by Chris Jordan
Maria hands me a hankie, makes soothing noises. Can’t remember when I started crying. Was I crying when they shoved the mic in my face? Is that what they’ll see on the news tonight, killer mom in tears?
Jared Nichols, the handsome young prosecutor, looks like he just stepped out of the pages of GQ. Gorgeous suit, perfect hair and a smile that has to be artificially improved, because human beings don’t come with teeth that white. A smile directed at my attorney, not at me.
“Maria,” he says, offering his hand. “You’ll be happy to know that Judge Mendez has barred the media from the arraignment. I see you made it through the gauntlet.”
“Not quite,” she says. “Broke my heel.”
“Your heel?” He seems genuinely concerned.
“My shoe, Jared. My best Blahniks.”
He turns a searching gaze at me, as if memorizing the face of an enemy combatant. “Bill it to your client,” he tells Maria. “She can afford it.”
“Jared,” Maria responds sharply. “Be nice.”
Because she doesn’t dare appear before the court in bare feet, Maria grips the table so as not to wobble disrespectfully on her broken shoe when the judge enters.
“All rise,” declaims a stentorian voice.
We’re already standing. The judge enters, regal in her black robe, and I’m stunned by her youth. I’d been expecting someone with gray in her hair, peering over bifocals. Instead “Good Night” Mendez can’t be a day older than me. Is that possible? Do people my age get to be judges? And what does it mean for my chances? I’d been hoping for grandmotherly concern and now find myself fearful that a contemporary may assume what the media assumes, that I was having a fling with the local police chief and killed him in the heat of passion, or to further my own agenda somehow.
Mendez glances at something on her desk, presumably the arraignment papers. “State of Connecticut versus Katherine Ann Bickford,” reads the judge. “Mr. Nichols, you may begin,” she adds, squinting slightly, as if prepared to be dazzled by his radiant smile.
The prosecutor reads from a paper held in his rock-steady hands. “The state charges Katherine Ann Bickford with the murder of Frederick Napoleon Corso, in the town of Fairfax, on or about June 21, in violation of General Statutes 53a–54a, that she did cause the death of Mr. Corso and did subsequently seek to hide her crime by secreting his body in her home…”
He drones on, but I’m having trouble following the legal jargon, or coping with the surprise of Fred’s rather grand middle name. Napoleon? What was his mother thinking? I’m trying to see Fred as a little boy on the playground, defending the name, or hiding it. But then children wouldn’t necessarily know who Napoleon was, would they? So maybe it was okay, no harm no foul, as Tommy likes to say.
Maria, aware of my faltering concentration, gently nudges me to sit up straight as Judge Mendez grills the prosecutor about the evidence supporting his charge.
“I assume the state has sufficient evidence to justify an arraignment for felony murder?”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
“Do you intend to keep it a secret, Mr. Nichols?”
“No, Your Honor. Sorry. The victim’s body was found in Mrs. Bickford’s home freezer. There was a document on the body that the prosecution will show implicates Mrs. Bickford in the disappearance of her adopted son.”
“How very convenient,” says the judge. “Anything else?”
“Yes, Your Honor. A gun was found hidden in the same freezer, inside a bag of frozen peas. Ballistics has confirmed that this was the weapon used to kill Mr. Corso.”
“In a bag of frozen peas?”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
“I suppose the defendant’s fingerprints were all over the gun?”
“Ah, no, Your Honor. The gun was wiped clean. But the prosecution would expect that, Your Honor.”
“Expect what, Mr. Nichols? Would you care to be more specific?”
“That the perpetrator would remove fingerprint evidence.”
“I see. You would expect the killer to remove fingerprints but not to remove the body or the weapon from her own basement? I’m not sure I follow the logic.”
“Murder isn’t always logical, Your Honor. And the victim weighed over two hundred pounds. The defendant would have had trouble moving the body on her own.”
“But no trouble loading the body into the freezer?”
“We, ah, believe the defendant capable of, ah, leveraging the deceased into the freezer.”
