The Plinko Bounce, page 2
December 15, 2011, she called the public defender’s office in Martinsville to inform him she was pregnant. She didn’t hem and haw, just announced the news, subdued and measured.
“Oh, wow…wow,” Andy spluttered. “Didn’t expect this.” He cleared his throat. Thought about shutting his office door. “So, well, so I’m glad you’re telling me.”
“Yeah,” she answered. “I’m telling you.”
Neither spoke for several seconds. Andy heard two lawyers chatting at the copier in the hallway.
“So…so…uh, what…what’re you…what comes next?” he asked.
“You mean am I planning to have an abortion?” she said bluntly, her voice spiking on the last word.
“I suppose that’s…a consideration.” Andy could feel his neck coloring. His thoughts were scrambled, pinballing off his skull. His tongue was sandpaper dry against his front teeth. “Sorry,” he said. “Sorry I’m so rattled. I’m just, you know, this is a bomb. Crazy sudden and unexpected and…the most important thing that could happen to me.”
“If I were going to end my pregnancy, Andy, most likely I would’ve done it and put this behind me and not involved you. If I were certain about it. Positive.”
“Yeah,” he answered, slowly regaining his composure. “Not to be too personal—”
“This,” she interrupted, “is about as personal as it gets, don’t you think?”
“Not to be too personal,” he repeated, “but you, uh, might decide you’re not ready for a baby, right? Just asking. There’s the KEEP YOUR ROSARIES OFF MY OVARIES sticker smack in the middle of your bumper. And, from our conversations, you were always very clear about…uh…a woman having a choice.”
“Part of my right to choose is to pick what’s best for me. Maybe I want to control my own life and body and not go through with this. Or maybe I want to have my kid. My damn business and nobody else’s, either way.” Her tone softened. “I’m thirty-five. Not getting any younger. If I were picking a man from the Wayfair baby-daddy catalog, I’d pick the Andy Hughes model—you’re smart and considerate. Decent. Honest. Nice looking.”
“I’ll help a hundred percent, if need be. Support, money, insurance, you name it. I’ll do my part, no problem.”
“I’m sure. But I’m interested in more than an ATM with testicles, the mostly missing dude who pays exactly what he’s supposed to and drops by for the occasional birthday party and calls his kid ‘Sport’ or ‘Buddy’ or ‘Baby Doll.’”
“No offense, but how are you pregnant? What happened to the pills?”
“Obviously, Andy, they didn’t work. They aren’t infallible. To be honest, I forgot to take a couple when I was staying with my mom after her surgery.”
“Okay,” he replied.
“Believe me,” she said firmly, “I’m as stunned as you are. And to answer the questions you’re afraid to ask me right now: I’m not trying to ‘trap’ the ex-boyfriend I decided to dump, and I’ll take a DNA test—wouldn’t blame you for wanting to check, given the circumstances.”
Andy gently laughed. “Our breakup was mutual, or so I like to think. Leave me a little dignity.”
“True,” she said. “We both agreed.” Her voice broke. “Sorry. It’s hard not to be emotional.”
“Will you let me have tonight to think about all this? It’s a lot. A whole lot. Life-changing. Double life-changing. Triple. Can I call you in the morning?”
He phoned that very same night, around seven, enthusiastic and certain, convicted, and he loved his boy Noah even before the lad was birthed, and with the exception of a few predictable snags and quarrels and reasonable disagreements and a single pitched battle over the car seat, Andy and Brooke were kind to each other and dedicated to their child and hellaciously wonderful parents, who, early on, even slipped a few times and wound up having more sex.
Noah Cheever Hughes, that was what they picked for the birth certificate, and it was perfect for the boy, handsome, spirited and a wink different.
Idling in the car line at the Martinsville YMCA, Andy spotted his son the moment he walked out of the building. He stretched across the console and opened the passenger-side door.
“Dad, Dad, Dad,” Noah repeated, excited, darting to the Jeep from the sidewalk, eight years old, toting his backpack by a single strap. “Guess what? Guess what?” he said as he climbed in.
