Death of a Prince
Page 5
“They found him in twenty-four hours?”
“Less than. Actually, the guy admitted he already knew where my father was, but he charged me for his knowledge. I wasn’t much for reading newspapers or I probably would have found him myself.”
“Scumbag,” Sandra muttered under her breath. “So then what did you do?”
“I had the investigators dig up everything they could find on him. You know what I just thought about, Sandy?”
She shook her head.
“They didn’t find a divorce or they would have told me. I wasn’t worried about it then. I just wanted to figure out how to approach him. I wanted to talk to him. I wanted to see if he was sorry for abandoning us.”
“You didn’t want to make him pay anymore?”
“No.” She shook her head again. “I don’t need the money.”
“Are you sure? The police are going to ask you that.”
“I’m sure. You see, after I got saved, I prayed over it. I forgave my daddy a long time ago. I just wanted to talk to him.”
“So why didn’t you just call him?”
“I didn’t think he would talk to me. The investigators told me he always surrounded himself with people. So I decided to try to meet him socially. I got information on his employees and then I met Raymond, and . . .” she shrugged.
“Raymond doesn’t know?”
“Oh my gosh, no.” She ducked her head. “I hadn’t planned on dating Raymond.”
Sandra stopped short of saying that she hoped Raymond wouldn’t dump her after he found out her original motive. “Is that true?”
Kitty nodded and looked as if she were about to cry again. “Do you think he’ll think I don’t love him? That I was just using him? That’s what Phillip said.”
Sandra signaled time out. “Wait, Kitty. Don’t start crying again.” Not when she was getting to the good part. Not that all of it wasn’t good. She felt slightly overwhelmed by the whole messy story. “Calm down and tell me what happened Friday night.”
Kitty breathed deeply. “Well, you know we were all celebrating. I’d met him several times, but there never seemed to be an opportunity to be alone with him—to talk to him without others overhearing.”
“But there was on Friday?”
“Yes. He invited me up to his room. He hit on me, right in front of Raymond, too.”
“Tsk tsk.” That sounded like Phillip. In all the years she’d known him, she’d never seen him actually abandon Lizzie for someone else, but she’d seen him hit on young women all the time. How did Lizzie put up with it? “So Raymond knew you were going up to Phillip’s room?”
“No. I didn’t tell him. I waited until he was asleep and then I tiptoed out. He’d never have let me go, even if he had known Phillip was my father.”
“Did anyone else see you go up there?”
“I passed Lizzie on the way up. She most definitely had the wrong idea and muttered something mean as we went by each other. She was carrying a bag and heading for one of the empty rooms. Her face was all red like she was really mad.”
“So what happened after you got into his room?” Sandra had moved back to her spot on the other end of the sofa, so she turned around and propped her bare feet on the coffee table, her legal pad balanced on her lap.
“It was just terrible. He wasn’t dressed. He must have planned to have sex, because he was in his robe. To make a long story short, we went out on the balcony and he was putting his hands on me, groping me, and I was trying to talk to him and when I said he was my daddy, he flipped out.”
“What? What’d he do?”
“He just went berserk. He called me names and said I was lying, trying to get money out of him. He said I was using Raymond. We struggled. Then he seemed to believe me and said I had come to ruin him. Why hadn’t I stayed away? I don’t even remember why, now, but somehow he fell over the balcony and I was holding his hand and holding him . . .” She closed her eyes.
“Until he fell?” Sandra chewed on the end of her pen as she listened to Kitty’s story.
Kitty nodded and covered her face with her hand. “It was just terrible. I leaned over to see what had happened to him, and he started screaming cuss words at me.”
“You mean he was still alive?”
“Oh, yes. He was going to have me arrested, he said, for blackmail, and on and on. I didn’t want to listen to him so I ran back to my room and got undressed and got under the covers. When Raymond came in, I just told him that I couldn’t sleep and had taken a walk.”
