Missing Persons

5

Cozier Maitlin lived, literally, around the corner.

From my sentry position just outside the crime-scene tape, I spotted Cozy on the sidewalk as he was descending the final steep section of hill that drops down from Maxwell toward Broadway. Despite the crowd of gawkers gathered around the yellow police tape, he wasn’t that hard to spot. Cozy stood six-feet-nine.

I checked my watch-no more than seven or eight minutes could have passed since Jaris Slocum had cuffed Diane and shoved her rudely back into the rear seat of the black-and-white.

Pointing toward the corner, I said to Raoul, “That’s the defense attorney Lauren called.”

“That was fast. He’s tall.”

“He’s good. He helped Lauren with that thing, you know, a few years ago. Hey, Cozy!”

Cozy didn’t break stride as he approached, or wave. Maybe he elevated his chin an additional millimeter or two, but that was the only indication that he’d heard me calling his name. He was wearing the same suit I imagined he’d worn to his downtown office that morning-the blue was a navy that shared a lot of DNA with black, and it was lined with the palest of gray pinstripes. His white shirt appeared freshly starched and his black shoes were the shiniest things on the block.

A nice, full-length umbrella or a walking stick would not have been out of place accessorizing his outfit.

We shook hands. “Good evening, Alan. At least the location is convenient this time. And the weather is delightful for December. No blizzard. I can’t tell you how grateful I am for that.”

“Thanks for coming so quickly, Cozy. This is Raoul Estevez. Raoul, Cozier Maitlin.”

“A pleasure, Mr. Estevez. I’m aware of your work.” That was Cozy’s way of communicating that he wasn’t worried about his fee. “It is your wife who is being detained?”

“In that car.” Raoul pointed at the squad that was parked at an angle on the lawn in front of the building where Hannah lay dead.

“Do you want to know what happened?” I asked.

“I understand someone died here under suspicious circumstances. Beyond that, not really. If either of you was an intimate of the deceased, please let me offer my condolences,” Cozy said, insincerely. He lifted one of his long legs, stepped over the crime-scene tape, and somehow managed to adopt an even more imperial deportment as he moved out onto the lawn. He paused, turned back to Raoul, and said, “Give me a moment or two to sort this out. Everything will be fine. It will.” After one more step, Cozy looked back over his shoulder at me. “Lauren said I’d be speaking with Jaris Slocum. That’s true?”

I nodded. I considered the wisdom of editorializing about Detective Slocum’s apparent personality flaws, but decided that I didn’t need to do anything to inflame the situation any further.

“Slocum is… difficult,” Cozy said. He said it in such a way that it sounded more damning than Sam Purdy informing me that Slocum was an asshole, or than Lauren concurring.

“That’s been my experience so far this evening,” I replied.

I was feeling a million things. Grief, anger, frustration, fear, even some relief, now that Cozy was there. Still, my anticipation of what was to come next was so sharp that I would have yanked out my wallet and maxed out all my credit cards for a ticket to the production I was about to get to witness for free.

Cozy immediately marched over to the cruiser and confronted the patrol cop assigned to keep watch on Diane, who was continuing to fume in the backseat. Cozy’s approach wasn’t tentative, and didn’t have any excuse-me-please in it. He moved in until he stood toe-to-toe with the cop, a young black man who was about six-two, 210.

Cozy dwarfed him.

Cozy’s introductory gambit to the officer consisted of a few words that caused the man to react by trying to step back to create some breathing room. But since the cop was already leaning against the car there was no place for him to go and he had to crane his neck upward to even see Cozy’s face. I imagined that the view was like gazing up from below Mt. Rushmore.

The patrol cop listened to Cozy for only another beat or two before he raised his voice and barked, “Step back, sir! Step back! Now! That’s a warning!”

The cop’s hand gravitated ominously toward his holster.

I held my breath and instinctively grabbed Raoul’s arm so he wouldn’t do something valiant, and stupid. I’d known him a long time, and knew that Raoul was capable of both.

Cozy, of course, didn’t step back an inch. He was daring the cop to get physical with him. And if the young cop preferred to do loud, Cozy could do loud just fine. With volume that matched the patrol cop’s do-what-I-say voice and then raised a few decibels for good measure, Cozy announced, “I am her attorney and I would like to speak with my client, officer. Officer”-Cozy leaned back at his waist so that he could read the cop’s name tag-“Leamer. It’s a pleasure to meet you. My client-that is she, by the way, that you are protecting-won’t, will not, be answering any more of the detectives’ questions tonight.”

The volume of that soliloquy drew virtually everyone’s attention to the cruiser, including Jaris Slocum’s. He was up on the front porch and immediately began a march toward the car with long strides, his hands tightened into fists. Cozy must have felt him coming. He spun away from the patrol cop and greeted Slocum with, “A pleasure seeing you, as always. Is my client actually in custody, Detective?”

