Raising Cain

by Gallatin Warfield

  The paperwork had finally been completed for Brownie’s release; it was a package of financial pledges that laid all of Gardner’s worldly possessions on the line. They’d talked briefly in the warden’s office as the procedure was finalized. Brownie had squawked about Gardner’s decision to pledge his assets; he didn’t ask for it, didn’t want it. Again, Gardner had stood firm. This was the way it was going to be, he’d said. At the end of the conversation they’d forged a reluctant truce. Brownie had agreed to cooperate. But Gardner still sensed a problem.

  Brownie and Gardner now approached the power station in silence. It was late in the day, and the forest obscured a dim sunset in the western sky. They hiked in the shadows as twisted limbs menaced them from all sides and crows croaked in the distance. Ahead, in the twilight, lay the squared-off enclosure of the electric killer.

  Gardner switched on his flashlight and gave Brownie a hand over the last rocky step. At last they arrived on the plateau overlooking the crime scene.

  Gardner directed the light through the fence and lit up the grid. It was still discolored and charred despite the repairs. “You’ve seen this before,” he said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Tell me again why.”

  Brownie leaned against a tree. “Wanted to see for myself. To see where it happened.”

  Gardner put his hand on the tree. “What do you think happened? Surely you have a theory.”

  “I didn’t get that far. I was still gathering evidence.”

  “What about the shoes?” Gardner asked. How Brownie got them was key to conviction or acquittal.

  “I was doing a sweep like I always do. Came across them.… That’s it.”

  “You didn’t just come across the shoes. This place was canvassed by the entire police team. They didn’t find them.”

  “They’re not me.”

  “Okay, you get a medal. Now, where did you find them?”

  Brownie scanned the darkness, then approached the grid. “Over in that area,” he said, pointing to some brush nearby. “They were under a sticker bush.”

  Gardner shined his light toward the spot. “I don’t believe it. That’s right next to the fence. The cops should have found them.” Gardner examined the bush. Its branches were spread down to the ground, and it was covered with vines. The shoes could have escaped the eyes of the police, but it wasn’t likely. “Why, Brownie?” he finally asked.

  “Why what?”

  “Why were the shoes off in the first place?”

  Brownie sighed. “Rained the day before the incident. Guess he had to make sure he was grounded when the juice went through. Soles were rubber.”

  “That’s what I thought,” Gardner agreed. “When he was found, his bare feet were in a puddle, and there was no protection.”

  “Like a lightning bolt. Through his arms and out his toes.…”

  Gardner saw Brownie visualizing the scene as he spoke. “Right through the heart,” he added.

  Brownie didn’t respond. He was gazing at the grid.

  Gardner considered making a follow-up comment but held back. An electrocution was an induced heart attack. The shock caused cardiac arrest. In an eye-for-eye situation, it would have been the ideal retribution for Joseph Brown’s untimely death. “You know what I’m thinking,” Gardner said.

  “Yeah. It’s a perfect weapon for revenge.”

  “Right. Whoever did kill him must have known that.”

  Brownie didn’t reply.

  “I don’t think it was a coincidence that electrocution was used. I think it was planned.” Gardner decided to go on to something else. “I’m still having trouble with the shoes, Brownie. I’m trying to understand why they were hidden. Why not leave them in the open or cart them off? Why hide them in such an obvious spot? They were sure to be found.”

  Brownie shrugged.

  “You’ve considered that,” Gardner said. “I know how you analyze things.”

  “Could be a lot of reasons.”

  “Such as?”

  “Maybe he wasn’t thinking straight.”

  “Who?”

  “Whoever did it.”

  Gardner tried to look into his face, but Brownie turned away.

  “Who did it, Brownie?”

  “Told you I didn’t get that far.”

  “You must have an inkling—”

  “No.”

  Brownie walked away from the tree, toward the trail.

  “Where are you going?” Gardner asked.

  “This is a waste of time. You’re going in circles, and you’re taking me with you.”

  Gardner grabbed his arm. “Then help me get out of it, Brownie! Whose print did you find on the shoes?”

  “Huh?”

  “I know you processed the shoes for fingerprints.”

  “Says who?”

  The two men faced each other. “I know. Don’t bullshit me! Whose print did you find on the shoes?”

  “Nobody’s….Yes, I did process them. But they were clean.”

  “I don’t believe it!”

  “That’s right,” Brownie replied, “clean. Nothin’ on them. Not a damn thing.” Then he turned back to the trail and wandered off into the trees.

  Kent King and Judge Rollie Ransome were conferring in chambers. The courthouse was closed, and they were alone. Two glasses of whiskey sat on the desk.

  “So how’s the old Baltimore beat?” King began.

  Rollie leaned back in his chair and put up one stubby foot. “Still a jungle.”

  “You miss me?”

  “Like a toothache.”

  King laughed, then changed his tone. “I need to discuss some things with you,” he said.

  “Fire away.”

  “First of all, thanks for fucking me at the bond hearing. How could you let Brown out?”

  Rollie wheezed. “It’s Lawson’s money. If Brown runs, your pal loses everything. Thought you’d like that.”

  “He’s not going to run,” King replied. “He’s got the damn loyalty disease.”

