“Not until I do,” I say, suddenly remembering that I’m a lawyer here, not a co-conspirator.
Smotherton shakes his head. If looks could kill.
“How’d you get in the apartment?”
“I used my key.”
“What’d you do when you got inside?”
“Went to the bedroom and started packing clothes. I filled three or four pillowcases with my things, and hauled a bunch of stuff to the den.”
“How long were you there before Mr. Riker came home?”
“Ten minutes, maybe.”
“What happened then?”
I interrupt at this point. “She’s not gonna answer that until I’ve had a chance to talk to her and investigate this matter. This interrogation is now over.” I reach across and push the red Stop button on the recorder. Smotherton simmers for a minute as he reviews his notes. Hamlet returns with the printout, and they study it together. Kelly and I ignore each other. Our feet, though, touch under the table.
Smotherton writes something on a sheet of paper and hands it to me. “This will be treated as a homicide, but it’ll go to Domestic Abuse in the prosecutor’s office. Lady’s name there is Morgan Wilson. She’ll handle things from here.”
“But you’re booking her?”
“I have no choice. I can’t just let her go.”
“On what charges?”
“Manslaughter.”
“You can release her to my custody.”
“No I can’t,” he answers angrily. “What kinda lawyer are you?”
“Then release her on recognizance.”
“Won’t work,” he says, with a frustrated smile at Hamlet. “We got a dead body here. Bond has to be set by a judge. You talk him into ROR, then she walks. I’m just a humble detective.”
“I’m going to jail?” Kelly says.
“We have no choice, ma’am,” Smotherton says, suddenly much nicer. “If your lawyer here is worth his salt, he’ll get you out sometime tomorrow. That is, if you can post bond. But I can’t just release you because I want to.”
I reach across and take her hand. “It’s okay, Kelly. I’ll get you out tomorrow, as soon as possible.” She nods quickly, grits her teeth, tries to be strong.
“Can you put her in a private cell?” I ask Smotherton.
“Look, asshole, I don’t run the jail, okay? You gotta better way to do things, then go talk to the jailers. They love to hear from lawyers.”
Don’t provoke me, buddy. I’ve already cracked one skull tonight. We glare hatefully at each other. “Thanks,” I say.
“Don’t mention it.” He and Hamlet kick their chairs back and stomp toward the door. “You got five minutes,” he says over his shoulder. They slam the door.
“Don’t make any moves, okay,” I say under my breath. “They’re watching through that window. And this place is probably bugged, so be careful what you say.”
She doesn’t say anything.
I continue in my role as the lawyer. “I’m sorry this happened,” I say stiffly.
“What does manslaughter mean?”
“Means a lot of things, but basically it’s murder without the element of intent.”
“How much time could I get?”
“You have to be convicted first, and that’s not going to happen.”
“Promise?”
“I promise. Are you scared?”
She carefully wipes her eyes, and thinks for a long time. “He has a large family, and they’re all just like him. All heavy-drinking, violent men. I’m scared to death of them.”
I can’t think of anything to say to this. I’m scared of them too.
“They can’t make me go to the funeral, can they?”
“No.”
“Good.”
They come for her a few minutes later, and this time they use handcuffs. I watch them lead her down the hall. They stop at an elevator, and Kelly strains around one of the cops to see me. I wave slowly, then she’s gone.
Fifty-two
When you commit a murder you make twenty-five mistakes. If you can think of ten of them, then you’re a genius. At least that’s what I heard in a movie once. It wasn’t actually a murder but more of an act of self-defense. The mistakes, though, are beginning to add up.
I pace around my desk at the office, which is covered with neat rows of yellow legal paper. I’ve diagrammed the apartment, the body, the clothes, the gun, the bat, the beer cans, everything that I can remember. I’ve sketched the position of my car, her car and his truck in the parking lot. I’ve written pages recalling every step and every event of the evening. My best guess is that I was in the apartment for less than fifteen minutes but on paper it looks like a thin novel. How many screams or yells that were capable of being heard from the outside? No more than four, I think. How many neighbors saw a strange man leave just after the screams? Who knows.
That, I think, was mistake number one. I shouldn’t have left so soon. I should have waited for ten minutes or so to see if the neighbors heard anything. Then I should have eased into the darkness.
Or maybe I should have called the cops and told the truth. Kelly and I had every right to be in the apartment. It’s obvious he was lying in ambush somewhere nearby at a time when he should have been elsewhere. I was well within my rights to fight back, to disarm him and to hit him with his own weapon. Given his violent nature and history, no jury in the world would convict me. Plus, the only other witness would be squarely on my side.
So why didn’t I stay? She was pushing me out of the door for one thing, and it just seemed like the best course of action. Who can think rationally when, in the span of fifteen seconds, you go from being brutally attacked to being a killer?
Mistake number two was the lie about her car. I drove through the parking lot after I left the police station, and found her Volkswagen Rabbit and his four-wheel-drive pickup. This lie will work if no one tells the cops that her car hasn’t been moved in days.
But what if Cliff and a friend somehow disabled her car while she was at the shelter, and this friend comes forth in a few hours and talks to the cops? My imagination runs wild.
The worst mistake that’s hit me in the past four hours is the lie about the phone call Kelly allegedly made to me after she dialed 911. This was my excuse for being at the police station so quick. It’s an incredibly stupid lie because there is no record of the call. If the cops check the phone records, I’m in serious trouble.
Other mistakes pop up as the night wears on. Fortunately, most are the result of a scared mind, most go away after careful analysis and sufficient scribbling on the legal pad.
I allow Deck to sleep until five before I wake him. An hour later he’s at the office with coffee. I give him my version of the story, and his initial response is beautiful. “No jury in the world will convict her,” he says, without a doubt.
“The trial is one thing,” I say. “Getting her out of jail is another.”
We formulate a plan. I need records — arrest reports, court files, medical records and a copy of their first divorce filing. Deck can’t wait to gather the dirt. At seven, Deck goes out for more coffee and a newspaper.
The story is on page three of Metro, a brief three paragraphs with no photo of the deceased. It happened too late last night to be much of a story. WIFE ARRESTED IN HUSBAND’S DEATH is the headline, but Memphis has three of these a month. If I wasn’t searching for it I wouldn’t see it.
I call Butch and raise him from the dead. He’s a late-nighter, single after three divorces, and likes to close down bars. I tell him that his pal Cliff Riker has met an untimely death, and this seems to perk him up. He’s at the office shortly after eight, and I explain that I want him to scour the area around the apartment and see if anybody saw or heard anything. See if the cops are on the scene doing the same thing. Butch cuts me off. He’s the investigator. He knows what to do.