The Legal Limit

by Martin Clark

  “Well, we’ve turned up a witness—a Frederick Wright—who says the killer confessed to him. He says a man named Allen Roberts is the shooter. We checked, and this Roberts was a suspect originally, but nothing came of it. Roberts and the deceased were in an argument earlier in the evening, a dispute about a pool game as best we can tell.”

  Without meaning to, Mason gripped the edge of his desk. His collar and cuffs suddenly felt scratchy, binding him. “So this witness, this Wright fellow, so, uh, you believe he’s reliable?”

  “Passed a polygraph,” Minter assured him. “I can send you a copy if you want it.”

  “Yeah. Please.” Mason stopped pinching his desk. He put his hands in his pockets. “Is that it? A witness? And why, pray tell, does Mr. Roberts confess after all these years? What’s his relationship with Wright?”

  “They used to work together. Drinkin’ buddies. Wright tells us they were sharin’ a bottle and Roberts says he needs to get it off his chest. Admits he shot Wayne Thompson. Wright didn’t know what he should do, so he told his brother-in-law, who’s a deputy in Floyd. The brother-in-law contacted us.”

  “I’m not sure how strong a case we can build from a drunk’s ramblings. Hell, maybe he did say it, just flapping his gums. Or maybe your witness misunderstood or has some grudge. Polygraph or not, I’d need more. Over and above all that, I know Allen Roberts pretty well—it’s going to be a tough sell for you to convince me he’s a killer.”

  “I agree,” Minter said. “A good lawyer’d clean our clocks.” He barely paused, but changed the set of his head. “’Course, we got the gun. We have the murder weapon. A thirty-eight. Lab is positive on the match. Found it at Roberts’s house.” Minter was short and skinny. His hands were interlocked at his belt buckle, his black shoes were planted on the floor. He seemed stock-still.

  Mason eased his chair backward, rolling on brass casters and speaking at the same time. “That’s impossible…impossible to, uh, imagine, but lucky, I guess. A real break, it being so many years ago. The shooting. Incredible you’d find the gun after so long.”

  Reaching inside his coat, Bass produced a report from the Division of Forensic Science, placed it on the desk and gave it a small push. “No doubt we have the pistol,” he said. The paper hung on the wood and didn’t slide very far.

  Mason left the report alone. “So you want me to indict Allen Roberts?”

  “Well, we think we’re pretty close—a confession to a disinterested witness and the gun.”

  “What’s Allen say about this?” Mason asked. “Have you interviewed him?”

  “Denies it. We talked to him yesterday. Won’t give an inch.” The way Bass was sitting, Mason could see his silver badge. It was attached to his belt, above the hip. “Says what he said in 1984—claims he ain’t involved.”

  “I see,” Mason mumbled. He was thinking of the Burger King Dumpster, the muted, unremarkable sound the cylinder and bag made when they landed, the kid taking a smoke break.

  “Not to step on toes,” Minter said, “but your brother was a suspect, too, wasn’t he? I saw where Danny Owen had questioned him.”

  A flatbed truck passed by the window and took Mason’s attention. After it cleared, he saw Roy Lee McAlexander hobbling from the grocery store to his house, a translucent plastic sack in each hand. Probably toting beer home to get snockered. “He was. But he was with me and lots of other people. For what it’s worth, I was there for his interview. He—” Mason was seized by a thought that caused him to break off and bring a finger to his temple and fisheye both cops. “He didn’t have anything to do with it.” Every word stuck on the roof of his mouth as if it were coated in flour. He hoped his face and neck weren’t mottled.

  Bass and Minter didn’t reply right away. They reminded Mason of the summer toads at the farm, always biding their time beneath a floodlight or brightened transom, vigilant brown lumps watching…watching…watching…watching, waiting for a gnat or moth to dip too deep and become food for a sticky, darting tongue. The three men sat there in a fierce silence—at least a full minute—until Minter spoke. “You okay takin’ on the case—any conflicts or doubts?” His voice was carefully formal. Stilted.

  “I’ll do just fine. Thanks for asking. I might talk to Allen myself. Have the sheriff bring him in.”

  “I don’t think he’ll give you anything new.”

