The Judgment

by William J. Coughlin

  “Misprision of a felony?”

  I laughed at that, not very long or hard, and partly for effect, but I did laugh. “Now I know you’re bluffing,” I said. “Nobody uses that, Stash. If failure to report a crime were a legitimate charge in the State of Michigan, half of Detroit would be behind bars. It’s a Federal charge. We both know that.”

  “Just thought I’d try it out on you,” he said. “No, what I had in mind might make you laugh just as hard, but I really think I can make it stick for the day or two we need.”

  “Let’s have it. What is it?”

  “Leaving the scene of an accident.”

  “But that’s a traffic law—hit-and-run. That’s crazy. This wasn’t an accident, it was homicide, and it didn’t even take place on Clarion Road.”

  “We don’t know that for sure. And as far as it being homicide, the medical examiner’s report isn’t in yet, so that’s not official, either.”

  “Sam was on foot.”

  “He entered Clarion Road in a pickup truck, didn’t he? If he fled the scene on foot, that changes nothing. I’ve looked at the law, Charley. Nowhere does it specify the means of departure.”

  “You’ll never make it stick, Stash.”

  He made it stick.

  Stash Olesky knew something I didn’t. I took his advice and slipped out the back door. But circling the building, I saw them hanging out in front of Kerry County Police Headquarters, and still arriving. The Channel 7 news van pulled up as I all but tiptoed past. Nobody paid any attention to me. I went unrecognized even by the little crowd of locals that had gathered. They were probably there out of curiosity regarding the presence of the media, rather than having any real interest in what might be announced from the steps of the building. I hoped the reporters would be disappointed. So far Sam Evans’s name hadn’t been mentioned. I didn’t see how Stash would dare bring it up in connection with that phony holding charge. But you could never tell just what his boss might do or say.

  I cut across the parking lot behind them, jumped into my car, and headed straight back to the office. I was relieved to find that Mr. and Mrs. Evans had gone, maybe over to Police Headquarters to get a report from me. Well, let them wait. I had nothing good to tell them. I stood over Mrs. Fenton while she whipped out a Habeas Corpus form. She was always fast and efficient when it mattered most. She printed it out and handed it over. If she had been twenty years younger and not such a sourpuss, I might have given her a kiss on the cheek. As it was, she had to settle for a hasty thank-you as I hurried out the door for the Kerry County Courthouse.

  Normally I don’t get quite so urgently involved in this kind of legwork, so why was I doing this for Sam Evans? I wasn’t even sure he was telling the truth. Maybe a part of me wanted to believe he was being straight, but frankly the whole Evans family gave me the creeps. You just never know where evil lurks.

  And I sure wasn’t doing it for that father of his who had backed me up against a wall with his peculiar brand of moral blackmail so that I’d take on his strange son as a client. So why was I doing this?

  The closest I could figure was that it was pride. Stash had out-and-out offended me with the ludicrous traffic charge. I took it personally. I hadn’t spent my whole life in the law—bad times and good—to fall for such blatant chicanery. I was out to show Stash that he just couldn’t get away with it.

  But he knew something I didn’t. Maybe I should have been aware that a notice had been posted in the courthouse for a week or more. But I hadn’t been inside since the day I got Ernie Barker off on that gun charge, and to tell you the whole truth, I am not an inveterate reader of bulletin boards. If I hadn’t been in such a hurry and had paid better attention to that miscellaneous collection of county communications, I might have seen a neatly typed announcement to the effect that all proceedings of the Kerry County Court would be suspended at 1 P.M. on that day only “due to the Annual Conference of Southeastern Michigan County Judges to be held at the Hyatt Hotel, Southfield, Michigan.”

  I noticed it only on my way out. By that time, I had pounded on the doors of the judges’ chambers and found them locked, looked into the courtrooms and found them as empty as the halls and offices. It looked like the last scene in On the Beach. Everybody had gone home early.

