Fugitive: A Novel

by Phillip Margolin

“Who…?” was all Charlie got out before the man raised the gun he was holding. Charlie heard someone moving behind him just before he was shot. As he fell, he heard more shots and the sound of shattering glass. Then he passed out.

  CHAPTER 38

  Dad,” Amanda said as soon as Frank Jaffe answered the phone, “Sally Pope is dead. She’s been murdered.”

  Amanda waited for a response. “Dad?” she repeated when she got none.

  “I…I’m just…What happened?”

  It was 6:38 in the morning. Frank was getting ready for work and had just finished in the bathroom. The unexpected ring of the phone had startled him. Now his daughter’s words stunned him and he slumped on the edge of the bed.

  “I don’t know all of the details, but Charlie Marsh was shot. That’s how I found out. He had someone call me from the hospital. Sally was murdered in her house. He was there.”

  “What was Marsh doing at Sally’s house?”

  “I don’t know. I’m going to the hospital. I’ll let you know what I find out.”

  Amanda hung up. Frank held the receiver for a moment. It took an effort to return it to its cradle. Suddenly Frank felt very old. His shoulders sagged. A sob escaped his lips and he was consumed by grief.

  THE POLICEMAN WHO was guarding Charlie’s hospital room checked Amanda’s ID before letting her in. Charlie was propped up in bed connected to monitors and IV bags by an array of wires and plastic tubing. His tan was a few shades paler and his left arm was in a sling.

  “How are you feeling?” Amanda asked as she dragged a chair to the side of the bed.

  “If I’d known how good morphine felt I would have gotten shot a long time ago,” Charlie answered with a sloppy grin. Then he sobered. “They wouldn’t tell me anything. Is Sally dead?”

  Amanda nodded. “And Gina, her personal assistant. Sally’s son wasn’t harmed physically but he’s so traumatized that the doctors won’t let the police interview him. You’re the only other survivor. The detective in charge of the investigation is in the waiting room. He wants to interview you. I told him I’d ask you what you want to do.”

  “This is so terrible. I liked Sally.”

  “Will you talk to the detective? I’ll be with you to protect you if he gets too far afield.”

  “Yeah, I’ll do it.”

  “One thing they’ll want to know is why you’re not dead.”

  “That’s easy. Someone saved me.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know. I never saw him.”

  “What were you doing at Sally Pope’s house in the middle of the night?”

  “She called me. She wanted me to come alone, right away. She claimed to know something that would get my case dismissed.”

  “What was it?”

  “She wouldn’t tell me. She said she had to show it to me.”

  “How did she sound during the call?”

  “Shaky, panicky.”

  “Do you think she was being forced to say what she did to lure you to her house?”

  “I’m sure of it. The killer probably threatened her kid to force her to call me.”

  Amanda nodded agreement. “Go on.”

  “I took a cab. When I got there, the house was dark. I went in, saw that someone had killed the dog, and noticed light coming from the living room. When I walked into the room Sally was taped to a chair. Her head was down, so I couldn’t be sure she was dead, but there was blood all over her nightgown. There was another woman sprawled on the floor.”

  “That was Gina.”

  “Sally’s kid tried to warn me, but the killer had taped his mouth shut so I didn’t know what he was saying. Then this guy came out from behind the curtains and shot me.”

  “You’re certain it was a man?”

  “Pretty certain. He was wearing a ski mask and gloves, but he had a man’s physique.”

  “Okay, what happened next?”

  “Just before I was shot I heard someone behind me, but I was shot before I could turn. There were more shots behind and in front of me and glass breaking. I’m guessing that was the French windows. Then I woke up here.”

  “So there were two shooters,” Amanda mused. “That might explain the 911 call.”

  “What 911 call?”

  “It’s why you didn’t bleed to death. Someone made an anonymous call to 911. Otherwise you wouldn’t have been found in time to save you. When the medics arrived you were almost dead from blood loss. I’m guessing that the person who saved you also made the call.”

  The door opened and the police guard stepped in. He didn’t look happy.

  “There’s a man out here who insists he’s part of the defense team. He wants to talk to Mr. Marsh.”

