Defiled

by Mike Nemeth

  Julia left to run the errand as Tony bid his goodbyes to Jamie and Glenda. The women wished me luck and hustled out of the way.

  I said to Tony, “What changed your mind about me?”

  “I changed my mind about me. I don’t want to be a panfish.”

  “Good. Has there been a lot of media coverage?”

  “Not a lot, Randle. You’re not a black guy shot by white cops, so you’re not a lead story. Maybe if you had died …” He turned his palms up and made a stupid face.

  Into the room came a young guy pushing a hospital cart loaded with electronic gear: a TV monitor, a video camera and tripod, a boom microphone, two large studio lights and their tripods. Behind him came a young chubby woman pushing a small rolling cart on top of which sat a machine that appeared to be the ugly love child of a typewriter and an old-fashioned adding machine. She would be the court recorder, I surmised.

  As the kid deftly plugged in cables, connected wires, and positioned equipment, Julia came to my bedside and placed one hand on my shoulder. I patted her hand and whispered, “It will be okay.”

  The technician worked efficiently, swiftly conducting tests of the lighting, sound, and video quality. As if on some silent cue, the instant the technician was ready, Tony led the pride of lions into the room. Julia edged away from the bed and into the corner formed by the closet and the sink. She would stand guard and halt the proceedings if they had any negative effect on my health.

  Tony made the introductions: Donald Eastwick, Esq., the assistant district attorney, and Derrick Sullivan, the DA’s lead investigator, followed by my “friend,” Lieutenant Callahan. Eastwick came to the near side of my bed, so Callahan had to weave between the lights and camera to station himself on my left, between the bed and the window. That left Sullivan against the wall next to the monitor and Tony farthest away in the crowded room, next to the court recorder, who wasn’t introduced at all.

  Eastwick took charge and laid down the rules of engagement. He was an odd-looking fellow, late thirties, about the size of the average eighth grader, wearing an IBM-issue blue suit and sporting an FBI-regulation haircut above black plastic-rimmed glasses with Coke-bottle-bottom lenses. The glasses exaggerated the size of his eyes and made me feel like a specimen on a slide under a microscope. When the recording equipment was ready to roll, the court recorder swore me in.

  Eastwick said, “If everyone is ready, maybe we can get this done before Halloween.” He thought he was being cute, but no one so much as smiled. Forced to continue, Eastwick—I thought of him as “Bug-Eyes”—informed us that he had previously obtained depositions from Carrie Marks, Connie Tomkins, and Travis Dickson and would take a sworn deposition from Chance Dickson when he was well enough.

  Tony indicated that we understood the procedure, and Callahan tore his eyes away from the view out the window to join the scene. The court recorder returned to her machine and confirmed she was ready to put it all into the public record.

  Like a priest ascending the altar to say High Mass, Eastwick strutted into the picture and made a small speech. “Mr. Marks, the people of the State of Florida thank you for consenting to this deposition. You have been sworn in so that your deposition can be entered in the court record as testimony at a grand jury inquiry if you are not able to appear in person.”

  He looked at my lawyer, and Tony nodded in agreement. Eastwick asked me to state my name and address for the record, took a deep breath, and began the questioning.

  “In your police statement, Mr. Marks, you said that Ms. Connie Tomkins, your sister-in-law, informed you that your estranged wife had agreed to meet you at the boat on the day in question. Is that correct?”

  I had appeared on television on several occasions and was comfortable speaking to the camera rather than to my questioner. In a steady, sincere voice, I said to the camera, “No, it isn’t, Mr. Eastwick. You must have misread my statement. There was no ‘agreement.’ Connie warned me that Carrie was coming.”

  I wanted to be sure Eastwick didn’t think I was an intimidated pushover, and Eastwick wanted to be sure I didn’t dismiss him as a funny-looking little guy without power. He said, “Alright, Mr. Marks, just answer the questions as asked and refrain from editorial comments, if you please.”

  “Of course, Mr. Eastwick. I just want you to get all the facts …” Neither of us blinked so I finished my thought, “… for the grand jury.” I motioned toward the camera, knowing I was speaking to that panel and not some second-string prosecutor.

