Deadlocked

Chapter 6

The hottest part of a summer day in Kansas City is late afternoon. That's when asphalt streets and brick buildings are at their oven best, soaking up the deepest cool spots, wringing out the shallow ones. That's when the cottony air swells with heavy humidity drifting in from the Missouri River, settling in the city's lungs like the croup, squeezing the air out of anyone foolish enough to go outside and draw a breath. That's when power plants wheeze and grind, pushing current to air conditioners and ice machines, borrowing hot air, cooling it with interest.

Kansas City Power amp; Light warned of brownouts and power failures, making good the threat in staggered outages that hopscotched across town, knocking out the power in Mason's office at 5:15 P.M. Mason was deep into the trial transcript-not noticing when the refrigerator quit humming and the ceiling light disappeared, finally catching on when the air started to clot.

The transcript provided the facts but didn't tell the whole story. Why would one or both boys, neither of whom had any prior history of violence, suddenly go on such a rampage? The prosecutor's version was robbery, a crime of opportunity that spun out of control. Graham Byrnes's wallet was found next to his body. There was no cash in it, but there was no evidence of how much cash, if any, had been in it before he was killed.

Mason sensed something more primal in the murders. He agreed it was a crime of opportunity but doubted that the perceived opportunity had been robbery, not if Whitney King had been the killer. Whitney was rich so he didn't need the money. The opportunity was the chance to get away with murder. A thrill killing. Exercising the power of life and death was the ultimate rush for a thin slice of twisted souls. The trial transcript didn't open that window into either defendant. Insanity was not pled as a defense. No psychiatrist testified to a lifetime of abuse or chemical imbalance that stoked the killer's rage.

The most common motives for murder-greed, jealousy, love, and hate-were nowhere present in the facts laid out for the jury, leaving Mason with an inescapable conclusion. One of those boys-or both-was a natural born killer who came of age that night. If he was right, and Whitney King was the killer, Mason knew one other thing. It may have been his first time, but it wouldn't be his last.

He'd just finished reading the testimony of an auto mechanic who inspected the Byrnes's car, testing Kowalczyk's and King's alibis that it had broken down, each defendant pleading that the murders were committed by the other while he went for help. The car had been towed from the scene, examined by the mechanic the following day. Worked fine, the mechanic testified. A lot better than the defendants' alibis, Forest Jones, the prosecuting attorney, noted in an aside that drew an objection and the judge's impotent instruction to the jury to disregard.

Nancy Troy, Ryan's court appointed attorney, scored on cross-examination when the mechanic admitted that he'd found a short in the alternator that could have caused the car to fail to start one time but not another. Mason wasn't surprised at the testimony. It was like everything else so far in this case. The truth depended on which side you were on and who asked the last question.

The dry record of the case made Ryan Kowalczyk's conviction inevitable. His car. His clothes soaked with blood from both victims. The undisputed facts forecasted King's conviction as well. King was with Kowalczyk. King's clothes were as bloody as Ryan's clothes. The only thing missing was the murder weapon. The cops assumed the boys had used the tire iron from the Byrnes's car, since it was gone. Yet King got off.

Their mutually exclusive alibis ranked low on the squirrel-came-in-the-window-and-ate-my-homework credibility scale, particularly after the mechanic testified. There was an all-night service station two miles away. The employees never saw either boy that night. It was as if the defendants agreed to blame one another in the hope that the jury, unable to decide which one did it, would acquit both of them. Mason knew that criminals were rarely as clever as they gave themselves credit for being, but this last possibility pegged the stupid meter.

Though both boys were athletic, it seemed unlikely that one of them, acting alone, could have beaten two people to death without a struggle. There was no evidence that either Graham or Elizabeth Byrnes had fought back, neither defendant showing any bruises, cuts, or scratches. Neither victim had the blood, skin, or hair of one of the defendants under his fingernails.

Mason was growing confident that King was guilty, unable to find any explanation for the jury's decision to set him free. The explanation lay outside the facts. Maybe King had better lawyers. Maybe the jury just believed King's unlikely story. Maybe Kowalczyk had a nervous tic when he testified. The collective mind of a jury was a strange and mysterious place, decisions hatched as compromises, born of indigestion and other human vagaries.

His best chance of understanding what had happened in the courtroom would come from talking with the lawyers, the judge, and the jury. Even that was an uncertain prospect. Lawyers justify their wins and losses with increasing clarity as time goes by, attributing the former to their skill, the latter to insurmountable bad facts. Judges lose track, one case blending into another. Jurors just forget.

