Legally Wasted (15 page)

“Give me a break. You need a lawyer so you
come bursting in here without a warning? I have a phone, you
know.”

“I don’t burst through anywhere, Larkin.” Her
chest indicated otherwise. “And calm yourself a bit. Your tone is
so bothersome. You want to see a tranny cry on your counter?”

Larkin sighed. “Look, whatever it is,
whatever you need done, I can’t do it right now. I’m in way over my
head right now. Why don’t I just give you the name and number of a
good attorney I know and we can talk later, okay?”

Melody’s brow furrowed and a sheen of tears
washed over her eyes. “But I don’t need another lawyer, Larkin. I
need to speak with you. I knew you wouldn’t want to see me at your
house, so I thought a little treat might cheer you a bit. Oh, it’s
so important, Larkin.”

Larkin ran his fingers over his scalp. “How
many women am I going to make cry in my kitchen today?” He closed
the front door and pulled a chair out from under the table. He sat
down and crossed his arms. “You have one minute.”

“I knew that girl, Larkin. The one on the
news.”

Larkin sat up straight in his chair.

“She had been reading my blog.”

“You have a blog?”

“I run a full-service transitioning support
site. I supply information to those who need it. It ain’t easy
getting this going when you don’t know the first step. About two
months ago, that lawyer started to post things up on the message
boards. Really intelligent. You could tell the girl was a writer or
did something smart for a living. The girl could write.”

“That was bold of her,” said Larkin. “What
with her job.”

“She had a screen name, dodo,” said Melody.
“No one knew who she was. After I read a couple of her comments,
Ms. St. Vincent just had to reach out and touch someone. I set up
some private chats and we became very familiar. You could just tell
so much about her. Arrogant and smart as hell, but sad too. She had
transitioned in college on the West Coast. When she moved out here,
she just lived as herself. Didn’t have too many close friends or
relationships. It’s like she was testing the waters. She was living
her new life, but all on the down-low.” Melody stared at the
window. “Poor thing just wanted to step out and be honest about who
she was.”

Larkin nodded. “She wanted to let others
know.”

Melody nodded. “Yes. But she didn’t know how
or when the right time would be. Who knew what the high-fallooting
legal people would have made of a young transgender attorney
amongst them?”

“Working for one of the most conservative,
Republican-backed judges in the state surely did not help. How did
she find you on the internet?”

“She said she saw my ad at a club. I’m
dancing again.”

“I see. But she doesn’t strike me as the kind
of person who would be seen at any club that would have a picture
of you. No offense.”

“None taken,” she honestly said. “But you’d
be surprised where some birds will fly in order to find a
flock.”

“So did you ever meet in real life?”

“Never,” she said.

“Well then how did you know - -”

“We were just about to,” she said with all
the drama she could muster. Even after knowing her for the better
part of five years, he still could never tell when Melody was
exaggerating for dramatic effect or genuinely bothered. “She sent
me her picture the night before we were going to meet. I waited for
her and she never came. A few days later, I saw the news
footage.”

“Holy shit, Melody. You realize that this
probably makes you a suspect?”

“Does it?” she said clutching her hands
tightly to her chest. “Oh, I just thought it might. You got to help
me, Larkin. I don’t know what I should do. I didn’t know whether to
tell the cops anything or what. Some of the stuff she said . .
.”

“What did she say?”

“She was upset. She said she was going to
confront somebody with something that she had discovered at her
job. Something she wasn’t supposed to know, but had just found out.
She said someone else’s whole life was in her hands.”

“Did she ever confront that person? Did she
ever talk about it again?”

“I don’t know. Most of that was all in her
last message to me. We were going to meet at a coffee shop and talk
all about it the next day. It was going to be nice, just us two
girls in the bumfuck mountain city.”

“She never showed,” said Larkin.

“She never showed.”

Larkin rubbed his eyes. His mind rocketed
through modified conspiracy theories. Most of them led to the same
conclusion. The judge looked more and more like a chief suspect. A
sudden high whine in the distance caught his ear.

“Jesus,” said Larkin. “Didn’t Madeline say
she was going to call the cops?”

Melody bit her lip. “That was too quick.”

