“I must have made a noise, because the man turned. I didn't recognize him then, not yet. It was dark, and I probably wasn't thinking straight. All I could think of was the knife and the guy can't let me go because I'm a witness. If I try to run, he'll come after me and stab me in the back. I decided to get him first.
“I ran at him. He was still kneeling. As he started to get up, his foot slipped, throwing him off balance. Before he could recover, I kicked him, right under the chin. He fell to the ground, gasping. I picked up the knife from where it had fallen and went to check on the woman. She was lying face down in the leaves. I rolled her onto her back. I could see at once that she was dead. Her face was covered with scratches, leaves were stuck to the wounds. Her eyes were open. I didn't recognize her at first. Or maybe I did, but it didn't register in my brain. Finally I see that it's Laurel Rose.”
“What did you do then?” Langley asked.
“I went over to where Luray lay on the ground.”
“Did you recognize him?”
“I did. He was lying in a puddle of his own puke, both hands wrapped around his throat as though he were trying to pump air down it.”
“What did you do?”
“I kicked him in the head and kept kicking him until he stopped moving. The knife was still in my hand. I'd forgotten I had it. I knelt beside him.” Burden shrugged. “Suddenly the cops were there. I don't know where they came from. There were two of them. One of them had his gun out and pointed at me. He told me to drop the knife or he would blow my head off. I dropped the knife.”
“What were you going to do if the cop hadn't showed up?”
“What do you think I was going to do?”
“Tell me.”
“I was going to kill Luray.”
“And then what?” Langley asked, meaning: What would you have done next, after killing Luray?
“And then the cops arrested me,” Burden said. “Not Luray, but me. When I tried to explain that that was my wife lying there, one of them said, ‘Aintchoo never heard of divorce?’ Can you imagine?”
“I was told you didn't speak to the cops.”
“After that, I didn't speak to them again.”
“What would you have done if the cops hadn't come along?”
“I just told you what.”
“I mean after.”
“After I killed Luray?” Burden shrugged. “I suppose I'd have gone home.”
“And then what?” Langley asked.
Burden looked at him blankly, and Langley decided to stop beating around the bush.
“Would you have called the police?”
“To tell them that I killed Luray?”
“To tell them that your wife was lying dead in the park.”
“No.”
“You were just going to leave her there?”
“I suppose you'd have called the police.”
“Yes, I would,” Langley said.
“Then you'd be sitting where I am, telling your lawyer a story he doesn't believe.”
Burden's reading of his situation was better than Langley had thought.
“What was your wife doing in the park?” he asked.
“How the hell would I know?”
“She was your wife.”
“Laurel and I were… ‘separated’ is the polite way of putting it.”
“Since when?”
“Since the day last July I kicked her bareass out on the sidewalk after catching her fucking another guy in our bed.”
This gets better and better, Langley thought.
He flipped back a couple of pages in his notebook. “Let's go back to something you said before. You said something about the car being important. Explain that to me.”
“It's the position of the car on the bridge that's important. Are you familiar with the geography of the park?”
Even though Langley had resided in Brooklyn most of his adult life and lived now in an apartment house just off the park, he knew next to nothing about the place. He shook his head.
“Center Drive, as I've already said, goes through the center of the park. It's not a thoroughfare, at least it's not supposed to be. It's used as a sort of lovers' lane; in the summer couples park there and make out. They enter near the old Quaker cemetery and when they finish their business they leave the same way. As you head north on Center Drive, there's a barrier just before you reach the bridge; it blocks off about three-quarters of the width of the road. The other one-quarter is just wide enough for a car or truck to pass through; it's left open for Parks Department vehicles. There's another barrier at the north end of Center Drive just before it connects to East Drive. Most people respect the barriers. Of course there are always those characters who think the barriers are for everyone else, not for them; they use the road as a shortcut. Ninety-nine percent of these people go from north to south. You almost never see a car going the other way…. Luray was going the other way.”
