“I want the ten thousand up front. I’m not doing this for free.”
“How the hell can I do that now? Ask the officer out there if they’ll let me make a run to the bank. Get me out of here, and you’ll have your money.”
“Margo, do you have that much money? Do I have any hope of getting paid for this?”
“I can get it.”
“How?”
“Don’t worry, I’ll get it.” Margo hesitated then said, “I’ll have Richie bring it around to your office. Will that be all right?”
“You’ve been in touch with Richie?” That stunned her. “Where is he? I must meet him.”
“I’ll tell him to give you the ten grand right away. Don’t worry.”
“I absolutely must meet him. I need personal information on him, address, phone number, the works. Where’s the guy from anyway?”
“Don’t know.”
“Don’t know? Is he from Nottingham or Cucamonga or somewhere in between? You must know something. Take a guess.”
Margo stared at her then looked away.
“Are you lying to me? What’s this ‘Richie can get the money’ bullshit?” Sandy stared at her. “Oh my god, he’s a drug dealer isn’t he? I’m defending a pack of pushers. Tell me this isn’t happening.”
“It’s not that way. Well, maybe he offered me a little blast once, but no, he has nothing to do with drugs. I have the money, and I’ll have him get it. You’ll get your ten grand.”
Sandy abruptly stood. “No cash. I want a check. You understand? A check from a bank or written on someone’s account. I don’t want some badass strutting into my office and dumping a dirty, plastic grocery bag of smelly cash on my desk. Don’t give me cash. My reputation is at stake here. I want some sort of traceable check from a legitimate bank.”
“Cash would be a lot easier.”
“I don’t want to hear that. And you better start coming across with the dirt on Richie.” She sat back down shaking her head. “Okay, let’s get busy. Where did your husband work anyway?”
“He was a diplomatic courier for the El Salvador Consulate in Miami. He carries...carried sensitive letters and files between the Miami consulate and San Salvador in a sealed pouch.”
“What’s the Salvadoran connection with your family?”
“None for me. John was born in Miami. Got shuffled back and forth between families and learned Spanish along the way. His mother is naturalized U.S. His father had Salvadoran citizenship and lived there—I think he’s dead. Or maybe it’s Claudia’s father who is dead.”
“Did John get much education?”
“Sure. Graduated from high school in Coral Gables. Played basketball. Went to Miami-Dade CC.”
“So John was bilingual. No problem getting a job at the consulate.”
“Next you’re going to ask what’s he doing living way up here.”
“Okay.”
“Back a few years, it seemed all of South America was buying condos in South Florida for investment. His mother’s brother gave her the condo. I don’t know how John ended up with it.”
“Park Beach to Miami is some commute.”
“Supposed to be temporary, however the bubble burst and the condo market never actually came back. They couldn’t sell, so they stayed. I like it up here. I loved the arrangement. It wasn’t bad, as his schedule was two weeks on down there, and then two weeks off up here.”
“Then there was trouble in paradise.”
‘A few months ago he stopped coming up here on his days off. Found something new and different down there, quite likely a whole lot different. When your husband’s been gone for three weeks, he’s supposed to show up horny.”
“And that made you think about divorce?”
“That made me think about murder.”
“Don’t say that again. Perhaps it got you upset.”
“Right, why should I mind splitting his take-home pay with some tramp in Miami?”
“So you hated him.”
“Hate? Maybe not hate.”
“The police are going to ask you that, if I decide to give them the chance. I wanted to hear how you answered.”
The next item was another major happening her client should have mentioned. “Move that chair up close to the table here. Here’s a police report about a shooting earlier that evening at the Community Center. Why didn’t you tell me about this?”
“Don’t know anything about it.”
“Don’t know? It says here your car got a bullet hole!”
“Oh...yeah. Well, I had just come out from my Yoga class. John shot at me.”
“Apparently, it wasn’t important enough to mention. Are you sure it was John?”
“Someone else would try to kill me?”
“Did you actually see him? That is the question. Margo, can you please start giving me complete answers without me dragging every frigging subject and verb out of you?” She closed her eyes and put her hands to her forehead feeling the developing headache. “Someone on the outside looking at us would never guess we‘re on the same side.”
“What do you want me to say? I didn’t stop and look, but I think it was him. When I heard the shot, I ran for my car. He shot and missed. I don’t know how. He was right there in the bushes. Some other people heard the shot and were running around. I drove like hell to get out of there. It really pissed me off.”
“Someone trying to kill you can do that. What time was that?”
“We break up at seven.”
Sandy looked at the police report to verify the time. “All right, where did you go then?”
“Where did I go?”
“Margo, you’re doing it again.”
“I don’t remember exactly.”
“What time was it when John was lying in that messy pool of blood in his shower? When you heard the sirens and took off?”
“Around nine or ten, I think. I’m just guessing at the time. I didn’t look at my watch.”
Sandy closed her eyes and shook her head. “You told Detective Jaworski you were home with your boyfriend.”
Margo looked upward thinking. “I guess that’s right I was home.”