  We stared at each other with open hostility, two gladiators poised for battle. Eastwick said, “Did Ms. Tomkins act as a go-between, arrange the meeting between you and your wife?”

  “I have no idea what Connie may have said to Carrie. Twice my wife had come to the boat unannounced, of her own volition. Since my wife and I weren’t communicating, I asked Connie to tell Carrie to give me advanced warning if she intended to come back. Connie sent me a text, presumably on Carrie’s behalf.”

  Eastwick raised his eyebrows and said, “Ms. Tomkins stated that you wanted your wife to come to the boat.”

  I gave the camera a look that said, This guy can’t get much of anything right. “Either you misunderstood Connie’s testimony, Mr. Eastwick, or she lied to you. Carrie wanted to negotiate directly, and I told Connie that I was willing, if it wasn’t a ploy to murder me.”

  “Mr. Marks, the court doesn’t need your inflammatory remarks. Just answer questions directly.”

  Tony cut in and explained the situation to Bug-Eyes as though he were a professor educating a first-year law student. “Mr. Eastwick, this isn’t cross-examination, it is a deposition. So we’re all looking for the most complete rendition of the facts as possible, are we not? Please allow my client to acquaint you with those facts as best he can so we don’t have to cut this proceeding short.”

  Eastwick flushed and buried his face in his notepad, aware that cameras were recording his reaction and his associates were watching with interest. He paced in the tight space between the bed and the camera equipment before turning back toward me.

  “So your wife may have wanted to negotiate, and yet you think she wanted to harm you. Why is that?”

  “You forgot that she may have wanted to get laid. That’s how she was dressed.”

  Everyone laughed; the court recorder nearly choked on her coffee. Eastwick whirled around to Tony, but my lawyer merely shrugged. Eastwick faced me again and took a deep breath. “Just answer my question, Mr. Marks. Why did you fear your wife?”

  “Because she had threatened to kill me.”

  “We’ll get to the so-called threats, but why would your wife want to harm you?”

  I gave the camera a look that meant duh! “If I was dead, she’d get all the money.”

  The prosecutor gave me an “Oh really” look. “Didn’t you amend your will so your daughter was your sole beneficiary?”

  The one thing “the authorities” do well is apply manpower to dig into the details. Unperturbed, I said, “Carrie didn’t know I had changed my will. Connie told me the day before the assault that Carrie thought she’d inherit everything if she killed me.”

  The prosecutor’s jaw dropped, so I helped him out. “If Connie didn’t give you that tidbit, she lied by omission.”

  Eastwick straightened his shoulders and sucked on the end of his pencil as though my simple statement required deep thought. He said, “Your wife would have gotten a couple million without committing a murder, isn’t that right, Mr. Marks?”

  “My offer was half that much, which wasn’t enough for Carrie.”

  Eastwick nodded and took a note on his legal pad. “Would the Baker Act evaluation jeopardize her financial settlement?”

  “Not according to my lawyer; our assets would be divided equally in any case.”

  Eastwick smiled as though I had made his point, and I wondered if I had made a mistake.

  He said, “Your motion for a trial was denied, wasn’t it?”

  Hmm. “Deferred
. We’d have gotten a trial eventually.”

  “And your counterclaim was dismissed as well, wasn’t it?”

  This is not going well. “I could have introduced my evidence in defense of her suit.”

  Eastwick looked pleased with himself as he did a little two-step and thought about his next question. “Evidence,” he said slowly, as though he could taste the word. “You never provided any, did you?”

  Okay, I get it now. “We had submitted a list of witnesses, but we hadn’t deposed them as yet.”

  “The truth is, you didn’t want to give her a fair settlement, so you kidnapped her.”

  Well, no finesse to that question. “When Carrie became violent, I locked her up to protect myself and I issued a Mayday for the police. She had a gun with her and later she used it, as I’m sure you know if you’ve read the police report.” I held out a hand and said, “Julia, would you hand me my cell phone, please?”

  The nurse gave me a questioning look but gave me my phone. I fiddled with it a minute until I had queued up the video of Carrie about to throw a bottle at me. I held it up for Bug-Eyes.

