“Doesn’t matter,” Hagedorn replied. He removed his black robe, revealing a casual Western shirt and rattler-skin cowboy boots. When he wasn’t on the bench, Hagedorn was a rancher with an expansive spread out in Braddock County. Travis had learned some time ago that he could make more points with Hagedorn talking about cattle than cases. “They’re going to acquit.”
“How do you know?”
“I’ve been on the bench for thirty-two years,” Hagedorn said, settling himself into a chair beneath a pair of wall-mounted longhorns. “That’s how I know.”
“Look,” Travis said, “it’s not my fault Cavanaugh decided to grab some glory by dragging this case into federal court. It should have been tried in state court and we all know it.”
“I doubt if Ms. Cavanaugh had much say in that decision,” Hagedorn said. “Brad Blaisdell is the U.S. Attorney and he calls the shots for his cadre of assistants. He’s been known to purloin a headline or two. Particularly when a seat is about to open up on the federal bench.”
“Amen,” Cavanaugh said, “And no comment.”
Travis resumed his self-defense. “I had an ethical duty to defend my client to the best of my ability.”
“You did that, by God,” Hagedorn said. “Nothing personal against our learned assistant U.S. attorney, but you whipped her butt. No offense, ma’am.”
“None taken.”
I’ll just bet, Travis thought.
“You’re out of law school what—barely a year, Travis?” Hagedorn said. He stretched out in a chair and put his boots up on his desk. “Already you’ve got the instincts of a first-rate trial attorney. Better than most lawyers who’ve practiced for decades. I just wonder about some of the … choices you’ve made. Most ex-cops who go to law school end up working for the DA or some other law enforcement agency.”
“I’m not most ex-cops,” Travis muttered.
“No, you’re not. And I can’t find fault in your working for Dan Holyfield either. He’s a damn fine man. Honest, respectable. I’d just like to see you exercise a little more discretion in selecting your clients.”
“Someone’s got to represent the scum of the earth.”
“Someone’s got to pick up the garbage, too, and there’ll always be someone willing and able. It doesn’t have to be you.”
“Thanks, Judge, but I like what I’m doing.”
“Fine.” Hagedorn shuffled several tall stacks of files on his cluttered desk. “I’m glad to hear you express those noble sentiments, Travis. Because I’ve got a job for you. Criminal indigent—needs a court-appointed attorney. Normally, I’d feel guilty assigning a case like this, but since you feel so strongly about the rights of the scum of the earth …”
Travis didn’t care much for the sound of that. “What’s the charge?”
“Forcible rape,” Hagedorn said, opening a file folder.
Damn. Another sex crime. Travis hated sex crimes.
“Aggravated assault,” Hagedorn added. “Several other related charges.”
“What happened?”
“A pretty little SMU coed was leaving an off-campus pub. Before she reached her car, she was surrounded by six men—three white, three black. They took her keys, threw her into the trunk of her car, and drove her to a secluded area near White Rock Lake. They took turns at her. In fact, some of them took several extremely brutal turns. And then they tied her to the back of the car and dragged her for about a mile.”
Travis closed his eyes. “Did she live?”
“After a fashion. I’ve heard the phrase hamburger meat used at the pretrial hearings.”
“And I would represent one of the alleged assailants?”
Hagedorn nodded. “The only one the police have been able to find.”
“And how did Brad Blaisdell get this one into federal court?”
“Turns out the parking lot from which she was abducted actually belonged to a nearby VA hospital. She was on federal property.”
“That’s pretty lame. Surely you’re going to dismiss.”
Hagedorn spread his arms expansively. “I’ll entertain any motion you care to make. But no, I’m not going to dismiss.”
Travis maintained his poker face. He couldn’t fold now. “All right, I accept. Assuming, of course, that the client has no objection.” He saw Cavanaugh’s eyes widen in amazement. “Where’s the file?”
“It’s on Millie’s desk.”
“I’ll send someone to pick it up tomorrow morning.”
“I don’t think you understand,” Hagedorn said. “The trial begins tomorrow morning.”
