by Unknown
'Must be the loneliest job in town.'
'Oh, I dunno,' the old-timer said. 'Look around you. I got all these famous cases to keep me company. Remember Speck? Richard Speck?'
'Sure.'
'Right over there in aisle 19. Gacy is down in 6. George Farley, killed twelve women, remember? Pickled them, kept them in jars in the basement? Over on 5. Even got a file on Dillinger, from when he was locked up after that bank robbery outside Gary. They had a touch of class about them, not like the bums these days. Drive-by shootings, easy store stickups, for Christ sake! World's really fucked up, Harve.'
'I couldn't agree more. You remember the Rushman case?'
'The archbishop? Hell, that was like yesterday. That what you're looking for?'
St Claire nodded. 'State versus Aaron Stampler. Trial ended in late March.'
'Anything specific?'
'Physical evidence.'
'Aw, shit. Let me tell you about physical evidence. By the time it gets here, it's pretty well picked over. All we get is what hasn't been claimed. And it's not in any particular order. Look around you. I couldn't tell you how many cases are stored in here - thousands, hell, hundreds of thousands - a lot of it misplaced or misfiled.'
'I was afraid of that. Thought maybe I'd luck out.'
'Well, hell, don't give up so easy.' The sergeant got a flashlight from a desk drawer and led St Claire down through the caverns of records. The odour of mildew and damp paper stung St Claire's nose. Felscher found the cardboard boxes filled with the Stampler records.
'I been down here before,' St Claire said. 'Must've been your day off. There wasn't any evidence here, it's all paper.'
'You're right,' Felscher said, sliding several of the boxes out of their nesting places, checking them, and pushing them back. 'What exactly are you after, anyway?'
'Some videotapes.'
'Sorry. But you're welcome to look around the place.' He swept his arm in a semicircle and laughed.
'Forget it. Thanks for your help, Claude.' They shook hands and St Claire started back down the dreary corridor of files.
'Don't feel too bad, Harve. They'd probably be pretty well deteriorated by now, anyway. This isn't exactly what you'd call a humidity-controlled facility.'
'I didn't wanna look at 'em, I was hopin' to find out if they were disposed of. And to whom.'
'Oh, now wait just a minute. Why didn't you say so? That's a little different story. You might still luck out.'
Felscher walked down the corridor to a series of bookshelves lined with long rows of canvas-bound ledgers identified by dates. He ran his forefinger along the spines.
'Let's see, September first to tenth, '82… December… February… Here we go, March twentieth through thirtieth, 1983.' Felscher pulled a mildewed and roach-gnawed ledger from the shelf. 'These are the index ledgers. Not a lot of help when you're looking for something, but…'
He opened the book and carefully turned the pages, which were yellowed with age and faded, the entries handwritten by the clerk of the court.
'Got to be careful. These old books'll fall apart on you. Stampler, Stampler, yeah, that was some big case, all right? Wonder whatever happened to him?'
'Still in Daisyland.'
'Good. The way he carved up the old bishop, they ought to keep him there forever.'
'Yeah,' St Claire agreed.
'Okay, here we go, March twenty-third… State versus Aaron Stampler, murder in the first. Here's the inventory. Let's see, got some bloody clothes, shoes, a kitchen knife, couple of books, and a ring, they were returned to the cathedral out on Lakeview, 2/4/83. What d'ya know, Harve, you did get lucky. Here we go, twenty-three videotapes. They were released to a Dr Molly Arrington, Winthrop, Indiana, 26/4/83.'
'Well, I'll be damned,' St Claire said, and his heart jumped a beat. 'She's got the whole damn tape library.'
The office was abandoned except for Parver, who was sitting alone in her small office. The thick Darby file lay on the desk in front of her, but she had tired of looking at it and had pulled the Stoddard file. She really did not want to deal with either of them. She was tired and had no place to go but home, and so she sat alone in her big office, fighting off what was a mounting malaise. Behind her, the lift door opened and Flaherty stepped off, carrying a battered old briefcase. He went to his office, threw the case on his desk, and only then noticed that Parver was still there. He ambled back to her cubbyhole and stood in the doorway with his hand stuffed in his pockets.
