$200 and a Cadillac

by Fingers Murphy

  His voice trailed off and we sat in silence once again. I was unsure what to do. I felt like reaching out and touching Steele, but I didn’t.

  “Then Shawn opened the door again. He was crying. So I picked him up and took him downstairs to the family room and locked him in there with the TV on.” Steele shook his head and seemed to be looking at something far away. “When I went back upstairs, Sharon wasn’t moving at all. I don’t know how long it took before I realized I hadn’t called 911. It finally occurred to me and I ran back downstairs and dialed. I just started shouting into the phone.”

  “Now, you gave the 911 operator the wrong address, you had the numbers in the wrong order.”

  “Ah, shit, man — that goddamned prosecutor made a big deal out of that. For Christ’s sake, I wasn’t thinking clearly. Besides, that’s bullshit anyway, 911 knows where you’re calling from when they answer the phone. That was bullshit what the prosecutor told the jury. They knew where I was. I mean, 911’s set up so you can dial the phone when you’re dying and they’ll know where to come find you.” Steele’s anger was palpable and instantaneous.

  “Did you explain that to the jury?” Reilly pushed the subject, and Steele exhaled in defeat.

  “I tried to, but nobody believed me. The 911 operator testified and my lawyer, that rotten son of a bitch, never asked her that question.”

  “You mean Garrett Andersen?”

  “That motherfucker. If I was ever going to kill someone, he’d be the first guy.” Steele’s eyes had gone cold. His vernacular had slowly fallen off into the crusty and colorful talk of a prison yard. A dozen years there had transformed him, as it would anyone.

  “Why’d you call 911 from downstairs?”

  “We didn’t have a phone upstairs. I didn’t like having one in the bedroom. I always figured I should have some place where I could get away from the phone. I mean, I had a cellular if I really needed to talk upstairs. But it never occurred to me to use my cell phone. Anyway, I called 911 from the regular phone. I was yelling for them to come and help. Somewhere in the conversation the idea comes up that I should take Sharon out of the tub; I don’t know why that didn’t occur to me before. So I set the phone down and ran back upstairs. I pulled her out of the tub and laid her on the floor. I think she was already dead. I got some towels and tried to wrap her up to keep her warm. She wasn’t breathing, at least I don’t think she was. I ran back to the phone and yelled for them to hurry the hell up. I ran out onto the lawn to see if I could hear sirens or anything.”

  “So the gaps in the 911 call are when you’re doing all of this?”

  “Yeah. At the trial they tried to make it look like I was engaged in something nefarious — chicanery, an evil plot, the prosecutor said — but what the fuck am I supposed to do, just wait by the goddamned phone?” The three-dollar words poured off his tongue as quickly as the four-letter ones. “My wife’s been stabbed a thousand times and I’m waiting for an ambulance. I mean, I was freaking out, I couldn’t stand still for a second, let alone just wait on the phone.”

  “And how long did all this take?”

  “They have the times when the calls were made and when the cops got there and all that. I’m sure the times are right. At some point, when I was out on the lawn I found myself wiping my hand on my shirt and I realized I was bleeding all over the place. I hadn’t noticed that I’d been cut. When the guy slashed at me he cut the hell outta my hand.”

  Steel held his left hand, palm up, out on the table. A scar ran diagonally from the bottom of his index finger, across the shallow middle and into the meaty pad on the bottom of the opposite side. Steele traced the scar with his right index finger, and then spoke matter-of-factly: “Cut the hell out of me. I was bleeding everywhere.”

  “What did you do when you saw the cut?”

  “I went back inside and went to the kitchen and grabbed a dishtowel and wrapped it around my hand. Then I went back upstairs. A minute or two later I heard a siren and I came back down, got back on the phone and told the 911 operator that they were there, and then went out on the porch and waited for them.”

