Angel's Verdict

by Stanton, Mary

  Dent picked it up. His hands trembled slightly. “The department took that when I made lieutenant.”

  “When were you promoted?”

  “About a year before the Haydee Quinn case. Maybe less.”

  “You must have been a good cop, to get promoted,” Bree said encouragingly.

  Dent’s smile was cynical. “I was a Marine. The police commissioner was my CO at Iwo.”

  Bree felt chilly. She’d read about the war. “Iwo Jima?”

  Dent scratched the back of his neck. “What the hell does this have to do with the Quinn case?”

  “Just trying to get a handle on you and the times.” Bree’s long hair was a nuisance during the day, so she braided it and coiled it around her head. Sometimes after a long day, the weight of her braids gave her a headache. She was getting a headache now. She pulled out the tortoiseshell pins, let her braid fall over her shoulder, and tugged absently at the end. “I think we have two tasks here. The first is to find out the facts.”

  “And if Consuelo did it, after all? That’s not too good for your client. Lawyers are supposed to get people off.”

  Bree wound the tip of her braid around her finger. “I’ve thought hard about this. The state—or in this case, the Celestial Sphere—has an obligation to turn over any and all evidence of a crime to the defense. There is an extraordinary obligation to turn over exculpatory evidence. We have a different standard of duty as the defense. Our obligation is to our client. If we find out that Consuelo is guilty of murder, and that the miscarriage of justice here is that she’s not being punished enough, we are not obliged to turn her in. It’s the plaintiff who has to prove it.”

  “And the second job?”

  Bree smiled at him. “To present an alternative theory of the crime. Sometimes a successful defense is built on getting the judge to entertain the notion that someone else did it. To establish reasonable doubt. But you can bet that the defense is going to be ready to tear those doubts apart. That’s why I need to know everything you can possibly remember. Especially about the William Norris confession. I’d like to start there. Even if it doesn’t . . .” She paused, searching for the least brutal way of phrasing her suspicions about Bagger Bill’s confession. “. . . reflect very well on you or Sergeant Kowalski.”

  Dent sat up a little taller in his chair. “Right. ‘Continue to take personal inventory and when we are wrong, promptly admit it.’ ”

  “I beg your pardon? Oh! Of course! The steps.” Bree did her best to look both encouraging and sympathetic.

  “You want to know what kind of encouragement we gave Norris to get that confession.”

  “That’ll do for starters.”

  “We didn’t touch him.” Dent’s grin was a little crooked. “I can see what you’re thinking. You’re remembering what Eleanor Roosevelt wanted to do with us Marines.”

  Bree tried to look as if yes, she certainly was.

  “Keep us all on an island for a year after the war.”

  “Eleanor Roosevelt said that?” Bree was astonished.

  “We weren’t saints, most of us. Not during the war. Not afterwards. But you do what you have to do. So you’re thinking Bobby Lee and I found this lowlife drunk out of his mind at the back of that scummy bar, planted a bloody knife on him, and beat a confession out of him because he was the most likely perp.”

  “Yes,” Bree said. “The thought crossed my mind.”

  He shook his head. “Nope.”

  “Nope?”

  “He confessed, fair and square.

  “You have to know what it was like back then. This was what the commissioner called a high-profile case. Lot of muckety—sorry, a lot of influential people were involved with Haydee Quinn and Bagger Bill one way or another. Norris bootlegged liquor in the ’30s, in the black market during the war years, and supplied a lot of the upper crust with whatever dope they needed after that.” Dent set his jaw. “Marijuana and worse. Anyhow, this nightclub of his, Tropicana Tide, had been a thorn in the city’s side for years. Gambling mostly, along with the drugs. Norris signed Haydee on as a dancer a year and a half before all this happened, and I’ll tell you, I knew even then she was trouble. She slept around a lot. Mostly men who could give her a hand. Rich men. Power brokers.

  “As far as Haydee herself.” His face softened. “She reminded me a lot of Ava Gardner.”

  “Ava Gardner the actress?” Bree asked. The name was familiar from the occasional crossword puzzle.

