Show of Evil

Seventeen

When Vail and Stenner arrived at Butterfly's, Naomi Chance and Dermott Flaherty were already there, immersed in the morning papers. Naomi looked disapprovingly at Vail as he sat down.

'Didn't get too close to your razor this morning,' she commented.

He couldn't think of an appropriate answer, so he said nothing. Instead he turned to Butterfly, who loomed over the table staring down at him.

'Two poached, sausage, white toast,' he said.

'Poached,' she snarled. 'God!' And slouched away.

'And that suit -' Naomi began.

'I don't want to hear about my suit or shaving or anything else,' Vail said.

'You can grab a quick shave in your private bath,' Naomi said.

'Screw my private bath. It's not a bathroom, it's an afterthought. They put a sink and a shower in a broom closet and called it a bathroom.'

'It's convenient.'

'It's the size of the can in an airliner.'

'There's a clean shirt and a tie in one of your file cabinets and your grey pinstripe is in the closet, take you fifteen minutes before you go down to court,' Naomi said, scanning the front page of USA Today.

'What is it with everybody today?' Vail grumbled. 'I'm not posing for GQ, you know. Why don't you pick on Flaherty? He wears that same black suit every day.'

'I have four black suits,' Flaherty said without looking up from his paper. 'I don't wear the same one every day.'

'Don't you find it a little bizarre that he dresses like Johnny Cash every day ' Vail said. 'Why don't you pick on him?'

Stenner said, 'I think some variety might be in order.'

'I'm comfortable in black,' Flaherty said, ending the conversation.

Further discussion was cut short by the arrival of Okie Okimoto, who looked smug and important as he approached the table. He was carrying his briefcase.

Butterfly frowned at him. 'We don't serve sushi in here,' she growled.

'I have no desire to eat here, Madame Butterfly. Hopefully I can survive a cup of coffee.'

'Smartass,' she muttered, and dragged her feet into the kitchen.

Okimoto sat down at the round table, opened his case, and took out a file folder.

'I have here the report on the famous landfill kill,' he said, almost with a snicker. 'Or perhaps I should say infamous landfill kill.'

'What's so funny?' Stenner asked.

'All the fuss,' he said. 'Where's Harvey? I want him to hear this from my own two lips.'

'Must've overslept,' Naomi said.

'Hmm. Perhaps I should wait.'

'I don't think so,' said Vail. 'You've gone this far, you better finish.'

'Okay. I'll skip the anatomical details and the long medical terms for now and just give you the essence,' Okimoto said, opening the folder. 'By the way, Eckling doesn't have this yet. I assume you will be discreet with the information for at least an hour.'

'Sure. Just get on with it,' Vail answered.

'They froze to death,' Okimoto said with a smile.

'What!' Flaherty said, finally looking up from his paper.

A deadly quiet fell over the table as Stenner, Vail, Flaherty, and Naomi stared at Okimoto, waiting for the details of his surprising announcement.

'Well, the two males froze to death and the woman suffocated,' he said to the stunned group.

'Froze to death?' Stenner repeated.

'You want my expert opinion?' said Okimoto. 'I think what happened was, they crawled into a Dempsey Dumpster somewhere, probably burrowed under the junk to keep warm - this was several weeks ago, early to mid January, we had a helluva freeze for about two weeks right after New Year's if you'll remember - and by morning two of them were dead and the woman was too weak to move. They pick up the Dumpster, haul it out to the landfill, and unloaded it. The woman suffocated in the garbage, probably after she was in the dump.'

'Good God!' Flaherty said.

'So we don't have a homicide, we have a homeless tragedy?' said Vail.

'Yeah,' Okimoto said, snickering. 'So much for Harvey's murder theory.'

Then he leaned his elbows on the table. 'Know what I think? I think maybe this happens a lot. Probably other bodies out there, but I'm not going to mention it to anybody. They'll be out there digging up the whole damn landfill.'

'They froze to death,' Stenner said half aloud and shaking his head. 'Harvey's going to be crushed.'