  “No big deal,” the judge said. “Let him have a few free days before you bury him.”

  “That’s so thoughtful of you.”

  “I’ve mellowed.”

  “I can tell.”

  Rollie took a sip of liquor. “What else is on your mind tonight?”

  “We need to talk about trial scheduling. How much time have they given you?”

  Rollie’s stomach quivered. “No time limit; I’m in for the duration.”

  “So you’re not going to rush the case through?”

  “Hadn’t planned on it.”

  King pulled a day-planner out of his pocket. “How are you fixed for January eighth through the thirtieth?”

  Rollie smiled. “Fine with me.”

  “Can you set it then?”

  “If it’s okay with Lawson.”

  “And if it’s not?”

  “We’ll have to find another date.”

  King dropped his calendar book on the desk. “You’re really playing this straight, aren’t you? Right down the line.”

  Rollie rolled his giant body forward and plunked his feet on the ground. “What do you mean by that?”

  “I mean you’ve gotten damn independent in your old age. You sound like a real judge.”

  “Told you I’d mellowed,” Rollie said.

  “I seem to remember a day when Kent King suggested a trial date and Rollie Ransome approved it without hesitation, a day when Ransome asked King for a favor or two—”

  “Stop right there,” Rollie interjected. “They weren’t favors.”

  “Really? What would you call them?”

  The judge hesitated. “Accommodations to the court.”

  “Accommodations?” King laughed. “Setting you up with my secretary was a hell of an accommodation.”

  “That was personal.”

  “While I was tryin’ a murder case before you? Get real, Rollie.”

  Ransome began to respond but restrained himself. K
ing was hitting some sensitive spots in his judicial past. “So what do you want, Kent? You want to make a stink over a friggin’ trial date?”

  “I wouldn’t mind getting January,” King answered.

  “And that’s it?”

  King fell silent. The real reason he came by was to check out the second item on his list, the exculpatory materials in his file he didn’t want Lawson to see. Would Rollie side with his position or not? Judging by the responses so far, it didn’t look good.

  “What else did you want to discuss?”

  King stood up. “Nothing.”

  “Don’t get bent out of shape, Kent. We’re in a fishbowl here. Everyone is watching. I’ve gotta play it straight.”

  “I understand,” King replied. In point of fact, he did understand. Rollie would give the case law a fair reading and ignore the old-boy protocol. That meant that Gardner might get a look at his file. And that could never be.

  Jennifer sat in the end booth at Russel’s Deli sipping a milkshake. It was early evening, and she felt like she had just wandered into a cyclone. Gardner had assigned her the task of outlining defense options, so she’d been buried in the law library stacks all day. It was foreign territory, and they were lost. She and Gardner were prosecution experts who knew the ins and outs of building a case against someone. But they didn’t know beans about how to tear one apart.

  Jennifer sipped a mouthful of chocolate. It numbed her lips and sent a chill into her brain. The legal research had helped her escape the funk she’d been in since Gardner had announced his resignation. Logically, she’d accepted the change. His friend was in trouble and needed help; Jennifer could go along with that. But emotionally, she was irritated. Gardner had risked everything for Brownie on a moment’s notice. And that left her future on hold.

  Jennifer swallowed more shake, opened her notebook, and reviewed her outline. The defense options were listed in order. The client either didit or he didn’t. If he didit, there were a slew of mitigating defenses at his disposal: accident, mistake, self-preservation, duress, insanity, diminished mental capacity. But these were all premised on the fact that the client was guilty of the act. It was much more difficult to allege the client didn’t do it. The defense menu was more limited: alibi, physical incapacity, or scientific impossibility. And the only sure way to prove the client didn’t do it was to prove that someone else did.

  Jennifer closed her eyes and remembered how Gardner helped her set strategy in her first murder case. She was going to fly solo, and Gardner was getting her up for the trial.

  “I won’t be there,” he had said, “so you have to rely on yourself. And the best way to do that is to plan now for any eventuality. Psych out the opposition. Think like they would. Play devil’s advocate, and come up with objections to your own evidence. Then prepare counter-arguments. In other words, pretry the case. That way you’ll always have an answer. And if they throw in something you didn’t anticipate, just wing it.”

  Jennifer opened her eyes. This situation was unprecedented. They could anticipate King’s moves because they’d been there. But they lacked any moves of their own. Unless they solved the case and caught the killer, they’d have to wing it. Brownie would have to choose a defense. And his choices were inadequate, to say the least.

  Katanga picked up the phone in his apartment and dialed his mother’s number. He’d been working the streets all day, and he’d just opened his mail. One of his letters contained a surprise.

  “Mama?”

  “Paulie?”

  “Yeah. Sorry to call so late. You okay?”

  “I was just gettin’ ready for bed.”

  “Why’d you do it, Mama?” he asked. “What’s going on?”

  “What?”

  Katanga removed a check from the letter his mother had just sent. It was written to Paul Brown in the amount of ten thousand dollars. “The money came today. What’s this about?”

  “Thought you might need some cash,” Althea replied. “I know how hard it must be down there.”

