Chopping Spree

by Diane Mott Davidson

  Loud voices, heavy footsteps, and more clammy hands feeling for my pulse signaled the arrival of cops and medics. An eternity had passed since the pasty-faced man had waved an ampule of ammonia under my nose. Now a second dose of stink smacked my nostrils. Was I seeing two fellows in white uniforms, or was I seeing double?

  “Mrs. Schulz,” said one of the white uniforms, “your husband is here.” He reached behind my head and began touching it. When his fingers pressed onto an unexpectedly painful spot, I gasped.

  “How about if you don’t poke me with an ice pick?” I squealed. I was vaguely aware of not being very nice.

  “Mrs. Schulz,” said the other uniform. There were two of them. This second medic’s soothing voice was a tad higher than his comrade’s. “Please cooperate.”

  Now the first medic probed my neck. “Does it feel as if anything is broken?” I tried to shake my head, which was a mistake. When I whispered no, he said, “Your husband will meet you at the sheriff’s department. We’re taking you to the hospital. OK?”

  “No, not OK.” My voice sounded like razor blades. “I need to go with my husband. Please, let me be with Tom.”

  With stubborn resolve, I pulled myself to my knees. The medics grabbed my arms. I stood up, wobbled, and would have fallen if the two of them had not tightened their grip. “Thanks. Really, I just need to go with my family. Now, please.”

  The EMS fellows murmured that I could not. They helped me off the shoe mountain and onto the solid floor of Prince & Grogan. Then they declared that the coroner was on his way, and I could not talk to anyone until I’d gone to the hospital, and then to the Furman County Sheriff’s Department. This did not sound right, but my head was too fuzzy to pull up the legalities of the situation. Especially since I did not know what that situation was, exactly.

  Barry must be dead, I thought, and fought back tears.

  The department store had an eerie, darkened look. As the medics led me toward an exit, I squinted and tried to make things out. Several salespeople—at least, they looked like salespeople—sat in chairs dispersed around the floor. Each one was talking to a uniformed cop who either knelt or sat nearby, notebook in hand. Finally I spotted Julian. He was slumped in a chair in the men’s shoe department. Three cops clustered around him. All looked grim.

  Then I saw Tom. A sob convulsed my body. My husband’s somber expression spoke of something else I couldn’t face.

  Despair.

  “Tom!” I cried. “Come with me!”

  He brought a finger to his lips and shook his head.

  Black spots clouded my vision as I stumbled up the ambulance steps. One medic got behind the wheel and the other insisted I lie down—but not before I’d registered a dark, seated presence behind the stretcher.

  “Please,” I said as I tried to focus on the ambulance ceiling instead of my pain, “what happened to Barry?”

  There was a silence. Then, “That’s what you need to tell us,” announced the man behind the stretcher.

  Overhead, a light came on. A headache gripped my skull. I blinked and clung to the side of the stretcher as the ambulance began to move. I said, “I don’t understand. Who are you?”

  “Did you kill Barry Dean?” asked the voice.

  More pain stabbed the back of my head as I jerked around. The dark presence was a bulky man in a slate-gray suit. He had salt-and-pepper hair and a ruddy face. His dark eyes locked on to mine.

  “No, of course I didn’t!” I protested, astonished. “Barry was my friend. He was an old friend,” I added weakly, as black clouds again loomed behind my eyes. “And whatever happened to my Miranda rights?”

  The cop wrote something in a notebook, then frowned at his pen. Finally he looked up and introduced himself. He was Detective Sawyer. “How about your assistant, Julian Teller?” Detective Sawyer asked. “Did he kill Dean?”

  “Look, Detective, neither of us stabbed Barry Dean. Julian is the kindest, most helpful—”

  “How does your head feel?” Detective Sawyer interrupted.

  The ambulance swayed as it pelted forward. Belatedly, I registered the siren. It felt as if it, too, was right behind my eyes.

  “My head hurts,” I replied. “And you’re making it worse,

  Detective Sawyer. But listen… this is important….”

  The ambulance slowed unexpectedly. I turned around and lifted my chin—which sent daggers slicing down my neck—and peered out at blinking sawhorses. A large yellow arrow indicated a detour around the dirt mess from the dump truck accident.

