Primal Fear (11 page)

“Him too, huh?”

“Beg your pardon?”

“The guy I work for is a video nut, too. Me? I depend on the good old little black notebook.”

“Afraid we weren’t much help,” Maggie said. “Come back in the evening. Most of the kids are here then. Maybe some of the others know more about him.”

“I’ll do that, and soon,” he said.

When he left, he stood outside in the playground for a while, huddled against the cold, remembering crisp fall days when they played touch out here, but only a few names came back to him—Sean Fitzhugh and Solly Friedman and a nasty little kid named Donny something-or-other who used to spit on the ball when he screwed up. Goodman had grown into manhood here and now it was a place for runaways and druggies and family rejects, and despite the cheery colors and the sense of family it provided, there was about the old girl a climate of melancholy that saddened him.

He did not see the huddled figure watching through fearful eyes from a window on the third floor of the old building as Goodman left the place of his youth.

Jane Venable looked up with surprise when Vail walked out of the elevator and into the madhouse outer sanctum of the D.A.’s office. She assumed he was going to see Yancey but realized quickly, as he threaded his way toward her glass cubicle, that he was coming to her office. He stood outside the door, tapped on the wooden doorjamb and she waved him in.

“My God,” she said. “Is no place sacred?”

“Just a friendly courtesy call, Counselor,” Vail said.

“Oh sure. Where are the poison darts?”

“I thought maybe we could handle this one in a civilized way.”

“You don’t know a civilized way, Vail.”

He looked outside her window, at the mass of jammed-up desks, copy machines, telephones, file cabinets and people—the paraphernalia of justice. “It lifts my heart to see the bureaucracy at work,” he said. “I have one person who can do in one day what that mob out there would take a week to screw up.”

“They’re very good,” she said defensively. “We don’t go in for a lot of show here.”

“You don’t go in for any show at all.”

“I’m busy,” she sighed. “Just what brings you to the lion’s den, anyway?”

“Lioness,” he said.

“Uh-huh. Let me tell you something, Vail, I don’t trust you. It makes me nervous when you’re in the
building,
let alone my office.”

He sat on the corner of her desk in the absence of an invitation to take a chair and leafed amiably through a stack of correspondence.

“What do you want?” she demanded, ripping the stack away from under his hand and moving it to the other side of the desk. “Are you just here to harass me?”

“There’s a devious mind at work,” he said. “I drop by for a little prehearing sit-down and what do I get? Verbal abuse. I came to make sure we both know what the rules are.”

“Shoat sets the rules.”

“Well, it always helps for the opposing sides to make sure they have everything clear.”

“Come on, what do you really want?”

“I got on this case
yesterday,
okay? I just thought we could talk things over.”

Her eyes narrowed and she leaned back in her chair and chewed on the eraser of her pencil. Then she nodded. “Okay, I’ll tell you what the rules are. No plea-bargaining. No insanity plea. No change in venue and no reduced sentence for
any
reason. We’re going to max the kid out. Any questions?”

“That seems to cover the landscape.”

Her eyes took on a vicious twinkle. “Seen the pictures?” she asked, almost demurely.

“Inflammatory, immaterial…”

“Inflammatory my ass.”

“And a lovely ass—”

“They’re admissible across the board,” she snapped, cutting him off. “They show the heinous nature of the crime. The brutality …”

“Don’t use ‘heinous,’” he said, wiggling a finger at her. “Half the jury won’t know what you’re talking about.”

She waved her hands at him and rolled her eyes. “Okay,
okay, you want to fight over the pictures? Fine. We’ll do it when the time comes.”

“Actually the pictures could make a pretty argument for insanity. Nobody in their right mind would—”

She cut him off again. “I talked to Stampler for an hour before you cut us off.”

“And you really think he did that?”

“I
know
he did it,” she scoffed. “He’s as sane as you and I.”

“Which is not saying a hell of a lot. Anyway, it could have been temporary.”

“I’m not discussing this case with you, Vail. Not until we’re in court and in front of the judge, got it? Not another word. You have access to anything that’s public record. Other than that, I’m not telling you a damn thing.”

“I’m not here to snoop.”