  “The movie star,” Dent said, as if it made a difference. Maybe it did back then. “Haydee had that same hardscrabble background. Her daddy was a dirt-poor cotton farmer from the Low Country. Haydee got herself out of that dirt-floored shack and never looked back. How she did it, when she could barely read and write . . . well, you would have had to have seen her in the flesh.” He reached over and tapped the news photo of Haydee in costume. “That doesn’t begin to show you how drop-dead gorgeous she was. When she walked into a room, everything stopped. With those eyes and that hair and that white, white skin. She had a perfect face, you know. Perfectly proportioned. They did an article on it in one of the big newspapers after she died. Anyhow, she hit Savannah like a Mack truck on a mud slide. Everybody was nuts about her. The men, that is. The women not so much.

  “So she got herself hooked up with this kid Alex Bulloch. He was a couple of years younger than she was. I never saw them together, but those that did seem to think they really loved each other. That’s what the argument was about. The one Haydee had with Norris just before it all happened.”

  “Norris told you this?”

  “Oh yeah. The man was crazy jealous. She was a bit of a hellcat, from all accounts. Told Norris he could shove his contract where the sun don’t shine, or words to that effect, and that she was going to marry the kid come hell or high water. Norris said he grabbed the first thing that came to hand when she started to walk out the door. A knife they used to slice up the ham at the club.” Dent sucked his lower lip reflectively. “Always had a big old ham on the bar at Tropi. Norris said it made people thirstier for the booze. Worked like a champ on me, that’s for sure.”

  Bree nudged the conversation back to the night of the murder. “Norris attacked her with the knife?”

  “Stabbed her in the heart, or tried to.”

  “Then what happened? Did he take the body to the river?”

  “Norris? Hell, no. Said he felt so bad he dropped to his knees and begged her forgiveness. She ran off, he said, and the next thing he knew, they were pulling her out of the drink.”

  “The river,” Bree said, just to be clear. “What did the autopsy show? She didn’t drown, according to the newspaper. Although, to be absolutely accurate, she was alive when they pulled her from the water. She may have died from the effects of inhaling river water, I suppose.”

  “Stab wounds,” Dent said. “Near as they could tell.”

  “Why couldn’t they be certain?”

  “You’re the one that’s nitpicking here,” Dent said. “I’m just damn glad you never cross-examined me in court.” He pitched his voice higher. “ ‘Although, to be absolutely accurate, she was alive when they pulled her from the water.’ You sound like Norris’s lawyer.”

  “God is in the details,” Bree said with a smile. “And I want to get to Norris’s lawyer in a minute. So the coroner’s office wasn’t certain of the cause of death? What did it say on the death certificate?”

  “Alex Bulloch broke into the funeral home and grabbed her body before the autopsy was done. By the time the coroner got it, the chest tissue was pretty burned up. So the cause of death was listed as probable stab wound to the blah, blah, blah. I don’t remember that part. What I do remember is once the death certificate was entered into evidence, Norris was lawyered up, and the lawyer made a big to-do about how she might have drowned instead of bled to death and Norris only wounded her. Got Norris all excited. Didn’t mourn her very long, old Bagger Bill. Recanted his confession. Said he was drunk and didn’t k
now what he was saying. Blah, blah, blah.” Dent eyed her distrustfully. “So his lawyer did what you just said. Presented an alternative theory of the crime. But the judge didn’t buy it. Condemned Norris to the chair. And to the chair he went.”

  “When did you decide he was innocent?”

  “Me?” Dent said. “I never thought so. He had the knife, he was covered in her blood, and he said he stabbed her. If I thought he was innocent I would have done something about it. I may have been a drunk, but I would have pulled myself together long enough to keep an innocent man from the chair.”

  “But ...”

  “That’s what they said at the intervention,” he said. “That I let an innocent man go to the chair. If I’d run a better investigation, he wouldn’t have died the way he did. So that’s why I’m here. I have to fix this. I’ve got to make direct amends to those I’ve offended whenever possible, except when to do so would injure them. Can’t get much more injured than being sent to the chair.

  “I need to talk to Bobby Lee. He’s going to remember a lot more than I do. Sober, churchgoing man, Bobby Lee was.”

  He was also ninety-two years old. Bree hoped the poor old guy’s brains were in good shape. She scrawled a few more questions to herself on the yellow pad: Norris atty—Who? Trial trsnpst—Smith?

  Dent looked at his watch and shook it next to his ear. It was a large inexpensive one, with a wide chrome band. The dial was labeled TIMEX. “Give it a licking and it keeps on ticking. That’s what the ads say. But it’s stopped.”

