”Hold on a minute, Erlene. Why’d you cut his, his. . what did you call it? His twigger or something like that?”
”His terwilliger?”
”Yeah, that. Why’d you cut it off? Angel told me she didn’t do it. It must have been you.”
”I saw this TV show where a man got convicted of rape because he had the girl’s DNA on his terwilliger. I got to thinking that Angel’s DNA might be on his terwilliger, and-well, you know, if the police did come around and start asking questions-I didn’t want her to have to explain something like that. Besides, sugar, he didn’t need it anymore.”
I knew when I met Erlene that there was more to her than big boobs and batting eyes, but I never expected anything like this.
”What else did you do?” I said.
”Well, let’s see. Not a whole lot. I just got sweet little Virgil to do me a favor.”
”You mean he didn’t see you on the bridge?”
”Nobody saw me on the bridge, honey. I can promise you that. And I thought there was no way anyone would find the terwilliger. That was just a stroke of bad luck.”
It was almost brilliant. She’d managed to dupe the police into thinking she’d committed the murder to get Angel off, but she’d done such a masterful job of it, she might well be convicted.
”You’ve got some serious problems, Erlene. For starters, what’s Virgil going to do when the state subpoenas him to testify against you? If he gets up on the stand and lies, they’ll charge him with perjury.”
”Don’t you worry your handsome face about that, honey. I won’t be going to trial.”
”You-why not?”
”It’s that other legal thing I was telling you about.
That Fourth Amendment. You see, this lawyer, the one that likes to sin every now and then, he came out to the club one night and I asked him how I could lead a police officer to a piece of evidence and then make sure he couldn’t use the evidence later.
So he told me all about searches, and he made a wonderful suggestion. He said if I’d wait until the very, very last minute and then have someone make an anonymous call to that nasty old TBI agent and tell him where my car was, he’d bet anything the policeman would go tearing up there without a search warrant or anything. And you know what?
He was right as rain. That TBI man climbed over a locked gate and ignored a locked door on my barn and crawled right in through a window. The car was under a tarp in the barn, sweetie. It’s private property.”
She’d graduated from almost brilliant to brilliant.
Still, she didn’t know who she was dealing with.
”Landers will lie,” I said. ”He’ll say the gate wasn’t locked, the barn door was open, he was acting on a reliable tip, and the car was in plain view.”
She smiled and hunched her shoulders. ”Oh, sweetie, this is the best part. I’ve got everything he did on video. The lawyer told me to send somebody up there in the woods with a camera. Ronnie filmed the whole thing. I’ll bet I’ve watched it ten times.”
I stared at her for a second, not quite believing what I’d just heard. I felt a chuckle making its way up through my chest. I tried to suppress it, but the more I tried, the harder it pushed. The first one made its way out of my mouth, and then another. Within a few seconds, I was laughing so hard I could barely breathe. I looked over at Erlene. She’d lost it, too. It was one of the most visceral moments of my life: Erlene and I were looking at each other, laughing uncontrollably. It was almost as good as sex.
After a couple of minutes, I managed to get at least a little control of myself.
”You know what this means?” I said through a chuckle. ”It means they won’t be able to use the car or anything they found in it!”
Erlene looked like a bobblehead. ”That was just what I was trying to do, sweetie. Isn’t it wonderful?”
We started cracking up again.
”They’ll have less on you. . than they had on Angel.”
”I know.”
Finally we calmed down and Erlene turned serious.
”You’ll represent me, won’t you, sweetie? You’ll handle it for me?”
I wiped a tear from my eye with the back of my hand. ”I can’t, Erlene. It’s a conflict of interest.”
”I don’t see why. They found Angel not guilty.
Her case is over, isn’t it? They can’t try her again no matter what. All you have to do is show them the videotape, and that should be the end of it. Don’t you think?”
”I don’t know. It won’t be that simple. Nothing’s ever that simple.”
”C’mon, sweetie. This’ll be a piece of cake for you.
You’re the best there is. Oh, and speaking of that, I meant to tell you the way you set them up with your sister was brilliant. When Angel told me about it, I thought I was going to wet my pants.”
”I didn’t exactly plan that. I’m not as smart as you are.”
”Don’t kid yourself, sugar. Now, what do you say?
Will you do the same for me as you did for Angel?”
I was thinking about the conflict. She was right about Angel. They couldn’t try her again, no matter what, and since the rules prohibited me from uttering a word about Angel’s confession, it wouldn’t be an issue. On top of that, if Erlene really had a videotape of Landers conducting an illegal search, the car and everything in it would be out, there’d be no trial and no risk that I’d ever have to question Angel on a witness stand. And because Angel had told me what really happened, I knew Erlene hadn’t killed Tester.
My God, if I agreed, Erlene would be my innocent client. Finally.
”You’re going to be locked up in here for a while,”
I said. ”You up to it?”
”I could post a million in cash for bond if I wanted to, but I’m afraid the nosy old IRS people would wonder where I got all that money. Don’t you worry about me, baby doll. I’ll be fine.”
”You’re in for a bad run of publicity.”
”Doesn’t matter, sugar. The Junior League isn’t ever going to ask me to join anyway.”
”They’ll try to paint you as an immoral madame who uses young girls and preys on horny men.”
”You can clean me up. You’re a sugar pie.”
The woman had an almost irresistible charm about her, not to mention a fat bank account. I shook my head and grinned.
”Okay,” I said. ”You’ve got yourself a lawyer. But it’s going to cost you.”