'Good news about Darby,' he said. 'I can hardly wait to hear your summation to the jury.'
She looked at him, her face bunched up as if she were in pain. 'Did you hear about Poppy Palmer?'
'It's all over the afternoon editions,' he said. 'I hear Eckling is scorched. He's saying if his department had handled it, the girl never would have been killed.'
'What do you expect? If he'd handled the case, Darby probably would have killed half the county before Eckling got his head far enough out of his ass to figure it out.'
Flaherty whistled low through his teeth. 'You okay?' he asked.
'Why?' she snapped back.
'Hey, excuse me, I should have knocked.' He started to leave.
'Where are you going?' she demanded.
'I don't know, you seem a little…' He paused, searching for the right word. 'Pensive?'
'Pensive?' She considered that and said, half smiling. 'I guess I am a little pensive right now.'
'Can I help?'
She stared up at him from behind her desk for a moment, then wheeled her chair back and stood up. 'How'd you like to go over to Corchran's? I'll buy you a drink.'
'No, I'll buy you a drink.'
'Ah, one of those, huh? Tell you what, Flaherty, I'll toss you for it.'
'You mean, like, throwing coins against the wall?'
'Uh-huh.' She reached into her purse and took out two quarters. She handed him one. 'Back in the computer room, there's no carpet on the floor.'
'You sound like a pro.'
'I have my days.'
They walked back to the computer room and stood ten feet from the bare back wall.
'How do you do this?' he asked innocently.
'They don't pitch quarters in Boston?'
'I rarely had a quarter when I lived in Boston.'
'You just pitch the coin. One who gets closest to the wall wins. Want a practice shot first?'
'Nah, let's just do it. Winner buys?'
'Winner buys.'
'You go first, I'll see how it's done.'
She leaned over, put one hand on her knee, held the coin between her thumb and forefinger, and scaled it side-hand. It hit the wall, bounced back three inches, and spun around several times before it dropped.
'Looks pretty good,' he said.
'Not bad.'
'Like this, huh,' he said, assuming the same stance she had except that he used his left hand.
'You're a southpaw,' she said. 'I never noticed that before.'
'You never noticed a lot about me, Parver,' he answered.
The remark surprised her.
'Just kind of flip it, huh?'
'Uh-huh.'
He leaned way over, held his hand at arm's length, and sighted down his arm, then tossed the coin overhand. It flipped through the air, twanged into the juncture of the floor and wall, and died. There wasn't a quarter of an inch between the coin and the wall.
'What d'ya know,' he said. 'Beginner's luck.'
Parver's eyes narrowed suspiciously. 'You hustled me, Flaherty,' she said through clenched teeth.
'Never!'
'I saw the way you did that. You definitely hustled me!'
He grinned, picked up the quarters, and handed them to her. 'Shall we?'
They took a cab to Corchran's and went back to the Ladies Room. Steamroller gave them a gap-toothed smile and led them to a corner booth. He swept the table off with the damp rag stuck in his belt and looked at them with his good eye.
'Drinkin'? Eatin'?' he ask
ed.
'We'll start with drinks, and see what happens.'
Thwell, what'll it be?'
'Martini, very dry, straight up, no condiments,' Parver said.
'Condi-what?'
'No fruit or vegetables,' said Flaherty.
'Gotcha. Mithter Flaherty, the uthual?'
'Yep.'
'On the way, sluggerth.' Steamroller swaggered off towards the bar.
'Okay, Parver, what's eating you? Hell, you got everything you could want. You got Darby wired, you got Stoddard. Two capital cases. Want to give me one of them?'
'No, thank you very much,' she said haughtily.
'So what's the problem?'
'It hit me for the first time today, when Marty asked me if I was ready to max out Darby.'
'What do you want to do, throw the switch, too?'
Steamroller brought the drinks and set them on the table. She downed hers and ordered a second.
'That's not what I mean,' she said, then squished up her face. 'Damn! Martinis taste like ether or something.'
