A Witness Above

by Andy Straka

  “No, it was my fault.”

  She was dark-skinned with a willowy figure and cocoa eyes. Perspiration dotted her forehead, though she looked anything but disheveled—in fact, she smelled faintly of perfume. Her straight hair was pulled into a headband with a few strands falling to either side. A navy-colored suit clung to her as if it were tailor-made, and a big pile of manila folders with one of those lawyerly briefcases occupied her arms.

  “You look like you could use a hand.”

  “No. No thank you. I'm late for an appointment.”

  “Okay.”

  She stared at me for a moment. “You're not Nicole Pavlicek's father, are you?”

  “I am.”

  “She told me you would be coming.” She reached out a hand from beneath the pile of folders. It felt cool despite the heat. “I'm Priscilla Thomasen, Commonwealth's attorney.”

  That a black woman her age had been elected to such a position from Affalachia County spoke volumes, not only about changes in the county, but about the kind of person who had just shaken my hand.

  “She mentioned you, Miss Thomasen. You sure I can't help you with some of those?”

  “I'm sure … but thanks.” She turned back toward the building.

  “Wait. I mean, can you give me some idea about your case against Nicole?”

  She stared at me. Then she asked: “How long have you and her mother been divorced?”

  “Quite some time.”

  “Do you see Nicole often?”

  “I try to …” Her look forced my hand. “From time to time.”

  “I understand from Sheriff Cowan and state police that you're also involved in another problem,” she said. “Having to do with Dewayne Turner's body being found?”

  Seemed like Cowan's suspicions were making the rounds. I wondered why the sheriff hadn't mentioned anything about the Commowealth's attorney. Were they at odds?

  “Right,” I said. “I'm the one who found it. Not on purpose, you understand. I was out hunting, working with my bird.”

  “So I was told. You're a private investigator, aren't you?”

  “That's right.”

  “Were you just in talking with Nicole?”

  “No. I was on my way to see the sheriff about listening to the tape of the tipster who turned her in. Then I was hoping to see Nicky again too.”

  “I'll be questioning your daughter myself, along with her attorney, in a little while.”

  “Any chance I might sit in?”

  “I know your background. Mr. Pavlicek.” Oh, boy. Who didn't? “Since you used to be a police detective, I may allow it. As long as your daughter or her attorney don't object.”

  “Thank you.” From what I knew of Nicole's attorney, I couldn't imagine him objecting to anything but a price increase in white lightning.

  “Good. Right now I really must—”

  “Listen, Ms. Thomasen.” I reached out and touched her arm. “Just one more thing … I understand there may be suspicions about Dewayne Turner's disappearance, allegations that the police may have somehow been involved.”

  She hesitated. “You understand correctly, but I'm not at liberty to discuss it at the moment.”

  “Okay, maybe later. But do you, by any chance, know any of Turner's family?”

  “Of course. Good people. I know them well.”

  “I would really appreciate it if you would be willing to arrange a meeting for me with them,” I said. “Maybe you could even go along. I know they must be grieving right now, but—”

  “Let me get this straight. Your daughter's in jail, maybe mixed up in drug trafficking. And you want me to set up a meeting for you with a murdered man's family and then accompany you? To what, help overcome the black/white thing?”

  “Well no. I didn't mean—”

  “Look, Pavlicek, as far as I'm concerned, you're on your own if you want to go around bothering Carla Turner. The sheriff needs to talk with her and I've told him so—that's what would really help clear the air around here about Dewayne's disappearance. Right now I'm late and—”

  “Do you have any idea if he was still selling drugs?”

  She looked at me with suspicion. “From what I understand, no. He'd turned his back on all that.”

  “Maybe someone from the crowd he used to run with took exception and murdered him.”

  “Maybe it wouldn't be so shocking, either, if your daughter turned out to be involved with his death.”

  Wow. Her subtlety was killing me.

  “After all,” she said, “the apple doesn't fall …” She stopped in mid-sentence.

