LeTonya Hughes sighed and shook her head as the short arm of the Jaeger-Lecoultre Atmos clock on her desk swung into the territory beyond the "I". Her husband was running late, and that meant more work for her... as per usual.
When he eventually sauntered his portly frame through the door and into the lobby of his office, he would claim that his case was called last -- or that the judge was long-winded, or that there was bad traffic, or some other damned thing. She wouldn't believe anything he said, but she would have to accept whichever he claimed as his excuse this time, because it really didn't matter anyway.
All of the extra work it would mean (for her) would have to be done regardless of what had detained him. Whether the excuse he invoked was valid (and it generally wasn't) or whether he had just decided that life should operate on his time, at his whim, she would just have to smile and do the work... as per usual.
Miraculously, though, somehow -- in the face of what he would claim were the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune -- he would have found the time to waltz his big black-ass into the deli on 5th and Main to pick up a couple of Reubens, which he would be carrying with him in a greasy paper sack. She would remind him that he's supposed to be on a diet, per his doctor's orders, and he would smile and admit that he did need to be on one, but it would have to start tomorrow, as he had already purchased the sandwiches. Waste not, want not, he would say. Then, in an attempt to deflect her attention, he would stop to admire the seven-thousand-dollar clock on her desk (which she thought was garish, by the way) and marvel at the fact that it required no winding or electricity to operate.
Thinking only about himself and how much time he could devote to those sandwiches, he would ask her what his afternoon looked like. As she rattled off all of his appointments -- appointments that he himself had scheduled -- he would act like she must be crazy for having so terribly overbooked his day.
At his request, she would push back all of the appointments scheduled before two-thirty -- cancelling those that couldn't be adjusted -- and the day that had been slated to end at five o'clock would stretch on until at least seven or eight... as per usual.
On most days, that was fine... this was, after all, his practice; his business. It put good food on the table, nice clothes on the children's backs and that god-awful looking Atmos paperweight on the rich mahogany desk at which she sat.
On those days, though, they didn't have an invitation to what promised to be the most incredible, sensational, absolutely fabulous dinner party that Indiana had ever seen at eight o'clock. On those days, there was no plan to visit the exclusive estate of Forrest and Chantel Woodard -- a grown-up's Neverland.
LeTonya had met Chantel at the nail salon (where she went every week, despite her husband's never ending chagrin at the mere suggestion that she might spend a whole fifty-bucks on something so trivial), where the two commiserated for the better part of an afternoon on the inherent suffering of the working lawyer's wife. They proved to be soul-sisters; kindred spirits who were completing each-other's sentences within minutes of meeting and swapping stories that were all too familiar to both of them. Now, they met regularly just to talk -- and talk they did.
The stories Chantel told were much more interesting than those that LeTonya had, however, because Forrest Woodard worked in entertainment law. As a result, Chantel could drop the names of NFL, NBA and R&B music personalities into her anecdotes with an ease that left LeTonya seeing stars.
The party this evening was to celebrate something big -- maybe it was the couple's anniversary, or Forrest's birthday, or some holiday that only the super-rich know about -- she couldn't remember, she had been so excited about it that the occasion had slipped her mind. Whatever it was, the date had something to do with it because it was a Thursday, and who the hell has a massive dinner shindig on a Thursday? Whatever it was, it was gonna be big. So big, in fact, that a whole roster of the who's who in the entertainment industry was going to be there -- including Diana F'ing Ross who was in town to perform a show this weekend!
Well Touch Me in the Morning, It's My Turn Love Child, and Ain't No Mountain High Enough 'cuz I'm Coming Out my Endless Love! The Hughes' weren't going to miss this party, no sir! They were going to roll up on that big house at eight o'clock sharp, no matter what excuse Donnell tried to cook up to get out of it. Come Hell or high water, LeTonya Hughes was gonna meet Miss Ross and sip Cristal from diamond-studded Calleija flutes before the sun went down this night!