  Despite the eighty-degree day outside, I was suddenly aware that it was freezing in the dim concrete room. I thought I heard the dripping water again and I looked behind me. Through the window in the wall, I could see the guard leaning against a filing cabinet reading a newspaper. He didn’t look up. I doubted he ever looked up.

  “So then the cops got there? How many were there?”

  “Just one guy, at first, in a squad car. But he wasn’t there too long before a whole bunch showed up. Within five minutes the place was crawling with, I don’t know, a dozen of them at least.”

  “Ok, so what happened next?”

  “Well, they investigated. They started asking me all the same questions. They didn’t find any signs of forced entry so they arrested me.”

  “Then what?”

  “Well, I didn’t get to the jail until, God, it must’ve been four or five in the morning. I finally got to talk to Becky and told her to get a hold of her grandparents so they could come out and take care of her and Shawn. Then I told her to find out where Matt was, and then I got a lawyer. That fuckin’ mother …” Steele’s voice trailed off.

  “Why did you suspect Matt?”

  “It just seemed like he was the most likely. I mean he was a creepy kid, and he’d just gotten in a fight with Sharon only fifteen or twenty minutes before.”

  Steele’s voice was growing tense.

  “So you hired Garrett Andersen to represent you? How did you know him?”

  “I didn’t. I talked to some people. He came highly recommended.”

  “Why wasn’t any testimony presented regarding Matt?”

  “I testified, but there was nothing else. The jury didn’t believe me. Garrett said Matt had an alibi. Everyone agreed he was sitting at home at the time. I told him that his sister had said that he was out all night.”

  “You think the sister was lying?”

  “Look, Becky called over to his house at about seven-thirty, pretty early for a Sunday morning. Matt’s sister answered the phone and Becky acted like she was just looking for him, like they were going to go do whatever it was they did. The sister told her that he didn’t come home that night.”

  “But later, the sister and everyone else told the police that Matt was home?”

  “Right, but that was after the fact. Look, when Becky talked to the sister no one knew yet what happened at my house. It wasn’t in the papers yet, it wasn’t on TV, nothing. There was no way she knew about it, so she was just being honest. After they realized we suspected Matt, she changed her tune.”

  Steele’s expression had fallen off toward desperation. It was the face of a man who’d been telling the same story for years, all too aware that no one was listening. He said it with a conviction that made me think it was the obvious truth, that it couldn’t be any other way. Matt’s sister was lying.

  We talked a while longer. Reilly tried repeatedly to bring the conversation to a close, but Steele wanted none of it. Eventually, Reilly stood as he spoke, forcing a conclusion. When Steele and I shook hands, he held on tight and seemed reluctant to let go at all.

  Available for Kindle from Amazon (US | UK | DE)

  Now, turn the page for a taste of the second Oliver Olson novel:

  THE FLAMING MOTEL

  Friday

  November 1

  I

  It was a banner headline, front page, above the fold: Pornography Mogul Shot by Police at Costume Party. Apparently a toy gun had been mistaken for the real thing. A hell of an error to make on Halloween. I was reading the story, both amused and appalled, when the call came in.

  I glanced up. Through my office doorway I saw Jendrek answer the phone on Ellen’s desk. He made a few grunts into the receiver, nodded, looking over at me. Our eyes met and he grinned. I heard him mention Professor Stanton. I heard him say we’d handled these kinds of cases before and that we appreciated Mr. St
anton thinking of us. I heard him say we’d be happy to meet whoever it was wherever would be most convenient. He bent over the desk, scrambled for a pen and paper, and scribbled something down.

  I was sitting with my feet up on the desk, still holding the paper, when I heard him hang up and say, “Grab your coat, Ollie, we’ve got a meeting to get to.”

  Jendrek was halfway out the door when he stopped, leaned back inside and said, “And bring the newspaper, we can learn something about this thing on the way up there.”

  I threw on a sport coat and locked the office door behind me, fumbling with the key. Ellen wouldn’t even be in for another hour. We usually sat around drinking coffee at this time of morning. Not much to do. Our law practice wasn’t exactly on fire.

