Accused

by Mark Gimenez

  "Cotton compresses," the D.A. said. "Back before the Civil War, most of the Confederate cotton was shipped to England out of Galveston. When the Union blockaded the port, they took the cotton overland down to Matamoros, shipped it out from Mexico." He gestured at the contraptions. "They tore the buildings down, but moving those things would cost three hundred grand, so they're Island art now."

  At Broadway, a wide six-lane avenue with an esplanade separating the east- and west-bound traffic, they turned east. The D.A. pointed his cigar to the north side at another stretch of vacant lots.

  "Public housing used to be there, before Ike."

  "Senator Armstrong said he doesn't want to rebuild, wants the Island to be another Hamptons."

  "Unlikely." The D.A. inhaled on the cigar then exhaled smoke out his window. "BOIs been longing for the glory days ever since the Great Storm, back in the late eighteen-hundreds when they built the Broadway Beauties"—he pointed out his window at the Victorian mansions that lined the north side of the boulevard—"Moody Mansion … Sealy Mansion … Ashton Villa … Bishop's Palace—a lawyer built that, then the church bought it. Those survived Ike better than most. This stretch of Broadway used to be real pretty when the oleanders bloomed."

  Other mansions sat vacant and sad-looking, like homeless people sitting on the curb in downtown Dallas. But the south side of Broadway was worse, with boarded-up storefronts and overgrown lots and yellow condemnation notices tacked to abandoned houses.

  "Seawall held off Ike's storm surge on the Gulf side," the D.A. said, "but the water went around the Island into the bay and flooded us from the north side—the low side of the Island. Reverse storm surge, they called it. Water came up six feet right here, flooded those homes and killed all our oak trees. Salt water."

  He waved the cigar at the stumps in the esplanade.

  "Had to cut down forty thousand dead trees, planted after the Great Storm. Without the trees, the Island looks like an old person with cancer."

  The D.A. exhaled smoke out his window again.

  "I love the Island. Hard to look at her like this."

  They stopped at the 6th Street light on the East End of the Island. The beach lay directly in front of them. The sea breeze blew through the cab and took the cigar smoke with it.

  "Those six thousand folks that died in the Great Storm, most were cremated right there on the beach. You'd never forget that sight, would you?"

  They turned north on Sixth. A few blocks up, the D.A. pointed out his window at a complex of medical buildings.

  "I was born right there. University of Texas Medical Branch. The med school and charity hospital for Galveston County. Survived Ike and the UT regents."

  They drove past the harbor where a tall cruise ship was docked and entered the Galveston Yacht Club. The guard waved them through. The D.A. parked the pickup and cut the engine but didn't get out.

  "Scott, if you're serious about calling Benito and Gabe, let me get Hank to serve your subpoenas, so you don't get yourself killed. Or someone else."

  "Thanks. I've got a PI in Dallas, he'll serve the players and their wives at the tournament up there next week."

  "Married women, teenage girls, porn, cocaine, gambling—that's not the Trey Rawlins I knew. He called me Mr. Truitt, like he was still in high school with my boy. Out at the club, he'd stop practicing and teach the kids. He was that kind of boy."

  "The good Trey."

  The D.A. nodded.

  "But there was a bad Trey, too," Scott said.

  "I guess he did have a dark side. You wonder if all this was hardwired from birth or was it because of his folks dying when he was just a kid? What makes a young man with all that going for him drive his life off a cliff?"

  "Dr. Tim said he had an addictive personality."

  "Dr. Tim?"

  "His sports psychologist."

  "He was seeing a shrink?"

  Scott nodded. "Said he was addicted to sex."

  "I'd like to try that for a while before I die. Course, it'd probably kill me."

  They got out and walked to the marina entrance. The D.A. led Scott down a walkway fronting the covered slips where speedboats and sailboats and small fishing boats were docked. He stopped.

  "This one's mine."

  It was a twenty-foot fishing boat with a bolted-down chair in the rear and a canopy over the center portion.

  "Looks new," Scott said.

  "It is. Found my old one on Broadway, after Ike."

