فصل 01 - بخش 01

THE ARRAIGNMENT

July 16th 1

‘No,’ Howie Gold said. ‘No, no, no.’

‘It’s for his own protection,’ Ralph said. ‘Surely you see—’

‘What I see is a front-page photograph in the paper. What I see is lead story footage on every channel, showing my client walking into district court wearing a bulletproof vest over his suit. Looking already convicted, in other words. The cuffs are bad enough.’

There were seven men in the county jail’s visitors’ room, where the toys had been neatened away in their colorful plastic boxes and the chairs had been upturned on the tables. Terry Maitland stood with Howie at his side. Facing them were County Sheriff Dick Doolin, Ralph Anderson, and Vernon Gilstrap, the assistant district attorney. Samuels would already be at the county courthouse, awaiting their arrival. Sheriff Doolin continued to hold out the bulletproof vest, saying nothing. On it, in bright accusatory yellow, were the letters FCDC, standing for Flint County Department of Corrections. Its three Velcro straps – one for each arm, one to cinch the waist – hung down.

Two jail officers (call them guards and they would correct you) stood by the door to the lobby, meaty arms folded. One had supervised Terry as he shaved with a disposable razor; the other had gone through the pockets of the suit and shirt Marcy had brought, not neglecting to check the seam down the back of the blue tie.

ADA Gilstrap looked at Terry. ‘What do you say, chum? Want to risk getting shot? Okay by me if you do. Save the state the expense of a bunch of appeals before you take the needle.’

‘That’s uncalled-for,’ Howie said.

Gilstrap, a long-timer who would almost certainly choose to retire (and with a fat pension) if Bill Samuels lost the upcoming election, only smirked.

‘Hey, Mitchell,’ Terry said. The guard who had monitored Terry’s shave, making sure the prisoner did not try to cut his throat with a single-blade Bic, raised his eyebrows but didn’t unfold his arms. ‘How hot is it outside?’

‘Eighty-four when I came in,’ Mitchell said. ‘Going up close on a hundred come noon, they said on the radio.’

‘No vest,’ Terry said to the sheriff, and broke into a smile that made him look very young. ‘I don’t want to stand in front of Judge Horton in a sweaty shirt. I coached his grandson in Little League.’

Gilstrap, looking alarmed at this, took a notebook from inside his plaid jacket and jotted something.

‘Let’s get going,’ Howie said. He took Terry by the arm.

Ralph’s cell phone rang. He took it from the left side of his belt (his holstered service weapon was on the right) and looked at the screen. ‘Hold it, hold it, I have to take this.’

‘Oh, come on,’ Howie said. ‘What is this, an arraignment or a dog-and-pony show?’

Ralph ignored him and walked to the far side of the room, where there were coin-op snack and soda vending machines. He stood beneath a sign reading FOR VISITOR USE ONLY, spoke briefly, listened. He ended the call and returned to the others. ‘Okay. Let’s do it.’

Officer Mitchell had stepped between Howie and Terry long enough to snap cuffs on Terry’s wrists. ‘Too tight?’ he asked.

Terry shook his head.

‘Then let’s walk.’

Howie took off his suit coat and draped it over the cuffs. The two officers led Terry out of the room with Gilstrap in the lead, strutting like a majorette.

Howie fell in step next to Ralph. He spoke in a low voice. ‘This is a clusterfuck.’ And when Ralph made no reply: ‘Okay, fine, clam up all you want to, but between now and the grand jury, we have to sit down – you, me, and Samuels. Pelley too, if you want. The facts of the case aren’t going to come out today, but they will come out, and then you won’t have to worry about just state or regional news coverage. CNN, FOX, MSNBC, the Internet blogs – they’ll all be here, savoring the weirdness. It’ll be OJ meets The Exorcist.’

Yes, and Ralph had an idea Howie would do all he could to make that happen. If he could get reporters to focus on the question of a man who appeared to have been in two places at the same time, he wouldn’t have to worry about them focusing on the boy who had been raped and murdered, perhaps partially eaten.

‘I know what you’re thinking, but I’m not the enemy here, Ralph. Unless you don’t give a shit about anything except seeing Terry convicted, that is, and I don’t believe it. That’s Samuels, not you. Don’t you want to know what happened?’

Ralph made no reply.

Marcy Maitland was waiting in the lobby, looking very small between the hugely pregnant Betsy Riggins and Yune Sablo from the State Police. When she saw her husband and started forward, Riggins attempted to hold her back, but Marcy shook her off easily. Sablo only stood pat, watching. Marcy had just time enough to look into her husband’s face and kiss his cheek before Officer Mitchell took her by the shoulders and pushed her gently but firmly back toward the sheriff, who was still holding the bulletproof vest, as if he didn’t know what to do with it now that it had been refused.

‘Come on, now, Mrs Maitland,’ Mitchell said. ‘That’s not allowed.’

‘I love you, Terry,’ Marcy called as the officers moved him toward the door. ‘And the girls send theirs.’

‘Same goes back to all of you doubled,’ Terry said. ‘Tell them it’s going to be all right.’

Then he was outside, into the hot morning sunshine and the incoming fire of two dozen questions, all hurled at once. To Ralph, still in the lobby, those mingled voices sounded more like invective than interrogation.

Ralph had to give Howie points for persistence. He still hadn’t given up.

‘You’re one of the good ones. Never took a bribe, never pitted evidence, always walked a straight path.’

I think I came close to pitting evidence some last night, Ralph thought. I think it was close. If Sablo hadn’t been there, if it had just been me and Samuels …

Howie’s expression was almost pleading. ‘You’ve never had a case like this. None of us have. And it’s not just the little boy anymore. His mother is dead, too.’

Ralph, who hadn’t turned on the television that morning, stopped and stared at Howie. ‘You say what?’

Howie nodded. ‘Yesterday. Heart attack. That makes her victim number two. So come on – don’t you want to know? Don’t you want to get this right?’

Ralph couldn’t hold back any longer. ‘I do know. And because I do, I’m going to give you one for free, Howie. That call I just took was from Dr Bogan, in the Pathology and Serology Department at General. He doesn’t have all of the DNA back yet, and won’t for at least another couple of weeks, but they crashed the semen sample they took from the backs of the boy’s legs. It matches the cheek swabs we took Saturday night. Your client killed Frank Peterson, and buggered him, and tore away pieces of his flesh. And all that got him so excited that he spunked on the corpse.’

He strode away quickly, leaving Howie Gold temporarily unable to move or speak. Which was good, because the central paradox still remained. DNA didn’t lie. But Terry’s colleagues weren’t lying, either, Ralph was sure of it. Add to that the fingerprints on the book from the newsstand, and the Channel 81 video.

Ralph Anderson was a man of two minds, and the double vision was driving him crazy.