  “Too far from the tree?”

  “I'm sorry,” she said. “I have to go.”

  The deep voice on the sheriff's department recording was hollow and indistinct. The call had been traced to a pay phone at a gas station on the outskirts of town so it could have come from almost anyone. The voice was very clear, however, about one thing: he specified Nicole by name and he described her car.

  “Not much to go on.” Cowan pushed the button to rewind the tape. “Guy's probably a doper himself. Probably settling a score. Be lucky if whoever owns that coke don't find him before we do.”

  “Maybe.” But I was thinking the sheriff might be right.

  “Who's side you on in all this anyway, Pavlicek? Just ‘cause that daughter of yours tells you she's innocent, don't mean she wasn't mixed up in something no good.”

  “I'm interested in finding out what really happened.”

  “No bias? No prejudice at all? You know we're big on that down here now, eliminating prejudice, I mean.” He smiled and leaned back in his chair, placing his feet on the desk, and clasped his hands across his stomach, twiddling his thumbs.

  I said nothing.

  “So, have y'all had any great revelations since our get-together last night?” he asked.

  “I found out Camille's new boyfriend is about as talkative as a Sphinx, which concerns me.”

  He grunted in disgust. “Really? Well maybe we'll just have to check that boy out.”

  “I also bumped into the prosecutor just now out on the sidewalk. She told me you were going to be taking a statement from Nicole later and she gave the okay for me to sit in.”

  “S'that a fact?”

  He stared at me. Then he lifted his big feet down from the desk. “She's the boss. But just remember when it comes to most other things around here, I am.”

  “Look, sheriff. I'm not the enemy, okay? You say you and your men had nothing to do with Dewayne Turner's murder and I say I believe my daughter when she says she knew nothing about the drugs found on her car. Let's just take each other at face value for the moment.”

  “All right. But that won't stop you nosing around to see if there's any evidence of Turner being beaten ‘fore he was killed, will it?”

  I shook my head.

  “And don't expect me to stop putting the microscope on who you are and where you come from, Mr. Pavlicek. And that includes your buddies Toronto and Cahill. I know what you boys testified about that night up in New York. I also know the trial went nowhere and a lot of cops still believe you and think you and your partner didn't get a square deal.

  “But I'm here to tell you, I ain't one of them. You and your partner fucked up, that's all. Fucked up good. Far as I'm concerned, you both got what's coming to you. Just thought you ought to know that.”

  I guess the thing about genuine prejudice is, it cuts all ways.

  “By the way, your friend Special Agent Ferrier called me again this morning. Seems they found some residue on Dewayne Turner's clothing. Traces of coke in both pockets. Ferrier wants a sample of the powder we took off of your daughter to test for a match. …”

  Could this get any worse?

  “You think I'm riding a loser here, don't you?”

  A painful look crossed his face. “If you're really asking, yeah, I do. Ferrier also says he's waiting for you to call him. Said you'd know the number.”

  “Okay.”


  “You going to?”

  “Call him? Yeah, I will. They figure out what kind of gun was used on Turner?”

  He smiled. “You don't give up, do you? It was a nine-millimeter. Which fits my theory,” he said.

  “Which is?”

  “Like I said before. Killed by his own kind. Gang-related.”

  “You see the paper this morning?”

  He nodded and looked toward the ceiling then back at me. “They don't do me no favors,” he said. “This department's got three black deputies now. You'd think that'd be enough to satisfy somebody. …”

  He paused as if he were weighing his words. “We got a few minutes until your daughter's statement. Let me ask you something. I probably shouldn't, but I'm goin’ to anyway. The name Boog Morelli mean anythin’ to you?”

  I sat up in my chair. Fuad said there was an old link to Morelli. But how could Cowan know anything about that?

  “I doubt there's a cop in New York doesn't know that name,” I said. “He's one of the biggest drug kingpins around, or at least he was, last I heard. Why?”

  “His name has come up in relation to Dewayne Turner.”

