by Paul Spencer
I kept replaying the conversation with Sarah in my head, but I couldn’t come up with anything that I actually wished I had said. I’d wanted to tell her that I visited Ciaran’s grave again last night, but that would have been a cheap shot. His death hit her just as hard as it did me, if not harder. We just dealt with it differently. She ran away into the arms of another man, and I ran away into a bottle.
I turned on the TV, channel surfed aimlessly, and found a replay of an old Notre Dame Cotton Bowl game from the early Nineties on ESPN Classic. I didn’t particularly like the Irish, but any port in a storm. I watched the game for a while, and before long I could feel myself nodding off. I didn’t fight it, just let myself doze. Every now and then I’d come out of it enough to notice that the score had changed. I surfaced again late in the fourth, with the Irish up a couple of touchdowns. I thought about getting up and making a fresh pot of coffee, but someone banged on my door before I could get up and do it.
“Be there in a minute,” I shouted, and went to grab my jeans.
“Police! Open the door!”
In hindsight it seemed like a trivial concern, but all I could think was that I didn’t want them to kick my door in, so I decided to skip the jeans.
“All right, all right, I’m coming.”
I peered through the spy hole in my door. Two guys in white shirts and raincoats stood outside, ties loose and top buttons undone. Two guys I knew all too well.
“Detectives,” I said, as I opened the door, “to what do I owe the pleasure?”
“We need to talk, Mick,” the one on the left said. “Mind if we come inside?”
“We can talk here.”
“You really want to make this hard?”
I thought about it. I didn’t want them in my place, but they weren’t going to go away until they got what they came for. I figured Aaron must have made a complaint. Great, now I was looking at an assault charge. Might as well get it over with. Maybe I could reason with them, keep it out of court, or at least keep it to a misdemeanor.
“Okay, come in.” I went back and sat on the middle of the couch, and they followed me inside. I knew them both. Detective Eddie Buchanan, the guy who spoke, was a decent guy. A bit rigid, but reasonable. He was the only black detective in the Portland Police, and it hadn’t been an easy road for him in a racist town like this one. Portland loved to pretend that it was a liberal paradise, but it was the whitest major city in America. Lots of people talked about attracting a more diverse population, but no one seemed to be in a hurry to do anything about it. Probably because of what he’d been through, Buchanan actually listened to people before jumping to conclusions.
The guy next to him was another story. Short and stocky, with mouth curled in a permanent sneer and a thick scar in his lower lip, Detective James Malone looked every bit what he was - an old school prick. Back when he was in uniform, before they had cameras in patrol cars, he was notorious for beating the shit out of suspects, then booking them for resisting arrest. He looked like a bar-room brawler after one too many bouts. He had a reputation as a racist too, so Buchanan had to be loving working with him.
In my time as a defense lawyer, we’d crossed paths often. Not surprisingly, defense lawyers and cops aren’t the best of friends. To cops, defense lawyers spend their lives putting scumbags back on the streets. To defense lawyers, cops are schoolyard bullies who lock innocent people up because they can. We’re both right, and it doesn’t make for cordial relations.
Malone and I had an especially rocky relationship. He was the sort of cop whose story always backed up the prosecutor’s case a hundred percent, no matter what actually happened. I’d caught him in a lie on the witness stand a couple of times. Once, it had been bad enough that the charges against my client were dismissed, and Malone was almost kicked off the force. Malone never forgave me for it. He knew all about my fall from grace, and I knew he enjoyed every second of it.
Buchanan grabbed a chair from the kitchen table and sat opposite me. Malone wrinkled his nose as he wandered around my apartment, lifting things up, looking in corners, kicking piles of clothing aside. Given that I live in a studio, it didn’t take him long. “Nice place you got here,” he said.
I ignored him. “What’s this about, guys?”
“Where were you last night?” Buchanan said.
“Nowhere special.”
Buchanan sighed and rubbed his bald head. “I told you we need to talk, Mick. This would be a good time to stop dicking around.”
“I worked late, went to Holman’s for a while, came home.”
“Did anything happen at Holman’s?”
“Nothing special.”
“Last chance,” Buchanan said. “Stop fucking with me, or I get a warrant, and you’re getting locked up. Understood?”
“Good luck with that. You need probable cause, and since I haven’t done anything, you’d be SOL. You’re obviously not here for a social call, so can we get to the point?”
“Okay, if that’s how you want it to be. Do you know Aaron Jones?”
“Yes.”
“Did you see Aaron Jones last night?”
“Yes.”
“And what happened between you and Aaron Jones last night?”
“Nothing. We talked, had a drink, I came home.”
“Bullshit, Mick.”
I just shrugged.
“Okay, putting aside the fact that I know you’re lying, what time did you come home?”
“No idea. Maybe around ten?”
Something wasn’t right here. I could tell by the look on Buchanan’s face that this wasn’t just a simple assault.
“Can anyone vouch for that?” he said.
I gestured at my unmade bed. “Yeah, that harem of beautiful women you see over there. Of course no one can vouch for it. What’s going on here? Is Aaron okay?”
