Custody of the State (11 page)

Will paused and sat on the motel-room bed, staring at the telephone on the nightstand where he'd just hung it up.

If love is so grand,
he thought to himself,
then why isn't it easier?

He then called his office and was able to catch Todd before he left. He gave him an urgent project on Mary Sue's case, asking him to prepare a research memo on the legality of Judge Mason's order imposing on Will the duty to divulge information on the whereabouts of his client—in a situation in which he didn't possess that information, and even if he did, in which his client would undoubtedly order him not to do so.

For good measure, he also asked Todd to research the validity of the court's order holding Joe Fellows' bail release hostage until he disclosed the location of his wife.

“The judge has really got me in a corner on this one,” Will said. “I need this as quickly as you can get it, Todd. You know, really put the pedal to the metal.”

Todd agreed to dive right in and e-mail the results to Will's laptop.

Before leaving the motel, Will had one other piece of business. He had been thinking back to Stanley Kennelworth and his performance in court. Will kept returning to Stanley's cheerful willingness to cooperate with the prosecution's request that he squeeze information about Mary Sue's whereabouts from Joe Fellows as a condition of his release on bail.

What if that was something other than simply bad lawyering?

Was there a possibility that Kennelworth was being improperly influenced in his representation of Joe Fellows? And if so, who was doing the influencing?

With the local lawyer now representing Joe, Will was prohibited from contacting him directly without Kennelworth's consent. Though Will needed to get more information on Kennelworth's background, it appeared that Joe was not going to be a source of information for him.

But Joe's mother had come up with Kennelworth's name as a possible defense attorney, so Will called her. She picked up immediately.

How much did she know about Kennelworth, and what did she know about his law practice?

Madeline, Joe's mother, said she knew Kennelworth because he'd represented another member of the farmer's co-op on a traffic charge. She had heard a little bit about the cases that he did: traffic and drunk driving mostly. From what she knew, the only criminal cases he handled were strictly misdemeanor—no serious felony charges. She had also heard that he did collections work for local professionals in Delphi—a few doctors, dentists, and accountants. And the farmers liked him because he came cheap.

Before Will said goodbye, Mrs. Fellows changed the subject. She asked Will where he would be staying while working on Mary Sue's case. Will told her that he would probably be staying at the local motel in Delphi where he was now.

Madeline kindly suggested somewhere else. There was a woman from church who owned a houseboat on Eden Lake. It was comfortable and well kept-up, and her friend was looking for someone trustworthy to house-sit for the next month or two while she and her husband were traveling. Why didn't Will just use the houseboat while he was in town, rather than having to pay for a motel room? After all, she added, the pier where the houseboat was moored was only about fifteen minutes from downtown Delphi.

The idea of staying on a houseboat appealed to Will. He liked being near the water, and it sounded like a tranquil spot, with plenty of privacy and room for him to work on the case.

After accepting the invitation and thanking Madeline, Will jotted down the spot where she told him the keys would be waiting for him. He hung up, still not knowing what to make of the information about Stanley Kennelworth. But he figured that the local attorney was just one more factor he would have to grapple with in trying to effectively defend Mary Sue, and he left it at that.

Then he left for dinner. He found a place called Denny's Log Cabin, apparently a popular eating spot with the locals. It was located on the main highway into town.

During dinner, he went over the affidavits that had been filed by the prosecution in Mary Sue's case. They were all troublesome, but the one that bothered him the most was the one alleging that, shortly before the police had obtained a warrant, Mary Sue had taken out a large insurance policy on Joshua's life.

She had never told Will anything about having the life insurance policy.

The importance of that evidence was obvious. While the prosecution was not technically required to prove motive, as a practical matter they would have to do so in order to convince the judge or jury why Mary Sue Fellows, an otherwise loving mother, would poison her son with hydraulic brake fluid. It simply didn't make any sense unless the mother had a serious
emotional problem. There was no evidence of that—thus, the life insurance policy provided the missing component of motive.

In his early analysis of the case, Will felt that the prosecution would build its case first on motive, secondly on the scientific evidence. Even though the scientific evidence, at least on the surface, appeared to clearly show that Joshua had ingested small amounts of brake fluid—and the toxicology report had also indicated that there was brake fluid on the kitchen counter and on the boy's cup—there might be other explanations for that.

Perhaps Mary Sue had been accidentally exposed to brake fluid—particularly living on a farm—and in turn might have accidentally exposed her son to it.

However, the driving force—the life insurance proof—tended to prove that the exposure was intentional rather than accidental.

And then there was the additional problem of the burden of proof. On the criminal child-abuse case, the standard was “proof beyond a reasonable doubt.” But now the county was proceeding on the case of the custody of Joshua, based on child abuse as the grounds. That case was civil, and the prosecution could prove its case by a much lower standard.

All of this boiled down to one thing. Will had to come forth with an aggressive, clear explanation for Mary Sue's innocence. He could not rely on any presumption of innocence as his defense. He would have to get down to the bedrock truth about Mary Sue's conduct toward her son and be able to cogently argue that to the court or the jury. That was no small task in a community already sensitized to the horrors of child abuse because of the tragic death of a young child the year before.

As Will was paying his bill at the counter, he started chatting with the restaurant manager.

“I'm here from out of town, and I'm trying to get some information about one of your local attorneys—Stanley Kennelworth,” Will said.

