Dead Center (5 page)

• • • • •

O
UR WALK ENDS
at Calvin’s house, and he’s waiting on the porch for us. He spends some time petting Tara which immediately wins her over. In Tara’s mind petters are good people, nonpetters are not. I pretty much look at life the same way.

We sit on the porch for a while, with Calvin and me literally in rocking chairs. I keep waiting for Aunt Bea to appear with homemade apple pie and ice cream. But it feels comfortable, and I briefly wonder if I could stay here long-term. There’s no doubt that I couldn’t; I’d go absolutely nuts. But for this moment it’s okay.

“This is actually a pretty nice town,” I say. It comes out more condescending than I intended.

“Depends on who you are,” he says with a trace of bitterness.

“What do you mean?”

He looks at me with a mixture of disdain and surprise. “You have any idea what it’s like to be the only openly gay person in a town like this?”

Now it’s my turn to be surprised. “You’re gay?”

“Nope,” he says, and then laughs at his nailing me with another lie. “Come on in.”

We go inside, and Calvin takes Tara and me into what he calls his sports room. It’s a small guest bedroom that has been converted into a shrine to the long-departed Milwaukee Braves baseball franchise.

There is baseball memorabilia everywhere, all relating to the Braves. Calvin was only eight years old when the Braves won the 1957 World Series, but he remembers virtually every pitch.

His prized possessions are a foul ball that Warren Spahn hit into the stands and Calvin’s father caught one-handed, and a piece of gum that Eddie Matthews spit onto the ground on the way into the stadium. “It’s one of the few pieces of baseball memorabilia that could be authenticated with a DNA test,” he says.

Tara and I spend an hour at Calvin’s, but he and I talk very little about the case. This is more my choice than his; my decision is clearly going to be more personal, more about me than about Jeremy Davidson’s legal situation.

As I’m getting ready to leave, Calvin asks me, “You think you’re gonna do this?”

“I don’t think so,” I say. “I’m not saying I’m a traveling superhero, but for me to inject myself into this situation, to transfer my life here, I sort of need to think an injustice has been committed. I’m just not sure it has.”

“I know the kid may have done it,” he says, “but I just don’t think he did. To tell you the truth, I’d defend him either way.”

“And that’s another point,” I say. “He’s already got you.”

“You know, I don’t spend all my time scaling cards into wastebaskets,” he says. “I checked you out, read some transcripts of your cases…”

“Why?”

“Because I’m a good attorney… competent. I cover all the bases,” he says.

“And?”

“And Jeremy Davidson needs more than that. He needs you.”

“More bullshit?” I ask, ever wary.

He shakes his head. “Not this time.”

I tell him that it’s flattering but not necessarily convincing, and he doesn’t make any further effort to recruit me. Another effort he doesn’t make is to feed me and Tara, and by the time we head back to the hotel, we are famished. As evidence that there is indeed a merciful God, He has placed a pizzeria just a block from the hotel. I order a large pie with a thin crust, but “thin” must be a relative term. This crust is almost an inch thick and is stuffed with cheese. I’m starting to discover that in Wisconsin, even the cheese is stuffed with cheese.

Tara and I sit at a little table outside the pizzeria and chow down. It’s not an East Coast pizza, but it’s not bad. I get Tara some bread, which she seems to find to her liking. Pigs that we are, we order a second pie and some more bread, and by the time we’re finished, we look and feel like the Pillsbury Dough Boy and the Pillsbury Dough Dog.

We go for another hour walk to get rid of the bloated feeling, which again takes us through the entire town. By the time we approach the hotel, it’s almost seven o’clock and we’ve gotten enough exercise that it’s soon going to be time to think about an evening snack. Perhaps a couple of pizzas…

To my surprise and delight, the hotel gets cable TV, including the ESPNs and CNN. Between the pizza and a Knicks-Spurs game, for the first time I feel like Findlay is providing the intellectual and cultural stimulation I require. I settle down on the bed and start reading through the case notes that Calvin gave me, with the basketball game on as background music.

