Dead Famous

by Carol O'Connell

  “That’s an assistant DA.” Janos stared at the mirror, then raised his voice for the benefit of the man behind the glass. “He’s reminding me that he’s a busy little prick with big plans for the evening. I suppose he thinks we’re wasting his time.”

  Riker banged one fist on the table, and the annoying rap abruptly ceased.

  Horace Fairlamb put a cigar in his mouth, Cuban of course, and Riker would bet that contraband was also included in the deal with the district attorney.

  Damn every lawyer ever born.

  Agent Hennessey leaned across the table to light the old man’s cigar, saying, “So let’s get on with the good stuff, all right?”

  “Yeah,” said Riker. “Let’s start with the murder trial. What happened in that jury room? Why did they all vote not guilty?”

  “I have no idea,” said Horace Fairlamb. “I never discussed that with my associates.”

  Janos’s head snapped back, as if the lawyer had stunned him with a baseball bat between the eyes. “Hey, we had a deal, old man.”

  “Oh, yes . . . the deal.” The old man exhaled a cloud of smoke. “As I recall the terms, I agreed to tell you everything I knew about the Ian Zachary jury. So now I’ve told you all I know. And, if I may anticipate your next question, I have no idea who the Reaper is.”

  Weary Janos laid his head on the table, and Agent Hennessey slumped in his chair, muttering, “We’ve all been scammed.”

  Well, not all of them, not Mallory. And now Riker understood why his partner had not bothered to sit in on this interview—this worthless crumb she had thrown to the FBI.

  Behind the lighted glass sat young Crazy Bitch, eyes glistening, fever-bright. The girl gave the impression of a cat on tenterhooks, forever trapped in a conflict of fight or flight.

  Johanna Apollo stared at the other window on this studio, the dark one, and this unsettled Ian Zachary. She smiled.

  Paranoia, my old friend.

  It had been childishly simple to suss out the Englishman’s weakness. She looked down at the carpet and noted the impressions left by the console’s former position. He had turned his desk sideways so that he would not have to face the booth window when he worked his telephones, his levers and dials. However, that had not ended his discomfort. His next solution had been the Japanese folding screen beside his chair. It sheltered him from the window’s view, making it easier to lose the idea of a watcher behind that dark glass.

  Crazy Bitch must be a mind reader of sorts, for she caught the doctor’s eye and made a thumbs-up gesture. Johanna was uncertain about the words this girl was mouthing, but she thought the context might have been Go for his balls.

  Noting Johanna’s interest, Zachary stared at the Japanese screen, as if he could see through it to the dark window on the other side. “That’s Needleman’s booth—my producer. Did you see something?”

  “Not yet.”

  He lost his charming smile for a moment, but then he rallied, turning to the lighted window and his assistant, who instantly ceased to clap her hands. “Crazy Bitch? You screwed up the voice level again.”

  The girl behind the glass extended one finger from a closed fist, an obscene gesture to tell him how much his criticism meant to her.

  He flicked a lever, then leaned far back in his chair. “I could run the whole show from this console. But my assistant has a certain entertainment value. You may have noticed—she’s insane.”

  “Eccentric, perhaps,” said Johanna. She had found the younger woman’s survival instinct was still intact, always a good indication for hope, but yes, Crazy Bitch was definitely in trouble. Johanna’s sudden smile was directed at the producer’s booth, and this had a telling effect on Zachary.

  Once more, he turned to face the screen blocking his view of the dark glass. “So, Dr. Apollo, do you know Needleman?”

  Though no sound escaped the lighted booth, Crazy Bitch was laughing hysterically and nodding with wildly exaggerated bobs of her head.

  “Everyone knows Needleman,” said Johanna.

  Riker had invited the FBI man to the second interview of the night, the one that might actually break the case. They entered a small room with a lockup cage and no mirrors—no witnesses. Mallory was clearly surprised and unhappy to see Hennessey, not liking this change of plans—her plans.