“What?” Travis’s brow protruded from his forehead. “How can that be?”
“This case was originally assigned to Tom Seacrest. You know, the young associate at Rainey and Wright. But he disappeared.”
“Disappeared?”
“You heard me. Didn’t show up for the pretrial this afternoon. Firm says he hasn’t been seen since the day before yesterday.”
“Are they looking for him?”
“Of course. But the trial still starts tomorrow morning and his client still needs a lawyer.”
“What about someone else at Seacrest’s firm?”
“No one else there does criminal work. No, Travis, I offered you the case and you accepted.”
“Then I respectfully move for a continuance.”
“Denied. I’ve already granted two continuances to Seacrest. Time to get this show on the road.”
“But I can’t be ready by tomorrow morning!”
“Why not? The prosecution will take at least three days to present its case. All you have to do is sit around and object periodically. In the meantime, you can prepare your defense.”
“Who knows,” Cavanaugh interjected, “maybe you can dream up some technicality to get this toad off the hook, too.”
Travis ignored her. “I want my request for a continuance and your denial on the record, Judge.”
“Suit yourself. We’ll do it first thing in the morning.”
“If you two will excuse me, I’ll collect that file from Millie and get to work.”
Travis left chambers and entered the reception area, careful not to let his expression change. His stomach was doing flip-flops, but he couldn’t let it show. Millie, Judge Hagedorn’s secretary, wasn’t in sight, so Travis rummaged around on her desk until he found the file, then tossed it into his briefcase.
My God, he thought. I just hope she isn’t a redhead.
4
6:45 P.M.
HAROLD SATROM LOVED TWO things in life: sunsets and fishing. Every chance he got, he’d close the Dallas bait-and-tackle shop he managed, grab his ten-year-old son, Jimmy, and drive to Lake Palestine before the sun faded. They would watch the fiery red light filter across the horizon, find a comfortable spot on the bank, then cast their lines and see what the Corps of Engineers had stocked the lake with this year.
But everything seemed different tonight. Different and wrong. The sky was overcast; ominous clouds were gathering. Worse, the fish didn’t seem to be biting, at least not where they were. Harold could see the occasional bass or trout, but he couldn’t catch them. They seemed disturbed, skittish. Probably teenagers had been out here last night, drinking beer, causing a commotion, stirring everything up. Damn kids.
Harold left Jimmy with the gear and strolled along the shore, hoping he could find a better location. He’d been walking about half a mile when he came upon a large gray blob that he knew with instant horror was a man. The remains of a man.
He approached slowly, although he realized this desiccated corpse could do him no harm. It appeared to have washed ashore after floating in the lake for some time.
Harold rolled the corpse onto its back—and immediately wished he hadn’t. The face was a puffy gray green, swollen and scarred; it had been horribly burned. Thin, translucent skin barely covered the skull. Harold couldn’t have identified the man if he’d been his best friend.
Then Harold noticed his legs. The man had been
burned from the groin down—horribly so. To make matters worse, his body was riddled with deep, blackened stab wounds. It was grotesque.
Harold wasn’t a coroner, but he got the distinct impression that this man had died hard, slowly and painfully, at someone else’s hands.
He reached into the corpse’s pocket and found a leather wallet. Amazing that it hadn’t fallen out in the lake. There were twelve twenty-dollar bills inside. Well, hell, they weren’t going to do this stiff any good. But they would buy a mountain bike, and that would give Jimmy a lot of pleasure. And give Harold a lot of peace.
Harold thumbed through the rest of the wallet. A few pictures, a driver’s license, and membership cards for various organizations. Several credit cards, but Harold wasn’t stupid enough to try to use those. Nothing else of value.
He rolled the corpse back onto its face. A sudden chill swept through his body. He ran into the lake, consumed by the desire to cleanse himself. He ran his hands over his body, scrubbing every inch of exposed skin.
Finally he stepped out of the lake, feeling much better. He started to walk on, then thought of Jimmy, back behind him. Alone.
