Trial by Fire

by Nancy Taylor Rosenberg

  Holly turned to Winters. “Could the fire have started outside the house?”

  “Nope,” he said. “The arson squad listed the origin of the fire as Stella’s bed.”

  “How does that fit Randall’s story then?” Holly said, a baffled look on her face. “He was in the bedroom when the fire broke out. He just told us it started down the hall, that Stella ran out of the room to get her father.”

  “Look,” Randall said, “things happened pretty fast and furious that night. Maybe I made a mistake.”

  Are you recanting your statement now?”

  Holly said, her voice spiked with anger. “You made us sit here and listen to all this crap and now you’re going to take it all back?”

  “No,” he said. “I just might be mistaken about the exact sequence of events. I told you I don’t have a perfect memory.” He paused, thinking. “Stella’s father might have come in the bedroom, and she jumped up and grabbed the lighter fluid. You know,” he said, tilting his head toward Winters, “she could have done it right there by the bed like he said. I remember we were talking on the bed. It was late, after twelve o’clock by then, and I might have fallen asleep for a while, then woke up when her old man started screaming.”

  “But you didn’t see it?” Holly said, crossing her arms over her chest. “If you were in the same room, Randall, how could you not see what was happening?”

  “There was a lot of smoke and it was hard to see,” he said. Then his eyes lit up. “Hey, if I smelled the guy burning, maybe he really was in the same room with me. Stel could have gotten the matches and all and then we both fell asleep. Her father could have decided to come into her room and start up with her again, and she set him on fire then.”

  “Let me ask you something,” Holly said. “If you knew Stella was guilty of this crime, why did you pick up and move away from Houston? Why did you run if you were innocent of any wrongdoing? Didn’t you realize that by fleeing you were leaving yourself wide open, that you might be sought as a suspect?”

  “I loved her,” Randall said. “And the poor thing was ruined, you know. All that beauty wasted like that. How could I come forward and tell the truth, knowing she would go to prison? How, huh? How can a man do a thing like that to someone he cares about?”

  Winters leaned over and whispered in Holly’s ear. “He was ready to implicate her sixteen years ago,” he said. “I’ve got his statement in the file.”

  A period of silence ensued. Then Holly slapped the table with the palm of her hand, determined to shake Randall’s composure. “You’re feeding us a line of shit, Randall. You might not have testified, but when the police first contacted you right after the fire, you had no trouble at all pointing the finger at Stella. If it hadn’t been for your statements, Detective Winters would never have arrested her. Our office then had to dump the case when you skipped town because we had no other witnesses.”

  Randall’s shoulder started jumping. Now he remembered the old fart. So many years had passed, he had forgotten what Winters looked like, and back in those days, the detective hadn’t worn a cowboy hat. “You guys could have found me,” he argued. “No one ever came looking for me.

  Winters said, “Weren’t you using another name?”

  “Well, yeah,” he said, “but for a hotshot cop like you, Carl, that shouldn’t have been such a big problem.”

  “The warrant was only local,” Holly explained. “The judge didn’t feel the case was strong enough to extradite a witness from another state. We could charge you with obstruction of justice, though,” she said, “now that we know that you willfully withheld information in a homicide.”

  Leaping to his feet, Randall shouted, “I don’t have to take this shit from you people. I’m not under arrest. I came down here to give you guys some information and help you out, and here you are, treating me like I’m a fucking murderer or something. Damn you people. How could you trick me into incriminating myself? Isn’t that entrapment?”

  “Sit down,” Winters barked. Randall put on a good show of being a regular guy, but he was a lot sharper than the detective had originally suspected.

  “No, I’m not going to sit down,” Randall said, hot and agitated. “I sacrificed my scholarship to Notre Dame for this chick, ran off and hid like some draft dodger or something, just so I didn’t have to testify against her. You know how much that meant to me? My father played ball at Notre Dame.” He started pacing in front of the table. “All my life, I dreamed of going to that school and playing on that team. If it hadn’t been for Stella, I might have turned pro and I’d be sitting on a fucking fortune. Instead, I’m coaching puny high school kids for peanuts and wondering how I’m going to pay the rent.” He stopped and faced them. “Can I go now? If you’re gonna keep me here against my will, don’t you have to arrest me and read me my rights or something?”

