“I’ll just keep asking for continuances,” I say. “And even if we win, I’ll ask for a penalty phase, just for fun, to see what would have happened.”
She smiles groggily. “Good boy.”
• • • • •
THE PHONE WAKES us just before midnight. I answer it, and an official-sounding voice I don’t recognize asks for “Acting Chief Collins.” That’s quite a coincidence, since at this very moment I’m sleeping with an Acting Chief Collins. It’s a requirement for Acting Chief Collins and all other officers that they leave word as to where they can be reached at all times. It must be somewhat uncomfortable for her to have to leave my number, but she has done so.
I hand the phone to Laurie, whose voice sounds wide awake and does not betray the fact that she has been sleeping. “Collins here.”
She listens for a few moments, then says, “I’ll be right there.” She hangs up and immediately starts to get dressed. I like watching her get dressed; it’s my second favorite thing to watch, with her getting undressed maintaining a comfortable lead in first place.
“What happened?” I ask.
“Some kind of traffic accident. Car on Highway 11 went off the road.”
“And the chief has to go out to handle a traffic accident?”
She shrugs. “It’s a small town, Andy. And it must be a bad accident.”
Laurie’s out of the house within ten minutes, and I’m back asleep within eleven. As I doze off, I realize that I might not be a good chief of police. If I got woken up by a call informing me of a traffic accident, I would tell them to call AAA and I’d go back to sleep.
The clock says that I’ve been asleep for two hours when I hear Laurie come back into the house. She hadn’t said she was coming back, and I’m pleased that she chose to. I slide over to give her room to get into bed when I realize the person entering the house could be Marcus. I slide back, just in case.
I turn on the light and am relieved to see that it is Laurie entering the bedroom. That relief is short-lived when I see her face; I know this woman well, and I know that something is wrong. Horribly wrong.
“Andy, I’ve got something to tell you,” she says.
“What is it? What’s the matter?”
“It’s Calvin Marshall. He’s dead.”
Her words hit me like a punch in the side of the head. A punch so jarring it feels like it could have been thrown by Marcus. “How?” is the longest sentence I can muster.
“Get dressed,” she says. “I’ll tell you on the way.”
“On the way where?”
“To the scene.”
Once we’re in the car, Laurie says, “His car went off the road and down an embankment. His neck was apparently snapped on impact.”
“I see,” I say, even though I don’t.
“You think that might be too easy an explanation?” she asks.
I nod. “Perhaps a tad.”
“You don’t believe in coincidences? You don’t think it’s likely that a lawyer investigating a recent murder who is himself suddenly killed might be the victim of a tragic accident?”
“I don’t,” I say, “and you don’t either.”
“Why do you say that?” she asks.
“Because you’re taking me to the scene. You think I should see it, which means you don’t think it’s an accident.”
We’re quiet the rest of the way, which is a relief. I need to clear my head, to push aside the pain as best I can, and to think.
The place where Calvin’s car went off the road is twenty minutes west of Findlay, about ten minutes from the town of Carwell. As we approach, I see Laurie sag, as the sadness hits her in waves. “I’ve known Calvin since I was a kid,” she says.
“I’ve only known him a few weeks,” I say. “But it didn’t take long to know he was funny and smart and a lunatic, and a good guy to be around. I really liked him.”
The scene of Calvin’s death is still a busy place. I count four state police cars, one Findlay police car besides Laurie’s, an ambulance, a county coroner van, and two tow trucks.
We get out, and Laurie leads me down to where Calvin’s car went off the road. It’s not a particularly treacherous turn, and although it’s only partially lit, I don’t see skid marks. I assume Calvin hadn’t been drinking-he was smarter than that-so it doesn’t seem a very likely place for an accident.
Laurie notices me noticing this. “Strange, huh?” she asks, not really expecting an answer. “Come on.”
She leads me down to where Calvin’s car landed. The coroner’s people are in the process of removing his body, which I studiously manage to look away from. I’m squeamish in general, but particularly so when it comes to criminal defense attorneys dying in the course of doing their jobs. And even more particularly when those criminal defense attorneys are close friends.
“Is your coroner competent to handle this?” I ask, even though Dr. Peters-Clem-seemed knowledgeable when he testified at the hearing.
Laurie shakes her head. “Not really. So we ask the local veterinarian, Doc McCoy, to help out. And if he’s not in, the pharmacist takes care of it.” She stares at me. “Asshole.”
I look around from the outskirts of the scene as Laurie goes off and confers with the state cops. It gives me more time to reflect on the tragedy of Calvin’s death and how much I’m going to miss him.
It also gives me a chance to do some well-deserved self-flagellation. I called in Marcus to protect myself from the people that seemed to violently want to avenge the murders of the two girls. Probably because the break-in and the hanging figure were at my house, I assumed I was the target. It didn’t enter my self-centered mind that Calvin was also Jeremy’s lawyer and that he might need protection as well. And now he’s dead, his neck broken, while I had a nice dinner and then snuggled up in bed with Laurie.
The more I think about it, the more I’m literally in danger of throwing up.
Laurie spends another half hour making sure that things are handled correctly. She and the state cops are treating it as a crime scene, even though that hasn’t been close to being scientifically established. But it eventually will be established; I have no doubt about that.
Laurie drives me back home, and it’s about five o’clock in the morning when we get there. She’s going to her office to do some paperwork, so she just drops me off. As I’m getting out of the car, she takes my hand and holds it, for maybe thirty seconds, and we are completely connected, sharing the sadness that we both feel.
I enter the house, and Tara comes over and nuzzles her head against me. She has an unerring ability to know when I need comforting; unfortunately, this time it’s an assignment that even she can’t handle.
I go into the kitchen to make myself a drink, and I see that the phone machine is flashing, telling me that I have a message. It could have come in at any time; I never checked it when I got home from the restaurant with Laurie.
I press play, and with the first words I get a chill down my spine. The voice belongs to Calvin.
“Hey, hotshot. You’re probably out doing whatever the hell you bilegged people do to have fun. Well, don’t worry, ’cause I’m on the case. I’ve got a lead on our boy Eddie, and I was gonna let you come watch a master in action. I’ll call and update you when I get back.”
Calvin never updated me because he never got back. He died following a lead, working on our case, while I was out having dinner. And he probably got his neck broken for his trouble, just about the time I was having dessert.
Sometimes I make myself sick.
• • • • •
THE FUNERAL SERVICE to honor Calvin attracts just about everyone in Findlay, Lester Chapman being a notable exception. Calvin’s family consisted only of one brother, who has flown in from California, and he and five of Calvin’s closest friends tell humorous and poignant anecdotes about his life.