Sandra got up and began to pace up and down the living room. If what Kitty said was true, someone else had killed Phillip Parker. There were four other possibilities. Then another thought struck her. “Kitty, what were you going to do next?”
“That night?”
“Yes. If Phillip was still alive and he was hollering that he was going to call the police, why did you go to bed? It doesn’t make sense.”
Kitty shook her head. “I can’t explain it, Sandy. I just thought that I’d be safe with Raymond. When the police didn’t come after awhile, I fell asleep.”
“And Raymond never left the room?”
“Not while I was awake.”
Sandra crouched down in front of Kitty so that they’d be face-to-face. She could smell the beer mixed with Kitty’s perfume. She recognized it as Chanel No. 5. “Now, this is important, Kitty. When did you first find out that someone had bashed in Phillip’s face?”
Kitty grimaced. “They did?”
She looked so sincerely repulsed by the idea and at the same time so surprised at that revelation, that Sandra clapped her hands and laughed. “You didn’t know?”
“No one told me. How bad was it?”
“Well, let me say this, anyone who saw the body couldn’t help but notice.”
Her nose scrunched up like she had just smelled something rotten. “Musta been bad then.”
Sandra watched Kitty for a moment. She knew she was innocent. She didn’t care what the reviewers had said about her role in the high school play, she couldn’t be acting. “Okay, young lady, I’ll represent you. But we’ve got a lot more talking to do. For starters, where had Raymond gone when he got back to the room after you did?”
CHAPTER FIVE
“For heaven’s sake, Mother, she couldn’t have killed him,” Sandra yelled into her cell phone. “He was still screaming bloody murder when she ran away.”
“So she says. What do the police say?”
“We’re meeting Dennis Truman in a minute. I called him before we left my place.”
“You mean you’re driving your car while you’re talking to me? I’ve told you how dangerous that is. Pull over.”
“It’s okay, Erma. I do it all the time. I’ve got that hands-free setup.”
“Pull over or I’m hanging up.”
“All right. Give me a minute to change lanes. Okay. All right, there’s a spot. Some surfer kid pulling out. Hang on while I parallel park.” She drove for about two blocks before she spoke again. The seawall was still highly populated with joggers, walkers, bladers, and bicyclists, but on-street traffic was clearing out now that the weekend tourists had headed for home. “Okay. You there? Hello?”
Erma said, “That blessed car phone scares me to death. I swear you’re going to get killed talking to people while you’re driving. How many times do I have to tell you to park before you make a phone call? A person would think you were a teenager the way you act sometimes, Sandra.”
“Could we get back to the subject at hand?”
“Sandra, I’ve got to tell you. I’m not real pleased about this. Goddamnit, he was my best friend and my daughter is going to represent his killer?”
“Quit saying that. Quit saying she’s his killer or I’m going to hang up. I told you she didn’t do it, Erma. Why can’t you just trust my instincts? If you could talk to her, you’d see.”
“Humph.” She muttered something incoherent.
“Well, you haven’t heard the
good part and if you don’t act right, I’m not going to tell you.”
“What the hell did you call me for?”
“So you’d know why I was going to be late for Sunday dinner,” she said. It was a lie. She had forgotten Sunday dinner until just that moment. Good thing she hadn’t gotten a hold of Stuart. Sandra wanted Erma to calm down before she went over there. With her heart condition, Erma didn’t need any more excitement.
“Humph. What good stuff?”
“That’ll just give you something to think about, Mother. I’ve got to hang up. Kitty is supposed to meet me and she’s probably almost there by now.”
“You parked the blessed car. Tell me now.”
“No. I’ve got to go. She’ll be scared if she gets to the police station and I’m not there.”
“I hate it when you do that. It better be good, Sandra.”
“Oh, it is. See you later.” She laughed as she hit the end button and turned onto Twenty-fifth Street toward city hall and the police station. The south wind had grown stronger. The palm trees in the esplanade that dissected the four-lane street for the next seven blocks swayed in the wind. Out of nowhere, dark clouds began to sail overhead as the sun began to set. A salty mist settled on her car as she drove into the parking lot.
