Читать книгу Blood Orange - Drusilla Campbell - Страница 10

Chapter 4

At about the same time, in an interview room in San Diego’s downtown jail, David Cabot studied his client across a Formica-topped table and through the bars separating them.

It was a crappy place to be on a beautiful May afternoon.

The prosecutor had argued that a man with Frank Filmore’s financial resources and international connections constituted a bail risk, so this Ph.D. chemist was spending the months before his trial downtown in the county lockup, wearing a two-piece cotton uniform that made him look more like an emergency-room nurse in scrubs than a man accused of a capital crime. David’s associate, Gracie Perez, sat beside him in the small room, asking the questions—essentially the same questions they’d been asking since taking on the case. No fact or gap or contradiction in Filmore’s story could be overlooked. It was the same way in football. All it took was a hole in the line and the other guy was in for the TD.

To David most of life could be compared to football. Gracie, the whole office, and half the San Diego bar laughed at his metaphors, but for him football comparisons were a useful way of sorting life out; and if some people thought he was a half-smart jock, he didn’t care. In the courtroom they discovered how wrong they were.

To the right of Gracie and David, near the door of the cramped and windowless room, Allison, a paralegal, was taking down questions and answers on a steno pad. An audio recorder would be easier, but David had yet to meet a defendant willing to be taped.

David listened to Filmore talk and assumed that three quarters of what he heard was either a bald lie or a cheap wig. Guilty or innocent, rich or destitute, you put a guy in jail and he forgot how to tell the truth. And the longer you gave him to think about his answers, the more he’d make it up and bullshit. The unjustly accused lied because they were afraid; the guilty lied because they thought they were smarter than the system. They were also afraid, but they’d never admit it. David didn’t want to get too jaundiced in his view of the men and women he defended, but he doubted Filmore was the one in a million actually telling the truth. Although he had sworn he wouldn’t let the law make him a cynic, there were days—like today and yesterday and probably tomorrow—when he could feel the negativity creeping up on him like mold.

It had been a long day, and his neck and shoulders were tight. He glanced at his watch. God willing, in an hour he’d be at the club playing racquetball with his law partner, Marcus Klinger. Then a sauna and a massage. He had a regular weekly appointment with a therapist whose thumbs knew how to find the knot at the nape of his neck. She didn’t talk. She wouldn’t ask him how he could stand to be in the same room with a man like Frank Filmore.

He imagined his father laughing and shaking his fat index finger in his face. Scum of the earth, boy. Watch it don’t rub off. Claybourne Cabot had been a hanging West Virginia judge whose best friends were the coal-mine owners in the southern part of the state. When he got drunk, which was once a week on Sunday starting right after church and going on until he passed out, he would tell anyone in earshot that the government could save a heap of cash if it would dispense with courts and lawyers for ninety percent of the people arrested. “Put ’em down the mines and forget the sons of bitches,” he’d say. One of his coal-mine cronies would drawl in response, “Whatdya wanna do, C.C.? Ruin us?” Claybourne Cabot laughed so gustily, people thought he had a sense of humor. “Serve you right, you brass-balled pirates.”

It galled David to recognize that when it came down to the bones of it, he practiced law much as his father had adjudicated. Judge Cabot had assumed if you were in court you’d done something bad now or in a previous life, so he might as well punish you hard. Guilt and innocence had been irrelevancies to the judge. They weren’t important to David, either, although in the early days of a defense the question of guilt or innocence popped up in his mind like an irritating ad on a computer screen. Especially in a capital case like this one, with Frank Filmore’s life on the block. At the preliminary hearing the prosecutor, Les Peluso, was going to argue for murder with special circumstances, leaving open the possibility of the death penalty. Peluso wanted to be mayor of San Diego, and as far as he, the press, and public were concerned, Filmore’s trial was only a formality on his way to that position.

Right now David was less interested in Filmore’s answers to Gracie’s questions than he was in his client’s mannerisms and body language, the way his right eyebrow twitched and he rubbed at it with the knuckle of his index finger. David learned a lot about people when he tuned out the words and just watched the body.

On television child killers were invariably homely, with pocky skin and small, mean eyes. Filmore was fit and handsome in a slick, saturnine way. A “hottie,” according to Allison, who believed him innocent, framed by cops trying to cover up sloppy police work. She was twenty-two, and this was her first case. Her reaction to Filmore’s appearance would be important information for David when it came time to choose a jury. Who would find him most appealing? Young women without children, or thirty-something guys resentful of authority and short on empathy?

David’s stomach growled. After tennis and a massage, what he wanted was a three-inch filet so rare it moaned when he cut into it. But he couldn’t charge another expensive dinner. Dana wrote the checks, and she knew how much interest they were paying on their MasterCard and Visa accounts, all seven of them. One of these days, David thought, he was going to be able to throw down cash for a hundred-dollar steak dinner. Frank Filmore was going to do it for him.