  They may as well have locked up the building. I couldn’t figure it out. It was only then, the Habeas Corpus still flapping in my hand, that I stopped and surveyed the bulletin board, looking for some explanation. That’s when I got the message.

  I was annoyed, more than annoyed. I was angry. The law is a no-holds-barred competition played by overweight men in suits and ties. I had a pretty good reputation for rough-and-tumble myself, good enough so that I knew when I’d been put down good and proper. There was no point in even considering a trip to Southfield. Out of their robes and pressing the flesh, they’d be on their second round of drinks by the time I got there. These annual conferences served better as occasions for meeting and greeting than for deep discussions of the penal code. The boys from Kerry County wouldn’t take kindly to an interruption. I would have to wait until morning, and so would Sam Evans. I had no choice but to go back and tell him that.

  Feeling frustrated and defeated, I came back from my visit with Sam and my confrontation with his father and told Mrs. Fenton I would be leaving early. She saw the papers in my hand but said nothing. I tossed them on my desk, deposited with her the envelopes I’d collected from Frank and Betty Higgins, and took off for home.

  Home. Two bedrooms, a living room, and a kitchen. Even so, it was about one more room than I needed. I kept the extra bedroom for my daughter when she came back to visit from Columbia Law. I was glad to have her there and offer her a room of her own, so it was worth it to me. But as I rattled around the apartment, the usual Diet Coke in my hand, that spare, bare room, with its neatly made bed and chest of drawers, made me feel lonely just looking at it. Maybe I should hang a picture or two. Put in a desk. Something, anything, to make it look like somebody might live there. I made a mental note of it.

  Just a few years before, if I’d felt the way I felt at that moment, I would have bellied up to the bar at Jacoby’s and begin to drink my troubles away. I was good at that then. Old patterns die hard. Something in me said that what worked for me once would work for me again. That was the something that always seemed to be telling me I needed a drink, no matter what the circumstance. The desire never leaves you.

  It was too early for television. That press conference on the steps of Police Headquarters probably wouldn’t air until eleven, might not air at all if they hadn’t come away with much. I’d have to watch Mort Crim to find out. Ordinarily, Sue and I might be checking it out together, sitting on the couch in her living room, holding hands, snuggling, engaging in that sort of pleasantly foolish behavior I should probably have outgrown after my last divorce. After what had passed between us in Interrogation Room Three, there probably wouldn’t be any more of that, though I wondered why I’d allowed that old bastard Evans to con me into taking on his son. I was right to turn him down the first time. He had hooked me with that mean little speech about lawyers being servants of the establishment, only for the rich. There was in general just enough truth in that for me to feel called upon to prove him wrong. I didn’t like him. I had contempt for him and what he’d put his son up to with Father Chuck. But he wasn’t my client. His son was.

  When the telephone rang, I went into the living room and picked it up, then sank into a chair when I recognized Sue’s voice at the other end of the line. She sounded cold and distant, which I would have expected, but also determined to have her say.

  “I tried to get you at your office, Charley, but Mrs. Fenton said you’d gone for the day.”

  “That’s right, I—”

  “There’s something I wanted you to know.”

  “Sue, listen—”

  “You’ll hear about it eventually, anyway.”

  I was just as determined as she was to speak my piece. We sta
rted talking simultaneously, but this time I won.

  “You were right,” I said. “You said yourself we have to keep our professional lives separate. Considering the number of lawyers in this county and the number of cops, it was inevitable that sometime we’d find ourselves on the opposite sides of the fence. Neither of us knew it would come so quickly, but it has. So why don’t we just back off until this thing has run its course? Then we can get together and compare notes, like a couple of professionals. That’d be the mature way to handle it, wouldn’t it?”

  There was stony silence at the other end.

  “Are you through?”

  It was plain she had ignored what I’d said. I wondered if she’d even been listening.

  I sighed. “Yes, I’m through.”

  “Thank you. I just thought you’d be interested in knowing that Bud and I visited Mrs. Belder, and yes, just the way you said she’d be, she was a lot more helpful on the question of time than your client was. She put it at six o’clock, no later than six-fifteen, that he’d left. But she also tóld us something else that was very interesting.”

