by Paul Levine
“Why wouldn’t you?”
“Okay, then,” he says, just as an orange streak of the sun appears over the mountains to the east.
I rappel down the face of the cliff. Seconds later, I am working the rope out of a slot between two rocks. Once it is free, I wrap the rope around my waist, hold on with both hands, and bounce-walk along the face of the cliff until I reach the ledge.
“Thanks. You’re a good kid.” Woody winces in pain as I hand him the rope. Up close, he looks older and not as fierce as he did from so far away. His face is slick with sweat. His puffy cheeks have a gray stubble and his breath smells of tobacco and beer.
He is able to put weight on one leg and use it against the cliff face. Huffing, puffing, and cursing, Calvin pulls him up. A few moments later, I reach the surface just as Woody painfully struggles to get back on his horse.
Calvin looks down at the ground, kicks at the dust. Seems like he wants to say something. Sorry, maybe. But he can’t quite get it out.
“You’re not a drug mule, are you kid?” he says, finally
I shake my head. “I just didn’t want you to…”
“We never would have hurt that girl. Just meant to scare her into going back home, tell her friends to stay put.”
“Where you headed?” Woody asks.
“Ocotillo. My aunt lives there.”
“We got a truck couple miles over if you want a lift. Ocotillo’s on our way to the hospital.” He says it softly. Sounding a little embarrassed, wishing he had more to offer.
“My Aunt Luisa’s a nurse. She can take a look at that ankle.”
Woody doesn’t take me up on the offer.
“Mi tia can make us all breakfast,” I say, trying again. “She’s a great cook.”
The sun is an orange fireball, fully above the distant mountains now.
The men don’t look like vigilantes any more. Ordinary guys with creased, tired faces. They exchange bashful looks.
“Do you like huevos rancheros?” I ask.
“Love it,” Calvin says.
“No better breakfast on either side of the border,” Woody agrees.
“So?” I ask.
There is no more meanness in the men’s faces. “What are we waiting for?” Calvin says. “I’m hungry as hell.”
I do something I haven’t done since crossing the border. I smile.
A fish-eyed view of the entrance to the Supreme Court of the United States.
A HELL OF A CRIME
“Ladies and gentlemen, the state will prove that Dr. Philip Macklin intentionally drove his Mercedes sedan into the Santa Ynez canal. Why? To kill his wife and make a premeditated murder look like an accident.”
Scott Gardner pasted on his solemn face and paused. Keeping quiet was the trial lawyer’s most difficult task, but he wanted his words to sink in.
Premeditated murder.
“A homicide both heinous and cruel,” he continued. “Dr. Macklin swims to safety as his wife gasps for air, black water engulfing her like a shroud of death.”
A tad melodramatic, but Channel 3 will love the sound bite, and the jurors will be moved by my passion.
Tomorrow.
Tonight, Scott Gardner, duly elected District Attorney of Santa Barbara County, spun his tale for the empty chairs of his conference room. A dry run.
“Earlier that fateful evening,” he continued, “Dr. Philip Macklin, the man sitting right here…”
J’accuse! Pointing his index finger like a rapier at the monster.
“…placed the drug Seconal in his wife’s drink. You will hear evidence that
alcohol and barbiturates were found in Mrs. Macklin’s blood, and that both substances were present in a cocktail glass in the family living room. Not only that…”
Softly but gravely. Make them lean forward, thirsting for every word.
“Dr. Macklin’s fingerprints were found on that glass, along with those of his wife. He mixed her drink, and when she passed out, he carried her to the car, a scrap of her blue satin blouse catching on the Spanish bayonet bush in the driveway. He drove at a high rate of speed down Santa Ynez Road, veered through a guardrail, over the embankment, and into the canal. Just as he had planned.”
“You have a motive for all this?”
Scott wheeled around. “Jesus! Mom, I didn’t hear you come in.”
“Your father used to say I treaded softly as an angel.”
“I think he was going deaf there at the end.” She didn’t laugh at his joke. She never laughed at his jokes. “Say, how’d you get past security?”
