After Dark (3 page)

"Ah, Bob, you're too big hearted. Me, I'd love to have seen her face, because I know this case was personal for her. I mean, she wanted me dead. Now she ain't got nothin'."

"Oh, I don't think it was personal, Charlie."

"You don't?" Deems asked with a look of boyish curiosity.

"No. I just think she was doing her job. Fortunately, I did mine better."

"Yeah, well, you might be right, but I don't think so. I mulled this thing over while I was on the row. I had lots of time to think about her there. I'm convinced that bitch had it in for me, Bob."

Deems had an odd look on his face that worried Packard.

"You should let it rest, Charlie. The cops are going to be on your butt, night and day. You don't want to do anything even slightly suspicious."

"Oh, right. I agree with that," Deems said reasonably. "Water under the bridge. No, Bob, I just want to get on with my life.

Which brings me to the other reason for my visit."

"What's that?" Packard asked uneasily.

"I wanted to ask you for a little favor."

"What favor?"

"Well, it seems to me that you won my appeal pretty easily. I mean, they're not even gonna retry me, so the judge must have really fucked up, right?"

"Well, he did make a mistake," Packard answered cautiously, "but it wasn't that easy to win the case."

Deems shook his head. "That's not the way I see it. And that's not just my opinion. There's a lot of guys in the joint that know their law. I asked 'em about the appeal. They all knew you'd win.

Said it was a cake-walk. So, seeing how easy it was, I was thinking that I'd like a little refund on my fee."

"That's not how it works, Charlie," Packard said, trying to convince himself that this would be like any business discussion between two civilized and rational men. "The fee is nonrefundable and its not dependent on results. Remember we discussed that?"

"I remember," Deems answered with a shake of his head.

"But you know, Bob, I'm thinking PR here. Your reputation is what brings in the clients. Am I right? And happy clients talk you up.

That's free advertising. I'd be real happy if you refunded half the fee."

Packard blanched. "That's fifteen thousand dollars, Charlie. I can't do that."

"Sure you can. And if I remember right, that was only the cash half.

The kilo of cocaine I gave you was probably worth a lot more than fifteen after you resold it. Am I right? But I don't want any blow back. And I don't care what your profit was. You did a great job for me. I'd just really appreciate the cash back."

A thin line of sweat formed on Packard's upper lip. He forced a smile.

"I know you've been inside and can use some dough, so why don't I loan you a grand? Will that help?"

"Sure, but fifteen grand would help even more," Deems said.

This time there was no smile.

"Not possible, Charlie," Packard said stubbornly. "A deal's a deal. You were convicted of murder and now you're a free man.

I'd say I earned my fee."

"Oh, you did. No question. And I don't want you to do anything you don't want to do. If you give me back the money, I want it to be of your own free will. A good deed you can be proud of."

Deems stopped talking and leaned back in his chair. Packard's heart was beating overtime and he strongly regretted not taking that hit of cocaine.

"Hey, you look upset, Bob," Deems said suddenly. "Look, let's forget about this. Okay? I'm sorry I even brought it up. Let's talk about something else. Say, do you like TV game shows?"

"Game shows?" Packard repeated, puzzled by the transition, but relieved that Deems had let him off the hook so easily.

"Yeah, like Jeopardy! or Let's Make a Deal. You know."

"I work during the day, so I rarely get a chance to watch them."

"I didn't watch them either until they put me on the row. We had a set outside the bars. One of our few luxuries. The guards let us watch the game shows. I really got hooked on them. At first I thought they were kind of stupid, but the more I watched, the more I realized that you can learn as much from game shows as you can at school. For instance, have you ever seen The Price Is Right?"

"Isn't that the one where the contestants have to guess the price of a refrigerator or a set of dishes?"

"Right!" Deems said, snapping upright in his chair and grinning broadly.

Then, in an imitation of a game-show host, he said.

"Bob Packard of Portland, Oregon, come on down! You can play The Price Is Right!" Then you run up from the audience. Have you seen it?"

"A few times."