  “Oh? And what was that?”

  “She told us he had something under a tarpaulin. Sam Evans came with it, and he left with it.”

  “Okay, Sue, why is that such a big deal?”

  “Because, Charley, Mrs. Belder said that whatever was under that tarp was something dead. She’s eighty-seven years old, and she admits she doesn’t see very well, but her sense of smell is just fine. And she’s willing to swear that whatever was, hidden under that tarp smelled dead.”

  “Have you talked this over with Sam yet?”

  “No,” she said, “I haven’t. But Stash Olesky tells me there’ll be plenty of time to do that in the morning. I’m going to go home a little early myself. I figure I’ve put in a good day’s work. But I just thought you’d like to know. Good-bye, Charley.”

  And then she hung up on me. Just like that.

  I looked at the receiver, shrugged, and replaced it in its cradle. She had meant to put me in my place and who knows? Maybe she had. Maybe Sam Evans had murdered Catherine Quigley, and maybe he’d murdered poor little Lee Higgins first. Anything is possible.

  But one thing kept playing at the back of my mind: Would someone like Sam have prepared the bodies in the condition they were found—bathed, clothes laundered, hair neatly combed and laid out in the snow in clear plastic like they might have been in a mortuary? Would Sam—a total slob, unkempt with dirt under his fingernails and clothes that reeked from filth and body odor—take more care of a corpse than he would of himself? Maybe, maybe not. Had Sue even thought about that?

  One fact was for sure, though. Right now Sam wasn’t looking too good. He’d been at the scene, someone saw him. His footprint was there. And despite his mewling protestations about telling the truth, there wasn’t another suspect, and the cops thought he was looking pretty good for it.

  I looked out the window and saw that it was almost dark. I was getting tired of thinking. My watch said it was just a little after five. If I couldn’t go out for a drink, then I would take myself out to dinner. Why not?

  Glad to have something to do, I went into the bathroom, showered and shaved, and then got my second-best suit from the closet. If I was going to do it, I might as well do it right. I even went so far as to call the Pickeral Inn and reserve a table. When the girl who took the reservations asked how many there would be in the party, she seemed a little disappointed when I said just one.

  9

  As I opened the door to my office and paused to knock the snow from my shoes, I got a look from Mrs. Fenton that was a little hard to read, something between a frown of disapproval and caution. There was a slight, quick movement of her head to her right, my left, in the direction of the office sofa.

  It was old man Evans, combative as ever. He was on his feet by the time I stepped inside and pulled the door shut behind me. He was in his work clothes, unshaven, no longer making any pretense that he belonged here in town. He was who he was. I gave him a curt nod, then turned my back on him as I went over to Mrs. Fenton’s desk.

  “Anything special on the agenda?”

  She consulted her calendar. “Today’s the day you were going to file the papers on the Kelman divorce.”

  “Has he moved out yet?” I could hear Evans stirring behind me.

  “I’ve no idea, Mr. Sloan. Better call and find out” The filing date had already been postponed once while they talked reconciliation. They needed a marriage counselor, not a lawyer. I was about to tell Mrs. Fenton to make the call for me when I happened to think what a pleasure it would be to walk into my little inner office and shut the door on my visitor.

  “Okay, Mrs. Fenton, I’ll just do that.”

  I turned around and almost bumped into Evans. He was blocking my way.

  “If you’ll pardon me.” Always the gentleman.

  “You mean you want to get by?”

  “That’s just what I mean.”

  He was about my height, lean and raw-boned. The fact that for a moment I considered pushing him aside should give some idea of the irritation he caused me just being there. I took a step to one side, and he moved with me. All the while he was giving me a look he meant to be threatening.

  “Not until you tell me you’re going to get my boy out of jail today,” he said.

  “We went through this yesterday afternoon,” I said.

  “It’s what I’m payin’ you for, ain’t it?”

