“The lawyers do all the talking in court,” said Riker. “It might work out.”
“I don’t think so. His mind is very fragile.” Charles kept an ear to the hallway that led to his guest room. Perhaps it had been a bad idea to leave Bugsy alone with Mallory, who had so little patience with make-believe.
He turned off the stove and left the kitchen. Riker followed him to the spare room, where the belongings of the houseguest were spread out on a four-poster bed. It was all rather humble attire. Apparently, the ratty old sneakers on Bugsy’s feet were his only shoes.
“No socks.” Mallory inspected this meager wardrobe of rolled-up T-shirts and jeans. “This won’t do. He needs a suit for court.”
“I don’t wear ’em,” said Bugsy. “I’m not the kind of guy to have a—”
“Yeah, right,” she said. “Does Alan Rains have a suit?”
Charles stood on the threshold, eyes wide, hands waving, miming, No! Don’t!
“Oh, sure he does,” said Bugsy. “At his mother’s house in Connecticut. She keeps Alan’s old room just the way he left it—all his clothes, his shoes. And she has his Tony Award up on the mantelpiece.”
Yes, that little gold statue was the first thing Charles had noticed when he paid a call on Mrs. Rains. And now he leaned against the door frame, finding need of some support.
Mallory, of all people, had made the breakthrough into verbalized memories, real ones, of home and family. The psychologist held his tongue as the young detective conducted a rather original, quite ruthless therapy session lasting precisely four minutes, and it was agreed that Bugsy would play the role of Alan Rains for his court appearance tomorrow.
Well, perhaps a Ph.D. in the mental-health field was overrated, but amateurs should not be allowed to tinker with the psyches of madmen. Oh, and Mallory’s idea? Totally mad.
After Riker had completed a telephone call to Mrs. Rains in Connecticut, he made it clear to the gopher that he would see his mother in the morning when she brought his clothes to town. “You treat her with respect—like a good son.”
“Got it,” said Bugsy. “Alan loved his mother.” He smiled, showing no resistance to this ludicrous plan.
On the contrary, he seemed to be looking forward to it.
No, this was all wrong.
It came too easily to Bugsy, this idea of stepping out of the gopher character to act like his true self in court; it was nothing forced, not something he need grapple with. But then, Mallory was not challenging the false persona. She had only given him another part to play—the role of the man he used to be.
Something had changed.
And Charles died a little. Bugsy was not role-playing tonight. Metamorphosis complete, he was the gopher. Truly lost. And it seemed that Alan Rains had met a death of sorts.
So much for hope. Stomp that.
ROLLO: Everything will be all right. . . . And now it’s your turn to lie.
—The Brass Bed, Act III
Sunlight flooded this public room of century-old wainscoting and decorative molding. The large space was divided by a gated rail to keep the gallery visitors in their place, apart from the tables reserved for lawyers and clients. All faced the judge’s vacant bench. Affixed to the wall behind it was an emblem that bore the words In God we trust, a phrase akin to God, help us all, and Charles Butler thought it lent the judicial system the air of a dice roll.
A clean-shaven Bugsy entered the courtroom, his hair no longer a bird’s nest but cut and combed. The black suit and red silk tie helped him to blend well in the company of lawyers, though he was much better dressed than his public defender. And there were other changes in him. He exuded the confidence of a privileged life—as he played the role of a madman playing sane.
He was quite as handsome as the young man he used to be. This was the opinion of his mother, who had come to town early this morning with a selection of clothing and shoes from the closet of Alan Rains. She would have outfitted her son with a better attorney as well, but Mallory’s advice had prevailed. The detective had insisted that, if she could find Bugsy a worse attorney for this proceeding, she would do it.
Mrs. Rains sat beside Charles Butler in the gallery. She smiled. She glowed. “Alan doesn’t want me to stay for the arraignment. And I don’t want to make him anxious. I promised I’d go straight home. . . . He called me Mom. I suppose that’s enough excitement for one day.” With a goodbye and a handshake, she rose from her seat and left to catch the next train back to Connecticut.
