Capitol offence bk-17

by William Bernhardt

  Dennis drew himself up slowly, folded his hands, and took a deep breath. "I'm sorry. You must've misunderstood me. What did you think I was proposing-murder? Gosh, I guess I didn't explain myself clearly. The truth is, I'm writing a book."

  Ben looked at him levelly. "Go on."

  "That's life in academia. Publish or perish. And I'm sure you know how important research is for a scholarly book. You've written books yourself, haven't you?"

  "Yes. Nonfiction."

  "Well, I'm planning a literary novel, something different from my usual critical analyses, and in my totally fictional story, a man commits murder, but then tries to get a pardon to get himself off. Or failing that, takes steps to establish a claim of temporary insanity."

  "Do tell."

  "So my point in coming here is to find out what would be the best steps to take to support a subsequent claim of temporary insanity. You can help me with that, can't you? Since you are an author as well as a lawyer?"

  "But I'm not a total idiot."

  "I understand that you-I mean, the lawyer in my book-would need to be able to show that I was unable to distinguish right from wrong at the time the murder was committed."

  "Yeeeeeesss…"

  "What if I were on some kind of drug? Would that help? Or maybe if I forgot to put my clothes on? That would certainly show diminished capacity, wouldn't it? If I were standing there starkers wearing nothing but a gun?"

  Ben rose to his feet. "Look, I don't know who you think you're dealing with, but this has gone far enough. Despite what you've said, this sounds a whole lot like you're planning a murder and trying to get advice on the best way to do it!"

  "What about irresistible impulse? I'm thinking that might be the best way to go."

  Ben's brows knitted together. "Exactly what kind of research have you been doing?"

  "I think the jury would believe that I was unable to control myself, after all that's happened to me. And that's all you need, right? Just an excuse for jury nullification. Getting the jury to ignore the law and reach a verdict based on sympathy for the defendant."

  "Why temporary insanity? Why not just claim you're absolutely totally stark raving insane?"

  "Ah, but then I–I mean, my character-would be committed, right? If he succeeds on a claim of temporary insanity, however, he goes free. No jail because he wasn't responsible for his actions, and no commitment because the insanity was only temporary."

  "You wouldn't go free. Not after killing a cop, not even on a temporary insanity defense. You'd be committed for observation."

  "Yes, but for how long? Until the doctors think I'm well and won't be a threat to society? That shouldn't take long."

  "Look. I'm not going to have anything to do with what sounds to me like a very twisted little scheme."

  "I'm just doing research!"

  "Yeah, and I'm just waiting for my Yankees tryout. I'm a member of the bar, Mr. Thomas-"

  "Dr. Thomas, if you don't mind. I'm a Ph.D."

  Ben drew in his breath. "-not to mention a U.S. senator. I'm an elected-well, appointed official. I can't assist you in the commission of a crime. In fact, I have a duty to report any plans to commit a criminal act."

  "I said nothing about any plan to commit a crime. I told you, I'm just researching a book. Although…"

  "Although you might just lose your head and take drugs and go commit a murder with your clothes off? I want you out of my office."

  Dennis picked up his briefcase. "Fine. If you say so." He stood, then hesitated a moment. "You know, Mr. Kincaid, I have to say-I'm disappointed. I heard you were different. I heard you didn't just take care of yourself. I heard you cared about other people."

  "Way too many people are talking about me these days. Look, I care about other people, but-"

  "No, you're covering your own butt, like everyone else. Playing by the rules. The same attitude that got my Joslyn killed in the first place."

  "That's not fair."

  "It's disappointing. I heard you weren't afraid to bend the rules here and there in the name of justice."

  "Bend the rules? You're talking about murder!"

  "No. I'm talking about the man who killed my wife. Deliberately." He hunched forward, leaning against Ben's desk. "Did I tell you that my wife's liver failed? Totally shut down. The buildup of toxins in her body was horrifying. Physicians have told me that's the worst kind of pain it's possible to experience. Constant. Inescapable. Imagine enduring that for seven days, helpless to do anything about it."