“Leverage?” says the judge. “As in ‘give me a lever and I shall move the earth’?”
“Yes, Your Honor. But in this case the body of the victim, not the entire earth.”
“Well, that’s a relief, Mr. Nichols. Is there more?”
“Not at this time, Your Honor.”
“Ms. Savalo?”
Maria stands, gripping the edge of the table. Beneath the table, I notice she’s got the broken shoe partway off, and is poised on tiptoe, like a ballerina. “Your Honor,” she begins, “my client is not guilty of this or any other crime. Her son was kidnapped, and she was subsequently drugged and threatened by one of the abductors, who forced her to transfer funds to an offshore account that is thus far untraceable. The bank will verify this. The fact that the money hasn’t been traced is evidence of a professional criminal enterprise, which supports my client’s version of the events. We believe lab results will eventually confirm that she was, indeed, drugged. My client has stated that she asked the police to check the basement because of a phone call she received from the kidnapper. Records confirm a call moments before the police entered Mrs. Bickford’s domicile, and that the call was from an untraceable cell phone, a throwaway. Which also confirms Mrs. Bickford’s statement.”
“Mr. Nichols?”
“The defendant has an active imagination. It’s ‘the dog ate my homework’ defense.”
That results in a glare from Judge Mendez. “The victim is not a dog, Mr. Nichols, and murder is not homework.”
“I apologize, Your Honor. Poor choice of words. But the fact remains that the state has sufficient evidence to proceed to trial.”
Judge Mendez smiles faintly. “So you’d be ready for trial today, would you?”
“Excuse me, Your Honor?”
“It was a simple question, Mr. Nichols. If I scheduled this case for trial this very afternoon, would you be ready to proceed?”
“No, Your Honor.”
“So you want to arrest Mrs. Bickford now and then develop further evidence before proceeding to trial?”
“I wouldn’t put it quite that way, Your Honor. But the investigation is ongoing. We anticipate more evidence shortly.”
“That’s all you’ve got?”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
“Thank you, Mr. Nichols. Ms. Savalo?”
“Your Honor, the defense has reached an understanding with the state. We will not appeal the arrest of my client on these charges at this time, if the state does not oppose my client being released on bond.”
“I see. And why would you do that, Ms. Savalo, considering the entirely circumstantial evidence thus far presented by Mr. Nichols?”
There’s a snapping noise as my attorney’s pricey shoe heel completely lets go, and in that instant she has to grab me to keep herself from falling.
“Shit!”
“Ms. Savalo, are you okay?”
Maria kicks off both shoes, grimaces. “I’m very sorry, Your Honor. I broke a heel on the way into court.”
“Are those Jimmy Choos, Ms. Savalo?”
“No, Your Honor. Blahniks.”
“Ouch,” says the judge. “My commiserations. And don’t bother trying to hide your bare feet. We’ll suspend proper dress rules just this once. Now, where were we?”
The court reporter reads back a few lines before the judge stops him. “Got it. Thanks. So I repeat, Ms. Savalo, why would you agree not to contest this charge, considering the entirely circumstantial evidence thus far presented by Mr. Nicho
ls?”
Maria takes a deep breath before answering. “Because, Your Honor, it is absolutely critical that my client be able to continue searching for her missing son. Aside from anything else, he’s the key to the whole conspiracy. To this end, we have engaged a private investigator skilled in abduction cases. Mrs. Bickford is working closely with him, and we have developed evidence crucial to the defense. Evidence that could have been developed by the state or local police, but was not, because they failed to pursue other leads.”
“Mr. Nichols?”
“The investigation remains open, Your Honor. If evidence arises that justifies another line of investigations, then I’m confident it will be vigorously pursued.”
The judge taps a pen on her desk, seems to be mulling something over. “If I may ask you another question, Mr. Nichols.”
“Certainly, Your Honor. Ask away.”
“Do I detect a certain lack of enthusiasm from the prosecution?”
For the first time, Jared Nichols looks slightly taken aback. “I’m not sure what you mean, Your Honor.”
