The Simeon Chamber (18 page)

Fletcher remembered clearly Bogardus’s attack:

“Officer, can you tell me how long you talked to the defendant before you took his confession?”

“Oh. Three, four minutes.”

“What did you talk about?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Was the defendant coherent?”

“Yes.”

“Had he been drinking?”

“I doubt if there’s been a time in the last twenty years when he hasn’t been. But if you’re asking me if he was drunk, the answer’s no.” The cop exuded the confidence of a veteran, having sealed off an obvious avenue of 209

escape.

“Do you remember hearing the defendant make the confession?”

“Oh, absolutely. Took every word of it in my notebook.”

Bogardus turned and picked up a file folder from the counsel table. “I notice from the arrest file there’s no 637?”

“Sir?”

“Form 637. The department’s Miranda sheet. It’s customary for the arresting officer to complete one when he files his report.”

The cold look of panic in the officer’s eyes was undisguised. “I guess we forgot to fill one out.”

“Who Mirandized the defendant, Officer?”

There was a brief hesitation. “I’m sure my partner did.” The cop waited for the obvious “Did you see your partner Mirandize him?” But the young officer would never know if he lacked the rectitude or possessed the boldness to lie under oath. The question was not asked. Instead the nail was driven into the coffin: “You did not personally Mirandize the defendant?”

“No.” As the word left his lips the cop suddenly realized why his partner had not come out of the courtroom following his testimony. Bogardus had not wanted the two to talk, even for an instant. Their fate was sealed. Under oath each had taken the same avenue of escape. Both had eluded the responsibility by assuming the other had performed the ministerial act of reading the defendant his rights.

“That’s all from this witness, Your Honor.”

Less than a minute later came the motion to suppress from Bogardus. The defendant’s confession, the only evidence linking him to the crime, was excluded and the case was dismissed.

Fletcher donned a sardonic smile. “The last time I looked those two were still juggling nightsticks down in the Tenderloin.”

“You win some, you lose some, Lieutenant.” Sam grinned back at him.

“Well, let’s hope we have what the business types call a `win-win` situation here.” Fletcher tapped the file that rested on his desk. “What do you know about it?”

“Probably not as much as you do,” said Sam.

“What was your partner doing at home in her apartment at three-thirty in the afternoon?” 211

“I have no idea. As I’m sure you already know, I was in the hospital when Pat was killed.”

“Was that her nickname—Pat?”

Sam nodded.

“Yes, let’s get to the hospital. I’m sure there’s a doctor somewhere who’d like to know where the hell you are now. They’re not used to patients just walking out of the place.”

“What can I say? I was feeling better so I left.”

“It couldn’t have anything to do with your partner’s murder, could it?”

“I found out about her death in the hospital. I wanted to get out to see if there was anything I could do.”

“What time did you leave the hospital?”

“I guess it was a little before seven in the evening.”

“Where did you go from there?”

“To the office.” He lied. “Slept there on a couch that night.” He had no intention of drawing the police to Angie’s. They’d have a field day with the old lady and Sam wasn’t sure how much she’d heard about the parchments and Jennifer Davies during her hospital visit and from conversations with Carol.

Mayhew’s head ping-ponged back and forth between the two men with each exchange, his tongue sliding the toothpick from one corner of his mouth to the other.

“Did your partner have any family?”

“No husband or kids, if that’s what you mean. Her mother lives on the East Coast and her father’s dead.”

“Yeah. We’ve already talked to Mrs. Paterson, the victim’s mother.”

From the look on Fletcher’s face, Bogardus knew that Pat’s mother had not given Sam her seal of approval. He should have spoken with her at the funeral. It might have dulled the edge of her suspicions.

“Don’t suppose you have any idea who killed Susan Paterson?”

“No. Do you?”

Fletcher ignored him. “Know if anyone threatened Ms. Paterson’s life recently or had any reason to kill her?”

“Not that I’m aware of.”

“No cases with disgruntled clients—perhaps an angry husband in a divorce case, 213

or a criminal client?”