  During the entire interview Frank Minor had been standing in the back of the room, watching and listening. For a man who had turned thirty only a few weeks back, he had moved up quickly through the ranks. He merely nodded when Holly looked over with a questioning expression. He was analyzing the ramifications of Randall’s statements, trying to determine if what he had heard constituted a viable case.

  “You can go,” Holly said. “If we need anything additional from you, we’ll be in touch.”

  Winters hit the stop button on the tape recorder and stood to leave. Holly walked over next to Minor and whispered, “It doesn’t look good for Stella, does it? Do you think everything he said is a lie, or could some of it be truthful?”

  “What makes you think he’s lying?” Minor said flatly, stepping past her to the door.

  Randall was walking out of the room when he suddenly stood stock-still, an astonished look on his face. Stella was standing in the corridor right outside the door, only a few feet away from his wife and kids.

  As soon as she saw Randall, she exploded, lashing out and slapping him hard across the face. “You bastard,” she screamed, raking her nails down the right side of his face and drawing beads of blood. Whipping her hair back, she shouted, “Look what you did to me, you prick! If I could get away with it, I’d kill you with my bare hands.”

  Holly grabbed her and tried to pull her away, but Stella broke free and balled up her fist, ready to slug Randall. The man’s wife was screaming and the children were crying and clawing at her legs. Several D.A.‘s heard the commotion and started running down the hall, but Winters shoved everyone aside and seized Stella around the waist, lifting her off her feet and then setting her down a few feet away. “Whoever you are,” he said, his chest heaving from exertion, “make one more move and I’m going to cuff you.”

  While Frank Minor and the other attorneys escorted Randall and his family down the hall to the outer offices. Holly rushed over and told Winters who Stella was. In the confusion he hadn’t recognized her. Even though he had seen her on TV, she looked different today. Her hair was draped over one side of her face, and she was wearing heavy makeup. Since Winters had seen her, he knew she must have undergone extensive reconstructive surgery. Not only had the scar improved in appearance, but many of her other features appeared to have been cosmetically altered as well.

  “What did you do to yourself?” Winters asked. “Didn’t your nose used to be different? What’d you do? Have a nose job or something?”

  “Yeah,” Stella said, glaring at him as if she was only seconds away from slapping him as she had Randall. “I tried to make the best of a bad situation, Winters. You don’t look the same either, since you mentioned it. You’re older and a hell of a lot fatter.”

  Placing an arm around Stella, Holly led her down the corridor to her office.

  Standing in the lobby of the D.A.‘s office, Randall was using Minor’s handkerchief to dab at the scratch on his face, having dispatched his family to wait outside in the car. “Fuck,” he said, “I never thought I’d get assaulted in a damn D.A.‘s office. Can’t I swear out a complaint? When a man hits a woman, there’s all h
ell to pay, so why should she be able to get away with this, huh?”

  Frank Minor was intrigued. He had been inclined to believe Randall’s story from the onset, based on Winters’ insistence that Stella had been the one to set the fire, and after seeing her behavior just now, he was even more convinced that there might be something worth investigating. Prosecuting an acting district attorney, however, particularly one as recognized and accomplished as Stella Cataloni, would be a difficult and risky proposition. Minor was far from a risk-taker. People who took risks had to be prepared to suffer the consequences, and he valued his career too much to make a mistake. Apart from Stella’s position and influence, it was not just an old case, but an ancient case. After sixteen years many witnesses had probably disappeared, along with a good deal of the evidence. “Would you be willing to testify in court to what you told us back there?” he asked. “I’m not saying we’re going to pursue this, but knowing where you stand will help us to arrive at the right decision.”