  “I’m gettin’ by. You shouldn’t have done it.” Katanga paused. “Where’d you get it, anyway?”

  “The railroad cashed Daddy’s pension and mailed me a great big check. I thought you could use some of it.”

  “I’m sending it back.”

  “No.”

  “Yes, Mama. I don’t want it. The money belongs to you.”

  “I’ve got all I need. Please keep it, son.”

  “Can’t do that.” He slid the check into the envelope.

  “Please, Paulie.”

  “Can’t, Mama, and that’s it. “ Katanga hesitated. “Uh, how’s…”

  “Joseph?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “He’s out of jail. Mr. Lawson put up every cent he had to bail him out.”

  “Heard he got hurt,” Katanga said.

  “He was in a fight, but he’s going to be all right. I wish you’d talk to him. He needs you.”

  “Sounds like he’s got some high-priced help now,” Katanga replied, “some fancy white bread on his table.”

  “Don’t speak that way, son. Gardner Lawson is a fine man.”

  “Yeah. Heard he kicked one of our people in the teeth. Blocktown’s only lawyer.”

  “It was for the best. Mr. Lawson knows how to deal with the prosecutor better than Willie Stanton.”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  “But Joseph still needs you. Anything you can do. Call him, talk to him….”

  Katanga moved the phone away from his ear. Big brother cop was against the wall. He’d spent his life shoving other people there. But this time he was facing the firing squad. And that was something he had to do alone.

  Gardner, Jennifer, and Granville sat around the kitchen table at the town house. Files and books were stacked everywhere, and they were all hard at work. Gardner and Jennifer were planning trial strategy, and Granville was studying for a vocabulary test.

  “What’s merge?” the boy asked.

  Gardner glanced up. Granville was eyeing the back of a flash card.

  “What do you think it is?”

  Granville crinkled his nose. “Dunno.”

  “Think,” Gardner said. “When a car goes onto the interstate it…”

  “Crashes?”

  Gardner tapped him playfully. “Gran! A car merges with the traffic. That’s what the highway sign says. What does it mean?”

  “Goes in?”

  “Close. Try again.”

  “Goes together?”

  “Closer.”

  Granville did not reply.

  “How about joins or blends together?”

  Granville flipped the card. “You’re right!”

  “Now do the next one on your own.” Gardner turned back to a file labeled “DEFENSES.”

  “That’s the whole lot,” Jennifer said. She’d just briefed him on their range of choices. “We either go the did do it with an explanation route, or the did not do it route. That’s it, end of list.”

  Gardner turned to page two. “Brownie says he didn’t do it.”

  “So why is he acting this way?”

  “Maybe he’s protecting someone.”

  “Who?”

  “The killer.”

  Jennifer glanced at Granville’s head behind a card. “So he knows who did it.”

  “It’s a possibility.”

  “Revise,” Granville said suddenly.

  “Use your cards,” Gardner told him.

  “Re-vise,” Granville repeated.

  “Cards.”

  “He’s not going to tell us what he knows?” Jennifer asked.

  “Apparently not.”

  “Revise means change,” Jennifer whispered to Granville. He smiled and wrote it down. “So we’re in trouble right from the start.”

  “We can’t defend him in the blind,” Gardner said. “We need his support, his full cooperation.”

  “So what’s the next step?”

  Gardner stroked his son’s back. “T
ry again tomorrow. We sit him down and go through it again. Maybe he’ll soften.”

  “And the defense? What are we going to do about that?”

  Gardner exhaled loudly. “That depends on Brownie.”

  seventeen

  Kent King and Lin Song stood by the power station fence. It was a damp and dreary autumn day punctuated by showers and patches of fog. He wore a trenchcoat, and she was covered by a poncho. They shared an umbrella and huddled together against the chill as raindrops pattered on the silent trees. They, too, were preparing for trial, putting a face on the words in their investigative reports. King had done it many times as a defense lawyer, but never as a prosecutor.

  “So that’s where he died.” Lin pointed, looking through the wire at the gray high-voltage cabinet.

  “Old Sparky,” King joked.

  Lin looked at the heavy padlock on the metal gate. “How’d he get in?”

  King fingered the lock and let it drop back against the fence. “This wasn’t here. Power company put it on ‘after the fact.’ “

  “What was here?”

  King shrugged. “Don’t know. It wasn’t in any of the original police reports. No one noticed at the time.”

  Lin seemed disturbed by that. She frowned deeply.

  “It doesn’t matter. Brown removed whatever lock there was.”

  “So where is it now?”

  King looked into the forest. The trees extended to the horizon. “Out there,” he said.

  “So he removed the lock, or whatever it was, put it in his pocket, and later discarded it.”

  “Who cares? The rest of the evidence makes that little detail irrelevant.”

  “He threw it away in the woods,” Lin continued.

  “Yeah. So what?”

  “And he took it off while holding his prisoner under guard, preparing to hitch him to the grid.”

  King looked his assistant in the eye. “We’re here to assess the proof we have. Why are you nitpicking?”

  Lin gazed back steadily. “I’ve been thinking about it.”

  “What?”

  “How, exactly, Brown was able to pull it off. By himself. At night. With a locked gate and an uncooperative prisoner.”