Summitt

Chapter Nineteen

In the case of the People of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania against Earl Thomson, sufficient evidence was presented by Deputy District Attorney Brett to fulfill the two basic requirements — that a crime had been committed and that there was reason to believe the defendant, Earl Thomson, had committed the crime.

The fingerprints of the accused at the place of the assault and plaintiffs identification of the accused satisfied those conditions.

The test at this hearing was not whether there was reasonable doubt concerning the complaints. Given the Commonwealth’s statutes of criminal procedure, Magistrate Teague was required to entertain only a reasonable belief in the accused’s probable guilt.

Counselor Allan Davic was not obliged to enter a plea of any sort — either guilty, not guilty or nolo contendere. As a result, Earl Thomson was automatically bound over for further action by the Commonwealth’s judiciary system. The defendant was released on his own recognizance.

The trial judge was appointed at a later date by the district’s president-judge, J. Matthew Eames.

The Superior Court’s current rotation and schedules indicated that the assignment would probably go to Judge Nathan Karr. But President-Judge Eames bypassed Karr and appointed Judge Desmond Flood to try the Thomson-Selby case.

Judge Flood was surprised by the assignment. Fie had been a respected jurist in the Superior branch for almost two decades, but since the death of his wife — she had been killed in a private plane crash six years earlier — since then, the judge’s attention span had narrowed, and his performance on the bench had steadily deteriorated. His courtroom — Superior Court Nine in East Chester’s City Hall — was often referred to as Appellate Nine by exasperated attorneys, an allusion to the frequency with which his decisions were reversed in the higher courts. Flood was amused by his court’s nickname, and a local paper’s comment that “the State Appellate Division seems forever awash in a Flood of appeals.”

A tidily built man with gray hair and still keenly alert eyes, Judge Flood lived with a divorcee named Millie Haynes, twenty years his junior. In her youth Millie had been an accomplished gymnast and drum majorette. The judge’s study was now lined with old glossy photographs of his still agile companion on parallel bars and swings, and in white boots and spangled skirts at the head of marching bands.

After his wife’s death Flood had got into financial problems as a result of impulsive speculations. Because of this and because of his intermittent drinking and sick leaves, President-Judge Eames had placed him on a reduced schedule; for the past few years, Flood had been given little court work and then only in relatively unimportant cases.

To Flood’s relief, Millie Haynes seemed to possess sound financial instincts. After consulting with experts, she had consolidated the judge’s debts into one large sum, which was being reduced by monthly payments to a management firm in Camden, New Jersey.

With free time and no financial distractions, Flood busied himself preparing for his retirement. He shopped for the waterfront condo in San Diego that Millie had put a down payment on. To surprise her, the judge bought a yachting cap and a blazer with silver buttons for the Chris-Craft which would be delivered to their marina slip at the end of this court term.

The Commonwealth against Earl Thomson would be Desmond Flood’s last trial. On being notified of his assignment. Judge Flood had instructed his clerk to begin preparations for Thomson’s arraignment and to advise counsel for the People and the Defense that His Honor would be available to consider motions at their earliest convenience. He’d go out in a blaze of glory. So to speak.

Several weeks after the preliminary hearing, Earl Thomson was arraigned for a second time in the presence of Superior Court Judge Desmond Flood, where he pleaded not guilty to Commonwealth charges of sundry crimes against the person of the plaintiff, Shana Selby. The full indictment read: “assault and battery by automobile, assault with intent to do great bodily harm, kidnapping, unlawful confinement of a minor, statutory rape, sodomy and oral copulation.”

After arguments from both sides, bail was set by Judge Flood at ten thousand dollars, a significant victory for Counselor Davic. The judge ruled against the People’s motion for bail of one hundred thousand dollars, holding that this amount would be excessive and inappropriate in consideration of the defendant’s good family background and substantial personal financial assets and since Earl Thomson had no prior criminal record. Also, the higher sum could have an inflammatory effect on the jurors — the larger the bail, Judge Flood felt, the worse the criminal might appear in the public eye.

Discovery proceedings were routinely expedited. Medical reports, X-rays, records of conversations between the plaintiff, Nurse Edith Redden and Dr. Merwin Kerr, Trooper Milt Karec’s reports and time logs — all these were ordered to be made immediately available to the defense. Names and addresses of witnesses, photographs shown to them, statements of intended prosecution witnesses, police officers’ (Slocum, Eberle) taped conversations with Earl Thomson — all conceivably relevant information, had been included in Counselor Davic’s discovery motions.

