Black Leather

by Elizabeth Engstrom

  “The brother said that Warren ditched Cynthia sometime during the evening,” Detective Matthias said, “and Cynthia wasn’t too happy about that.”

  Irene tried to hide the flush in her face by scrutinizing a photograph showing the body from a different angle. “Where was this body found,” she couldn’t resist the sarcasm, “in Cynthia Schneider’s hotel room?”

  “No, ma’am,” Ramirez said. “In his bed in his trailer. He lived in a trailer in the desert.”

  “Uh-huh,” Irene said, then looked at each of them in turn, timing the moment. “And did anyone see Cynthia Schneider go in or out of that trailer?”

  “We haven’t charged her yet, Irene,” Owen said. “We brought her in to be questioned.”

  “Well, gentlemen,” Irene said, taking charge of the meeting. “Mind if I keep these photographs?”

  Matthias waved his approval.

  “Being in Los Angeles isn’t a crime. And dancing doesn’t mean killing—” she picked up a photograph and tipped it toward the three men— “or skinning. Secondly, I know this Cynthia Schneider, and there is no way, there is no way, she could or would do something like this.”

  She tossed the photographs into her briefcase and snapped the lid shut. She addressed Detective Ramirez. “Pursuing this lead is a waste of your time.” She stood and turned to Detective Matthias. “If and when you’re ready to charge her, give me a call. In the meantime, leave my client alone.”

  “Excuse me,” Owen said, “but isn’t this Cynthia Schneider your sister?”

  Irene fixed him with a steely stare. “What’s your point?”

  “And isn’t she newly separated, perhaps divorced?”

  Irene took an impatient breath.

  “And isn’t her ex—who dumped her, and with whom she is extremely angry—black?” Owen looked at Detective Ramirez apologetically. “Or, I’m sorry, I guess I should have said—” he looked back at Irene—“African American?”

  Heat flushed through Irene so fast that she wasn’t sure she was going to be able to pull off her exit. And exits were of extreme importance in this business. She couldn’t afford to allow his racial accusation even a tiny foothold. Which meant she couldn’t overreact nor could she under react. She looked directly at him with what she hoped was a completely expressionless face. “That’s inappropriate, Owen,” she said, taking the maternal shame route.

