A Devil's Bargain

by Jonathan Watkins

  “Yes, Dick, Detroit,” Luther said. “We’ve got two men unaccounted for. Where did you think we were going?”

  “I guess hoped is more the word,” Dick answered as he holstered his weapon. “What’s the story? We sent Joe out there and he gets lost so we send Gil after him and he gets lost, so now we’re all going in after both of them? This sounds like the set-up for a god damned monster movie.”

  “Joe isn’t lost,” Luther said. “I know right where Joe is. Why are you asking me questions? Yes, we are bound for the sucking maelstrom that is Detroit. No, I don’t like it any more than you. Get your gear and get moving.”

  Luther left them both standing there before Dick could think of anything else to say. It wasn’t so much that he objected to being questioned by a subordinate, though he absolutely did, as much as it was the fact that he didn’t have anything approaching a concrete plan.

  At the elevators, he stopped and did a mental inventory while passing staff members bid him unreciprocated hellos.

  Do you need to do this? That was the question, really. Did he need to go? He was no field man. Luther had been born into his role. As the eldest of the two Fletcher sons, there had been no question how his life would play out: a sterling prep academy, an Ivy League university, a Tier One law school, and finally a desk in this very building, to sit behind and patiently wait for his father to die and relinquish the reins of power that every eldest Fletcher male had held for generations.

  That a heart attack had felled the old man only three months into Luther’s period of waiting was just a happy coincidence. In the years since taking over as the head of the Fletcher Group, Luther had planned and strategized and kept the ship on course. But all of it was done over the phone, or on the golf course, or after a fine meal.

  You’re a salesman. A negotiator. What are you thinking? You have no business putting yourself out there like some little pretend Napoleon.

  But even as he reminded himself of that simple truth, even as he struggled to push the button that would whisk him back up to his office, one particular face floated in front of his eyes and refused to be banished.

  Darren, he thought. Darren.

  Whatever the unknown details of the situations with Joe Link and Gil Sharpe, Luther harbored a persistent, needling suspicion that Darren was involved. He couldn’t know how, or to what extent. But he knew, deep in his stomach, that the man who was most determined in all the world to personally bring ruin to himself and his family’s fortunes was tangled up in the growing calamity of Detroit.

  He nodded to himself, the decision made. For too long, he had been content to deflect his brother’s attacks on the Fletcher Group from afar. He had relied on the power of the Group, on its political sway and corrupt strength, to cut Darren Fletcher off at every turn. Favors had been traded. Bribes had been offered and accepted. Where bribes had not sufficed, blackmail had been employed.

  A rational man would relent in the face of what Luther had thrown at Darren. A rational man would accept that some men, some institutions, were flatly exempt from the rules and laws the rest of the world lived under.

  Darren was not a rational man. He was an idealist. A fool who fancied himself a knight of the common people. He would not stop until Luther appeared and forcibly disarmed him.

  Luther pushed the down button.

  * * *

  Theresa stepped out of the sally port at the William Dickerson Detention Facility and into the hallway where Darren was waiting. The sheriff’s deputy who accompanied her out handed Darren a pen and a clipboard with a single sheet of paper attached to it.

  “This the one you posted for?”

  “Yeah, that’s my gal.”

  “Just check the box there and sign at the bottom.”

  Darren signed, the deputy took the clipboard and pen back, and mumbled into his shoulder microphone to have the sally port opened again.

  Theresa was dressed in the same shirt that declared she didn’t know karate but was prone to biting, and the same jeans and sneakers she’d worn when arrested. Darren noted that her hair was more than a bit unkempt, but otherwise she looked none the worse for wear.

  “This is a bit of a role reversal,” he said. “Does this mean we’re square? I mean, you’ve bailed me out three times by my count. But those were all minor infractions. I think posting a murder bond probably equals at least three ordnance violations. It’s not important. Who keeps score? I hope you didn’t eat the bologna. I always told you if you ever got locked up don’t eat the bologna with the red mold.”

  Theresa stared at him like she was made of stone, unblinking, very still.

  “You look good. Ready to hit the road?”

  “Gimme a cigarette or I will choke you, Fletcher,” Theresa said.

  In Darren’s Lexus, he handed over a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. Theresa lit up and rolled her window down while he pulled out into the afternoon traffic.

  “Feel better?”

  “It takes more than one puff. Don’t rush me.”

  Darren drove a mile.

  “Human again?”

  “Close. I need a shower like you wouldn’t believe. Or maybe you would, being a jailbird and all.”

  “There she is. Are you hungry?”

  Theresa considered it a second before saying, “Yeah. I could eat. Why? You have somewhere in mind?”

  “You pick. I need caffeine and we need to talk. There’s a lot going on and you deserve to hear it all.”

  Beside him, Theresa seemed contemplative. For perhaps the first time since knowing her, Darren couldn’t judge her mood. Normally, she was not a person to keep her disposition off her face.

  “Everything is going to be alright,” he offered because he didn’t know what else to say.

  Theresa shrugged and let out a long sigh.

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Theresa—”

  “Where’d you get the five hundred thousand to make them let me go?”