  Jendrek was holding the elevator at the end of the hallway, grinning out at me. He was twice my age, but his cherubic round face would have made him look a lot younger, were it not for his shoulder-length gray hair. “Come on, man,” he hollered.

  “What is it?” I asked as the elevator closed.

  He flicked the paper I was holding with his finger and said, “The lead story. Don Vargas, the porn king. That was his son on the phone. We’re going to meet him, and Vargas’s wife too, I imagine.”

  I unfolded the paper and stared at the headline again, having already forgotten the name of the dead man. Jendrek pointed at the paper again as the elevator opened onto the parking structure two levels below ground. He spoke as he walked to his car, rushing. Always rushing. “Apparently Max Stanton represents Vargas’s companies. The family called him in the middle of the night when it happened, and he recommended me if they were interested in suing the police department.”

  He unlocked his 1974 Jaguar and hit the automatic locks to let me in. I slid into the passenger seat, still processing what he said. Jendrek laughed as he pulled out of the garage and headed east down Santa Monica Boulevard. “Hell, I knew all that adjunct teaching at the law school would have to pay off someday. If that story in the paper is even half right, we might actually have a good case.”

  He was positively giddy, which wasn’t like Jendrek at all. He was usually a stone-cold cynic. I found it amusing and called him on it. “Don’t you think you’re getting a little ahead of yourself? You know journalists never get legal stuff right.”

  He gave me a sideways glance. “You’re one to talk about that.”

  He had me there, and his statement cut to the bone. A journalist had gotten murdered in connection with the very first case I ever worked on. It was the case that both made me and broke me, and I still felt bad about getting the journalist involved at all, even though I had nothing to do with his getting killed. It was just one of those terrible things that happen in the world, one of those terrible things I was getting more and more used to in the four years I’d been out of law school and practicing with Jendrek.

  He could sense my rumination and said, “Hey, I didn’t mean to bring you down. I was just joking.”

  “I know.” And I did. But there wasn’t much else to say. I returned to reading the paper as Jendrek took a left on Doheny and headed up into the Hollywood Hills. We crossed Sunset Boulevard and kept climbing. The houses grew larger and larger, shrouded by canopies of palm fronds and surrounded by high hedges, ivy-covered walls, and security gates. After a few minutes, I forgot about the past enough to get curious again.

  I said, “Jesus, how far up does this guy live?”

  Jendrek smiled. “All the way, baby. Up on Mulholland.”

  We wove through block after block of gated estates, trying to avoid the morning rush that clogged the main streets. Eventually, Jendrek made it up to the famous road that ran along the top of the Hollywood Hills like a highway in the sky. We turned west and I caught glimpses of the smog-covered San Fernando Valley between the houses.

  Jendrek slowed the old Jag, annoying the cars behind us, as he tried to find the address. With only two lanes, Mulholland could back up bad, and quick.

  “I think you’re irritating the rich folk.” I glanced in the side mirror to see a bright yellow Humvee riding our ass, the driver shrugging at us and yelling something we couldn’t hear.

  Jendrek checked his mirror as well and smiled. “It’s good for him. That’s what he gets for driving such an obnoxious car.”

  Two houses later we turned into a sandstone driveway that opened on to a large courtyard and a massive Spanish style stucco mansion. There were clusters of people standing around and yellow police tape was strewn across a walkway leading down the left side of the house. A single police car sat at the far side of the driveway. Two guys in dark suits stood next to it having a heated discussion.

  There were people coming and going from the side of the house where the police tape was, and the whole place had the look of an aftermath. There had been a lot going on here only a few hours before, and these were just the tired stragglers left behind to clean up.

  “That must be the wife.” Jendrek motioned with his chin as he parked the car. I looked up at the top of the wide stairs leading into the house and saw a nearly perfect blonde woman wrapping herself in a long, terry cloth robe. She hugged herself against the November morning chill, which only emphasized the curves beneath the robe.