Lieutenant Truman waited outside. It was his day off, but the desk sergeant had agreed to find him when Sandra told her what she wanted.
Kitty had parked in the city manager’s spot. Sandra pulled next to her and together they followed Truman up the stairs. She had to shun a feeling that she was accompanying Kitty to the gallows.
The Galveston Police Department occupied the back of city hall. The front part of the building looked like it should be in the historic register. It was home to the city manager’s office, council chambers, and other parts of city administration. The back half of the building was modern-looking and housed the police, the central fire department, and the municipal court.
They followed Truman past the holding tanks and the clerk’s office, up the stairs, past the courtroom, down a hall to the left, and ended up at a large office with back-to-back desks. It could have been any office in any police department in any city of the world. It was more worn out than a cop who’d been on a ten-day stakeout. The air was permanently infiltrated with the aroma of stale coffee and cigarettes. Two minutes after arrival, Sandra found breathing difficult.
Pulling up a couple of metal chairs beside his desk, Truman motioned for them to sit. Kitty looked like an actress with opening night jitters.
“It’s all right,” Sandra said in a soft voice. “He just needs you to tell him what you told me; then he’ll type it up and you can sign it. Then you can go home.” She saw Truman cut his eyes at her. She knew what he must have been thinking, but he hadn’t heard what Kitty had to say yet. He couldn’t charge her after he heard her statement.
Truman rolled a printed form into the typewriter and hit a few keys. “I need to read her the Miranda warning, Miss Salinsky,” he said when he stopped typing.
“That’s okay. I’ve already explained her rights to her.”
“No. I have to.” He shrugged.
Sandra stared at him for a moment. “Kitty, he’s going to read you your constitutional rights. It’s just routine.” She didn’t know why he insisted when he could have had the two of them sign a waiver, but it was easier to give in than to quibble.
Truman plucked a business-size card from the center drawer. “You have the right to remain silent—”
Kitty burst into tears.
“Go ahead, Lieutenant,” Sandra said as she fished in her purse for a tissue. She had the feeling they were going to be there all evening, alternating between talking and weeping.
Truman started over and read the whole card in his deep, melodious voice while Kitty sobbed. Sandra studied the yellowed ceiling tiles and wished she hadn’t quit smoking; a long draw on a strong cigarette would have tasted good about then. When Truman was through, he put the card back in his desk and sat silently staring as she tried to get Kitty to stop crying.
Just when Sandra thought she had her under control, in walked the first assistant district attorney, Edgar Saul, who was enough to scare the bejabbers out of anyone. It was her bad luck that Edgar would be the one to catch Kitty’s case—that it was his weekend to be on call. Still, that didn’t mean that he would be assigned to it. But she was kidding herself. If Edgar wanted to prosecute Kitty, the file was his for the taking.
Kitty drew in a sharp breath. “Who is that?”
“The chief assistant district attorney.”
Her fingernails dug into Sandra’s arm and she whispered, “Omigosh. He looks mean.”
Edgar was probably the meanest-looking man alive, except for a crazed rapist she had prosecuted. The rapist had looked like something out of everyone’s worst nightmare. Edgar Saul looked like, and was, the prosecutor from hell.
His skin appeared to be the color and texture of erasable bond and was pockmarked. He had teeth so large and lips so thin that even when he was smiling, which was seldom, he looked like the big, bad wolf. He had a hooknose, eyes as dark as a moonless night, and bushy black eyebrows. His black hair was styled in a crew cut. He was so tall and so thin that if he turned sideways, the raindrops would miss him.
During trials, Edgar wore well-cut suits, button-down collar shirts, bland striped ties, loafers, and a pair of large, circular glasses, but even those failed to humanize him. Still, juries seemed to love him. His conviction rate was ninety-nine percent, a better record than that of the district attorney himself.
