The Closing: A Whippoorwill Hollow novel (The Whippoorwill Hollow novels) (15 page)

“You just told me you didn’t speak to Mister Crawford.”

“I misspoke.”

“You told Sheriff Feedlow that Mister Crawford said he was in the warehouse when Miss Updike was murdered, but on your second run-through on your story with me you said Mister Crawford only got to tell you his name before you got knocked out. You seem to be having trouble keeping your story straight. So which is it? Did you lie to Sheriff Feedlow or to me or to both of us?”

Nate reddened. “Lying requires a conscious intent to deceive. I didn’t lie. I mistakenly gave you the impression I hadn’t spoken to Crawford at all. I meant that someone hit me after I learned his name and he answered a few of my questions.”

Jones’ frown returned. “I don’t think you made a mistake, Mister Abbitt. I think you changed your story about talking with Mister Crawford. I think there’s a lie in there somewhere, or maybe two or three lies. Are you trying to hide something?”

Nate considered revealing Odoms’ help, but decided the risk to him was too great. He’d persuaded Odoms to help, and Odoms asked for nothing in return. Nate couldn’t bring himself to abrogate his promise. “I didn’t change my story. I made an honest mistake in my choice of words. Don’t make more of it than it warrants.”

Jones turned and stared at Nate’s car. “Mind if I take a look inside your car?”

“What are you looking for?”

“I don’t rightly know, but you don’t have anything to hide, right?”

Nate went outside with Jones and unlocked the car. Jones looked at the interior. He searched the glove compartment. He removed the bench seats, both front and back, and crawled around on the floorboard. When he was done, he stood beside Nate. “Clean as a whistle. Mind if I look in the trunk?” Jones stuck out his hand. Nate handed him the keys.

Jones unlocked the trunk. He removed the spare tire, tire iron, and jack. He lifted the trunk floor carpet and felt around underneath it. He poked into the cavities over the tire wells. He put everything back in its place and closed the trunk. “Trunk’s clean.” He took off his hat, wiped sweat from his face, and let out a long breath. “Jehosophat, it’s a hot one.” He put on his hat and handed Nate the keys. “Stay close by, Mister Abbitt. I’ll be talking to you again soon.” He got into his patrol car and drove off.

Nate went back in the room. Clarence sat on the bed, wiping perspiration from his face and neck with a bathroom towel. “What was Jones looking for in your car?”

“I have no idea. I think he just wanted to intimidate me.”

“It sounded like he’s fixing to pin Crawford’s murder on you.”

“I agree.”

“We better find the truth quick before the crooks who run this county do you in.”

The next morning Clarence called his agency contacts to inquire about Daniel Updike. Nate phoned Daryl Garth and Garth agreed to meet him. Nate drove to the other end of Ewell Street to Garth’s office, a square little cinderblock building sitting alone in an asphalt lot. It didn’t look like a law office. Two oval concrete platforms rested on the asphalt side by side in front of the building. On the wall to the right of the door a rectangle of cinderblocks newer than the others had been patched into a space as large as a garage door. Nate opened the office door to find a room with a bare concrete floor. The faint aromas of motor oil and lubricating grease confirmed his suspicion that the building was formerly a gas station.

In the office, a big man in his mid-thirties with blond thinning hair was hunched over a desk, poring over documents. He looked up and blanched. “Can I help you?”

“I’m Nate Abbitt.”

Garth flashed a wide smile and stood. “Mister Abbitt.” Garth’s blue suit was shiny and too small for his heavy body. His gut strained against the buttons of his white shirt. He bounded over to Nate and extended his hand. “I met you once. I didn’t recognize you with that, uh, I mean that . . .” Garth frowned at Nate’s scar. “Well, like I said, I met you at a seminar in Richmond. The Fourth Amendment and the exclusionary rule. Your lecture was the high point of the weekend.”

“Thank you,” Nate said. He looked around for a place to sit.