  “Have a look at this, Mr. Prosecutor.”

  He leaned in and watched the tape with his mouth agape. I wasn’t sure if it was the violent intent or the revealing bikini that captivated him. Without warning, he made a grab for my phone but I was too quick for him.

  “Let me have that!” he yelled.

  “Get me a search warrant,” I responded calmly, “and you can use this to prosecute the real criminal.”

  Eastwick took several moments to calm himself before he said, “Then your story is that you feared your wife, but the prospect of sex overpowered your fear and you allowed your potential murderer onto your boat.”

  Now I was exasperated by his repeated attempts to put words in my mouth. “Sex had nothing to do with it. I wanted closure, and I had a plan to stay safe.”

  “A plan, yes.” He wanted to appear as though he were deliberating. “So you planned to take your wife to Mullet Key all along?”

  “Yes. Carrie wanted me to go into the Gulf because it was a short trip from Harlan’s marina up near Clearwater and they could use shotguns without being heard or seen. Connie said, ‘If she wants you to go out into the Gulf, up to Clearwater, you’ll know she didn’t come to give hugs and kisses.’ That’s a direct quote, and that was the trap I wasn’t willing to walk into. If Carrie wanted to negotiate, the cove was far better than bouncing around on ocean swells. More importantly, it had access from shore and was easier for the police to find than some undefined spot out in the middle of the Gulf.”

  Eastwick blinked twice. “Did Ms. Tomkins know your plan to take your wife to the cove?”

  “No, I didn’t tell her.”

  “So you let your wife believe you’d go to the Gulf, but you planned to trap her at the cove and Ms. Tomkins had no knowledge of your plan. Is that right?”

  “I couldn’t trust Ms. Tomkins because I wasn’t sure whose side she was on. Now I know that she wanted me dead too.”

  Eastwick exploded. “I’d like to strike that answer, Mr. Zambrano, and I’d like you to control your client. Please.”

  Tony walked over to Eastwick and stood toe-to-toe with him. “Mr. Eastwick, my client is not willing to adjust his answers to make you happy. My client has a limited amount of energy for this deposition, so I suggest you stop slowing the proceedings down with your objections and just get through your list of questions as fast as possible.”

  Tony ordered the court recorder to record my answer precisely as given. Eastwick looked on in amazement. Then Tony ambled back to his spot between the recorder and Julia and leaned nonchalantly against the wall.

  Eastwick took a deep breath. “Didn’t you supply Ms. Tomkins with a list of enticements to lure her sister onto the boat?”

  Tony shot me a warning look, but I answered the question. “No. Connie told me what Carrie wanted for a settlement, and I told her I’d be willing to give up the house and the car if I received other consideration.”

  Eastwick made sure the camera caught the doubt on his face. Then he consulted his notepad to find the next question. “Didn’t you tell Ms. Tomkins how your wife should plan her rescue so it would look to the police like a murder plot?”

  “You think I asked her to recruit a trained killer, wanted him to shoot me to make it look good? That’s farfetched even for you, Mr. Eastwick.”

  Eastwick moved very close to me to deliver his coup de grâce. He was like a little boy who had solved a riddle, and he wanted the grand jury to recognize his brilliance. “You expected Ms. Tomkins to pass the information back to your wife so she’d walk into the trap.”

  I could see that coming, so it didn’t affect me. “Carrie plotted a murder and her sister ratted her out, probably for revenge. Connie passed the plan on to me so I could outwit her.”

  Eastwick paused for dramatic effect. When everyone was quiet and attentive, he said, “Ms. Tomkins rarely spoke to her sister, because Mrs. Marks was upset with her for associating with you.” He pulled a stack of paper from behind his legal pad and waved it at me. “We checked your wife’s phone records. There have been no calls between the sisters since July.” He turned toward the camera to smile with me in the background of the shot, as though he were taking a selfie with a celebrity.

  He had a point; I possessed the same useless phone records. I said, “A murder plot is hatched in person, not over the phone.”

  “They lived fifty miles apart, Mr. Marks. They would have corresponded somehow.”

  “Yes, they would have,” I agreed. “How else could my ‘instructions’ make their way back to Carrie?”