  Mason shrugged. “Just the same, it wouldn’t hurt to see if he’ll talk to us. Never know what might come of it.” He glanced out his window again. Roy Lee was gone. “So what did Allen say after you told him you’d located the gun there? Was he present when you found it?”

  “Claimed he’d never seen it,” Bass answered. “He wasn’t at home when we arrived and executed the warrant, so we served it on his wife.” Bass was tracing the bright outline of his badge with his index finger as he spoke.

  “Where exactly was this gun?” Mason asked.

  “Buried beside an oak tree.”

  “Allen lives on ten, fifteen acres, right? And you knew to dig at exactly this spot because…?”

  “Because that’s what Roberts told our witness,” Minter said. “Roberts told Frederick Wright where the gun was located and, lo and behold, that’s where we found it. Pretty powerful stuff, huh?”

  “Why would anyone bury a murder weapon in their own backyard and then tell a drinking buddy where it was?” Mason asked. “There’s something screwy here.”

  “Well, like I said, we have ourselves a believable witness, a lie-detector test, the weapon which done the shootin’ and a confession. You’re the lawyer, but I like our odds.” Minter rocked forward. “Why wouldn’t you hide the gun on your own place, where nobody but you has access and you can keep watch?”

  “Why wouldn’t you throw it in Smith Mountain Lake or bury it on someone else’s property?” Mason asked.

  “Who’s to say, huh?” Bass stuck Mason with a tight, prickly smile.

  Mason picked up a legal pad and wrote Roberts’s name across the top along with the words “gun” and “confession.” He stared at the pad and pretended to consider the facts he’d been given. He faked concentration and made a whistling sound, almost a hiss, air pushed through his teeth and dry lips. “Definitely worth taking a look at,” he said, still focusing on the pad. “Definitely.” He mustered enough grit and composure to raise his eyes and face the cops. “I didn’t mean to harangue you guys—just playing the devil’s advocate. Better to find the problem here than at trial. I need to have all the bases covered before I charge someone with murder, but it seems like you’ve done your homework.”

  “I understand,” Minter said.

  “Send me everything you’ve got. I’ll have the sheriff take another pass, and we’ll go from there.”

  “Affirmative,” Bass said, already rising. “Thanks for seein’ us.”

  “Fuck,” Mason muttered after he heard the men speak to Sheila and knew they’d departed. “Damn.” He ran his hands through his hair, stopping at his crown, and sank into his seat with his palms pressing against his skull. “Damn.” He was utterly rattled, feverish, sick all over, poisoned by the ambush, dizzy, his lungs choked with pitch, snakes squirming in his guts. He took his hands down, noticed they were trembling. “Thank you, Gates,” he said aloud. “You piece of shit.”

  Outside, as they were striding toward their gray Ford, Bass caught Rick Minter with a sidelong glance. “Gee,” he said, his mouth pointed at the ground, acting nonchalant for the benefit of anyone watching. “Maybe there’s somethin’ to this. He looked like we’d slapped him upside the head, and then it took dynamite to get him to move on a slam-dunk case.” Bass kept walking, his partner close by. “Let’s have the tape transcribed soon as we can.” He patted his blazer’s breast pocket. “Man, I hope we got everything, especially the ‘impossible’ part.”

  The following morning, Sheriff David Hubbard and Investigator Roger Wilson met with Mason in the sheriff’s private office. Across the hall, Allen Roberts was by himself in a spar
sely furnished room, the door shut, a half-empty soft drink beside him. At Mason’s request, Wilson had telephoned Agent Bass and received several faxed pages and an overview of the murder case against Roberts.

  “He ain’t admitting to it,” the sheriff informed Mason. “We’ve been at it for an hour. He claims he doesn’t know anything about the gun and didn’t shoot nobody. Roger’s given him a pretty thorough talkin’-to.”

  “He’s not gonna change his story,” Wilson said, frowning. “I mean, you know, it is what it is.” He was gray-headed, wearing a maroon windbreaker. Above him, on the wall, was a framed picture of the entire police force and staff from the year 1999, taken on the courthouse portico. “I gotta say, Mason, I’m a little surprised, what with the kinda person Allen is. We were in school together; I’ve known him all my life. He just don’t seem like the type.”