'I hear he was on the computer network tracking down missing persons from all over the state,' Okimoto said, and started to laugh. He finished his coffee. 'Tell you what, tell Harvey the murder weapon was a refrigerator.' Then he left, still chuckling to himself.

'Harvey finally blew one,' Flaherty said, turning back to his paper. 'Him and his intuition.'

'He's usually right,' said Naomi. 'Give the devil his due.'

'Yeah, but he kind of rubs it in, don't you think?' Flaherty said. 'Anybody else notice that, that he kind of rubs our noses in it because we don't remember some oddball bit of information like the day John Dillinger was killed, something like that. Hell, John Dillinger was killed thirty years before I was born.'

'July twenty-second, 1934,' said Naomi. 'In front of the old Biograph Theatre. Actually, it's not too far from here.' She smiled at Flaherty's surprised look and added with a wink, 'It's part of our local history, darling, don't feel bad.'

When they got to the office, Parver was already there, pacing back and forth at the rear of the big room, drinking a cup of coffee and psyching herself up.

'Ready for battle?' Vail called to her as he entered his office and peeled off his jacket and tie.

She nodded and kept pacing.

'What's your plan?'

'No bail. Go to the grand jury as soon as possible.'

'She's gonna fight you,' Vail said.

'Well, we'll just have to kick ass,' Parver answered, still pacing.

Vail smiled. 'That's my girl,' he said.

Naomi took a clean shirt out of a drawer and handed it and his suit to Vail.

'There isn't room in here for me and my clothes,' he griped, and pulled the door shut behind him.

'Twenty minutes,' Naomi called out, and went to her desk.

Fifteen minutes later Parver and Vail bumped into Harvey St Claire, who was getting off the lift as they were leaving. He seemed either tired or deep in thought.

'Missed you at breakfast, Harve,' Vail said.

'May I talk to you for a minute?' St Claire answered, his tone more serious than usual.

'I have to go down to the Stoddard bail hearing with Shana. Then lunch with Rainey. Can it wait until this afternoon?'

'Uh, yeah, sure.'

'Incidentally, Okie was at Butterfly's this morning acting the fool. The bodies in the landfill? Three homeless people got in a Dumpster and froze to death. Well, actually one of them suffocated. Anyway, you can forget working the network and get back to business.'

He and Parver headed for the lifts.

'Ohhhh, I don't think so,' St Claire drawled half aloud as he watched them leave.

Two guards led Edith Stoddard down a long, dismal hallway towards the back stairs to courtroom 3 on the second floor. Her hands were shackled behind her, but Venable had convinced the jailers not to shackle her legs by embarrassing them.

'This is a fifty-three-year-old woman,' she said. 'You think she's going to outrun you two and make a dash for the border?'

As they approached the door to the stairwell, a TV team from Channel 7 burst through the back door with lights blazing and microphone ready. Edith Stoddard cried out and lowered her face in alarm.

'Damn them,' Venable snapped, and glowered at the two jailers. It was an old media trick, slipping the security men ten bucks apiece to tell them where and when they could get a shot at the defendant. She rushed Stoddard along, but the TV crew caught them at the door. Venable opened it and urged Stoddard through, followed by the guards. Then she stood in the doorway. Questions came at her in a jumble.

'When did you take on the case?'

'Did Edith Stoddard call you?'

'Are you going for reduced bail?'

'Is it true that she's already confessed?'

And on and on. Venable finally held up a hand, and when that didn't quiet them, she raised her voice and bellowed, 'Listen!' She waited until they shut up. 'I will answer no questions. This is a bail hearing. If you want to know what's going on, go upstairs to the court like everyone else. Other than that, no comment. And I'll have no comment after the hearing, either. Is that clear?'

She stepped inside the stairwell and slammed the door in their faces. The stairwell smelled of Lysol, an odour that sickened Venable. Why is it all of the nastier public buildings smell of Lysol? Perhaps my reaction to it is psychosomatic.

'Please, please…' Edith Stoddard said. Tears welled in her eyes.

