Death Penalty (39 page)

I could see it in Mulhern's squinty eyes. Before the day was over, the young man was going to get gored. As a lesson in manners, if nothing else.

Two prostitutes were brought up one after the other, worn-looking women who had been working in front of a mall on the far side of the county. In the light of day they
were about as desirable as fungus. At night, and after a few drinks, apparently they could make a living off the visually impaired.

Tommy found each guilty and fined each fifty dollars or thirty days.

Then Ray Panar's case was called.

I walked with my client to the front of the bench. The policewoman stood to my left.

I pleaded not guilty for Panar.

The young prosecutor questioned the policewoman. She said she was working as a decoy in a bar where prostitution had become a nuisance. She said my client had approached her, bought her a drink, and had offered her fifty dollars to perform an act of oral sex in his car out in the parking lot. She had gone to the car, identified herself as a police officer, and had placed my client under arrest.

The prosecutor looked pleased.

Her name was Flynn. Carol Flynn. That had prompted a titter in the courtroom when she gave her name.

Now it was my turn.

“Have you been with the Pickeral Point police department long, Officer Flynn?” I asked.

“Objection,” the prosecutor snapped. “That's not relevant.”

“I'll take the answer,” the judge said in a quiet voice. It was the same kind of voice like when a movie villain says “Go for your gun.” The kid didn't recognize the threat.

“I've been here two weeks,” she said. “Assigned to vice work.”

“Did you arrest any other men, in addition to my client, on Saturday night, in or around the Sand's Point Bar?”

“Objection. This is—”

“Overruled. Answer the question,” Mulhern growled.

“Yes,” she said primly. We were standing shoulder to shoulder. Her perfume was expensive.

“How many?”

“Objection!”

“Shut up!” Mulhern glowered at the prosecutor, then those pained eyes sought the policewoman. “How many?” he asked her himself.

She hesitated for just a moment, then answered in a voice just a little bit softer. “Seven.”

“Seven?” the judge said. “All men? All out of that one little bar?”

“Yes.”

“Are these cases to be heard before me this morning?”

She nodded. “I believe so. Yes.”

“Officer Flynn, are the clothes you have on the same clothes you were wearing Saturday night?” I asked.

“No. But about the same. A skirt and blouse. No jacket.”

I looked up into the tortured eyes of the judge.

“Your honor, our defense is based upon entrapment. I can produce witnesses who will testify to what this officer was wearing. But seeing is better than hearing. I would respectfully request this court to order the officer to dress as she was when she arrested my client.”

“Objection,” said the prosecutor. “This is just harassment—”

Mulhern glared at him. “One more objection and you're going to join the parade to the holding cell. You got that?”

They had never told the young man in law school about judges like Thomas Mulhern. His eyes were wide with newfound knowledge.

Mulhern looked at his watch, then at the policewoman.

“I'll give you an hour. Go home, or to the station house, whatever, and come back here dressed exactly as you were in that bar.”

“I'm not sure the clothes—” she said.

“One hour,” he growled. “We'll try all your cases then.”

The young prosecutor started to speak but the instinct for self-preservation stopped him, even though he managed to let go with a killer frown.

They called the case of a petty thief, so Panar and I sat down with the other spectators again.

The cases went along quickly. Mulhem was a fair man, usually, and his sentences were a bit on the soft side. Lawyers seldom make a fuss in those circumstances. Everything went clipping along until a collective gasp was heard coming from the back of the courtroom.

She still wore no makeup and her hair was still pulled back, but that was the last thing you noticed.

The skirt was so tight it looked like a wide belt and it came down only to her hips. She had the kind of legs that got Rockettes the job at Radio City Music Hall. They were long, lean, encased in black stockings and ending in very high heels. Her blouse was as see-through as smoke from a cigarette, and her ample breasts strained against a thin black bra that looked about to burst.

She moved through the courtroom, her head held high, ignoring the stares.