“From where I’m sitting, Mr. Nichols, it very much looks as if you’ve arraigned the defendant in response to pressure from the local police, or possibly from the news organizations, rather than from a sincere belief that you can win a conviction. Does that explain why you will not oppose bond?”
“Yes, Your Honor. I mean no, Your Honor. I mean we do not oppose because we don’t believe Mrs. Bickford to be a flight risk, or a further danger to the community.”
“Hmm. So that’s your story and you’re sticking to it?”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
“Well, I’m not inclined to release the defendant on personal recognizance. Not for felony murder, however thin the evidence. Bond is therefore set at one hundred thousand dollars.”
“Thank you, Your Honor.”
Before standing up, the judge leans down from the bench with a word of advice. “Get busy,” she urges me. “Find your son.”
34
following mom
His fingers are bleeding but Tomas pays no heed. Wipes his hands on his shirt and concentrates on gripping his improvised screwdriver. He’s learned the trick of carefully backing out the screws that hold the plywood and he’s halfway done with the first sheet. The wood has warped away from the metal studs and he can see the pink of insulation stuffed behind it. He knows the pink stuff is itchy because once he made the mistake of lying down in a pile of it up in the attic. Thinking it looked soft, like cotton candy, and discovering that it itched like a thousand ant bites.
Mom put him in the shower, squirted shampoo all over him. What a goon. Himself, not Mom. She’d been concerned about his eyes, telling him the pink stuff was made of little bits of glass, and his eyes had stung, but that was from the shampoo.
No harm done, as it turned out. And right now he could care less about the itchy pink stuff. If it means he can get out, he’ll gladly burrow through the insulation and worry about washing it off later.
Only trouble, he can’t get all the way up the plywood, to release the last few screws at the top. If he had a board or something, maybe he could pry it loose. But he doesn’t have a board, or anything to produce leverage. All he has is his own body. His bleeding hands, his skinny arms. His feet.
Feet.
Tomas lies down, back against the floor, and works his Nike into the gap where the plywood warps. It pinches his toes—hurts—but he ignores the pain and pushes harder, worming his foot farther into the gap. He can feel another board on the other side of the metal studs—a discouraging discovery—but decides not to think about how he’ll get through that. Enough to concentrate on his immediate task, using his legs to push the plywood away from the studs. Legs are way stronger than arms, that’s what Coach Corso says. It’s legs that make the swing, legs that enable a pitcher to throw a fastball. Legs that are going to help him escape.
When he’s halfway up to his hips, his foot encounters another metal stud. No surprise, he’s already backed out the screw, knows it had to be there. Turning sideways so he’s facing the wall, Tomas pushes with all his might. Using his hands to push against the wall and straightening his leg at the same time. Like doing a push-up, only sideways.
He can feel the plywood moving, bending away from the wall.
Harder. Push harder. Stinky Man is coming back. Stinky Man is going to get you.
Tomas groans, sweat popping out on his forehead, tears coming to his eyes. Stupid plywood! And then, suddenly, no pressure, and the plywood is moving, the upper screws pulling through, and he’s able to push with both knees. Aware of a great bend in the plywood, his arms shaking with the effort, until finally the whole sheet of plywood pops free of the studs, teeters on end and crashes to the floor behind him.
If he’d hit a home run, Tomas would have whooped and pumped his fist in the air. This is way better than a home run, but he knows he’s running out of time. So instead of celebrating he gets on his knees and uses both hands to burrow into the pink insulation, sending chunks of it flying over his head. Exposing the gray backing paper of the Sheetrock that forms the outer wall of his prison.
Not plywood, but Sheetrock. He recognizes it as the same stuff from the inside of his closet at home. It looks hard, but it’s not as strong as plywood, and he knows that, too.
Tomas starts clawing at the Sheetrock with his bleeding nails.