  “Tell this cop I work with you and I’m entitled to see our client,” Dennis Levy yelled angrily from the corridor.

  “Excuse me,” Amanda said to Charlie. She stepped outside and grabbed Levy by the elbow.

  “Come with me,” she said as she led Dennis down the hall until they were far enough from the officer so he couldn’t hear them.

  “You are not a member of the defense team,” Amanda said. “You are a reporter and you have no legal right to talk to Charlie.”

  “Now wait a minute. This story is huge,” Levy said as he bounced in place with excitement.

  “Aren’t you the least bit concerned that Charlie was shot?”

  “Hey, I’m sorry he was hurt. Really, I am. But you have no idea how big this story is. I mean, no idea!”

  “I know how big you think it is because you’ve told me several times. What you haven’t shown me is any compassion toward any of the people involved. Has it gotten through to you that several people were murdered last night? They’re dead, Dennis.”

  “Hey, reporters deal with death all the time. If I got emotionally involved I couldn’t do my job.”

  “Your lack of emotional involvement is pretty obvious, but I can’t shut off my emotions. I do care about Sally Pope and Gina and Charlie, who are all human beings. Charlie could have died. I bet that would really have messed up your plans. Now go to the waiting room and don’t bother the police officer anymore. I’ll tell you what I can when I come out.”

  Amanda waited until Dennis turned the corner, before approaching the guard.

  “I apologize for Mr. Levy. He gets overzealous at times.”

  The officer nodded but he still looked angry. When Amanda reentered Charlie’s room he was staring at his blanket, deep in thought.

  “There’s something I want to tell you,” Charlie said.

  “Go ahead.”

  “I was lying here thinking about how I almost died and what I’ve done with my life. Before Freddy went nuts and kidnapped those hostages I was nobody, a petty crook. Then I got to be somebody but it was because I lied.”

  “It was because you saved the hostages.”

  “You know why I threw myself over that guard? I didn’t give a shit about him. I did it for me. I knew I’d be in jail for life if Freddy killed him. That’s the only reason I did it, to save my skin, not his.

  “And that inner light bullshit. That’s all it was, bullshit. I didn’t see any lights when I got shot just now and I didn’t see any when I was stabbed. Mickey Keys thought up that gimmick because it would get me on TV. And he was right. Everyone ate it up, but it never happened. Neither did half the stuff I wrote in my book. Or at least it didn’t happen to me. Freddy committed most of those crimes and was in the fights. I’m a coward. I’ve never gotten into a fight I could run from and I never used a gun or…Well, you get the picture. So, I’ve been thinking. I should set the record straight in my new book. I should tell the truth. If I do, what do you think Dennis will say?”

  “I don’t know and, frankly, I don’t care. In the end, you have to do what you think is right, no matter what Levy thinks. Right now, however, you should talk to the police so they can catch the person who killed Sally and tried to kill you.”

  Amanda left and Charlie thought about what h
e’d just said. He could tell the truth about some of the things that he’d lied about, but he wouldn’t tell the whole truth about what had happened at the Westmont Country Club the night Arnold Pope Jr. died, unless he had no choice.

  CHAPTER 39

  The day after Sally Pope’s murder, the PI in Denver called Kate to tell her he’d located Werner Rollins. Until a month ago, Rollins had been serving time in the Colorado State Penitentiary for armed robbery, but he was currently on parole. Kate talked to Henrietta Swift, Rollins’s parole officer, who called back an hour later to tell Kate that Rollins had agreed to meet her.

  During the two-and-a-half-hour flight from Portland to Denver, Dennis Levy didn’t hit on Kate once or brag about how great he was, and he never mentioned how famous he was going to be. He seemed preoccupied as he worked on his laptop or stared out the window. Kate wondered why the reporter was so quiet, but she didn’t want to press her luck by asking.

  The meeting with Rollins was at a sports bar near Coors Field. They had a late flight back to Portland, so Kate rented a car at the airport and drove into Denver. It was a spectacular summer day and it took a moment for Kate’s eyes to adjust from the bright midday sunlight to the dim light in the bar, but it didn’t take long to pick out Rollins in the crowd of lunch-time patrons. He was the only man sitting alone at a table in a wheelchair.