Malone walked over and stood next to Buchanan. “No, he’s not okay,” he said. “We found his body in Mount Tabor Park some time before dawn. Now tell us again what you did when you left Holman’s last night?”
I felt the blood drain from my face. “I want a lawyer.”
Chapter 4 – New Best Friends
“We just want to ask you a few questions,” Buchanan said. “Are you sure you want to go down that road?”
“I said I want a lawyer.”
He wanted me to think they’d go easy on me if I didn’t lawyer up. But that was bullshit. Cops tried it all the time. Told you they’d put in a good word with the DA, or push for a lesser charge. It was all a big con. They were trying to make it easier for themselves, not for you. Cops got promoted based on clearance rate, so the sooner you incriminated yourself, the happier they were. And the DAs just wanted the biggest, shiniest convictions they could get. They’d only consider leniency if you could land them a bigger fish. And that wasn’t an option for me. There was a murder on the table. That’s the grand prize, and they’d do anything they could to put me in the frame.
Malone stared at me, but I didn’t flinch.
“All right,” Buchanan sighed. “We’re going for a ride. Malone, search him.”
I stood up and spread my arms. Malone gave me a cursory pat-down. I could have had a gun in my shorts, and he would have missed it.
“Grab some pants and shoes,” Malone said. “Give them to me before you put them on.”
I handed him the jeans I’d been wearing the night before and my work boots. He searched them and threw them back to me.
“Put them on.”
I got dressed, grabbed my wallet and phone, then went to my closet for a jacket. Malone came over and grabbed my arm before I could find one.
“That’s enough, pretty boy,” he said. “Let’s go.”
I thought about defying him, but I knew how that would go. I’d either end up face down on the carpet, or under arrest for assaulting an officer. I let him lead me out of the apartment.
Outside, the rain had eased to a thick grey mist that hung in the air like wet rags. The
cold helped to clear my head. Malone put his hand on top of my head and guided me into the back seat of their black Crown Victoria, and we set off. The car stank of sweat and vomit. I hadn’t showered in over a day, so I probably wasn’t making it any better.
As we crossed the Hawthorne Bridge, the clouds hung so thick and low that I couldn’t see the tops of the buildings downtown. The car’s tires thrummed on the metal grid of the road surface. The old truss bridge’s green steel girders felt like a cage. I heard Malone radio in something about us arriving soon, but neither of them talked to me. Fine with me. It gave me time to compose myself for what was coming next.
We came off the bridge and up Main Street, then turned left onto Third Avenue and pulled in to the Justice Center. It was a triangular grey concrete tower that housed the Multnomah County Detention Center, the Department of Corrections, and the Portland Police Bureau’s Detective Division. As a defense lawyer, I’d been to Detention Center too many times to count, but I hadn’t been back since the bar association yanked my license three years ago. On all my previous visits, I’d walked in the front door. Today we drove into the basement.
When the car stopped, Malone opened the door. “Let’s go,” he said.
They led me inside to the booking desk. It was a high, clerical counter that reminded me of being at the DMV. A bored-looking uniformed officer took my wallet and phone, then made me sign a chit for them. He took my fingerprints, then led me through the usual questions. What was the last drug I took? Did I have any weapons concealed on me? That kind of thing. I gave him the usual lies. They led me off to the side for my mug shot, then Buchanan and Malone took me to one of the holding cells.
The cell was a small room with white concrete walls, a single bed cabled to the wall on one side, and a steel toilet without a lid or seat on the other. The door had a small window near the top, and the ceiling was too high for me to be able to hang myself from. The cell was no different from many others I’d been in when visiting clients. I’d probably been in this particular one before. But it felt very different now, and I didn’t like it at all.
Malone pointed at the bed.
“Sit,” he said.
I sat on the bed and panted like a dog.
“Very funny,” Buchanan said. “Before we get started, do you need us to explain your rights?”
“No, we can skip it.” I’d heard the Miranda warning so many times I could recite it backwards.
“Okay, who’s your lawyer these days? Are any of your ex-colleagues even talking to you?”
“Call Metro. I’ll take whoever’s on duty today.”
“Seriously? You want a public defender?” The surprise on Buchanan’s face seemed genuine.
“Yep.”
“Okay. It’s your funeral.” He looked at Malone. “Let’s go.”
The two detectives got up and left, Buchanan still shaking his head. Cops didn’t think much of public defenders, and often with good reason. The pay was crap, the hours were long, and the work didn’t win you many friends. In most cities the public defender’s office was a dumping ground for barely competent attorneys who couldn’t get a job anywhere else. But Portland was different. The folks at Metropolitan Public Defenders’ office were just as sharp and twice as dedicated as anyone in private practice. I’d interned there in law school, and the people I worked with were a big part of the reason I became a defense attorney myself. I’d take an MPD lawyer any day.
I sat back on the bed and took a deep breath. The holding cell had a large surveillance camera in the corner up near the ceiling. No doubt designed to make the person in my seat know they were being watched.
I had never handled a murder charge, but I’d had some significant violent crime cases before. I knew the pressure the cops were under to close them fast. They wanted someone locked up for killing Aaron. If it was the guy who did it, that would be a bonus. I took another deep breath and tried to relax the knot between my shoulder blades.