  I sighed. “Mr. Evans, if you’ll remember, I recommended John Dibble to you when you and your wife came in. He’s a good attorney. He can do anything and everything I can do. I’d be happy to turn it all over to him.”

  He took a step back, slightly put off by my suggestion. He thought it over.

  “Well, that ain’t what I meant, exactly.”

  “I’ll even return your retainer.”

  “Naw,” he said, “don’t do that. Just give me some results. That’s all I want.”

  “Results are what I want, too. It’s just a matter of getting the matter before a judge.”

  “You need money to pay him off?”

  “Mr. Evans”—I raised my voice—“get out of here. No payoff is needed. No payoff will be asked for. All I need to do, as I explained on the telephone last night, is get some paperwork processed. Now if you’ll pardon me?”

  He moved back, stepping out of my path. “Sure, okay. Sorry.” Thoroughly intimidated now, he made his way for the door. It had been easier to get rid of him than I expected. I watched him go, barely managing to suppress a smile. But then I thought of something I wanted to ask and called after him. He turned back, looking almost suspicious, as if he were afraid I’d changed my mind.

  “Mr. Evans,” I said, “did Sam say anything to you about recognizing the person he saw out on Clarion Road?”

  “No, no, he didn’t say nothin’ about that. He didn’t say anythin’ about what he seen out there.”

  “All right, thank you.” And I let him go.

  Why did I sense that he and his son were lying about this? Sam had been stopped cold by Bud Billings on that point, and the old man had been just a little too vehement in his denial. It made me wonder.

  “I detest that man,” Mrs. Fenton allowed.

  I grinned back at her. “I’m not too fond of him myself.”

  “I can’t for the life of me imagine why you took on his dim-witted son as a client.”

  “You know the family?”

  “They’re notorious all over the county—sneaky, mean, just thoroughly untrustworthy people.”

  “Why, Mrs. Fenton, how you talk! It seems to me you’ve been listening to gossip.”

  “It’s more than gossip. I remember one or two years before you came here, Delbert Evans—the one who was just here—got into a lot of trouble when a child of his—that would have been the boy’s sister—when she died, and he just buried her. No doctor, no death certificate. There was naturally some suspicion about t
hat, so they dug her up and did an autopsy on her, but they found out she died of natural causes. Pneumonia, or something. But they didn’t have a doctor in to take care of her, so the poor thing just died. They’re just like animals, those Evanses. They seem to live so poor, but they come up with money when they need it. Like this time with that boy of theirs, Sam.”

  I stood for a moment, thinking about what I had just heard. “How old was the girl?” I asked at last.

  “Oh, I don’t know, seven or eight, something like that.”

  “Interesting.” That was all I could say, but perhaps it was more than that. “Mrs. Fenton, I’m going to go out to look for a sympathetic judge.”

  Judge Brown was sympathetic, all right, but he was a little too amused by Stash Olesky’s stratagem to be truly helpful. I caught him in his chambers just before he opened up the shop for the day. He took Habeas Corpus, glanced at it, then tossed it aside. But he gave more careful attention to the booking sheet as I explained with all the gravity I could muster that the traffic charge was trumped up as a holding device and that my client had been on foot out there on Clarion Road after his truck broke down.

  I knew that it looked bad for the home team when, after considering the matter for a moment or two, Judge Brown burst into laughter.

  “They didn’t have enough to book him on the homicide charge, Judge, so they took the easy way out.”

  “Easy way?” He kept right on chuckling. “No, Charley, I’d say it was the tricky way.”

  “He’s just a boy, Your Honor—nineteen years old.”

  “I know, I know.” He wasn’t impressed. “Who came up with this, anyway?”

  “Stash Olesky.”

  “I give him credit. This is the fanciest bit of flummery I’ve seen in quite some time.”

  “But you can’t let him get away with this, Judge.”

  “This is a big case, Charley. They evidently feel an arrest is imminent, or they wouldn’t go out on a limb like this.”