  Rollins’s parole officer had briefed Kate about the high-speed chase that had led to a prison term for armed robbery and cost Rollins his legs, but she hadn’t prepared Kate for the real toll the accident had taken on the gangster. The Werner Rollins of Kate’s imagination was a meaner version of Conan the Barbarian. There was nothing menacing about the man in the stained Denver Broncos T-shirt who was working on his second pitcher of beer. Despair had beaten the life out of Rollins and hard living had changed the sharp planes of his steroid-enhanced physique into flab.

  “Mr. Rollins?” Kate asked as they drew close to his table.

  Rollins looked away from the ball game airing on one of the large-screen TVs that were scattered around the bar.

  “This is Dennis Levy and I’m Kate Ross, an investigator working for Charlie Marsh. Thank you for taking the time to meet with us.”

  “Yeah, well, my social secretary was able to find time for you on my busy schedule, and Henrietta said you’d spring for my beer. It was a no-brainer.”

  Kate smiled. “May we?” she asked, indicating one of the chairs at the table.

  “Be my guest.”

  “Dennis is a reporter. He’s covering Charlie’s trial for World News. Do you have a problem with him sitting in on our conversation?”

  Rollins shrugged. Kate had the impression that he didn’t care much about anything anymore.

  “So how’s old Charlie doing?” Rollins asked.

  “He’s had a rough time. I don’t know how closely you’ve been following his case, but there have been two attempts to kill him. He was shot during the second attempt and he’s in the hospital.”

  “That’s tough,” Rollins said without much conviction.

  “I understand that you were Charlie’s friend,” Kate said.

  “You got that wrong. We were never buddy-buddy. I tolerated him because of Freddy.”

  “Freddy Clayton?”

  Rollins nodded. “They were like Batman and Robin. Freddy took the little punk everywhere. If I didn’t know Freddy real good I woulda thought they were faggots.” Rollins tossed a quick glance at Dennis, smirked, and added, “No offense.”

  Levy reddened but didn’t respond.

  “But you knew Charlie pretty well?” Kate said.

  “Yeah. It’s like that nursery rhyme, anywhere that Freddy went Charlie was sure to go.”

  “Is that why you were at the Westmont Country Club on the evening Congressman Pope was killed? Were you and Gary Hass reconnecting with an old acquaintance?”

  Rollins laughed then took a drink from his mug. Kate waited while he used his forearm to wipe the foam from his mouth.

  “That thing with Charlie was Gary’s deal. He wanted to shake him down, see if he could scare him into parting with some cash. When Freddy was alive no one would touch Charlie, but Charlie was a rabbit and Gary figured he’d be an easy mark with no one to protect him.”

  “You testified for the prosecution at Sally Pope’s trial.”

  “I had to, didn’t I? Burdett was threatening me with hard time for fucking up that security guard. With my record, I couldn’t afford to go down again. Charlie was out of the country, so what I said couldn’t hurt him, and I didn’t owe the broad anything.” Rollins shrugged. “It was her or me and I chose me.”

  “Mr. Rollins, the state will want you to testify again, and this time what you say could send Charlie to death row. So, let me ask you, if you testify at Charlie’s trial, what will you say?”

  Rollins eyed Kate warily. “If I said something I didn’t say the first time I’d be looking at a perjury charge, so I guess I’ll have to say that I saw Charlie shoot Pope.”

  “The statute of limitations has run out, Mr. Rollins. You can consult a lawyer on that if you don’t believe me, but I checked. No one can prosecute you if you lied under oath at Sally Pope’s trial.”

  Rollins thought about that. “I might say something different,” he told Kate.

  “Like what?”

  Levy leaned forward, his eyes riveted on Rollins.

  “That depends,” Rollins said. “As you may have noticed, I ain’t doing very well. In fact, I’ve got no fucking legs, which makes it hard to get a job.”

