Cactus Island, A Stan Turner Mystery Vol 8

CHAPTER 47

  THE TRAP

  Depression set in with a vengeance the weekend before Cheryl's trial. I couldn't believe I'd be sitting mute next to Stan for the duration of the trial. It was the second time I'd been working on a high profile murder case only to be pulled off because of bogus allegations brought against me. The first time I was set up on hit and run charges. Eventually the truth came out and I was cleared, but only after I'd suffered immeasurable emotional distress and was forced to be a spectator at the trial. Now here I was again having to worry about another criminal indictment while my client was on trial. Practicing law wasn't supposed to be this way. I was supposed to be the defense counsel, not the accused.

  A late norther blew through Dallas on Saturday, March 2, 1991 and left behind a thin blanket of snow. The clouds had gone by Sunday night, so the thermometer plummeted to the low 20s by Monday morning. I didn't much like cold weather and the freezing temperatures just exacerbated my depression and general bitterness over my bad fortune. Only with a lot of prodding from Bart did I manage to get up, shake off my general malaise, and get out the door by 8:00 a.m.

  Fortunately the press hadn't taken nearly the interest in the Martin Windsor case as they had in Steven Caldwell's. It was nice to be able to enter the courthouse without being barraged by questions from a bunch of reporters. Only two reporters approached me when I walked in the basement of the courthouse, and one of them was my friend Jane Witherspoon.

  "Paula," Jane said. "How are you feeling today?"

  "Frozen," I replied. "It's not supposed to be this cold in Texas."

  "Tell me about it. I've already complained to our weather people. . . . How is your client feeling this morning?"

  "I haven't seen her yet. She's probably upstairs with Stan right now. She was really nervous last night, which is understandable, but she's confident in our judicial system."

  "Are you disappointed that you won't be handling Cheryl's defense?"

  "Yes. Extremely disappointed, but I know my partner will do a good job, so that's what's important."

  "Do you still believe Martin Windsor is alive?" the other reporter asked.

  I looked at him, wondering if I should respond. We generally didn't discuss our defense strategy with the press, but it might be a good idea to get people thinking about the possibility that Martin might be alive, and Wilkerson already knew that would be our strategy, so it wasn't like I was revealing a deep dark secret. I decided to answer the question. "Yes. We're quite sure he's alive. My client didn't kidnap her own children and liquidate assets she didn't even know existed. Only Martin Windsor could have done that."

  With the seed planted, I thanked both of them, stepped into the elevator and pushed the button for the sixth floor. I anticipated the elevator stopping on the first floor to pick up more passengers and when it opened, I looked out onto a herd of eager faces anxious to get wherever they were going. Amongst the throng I saw a face that sent a chill down my spine. It was the Vanishing Man. There were several bodies between us and we didn't make eye contact. The door opened on the fourth floor and several people got out and several stepped in. When we got to the sixth floor he was closer to the door, so he exited before me. Since he knew me, I hesitated so he wouldn't see me, then stepped out and looked around for him. I wanted to know where he was going, so I could call Paul Thayer and get someone down here to follow him and find out who he was and how to contact him. We needed to subpoena him as a witness since he would know where we could find Martin Windsor, if he were alive. I looked both ways but he was nowhere to be found. I searched the halls, the stairwells, and checked every courtroom on the floor but he was gone.

  "Disappeared again! Damn," I mumbled.

  Even so, I thought. The fact that he was here was good news. If I spotted him again, I'd be prepared. I'd have a blank subpoena ready at the clerk's office downstairs and have the bailiff hold him until I could go down there and have his name inserted on the blank line. After taking one last look up and down the busy hallway, I went into the courtroom. Stan and Cheryl were at the defense table talking. Wilkerson and his new assistant were standing by the court reporter getting some exhibits labeled. The room was filling up fast.

  At 9:01 a.m. Judge Abbott walked through the back door to the courtroom. The bailiff stood up and said, "All rise!"

  The judge took the bench and surveyed the courtroom. He was a slight man no taller than 5' 2" and appeared to be in his mid-fifties. His greying hair and rugged face gave him a look of distinction. I'd read an article about him in the Texas Lawyer which claimed he was known for his uncompromising adherence to proper procedure and protocol but also for his compassion for those counsel on the short end of one of his rulings. He would never berate or belittle an attorney in front of his client, the article claimed, even if they deserved it. Consequently, he was well respected and always got the highest ratings in the bar association poll each year, according to the article.