“No, you have that pretty lady from your office to do that. What’s her name?”

“Naomi Chance.”

“Where did she work before you hired her, the CIA?”

“She wants to make sure we have everything we’re entitled to.”

“I wouldn’t dare deprive you, Counselor. There’s no way you’re going into court and yell foul.”

“Shoat gave me fifty-eight days to prepare this case. You think that isn’t foul?”

“That’s between you and His Honor.”

“Hell, it’ll probably take a month just to seat the jury.”

“Well, then, we’ll just take a month. It’s going down
here,
period. I told you, no deals. No change of venue. No nothing! Your boy’s as guilty as Judas.”

“Christ forgave Judas,” Vail said with a smile.

“Unfortunately for you, Shoat isn’t Christ. Forgiveness is not on his top ten list.”

“So it’s no holds barred, that it?” he asked.

“Give me a break. When did you
ever
bar a hold of any kind?”

“Hardball all the way?”

She smiled sweetly.

“No prisoners,” she purred.

When he left Venable’s office, Vail stopped at one of the desks in the outer office and dialed his number. The service
answered. Naomi was obviously out on the range, rounding up stray bits of gossip.

“Miss Chance left you a message,” the operator said cheerfully. It says, ‘The Judge called. We got us a shrink. Name: Dr. M. B. Arrington, due to arrive tomorrow. Great credentials. Spent the last three years working with what the Judge calls aberrational behavior subjects. See you later. Naomi.’ Does all that make sense?”

“I guess,” Vail said. “Thanks.” He hung up.

Dr. M. B. Arrington, he thought to himself. Now there’s a nice wholesome American name. Why couldn’t the Judge have found someone named Steiner or Freudmetz—something German or Viennese? Foreign types always impressed juries more than homegrown psychiatrists.

Well, perhaps—Vail hoped—he would turn out to be a gray-haired, cantankerous old curmudgeon, set in his ways, arrogant to the prosecutor’s prodding. Hopefully old Doc Arrington would withstand the assaults of that merciless inquisitor Jane Venable.

Squat steel tankers and lumbering barges, laden with kraft paper from the big mills of Minnesota and Wisconsin, lumber from the forests of northern Michigan and chemicals, pig iron and coal from New York and Pennsylvania, all skirmished winter blizzards and summer squalls to deliver their goods to the expanse of docks and warehouses known as the Region. Actually Region Street was a block removed from the lakefront, but the clang and clamor of cranes, front loaders and derricks as they dipped the cargo from the holds of the steamships created a constant din day and night. It was a muscular, noisy community of warehouses and storage bins, not a place where one would choose to live.

But on the east end of the Region, four three-story-high warehouses lay fallow and neglected like a buffer between waterfront and city. Abandoned by their owners and ignored by the banks which had ultimately inherited them, they had long ago been condemned by the city. But the wrecking balls and bulldozers of progress were busy elsewhere and so these grim, characterless squares of brick had become flophouses for the homeless and indigent. Within the windowless walls of the buildings, which their denizens called the Hollows, many of the city’s disenfranchised erected their own peculiar domiciles, usually large
wooden crates gathered together like rooms to form unstructured apartments, known as “standers” to the inhabitants. The concrete floors and brick walls compromised protection from wind and snow with a damp and frigid milieu, whatever warmth was conceived in these confines soared up through the perpetual darkness and dissipated in the eaves. Since no garbage collection or sanitation was provided, the bleak and airless Hollows smelled of rotten food, unwashed bodies and feces. Echoing through the airless cavities were the sounds of human misery—coughing, sneezing, retching—and the diatribes of lonely, desolate souls venting their fury at the fates which had delivered them to this unsavory madhouse. What it must be like in the summertime was beyond Goodman’s comprehension.

He wandered through the scattered standers with a flashlight, hoping to find some clue to Stampler’s abode. The first Hollow had produced nothing. As he entered the second, his flashlight beam pointing into the darkness like a slender finger of light, a man stepped out of the gloom, startling him. The light beam revealed a bent and decrepit human wreck, his face a vista of cracks and wrinkles, a gray scraggle of a beard masking his jawline, his eyes ravaged by failure and abuse.

