I got up to make myself a cup of tea, and, for some odd reason, my mind drifted to Elmer. I had no idea why I thought about him at that point. He just popped into my head for some odd reason.
I decided to get on my coat and my hat and head downstairs. Sophia had been staying the night lately, because I needed the reassurance that Rina wouldn’t just up and leave. She still hadn’t forgiven me for the John Robinson thing. I knew that for sure. She was slightly more friendly with me, but I knew that she was up to something. She was up to no good. So, I was having Sophia sleep over just in case something happened and I had to go out in the middle of the night to look for her.
Because Sophia was spending the night, I felt comfortable leaving the house. I was going down to the jail and I was going to see Elmer. I knew that he was sleeping, but I was going to wake him up. The jail was going to let me see him because I was a professional, therefore I was able to go to the jail 24 hours. They weren’t going to be happy that I was there, but I didn’t really care.
I didn’t even know why I was going to see him. I only knew that he had some kind of clue for me about this whole Michael Reynolds case.
What was I going to ask him? And who was I going to see when I got there? Was it going to be crazy Elmer or the charming one? The charming one wasn’t charming for long, so I thought that I probably was going to be up against the raging bull. That was okay, though. I felt invincible for some odd reason.
Like nobody could touch me. I felt like I could take him if he tried to kill me again. I could beat him up with my bare hands. Tear him limb from limb.
Why was I feeling this way again? My brain was going haywire again.
I thought about Axel’s mother. She locked herself in her room and painted picture after picture after picture. 20 pictures in a week, he said. I never thought about it, but my mother’s brother, my Uncle Patrick, was the same way. He was a heavy drinker, and he had attempted suicide several times, but I also knew that there were times when he went completely off the rails. He would call my mother at all hours of the night, telling her about some novel he was writing or some painting he was working on. It got the point where she had to turn off her phone when he was like that.
He also went out and gambled for long periods of time. He would come over for dinner and talk the entire time about nonsense. His speech during these times were almost stream of consciousness – he would go from one topic to another to another. He would also be ready to fight anybody for any reason. He would start yelling and screaming at my mother and my sisters and brothers, seemingly for no reason at all.
He went into psychiatric facilities several different times. I was a kid at that time, so my mom didn’t talk to me about what was really wrong with him.
Nowadays, it seemed that he had it all together. He managed to finally figure things out, I guess, because he had a decent job and, to my knowledge, he hadn’t had any more incidents where he started to act crazy.
I was going to have to ask my mother about Uncle Patrick the next time I saw her. I was scheduled to have dinner at her house this coming Sunday. I was going to have to ask her to confide in me, because I felt like I was acting just like Uncle Patrick.
I saw the Jackson County jail come into focus. I went through the doors and went right up to the windows. “I need to see an inmate,” I said. “His name is Elmer Harris.”
She looked at me strangely. “Miss, you do know that it’s 4 AM.?”
“I know. I need to see him. I need to talk to him.”
She shook her head and called on the phone. “Go on up,” she said. “Do you know where he is?”
“I do.”
As I headed to the pod where Elmer was located, I didn’t quite know what I was doing or why I wanted to see him. I felt like I was being led to him by some force unknown. I assumed that this force was my gut instinct, but I also knew that I had the kind of mental clarity that I never had before. Because of this extreme sense of mental clarity, I somehow knew that Elmer held some kind of clue for Michael’s case.
I got to the meeting area and sat down. Within minutes, Elmer approached me. His wrists were shackled and so were his ankles. He looked like somebody had just woken him up, which was the case, of course.
“What do you want, darlin’?” he asked me.
I cleared my throat, not knowing what to say at first.
He just stared at me and I noticed something. Something that I never really noticed before. His left eye drooped. “I wanted to know a few things,” I said. “About you.”
“Why you here in the middle of the night?”
I shook my head. “I just had a hunch about something. I admit, I didn’t really get to know you very well.”
“No, you didn’t.” He continued to stare at me, and his left eye, which drooped only subtly, just haunted me. I didn’t even know why. I only knew that the whole thing was a clue to proving Michael was guilty.
Come on, Harper, you’re not making a lick of sense. So his left eye is drooping. What does that have to do with Michael’s case? It has nothing to do with it, that’s what.
Yet my gut was nagging at me. “Elmer,” I began. “When did you first start to exhibit violent behavior?”
He shrugged. “I don’t think that I exhibit violent behavior, Ms. Ross.”
“Are you medicated now?”
“Yes, I am. I have been ever since that day in the courtroom. They give me the good drugs now so I don’t feel like I want to kill everyone I see anymore.”
I shifted in my seat. “You don’t see your behavior as violent?”
“No. I see it as a reaction. A reaction to bullshit. That’s all it is. Nothing more and nothing less.”
“But, Elmer, you killed your crime partner and you almost killed me. You don’t see that there’s anything wrong with any of that?”
He shrugged. “I guess there is. But why are you asking me these questions?”