“Explain to me why that is so odd. It seems to me that if a road goes from A to B, it also goes from B to A.”
“Not this road. If I had a map, I could show you. Give me your pen and a piece of paper.”
Langley opened his notebook to a fresh page, then passed the book and his pen to Burden. Burden drew an oval on the paper.
“That's the main road, which runs just inside the perimeter of the park. There are several exits to the street.” He ticked them off, labeling them on the map as he did so. “Ocean Parkway/Coney Island Avenue. Ocean Avenue. Lincoln Road. Empire Boulevard. Grand Army Plaza. Third Street. Sixteenth Street. This is Center Drive.” He drew a line through the middle of the oval, turning it into something resembling a figure 8. “All traffic goes counterclockwise. Now suppose you enter at Empire Boulevard, here, and you want to exit at Coney Island Avenue. You have to almost circle the park. If you don't feel like doing that, you can cut through Center Drive and lop a couple of miles off your trip. You're not supposed to do that, but the cops wink at it. Now why can't you take the shortcut in reverse? Because as you can see, if you take the lower loop made up of the main road and Center Drive, there are only two exits contained in that loop: Grand Army Plaza and Third Street. Suppose you enter at Grand Army Plaza. You pass Third Street, take the loop—and the next exit is Grand Army Plaza: you're right back where you started. On the other hand, if you're at Third Street and want to go to Grand Army Plaza, you wouldn't go through the park at all. It would take you two miles out of your way, when you could just drive down Eighth Avenue and along Union Street, a quarter mile, maybe a bit more.”
Langley lived on one of the side streets just off Prospect Park West, roughly halfway between Third Street and Grand Army Plaza. The distance separating the Plaza from Third Street could be walked in five minutes; by car, it would take considerably less. He saw Burden's point.
“So where was Luray going?” he asked.
“That's what I want you to find out. The location of his car on the bridge is not on his way home. It's not on his way anywhere, like I've been trying to tell you. Ask him where he was going—now, before he has time to think up an explanation. Also, ask him why his lights were out.”
“His lights?”
“His headlights. The car was sitting there in the dark with no lights on. Also, find out if the police have checked his car.”
“Checked it for what?”
“For evidence that Laurel was in it. Laurel would not go walking in Prospect Park at dusk with a snowstorm coming on. Not on a bet. She wouldn't go walking in Prospect Park at noon on a bright sunny day in May. Someone drove her there. Most likely Luray.”
“You're saying Luray left the park, picked up Laurel, then drove back to the park where he killed her?”
“I think that's how it must have happened.
You're going to have to come up with a better one than that, Langley thought. “For this scenario to work, Luray and Laurel would have had to know each other.”
“Of course.”
Of course. “How did they meet? Did you introduce them?”
“Laurel and I ‘broke up’ in July. I didn't meet Luray until September.”
“So—how did they meet?”
“I don't know. That's what I want you to find out.”
“I'm a lawyer,” Langley said, “not Sherlock Holmes.”
“You don't have to be Sherlock Holmes for this. Luray didn't pick Laurel out of the phonebook. He knew her, and it shouldn't be too hard to prove it.”
“Did Laurel visit you at the playground?”
“Not likely. She wouldn't have known where I was working, anyway. I told you, I didn't transfer until September.”
“Presumably she could have found out. But you say she didn't visit you at the playground. Did you tell Luray about Laurel, show him her picture?”
“No.”
“Then I ask you again: How did they meet?”
“And I'll tell you again: Find out. That's the key to this. You can't prove a negative: that I'm not guilty. If I'm going to beat this, you're going to have to prove that Luray is guilty, and the first step in that direction is to prove that he and Laurel Rose knew each other.”
Langley didn't relish being told his business by someone like Burden. He figured it was time to exert some of his lost authority.
“I understand you're still refusing to cooperate with the authorities.”
