by Robin Yocum
Tonight, he’ll be pacing the floor and chugging antacid right from the bottle. He’ll pace, mutter a few profanities, then take a pull on the pink fluid. Good. Serves him right. There’s no use in trying to explain why I did it, because he just wouldn’t understand. He thinks all he has to do to get elected to Congress is show up, smile, tell people that he was in the FBI and that he played in the same backfield as Johnny Earl, and everyone will vote for him. I’ve explained to him on numerous occasions that winning an election to Congress is going to take hard work, but he just smiles and says, “You worry too much.”
You’re goddamn right I worry too much. I’m living in a dying little hellhole in eastern Ohio. I have reason to worry. He would sit back and do nothing more to get elected to Congress than toss bubble gum from his cruiser during the Fourth of July parade. Getting elected sheriff was easy. Hell, he could probably win two terms after he was dead. But that’s not the plan! The plan is to run for Congress, and then the governor’s office, and he doesn’t get it.
Well, I get it. I get it just fine. I know exactly what it’s going to take to get his ass sitting in a leather chair in Columbus. That’s why I’ve appointed myself his unofficial director of media relations, and I’m going to keep calling that reporter.
While it’s true that I want to get out of Steubenville, I’m also doing this for Frannie. I do love him. He’s a good man, and I believe that his fling with Dena Marie was an error in judgment and it won’t happen again, though I believe he still lusts for her. He can lust all he wants, but he better keep that tool in his pants.
After learning of the fling, I ordered him never, under any circumstances, to speak to Dena Marie again. I told him, “If you find that bitch standing in an alley with a bloody knife in her hand and a mutilated body at her feet, you goddamn better well call Toots to the scene to order her to drop the weapon.”
About five minutes after Dena Marie left the office this morning—about the time required to do some push-ups and work off the semi he was no doubt sporting under the desk—he came out and said, “Allie, she just charged into my office and started talking. It wasn’t my fault. She ambushed me.”
“I made fresh coffee,” I said, as though I hadn’t heard his explanation.
He skulked back into his office. I’m going to lighten up on him pretty soon. I don’t want him to be worrying about our relationship when he should be concentrating on becoming a United States congressman.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
MATTHEW VINCENT “SMOOCHIE” XENAKIS
Every Monday morning began with what my boss called a one-on-one meeting. I called it a flogging session. It was his way of jump-starting the week—berating me for thirty minutes. During these meetings, we reviewed everything I had done the previous week and everything I hoped to accomplish in the coming week. The flogging sessions took place before another weekly meeting with the hospital’s chief executive and his staff. This gave my boss fodder to make jokes at my expense and take credit for my accomplishments. He did it right in front of me, and I never once had the guts to call him on it.
He liked to summon me into his office. He would call me on the phone and say, “Let’s go.” If I showed up uninvited at his office door, his brow would furrow and he would say, “Give me five minutes. I’ll call.” He liked the control. Thus, despite the fact that we had a standing meeting at nine each Monday, I waited in my office to be summoned.
I was especially not looking forward to his meeting today. The previous Friday, while I was at lunch, he placed a manila envelope with my annual performance review on my chair, then left for the day. It was scathing. He marked me deficient in nearly every category and placed me on probation. I was crushed. I’m not one to brag, but I work hard at this job, and it was a totally unfair evaluation. It would seem that he’s starting a documentation trail in order to fire me. I’m just sick about it, and I know that I won’t have the guts to stand up to him. On top of that, someone rifled through my desk over the weekend. I assume that it was one of the cleaning people looking for money, because it’s not the first time that it has occurred. They tried to cover it up, but I could tell that they had rummaged through it because my pencils were all askew. I’m very anal about my pencils and line them up neatly in my drawer, then slowly close it so they don’t roll around. They were scattered everywhere when I opened my drawer this morning.
