“Hailey had a big case before we got together. Medical malpractice. The settlement was huge.”
“If it was Hailey’s money, why was your name on the accounts?”
“Because we were in love. We were going to be married, so we put all our money together. I added some, too. Part of it was mine.”
I stared at him, suddenly even angrier than before, and then turned away in disgust.
“Do you know where the account is?” said Beth.
“Schwab. Hailey did some trading online. I let her keep track of everything. I didn’t even know the password.”
“That’s okay, Guy. We’ll find out exactly what’s in there.” She reached into her file and pulled out a piece of paper. “We’d like you to sign this power of attorney. It will allow us to access information about your financial accounts. It doesn’t provide us the power to withdraw funds, but it will let us learn what we need to make bail or to convince the judge to set something reasonable later on.”
I watched out of the corner of my eye as Guy reviewed the document. He had said the fee would be no problem, I wanted to make sure. I watched until he signed and handed it back to Beth, and then my disgust forced me to turn away again.
“And you said there was insurance?” asked Beth.
“Life insurance. I already had a policy where I switched my secondary beneficiary to her. She took a policy on herself and named me the beneficiary.”
“Where are the policies?”
“I don’t know. Hailey had them, maybe in her office or something.”
“Okay,” said Beth. “We’ll find them, too. After the arraignment they’re going to take you back to the county lockup, so we won’t be able to talk right away. We’ll set something up as soon as possible. What we need to know right now is if you have any idea who might have done this, if you have any leads you think we ought to investigate?”
I swiveled my head slowly until I was staring straight at him once again. This time he looked at me as if he were pleading for some answers. I had none, at least none he would like.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Everyone loved her. She was great. No one wanted to hurt her.”
“Had there been anything unusual? Did you notice anything out of the ordinary in the past few months?”
“No. Nothing. There were some calls at the house, you know, calls I answered and then the caller hung up. Stuff like that. They ended about a month ago, but maybe something was going on. Maybe there was someone else I didn’t know about.”
I stood and left the table so he wouldn’t hear the snort of disbelief that came unbidden from my throat. It was all too much to take, Guy professing his innocence, casting about for suspects, especially the thing about the phone caller who kept hanging up when he answered, since the phone caller who kept hanging up when he answered was me.
In the peanut gallery behind the bar, a tall man with a suit and a briefcase was standing in the aisle, talking to Breger and Stone. I took him to be the prosecutor and I stepped over to make the introductions. We were going to be a good team, I was sure, he and I, working together as we were toward a common goal.
But as I got closer, I realized the prosecutor and two detectives weren’t talking so much as arguing. Stone was keeping her voice low, but her disgust was evident. Breger looked away, his mouth set with a disappointment that seemed expected yet still painful, like a kid on Christmas morning who finds beneath the tree a puzzle and not a pony. When Stone saw me approach, she stopped talking and gestured to the prosecutor. The tall man with the suit and briefcase turned around.
“You’re Victor Carl?”
“That’s right,” I said. He was a handsome man, lean and athletic, and I thought he looked familiar but I couldn’t be sure.
“Yeah, I recognize you from the paper.” He was talking about this morning’s Daily News. Beneath the headline—SHOT THROUGH THE HEART—was my picture, hand out warding off the camera, looking as guilty as a politician in a strip club.
“They didn’t get my good side,” I said.
“Well, you were facing the camera,” said Stone.
Breger, staring now down at the floor, bowed his head sadly at his partner’s impudence even as his shoulders shook with stifled laughter.
“Now, is that nice?” I said. “Here I am, trying to be pleasant, trying to forge a working relationship with the officers of the law, and you return my overture with insults.”
“That wasn’t an insult,” said Stone, showing off her healthy teeth. “If I was meaning to insult you, I would have started with your tie.”
“What’s wrong with my tie?”
“Please. It’s like you and Breger frequent the same thrift shop.”
“I was just about to compliment Detective Breger on his neck-wear. It’s rare to find a man brave enough to wear a plaid jacket and a plaid tie to go with it.”
“If I may interrupt the soirée,” said the handsome man in the aisle. “I’m Troy Jefferson, chief of the trial division in the DA’s office here. I’ll be prosecuting Mr. Forrest.”
I looked up at him. “I saw you play,” I said. “I saw you light us up for thirty-five when you could barely walk.”
“You went to Abington?”
“I did.”
“Did you play yourself?”
“No. I was barely coordinated enough the climb the bleachers.”
“That’s one game I’ll never forget. I had an operation the next week and was never the same.”
“You were a beautiful player.”
“Thank you.”
“Nice to meet you.”
“Likewise.”
I smiled at him. He smiled at me. I reached out my hand and he shook it. Troy Jefferson was the basketball star in our conference when I went to high school. He was fast, aggressive on the dribble, with a sweet jumper from the top of the key. He had led his team to a state championship as a junior, and before his knee collapsed on him had been talked about as the surest thing since Wilt. He played college ball, I remembered, but was never the same as before the injury and went undrafted. I had heard he played in Europe for a few years before going to law school and becoming a prosecutor. Word was he was waiting for the right moment to turn political and leap into some public office, maybe attorney general, maybe higher. He had been a high school superstar, I had been a high school nothing, and now here we were, face to face in a courtroom, each of us smiling. We were going to like one another, Troy and I, we were going to be best friends. Who would have thought it a decade and a half before?