  That took him by surprise. He wavered in front of me like heatwaves over an asphalt highway. Dumbfounded, he bent over his legal pad and read for a while as though the answer to that riddle might be among his notes.

  When he was composed, Eastwick went for the kill. “Here’s how it looks to us, Mr. Marks.” As he made each point, he unfurled a finger of his right hand. “You lured your wife to the boat with incentives.” Pinky. “She had no motive to murder you, so you kidnapped her.” Ring finger. “You had a plan to trap her, and you didn’t share that with anyone else.” Middle finger. “There was no plot to murder you, so you waited for her family to rescue her.” Index finger. Voice rising to a crescendo, he threw out his thumb and shouted, “You’d have shot her if Officer Marks hadn’t stopped you!”

  Oh crap, Jamie told them she disarmed me first. “You’re writing a fairy tale, Mr. Eastwick, and wasting taxpayer dollars. Listen to this, please.”

  I fumbled with my cell phone again until I queued up my surreptitious recording of Connie at our “romantic” dinner. I punched the “play” button, and Connie’s voice filled the room with an elaborate description of a murder plot. Eastwick looked around as though his momma might appear and help him out of this mess.

  He said, “Stop that tape.” Turning to the technician, he said, “Stop recording!”

  No one obeyed his orders, and Connie prattled on about the plot in a conspiratorial voice.

  Eastwick said, “Did she know she was being taped?”

  “No.”

  “Well then,” he said, raising his arms triumphantly, “it’s not admissible.”

  “Maybe not,” I said, “but it is exculpatory and now”—I pointed to the camera—“the grand jury has heard it.”

  Looking into the camera lens, Eastwick said, “I have to work within the bounds of the law, Mr. Marks. If it’s not admissible, it never happened.”

  Looking into the camera, speaking to the grand jury panel, I said, “You may be willing to ignore evidence, Mr. Prosecutor, but our good citizens aren’t going to.”

  Whirling around, looking for support, he yelled, “Strike that!” He swiveled between the technician and the court recorder, barking at them, “Strike that and rewind the tape!” No one moved.

  I stuck my finger in his face, and in my best imitation of Jack Nichols
on in A Few Good Men, I shouted, “You wanted the truth, Mr. Prosecutor! Well, you got the truth.”

  I thought he might jump on the bed, jump on me, so we could wrestle like grade-school children trading insults about our mothers. There was spittle flying from his mouth as he said, “You concocted the murder plot so you could trap your wife. You used Ms. Tomkins so you could … could get rid of your wife.”

  I shouted back into his face, not a foot from mine. “You dreamed this conspiracy up, to make a name for yourself. My wife concealed a weapon and brought it aboard my boat. Then two armed men attacked the boat and shot me. Other than inventing fairy tales, what are you doing about the crime that actually happened, Mr. Prosecutor?”

  As soon as I said that, chaos reigned. Tony shouted, “This deposition is over!” Eastwick screamed at the court recorder to strike my last answer. Tony rushed to the foot of the bed to cup one hand over the camera lens as he told the technician to shut down the equipment. Julia slipped between Eastwick and the bed and herded the prosecutor toward the door. Eastwick shouted over his shoulder, “I’ll put him on the stand, and then I’ll get the truth!”

  Callahan didn’t stir from his perch, leaning against the windowsill, but he shook his head in wonderment. The fracas calmed down swiftly as the investigator traipsed behind Eastwick and the court recorder hurriedly wheeled her recording contraption out of the room. The technician packed his gear carefully, not in a hurry.

  Tony said, “I haven’t had that much fun since I discovered masturbation. He won’t show that tape to anyone.”

  “I hope he shows it to everyone,” I said.

  Callahan pushed himself up from the windowsill. “Counselor, you mind if I ask your client a couple more questions?”

  Tony shook his head. “I think my client has had enough for one day, lieutenant.”

  “It’s okay, Tony,” I said. “We’re old friends.”

  My “old friend” Frumpy smiled. “Why didn’t you tell me about those tapes when I took your statement? One proves your wife lied about the bikini, and the other implicates her in a conspiracy.”