There is a knock on the door, and when I open it, I see the bellman, who is bringing me a small coffeemaker that I had requested. He gives it to me, and I hand him a five-dollar bill, the smallest that I have. For a moment I’m afraid he’s going to have a stroke.

“You gave me a five-dollar bill.”

“I know that.”

He’s clearly unsettled by this. “I don’t have change.”

“I didn’t ask for any.”

It finally dawns on him that this is for real, and he goes through an endless vow that if there’s anything I need, ever, all I have to do is ask. I promise that I will, and he finally leaves.

Tara and I are no sooner settled back on the bed to watch basketball than there is another knock on the door. It’s probably the bellman offering to brush my teeth for me. As I get up to answer the door, I make a silent vow to undertip the rest of my stay here. “Just a second,” I call out.

I reach the door and open it, but the bellman is not standing there. Laurie is standing there. I’m positive of this; there is absolutely no similarity between them.

“Hello, Andy,” she says, but before I can answer, a missile comes flying past me. This particular missile is named Tara, and she has literally leaped across the room and up into Laurie’s arms. Tara always loved Laurie, but I thought I had talked her out of that during these past few months.

Laurie lands on the floor under Tara’s weight, and she struggles to get up, laughing and petting all the while. I stand there watching in a state of semi-shock, which is actually my home state, but finally, I reach a hand down and help Laurie get to her feet.

She comes inside the room and closes the door behind her. We look at each other for probably five seconds, though it feels like an hour and a half. Then she moves toward me and kisses me, and the anger I have been feeling for the last four and a half months is overwhelmed by something that feels nothing like anger.

Our clothes are off and we’re in bed so fast that it’s as if we’re in a movie and the scene has been edited… as if the director has mandated they do a quick cut from the clothed scene at the door to the naked scene in bed. In all the times I pictured meeting Laurie, never once did it wind up like this. I need to work on my picturing skills.

It is the most intense experience I have ever had; I even think that for a moment I lose mental control. I have always, and until now I really mean always, had the ability, or curse, to be able to remain somewhat detached from whatever might be going on. I can view anything with some semblance of reason, and it gives me a feeling of control.

That control is lost in the excitement, fun, and incredible intensity of these moments. When we are finished, when Laurie is lying back and laughing her joyous laugh, I have to consciously bring myself back into the world of reason. I’m not sure why I do, since not to have to reason gave me a feeling of exhilarating freedom, but back I come.

She looks over at me and smiles. “Hi, Andy.”

I act surprised to see her. “Laurie, how are you? I hadn’t recognized you.”

“I was just coming over to see you, that’s all, I swear. I wanted us to be able to talk without a bunch of people around.”

I nod. “You did the right thing. This would have created something of a stir at the diner.”

We both get dressed, maybe a tad self-consciously, and we start some small talk. Laurie wants to know how some of our common friends are doing, and I’m surprised to hear that she’s been in occasional contact with them. I had thought, apparently incorrectly, that they had taken my side in the Andy-Laurie war.

I ask her how she came to be acting chief of the Findlay Police Department, since she had taken a job as captain, the number two person in the department. She tells me that Chief Helling has been quite ill and has been on a leave of absence. Laurie likes him very much and is rooting for his quick return, but it’s becoming increasingly unlikely. She doesn’t say what the illness is, and I don’t ask.

A town council vote installed her as acting chief, and the deciding vote in swinging things her way was Richard Davidson. It’s a major reason that she is so sensitive about how it would look if her role in luring me to Wisconsin ever got out; it could seem like she is repaying a political favor.

Laurie doesn’t think we should even talk about the Davidson case, even after I tell her that I am not likely to take it on. There’s an awkwardness here, and even though it’s slight, it’s not something I was ever used to having with Laurie.

She prepares to leave. I know this because she takes out her car keys, although she will have to go down the elevator, leave the hotel, and walk across the street to her car before she’ll need them.

Taking out car keys is a nonverbal way that people say, “I’ve gotta get out of here.” I do it all the time; sometimes I’ll take them out even if I haven’t driven to the meeting. A friend of mine has a Mercedes that doesn’t use keys; it will start for him just because it is able to identify his fingerprint. I would never get a car like that. How would I get out of meetings? By giving people the finger?