Dr. Stanley Munk is striding through the gleaming halls of his exclusive clinic when the cell phone in his Canali trouser pocket starts to vibrate. He considers not answering. He considers throwing the damn phone to the floor and crushing it underfoot. Instead, he ducks into his office, locks the door and flips open the phone.
“Yes.”
“Good afternoon, Doctor. How’s every little thing?”
Munk recognizes the voice of his oppressor. The fake cop or phony FBI agent or whatever he is. Paul Defield, if you can believe it. Man with the gun, and with the power to shatter his world. Also the man who can make everything better.
“Fuck you,” says Munk.
“I see you’ve recovered your sense of well-being. That’s good. I want you at the top of your game.”
Munk has been awaiting the call. Dreading it ever since Defield pressed the phone into his hands. “What you ask is impossible,” he says, repeating what he’s been rehearsing in his own mind for hours. “Can’t be done on short notice.”
“Oh, you can make it happen, Doctor,” the voice says, sounding oddly cheerful. “I checked the schedules for your surgical team.”
“How could you possibly—?” Munk stops himself. Of course, the spyware. The bastard not only knows about the laptop, about the perfect tens, he knows everything that happens in the clinic, and when. It makes Munk feel unclean, violated, and his burst of anger morphs into a cold, lingering fear. He has to find a way to get this man out of his life. Tells himself he’d cheerfully kill the son of a bitch, but Dr. Munk has never killed anyone. Not intentionally.
“The new patient will be delivered to you in Scarsdale tomorrow morning at 0600 hours,” says the cool, confident voice. “Six o’clock sharp, at the rear entrance. You will meet the ambulance yourself. You will not delegate the task, do you understand?”
“Listen to me,” Munk says, whispering fiercely as his eyes flick to the locked door. “What you ask can’t be done! It takes days to prep a patient for surgery like that. Dammit, we don’t even know the blood type.”
“Blood type is A negative,” responds the voice.
“It’s more than blood type. You don’t know what you’re asking.”
“Here’s what I know about your clinic, Dr. Munk, and what you can do on short notice, given the proper motivation. Two years ago you performed a similar procedure on a certain Arab gentleman, a member of the Saudi royal family. Do you recall the gentleman?”
“Yes,” Munk admits. “But that was different.”
“Not so different,” insists the voice. “His private air ambulance l
anded at JFK at 5:00 a.m. and was whisked through customs. By nine he was in surgery. It’s all in the files.”
Munk sinks into his custom-built ergonomic chair. Eight grand and it feels like a chunk of lumpy ice under his buttocks. Cold sweat runs from under his arms, soaking his shirt. He feels like puking, and forces himself to swallow the gorge rising. He remembers the Saudi prince vividly, and the enormous fee paid by his grateful family.
“A million bucks,” says the voice. “Not bad for a day’s work. I don’t blame you for not declaring a nice tidy sum like that, or keeping most of it secret from your partners. They have any idea what a deceptive bastard you are? Any idea what you’re doing when you go to Thailand twice a year?”
The doctor feels his stomach slip away, as if he’s just gone over the top of a particularly steep roller coaster. A roller coaster with no bottom, no end in sight.
“You still there?” the voice wants to know. “Cat got your tongue?”
“Who are you?” Munk asks. “Who are you, really? And how do you know these things?”
“My sources are not your concern. Your only concern is the surgery you’ll be performing tomorrow.”
“We had full medical records on the prince,” Munk protests. “We knew exactly what to expect. This is different.”
“My son comes with full medical records, too,” says the voice. “You’ll have them tomorrow morning. The driver will hand you a file. It’s all there. Everything you require.”
“You’re insane.”
The voice chuckles, very intimate, as if he’s right there in the room with Munk. “Maybe I am,” he says. “That doesn’t change what will happen if you don’t do exactly as I say. We have a deal, Dr. Munk. A deal that keeps you out of jail. A deal that keeps your ugly little secret. As soon as we conclude this discussion, you will put your surgical team on alert. Tell them it’s another celebrity. The son of a politician or a movie star. Another Saudi prince, if you like. Very hush-hush. Use your imagination.”