  “Something important,” I tried again with the cop. The words eluded me as I twisted back to look at him. “Did you know that tonight… in Prince and Grogan? That was the second time today that somebody tried to kill Barry. Tried to hurt Barry and me. Julian was there, too—”

  “When was the first time?” The detective looked bored.

  “This afternoon. A truck almost mowed us down—” I said urgently. If only he understood…

  “Julian Teller called in that accident,” Sawyer announced, unperturbed. “He wasn’t a victim of it.”

  My hands clenched into fists. “Will you shut up? Will you let me explain?”

  “When did you go into Prince and Grogan tonight?”

  “Do you know who my husband is?”

  “Yes indeedy. When did you enter Prince and Grogan?”

  I struggled to think back. When did I enter the department store? I’d picked up Arch’s guitar at Westside Music, but that had taken longer than I’d expected.

  “Oh, my God, the guitar!” I cried. “Where is it?”

  “You were hit with it, Mrs. Schulz. It was badly dented, and now it’s being held by the police to be checked for prints. Please try to think when you entered the store.”

  That new guitar was dented? It was being held by the police? What was I supposed to give Arch for his birthday? My head ached.

  What was the detective’s question? Oh, yes, when had I entered the department store. Let’s see. After leaving the music store, I’d scuttled into P & G and made my way through the departments looking for Barry….

  “I went into Prince and Grogan around five to nine, maybe a little after, I’m pretty sure—”

  “And you discovered Dean when?”

  Effort at thought worsened my headache. “Around nine, I guess, but—”

  “Can you explain why we got a nine-one-one call, at exactly nine o’clock, with someone saying Dean was dead? Which would be just as you came into the store?”

  “Nine o’clock? Well, maybe I’m wrong about those times. But you see, when I found Barry, he wasn’t dead… he was groaning. Then someone hit me, maybe because they wanted to finish Barry off—” Something was bothering me. What? I tried to review Sawyer’s last set of questions. “Am I, uh, a suspect in this, Detective? Because I sure don’t like your tone of voice. Not to mention that you seem to have forgotten my Miranda rights?”

  This, too, he ignored. “Was Julian Teller with you at that time? When you entered the store?”

  At five to nine? I wondered fuzzily. Why would he do that? This detective was being too damn aggressive, I thought angrily. I lay still and prayed Lord, help me. Over and over. It helped.

  “Know what?” I murmured after a few minutes. “I have a head injury. And I know a bit about your line of work, Detective Sawyer. Law enforcement isn’t supposed to question someone with a fresh head injury and no hint of Miranda. So I’m just going to wait.” My head spun. I tried to clear it, but my brain was fogged in. “I’m not going to answer a single one of your questions. And since I’m not under arrest, I’m going to call my lawyer at the hospital.”

  Detective Sawyer expelled breath and slapped his notebook closed. Actually, I desperately wanted to call Tom. And if he for some reason couldn’t advise me, I would have to call Marla, not a lawyer. My own lawyer was pretty good at getting The Jerk to pay child support, but that was it. Marla, on the other hand, had the inside scoop on the moneyed and powerful in Den
ver, and her circle of acquaintances would surely yield connections to some of Denver’s hotshot criminal defense attorneys. On the other hand, when she heard the department was trying to nail me, or Julian, or both of us, for murder, I would have to make my next call to her cardiologist.

  The ambulance pulled to a stop. What had felt like an hour in the vehicle had only been a few minutes, as Southwest Hospital was near Westside Mall.

  I couldn’t read the clock inside the Emergency Room, no matter how hard I tried. A headache raged in my skull like a thunderstorm, complete with flashes of lightning. How long had I been out? I did not know. What I did know was that every muscle and bone in my body cried out with pain and fatigue. I cursed my helplessness. I balked when a nurse poked, prodded, and questioned me. While waiting for the doctor, I disobeyed orders to stay put. Instead, I hobbled out to the reception area and called Tom’s cell. No answer. Fearful the nurse would come out and claim me, I put in a call to Marla.

  There was no answer at her home. I tried her cellular.

  “You’re not going to believe—” I began.

