Flat Lake in Winter (14 page)

Mostly, it was the man’s size that hinted at the family relationship, but even that resemblance disappeared when P. J. slouched back on the visiting-room chair.

“So, Saint Jonathan’s got himself jammed up, huh?” were P. J.’s first words, following the introductions.

“That’s right,” Gunn acknowledged. “Your brother’s been arrested.”

“What kinda beef?”

“Murder.”

P. J. shifted into an upright position. “You’re shittin’ me,” he said.

“We didn’t fly down here to shit you,” Hillary assured him.

“Who’d he do?”

Hillary was momentarily put off by the con talk, but Gunn didn’t miss a beat. “They claim he ‘did’ your grandparents,” he said.

The hooded lids disappeared, and P.J. stared wide-eyed and open-mouthed, in a display of astonishment that Gunn and Munson would later agree was so authentically spontaneous as to be almost comical. The
“No fuckin’ way!”
that came from P. J.’s lips was all but superfluous.

They spent a few minutes filling him in on some of the details, before turning to the subject of P. J.’s own troubles. If his reaction to the news hadn’t been enough to convince them of his lack of involvement, there was also the little matter of his alibi: P. J. had been picked up outside of Syracuse in October 1996 and had been in custody ever since. He’d finally copped out to four bank robberies, but they’d pinned another dozen on him. Even with his guilty plea, it had added up to thirty years under the guidelines.

“Coulda been worse.” He shrugged. “At least I’m in a federal joint. Food’s better. Hey, they coulda sent me to Marion, Illinois, to give blowjobs to John Gotti. Pardon my French,” he added with a crooked smile, for Hillary’s benefit.

They pumped him for information about Jonathan’s formative years, anything that might prove useful to Matt Fielder in his attempt to establish mitigating circumstances. It seemed to them that P. J. wanted to be helpful. It was clear he considered his younger brother something of a pampered brat - calling his brother “Saint Jonathan” had established that at the outset. Still, he tried his best to help, particularly after they told him that Jonathan was a candidate for the death penalty. But the truth was, there wasn’t too much he was able to tell them. Just as Elna Armbrust had said, P. J. had begun abusing drugs, as well as alcohol, early in his teens, at a time when Jonathan was still a boy. By the age of twenty, Junior had already committed a dozen petty offenses, but had yet to be arrested. At twenty-two, he’d left home, never to return. He’d learned of his parents’ deaths three years later from an item on the TV news. He’d tried to get to the funeral, but was in jail somewhere in northwestern Pennsylvania at the time, and they refused his request for an accompanied furlough.

“If they woulda, I was goin’ to make a break for it,” he admitted with a smile.

There seemed to be nothing left to talk about. “Well,” Hillary said, putting her pen into her briefcase, “we appreciate your help.”

“Glad to be of service to you, ma’am.”

“Not that you were an easy guy to find,” Gunn added. “For a while there, we didn’t even know you existed. We thought Jonathan was an only child.”

“Oh, no,” P. J. said. “There was the three of us.”

AROUND THE SAME time that Pearson Gunn and Hillary Munson were finding it was their turn to open their eyes wide and let their lower jaws drop, Matt Fielder was sitting at his computer, putting final touches on his mitigation letter to Gil Cavanaugh. He’d read it over so many times that he knew it by heart. He’d faxed a copy of it to Kevin Doyle at the Capital Defender’s Office, to make sure he wasn’t including anything that might be used against Jonathan in any way. Doyle had phoned him with his approval, but also with a sobering comment.

“It’s a great letter, Matt,” he’d said. “But from everything I know about Cavanaugh, he’d go death against his own mother if it’d get him reelected.”

But, hey, what did Doyle know? After all, he was only the leading authority, the number-one capital defender in the state. Who was
he
to say?

Fielder printed out a final draft, signed his name at the bottom, and folded it into an envelope. Then he took a drive into Big Moose, where he handed it to the postal clerk.

“I want this sent by Express Mail,” he told her. “Overnight. Return receipt requested.”

“The works, huh?”

“The works.”

“We don’t get too many of those,” she admitted. “Must be a matter of life and death or something, huh?”

“You might say so,” said Matt Fielder.