'You never drank a martini before?'
'Nope. Usually drink Cuba Libres.'
'Jesus, you dusted that off like it was a glass of milk. Those things are deadly.'
'They come in a real small glass. Nothing to 'em. What were we talking about?'
'You had just said, uh, "That's not what I mean," after I said that thing about throwing the switch.'
'Oh, yes, now I remember. The thing is, I've never tried a capital case, Flaherty.'
'You getting stagefright?' Flaherty laughed. 'Kickass Parver's getting weak knees? Come on, it's just another case - think of it as a misdemeanour.'
'That's not what I mean. I'm not worried about winning, that's not it at all. I just… I never really thought about it before.'
'What? What the hell're you talking about?'
'Asking for the death penalty.'
'Ah, so that's it. Anticipating an attack of conscience, are you? Come on, this guy walked up to his wife and shot her in the face with a shotgun. And he choked the little dancer to death. Think about that, he was looking in her face while he was killing her.'
'Stop it, Dermott.'
'No. We're prosecutors, Shana. The last things standing between civilization and the jungle. We don't make the laws, we just uphold them, and the law says that if Darby's convicted of murder one, he's a wrap.'
'I know all that, for God's sake,' she said angrily. 'I didn't come here to hear a rehash of Philosophy 101.' She suddenly got up to leave.
He reached out and gently grabbed her arm. 'Hey, I'm sorry,' he said plaintively. 'Sometimes I get too cynical for my own good. Old habits die hard. I promise no more platitudes. Please… don't leave.'
She looked down at him and smiled. 'No more shit?'
'No more shit.'
'Good.' She sat back down and finished her second martini.
'Let me ask you something,' he said. 'If you were on a jury panel and they asked if you if you were in favour of the death penalty, what would you say?'
'That's moot.'
'Hell it is. Think about it for a minute.' He turned back to his Coke. They were silent for a full minute before she answered.
'I'd say I'm not sure whether I am or not, but I wouldn't let that influence my judgement. It's the evidence that counts.'
'Good. And would you go into court if you had doubts about the defendant's guilt?'
'God, you sound like Martin. He asked me the same thing the other night.'
'It's what prosecutors fear more than anything else - convicting an innocent man.'
'Or woman.' She held a finger up to the waiter and dipped it towards her glass.
'Or woman. Point is, if you got 'em — and you've got Darby - then what's the dif? You do your job. How would you feel, knowing what you know about Darby, if he beat the rap? Suppose he walked?'
'Won't happen,' she said defensively.
'I mean, supposing someone else was trying him and they blew the case?'
She thought for a moment, then decided to ignore the question. She suddenly changed the subject. 'Then there's Edith Stoddard,' she said.
'What about her?'
'Something's wrong there, Flaherty. She doesn't even want to put up a fight.'
'That's her option. Not much to fight about. According to your preliminary report, she bought the gun, spent two weeks learning to use it, and then popped him -twice. One would've been enough. The second shot was malicious. That's murder one, hot-shot. She's good as cooked.'
'You'd send her to the chair?'
'Pretty open and shut. She obviously planned to waste him for at least two weeks. No sudden impulse, no temporary insanity, no imminent danger. She got pissed, planned it, and whacked him.'
'She's so pitiful. There's something real… sad… about her.'
'What's sad is she's looking twenty thousand volts in the eye. These things are not supposed to get personal, Shana.'
'Well it is personal, okay. I'm taking it very personal.'
'Maybe you should let somebody else handle it.'
'Not on your life, Irish. I'll do it and do it right.'
'Hell, I wouldn't worry about it. Venable's handling the case. She hasn't tried a criminal case in ten years.'
Parver finished her third martini and slid the glass to the edge of the table. Think it's going to be cakewalk, do you? Let me tell you, she's good. Ten years or not, she's good.' She stopped and leaned across the table and said cautiously, 'I think Marty's got a thing with her.'
'Get outta here,' he said with mock surprise, remembering the flowers on Venable's dining-room table.
Parver nodded emphatically and winked.
'Will wonders never cease,' he said, and laughed.