Gracie asked Filmore to account for his activities on the day three-year-old Lolly Calhoun was snatched from her backyard. He answered calmly, with a slightly clipped accent.

David interrupted, leaning forward. “You English, Frank? South African, maybe?”

“People ask me that.” Filmore had a good smile and even white teeth with a chip out of a front incisor. Allison said it was the kind of imperfection that gave his face appeal. “Born and raised in California.”

The movie-star smile was all wrong on a man facing a possible death penalty. And jurors did not like defendants with phony accents.

David, Gracie, and Les Peluso had been study partners in law school, and there had been a time when they were either young or foolish enough to confide their ambitions to one another. Peluso wanted to be mayor. David wanted the big-ticket cases where drama and stakes were high. Gracie the same. He wondered as he watched Filmore answer Gracie’s questions if it was really ethical to see a client as a means to a career goal, as a way out of debt and on to Court TV.

Gracie disliked Filmore as much as he did, but she hid her feelings behind a cool authority. She listened to him, her gaze locked on his, her expression impassive and clinical. In all things legal she was implacably self-contained. And just as ambitious as me, David thought. He liked that about her.

The mystery of Gracie tantalized him. She was his best friend, the person apart from Dana whom he trusted most. But friendship and respect didn’t stop him from wondering about her body and what she would be like in bed. Last year she had worn a backless dress to Cabot and Klinger’s Christmas party, and for a couple of weeks afterward David could not look at her without thinking of her gorgeous honey brown back, the shapely and muscular swale of her spine. He wanted to put his hand on the small of it to know if it felt as warm as it looked. He had caught a glimpse of a tattoo and fantasized about it, imagining something African, winged and tribal extending down the curve of her hip.

Gracie asked Filmore, “Why didn’t you go to work that day?”

“I told you, my wife didn’t feel well.”

“Do you always stay home if your wife’s sick?”

“When I can.” Circles of sweat ringed the sleeves of Filmore’s cotton shirt, but he flashed the smile and beaming teeth. “Wouldn’t you?”

“The problem is,” Gracie said to Filmore, “your wife didn’t tell anyone at work she was sick.”

“She’s not a complainer; and, besides, we made a deal we wouldn’t tell anyone about the baby until after the first trimester. We were sort of superstitious—you can understand. If we said anything too soon and it didn’t work out . . .” He massaged his thick knuckles. “We’d been trying a long time. Years. We’d begun to lose hope, and then Marsha came up pregnant.” He looked at Gracie and flashed the smile again. “It just seemed too good to be true.”

None of this was new, though Filmore’s answers were getting more detailed and emotionally nuanced. For now that was okay.

Gracie said, “According to her coworkers she seemed perfectly well.”

“And she was. She ate a few crackers. That’s all it took to settle her stomach. Sandra had a harder time.” A flicker of confusion jerked across Filmore’s face. “I suppose poor Sandra Calhoun’s still pregnant. Is she?”

Gracie didn’t miss a beat. “Go on with your story, Frank.”

“Oh. Well, in the morning—we were all early risers—Marsha and Sandra Calhoun liked to hang over the fence, drink a cup of coffee.” Again he grinned disarmingly. “They were never too sick for coffee.”

“You said it was a secret, this pregnancy.”

“Under the circumstances, two women, neighbors and both pregnant, Marsha had to tell Sandra. They’d compare how crummy they felt, and then they went on with their lives. At least Marsha did. I worked at home that day, I have that kind of job.”

“Did anybody see you at home that afternoon?”

Filmore pursed his lips. “I’ve told you, I don’t like outside help in the home.”

A privacy nut with a twitchy eyebrow.

“What about the mail or UPS?” Gracie asked.

“I talked to my wife during the day. On the phone. I made some business calls. Does that help?”

David hoped phone company records would back this up, but even if they did, it would not prove much. Frank Filmore had plenty of time between calls to dart into the backyard of the house next door, snatch Lolly, and deposit her in the trunk of his 2002 Lexus sedan. Les Peluso would be sure to mention this. The good news for the defense was the police had found no evidence of her body anywhere in either the Lexus or the BMW Marsha Filmore had driven to work that day. But they hadn’t stopped looking. They expected a flake of skin or drop of blood to turn up eventually. They would dismantle the cars down to the atomic level if they had to.

Gracie said, “According to the police report Sandra Calhoun called 911 a bit after nine, but before that she knocked on your front door to see if Lolly was with you. Why did she do that?”

“How should I know? We were neighbors. And Lolly was a sweet kid. I liked her when she wasn’t whining.”

“You didn’t answer the door.”

“Well, no, I didn’t.”

“Why was that?”

He lifted his hands, showing his smooth pale palms. “My office is on the other side of the house, Ms. Perez. I had the door closed, and I listen to music with a headset when I’m working. Helps me focus.”

“Cops knocked on the door, too.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I really am. If I had heard them . . .”

“Do you love your wife?” Gracie asked.