“THREE OF YOU?” said Pearson Gunn and Hillary Munson in tandem.

“Sure,” P. J. replied, looking surprised at their ignorance. “There’s me, there’s Jonathan, and there’s Jennifer.”

“Jennifer?”

Hillary retrieved her pen from her briefcase. The interview would continue for another half hour.

Jennifer was the middle of the three Hamilton children, born in 1967, making her thirty-three years younger than P. J., but still two years older than Jonathan. Physically she was said to favor Jonathan, in that she was blonde and fair and - at least according to P. J. - “drop-dead gorgeous.” Then again, it had been some time since P. J. had seen her, and also some time since he’d seen any “snatch” (as he so eloquently phrased it) at all.

Like her older brother, Jennifer was apparently something of a black sheep in the Hamilton family. From the bits and pieces P. J. had picked up over the years since his departure, he was able to report that she, too, had left home never to return, about two years after he did. Last he’d heard, she was living somewhere in Vermont, or maybe New Hampshire, under a different name. He didn’t know just where, and couldn’t remember what the name was. About the best he could do was supply her birthday, September 6. But he seriously doubted that she had a criminal record.

“Not
that
kinda black sheep.” He smiled.

“What kind, then?” Hillary asked.

“You know,” he said, looking her up and down, and smiling crookedly. “She always had a little bit of a
taste
for things.”

And that was about it. Jennifer Somebody, thirty years old, living somewhere in Vermont, or maybe New Hampshire. With a little bit of a
taste
for things.

SITTING TOGETHER ON the last leg of their flight back to Albany, Gunn and Munson compared notes. They’d certainly learned enough to rule out P. J. Hamilton as a suspect; that much they could tell Fielder. But when it came to shedding any new light on Jonathan, Junior had proved to be of very little use. On the other hand, he’d surprised them by revealing the existence of a third sibling. But once again, he knew so little about her that it seemed all but certain she’d turn out to be nothing but another dead end.

That is, if they were ever lucky enough to find her.

Gunn suddenly leaned across Hillary to get the attention of a passing flight attendant. “Excuse me,” he said. “I’ve got this medical condition. Do you happen to have any ale on board?”

THE CASE WAS back in court on Friday, October 3. The media was there, but this time in modest numbers. The parties had settled into motion practice, which rarely produces sound bites worthy of the six o’clock news. So it was only those present, or those diligent enough to read the next day’s local newsprint, who would learn that while Judge Summerhouse, predictably, had denied the defense’s motion to dismiss the indictment because of the prosecution’s refusal to give them extra time to participate in the grand-jury process, just as predictably he’d granted the prosecution’s request that the defendant provide blood and hair samples and submit to the taking of footprints.

Nor would the news viewers be treated to the sight of Matt Fielder’s objecting when Judge Summerhouse ordered him to have the rest of his motions filed within the normal forty-five-day period allowed by the statute for non-capital cases. “That’s plenty of time,” he told Fielder. “You get ‘em in. Case is adjourned till November seventeenth.”

What the viewers
would
see and hear, as usual, was Gil Cavanaugh. He’d received Fielder’s mitigation letter three days earlier. “That,” he now told the courtroom and the pool camera, “has given me more than an ample opportunity to review it and consider it fully.”

Never mind that it had taken Fielder almost three days just to type the thing.

“The defense has asked me to refrain from seeking the death penalty in this case,” Cavanaugh intoned in his most resonating baritone voice, “as is their prerogative. But my orders come from the people of this county, and it is my sworn duty to uphold the law of this state. The defense points out that Mr. Hamilton had no prior criminal record before the commission of these crimes. Well, that may be true in a
technical
sense,” he allowed. “But once he killed the first victim, as far as
I’m
concerned, he was a murderer. If he’d stopped at that point, he wouldn’t have been
eligible
for the death penalty, though if it was up to me to write the laws, he sure would have been. But no, it’s only after he goes and kills the
second
victim, takes a
second
human life, that we’re allowed to seek true justice. In
my
book, Mr. Hamilton
already
had his criminal record at that point. He killed two God-fearing people. The law doesn’t require me to wait until he kills a third - maybe one of
you
- before I fulfill my obligation.