“Can anybody vouch for that, other than your boyfriend?”
Silence.
“Margo, according to this report you were seen leaving, at least your car was seen leaving, John’s place as police cars approached!”
“Let me think. Yeah, that wasn’t me. That was Richie, I loaned him my car.”
“And that’s the same Richie who’ll vouch for you being at home at that same time?”
“You’re trying to confuse me. He might have left for a minute that night. I might have the times mixed up. Do you have any idea what I’ve been through?”
“No I don’t. That’s what I’m trying to find out. Please tell me what you’ve been through.” As frustrating as it was, Sandy was eager to learn more about the murder and to begin formulating some sort of defense. She swiftly wrapped herself into the question-answer routine and was surprised how effectively her previous field investigator work in Philadelphia had prepared her for this type of client questioning. It seemed second nature. She felt she was asking the correct questions, even though she had doubts about some of the answers.
For the next hour, they talked. She made numerous notes on her yellow pad—notes about John and Margo’s personal history, relatives, friends and enemies, property, and lifestyle.
Questions about Margo’s relationship with Richie Grant resulted in a glowing depiction of an enthusiastic lover. Apparently, his lone fault was he considered ripping off her clothes foreplay. He supposedly had an excellent job, as well. Yet, she still refused to give out details.
Sandy looked at her watch and pushed back from the table. The lack of information regarding Richie was just one obstacle. Another was Margo mixing up the truth. Strangely, she sounded truthful about not being very upset with her husband over the separation or even about him shooting at her. To hear her tell it, she just brushe
d it off.
“Here’s how I believe we should proceed,” she said adding it all up. “I want you to cool it with your hostile wife routine. Nine times out of ten, the spouse is the murderer. The odds go up to ten out of ten if she’s hostile. Believe me, that’s what the police are thinking. Don’t help them with your attitude. You were a loving wife, but not devastated by the separation. You are not a hostile wife, you are a grieving widow.”
“Isn’t it up to you to prove I didn’t kill him?”
“It’s up to me to be certain you receive a first-class defense, and your rights are protected.”
“Word it any way you want, but it’s my ass on the line. And I still have to pay you, whether I go free or not. Am I right or am I right?”
“You can’t handle all this yourself. My help is worth every penny.”
“Fifty thousand is a lot of pennies.”
“I’m going to get the best possible outcome for you, which may or may not be freedom. I’m a lawyer, not a magician. You can always pick some stuffy male lawyer out of the phone book, if you feel lucky.”
The woman looked over at her smiling. So Sandy continued, “Okay, now I need your husband’s social security number, so I can start investigating. Also, I need to get at any financial or medical records of his you might have.”
“I know where he keeps all that stuff in his condo. I’ve got a key. He asked for the door key back when we separated, and I gave one to him. He didn’t know I had a spare on my key ring.”
“They arrested you in your apartment. Where’s the spare key now?”
“I always toss my key ring into the brown dish on the bookcase when I come in the door. I guess it’s still there.”
“Where’d you leave your phone?”
“Don’t know, at my place somewhere, maybe the kitchen counter.”
“Okay, they would have thoroughly searched your apartment after the arrest. They would have found your phone and taken it as evidence. They certainly would have hauled away your car to go over it. They might have missed your key ring with his condo key. It might still be there. First, I need to get into your apartment. How can I get in? Do you leave a door key under the mat?” she was joking.
“Someone stole my door mat. It’s above the door on that wood molding thing.”
“If the condo key is on your key ring, and I get into his condo, where should I look? I need to search for papers or anything else that might help me.” The police had also searched his condo after the murder, but they were looking for murder evidence, not personal papers.
“In the bottom dresser drawer in the big bedroom. Of course, anything special would be in the freezer. Some of my stuff is still over there. I need to get in there myself.”
“The freezer huh, fireproof and all that I suppose. So if he had a will, it likely was in the freezer.”
“He wasn’t organized enough to get a will.”
“Now, you told me you saw John’s body, dead on the shower floor. But you told Jaworski that you were not at John’s condo—you were home Tuesday night. Why did you tell him that?”
She looked away. “You’re the one I lied to...I never saw John dead in the shower stall.”
Sandy shook her head.
Margo continued, “I was excited and confused. I didn’t know what to say. I was never at his condo. And I didn’t kill him.”
That’s what Sandy wanted to hear. Even if it were true, she had to prove it. She pointed to some papers. “This police report states he was found in the shower.”
“That’s what I just said.”
“I know you just said it, yet that detail wasn’t in the newspaper.”
“Someone must have mentioned it to me.”
“Who have you been talking to about the murder?”
“No one.”
Sandy glanced around the room. As frustrated as she was, she liked this routine, and she liked this atmosphere. She liked being at the jail, the police station, and the courthouse. She liked thinking and talking about important things—things that had life and death consequences. She liked law enforcement men and woman who knew what they wanted and would be self-assured even if they didn’t carry a deadly weapon on their hip. Men and women who knew they could go through a thirty-year career and never draw their weapon, and then be shot dead the day before they retire. People who would put their life on the line to protect a citizen, and who thought a good day was one in which no one, including the bad people, got hurt. Each office location was like a busy little community with officers running around trying to help citizens who were in trouble.