“Have you already entered your notice of appearance?” he said.
“Yes.”
“Good,” said my new friend Troy. “Do you have a minute, Victor? I have something I want to talk to you about.”
I glanced at Breger and Stone, who glared not at me but at Troy, and then followed him out of the courtroom. We found a private perch on the marble stairway in the courthouse atrium, beneath a green stained-glass ceiling.
“I just wanted you to know that we’re going to oppose any bail in this case,” said Troy Jefferson.
“I expected as much.”
“That thing with the suitcase and the passport sealed it. And we’re still debating whether to ask for this to be a capital case.”
“That’s your decision,” I said, being as helpful as possible.
“The evidence against your client is overwhelming, and a lot of people, including the detectives in this case, think we should push for death. They don’t like the fact that she was hit before she was shot. Neither do I. And in case you didn’t know, the only fingerprints we could lift from the gun you handed over were your client’s.”
“He picked it up after the killing,” I said perfunctorily, because, as a defense attorney, I was supposed to say things like that, but I must say I admired Troy’s righteous indignation. Juries respond well to righteous indignation.
“Can we keep this conversation absolutely confidential?”
“Yes, of cou
rse,” I said.
“Good.” He looked up and down down the empty staircase. “Victor, we haven’t finished our investigation by a long shot, and a lot of people want us to wait before we do anything. But this appears to me to be a crime of passion. Your client and Miss Prouix were fighting, there was a scuffle, your client couldn’t control himself, and he shot his fiancée. It’s a common enough story, and it’s sad, truly, but it’s not worth death. Right now, to me, it appears like nothing worse than man one. Something in the ten-to fifteen-year range. I’ve talked this over with the DA, and we’d be willing to accept a man one plea right now. Your client could be out, with good behavior, in eight to ten years.”
“That’s generous of you,” I said. And it was, shockingly.
“But you should know, Victor, that as our investigation continues, there is no telling what we might find. Stone and Breger are not happy with the offer and they are going to scour the landscape looking for more of a motive. You don’t want them to find it. If they dig up even the hint of a motive beyond the heat of the moment, I’m going to have no choice but to yank the offer and go for murder one with death as a possibility. I know it’s a lot to think about, and you don’t need to decide today, but you don’t want to wait too long either.”
“I understand.”
“So talk it over with your client and let me know.”
“I will,” I said. “Thanks.”
“It was nice meeting you, Victor. Breger said favorable things about you, which is rarer than you can imagine. Let’s see if we can work something out.” He smiled his charismatic Troy Jefferson smile, patted me on my shoulder, and headed back into court. I watched him go, trying to hide my shock.
What the hell was he doing? A woman was murdered in cold blood by a smarmy asshole and he offers up man one, ten to fifteen years, out in eight to ten? Where was the justice in that? I had half a mind to read Troy the riot act. I wouldn’t, of course, it was not the place of a defense attorney to complain of an offer as being too lenient—but still. But still. I had no choice now but to present this abomination to Guy, with the chance that he might just accept. And any normal murderer would accept, would jump as if for a lifeline, which, in fact, this offer was. But this was not a normal murderer, this was the killer of Hailey Prouix. It was a good thing I was not a normal defense attorney either. I would present the offer, yes I would, but I would also use all my powers to present it in such a way that Guy would turn it down. It wouldn’t be so hard, it was all in the presentation. They don’t have the evidence, Guy, they’re running scared, Guy, we can beat the charge, Guy, we can give you back your life, Guy. If I couldn’t turn an offer of man one into a first-degree murder conviction, then I might as well hand in my ticket to practice law and become a dentist.
OUTSIDE THE courthouse, after I had done my bit for the television cameras, Beth and I climbed down the wide front steps. I couldn’t help but notice that bulbs in the flower beds were blooming, birds were atwitter, buds were sprouting in the trees lining the street. It was as if the rain of the night before had washed away the remnants of winter and spring had suddenly swooped down with its special light to spread its finery. And yet it felt to me, for some reason, on those gray, sunlit steps, that I was still standing in the murky gloom, within a landscape of shadows and secrets. I wanted to get away just then, to find a place where the sun might burst through my own personal fog and warm my face, when Detectives Breger and Stone stepped in our way.
“Got a minute, Mr. Carl?” said Stone.
I gestured for Beth to wait and walked off with the two of them. Stone wasn’t smiling now, a bad sign I figured, but Breger wasn’t staring at me either, which seemed to be his way of showing respect. I suppose you spend enough years staring down suspects in the interrogation room, you end up staring away from those you consider respectful and law-abiding. A habit that must make for lovely family dinners.
“You mind if we look at your hands?” asked Breger.
“My hands?”
“If you don’t mind.”