“I don’t know.” I shook my head. “Were you ever diagnosed with any kind of brain condition? Any kind of brain damage?”
He nodded his head. “Yeah. I was. I apparently was born this way. Born bad.”
“Born bad? What do you mean?”
“My mother was exposed to something before I got born.” His jaw started to go back and forth, back and forth, as if he was trying to chew something. “She got money for it.”
“What were you exposed to? Do you know?”
He shook his head. “No. I don’t know. You’re gonna have to get my records.”
“Can you sign a waiver for me to get those records?”
“No, ma’am.” He stared at me and I got a chill, but I tamped it down.
“Why not? You just said that I would need to get your records. I can’t get your records unless you sign a waiver for me to obtain them.”
“You’ll just have to figure it out yourself.”
I sighed. Anna was going to have to get on this one. It wouldn’t be difficult. I still had copies of his criminal records, so I knew his date of birth and things like that about him.
Still, I always felt intrusive doing this. It was necessary, usually, but I always felt kinda dirty when I went behind these people and did things without their knowledge or consent.
“Is that all you want to know from me?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said. “I needed to see you and talk to you. I admit, I don’t really know why, but I think that it’s going to become extremely clear to me at some point.”
He shrugged his shoulders. “I guess. By the way, my new attorney got a real good plea deal for me to take. Life in prison. It sure beats being on death row. They don’t feed you real good on death row and you don’t get to get out in the yard and the library and things. If I’m going to prison, I don’t want to be on death row.”
I smiled, wondering how his new attorney got him to go ahead and take something. I guessed that him being calmed down with “good drugs” had something to do with it.
I left the jail wondering what i
t was about Elmer’s case that was going to tie in Michael. I knew that it would. I had an unbelievable amount of insight, an unbelievable amount of clarity. I had so much energy and I felt invincible. I was going to figure out why Elmer was significant and I was going to do that soon.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The first thing I did that day, after I got the girls up and fed and dropped them off at school, was get on the computer. I also called Anna and had her look for Elmer’s medical records.
I remembered that there was a drug, used back in the 1960s, which caused severe birth defects. It was used to treat morning sickness, and then kids were coming out without limbs. I did a Google search and quickly found the name of the drug – Thalidomide. I went through the images that was on the page and saw kids who literally had no arms – their hands were attached to their shoulders, or they had extremely short arms that were useless. I shook my head, reading on. It turned out that the drug was not readily available in America, as only 17 babies were born in the 1960s with Thalidomide birth defects.
So what? Elmer had his limbs. And he was American. There was very little chance that he was affected by this drug. Brain damage was another side effect of this drug, but the main birth defect that was seen was the missing limbs.
I still thought that I was on the right track, however. There was something that he was exposed to, something that caused his brain damage. He said that he had been “born bad.” I wondered if that meant that he had been born with brain damage, damage that affected his impulse control and moods and caused rage. I had enough clients in my life to know that there were certain aspects of the brain that modulated different things. Damage to the prefrontal cortex, for instance, generally meant a loss of impulse control and an increase in aggression. I didn’t necessarily know if that was the cause of his left eye drooping, but I had a feeling that it was a piece of the puzzle.
I was itching to get a hold of his medical records. Itching to find out what it was that he was exposed to in utero that might have caused his problems. There was a voice inside me that told me that I was missing something important, and, once I figured out what had happened to Elmer, I would be led on the right path.
Anna called me. “Harper, can I come in? I found out some interesting things when you asked me to research Elmer’s history. I think that you probably need to see this stuff in person.”
“Sure,” I said. “Come on in.”
Pearl came into my office. “I got that lady scheduled. Kayla Stone. I had to subpoena her, though, because she didn’t want to come in on her own.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Sit down, Pearl. I need to brainstorm with you.”
She sat down, a pad of paper and pen in her hand. “What you need?”
“I think that’s weird that Kayla Stone doesn’t want to come in. Don’t you think?”
“Why is that weird? Who is she? What role does she have to play in this case?”
“She’s the lover of my client. The other woman, as it were. But one of many. She’s important, however, because she was with my client at the moment that his father-in-law was shot. She would be his alibi.”
Pearl nodded. “His alibi. Well, then, she should be eager to come in and talk to you. She would be the person who could maybe get him off the hook for the murder, right?”
“Yeah. But Michael, my client, was adamant that I not involve her. He doesn’t want me even speaking with her. Why? Why would you think that he would be like that about her? It seems like she would be key to his case.”
Pearl thought about it for a few seconds. “Maybe she has damning information about him. Maybe he really did it, and she knows it.”
“That’s what I’m wondering. That’s what I’m hoping.”
Pearl narrowed her eyes. “Wait, what? You’re hoping that she has damning information about your client? Come again?”
“Yes.” That was all that I said. Not that I didn’t trust Pearl. I did, implicitly. But I could never be too careful. I regretted even opening my mouth at all.