The waiter brought her a new drink and took the empty away.
'That's your fourth martini,' Flaherty said. 'And I happen to know the bartender has a very heavy hand.
'It's none of my business, but I don't think you understand about martinis.'
'Well, I may just get a li'l drunk tonight, Flaherty.' She paused, took a sip, and then said, 'Y'know, that's an awful long name. Flaharty. That's almost three syl'bles. I'm going to call you Flay. Anyway, Flay, can you handle it, if I get a little snockered?'
He smiled at her. 'I've never been drunk,' he said, somewhat sheepishly.
'You're kidding?'
'Nope. Pot was my drug of choice.'
'Pot's illegal.'
'That's why I quit.'
She held up her glass. 'This isn't.'
'That doesn't make a lot of sense, either.'
'First time I tried grass, I sat in front of the oven in my friend's kitchen for an hour waiting for Johnny Carson to come on.'
Flaherty laughed hard and nodded. 'That must've been some good stuff.'
'I dunno, never tried it again,' she said, and realized her speech was getting a little slurred and Flaherty was suddenly transforming into twins. She closed one eye and focused across the table on his ruggedly handsome face. 'How come you never asked m'out?'
'I just did.'
'Uh-huh, six months later. I know you're not gay.'
'Nope.'
'And I, uh, I know I'm not that unesrable.' She stopped and giggled. 'Un-desir-able.'
'Oh no,' he said softly, and smiled.
'Well?'
'They don't have courses in the social graces on the streets of Boston - or in the state reformatory.'
'You were that bad?'
'I was pretty bad.'
'Wha's the worst thing y'ever did? Or maybe I shouldn't ask.'
'Boosting cars.'
'You stole cars?'
He nodded. 'Me and my buddies.'
'Can you do tha' thing they do in the movies, y'know, where they rip all th'wires out f'the dashboard and make 'em spark and start th'car? Can you do that?' She closed one eye again and focused hard on him.
'You mean hot-wiring?' he said, nodding. 'Sixty seconds, anything on wheels.'
&nbs
p; 'Y'r kiddin!'
'Nope.'
'Wow. Why'd you quit?'
'I had a revelation. God appeared at the foot of my bed one night and told me if I kept it up I was gonna die young.'
'And…'
'I took him seriously.'
'She didn't really,'
Parver said sceptically.
'She?'
'God.'
'Oh.' Flaherty smiled and made rings on the table with his wet glass. 'In a way she did. One of my best friends went to the chair. He was robbing a grocery store and killed a cop. I mean, we were close, Ernie and I had done jobs together.'
'That was his name, Ernie?'
'Ernie Holleran. There were five of us, hung out together, did stuff together. Ernie was one of us. But he did that thing and they maxed him out and the night they did it to him, we took the bus up to the state pen and we found this hill where you could see the prison and got two-six packs and sat there drinking and waiting until they did it. You can tell because when they throw the switch, the lights fade out, then come back on. They do it twice, just to make sure. We sat there until the Black Maria left with him and we threw empty beer cans at the hearse and then we took the bus back home. That's the night God spoke to me. I decided I wasn't going out that way.'
She was staring at him with one eye still closed, her mouth half open, mesmerized by his story.
'Know what?' she said after a while. 'I'm not inter'sted, in-ter-ested, in social graces, Flay.' She finished half her drink and slapped the glass back down on the table. 'I'm in-ter-ested in scilnit, sincilat - '
'Scintilating?'
'Thank you… conversation, and, uh, and a beaut'ful man with lovely eyes and dark bl'ck hair and… sufer, sulper - '
'Superficial?'
'Than'you, su-per-fi-cial things like that. How come you always wear black, Flay? Why d'you have this Johnny Cash symrom… sidro..syn-drome.'
He sighed and sipped his Coke and stared into her liquid eyes. 'The truth?'
'What else is there?'
'I don't have any colour sense. Don't know what goes with what. Long as I wear black, I'm safe.'
'You really care about that, huh?'
He sat without comment for a minute, then nodded. 'I guess I do,' he said, and his cheeks began to colour.