For Better and Worse

by Margot Hunt

  Most criminal cases weren’t difficult for the police to solve. They usually had physical evidence and accomplice testimony, often even a confession to rely on. I was always shocked by how many of my clients consented to a police interview, confessed in the middle of it and only then called me. There were many, many people serving time in Florida’s prisons who wouldn’t be there if they had simply kept their mouths shut.

  But the police were just like anyone else. Some of them were dedicated and worked hard at their jobs, some were lazy and ineffective. But either way, the majority of the cases they dealt with were drug-related. They were used to wrapping those up neatly, with a minimum of fuss and effort on their part.

  Here’s how it normally worked: the police would stop someone they thought looked sketchy, often through a routine traffic stop, and ask to search the car. The suspect, for some reason I could never figure out, almost always granted them permission. The police would find something illegal in the car—drugs, paraphernalia, illegal weapons—and an arrest would be made. The suspect would end up spending weeks, if not months, sitting in jail pretrial, because even if they were approved bail, they almost never had the financial resources to pay for a bond. Eventually, they’d be appointed a public defender. Again, there were good and bad public defenders. Which one you ended up with was a crapshoot. But all the public defenders were overextended and had more cases than they could possibly do justice by. Their usual course of action was to solicit a plea deal from the prosecutor, which often came with the following stipulation—if the suspect agreed to be a confidential informant, and got video of a few friends or associates buying drugs, thereby handing the police another easy-to-prove case, then the charges against them would eventually be dismissed. This system allowed the police and State Attorney’s office to put out impressive conviction statistics, while doing a minimum of work.

  The cases where the police didn’t have a confidential informant or a confession or significant physical evidence were much, much harder for them to prove. And even when the police did build a shaky case, I’d seen State’s Attorneys give up on them quickly, simply because proving the case beyond a reasonable doubt would be too difficult. No lawyer likes to lose, especially in front of a jury.

  The police would certainly treat a murder investigation more seriously than a simple possession case. But the basics of any police investigation were the same. And they would first need evidence that a murder had even happened. If everything went according to plan, Robert’s death would be ruled a suicide.

  So, yes, I thought I did have a good chance of getting away with murder. The key would be to minimize risks and not make any mistakes. Will might figure out what I’d done, but he would never turn me in.

  Or, at least, I didn’t think he would.

  I parked my SUV in the tiny parking lot outside my office and headed inside.

  “Hey, Nat.” Stella looked up from her computer when I walked in. “How are you?”

  “Good. Anything interesting going on here?”

  “Not much. You have a message from Rio Frey.” She handed me the yellow message paper. “He wants to know if you can get his parole terminated early. He’s paid all of the fines and restitution, and said his parole officer would write him a recommendation.”

  “I’ll call him back,” I said. “Anything else?”

  “Nope, that’s it. It’s been pretty quiet around here. What have you been doing? You didn’t have court today, did you?”

  “No, I was just running errands.” I would have to be careful not to disrupt my schedule over the next few days or weeks, however long it took me to put my plan into place. I knew Stella liked working for me, and that she was probably loyal to a point. Still, I wouldn’t want her to be able to testify that I had periodically disappeared from the office without explanation or otherwise acted strange in the days leading up to Robert’s death. “It looks like I picked a good morning for it.”

  Stella laughed. “Don’t worry, another crime wave will come along. It always does.”

  I headed back to my office. I had just settled in at my desk when my phone rang. I checked the caller ID and saw that it was Camilla Wilson.

  I hit the accept button, then lifted the phone to my ear. I suddenly felt unsteady. Ironically, when I had been figuring out the best way to murder Robert, it had been easier not to think about what Charlie had gone through. The planning allowed me to compartmentalize. Now I was yet again faced with the raw, heartbreaking truth of what my son had gone through. The only reason I knew I’d be able to bear it was that I had no other choice.

  When I spoke, my voice sounded higher than normal. “This is Natalie.”

  “Hello, Natalie, this is Camilla Wilson returning your call. You said in your message that you’re interested in making an appointment for your son?”

  “Yes. My son, Charlie. He’s eleven.”

  “Can you give me an idea of what’s going on with Charlie?”

  “Do you want me to tell you now? Over the phone?”

  “Why don’t you give me as much detail as you’re comfortable sharing, so when I meet with Charlie, I’ll have a good starting point.”

  “Okay. Yesterday, after school...” I stopped, suddenly unable to go on.

  “Natalie?”

  “Yes, I’m here.”

  “Oh, good, I thought we might have been cut off. What happened yesterday after Charlie got out of school?”

  “He told me...he told me...” I flexed the hand not holding my phone, then straightened my hand. It was shaking. I didn’t think Stella would be able to hear me, but even so, I lowered my voice to a husky-edged whisper. “He told me he was touched inappropriately. That he was...molested by someone. Not a member of our family. It happened a little over two months ago.”

  “Do you know who it was?”

  “Yes.” I hesitated. “But I’m an attorney, Ms. Wilson...”

  “Please, call me Camilla.”

  “Okay. Camilla. I know if Charlie or I tell you who molested him, that you’ll be obligated to report it to the police.”

