Chapter 7
Late Friday afternoon, Melvin Wallingford finally returned the assistant DA’s phone calls. Yes, he’d gotten the messages. No, he hadn’t been able to get in contact with Cain either. He’d also tried his home, Fathers House, and had contacted Mayo Fathers personally. No, he didn’t have any cellphone numbers for his client. And yes, the kid was being very cavalier about this.
When Ben hung up the phone after speaking with Wallingford, his first thought was—forget it. If the kid didn’t care about his own future, then why should Ben care about it? If the boy wanted to face a murder-one charge for a crime he swears he didn’t commit, then so be it. But after taking a deep breath and slowly exhaling, his second thought was calm down counselor; the boy hasn’t flown the coop. He knew where to find him.
Ordinarily he wouldn’t have responded so well at being blown off, especially in a capital case. Ordinarily, he would have gotten an arrest warrant and young Cain would have been snatched up by a uniformed officer and then placed in a cell where he’d stay unless and until he could post bail.
But there wasn’t anything ordinary about the Cain Simmons case. The case had been handed to him with a prearranged outcome, which wasn’t normal procedure. The assigned prosecutor to a case generally worked the case rooter to tooter, deciding if and when to offer plea deals. Of course, Etlzer had the authority to weigh in, but for the most part, he let his prosecutors dispose of their cases as they saw fit. Initially, Ben had bought Etlzer’s rationale for having him assigned to the Simmons case. With the premature birth of his boys and April being in the hospital, a little lightening of his workload was welcomed. An open and shut case here and there would be helpful, and he could cut back some on his hours without officially having to take any time off. Any time off not used now, could be used later. With two newborns currently in NICU for an indeterminate length of time, banked paid time off and open and shut cases were more valuable than money. But in Ben’s mind, the death of Calvin Leeson meant that the Simmons case was no longer an open and shut one. But for some reason, Etlzer didn’t see it that way. The DA was still insistent on a simple assault plea deal, and had indicated to Ben that he wouldn’t back any charge against Simmons greater than that charge, despite the dead kid lying in the balance.
An arrest for an arrest’s sake, especially in this case, would be a time waster, Ben admitted to himself. Cain Simmons would be back on the street quicker than Ben could clear his throat. Besides, his murder-one bark was worse than the bite. Despite the chest-beating display he’d put on Monday for Simmons and his attorney, he had a weak murder-one case, and it wouldn’t exactly be a slam dunk getting convictions for murder-two or manslaughter. If Cain stuck to his story, and there wasn’t a compelling reason for him not to do so especially since Etlzer and the police were satisfied with it, then Ben would never find out the truth about those involved in the beating death of Calvin Leeson. Everyone would continue to believe that what had happened to Calvin had been just a matter of beef between friends. A belief aided in the fact that no guns or knives had been involved. Since Cain was not much bigger than a flea himself, any potential jury would likely disregard the possibility that he’d used a rock or a bat in the course of things. It wouldn’t take a jury long to set Cain Simmons free.
But Calvin Leeson was dead. And Ben was convinced that one runt-sized teenager was not solely responsible. Ultimately, this wasn’t about Cain Simmons, was it? It was about Calvin Leeson. It was about justice. It was about two murderers out there roaming the streets and for all he knew, planning to strike again. So despite Cain’s apathetic attitude toward his own life, toward Calvin’s life, and toward the wheels of justice, and despite Etlzer’s nonchalant attitude toward the case and over the district attorney’s objections, Ben was going to be a thorn in Cain Simmons’ side. The boy had a responsibility to himself and to his community. And Ben had a responsibility to Calvin Leeson and to the dead teen’s mother. And he was going to make sure that Cain Simmons damn well understood that.
He looked at his wall clock. It was five-fifteen. He’d gotten a tip that Cain Simmons fancied himself a rapper and was scheduled to perform tonight. The show at the Britt Heights Community Center was scheduled to start at eight o’clock. He had some time to tidy up a few more files. “I’ll see you in a bit, young Cain,” he said to himself as he punched in his password on the computer and then clicked on the Matherly file. For the next hour or so, he put thoughts of Cain Simmons on the backburner.
Fathers House: A Preview Page 13