“Whatcha want?” he demanded in a voice cracked with age and misuse, his breath in foul concert with the environment.

“I’m looking for a stander,” Goodman said.

“Whose?”

“Name’s Aaron. Aaron Stampler. Young boy, nineteen, twenty. Pleasant-looking …”

“Shit, I know
him,
I know all about
him,”
he said, emphasizing
him
each time he said it.

“What about
him
?” Goodman demanded, surprised that he was reacting so defensively.

“Killed that priest. Ev’body knows about it. Stander’s been picked clean. Got his radio, blankets, ev’thing. Word travels fast in the Hollows.” His croak was supposed to pass for a laugh.

“Which one is it?” Goodman asked. “I’ll just take a look.”

“You kin to him?”

“I’m his uncle,” Goodman lied.

“Shit.”

Goodman took out a five-dollar bill and held it under the flashlight beam.

“Which one?” he asked again.

The old derelict eyed the bill, his lips working as if he were trying to swallow something stuck in his throat. He reached out for it with trembling, dirt-encrusted fingers that protruded through the raveled ends of an old pair of gloves. Goodman flicked the bill back into his fist.

“Show me first,” he said.

“Shit.”

The old man lurched crablike through stunted canyons of crate and cardboard to a stander near the rear of the Hollow. It was built of sheets of plywood and had about it a sense of form, a symmetry that showed it had been structured with care and at least a conscious sense of design. A flimsy door stood shattered, its lock lying broken on the floor of the warehouse.

“Didn’t take long,” Goodman said.

“He killed a priest,” the derelict snarled.

“Here,” Goodman said, shoving the five dollars into his hand. “Go buy yourself a Cadillac.”

“Asshole,” the old man said, and vanished into the darkness.

Goodman entered the stander. It had been demolished. Clothes, blankets, mattress, candles, all the basics for life in the Hollow, were gone. There was litter strewn around. A few dungs that had been passed over by the scavengers. Actually there were two rooms in Aaron Stampler’s dreary home. The second, constructed of three refrigerator crates, was like a closet. A dowel was fastened a few inches from the top of the small room, obviously for hanging clothes. Goodman could tell Aaron had built this pitiful dwelling with as much pride as possible, though it had obviously taken but a few minutes to strip it clean.

Goodman let his light roam the walls of the main room and then the closet. There were half a dozen paperback books strewn on the floor—whoever had scavenged the stander was not interested in reading. Engrossed, he was unaware of the presence behind him, a mere movement of air in the darkness. As Goodman started to read the titles of the books, he heard a sound—a footfall on concrete, perhaps, or a subtle breath disturbing the silence—and he whirled toward it. As he spun around, he was hit on the side of the jaw. It was a glancing blow, misdirected by the darkness and Goodman’s sudden turn, but it knocked Goodman off his feet. He tried to swing the flashlight up but a hand knocked it loose and it went spinning across the stander and came to rest against the wall, its light reflecting dimly off the plasterboard. His assailant scrambled in the semidarkness,
picking up books and throwing them down. Goodman jumped up and dove across the room, wrapping both arms around the attacker. Goodman swung him around, shoved him away and socked him, but his punch missed the mark in the dark. As he started to swing again, the obscure figure dove headfirst into Goodman’s midriff. Goodman’s wind whooshed out of him as a shoulder slammed into his stomach. The two surged backward, hit the flimsy wall of the stander and crashed through it, vaulting into the darkness of the Hollow. Goodman floundered in total darkness, reached out in random desperation and grabbed an ear, felt an earring dangling from its lobe and, locking his fingers around the bauble, ripped it free. His attacker screamed with pain and rolled away. Goodman got his feet under him and stood unsteadily. He was as disoriented as a blind man, crouching, his hands probing the air in front of him. He stood dead still, waiting. Then he heard footsteps echoing away from him and his adversary was absorbed into the black heart of the Hollow.

He groped his way back into Aaron’s stander, found his flashlight and looked at his hand. Lying in his bloody palm was an inch-long silver earring shaped like a teardrop, a bit of flesh still clinging to the clasp.

He garnered up the paperback books and headed out into the world of the living.

