Raising Cain

by Gallatin Warfield

  “But you still need me to help. You’re pressuring me, and you don’t even realize it.”

  “I’m trying not to.” If Jennifer decided to stay with the prosecutor’s office, Gardner would survive. Somehow.

  “Let’s examine the consequences,” Jennifer went on. “If I did keep my job, what would happen?”

  “They have to appoint an interim State’s Attorney to complete my term. You could apply.”

  “Me? State’s Attorney? That sounds intriguing. Would the judges give it to me?”

  “It depends on King. If he applies, it’s all over.”

  “Do you think he wants a permanent position?”

  “I’m not sure. Brownie’s case is probably a one-shot deal.”

  “But if King does apply, I’d be working for him.”

  “Right.”

  Jennifer rolled her head back and looked up. A lone cloud drifted in the cobalt sky.

  “King cannot apply until this case is over,” Gardner said. “Under the terms of the special prosecutor’s order, he is a separate entity with no official affiliation to the elected office.”

  “So there’s time.”

  “Right. You don’t have to do anything immediately.”

  “What about discussions?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “As Hepburn and Tracy we can’t even discuss the case.”

  Gardner inhaled. “You’re right. If I’m out and you’re still in, ethically we can’t share information.”

  They looked into each other’s eyes, aware of the barrier imposed between them by order of law. “So what now?” Jennifer asked.

  Gardner touched his lips to her ear. The wind gusted, and the leaves rattled. “That’s up to you.”

  Jennifer reached into her purse and withdrew an envelope.

  “What’s that?”

  Jennifer opened it and unfolded a letter. “My decision.”

  Gardner read it aloud. “’Resignation effective immediately.’Jen, are you sure about this?”

  Jennifer nodded sadly. “Yes. Under the circumstances, I don’t seem to have a choice.”

  * * *

  Gardner’s and Jennifer’s resignations required them to vacate the State’s Attorney’s office immediately. There was no way they could conduct defense work from prosecution headquarters, so a hasty call to a colleague with space available across town solved the relocation problem. Now all they had to do was gather their personal belongings and leave.

  Gardner was piling mementos in a box when his phone buzzed.

  “Reverend Taylor to see you,” his secretary, Miss Cass, announced.

  The door was yanked open and the reverend rushed in, followed by Willie Stanton. “Sneaking out of town?” Taylor demanded.

  Gardner placed a county service plaque in the box and tried to compose himself. He had been concerned this might happen.

  “Reverend…”

  “I thought you were different,” Taylor interrupted, “but you’re not. You’re nothing but a patronizing hypocrite.”

  Gardner glanced at Stanton behind the reverend. “Hi, Willie,” he replied.

  Stanton self-consciously raised his hand.

  “Person of your stature should have shown more class,” Taylor blustered, “had the courtesy to warn a man before sticking a dagger in his back.”

  Gardner looked his accuser in the eye. “I’m sorry I didn’t contact you,” he said. “I did only what I thought was best for Brownie.”

  “His name is Joseph Brown, and you made a big mistake,” Taylor continued. “You dissed this man here and the whole Blocktown community! We had Brother Brown taken care of. We did! Didn’t ask for help from you or nobody else. Didn’t want help from you or nobody else!”

  “What’s the trouble?” Jennifer asked as she walked into the room.

  “I seem to have stepped on some toes,” Gardner said.

  “Mr. Lawson has decided that the intellect in our part of town is inferior to his,” Taylor declared. “He knows what’s right for us better than we do ourselves.”

  “No,” Jennifer protested. “He’s not like that.”

  “He called this man a moron,” Taylor said.

  Gardner looked at Stanton. “Tell him, Willie,” he instructed. “Tell him I didn’t diss you, and tell him why.”

  “Don’t you order him to do nothin’,” Taylor snapped.

  “I’m not ordering,” Gardner replied firmly. “Please tell him why I had to do it, Willie. Tell him how much trial experience you’ve had. Tell him—”

  Stanton was about to answer when the reverend cut in. “You saying he can’t do it? That he don’t have the brains or the talent to do what Lawson can do?”