Burden stared at him. He had half a mind to stare back, except that he knew he had no chance of winning: in a staring contest with Burden, a man with two glass eyes would lose.
“Can you explain yourself to me, Mr. Burden? I would like to know what exactly you think you're accomplishing.”
“I'm in no mood to be cooperative. Do you ever see those pictures in the paper? Some big shot—a businessman or a politician—has been arrested, and there's this picture of him emerging from the courthouse just after he's been indicted on eighty-five counts of—whatever. And he's smiling! As soon as I see that, I know he's guilty. Skip the trial and throw the son of a bitch in jail. I don't care how many protestations of innocence he makes, how many bibles he swears on, how many ways he says he'll be vindicated. If he smiles, he's guilty. I've just spent Thanksgiving in jail. I'll be here for Christmas and maybe a lot longer, all for something I didn't do; and it's not funny. I see absolutely nothing to smile about.”
“I'm not asking you to smile,” Langley said. “How much is it going to cost you to tell the police your name, rank and serial number?”
“They already know that.”
“They have a right to ask you to confirm it.”
“And I have a right to refuse.”
“It's what an innocent man would do,” Langley said. “An innocent man would stand up and say, ‘My name is— And I didn't do the crime.’”
“That's what a guilty man would do. A man who truly was innocent, as I am, would be so pissed off at finding himself in the spot I'm in he would do the same thing I'm doing.”
“Mr. Burden, you hired me to look out for your interests—”
“I hired you to represent me in court, to handle all the hocus-pocus that will go on there, only because I can't do it myself; if I could, I would. As for looking out for my interests, there's only one person I trust to do that, and that's me.”
Langley said, “You talk as if the whole world is against you.”
“It is.”
“That's not true. I'm in your corner.”
“If you are, it's only because I'm paying you.”
Langley didn't know how to argue with someone like Burden. Collecting his things, he got to his feet. He called for the prison guard.
As Burden was being led out the door, he turned to look back at Langley.
“The whole world's against you, too,” he said. “Only you don't know it.”
CHAPTER 5
When defending a client, it is never enough, Langley knew, simply to tell the jury that your guy didn't do it. Jurors, like everyone else, abhor a mystery; they want an explanation. The prosecution has an explanation carefully prepared for them; it comes complete with motive, means and opportunity. To have any chance of winning, the defense has to offer the jury at least one alternative scenario. In presenting it, it is not necessary to prove the defendant not guilty (a good thing too, since, as Burden pointed out, you cannot prove a negative). No, the defense attorney's task is to plant the seed of doubt in the jurors' minds—Ladies and gentlemen, isn't it just possible that this is what really happened?—and hope that over the course of the trial it will grow large enough that it becomes “reasonable.”
Nor will just any scenario do. Offer the jurors one that is improbable and you're just wasting your time. Make it implausible and you run the risk of insulting them, with consequent bad feelings toward your client.
So far the only scenario Langley had to work with was the one Burden had scripted for him. His co-worker and his wife had become lovers (when and how did they meet?); they have a falling out (witnesses, please), after which, instead of parting bitterly as ex-lovers traditionally do, Luray lures Laurel Rose to the park and kills her, on his own—and Burden's—doorstep. Langley didn't have to wonder how a jury would react to that story (the same way he had). Barring the appearance of some corroborating evidence, Burden's scenario was hereby shelved. Which meant Langley had to come up with one of his own. By way of gathering some evidence toward the development of this still hypothetical scenario, he decided to pay a visit to Prospect Park.
As he had told Burden, he knew next to nothing about the park. One day the previous summer he had taken Fay out on the pedal boats on the small lake. He had been to the zoo a couple of times; and whenever he went to a Dodger game, to avoid the headache of hunting for a parking space, he walked to Ebbets Field and home again afterwards via a shortcut through the park. And that was pretty much the extent of his knowledge of the place. He didn't know the names of the various lakes and hills, and previously had never cared enough even to wonder about them. Now, armed with a map of the park, he set out to educate himself.