“I’m on pins and needles,” Andy answered playfully. “No hug for me?”
“Howard saved my friend Butch’s life,” he exclaimed, talking nonstop through a rushed embrace. “It was amazing. He was bleeding to death. He fell off the diving board and busted his head. I heard you could see his brains. It was so scary.”
“Wow,” Andy replied, and it came out flat and curt. Howard Logan was a local physician who’d married Brooke three years ago. He was a steady man who kept an appropriate stepdad’s distance from her and Andy where Noah was concerned. He was polite and civil to Andy, the ex who’d once shared a bed with his wife. He was tolerant and generous with the child—you couldn’t ask for more under the circumstances.
“Yeah,” Noah continued. “Howard’s a hero. It’s gonna be in the papers.”
“Howard’s a good doc.” Andy forced the words. When he spoke, he was peering through the windshield at the brake lights in front of him.
“Yeah,” Noah said. “It was so cool.”
“Glad Butch is okay.” Andy eased away from the curb.
“He’s gonna be fine. Super. Like he was before.”
“Yep,” Andy said softly.
Blooded to his father, Noah, even at age eight, realized what he’d done, how he might’ve diminished his dad and bruised his feelings. “But you help people every day,” he declared with false cheer. “Not just if they’re hurt. I’d rather be a lawyer like you than a doctor.”
“Both are excellent choices,” Andy answered.
After grounders and fly balls at the sandlot, a trip to Pizza Hut for a parking-lot meal, a McDonald’s soft-serve cone, a Fortnite showdown and the quid pro quo five minutes of Mark Twain’s Connecticut Yankee, the bookmark now seventy-three pages deep, Noah was in bed asleep at eleven, and Andy sat at his computer, opened the file saved as RESIGNATION, changed the date again, and printed the three paragraphs. He signed the letter in black ink and slid it into his briefcase so he could deliver it to his boss on Monday.
Restless and distracted—even a trip to Noah’s room to watch the precious child sleep didn’t help—Andy bent open the metal clasp on the Damian Bullins envelope and began studying the discovery information the commonwealth’s attorney had delivered earlier. Earbuds played Handel’s Water Music while he read. On top was a photocopy of Bullins’s nine-page confession. Because it was late, and because it had been a grueling day, Andy went through the first page three times, then removed the earbuds and read the initial paragraph out loud so he could be absolutely certain he wasn’t mistaken. “Damn,” he said when he finished. “Incredible.”
CHAPTER TWO
The following Monday morning, July 20, Andy was already in Vikram Kapil’s office when his boss arrived with a fast-food bag, a large coffee and a leather satchel. Vikram’s suit coat was missing, his sleeves were rolled almost to his elbows, his tie was loosened.
“Uh-oh,” Vikram said jovially. “Never good if people are waiting for you at eight thirty.” Vikram was a magnificent criminal lawyer, a genius at technical arguments, and better yet, he was a delightful man, well-liked by every judge and every attorney in the circuit. “I heard you put a W on the board for us Friday. Jury-trial win to boot. Congratulations.”
“Yeah. It was a glorious day for justice.”
Vikram reached in the bag. “You want part of a biscuit? Hash browns?”
“No, thanks.”
“So how did you set one of the Reliables free?”
Andy crossed his legs at the ankle and relaxed in his chair. The chair was located on a strip of duct tape, seven measured feet distant from Vikram. “When Officer Pruitt discovered him, my client, Porter, was passed out, slumped against a wall, an empty wine bottle close by. Those are easy facts for the defendant. Of course, in a BS, nuisance case, there’re no fingerprints—not worth the time, expense and trouble. ‘No forensic evidence,’ you hammer to the jury. The poor cop had to admit scads of other people are always drinking in the county parking lot on Orchard Street, and they discard bottles and cans, and Porter was simply ‘sleeping.’ I asked the cop if he thought this arrest was a wise use of police resources and tax dollars, rousting a man resting in a public space, even a man who’d had a few beers and wasn’t steady on his feet once he stood—the commonwealth objected, but the jury got the practical point and let the guilty go free.”