She smiled and gave a little shrug. “Aren’t you going to get your hair trimmed before trial?”
Reflexively, Scott ran a hand through his shaggy mop. Next, he expected his mother to straighten his tie, tuck in his shirttail, and remind him to eat his veggies.
“No time, Mom. We pick a jury in the morning.”
She sighed her disapproval. For a moment, Scott stared at his mother, marveling at her elegance. A gold silk embroidered jacket with a matching skirt falling just below the knees. Armani or Gucci, he figured. Grey hair stylishly cut, glacial blue eyes and a still-firm chin.
“So what’s up, Mom? I’m a little busy.”
“I’m here to help. It’s not like you’re in court every day. Not like your father. Now there was a lawyer.”
As opposed to me?
“And there was a man,” she added, wistfully.
Ditto, he thought.
“So, what’s the motive, Scottie?” his mother said.
Scottie.
Jeez, how many times had he asked her not to call him that?
He turned to his imaginary jury. “And just why did Dr. Macklin kill his wife? Because he was deeply in debt, his psychology practice foundering. Because Mrs. Macklin planned to divorce him, and she was his cash cow.”
“Cash cow? Dear God, what a vulgarity. Why not call her his femme de miel?”
“If I get any Parisians on the jury, I will.”
His mother lowered herself into one of the conference chairs. She gracefully crossed her legs and reached into her handbag, some Italian number made of supple leather the color of hay and soft as butter. She tapped a cigarette out of a blue Gauloises Blondes box and said, “Sometimes, Scottie, I wonder if you’re cut out for criminal law.”
“The voters of Santa Barbara County think I am.”
“Oh, come dear. They didn’t know they were voting for Scott Gardner, Junior.”
That again. In any contest with his father, he would always come in second. Scott Gardner, Sr. had been D.A. for a dozen years before going back into private practice with his wife. Gardner & Gardner, LLP. For all those messy problems of the monied folk with big houses in the hills of Montecito and on the cliffs above the beach.
So, sure, Scott knew that a lot of voters mistakenly thought his old man was making a comeback, even though he’d been residing in a cemetery overlooking the Pacific for the past three years.
“God, how I miss your father,” she said, lighting a cigarette in violation of state, county, and city laws.
“Me too, Mom.”
“I should never have gotten remarried.”
“After what you and Dad had, you were bound to be disappointed.”
Scott once told his mother that her marriage was a lot like the Reagans’. Husband and wife adoring each other and basically ignoring their children.
She didn’t deny the charge, saying simply that little tadpoles need to swim on their own, or something to that effect.
She tilted her head toward the ceiling and exhaled a puff of smoke. “So what’s your proof this wasn’t an accident?”
“Seventeen minutes. The car’s clock stopped at 10:18 P.M. Macklin called 9-1-1 at 10:35. What was he doing for seventeen minutes?”
“Maybe he was in shock.”
“Paramedics say he was fine.” Scott smiled, letting her know he’d covered that base, just like good old Dad would have done. “Say, have you eaten? Kri
stin’s stopping by with cheeseburgers.”
“Cheeseburgers?” Making the word sound like “herpes sores.”
“And fries.”
“Kristin never did learn to cook, did she?”
“Don’t start, Mom.”
“I’m amazed she’s kept her figure. Must have been all that exotic dancing.”
“Mom, she was a Laker Girl.”
“So she was. A regular Isadora Duncan.”
“If you want a burger, tell me now, and I’ll catch Kristin at the In ‘n Out.”
“I’d rather eat glass.” She tapped cigarette ash into an empty coffee cup. “What makes you think Macklin didn’t dive into the water and pound on the car windows for seventeen minutes?”
“He never claimed he did. Not a word to the cops at the scene or in the hospital. What does that tell you?”
“His silence is inadmissible.”
“I’m just saying, would an innocent man keep quiet?”
“Maybe. If he had to think things through.”
“Why? To plan his lies for trial?”
“To tell a painful truth that would nonetheless prove his innocence.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The holes in your case.”
“Hey, Mom. It’s one thing to play devil’s advocate, but I’ve been over this a hundred times. There are no holes.”
