The Cat, The Devil, The Last Escape

41

THREE HOURS BEFORE Brad Falon’s scheduled move from Terminal Island to L.A. county jail on the land scam charges, the federal grand jury in Los Angeles charged him with bank robbery, murder, assault, and attempted murder. He was taken into L.A. for a preliminary hearing, bail was set at twenty-five thousand dollars, and he was incarcerated, as planned, in the L.A. jail but on the new and more serious offenses. The land matter case was set over until the murder trial was resolved. While the L.A. docket wasn’t crowded, it took most of one week to select a jury. Falon felt he had a better chance conning a jury than a federal judge; he’d heard nothing good about this group of judges. Some called them hanging judges, hard-nosed and righteous men who would not understand the finer points of his character.

On the day of the trial Morgan and Lee were seated at the attorney’s long mahogany table below the judge’s bench. Morgan was a prime witness. He approached the table with the thick, heavy bandage covering the side of his head, walking unsteadily with his hand on the arm of an orderly, and with a deputy marshal following. Even riding in the official car from Terminal Island to L.A. had left him shaky, he was glad Lee was there beside him. Storm wanted Lee at the witness table to back up small incidents in the prison and to corroborate what Morgan might have told him. “You both escaped from Atlanta to bring about this trial,” Storm said. “Before this is over you’ll both be charged for that escape. You’ve put a lot on the line, Fontana, you have a right to be here.”

Two armed deputy marshals were stationed near the bench, three more behind the jury box. Lee watched Falon ushered in, his ankles and hands shackled. His hair was carefully combed, bushy at the sides, which accentuated his narrow face and close-set eyes. He was seated at the next table with his own attorney, facing the jury box. He had buttoned his prison shirt high at the throat so the angry red wounds didn’t show. Turning in his chair he looked smugly at Lee until his attorney, James Ballard, nudged him. Then Falon turned away. Ballard was a portly man with a shaggy fringe of brown hair edging a shiny bald head. He continued to whisper to Falon until Falon looked up at the jury, a bland and gentle expression in his muddy eyes. He had pleaded not guilty on all charges: murder, bank robbery, assault, and the intent of murder.

The mahogany walls of the courtroom were hung with portraits of federal judges, some of whom, by their fancy attire, had lived in the last century. Some looked so tough they made Lee smile. Above the paintings, through the high windows, Lee could see snatches of overcast sky. He half expected to see a feline silhouette padding along the sill. But if Misto was present, Lee guessed he’d be comforting Sammie. In the visitors’ gallery, she and Becky sat near the front. Becky sat very straight, one hand fisted tightly in her lap, her other arm around Sammie; Sammie pressed close, watching Lee and her daddy, her face white and still. Her dress was pale blue, smocked down the front as Lee’s mother would smock his sisters’ dresses. The section was half empty. Looked like a few reporters, with their notepads, and a handful of old folks who might have gathered for the free entertainment.

Lee studied the jury: three women and seven men, one of whom would be an alternate. All looked like good steady citizens, neatly dressed, their expressions heavy with civic responsibility. The bailiff ordered everyone to stand. Judge Crane entered the courtroom from a private door behind the raised bench, a big man with a square, sunburned face, looked like he’d be happier on a sailing ship than confined in the courtroom. But there was something haughty about him, too, something withdrawn that made Lee watch him uneasily.

The judge would not decide Falon’s innocence or guilt, the jury would do that. But Judge Crane would decide and pronounce sentence. And even if Falon were found guilty, thus overturning Morgan’s conviction, both Lee and Morgan still had to face the judge on charges of escaping from Atlanta. When Lee looked again at Sammie, she sat straighter in her seat; she was not so white, and her arms were akimbo as if she held an imaginary doll. Lee could almost feel the warmth himself as her unseen companion eased the child’s fears—fear of what lay ahead, fear of this roomful of strangers who held Morgan’s life in their hands.

