As Sam had tramped along the road, he had noticed that traffic was thick and mostly in his direction. He’d stuck out his thumb a couple of times when cars passed going his way, but none had stopped. So when one coming from the direction of Hub City did a U-turn and stopped by the side of the road about a quarter-mile ahead, Sam thought that if he hurried, he might be able to catch the driver and talk him or her into giving him a ride home. He began to jog along, but as he got closer and saw the driver get out of the car, go to the rear, and open up the trunk, something persuaded him to slow down, proceed quietly, and try not to be noticed. He ducked down into the ditch that ran beside the road.
Quite some distance separated him from the car and its driver when Sam came to a complete halt and decided that this was close enough. He squatted down and stared. The darkness and the light snow made it difficult to see, but he thought he saw the driver pull something, a big package was what it looked like, out of the trunk. Whatever it was, it was difficult to carry, yet the driver managed it. Got it across the ditch, and just into the field next to the road. Then the driver hurried back to the car and tore off in the direction of Hub City.
Sam thought he had the place fairly well spotted, and when he set off to find it, he discovered it easily because of the fresh tire tracks in the new-fallen snow. There were footprints, too. He followed them down one side of the ditch and up the other, and there he found the plastic-wrapped package. He couldn’t tell exactly what it was at first, because some snow had gathered over it, but it looked like a big doll, which struck him as a funny thing to leave beside the road. But when he wiped the snow off with his gloved hand, he saw the face of a little girl, unmistakably real and unmistakably dead.
“What did you do then?” I asked him.
“I ran! I ran real hard. Only thing was, when I scrambled out of the ditch, a car come along right behind me and saw me take off running. He pulled over then, and I guess he wanted to see what I was running from. So at first I just kept on running, but then it come to me that he’d prob’ly think I put that there. He could come after me and catch me real easy in his car, and so I went off the road and just took off across the field. Nobody saw me there, I guess, but I like almost froze my feet because the snow was getting lots thicker then and I was just in my sneakers and they got real wet.”
“Did you tell your parents what happened, what you’d seen?”
“You think I’m crazy? I was in enough trouble the way it was.”
“Why?” I asked. “Why were you in trouble?”
“Well, I was real late home, and I had to tell Pa I left the pickup out there on Clarion Road because of the clutch. I thought he’d give me a whack because of that, but he didn’t. He knew the clutch was gonna go, I guess, so I didn’t get no whack. We went out, the two of us, in the Ford, hooked up the Datsun, and towed it back. There was cops air over the place by that time. They wasn’t gonna let us through on the way back, but I guess Pa talked our way outta there. I don’t know what he said because I was in back in the Datsun. But while we was waitin’, I got a look at everybody crawling around where I’d been. I just wanted to get away from there. I was afraid they’d pull me out and start askin’ me questions.”
“Is this the story you told them in that room across the hall?”
“That’s what I been tellin’ them over and over,” he said. “Only they say I’m lyin’ because it ain’t what I said at first.”
“But you’re not lying now? This is the truth?”
“It’s the truth. Yeah.” He said nothing more for a moment, then he looked at me questioningly. “You believe me, huh?”
I considered his question for à minute, trying to sort out any reservations I had. This guy had a big-time history of lying. Not only had he unjustly accused poor Father Chuck, he’d made other allegations about sexual abuse that turned out to be outright lies, purporting that people everywhere were trying to “grab his thing.” Jesus, according to him, you’d think that his “thing” was about as sought after as the Holy Grail.
True, that ghastly, greedy father of his had probably trained him well in the ways of extortion, if either of them could even understand what the word meant, so maybe money was what was behind all those false accusations. This slow, goofy Sam Evans didn’t seem like the most stable dude to come down the pike. It would be interesting to know his psychiatric history. Was he capable of committing this bizarre and heinous crime? And what, except madness, would be his motive?
I decided I really didn’t know if he was telling the truth. But as a lawyer, I knew one thing for sure: Sam Evans had been brought in for questioning as a witness. He hadn’t been charged, and yet here he was being treated by everyone like a suspect. Even if I did have any reservations about whether or not he was telling the truth, I had too much respect for the law not to kick some ass around here and tell Sue and Olesky and Bud Billings that I wasn’t going to let them continue on with their little game.
“We’ll talk about that later, but I do have a question. Did you or your father ever do any work for the Higginses or the Quigleys?”
He looked at me blankly. “Who’re they?” He really didn’t seem to know.
“Never mind.”
“Are you some kind of special cop or something? You’re real different from the other ones.”
At first I didn’t understand his question. Then I wondered if he would understand my answer: “I’m your lawyer. I’m on your side. Your father hired me to represent your interests.”
“Can you get me outta here?”
“I can sure try.”
I took Sam Evans across the hall back to Interrogation Room Three. I glanced at my watch as we went back inside and saw that we had gone over by about five minutes. Our little conference had lasted fifteen minutes, no more, no less. Stash and Bud Billings were there waiting. I looked from one to the other, then pointed down the hall to where Sue had disappeared. Stash shrugged. I put Sam Evans in a chair and pulled one over so that I would be seated beside him. I gave him a pat on the shoulder and took my place. Nothing was said. We simply waited.