She pursed her lips and looked at me skeptically. “All right. You don’t have to tell me why you want your own client to go down. I guess you have your reasons.”
“I never said that,” I said calmly. “ I never said that want him to go down.”
“I guess.” She still looked suspicious. “You’re going to be able to find out what’s going on with Kayla Stone soon, though. She’s coming in tomorrow.”
Just then, the phone rang. I knew who it was, even before I picked up the phone.
“Harper Ross,” I said.
“Harper, you bitch,” Michael said, his voice full of rage. “I told you that you were not to bring Kayla into this mess. You disobeyed me.”
“Okay, then. Fire me. Go ahead.”
He was quiet, and I knew that I had him. He couldn’t fire me. Not when Christina was paying my fee. “Why don’t I just file a Bar Complaint against you instead?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “You’re going to file a Bar Complaint against me for scheduling your girlfriend in for a deposition? Knock yourself out.” I rolled my eyes. I hated clients who filed Bar Complaints against me just because they didn’t like the way I did my job.
Then he started to yell. Loudly. I held the phone away from my ear and then set it down on my desk. While he screamed into the phone, I calmly looked on my computer, looking for information that I was going to need to know to answer the questions that I had. I was excited about Anna coming over and letting me know what she had found out. There was something there. I knew it. I could feel it.
Pearl was still sitting there across the desk from me, and she looked at the phone and shook her head. He was yelling and screaming, although I had no idea exactly what he was yelling and screaming about. It was unintelligible. I had no interest, either, in what exactly he was screaming about. Let him scream. There was nothing that he had to say that I was interested in, and he was stuck with me. I knew that. Christina told me as much.
It was me or nobody.
“Do you hear me? Are you listening, you little cunt?”
I picked up the phone. “I have to go. Goodbye.” At that, I hung up.
“Girl,” Pearl said. “What’s up with that dude?”
“He hates me, obviously.”
“That’s Michael? No wonder you want to send him up the river.”
“Now, Pearl, no I don’t. He’s just another client. I don’t want you to ever think that I won’t meet my ethical obligations to him or to any other client, just because I personally don’t like them. I’ve had many clients over the years that I’ve not been entirely fond of. He’s no different.”
“Um hm,” she said. “I guess.” She rolled her eyes. “You need anything else from me?”
“No. Thanks for brain-storming with me, though.”
Anna soon appeared in my office. “Hey,” she said.
“What do you have for me?”
“Here,” she said. “Here are the records I have for him. I have birth records, medical records and school records. It seems like he’s had problems his whole life. He’s gone from one school to the next, and ended up getting kicked out for the last time when he was only in the 10th grade. That last school was a special school – an alternative school for behaviorally challenged kids.”
I nodded my head. That sounded about right. “What else did you find?”
“Well,” she said. “It seems like the reason why his mother could afford to send him to that last school, which was a full-time residential treatment school, was that she won $5 million as part of a class-action suit against a chemical company that buried toxic waste that seeped into the ground water. It caused problems in her community. The kids were born with severe birth defects, including brain damage, and the adults got really sick. The adults just had a range of problems, including memory loss, confusion, nausea and loss of appetite. The real problem was the effect on the unborn babies, including Elmer, apparently.”
“$5 million. What did you
find out with regard to his medical issues?”
“The doctors established that his pre-frontal cortex was severely damaged at birth, and they traced it to this toxic seepage of this chemical called Toluene. This is a nasty chemical, associated with paint thinners and cement and glue. It causes neurological harm, but it generally just makes people feel really sick. It has been established to cause brain damage in fetuses, however, and Elmer’s mother, Jolene, was able to get enough experts to show that Elmer’s issues was caused by this chemical. She was awarded the $5 million for Elmer’s brain damage.”
Toluene. I bit my lower lip. I made a mental note to do more research on this chemical, but, perhaps more importantly, I was going to have to find out if there were any companies in the area who had recently been accused of dumping this chemical. I suddenly realized that the reason why Elmer was so important to me, the reason why I needed to speak with him so badly, was because his problems were going to lead me to the right company. There was something that was lodged in my sub-conscious, something that I wasn’t able to acknowledge until recently. With my sudden ultra-clarity and burst of insight, I knew that there was something that I was missing and Elmer provided just what that was.
Why was this important? This chemical?
“Thanks, Anna,” I said. “You did great, as usual.”
She nodded. “You need anything else?”
“No. You brought me what I need, so I appreciate that.”
After Anna left, I brought my pen out and tapped it on the desk. I was going to have to do more research on the issue of Toluene. I booted up my computer and immediately started to Google the issue. I read about it, and Anna was right – the chemical was a nasty one. It caused a lot of sickness and it caused brain damage in fetuses. The main way that it caused birth defects was when the mother huffed it, as they huff glue. But, in the case of Jolene and Elmer Harris, the exposure was caused when the chemical seeped into the ground water and made everybody sick.
Then I went and Googled whether or not there was a company that was being accused in the Kansas City area of dumping this chemical.
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