  Rollins paused and the blatant bribe attempt hung in the air between the convict and the investigator like a Goodyear blimp hovering over a football stadium. Kate smiled and turned her head toward Levy.

  “This is off the record, Dennis,” she said.

  When Dennis didn’t object, Kate turned back toward Rollins. She had no illusions about the type of man with whom she was dealing. Rollins was a career criminal and a sociopath. Appealing to his better nature was hopeless, because men like Rollins didn’t have better natures. But they were human and they didn’t have to be evil twenty-four hours a day. Kate looked Rollins in the eye and held his gaze long enough for him to figure out she was not someone who scared easily.

  “I don’t know what your experience has been with other attorneys,” Kate said in an even, nonjudgmental tone, “but my firm doesn’t pay witnesses for their testimony. We want the truth. If it’s what you testified to at Sally Pope’s trial we’ll have to deal with that. You, on the other hand, will have to live with Charlie’s death sentence if you help convict him and you’re lying.

  “I don’t know if that would be easy for you to do, because I know very little about you, but I do know that you’ve suffered and, if you’re a normal human being, I can only hope that you would want to keep someone you know from suffering if you could help them without hurting yourself.”

  “I’m not a charity, lady.”

  Kate laughed. “I’ve read your rap sheet and a few police reports of your exploits, Mr. Rollins, so I know that’s for sure.”

  Rollins hesitated for a moment. Then he smiled. “Yeah, I guess no one would ever confuse me with the Red Cross.”

  “They did make for interesting reading,” Kate told him with a conspiratorial grin.

  Rollins stopped smiling and his eyes lost focus. “I was something before this,” he said, pointing toward the place where his legs had been.

  “Amen to that. And you’ll be something again when Charlie’s case goes to trial. Everyone will be listening to you because you will be a key witness in the case. My question is whether you’ll be the star witness for the state?”

  Rollins took a thoughtful sip of beer, then stared at the table top. When he looked up his expression was serious.

  “The DA ain’t going to like what I’m going to say. He’s gonna be pissed. But I owe him one because he forced me to lie about Charlie. The truth is I don’t know who shot the congressman. I saw him shot
but I was looking at him and not at Charlie, the broad, Gary, or the nigger.”

  “What about the gun? Did you see who had the gun?”

  Rollins shook his head. “I heard it but I didn’t see it. The shot came from my right so that’s where I looked, but before I looked I heard the gun bounce off the ground and I never saw who tossed it.”

  “So you have no idea who fired the shot? No one acted like they had?”

  Rollins laughed. “You think I was playing Sherlock Holmes, looking at everyone with a magnifying glass and working out the clues? I know how cops think. They’d have taken one look at me and thrown away the key. Pope’s body hit the ground and Gary and I took off. So did everybody else.”

  “Thank you for your honesty, Mr. Rollins,” Kate said.

  “So, what happens next?” Rollins asked.

  “Nothing from our end. You haven’t said anything that helps or hurts Charlie. Karl Burdett will probably be in touch soon because he’ll think you’re going to make his case. Tell him what you told me and he may threaten you but I don’t think he can do anything to you if you stick to your guns. Don’t take my word for that, though. I’m not a lawyer. I’d advise you to check with one before you talk to Burdett.”

  Rollins nodded. “You paying for my beer or would that be some kind of bribe?”

  Kate slapped fifty dollars on the table. “It’s been a pleasure, Mr. Rollins. Have some nachos on me.”

  Kate blinked when she stepped into the sunshine. Dennis was right behind her. She was surprised that he had not tried to question Rollins for his magazine article. A key witness retracting his story was big news.

  “How do you think that went?” Levy asked as they walked to the car.

  “It couldn’t have gone better.”

  Levy grinned. “My feeling exactly.”

  Kate studied Levy closely. Something Rollins had said had gotten Levy excited but she had no idea what it was.

  IT TOOK ALL of Dennis’s self-control to keep from bouncing in his seat from excitement during the ride to the airport, but he couldn’t keep his foot from tapping. Kate returned the rental car and they rode the shuttle to the terminal. Then they had to check in and go through security. By the time they got to their gate, Dennis was ready to explode.