Edgar had a reputation for living his job. It was more than a career to him, more than a profession, more than a way to earn a living. Edgar Saul wasn’t a lawyer who happened to prosecute. In the same way that a Siberian is a race of tiger, to Edgar, prosecutor was a race of human. As Edgar Saul rounded the first row of desks and headed in Sandra’s direction, she saw that the intensity he emanated even from a distance frightened Kitty. She whispered to Kitty, to try to calm her down.
Sandra had worked with Edgar for three years but, even so, had never become entirely comfortable around him. Though she wasn’t afraid of him anymore, she had a healthy respect for him. She saw it as her job to make both Dennis Truman and Edgar Saul understand that Kitty was not the perpetrator. She would show them with the facts that Kitty should be eliminated as a suspect, which would help them narrow the field.
“What do we have?” Edgar asked after the formalities of handshaking. He positioned himself behind Truman and studied the sheet of paper in the typewriter.
“We were just getting started,” Truman said. “Pull up a chair.”
Kitty had switched from digging her nails into Sandra’s arm to digging her nails into her own palm.
“Miss Salinsky advised her client that it would be in her best interest to come down and make a statement,” Dennis Truman said. “Are you ready?”
Sandra thought she spotted pity in Truman’s eyes. His back was to Edgar Saul. Dennis had suddenly seemed stiff, more formal. She figured it was due to Edgar. In spite of his conviction rate, Edgar Saul’s harshness didn’t win him any popularity contests with the cops.
With Sandra’s coaxing, for the following hour Kitty related the events to the two men: one black, one white; the former, human and responsive; the latter, apparently subhuman and unresponsive; both officers of the law, both players in the human drama that would continue to unfold in the days to come like the pages of a pop-up story book.
Once she began, Kitty controlled herself a great deal better than she had at Sandra’s condo. When she was through, Sandra allowed Kitty to answer their questions. Truman read the statement back to her. Kitty signed it. Edgar Saul and Sandra sat nearby.
Edgar pushed back his chair and beckoned for Truman to follow him. While they conferred on the other side of the room, Sandra said, “Don’t worry, Kitty. Since he was alive when you left the balcony, I don’t see how they can possibly charge you.”
“Then I’ll have my work cut out for me.” She patted Kitty on the arm. Standing up, Sandra stretched. Her backside was getting numb from sitting on the metal chair for so long. “Not to worry, kid. I won’t let them hurt you.” She stared into the other woman’s eyes and hoped she could keep her promise. “That district attorney hates me,” Kitty said.
“He hates everyone.”
“But he really hates me. Did you see the look in his eyes?”
“No, honest to God, he looks like that all the time.”
“If they charge me, will he be the one that represents the government against me?”
“I hope it won’t come to that.”
“But could he?”
“Yes. But first of all, I hope they won’t charge you. Secondly, I hope he won’t be the one. Thirdly, I hope we never go to trial. Ad infinitum.”
“Whatever that means, me too, Sandy. But I’m awfully scared.”
“I know. Who wouldn’t be?”
They both stared at the men. Edgar crooked his finger at Sandra. Taking a deep breath, she squeezed Kitty’s shoulder and walked over to where they were talking.
“I’m going to have to charge her with manslaughter,” Edgar said in a low voice.
“What? You can’t do that.” Sandra looked at Dennis. Dennis shrugged and stared over her shoulder.
She lowered her voice to a fierce whisper. “He was still alive. Didn’t you hear anything she said?”
“Yeah. I heard her say that he abandoned her and her mother when she was a small child—and I’m not unsympathetic, if it’s true. Then she said he wanted to have sex with her the other night and she killed him for it.”
“For heaven’s sake, Edgar. Don’t you get it? Someone else killed him after he hit the ground.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it.”
“What’s the autopsy say?”
“Too soon,” Truman said. “It’s not back yet.”
“It’ll support my theory. I saw Phillip’s face. You couldn’t get that from a fall.”