“No. She did some criminal work and had a few domestic clients, but just the usual fare.”

If it had been relevant he might have told them. It was true. She’d had her share of strange clients. The last was a man named Zack Barns. Barns was what was known in the trade as a “wand wagger”—one of those lonely men who stand in front of picture windows overlooking crowded streets and display their manliness to the world, or at least to as much of it as is willing to look.

It was one of those things that most lawyers run across at least once in their career. Sam had had his fill of the molesters and the raincoat men while working misdemeanors with the P.D. Pat’s turn in the tumbler came during private practice.

She’d accepted the case, labeled “miscellaneous misdemeanor,” on a referral from the criminal courts panel in January. Barns was a school bus driver who decided to display his wares to a twelve-year-old girl as he made the last stop of the day. When Pat advised him to cop a plea, Zack Barns became excited. Abstractions quickly turned to reality, and it fell to Sam to step into Pat’s office and ask him to leave. Before doing so, however, Bogardus strongly advised him to resheath his tool. As he left the office Barns leveled obscenities at Pat—what a suspicious cop might view as a threat on her life, but what Sam recognized as the aroused sexual excitement of a sick man.

It was impossible to practice law in a large city and not deal with some of the human garbage that became its byproduct. But it was irrelevant to Pat’s death and he had no intention of airing the episode for the cops’ perverse enjoyment.

“Well, maybe you can tell me who put you in the hospital?”

“I’d be happy to if I could. Believe me, Lieutenant.”

“So you have no idea who put that lump on your head or offed your partner?” A discernible note of sarcasm returned to Fletcher’s voice.

“None,” replied Sam. “What makes you think the two events are connected?”

“What makes you think they’re not?” said Fletcher. “Just a damn coincidence, I suppose.”

“This is getting us nowhere.” 5

“I’ll be the judge of that,” said the detective. “For now just answer my questions.”

“The attack in my apartment was a random burglary. I just had the misfortune to wake up when the thief was about to make off with my television or stereo.”

“Well, if that’s the case, why did the burglar leave without taking anything after he went to the trouble of beating your brains out?”

“So the theory’s a little lame. Use your imagination. Maybe he got scared. Maybe he thought he killed me and panicked.”

“Yeah, maybe,” said Fletcher. “And maybe he was looking for something, something he couldn’t find at your place so he went after your partner.”

They were tilting at windmills, chasing distractions. Pat was not killed by some demented client. She was murdered by someone who mistakenly believed that she knew something about the Davies parchments. But Fletcher would never believe that and Bogardus had no inclination to tell him.

An uncomfortable silence settled as Fletcher homed in.

“What do you think, Lieutenant? You think we were running drugs?” Bogardus accepted the premise and tried to lead the detective away from the parchments.

“You tell me.”

“I’m sure that by now you’ve had a chance to look at the police report on the burglary at my place. The only drugs your people found was a broken bottle of aspirin in the bathroom sink.” Sam was adroitly cautious.

Criminal clients never saw the inside of his apartment or his car—never had the chance to make a stash. The criminal defense bar, public and private, were prize targets for eager narcotics investigators and their paid informants.

More than one had ended up taking the fall on evidence they swore was planted.

“I have no idea who assaulted me or who killed my partner. When you find out, please let me know, because I’m very interested.”

Fletcher studied Sam carefully and reached for the file on his desk. He leaned back in his chair and opened the folder.

“How long had you and the victim been associated?”

“You mean how long had we been in practice together?” 7

Fletcher smiled. “No, I mean how long had you known each other?”

“We went to law school together in the mid-sixties.”

Fletcher waited for more. There was nothing.

“I’m told you two were an item?”

Pat’s mother had unloaded on him. “We lived together for a while.”

“And where was that?”

“In the Sunset District.”

“The apartment where she was murdered?”

“Yes.”

“When did you move out?”

“About two years ago now. It was a mutual understanding. We both wanted a little more room and some time to think.”