  “And you don’t want that,” Camilla surmised.

  “I’m a criminal defense attorney. I know what happens to kids who go through sexual battery trials.”

  “I see. Well, if I don’t know who molested Charlie, I obviously can’t report it. But if I treat Charlie, there may come a time when he wants, or even needs to tell me.”

  But by then, I thought, Robert would be dead.

  “I understand. But I’d like to keep it confidential for now,” I said.

  “I’m so sorry Charlie and your family are going through this.” Her voice was calm, soothing even. “Please don’t take this the wrong way, because it is not meant to disparage Charlie, but did you find this allegation credible?”

  “Yes.” I took in a deep breath, and exhaled it slowly. “I have no doubt in my mind.”

  * * *

  Camilla Wilson had a cancellation the following day, a Thursday, right after school. For a long time after we hung up, I stared out at the Intracoastal Waterway and thought of Charlie. The sweet, bright, inquisitive boy he’d always been. And he’d always been so funny, so delightfully silly. Would this change him, the core of who he was? I knew that children were resilient, but sexual abuse had insidious consequences. As I’d told Will the night before, kids who suffered this sort of abuse were at a higher risk to become drug-dependent or depressed or even suicidal. I hadn’t told him the other terrible statistic, which was that they often grew up to become abusers themselves, the terrible pattern repeating over again. Pain lapped over me and I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to absorb.

  If I had a time machine, I could go back and stop Charlie from joining that camping trip or go back even further in time and enroll him in a different school. But all I could do now was help him heal. I hoped to God Camilla Wilson was as good a therapist
as Jennifer Swain had assured me she was.

  I turned away from the water. The phone message Stella had written out, with Rio Frey’s name and number in stark black print on a faded yellow paper slip, was sitting in the middle of my otherwise bare desk.

  I suddenly had an idea. It was risky, for sure...but it might have been the best of the bad choices I had in front of me.

  I picked up my phone and made the call.

  Chapter 12

  “You wanted to see me?”

  I looked up to see Rio Frey hovering at the door to my office, after Stella had sent him back. He was wearing a T-shirt with a beer slogan, swimming trunks and ratty flip-flops.

  “Rio, hi. Come on in.”

  Rio Frey was a thin, wiry man. He looked older than his thirty-one years, although I couldn’t tell if that was due to long-term substance abuse or lack of proper nutrition. It most likely had a lot to do with the fact that he clearly spent most of his time baking in the harsh Florida sun. His hair and eyebrows had been bleached white-blond, and his skin weathered to a dark mahogany.

  He ambled into my office and sat in one of the two cantilevered visitor chairs in front of my desk. “I’m hoping to get my parole terminated early. My PO said he’d sign off on it.”

  “The court usually won’t consider it unless you’ve paid off all of your fines.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I completed that last week.”

  I nodded, not surprised. Rio was a repeat customer, usually on drug possession charges, and he knew how the system worked. Actually, I’d always found him to be an interesting character. Despite his rough appearance and checkered criminal history, he’d always struck me as being pretty bright.

  I knew a little bit about his background, at least what he’d told me in one of our earlier interviews. His mother had been an alcoholic and neglectful enough that he’d ended up in foster care a few times. He’d never met his father, but he had an uncle who looked out for him, who also periodically employed him at his scrap metal business during those times Rio managed to stay sober.

  “I can file a motion with the court,” I said. “If your parole officer is on board, we definitely have a better chance.”

  “He said he’d write a letter.”

  “Good. The judge will put a lot of weight on that. Although it’s always a crapshoot with these sorts of motions, since we’re basically asking the court to do us a favor. A lot depends on who the judge is, and what kind of a mood he or she is in that day. But if you have all your paperwork lined up, I’d say we have a fairly good chance of succeeding.”

  Rio shifted in his seat. “How much do you need to do that? I’m good for it, but like I said, I just finished paying off my restitution last week.”

  I nodded. One of the realities of criminal defense work was that few clients were able to pay their entire fee up front. Most were on payment plans with the understanding that the entire balance would have to be paid off before their case was fully resolved.

  I had a different arrangement in mind for Rio Frey. I just needed to be very careful in how I approached it.

  “I thought you might be interested in a trade.”

  Rio looked at me appraisingly. “What sort of trade?”

  “I’ll represent you for free. In return, you’ll do something for me.”

  “Something,” Rio repeated. “Let me guess, you’re not in the market for scrap metal.”

  “I need some drugs.” I kept my tone neutral. “Oxycodone.”

  “That’s not what I was expecting you to say.” Rio’s lips twitched up in a smile. “At least I know that you ain’t a CI.”

  Rio’s latest arrest came about when a buddy he got high with agreed to become a confidential informant for the police, and tried to set Rio up by recording him buying drugs. Luckily for Rio, the video the CI had taken, hidden in a gym bag, had been blurry and the audio too garbled to make out what was being said. The State’s Attorney had offered up a plea deal of time served plus probation, which Rio had gladly taken. It was a risk asking Rio to buy the drugs for me. But if he did decide to rat me out at some point in the future, it would be his word against mine.