At nine fifteen, however, I still hadn’t gotten the call. I collected my pens and portfolio and walked across the hall. The door was open, but he wasn’t in the office. “Have you seen Mr. Oswald?” I asked his secretary, Shirley.
She swallowed, looked at me with wide eyes, and shook her head. She acted as though she was scared to answer me. She knows, I thought. She saw the evaluation and figured I’m a dead man walking. “No,” she finally blurted. “He left a while ago. I don’t know where he went. He didn’t say. Honest to God.”
“‘Honest to God’?” I said. “I believe you.”
“Okay, good, because he didn’t tell me. Really.”
“I believe you, Shirley,” I repeated. I checked my watch. “Is he coming back before our ten o’clock with the executive staff?”
“I don’t know, Mr. Xenakis. He didn’t say. Really.”
Mr. Xenakis? I couldn’t ever remember Shirley ever calling me “Mr. Xenakis.” All of a sudden, she had taken a very formal approach to our relationship. This was not good.
The phone was ringing as I walked back into my office. It was my brother, Luke. “Did you do it?” he asked.
“Did I do what?”
“Did you kill Rayce Daubner?”
“Don’t be absurd. Of course I didn’t kill Rayce Daubner.”
He laughed. “I didn’t think so, either. I never thought you had it in ya, but it’s kind of exciting having a brother who’s suspected of murder.”
“I’m not a murder suspect. Who told you that?”
Several seconds of silence passed. “You haven’t seen the morning Intelligencer, have you?”
“No.”
“Well, big brother, I suggest you get a copy. You’re all over the front page.”
“Hold on,” I said. I set the receiver down on the desk and walked out to the lobby. There was a newspaper rack between the elevators. In the upper left corner of the front page was a two-deck headline that spanned three columns.
Detectives Question Former Star Athlete,
Social Worker in Steubenville Slaying
I slipped a quarter into the steel box and bought a copy, reading it as I walked back to my office. “You still there?” I asked, picking up the phone.
“Yep. Get one?”
“This is terrible. This reporter names me as a suspect in the murder.”
“This comes as a surprise to you? They did haul you in for questioning, didn’t they?”
“Yes, but they don’t really think I did it. They said it was just a cursory thing.”
I could hear my brother exhale. “Matthew, if they call you in for questioning, you’re a suspect. Period. You’ve watched enough television to know better. They probably told you that so that you’d relax, maybe slip up and say something to implicate yourself.”
“But they can’t seriously think that I killed Rayce.”
“That has nothing to do with anything. Right now, you’ve got a sheriff with political aspirations investigating the murder of an FBI informant. He’s going to want to get it cleaned up to keep the feds off his ass, and he doesn’t want a high-profile murder to go unsolved while he’s getting ready to make a run for Congress.”
“He’s going to run for Congress?”
“It’s not official, but his dad has been all over the county for the past year trying to raise money and grease the skids.”
“Are you saying that he would arrest someone for murder just to make himself look good in front of the voters?”
“I think that’s one reason he might do it.”
He was, I knew, implying that the good sheriff might b
e interested in my wife. “I don’t think I have anything to worry about.”
“I’d like to know how many disasters throughout history have been preceded by that statement. Look, if they called you in for questioning, you’re a suspect and you should talk to an attorney.”
I groaned. “I don’t know.”
“Daniel Sabatino—200 South Fourth Street. He’s the guy who does all my business work. Does some criminal defense work, too. Good guy and tough as nails. He’ll give you good advice. I’ll call him and tell him that you’re going to stop on your way home.”
It made sense. “I’ll do it. Thanks. I’ve got to go to a meeting.”
“Okay, killer, have a good day.”
The executive staff meetings are more of a lesson in humiliation than the morning floggings with Mr. Oswald. The hospital’s president sits at the head of a huge boardroom table with his direct reports seated on either side. I never sit at the table; I have to sit along the wall with the secretaries. Behind my back they call me “Mr. Oswald’s bitch.” They think I don’t know about that, but I do. There’s no logical reason for me to be at the meeting, except it gives Mr. Oswald someone to whom he can pass directives.