“Sure,” the manager replied, giving Will his change, “I know old Stanley. He's an okay guy. Does traffic work, I think. He's in
small-claims court quite a bit.” Just then, one of the patrons sitting at the counter spoke up.

“You see that new sports car that Stanley was driving the other day?”

The manager smiled and said, “Yeah, that's a beauty, isn't it?”

“That's no sports car,” said another fellow sitting next to the first one.

“Well, what would
you
call it? Brand-new Jaguar
. I
call that a fancy sports car.”

“Naw,” the second man replied, “that's no sports car. Sports cars are cars that are high-performance, ya know—NASCAR, racing potential. You ever see a Jaguar in a NASCAR race?”

“NASCAR!” the first man said, laughing loudly. “There ain't
ever
no sports cars on the NASCAR circuit.”

“You know what I'm talking about,” the second man said. “What's the name of that European racetrack where they got them sports cars, foreign built…”

“You mean Le Mans?” Will said, joining in.

“Yeah,” the second man said, “that's what I'm talking about. Racetrack potential. I ain't ever seen a Jaguar on a racetrack.”

“Well,” the manager said diplomatically, “whatever. The point is, he's driving a brand-new Jaguar and it's a beauty.”

“What was he driving before?” Will asked.

“Some old piece-of-junk station wagon,” the first man at the counter said.

“Yeah,” the manager added, “old Stanley must be doing pretty good for himself. I wouldn't never have figured him to be making that kind of money.”

“Interesting,” Will said, scooping up his money.

He tucked the file under his arm, thanked the manager, and headed out to his car, unable to help thinking
I'd take my '57 Corvette over a new Jaguar any day
. Will had the lingering feeling that Stanley Kennelworth was important to Mary Sue's case—and not just because of the car he was driving.

14

J
ASON
B
ELL
P
URDY
'
S
spacious personal office took up most of the fourth floor of the historic Purdy building in Atlanta. Built by his father, Stanfield Purdy, famous Georgia entrepreneur, twice candidate for governor, and direct descendant of the Purdys who had helped settle that part of the state in the early 1800s, the building was a landmark in the city's history.

Purdy was sitting at his massive mahogany desk and playing with a crystal golf ball, which he was tossing from hand to hand.

Across from the desk, a young, attractive secretary was tapping her pen gently against her steno pad and gazing out the window behind Purdy.

“Let's see…” Purdy said, his voice meandering. “Where was I?”

The secretary looked down and then said, “You were talking about getting the invitations out for the golf tournament and making sure that they did a better job this time of bringing in some congressmen and federal judges, not just the regular group from the statehouse and the governor's office.”

“Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. Okay, you finish the rest—you know what I want,” Purdy said, now holding the golf ball in his fingers and pretending to throw it like a baseball. “Hey, how about dinner tonight? We can make it a working dinner. We've got all of the Eden Lake stuff to go over.”

The secretary shifted slightly in her chair and closed her steno pad. “I don't think so, Mr. Purdy.”

Purdy's eyes widened, and he cocked his jaw slightly in a forced smile. Placing the golf ball on its wooden stand on his desk, he straightened up a little in his chair.

“What's with the ‘Mr. Purdy' stuff? Since when?”

The secretary leaned forward a little and said, “Since this,” and she raised her left hand to display a diamond ring. And then she added, “Since I've been engaged—that's when.”

“Well,” Purdy said, “I mean, that's no big deal. We can still be friends.”

“That's what you said the last time,” the secretary replied. “I'm sorry, Mr. Purdy, but I don't feel comfortable mixing business with your personal life.”

Purdy squinted a little at his secretary and clicked his upper and lower teeth together ever so slightly. After a moment he continued.

“That's fine. You know, Beth, I would never want to do anything to make you uncomfortable.”

The secretary smiled politely, rose from her chair, and left the office, closing the door behind her.

Purdy rocked back and forth in his executive chair for a few minutes, gazing out the window. Then he touched the instant-message button on his video screen.

The face of a female employee in the payroll department appeared on the screen.

“Hey,” Purdy said.

“How can I help you, Mr. Purdy?”

“Would you do me a favor?” Purdy asked. “Check Beth's personnel file. I'm sure we've got some warning slips in there for her being late to work, don't we?”

“I doubt it, Mr. Purdy,” the woman answered. “Beth is always very prompt. She has an excellent work record.”

“Oh, I'm sure that's not right. I'm sure we'll see at least three or four late slips and some other warnings. Please check her file to make sure that it's up-to-date, will you please?”

The woman on the video screen paused for a minute, looking down. Then her eyes returned to Purdy.

“I understand. I will get right on it, Mr. Purdy.”

Picking up his private line, Purdy rapidly punched in a telephone number. “Hey, this is Jason. What did you find out?”

“Just the usual stuff, but nothing like you're looking for.”

“Have you checked all the folks who have access to his box?”

“Yeah,” the other voice said. “I don't think anyone took any of the papers out.”

“I think that just about does it.”

“I'd say so,” the other voice said. “He was pretty predictable. Kept all of his stuff in the same places, same routines every day. No mysteries, no surprises with a guy like that.”

“Yeah,” Purdy said. “Typical bank president, may he rest in peace.”

The other voice chuckled, and Purdy hung up the phone.

Purdy flipped open his Palm Pilot and accessed his monthly calendar. On the calendar date three days hence, he tapped in the message:
Beth, bye-bye.