“Well, it’s still darn fine work.” Vikram ate a hash brown. “I understand it went to Hades in a handbasket afterward, though.”
“Yep. We wound up worse off than we started.”
“Not your fault.” Vikram sipped his coffee. “What can I do for you bright and early on a Monday morning?”
Andy cleared his throat. He glanced at a Kapil family photo on the wall. Licked his lips. “Sorry, Vik, sorry…but I’ve reached the end of the line. I’m resigning. I’m fed up and frustrated—this crap, day after day, isn’t why I went to law school.”
“How long has it been?” Vikram asked. “Time flies when you’re having fun.”
“Seventeen years.” Andy sighed. “Seventeen.” He scooted forward, balanced on the edge of the chair. “I think the world of you and the people here. I’m just worn out and tired of defending guilty, ungrateful, shiftless, recidivist losers, most of them spouting off how they’re ‘gonna hire a real lawyer.’”
“More money help?” Vikram asked. “I think the commission is about to authorize an additional two thousand a year for senior PDs.”
“It’s not a money issue,” Andy said. “It’s a self-worth issue. On the other side of the equation, it breaks my heart every time I have to defend another Black kid who neglected to get a receipt for his Dollar Tree deodorant.”
“Can I change your mind?” Vikram pressed. He set the coffee cup on his desk. “There’s no replacing you. And on a personal level, I’ll miss you.”
“I’ve decided.” Andy leaned over, opened his briefcase, removed the resignation letter, and put it on Vikram’s jumbled desk. “You’re a remarkable lawyer, an excellent boss, and an even better friend. Sorry.”
“When’re you quitting?” Vikram asked. “The date?”
“I’d never leave you in a bind,” Andy promised. “My letter gives thirty-days’ notice, but it’d be great if I could be gone sooner. I want to take Noah on a Montana trip before he starts school. I bought him a fly rod for Christmas. If thirty days isn’t enough, I’ll take vacation time for the trip and then come back until the transition is finished.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Vikram said, the words weary and solemn. “How many cases are you carrying?”
“A hundred and seventy-seven. Most in Henry County and Martinsville, maybe thirty in Patrick County.”
“So where’re you planning to go?” Vikram asked. “What’s next?”
“Good question,” Andy said. “Jim Haskins offered me a job with them—an improved salary and a better class of criminal. I might land there. Who knows? I need a change—I’m positive about that much.”
“Bring me a list of your cases, and I’ll start divvying them up.”
“Speaking of which,” Andy said, “take a look at this.” He reached into the briefcase again, located the Damian Bullins confession, and passed it to Vikram. “Read the first page.”
Vikram took a pair of cheap half-glasses from his shirt pocket. “Oh, wait, wow,” he said after studying the paper.
“Yeah,” Andy responded. “We’re scheduled for a guilty plea on Thursday, but this will definitely delay us. Bullins was charged on a pocket indictment, and these pages just trickled in along with some other insignificant items. I had a typewritten summary of his confession, and I reviewed it with him, and he confirmed it was correct, recalled the cop Mirandizing him and admitted to me he killed the lady. But, still, in a first-degree murder case, it’s our responsibility to turn over every stone, challenge every detail.”
“What’s the commonwealth have?” Vikram asked. “How strong is their evidence? I know the big picture—this story was in the news for days.”
“Well, they have Damian himself. He’s from Patrick County, Ararat, poor and white and raised by his alcoholic aunt. But he’s very smart. And I mean very smart, though now it’s more of a slick, self-serving con’s cunning. Years ago, he was the community’s darling. People were so proud of him. He graduated number one in his class, earned a free ride to Duke—”
“His first mistake,” Vikram joshed.
“Didn’t even make it to Christmas—he was convicted of a gun charge in Durham and expelled. There were drug and alcohol issues as well.”
“Shame,” Vikram said sincerely. “Not making excuses for him, but college can be overwhelming for small-town kids.”