The trial took three days. The U.S. attorneys in Georgia and in L.A. had agreed that the depositions from the bank employees were sufficient evidence, on top of the bank money, the bank bag, and the gun with Falon’s prints. They had not required that the witnesses be flown out from Atlanta. None of the witnesses could have clearly identified Falon, whose face had been hidden beneath the navy blue stocking cap with its two eyeholes. Betty Holmes’s deposition stated clearly that she had seen the robber shoot and kill the bank guard. The written statements were long and detailed. There was a deposition, as well, from the shopkeeper across the street from the bank who had seen the getaway car and recorded the license number. It was this, the identification of Morgan’s car, that had first led police to increase their hunt for Morgan on the night he disappeared, and that had helped convict him.

Lee didn’t take to the U.S. attorney, didn’t like his offhand manner. James Heller was a slim man with delicately small hands, pale skin, a high forehead beneath soot-black hair. A fragile-looking fellow who seemed too self-centered when he presented the new evidence, though he was thorough enough. He showed photographs of the gun, the ammo box, the stocking cap, the wrapped packets of money. He passed a set of the photos among the jury, along with copies of the fingerprints found on those items, pointing out that copies of all pertinent material had been furnished, earlier, to both the jury and judge. Only one item lay on the evidence table, near where a deputy marshal was stationed: a small, closed shipping box, securely sealed.

Heller read the report from ballistics that matched riflings from the .38 revolver with the bullet removed from the body of the bank guard. He read into the record statements from the Georgia FBI and GBI agents and deputy sheriff who had recovered the evidence from the old well. He presented Becky’s formal complaints and police reports on Falon’s harassment, the break-in at her aunt’s, and the incident on the bridge outside Rome; all to bring into question Falon’s original testimony as a key witness against Morgan. When Heller had finished, the bailiff called FBI agent Karl Hamrick of San Bernardino, and that brought Lee alert, staring. What was this? What was Hamrick doing there?

Hamrick was the agent who had interrogated Lee after he was arrested in Vegas for drunk and disorderly, he had no connection to this case. Lee grew chilled thinking about the grilling Hamrick had laid on him. As the agent entered the courtroom from behind the jury stand Lee wanted to run, to get the hell out of there.

But in a moment Lee relaxed, limp with relief. Hamrick had been stationed in Georgia on a temporary assignment at the time of the bank robbery; he was one of the agents who had originally investigated the case. He could have had no notion, then, that Lee would become involved. In Georgia, he had interviewed Falon after the robbery, as the last person who saw Morgan before the bank went down. And he had run the background check on Falon. Now he presented that to the jury: Falon’s past arrests and convictions, his incarcerations back to his Juvenile Hall days, the present indictment against him. When Falon’s attorney, Ballard, tried to confuse Hamrick’s testimony, Hamrick was calm, collected, and certain in his statements. As Hamrick finished up and left the courtroom he glanced at Lee with only mild interest.

When all evidence had been presented, Falon’s portly attorney, wiping a handkerchief over his bald head, impressed on the jury that Morgan’s prints, too, were on the revolver. He suggested that Morgan had been an accomplice, that the two had planned the robbery together, that Morgan had waited outside in his car so they could make a quick getaway.

Storm pointed out that Falon could easily have put Morgan’s prints on the gun while Morgan was drugged. And that, in the deposition from the store owner across the street from the bank, only one man had entered the car, plunging into the driver’s seat and taking off fast. The store owner had not been able to identify the man, it all happened in an instant. It was then that Storm asked the Court if he could perform a demonstration. When the judge gave permission, Storm asked Brad Falon to stand.

Moving to the evidence table, Storm opened the small shipping box, removed the navy blue stocking cap, and nodded to a deputy. When the deputy walked Falon forward to face the jury, Storm stepped up beside him.

“Would you put on the cap, Mr. Falon?”

Falon just looked at Storm. He had to be instructed three times before he sullenly pulled the cap on, adjusting it just low enough to cover his bushy hair.