“Of course I love her. And I’d never do anything to hurt her, to spoil what we have. She knows that.” Filmore’s large dark eyes filled with tears. “She knows I never—”

“Then in the late afternoon you went out,” David said. “Where’d you go?”

“Well, again, I’ve said this before, I try to run several times a week. My time was good in the San Diego Marathon last year.”

Big fucking deal.

“Where did you run that day?”

“Catalina Avenue, down the grade to the place where they train the dolphins, and then back up.”

“You live in University City and you drove all the way to Point Loma?”

“Obviously you’re not a runner or you’d know that variety keeps the training fresh.”

Filmore loved the sound of his own voice. He definitely could not be trusted on the stand.

“Anyone see you?”

“If you mean that I talked to, no. No one.”

Outside, a siren wailed up First Street headed for Harbor View Hospital. In the wake of its passing, David heard the clang of the trolley one block up. Four people in the tiny interview room, four sets of lungs inhaling the air-conditioned oxygen, exhaling lunchtime garlic and coffee: no wonder David had a headache. Filmore appeared not to mind the crowd. He probably thought he deserved Jesus Christ and the Twelve Apostles at his table after writing a check for one hundred thousand dollars payable to Cabot and Klinger. Their biggest retainer to date.

Not for the first time, it occurred to David that for a man who loved to be out of doors and who enjoyed the camaraderie of sport, he’d chosen a strange, confined, and confining profession. Maybe he should have been a coach. That’s what his uncle wanted for him. Instead he was going to spend the next thirty years in jails and courtrooms defending the Constitution. Which nobody seemed to care about anymore.

Gracie might hate Filmore or feel nothing at all; you’d never know from her cool velvet voice, almost a monotone but with a hint of challenge, like she dared Filmore to give her a hard time. She asked, “What happened after your run?”

“I’ve said this before.” He looked over at Allison. “Don’t you read her notes?”

“Tell us again,” David said.

“I knew it was the night my wife was going to her book club . . .”

But that night Marsha Filmore had stayed home, had gone next door to give moral support and comfort to Lolly Calhoun’s mother and father.

“So I just pulled on my sweats and drove up to Carlsbad to see Lord of the Rings. It was so good, I stayed to see it twice.”

It was a lame alibi. Without proof no jury would buy it.

“Why’d you go to Carlsbad?”

“I wanted to stop at the outlet stores, but when I got there I didn’t have my credit card so I just went to the movie.”

The alibi wasn’t lame, it was paraplegic.

At the theater no one remembered his good-looking face, and he hadn’t kept the ticket stub. David wrote a note to send Allison out to the theater with photos. A pretty blonde with blue eyes and plenty on top, she might be able to coax something out of one of the guys there.

Three-year-old Lolly had been chloroformed and strangled. The evidence against Filmore was flimsy. A few fingerprints that could have been left at any time over the last few months and a crummy alibi. Surprising, really, that the government thought it had enough to convict.

Lolly had been tied in a plastic bag and tossed down the side of a hill near Lakeside. By the time a rider found her body, coyotes had torn the bag open.

David drank from his water bottle, hoping to wash away the bile burning his throat. He thought of Bailey, of the life bursting out of her. He could not think of her as retarded or emotionally disturbed; he never used these terms to describe her. She was Bailey, and he loved her, and if anyone ever laid a hand on her he would commit murder.

He had to figure out a way to keep Bailey out of his thoughts or he’d lose the objectivity he needed to defend his client.

Frank Filmore was saying something, declaring something. Gracie looked at David and raised her perfect eyebrows. His attention snapped back.

“I did not do this . . . this awful, this horrendous thing. You must believe—You believe me, don’t you, David? I’m innocent.”

David heard his father’s voice saying only an idiot lawyer believed his client.

“It really doesn’t matter if I believe you or not, Frank, and it’s not my job to prove your innocence.”

“I have a lovely wife; we’re expecting a baby. Why would I do such a thing? And Lolly, I loved Lolly, I used to watch her swimming in her little pool—”

“I don’t want to hear this.”

“But how can you prove I’m innocent if you don’t—”

David rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s not my job to prove you’re innocent. What Gracie and I do is, we make the prosecutor prove you’re guilty. We see that justice is done. That’s all we do.”

Frank Filmore looked offended. “You’re saying you don’t believe me?”

“I’m saying what I believe is irrelevant. You can be telling the truth or lying like crazy, what we have to do is make the prosecutor prove his case one hundred percent. It’s like in football.”

Allison laughed, then quickly covered her mouth.

“The ref ’s job is to make sure the teams play fair, win fair. That’s all a defense attorney’s supposed to do, make sure the prosecutor follows the rules.”

Gracie said, “David used to play ball, Frank.”

“I hope you won. I hope you won all the time.”

A guard knocked on the door of the interview room and told David he had a phone call. “She says it’s urgent.”

On the other end of the phone Dana was almost hysterical. David could barely make sense of what she said.