  “No!” Gardner parried. “Cut the race crap! I’m not questioning Mr. Stanton’s ability, just his experience. It’s got nothing to do with who he is. It’s a practical problem.”

  “But you’re saying he can’t do it!” Taylor argued. “And now you said to the world he’s not up to the job! How’s he gonna hold up his head in the neighborhood? What are folks gonna say? Poor Brother William, he can sit up front on a small case, but when a big one comes, he’s got to move to the back of the bus!”

  Stanton lowered his eyes. People would say that.

  “You see what you did?” Taylor charged. “You stomped on his dignity.”

  Gardner shook his head. “I’m sorry. My only intention was to help Joseph Brown. I never meant to hurt Willie.”

  “William.”

  “William.”

  “Why did you hire him in the first place?” Jennifer asked. “You knew he was inexperienced and that it was a complicated case. You set this situation up yourself.”

  “I don’t have to justify my actions to you,” Taylor answered coolly. “We tried to help, and Brother Brown accepted our offering. It was none of your concern. It was between us.”

  “Brother Brown still needs your help,” Gardner said.

  “That’s out of our hands now,” the reverend replied. “You just slammed the door.”

  “You can still give him support,” Gardner continued.

  “You want money? You want us to pay you?”

  “No! He needs moral support, cooperation—”

  “Cooperation?”

  Gardner tensed. He had not wanted to raise the issue this way. Ruth’s killer might still be in Blocktown, and the only way to save Brownie would be to find him.

  “What do you mean by that?” Taylor asked.

  “As his lawyer, I’ll want to question some folks in Blocktown as I put together my defense.”

  Taylor eyed him suspiciously. “About what?”

  “What they saw or heard the night Ruth died.”

  “We had that under control,” Taylor said.

  “I understand. But if I’m going to help Joseph, I’ll need to tap into your sources. Can you arrange it? If we work together we can still accomplish the same goal.”

  Taylor took Stanton’s arm and directed him toward the door.

  “You do want to help Joseph Brown….” Gardner persisted.

  But Taylor and Stanton left the room without saying another word.

  Gardner looked at Jennifer. “Can you believe that? Do you think it’s racial?”

  “I’m not sure. Taylor talks that way, but…”

  “There’s something else going on.”

  Jennifer nodded. “What do you think it is?”

  “I don’t know,” Gardner replied, “but we sure as hell better find out.”

  “I don’t like you, Frank,” Kent King said.

  “That’s gratitude.” Frank Davis pulled the bill of his cap down over his eyes. The sun backlit the attorney like a flare. They were in the parking lot behind King’s office.

  “I said I didn’t like you, not that I didn’t appreciate you.” Davis had volunteered his services after the special prosecutor appointment and filled in several crucial gaps in the case against Brownie.

  “Why are you down on me? Wit
hout my help you never could have indicted Brown.”

  “That’s true, but I never requested your assistance.”

  “So what’s the problem?”

  “I don’t like traitors.”

  “Traitors?”

  “A person who turns on his friends.”

  Davis laughed. “Brown is not my friend.”

  “You know what I mean. He’s a fellow cop.”

  “What’s going on, Mr. King?”

  “Gardner Lawson has just taken over as Brown’s attorney, in case you hadn’t heard.”

  Davis nodded. Everyone in town was talking about it. “So?”

  “So he isn’t going to be a walk-over like Willie Stanton.”

  “Yeah?”

  “So your activities prior to Ruth’s killing have a much better chance of coming to light.”

  “I thought we resolved that.”

  “We did, up to a point. But with Lawson in there I’ve got to take some precautions. I can’t afford for my familiarity with that situation to compromise the prosecution.”

  Davis squinted into the sun. “What do you want me to do?”

  “You have to take a polygraph examination. I need you absolved of any connection with Ruth’s death. And then, I want you to withdraw your application for promotion. You cannot step into Brown’s shoes until he’s permanently out of the way. You understand that?”

