don’t know. Wait … Yes, I do. We went out on deck for air. I felt better, but it was cold. She said we needed coats to walk the jogging track. We both had cabins on ‘A’ Deck, so we went down to bundle up. Alex helped me enter mine, then suddenly I felt the urge to puke.”

  I waited.

  “Think, Eth.”

  “I’m trying, Jeff. It’s a haze from all the booze I drank.”

  “You were in the john?”

  “Puking up my guts.”

  “Where was Alex?”

  “She was in the cabin.”

  “Waiting for you?”

  “I suppose. Then … then …”

  I waited.

  “There was a knock on the door.”

  “Alex answered it?”

  “I don’t know, Jeff. She must have.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she was on the floor.”

  “Dead?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “When was that?”

  “When I came out from puking in the john.”

  “Then what?”

  “That’s all. I don’t remember. Someone must have whacked me on the head.”

  “Your temple’s bruised.”

  “My head feels scrambled. Any chance we could get a pot of coffee?”

  “In a moment. First things first. Did you say anything to the cops?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “That’s a poor answer.”

  “I was drunk. I was stunned. I was scared, Jeff. I don’t think I said anything.”

  “Eth, you’re a lawyer. You know rule number one is never talk to the cops.”

  “Fuck me,” he moaned. The seriousness of the situation was overwhelming his ragged emotions. “I didn’t kill her.”

  “I don’t care if you did. From here on, you leave everything to me.”

  He began to cry.

  “Hear me, Eth?”

  “Yes, Jeff.”

  “I do all the thinking. Trust me, buddy, and I’ll save your life.”

  I let him cry himself out.

  Then I knocked on the door.

  * * *

  The two of them were in the hall when I came out. The detective from Seattle and the Mountie from Vancouver. The Mountie locked eyes with me. We both knew the drill. Every murder trial is a game of chess, and this was the moment when both of us first engaged the player on the other side.

  “Jeff Kline,” Maddy said. “Zinc Chandler.”

  “Counsel,” he acknowledged.

  “Inspector,” I replied.

  I got his rank from the insignia on his red serge tunic. The Mountie, in his own way, looked as battered emotionally as Ethan did in his cell. The Horseman’s heart was bleeding for Alex Hunt. We didn’t shake hands. We were squaring off. Had we been wearing boxing gloves, we both might have banged them together before the first punch.

  Sorry, Alex.

  Mixed metaphors.

  Chess game.

  Boxing match.

  Take your pick.

  “I want to see the crime scene,” I said, moving a pawn on the board, coming out of my corner.

  “Why?” asked Maddy.

  “Why not?” I said. “You don’t have a monopoly on the evidence.”

  “And if we say no?”

  “It will return to haunt you. I’ll tell the jury at trial how you tried to scuttle my client’s defense. We don’t want another Haddon, do we?”

  “No,” said the detective. “I’ll take you up.”

  “I’ll take him up,” the Mountie snapped at Maddy with an edge to his voice.

  I glanced at her.

  I glanced at him.

  There was definite potential here.

  Was that the sour smell of a turf war I whiffed?

  * * *

  To secure the crime scene on “A” Deck, the ship’s elevators were out of use. We were forced to climb two flights of stairs, and on the way up I asked both cops if Ethan Shaw had said anything to them.

  “Yes,” said the detective.

  “Yes,” said the Mountie.

  “What?” I asked.

  “‘Find Jeff Kline. I won’t say a word until I talk to him.’”

  Good, I thought.

  A cordon of beefy cops blocked the entrance to “A” Deck from the stairwell. Sure enough, standing in front of a camcorder held by someone hired on the spot was a face I recognized from this morning. Ready to scoop the competition with another Hangman exclusive, the TV reporter Sue Frye was trying to wheedle her way through the door to the murder cabin.

  A flash of a badge and we were in.

  “Word travels fast,” I said as the door swung shut behind us.

  “Too fast,” said Maddy.

  “The ship has turned around. Where are we going?”

  “Vancouver,” said the Mountie.

  “On whose orders?”

  “Mine,” he replied. “We’re in Canadian waters.”

  “It should be Seattle,” the Seattle cop commented dryly.

  A turf war for sure, I thought with satisfaction. Divide and conquer.

  The scene outside the door to the death cabin was like that in the center aisle of a church in which the wedding had been canceled at the altar by a reluctant bride or groom. Those milling around from “her” side were Washington State cops and techs summoned by the detective. Those milling around from “his” side were British Columbia counterparts gathered by the Mountie. Each side eyed the other suspiciously, as if only one-half had a right to be in the aisle.

  “Stand at the door,” the Mountie said, “and don’t step in.”

  I got the distinct impression that neither cop trusted lawyers. One in front, one behind, they walked me along the passageway to the door and stood flanking me while I peered into the cabin. The tension coming off the Mountie was palpable. So strong was the feeling of hatred I sensed from him for whoever had killed his lover that I do believe he was capable of homicide himself. Blood will have blood, Gram used to say.

  “Who found the body?” I asked.

  “A crewman,” replied the detective.

  “Why’d he look into the cabin?”

  “The door was propped open.”

  “Not closed? Not locked?”

  “I said propped open.”

  “Where was my client?”

  “There,” said the Mountie. He pointed to the outline of a human being in the flow of gore from beneath the hanging body toward the open door.

  Except for two women e
xamining the bloody remains, the cabin had yet to be invaded by both teams of forensic techs.

  “Gill Macbeth I know. Who’s the other doctor?”

  “Ruth Lester,” the detective said. “A pathologist from Seattle.”

  His and hers sawbones too, I thought. No doubt about it, the shit will hit the fan when the ship docks in Vancouver.

  I indicated the knife in the blood on the floor.

  “Has that been dusted for prints?”

  “Not yet, Counsel. But rest assured we’ll compare any with your client’s,” said the Mountie.

  I glanced at the hangman game on the wall.

  “The letter I has been added to what I saw on the news this morning.”

  “The killer can’t spell,” said Maddy.

  “How so?” I asked.

  “The I should be a Y if the word game is meant to spell Haddon’s name. It’s Bryce with a Y, not Brice with an I.”

  “Interesting,” I said.

  “You’re sure?” asked the Mountie.

  “I read the file enough times,” replied the detective.

  “I’ve seen enough,” I said.

  “Well?” asked the inspector.

  “Well what?” I said.

  “May we talk to your client?”

  I shook my head. “Sorry,” I said. “Anything he has to say will be said in court.”

  He shook his head. “Answer a question? How can you defend someone you know is guilty?”

  “Ahhh,” I said. “The perennial wonder.”

  “That’s no answer.”

  “That is,” I replied. I pointed to the name half-spelled in blood. “The writing is on the wall.”

  * * *

  I was back in the brig, helping Ethan drink a pot of coffee.

  “There’s going to be a turf war fought over you,” I said. “The Seattle police and the Mounties both want to charge you with Alex Hunt’s murder. When we dock in Vancouver, they’ll make their moves.”

  Ethan washed his weary face with one hand. “What a nightmare.”

  “It could be worse,” I said. “Imagine yourself in the same fix without me as your lawyer.”

  He tried a smile, and failed miserably.

  “The first battle we fight will be to keep you out of the States. What with the noose and the needle, they play hardball down there. Win that fight and we’ll save your skin.”

  “What’s the law, Jeff?”