Another jury, looking back on the same facts fifteen years later, might well come to the right decision, finally holding Whitney King accountable for that murderous night. While that would serve one of his clients, it wouldn't serve the other.

Mason had called Mary Kowalczyk after his meeting with Nick Byrnes, explaining the nuances of representing two clients in the same case. Mary enthusiastically endorsed Mason's proposal.

"Anything that will prove Whitney King is guilty is fine by me," she said.

"That won't prove that Ryan was innocent."

"Then you'll just have to do both," Mary told him, ending the discussion.

Mason cranked open the windows behind his desk, opening his door, hoping to generate a breeze, instead getting a dose of traffic exhaust, car horns, and more hot air than a campaign commercial. He tolerated the mix while he made a quick scan of the boxes Nick Byrnes had left him, each one sealed with heavy packing tape. Mason fished through his desk drawers looking for a utility knife, found it at the bottom of the bottom drawer next to a gun Blues had given him when he first moved in above the bar. It was a.44 caliber semiautomatic with a nine-shot magazine.

"You better learn to use it," Blues had told him, "if you're gonna keep pushing hot buttons on people that don't have any cold buttons."

Mason had killed one man, though not with a gun, and shot another who hadn't died. He had nightmares about the first man, but not the second, and that bothered him enough to give the gun back to Blues.

"You hold onto it for me," Mason said. "I'll let you know if I need it."

After the Gina Davenport case, Blues gave it to him again. "Any man gets stabbed in the heart and lives to tell about it, damn well better carry a gun. Even a fool only gets so many chances," he said. "Register it and get a permit to carry it."

Mason didn't argue, registering the gun, getting the permit, and burying it in the bottom drawer, forgetting about it. He took the gun out, hefting it in his palm, liking the solid feel more than he cared to admit. He worked the action, confirmed the magazine was loaded and set the gun down on a stack of papers about to be blown off his desk by the breeze. Picking up the utility knife, he sliced the boxes open, looking for something short and simple for a last look, settling on a thin file labeled JURY.

The file contained a single sheet of paper, the verdict form signed by all twelve jurors, each signature telling its own story. Four were left handed, judging from the slant at which they wrote. Some signed in small letters, hiding among the others as they probably did in the jury room. A couple used bold strokes, penning their names with the certainty of founding fathers. A few were feminine, given to soft strokes. One of these caught his eye as he said it aloud: Sonni Efron.

Mason stared at the verdict form, pacing around his office, waiting for the letters to rearrange themselves into the name of someone who hadn't been murdered two days ago and buried that morning. He stopped in front of the dry erase board, a siren from the street shrieking into his open window as an ambulance raced by, the coincidence of Sonni Efron's murder and Ryan Kowalczyk's execution occurring on the same day more stunning than the siren.

Mason didn't believe in coincidence any more than he believed in King Tut's curse. Legend had it that those who entered Tut's tomb were cursed to die horrible deaths, many of them doing so, their deaths serving the legend if nothing else. That a juror who condemned Ryan Kowalczyk to death for murder would suffer the same fate couldn't be the result of jury duty, a modern equivalent of Tut's curse.

Mason knew that. He knew that many crimes were random, the victim and the perpetrator connected by nothing more than fatal coincidence. Bad timing, nothing more. Yet Sonni Efron's murder felt like another shift in the earth beneath his feet, another small tremor rippling under him, adding to the aftershocks of Ryan's execution, the stone on his parents' grave, his aunt's admonition to forget about his parents' deaths, and Blues's refusal to help Mary Kowalczyk. Feeling the heat, Mason added Sonni's name to the board, closing the cabinet doors, shutting the questions about her murder inside.

"Done for the day?" Sandra Connelly asked.

Mason turned around. Sandra was framed in the doorway to his office, one hand on a cocked hip, the only woman he knew who looked good in this weather. They had been partners at Sullivan amp; Christenson, ridden out of the firm on the same rail, tied together in a killing spree that nearly claimed them both. Afterward, Mason retreated to a solo practice, shunning the limelight even when his cases shined the spotlight on him. Sandra sought out the beacons, leveraging her notoriety to land big clients with big cases, delivering victories, crushing the opposition.

Her hair was shorter now, a shade darker, her body sleek and full at the same time, her mouth still turned in a smug twist that promised a rough ride you'd thank her for. A ride she had offered to Mason that he had declined, though just barely. Horses sweat, men perspire, and women glow, Claire once told him. Sandra had the glow, beating back the heat. A purse on one shoulder, a briefcase slung from the other. A knife in both, Mason bet, counting on Sandra not to have changed that much.