Within twenty-five seconds, four police cars
had come to screeching halts in front of his house. “Well, you’re
not the only one who likes the dramatic,” said Larkin as he peered
through the window. Detective Kincaid stepped out of one of the
cruisers and walked steadily toward the front door. Two uniformed
cops hurriedly took their place behind him. Their hands firmly
clasped the holsters at their hips.

“Christ,” said Larkin as he ran to the living
room. He opened the front door just as Kincaid’s fist had swung
down to give his best threatening knock.

“Mr. Monroe,” said Kincaid, “I have a warrant
for the arrest of Melvin Hughes, also known as Melody St. Vincent.”
Two of the officers brushed by him and stood in the foyer, scanning
the room for any sign of a six-foot goddess.

“She’s in the kitchen,” said Larkin.
“Melody,” Larkin called, “the cops are coming to arrest you. Don’t
do anything stupid.”

“I appreciate that, Larkin,” said Kincaid.
“You’ve got some taste in women,” he said as the officers led
Melody silently through the foyer. Her hands were cuffed and
secured behind her back. She looked briefly at Larkin and then
stared at the floor. “You know,” said Kincaid, “while I’m here, I
think I’ll just go ahead and arrest you too.”

“Lovely,” said Larkin. “Do I need to be
cuffed?” He raised his wrists.

“Just follow me.”

Great, thought Larkin. To them, Melody was
more of a threat. He followed Kincaid toward the backdoor of the
detective’s car. “Aren’t you going to . . .”

“You have the right to remain silent,” said
Kincaid. “You have the right to an attorney.”

As Kincaid continued listing his rights,
Larkin gave him a big thumbs up for acing criminal procedure.
Kincaid finished and pointed toward the backseat. “You got any
weapons?”

“Just my wit,” said Larkin.

“Get in.” Just as Kincaid started the car,
Larkin caught a glimpse of an older man with gray hair and eyes
like a hawk. He gazed at Larkin from behind the windshield of a
long dark Cadillac. Larkin only saw the man’s face for a second
before, Kincaid put the car in gear. He had easily recognized the
face.

“Justice Byrd is taking a peculiar interest
in this case, isn’t he?” asked Larkin.

Kincaid smiled. “As are you, apparently.”

Larkin reached into his unsearched left
pocket. He had downed the entire airplane bottle of rum before
Kincaid could stop the car and perform a slow and thorough search
of his prisoner.

“Directly in front of the board, Mr. Monroe,”
said the cop with the small digital camera. The cop’s right hand
buried the tiny camera like a golf ball in a catcher’s mitt. Larkin
risked a smile. He had fought it for over a minute. He had even
faked a yawn to mask his somehow unstoppable lower cheek muscles
from ascending. But it was simple physics. The camera’s size and
the fact that it was
lavender
created a potent force. The
urge to laugh was simply an equivalent mathematical reaction. The
camera should have been handled by a Penelope or Princess Patricia,
not Deputy Stuckey.

The poor cop seemed to understand his
predicament. Larkin’s smirk telegraphed a lot and the cop knew that
he held a camera slightly larger than a deck of cards and encased
in lavender plastic. It was the kind of camera a thirteen year-old
girl kept tucked next to her sparkly lip gloss in her Hello Kitty
clutch. Written just below the lens were the words, “Hot Pix.”
Larkin stifled a laugh. It bubbled up like baking soda to vinegar.
Perhaps if the police still used one of the big clunkers, the
criminal would have received the message: “We’ve got you. Your ass
is ours now.” As it was, the tween camera broadcasted a different
message, a tacit advisory that confinement would not last.

“Mr. Monroe,” snapped the deputy. Larkin
recognized the man’s face from court.

The deputy crossed his arms and the pubescent
camera was engulfed by his meaty limbs. “In front of the board.
Now.”

“I was in here the other day,” said Larkin.
“Disorderly conduct or drunk in public or something. A bloody Vice
Mayor showed up and paid . . . somebody. What the hell happened to
the camera you used that night?”

“Chuck broke it,” said the cop. He pointed to
the board.

Larkin turned. The “board” was a large
rectangle of poster board with numbers and hash marks denoting the
heights of the criminal standing before it. Given his head injury
and alcohol consumption the other night, he had not given the board
a closer look. “Those measurements are off,” stated Larkin, though
he only half believed it.