“Do you remember the night of the crash?”
“Hard to forget. The sheriff called me at home. I was at the scene in fifteen minutes.”
His mother exhaled a perfect smoke ring. She’d learned the trick from his father. “Did the lovely Kristin go with you?”
He thought a second. “No. She wasn’t home.”
“Ten-thirty at night. Where was she, donating blood at the Red Cross?”
“It was a Thursday. Girls’ night out. Racquetball.”
“Was she there when you got back?”
“Of course. I didn’t get home until nearly dawn. Kristin was asleep.”
“How was she in the morning?”
“I don’t understand the question, Counselor.”
“Yes, you do. I always told your father you were brighter than you appear.”
“Gee, thanks Mom.”
“Was Kristin stiff or sore? Was she visibly injured in any way?”
“What’s that got to do with—”
“The witness shall answer the question.”
Fine, he’d play along. “I wouldn’t call it an injury. She had a bruised cheekbone from getting hit with a racquetball.”
“Easily covered, I suppose, by all that Estee Lauder foundation she trowels on.”
The intercom rasped with a woman’s voice. “Honey, can you buzz me in?”
“Only if you’re bringing food.” Scott hit a button and heard the lock double-click open.
“We haven’t much time,” his mother said. “Don’t make me go through this when you already know the answer.”
“Mom, I swear I don’t even know the question.”
“You’re in denial, Scottie.”
“Of what?”
“Let’s say that Mrs. Macklin was supposed to be traveling that fateful evening. But a marine layer rolled in, and the Lear couldn’t get out of the municipal airport.”
“Okay, she’s fogged in.”
His mother laughed, the sound of church bells pealing. “Oh my, yes. Was she ever fogged in. Anyway, she comes home and finds her husband in bed with a young woman. The woman was astride the miscreant in what I believe they call the cowgirl position, and sure as shooting, her whoops and hollers would have been appropriate for a rodeo.”
Scott heard the door to the anteroom open. “Honey,” Kristin called out. “I’ll be there in a sec after I get some Cokes from the fridge.”
“Take your time.” He turned to his mother. “Your story doesn’t make sense. If Mrs. Macklin catches her husband in flagrante delicto, no way she’s going to sit down and have a drink with him.”
“She doesn’t.”
“So what’s with his fingerprints on the glass?”
“I assume she put Seconal in her whiskey, downed it, then dropped the glass. Her husband simply picked up the glass, perhaps to sniff it, or maybe he’s a neat freak.”
They could hear Kristin in the next room, the sound of ice cubes rattling out of a tray.
“You’re saying she committed suicide,” Scott said.
“Tried to. OD’ed into a semi-conscious state.”
“So what’s she doing in the car with her husband?”
“What’s down Santa Ynez Road? Three miles past the site of the accident.”
He considered the question. “The Cottage Hospital.”
“Exactly. If I were defending the case, I’d say Dr. Macklin felt enormous guilt over causing his wife’s suicide attempt. He picked her up, carried her to his car, her blouse catching on that damn thorny bush. He’s driving to the hospital at 70 miles an hour when he lost control on a curve and plunged into the canal.”
“So why didn’t he pull her out of the water?”
“Because he only had time to rescue one person, and no matter how heavy his guilt, he was in love with someone else. Stated another way, his wife was second on his triage list.”
“Wrong. There was no else in the car.”
“You mean there was no one else there when paramedics arrived. Dr. Macklin didn’t call 9-1-1 until his paramour – a lovely term, is it not? – left the scene. There’s your seventeen minutes.”
“So who’d he rescue? Who’s this paramour?”
“How about a woman who hit her cheekbone on the dashboard when the car went into the water?”
He shook his head and his shoulders sagged. Of course, he knew. He just couldn’t accept it. Not that or the knowledge of his own cowardice. He’d never challenged Kristin, and he’d never confronted his own unethical conduct. He wanted to punish Macklin. Not for homicide, because the man wasn’t a killer. No, he wanted to punish Macklin for cuckolding him.
“So what do I do now?” he said.