It was ruled by Judge Flood that a psychiatrist, to be defined as a defense “expert witness,” would be allowed to examine the plaintiff, under a schedule and circumstances agreeable to the People, but that such inquiries by the “expert witness” be consistent and in accord with the regulations of the Commonwealth statutes.

A panel of jurors would be drawn for the consideration of counsel for the Defense and for the People. After consultation with both attorneys, His Honor set a trial date toward the end of the following month in that Year of Our Lord.

Soon after this, Judge Flood met by appointment with an officer from the Camden management firm which handled his business affairs. Over an excellent lunch the officer informed Flood that, as a result of escalating interest rates, and certain improvement “levies” on his properties, his affairs were not in as good shape as the finance company would like them to be. Certain balloon payments had come due on his condominium and motor launch at the San Diego Conquistador Marina. In response to His Honor’s protests, the adviser told him that while Miss Haynes’s financial planning had been blameless, it might now be necessary for Judge Flood to meet in person with an officer of the company, the president himself perhaps, to appeal for an extension of his now-due notes and monies.

One night that week, Jerry Goldbirn phoned Harry Selby again from Las Vegas.

“Why didn’t you get back to me, for Christ’s sake, Harry? I called you weeks ago.”

“I tried to, but your secretary said you were out of town or something and wouldn’t be free until—”

“Oh, crap, you haven’t learned anything. Left your brains scattered around the artificial turf. If you’d told her you were a lawyer with a paternity rap, or an IRS auditor—”

They hadn’t talked for several years, not since the memorial service for Sarah, but Goldbirn’s voice was as Selby remembered it — accusing and threaded with suspicion.

Selby’s deliberate blind-side shot some years ago had done more than put Goldbirn out for the season; it had... as Davic suspected... saved his reputation and quite probably his life.

Goldbirn was a second-year man out of the Southeastern Conference that season, with an honest flair for case aces and marked decks. But playing poker with professionals on credit had got him into serious debt. They had wanted their money and when Goldbirn couldn’t come up with it, they wanted his help in shaving points. Goldbirn had been forced to consider their suggestion, because he believed that a deliberately dropped pass or two was preferable to having his legs broken in an alley.

Selby had solved Goldbirn’s problems by putting him on the bench for the year. If he couldn’t play, he couldn’t affect the score.

With time to maneuver, Goldbirn solved his problems by lending his name as a front for a small casino in Reno and ultimately becoming partnered with his creditors.

“What a rotten, goddamn business,” he was saying now, not bothering to mark the transition in mood or subject. “I remember Shana when she was learning to walk. Sarah brought her out to practice once, looked like she’d scooped her out of the bulrushes. Wrapped up in so many clothes that we rolled her around like a practice ball. They got the sonofabitch, right, Harry? Thomson something or other?”

“Earl Thomson, yes. They’ve got him, but whether they’ll get him is another matter.”

“I was afraid of that. I heard about it before it was in the papers, just some talk in Atlantic City. A radio report on a missing kid. It got back to a friend. He can’t swear where he heard it, a pit boss, a stiff on a comp flight, maybe a hooker. But it worried me. They remembered her name, how do you figure that? Who’s talking in a gambling casino about a teenaged kid missing a few hours? It don’t figure. You know how I keep the roses in my cheeks? I stay away from jai-alai games with Mexican partners, anybody in the Teamsters without callouses... anything that don’t figure, female impersonators, Irish Catholics voting Republican. What do you need, Harry?”

Selby said, “I’d like you to check out some names, get me a reading on them. There’s no reason why a case like this shouldn’t have top priority with the cops, right?”

“Something screwy going on, is that it?”

Selby gave him the names. After reading them back Goldbirn said, “One of them turns the tilt light on. The others are John Does to me... Slocum, Eberle, the Jesus freak, what’d you say his name was?”

“Oliver Jessup.”

“No, but I heard of Lorso. A tough little fucker. If he was in a jai-alai pool, I’d get out of it. Whether he’s legitimate, who knows. Because he’s got a vowel on the end of his name, don’t prove he’s not. Remember that stud, Ziggy Carlotto with the Forty-niners? He’s a bald-headed Hare Krishna, hangs around the L.A. Airport now, it’s a goddamn embarrassment to meet him. Lemme think. Lorso’s got an interest in some management hustle in New Jersey that’s a country cousin to loan sharking. I know that much. What else?”

