Defiled

by Mike Nemeth

  “That’s right.”

  He made another note. “Is that when you locked her downstairs?”

  “No. She came back topside, and we argued some more. She became very angry and violent. She threw her drink glass at me, tossed a couch cushion overboard, threatened me with a liquor bottle. Then she went below again, said she was going to change clothes. Wanted the blood spatter to be on conservative clothes.”

  He didn’t react to that. “What did you argue about that second time, when she came up top after making the phone call?”

  So she did make a call. “She said I had kidnapped her and was going to rape her at the cove. I told her I’d be happy to drop her off somewhere, because I wasn’t interested in having sex with her. That’s when she became violent.”

  “So you argued about sex, not about the house?”

  Oh! He’s heard a different story from someone else. “We talked about the house, but she didn’t get angry until I refused to fall for the sex angle. Maybe she wanted a semen sample, to prove rape.”

  The lieutenant grimaced and took another note. “When she went below the second time, is that when you locked her up?”

  “Yes. I assumed she was going for her gun, so I locked her belowdecks. The hatch that leads belowdecks has a padlock so that it can be secured when the boat is vacant in the marina.”

  He seemed to decide whether my actions constituted kidnapping, scribbled something, and said, “Why didn’t you turn around, go back to the marina?”

  “I wasn’t sure of my legal standing at that point. I was defending myself against her violent behavior, but did trapping her belowdecks constitute kidnapping, or that other charge, false imprisonment?”

  “‘Unlawful restraint’ we call it in Florida.”

  “Yeah. So I thought I had to see if I was right about her daddy coming to kill me.” Frumpy gave me a sad look similar to the one Jamie had given me. With a bit of force, I said, “Naturally I thought you guys would get there first.”

  He snorted.

  I added, “And she wasn’t raped.”

  “We had her checked; there were no signs of rape or sexual abuse.”

  There were lots of bottles in the galley if she had wanted to bruise herself. “It was all a ruse to kill me, lieutenant.”

  “Okay, Mr. Marks. She’s locked up and then what?”

  “I sailed down to the cove and anchored the boat. Harlan was the first to get there. He drove up to my stern, and Dickson hopped onto my boat, firing his shotgun at me.”

  “Dickson fired the first shot?”

  “Yes, while he was boarding my boat.”

  “Did he say anything before he took a shot at you?”

  “No, he just fired as he was jumping aboard, like you see combat troops do in movies.”

  “What about the old man, Mr. Tomkins? Did he say anything, hail you from his boat?”

  “No, no words were exchanged at all.”

  “So they didn’t ask where Carrie was or want to talk to you about kidnapping her?”

  “No sir. They did not want to talk. They just wanted to shoot.”

  This time Callahan wrote several sentences. When he finished, he looked at me and said, “Why did you shoot the old man?”

  “Because he was armed and boarding my boat without permission.” That’s straight out of the Florida maritime statute on piracy. I looked it up. “I already had one commando aboard and needed to even the odds. The police hadn’t responded as yet.”

  Frumpy was tired of hearing that. “Mr. Marks, are you familiar with the piracy laws?”

  I laughed. “He wasn’t after gold bullion, lieutenant. He wanted to kill me.”

  Unabashed, Frumpy said, “You took the captain’s course. I looked it up.”

  Touché! A thorough cop. “Piracy didn’t cross my mind at that moment. I was thinking more along the lines of self-defense.”

  “Sure. What about ‘stand your ground’?”

  I feigned a puzzled look. The media had made sure that everyone had heard of the “stand your ground” law in Florida, but I was a bit nervous about the implications of premeditation.

  “I’ve heard of it, but I don’t know much about it.”

  “There’s a law in Florida, Mr. Marks, that allows people who are attacked with deadly force to respond with deadly force. I wondered if you were familiar with it.”

  “Lieutenant, when you’re attacked with deadly force the only law you have time to think about is the law of survival.”

  “Alright. Keep going.”

  “I turned to go back into the aft cabin, and Dickson was on the opposite side of the boat. He took another shot at me and hit me in the legs, and I went down on the deck.”