She also loved the law. She wasn’t going to make up stuff to build a case. Therefore, it was tough for her to say, “Margo, I can’t operate like this. You’re not being straight with me. Perhaps, I should step aside and let you find a more suitable attorney.”
“Just leave me cold? That’s not fair. Besides I was getting to like you.”
“Yesterday you walked out the door. Your instincts might have been right. Perhaps I shouldn’t have come back.”
“Sandy, please help me, I need you.”
Geez, why’d she have to put it like that? The woman was being evasive, which might mean she was guilty. Or perhaps she was covering for her boyfriend. Or perhaps...who knows. “Look, you deserve legal assistance regardless of whatever you’ve done. You don’t need to convince me you’re innocent, but you do need to convince me you’re telling me the truth.” She shrugged, giving it up for the time being. “Do you need anything from your place? I can bring you stuff.”
They scheduled another meeting. Sandy gave her the standard advice not to talk to the authorities or anyone in the jail about the situation.
“Don’t worry. I won’t talk to either the good cop or the bad cop.”
“I don’t want you ever talking. You’re not talking to a Grand Jury either, and I don’t think I’ll let you open your mouth in the courtroom.”
Chapter Seven
On her drive back from the county jail, Sandy’s distress began to set in. Although, Margo Larena had accepted her as defense counsel, it seemed almost meaningless coming from a quirky woman–a woman shielding a shadowy boyfriend. At the law office, she headed straight for Martin reading at his desk. She let her briefcase drop hard from her hand as she huddled down in one of the two large leather armchairs facing him.
“You need a little solace?”
“Why don’t I feel overjoyed about getting my first murder case?”
“I’m listening.”
“I’ve spent years preparing myself for defending the innocent against the unjust, fighting the overpowering prosecutors of the world. I finally get my first homicide, and my client looks about as innocent as a kid caught with jam all over her face.”
“Isn’t it too early for such a conclusion? There must be other facts to come out. Maybe she is innocent.”
“Maybe I can learn French in ten days.”
“So, you intend to be a criminal defense attorney who defends only innocent people? Nice clean ordinary people who are just standing around and suddenly are accused of committing a horrible bloody murder.”
“I don’t care if they’re nice and clean. If they’re innocent and wrongfully accused, I want at it. It’s like waving red meat in front of a lion. Saving them is why I’m here on this planet. I’m not interested in proving a guilty client innocent. I’ll never knowingly do that.”
“That’s why you’re upset. It’s getting through to you that perhaps she’s not innocent, and that means you must play a different game. Let’s say she is guilty. Can you mitigate her suffering and give her the best defense possible? “
“I know all that. I’m just feeling sorry for myself.” She leaned back and sighed. “It would be nice to deal with ordinary folks who are suffering under a mountain of seemingly incontrovertible evidence pointing to their guilt, and a state attorney who has it all wrong but is yelling his head off about serving justice.”
“And Superwoman comes to save
the day.”
That made her laugh. “I’m truly bad, aren’t I?”
“So this isn’t the dream case you’ve been fantasizing about. Might not even be a jazzy convoluted murder case. Might be simple domestic violence. A couple argues, the wife can’t take it anymore and whacks the husband. I know you’re dying for a big-time case in which to unleash your energy and enthusiasm, and run around kicking down doors. Perhaps this isn’t it. Your big dream case will come one day. It’s still down the road. Keep preparing yourself for it.”
“Of course, you’re right. It’s just this is my first murder defense, and I wanted to knock the ball out of the park.”
“You were made for this stuff. You’ll be great but maybe not today.”
“I understand. If she’s innocent, my job is to prove it. If she’s guilty, my job is to protect her rights and get a fair deal. That’s Criminal Defense 101. Saving someone wrongfully accused is a hellava lot more fun. It’s a contest. A battle. I’m on the offensive, and I can attack. If she’s guilty, I have to play defense, I don’t know how good I am at that. In any case, I’ll dig in and find the facts. I don’t want the state attorney running all over her with some craziness.”
“This woman is in big trouble,” he said. “She’s charged with first degree. Yes, if she’s guilty she should be punished. Even so, does she deserve to die? Superwoman can still save the day. What part did the husband play in this to get himself shot? Perhaps he had it coming. I don’t mean some bull such as, he was a man therefore he had it coming.”
“You mean like abuse?”
“Whatever. Can you discover any justification for what she did? Can you find an argument to lessen the charge? Sounds to me she positively needs someone such as you on her side protecting her rights. Did you ask if she shot him?”
“She says no. I can’t divulge her comments. We’re buddies but you and I are not partners on the case.”
“Sorry, I won’t ask anything again.” He put on a big smile. “Chip came by to see you about an hour ago.”
“He did!”
“Why all the surprise? He does drop around now and then.” He noticed her frown and added, “Feel free to discuss anything with me, Sandy.”
Chasing Suspect Three Page 5