  "My heart goes out to you for your loss, but-"

  "Her left leg was gangrenous. Even if she had lived it would've had to be amputated. She was so hungry she tried to eat the vinyl upholstery on the seat she was pinned down against."

  Ben felt a dryness in his throat. "You have my sympathy, but-"

  "You're a married man, senator. Do you love your wife?"

  "Of course I do. More than-"

  "Would you want to see her tortured for seven days?"

  "Of course not."

  "I know you wouldn't. I can see it in your eyes. If you were in my shoes, you would feel exactly the same way I do."

  "But I would never contemplate murder," Ben replied, realizing how weak and unconvincing he sounded.

  "Did I tell you I didn't get to say goodbye?" He collapsed on the desk, his head falling onto his arms. "I saw her for only a moment, when they pulled her out of the car. Then the… the bastard cop had me arrested for hitting him. What self-respecting husband wouldn't?"

  Without even thinking about it, Ben placed his hand on Dennis's shoulder. "I'm so sorry."

  "I was locked up late on a Friday. I couldn't get an attorney, couldn't get released before my arraignment. By the time I was out-" His voice cracked. "They had already cremated Joslyn. That was her wish-but it was implemented before I was released. She was gone. I never got to see her, Mr. Kincaid. I never even said goodbye!"

  Ben pressed against his shoulder, hoping to somehow feed the man the comfort that eluded him. "I know how hard dealing with grief can be. But murder is not the answer. It won't help anything. And you won't get away with it. You'll be convicted. Would your wife have wanted that? The best thing you can do is move forward, get on with your life. If you want to bring some action against the police department, I will help you. Sure, the odds are long, but I have personally experienced police misconduct like you wouldn't believe. I know it happens-much more frequently than anyone wants to acknowledge. I will fight to the last to see that your wrong is righted. I promise you."

  Ben knelt down beside him. "Will you let me? Will you let me do that for you?"

  Dennis slowly rose to his feet. He brushed his wet face, then tugged at the lay of his shirt. "I'm sorry you weren't able to help me, Mr. Kincaid."

  "Dennis…"

  "Even though you won't be representing me, I assume this conversation is protected by attorney-client privilege. Since I came in as a prospective client."

  "Yes, but that doesn't extend to planning criminal-"

  "I didn't say anything about any plan. I'm researching a book. So the privilege applies. And we have nothing more to talk about."

  2

  Christina peered across the fifteen-by-fifteen grid, obviously not pleased.

  "There is no way I am accepting this, Ben. Za is not a word."

  "It is."

  "What does it mean?"

  "It's slang for a slice of pizza."

  "If it's slang, it shouldn't be in the dictionary."

  "But it is. And that makes it a valid Scrabble word."

  "Use it in a sentence."

  Ben contemplated a moment. "Whenever I look at you, I think, Wow-Za."

  She gave him the look that he had come to recognize as the sort of serious irritation that only total acquiescence or pizza from Mario's could fix. "I am not going to let you make sixty-two points for playing one lousy tile!"

  "There just happened to be an opening on the triple-letter space. I got lucky."

&nb
sp; "It might be the last time."

  "You mean I can't play qi?"

  She closed her eyelids. "No, you innocent waif. That is not what I mean."

  Ben normally looked forward to these evenings when no one was in trial and they were both home at a decent hour and they could unwind with a round of the greatest of all board games. But Christina seemed uncommonly stressed tonight.

  "Something on your mind?"

  She flopped around and lay down in his lap. "As a matter of fact, yes. I'm concerned about that client you saw today. Dennis Whatever. The professor."

  Ben stroked his two young cats, Mellisandro and Dellisandro, and they curled themselves against his foot. Their mother, Giselle, watched from her cushy bed in the corner. The cats loved Ben, followed him everywhere, mostly to the exclusion of all others. Christina patiently tolerated their unmitigated partisanship. "He was a little creepy."