  “You and the state police been on this for a while?” the sheriff inquired. He was a tall, strong man with a black mustache, a cattle farmer from off the Meadows of Dan mountain. Shrewd and unflappable, he rarely raised his voice and was popular with his employees.

  “I heard about it yesterday for the first time,” Mason said.

  “Kinda strange they didn’t include us or give us a courtesy call,” the sheriff mused.

  “Yeah,” Mason agreed. “You guys mind if I talk to him?”

  “Be my guest,” Wilson said. “You want us to be with you?”

  “No need.”

  “Tape recorder’s in there—on the table—and we Mirandized him soon as he got here.”

  “Can’t say I ever recall you questionin’ a suspect,” the sheriff remarked. “Isn’t that a little tricky—what if he admits somethin’ to you? You’d be in a fix, wouldn’t you? You couldn’t prosecute him if you were a witness, right?”

  “We’ll cross that bridge if we come to it,” Mason told him. “Roger’s probably correct—he’s not going to change his story. I just want to get a feel for this, see how he’s reacting.”

  When Mason opened the door, Allen Roberts was smoking a cigarette and his knee was firing up and down like a sewing-machine needle, rapid and kinetic. He was dressed in bibbed overalls and a blue shirt, weathered boots splattered with specks of white. He’d worked at the same job for over twenty years, hanging Sheetrock for Clark Brothers Construction. Seeing Mason, he stubbed out his cigarette in a thick glass ashtray already filled with butts. “Hey, Mason,” he said.

  “Allen,” Mason said quietly. He checked to make sure the recorder wasn’t running. “Sorry to see you under these circumstances.” As a precaution, he removed the cassette from the machine and laid it on the table.

  “Mason, I swear to you on my mama’s grave I didn’t do this,” he blurted. He took a fresh Camel from a pack in the chest pocket of his bibs. He couldn’t get the first paper match to strike and had to use a second one to light his cigarette. He inhaled and blew out shaky smoke. “I know it looks bad, but damn, Mason, you know me. This is some kinda crazy nightmare.”

  “It would have to be,” Mason said. He bent forward so both his palms were flat on the table, his arms rigid and bearing his weight. “Look at me.” He said it gently, without any suggestion of malice or command.

  Roberts tried, but his eyes were waterbugging all over the place.

  “I know you didn’t do this, okay? Don’t worry. Go home and kiss your wife and drive to the store and punch the clock. As long as I’m the commonwealth’s attorney, you will never be charged. Do all you can not to worry. You’re innocent. You have my word nothing will happen to you. My firm oath.” Mason pinned the man with a stare, honed, intense, sincere. “You hear me, Allen?”

  “I don’t…This ain’t some kinda confusion, is it, you tryin’ to get over on me?”

  “Nope. You need to walk out of here and keep your mouth shut.” Mason straightened up.

  “I don’t understand, Mason. This don’t make sense. That ain’t my gun, and I damn sure didn’t bury it under no tree and I didn’t kill Wayne. I never seen him after he left the Old Dominion. As for this Fred Wright, he showed up for a few days on a job we was doin’ over in Ararat, and I had one beer with him in Mount Airy. He was gone the next week, and I sure as hell didn’t tell him I killed a man.” Roberts was flying through the words, the cig wasting in the ashtray, forgotten. “Back when this first happened, my ex–old lady done told the cops I was with her, but now I’m afraid she’ll switch her story ’cause she’s pissed at me over the divorce. There goes my alibi. Have ya’ll found her yet? Last I heard, she was stayin’ with her mom in Yanceyville. Did they keep a copy of her statement—maybe you can find it. Danny Owen was the police who talked to us.”

  “There’s no need. I believe you. This is a terrible mistake.” Mason smiled. “Come on—I’ll walk you to your car.”

  “You sure? I…I…I don’t know how the pistol—”

  Mason shoved out an upturned hand—final, suffocating, brooking nothing—to cut him off. “Judge Richardson used to tell people you don’t need to run to catch a streetcar you’re already riding. You’re on the streetcar, Allen. This is finished for you. I’m sorry we’ve scared you to death, sorry the system has failed you. Forget about this and put it behind you.”

  “Honest? You’re positive?”