“Scott, who are you talking to?” With a dancer’s graceful gait, Kristin waltzed into the conference room in black yoga pants and a florescent orange sleeveless sports top. She carried a tray of food and drinks.
“Tell me!” he yelled.
“Tell you what?” Kristin asked. “What are you upset about?”
“Mom, what do I do?”
“Oh Christ.” Kristin dropped the tray on the table, spilling a soda. “Not this again.”
“Mom!”
He could still see Gayle Gardner Macklin, but her image was fading.
“Mom, don’t leave me. Please!”
Trembling, Kristin said, “Scott, you know your mother drowned in that car.”
“No! She’s here now.”
“Honey, you spoke at her funeral and bawled your eyes out.”
Scott propped one hand on the conference table and struggled to his feet. He brushed past his wife without even seeing her.
“The judge should never have allowed you to handle the case,” Kristin said. “I knew something weird would happen.”
His legs felt rubbery as he staggered out, leaving behind his trial bag, the pleadings, the exhibits. His wife.
“Scott, where are you going?”
She sniffed the air. “Did you start smoking again?”
No answer. He was gone.
* * *
A moment later, Kristin dropped into a chair. She examined a coffee cup on the table. Inside, a half-smoked cigarette. The tip still glowing.
French. Just like her bitch mother-in-law used to smoke. Before she went straight to hell. A shudder went through Kristin, and she crushed the cigarette into the bottom of the cup. From the doorway, she heard a melodious voice.
“Kristin, dear. You look just darling in your workout gear.”
She spun around in her chair.
Omigod.
“Last time we met, you were au naturel and grun
ting like a sow in heat.”
Kristin steadied herself against the fear. Her words came in forced breaths. “What have you become? What do you want?”
“At long last, I am my true self. And all I want is justice.”
Paralyzed, Kristin watched as Scott, wearing a woman’s grey wig, his cheeks rouged and lips glossed, raised a handgun and pointed it at her chest.
Illustration of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Pit and the Pendulum" by Harry Clarke, 1919.
DEVELOPMENT HELL
Marvin Beazle slipped off his tinted shades, tugged at his ponytail and studied the emaciated writer sitting across from him. Skin the texture of paraffin. Stained trousers, moth-eaten frock coat, and a silk cravat dangling like an tattered curtain.
“Love the Johnny Depp look,” Beazle said. “But why the long face?”
The writer stared back with rheumy eyes. “Like absinthe with its cork askew, I do not travel well.”
A scarecrow in a wool coat, Beazle thought. One of those writers who could use a tanning salon, a tailor, and some Zoloft. “Okay if I call you Eddie? Or do you prefer Al?”
“I prefer Edgar. Or Mr. Poe.” The writer wheezed an unhealthy cough. “But if you insist, you may call me Eddie. I have never stood on ceremony.”
“My man!” Beazle beamed, a tiger dreaming of tasting a lamb.
They were in the executive offices of Diablo Pictures on Sunset Boulevard, and Beazle had a rights deal to close. In his experience – and he’d been doing this forever – writers were worms. Drowning in doubt, strangling on self-loathing. A little money, a little flattery, and most scribblers would sell their souls along with their scripts.
Beazle vaulted from his ergonomically correct swivel chair and pointed toward the floor-to-ceiling window. “What do you see out there, Eddie?”
The writer squinted into the afternoon sun. “Houses on a precipitous hillside. A hideous white sign. ‘Hollywood.’ As if the inhabitants need assistance recalling their whereabouts.”
That snooty East Coast attitude, Beazle thought. Like Baltimore is the Garden of Eden. “It can all be yours, Eddie.”
“All of what, sir?”
“Okay, not my digs on Mulholland. But a big chunk of this burg is yours for the taking.”
Beazle peeled off his black silk Armani suitcoat and tossed it onto his leather sofa. He plopped back into his chair and swung his five-hundred dollar Matteo sneakers onto the desk. The sneakers – alligator hide dyed red and gold - made Beazle recognizable to everyone who counted, especially the maître d’s of Prime, Maestro’s, and The Grill, where he ate his steaks bloody.