  For a long time Randall was quiet, his eyes roaming around the lobby. “Yeah,” he finally said, “I’ll testify. Stella Cataloni’s been fucking with my life for years. She called my parents and told them I was responsible for setting the fire. Hell, she told all my friends. I’ve got a new job now, and I’m finally getting my shit together. If this is the only way to get the bitch off my back once and for all,” he said, smiling as he stuck out his hand and pumped Minor’s, “then I guess you’ve got yourself a deal.”

  Even though Stella had calmed down, her outburst had left her emotionally drained. Shaky and hollow, she was slouched in a chair in Holly’s office feeling as though someone had reached inside and yanked out her internal organs. “How could he have the gall to say such things?” she said. “He really said he carried my brother to safety, that he’s been on the lam all these years simply to protect me?” Stella shook her head in disgust. “How could I have fallen for such a creep? Thinking I actually slept with him makes me want to throw up.”

  Holly sat quietly, her face expressionless and her head braced in one hand. For almost an hour, she had listened to Stella rant and rave. When Holly had told Stella what Randall had said, it had set off another explosive tantrum, and Stella was only now beginning to settle down.

  “You know what?” Stella said, staring at a spot on the wall over Holly’s head. “I used to wonder about people who killed. How did they get to that point? What pushed them over the edge? You always think it’s something big, something monumental, but maybe it’s not. Maybe it’s something small and hateful, insignificant to the overall situation, but important enough to drive them to commit murder.”

  “What do you mean?” Holly asked, Randall’s statement playing over in her mind.

  “I had a case once,” Stella told her. “It only involved receiving stolen property, but the guy had a lengthy record, all of it relating to theft. I argued he should serve some time in the slammer. His attorney tried to win the court’s sympathy by claiming if he went to jail, his wife and three kids would go hungry.” She sneered. “I countered by saying his wife could get off her ass and get a job. I mean, most women with kids work today. All she had to do was put the kids in a day school. It wasn’t like I was telling her to put them in an orphanage. Why should this guy’s wife be any different than any other woman?”

  Feeling like a shrink with a patient on the couch, Holly said, “What does this have to do with Randall? Aren’t we getting a little off track, Stella?”

  “This guy,” she said, “when he got out of jail after serving only thirty lousy days, he tracked me down and took a shot at me. He missed, of course, but you know what he said?”

  “What?”

  “He wasn’t mad at me because I sent him to jail. He wasn’t even angry that I called him a compulsive thief in front of the judge. He was outraged that I forced his wife to get a job.” Stella laughed. “I guess his wife must not have liked working, but by now she’s probably used to it. Taking a shot at me cost him ten years in Huntsville. Only problem is he won’t serve ten years. I think the bastard’s about to be kicked out any day now.”

  “Aren’t you concerned he may come after you again?” Holly said, doodling on a yellow notepad.

  “Not really,” Stella said. “The way I feel right now, maybe I should just send him my address.”

  “I still don’t see your point,” Holly said, her patience growing thin. Every line on her phone was lit up. She had instructed her secretary to take messages, but she was already ten minutes late for her last court appearance, and from the looks of it, she would have to spend the bulk of the following morning returning phone calls.

  “Well,” Stella said, her body crunched into a tight ball as she leaned forward in her chair, “I don’t know for a fact that Randall set the fire, even though I’ve always suspected he did. But even if he did set the fire, you know what pisses me off, what makes me want to strangle him until his beady eyes pop out of his head?”

  “What?” Holly said. Stella’s tone of voice was finally fierce enough to capture her complete attention.

  “That he claims he was the one who saved my brother,” Stella said. “This guy thinks only of himself twenty-four hours a day. He wouldn’t save his own kid if it meant risking his thick neck.”

  Holly shook her head, causing a few blond curls to tumble onto her forehead. “Then who saved your brother from the fire, Stella?”

  “I did,” Stella said emphatically. “If I hadn’t gone down that hall to get Mario, I would never have been burned, never had to suffer through the agony of all those awful operations.”

  “I saw Mario, you know,” Holly said, having met Stella’s brother on several occasions during the time she worked with Stella at the Dallas D.A.‘s office. “I ran into him at the gym where I work out a few weeks ago. We had lunch and he told me all about his work. He had an exhibition going of some of his photographs at the time at the Graham Gallery on West Alabama. He asked me to drop by, so I did. He’s pretty good, Stella. I was impressed.”