  "You catch that sailfish in this boat?"

  "Nope. I hooked that baby off the Bahamas. Two more years, all I'm doing is golfing and fishing."

  "And taking Viagra."

  The D.A. smiled. "And that."

  "The old man and the sea … with an ED prescription."

  "Hemingway might've been a happier man if he had had Viagra. I know I am."

  "Well, I'll still be trying to make a living practicing law in Dallas, so think of me when you're … fishing."

  The D.A. puffed on his cigar and said, "At the arraignment, your wife said you were broke. That true?"

  "Yep."

  "Hard for an honest lawyer to make a living these days."

  "I have options."

  "The federal bench?"

  "Not likely. The senator owes some sort of debt to Judge Morgan."

  The D.A. inhaled his cigar then exhaled and said, "His daughter's a cokehead. In and out of rehab … and jail. Shelby keeps it quiet. It's a small island, smaller since Ike. BOIs stick together."

  "I understand that debt."

  "Come on, I'll show you Trey's boat."

  Scott followed him down the walkway. The farther they went, the bigger the boats became. Near the end of the walkway, the D.A. stopped in front of a FOR SALE sign on a large silver-and-black boat.

  "Fifty-six-foot Riva, they call it a sport yacht. Full living quarters, galley, the works. A five-star hotel that floats. Heard Trey paid two million. Melvyn's got it for sale for half a million, be lucky to get that. Bad economy to be selling a luxury boat."

  "It wasn't damaged by Ike?"

  "Heard he took it down to Padre to ride out the storm. Come aboard."

  Scott stepped onto the boat and followed the D.A. up a set of stairs.

  "Flybridge," the D.A. said. "You can pilot this boat from up here or downstairs in air conditioning."

  "What size crew do you need to operate this boat?"

  "One."

  "One person can drive this boat?"

  "Pilot the boat." The D.A. gestured with his cigar. "Check out the galley."

  They went down two flights of stairs into the living quarters filled with leather and wood. The bed was king-sized. The kitchen was stainless steel and sleek. The liquor cabinet was well-stocked.

  "Care for a drink?" the D.A. asked.

  "No, thanks."

  "Don't mind if I do."

  The D.A. found a glass and blew the dust out then poured two fingers of whiskey. He held the glass up with a solemn expression.

  "To Trey."

  The D.A. downed the drink and poured another.

  "Rex, tell me about Melvyn Burke."

  They had finished the tour and were now sitting on leather seats in the upper salon as if they owned the boat. The D.A. smoked his cigar and sipped his whiskey.

  "Melvyn is the dean of lawyers on the Island. Honorable to a fault."

  "He seems burdened by his past."

  "Aren't we all."

  "I'm representing my burden. What's his?"

  The D.A. puffed on his cigar then pondered a moment. He came to a decision.

  "Scott, I'm gonna tell you something about Melvyn in strict confidence. He's too good a man for this to get out."

  "Sure, Rex."

  "Melvyn is BOI and five years older than me. Went to Rice then UT law. Top of his class, could've hired on with the big Houston firms, made a career representing the Enrons of the world. Instead, he came back to the Island and set up a one-man shop, figured on being our Atticus Finch, if
you can believe that."

  "Well …"

  "Anyway, he had a good paying practice, but he took court appointments, for indigents. Judges appointed him because they knew poor folks would have a good lawyer. A great lawyer. Melvyn worked their cases just like his paying clients'."

  The D.A. blew out a cloud of smoke. He watched it hang in the air above his head then dissipate.

  "Melvyn caught a death penalty case, teenage orphan boy, what we called a 'retard' back then, 'mentally challenged' today. Black boy, charged with raping and killing a white girl. Melvyn took a liking to the boy—he didn't have his own kids, something with the missus—got the judge to release the boy into his custody pending trial. Took him home with him, came to love him like a son. Melvyn proved that boy innocent—I wasn't prosecuting then, but I was there—but the jury—all white men— they convicted him anyway, sentenced him to death. Melvyn appealed all the way to the state supreme court, but lost. No DNA testing back then. State executed the boy a year later."