  “It’s quarter to seven.” Bree got up out of the chair. She was stiff from sitting. “May I ask you to run me down to the shoot? Flurry expects me there around now. We’ve got a dinner date.”

  “Mind if I come along?”

  “No,” Bree said. “I don’t mind at all. As a matter of fact, it might be a very good thing. I’m not sure how easy it’s going to be to pry those files out of Florida Smith. I’m going to have to wing it. If anything occurs to you, just jump right in. And Dent, try and keep your hands off the waitresses.”

  Nine

  Who can control his fate?

  —Othello, William Shakespeare

  “Fish tacos, for sure. And a half bottle of a Pinot Grigio.” Florida Smith dropped the menu on the table and looked around appreciatively. “I like this place.”

  B. Matthew’s wasn’t overly large—maybe sixty feet long and thirty feet wide, but the tables had been placed so you didn’t feel you were going to back into the diners next to you. The old wooden floor was made of narrow-planked pine, stained a comfortable brown. A long bar ran the width of the back of the restaurant. Large windows looked out over Bay Street. The walls were hung with a variety of found objects from the nineteenth century: cast iron griddles, etchings, sepia-toned photographs of women in wide hoop skirts.

  “I like it, too.” Bree looked up at the waitress. “I’ll have the fish tacos, too. And a cup of the black bean soup. And a nice dark beer. Whatever kind you think would be good.”

  “You have burgers?” Dent demanded.

  The waitress was young, cute, and patient. “Be happy to make you some.”

  “Make it two, rare, with raw onion and fries.”

  “Sweet potato or regular?”

  Dent reared back in his chair. “Sweet potato? You’re kidding, right? You have hash browns? No. Then just the regular kind. And a lot of coffee. Black.” He drummed his fingers on the table. “I take sugar in my coffee. You have sugar, hon—I mean, ma’am?”

  “Just the Equal. That’s the blue packet on the table. But I’ll see if I can find some real sugar in the back for you.”

  She stood at Dent’s shoulder, one hip cocked to help support her as she wrote on her order pad. Dent’s right hand came up, hovered around her hip, and retreated. Flurry and Bree looked at each other.

  “Thank you, darl—ma’am.”

  She smiled sunnily at him. “A pleasure, sir.”

  Bree raised her glass of water in a mock toast to Dent as soon as the waitress was out of earshot. “See? You get happier waitstaff that way.”

  Dent grunted.

  “Bree’s right. Happy waiters don’t pee in your soup back in the kitchen. Bree! If you’re the one who’s cured him of inappropriate fanny patting, more power to you.” Flurry rummaged in her backpack as she spoke. After setting most of its contents on the table—an HP mini-notebook, an iPod, a Blackberry, two sets of earphones, a half-full bottle of Saratoga Springs mineral water, and a wallet, she withdrew a fat red-brown accordion file. “Here we go.” She handed the file to Bree and returned all the other stuff to the backpack item by item.

  Bree picked up the file and set it down again. This was too easy.

  “It’s like the magician’s hat,” Dent said. “How did you get all that stuff in there in the first place?”

  “We have our ways.”

  Bree looked at the accordion file but didn’t open it. “Is this all your research on the Quinn murder?”

  “The part of it I haven’t gotten on disk yet. Actually, it’s copies, not originals. I’m scanning those whenever I have free time. I’ve got most of the stuff on hard drive, or stored on flash drives.”

  “How extensive is your research?”

  “Oh, I went way back. If poor Haydee had lived past the age of twenty-three and achieved something more than becoming a B-girl, I could have written a whole book about her. She was bound for glory, that girl was. As for William Norris—I have a raft of stuff on him, but he’s your average small-time gangster. Hoods, they called them then. A lot of other writers have been there, done that. No, what’s really interesting about this case is the role the Bullochs played in it.”

  The waitress set down a half bottle of the Pinot, poured Flurry a sip, waited for her approval, and then poured the wineglass half full. She did the same with Bree’s beer. Dent’s coffee was accompanied by four sugar cubes. The only time Bree ever saw sugar cubes was at Plessey, because her mother loved to soak them in lemon and put them in her tea.