Garth lurched across the room and dragged a wooden straight-backed chair to his desk. “There you are. Have a seat.”

Garth returned to his chair and smiled at Nate. “I’m excited to meet you. I’ve read all your articles. That one in the
Virginia Law Review
about jury selection helped me win a robbery prosecution—well, almost win it. I’m privileged to meet a lawyer of your stature.” It was apparent Garth didn’t know about Nate’s downfall. He was probably the only lawyer in the state who hadn’t heard it. Clarence’s assessment appeared correct. He was a simpleton.

His eyes focused on Nate’s scar again. “I’m sorry for being rude. I mean . . . I noticed your, uh . . .”

“I was in a car accident.”

“Oh.” Garth continued to gawk, his mouth hanging open.

“You’re probably wondering why I called you.”

“Oh. Well, yes. What’s this about?”

“I understand you succeeded Randolph Swiller on the Jimmy Washington case. I represent Kenneth Deatherage. I’d like to compare notes with you.”

Garth flinched. “Compare notes? About what?”

“I’m sorry for being blunt, Mister Garth, but I don’t have much time. Circumstances force me to get right to the point. Swiller didn’t put on a defense in the Deatherage case. I suspect he lost the case intentionally at Judge Herring’s behest. I want to know if Swiller failed to represent his clients in his other capital cases. I know you looked at all the files. I figure you’re suspicious, too.”

Garth’s eyes widened. “Who told you I looked at the files?”

“I saw your name in the evidence logs.”

“Oh . . . well, I was just looking . . . uh . . . you see, I don’t know anything about the cases, really.”

“Come on, Mister Garth. You reviewed the record in the Deatherage case. Swiller laid down for the prosecution. My guess is he did the same in the other capital cases, and I think that’s what you learned when you reviewed the files.”

“Well, uh, I don’t know. Laid down for the prosecution. That’s a serious thing you just said there. I don’t know about that.” Garth pulled at his collar and coughed. “You have to be careful what you say in Buck County, Mister Abbitt. Allegations like that could get you in trouble.”

Nate looked around Garth’s office. He had no secretary. The room was bereft of furniture except for his desk and the miserably uncomfortable chair Nate occupied. “I understand your situation, Mister Garth. It’s hard to earn a living practicing law in Bloxton. You can’t risk the added burden of alienating the powers that be.”

“Well, yes. I can’t, uh, take the risk that you might—”

“I won’t draw you into combat with Judge Herring. All I want from you is information.”

“There’s only one circuit court judge in Buck County, Mister Abbitt. No lawyer can survive here if he gets on the bad side of Judge Herring.”

“I won’t tell anyone I talked to you. I promise I won’t expose you as a source.”

Garth looked doubtful and worried.

“Men’s lives are at stake,” Nate said.

Garth rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands and stared at Nate with a tortured expression. “I know that, Mister Abbitt. I know it all too well.” He looked at Nate fearfully and let out a long breath. “What do you want to know?”

“How did Swiller get appointed to represent Creighton Long?”

“I don’t know for sure.” Garth fell silent.

“Come on, Mister Garth. Open up and tell me what you know. All of it.”

Garth hesitated again. “Give me your word you’ll never tell anyone I talked with you.”

“You have my word.”

Garth slumped in his chair with his hand over his eyes. After a short while, he took a deep breath, sat up straight, and seemed to gather his courage. “All right. Here’s what I know about Swiller’s appointment to the Long case. Every lawyer in Bloxton put in the word with District Judge Gwathmey’s clerk that he wanted the case. Big-shot lawyers from out of town volunteered, too. Judge Gwathmey appointed Swiller. We were all surprised. None of us had ever heard of him.”

“I’ve been told Judge Herring instructed Gwathmey to appoint Swiller.”