TWELVE

The unmarked black sedan moved slowly through the traffic on Division Street and turned right at Courthouse Square. A block away, a dozen members of the press shuffled impatiently at the foot of the steps to the courthouse, waiting for the notorious prisoner to arrive. There were four television remote trucks, including one from CNN. Stampler sat in the back seat, his hands cuffed to a thick leather belt and his feet shackled with a foot-long length of chain. He was wearing a dark blue suit, a white shirt, a wine-colored tie with tiny yellow squares and penny loafers that were half a size too big, a problem Aaron had solved by stuffing newspaper in the toes. Vail was permitted to ride with him. Stampler sat in the middle between his attorney
and a city marshal. There were two other marshals in front, including the driver.

“Sure drew yourself a crowd, kid,” said the marshal in the back seat.

“Circus day,” said Vail contemptuously. “Okay, Aaron, this is what’s going to happen …”

“I know what an arraignment is, Mr. Vail. That mains we go inta court and the pros’cutor for the state’ll make the charge agin’ me.”

“That’s right. She’s going to charge you with murder in the first degree.”

“Yes suh.”

“That means they’ll seek the death penalty.”

“Guard told me.”

“First with the good news, huh?”

Aaron smiled. “Reckon so.”

“I want you to understand, we could have gone in the back way, avoided the circus in front of the courthouse. But it’s time the press got a look at you. I’m sure they’re expecting the Wolfman or Dracula. We’ll give them a little surprise.”

“I thank’ee for the new suit, shoes, ’n’ all.”

“I had to guess at the pants’ length.”

“They’re perfect. Never owned a suit this good afore.”

“You look nice, Aaron,” said Vail. “I want you to be pleasant but don’t go in there smiling like you just finished a twenty-dollar T-bone. They’re going to mob you, stick microphones in your face, yell questions at you. Ignore them, don’t say a word. Not a thing. We’ll get you through the circus.”

“Yes suh.”

“You won’t be asked to testify to anything at the arraignment. If the judge does ask you any questions, I’ll answer them.”

“I don’t say nary to him?”

“Not a word. As far as this hearing goes, you’re dumb as a brick wall.”

Vail had spent the previous evening in the city law library, seeking out cases to justify the motions he planned to make at the arraignment. One of his motions would attempt to subvert the use of the coroner’s photographs, which would most certainly provoke the jury and torch an emotional firestorm among its members. But knowing Shoat, that probably would be futile. At breakfast, he had run his strategy past the Judge.

“It’s your strategy, Martin,” the Judge had responded.

“What the hell’s that mean?” Vail had asked.

“It means exactly that—it’s your strategy. I have no intention of suggesting you alter your approach in any way.”

“But you have reservations?”

“As you well know, for every problem there are a dozen solutions. One of the reasons I respect you is that you make decisions instinctively and you go at it with passion. What scares your opponents, and to some extent judges, is that you go in with the attitude of a big-league pitcher—it’s a contest and you are indomitable. You’re a warrior who has great ardor for all his causes and the instinct to win—and that, sir, is a very scary combination. You also happen to be a great lawyer. So, while I occasionally might disagree with you on points of law, I would never deign to criticize your style.”

With that, he had given Martin two invaluable law references that would become part of Vail’s tactics. Strategy and tactics, this was the way Vail approached his job. The strategy was to present to the public a likable, pleasant young man and then raise two questions: Could he have done such a thing? And if so, why? His tactics would raise not the question of whether or not Aaron was innocent but rather whether or not he was guilty, and he would do it so powerfully that the jurors’ innate prejudice against Aaron hopefully would be nullified.

“I’m sure you’ll give Shoat something to stew about,” the Judge had said. Then he’d laughed. He harbored little respect for Hangin’ Harry Shoat, considering him a cold-blooded politician in a job that called for compassion, understanding and empathy. The Judge believed one should be a statesman of the law, not its executioner.

“Do you know the judge?” Aaron asked, breaking Martin’s train of thought.