'This will take about five minutes,' Venable said. 'Just hang in there and trust me.' She held her breath until they got to the security room at the top of the stairs.

Parver was already at the prosecutor's desk. There were a thin file folder, a large yellow legal tablet, and a handful of freshly sharpened pencils on the desk in front of her. She watched as the guards led Edith Stoddard and Jane Venable to the defence desk. They sat down and Venable leaned over and spoke to her in a whisper. She did not acknowledge Shana.

In the back of the room, Vail settled back to watch the first brief skirmish between the two lawyers. Venable's objective would be to get bail as low as possible - perhaps even have her client released on her own recognizance - without giving away any of her case. Parver's objective: No bail, period.

Vail looked at Edith Stoddard. One day had beaten her down. Her shoulders were rounder, her head down. He thought for a moment about the irony of the Darby and Delaney cases. In both murders, a shot to the head was key. In Darby's case, it came first and proved premeditation; in Delaney's case, the head shot was second and proved malice.

Judge Ione Pryor, a tall, hawk-faced woman in her forties with a no-nonsense air and a steely glare behind gold-rimmed glasses, entered the courtroom and took her chair behind the bench.

'First case,' she said to the bailiff.

'The state versus Edith Stoddard. A bail hearing. Defendant was arrested yesterday on a charge of murder in the first degree.'

'Who's representing the state?' Judge Pryor asked.

Parver stood up. 'I am, Your Honour. Shana Parver, assistant prosecutor, DA's office.'

Judge Pryor looked over the top of her glasses towards the defendant's desk, settled her gaze on Venable.

'Are you representing the defendant?' she asked with surprise.

'Yes, Your Honour. Jane Venable for the defence.'

'Been a while since we've seen you in criminal courts,' the judge said.

'Yes, Your Honour.'

'Ms Parver?'

'Your Honour,' she said, standing behind her desk. 'The state has sufficient evidence to obtain a first-degree murder indictment from the grand jury against Mrs Stoddard for the slaying of John Farrell Delaney. We move that Mrs Stoddard be held without bail until the trial. This is premeditated murder, Your Honour.'

Venable stood up.

'Objection, Judge,' she said. 'The state's case consists of a statement made by my client to two police officers who were interrogating her concerning the death of her boss, John Delaney. She never mentioned Delaney by name. She said "I killed him." That's all she said.'

'If the court please,' Parver countered, 'the entire interrogation concerned Mrs Stoddard's relationship with the deceased, John Delaney. It is obvious the "him" in her confession was John Delaney. I seriously doubt she was talking about John Kennedy or Abe Lincoln.'

Pryor squinted over her glasses at Parver, considered admonishing her for a fleeting moment, then changed her mind. The young prosecutor had a strong point. She looked back at Venable.

'I would have to agree with that, Ms Venable.'

'It's moot anyway, Your Honour. The statement made by my client is inadmissible. She was under great stress at the time. She was scared to death. She had no legal representation -'

'She was given an opportunity to call a lawyer in her Miranda,' the judge said.

'I really don't think she was rational at that point. There are a great many extenuating circumstances in this matter, Judge. As far as bail goes, Mrs Stoddard has a husband who is a quadriplegic. My client is fifty-three years old and takes care of him. I don't believe she poses a danger or threat to society and, I can assure you, she's not going anywhere.'

'Excuse me, Judge Pryor,' Parver said. 'If counsel is suggesting that Mrs Stoddard be released on recognizance, the state strongly objects. I say again, this is a murder-one case. As far as Mrs Stoddard's husband is concerned, she has a twenty-one-year-old daughter who will have to take on that responsibility. And Mrs Stoddard's age is immaterial.'

The judge looked at Stoddard for a minute or two, then took off her spectacles and tapped them lightly against her jaw.

'Where is her daughter?' the judge asked. 'Is she in court today?'

'No,' Venable said.

Parver moved quickly to quell any further discussion of the specific issues of the case. 'We have a motion before the court, Judge. I suggest the counsellor wait until the trial to plead her case.'

Pow, right in the kisser, thought Venable. Vail's taught his young lawyers well.