“That’s right. Judge Gwathmey secretly told one of the lawyers in town that he had never heard of Swiller before the Long case. When Judge Herring told him to appoint Swiller to the case, he tried to push back, but Judge Herring wouldn’t listen to him.” Garth tugged at his collar and cast his eyes around the room. They finally settled on Nate. “Everybody in Buck County does what Judge Herring tells them to do. Judge Gwathmey knuckled under. He had no choice.” Garth passed his hand across his forehead and wiped off sweat on his shirt. “Anyway, Swiller showed up in Bloxton for the first time for the preliminary hearing. He opened an office in one of the abandoned buildings at the freight yard. Judge Herring owns that building. One of the other lawyers in town found out that the judge and Swiller were friends in law school and that Swiller’s legal business in Charlottesville failed. We figured Judge Herring ordered Judge Gwathmey to appoint Swiller because he was Judge Herring’s friend and he needed business.”

“Was there more to it than that?”

“Later on, we guessed that the judge wanted Swiller to do him a favor.”

“What sort of favor?”

Garth loosened the knot of his tie. “Remember, I never said this myself. It was the other lawyers. They said the judge asked Swiller to lose the Long case.”

“Why would the judge do that?”

“To help the people of Buck County. Creighton Long killed five little boys. He tortured them, molested them, cut their throats, and watched them bleed to death. The sheriff’s men found Long’s diary. Long wrote about the pleasure he got from what he did to the boys. The diary was damning evidence against him, but there was a problem.”

“What sort of problem?”

“The sheriff didn’t get a warrant before he searched Long’s apartment, and he didn’t have probable cause. The sheriff was under tremendous pressure to solve the crimes. When they found the fifth boy’s body in the abandoned coal mine, the sheriff still had no leads and no suspects. People in Buck County were wild with fear and anger. They called for the sheriff’s head on a platter. He was desperate. He launched a door-to-door warrantless random search. They found Long’s diary in a sweep through the boarding houses at the base of Skink Mountain near the mine.”

“The diary was inadmissible.”

“Like you said at that seminar in Richmond, the Fourth Amendment prohibits warrantless searches unless the government has probable cause. Evidence gathered from an unconstitutional search has to be excluded from trial to ensure the government won’t storm into everybody’s house whenever they feel like it. The search of Long’s apartment didn’t fit any of the exceptions to the exclusionary rule, so it looked to all of us like the defense would be able to keep it out of the trial. That was a hell of a problem for the prosecution. The diary was the only evidence against Long, and the prosecution couldn’t convict him without it.”

“I see. Judge Herring told Swiller not to object to the diary.”

“I don’t know what Judge Herring told Swiller. All I know is Swiller didn’t raise the Fourth Amendment issue at trial.”

“Is it possible Swiller was so incompetent he missed the issue?”

“The unconstitutional search that produced that diary was the talk of the town before the trial. Swiller knew it was inadmissible. Judge Herring knew. Everyone in town knew, but Swiller didn’t object and the judge admitted the diary into evidence.”

“Didn’t anyone raise a question about Swiller’s failure to object? The newspaper reporters, the other lawyers in town?”

“We all kept mum. We knew the judge had taken matters into his own hands, and we were glad he did it. We didn’t care about Long’s constitutional rights because we wanted him to pay for what he did to the little boys.”

“The admission of that diary may have been the first step down a road to the conviction of innocent men in this county.”

“That’s why I reviewed the files of all the other capital cases. The cases followed a pattern. Judge Gwathmey appointed Swiller to represent the accused in each case. Swiller didn’t put on any defense in the Long and Deatherage cases. He seemed to try harder in the other cases, but his efforts were inept. Judge Herring did nothing to protect the defendants from Swiller’s malpractice. George Maupin presented powerful cases each time. The jury convicted all four men and voted for the death penalty for each one of them.”

“Tell me about your case, the Washington case.”

