“Yes, I can handle it,” he answered in a more subdued tone.
“Are they paying you a lot?”
“I’ve asked for ten thousand,” he said. This had been his big surprise, but she had deflated his enthusiasm with her fears.
“Ten thousand! Oh, Mark!”
Now she was excited, Mark thought bitterly. Not about the fact that someone thought enough of my ability to hire me to represent someone on a case this big, but because of the money.
“Have they paid you yet?”
“I have to call this evening to make certain that they can come up with the money.”
“Then you’re not certain you’ll get it?” she asked in a disappointed tone.
“No. I have to call now.”
There was another embarrassed pause.
“When will you be home?”
The truth was, at this moment, he would rather not have gone home at all.
“In a while. I’ll call you before I leave.”
“Mark, I’m really happy you got the case.”
A little late, he thought. Out loud he said, “I’ll see you,” and blew her a kiss and hung up.
He took a deep breath and checked the Coolidge file for Sarah’s number. He felt a curious excitement when he dialed it. Partly because he would soon know about the fee and partly, he realized, because he wanted to talk to her again.
“Sarah? This is Mark…Mark Shaeffer.”
“Oh…yes?” she asked anxiously.
“I told you I’d call tonight. Remember?”
“Yes. About the money. Did you see Bobby?”
“We talked for about an hour at the jail. I’ve been out all afternoon talking to witnesses. Tomorrow I’m going to meet with the district attorney.”
“How does it look?”
“I can’t tell yet. The one witness I wanted to talk to the most wouldn’t talk to me. I talked to two other people, but nothing they said seemed to connect Bobby with the crime. I’ll learn more about the case tomorrow, hopefully, from the D.A.”
“How was…is Bobby?”
“Pretty low. I told him you would visit on Sunday. I’ve arranged for you to see him in a private interview room, instead of with the rest of the prisoners in the visitor’s room.”
“Thank you.”
Mark waited for her to go on, but she didn’t.
“Uh, about the fee. Did you talk to your parents?”
“No. I…They weren’t in. I’ll have to keep trying. Can I tell you tomorrow?”
Mark felt a little nervous. He had already gotten involved in the case on her promise.
“Sure. When do you want to come in?”
“Later afternoon? Around five?”
Mark checked his appointment book.
“That’s fine. I’ll see you then.”
They hung up. Mark rested his hand on the phone. He tried to visualize Sarah’s features and figure. He could see her breasts pushing against her sweater this morning. For a moment he fantasized her naked, in bed. Then he stopped. He thought about Cindy and what was happening to their marriage. It made him feel sad.
“They sent a man. He said he was an attorney. How did he find me? You said I would only have to talk at the trial.”
She was almost hysterical, thought Shindler. He grabbed her shoulders. He couldn’t have her cracking up on him. Not when he’d come this far.
“Slow down and calm down,” he ordered forcefully. She threw her arms around his neck and started to cry.
“I’m so glad you’re here. I was going crazy. He just came. I…”
Shindler held her tightly. He was afraid that he would find her like this when he heard the way she sounded over the phone. He had driven from the police station as soon as he had hung up.
“Who came to see you?” he asked when she was calm enough to speak.
“I have his card,” she said, breaking away and moving to the kitchen table. She handed him the card and sat down.
“He said he was an attorney,” she said in a voice heavy with fear.
“He probably was,” Shindler said. He could never understand why people of Esther’s type held lawyers in awe. “What did you do?”
“Just like you and Mr. Heider said. I told him I didn’t want to talk to him.”
He stood behind her and began to massage her shoulders.
“And…?”
“He went away.”
“Good,” he said softly, feeling her shoulder muscles begin to relax under the thin cotton tee shirt. “That was easy, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” she answered sheepishly.
“And you handled that all by yourself, didn’t you?” he asked soothingly.
“Yes,” she said in an embarrassed whisper. “But I got scared. I didn’t know how he found me and I was alone.”
“You’re not alone, Esther. You have me. And he could have gotten your name in a thousand ways: old newspapers, the indictment, a lot of places.”
“I guess,” she said. “It’s just, I haven’t seen you so much, lately. And I’ve been getting scared, again, like before I saw Dr. Hollander.”
“There’s nothing to be scared of,” Shindler said softly. “Now, stand up and turn around.”
She obeyed, but she would not look him in the eye. He cupped her chin in his hand and tilted her head until their eyes met.
“Are you still afraid?” he asked.
“No, Roy,” she answered woodenly. She wanted him so bad. She wanted to feel him holding her, inside her. She wanted to cling to him and be safe.
“Is the baby asleep?” he asked. His voice was soft and soothing.
“Yes, Roy.”
Her mouth was dry and she was trembling. He reached out and caressed her naked breast through her shirt. Her knees were weak and she felt herself growing moist. He stepped back so he could see her. She pulled the shirt over her head and stepped out of her jeans so that all she wore were the red silk bikini panties he said he liked. She stood almost at attention, her head bowed, because she was afraid to look at him. He reached out and stroked her hair and she began to weep.