  “That’s one of the things we need to talk about.”

  Now Theresa’s expression shifted and Darren could see what was in her eyes as she turned her head to look straight at him: accusation.

  “Yeah?” she said. “Is one of the other things we should talk about going to be how that dead guy had nothing to do with me but everything to do with you? We going to jaw about that, Fletcher?”

  “What?”

  “That dead guy. The one who knew your name. We going to talk about that?”

  “Knew my name? What are you saying?”

  She lit another cigarette and blew a column of smoke out the window while he stared at her. The light turned and Darren drove forward. They continued on in silence for a full minute.

  “You really just going to let that pass by?”

  “No,” Darren said and abruptly veered the Lexus to the curb. They came to a jerking stop and he turned in his seat to face her. “What the hell did I always say to you? What was rule number one?”

  “More Crown and less Seven?”

  “Don’t ever lie to your own lawyer!”

  Theresa was unmoved. She kept blowing smoke, but no longer bothered to aim it out the window. She stared straight ahead out the windshield.

  “Well?” he insisted.

  “Well what?” she drawled.

  Darren imagined himself snatching the cigarette out of her hand and tossing it away. He saw himself shouting, demanding answers: What have you done? What do the cops have on you? For God’s sake, did you kill Gil Sharps? Are you guilty, Theresa?

  He didn’t do any of that. He could see a truth that had eluded him since posting her bond and watching her as she was ushered through the sally port. Terror. He could see terror in his friend. Beneath the façade of indignant calm, wild fear was struggling to break to t
he surface and take her over. The muscles of her jaw clenched and unclenched. Her breathing was a series of sharp, shallow inhales and she wasn’t blinking. Theresa Winkle was ready to burst with anxiety, no matter the mask of calm she’d put on.

  Darren felt himself soften and slump in his seat. He needed answers to the questions he had wanted to shout at her. But more than that, he knew he had a duty. Not as her lawyer. A more vital duty. He needed to be her friend. He didn’t need to be the person who pushed her into an outburst of panic and dismay.

  Darren slowly pulled the Lexus away from the curb. His eyes stung and began to water under the acrid fog of cigarette smoke.

  “Ringo’s has the steak and eggs you like,” he suggested.

  Theresa was silent but he noted that she began aiming her smoke out the window again.

  “Unless you want something else...”

  “Ringo’s is fine,” she admitted. “What’re you going to get?”

  “A strong drink.”

  He made a left and headed toward Cass Avenue. They passed through stretches of the city that were as vacant and silent as the face of the moon. Darren tried to calculate how he and Issabella would need to respond if it turned out Theresa had killed Gil Sharps. He thought about the narrow legal definition of self-defense and about how juries were just as skeptical of its existence as most people were about the existence of Bigfoot.

  “Maybe a few strong drinks,” he amended.

  Chapter Eight

  The frightful reciprocating saw that looked perfectly suited for chewing up and severing the limbs of people named Issabella was not fit for the task of opening the metal suitcase, she decided. Not by itself, at any rate.

  After reading the user’s manual and paying close attention to the several bold warnings concerning the saw’s potential to cause both injury and death if mishandled, she’d settled on just plugging the thing in and holding down the black trigger. A test run. If she could hold the running saw in the air with a firm grip, she could get a feel for it. Once she felt confident that she understood how to control it she could move on to possibly touching its serrated blade to the metal suitcase.

  As soon as she had it in her hands and pressed the trigger, Issabella knew the saw itself was not her problem. It didn’t jounce around as she had imagined. It was loud, yes. Dreadfully loud, a metallic scream that just went on and on until she let go. The long blade stopped stabbing back and forth in the air, slowly, winding down from its frenzy.

  No, the saw wasn’t the problem. She could manage it, she decided.

  The problem was the suitcase. Or, more precisely, the lack of anything to hold the suitcase still. The manual had warned that the reciprocating saw was prone to violently kicking if it was not already fully engaged when making contact with the thing to be sawed or if the thing to be sawed was not secured and held stationary in some way.

  Having run the saw and felt its steady, thrumming vibrations, she had what she thought was a pretty accurate picture in her mind of what would happen if she simply stood over the suitcase and tried to sheer its locks apart. The suitcase would be sent skittering away and the saw would likely be propelled in the opposite direction—toward the user.

  “...died of horrific wounds sustained while incompetently attempting to open luggage stolen from a man her own client is accused of murdering,” was not a sentence Issabella wanted to appear within the body of her obituary. She set the saw down, unplugged it from the wall socket, and set about searching for anything inside the apartment that could serve as a makeshift...

  ...vise, she thought.

  She needed a vise. A large one, large enough to hold the heavy suitcase while she worked the saw.

  After a quick walkthrough of each room to confirm what she already knew, Issabella sat down on the living room sofa. She dialed a number on her phone and waited through the Detroit Police Department’s automated directory. She tapped keys until she was at last sent to Detective North’s line. It rang seven times before she heard it pick up.

  “Detective North, Homicide.”

  “Hi, Detective. This is Issabella Bright. Do you have a second?”

  “The lawyer on the John Doe?” Detective North asked. “What do you want?”