  “Oh, yes I am!” Her dear, husky voice crackled. “I just talked to Julian. I’m on my way to the department. The sheriff’s department.”

  I held the phone away from my ear. “I’m at the hospital—”

  “What?” she squawked.

  “I need you to help Julian—”

  “What do you think I’m doing? I’ve got an associate of Steve Hulsey’s on his way to the department to meet Julian. Hulsey himself is coming to help you.”

  I shuddered. “No-Holds-Barred Hulsey?” The Denver papers were invariably filled with tales of criminal defense lawyer Steven Hulsey, of Hulsey, Jones, Macauley & Wilson. Recently, Hulsey had defended a drug dealer who’d murdered a rival in front of three witnesses, all of whom, apparently, had serious vision problems.

  “That’s the one,” Marla said proudly. “Did you hear how he got Stafford Roosevelt off? It was in the papers last year. Big Bucks Roosevelt, serial rapist, supposedly. But we’ll never know, since Hulsey got him off on a technicality. And just last month, the associate who’s coming down to help Julian, Cleve Jackson, convinced a jury not to convict a fellow lawyer of bank fraud.”

  “Yes,” I said weakly, “I heard about that one.” In the fraud case, Cleve Jackson had repeatedly asserted that the police had mishandled crucial evidence. For their part, Tom and the department despised any and all from Hulsey’s office.

  “I’m paying the legal bills, don’t worry,” Marla yelled. “I am so pissed off. And I can’t believe what Julian…!” Her voice cracked, disappeared, came back. “He didn’t even call me until the cops had questioned him for an hour, and now he’s consented to a damn polygraph! Julian said he didn’t do anything! He wants to prove it with a lie detector test! Cleve Jackson should already be there. Julian should wait—”

  “Listen,” I said desperately as the nurse signaled that the ER doc was ready to see me. “I need to go…”

  Marla grumbled words unfit for Sunday school, declared that she’d bring Julian back to her place when the cops and Cleve Jackson had finished with him, and signed off.

  I endured the next hour in as good a humor as possible. Detective Sawyer hovered doggedly at the edge of my vision. When the ER doc said it looked as if I had a mild concussion, I asked to see my husband. Detective Sawyer, looming, announced grimly that Tom had gone down to the department and would meet me there.

  Sometime after midnight, the ambulance that had brought me to the hospital from Westside Mall arrived at the Furman County Sheriff’s Department. I had been up since dawn, I had escaped a truck accident, I had catered an event, I’d found my client dead, I’d been whacked on the head, I’d awakened in pain. And now, it seemed, I was in the thick of a criminal investigation. I was beyond exhausted, beyond wounded and bewildered. I was numb.

  Mutely, I allowed myself to be escorted to one of the interrogation rooms. It was graced with a single table and four chairs, one of which held Detective Sawyer. The instant I entered the room, Sawyer flipped open his notebook.

  A microphone stood like a wired totem in the middle of the table. The right-hand wall boasted a one-way mirror. Unlike what you see in movies, Tom had told me, there was no one actually behind the one-way glass, no sharp-eyed team gauging my reactions, no sharp-tongued cop asserting that I’d just told a basket of lies. According to Tom, an unmanned videocamera recorded the whole interview. I hugged myself. More than the cop’s notebook or the microphone, the image of that solitary camera rolling tape made me dizzy.

  A tall, wide-bodied man swept in. I recognized Steve Hulsey from his TV interviews. The nightly talk shows loved having him on, as he put it, “to tell people the inside story of law enforcement.” Hulsey had a dark face featuring deeply grooved cheeks and thick dark eyebrows that sprouted like sails over shrewd, assessing eyes. He’d slicked his black hair into place with a glistening substance that made the strands resemble porcupine quills. His hastily donned power suit, a severe charcoal pinstriped silk, was only slightly rumpled. His voice rumbled like an approaching storm.

  “I’d like this woman to step into the hall, please,” he announced to the two detectives. It was not a request. It was a command. The detectives nodded and I walked slowly into the hall.