  For some reason though, Judge Abbott didn't like Rob Wilkerson. I had witnessed that myself. Perhaps it was because Rob Wilkerson was the antithesis of Judge Abbott. Wilkerson got off on berating and humiliating others whether it is defendants, judges, or witnesses and that's one thing Judge Abbott wouldn't tolerate. So, that was one point Stan would have in his favor and hopefully would give him an advantage.

  The judge had the jury brought in and the voir dire began. Wilkerson gave his synopsis of the case and then began to question the jurors. At 12:30 p.m. the judge called a recess for lunch. He told everyone to be back at 2:00 p.m. Stan, Jodie, and I walked across Kennedy Square to the West End. We decided on a barbeque café and ordered sandwiches.

  "You won't believe this, but I saw the Vanishing Man."

  "Where?" Stan asked.

  "In the elevator at the courthouse?"

  "Really? That's pretty brash of him to show up at Cheryl's trial since he works for Martin Windsor and was one of the men who kidnapped her children. He must not realize we're onto him."

  "Apparently not, or he thinks he's untouchable."

  "Maybe he is," Stan suggested. "I think I know how he vanishes."

  "How's that?" I asked.

  "He uses one of those alien memory erasing machines. When he wants to get away, he just turns it on and it erases a minute or two of memory of the people around him. It seems like he just disappears because he's moved on during those lost moments."

  "Whoa! That's freaky," Jodie said. "You mean he freezes time?"

  "That's what it seems like, but actually time moves on. Everyone near that machine just doesn't have any recollection of those erased moments. So when they start remembering again there's a blank space which accounts for things suddenly disappearing or moving from one place to another."

  "That makes sense," I said. "I think we can attribute the memory losses we keep coming across to this machine."

  "So how are we going to collar this guy so we can slap a subpoena on him?" Jodie asked.

  "We're going to have to take him by surprise, and a subpoena won't to be good enough," Stan said."We have to get him arrested—get some cuffs on him so he can't use his memory machine to get away."

  Jodie wrapped her arms in front of her. I could see she was quivering. "You okay?" I asked.

  "This is just too weird for me," Jodie replied.

  "I know," Stan said, "but we're going to need you to distract the suspect long enough for the FBI to arrest him."

  "The FBI?" I asked.

  "Yeah, we'll call the agent in charge of the kidnapping case and tell him that you have spotted one of the kidnappers. They'll send over a couple men to arrest him but they won't realize how difficult that's going to be because they don't know about the memory device. We can't warn them about it either since they'd never believe us and it would compromise our defense. So, we'll need to engage him in conversation and distract him so the FBI agents can take him by surprise and prevent him from using the memory device."

  "I'm confused," Jodie said. "How will the memor
y device keep the FBI from arresting him?"

  "Well, because if they approach him to make an arrest and identify themselves, he'll simply use the device, and they'll suddenly forget what they were doing and become so disoriented that he'll likely get away."

  I shook my head. "Okay, I think I understand. I'll call Agent Barnes and tell him to get over here right away. Jodie, we'll scour the courthouse for the suspect, and if we find him, you'll have to charm him for a few minutes until Agent Barnes can sneak up on him."

  "What if we can't find him?"

  "I'm sure he's here to report to Martin Windsor what's going on. If that's the case, he'll have to show up in the courtroom. He probably figures if anything goes wrong he can simply use his machine to make a quick escape."

  As predicted, when I called Agent Barnes and told him I'd seen one of the kidnappers, he said they'd be right over. We met them in the corridor running from the underground parking lot into the courthouse. I explained that he was armed and that they'd have to catch him off guard. We agreed they'd follow us as we searched for him and, if we got lucky, Jodie would distract him so they could get the jump on him.

  Jodie and I went straight to the elevators. We got in and hit the sixth floor button. When we got out on the sixth floor we lingered briefly until the next elevator came up with Agent Barnes and his partner. The suspect was nowhere in sight so we started walking down the noisy hallway filled with jurors, defendants, witnesses, spectators, and reporters all waiting for their cases to resume. When we reached the end of the hallway and hadn't seen the suspect, I looked at Jodie and shrugged. Then my attention was drawn to the swinging doors that led to the stairwell. Through a small glass window I saw the suspect smoking a cigarette. I nodded to Jodie and she looked through the window. She looked back at me. "Wish me luck."