“Of course, initially, everybody and his brother tried to salvage him. Wanted to help. There was Damian 2.0 and 3.0 and 7.0, until he was basically a write-off. He pissed away great jobs and amazing opportunities. He has a vicious temper, a fierce self-destructive bent, and a meth-and-pill monkey the size of King Kong. Last time I represented him, Judge Leventis reduced a malicious wounding charge to assault and battery and sentenced him to twelve months. Damian stabbed a total stranger in a drug-store parking lot, a fracas that started over a pack of Nabs.”
“So you’ve represented him before?”
“More than once, Vik.” Andy shifted in his chair. “And you know how we often say about our clients: ‘When he’s sober, after a few weeks in jail, he’s a different person, a nice-enough guy?’ How we can, if we dig deep enough, find a speck of humanity in many defendants? Well, Damian Bullins is a waste and an asshole no matter what. A loser, probably a clinical sociopath, with a record and a history that make murder seem like the next logical progression on his resume.”
Vikram removed the glasses. “I’m assuming we won’t have to sort through a lengthy list of character witnesses at sentencing.” He smirked.
“The murder-case rule’s simple: Did the deceased deserve killing, and did the right SOB do the job? Damian Bullins definitely wasn’t the right man for the job, and the victim…the lady he killed…” Andy trailed off, shook his head. “He killed Alicia Benson. She—”
“Was married to Cole Benson,” Vikram interrupted. “And what catnip for the press, huh? The African American wife of a devout, high-profile Mormon multimillionaire is murdered in her own home. Too many unicorns in that tale to count.”
“Four children. Girls. Thank heavens they were all at a church event the day she was killed. Mrs. Benson volunteered at a hospice in Mt. Airy and also tutored kids who struggled with math.”
“And the defendant confessed?” Vikram asked.
“Yep. That would be what I just handed you. Confessed and signed every page.”
Vikram began tapping a pen against his palm. “What’s left without the confession? What’s the commonwealth have against him if we can persuade the court to exclude his statement?”
“Security camera shows him entering the Benson house and leaving approximately six minutes later. Her blood was found on his pants. Absolute DNA match.”
“So you and I are on the same page, Andy,” Vikram said, “we’re certain he’s guilty, correct?”
“As certain as we can ever be. He was there, he confessed, her blood is on his pants. He confirmed the confession to me.”
“Motive?” Vikram narrowed his eyes. “Why?”
“According to Bullins’s statement, Cole Benson had hired him several months ago to do odd jobs—he’d painted a fence, cleaned out a shed, cut firewood, basically rough-labor work. He’d been at the Benson property nine or ten times. The day of the murder, he was jacked on meth and gin, hadn’t slept the night before, and he drove there planning to steal tools or a chainsaw, but for whatever reason, he went directly into the house, happened on Alicia Benson, and demanded cash or her jewelry. She refused. He became enraged.”
Vikram sighed. “Meth is wicked bad. I miss the good old days of homegrown pot, moonshine and trucker speed.”
“Bullins shoved her, she fell, he threatened her, she still wouldn’t give him anything, and he kicked her in the belly.” Andy folded his arms across his chest. He glanced at the Kapil family picture again. “Instead of complying, she offered to pray for him and invited him to join her. Livid and high, he snatched a kitchen knife from the table and cut her throat. She was wearing an apron and peeling yellow apples for a pie. An apple fell off the table and landed in her blood. The crime-scene pictures look like Satan-o-rama.”
“Jeez,” Vikram said. “But evidently, he didn’t take anything or rape her—it’s charged as first degree, not capital murder.”
“Correct,” Andy confirmed. “He freaked out and immediately bolted. Benson found his wife’s body when he returned home from his office around four forty-five p.m. The police interviewed Damian at his aunt’s an hour and fifteen minutes later. He lives in a camper in her yard. Uses a garden hose for water, and he’s rigged a section of wire from her box for power. A complete deadbeat. He confessed right then and there.”