She was gonna do the Electric Slide side-by-side with Paul George and Kobe Bryant, rub elbows with that gorgeous corn-fed white boy Eli Manning and sing Take Me To The River with R Kelly. She was gonna eat crab, fresh fruit, prime rib and the finest collard greens that money can by until she felt like she might burst at the seams. It would be her reward for all the hard work she put in... dragging Donnell through law school, slaving over a hot stove to build up his rotund physique, and for making all of those goddamned phone calls to adjust his schedule so that he could coast through life on his own timetable -- as per usual.
...and anything he would try to do, or to say, that might make them arrive even a single, solitary second after the hands of his hideous, useless, self-indulgent clock clicked into place over the hour of eight PM? Well... like her coffee mug says, ain't nobody got time for that!
The office phone rang as she took a sip from the aforementioned mug, the display flashing restricted caller with no number underneath. Little did whomever it was know, today, restricted caller was French for go take a hike, because she wasn't trying to hear anything but grab your purse, honey, and let's get on down the road. Restricted Caller would just have to call back later, because LeTonya was already at the party munching on Club crackers piled high with Petrossian Imerial Special Reserve Persicus Caviar and chasing them with pork rinds.
It was probably just another dead-beat criminal calling, anyway. He would say he still couldn't send a payment towards his overdue balance, which was probably already in collections. If not that, it would be a prospective client... one with bad credit, no collateral and no hope in Hell of ever paying a red cent for the services he sought from her husband. She hated those people... hated that Donnell always took them on, knowing full well that they couldn't afford a court-appointed public defender who was free, let alone a well-respected homicide lawyer whose wife had aspirations of some day hosting such hedonistic parties as the one they were going to attend this evening.
How would they ever get the keys to that ten-million dollar mansion on the lake if he kept taking cases that cost hundreds of hours of work and paid in no more than a modest stipend of twenty or forty dollars a month? Shit, cases like that were gonna buy them a one-way ticket back to the trailer park her husband had grown up in... and ain't nobody got time for that for sure. She was doing the two of them a favor by not answering that phone, Donnell just didn't know it.
It was almost one-thirty according to that shitty clock (which she swore was slow, sometimes) before the door to the hallway finally swung open and all five feet, nine inches of her husband's three-hundred pounds marched in. His bald head was glistening with sweat, which he promptly wiped away with a handkerchief retrieved from a pocket inside his suit coat. If he had an inhaler in there, he would've taken a puff at that, too, because the walk in had obviously been an effort based on his labored breathing. He seemed to be making a show of putting the hanky back where it came from, as though to seek her approval of the fact that the hand not carrying his attach? case was otherwise empty.
"Mmmm hm," she declared matter-of-factly. "That's all well and good, but there's a trail of Thousand Island running down each side of your jacket -- so I know you already ate at least two of those sandwiches!"
The man stopped where he stood, setting down his briefcase and smiling an I'm busted smile. "Wow," he said, pointing to her desk. "Isn't that an Atmos clock? The kind that runs on atmoshperic pressure -- no batteries, no plug? Gee, that clock is out of sight, wher
e'd you get it?"
"You're running behind... again," she admonished.
"Yeah," he sighed. "The judge spent all morning meeting with somebody in chambers, so my case didn't even get called until it was almost lunch."
"Did your client take the plea they offered?"
"What's that, sweetie?" Donnell asked, moving to the water cooler in the corner.
"The plea-bargain you worked out for him, did he take it?"
"Oh, no," he explained, filling a paper cup. "He wants to try for an insanity defense."
She shrugged. "He seemed pretty sane to me when he was in here whining about how he would still be loose if his buddy hadn't sold him out!"
"Yeah, you know these guys," he said, taking a sip. "Facing life without parole, any opportunity for a break seems like a good one."
"Did his mother give you a check for the retainer?"
"Oh," he chirped feigning ignorance, the way he always did. "We didn't get the retainer from them at consultation?"
"Noooo, I told you that this morning, before you left. They claimed they didn't have it just then, but they were supposed to have it today!"
"Well, I'll just get it from them at the jury selection -- which is set for November 1st, by the way."
"Nine AM?"
"You know it, sugar!" he smiled, winking at her as he pitched his cup and retrieved his attach?.
She swirled the mouse around on her desk to wake up her computer, then opened his calendar to make an entry -- and to get a look at which appointments she would have to adjust due to his having spent so much time wolfing down seven-dollar sandwiches that his blood-pressure couldn't afford.