“Next thing they tell me, Mr. Hamilton is supposed to be a bit on the
slow
side. Like that should constitute some sort of an excuse for what he’s gone and done. Well, folks, the way
I
was always brought up to believe, being slow may be an excuse for reading poorly, or for not getting good grades in school. But it’s not an excuse for murder. No, sir. We will treat Mr. Hamilton the same way we will treat any other citizen of this county. We will not treat him any worse because he may have had a little trouble in his classes; that could have happened to anybody. But we won’t treat him any
better,
either. That’s simply the American way, folks: equal justice under the law.

“And so,” and here Cavanaugh raised his voice theatrically, “I have come to the conclusion that the mandate of the legislature, the will of the God-fearing people who elected me, and my own personal conscience require that I do my duty, however unpleasant that duty may be. Therefore, I, Francis Gilmore Cavanaugh, the duly elected District Attorney of Ottawa County, do hereby solemnly certify that, in the event that the defendant should be convicted of these heinous and unforgivable crimes, I shall ask a jury of his peers to impose the only appropriate sentence, that of death.”

If Cavanaugh’s decision surprised nobody, it certainly topped the evening news and made headlines across the state. Even the unflappable
New York Times
found room on the bottom of page one for a small item.

Because the story had run in Saturday’s edition, Matt Fielder missed it. But a copy of it arrived in the mail three days later, courtesy of Kevin Doyle. The Capital Defender’s Office makes it their business to clip all stories bearing on the death penalty.

Reading the article infuriated Fielder. In the first place, trial lawyers take second place to no one when it comes to the ego department. So, seeing Cavanaugh’s name mentioned twice, and his not at all, was annoying enough. But the real sting came from the reporting of his failure to comment on the matter. What did they expect him to say? Didn’t they realize he was thrust on the horns of a dilemma here? If he climbed up onto a soapbox and argued that his client should be spared because he barely knew what was going on, that was tantamount to admitting that Jonathan was guilty. On the other hand, if he reminded them that there was nothing more than circumstantial proof against Jonathan, that might be held against him later. He hated lawyers who used the “fallback” approach: “My client didn’t do it. But if he did, it was self-defense. And even if it wasn’t self-defense, then he was drunk at the time, or insane. Yeah, insane, that’s it!”

He looked at the clipping. In the margin, Doyle had inked in the words,
Talk about a rock and a hard place!
At least
he
understood. Then again, what were the chances of getting twelve Kevin Doyles on a jury? What were the chances of getting
one?
He’d seen the public-opinion polls. According to the latest survey, something like 80 percent of the voters in Ottawa County approved of capital punishment. And most thought a death sentence was appropriate in
all
murder cases, let alone those the legislature deemed qualified because they contained aggravating circumstances. When the pollsters tried to find out what sort of defendants people might be willing to spare, the results were downright scary. They’d get responses like, “Well, I don’t think there should be a death sentence if the defendant acted in self-defense,” or “I’m not in favor of it if the death was the result of an accident,” or Fielder’s personal favorite, “I probably wouldn’t vote for death in a case where I didn’t think the defendant was guilty.”

* * *

WITH THE DIE officially cast, Fielder turned to the task of preparing the remainder of his written motions. Forty-five days might seem like a lot of time, but he knew that he couldn’t afford to chance leaving things for the last minute, as he had routinely done in his Legal Aid days. At stake here were several things of vital importance to the defense: the sufficiency of the evidence presented before the grand jury; the legality of the property seized by the state police; the admissibility of the statement Jonathan had allegedly made to Deke Stanton; and the broad issue of what evidence, documents, scientific test results, and photographs the prosecution would be required to turn over to the defense in advance of trial.

Pearson Gunn and Hillary Munson, meanwhile, were directed to set all other assignments aside and devote their collective energies to locating the whereabouts of Jennifer Hamilton. Fielder felt personally responsible that, for the second time in a matter of weeks, the defense had been embarrassed by an inadvertent discovery - first that Jonathan had a brother, and now that he had a sister.