  “Why didn’t Dickson finish you off right there?”

  “He was exposed in the doorway. I guess he thought I’d shoot back. He moved up around the bow and intended to come at me from behind, but I crawled up onto the bridge and hid under the instrument panel. Next thing I knew, his shotgun came over the top of the windshield, aiming at my midsection, between the two seats in the bridge.” Either Jamie was correct and that’s what he was doing, or it was a plausible story to protect my daughter.

  The lieutenant said, “Did you hear anything during this time?”

  “I heard a shot, and then I heard his body hit the bridge and then it hit the deck.”

  Frumpy grimaced at the graphic description. He was looking for a different answer. “What I mean is, did you hear voices?”

  “Oh sure. I heard my daughter yell at him.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She told him to drop his weapon.”

  “Did she identify herself?”

  “As a cop? Yes. It was all very official.”

  “How many times did you hear your daughter challenge him?”

  “Three.” No hesitation.

  Frumpy wrote something in his notebook. “Did he ever respond to her or react?”

  “I never heard him say anything and I couldn’t see his face, but he stopped moving so I’m sure he heard her.” Up yours, Chance!

  “He says he was just standing there, waiting for you to come out so he could make you open the hatch, release your wife.”

  “He’s lying. He was trying to get another shot at me.”

  “He says he couldn’t hear your daughter clearly.”

  “He’s lying. It was quiet as a graveyard in that cove.”

  Frumpy gave me the look your buddy would give you if you won the lottery. “Lucky for you your daughter happened to be in the right place at the right time.”

  “For sure. She told me that Travis, Carrie’s son, had called her and asked her to prevent something bad from happening, so everyone knew that Carrie planned to kill me.”

  Frumpy was faraway in thought for a moment. “Okay, what happened next?”

  “Carrie began shooting her way through the hatch. I was afraid she’d get out and then shoot me, so I crawled across the bridge until I was above the hatch, and when she stuck her head out I hit her with my gun. She fell down onto the floor and lost her gun. That’s when Jamie entered the aft cabin. I don’t remember much after that.”

  “Just to clarify, did your wife go for her gun after she was on the floor?”

  “Yes, she reached for it. Scared me to death because I was so woozy I didn’t think I could fight back if she got to it.”

  Frumpy’s brow furrowed with consternation. “Did you say anything to her?”

  “I can’t remember. I may have passed out from blood loss.”

  “According to your wife, you said, ‘Make your best move.’”

  As though I had to trust his rendition because I had no recollection of the situation, I shrugged and said, “I guess I gave her a fair chance, like in a cowboy movie.”

  Frumpy stared a hole through a spot between my eyebrows. “Maybe you wanted an excuse to kill her. Who did your daughter disarm first when she came aboard?”

  Callahan was earning my respect,
but I knew where he was heading; he trusted another cop to know which of us posed the greater danger, so I took a calculated risk that Jamie would recognize the ploy as well. “She knew I was no threat, so she picked up Carrie’s gun first.”

  Callahan pursed his lips. I didn’t think he believed me. “You’re lucky you didn’t shoot her, you know?”

  “Don’t you mean she’s lucky I didn’t shoot her?”

  “Her gun was empty. Did you know that?”

  “I wasn’t counting bullets, lieutenant; I was dodging them. Obviously, she thought it was loaded; she tried to grab it.”

  He relaxed a bit, leaned back. “Ya know, if you had shot her, this would be a complicated case. The prosecutor might wonder if you lured her aboard so you could kill her, save yourself the trouble of a divorce.”

  “Are you kidding me? I would have called you guys after I shot her, not before. And I could have shot her before I locked her up. How does a prosecutor see a conspiracy in that?”

  Callahan appeared to like the twisted complexity of the various scenarios. He gave a “Who knows?” gesture, then said, “There’s no telling how a prosecutor might read the situation.”

  I thought I knew when I was being conned, but this time I couldn’t be sure. “Are you my new best friend, lieutenant, letting me in on the prosecutor’s thought process?”