2
The intercom buzzed and Albert Caproni answered it. Philip Heider was on the other end and he wanted to see Al immediately. Al stacked his work neatly, marking pages with slips of torn paper and placing writing tablets in proper order. Then he headed down the hall to Heider’s office.
When a major case like Murray-Walters came along, it was the office practice to assign one deputy, with no other duties, to that case. Often, the deputy would have an assistant, who would be given fewer day-to-day duties. Al considered it an honor to have been chosen from all the district court deputies to assist Heider on this important case. He was sure that a promotion to circuit court would follow when the case was over.
Al had never worked as enthusiastically as he had these past few weeks. He was enjoying the luxury of taking his time on a case. He had already been through the mountains of police reports that had accumulated over the last seven years. Now that they had two suspects, it was amazing how relevant some of the small details he had found buried in those reports had become.
Heider motioned Al into a chair across the desk from him and finished dictating a letter. Heider was not an easy person to work under, but Al appreciated his thoroughness and admired his intelligence. Heider was a perfectionist. There was precision even in his dictation. He would be willing to bet that Heider never misspelled a word. If he was working harder than he ever had before, he was also learning more about the proper way to try a case than he could have in any other way.
“Do you know a lawyer named Mark Shaeffer?”
“I think so. I had a trial with him a few months ago and we negotiated on several cases.”
“What are your impressions? He’s coming up here in a few minutes.”
“I don’t know. He seems competent. No Clarence Darrow, but no idiot either. It’s hard to say after just one trial. Why?”
“He’s representing Bobby Coolidge.
”
“He is?” Caproni said, surprised. “I figured someone with more experience would have been handling it.”
Heider shrugged.
“It will make things easier for us. Do you know if he’s ever tried a felony?”
Al shook his head.
“I don’t know. I can check.”
Heider made some notes on a scratch pad.
“Al, I want you to sit through this meeting and help me size him up. Then I have a small assignment for you. One of the prisoners out at the county jail-a fellow named Toller, Eddie Toller-contacted a guard yesterday. He claims to have some information on the Murray-Walters case and he says he’ll only talk to a D.A. This is probably nothing, but Coolidge is housed out there and he may have said something to this guy. When we’re through with Shaeffer, take a ride out there and talk with him.
“I’ve had Toller’s record checked. It’s long. Nothing violent. Mostly burglaries of businesses, car theft, some drugs. We have an airtight case against him. He probably is going to tell you a fairy story in hopes of making a deal. Find out what he knows. Promise him nothing. If it looks like he has something to offer, tell him that you are my assistant and that I have to give approval on any plea negotiations. You have all that?”
Al smiled and nodded.
“Okay. Now back to Shaeffer. How much do you think we should tell him?”
“I don’t know. I think we should at least give him an outline of our case. I don’t think we should give him the transcript of Esther’s hypnosis interviews, because there is too much there that he could play with.”
“I agree, Al. I’m thinking of telling him just enough to get him worried, but no reports or transcripts of interviews. Now, we have to give him copies of the statements his client made when he was interrogated in ’61 and I’ll have to give him witness statements the day before they testify, but he’ll be too busy with the trial to do much with those statements when he gets them.”
A buzzer rang and Heider pressed down on his intercom switch.
“Send him back,” Heider said. A few moments later, Mark Shaeffer was seated next to Al.
“What can I do for you?” Heider asked with an expansive smile.
Mark was nervous. He knew Heider by reputation and he felt out of his league. He was unsure of himself dealing with someone with the experience Heider had. He also realized that under the state’s discovery laws he was entitled to damn little information. He did not want to antagonize Heider or the D.A. might not talk with him at all. Still, he knew that sometime during the meeting he would have to bring up the refusal of Esther Pegalosi and, this morning, Dr. Arthur Hollander, to discuss the case with him.
“I’ve been retained to represent Bobby Coolidge.”
“So I understand. You know that Bobby and Billy are going to get you great press. They sound like a country and western duo. Good-looking boys, too. It’s this type of case makes me wish I was in private practice.”
Heider winked and Mark laughed. Maybe Heider would be all right after all. He certainly wasn’t coming on strong.
“Say, Mark, can I get you some coffee?”
“No thanks.”
“Well, what do you want to know?”
“Well, I guess, why you’ve arrested Mr. Coolidge after all these years.”
Heider laughed.
“That’s simple. We have the goods on him.”
Mark watched the easy way Heider had spoken that sentence. He saw the D.A. leaning back in his chair, his jacket open, and at ease. There was none of the tension or nervousness about the man that Mark was experiencing. He wished that he could have just a fraction of that self-assurance.
“What are the goods?” he asked, trying to hide his nervousness with an ineffectual smile.
Heider leaned forward in his chair.
“You know, Mark, I’m under no obligation to reveal our case, but this is such an unusual case that I’m going to tell you a little about it.
“Back in 1960, when Richie Walters was murdered, the police found a pair of glasses and some other objects that obviously belonged to a woman down the hill from the boy’s body. You can get all this out of the newspaper accounts. The glasses were traced to a girl named Esther Freemont, who claimed that they had been stolen before the murders.