If P. J. hadn’t proved to be of much help, that could be explained by the fact that he’d left home as early as 1986, when Jonathan had been only seventeen. And by that time, P.J. himself had already been drinking, abusing drugs, and committing crimes with some regularity - all matters that would have directed his attention away from a brother five years younger. Jennifer might be a different story. If P. J. was to be believed - and this, of course, might be a big “if” - she hadn’t left until two years later, in 1988, when Jonathan had been nineteen. As the middle child, she’d been closer in age to him, and presumably more a part of the family dynamic. Hopefully, she’d be in a better position than P. J. to shed some light on Jonathan’s early development.

Besides which, she was about all they had left.

With the defense’s division of labor thus mapped out, Matt Fielder sat down at his computer, with every intention of getting started on his motion papers. But as things turned out, the sun, slanting through his cabin windows at a peculiar angle that Sunday morning, made it hard for him to read the characters on his screen. It occurred to Fielder that he could close the shutters, but the windowsill was filled with all sorts of clutter = sunglasses, pens, spare keys, loose change, and little empty bottles for collecting and testing his well-water. Besides, the thought of trading natural light for artificial struck him as much too harsh. The days were growing noticeably shorter as it was, and already the leaves were falling. Soon enough, the combination of darkness and cold would place severe restrictions upon the number of hours he could spend outdoors. And, after all, he did have forty-five days to get his motions in; he figured he could afford a bit of procrastination. So instead of closing the shutters, he shut down his computer.

And he took a drive.

He could have headed northeast, up to Stillwater Reservoir, where he probably would have a pretty good chance of spotting a bald eagle or two. He’d come to know where a pair of them was nesting, high up in one of the tallest trees, and one summer day he’d been lucky enough to watch a young eaglet make its first flight. The parents had coaxed it out, first by withholding food, and finally by making a series of passes at the nest, each one closer than the one before. Then they’d taken up stations in a lower branch of a nearby tree, and took turns screeching taunts at the eaglet until, precariously perched on the edge of the nest, it had finally either summoned up the courage to push off on its own, or simply lost its balance and been forced to improvise in midair. In flight, it had looked almost equal in size to the adult birds. Its first attempts at navigating had been a bit on the clumsy side, but within an hour it was soaring, diving, and gliding in for landings as though it had been airborne all its life.

But he didn’t head up to Stillwater Reservoir.

He could have headed southeast, down to Little Moose Mountain, the tallest peak for miles around, which would have given him a commanding view of the lakes and rivers and autumn colors spread out beneath it in all directions. If he was quiet enough, there was a fair chance he’d see black bear up there this time of year, gorging themselves on shoots and berries and wildflowers, in preparation for the coming winter hibernation.

But he didn’t head southeast.

He could even have taken his canoe and driven west with it to Beaver Falls, where there was an easy spot to launch it, and where, for ten bucks, he could find someone at Stuckley’s Amoco Station to drive his car down to Otter Creek so it would be waiting for him by the time he paddled down there. On the way, it was a good bet he’d pass deer grazing by the riverbanks, or maybe even a moose feeding on the vegetation that grew on the bottoms of the still pools the river made as it meandered.

But he didn’t do that, either.

Instead, he headed northeast, farther up into lake country. He took his time as he drove, taking in the sights and breathing in the smells, knowing there was no hurry to scale a mountain while the sun was still high, and no rush to make it downstream to a landing before nightfall. He knew he’d be seeing no bald eagles this day, no black bear or feeding moose. For he’d lowered his goal to a far more modest one. He was headed to Flat Lake, to the Hamilton estate.

To the scene of the crime.

THE WAY PEARSON Gunn and Hillary Munson had chosen to divide up the job of trying to find Jennifer Hamilton was a simple one: Munson would look in Vermont, Gunn in New Hampshire. Of course, the word
look
was something of a misnomer, because most of their looking would be done over the phone. And, since they were still feeling somewhat guilty about their belated discovery of Jonathan’s brother - and then that he had a sister as well - they’d decided to add some incentive to the quest, in the form of a friendly bet. The winner would be the first one to come up with a correct current address for Jennifer. The stakes were high: If Gunn won, Hillary would have to buy him a pitcher of ale; if Hillary prevailed, Gunn would owe her a dinner. Whether Gunn was on the road to committing the same blunder Matt Fielder had made, remains uncertain to this day. As things turned out, it was Hillary, and not he, who ended up having to pay off.