  “So what do I have, you ask? I’ve got the transcripts of both trials—the Norris trial for murder and the sanity hearing for Alexander. I’ve got every magazine and newspaper article ever written about the case, or the principals in the case. I’ve got the autopsy report, photos of the crime scene, and photos of the burning cart with Alexander pushing it.”

  Flurry paused to drink her wine.

  Bree still didn’t open the folder. “What about the murder book?”

  Flurry raised both eyebrows in a query.

  “The police file,” Dent said by way of explanation.

  “The O’Malley-Kowalski investigation? I’ve got photocopies of that. For all the use it is. I mean, sure, I picked up on a couple of witnesses that weren’t mentioned anywhere else. But O’Malley was a drunk. I found a source that said the only reason the commissioner kept him was that they were old Army buddies during the war.” Flurry raised her hands and fluttered her forefingers in tandem. “The Big One. That’s World War II for us girls, Bree. O’Malley wasn’t much use. It looks like the partner, Bobby Lee Kowalski, did most of the work.”

  “Marines,” Dent said shortly. “O’Malley was a Marine.”

  “Marine, Army, whatever.”

  Bree didn’t want to see the look in Dent’s eyes, so she stared straight at Flurry. “Did you get any useful information from Sergeant Kowalski?”

  “I only saw him once, but I’m going to go back as soon as I get the time. The old guy’s just this side of the grave, but boy, is he smart. Remembers the case like it was yesterday. I got a lot of good stuff on O’Malley. The guy was a total loser. He’d be out of any decent police force in twenty seconds flat nowadays. It’s amazing to me how much less oversight there was on the cops back then. Some of them literally got away with murder.”

  “You don’t think the police had anything to do with Haydee’s death?” That sort of stuff happened, back in the day. And it wasn’t confined to the South.

  Flur
ry emptied her wineglass and poured herself another. “I’ve got this theory. More than a theory. A conviction.” She thumped her slender chest.

  “Based on more than hearsay, I hope.” Bree’s voice was dry. She was stinging over the insults to Dent.

  “Oh yeah. The cops turned up a witness that never appeared in court. I’ve got the interview notes.”

  “From Kowalski?” Bree guessed. They didn’t tape interviews back in the ’50s, did they? The junior partner took notes by hand.

  Flurry smiled and shook her head. “Not another word out of me, Bree. We’ve got some negotiating to do.”

  “The cops turned over every piece of evidence that they had to the DA,” Dent said abruptly.

  “How would you know?” Flurry wasn’t being rude, just inquisitive. She looked at Dent, really looked at him, and for a moment, Bree wondered if she’d make the man at last. “Were you a cop in a past life, Dent?”

  “It’s their job,” Dent said shortly.

  “Ha,” Flurry snorted. “Like crucial evidence that makes the cops look bad doesn’t go missing every day of the week.”

  “You’ve been watching too much bad TV,” Bree said. “Or reading the wrong newspapers. Every system, in every year going back to Day One and going forward to the Last Trump has or will have corrupt human beings in it. It’s who we are. The human race. But it’s not pervasive, and it’s not worse now than it’s ever been.”

  Flurry put her hand over her heart. Then she saluted. “Hear you loud and clear.”

  Their food arrived. Dent picked up his hamburger and put it down again. He slumped in his chair and stared at the bottle of Pinot Grigio. Bree was glad it wasn’t rye whiskey. Rye whiskey had helped bring poor Dent to his current state. She nudged the conversation back to the case. “Crucial evidence, you said. From this unknown witness.”

  “Yep. It’s going to make one hell of a book, one hell of a book. Did I tell you I got interviews with two of the three Bulloch granddaughters, too? I got them before Sammi-Rose Spiderwoman slammed the door shut in my face. Marian Lee’s pretty lame. She married a guy who runs a very successful car garage. He’s a perfect sweetie. But she’s miserable, just miserable, not living the life of a Bulloch. Now, Dixie Bulloch’s pretty cool. She never married, and she remembers her grandmother pretty well. She’s the oldest, and she also remembers that her folks fought over Haydee when she was a little kid. Haydee had been dead for years. She claims that Alexander never got over her.” Flurry picked up her fork and stared at her fish taco. “Isn’t that the saddest thing? I mean, this guy fell in love with a woman when he was nineteen and that was it. He never fell in love again. The rest of his life was just going through the motions.”