Sunset Express

CHAPTER 35

Mr Walter Lawrence fell onto his back and kept trying to right himself the way a turtle might, clawing at the air with his arms and legs. I took the gun from him and told him to lie still, but he wouldn't until Louise Earle hurried out from the shed and made him.

Linc Gibbs and Dan Tomsic pulled up in a cloud of dry gray dust, then ran over with their guns out. Tomsic said, 'Who's this?'

'One of the good guys. Get an ambulance, for Christ's sake. We've got another wounded in the shed.'

Linc Gibbs made the call while Tomsic ran for the first aid kit that every cop keeps in his trunk. The crew cut had put one high into the left side of Mr Lawrence's chest. His shirt and jacket were soaked red, and he felt cold to the touch. The blood loss was extreme. When Tomsic came with the kit, we put a compress bandage over the wound and held it in place. Mrs Earle held it. While Tomsic was working with the bandage he glanced at Angela Rossi. 'You okay, Slick?'

She made an uncertain smile. 'Yeah.'

When Mr Lawrence was bandaged we ran into the shed, but Elliot Truly was dead. Tomsic looked close at Truly as if he wanted to be sure of what he was seeing. 'Is this who I think it is?'

'Unh-huh.'

'Sonofabitch.'

Gibbs had them send a medivac helicopter, and while we waited, we secured the scene. There wasn't much to secure. Both the guy with the crew cut and the guy in the knit shirt were dead. Kerris was dead, too. Tomsic said, 'Do all of these guys work for Green?'

'Kerris was his chief investigator. I think these other two worked for Kerris. I saw the black guy at Green's home.'

Tomsic shook his head and stared at the bodies. 'Man, you really wrack'm up.'

I frowned at him. 'Do you have a spare shirt in your car?' My shirt was still a bloody wad on Elliot Truly's chest.

'Think I might have something.' Most cops keep a spare shirt for just such occasions.

He had a plain blue cotton dress shirt still in its original plastic bag stowed in his trunk. It had probably been there for years. 'Thanks, Tomsic.' When I put it on, it was like wearing a tent. Two sizes too big.

The medivac chopper came in from the north and settled to a rest well away from the radio towers. Two paramedics hustled out with a stretcher and loaded Mr Lawrence into the helicopter's bay. They told us that they were going to lift him to Martin Luther King, Jr. Hospital, which would be a five-minute flight, and Mrs Earle wanted to go. They refused to take her until Angela Rossi volunteered to go with her. Lincoln Gibbs told Rossi that we would pick her up at the hospital.

When the helicopter had lifted away and disappeared over the hills, Gibbs looked at me and Pike, and said, 'Well?' The first of the black-and-whites was just now kicking up dust on the roads below.

'Green's people got to LeCedrick Earle. They offered him money and an early out from prison if he could get his mother to change her story. He hadn't spoken to her in six years, but he called and told her that the guards and the other prisoners were beating him because she was defending the police. Green's people went to her also, and helped convince her that it was real, and that the only way they could save LeCedrick was if she changed her story so that they could get him away from the guards.'

Gibbs nodded. 'Figured it had to be something like that. Figured she wouldn't do it for money.'

Tomsic said, 'Will she say that on the record?'

'Yes. And we've got something else, too.'

They looked at me.

'Truly made a dying declaration that Teddy Martin admitted murdering his wife, and that Jonathan Green conspired with Truly and Kerris to fabricate false evidence against Pritzik and Richards.'

Tomsic smiled, and Lincoln Gibbs made a little whistle. Gibbs said, 'Truly said that to you?'

Pike and Rossi heard it, too. Mrs Earle might've heard it, but I'm not certain that she did.'

Gibbs went back to his car and spoke on his cell phone for a time. As the black-and-whites rolled up, Tomsic met them and told them to hang around. There wasn't anything for them to do until the detectives who would handle the scene arrived. Gibbs came back in a few minutes and said, 'Is that your Jeep on the other side of the hills?'

Pike said, 'Mine.'

'Okay. We'll pick up Rossi and Mrs Earle at MLK and go see Sherman.'

I spread my arms, 'Like this?'

Tomsic was already walking to his car. 'The shirt looks great on you. What's your beef?'

'It looks like I'm wearing a tent.'

Pike's mouth twitched.

I said, 'Hey, Gibbs.'

He looked back.

'How about I pick up Mrs Earle? It might be easier for her.'

He stared at me for a short moment, and then he nodded. 'We'll meet you at Sherman 's.'

A black-and-white brought us to Pike's Jeep, and we drove directly to the MLK emergency trauma center. Mr Lawrence was in surgery, and Rossi and Mrs Earle were in the waiting room. I sat next to Mrs Earle and took her hands. 'We need to go see the district attorney. We need to tell her what we know about all of this. Do you see?'

She looked at me with clear eyes that were free of doubt or equivocation. 'Of course. I knew that we would.'

The four of us drove to Anna Sherman's office in Pike's Jeep. Mrs Earle rode with her hands in her lap and her head up. I guess she was thinking about LeCedrick. We did not listen to the radio during this time, and perhaps we should have. Things might've worked out differently if we had.

It was just after three that afternoon when Louise Earle, Angela Rossi, and I were shown into Anna Sherman's office. The bald prosecutor, Warren Bidwell, was there, along with another man I hadn't seen before, and Gibbs and Tomsic.

Sherman greeted us, smiling politely at Louise Earle and giving me a kind of curious neutrality, as if the meeting in Greenblatt's parking lot had never happened. I guess that they had told her what to expect.

Sherman offered coffee, which everyone declined, and as we took our seats she passed close to me and whispered, 'Great shirt.'