  “I hope you have better friends than me, Mr. Marks. You’re gonna need ’em.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  It took three weeks of relentless official pressure before my panel of doctors caved in and admitted that I was well enough to endure a grilling by Pinellas County prosecutors. The prosecutors needed to depose me so they could use my deposition as testimony at a grand jury inquiry into the incident. My third surgery had been delayed, so the prosecutors wanted to slip the deposition into the window between surgeries before the medical staff had new excuses to exclude them from my visitors’ list.

  On the morning of the deposition, I had to forego my pain meds to remain lucid for the interrogation. As a result, I shifted uncomfortably in my bed as my orderly, Giuseppe, shaved my three-day-old beard.

  “Almost done,” he said. “Just have to do the neck without slitting your throat, so sit very still for me. I’ll get you a pillow to put under that leg when I’m done making you pretty.”

  I tilted my head back to give Giuseppe easy access to my throat, but in my peripheral vision I saw my LPN, Sharonda Lucas, sweep into the room as some people loitered in the doorway behind her.

  “Good morning, Mr. Marks,” Sharonda chirped. “You have visitors.”

  Giuseppe stopped his work to let me turn my head toward the doorway. There I saw Jamie, in full battle dress, and Glenda, whose mass of copper-red hair was under a measure of control. A wide, red smile broke Glenda’s field of freckles. I grinned like a kid at Christmas.

  I waved my arm and said, “Come on in. We’ll be finished in a minute.”

  Giuseppe turned my head back toward him and pushed my jaw upward to gain access to my neck. “Stop smiling or you’ll lose your Adam’s apple,” he joked.

  Meanwhile, Sharonda readied the room for the interrogation session. She moved my rolling bedside tray, with my laptop computer and mobile phone on it, to the area in front of the sink, and then pushed the overstuffed bedside chair into the near corner at the head of the bed so that there was standing room all around it.

  When Giuseppe finished shaving me, he dabbed a hot towel on my face to remove the residue of shaving cream. Afterward, he backed out of the way and went to find an extra pillow. Jamie and Glenda moved bedside and leaned in for hugs and kisses.

  I said, “Let me introduce the team. This is Giuseppe. He’s a nursing student from the Philippines, and I’m his guinea pig. That lovely creature over there is Sharonda.” I emphasized the second syllable and rolled the R’s in the middle of the nurse’s name, like I was speaking Spanish. Sharonda responded with a curtsy and primped with one hand behind her head, lifting her dark curls.

  “Why is everyone so happy?” Glenda said.

  “Apparently, if you almost die but then survive,” I said, “you are happier than you were before you almost died. It’s a well-known phenomenon. Am I right, team?” I looked to Sharonda and Giuseppe for confirmation. Both nodded.

  Glenda said “Oh” as though a new spiritual concept had been revealed to her. She turned to Giuseppe and said, “How do you do? Thanks for taking such good care of Randle. And thank you,” she said to Sharonda. “Obviously, Randle is quite happy with you too.”

  “Not as happy as I used to be,” I said. “She won’t bathe me anymore. Got a little embarrassed once. So Giuseppe does the honors, and it’s not half as much fun.”

  “He’s a rascal,” Sharonda said as she moved in to brush my freshly shampooed hair into place. When she approved of my appearance, she announced she would return and then departed.

  Giuseppe retrieved a pillow from the closet and slid it under my left leg. “There you go, pal. Should help a little.” To Glenda he said, “Pleased to meet you, ma’am.”

  Giuseppe walked away, and we were left in private. While Glenda and I held hands, Jamie shifted nervously from one foot to the other.

  “I’d say ‘get a room,’ but I guess you’d have a room if I left the room,” Jamie said.

  We gave no indication that we had heard Jamie speak. “Don’t give up on this old wreck from Georgia Tech,” I said to Glenda.

  “I can’t stay away,” Glenda said.

  “Oh God,” Jamie groaned. “Dad, when you’re well enough, we want to move back to Atlanta.”

  “What?” I was dumbfounded.

  Jamie tried to explain. “You need to get back to business. You won’t be able to travel for a very long time, so you need to be where people can come to you. The country house is up for sale, and I think you know the boat’s been shot to bits.”