I arrived early for the meeting and found Mr. Oswald in conversation with the president. They both looked startled when I walked into the room. “Was there anything you wanted to talk to me about before the meeting?” I asked my boss. He shook his head, keeping his eyes on the notepad in front of him. “Weren’t we supposed to meet at nine?” I asked.
“Yes, we were, but I got busy. I apologize for not telling you I couldn’t make it this morning.”
This was very bad. First, Shirley had called me “Mr. Xenakis,” now Mr. Oswald had apologized. In the ten years that I had worked for him, not once had the words “I apologize” crossed his lips. Phrases such as “I apologize,” “I’m sorry,” “Excuse me,” and “Pardon me” were simply not part of his vocabulary, at least when he was dealing with me. He was being polite to the condemned. He was the brutal prison guard who started treating the prisoner with kindness the day before he went to the electric chair. I was going to be fired; it was just a question of when.
The meeting was uneventful in that not once did Mr. Oswald give me a directive. When the meeting was over, he almost sprinted out of the room. I walked back to his office. It was empty, and the light was off. “Did Mr. Oswald come back here?” I asked Shirley.
“Just for a minute. He ran into his office, then dashed out the door.”
“Did he say when he would be back?”
“No.”
“I have some work to do. Would you let me know when he gets back?”
“I’d be happy to, Mr. Xenakis.”
Again with the Mr. Xenakis. What was up with her? What was up with Mr. Oswald? It was all very strange. I had to talk to him. I would be straightforward. If he was trying to get rid of me by giving me undeserved evaluations, he needn’t bother. I would start looking for another job and leave as soon as possible. I would rather leave on my terms than get fired.
Mr. Oswald did not return to the office that day. At four thirty and tired of waiting, I left for my meeting with attorney Daniel Sabatino. When I walked into his office, he was standing behind his receptionist, pointing at a document on her desk and telling her what changes to make. He looked up, nodded, and asked, “Are you Xenakis?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Be with you in a minute.” He was wearing a tailored pair of gray slacks and a white shirt with French cuffs and cufflinks made from Mercury head dimes. His tie was red and navy striped. Not a hair was out of place. After another minute of instruction, he motioned me to the back. His desk was a beaten-up oak piece that looked like it should belong to a first-grade teacher. The office was somewhat spartan—a contrast, I thought, to his dress. He pushed the door closed behind us and started talking before he had planted himself behind the desk. “You’re the murder suspect, huh?”
“That’s what the paper said.”
“Did the cops ask you to come in and talk?”
I nodded.
“Then you’re a suspect. Would you like me to be your legal counsel?”
“What’s it going to cost me?”
“That’s not a problem. It’s been taken care of.”
“My brother?”
“Yes. He thinks your wife will try to set you up to take the fall.”
“He told you that?”
“Yep.”
“What else did he say?”
“The truth?”
I nodded.
“He said that she’s a heartless bitch.”
“They’re not what you would call close.”
“Apparently not. Do you want me to help you out?”
“Sure.”
Sabatino slid a document and a pen across the table. “Sign and date that. It’s a simple contract stating that I am representing you as legal counsel in this case.” When I did, he said, “Good. You understand that this is all confidential. As your lawyer, nothing leaves this room. Understand?”
“I do.”
“Good. Now, are there any surprises out there that I need to be prepared for?”
“No, I didn’t kill him.”
“I’m sure you didn’t. I’ll ask you again. Any surprises?”
“No. I really didn’t kill him.”
He chuckled to himself. “As I said, I’m sure you didn’t. I just don’t want to be surprised, that’s all.”
“You won’t be.”
“Okay. Good. Here are my instructions—”
“Do I need to write this down?”
“I think you’ll be able to remember.”
“Go ahead.”