  "He was more than just creepy, Ben. He's planning to kill someone!"

  "He never actually said that."

  "He didn't have to. It was obvious. That's why he was there."

  "He said he was there because he wondered hypothetically if I would be able to arrange a pardon. Because he was researching a book. A work of fiction."

  She took his hand. "Ben, I don't want to see you get in trouble over this. Especially not when you're planning a reelection campaign. Maybe you should report it to the bar association."

  "If he had said he was planning to commit a crime, I would agree. But unless and until he does that, prospective client interviews are protected by privilege. Even though I didn't help him, I'm still bound not to reveal anything I was told."

  "Unless he says he's going to commit a crime."

  "Which he did not. The test is whether I believe he's planning to hurt someone. And I don't."

  "And that's based on what? Your profound understanding of human nature? Give me a break, Ben. You're clueless when it comes to people. You couldn't psychoanalyze a Barbie doll."

  She had a point. He wanted to argue and defend himself, but unfortunately, he could never win an argument with her, especially when she was right.

  "I know what you're saying. I've been agonizing over this, too. I just don't know what to do."

  "You have to protect yourself."

  "I have to protect the victim. If there is one."

  "That's another problem. You don't even know who it is." She raised her hand to the side of his cheek. "Well, sleep on it. Perhaps in the morning it will all be clear."

  "Good idea."

  "Sleepy yet?"

  "Not really."

  She sat upright and smiled. "Good. Let's go to bed."

  And then he heard the Blue Danube waltz. His cell phone. This sort of untimely interruption seemed to happen more frequently these days. Or perhaps it just seemed that way because, being newlyweds, something else was happening more frequently…

  He flipped open his phone. "Yes?"

  "Boss? Jones. Having a good evening?"

  "Trying."

  "Still wringing your hands over whether to report that guy who might be planning to kill a cop?"

  "Pretty much."

  "Well, you can stop."

  "Can I now? Why is that?"

  There was a brief static-filled pause before Jones continued. "Because he just did it."

  3

  After Ben showed his ID, the uniform at the door allowed him to pass beyond the crime scene tape. The room at the Marriott Southern Hills was a spacious suite, but it didn't take him any time at all to determine where the action was. Crime scene techs scrambled all over the site where the body was found. Videographers recorded everything. Two outlines had been drawn on the carpeted floor.

  Major Mike Morelli stared at the scene, standing just above one of the outlined figures and a huge patch of bloodstained carpet, his hands deeply thrust into his coat pockets. Ben had seen this expression before. Mike was not pleased.

  "That looks… awful," Ben said, staring down at the carpet.

  Mike nodded. "April really is the cruelest month, huh? 'The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere / The ceremony of innocence is drowned… '" He exhaled heavily. "Miles to go before I sleep."

  "So if I'm not mistaken," Ben replied, "that was Eliot, Yeats, and Frost, all in one breath. That may be a new record for pretentious allusion, even for you."

  Mike shot him a wry smile. "Good to see you, Ben."

  "Thanks for letting me in."

  "I gather from your presence here that you will be representing the alleged perpetrator?"

  "He's called for me," Ben said, not filling in all the details. "I haven't taken the case."

  "Don't." Mike replied. "This probably appeals to your insane predilection for representing underdogs and lost causes, but this is going to be ugly. It's premeditated. And a cop is dead."

  "Even assuming Dennis Thomas committed the crime-"

  "He did."

  "You must admit, there were some keenly sympathetic circumstances."

  "When it comes to cop killers, sympathy does not exist."

  "Thomas blamed this guy for the death of his wife."

  "So he killed Detective Sentz, who also had a wife, not to mention two daughters. I'm telling you, Ben, stay away. This is a loser."

  Ben frowned. There was no point arguing with Mike about this. Better to change the subject. Try to slip in through the back door. "You're, um, looking good. Walking without a cane, I notice."

  "Didn't like it. Made me look prematurely old. And you know what they say. 'This is no country for old men. The young / In one another's arms… '"

  "That more poetry?"

