Ali better not share any of this after I’ve escaped.
Suddenly I’m glad my mom won’t be there.
I do what I’ve been doing the most of lately—I wait, and I try to be positive. I try not to think about my auntie and I try to focus on a positive future, but sometimes, in a place like this, thinking positive thoughts is just so, so hard to do.
Chapter Thirty
“This is bullshit,” Schroder says.
“I agree. This is bullshit,” Wellington, says. “This deal you’re bringing him, this is no good for my client.”
“You don’t even want to defend this case,” Schroder says. “So why make this difficult?”
“You’re right, I don’t want to defend him, but I’m going to do the best I can for him because that’s the job, you know that. If you killed somebody, Detective, I’d do my best to represent you too.”
“What do you mean by that?” Schroder asks.
“What do I mean by what?”
“That if I killed somebody?”
“Just how it sounds. If you killed somebody and hired me, you’d want to know I’d do all I could. If I didn’t, who would hire me again?”
“Okay,” Schroder says.
“Anyway, I’m not the one making it difficult,” Wellington says. “It’s Joe.”
Both men are still in the interview room at the prison. Schroder hates it in here. The room smells. And it’s cold. And it’s depressing. And Wellington has just made a good point.
“He’s asking for something I can’t help arrange,” Schroder says.
“And if we do arrange it,” Wellington says, “it goes against what’s best for my client. There is no way we can have a police escort to the body, and then try to convince a jury Joe had no idea where it was.”
Schroder agrees. “And there’s no way we can have a police escort, then have Jones use his psychic abilities to find the body.”
They’re going around in circles. The deal isn’t going to happen. Jonas won’t get to show off his body-finding abilities. Schroder’s not going to get his bonus. Joe won’t get his money. And Detective Inspector Robert Calhoun isn’t going to be going home. Schroder doesn’t care about the first three things, but the fourth one is important to him. It’s been important since Calhoun went missing. Important enough for him to still be in this room trying to figure out a way to make Joe’s life easier.
“How does it feel?” Wellington asks. “Working for a guy like that?”
Schroder winces at the question. The way Wellington asks it makes it pretty obvious what Wellington’s views are. It makes Schroder think everybody must be feeling the same way. Yet despite it all, Jonas is doing well for himself. Not everybody can hate him. “Probably about the same as it must feel defending Joe,” Schroder says.
Wellington slowly nods. “That bad, huh?”
“Look,” Schroder says, “I know you don’t want him to take this deal, I see that, but Detective Calhoun deserves to be returned. That’s what we have to focus on here. He was a cop, damn it, a good cop, and like any cop he deserves a proper burial, he deserves to be mourned and remembered as something other than the policeman who disappeared and never came back.”
Wellington says nothing as he takes it all in, and Schroder is reminded of how quickly this guy thinks, of how far ahead he really is.
“There has to be a way,” Schroder adds.
“There is no way,” Wellington says. “As soon as we involve the police Jones doesn’t get his deal.”
Schroder gets up and starts pacing the room. Wellington watches him. He starts running different scenarios through his head. If he were still a cop, this would be a whole lot easier. But if he were a cop, he wouldn’t be coming to Joe with a deal that gives a serial killer fifty thousand dollars. The cops aren’t going to get Calhoun’s location from Joe. They’ve tried. The prosecution has tried.
The only way to get that location is to pay him.
And the only way Joe will tell them is to show them.
And the only way Joe can show them is if it doesn’t involve the police.
And that’s just not going to happen.
“I’ll try working on him,” Wellington says. “See if he can just tell us the location. I mean, if he doesn’t tell you, he doesn’t get the money, and that’s why he’s doing this. I think he really believes he’s going to be going free after the trial.”
Schroder turns and leans against the wall. He stares at Wellington. An idea is coming to him. He just has to work at it for a few more moments. “And what do you think?”
Wellington shrugs, but then gives his view. “I think the very fact he thinks he’s going free, and the fact he thinks everybody is believing what he’s saying, may just prove he really is completely insane.”
The idea is close now. Schroder can see it stretching out ahead of him. He just has to follow the path and shore up the crossroads. He pushes himself off from the wall and sits down opposite the lawyer. “What if,” he says, then doesn’t follow it up. He’s staring at the wall, at the cinder block, but really he’s on the path and checking that the angles all line up.
Wellington doesn’t interrupt him.
“What if,” Schroder says again, and yes, yes this might work. “What if we make two deals? We stick with our deal. The people I work for pay Joe his money for the location of Detective Calhoun.”
“Okay. And what’s deal two?”
“We go to the prosecution and we ask for immunity for Joe on what happened to Detective Calhoun. We all know he didn’t kill him. He buried him, sure, and he probably set up the circumstances and no doubt he would have killed him anyway, but we have Joe on all these other homicides. Pinning Calhoun on him isn’t going to make a difference. Technically we don’t need him on this one.”
We. He hears himself saying the word. Once a cop, always a cop. At least according to those who are no longer cops. To everybody else he’s just a pain in the ass.
“Technically,” Wellington says, nodding. “I don’t think too many people would be happy hearing that.”
“I’m not even happy saying it,” Schroder says.
“I think I can pretty much tell you the prosecution won’t go for it.”
Schroder gets up and starts pacing again. “We ask for immunity, and in exchange for it we offer to give them the location of Calhoun’s body. They still have plenty to convict Joe with, so there’s no reason for them to say no. They get Calhoun back. It’s a win-win situation. Two deals. And Joe gets his one hour of freedom in which to show them the body.”
Wellington sits still and Schroder can see him absorbing the information. He’s churning it over in his four-hundred-dollar-an-hour head. “It might work.”
“It will work,” Schroder says.
“It might. The other problem is the police aren’t going to be too keen about leaving the body where they find it for your boss to come along and take the credit.”
“First of all, he’s not my boss,” Schroder says. “And second of all, they will go for it if it means bringing home one of their own.”
Wellington almost laughs. “You’re kidding, right?”
“No.”
Wellington shakes his head. “There is no way they’re going to go for that. This is real life, Carl, not one of your TV shows. The police aren’t a tool for Jonas Jones and the TV network.”
“I know that.”
“Then why suggest otherwise?”
“Because it’s the only way we’re going to get Calhoun back,” Schroder says.
“No,” he says. “And you know what? I’m not even going to suggest it. I go in there with that idea, and I get laughed back out. Nobody will take me seriously again. There isn’t one cop on the force who would want to help out Jonas Jones.”