Harold headed back the way he had come, walking, then jogging, then flat out running, the whole time wondering who the hell Thomas J. Seacrest was and how he got himself into so much trouble.
5
8:10 P.M.
TRAVIS SPREAD THE MOROCONI file out on his desk. It was all he could do to suppress his growing nausea. He opened the Maalox he kept in his briefcase and drank straight from the bottle. His stomach had been churning all day long.
Most of the trial attorneys he knew suffered from ulcers; some doctors called it lawyer’s elbow. The tremendous pressure of trial practice was unrelenting. Anyone who handled more than a few trials a year eventually started to feel the cracks in their professional facade.
And this new case was only making matters worse. Travis gazed out his office window at the Dallas skyline. He saw the NCNB Plaza, Dallas’s tallest building, trimmed in green argon light. Through the other window, Reunion Tower, with its illuminated geodesic dome, beckoned to him. It was almost enough to make him forget. Almost—but not quite.
He carefully read the case summary in the pretrial order and scrutinized the snapshots the police photographer had so thoughtfully provided. There were several details Judge Hagedorn had neglected to mention. Hideous details. How the rapists broke the woman’s rib cage with blows from a tire iron. How they urinated on her and in her mouth. How, when they finished raping her the usual way, they went at her instrumentally, with the tire iron and a Coke bottle. How they abandoned the woman, all but dead, bleeding in a dozen places, naked, facedown in the mud, by the side of the road. How she was in the hospital for weeks, and was forced to undergo a double radical mastectomy as a result of her beating.
Travis’s client was Alberto Moroconi. Moroconi had been drinking Scotch and sodas in O’Reilly’s, the off-campus bar where the victim, Mary Ann McKenzie, came looking for her roommate. Moroconi admitted being there, and admitted seeing several men leave shortly after she did, but he claimed he played no part in the rape and torture.
As far as Travis could discern from the prosecutor’s witness and exhibit lists, there was little concrete evidence disputing Moroconi’s testimony. The decision to prosecute him on this rape charge appeared to be based entirely upon Mary Ann’s identification. She picked Moroconi out of a lineup, with the help of more than gentle persuasion from the Dallas PD. Given the poor woman’s mental state, Travis didn’t think it proved anything.
Travis knew the constitutional guidelines for lineups by heart, and he doubted whether those guidelines had been met. Moroconi was the only man in the lineup close to the size, height, and weight description Mary Ann gave for any of her three white assailants. If she was going to identify anyone out of that lineup, it would have to be Moroconi. Travis wondered why Moroconi had been picked up by the police in the first place. They claimed they were acting on a tip from an unnamed informant.
Travis interpreted the facts in the file thus: the police brought in a sucker, pushed the victim for a positive ID, and ran with it to the prosecutor. Which, of course, didn’t necessarily mean Moroconi was innocent, but it did give Travis something to dispute during the trial. To his surprise, he saw no indication in the file that Seacrest ever filed a motion to suppress. Amazing. If Travis could get the lineup ID excluded, everything that followed therefrom also would be inadmissible—fruit of the poisonous tree. Perhaps Seacrest considered that type of tactic beneath him. Travis didn’t. As a criminal attorney, his job was to exculpate his client, period. If he could do so by means of a legal technicality, he was ethically bound to do so.
“Dinner’s here.”
Gail, the firm’s receptionist and secretary, entered Travis’s office with a white Styrofoam container.
“Gail, why on earth are you still here?”
“I’m looking after you, of course. You’d forget to eat altogether, left to yourself. You’d just sit here all night drinking Maalox, wondering why your stomach hurts.”
She probably was right. Now that the subject had been broached, Travis realized he was hungry.
Gail tossed the carryout container on his desk. “Here you go. Chow down.”