I’d prepared many clients for situations like this. Told them to wait, to be patient, to quiet their mind and not let time break them down. Silence and loneliness are powerful weapons. The longer you sit there alone with your thoughts, the more the fear builds. The trick, I used to tell them, was to ignore the inner voices. Focus on something in the real world. A mark on the wall, the smell of the room, the sound of your breath. That way the thoughts couldn’t catch up with you. Just be present in the moment until they came back to talk to you. Now it was my turn to give it a try. I didn’t enjoy the wait.
I wasn’t sure how much time had passed when Buchanan opened the door again. I’d guess about two hours.
“You’ve got ten minutes,” he said, and stepped aside.
A brown-haired woman in a blue suit came in. I stood up. She looked early to mid-thirties, tall and athletic, and her face was all business. Buchanan closed the door and left.
“Mr. Wray, My name is Casey Raife. I’m the MPD duty attorney today.” She held out her hand, and I shook it. Solid grip, but not so firm that she was trying to prove anything. I didn’t recognize her, but then I’d crossed paths with a lot of attorneys over the years, and I couldn’t remember them all.
“Have we met?”
“No, but I know who you are.” The look on her face spoke volumes. Not surprising. The public version of my story wasn’t pretty. It still came up whenever the defense bar gathered for cocktails. Casey gestured at the bed. I sat at one end, and she sat at the other. She opened her briefcase and took out a yellow legal pad and pen.
“Okay, so here’s what I got out of Laurel and Hardy,” she began. I liked her already. “Apparently, some woman was walking her dog in the park early this morning, and Fido sniffed out Mr. Jones’ body. He’d been shot once in the base of the skull. His wrists and ankles were bound with duct tape. I could tell there was more to it than that, but the cops are keeping the juicy details to themselves for now.
“They talked to Mr. Jones’s girlfriend, who said she hadn’t seen him since they had a lover’s tiff about two days ago. He texted her last night to see if she wanted to meet him at Holman’s, but she didn’t go because she was still pissed at him. Of course, that text led them to the bartender. Which, of course, led them to you. So tell me what happened.”
Her expression didn’t change the whole time she spoke. I was impressed. Most attorneys couldn’t have gotten half as much information out of Buchanan and Malone. I told her what had happened last night, in as much detail as I could remember.
“And you’re sure Mr. Jones was okay when you left?”
“Well, his nose was bleeding, but otherwise he was fine.”
“Did you tell him you were going to kill him?”
“What? No!”
“Malone claims that one of the witnesses from the bar said he heard you shout ‘I’ll fucking kill you!’ at Mr. Jones after you hit him.”
“That didn’t happen. Someone’s lying. Setting me up.”
She made a note on her legal pad. “Okay, I’m going to need to get witness statements quickly, before those morons plant too many suggestions in other people’s minds. Now let’s talk some more about what happened after you hit Mr. Jones.”
“I told you. Nothing happened. I just left.”
“And he didn’t try to hit you back? He didn’t chase after you?”
“Aaron was about five foot eight and built like a donut,” I said. “Look at me.”
I’m six foot three, and I weigh close to two forty. I hadn’t worked out in a while, but I didn’t need to. For the last two years I’d been working in a job that was all heavy lifting, all the time. Aaron might have been a pain in the ass, but he wasn’t stupid. He would have known that if he came back at me, I’d have done him some serious harm.
“And you went straight home and stayed there all night?”
“Yes.” Casey didn’t need to know about my excursion to the cemetery.
“Can anyone vouch for that?”
“A bunch of people saw me leave, b
ut I live alone.”
“Did you call anyone after you left?”
“No.”
“What did you do at home?”
“Had a couple more drinks, surfed the web for a while, went to bed.”
Casey looked thoughtful. “What did you do online? Did you send any email? Chat?”
I saw where she was going. “No, but I commented on a couple of legal blog forums. Time stamps on my entries should back me up.”
“Yes, maybe. It depends on what time Mr. Jones actually died, but at least it will show you spent some time at home.” She looked thoughtful. I’m glad she didn’t make any snide comments about me commenting on legal forums. I told myself it was a guilty pleasure, but really I just couldn’t let go.
“They’re going to search your computer,” she said. “Is there anything in your browsing history you don’t want them to find?”
“Like what?”
She looked at me like I was stupid. “Porn.”
“Well,” I felt myself blushing. “A guy at work sends me the occasional link. But nothing … weird, or kinky.”
“Anything underage?”
“Fuck no!”
“I had to ask. You know how this works. Answer their questions as briefly as possible. Don’t let them rattle you. And shut up when I tell you to.”
“I always advised my clients to say nothing to the police.”
“Normally I’d do the same. But murder’s a different game. You know how much pressure they’re under to close the case, and they’ve got too much on you already. If you clam up, they’ll assume you did it, arrest you, and keep you here for 48 hours, during which time they will turn over every rock in town to find evidence that even remotely links you to the crime. They’ll find enough to get an indictment, which I’m sure you know they can do, and you’ll spend two years inside awaiting trial. They won’t even consider trying to find who really did it. Give them an alibi and something to chase, and maybe they won’t look so hard at you.”