“Oh yeah, I know the judge,” he said. “And don’t worry about him. The judge is like a traffic cop—he keeps order and he rules on what is legally permissible and what isn’t. The jury is who you have to worry about. Their job is to decide what evidence to believe, which witnesses are credible, and the biggie—whether they think you’re guilty or not. Right now, your life is in the hands of twelve people—and they haven’t even been picked for the job yet.”

“Kinda scary,” said Aaron.

“It doesn’t get any scarier,” Vail agreed.

They fought their way up the stairs through the horde of reporters
with their mélange of hardware—microphones, TV cameras, tape recorders, still cameras—and their sometimes inane questions, one of which was:

“Did you do it?”

Did you do it?
Vail said incredulously to himself.
Who in hell asked that one?

The three marshals cleared the way and Vail drew up the rear of the human buttress, handing out his business card to all who addressed him. His name was embossed in the lefthand corner and across the center was printed “No comment.” The circus followed them into the courtroom and jockeyed for seats in a section reserved forme press. Jack Connerman was one of them. He had stood back and watched the hysteria of his peers as Stampler and Vail made their entrance. Now he was seated next to E. J. Odum, a particularly cynical old-time courthouse man for the
Trib.
Connerman was a short, red-faced Irishman with the beginning of a beer belly. He had been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize two years earlier and, when he did not win, had left his job with me newspaper to join
City Magazine,
where he earned more money and could write with more subjectivity. He had a following; his pieces sold magazines.

“What do you think?” he asked Odum.

“Shit, it’s a goddamn arraignment, for God’s sake, not
Anatomy of a Murder.
The prosecutor’s gonna charge him and Vail’s gonna plead not guilty because he doesn’t have a choice. So what the hell’s all the fuss about?”

“It’s Vail, E.J. You never know,” Connerman said.

“It’s a goddamn arraignment,” Odum repeated.

Harry Shoat stood at the door of his chambers, squinting out at the crowd, waiting until the room was full before making his entrance. The night before, Roy Shaughnessey had taken him to dinner and imparted some cogent advice.

“Listen, Harry, you want to be a supreme court judge, right? Well, you have to loosen up a little. This Hangin’ Harry crap is hurting your image.”

“What do you expect me to do, tell jokes?”

“For Christ sake, I’m not suggesting you go out in black face and sing ‘Mammy.’ I’m just telling you, this Hangin’ Harry stuff is hurting you. We’ve got Vail by the balls, so you can afford to be … gracious.”

“Gracious?”

“Yeah.” Pause. “Gracious.”

Gracious!
This was an arraignment. A cut-and-dried procedure. What was there to be gracious about?

Alvin McCurdy, the bailiff, was watching the door. The room was full. Well, give the devil his due—Vail did draw a roomful. He opened the door and strode out.

“All rise!” McCurdy ordered, and rambled off the customary salutation—“Hear ye, hear ye, hear ye…”—as Shoat took his seat and immediately began arranging everything on the bench in precise order—his legal pad, two fresh yellow Ticonderoga pencils, the water thermos and glass, and his favorite instrument in the world, the gavel with its little hardstand. He also had a twelve-inch stainless steel ruler which he placed exactly parallel to the pad and two pencils. He very specifically placed the wire stems of his bifocals over each ear and adjusted their position. He finished this meticulous ritual just as the bailiff finished his introduction.

“Call the first case,” he said.

“
State
versus
Aaron Stampler.
”

“Is everyone present?” Shoat asked.

“Yes sir,” McCurdy answered.

Shoat looked out over his glasses. Venable, as always, was stunning. She wore a tailored dark gray suit and her hair was pulled back in a bun. Vail was dressed almost haphazardly. He had on a tweed jacket, denim pants, tennis shoes, a nondescript tie and bright red suspenders.

“I see, Mr. Vail, you haven’t made it to the barber since our last meeting.”

“I’ve got bids out,” Vail answered with a smile.

“Hopefully you’ll get them back in and make your decision before the trial starts. Ready to proceed?”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“Madam Prosecutor?”

“Yes, Judge. The state charges the prisoner, Aaron Stampler, with the crime of murder in the first degree, to wit, that on February twenty-six, 1983, at approximately ten
P.M.
, said Stampler did, in this county and this city, with premeditation and with malice aforethought, murder by stabbing the Reverend Archbishop Richard Rushman. Furthermore, due to the nature of the crime, Your Honor, we request that bail be denied.”