"All in and all done," Mason answered. "Grab a deck chair, enjoy the ocean breeze," he said, retrieving two bottles of Boulevard Beer from his refrigerator, glad the chill hadn't left the glass.

Sandra chose the sofa, kicking off her heels, leaning against the cushions, rubbing the bottle against her neck, beneath her chin. She was wearing wheat-colored linen slacks with a pale pink blouse, open at the throat, a chunk of diamond dropped on a thin gold chain perched just above the swell of her tanned breasts. Mason chose the neutral zone behind his desk, feet on the floor, bottle unopened.

"Nice office," Sandra said, taking a quick inventory, then a short draw on the beer, Mason not answering, letting Sandra take her time. "Cute paperweight," she said aiming the bottle at the gun on his desk.

"Cigarette lighter," Mason explained, putting the gun back in the drawer. "You still carry a knife wherever you go?" he asked.

She opened her purse, pulling out a three-inch, pearl-handled knife, blade closed until she pushed an invisible button on the side, and the blade snapped to attention. "No. Just this letter opener," she said.

Mason laughed, remembering how Sandra's fascination with knives had once saved their lives. He hadn't seen much of her in the last several years; her practice focused on well-heeled corporations, his on down-at-the-heel individuals. She was a star at McKenzie amp; Strahan, the city's biggest law firm. The last he'd heard, she was defending tobacco companies, convincing juries that people were responsible for the addictions they chose, not the companies that sucked them in.

She studied him, testing Mason's nonchalance, giving up after a moment when he didn't melt at her feet. "Okay," she said, taking a sheet of paper from her briefcase. "I hear you've got a new client."

"Things must be slow downtown for a piece of news like that to hit your corner office," Mason said.

"Nick Byrnes hit my office," Sandra said. "Or, more precisely, his e-mail did after Whitney King forwarded it to me," she added, handing Mason the hard copy. Nick's message was right to the point.

YOU'VE GOTTEN AWAY WITH MURDER LONG ENOUGH. I'VE GOT A LAWYER. HIS NAME IS LOU MASON. WE'RE COMING AFTER YOU. BE AFRAID. BE VERY AFRAID.

"I should have that printed on my business card," Mason said, noting the e-mail identified Nick Byrnes as the sender, Whitney King as the recipient. Time of message, three o'clock A.M. that morning, hours before Mason had agreed to represent Nick.

Sandra pulled a file folder from her briefcase, dropping it on the table in front of the sofa. "Your client is fond of sending e-mails in the dark of night. Take a look. They're all variations on a theme. You killed my parents. I'm going to get you if it's the last thing I do. Yadda, yadda, yadda."

Mason refused the bait, annoyed with Nick, but just as annoyed with Sandra. Mason accepted his clients as they were. Some guilty. Some innocent. Some eccentric pains-inthe-ass. They may be jerks, but they were his jerks, and he didn't hesitate to protect them.

"Nearly as I can tell, Nick's right. Your client killed his parents. That must be why Whitney has never tried to stop Nick from sending e-mails reminding him about what he did. In case Whitney forgot, that is."

Sandra tapped her bottle against the side of the table, slipped her shoes on, and stood. "My client was acquitted by a jury. The same jury that convicted Ryan Kowalczyk, whose conviction was upheld by every state and federal court that reviewed the case. Your client's obsession is understandable, but tell him to move on. Life is for the living."

"You know," Mason said, coming around from behind his desk. "This life is for the living crap is getting on my nerves. It's a lousy excuse for letting someone off the hook. Nick Byrnes has a good case against Whitney King for his parents' wrongful death. It won't mean jail time, but it will mean a lot of money, not to mention a new jury saying what the last one didn't have the balls to say. Whitney King killed those people."

"Are you telling me you are actually going to sue Whitney?"

"Nick's statute of limitations runs in two weeks. If Whitney wants to make a deal now, maybe we can work something out without a lot of noise," Mason said.

"Right. Why don't I just cut off my arm and beat myself senseless with it instead. Save my client the trouble. You don't have a case, Lou. Your client is a screwed-up kid. A whack job. File that lawsuit against Whitney and you'll draw a counterclaim for harassment and those e-mails are exhibit A."

"Your client is a murderer. I'd watch your back. Cutting off your arm may just be the beginning," Mason said.

Sandra shook her head, back in the doorway. "You haven't changed a bit," she said. "Into the breach."

"Beats the hell out of crushing widows and orphans."

Sandra drew her lips back. "You don't want to take me on, Lou. I'll carve you up."

"Funny," Mason said. "I thought your client was the killer. Not you."