Mallory took the mother’s place on the gallery bench and whispered to him, “We won’t need you unless this goes sour. If that happens, you give the judge your assessment of Bugsy, and that should kill a trip to the psych ward. You only have to say he’s crazy but harmless.”
“That’s true enough,” said Charles. “So . . . why did he confess to a murder?”
“I told him to.”
“What? . . . What did you say?”
At the bailiff’s command, everyone stood up as the Honorable Judge Margo Wicker entered the courtroom in her long black robe. Her dark hair was pulled back in a severe bun, and she wore no makeup, no nail polish or any other sign of artifice. By the depth of the frown lines in her face, and particularly that angry furrow between her eyes, Charles pegged her for a no-nonsense type, and the term hanging judge came to mind. In a hushed voice, he said, “I don’t see Bugsy getting much sympathy from her.”
“It doesn’t hang on sympathy,” said Mallory. “It hangs on law. We lucked out with the judge. Nothing gets past Wicker. She doesn’t do thirty-second arraignments.” When the gallery was seated again, the young detective turned to search the faces in the back row.
Following the track of her eyes, Charles caught a nod from a prominent civil rights attorney, James Todd, a well-dressed man with a boyish face at odds with hair gone to gray. But he was better described by reporters as a cannon among hired guns—just Mallory’s style.
At the front of the courtroom, Bugsy’s public defender, Eddy Monroe, was an altogether different character, a slovenly impatient man in a checkered clown suit, who tapped one scuffed shoe, so bored as he listened to charges leveled by the assistant district attorney, a young man who might have graduated from law school only the previous day.
“On the first charge,” said the judge, “flight to avoid prosecution. How do you plead?”
“Guilty,” said the public defender.
“Not guilty,” said Bugsy.
The opposing lawyer, the young one, had the look of a child shortchanged at the candy store. In the spirit of I’m telling Mom, he said, “Your Honor, the facts are indisputable. Mr. Rains was under arrest when he ran from the police station.” He handed her a sheet of yellow paper. “And that’s his confession.”
The room was silent as the judge read every line. She raised her eyes to glare at the young man from the DA’s Office. “Mr. Rains confessed to interference with a corpse and murder . . . but you decided to let the murder slide? Now I call that interesting. But we’ll get to that later.” This sounded somewhat like a threat. She turned her frown on the older man in the checkered suit. “Mr. Monroe, apparently you didn’t take your usual two minutes to meet with the client and get your stories straight.”
“I didn’t run away,” said Bugsy.
“Mr. Rains,” said Judge Wicker, “your attorney will speak for you.”
After a glance at the public defender, Bugsy turned back to her. “But I’ve never even seen this guy before.”
“How do I know these things?” The lady picked up her gavel and spun it by the stem. “I must be psychic.”
Bugsy pulled crumpled bits of paper from a pants pocket and reached up to lay them before the judge. “Those are my receipts. I delivered lunches to detectives in the squad room. If you look at the order for the ham on rye, that one was for Detective Kay. Oh yeah, and a coffee light, extra sugar. He liked my shades.” The gopher pulled a pair of aviator sunglasses from his breast pocket and waved them for the e
ntire courtroom to see.
Very distinctive—and expensive. Charles turned to Mallory. “Aren’t those your—”
To quiet him, she only needed to raise one finger, and he noted that it was her trigger finger.
Bugsy held the dark glasses high for the judge’s inspection. “Detective Kay asked me if the rims were real gold. I know he’ll remember me. Well, after I got paid, I didn’t know what else to do . . . so I left.”
“You just walked out the door . . . of a police station?”
“Yes, ma’am. I walked out. I didn’t run.”
The judge smiled, though this was far from a happy expression—more on the maniacal side. “So . . . while you were in custody, you ran errands for the detectives of Midtown North.”
“Yes, ma’am. That was after my confession.”
“I could check that out with one phone call,” said the judge, handing the receipts to the assistant district attorney. “And then, if you like, we can enter this embarrassment into the public record.” This was phrased not as a question, but more like a dare.