  She picked up her briefcase. “Gentlemen,” she said, then whirled and stalked out of the room.

  ~~~

  Cynthia, eyes red and swollen, shredded a tissue and mopped her running nose with the pieces. She made a valiant effort at a smile when Irene walked into the police station interview room, but then the smile turned to a grimace and she began to sob again.

  Irene gave Cynthia a brief hug, then knowing they would be periodically observed through the glass in the door, she sat down and opened her briefcase.

  Cynthia gratefully accepted a fresh tissue, then blew her nose.

  “They can’t hold you unless they charge you,” Irene said.

  “I have no idea what this is all about.”

  Irene looked her straight in the eye. “No idea?”

  Cynthia met her gaze without flinching. “Some murder in Los Angeles.”

  Irene pulled the grisly photographs from her briefcase, shuffled through them until she found one that showed the man’s face, then skated it across the table to her sister.

  Cynthia cringed, wrinkled her nose. Then she did a double take. Irene’s eyes narrowed in suspicion as Cynthia picked up the photograph and looked at it closely, her running nose and soggy tissue forgotten. “That’s Warren,” she said in wonder, then looked wide-eyed over the top of the photograph at Irene.

  “Warren?” Irene was amazed. “You know this guy?”

  “I danced with him.”

  “When?”

  That question seemed to subdue Cynthia. She looked ashamed and couldn’t exactly meet Irene’s gaze. “Friday night.”

  Irene had to concentrate to keep her hands relaxed. She felt her muscles automatically begin to tense all along her neck and the tops of her shoulders.

  “Did you go home with him?”

  Her eyes came back up and squarely met Irene’s. “No.”

  Irene snatched the photograph from Cynthia. “Did you go home with anybody? Do you have an alibi?”

  “No. I went back to the motel and went to bed.”

  Irene studied her sister’s puffy face. “Jesus Christ, Cynthia, I leave you alone for a weekend and you can’t even take care of yourself. You fly off to goddamned Los Angeles and get tangled up with some Navajo construction guy who lives in a trailer. What possesses you?”

  Cynthia shrugged. “I followed you there.”

  “Excuse me?” Irene felt a flow of blood heat her face. “I didn’t go to Los Angeles.”

  Cynthia looked at her with astonished disbelief. “I followed you there, Irene. I was worried about you. I wanted us to have some fun together. I stayed two doors down from you at that tacky motel—The Midnite Motel, Irene, and I followed you to that disgusting bar.”

  Irene collected herself, took a deep breath and spoke slowly, calmly, professionally. “You’re mistaken.”

  Chapter 6

  “I don’t trust her, Joseph,” Cynthia said, hot moisture running out of her nose. “Hold on a second.” She put the phone down on the futon and blew her reddened, raw and chapped nose. She felt as though all she’d done in the past few days was cry, and she was tired of it. She felt dehydrated. She picked up the phone again. “I don’t want Irene representing me. There’s something not right about this. It’s weird. It’s spooky.”

  “What are you going to do? Where are you going to go?”

  Cynthia listened carefully, looking for signs of genuine interest in Joseph’s voice. Did he still care about her? Did he still love her? Would he take her back?

  She stood up and walked over to the cheap little dresser, leaving a space of silence on the phone. She pulled out a small drawer and dumped it unceremoniously into the open suitcase on the floor. “Well, I’ve certainly got to get out of here. I thought maybe... Couldn’t I just stay with you for a little while? A week, say, while I got a job and a place to live?” There. It was said. She held still, eyes scrunched closed, while she waited for his reply. If he said yes, if she could just slide into his bed for one night, then there would be another, and another, and soon they’d be healed. She’d be a habit with him again. Just one night to get their relationship kick started again, that’s all she needed.

  “That’s not a good idea, Cynthia. You know that’s not a good idea. Even you know that’s not a good idea.”

  The pressure of tears was building up inside her head again. She choked out, “I know...” She stifled the sob, but a little bit of it leaked out when she opened her mouth again. “I just miss you...”

  She kneeled down onto the bed. Her nose was beginning to run again. She reached for a tissue, then stopped when she saw a black film canister in her suitcase along with her underwear. She picked it up, turned it over.

  “What about your girlfriend’s place? What’s her name, Bonnie?”

  “In Reno?” Cynthia dropped the canister back into the suitcase. “Reno? I hate that place. And I don’t want to live with Bonnie. I don’t even know her any more. She was Irene’s friend anyway.” She blew her nose loud enough for him to know she was crying. “If I can’t live with you, then I ought to be living on my own.” She paused, timing her moment. “Could you loan me some money? Just enough to get an apartment? I mean, don’t I have some kind of a divorce settlement coming?”

  There was a long pause, long enough for Cynthia to rip off her last remaining fingernail. She stuck the fingertip in her mouth, sat down on the bed and waited.