A couple of minutes later, we heard the steady click-click-click of her heels on the tile floor. When she made her appearance, it was obvious she had freshened up a bit, hair combed, makeup applied. She would have looked just fine, except that her full lips were set in a tight line. She went over to the wall, leaned against it, and folded her arms.
Billings sat down on a chair across the table from us. “Now, Mr. Evans,” he said, “Pd like you to go through your story again. Give us all the details you can. Details are important. If you leave anything out, I’ll be there to help you with a question or two. Go ahead.” Typical good-cop approach—low-key, businesslike, professional.
Sam looked at me. I nodded and gave him another pat on the shoulder. He began talking and covered exactly the same ground he had with me. Actually, this recital was an improvement over the one he had given just minutes before. The questions I’d asked him along the way seemed to have helped him put it all together. His telling was as detailed and orderly as anyone could expect from a kid with his obvious mental deficiencies. In the course of it, Billings questioned him on only three or four points.
One exchange gave Sam pause. He had come to the point in his story at which the driver had dropped off the mysterious package in the field, gotten back into the car, and driven off.
Billings stopped him there. “Did you recognize the person?”
“Well, I was pretty far away,” said Sam.
“You were so far away I’m surprised you could see anything, Mr. Evans. Snow, a dark night like that. Your eyesight must be pretty good.”
“I don’t need no glasses!”
“But not good enough so that you could recognize the person or give us a description?”
Sam held back then, not for long, just for a moment, but long enough to make me momentarily curious. “Naw, I guess not.”
“You guess?”
In response, Sam sh
ook his head vigorously. “Naw, I couldn’t see that good.”
“And you can’t tell us what kind of car it was?”
“Naw.”
“And you didn’t get the license number?”
“Naw.”
“How far were you from that car? That driver?”
“I don’t know. Pretty far.”
“How far?”
“I don’t know,” he said, evidently trying to reckon the distance in some measure they might agree on. “Maybe it was, like, about as far as a football field is. Maybe more, maybe less.”
“So a hundred yards, give or take?”
This was getting silly. “Look, Detective Billings,” I said. “My client has made an effort to be accurate in his own way. I think his analogy to a football field is clear enough.”
“He wasn’t specific earlier about the time,” said Billings, “just ‘after dark’ was all he said. I’m just trying to get him to be specific where he can. I’m sure you want that, too, Counselor.”
I nodded, so did Billings, and Sam picked up his story where he had left off.
Stash had remained silent through all this, as had Sue. They seemed impatient, as if they wanted to get this over with as quickly as possible. So did I.
When Sam finished, having described his discomfort and fear at the police roadblock, I put my hand on his, indicating that he was to stop. He had told them all he had told me, and that was enough.
“Well, I give you credit, Charley,” said Stash. “You sure know how to polish a witness. You got all that down in fifteen minutes.”
That was meant to annoy me. It did. “What are you talking about, Stash? He just told the same story he told me. And it’s the same story he was telling you just before I came in, isn’t it, Detective Gillis?”
She held back. “More or less,” she said, studiously avoiding my eyes.
“Then,” I said, rising to my feet, “I think we’ve concluded our business here. Come on, Sam.” I gave him a tug, and he stood up uncertainly, looking left and right and then back at me.
“Wait a minute,” said Stash. “I think we ought to have a talk out in the hall, Charley.”
“Wait a minute yourself. Sam Evans was brought in as a witness, and he’s given you his testimony. I understand that he was a little less than forthcoming in the beginning. That’s only natural considering his youth and inexperience. He was frightened. But he’s told you now what he knows and what he saw. He has nothing to add. It’s up to you now to have his story checked out.”
“Do what?” Sue yelled, suddenly exploding as she sprang forward from the wall. “There’s nothing to check! There is no story! He made it up!”
“Far be it from me to tell you your job, Detective Gillis, but I think a visit to Mrs. Belder would be in order. I assume that hasn’t yet been done. She might have a better idea of the time my client left her place than he seems to. That would ease your mind a little on specifics, wouldn’t it, Detective Billings?”
He sighed. “Yeah, sure.”
“And Sam,” I said, “has that clutch in the Datsun been fixed yet?”
“Huh? No, you can’t drive it nowheres.”
“I’d confirm that, if I were you, Detective Gillis. It would tend to support his story, wouldn’t it? What about drivers who were out that night on Clarion Road? Did they see a deserted pickup along the shoulder? That might bear checking out. No, I really think you’ve got your work cut out for you. But it’s work you can do without our further assistance. Let’s go, Sam.”
Stash was on his feet, beckoning. “Charley, come on. Outside. Leave your guy here.”
I’d made my power play. I had no choice but to hear what he had to say. Signaling to Sam to sit down and wait, I followed Assistant Prosecutor Stanislaus Olesky out of the room.
Once out in the hall, he shut the door after us, thrust his hands in his pockets, and walked us a little distance down the hall. He seemed almost reluctant to speak, his deep-set eyes reflecting confusion.
This act of concern on his part was getting on my nerves. “All right, Stash,” I said, “let’s hear it.”