“Okay,” Mulhem said as he found a thief guilty. “Let's all get back to the Sand's Point Bar. Are you ready, Sloan?”

I nodded and came forward with my client. Once again the officer and I stood shoulder to shoulder. “Doing anything after work?” I whispered so only she could hear.

Her lips tightened into a thin line.

The young prosecutor was in love. A bird could have flown in and out of his gaping mouth without his notice.

“Is that the outfit you wore Saturday night, Officer Flynn?” I asked politely.

“Yes, it is.”

“And dressed like that you were approached by my client and six other men, one after another, that night, correct?”

“I said I was acting as a decoy,” she snapped, coloring visibly.

“And you discussed sexual topics with my client, as well as the other men, that is, before the offer you said was made.”

“We talked about things. Sex was one of them.”

I looked up at the judge. “Usually, your honor, entrapment means that the police started the action that resulted in the commission of a crime. Basically, the cases say that if it wasn't for the action of the police, no crime would have been committed. That is the essence of the entrapment defense, that the defendant wouldn't have done anything illegal if he hadn't been trapped into it. Most of the cases concern spoken statements by police officers, but I submit the unspoken statement can be just as entrapping. I think the way this officer is dressed would provoke most men into at least thinking about commiting the crime charged here.”

“I object,” the prosecutor began, but he spoke with his eyes still fixed on the sexy cop.

“He's making an argument to the court,” Mulhern snapped. “Has the Constitution been repealed and I wasn't told? It is his right.”

“But—”

“Miss Flynn, do you fish?” the judge inquired.

“No, I don't.”

“Pity. It's a wonderful sport. You throw out a bait and you hope a fish will come by and bite it. Not that much different from what you were doing at the Sand's Point Bar. More or less.”

She frowned at him.

“But a fisherman has to be fair. He has to obey the rules of the sport. He can't spear the fish and he can't use dynamite. The bait has to be legal. Do you see what I mean?”

“No, I don't,” she snapped.

“Well, let me put it this way. The bait you were using, dressed as you are, was like using dynamite to catch perch. If the pope had dropped into the Sand's Point Bar last Saturday night he might be up here before me this morning. I doubt if the pope hangs out around that kind of establishment, but if he did, even he might be tempted to think of carnal sin, given the way you were presenting yourself.”

“I was supposed to look like a prostitute,” she protested. “That's why I dressed this way. I was a
decoy
.”

Mulhern smiled. “No, not a decoy. That implies a degree of sporting fairness. Your outfit is equal to dynamite and perhaps even illegal. I should find you guilty of fishing without a license, but I won't.”

Despite what was undoubtedly a major hangover, I could tell he was enjoying himself. “I find that this nice young officer, with the best of intentions, entrapped Mr. Sloan's client. I also, without even bothering to hear the cases, find the same defense applies to every other man you arrested that night. This case, and the others, are dismissed.”

“I'll appeal,” the prosecutor squeaked.

Mulhern smiled. “That is your right, young man. I rather doubt you'll be successful, however. But you can always try.”

The prosecutor lost interest as the policewoman walked from the court. He followed her every movement with rapt attention.

“Penny for your thoughts,” the judge said, a small smile playing on his lips. His next words were a lot more harsh. “Call the next case,” he barked at his clerk.

I walked out into the crowded hallway with my client.

“What happened?” he asked.

“You won your case. You'll get your bond money back and your car.”

“Oh, thank God. How can I ever thank you?”

I tapped the place where I had my wallet. “You already have.”

I walked Panar to the door. “If the police try to give you a hard time about the car or the bond, give me a call, okay?”

He nodded and left, heading across the square to the local police headquarters.

“That was quite a little skin show you put on back there, Sloan.”

I turned and faced Victor Trembly, who had been the late Howard Wordley's lawyer.

Trembly was a Port Huron lawyer who did mostly criminal work. He looked the part. His suit was expensive but flashy. His glasses sparkled with what apparently were diamond chips embedded in their wide frames. He was about my height, about average, and slightly plump. He wore a diamond ring on each hand and a gold Rolex flashed below his monogrammed shirt cuff.