"What's the rest of my day look like?" he asked, right on cue.
"Well," she replied, scrolling through the listings. "You've got a consultation at -- now, but apparently they're not coming since I don't see them around here anywhere... a teleconference with Wilmer Laporta at two, a consultation at two-thirty and another at three, then depositions in the Omar Timlin case down at county at four, four-thirty and five."
"Timlin, Timlin," he muttered in a feeble attempt to jog his memory.
"He's the one that beat his mother to death with a garden spade."
Donnell winced, raising his eyebrows and cocking his head to the side. "Allegedly beat his mother to death with a garden spade," he corrected her.
"Right," she conceded, rolling her eyes. "Could be he used a full-size shovel."
Donnell frowned, both at her response and at the schedule she had laid out for him. "See if you can reschedule those consultations, Wilmer and I need to talk about the witnesses he wants to call, and I don't know how long it's going to take. Maybe we can push those depositions back to start at four-thirty, just in case."
"Nuh-uh," she exclaimed, knowing just what this would lead to. "No, no, no -- not today, no sir!". Her husband's face was overcome with surprise at her outburst, which only angered her further. "You know we need to be across town by eight, and we need time to get dressed! With traffic the way it's been, that means we need to be leaving here by six o'clock, no later!"
"Across town by eight? What's at eight?"
LeTonya threw up her palm (talk to the hand) in frustration. "Donnell," she began, trying to keep cool. "You know we've got that dinner party tonight --"
"Whoa," he tried to calm her, raising his own hand as though to signal her to stop and waiving it towards the ground in a futile effort to get her to step it down. It was too late, he had already started her going.
"...and we're gonna get there right--on--time!"
"Okay," he tried again.
"Now I don't wanna hear no guff, no bull, no but honeys, no --" she continued, counting her charges out on her fingers.
"Okay!" "--
"...excuses, no nonsense, no flak out of your mouth! You know how important this is to me, and I'm not gonna be late on account of your foolery!"
"Okay, honey," he continued once she'd stopped, still waiving like he was trying to cool her jets with his fanning. "Just calm right down, forget I said anything, and e-mail me the information for the telecon and I promise we'll get there right on time -- okay?"
She said nothing; just glared at him. He took the cue, lowering his hand one last time and inching his way towards his office carefully, cautiously... never breaking eye-contact with her in case this was the time she decided to jump him. Once he crossed the threshold, he closed the door behind him and collapsed against it. Relieved at having escaped, he drew the handkerchief again and dabbed it on his brow.
"Who the hell has a dinner party on a Thursday?" he wondered, reasonably.
Taking no chances, he flipped the lock on the doorknob up and jiggled the handle to be sure it was secure. Convinced he was safe, for the moment, he set his briefcase on his desk and melted into his plush leather computer chair.
Tapping the space bar lit his monitor, revealing his crowded and unorganized desktop. He scanned the icons for the beige one marked Outlook and double-clicked to open his mail-box. There were many bold entries that indicated new messages he needed to sift through before he had to dial into the telecon.
Spinning the wheel of his mouse, he tried to triage those that needed his immediate attention and those that he could try to read while Wilmer was rambling about why he felt it was important to put his former supervisor on the stand as a character witness for him. It wouldn't matter much anyway, Wilmer was guilty as sin, but the detectives working his case had botched it. A t not crossed here, an i not dotted there, leading a witness and an unlawful search and seizure -- nothing too terribly out of the ordinary, but enough. Their mistakes would prove fatal to the prosecution, it was a shoe-in. Wilmer would walk even if they didn't call anyone to the stand, it was all just window-dressing in the grand scheme of things.
A win on a technicality wasn't necessarily ideal in Donnell's eyes, but he would take it... had taken it on several occasions before. To him, such things were simply the inevitable hallmarks of the justice system as it is designed. All else being equal, the burden of proving guilt was supposed to rest squarely on the shoulders of the district attorney and the state -- and there was a clearly defined set of rules under which they were expected to carry out that duty.