  The fake blind man had finally been returned from Bellevue, and his public defender had just finished reading the psychiatric evaluation, slapping it on the table in disgust. Though the court-appointed lawyer was still not satisfied that his client was competent to waive legal counsel, and he said so for the record, he now left the strange little man in police custody and quit the room with a secretive smile, so happy to finally end his long workday and happier still to be rid of this lunatic.

  Victor Patchock sat with his arms folded. His white cane had been taken away from him, but he stubbornly insisted on wearing his wig and dark glasses, and neither would he remove his overcoat. “In case I have to leave in a hurry.”

  “You’re not going anywhere for a long time.” Mallory snatched the dark glasses away. Patchock raised his hands, anticipating a blow to the face, and the overcoat fell open to expose drops of blood on his shirtfront. A surprised Agent Hennessey stared at these bloodstains.

  Riker and Janos turned in unison to stare at Mallory.

  Before she could utter her trademark line, I didn’t do it, the little man quickly closed up his coat, saying, “I have nosebleeds when I’m under stress.”

  Now that Mallory had been cleared of mistreating her prisoner, she reached toward the little man once more. One white hand, five sharp red nails, flashed out to touch the nylon strands of the red wig and to make the little man flinch. “Why the costume, Victor?”

  “That was Dr. Apollo’s idea,” said Victor Patchock. “She told me no one would look for me under a neon sign—if you take my meaning. Before she bought me the wig, I couldn’t bring myself to leave my room.”

  “So she was treating you?”

  The little man nodded. “Getting out of my room was a big part of my therapy. You know, taking back my life. So I spent my time following other players around, MacPherson, Johanna and—”

  “And Ian Zachary.” Mallory touched his arm, making him jump a bit. “That’s how you knew he’d be in the parking garage the other night.”

  “Yes. It took me a while to figure out that his limo was picking up an impersonator. After I caught on, I followed him to that garage lots of times.” Victor Patchock smiled at Riker, but it was not a happy smile, more on the sly side. “I followed you around, too—all those nights you went out drinking with Dr. Apollo after work. You never saw me, did you? No, you only had eyes for the doctor.” He wagged one finger at the detective. “I would kill for that woman. Just you remember that, you bastard.” Now he turned his suspicious eyes on Mallory.

  “Victor?” Riker slapped the table to regain the little man’s attention. “What happened in that jury room? Why did you all vote not guilty?”

  “Andy,” said the man in the red wig. “It was his doing.”

  “Andy Sumpter?” Agent Hennessey was startled. “The juror?”

  “The first one to die,” said Victor Patchock.

  Johanna Apollo continued to glance at the dark window from time to time. This had the desired effect of rattling Ian Zachary, but never for more than a few seconds. Now he relaxed into a self-satisfied smile. “You have a lot of explaining to do, Doctor.”

  “I know,” she said. “It would be easier to understand if we start with the voir dire, the jury selection. Your lawyers dragged out the process. There was lots of time to get full background checks on everyone in the jury pool.”

  “Stacking the jury isn’t a crime, Doctor. It’s a science.”

  “Oh, I agree,” said Johanna. “It only seemed insane at the time. Your lawyers didn’t care about biases. All the physically small people, the frail ones with the most retiring personalities, they were never challenged by your defense team. And then the
re was me, the hunchback, the cripple—so vulnerable. Andy Sumpter was the lone exception, a man with the emotional maturity of a child and the body of a weight lifter. The prosecutor loved him, didn’t he? Andy came off as such a law-and-order freak. I’m sure you coached him every step of the way.”

  “Now that would be a crime.” Zachary’s smile was unaffected by this accusation. “Let’s stay with the facts for now, Dr. Apollo. We can talk about your unsupported theories later on.”

  “Andy slept through most of your trial. That’s a fact. But when we retired to the jury room for deliberations, he was suddenly wide awake. The first round of ballots were for a guilty verdict—except for Andy’s. The judge wouldn’t accept a hung jury. Day after day, he kept sending us back to that little room to work it out, and every day more votes swung over to Andy’s side. The first two crossover votes were easy. Those people just wanted to go home. But the rest stood firm—even while Andy sat there, glaring at them one by one and punching his fist into his hand, over and over.”