  Among other things, Issabella had wanted to know if the police knew their corpse was named Gil Sharps, so she happily checked that off before saying, “I need to get back in my client’s bar and start our side of the investigation. I thought it might be prudent to check with you first and see if you’ve released the crime scene yet.”

  “Really.”

  “Yes.”

  North’s low chuckle had no trace of humor within it.

  “I guess you must have gotten your beauty sleep. Last time we talked you jammed me up and made me wake up a judge for a warrant I didn’t need. Now you’re all peaches and cream, calling up and asking permission for your client to get in her home. Nice. You know, maybe if you’d started with the peaches and cream last night, you’d be having an easier time of things now.”

  Issabella felt a queasy pang of alarm in her stomach as she listened. She’d been right. She’d pissed off a veteran homicide badge and it had made things worse. Not for her. For Theresa.

  Just as quickly, the alarm turned to anger as she considered the implication.

  “How exactly would things be better?” she said. She wanted to follow up with, Do you mean to say that my client wouldn’t be charged if I’d been more cooperative with you last night? Did you actually rush an arrest out of some sort of professional pique? But there was no profit in a direct inquiry. Not now. That sort of question was best saved for court, when the Detective was under oath.

  North didn’t answer the question, at any rate. After a beat of silence between them, she said, “The scene was released hours ago. We dropped Winkle’s spare key back through the mail slot when we cleared. Anything else? I got plenty more shit to do around here.”

  The answers to both of her questions so far had come back in her favor, so Issabella decided to go for broke.

  “What actual evidence do you have against my client?” she said.

  Now North’s answering chuckle was laced with real humor.

  “Gee, I guess you and your client will have to wait for the prosecutor on that one. Well, this has been fun. By the way, I don’t know what she had to put up to meet her bond, but congrats on that, I guess. Let’s see if she runs on you. That’d be interesting, wouldn’t it?”

  Issabella had learned plenty by the time North hung up. Gil Sharps was still a John Doe to them. She was free to go down to Winkle’s Tavern and use the big iron vise clamped to the workbench in one of the back rooms. And, best of all, Darren had succeeded in getting the money out of his family’s trust account. Theresa was free.

  Issabella stood and jogged up the stairs to the bedroom with fresh optimism. It was not all-encompassing. They were still caught in a chaotic situation, at risk of being thwarted by any number of dangers. Real evidence, if it existed, could still send Theresa to prison for life. Discovery of what she and Darren had done in Gil Sharps’s hotel room could permanently derail her career and reputation.

  Her gait slowed. Once she was in the bedroom she paced in a circle and felt the optimism drain away and transform into fear. Fear and self-reproach.

  What had she done?

  If the theft of evidence from a crime scene and the subsequent burglary of Gil Sharps’s hotel room were ever discovered, her peril wasn’t limited to the loss of professional standing. Hell, disbarment wasn’t even the worst of it, and she hadn’t really considered that. Throughout the morning, in the aftermath of insisting she remain at Darren’s side during the burglary, Issabella had never stopped to really think about the jeopardy she’d put herself in.

  Disbarment? Hardly. Disbarment would be a formality, an afterthought.
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  Prison. She was looking at prison. Tampering with and stealing potential evidence were the sort of acts that would get her labeled as an accessory after-the-fact. An accessory to murder.

  She sat down heavily on the edge of the bed and stared at her hands.

  Something had changed. It had not been that long ago that she had been a struggling solo lawyer taking misdemeanor cases from a dingy office on the west side of town. Struggling was the right word. Not just with the meager earnings she’d managed to pull in during that first year. Primarily, she had been struggling with herself. She’d been prone to panic attacks and bouts of cruel, relentless anxiety. The mere thought of an embarrassing moment in court or, worse, an ethical breach would have sent her spiraling down into a paralyzed state of despair.

  Yet, here she was.

  She waited to feel the creeping dizziness of one of those panic storms. When they had seized her in the past, they came quick and fierce. They spun her round and round with looping thoughts of failure and recrimination. They were irresistible.

  Nothing appeared.

  Issabella nodded to herself, confirming a suspicion that had been building inside her for some time now: she’d changed. In the couple of years she’d been together with Darren, she’d gradually adopted an outlook that would have seemed impossible before. Where she had once seen the law as the best and only system through which to pursue justice, now she more often viewed that system as a cynical machine designed and built to keep the weak pinned down and the powerful secure.

  She was not seized with misgivings over having stolen the suitcase because she didn’t see it as wrong.

  “And we don’t know if that’s good or bad, do we? Probably bad. Yep. Okay. There it is. So what’re we going to do?”

  There were still options. She could renew her once certain faith in her chosen profession.

  She had the suitcase. She could take it straight to the prosecutor’s office and admit to her part in what had gone down the night before. There would be some leniency, possibly. But not for Theresa and not for Darren. Whatever nasty business the Fletcher Group had assigned to Gil Sharps, by turning over the suitcase she would be ensuring that Darren gained no insight about it. She would be removed from the case immediately. Theresa would be left with only Darren, who in turn would be devastated by Issabella’s betrayal.