  The famous attorney introduced himself, then crushed my hand when he shook it. In somber tones, Hulsey advised me to wait after each question from the detectives. I was not to answer a single query until he gave me permission. If he didn’t like the way things were going, he would say so. Meanwhile, if he objected to anything, I was to keep my mouth shut. When I begged him for news of Julian, his face turned even more formidable. We would have to talk about that later, he concluded, and turned back to the interrogation room door.

  “What about my husband?” I asked. “Have you talked to Tom?”

  “Tom Schulz is off this case. His family members are involved.” Hulsey’s voice came out like a growl. “Your son is at your house. A friend is with him. Listen to me, Mrs. Schulz. If I’m going to help you, I need you not to worry about anybody but yourself. We need to focus on getting you out of this.”

  “I just…OK, look,” I said with sudden clarity. “Our first problem is with the detective in there, a creep named Sawyer. He was obnoxious in the ambulance and didn’t Mirandize me—”

  “A detective questioned you before you were examined by a doctor?” From down the hall, an authoritative-looking, red-haired man with a clipboard strode rapidly toward us. Seeing him, Hulsey lifted his chin and sucked in his breath, like the wolf about to blow down a little pig’s house. Then he turned back to me. His beetlelike eyes bored into mine. Forget lie detectors; this guy was the genuine article. “A policeman asked you questions before or after you were seen in the ER?”

  “Uh, before. I told him I wouldn’t answer his questions.”

  “Mrs. Schulz,” said Hulsey. His voice melted to chocolate, which scared me even more. “Do not fret about Sawyer. I am here. They are going to fret about us. Are we clear on this?”

  Whether from fatigue, physical pain, or stress, I did not know, but I suddenly laughed and kept laughing. Were we clear? I said, “You bet. Ice-crystal clear. High-country spring-water clear.” I was grinning like a madwoman, but Hulsey ignored me. No doubt he’d seen his share of lunatics.

  The clipboard-toter passed us and opened the door to the interrogation room. Hulsey and I followed.

  “Gentlemen,” declared Hulsey, “my client is fatigued and injured. So let’s make this quick, OK? And,” he said with grim finality, “there will be no polygraph.”

  Sawyer tapped his open notebook and gave us a blank look. The other fellow, whose few strands of red hair had been pulled across his balding head, did not acknowledge Hulsey’s request, but merely gave a brusque nod. He informed us he was Detective Collins and his associate was Detective Sawyer, and that this interview was being recorded.

  I stated my name and address into th
e microphone, glanced nervously at the mirrored glass hiding the video-camera, and tucked my cold, trembling hands inside the big pocket of my apron.

  Come to think of it, why was I still wearing the apron? I felt for my cell phone: still there. The note from Barry: also still there. But…what in the world was the small plastic jar my right hand suddenly closed over? I swallowed hard and cautiously moved the jar lower into my pocket, as deep as it would go. Unless I was very much mistaken, I was gripping a prescription bottle full of pills. Where had it come from?

  Unobtrusively, I pulled out my hand and placed it in my lap. There was no way I was going to show these cops what I’d just discovered, thank you very much. Every now and then, it’s important to be smart. Which is what I wish I had been while hunting for Barry Dean in the Prince & Grogan shoe department… at least to the extent of jumping up and screaming for help when I’d first found Barry in the cabinet.

  “Take us back,” droned Detective Collins. “Begin with the jewelry party. That was the last time you saw Mr. Dean alive, yes?”

  “Yes.” Barry’d been quite visible at the party, I told them. There were security tapes, as well as a professional videotape, of the event. I told them the very last time I’d seen Barry alive had been toward the end of the event. No, I had not actually seen him leave. I told them about Barry’s uncharacteristic wine-guzzling. I started to describe the forcible expulsion of Teddy Fury, and Barry’s heated argument with Liz Fury and Julian, but I hadn’t even completed three sentences before Hulsey shook his head.

  Had I received my check, the cops wanted to know. Barry had the final payment, I replied, which was our agreed-in-advance gratuity.

  “Is that a set amount?” Collins asked.

  “It’s usually twenty percent of the bill. If things go well and the client is feeling generous, sometimes we’ll receive up to thirty percent. But Barry left without giving us anything, which I was certain was an oversight—”

  “We found a check to your firm in his pocket. Sorry, we need to keep it for a while. Why were you certain this was an oversight?”