“Pull it down over your face, please.”

Falon didn’t want to do that. The deputy stepped forward and adjusted the cap himself. The holes fit exactly over Falon’s close-set eyes.

“If the court please,” Storm said, “I would like Morgan Blake, who was originally convicted on this charge, to try on the cap.”

The judge nodded. His expression didn’t change but, Lee thought, was there a smile in his eyes? Storm motioned Morgan forward to face the jury and gently unwound the bandage from Morgan’s head. A large, flat rectangle of tape underneath ran from low on Morgan’s forehead up over his shaved crown. Storm reached up, Morgan being taller, and pulled the wool cap gently over Morgan’s head. Even with his head shaved, with only a flat layer of tape over his healing wound, it was a difficult fit. Storm had to twist and stretch the cap. When at last he managed to pull the mask down, a ripple of laughter swept the jury.

Morgan could peer out one eyehole, but the other eye was covered. When Storm shifted the cap, only the other eye was visible.

Falon’s attorney asked permission to approach. He tried to stretch the cap to fit Morgan; he pulled and tugged but was unable to stretch it sufficiently. Morgan could not see out both eyeholes at once, not without ripping the cap. The jurors continued to smile. When Lee glanced around at Becky, she was smiling, too. Sammie’s fist was pressed to her mouth, her eyes dancing, her other arm hugging the unseen cat in a frenzy of triumph.

Falon’s attorney, in his closing statement, tried again to implicate Morgan, but now the jury gazed through him. Lee watched with interest as the game played out.

The jury’s deliberations took less than an hour. Lee and Morgan waited under guard in a small chamber from which they were returned to the courtroom when the jurors had filed in. Becky and Sammie had gotten a drink of water and returned to their seats. Lee thought, from the way Sammie leaned close against Becky, that the ghost cat had left them. Why would Misto abandon the child at this crucial moment?

UNSEEN ON THE judge’s bench, Misto sat licking his paw. There beside Judge Crane he had a clear view of the jury, of their faces as they filed in to their seats. A clear view of Brad Falon and his attorney as they rose at the judge’s direction, Falon flanked by two deputy marshals. Misto shivered with nerves as the foreman approached the bench, as the short, round man began to read aloud from the paper on which the jury’s verdict was written:

“In the case of the People versus Bradford C. Falon, on the first count, murder in the first degree, the jury finds the defendant guilty. On the second and third counts, attempted murder, the jury finds the defendant guilty. On the fourth count, felony armed robbery, the jury finds the defendant guilty.”

In the gallery a wave of murmurs ran through the spectators; they smiled and whispered to each other. Becky hugged Sammie, crying, their arms tight around each other. At the attorney’s table, Morgan wiped away tears. The judge’s gavel pounded until he had order; silence filled the chamber. Above the judge’s bench where Misto drifted unseen, the tomcat found it hard not to yowl his pleasure in the judge’s ear.

But suddenly Falon spun around, dodging the deputies, lunging at Morgan. Morgan swung away, overturning his chair. The deputies moved fast but Lee was closer, he caught Falon around the neck, jerked him backward over the table, held him struggling as the deputies pinned him. Judge Crane had risen, tensed to move, as if the big man burned to deck Falon. Misto, drifting higher, watched the drama with pleasure. The devil had lost this one. He’d lost the court battle. He’d lost whatever use he might make of Brad Falon. Misto watched Falon marched from the courtroom, a deputy on either side gripping his shoulder and arm.

The judge waited until everyone had calmed. He thanked the jurors and dismissed them. He set the next day for sentencing and for the nonjury trial of Lee Fontana and Morgan Blake on the charges of escape. As he rose, those in the courtroom rose. The judge turned away behind the bench heading for his chambers. Only then, with his back turned, did Judge Crane let himself smile. He entered his chambers with a sense of well-being, as entertained as the small and ghostly cat was.