Travis peered inside. It was a salad, of course. Doctor’s orders. Dr. Anglis had barely let him squeak by his last insurance-mandated checkup. His blood pressure was too high, his cholesterol count was too high, his ulcer was active, he was twenty-five pounds overweight, and according to Anglis, he was “the most clear-cut Type-A personality” the doctor had seen in his entire career. In short, Travis was a heart attack waiting to happen: The doctor put him on an all-vegetables-and-salads diet and ordered him to get more exercise. As if saying it would make it happen. Travis would’ve loved to exercise more; he hated the way his body had deteriorated since he quit the police force and joined the relatively sedentary legal world. But when? He barely had time to breathe, much less run laps and do sit-ups.
Unfortunately, Dr. Anglis had repeated his orders to everyone in the office, including Gail. She couldn’t make Travis exercise, but she did a thorough job of monitoring his diet.
“Yum, yum,” Travis said, licking his chops in cartoonish exaggeration. “Rabbit food—accept no substitutes.”
Gail smirked. “This one’s a chef salad. Of course, I had them remove all the meats.”
“Which leaves what? Lettuce?”
“More or less, yes.”
“Great.” Travis reached for his wallet. “What do I owe you?”
“My treat.”
“No, no, take a fiver.”
“Just put your money away, Travis. This is the least I can do, considering all you’ve done for me.”
Travis could see this was important to her, so he relented. Gail had been having problems with an ex-felon ex-husband who had suddenly taken a renewed interest in their eleven-year-old daughter, Susan. Gail was terrified he would involve Susan in his miasma of booze, drugs, and orgies. Travis had drafted airtight custody documents and represented Gail at the hearing that almost totally marginalized her ex. He ended up with radically reduced visitation—one Saturday a month, no overnights, and only under Gail’s supervision. After the case was over, Travis tore up the bill, which he knew she could ill afford.
“I’m monitoring the level of your Maalox bottle, too,” Gail announced.
“I’m delighted.”
Gail was a few years older than Travis, not conventionally pretty, but not unpleasant either. A winning personality easily compensated for crooked teeth in Travis’s book.
“You know, Travis, it wouldn’t hurt to take a night off.”
“I wouldn’t know what to do with myself.”
She toyed with a lock of his curly black hair. “Well, I could make a few suggestions.” She sighed, then walked a dancing step toward the door. “Oh well, maybe in another life.”
And a fine life it would be, Travis thought to
himself. If only we had several to work with.
“Enjoy your salad.”
“Thanks, Gail. I will.” Travis returned his attention to the photographs. It was best if he didn’t dwell on what he was eating, since there wasn’t much of it and what there was was far from appetizing. Soon he was deep in the case. Time passed as Travis compared statements, examined reports, planned cross-examinations, and tried to discern what really happened.
“Travis, have I mentioned that you work too damn hard?”
Travis, engrossed in his research, started. It was Dan Holyfield, his boss. “About a hundred times, Dan. Make that a hundred and one, now.”
“Well, then, listen to me for a change. I’m sick and tired of seeing you squirreled away in your office every night.” Dan was dressed in his usual manner—brown suit with a bolo tie. Old-guard Dallas, but very classy. “You need to get out more. Visit some friends.”
Travis didn’t say anything. It was embarrassing to admit that, bottom line, he really didn’t have any friends.
“Are you feeling all right?”
“I’m fine. Just a little stomach stress.”
“Uh-huh.” Dan’s voice had just the slightest hint of a Dallas drawl, although Travis suspected it was an accent more cultivated than natural. Dan had always been a master at fitting in. “Have you had anything for dinner? Or did that slip your mind?”
“I ate, in a manner of speaking.” Travis pointed to the empty take-out container. “Gail brought me a salad from Sprouts.”
Dan chuckled. “Sounds delightful.” He picked up the container and tossed it into the trash. “You know, Gail is a fine girl. She’s had a tough time of it, raising Susan all by herself. I betcha she’d leap at a dinner invitation from a promising young attorney.”
Travis shifted uncomfortably. “No one would want to go out with a tub of lard like me.” Travis knew he wasn’t that overweight, but because he was only five foot seven, every extra pound looked like three.
“You need to get out more,” Dan grumbled. “I don’t care if it’s Gail, but you hear what I’m saying—it’s time to start dating again.”
Double Jeopardy Page 2