  "A year? That's fast."

  "That was back in the sixties when the State of Texas was executing black men like the Taliban executes loose women." The D.A. paused and puffed. "Few years later, the real killer confessed on his death bed. The boy was innocent."

  "Damn."

  "That case haunts Melvyn to this day. Blames himself."

  "Why? It wasn't his fault."

  "Because that's what good men do. Just like it wasn't your fault your wife left you, but you blame yourself. So you figure you gotta defend her."

  "How'd you know?"

  "Twenty-eight years in this job, you learn about folks … and I've been there. Wife leaving you, that's tough on a man. You wonder what's wrong with you, how you failed her. You blame yourself. You start thinking differently about yourself. You go to the bar luncheon or the grocery store, everyone smiles at you but you know they're thinking you couldn't make her happy in bed, you couldn't satisfy her, you—"

  "Weren't man enough."

  The D.A. nodded. "My first wife left me twenty-five years ago. I always wondered if I had only been a better husband, a better man, a better … something … whatever she needed, maybe she wouldn't have left me. Took me a while to figure out it wasn't about me. It was about her. Just like it wasn't about you, Scott … It was about your wife."

  The D.A. drank his whiskey.

  "She left me for a Houston doctor with a mansion in River Oaks."

  "Did she have an affair with the doctor, before she left you?"

  "Yep."

  "Mine, too. I never knew."

  "We never do."

  "Looking back, the signs were there, I just didn't see them."

  "Life is clear in the rearview mirror."

  "When she left, I felt like I'd been stomped on."

  The D.A. inhaled the cigar and exhaled smoke. "Scott, if you live long enough, life will stomp the ever-living shit out of you. And having a woman you love stop loving you, that qualifies as a stompin'."

  "How'd you get over her?"

  "I didn't."

  "But you remarried?"

  The D.A. nodded. "Five years later. Took that long to stop drinking." He held up his glass. "This ain't drinking. You drink?"

  "Not liquor."

  "Don't start. At least not over a woman. You seeing a gal up in Dallas?"

  "No."

  "Prospects?"

  "Well, there is this fourth-grade teacher …"

  "But you can't take that step?"

  "Not yet."

  He nodded. "You will. One day."

  They sat in silence for a time and pondered women and life. The D.A. finally tamped out his cigar and said, "Scott, even the bad Trey didn't deserve an eight-inch blade stuck in his gut."

  "No, he didn't."

  "Some folks do. Three decades of prosecuting murderers and rapists and gangbangers, I know some people deserve to die. Benito, those Muertos—but the law doesn't allow us to make that decision outside a courtroom. We can't engage in private executions, not even here in Texas. So I'm still going to find justice for Trey. The good Trey and the bad Trey."

  "You should. But his justice isn't Rebecca. It's the mob … or maybe the Muertos … or maybe Pete Puckett. I'm not sure. But I am sure it's not her."

  "Why are her prints on the knife?"

  "I don't know. But there's something else."

  "Not Lee Harvey Oswald?"

  Scott smiled. "The mob wanted Trey to be a long-term investment. So they paid him a cut of their winnings for those two thrown tournaments … in cash. Three million dollars. Hundred-dollar bills. Gabe made the payoff personally—at Trey's house. You can't take that kind of cash to the bank, they'd have to report it to the Feds. Which leaves under the bed or in a tin can buried on the beach."

  "No tin can. Old-timers walk the beach with metal detectors, still searching for Lafitte's treasure."

  "Then under his bed."

  "What are you saying, Scott?"

  "You think the cops might've taken it? When they searched the house that day?"

  The D.A. considered the smoke ring he had exhaled then said, "I want to say no, but in a world where a governor is caught on tape trying to sell a Senate seat to the highest bidder, who knows? I'll have Hank check it out."

  "You trust him?"

  "Hank Kowalski's got no use for money. All he needs to be happy is a fishing rod and bait." The D.A. finished off his whiskey and stood. "Oh, prints on the whiskey bottle match the set on the kitchen counter, but the prints from the tape don't match either of the other sets. And Hank said thanks."