Slocum stopped five feet from Cozy. I don’t know why he kept his distance-maybe so that he wasn’t close enough to shake Cozy’s outstretched hand. Slocum’s mouth opened and closed about a centimeter as he tried to process the latest developments: A large, imperial criminal defense attorney had penetrated the perimeter and he seemed to be making speeches for the benefit of the dozens of gathered citizens.

Not good.

“Haven’t decided? Is that it? Perhaps I can help,” Cozy taunted. His words were polite, his tone was even doing a clever masquerade as respectful. But everyone, especially Slocum, knew it was a taunt.

Slocum opened his mouth again, but still no words came out. Finally he was able to mutter, “I’m trying to investigate a suspicious death here.”

Cozy’s reply was immediate. “Good for you. As a taxpayer, I applaud your… conscientiousness. But that is neither here nor there at the moment, is it? The question at hand is, you see, quite simple.” Cozy leaned over and smiled at Diane in the backseat of the cruiser before returning his attention to Slocum. “Is my client in custody? Yes or no?”

Cozy’s voice carried through the heavy December air as though he were a thespian center stage at the Globe.

“She is not under arrest.”

“Ah, but I didn’t ask you that, did I?” He was doing his best to sound like Olivier doing Henry IV. “I asked you if my client was in your custody-yes, or no.”

I could barely discern Slocum’s response. I thought he said, “For now, she is… um, being detained for questioning.”

“I appreciate that clarification. As of now she is officially declining your invitation for further questioning, so I assume, then, that she is free to go.” Cozy leaned over and made quite a show of staring into the backseat of the cruiser. With mock horror he added, “Has she been handcuffed, Detective Slocum?” He included Jaris’s name so that the assembled citizenry would know who was responsible for the travesty. Had he next recited Slocum’s badge number-had Slocum been wearing a badge-I would not have been surprised. “Is that possible? Is she really handcuffed and locked in the backseat of a police cruiser? Are you planning on taking her to the jail and booking her?”

“She was not being cooperative.”

Cozy held out his own wrists and used the full power of his baritone. “Was she? Like my client, I too am planning to be uncooperative if this is the way the Boulder Police Department is choosing to behave toward its law-abiding citizens.”

“Mr. Maitlin,” Slocum implored.

At that moment I actually had just the slightest sympathy for Jaris Slocum. Cozy’s performance had gone more than a little over the top.

Cozy ignored Slocum’s plea and made a great show of holding out his French-cuffed wrists to see if Slocum would dare put a slightly less elegant pair of cuffs on them. “Would you like to handcuff me, as well? Is that the current policy of the department when citizens exercise their constitutional prerogatives to grieve silently?”

I could tell that Jaris Slocum would have loved nothing better at that moment than to handcuff Cozier Maitlin, but the presence of fifty or so civilian witnesses served to deter his more primitive impulses.

Darrell Olson’s primary role in his detective partnership was, apparently, to sense what was about to go wrong between Slocum and one of Boulder ’s citizens. Once again, Darrell did his job with aplomb. He rushed up, grabbed Slocum’s arm, pulled him closer to the house-and much farther from Cozy-and went nose to nose with him for about half a minute. I couldn’t hear a word of their argument but my respect for Darrell C. R. Olson expanded exponentially as he barked whatever he was barking. When the tête-à-tête between the two detectives was over, Slocum climbed the porch and marched into the old house where Hannah lay dead.

Olson returned to Cozy. He used a low voice to address him, modeling for him, hoping to reduce the inflammation. As he spoke he spread his hands in conciliation, palms up, like a don trying to pacify a peer. I couldn’t tell what he was saying, but it took him a minute or more to get through it.

Cozy’s reply wasn’t a whisper; his tone remained floridly oratorical. “No, Detective. Not in a few minutes. Right now. I want the cuffs off my client and I want her released. Now. There is no point whatsoever in prolonging her agony. She is despairing over her friend’s death. I guarantee you that this interview is over for tonight.”

Olson dipped his head a little and spoke again. It was apparent that he was still determined to try to be deferential, to try to lower the temperature of the conflict a little, but that he was also trying not to roll over to Cozy’s demands.

Cozy listened to Darrell’s continued plea, thought for a moment, and decided that he wanted none of it. He said, “Now, Detective.” Cozy gestured toward the old house and Jaris Slocum, and in a much lower, tempered voice added, “That man is your problem, not mine. You have my sympathy, but nothing more. Now, please.”

Olson shook his head, scratched his ear, stuffed his hands in his pockets, and mumbled something to Officer Leamer. Without so much as a nod, the detective walked away from Cozy and the patrol car.

Leamer opened the back door of the cruiser, helped Diane to her feet, and removed the handcuffs from behind her back. The fire in her eyes, if focused, could have ignited candles across the street.

Cozy introduced himself to his client and said something to her so quietly I couldn’t discern a word. Diane had fresh tears on her face. She said, “Thank you, thank you.” Then, as though she’d somehow forgotten, she cried, “My God, Hannah’s dead.”

Raoul said, “That’s it?” Actually, what he said was, “C’est finis?”

I said, “For now.”