I turn and walk back outside, where Calvin and Tara are waiting for me. “I got here about five minutes ago and found it,” he says. “Tara was in the backyard. I didn’t see anybody.”
Two police cars pull up, obviously having been called by Calvin. Laurie and three officers get out and come over to us. “Where is it?” she asks.
“In the living room,” I say.
“Have you checked out the house?”
I look over at Calvin, who shakes his head. “No. I just saw it and came out.”
Laurie nods and signals to the other officers. They draw their handguns, and two of them walk around the side of the house. Laurie and the other one move cautiously inside the house, and Calvin and I wait for about ten minutes for them to come out. Finally, they do, and Laurie comes over to us.
“So what do you think?” I ask.
“I think you should call Marcus.”
• • • • •
MARCUS CLARK answers the phone when I call. He says, “Unhh.”
That is Marcus-talk for “hello,” so I say, “Marcus, this is Andy Carpenter.”
“Unhh.” Marcus uses “unhh” the way Willie Miller uses “schnell.”
“Marcus, I’m in Wisconsin working on a case, and it’s getting a little dangerous, so I really need you here, if you can make it.”
“Unhh.”
“I’m representing someone against a murder charge, and public sentiment is running against him. There’s been some violence, a firebombing…”
“Unhh.”
I’ve never had much success conversing with Marcus, and this time it’s not going any better. “Listen, Marcus, Willie Miller is going to talk to you and give you all the details. Okay?”
This time he doesn’t answer at all, so I hang up and call Willie, who has always been able to communicate with Marcus. I tell him the problem, and he agrees to get in touch with him right away. “You need me up there too?” Willie asks.
“No thanks, Marcus should be able to protect me.”
“Hey, man, don’t you think I know that? Marcus could protect you if you had the Marines after you. I’m not talking about that. Maybe I could help you out with the case, do some investigating or something. Sounds like you can use some help.”
I decline, though I appreciate the offer, and Willie promises to call me back after he talks to Marcus. If Marcus is busy, perhaps if he is invading North Korea or something, then Willie vows he will make the trip himself.
Willie is a black belt in karate, and one of the toughest people I know, but compared to Marcus, he is a Barbie doll. I will feel much better if Marcus can come up here, because things seem to be getting rather dangerous.
When I get off the phone with Willie, I go back into the living room, where Calvin is working. He’s been talking to a lot of kids at the school and is going over his notes. Since the kids wouldn’t speak to me at all, I’m surprised that Calvin is making progress with them, and I ask him about it.
He shrugs. “It’s possible that they got the idea I was once a roadie for Led Zeppelin and lost my leg when some crazed groupies knocked a huge amplifier onto me during a concert.”
“Amazing how these stories get started,” I say.
One of the major difficulties we will face is in making it seem possible that someone other than Jeremy committed this crime. Unfortunately, young women, and other people, are murdered all the time. It is not hard to imagine that these murders could have been random, by some passing sicko. But the fact that the bodies were then buried on Jeremy’s property changes that equation dramatically. Sickos don’t often find out who their victim’s ex-boyfriend was, and they don’t set about framing them.
We certainly must focus on Elizabeth’s other ex-boyfriend, whose very existence is in question at this point. Jeremy says that Elizabeth referred to him, though never by name, and even said on that fateful night that they were running away together. Of course, I don’t have a clue why that boyfriend would have killed Elizabeth just as they were planning to run away together. In any event, we must find him.
The fact is that if Jeremy is innocent, then these women were a threat to someone, or at least a cause of rage. If we can’t convince the jury that such a someone is likely out there, we’re finished and our client is history.
The only way we are going to pull this off is to learn all we can about the victims, a task made infinitely more difficult by the lack of access we have to their hometown. This may or may not turn out to be significant. I have to be careful not to focus too much on that town simply because its residents are so decidedly insulated and unfriendly. All evidence is that they have been that way for well over a century without having committed any murders.
Calvin and I have a ten o’clock meeting with Dave Larson, a local private investigator. Calvin had heard of him but never dealt with him directly. Laurie had given him a recommendation, though not a ringing endorsement. She said he was as good as we were likely to find in the Findlay area, while admitting that Findlay was not exactly a hotbed of private investigation.
I had pressed her with, “But he’s good? He can handle himself?” And she responded with, “Have you called Marcus yet?”
Larson turns out to be in his early forties, about five foot eight, a hundred and fifty pounds. He wears glasses and carries two pencils in his shirt pocket, and keeps saying, “You got that right.” He is the anti-Marcus.
“I do mostly insurance work, some divorce stuff,” Larson says in response to my question about his background. “It can get pretty hairy.”
“I can imagine,” I lie.
“You got that right.”
“Ever do any work in Center City?” I ask.
“A couple of minor insurance cases; I think they were both motor vehicle accidents. Never did any divorce stuff, of course.”
“Why ‘of course’?”
He seems surprised by my lack of knowledge. “Those people don’t get divorced… it’s against their religion. They get married at twenty-one, and that’s it.” He laughs. “They’re stuck for life.”
“They get married at twenty-one?” Calvin asks, probably thinking about how many failed marriages he might have if he had started that early. “What if they don’t have anyone to marry?”
Dave laughs. “That hasn’t seemed to stop them so far.”
“Do they have to get married?” I ask.
He shrugs. “You got that right.”
“Why? Who makes them?” I ask.
“I don’t know for sure, but I think that guy they call the Keeper wants ’em to, so they do.”
“Amazing,” Calvin says.
“You got that right,” Dave says. “When that guy talks, those people would suck the Kool-Aid up with a straw, you know?”
I’m continuously being surprised by things I learn about that town. I’ve heard of religions prohibiting divorce, but dictating marriage by a certain age is outside of my experience. Of course, I’ve never let a spinning wheel or a guy in a dress dictate my life choices. I’d like to have the straw concession in Center City.
I roughly outline what Dave’s responsibilities would be if he takes on this job, which is basically to follow up whatever leads we give him, and report back to us. I tell him that anything he learns is confidential, since as a member of the legal team he falls under the attorney-client privilege. He looks at me as if I’m a dope for thinking he wouldn’t already know that.
Dave accepts the job, asking for a salary far less than I would pay an investigator back home. I give him a retainer and tell him we’ll contact him when we have a specific assignment, and he seems happy with that. I’m not sure we’ll actually need him, but it’s good to have him in reserve.
Calvin and I head over to the jail to see Jeremy. I like to meet with my clients fairly frequently, though it’s more for their benefit than mine. They usually tell me all that they know early on, so these subsequent sessions are not often helpful to the defense. However, they do seem reassuring to the client even when the news is not particularly positive. It must be the security of knowing that somebody is on their side, working on their behalf.