"Well, that's a great show," Deems said animatedly, "because it teaches you about the value of things. For instance, if I put two rocks on your desk and asked you to guess at their value, you'd say they weren't worth much, am I right? I mean, we're talking about two rocks. But what if one was a chunk of common granite and the other was a diamond? You see?

Two rocks, both the same size, but your judgment of their value would be really different."

Packard nodded automatically to avoid insulting Deems and cast a quick glance at his watch.

"That's interesting, Charlie, and I'd like to talk about it some more, but I have a motion I need to write. It's due in two days and it's rather complicated."

"I'm sure it is," Deems said, "but I think it's more important for you, in the long run, to discuss values."

The fear Packard felt initially had faded as he grew annoyed and he missed the menace in Deems's tone.

"What are you getting at, Charlie? Come to the point."

"Sure. You're a busy man. I don't want to waste your time. But I do think this little talk will help you put things in perspective.

For instance, what's worth more, a good night's sleep or the shoddy legal services of a coked-up junkie lawyer."

Packard flushed. "That's not fair, Charlie. If it wasn't for me, you'd be dead."

"Maybe, maybe not. As I said, more than one person I talked to was of the opinion that this was a pretty easy win. That would make the value of your services a lot less than thirty thousand dollars. See what I mean? But putting a price on abstractions, like the value of legal services, is a lot tougher than dealing with diamonds and granite, Bob.

So why don't you start by guessing the price of a common, everyday item."

"Look," Packard said angrily, "I just told you. I don't have time for this nonsense."

Deems ignored Packard and pulled a pair of soiled woman's underpants from his pocket, then laid them on Packard's desk.

Packard leaned forward and stared. The cotton panties looked familiar, but he could not remember where he had seen them.

"What's the value of these panties, Bob?"

"Where did you get those?" Packard asked.

"Let's see if you can guess. I'll give you a hint."

Deems leaned forward and grinned in anticipation of Packard's reaction to his clue. He pitched his voice high and, in a falsetto, said, "'Get off of me, now! If you can't get it up at least let me get some sleep.""

Packard turned white. His wife, Dana, had said that to him last night after a failed attempt at sex with the same tone of disgust Deems had so adequately imitated.

"You know, Bob," Deems said with an air of feigned concern, "your technique leaves a lot to be desired. You completely ignored Dana's nipples. They're yummy. Fiddle with them a while tonight. They're like the knobs on a radio. If you twirl them the right way, you can find a mighty nice station."

Packard suddenly recognized the panties as the ones Dana had taken off just before they got in bed. Dana had dropped them next to the bed before they started to have sex. That meant that Deems had been in their room while they were sleeping.

"You were in my house?"

"That's right, Bob."

Packard bolted to his feet and shouted, "Listen, you prick . . ."

"Prick?" Deems interrupted in a bemused tone. "That's a fighting word.

Now, a fight between the two of us might be interesting. Speed and youth against size and power. But I want to give you a word of advice, Bob. If you start a fight with me, you better be prepared to kill me.

If you leave me alive, I'll come for you when you least expect it and you'll die like Harold Shoe."

Packard remembered Shoe's autopsy photographs. It was the medical examiner's opinion that Shoe's hands and feet had been removed with a chain saw while he was still alive. All the fight went out of Packard and he collapsed in his chair. He tried to compose himself. Deems watched patiently while Packard took several deep breaths.

"What do you want from me, Charlie?"

"I want you to play the game," he said grimly. "You don't really have a choice. Now, what is the value of these panties?"

"Three-fifty? Four dollars?" Packard guessed, on the verge of tears. "I don't know."

"You're too literal, Bob. Think about how I got these undies and you'll know their true value. I'd put it at about the same price as a lifetime of good sleep. Wouldn't that be worth fifteen thousand dollars? I'd say a lifetime of sound sleep is cheap at that price."

Packard's jaw trembled. "Charlie, you have to be reasonable," he begged. "I don't have fifteen thousand extra dollars. You paid that retainer over a year ago. It's gone now. How about something less?

What about three? Three thousand? I might be able to manage that."