The judge smothered a smile. 'Please read the motion,' she said to the court reporter, who checked the stereotape, found the motion made by Parver, and said: ' "We move that Mrs Stoddard be held without bail until the trial." '

The judge leaned back in her chair. 'When do you plan to go to the grand jury, Ms Parver?'

'As soon as possible. Hopefully, this week sometime.'

'Okay. I'm going to deny bail at this time. I agree with Ms Parver, Ms Venable. This is first-degree murder. As for the confession, the trial judge can deal with it, if and when it comes to that.'

'One more point, if it please the court,' said Venable. 'Defence would like to request that Mrs Stoddard be kept in the holding cell here in district two until the grand jury rules rather than moving her into the general prison population at this time.'

Pryor looked at Parver. Shana thought for a moment and said, 'The state has no objection.'

'Good, then that's all settled.'

Pryor rapped her gavel and called for the next case.

Venable walked across to the prosecutor's table. 'Nicely done,' she said to Parver. 'Looks like you took round one.'

'Thanks,' Parver answered.

'See you next time.'

Venable returned to Edith Stoddard as the guards prepared to handcuff her and lead her out.

'Do you boys mind cuffing her in front?' she asked. 'She isn't going to turn rabbit on you.'

The two guards exchanged glances and one of them shrugged.

'Sure, Miss Venable,' he said.

'Why did you do that?' Stoddard asked as they were leading her out of the courtroom. There was emotion in her voice for the first time, a sense of betrayal and anger. 'I told you, I want to plead guilty. I can't stand these photographers and reporters screaming at me. The pictures—'

'Edith, please trust me. Let me do this my way,' Jane Venable said. 'They will most certainly indict you for murder one. Then I'll move to throw out the confession. They don't have the gun, so they can't prove yours was even the murder weapon. That gives me good ammunition when I go to Vail to strike a deal.'

'I just want it over with,' Stoddard said mournfully.

'And it will be soon,' Venable said with sympathy as they led Edith Stoddard out of the room.

Parver worked her way back through the reporters, who had now descended on her. Vail slipped out of the door and walked across the hall to wait for her.

Parver stopped just outside the courtroom doors.

'We will seek a murder-one indictment of Mrs Stoddard as soon as possible, hopefully before the end of the week. That's all I can tell you now.'

'Will you ask for the death penalty?' a female TV reporter asked.

Parver stared at her for several seconds. The impact of the question threw her. 'I'm not going to try this case in the media,' she said. 'I've told you all I can tell you at this time. Thank you.'

She walked away. The press swarmed off down the hall, looking for Jane Venable. Vail fell in beside Parver and they threaded their way through the crowded hall.

'I don't understand why Edith Stoddard is so determined to plead guilty,' Parver said.

'A lot of reasons,' Vail said. 'She's scared, she's depressed, she knows she's guilty. Doesn't want her family hurt any more than necessary. My guess is, she's being protective of her husband and daughter. And it's a humiliating experience, very traumatic.'

'I don't believe it's sunk in yet that she blew this man away in cold blood and she's going to pay heavily for it,' Parver said. 'She's facing life.'

'I'm sure Jane's drumming that into her, but I really don't believe that's a reality to her at this point.'

'I feel a little sorry for her,' Parver admitted, half aloud.

'You don't have that luxury,' Vail said, then added: 'There is one thing - '

'Find the gun,' Parver said.

'You're one step ahead of me.'

'Abel's working on it,' she said. 'When do I get a crack at Mrs Stoddard?'

'Let's wait until after the grand jury,' Vail said. 'Once she's indicted, when the reality of what she's up against sets in, she may begin to break down a little.'

'I don't think so,' Parver answered. 'I think she's determined to enter a plea.'

'And Venable's determined to fight it. Let's wait and see how that one plays out. Ready to take on Paul Rainey?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Have the paper?'

'Right here.' She took out the arrest warrant and gave it to Vail, who put it in the inside pocket of his jacket.

'Let's go rattle his cage,' Vail said.