“Jimmy Washington is a hard-luck story. Since the coal mine closed down and Red Diamond Rock Products pulled out of town, there are only a few jobs, and young Negro men are the last to be hired. Jimmy got his girlfriend pregnant and married her when he was seventeen. He needed to support his family, but no one would hire him so he took the only job he could find. He enlisted in the army. The army shipped him out to Vietnam. He picked up some bad habits over there, namely drinking and brawling, and he came home with a chip on his shoulder. He got into trouble with the law—a string of DUIs, convictions for drunkenness in public, disorderly conduct, a couple of minor assaults—misdemeanors for the most part, nothing real serious, but he caused enough mischief to earn a reputation as a good-for-nothing troublemaker. His wife, Shirleen, stayed with him and tried hard to reform him. Jimmy’s friends say he was beginning to pull out of his tailspin when Joe Hitt, a local farmer, was murdered. Hitt was white. Jimmy is colored. Hitt was a member of the Klan. He and Jimmy got in a big fight in the Coal Bin’s parking lot the night Hitt was killed. People pulled them apart, but they were wild with anger. They yelled racial stuff at each other. Afterwards, Hitt went to the Dealeton quarry to drink. His body was found on the quarry floor by one of his drinking buddies the next morning.”

“Jimmy Washington was the prime suspect.”

“Yes,” Garth said. “The prosecution claimed Jimmy followed Hitt to the quarry and killed him.”

“How was Hitt killed?”

“The local medical examiner originally thought the cause of death was a knife wound to the chest, but there were abrasions and bruises on Hitt’s throat. An autopsy revealed that his larynx was crushed and his hyoid bone was fractured.”

“He was strangled.”

“Yes, and the stab wound was post mortem.”

“Why did the murderer stab him after strangling him to death?”

“George Maupin argued that Jimmy wasn’t sure Hitt was dead, so he stabbed him. The knife wound turned out to be the clincher with the jury. The sheriff’s men found a pocketknife in Jimmy’s house with the tip end broken off. The medical examiner said that knife matched perfectly the wound in Hitt’s chest.”

“The knife seems like conclusive evidence of Washington’s guilt.”

“Jimmy swears he didn’t own a pocketknife and he never saw the one they found in his house. His wife and kids and friends all say he never carried a pocketknife.”

“They’re lying to protect him.”

“I don’t know. It doesn’t add up to me. Jimmy’s a troubled young man, but he’s smart, plenty smart enough to throw that knife away rather than leave it in a drawer in his house like a big sign saying ‘I’m the killer.’”

Nate recalled Deatherage’s comment about the scarf: “I might as well put a sign on my chest says ‘Killer.’” Nate said, “Was Darby Jones the deputy who investigated the murder?”

“Yes.”

“Did Jones conduct the search of Washington’s house?”

“Yes. How did you know that?”

“My guess is Jones is another part of the pattern in these cases. Maybe he stabbed Hitt post mortem with the pocketknife and then faked finding the knife in Washington’s house.” Nate told Garth about the scarf in the Deatherage case.

Garth leaned back in his chair and frowned. “You know, a strange thing happened when I interviewed Jones before the trial. For the most part, the meeting was the same as other interviews with law enforcement officers, just a straightforward account of the evidence Jones had gathered, but when I was finished with my questions, he didn’t make a move to leave my office. So I said, ‘Okay, that’s all I have for you.’ But he still didn’t move. He just sat there glaring at me. Made me very uneasy. He finally stood up and said, ‘I have one more thing to say. You tell Washington he should be ashamed of himself. He’s a disgrace to the uniform. He wasn’t fit to serve.’ Then Jones stomped out of my office.”

Perhaps, Nate thought, Jones was a misguided patriot who thought his job as a deputy was to rid the county of the men he considered to be criminals. “Jones was a good soldier,” Nate said, “a volunteer for combat, and a war hero. Maybe he can’t tolerate men he perceives to be weak or corrupt, especially a disgraced Vietnam veteran like Washington.”