"Well, Bob, to me three thousand sounds like a kiss-off."

Packard knew he could not afford to pay the money. His rent was due, there were car payments. Then he thought about the price he would pay if he could be assured that Charlie Deems would never slip into his room at night and spirit him away to a twisted world of torture and pain.

Packard took his checkbook out of his drawer. His hand was shaking so badly that his signature was barely legible. Packard gave the check for fifteen thousand dollars to Deems. Deems inspected it, thanked Packard and opened the door. Then he turned, winked and said, "Sleep tight and don't let the bedbugs bite."

Chapter THREE

Salem, Oregon's capital, was a sleepy little city surrounded by farmland and located about fifty miles south of Portland on the I-5 freeway. The Oregon Supreme Court had been in its present location on State Street since 1914. The square four-story building was faced with terra cotta and surrounded on three sides by a narrow lawn. In the rear was a parking lot that separated the court from the back of another building that housed the Department of Justice and the offices of the Court of Appeals.

There were vans with network logos parked in front of the court when Tracy Cavanaugh arrived for work at 8 A. M. She glanced at them curiously as she strolled down the side street that divided the court from the grounds of the State Capitol. A radiant July sun made the gold statue of the pioneer on top of the Capitol building shine and gave the grass in the small park that bordered the Capitol the brilliance of a highly polished emerald. In keeping with the spirit of the day, Tracy wore a bright yellow dress and wraparound shades.

Tracy was at the tail end of a year serving as Oregon Supreme Court Justice Alice Sherzer's law clerk. Judicial clerkships were plums that fell to top law school graduates. Each justice had a clerk who researched complex legal issues, drafted memos about other justices' positions and checked opinion drafts to catch errors before the opinion was published. A judicial clerkship was a demanding, but exciting job that lasted one to two years. Most clerks moved on to good positions with top law firms, which coveted these bright young men and women for their skills as well as their intimate knowledge of the way the justices thought.

Laura Rizzatti was as pale as Tracy was tan and possessed the delicate features and soft, rounded figure of a Botticelli model.

When Laura was deep in thought, she played with her long black hair. She had several strands wrapped tightly around her left index finger when Tracy poked her head into Laura's closet-sized office.

"Why are the TV reporters waiting outside?"

Laura dropped the transcript she was reading and rose halfway out of her chair. "Don't do that!"

"Sorry." Tracy laughed, tilting her head sideways to see what had occupied Laura's attention so completely. She saw the title of the case and "Vol. XI" before Laura turned the transcript over so Tracy could no longer read the cover.

"The Deems case?" Tracy said. "I thought we reversed that a month ago."

"We did. What did you just ask me?"

Tracy looked up from the transcript and noticed the dark circles under Laura's eyes. Laura's clothes were disheveled and she looked like she'd been up all night.

"The TV people. What are they doing here?"

"Matthew Reynolds is arguing Franklin v. Pogue at nine."

"Reynolds! Let me know when you go up to court."

"I'm not going."

"How come?"

"Justice Griffen took himself off the case, so there's no reason to sit in on the argument."

"Why'd he recuse himself?."

"His wife is arguing for the state."

"No shit." Tracy laughed.

"No shit," Laura answered bitterly.

"She is one smart cookie."

"She's a bitch. She could have asked another DA to argue the state's position."

"Then Justice Griffen would have sat on the case. Now he can't sit because the state is represented by a member of his family. So she gets rid of the most liberal justice on the court and ups her chance of winning. I call that smart lawyering."

"I think it's unethical."

"Don't take this so personally."

"I'm not," Laura said angrily. "But the judge is such a nice guy. The divorce is eating him up. Pulling a stunt like this is just pouring salt in his wounds."

"Yeah, well, if she's as big a bitch as you say, he's better off without her. And you should see Reynolds argue anyway. He's amazing. Do you know he's been defending death penalty cases all over the United States for twenty years and he's never had a client executed?"

"Reynolds is just another hired gun."

"That's where you're wrong, Laura. These cases are like a mission for him. And he's a genius. Did you read his brief in State v. Aurelio?