“If someone comes up to you and asks about the newspaper story, you ask them, ‘Do you think it will ever rain?’ If someone asks you if you killed Rayce Daubner, you say, ‘Christ Almighty, can you believe this heat?’ If the cops call and want to ask you more questions, you say, ‘This heat gives me a rash on my balls.’ Then . . .” He pulled a business card out of the holder on his desk and flipped it across the desk to me. “You tell them to call me. You are not to answer one more question. Not one. Understand?”
I smiled. I liked this guy; I liked being represented by a hard-ass lawyer. “I give them the weather report and that’s it.”
“I like to keep it simple.”
“I really didn’t kill him, you know?”
“Then you have nothing to contribute and no reason to talk to them, do you?”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
JOHNNY EARL
The Common Pleas Court judge in charge of my arraignment was the Honorable Lester Theodous Pappas—“Lester the Molester.” He was tall—about six foot five—and soft, virtually devoid of muscle tone. He smiled without parting his lips, hiding the grandest set of horse teeth ever seen on a human. Judge Pappas was reputed to have a fondness for young boys, which he sated on his regular vacations to the Caribbean. I don’t know if that was true, but he was a member of the Steubenville Big Red Athletic Boosters and was always in the locker room after the games, passing out Coca-Colas, congratulations, and pats on the back that seemed a little too affectionate.
I was the only one on the docket that morning. Photographers from the Herald-Star and the Intelligencer were there to take my photo as I was arraigned. In the corner sat the general and the preacher. I gave the general a curt nod as I entered the courtroom, but he didn’t acknowledge me. He had traded in the camouflage outfit for a pair of jeans and a worn blue work shirt. The preacher was still dressed like a movie usher. Fran and Deputy Majowski stood on the spectator side of the courtroom, talking across the railing to the prosecutor, Edward Temple, who had been two years ahead of me in school and a catcher on the baseball team. Fran had a piece of white tape across the bridge of his nose, and his face was a blooming arrangement of black, blue, and purple. I had to avert my eyes to keep from laughing.
My court-appointed defense attorney introduced himself
as Marion VanderFust. He had braces on his teeth and looked all of fourteen years old. His suit was too big for his little frame, and I could have shoved my arm in the gap between his collar and pigeon neck. We sat at a table as he scanned over the incident report. After a few minutes, he whispered, “This isn’t good, considering you’re on parole, but I think they were out of line to keep you overnight. They’ve charged you with aggravated assault, which is a little much. We’ll plead not guilty and try to get them to drop it to simple assault. I’m sure I can get you out of jail today on your own recognizance.”
Under the table, I grabbed his right leg behind the knee, squeezing the tender sides until he nearly came out of the chair. “You’ll do no such thing,” I whispered. “When the prosecutor requests bond, I don’t care how high, you agree to it. Under no circumstances do you get me out of jail. Understand?”
He winced and tried to struggle loose, but I had him locked tight. “Are you crazy? Why do you want to stay in jail?”
“That isn’t your concern, Counselor. You just make sure I stay there. Got it?”
“Yes,” he whined, and I released my grip just as the bailiff stood and said, “All rise. The Common Pleas Court of Jefferson County, Ohio, is now in session, the Honorable Lester T. Pappas presiding.” After a few minutes of legal blather, the judge asked my attorney, “How does your client plead?”
“Not guilty, your honor.”
After a few more minutes of discussion and filing of documents, the judge looked at the prosecutor and asked, “Bond?”
Edward Temple stood, cleared his throat, and said, “Your honor, considering Mr. Earl’s past criminal record, the fact that he is currently on parole from his previous federal charge, and that, unprovoked, he struck an officer of the law, we recommend a one-million-dollar bond.”
The judge’s brows arched as he looked at my attorney, who swallowed and said, “That seems fair, Your Honor.”
The judge frowned and looked back at Edward Temple. “Is it necessary to have such a high bond? I mean, after all, it’s just Johnny. He’s not going anywhere.”