“The people withdraw the charge of flight to avoid prosecution.”
“Good choice,” said Judge Wicker. “Next charge. Interference with a corpse. How does the defendant plead?”
“Guilty, Your Honor,” said the public defender.
The judge looked at Bugsy, who shook his head in denial. Her eyes moved on to the man in the checkered suit. “Shot in the dark, Mr. Monroe. I’m guessing you didn’t have time to—”
“I was there, Judge. My client waived his right to an attorney during questioning. But I still got ’em to drop the murder charge.”
“That’s right, Your Honor,” said the younger lawyer. “Since his client has a history of mental illness, the people ask for two weeks’ psychiatric observation.”
Charles noted a subtle shift in Bugsy’s posture, a slight sag of the shoulders, perhaps signaling the intrusion of a memory from that other life—real life.
“You have some proof of the mental history?” The judge sifted through the paperwork in her hands. “Am I missing something here?”
“I never saw the document,” said the ADA. “Well, I saw Captain Halston hand it to the public defender, Mr. Monroe.”
Eddy Monroe wore a look of confusion, something forgotten—and then an aha of remembrance. He retreated to the defense table for a search of his briefcase. “One sec, Judge.” And now he rushed back to the bench with a fistful of wadded papers, and he handed them up to her.
Feet were shifting in the gallery, and whispers were heard among the restless visitors while the document was silently read, every word. Done reading, the judge stared at the man in the checkered suit.
Oh, if only a look could gut the lawyer like a fish knife.
“You never read this document,” said Judge Wicker. “I bet you wonder how I know that.” She turned to the ADA. “And you never even touched it? Well, that’s all that saves your hide, young man. So . . . when Mr. Rains was taken into custody, the police had this document in their possession. It lists the attorney of record as James Todd. Did anyone call Mr. Todd to—”
“Hell, no!” yelled a voice from the back of the gallery.
“Mr. Todd, always a pleasure,” said the judge, clearly lying, not welcoming one more complication. “Approach the bench.”
The civil rights attorney had chosen his corner position well. The court waited in silence as he moved slowly past the seated visitors in the back row, building anticipation and tension on his leisurely stroll toward the judge. “The ADA got one thing right,” he said as he passed through the gate in the railing. “My client has a history of mental illness. He wasn’t competent to waive his right to an attorney during questioning.” Turning to the little man beside him, Todd said, “Hello, kid. How’ve you been?”
Charles noted a wince before Bugsy forced a smile. Another indicator of unwanted recall? Yes. The little man waved one hand, waving memory away.
“Mr. Rains,” said Judge Wicker, “would you prefer Mr. Todd as your attorney?”
Bugsy looked back at the gallery, searching faces until he found Mallory’s, and, with her nod, he turned back to the judge to say, “Yes, ma’am.”
“Done.” The judge turned to the assistant district attorney. “And the confession is out. Would you like to beat a tactical retreat? . . . You want three seconds to think that over? One, two—”
“The people would be satisfied with a psych evaluation,” said the young ADA.
“Defense counsel would not.” James Todd glanced at his watch, then looked back over one shoulder as the doors opened, and Axel Clayborne strode into the courtroom. All heads turned toward the celebrity. And the judge slammed down her gavel three times to still the oohs and ahs.
“Your Honor, I stole the body.” The actor raised both arms in a crucifixion stance. “I’m at your mercy.”
Very stagy.
Charles turned to Mallory, who had undoubtedly orchestrated this event. But why? In view of the lack of evidence, a tossed confession and a prosecutor perched precariously on his last leg, Axel Clayborne’s appearance was over the top. Overkill.
“These people will only remember the movie star,” said Mallory. “They’ll forget that Bugsy was ever here.”
But Charles sensed that was not quite it—not all of it.
The gavel banged on until the crowd was hushed.
“Mr. Clayborne,” said the unhappy judge, “I don’t tolerate theatrics in my courtroom. If you want to confess to a crime, your local police station is the proper venue. There is a procedure to be followed—even for celebrities.”