  “Ferrier know about it?”

  “I haven't discussed it with him yet.”

  I suddenly remembered the man in the rental car with Maryland plates in the parking lot outside Cahill's the other night. “Listen to me, sheriff. I know you may not think much of me, but if Boog Morelli or any of his people are involved, you should watch very carefully where you step.”

  For a moment Cowan and I shared something in common. I saw it in his eyes. I remembered seeing it in Toronto's eyes the night we'd faced the shooters in the dark.

  But it passed too flippantly from the sheriff. “Always do … You want my advice, Mr. PI?”

  “Not particularly, but I'll listen.”

  “Pack on up and head back to Charlottesville. Nicole's your daughter, I understand, but it's not like you raised the girl or nothin’. Why you want to go make it harder on yourself? A drug dealer's dead and we arrested her carrying coke. Who knows? Maybe the Turner kid had something over her. Maybe she was muling for him. But she's young, the family's got money, and she's …” He looked down at his desk.

  “White?”

  “You said it. I didn't.”

  “Boog Morelli's white too,” I said.

  We took turns staring out his office window.

  “Ferrier said he and his partner will be down here day after tomorrow,” he said. “You'd best come clean with us, Pavlicek. I've told him, either way, I want you out of my hair by then.”

  12

  Nicole's wrists were cuffed again. She was seated, elbows propped on the table, chin resting on her thumbs and chewing on one fingernail, when they brought me into the room. Sheriff Cowan stood off to one side, leaning on the wall with his arms crossed. Shelton Radley sat next to Nicole and Priscilla Thomasen was across the table; both had pens and pads in front of them.

  Radley was a wisp of a man in a blue suit with graying temples to match what was left of his graying hair. He looked fairly sober this morning. Nonetheless, I thought I caught a trace of Scotch in the air.

  The Commonwealth's attorney's hand was poised over her tape recorder. “Now you understand, Ms. Pavlicek, this is not a trial. But anything you say from here on out may be admissible as evidence and used against you.”

  “Yes.” Nicole looked at me, fear in her eyes. “Are you going to get me out of here, Daddy?”

  “We're a ways from that right now, hon,” I said. “Just tell them what happened.”

  I looked at Radley. Little beads of perspiration had already collected on his forehead. I hoped he was up to the task.

  “Okay, Ms. Pavlicek, shall we begin?” Priscilla Thomasen nodded perfunctorily at me, which I took as a hopeful sign, before pushing the button on her machine. “Ms. Pavlicek, could you please state your full legal name for the record.”

  “Nicole Mae Pavlicek.”

  Mae. My mother's name. I hadn't heard it used in years. Nicole's voice shook as she spoke.

  “Let the record show that Nicole Mae Pavlicek is in the room with Priscilla Thomasen, Affalachia County Commonwealth's attorney, Peter Cowan, Affalachia County sheriff, her father, Frank Pavlicek, and Shelton Radley, attorney in private practice representing Ms. Pavlicek.

  “We're here to ask you some questions regarding your arrest, Ms. Pavlicek, but before we begin I must ask an important one. Did the arresting officers read you your rights at the time you were taken into custody?”

  Nicole looked warily around the room. She nodded.

  “Is that a ‘yes’?”

  “Yes.”

  “Please speak your answers aloud … Do you understand those rights that the officers read to you?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “All right then, let's begin.” The prosecutor consulted her notes. “Do you have any voluntary statements to make, regarding your apprehension on Sunday the twenty-ninth of September, at which time you were found to be transporting approximately two kilos of powder cocaine in your car?”

  “She doesn't have to make any statements or submit to any questions,” Shelton Radley said, his voice barely above a whisper. He turned to his client. “You understand that too, don't you?”

  “Yes,” Nicole said.

  “We'd also like to question you about your relationship with one Dewayne Turner, a young man whose body was discovered by your father last week up in Madison County,” the prosecutor said. “Is there any statement you would like to make about that?”