  Victor Patchock was off to the men’s room, escorted by Detective Janos. In addition to nosebleeds, he had announced that frayed nerves also affected his bladder.

  The moment the door closed, Agent Hennessey discovered that he was Mallory’s new interview subject. She stood beside his chair, preferring the advantage of looking down at him. “Jury tampering,” she said. “The feds were investigating before the first juror died. That’s what brought Timothy Kidd to Chicago after the trial. He wasn’t working the Reaper murders.” Unspoken were the words You liar.

  “But that can’t be right,” said Riker, answering for the stunned FBI agent. “Wrong department. Timothy Kidd was a profiler—murder cases.”

  Mallory shook her head. “Kidd was never a profiler. He was a garden-variety field agent—just like Hennessey here. And he was also a flaming nutcase.”

  “She’s right, and she’s wrong,” said Hennessey, speaking only to Riker’s friendlier face. “A year ago, Agent Kidd had a nervous breakdown. He was pulled from fieldwork and transferred to an office job. All he did was shuffle papers and make out reports on obscure complaints. So one day, Dr. Apollo’s charge of jury tampering lands on his desk. No one else took it seriously. A hung jury might’ve gotten some attention, but you can’t buy a whole jury, can you? The verdict was unanimous, and her claim was unsupported.” He glanced up at Mallory, to say, “You were wrong about the tampering charge,” then quickly looked away, not even willing to meet Riker’s eyes anymore. “There was no federal case before the first juror died. But Dr. Apollo papered every agency, local, state and federal.”

  Riker nodded. “And crazy Timothy Kidd was the only one who believed her.”

  “That’s right,” said Hennessey. “So Agent Kidd went to Chicago for a follow-up interview, and that was on his own initiative. He was never assigned to any criminal cases. A few days later, the Reaper slaughtered the first juror. There was a message on the crime-scene wall, written in the victim’s own blood. One down and eleven to go. That’s what it said. We never got that detail until the second juror died. Then the Chicago bureau stepped in and placed the rest of the jury in a protection program. Agent Kidd was using sick days, commuting between D.C. and Chicago. So he did investigate the Reaper murders, but he did it on his own time.”

  “Argus didn’t know that,” said Riker. “He thought Kidd was in town to check up on his work.”

  Their conversation ended when the door opened. Detective Janos and his charge had returned from the men’s room. Victor Patchock sat down, adjusted his wig and continued his story of the jury deliberations. “Well, Andy comes up to me one night when we’re all eating dinner in a restaurant with the bailiff. On my way to the toilet, he boxes me into a corner and whispers, ‘Number four Ellery Drive.’ That’s where I live—used to live.”

  “But we never had any paperwork on you,” said Hennessey. “Why didn’t you support Dr. Apollo’s complaint?”

  “I was the one who went to the judge,” said Johanna Apollo. “But the other jurors wouldn’t back me up, no corroborating complaints. The judge asked if I might be hysterical—all the pressure of a televised murder trial. He loved the whole circus, actually used makeup in court. And he didn’t want a mistrial. So the judge sent me back in there with all those frightened people.”

  “And Andy Sumpter,” said Zachary. “So you were afraid.”

  “I’m not immune to intimidation,” she said. “Andy was angry with me, and he let me know it. He glared at me for hours. He was so quiet—except for the sound of his fist punching into his hand, and every punch was for me. Obviously, Andy knew about the complaint, and that would’ve been your work.”

  “But I had no contact with the jurors,” said Zachary. “Can you prove otherwise? No, I didn’t think so. Well, maybe the judge was right. Are you prone to hysterics, Doctor?”

  “Actually, you’re the one who seems on edge tonight.” She turned her chair to face the dark booth, and this had the predictable effect of jumping up the man’s anxiety. “I’m going public with my story because—” And here she paused to borrow a phrase from Mallory. “I can’t count on living through the night.”

  Riker was slowly shaking his head from side to side. “Okay, Victor, let me get this straight. Jo went to the judge to save all your sorry hides, and none of you backed her up?”

  “No,” said Victor Patchock. “Not then. Andy was a crazy bastard. We had to deal with him eight hours a day.”