One hand to his breast, the actor overplayed a wounded affect. “Well, I didn’t plan to cut corners. Last night, I tried to confess to Captain Halston, but he wouldn’t listen.” Clayborne rested both hands on Bugsy’s shoulders. “The captain seems determined to condemn my young friend to a psych ward. No idea why. He’s innocent. And Captain Halston knows it.”
To Charles’s ear, this had the sound of a rehearsed speech, and Mallory’s smile completed the case for conspiracy. Evidently, she disliked this Captain Halston.
“I’m going to regret it,” said the deadpan judge, “but I have to ask. . . . Why would you steal a body, Mr. Clayborne?”
“Dickie Wyatt was the director of a play, but he died before opening night. He never got to hear one round of applause. A travesty. Well, he’d been dead for a few days. Getting a bit ripe. So I figured, now or never, it was Dickie’s last chance to—”
A bang of the gavel ended this speech, and Clayborne’s smile faltered, perhaps correctly guessing that the judge was not a fan.
Mallory folded her arms, and this was Charles’s first indication that the actor had gone off script.
Judge Wicker pointed her gavel at the assistant district attorney. “Do we have a cause of death for Mr. Wyatt?”
“Yes, Your Honor.” The young lawyer handed up a small sheaf of notebook pages. “Personal notes acquired from Lieutenant Coffey, commander of Special Crimes. The lieutenant called the Medical Examiner’s Office the morning after the body was found. He was told that the cause of death was a heroin overdose. The formal autopsy won’t be released for a few more days, but it’s—”
“Not murder,” said Judge Wicker. “And that neatly explains why you agreed to discount that part of Mr. Rains’s confession. But now it seems that Captain Halston suppressed an exculpatory confession.” The judge looked out over the courtroom. “Would anyone else like to pile on? Maybe add to the confusion?”
Charles leaned close to Mallory’s ear. “But Edward ruled that death as a—”
“Don’t make me hurt you.”
Fine. Enough said.
At the front of the courtroom, Axel Clayborne was performing again. “Your Honor, it’s only confusing if you know the facts.” The actor waited out the laughter from the visitors’ gallery. “Dickie Wyatt was the first to die, but his body was the third one found. And the woman’s death on op
ening night? That was a heart attack. The following night, the playwright appeared to have slit his own throat. And the reviews? Fabulous. So, on the third night—just to keep the ball rolling, I wheeled Dickie’s corpse into the theater and sat him down in the back row. How was I supposed to know there was a suicidal teenager in the audience?”
“Six hundred dollars for interference with a corpse,” said the judge, as if she had heard his excuse before and found it boring. Apparently, she had been on the bench that long. “Pay the bailiff.”
The civil rights attorney said to her, “I move for a dismissal of—”
“Hold that thought.” Judge Wicker fixed her eyes on the young prosecutor. “Before the confession—why did the police take Mr. Rains into custody? Did they have some cause for suspicion? Maybe a witness? Any old thing at all?”
“I had a witness.” Axel Clayborne stood before the bailiff’s table, counting out hundred-dollar bills. “I brought the head usher with me when I confessed to Captain Halston. You see, I was dressed as a nurse when I wheeled Dickie’s body into the theater. So I stooped a bit—didn’t want to seem too tall for a woman. But the usher recalled looking up at someone larger than he was. And he’s taller than Alan Rains.”
“Your Honor, that’s hearsay,” said the ADA.
“Oh, shut the hell up.” Judge Wicker laid down her gavel and covered her eyes with both hands for a moment. Then she crooked one come-hither finger at the uniformed guard by the door. When the officer stood before the bench, the judge’s voice was low, but Charles thought he heard her say, “Bring me the head of Captain Halston.”
• • •
Bugsy and the lawyers were still gathered before the bench when Axel Clayborne signed his final autograph, and the last of the gallery visitors were ushered out of the courtroom. The actor joined Mallory and Charles near the door, asking, “How’d I do?”
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