  Davis nodded slowly.

  “You are more of a liability than an asset, Frank. Keep that in mind.”

  “Fuck you, too,” Davis said under his breath.

  “What’d you say?”

  Davis moved to the side so the sun didn’t blind him anymore. “I said fuckin’ Brown is through.”

  “Oh.” King smiled. “At least we agree on one thing. Do as I tell you, keep a low profile, and we’ll get the job done. But don’t fuck with me, Frank.”

  “I wouldn’t.”

  “Funny,” King said. “I just heard you say you would.”

  The warden had done it again. He’d managed to get the computer in his office hooked up to the FBI fingerprint data bank. And tonight he’d turned it over to his number one prisoner.

  Brownie adjusted the optical imager and placed the latent fingerprint card facedown over it. This was the print he’d lifted from Ruth’s shoe and hidden in the lining of his wallet, the print no one could know about, not even Gardner.

  The hardware was warmed up, and the software was on-line. Brownie fed the electronic image into the fax machine linked to the network. He received a go-ahead signal and followed the on-screen directions that began the computer quest for a match.

  Brownie’s neck ached, and his heart pounded in his chest. This was going to be it. He’d wanted to run Ruth’s print first, but the loss of Ruth’s hands made that impossible. So now he had to switch to plan B: he had to run the print that he’d lifted from the shoe.

  The monitor blurred with numbers and letters as the computer searched the fingerprint repository. The database contained eight million full sets, so it would be a while before the task was complete.

  The numbers and letters finally stopped, and a notation appeared: “Element one complete—No match.”

  “Okay,” Brownie whispered. So far, so good. In the first two million, nothing had come up.

  “Proceed to element two?” the screen prompted.

  Brownie hit “ENTER.”

  “Element two searching,” the screen replied.

  Soon the numbers and letters stopped again. “No match.”

  Brownie went on to the next element, and the next, finally completing six million comparisons without a positive response. There were only two million to go.

  “Ready for final element search.”

  Brownie entered, and sat back.

  “Element four complete,” the screen announced.

  Brownie swallowed and looked at the words following the notation:

  “One match located. Access information?” the machine queried.

  Brownie hesitated and held his breath. If he hit a key, a name would appear on the screen, the name of the person who removed Ruth’s shoes at the power station.

  Brownie touched enter, and a name came up. “Oh, God,” he sighed, fumbling with the keyboard. He quickly hit the “DELETE DATA,” “EXIT PROGRAM,” and “CLEAR SCREEN” commands.

  Brownie punched the power button and shut off the machine. Then he balled up the fingerprint and set it on fire in an ashtray. It flared momentarily, then crumbled to black ash. Brownie stirred it in with the cigarette butts. And when the smoke dissipated, he closed his eyes and laid his head against the warden’s desk.

  sixteen

  Gardner’s first order of business was to get Brownie out of jail. He rushed himself through a crash course on bond law, filed an emergency petition with Judge Ransome, and called his accountant. And now, one day after his resignation, he was in court.

  “Identify yourselves for the record,” Judge Ransome said.

  “Kent King and Lin Song for the state,” King announced.

  “Gardner Lawson for the defense.”

  “I’ll hear from you, Counsel,” Ransome said to Gardner.

  Gardner glanced at Brownie beside him. He was still in prison orange, sullen and withdrawn. He’d barely reacted that morning when Gardner told him they were trying again for bond. Something was eating him, and although Gardner tried, he couldn’t draw it out. “Let the record show the defendant is present in court,” he began.

  The courtroom was crowded with spectators, but Reverend Taylor and his entourage were absent. At Gardner’s request, Jennifer was off doing legal research. He and Brownie were on their own.

  “Proceed, Counsel,” Ransome prompted.

  “I’ve filed a motion to reopen the issue of bond,” Gardner said. “Here is a memorandum of law and fact to support my position.” He handed the court clerk a ten-page document he’d spent all night writing.