  “What happened after the verdict?” asked Riker. “Did anybody else come forward to back up her complaint?”

  “No. When Andy got killed, I never thought anything of it. I’m sure no one else did, either. He was the type you’d expect to get his throat slit. I never heard anything about a note written in blood. Nobody told us a killer was threatening the rest of the jury, not then.”

  Agent Hennessey looked up from his perusal of the Bureau’s Reaper file. “That call was made by the Chicago police while they still had jurisdiction. The cops had a real short list of people who wanted Andy Sumpter dead. They figured the crime was staged to look like a psycho killing—to draw attention away from his loan shark.”

  “So Andy needed cash,” said Mallory, who loved money motives best.

  “Andy was your most insanely loyal fan,” said Johanna. “But I’m sure he had other incentives. He wouldn’t settle for a hung jury. Did you tell him the verdict had to be unanimous?”

  “More accusations? Once again, you’re all alone, Dr. Apollo. No support for your story. And let’s not lose sight of the fact that you also voted not guilty. Would you like to explain that? Because right now you look like the prime suspect for jury tampering. Swaying an entire jury—well, that would be child’s play for a psychiatrist. Andy was just an overgrown brain tumor.”

  “A good description. So you did get to know him.”

  Zachary sighed. “I can’t see that moron convincing an entire jury—”

  “He terrified them. And you told him how to do that. He wasn’t smart enough to work it out on his own. He was so close to blowing his temper and hurting those people.”

  “But he didn’t. And that was your doing, wasn’t it, Dr. Apollo? And yours was the only complaint. That’s interesting, too.”

  “If the other two women hadn’t died, I think they might have come forward. It would’ve been easier for a woman to admit what happened in that room.”

  “You make it sound like a rape.”

  “The assault took place in the jury bathroom,” said Johanna. “But you already knew that. You planned it.”

  “It was like a rape,” said Victor Patchock. “You lose your manhood the first time he makes you back down. None of the men in that room would admit that Andy had them cowed. The votes changed with every ballot, one or two a day, till he had them all.”

  Hennessey looked up from his notebook, pen hovering, “But you say Andy never touched anyone?”

  “Well . . . yeah, he did. It was MacPherson. Poor Mac
. He went into the bathroom. It had two stalls. So nobody thought it was odd when Andy followed him in there. But then Andy slid under Mac’s stall door. Oh, Mac, he was scared shitless—speechless, never called out for help. I always wondered how Andy knew he wouldn’t scream like a woman.”

  “Practice,” said Riker, who could see where this story was going. “He’d probably done it before.”

  Victor Patchock lowered his head. “Then Andy jammed this stinking, dirty snot rag in MacPherson’s mouth. He spun the poor guy around and spread his legs. So Mac had to lean both hands on the wall to keep from falling. And that poor bastard still didn’t know what was coming—not till he heard the sound of Andy’s zipper coming down.”

  The little man squeezed his eyes shut. “Outside in the jury room, there wasn’t much to hear—grunts, Andy laughing—and thumps—when his rear end hit the stall door.” Victor Patchock beat his closed fist on the table, over and over, saying, “Thump, thump, thump,” in the rhythm of a rape.

  “So Andy comes back to the jury room with this big sloppy grin on his stupid face. MacPherson was in the bathroom another twenty minutes. When he finally came out, he wouldn’t look anybody in the eye, just stared at the floor. He was shaking all over, dying inside, trying so hard not to cry. But then he did cry—real quiet, just tears. There was blood on the seat of his pants. Everybody knew what happened to him in there. Nobody ever used the bathroom again—except Andy. MacPherson changed his vote.”

  “Andy Sumpter wasn’t gay,” said Ian Zachary. “This man was paying child support on three children.”

  “The rape wasn’t about sex,” said Johanna.

  “Ah, the feminist party line. I know this cliché. Rape isn’t about sex—it’s about power. Is that the way you see it, Dr. Apollo?”

  “No,” said Johanna. “I thought it was probably about money. Or did you promise to make Andy famous? Oh, the things your fans will do just for a few minutes on the radio.”