So Laurie makes her postcoital getaway, much as Rita Gordon did. I’m starting to feel like a piece of meat. There are worse feelings.

I put those humiliating thoughts aside for the time being, and Tara and I once again settle down to watch some television.

I’ve been sleeping for almost two hours, based on the clock, when there is another knock on the door. In my groggy state I figure it could be either the bellman or Laurie, and I’m so tired I’m not sure which one I’m rooting for.

I force myself out of bed and go to the door. When I open it, Laurie is standing there. The look on her face is not one of passion.

“Andy, something’s happened that you should know about.”

Her tone makes me instantly clearheaded. “What is it? What’s the matter?”

“The Davidson house was firebombed.”

“Oh, shit. Who did it?”

“We don’t know yet,” she says. “Come on, I’ll tell you on the way.”

“On the way where?”

“To what’s left of the house.”

• • • • •

W
HAT DO PEOPLE
around here think about Jeremy? Do they think he did it?” I ask this because it’s quite likely that someone was getting revenge against Jeremy for his alleged crime by trying to destroy his house.

Laurie thinks for a few moments before answering. “I haven’t talked to many people about it, but I think it’s probably split down the middle. The ones who know him best can’t imagine him murdering anyone, but others… well, you know how it is. I’ve heard from a lot of angry people these last few days; when someone is charged with a crime, a lot of people assume that person is guilty.”

“Yes, I certainly know how that is.”

“And they usually are guilty,” she says.

We’re talking about an issue on which Laurie and I have always taken opposite sides. She’s an officer of the law, and I’m a defense attorney, so we have a naturally different point of view as to the guilt or innocence of the average accused. She says
toh-may-toh
and I say
toh-mah-toh
.

“But in this case he’s not.”

“Probably not,” she grudgingly admits. The ironic thing is that Laurie’s more convinced of Jeremy’s innocence than I am. “Andy, this is not a town full of vigilantes. I just can’t see people firebombing a house out of anger or frustration. People here are inclined to let the justice system run its course.”

“Of course, it just takes one who isn’t so inclined,” I point out.

She nods. “That’s true.”

“What about the Centurions?” I ask. “Are they the vigilante types?”

She looks quickly at me, surprised by the question. “Well, haven’t you been the busy boy.” Then, “I don’t know… they certainly do not have a history of violence. At least not one that I’m aware of.”

“What can you tell me about them?”

“Not too much… although there were some newspaper articles written about them maybe five years ago. You might want to read them. But I do know that their town couldn’t be any more closed off from the world if they put up barbed wire. But they don’t really have to, because nobody wants to get in, and it sure seems like nobody wants to get out.”

“But Elizabeth Barlow was out,” I say. “She was out and going to college.”

She nods. “That’s true; I should have mentioned that. Some of them, mostly Elizabeth’s age, leave the community for training that they can only get in the outside world. That’s how they get their doctors, lawyers… Elizabeth was going to be a lawyer.”

“But they always go back?” I ask.

“As far as I know. It’s the way the community remains totally self-sufficient.”

“I met one of the members of their police force.”

She seems surprised by this but doesn’t probe. “It’s not really a police force; they’re not accredited by the state. But it doesn’t matter, because I don’t know of any crime ever being committed there. We technically have jurisdiction over them, and they have access to the state police, as we do. But to my knowledge they’ve never called them or us. Not once.”

We arrive at the Davidson house, and it is still a busy place. The fire seems to have been extinguished, but I count four fire trucks, two state police cars, one Findlay police car besides Laurie’s, and an ambulance.

We get out, and Laurie leads me toward the house. It’s a one-story, ranch-style farmhouse, with a small building attached to it that looks like a barn but is apparently a guesthouse. That is where the firebomb landed, destroying about thirty percent of the place. Firemen are still applying water to the damaged area, but they have already won the battle.

Laurie introduces me to Lieutenant Cliff Parsons, who responded to the first emergency call and has been supervising what is a crime scene. I recognize his name because Calvin’s case file shows that he was the officer who arrested Jeremy. It’s not exactly a massive coincidence; there aren’t that many ranking officers in the Findlay Police Department.