He started with a half dozen circuits of the main road, followed by a couple of loops through Center Drive. It seemed that on one point at least Burden had been telling the truth: the geography of the park was as cockeyed as he had said it was. Depending upon where you started, to get from Here to There by car might encompass a jaunt of a few hundred yards, while the trip in reverse required a drive of two and a half miles.
Leaving his car in the Carriage Concourse parking lot, Langley walked to the playground where Burden worked. He had hoped to speak with Cooney, but although it was just after four the park house was locked up tight and Cooney was nowhere to be found. Which seemed to bear out what Burden had said about Cooney's work habits (score two for him). Sitting on a bench, Langley took out his map and spent until 4:30 studying it. At 4:35, map in hand, he set out to retrace the steps Burden had walked the week before.
There were no black clouds today. It was a sparkling late-autumn afternoon, albeit unseasonably cold. The sun slanted down at a low angle that threw most of the parkland into shadow but in the midst of all the gloom cast unexpected pools of light, so that Langley found himself stopping to look for how the sun’s rays had managed to peek through the branches of the trees.
It took him just under three minutes, walking unhurriedly, to go from the playground to the Lullwater Bridge, so named because of the lagoon that lay off to its left. Beyond the bridge, through a stand of sycamore trees, he saw a large grassy area, which according to the map was called the Nethermead. Far out on the lawn a man was throwing a stick for his dog to retrieve. Other than Langley, he was the only pedestrian in the area. At the far edge of the Nethermead a single car was parked on Center Drive. Too cold even for lovers? Langley wondered. Or still too bright?
He walked on. Passing a nineteenth-century-styled bandstand, he came fin
ally to Center Drive, reaching the road about a hundred feet to the right of what Burden had called Three-Arches Bridge (the map referred to it as the Nethermead Arches). There were no cars on the bridge tonight. The time was now 4:41, and it was still bright enough, even under the trees, to see clearly.
To give the daylight a chance to fade a bit, Langley remained where he was for another five minutes. During this time four cars passed him on Center Drive, all four of them (again as Burden had predicted) going from north to south and none of them stopping on the bridge.
Crossing Center Drive and the bridal path that ran parallel to it, Langley took the service road that led into the woods. The road climbed sharply. When he had gone some forty yards, reaching a point roughly a third of the way up the hill, he stopped. Farther on just over the crest of the hill, according to Burden and confirmed by the map, was the Old Elephant House. It would have to wait for some future visit.
The woods were still. Langley stood unmoving, and listened. There was not a sound. Then the dead leaves, caught by a puff of wind, stirred in the branches overhead; a few of them broke loose and fell to the ground, where they skittered along the earth with a dry, rattling sound. The wind died and it was perfectly silent once more. He had the sense that he was utterly alone in the world. He looked up the path, and back the way he had come. He peered off to either side. To the west, the sky was a shimmering white, although the sun itself had dropped behind the hills. Under the trees it was nearly dark, just enough peripheral light remaining to allow him to pick out shapes: a tree, a boulder—“like looking through a brown veil,” Burden had said. And that night (“black clouds”) it had been even darker. If there was anyone out there, Langley couldn't see him. Nor, Langley knew, could that person see him.
A perfect spot to commit a murder.
Had Burden thought so too? Had he picked the spot for that reason? To a would-be killer, the isolation of the place must have seemed virtually to guarantee the time and the privacy necessary to carry out the deed. The only negative—had Burden decided it was worth the risk? had he considered it at all?—was the nearness of the killing ground to the playground where he worked. A rich irony that he should be caught in the act by his co-worker. Had it been anyone else who had stumbled upon the scene Burden might have been able to run off into the woods, leaving the witness with the difficult, if not impossible, task of describing to the police the man he had seen. Instead, feeling compelled to silence a witness who could identify him, Burden had stayed, long enough to be caught by the police.
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