“It turns out, now, that Esther suffered amnesia caused by the trauma of seeing that boy murdered. We had a psychiatrist work with her…”
“Dr. Hollander?”
Heider nodded.
“And he was able to break through her resistance. She now has an independent memory of the events. We can put her in the presence of your client and his brother, through their own statements, at approximately the time of the murders. We have independent witnesses who will testify that Billy Coolidge pulled a switchblade knife during a fight earlier in the evening of November 25, a few hours before the murder. The coroner will testify that a knife of the type described would have been capable of causing the wounds that killed Richie Walters.”
“You’re saying that Esther saw the Coolidges kill Walters and the girl?”
“She saw the events on the hill.”
“What does…? How did she say it happened?”
Heider leaned back in his chair, tilting it precariously, so that he was able to rest his heels on his desk. He smiled.
“I’m afraid that you’ll have to wait for the trial for the answer to that one. Or, you can ask Esther.”
“I tried to do that yesterday, Phil,” Mark said, feeling uncomfortable about using Heider’s first name, “and she said that you told her she shouldn’t talk to me.”
“Whoa,” Heider said, holding up his hand. “I never told her that. I told her that she had to make up her own mind who she talked with. I guess she just decided that she doesn’t want to discuss this case more than she has to. She’s a frightened girl, you know. You can’t see something as savage as those killings and not be affected. Don’t forget, that experience was so horrible for her that she developed amnesia because her conscious mind couldn’t deal with it.”
“Dr. Hollander wouldn’t talk with me either.”
Heider shrugged.
“Some people are like that. I’m sorry I can’t help you there.”
“You can call and tell him it’s okay to talk to me.”
“Well, Mark, I feel that this is a choice each individual should make on his own. I certainly don’t want to influence the man one way or the other.”
“In other words, you won’t tell him it’s all right to discuss this case with me,” Mark said, beginning to get angry.
“That’s exactly what I did tell him when he asked me. I guess he just decided that he would rather not talk with you.”
“I see,” Mark said.
“Good,” Heider smiled. It was a smile of smug satisfaction, made by the man with the whip hand. Mark felt an overriding desire to get out of Heider’s office. They discussed some preliminary matters concerning trial dates and length of trial and Heider gave Mark copies of the police reports concerning Bobby Coolidge’s statements when he had been interviewed in 1961. When Shaeffer had gone, Heider turned to Albert Caproni and laughed.
“Candy,” he said.
Sarah Rhodes had not slept much the night before. She had been doing some hard thinking. What did she know about Bobby Coolidge? He seemed to be a nice boy. An older man, really. That, she guessed, had been the attraction. He had traveled, been in the army, the people he associated with were not the same type of people that most of the other freshman girls knew. It made her feel more mature to be seen in the company of someone like Bobby.
But there was another side to Bobby. A dark side. His arrest for murder had brought back vivid memories of his sleepless nights and the conversation they had had in the early dawn hours one morning. She could still hear his sorrow-filled voice quietly telling her about the person he had been before the war. The person who had done “bad things.” It had been such a childlike statement. So out-of-place coming
from such a strong man. Almost as if the voice had been pitched through him by an unseen ventriloquist.
And was he such a strong man? Yes, on the surface. It took a strong man to go through the war the way Bobby had. In weak moments, he had told her of some of his experiences and she knew that she could never have endured them. It took a strong man to try to get an education, given Bobby’s background.
But there was the other, hidden side to him. The feeling she had from time to time that he was like a delicate china vase that could shatter at any moment, if the right type of pressure was applied. There was guilt hiding in the closets and the attics and eating away ever so slowly. Guilt that could be easily explained by the personal knowledge that he had stabbed a young man to death and raped and strangled a young woman. And, if that was true-if he was the type of man who could do such a thing, with premeditation, in cold blood-then how could they go on? How could she possibly hold such a man, let him touch her, knowing what his hands had done?
These were the things that she had thought about last night when she debated with herself about calling her parents. She had read the account of the Murray-Walters case in the paper. She had seen the headlines after she and George had left Mark’s office and purchased a paper. The details were graphic and they had shaken her. Could she ask her parents for the money to defend a person who may have done such a thing? Yes, if-and it was a big if-she loved him. But did she? That was the question that was tearing her apart.
Bobby was different from any man she had ever known; he was handsome, their sex was good, but all these things were parts of love, not love itself. She did not know what love was, or whether she was capable of it, and she did not know if what she felt for Bobby was love.
So, she had cried, but she had not called her parents. Instead, she had drawn three thousand dollars out of her personal savings account and she was sitting in Mark Shaeffer’s office prepared to lie. She could not abandon Bobby, and the three thousand dollars, she was sure, would keep Mr. Shaeffer on the case. But, at this time, before she had confronted Bobby, she did not have the courage to involve her family.
“My father was away on business when I called. He will be back in a week and I can ask him then, but I’m sure that he’ll say it’s okay.”
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