  Joseph was silent; she could almost see him thinking. He wanted to help her, he loved her, she knew he loved her, and she just kept shoving his face in it. She hated herself for that. “I don’t have any money, Cyn, y
ou know that. You know what I make.” There was another long pause. Cynthia held her tongue for once, and let him think. “I’ll tell you what,” he said. “Let me look at the college housing bulletin board. I’m sure there’s some place for rent that will do for a couple of months, at least until you get a job and get on your feet. I can probably dig up enough money for a couple of months' rent, but it isn’t going to be anything fancy. You’re going to need a job and a roommate.”

  “I knew I could count on you,” she purred softly into the phone.

  “Not for much,” he said, a little edge to his voice. “Now pull yourself together. Call some friends and find yourself a roommate.”

  Friends. All her friends had been their friends, his friends, actually, from the college, and they dropped her as quickly as Joseph had done. Maybe she would try to look Bonnie up. But Bonnie hadn’t ever been Cynthia’s friend, either. She’d been more Irene’s pal. Cynthia had more or less just tagged along with them when they were teenagers. Their friendship had shrunk to the exchange of Christmas cards.

  The doorbell rang. Twice, as if the person who rang it had an attitude.

  Cynthia stood up. “There’s someone at the door. Thanks, Joseph. I mean it. I’ll call you in the morning.” She clicked off the phone, and checked her face and hair in the mirror. She was a wreck. Her eyes were so swollen she looked like a frog. She hadn’t even brushed her hair yet today, and her lips looked... her lips looked smeared from crying. She wanted to put a bag over her head. Instead, she walked past Irene’s desk, through the expansive front room and opened the door, hoping it was nobody she knew.

  Two uniformed police officers stood there along with a familiar-looking man in a suit. The guy in the suit spoke. “Cynthia Schneider?”

  “Yes?” Fear pumped in her veins.

  “Detective Matthias, San Francisco Police.” He held up a piece of paper. “We have a warrant to search the premises.”

  The two uniforms shouldered their way past her. She stood by helplessly as one of them began tossing the cushions off the couch in the living room, and the other one went directly to her bedroom.

  The detective held out his hand for her to shake. Dazed, she shook it, but she was more interested in what the cop was doing in her bedroom. She followed him in.

  He nodded at the open suitcase on her bed. “Were you planning to go somewhere?” he asked, then lifted the lid on her jewelry case and poked around inside.

  “I’m moving to my own apartment, that’s all,” she said. She felt confused, disoriented, not sure if she should be mad or afraid or incensed. She didn’t want people going through her stuff. She picked the phone up off the bed and dialed.

  The cop started pulling out all the dresser drawers and dumping her stuff on the floor. That hurt. That seemed like unnecessary violence. She took the phone back into the living room, where Detective Matthias stood sentry beside the door.

  “Who are you calling?” he asked her.

  Cynthia looked up at him and for a moment didn’t know how to answer. What business was it of his?

  Don’t antagonize him, she thought. “My attorney,” she said.

  He nodded his approval.

  Irene picked it up on the first ring. “Irene Nottingham.”

  “Irene, they’ve got a search warrant.” She felt like crying again. Crying to her big sister.

  “Shit. Well, just cooperate. Call me when they’ve gone.”

  “They can just go through all my stuff? All your stuff?” She spoke into the phone but she looked at the detective while she talked. He pretended not to listen.

  “Yes,” Irene said. “Keep your cool. Don’t be afraid. And don’t say anything. Call me when they’ve gone.”

  The cop that had been in her bedroom came out. He had the film canister in his hand. “Detective?” he said. “You ought to take a look at this.”

  Cynthia watched as the detective pulled a pair of rubber gloves out of his pocket and snapped them on. The cop dumped something out of the canister into the detective’s hand. It was a roll of something, like a roll of film.

  “Jesus Christ,” the detective said. He tried to hand it back to the cop, but even with surgical gloves on, the uniformed policeman didn’t want to touch it. The detective pulled a zip lock bag from another pocket and put both the canister and the roll into it, then sealed it. The policeman took the bag from him, holding it by the corner, distaste all over his face.

  The detective then turned to Cynthia. “I’m placing you under arrest for the murder of Warren Begay.”

  The tears began to squeeze out of her sore tear ducts, and she felt as if her heart was breaking. Again. She put the phone back up to her ear. “Irene?” Her voice came out faint, as if she were dying.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m being arrested.” A big sob broke through when she saw him pull out a set of handcuffs. The phone became unbelievably heavy. She couldn’t even hold it up to her ear.

  “I’ll be right there,” she heard Irene say from a distance. “Don’t be afraid.”

  The detective took the phone from Cynthia and clicked it off.

  Chapter 7