Selby told him about Jennifer.

“No address, no last name? What do I do? Put personals up over big cities with sky-writers?”

“Here’s the only lead. Jennifer rented a car at the Memphis Airport to drive to Summitt City. That was back in October, the fourteenth or fifteenth. She told me she got a speeding ticket on the way over to Summitt. You could check that, Jerry.”

“Yeah, she’d need a driver’s license for a renter. Then she’d have to show it to the state trooper. I can check the rental agencies at the airport and the Tennessee State Police. You know that crazy bastard played tackle one season for the Eagles? Baby Joe Minton? His relatives came to all the games, Christers, and the uncles would crowd into the locker room to check out our bladder stems?”

“Vaguely,” Selby said.

“Baby Joe’s a state senator now in Tennessee. Listen, how’s Shana taking this? Shit, what a dumb question. Would it help if I sent her some flowers or alligator boots or something?”

“I’ll tell her you asked for her, Jerry.”

“Sure, she probably wouldn’t remember me anyway. Next time, tell that dumb secretary of mine who you are. If she puts you on hold again, I’ll sell her to a guy I know in Morocco who’s got a thing for whipped cream and feathers.”

There was another call for Selby later that night from Sergeant Ritter at the sheriff’s substation.

“I called his wife first, of course, and she thought you should know right away, Mr. Selby,” the sergeant said. “They found Casper Gideen’s body up in the woods behind Muhlenburg a few hours ago, head half blown away by his own shotgun. Looks like it went off when he was trying to climb a fence or something.”

Captain Slocum left City Hall after dark and drove to a public park on the Brandywine. The snack bar was closed for the season, the barbecue pits covered with canvas tarps, but one bundled-up group sat around a redwood table with sandwiches and coffee and beer. A young girl in a ski sweater played a guitar with her mittens on and laughed at the muffled music she was making.

Slocum took a drink from a flask in his glove compartment, popped a mint in his mouth and strolled past the picnic tables and down a slope to the river bank. He waited there until he saw the headlights of a Cadillac turn into the park and stop beside his car. When the lights went off, Slocum walked back and joined Allan Davic.

They greeted one another casually. Standing between their two cars, they were concealed in shadows. From a distance they could hear the guitar’s smothered chords,

“You understand,” Davic said, “this is just a formality,” and proceeded to pat down the policeman carefully and expertly, even checking his crotch and running a hand under his shirt and over his hairy chest and stomach.

Davic then opened his overcoat and unbuttoned his vest and allowed the captain to frisk him with equal care for microphones and wires.

They got into the front seat of the attorney’s Cadillac and Davic said, “We won’t meet again, Captain, or phone each other. I’ll have to tear you apart on the stand, because of the defendant’s taped meeting with you and Eberle, but that’s the last time I’ll talk to you in person. When you have information, get it to me through George Thomson.”

“I don’t like that,” Slocum shook his head with deliberate emphasis. “That brings it too close to Earl. I know Earl, you see. Know him better than you ever will ’cause he’s an actor and he’ll play a part for you. But I pulled his ass out of a crack over in New Jersey a while back. He was in college, a military school full of imitation grunts to my mind, fake soldier boys. Earl worked over some black cunt who’d apparently asked for it. There was some fuss, didn’t amount to piss-ants, but I had to lean hard on some characters. Afterward Earl suggested we shake ’em down because they’d saved his fucking ass but left themselves vulnerable. He’s a greedy bastard... When I’ve got something, I’ll park my blue Olds in Eberle’s slot at the Hall. You watch for that. Then you’ll get a call. No names. I’ll set up the drop.”

Davic said, “You’ve already earned my gratitude, Captain. What you’ve told me about Earl is very significant.”

“That he wanted to shaft the people who’d bailed him out?”

“That’s important to know, Captain. If we save him, he’s likely to do the same to us... we’ll want to keep that in mind... But that’s not the immediate problem. Thomson and Dom Lorso are too complacent. Winning is a habit with them. They have money, power and a friend in need on the bench. They figure that’s enough. Usually they’d be right. But in a rape case, with a stormy character like Selby and an unreliable defendant, there’s always the chance of a live grenade rolling into the courtroom. We need all the insurance we can get.”