  “The citations and factual assertions stand for the proposition that bond in this case is warranted,” he continued. “The defendant has lived in the county all his life. He has no prior criminal record of any kind. He has been an officer of the court his entire career and knows full well the responsibility to appear for trial. He—”

  “Objection.” King stood up. “We went through this last time.”

  The judge looked at King. “I’m willing to give Mr. Lawson a chance to speak, Counsel.”

  King frowned and sat down.

  “You can set a bond, Judge, based upon the facts as presented here. You’re under no mandate to deny it, such as you would be if he were on parole or probation at the time of the commission of the offense. The issue does not revolve around the power to set bonds; rather, it revolves around—”

  “How much bond to set,” Judge Ransome interjected.

  “Exactly,” Gardner replied.

  “How much bond would you suggest, Mr. Lawson?”

  “Seven hundred fifty thousand, full amount.” There was a gasp in the courtroom. “Full amount” meant that a bondsman could not put up the cash. Brownie had to lay the entire sum on the table.

  “That’s a hefty number,” Ransome stated. “It might be appropriate.”

  King started to rise but held back.

  “If you set bond in that amount,” Gardner went on, “I am prepared to post it today.”

  Gardner pulled some papers out of his briefcase. “I have taken the liberty of having this agreement drawn up, Your Honor. It has been certified by two accountants and endorsed by the clerk of the court.” He held the papers up.

  “What is it?” Judge Ransome asked.

  “A pledge of my assets,” Gardner replied. “Real estate, bank deposits, stocks, bonds, life insurance.”

  Brownie suddenly looked up. “Awww…” he grumbled under his breath.

  “So you’re posting your own money to get him out?” Ransome asked.

  “Yes, sir, I am.”

  “What do you think about that, Mr. Ki
ng?” the judge asked.

  King rose swiftly. “Objection. The issue isn’t the amount of the bond, it’s public safety and the likelihood of flight. Besides, the defendant has no stake in the bond. That makes him even more likely to flee.”

  Ransome thought for a moment, then spoke. “I believe the amount is sufficient to guarantee Sergeant Brown’s presence at trial. If he fails to appear, Mr. Lawson will be financially wiped out, and I don’t think the defendant wants that to happen. Bond is hereby set: seven hundred fifty thousand dollars, full amount!”

  King threw his pen down on the table with disgust. Lawson had just pulled the same stunt as Willie Stanton: personally vouching for Brown. But this time it had worked.

  “I understand the payment is due,” Nicholas Fairborne said. He was on the telephone to the Valley National Bank; they were inquiring about the unpaid mortgage.

  “We will make every effort to have the payment to you soon!” He slammed down the phone. Damn Thomas Ruth! Accounts were due, and the money was gone, vanished without a trace like the man’s mysterious soul.

  Fairborne walked to the window and looked out. The camp was almost deserted now. Their spirit was broken, the food supply dwindling. CAIN was dying.

  He went back to his desk and looked at the inventory. If he sold the cars and the computers he could hold on for another month or two, long enough to attract new blood. That was the only way he could keep the operation going. He’d called a meeting after Ruth’s death and tried to rally the crowd, but the spark wasn’t there anymore. Ruth was the glue that held it all together. And now the people were leaving, and the snakes were rotting in their barrel.

  Fairborne rummaged through the desk again, scouring places he’d looked before, searching for traces of Ruth’s secret stash. The money could not have just vanished. If he had time, he could find it. But time was running out.

  He rifled a pile of papers in the bottom drawer. All cash receipts. Even the mortgage payments were in cash. He threw the documents into a trash bag and cleaned the drawer down to the wood. They were useless to him now. The money was gone.

  Fairborne was about to close the drawer when he noticed a small piece of yellow paper stuck against the rear of the drawer. He pulled it off and studied it. “PRESCRIPTION, T. RUTH,” the typed letters said. Underneath was an illegible scribble. He crumpled it and threw it into the bag with the rest of the garbage. Ruth’s pills couldn’t help the bastard now. Whatever the hell they were.