  “I’m not. Although technically, attorney-client privilege doesn’t apply to this conversation, because we’re colluding to commit a crime,” I told him.

  Rio’s laugh was a rough growl. “I won’t tell, if you don’t.”

  “Can you get it for me?”

  Rio nodded. “It’s not cheap. Eighty milligrams will run you anywhere between sixty-five and eighty bucks a pill. Heroin’s a lot cheaper on the street these days.”

  “No, I definitely don’t want heroin. I’ll need five pills.” Rio nodded, so I took out my wallet, counted out four hundred dollars from my quickly dwindling cash supply, and handed it to him across the desk. “Let me know if you need more than this.”

  Rio pocketed the money. “I didn’t take you for a pill popper.”

  “I guess everyone needs to dull some pain now and again.”

  Rio looked at me appraisingly. I noticed for the first time that his eyes were different colors. The right was blue, the left hazel. It was a bit disconcerting.

  “I hope you know what you’re doing,” he said. “That stuff can be real dangerous if you’re not careful.”

  I smiled tightly. “I’m always careful.”

  * * *

  “Hi,” Will said when he arrived home that evening. He was holding his briefcase, and had his suit jacket slung over one arm. “Where’s Charlie?”

  “He’s up in his room. Last I checked, he was playing a video game on my iPad.”

  I was in the kitchen preparing dinner. I lifted a mallet and brought it down firmly on the chicken breasts sandwiched between sheets of plastic wrap. When I hit it with a loud thwack, Will winced.

  “How has he been?”

  “Fine, I think.” I brought the mallet down again on the chicken with another thwack. “He hasn’t talked any more about what happened, and I didn’t want to push him. I made an appointment for him with a child therapist tomorrow after school.”

  “Good. Should I plan on going with you? Oh, wait, I can’t. I have a meeting with the Greenwald people tomorrow afternoon.”

  “That’s okay. I’m pretty sure it’s just a preliminary interview.”

  “Any idea what to expect?” Will opened the refrigerator door and took out a beer. He twisted the top off and took a long drink from the bottle.

  “I’m not exactly sure how this works, but I’m assuming she’ll want some background information, then put some time aside to talk to Charlie, and probably to me, too. Hopefully, she’ll help us figure out a plan for how we can move forward and help him heal.”

  Will ran a hand over his face. I imagined my expression mirrored his—tired, stressed, worried. We were going to have to pull it together for Charlie’s sake.

  As if he could read my thoughts, Will asked, “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. Why?”

  “You’re acting odd. You’re under a lot of stress, for obvious reasons.”

  “You don’t need to worry about me.” Thwack. “My mom called earlier. She invited Charlie to stay with her for the weekend.”

  I remembered Charlie had made plans to have Jack over, and made a mental note to remind him to cancel them.

  “Do you really think having him go to your mom’s house is a good idea?” Will looked skeptical.

  My relationship with my mother, who lived about an hour south of us in Delray Beach, was often difficult. Growing up, she had been an emotionally distant and often highly critical parent, and we hadn’t gotten any closer now that I was an adult. It had always seemed to me that she’d considered her job as my mother done on the day I turned eighteen. Now her life was far too full with her golf foursomes, bridge club, and dancing every Friday night at the country club to have much t
ime for either me or my older brother. Because of this, I had expected her to be an equally distant grandmother. But I was surprised by how great she was with Charlie, at least for short periods of time. And Charlie loved staying at her house, which had a huge heated pool and was on a canal, so you could often see manatees or dolphins swimming by her backyard.

  I dropped the mallet in the sink, then peeled the plastic off the chicken breasts. I sprinkled them liberally with salt and pepper.

  “I thought it might be nice for him to get away for a few days,” I said.

  “Are you going to tell her what happened to him?”

  “God, no. I mean... I just can’t imagine her being helpful in any way whatsoever.”

  “I suppose it’s something we should discuss with the therapist—who we do tell, if we tell anyone, and what we say.” Will hesitated. “Have you thought any more about reporting this to the police?”

  “I haven’t changed my mind, if that’s what you’re asking. There’s not a chance in hell I’m putting Charlie through a police investigation.”

  Will shook his head. I wasn’t sure what he meant by it—that it wasn’t what he was asking or that he still couldn’t believe I didn’t want to go to the police.

  “What are we going to do? We can’t just let this go on indefinitely. We can’t allow Robert to hurt another child. Not now that we know what he is.”

  “Right now, I think we should wait and see what happens.”

  “You mean with Tate Mason’s case?” Will exhaled loudly.

  “Well, yes. From what I’ve heard, the case against him isn’t strong, especially if those other boys will testify that Robert was never alone with Tate. But...”

  “But?”

  “Juries hate child molesters. The last time I defended a sexual battery on a minor case, the jury was only out for twenty minutes before they came back with a guilty verdict.”

  “Was your client guilty?”

  “He said he wasn’t, but who knows? It was his word against the word of his adorable twelve-year-old stepdaughter. The fact that her mother was an angry, manipulative witch, who’d vowed to get revenge on him for divorcing her, wasn’t persuasive to the jury. There are lots of people who believe children aren’t capable of lying about being abused.”