“How does your client plead, Counselor?” Shoat said to Vail.

“Your Honor,” said Vail. “If it please the court, I would
like to make a motion that my client be remanded to the state mental hospital at Daisyland for psychiatric evaluation
before
any charges are brought against him.”

“Murder one, Your Honor. No bond,” Venable snapped back. “We have more than enough hard evidence to warrant the allegations.”

“Yes, I agree,” Shoat said. “There’s certainly ample provocation here for a charge of murder in the first. It will be up to the grand jury, of course, to evaluate the charge. Do you understand the charges brought against you, Mr. Stampler?”

The youth looked at Vail, who said, “Your Honor, my client refuses to answer on the grounds that his response may tend to incriminate him.”

Both the judge and Venable looked perplexed.

“The defendant is taking the fifth on whether or not he understands the charges?” Shoat said with surprise.

“Yes sir. Until we have a complete psychological workup, he will take the fifth on any and all questions posed to him.”

“Well that’s a new one on me,” Shoat said, shaking his head. “How about bond? Am I correct in assuming that you are not seeking bond, Mr. Vail?”

“You are correct,” Vail said. “However, because of the inordinate amount of publicity my client has already received and the nature of the crime with which he is being charged, we would like to formally request a change in venue at this time.”

“Denied,” Shoat snapped almost before Vail finished.

“Exception.”

“Noted. Anything else?”

“Your Honor, Mr. Stampler underwent several hours of interrogation by the police and members of the district attorney’s office before I was even assigned to the case. I feel, therefore, that his rights have been denied to him.”

“Was he advised of his rights?” Shoat asked Venable.

“Yes, Your Honor,” she answered. “He was interviewed three times and was Mirandized all three times.”

“And did he waive his rights?”

“Yes, Your Honor. We have three statements signed by the prisoner agreeing to speak to the officers without an attorney present.”

“He still—” Vail started, but Shoat cut him off.

“Mr. Vail, it appears he was fully advised and he did waive
his rights. If you’d like we can swear in the arresting officers and have them verify—”

“Not necessary, sir. My client does not deny waiving. Our objection is that he underwent several hours of interrogation before he even
had
an attorney.”

“Counselor, you agreed to take this case the morning after the event took place …”

“And he was interrogated twice…
twice…
before that,” said Vail, holding up two fingers. He sat on the edge of his desk, feet crossed at the ankles, his thumbs hooked in flaming red suspenders.

Shoat sighed. “I think we’re splitting hairs here, Counselor. I don’t see any violation of rights.”

“A man’s life is at stake, Judge. I think that’s worth splitting a few hairs over.”

“I’m sure you do, sir.” Shoat was beginning to show his exasperation.

“Your Honor, I have the transcripts and tapes of the interviews here,” said Venable. “If there’s no objection, we would like to present them—”

“Objection, Your Honor!” Vail bellowed. “I move that all the interviews conducted prior to counsel be suppressed.”

“Grounds?” Shoat asked.

Vail grabbed a book and moved away from his desk into the arena before the bench. He held a thick code book open in one hand and held it toward the judge.

“If I may, sir, I will call your attention to
The State of Nebraska
versus
Flannery,
Supreme Court, volume 43, page 685. I have the book right here. The court ruled, and was upheld in appeal, that Miss Flannery was denied her rights even though she had waived because she asked for an attorney at the time of her arrest and was not provided one for a period of eighteen hours during which, under great duress, she broke down in an interrogation and confessed to the crime. The courts ruled that the investigating officers violated her rights to fair representation because she requested a lawyer at the time she was Mirandized and she should have been so granted
before
any further interrogation.

“We would argue,” Vail went on, “that once the request for legal representation is made, no further action can be taken until the lawyer has been retained and is present. If I had been representing Aaron at the time of these interviews I would have
advised him to take the fifth across the board. Among other things, my client cannot adequately answer the question of cognizance—I believe that will be for the psychiatric team to determine. The fact is, there is nothing really incriminating in these interviews, anyway—it’s strictly a matter of principle.”