I put down my briefcase and held out my hands. Breger took one each in his big mitts and carefully examined the knuckles before letting them drop.
“Thanks,” he said as he turned his gaze to survey the street. “Troy Jefferson gave you a pretty generous offer.”
“Yes he did. He also told me you said some nice things about me. Thank you.”
“You should know we both opposed the offer. We think it is far too lenient, man one for a homicide like this. Is your client going to accept it?”
“He pled not guilty in court.”
“I know, but is he going to accept the offer?”
“He says he didn’t do it. I relayed the offer and he rejected it outright. Says he didn’t do it.”
“That means the investigation is still moving forward,” said Breger, his eyebrows raised.
“I suppose so,” I said.
“Then we have to ask you a question, Mr. Carl,” said Stone, “about the night of the killing, because something confuses us.”
“That must happen often, Detective.”
“You said that Mr. Forrest called you at your home and then you came right over.”
“That’s correct.”
“Except we got a look at the phone logs from Mr. Forrest’s line just before court and we found something peculiar. Your call to 911 showed up, as expected, and there were other calls to you from earlier dates, as expected since you were a friend, but there was no call to you registered from the night of the killing.”
“Is that a fact?”
“Any idea why that is?”
“Phone company made a mistake?”
“Is that what you think?” said Breger sharply, and as he said it he turned to stare at me. “The computers of the phone company made a mistake?” It was the first time he’d ever looked at me straight on, and I noticed now that one of his eyes wandered slightly. The effect was strangely disorienting and I didn’t like it, the variance in his gazes seemed to suggest a variance between the truth and my words. His gaze itself acted as an accusation.
“Does your client have a cell phone?” he said.
“I don’t know. I suppose if he does there are records.”
“I suppose there are. You didn’t happen to see his cell phone when you were up in that bedroom?”
“No, sir.”
He looked at me for a moment longer and then turned again to survey the street. “You said you were watching a game when he called. What game was that?”
“The Phils were in Atlanta. I slept through most of it, but they were down when I left.”
“They scored two in the bottom of the ninth to beat the bastards.”
“Good,” I said. “Is that all?”
“That’s all. Thank you for the help, Mr. Carl.”
“Call me Victor, Detective Breger.”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“You know, Vic,” said Stone, “when we asked you about Miss Prouix, you described her as sweet and nice. We’ve been running the usual inquiries and I have to tell you, we’ve been talking to a lot of people who knew Miss Prouix and they all seemed to have a lot to say, but not a one of them used the words ‘sweet’ or ‘nice’ when talking about her.”
“Maybe I didn’t know her all that well. What was the thing with the hands all about?”
“Last night one of our Forensic Unit technicians was heading into the house to redo a few tests,” said Stone. “A man rushed out and ran her over, a man dressed in black with a watch cap pulled over his face. When she grabbed his leg, he turned and beat her in the face pretty badly.”
“So you checked my hands?”
“Just routine, Vic.”
“Call me Mr. Carl, Detective Stone.”
“She is still in the hospital,” said Breger.
“Good thing then that I didn’t scrape my knuckles on a cement step this morning.”
“Yes it is.”
“Probably just a burglar who
knew that the house was empty.”
“Probably,” he said. “Just like the phone company computer probably made a mistake.”
“Bye-bye, Vic,” said Stone with a little wave of her fingers. “We’ll talk again.”
As I walked away from them and down the steps, they huddled together, discussing something or other, apparently not pleased, apparently not pleased at all.
Beth slid over and walked down with me. “What was that all about?”
“Nothing,” I said. “It was nothing. Detectives Stone and Breger were just asking about a phone.”
8
IT WAS my phone the detectives were looking for, the same phone that I had picked off the crate beside the corpse of Hailey Prouix and placed in my pocket the night of her murder. My phone. That was why I had taken it that night, why I didn’t want it found anywhere near that house. My phone. Sitting now in my kitchen drawer. Registered in my name, with the bills and records going to my apartment. But I wasn’t willing to wait for the end of the month to see what calls had been made. As soon as we returned from the arraignment, I phoned my service provider and requested that it print up a record of calls for the past month and fax it to my office. The lady on the line was most agreeable and said she’d get right on it. I couldn’t complain about the service, they’d do anything they could to help you out, so long as you let them slip a fifty from your wallet every month.
I told Ellie, my secretary, that I was waiting for a fax.
“I HAVE something for you,” I say to Hailey. This is a month before her murder. I had tried to stay away when I learned about Guy’s proposal and her acceptance, tried to forget the smell of her, the feel of her, the tang of her tongue on my own. I tried, really, but the Sylvester matter kept showing up in my in-box and my dreams grew torrid and haunting. I had tried to stay away, but she pursued me like she needed me and I couldn’t help believing that maybe she did. She understood intuitively my weakness, I am most easily seduced by need. I had tried to stay away, and I had failed and I was glad.
“I have something for you,” I say to Hailey. We are in bed, after, the same huge presence having roared through us the way it always roared through us, leaving us exhausted and dazed.
Fatal Flaw Page 7