Parsons is about my age, tall, well built, and good-looking, exactly the kind of guy I don’t want Laurie working with. To make matters worse, Calvin mentioned that he was once an Army Airborne Ranger. The closest I can come to that is that I used to watch
The Lone Ranger,
and I was sitting in the third row behind the goal when the Rangers won the Stanley Cup. Actually, when it comes to raw, physical courage, I’d like to have seen him try to fight through the crowds on the way out of Madison Square Garden that night.

Laurie asks Parsons to bring her up-to-date, but he hesitates, glancing at me. “Don’t worry,” she says. “He’s not a problem.”

“Stop,” I say, trying to control my blushing. “I’m no better than any of you.”

Parsons describes what they know so far, which is not a hell of a lot. An unknown person drove up and threw what amounts to a sophisticated Molotov cocktail at the house. It went through a window of the attached guesthouse, and the attacker apparently drove off immediately afterward.

Richard was home alone in the main house at the time. He called 911, and firemen were on the scene in just a few minutes. The damage is not nearly as great as it could have been, in both physical and human terms.

Parsons, it turns out, is the person in the department assigned to any trouble that may happen concerning Center City. It’s not exactly time-consuming for him, since no trouble is ever reported in Center City. But Laurie asks him my question concerning whether it’s likely that the Centurions are behind this.

Parsons’s response is to shrug. “Somebody did it. No reason it couldn’t have been them. It was their girls that got killed, so they certainly have the most reason to be pissed off.”

I see Richard Davidson standing with a woman at the end of the driveway, and I walk over to them. He introduces me to his wife, Allie.

I express my regrets at what happened and ask if they have any idea who might have done it.

“It has to be someone from Center City,” Richard says. “They blame Jeremy for the murders.”

“Might there be people in Findlay who do so as well?” I ask.

“No, people here know better,” is his quick response.

Allie shakes her head. “We don’t know that, Richard. We only know what people tell us; we don’t know what they are thinking.”

Richard turns to me. “You’ve got to help our son, Mr. Carpenter. Please… I’d like to say we can handle this on our own, but there’s no way.”

I deflect the request as best I can, and I’m relieved when Laurie and Parsons come over to question the Davidsons. I fade off into the background, and it gives me time to reflect on the situation.

Six hours ago I had decided not to take on the case. Since then, the Davidsons’ house has been firebombed, I’ve had sex with Laurie, and I’ve discovered that the hotel has ESPN. To say the least, these are new factors to consider.

The truth is, the most important new factor is what happened at this house. I simultaneously possess a lack of physical courage and a refusal to back down from bullies. It’s amazing I’ve lived as long as I have. But it’s becoming obvious that powerful forces, both inside and outside the justice system, are lining up against Jeremy and his family. It makes me want to stand with them.

Laurie finishes what she’s doing and leaves Parsons behind to secure the scene. She drives me back to the hotel, not having learned much more than she knew before.

“Parsons says whoever did it knew what they were doing,” she informs me. “He knows much more than I do about these things, and he says the firebomb was well constructed. The fire chief said the same.”

“The world seems to be lining up against Jeremy Davidson,” I say as we are reaching the hotel.

She pulls over in front and turns to look at me.

“This is going to make you stay and take the case,” she says. It’s a statement, not a question.

“Yup,” I say.

“And my being here complicates things.”

“Yup.”

“We need to talk at some point… you know, about how things will be between us while you’re here.”

“Yup.”

“I’m the arresting officer, you’re the defense attorney. It’s a rather unusual situation.”

“Yup.”

“I don’t want to behave in a way that could… you know… hurt you again.”

“Yup.”

“Do you remember how much I used to hate when you went into your ‘yup’ mode?”

“Yup.”

“Yet I seem to want to kiss you good night.”

“Go for it,” I say, and she does, after looking around first to make sure no one can see us. She breaks it off quickly and drives away.

Do I think I’m in for an interesting few months?

Yup.