  The prisoner shook her head. “No,” she said.

  “Since this is all being recorded, I wish the record to be more specific to state that the cocaine was found under the wheel well of my client's vehicle, as opposed to actually inside the car,” the older attorney said. Well, touché, Rad.

  “Without objection,” Priscilla Thomasen said. “Ms. Pavlicek, is it still your contention that you had no prior knowledge of the cocaine that was discovered on your vehicle two days ago?”

  “Yes.”

  “If you had no knowledge of the cocaine then why did you try to evade the police?”

  Nicky glanced at the sheriff. “I was afraid they were going to ticket me for speeding. I was afraid I might lose my license.”

  “Because you'd already accumulated points on your license?”

  “Yes.”

  The prosecutor shuffled through some papers in front of her. “Running's no way to keep from adding more. You've also stated that you were on your way from your mother's house to Cahill's Restaurant, is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Were you going to meet someone at the restaurant?”

  Nicole's eyes fixed on me again. “I don't remember,” she said.

  “You don't remember? It was only yesterday.”

  “This has been a traumatic experience for my client, counselor, as you might imagine,” Shelton Radley said, this time sounding for all the world as if he were whining. “She doesn't have to answer.”

  “Un-huh.” Priscilla fiddled with the volume control on the tape recorder.

  Nicole remained mute.

  Priscilla sighed and pursed his lips. “Okay, let's talk about another subject. You and Dewayne Turner. How well did you know him?”

  A look of panic seemed to sweep through Nicole's eyes. She glanced at me then back to the prosecutor. “Not very well.”

  “But you were with him the night he was arrested almost a month ago. The sheriff says you two were arguing, that you even threatened to kill him.”

  Whoa—this was news to me. What else had the sheriff failed to tell me? What else had Nicole failed to tell me? I understood where this might be heading now. They were probing to see if they could build an even bigger case against my daughter.

  But Nicole only shrugged.

  “Were you arguing with him that night?”

  “I suppose.”

  “What about?”

  “Look,” sh
e said, rolling her eyes. “Dewayne was a good guy, but he could be kind of scary sometimes.”

  “Scary?”

  “It was just hard to believe that someone could … you know … change that much overnight,” she said.

  “Change. You're talking about his conversion to Christianity?”

  “Yes.”

  Priscilla wrote something down on her legal pad. Then she looked straight at Nicky again. “Did Dewayne ever sell you drugs?”

  “A leading question,” Radley mumbled. “She doesn't have to answer.”

  But Nicole looked at the two attorneys as if Priscilla's query were the dumbest anyone had ever asked. “I don't use drugs,” she said flatly.

  “Dewayne used to sell drugs though, and you knew that, didn't you?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Yet you were still friends with him.”

  “Not really friends, like I told you … I … he …” She looked around the room for a moment. “He asked me out.”

  Priscilla showed no reaction to this revelation. “Did you? Ever go out with him, that is?”

  “No. That was before.”

  “Before … you mean before he became a Christian, when he was still selling drugs?”

  “Yes.”

  “So if you didn't go out with him before when he was selling drugs and he wasn't really a friend, what could you two possibly be arguing about?”

  Nicole looked at her lawyer. Radley cleared his throat and said: “Does the sheriff's department have any hard evidence, other than the cocaine, which could have easily been planted, to accuse my client of anything?”

  No one said anything.

  “She has no motive,” the old attorney said.

  Sheriff Cowan finally spoke, still leaning against the wall. “How do we know she has no motive when she tried to get away after seeing the deputy's lights and she won't even answer all the questions?”

  Priscilla turned to the sheriff. “You used the warrant you obtained to search the rest of her car and her room out at Sweetwood?”

  The sheriff nodded.

  “Find anything else?”

  “Sent some latents off to the lab,” Cowan said. “That's it so far.”

  The Commonwealth's attorney looked at me. “How about you, Mr. Pavlicek, you have anything to add to this discussion?”