  This was news to Stella. She thought Mario mainly did fashion layouts and commercial spreads. Her brother had never told her he was trying to become a more serious photographer, but then she hadn’t spoken to him in quite some time. “I’m going to try to find him now and take him to lunch,” she said, standing to leave. “I tried to call him earlier, but he didn’t answer. Sometimes he locks himself in the darkroom and doesn’t hear the phone.”

  When Stella stepped into the outer office, Holly’s secretary, a dark-haired woman with intelligent eyes and a warm, open face, came out from behind her desk and extended her hand to Stella. “I’m Janet Hernandez,” she said, smiling shyly. “I followed the Pelham case on TV. You were fabulous.”

  “Thanks,” Stella said, wondering where the woman had been when she’d attacked Tom Randall. Her behavior today had been a long way from fabulous. Probably at lunch, she decided, turning to leave.

  “I hope you don’t consider this an imposition,” Janet continued, holding out a piece of paper and a pen, “but would you mind giving me your autograph before you leave?”

  Holly was watching from the doorway. “Leave her alone,” she said, her tone rude and offensive.

  Stella glanced back over her shoulder. “It’s okay,” she said, quickly signing her name and handing the paper back to Janet.

  “You don’t know how much this means to me,” Janet said, clutching the paper to her chest. “If my husband’s new job works out, I’m going to enroll in law school this fall. Meeting you will serve as my inspiration.”

  Holly gave Janet a black look.

  “I think you have all the inspiration you need, Janet,” Stella said, sizing up the situation and trying her best to diffuse it. “You’re working for one of the finest prosecutors in the state.”

  Janet flushed, but she remained silent, slowly lowering herself back to her seat. She had worked for Holly over a year. The other secretaries in the agency were placing bets as to the exact number of
days left before she turned in her resignation. The district attorney went through secretaries the way some people went through paper towels. When they resigned, they were always in tears.

  Holly stood in the doorway a few more moments, then slammed the door so hard that both women flinched. Beads of perspiration appeared on Janet’s forehead. No matter how difficult Holly was, Janet needed to keep her job until she was accepted into law school or she wouldn’t have the necessary funds for her tuition. “I made a mistake, didn’t I?”

  Stella reached over and touched her hand. “I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you,” she said. “We all make mistakes now and then.”

  Once Stella had left, Frank Minor called and had Janet advise Holly to report to his office. “Tell him I’m on my way to court,” Holly said, rushing past the woman’s desk, her file and briefcase in hand. “I’m already late, and Judge Rolling is a stickler for punctuality.”

  “Minor already had me call and advise the clerk to put your case at the end of the afternoon calendar,” Janet explained. “He wants to see you now, Holly. I don’t think he wants to wait.”

  “Great,” Holly said, hurling her file at Janet’s face. “Now I’ve got you telling me what to do.”

  Janet ducked and the file struck the wall behind her. She bent down to pick up the scattered papers as Holly continued out of the office. The incident with Stella would cost her dearly. Holly had been on a rampage ever since Stella had won the Pelham case, a case everyone knew Holly had lost. Janet should have known not to express her admiration for Stella in front of Holly. She knew she was a jealous, competitive woman. Holly had to feel superior, not just to underlings like Janet, but to everyone she met. This was particularly true with women. Holly could turn on the charm with the men, but she had few, if any, loyalties when it came to women.

  When Holly stepped into Minor’s office a few moments later, she looked around at the nicely upholstered furniture, the floor to ceiling windows behind the desk, the mahogany bookcases lining the walls. By rights, this should have been her office. Her eyes then fell on the framed Harvard degree on the wall and her back instantly stiffened. When she and Minor had competed for the supervisory position over the homicide unit several months back. Holly had been certain she would walk away the victor. She had far more trial experience than Minor, and because she had once been a cop, she possessed more insight into arrest procedures, forensic evidence, and the overall intricacies involved in building a criminal case. She had been devastated when Minor had snatched the position right out of her hands.