  We’re going back to Atlanta, where we met.

  I looked at Jamie and said, “Why are you going back to Atlanta? I thought you had a thing going with that O’Shea kid.”

  “Cops for boyfriends are a dime a dozen, Dad. My career opportunities are much better up there. It’s a good ol’ boys’ network down here.”

  Confused, I said to Glenda, “Are you sure about Atlanta? What about your store?”

  She winked at me. “It’s all settled, Randle.”

  She lifted a gift bag onto the bed. “I brought you a present. Help you look good for the cameras today.”

  I pulled the giftwrap paper out of the bag and then lifted a pair of satiny pajamas up for inspection. They were blood red with gold piping.

  “Thanks, sweetie. You’re too nice to me.” I pulled the pale blue-and-white striped hospital gown over my head and slipped my arms into the pajamas. “How do I look?”

  Jamie chuckled as she said, “You look like Hugh Hefner ready to lounge around with his Playmates.”

  Now everyone laughed. “Perfect. I’m sure the prosecutors will be hot chicks, and they’ll drape themselves over the bed as they depose me.”

  Jamie became serious. “Only give them direct answers to their specific questions, Dad, and never change your story once you tell it. Suspects get in trouble when they volunteer information or change their story.”

  “Understood,” I answered.

  I was about to ask about Carrie but the daytime duty RN, Julia Russell, entered the room, clapped her hands twice to get everybody’s attention, and announced, “The police and the lawyers are here, and they look like a pride of lions in search of red meat. They said your lawyer could have a minute with you first if you wish, Randle.”

  My lawyer? “Everybody, this is Nurse Ratched, and she runs a tight ship.”

  Julia said, “Ha! If you think you are Jack Nicholson, you’re delusional, and I’ll have to report you to the head shrink. I’ll ask your lawyer to join us.”

  Julia didn’t have to summon Tony Zambrano, as he had been eavesdropping from the doorway. He entered the room s
miling and nodding to Jamie and Glenda and Julia. He wore a gray chalk-striped suit, a blue-striped, straight-collar shirt, and his trademark maroon bowtie with its blue-and-white polka dots. He resembled Indiana Jones’s father more than a shark-toothed lawyer.

  “Glenda and Julia, I don’t believe you’ve had the pleasure, this is my … friend, Tony Zambrano.”

  “I’m his lawyer,” Tony said to the women. Then to me he said, “If this paragon of male pride will allow me to help him today.”

  I gave him a nod and a look that welcomed him back to the team. To the women I said, “Tony’s so terrifying in the courtroom that Carrie chose to kill me instead of divorce me.”

  Tony wore a modest smile as he graciously shook hands with Glenda and Julia, bowing slightly each time, and gave Jamie a parental pat on the back.

  “You’re embarrassing me with all this praise,” Tony said. Referring to Glenda, he said, “Tell me about this beautiful apparition.”

  “Glenda is Jamie’s mother, and she’s immune to your sticky sweet advances.”

  “Not entirely,” Glenda said with a taunting smile. “I’m always pleased to meet a Southern gentleman, and I sympathize with his impossible task to keep you out of trouble.”

  “I can make no guarantees, ma’am,” Tony said in his fake drawl. “But that’s a good segue to the business at hand. Today, Randle, the prosecutor will be interested in relationships and motives. Why did it happen, who’s at fault, and what were you thinking when you willingly walked into a madwoman’s trap? Are you ready for all of that?”

  “Sure, I’ll just tell it like it was.” My police statement had been factual, and nearly truthful, but I had saved my surprises for this session, the legal proceeding that would determine who would be tried for crimes. Since Lieutenant Callahan had tipped me regarding the prosecutor’s theory, I was prepared to testify.

  Tony studied me for signs of sarcasm but could detect none. He said, “You can be candid within limits. You can’t give any answers that will incriminate yourself if you are charged with a crime. You can take the fifth on those questions, so watch me for signals.” To Julia, he said, “Could you ask the authorities to join us, please? They’re anxious to get started.”