  I scanned the paper again. “Says here Vargas was sixty. She doesn’t look half that.”

  Jendrek smiled as he opened the door. “Like I said, I think that’s his wife.”

  We must have looked liked lawyers because a guy came from the inside of the house, somewhere behind the woman in the robe, and descended the stairs with his hand out. “Mr. Jendrek?”

  “Mr. Vargas?” They shook hands. Then Jendrek motioned my way and said, “This is my partner, Oliver Olson.”

  I smiled and shook the man’s hand. It amused me when Jendrek referred to me as his partner, because he meant it only in the most general sense. We worked together. I got paid. But we weren’t partners in the way law firms usually used the word. There was never any question that Jendrek ran the show.

  The young Vargas couldn’t have been much more than thirty, barely older than me. He had that thin but muscular Hollywood look, like he spent all of his time in a gym. A cardio and low-carbs kind of guy. A diet rich in protein and cocaine. He was still wearing the remnants of last night’s costume: a bellhop uniform, the jacket now unbuttoned and the bowtie hanging loose. I wondered whose bags he carried in real life.

  “Eddie Vargas,” he said, and nodded at me. As I let go of his hand I noticed the thick Rolex on his wrist. Expensive and flashy, it didn’t go with the costume. It told me that this was a guy who liked to impress people.

  He moved in and stood close to us, speaking in a quiet voice. “I really appreciate you guys coming so quickly. I figured it was important to get someone on this as soon as possible.”

  He scratched the back of his head and glanced back over his shoulder. The woman at the top of the stairs had not moved. She looked far too young to be a widow, and her expression only confirmed that fact. She had a face too young to know the expression for grief. After a few seconds of gawking, Ed Vargas said, “The goddamned cops have been here all night, poking around, asking questions like we were the fucking criminals. A couple of them are still over there.”

  He motioned with his head toward the two guys at the far end of the driveway by the car. One of them stopped talking when he noticed us staring at them. Then the other one stopped and both of them stood quietly, staring back at us.

  Ed Vargas turned and headed up the steps and said, “Come on inside where we can talk privately.”

  We followed him to the top of the stairs where he paused. “Gentlemen, this is Tiffany Vargas.” He leaned into her like he was sharing a secret, and said, “These are the lawyers Stanton recommended.”

  She broke out of her trance and smiled at us. There was a glow to her smile, both innocent and mischievous. It was a face that took you in and held you hostage. I could see why a sixty-year-old man—or any man, for that matter—would
want her. But why she would want him was an open question. I took her small, soft hand and she nodded at me as she shook. She looked like every stunning blonde model I’d ever seen in a magazine, and yet, she looked even better in real life. You could convince yourself that women like that didn’t really exist in the world, until you saw one, and then you were ruined forever.

  She said, “I’m sorry. I’m still in shock. My husband wasn’t perfect, but he didn’t deserve this.”

  I didn’t know what to say. Neither did Jendrek, but I caught him smiling at me. He was reminding me that he’d been right, that she was the wife, and he was awfully damned proud of himself. It was a good guess. Tiffany Vargas could have been in her early thirties, but she’d pass for a buxom twenty-two-year-old in anyone’s book. That she had been married to an old guy like Vargas seemed a shame. But she was still young.

  She sank back into her trance, looking out over the driveway and the hedges, but seeing none of it. We left her at the top of the stairs and followed Ed Vargas into the house. We stepped into a massive great room with twenty-foot ceilings and a Mexican tile floor. The far end of the room was all windows that looked out over the city. It was a clear day, and you could see all the way to Orange County, if you were interested in looking at it.

  The house, still littered with the remains of a large party, had the aura of a hurricane about it. There were cups and ashtrays and bowls of food on the coffee table in the center of the room and along the bar that stood to one side. The obviously expensive rugs were littered with stains and paper. Near my feet was a devil mask with a footprint on it. A loft space overlooked the main room, but the air was heavy despite the open layout.