  "Yeats."

  "Right. Sergeant Baxter been making you go to physical therapy?"

  "You know it." Mike glanced his way. "To tell the truth, you look pretty good, too. Can barely see the scar."

  A few months before, Ben and Mike'd had the misfortune to be at the epicenter of an assassination attempt. Trying to escape, they ended up in a car a few seconds before it exploded. Mike threw Ben clear, taking most of the damage in the process. Ben had a small crease from a stray bullet on his right cheek. Mike had been in the hospital for months and was only now getting back to work. Ben and Mike's partner, Kate Baxter, had been nursemaiding him most of the time. He was a difficult patient. He didn't like people fussing over him. Or so he said, anyway.

  Ben and Mike's friendship was a resilient one. They had known each other since college and at one time had even made music together, Ben on the keyboards, Mike on the guitar. Mike had married Ben's sister, a union that did not turn out well or last long. But that was years in the past. They had managed to hold on to their friendship, at least as well as could be expected, given what each did for a living.

  "I guess you knew the, uh, victim?" Ben asked.

  "Of course I did." Mike was the senior homicide detective on the Tulsa PD. "I know his wife, too. Both daughters. Real cuties." Mike gave Ben a pointed look. "They don't have a daddy now. You have any idea what that's going to do to them?"

  "I can only imagine."

  "It won't be good. Sentz was a fine officer. A little grumpy, perhaps too rigid, somewhat unimaginative. But you don't make detective by being a dummy. He had the right stuff and he kept it together. I didn't see him ever making the transition to homicide, but I knew there were other jobs he could perform perfectly well. There was no need for him to come to an end like this. No need at all." He shook his head bitterly. "Such a waste."

  "I'm sorry, Mike."

  "He was hoping for my job one day. Wanted to be my second, to get Prentiss's old position. 'Oh, the vanity of earthly greatness… '"

  "Why was he in this hotel room?"

  "I don't know all the details. I think some of his co-workers were here, too, judging from what the clerk at the front desk told me. I'm trying to track that down. Apparently they were on some kind of stakeout. Drugs, I assume."

  "But you're certain Dennis Thomas was here?"

  "The firs
t responder found him in a lump on the carpet." Mike pointed to one of the outlines on the floor. "That's him."

  "Why was he here?"

  "To commit murder, obviously. Why Sentz agreed to meet him, or let him into the room, I don't know. He probably felt bad about what happened to the guy's wife and wanted to help him. And you see what he got for his kindness."

  "There must be more to it than that."

  "Why? Because that's how you get people off? By complicating things that don't need complicating?"

  "That's a little cynical, even for you."

  "An officer died here, Ben. If you were expecting me to be jolly, you were sadly mistaken." He jammed his fists into his coat pockets. "Times like this, I really miss smoking." He stared out the hotel window. "I just wish I'd seen this coming, you know? Had some hint."

  Like maybe having the killer come to your office to ask if you could get him off the murder he hadn't committed yet?

  Ben couldn't help but wonder if he was responsible, at least in part. He prided himself on his determination to do the right thing. Had he just allowed a man to be killed? A good man, a public servant?

  "I don't suppose your forensics people have turned anything up?"

  "Not yet. Too soon. But honestly, what would they find? It's not as if there's much question about what happened here."

  "Any traces of people other than the victim and the alleged assailant?"

  "Yes. But remember, this is a hotel room. People come in and out every day, leaving behind their hairs and dead skin cells."

  "Blood?"

  "A lot from the victim. No one else."

  "DNA traces."

  "Not yet. But given how many people have probably stayed in this room…"

  "Right. Not helpful. Eyewitnesses?"

  "The man at the front desk vaguely recalls seeing Thomas come in. And of course he recalls seeing all the police officers roaming about. They were aware there was some sort of police operation going on in this room."

  "And the weapon?"

  "Standard handgun. Your guy was lying on top of it."

  "He's not my guy."

  "Yet. We're tracing the registration number."