  I motioned to Agent Barnes. He and his partner came quickly and stationed themselves on either side of the doorway. Jodie reached into her purse and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. She pulled one out, stuck it between her lips, and then went through the swinging doors.

  Our man stiffened when he saw her. She went over to him and asked, "Got a light?"

  He looked at her suspiciously at first, but then a broad smile came over his face. Jodie's charm and good looks were hard to resist. He produced a lighter and lit her cigarette. Agent Barnes's partner took off down the corridor toward the stairwell at the opposite side of the building. I surmised that he was going down a floor, back to this stairwell, and then sneak up on the suspect from his rear. Agent Barnes gave him long enough to get into position and then walked in with a cigarette between his lips. While the suspect studied Agent Barnes, his partner snuck up from behind with his gun drawn.

  "Freeze! Put your hands up," he said.

  The startled suspect reached for his pocket, but before he got close to it, Jodie jammed her cigarette into his neck and pushed him into the railing. He screamed and grabbed his burning neck. This gave Agent Barnes time to wrestle him down to the ground where his partner cuffed him. I rushed in to be sure Jodie was okay. She said she felt sick and ran to the ladies' room. I followed her in.

  The room was deserted and Jodie was hanging over the sink. I went over to her. "Are you okay?"

  She turned and there was a big smile on her face. She said, "Was that cool or what?"

  I laughed. "Well, I guess. You really like this shit, huh?"

  "Yeah," she said with a gleam in her eye.

  "Why are you so happy? You could have gotten hurt."

  She lifted her hand and showed me a strange looking gun-like object. It was aluminum colored with black hand grips and shaped like a baton sprinters would use in a relay race.

  "Oh, my God! The memory gun?"

  "Yeah, I figured we better not let the FBI find this."

  "Good thinking. Let's go show it to Stan."

  Jodie put the gun in her purse and we went back to the stairwell where sheriffs' deputies were sealing off the area where the arrest had taken place. The witness had been taken away but Agent Barnes was still there talking to the bailiff as we approached. He looked up and said, "You okay, Jodie?"

  She nodded, "Yeah, I'm fine."

  "Nice job. You're one cool lady."

  "Thanks."

  "Listen," I said to agent Barnes. "We're in the middle of trial so we've got to get back. We're going to need to call Mr., what's his name— "

  "Weldon Thomas Everett, according to his driver's license," Barnes said.

  "Yes, we're going to need to call Mr. Everett as a witness. Will you keep him close by?"

  "Well, that's the least we can do since you so expertly helped us collar him."

  "Good. I'll call you when we need him."

  "No problem. We'll take good care of him for you."

  When we got back to the courtroom the trial had resumed. Wilkerson was still questioning witnesses, so I joined Stan and Cheryl at the defense table. I was dying to tell Stan what had happened but I couldn't talk while court was in session, so I wrote him a note on a yellow pad and passed it over to him. He read it and then looked up at me with shocked eyes. I shrugged and smiled. The judge saw us trading looks and frowned. I straightened up and tried to concentrate on Wilkerson's questions but could only think of the object Jodie had safely in her purse—a device of unimaginable usefulness to thieves, scoundrels and crooked politicians. One that no man on earth had ever owned but one that many would kill to possess.

  At 3:30 p.m. Wilkerson asked his last question and Stan began his interrogation of the jury panel. At 5:30 the judge recessed the trial until 9:30 a.m. Tuesday morning. Then we'd make our strikes, the jury would be seated, and Wilkerson would begin the morning session with his opening statement. In the afternoon the prosecution would start calling witnesses. That gave us one night to deal with the memory gun and figure out how we were going to get our unexpected witness to talk. We all agreed to go home, have dinner, and then meet back at the office at 7:30. Jodie said she was afraid to keep the memory device herself, so Stan took it. He said he'd find a safe place for it.

  On my way home a sudden fear came over me. If Mr. Everett was associated with Martin Windsor and had a memory device, he probably was an alien. If he were to get word to his friends that Stan had one of their memory guns, they might come looking for it. The thought also occurred to me that a device as sophisticated as that one might have a built-in tracking device. Either way, Stan's life could be in danger. I picked up my car phone and dialed Stan's number. There was no answer. "Damn you, Stan! Why don't you ever turn on your cell phone?"