  "For what?"

  "The whiskey."

  "That proves Pete Puckett was in Trey's house the day he was murdered."

  "Figure because Trey was screwing his kid?"

  "That's a good motive."

  "Would be for me. But I thought Pete was playing in Florida that day?"

  "He DQ'd, flew home that afternoon. But not to Austin where he lives. Karen got his flight—he flew from Orlando into Houston Hobby, arrived at four. Which puts him at Trey's house by five."

  "In the kitchen."

  "Where that knife was."

  "That makes him a material witness."

  "Or a killer. He had the motive, the means, and the opportunity."

  "I always liked Pete. Everyone I know likes Pete."

  "His WM squared rating is eighty-eight percent."

  "WM what?"

  Scott shook his head. "The cartel and the mob, they had motives, too. And they're professionals. They wouldn't have left prints behind."

  "They wouldn't have left your wife behind either. Not alive." The D.A. grunted. "Seventeen days till trial, Scott. We could ask the judge for a continuance, give us some time to investigate Pete, the mob, the cartel."

  "You mean, suspects with motives?"

  "Yeah, I mean that."

  "Rex, she's innocent. Dismiss the charges and find the killer."

  "I'd rather find the killer then dismiss the charges. Look, Scott, I still think she did it, but no motive, that bothers me."

  "It should."

  "Guess if I dismiss the charges, I could always indict her again—no statute of limitations on murder. Course, she might make a run for the border."

  "With what? She's broke, too."

  "Good point."

  "She took a polygraph yesterday."

  "You're probably not telling me this because she failed?"

  "Inconclusive."

  "That's not the same as truthful."

  "It raises questions whether she's guilty."

  "But it doesn't answer them. Who did it? The polygraph."

  "Gus Grimes."

  "Gus is good. And conservative. He doesn't jump the gun, say someone's lying when they might not be. From him, inconclusive ain't bad. But—"

  "But what?"

  "As I recall, the house inventory listed prescription drugs, Prozac and beta-blockers."

  Scott nodded. "In Trey's bathroom. So?"

  "So some
folks figure they can beat a polygraph by taking beta-blockers and anti-anxiety drugs right before the test."

  "Gus said it only tests anxiety levels."

  "Yep."

  "Rebecca didn't know Trey was taking that stuff."

  "I'm sure."

  Scott pulled out his cell phone and called Gus. He was surf fishing, but he answered.

  "Gus, if Rebecca took a beta-blocker or an anti-anxiety drug before the polygraph, would that have affected the result?"

  "Did she?"

  "I don't know. I'm talking to the D.A. about it."

  "Well, it'd pretty much guarantee an inconclusive result. Artificially reduces the subject's respiration, which is what the machine measures—changes in respiration."

  "Thanks, Gus."

  "You bet. Say hi to Rex."

  Scott hung up and looked at the D.A.

  "Well?"

  "Gus says hi."

  "About the test?"

  "You're right."

  "Inconclusive means the case still comes down to her fingerprints on the murder weapon." The D.A. sat quietly. "Why were her prints on the knife?"

  "I don't know."

  "Tell me why, Scott—get me past that before trial, and I'll drop the charges."

  "I saw Trey's boat today."

  "You went to the yacht club?"

  Scott nodded. "With the D.A. Nice boat."

  "I could live on it. I loved to pilot it."

  "You can drive that big boat?"

  "Sure. We'd take it down the coast to Padre Island, we did that right before Ike hit, so the boat didn't get damaged. I wanted to take it to Cancún."

  Scott picked up a sea shell and flung it into the surf.

  "Pete Puckett was in the house that Thursday. The day Trey was killed."

  "When?"

  "While you were in Houston."

  "He broke in?"

  "No."

  "But Trey was at the club all day, practicing."

  "No, he wasn't. He left the club at noon, came home."

  "Why?"

  "To meet Billie Jean. She was there, too. Pete's prints were on the kitchen counter, right next to the knife drawer. But your prints were on the knife. I need to know why."

  "I cut stuff with those knives all the time."