Perhaps there would be greater justice in a society that shoots first and asks questions later; a world that would do away with the pseudo-wins he had enjoyed so many of throughout his career. In a society such as that, though, sans due process, the blood of the innocent and the guilty alike would be on the hands of every citizen -- and they would have to be comfortable with the blood's existence. In the out, damned spot world that men have built, however, the gloves of those charged with prosecuting the accused must be squeaky clean and beyond reproach.
As it happened, in the case of Wilmer Laporta, that simply wasn't how it had gone. As a result, a killer would go free... but perhaps, thanks to the diligence of Donnell and attorneys like him in making sure the process was followed just as it was designed, the next guy -- who was truly innocent -- would be free of the shackles that a persecutory justice system would otherwise place him in. Clinging to that notion allowed him to sleep at night... he hoped it wasn't contrived.
When it came to the e-mail, he could tell right away that there wasn't much of substance to see in his box. There was one message, though, buried deep among the clutter, that caught his attention; sitting wedged between spam that warned it was the last day for him to save up to eighty-percent on Viagra and a message from his mother. The subject line read URGENT: Donnell please call, and an L in a blue circle appeared next to text that said the message was from Louis.
"Louie Rambo?" he wondered aloud, clicking to open the message. When a window expanded to show the entirety of the text, he saw that his feeling had been correct. At the bottom, the message had been signed Deputy Louis Rambo, Elsmere CPD, and it was not the sort of wordy legal mumbo-jumbo communique he typically found in his inbox.
>
DONNELL, it read in all caps. I THOUGHT YOU SHOULD SEE THIS. I TRIED TO CALL JAKE BUT HIS BUSINESS NUMBER IS DISCONNECTED. MAYBE YOU HAVE HIS PERSONAL CELL? PLEASE CALL ASAP.
Below the text was a blue hyper-link, referencing the Elsmere Monitor -- a newspaper that served the county of his hometown. He clicked it, Firefox opening in response and splashing an article across his screen. At the top was a headline in bold, dramatic type declaring Police make arrest in murder of local boy; claim correlation with "Butcher Of Burlwood" killings unlikely.
"Ho-ly shit," he mumbled to himself, a flood of memories rushing through his mind at the sight of a phrase he hadn't considered in nearly twenty years. Shaking off his momentary distraction, he began to read the article, which had been posted the day before.
Elsmere County Sheriff Ronald Boudreaux announced yesterday that his office had served a warrant for the arrest of a suspect in the murder of William Marsh, 9, of Burlwood. Marsh was last seen on July 24th, and his dismembered remains were discovered floating in a pond behind the Burlwood Meadows trailer park on the 26th.
The suspect, Charles Murphy, 38, also of Burlwood --
"Chucky?" Donnell gasped, continuing.
-- was arrested at his home in Burlwood Meadows yesterday morning in the culmination of an investigation that Boudreaux says has been his department's "number one priority" since the remains were discovered.
The murder touched a raw nerve in the small town of Burlwood, rekindling the fear that gripped residents in the period between 1990 & 1994, when a string of grisly murders were committed by a killer dubbed "The Butcher Of Burlwood". All of "The Butcher's" victims were between the ages of 8 & 12, and their remains similarly dismembered.
In a special address, Boudreaux acted to assuage fears that "The Butcher" has resurfaced to continue his bloody reign by stressing his belief that this was a one-off crime not connected in any way to those of the past. Murphy is being held at the Elsmere County jail and is expected to be arraigned on charges of 1st degree murder, kidnapping, torture and mutilation of a corpse within the next several days.
Sheriff Boudreaux also renewed his call for anyone with information pertaining to the case to report it to either his office or to crime-stoppers, no matter how insignificant the details of that information may seem.
Barely believing what he read, Donnell went through it all again... trying to absorb and process the words that seemed so entirely surreal and abstract to him. Reaching for his phone with his eyes still glued to the screen, he knocked the handset from its cradle. Yanking at it blindly to untangle the cord, he minimized Firefox and scanned the original e-mail for Louie's number.
Before he could dial it, though, he pressed the Intercom - Lobby button and made a pre-requisite declaration. "LeTonya -- clear my schedule."
TWO