  Owen Crowell had been only thirteen when he discovered that loyalty was not a part of his makeup. He suspected it when his parents divorced and he decided to live with whoever made him the best offer. He cared about his parents, he just didn’t care about their piddling little squabbles and their wretched lives. He pitted one against the other, upping the ante, until he got the offer he was waiting for, and then he went to live with his father. He knew his father was sticking his tongue out at his mother behind Owen’s back, but that didn’t matter. He had a Disneyland bedroom, full of all the electronic gadgetry a boy could possible imagine.

  And just about Christmas time, he’d mention that he missed his mom, and was thinking about maybe moving over to live with her for a while, and all that gadgetry was updated to his specifications. His poor mom. She could never compete. Not on a guy level like that.

  The next time his absence of convictions came to light on the high school debating team. He didn’t care if he drew the “Pro” card or the “Con” card. Made no difference to him. He could get equally passionate about either side. At first, he thought his teammates were kidding when they took their issues so seriously, and then he thought they were childish. But when his teacher called him in to ask him to compete on the statewide level, and they tried to unearth a topic Owen could really wrap his enthusiasm around, something that came from his heart and soul, there wasn’t anything there. They tried, but he was equally passionate and dispassionate about each topic they brought up.

  They finally chose something, but Owen couldn’t forget the quizzical look in Mr. Whipple’s eye as Owen left his office. It was a mixture of compassion and admiration and uncomprehending sorrow. It tweaked something inside Owen that spoke loudly to him. It said that if Mr. Whipple had been his father, he wouldn’t have gotten away with one tenth the shit he’d gotten away with. He knew how to work the Single Parent Guilt, and perhaps with that, he had shot himself in the foot.

  In law school, he kept to himself and his studies. He didn’t party much, he didn’t date much. He felt like the odd duck, so he avoided all the situations that would prove him right.

  And upon graduation, the State of California gave him the best job offer. He didn’t care much about keeping the streets safe for the populace; he’d rather be governor, senator, who knows?—and being in the DA’s office seemed like the fastest track to his goal. So he settled into his job and he learned fast from Walter and he lobbied for Walter’s job and he worked whatever case was before him to the absolute best of his admittedly superior skills.

  And then this Irene Nottingham case fell into his lap. Just fell into his lap.

  If there was anyone in San Francisco who had more ambition than Owen, it was Irene Nottingham. And this case was personal for her. She’d have all her claws out, she’d pull in all her political favors, she’d fight dirty, she’d do w
hatever she needed to do to win this case for her little sister.

  Well, she’d met her match, because Owen, too, would do whatever he needed to do to win this case for the State of California. Because the harder each of them pulled, the bloodier it became and the carrion-sniffing media would begin to circle.

  Irene could lose her bench appointment if her ethics came into question over this case, so there was her self-imposed limit. But bench appointment or no, she had a long, lucrative career ahead of her as one of the best criminal defense attorneys in the state.

  Owen had different aspirations. He wanted the DA’s office. He wanted it bad, and one of the best ways to sit in Walter’s big chair was to win this case.

  So he would. He would win this case and put Cynthia Schneider in the gas chamber.

  Ethics be damned.

  ~~~

  Irene sat facing Owen Crowell, in his littered and loud government law office, her face perfectly made up, her posture correct, her demeanor completely professional.

  She didn’t feel professional. She felt arrogant and aggressive. She wanted to claw this guy’s eyes out for having her sister arrested. She wanted to do serious damage, but instead, she sat quietly, outwardly calm, and opened her black leather briefcase.

  In front of Owen was a single sheet of paper.

  He smiled at her. He did more than smile; he twinkled. He acted like he wanted to flirt with her, but she wasn’t going to have any of that. Not today, not now. Not as long as Cynthia was wearing prison blues.

  “The press is going to have a field day with this,” he said, smiling. “The racial implications are more than explosive.”

  She had no smile about that, either. Race was a cheap publicity stunt that Owen would happily use for his own personal political gain. He had plenty of high-profile precedents to draw from. “What have you got?”

  His smile disappeared and he clicked into his professional mode. Any imagined social amenities evaporated. “Witnesses,” he said.

  “Don’t waste my time.”

  “A roll of film that isn’t film. It’s the strip of skin taken from Warren Begay’s corpse. Or his body, depending on whether he was alive or dead when she skinned him.” He leaned across his desk, and looked her straight in the eye. “It’s a fucking yard long, Irene.”