  “Positive.” Mason kept his hand in the air. “One other point: don’t speak to the police anymore. If they come to see you again, you simply say, ‘I don’t want to talk to you. I want a lawyer.’ That’s the rule, no matter what they promise or what they threaten.” He took down his hand. “Don’t even get started with them. Slam the door. Hang up the phone. You’ll only get burned by answering their questions. That includes the cops here in Stuart as well.”

  “Believe me, I’ve learned my lesson. I ain’t makin’ a peep next time they come around.”

  “You understand you don’t have to talk with them about anything. Not the crime, not the gun, not even our conversation right now. Just refuse and request a lawyer. We clear?”

  “Yeah. Keep my mouth shut and right off the bat say I want me a lawyer.”

  “Exactly.”

  “So I can go?” Roberts asked tentatively. “Me and you’s okay with each other?”

  “You’re free to leave. We’re done.”

  Roberts came around the table, a burly man with a full beard and hands damaged by decades of hammers and drywall compound, and he hugged Mason, crying and sobbing and wiping his eyes and nose with a balled red bandanna he pulled from his back pocket. “Thank you, Mason. Thank you. Lord in heaven, thank you. I got me two kids to feed. Two boys. I thought I was a goner. You’re a good man.”

  “Not really,” Mason said. “But I appreciate your saying so.”

  That night, Mason made a mess of dinner, scorching the mashed potatoes so they tasted like he’d mixed in the bottom of the metal pot, and he and Grace had a round about her school dance and her sixteen-year-old “boyfriend.” She called her dad Hitler and barricaded herself in her room and was still sullen the next morning, muling through breakfast, barely deigning to speak. After she’d stalked off to the bus, Mason called his mother for advice, and she promised to drop by and lend a hand. “It’s only a phase,” she assured him.

  Before leaving home, he sat on the porch and gazed out over the pasture, watching the newborn sun scale the sky, listening to the seasonal birds celebrate their return, but he missed his wife and was pained by his loneliness, the magic spooked from his sanctuary. Forty acres and not another soul to be found. He fretted about how much he’d given away, how much truth the cops had assayed from his surprise and stumbling and clumsy playacting. Somehow, without tipping his intentions, he needed to communicate with Gates, and he had to do it quickly. Feeling claustrophobic and cramped, he drove to Stuart with the car windows rolled down, already fatigued, running on four hours of fitful, sketchy sleep and three cups of coffee, the last one black with grounds in almost every swallow.

  When he arrived at work, Mason discovered Custis was busy i
n juvenile court, already gone. Around noon, after three impatient, wasted hours, Mason finally heard him next door and went into his office. John Coltrane was on the wall, along with framed degrees and a picture of Custis wielding a gavel at a town council meeting. He was still carrying his files under an arm, standing beside his desk, reading pink phone slips.

  “Mace, hey. Check this out: Judge gave our boy Benny Watson twelve months for assaultin’ his wife. If a man ever had it comin’, it was Benny. You shoulda seen the fucker when they dropped the twelve on him. Priceless. It’s why I love my job.”

  “I’m glad it—”

  “I was thinkin’ maybe we could implement some kind of recognition system for kick-ass victories, something along the lines of the Ohio State football team, you know, where you get a sticker for your helmet, a buckeye for every exceptional game. We’d give each other rewards to wear on our lapels—gold stars or justice scales or a set of miniature cell bars or perhaps exclamation points. Might help morale. I know I’d go the extra mile.” Custis did his best to appear sincere.

  “As successful as we are, I’m sure we’d use up our lapels in no time at all and have to go with auxiliary sashes or chevrons.”

  “Killjoy,” Custis said with mock disappointment.

  “I need to talk to you about grand jury,” Mason stated with a new, different voice, pared down and serious. He folded his arms into his chest. “How come there’s a first-degree murder indictment for Allen Roberts on my desk?”

  “’Cause I put it there,” Custis answered.

  “Since when did you start preparing indictments in my cases?” Mason was testy.

  “Since always. I was only tryin’ to help. The state police called while you were gone yesterday, about four thirty, and asked me to draft it for you so we could have it done for June term. Agent Bass was the dude’s name. Said to check with you, but you were up to speed. Sounds like it’s a pretty righteous case from what he told—”

  Mason interrupted. “So now we’re taking our marching orders from the state police?”