“Charley,” he said, “we want to keep him.”
“Keep him? How can you? You know you don’t have enough to book him.”
“Okay, Charley, on the level, straight up, here’s what we’ve got on him. Number one, we’ve got the footprint which puts him right at the scene. His sneakers match the print exactly—off brand, distinctive tread.”
“He admits he was there.”
“Right. He has to, because, number two, when he was out on the road and tried to hitch a ride, he was recognized by somebody who knew him and drove right by. This person said your boy Sam was a bad kid, and he didn’t want anything to do with him.”
“I’d like the name of whoever that was.”
“All in due time. It’s called the discovery process. Number three, he fled the scene. He was not recognized by that motorist. But he was observed to be acting very suspiciously, and that was why the guy stopped. He was the one who reported the body in the field. He also told us he’d seen someone running from the scene. We kept that from the reporters, because it was the only lead we had until Sue found the footprint in the mud. Only one clear one, but that was enough, and then the other motorist came forward, the one who’d recognized Sam Evans out on Clarion Road. So they had him identified, and that was enough to bring him in.”
“Okay, so they brought him in, and they questioned him, and—”
“One more thing.” He interrupted me. “Sam Evans did not volunteer information. He did not make a separate report of finding the body that night; He did not come forward the next day. And for the first hour of interrogation, he denied even being out on Clarion Road that night. This is not the sort of behavior you might expect from an innocent witness, Charley. You know that and I know that.”
“But it’s not the kind of behavior that gets someone booked on a murder charge, either,” I said. “You know what we’re dealing with. He’s not very bright. You probably wouldn’t have to dig very deep to find evidence of physical abuse by his father. Evans didn’t even understand that I was his lawyer, what my function was. He’s got no idea of the legal process. He was scared shitless, Stash. That’s why he ran. That’s why he shut up about what he’d found. That’s why he denied everything.”
“Yeah, well, we’re not psychologists.”
“That’s for sure,” I said. “But listen, there’s a big hole in the facts just as you presented them. It’s obvious he wasn’t the one who dropped the body off in the field.”
“Why?”
“He was on foot. The truck broke down, and he was hiking along trying to get a ride when he was spotted. Did the person who identified him say he was carrying anything?”
“I didn’t say there weren’t some inconsistencies. Granted, the body had to be moved to the scene in a vehicle.
I say it all becomes a question of where the truck broke down, if the truck broke down. And as you so helpfully pointed out, there are a few points in his story that ought to be checked.”
Stash gave me a sly look and waggled a finger at me. “It’s not nice to tell cops how to do their job, Charley, especially when one of them’s your girlfriend.”
“Let’s keep it professional, shall we?”
“That’s what I’m trying to do. That’s why I called you out here to talk this over. Now, the case is at a point where further investigation is required. I admit that. For good and sufficient reason, we intend to detain Sam Evans while that investigation proceeds.”
“What’s this good and sufficient reason? You don’t have enough to book him and take him to the Grand Jury, and you know it. What I’ve heard from you simply doesn’t constitute a ease against him. You think he’ll run away on you? He won’t. He’s too scared to try, and too dumb to get far, even if he does.”
“All right, Charley, I said I’d give it to you straight, so here it is. You’ll find out soon enough, anyway. The prose
cutor let it out that there’d been a break in the case. He wants it to happen, and so he decided this was it.”
I sighed. Leave it to his boss, the very famous Mark Evola, Kerry County’s posturing prosecutor, a handsome hot dog who thought he was on a par with Vincent Bugliosi in his heyday. I was Evola’s least ardent fan and he was my biggest adversary. We’d gone up against each other and I’d beaten him in the Angel Harwell murder trial, but then the superambitious Evola had jumped at the chance for appointment as a circuit judge. He loved life on the bench and cherished the robes, but when it came time for reelection, Evola tanked. Now he was back to being Kerry County prosecutor, Stash’s boss and my nemesis.
“To whom did our esteemed prosecutor communicate this bit of wishful thinking? He wasn’t stupid enough to call a press conference, was he? Should I get the thrill of my life and check Eyewitness News tonight?”
“Here’s what happened. That guy Evan Magarshak who’s been covering it for the Free Press had him on the phone and asked him if there’d been any new developments. Strictly routine. He’d just heard that Sam Evans had been brought in for questioning. Maybe Sue built it up a little. He was all pumped up about it, so he said there’d been a break and that we expected to have an announcement soon, tomorrow at the latest.”
“Great. He didn’t give Sam Evans’s name, did he?”
“No.” He shook his head reassuringly. Somehow I wasn’t reassured. “But he did decide that he shouldn’t play favorites, so he had the same information passed on to the News, the Times-Herald, and the three network stations. And that was when he sent me over to sit in on the interrogation.”
“Oh, Jesus.”
“You might want to slip out the back door. I understand they’re already starting to gather out in front.”
“All right, now look, Stash, you know you’re not going to book him on homicide, so you must have some kind of holding charge in mind.”
“Yeah, I do.”
“What could you possibly come up with that could be made to fit?” I really wanted to know. I was more than curious.
The Judgment Page 14