I guess that they'd told her about the shirt, too.

Anna Sherman asked Mrs Earle if she would mind being recorded, and if she would like to have an attorney present.

Mrs Earle said, 'Am I going to be arrested?'

Anna Sherman smiled and shook her head. 'No, ma'am, but it's your right, and some people feel more comfortable.'

Mrs Earle raised her hands. 'Oh, Lord, no. I don't care for all those lawyers.'

Tomsic grinned big time at that one. Even Bidwell smiled. Sherman said, 'Do you mind if we record?'

'You can record whatever you want. 1 don't care who hears what I have to say.' Her jaw worked, and for a moment she looked as if she was going to cry again. 'You know, those things I said about LeCedrick and the officer wasn't true.' She looked at Angela. 'I want to apologize for that.'

Angela Rossi said, 'It's okay.'

Mrs Earle said, 'No, it is not. I am so ashamed that I don't know what to do.' She looked back at Sherman. 'They said that the most horrible things were happening to my boy. They said that he would surely die in that place unless I helped get him out of there.'

Anna Sherman turned on the recorder. 'Who is "they," Mrs Earle?'

Mrs Louise Earle went through her part of it first, telling how she received the first phone call that she'd had from LeCedrick in six years, how he'd pleaded with her that his life was in danger there in the prison, that he'd called again, crying this time, begging her to help and saying that he'd hired an attorney named Elliot Truly who wanted to come speak with her. She told us how Truly and Kerris had come to the house, confirming the horror stories that LeCedrick had claimed, and convincing her that the fastest way to get LeCedrick moved from harm's way was to claim that the police had framed him those six years ago, just as LeCedrick had always said. She said that Truly helped her work out what to say.

Anna Sherman took notes on a yellow legal pad even though the recorder was running. Bidwell was taking notes, too. Sherman said, 'Did Jonathan Green take part in any of these conversations?'

'No, ma'am.'

Bidwell said, 'I saw you and Green together at a news conference.'

'That's right. When Mr Truly said it was time to say my piece, he drove me over to meet Mr Green.'

'Did you and Mr Green talk about what you were going to say?'

Louise Earle frowned. 'I don't think so.' She frowned harder, trying to remember. 'I guess we didn't. I guess he knew from Mr Truly. He just said to say it to the newspeople as direct and as honest as I could.'

Gibbs leaned forward. 'He said for you to be direct and honest?'

Sherman shook her head. 'Green's smart.' She drew a line across her pad. 'Okay. Let's hear what you have.'

I told them how Rossi and I had gone to see LeCedrick, and what we had learned from him, and how Kerris and his people had gotten to Mrs Earle first and how we had followed them to the pumping fields west of Baldwin Hills, and what happened there. I told them what Truly had said as he lay dying. I said, 'Truly confirmed everything that Mrs Earle and LeCedrick said. He tied in Jonathan Green, and stated that it was Green who directed the fabricating of phony evidence implicating Pritzik and Richards.'

Bidwell put down his pad. 'Why would Green do that?'

I handed him the hard copy printout of the contracts between Jonathan Green and Theodore Martin. 'These are copies of confidential retainer agreements between Green and Teddy Martin. They have an amended agreement that gives Jonathan Green ownership and control of most of Teddy's businesses.' Anna Sherman stared at me without emotion as I said it.

Bidwell flipped through the sheets, frowning. 'How in hell did you come by these?'

I shrugged. 'You just find things sometimes.'

Sherman smiled, still without emotion.

Bidwell passed the pages to her. 'Inadmissable.'

Anna Sherman took the pages but didn't look at them. The neutral smile stayed. She said, 'You have a dying declaration from Elliot Truly implicating Jonathan Green in the falsification of evidence.'

I nodded. 'We do.'

'Who heard it besides you?'

Rossi said, 'I did. So did Joe Pike.'

Sherman looked at Louise Earle. 'Did you hear it, Mrs Earle?'

Louise Earle looked uncertain. 'I don't think so. They put me behind all this metal. There was shooting, and I thought Mr Lawrence was dead.'

Anna Sherman patted her hand. 'That's all right.'

Bidwell said, 'So what we've got is a dying declaration witnessed by three people who have an interest in attacking Jonathan Green.'

Rossi said, 'What in hell does that mean?' She stood. 'We're giving it to you on a plate, and you're saying it's not enough?'

Bidwell crossed his arms and rocked.

Anna Sherman looked at the third guy. He hadn't said anything, and now he was staring at her. She stood and said, 'It's not the best, but I want to move on this. I am confident that these people are telling the truth, and that Jonathan Green is guilty of these crimes.'

Rossi said, 'Truly said something else, too.'

Everyone looked at her.

'He said that Theodore Martin admitted killing his wife.'

Anna Sherman smiled again, and Bidwell leaned forward.

'That's why the agreement was amended. Teddy said that he'd pay anything for Green to save him, and Green went for everything. Teddy put almost all of his personal and corporate holdings into escrow as payment to Green.'

Bidwell snatched up the pages and flipped through them again.

I said, 'There's also a second amendment that releases several million dollars in holdings back to Teddy Martin. I figure it's because Teddy thought he could get bail, and if he got it he was planning to skip.'

Rossi said, 'Truly confirmed that.'

Anna Sherman leaned forward just like Bidwell now, but she wasn't smiling anymore. 'Truly said Teddy was planning to skip?'

Rossi and I answered at the same time. 'Yes.'

Bidwell ran out of the room. The third guy angrily slapped his hands and said, 'Sonofabitch!'

I said, 'What?'

Anna Sherman slumped back in her chair and looked terribly tired. 'Theodore Martin was granted bail this morning at ten o'clock.'