Slocum chewed on another mint, filling the warm interior of the car with its fragrance. Someone with a transistor radio blaring walked behind their cars and on toward the shuttered snack bar.

“That brings us to the point, sir,” Slocum said. “The insurance you want to buy.

“You can depend on us, Captain.”

“I also depend on Ex-Lax and antifreeze in the winter. But not to pay my bills.”

“I think you know we’ll take care of you. Thomson’s a generous man.”

“He can afford to be, can’t he?”

Davic removed an envelope from his briefcase and handed it to the captain. “That’s a down payment. Money isn’t our problem, and it won’t be yours. I guarantee that. Any other help you want or need, now or in the future, will also be available.”

Slocum didn’t count the money. He put the envelope away and took out a notebook which he opened under the dash light.

“I can’t find anything more on Selby’s connection with Goldbirn,” he told Davic. “Could be he simply did the Jew boy a favor. No evidence he got paid off for it. The house and farm is clear, but Selby used money his mother-in-law left, and a couple of pro-bowl bonuses. About the prosecutor, she went to school at Bryn Mawr, got her law degree at Yale. Big deal. She was married for a year or so, then divorced. Her ex-husband lives in Cleveland, designs furniture. He remarried. Her father’s a retired accountant, lives in Florida. She’s got two sisters in Maine.”

“How long since her divorce?”

“Five years.”

“She didn’t remarry?”

“No.”

“She lives alone?”

Slocum nodded. “Nice place over near the river.”

“Any men in her life?”

“I get your drift, or what you’re looking for. She dates guys occasionally. They could be beards, but there’s no obvious butch pals.”

“No Commie causes, radical affiliations, that sort of thing?”

Slocum put his notebook away. “No, but something funny hit me when I was checking out her schools. I checked around St. David’s and Bryn Mawr on the Main Line, cops and newspapers, gave ’em a bullshit story about looking for who assaulted Shana Selby. I found a local story going back nine years about our lady DA. She was beat up one night. Happened in the college gym. She was swimming late all alone in the pool. Some stud sneaked into the locker room and waited for her. Guy name of Toby Clark. He was slated the next morning on an assault charge. Clark worked at the school, a handyman. I smelled something.” Slocum looked at the lawyer, the dark light flickering on his smile. “There was no follow-up story in the papers. I checked records. The charges were dropped. But Clark got fired.”

“What interested you about that?”

“Hard to say. Call it my cop’s nose at work. But maybe there was some kind of shit going on with her and that classy ladies’ school.”

“I’ll put my people on it,” Davic said. “They’re from New York. They’re brothers, Ben and Aron Cadle. Very discreet but effective. If you need anything from them, don’t hesitate.”

“Tell ’em to find that Toby Clark character to start with.” Slocum patted the money envelope in his pocket. “Good talking to you, but from now on wait till you see my car in Eberle’s slot.”

Stepping from the car, Slocum closed the door respectfully. Crossing behind the Cadillac, he waited beside his Olds until Davic drove off, then lit a cigar and listened to guitar music drifting on the frosty air. The girl was playing “Red River Valley.” Her friends were singing too. Slocum loved that song... “The maiden who loved you sooo true...” Damn...

From the darkness of the shuttered snack bar Eberle joined him. “Nice night,” the lieutenant said. “Good, healthy weather.”

“Cold, too cold for me.” Slocum blew on the tip of his cigar. “You get it all?”

“Every word.” Eberle patted the wireless receiver bulging below his holstered police special. Slocum nodded and gave him the suction-mike he had removed from the rear bumper of Davic’s Cadillac.

“Big city lawyer,” Eberle said. “Big fucking deal.”

Slocum said: “Big cities, bigger buildings, bigger problems, bigger jackasses. Erase my voice from that tape and bring it by tomorrow night when you pick me up for bowling. Good night to you, Gus.”

“One thing, Captain.” Eberle rubbed a hand across his wet lips. “It got out of hand. I only meant to scare the piss and wind out of that piney—”

“I didn’t even hear that, Gus,” Slocum said, and got in his car. “Pick me up around seven tomorrow. League title’s up for grabs and them Knights of Pythias are tough. We better be lucky. I shit you not, Gus.”