“They are?” The deputy squinted at the board.
Larkin was pleased. In the courtroom, the lawyer dealt the cards.
Some of that authority had carried over, even on the deputy’s home
field.

“Yeah,” said Larkin. “If I stood in front of
this, it would say that I’m 5’10” or maybe even 5’11”. I’m clearly
six feet tall, from top to bottom.

“I’m six feet tall,” said the cop. He stood
at attention. He towered over Larkin.

“Yeah,” said Larkin, “but did the board tell
you that?”

“Stand in front of the goddamned board.”

Larkin complied, though not after complaining
about the fact that cops could have just used his earlier photo,
that is, unless Chuck broke that too. He gave a slight smile as the
camera flashed. Five minutes later, he was led into a perfect cube
of a room. It had a peculiar smell, as if it had been scrubbed with
steaming water and sea salt. Sound-dampening foam covered the
walls. The insulation reminded him of a cheap bed covering that he
and Madeline had purchased at a department store. She enjoyed it
while he broke out in a rash because of his overly sensitive skin.
A broad and presumably, two-way mirror was affixed into the plaster
of the far wall. Detective Kincaid and Supreme Court of Virginia
Justice Lloyd Byrd sat at one end of the table. Kincaid gestured
toward the single empty seat across from him and Justice Byrd.
Larkin sat.

“Detective,” said Larkin as the door was
behind him was shut. “Your Honor,” he said with a slight nod to the
Justice. The Justice studied Larkin just as Larkin studied the
Justice. Though he was seated, it was easy to see without the aid
of any board that the Justice was tall, well over six feet. His
attractive suit, wrought from a midnight blue fabric, hung a bit
loosely off of his frame. The famous jurist still had some filling
out to do. After a few seconds of moderately uncomfortable
eye-to-eye, Larkin theorized that the anger he perceived was only
an illusion. The Justice’s white and wiry eyebrows cut across his
brow like lightning strikes. Whatever emotion the Justice may have
been feeling, his eyebrows showed an immediate seriousness. His
expression reminded Larkin of a show on the History channel about
ancient religions. What was the name of that Egyptian god with the
eagle head? Horus? Bast? He could not remember. Larkin shook his
head. “All right,” he said. “So what’s the deal?”

Kincaid leaned closer. “Mr. Monroe, we need -
-”

The Justice raised his hand. Kincaid bit his
lip. Larkin stared at the Justice’s long, moisturized and manicured
fingers. Could they have been the same fingers that held Alex
Jordan under water or strangled her in a rage?

“Has this man been read his Miranda rights?”
the Justice asked. His words sounded proper in the right Southern
sense of things, as if he had spoken with his lips still touching
the chilled glass of a mint julep.

Kincaid glanced at Larkin with wide eyes and
Larkin grinned in response. Only an appellate lawyer far removed
from the law as practiced on the street would have asked that
question. “We made him aware,” said Kincaid. He folded his arms
across his chest. The Justice nodded.

“I’m an attorney, you know,” said Larkin.
“I’ve got a bar number and everything.”

“I am aware,” said the Justice, with
particular emphasis on the last word. “I’m sure we all want proper
criminal procedure followed.”

“Proper criminal procedure,” repeated Larkin.
“I can’t say that any of my clients have ever been interrogated by
the Supreme Court of Virginia.”

“This is not an interrogation,” said the
Justice as he prevented Kincaid from speaking once more. It was
very clear that despite the numerous and convoluted levels of local
and state bureaucracies, the Justice was the boss.

“It isn’t?” asked Larkin. He spread his arms
to indicate his surroundings. “What’s that mirror for? Shaving? If
it’s not an interrogation, what is it? An interview? I think I’m a
bit old to be a law clerk.”

The Justice’s eyebrows sank further. “We just
want to ask you some questions,” said Kincaid.

“Hmmm,” said Larkin. “I would ask if I needed
a lawyer, but I already know what you might say. Besides, I
couldn’t afford anyone other than myself anyway.” He nodded. “And
just to throw in my two cents for the benefit of you fine gentlemen
and whoever might be standing behind that mirror with the tape
recorder, I’m in police custody and this is an interrogation.” He
rapped his fingers against the plastic table. Kincaid sighed
loudly. Larkin looked at the Justice. “Just out of curiosity, where
did you learn criminal procedure?”