I cringed to think I used to dress very like Trembly, perhaps not as cheap but just as flashy. Trembly looked like a jerk, I thought. I reasoned that I must have looked that way too, and not so long ago.

“I'd like to give that little bitch a pop,” Trembly said, leering. “That's the defense lawyer's dream, isn't it, to fuck a cop?”

“Try the Sand's Point Bar, Victor. A distinguished man like you can't help but score.”

He grinned. “I picked up the client you lost,” he said.

“What client?”

“The Denton kid, the one who stuck up the gas station. The college boy out for kicks.”

“Are you going to work out a plea?”

“Why, for God's sake?”

I smiled. “Well, he was caught with the loot, he confessed, and the eyewitness knows him. How are you going to get around that?”

“Who cares?”

“What do you mean?”

“How do you make any money in the business, Sloan? I'm going to a jury with the kid.”

“You'll lose.”

The grin became wider. “I know that.”

“So, what's the point?”

Trembly moved his hand so his diamonds would catch the light. “After the jury convicts, we go the appeal route.”

“You'll lose there too.”

“I know that.”

We were beginning to sound like a vaudeville act.

“So?”

“Old man Denton owns the radio station. He's putting up everything he has to defend his college boy. By the time the kid is up in Jackson Prison and losing his virginity, I'll own the radio station.”

“You are a sweet and caring human being, Victor.”

“I'm also rich. Too bad you lost the client, Sloan. It would be fun owning your own radio station.”

“You know any of those nasty lawyer jokes, Victor?” I asked. “You know the ones. Like, what do you call twelve dead lawyers? A start. That kind of joke?”

“I love them. Why, you got one?”

“I'm talking to one,” I said, and walked away.

“Fuck you too, Sloan. You'll never be allowed to advertise on my radio station.”

He laughed.

I hated the sound.

It seemed so unfair. An unethical slime like Victor Trembly was walking around without a care in the world while I was the one who was in trouble.

Justice, they say, is blind. I wondered if she might be just a little bit nuts too.

I went back to my office after having defeated the nearly nude forces of law and order. There were messages, handed to me by Mrs. Fenton, but none from Judge Bishop, Harry Sabin, or Mallow.

According to my timetable, Sabin might be meeting with Mallow now. If it went the way I expected, Mallow might at this very moment be dropping the net that would spell disbarment or prison for me.

A surge of regret flowed through me. I wished for a moment I had agreed to wear the wire, repugnant or not. It would all have been so simple. The awful anxiety that gripped me would never have existed.

Then all I would have had to bear was guilt, and the feeling of having betrayed not only Franklin Palmer but also myself.

It was a strange trade-off, anxiety versus guilt. But my choice had been made.

It was too late to change things now.

I wondered how they would eventually come at me. Criminal charges meant exposing everything to public scrutiny. If I was arrested and tried, all my charges against Palmer and Mallow would become front-page news.

But a disbarment proceeding was never as sexy as a good juicy jury trial. It would be reported, but they could keep a nice lid on the allegations of corruption. After all, what would you expect from a crooked lawyer, one who had already once lost his right to practice?

I was willing to bet they would choose the disbarment route.

How they came at me would dictate which lawyer I would get to defend me.

At the moment, the best criminal defense lawyers in Detroit, not counting me, were Sylvester Drake and Wally Figer. The saying among Detroit street people was: if you're innocent, get Drake, if you're guilty, get Figer. I was innocent, but I would look very, very guilty. I decided if they did arrest me I would retain Wally Figer.

But if it came to disbarment, then I would select Henry Sheridan, who had once worked as the chief prosecutor for the agency charged with nailing crooked or incompetent lawyers. He was good, a hungry tiger on a rampage. As soon as he had established that reputation, he quit and went over to the other side of the table where the money was, the money of crooked or incompetent lawyers.