“No hard feelings?”

“None.”

“Are you seeing anybody else right now, Mr. Bogardus?”

“Nobody special.”

“Did you still have occasion to date the victim?”

“Listen, Lieutenant, if the scope of your inquiry has centered on me, I think maybe I should have the benefit of counsel, that is unless you have a yearning to join your two young friends out in the Tenderloin.”

“The scope of our inquiry hasn’t centered on anybody, and if I need legal advice I’ll confer with the district attorney’s office. For the moment you can call this a friendly conversation. After all, you came in voluntarily and you’re free to leave whenever you like.”

Sam leaned toward the door as if preparing to go.

“But I assume you have an interest in helping us find your partner’s killer?”

“If I could I would, but I don’t know anything.”

“Just a couple more questions. When was the last time you saw Ms. Paterson?”

Sam thought for a moment. “She visited me in the hospital.”

“When was that?”

“Let’s see. I guess it was the day before she was killed.”

“What did you talk about?”

Fletcher was beginning to bear down. He was looking for a thread, for something specific.

“I don’t remember. Hell, I 219

was pretty groggy. She was concerned about my condition. We talked about the lump on my head and how it happened.”

Fletcher leaned back in his chair, the springs punctuating the conversation with a low groan. “How did it happen, exactly?”

Sam related the events of the attack in his apartment in lurid detail in the hopes that it would pacify the detective. It didn’t.

“Mr. Bogardus, what else did you talk about with Ms. Paterson at the hospital?”

Did Fletcher know something? Did he know about the parchments?

“Let me think.” He paused for several seconds. “As I recall, that was it.”

“That’s all you talked about—the lump on your head and the attack in your apartment?”

Sam nodded.

“Who else was there?”

In for a penny, in for a pound. “Nobody—that i can recall. You’ve got to remember I was half out of it, Lieutenant.”

“I’m sure you were,” said Fletcher, the disbelief in his eyes belying his words. “And was that the last time you spoke with your partner?”

Sam paused for a moment. He remembered the telephone conversation the following morning—the call to get Jennifer Davies’s phone number. They might have telephone records from his hospital phone.

“No, there was a brief telephone conversation the following morning—to discuss some business matters.”

“What business matters?”

“Legal business matters,” said Sam.

“I don’t care if they involved divine inspiration, what did you talk about?”

“I’m sorry, but that’s confidential. It’s privileged, Lieutenant.”

“You know if it relates to this case I can get a court order and force you to tell me.” Fletcher stared at the lawyer across the desk.

Now who’s blowing smoke, thought Sam. “No, Lieutenant, you can try.”

There was a long pause as the two men locked eyes. Mayhew bit off the small end of his toothpick.

Sam saw that the detective was fingering something in the file, shuffling papers behind the cover of the folder that he held propped up against his 1

protruding belly.

“Let me show you something, Mr. Bogardus.”

Without warning, Fletcher flipped a large eight-by-ten glossy photograph onto the middle of the desk.

“Is that your partner?”

Sam felt a tight knot begin to form in his stomach, the same knot he had experienced when Jake called him in the hospital to tell him that Pat was dead. There on the desk in front of him was a picture of Pat, her legs askew, her upper torso tilted forward, her soft brunette hair dangling in the pool of matted blood, its red hue already turning a crimson shade of brown. The reality of the photograph lent horror to the mental image he had conjured in his mind following his first conversation with Jake Carns.

“You know who it is. Why ask me?”

“Yes, I do, Mr. Bogardus, and the sooner you decide to cooperate with us the sooner we can catch the person or persons who did that to Ms. Paterson.”

“I’ve told you all I know.” Sam felt a nauseous bubble begin to rise in his throat and swallowed hard, driving it back down into his stomach. “Now, unless you want to hold me on some charge, I have business to take care of.”

“No, we have no intention of holding you—at least not for the present. But keep yourself handy. It’s likely that we’ll need to talk again.”

Sam rose to leave.

“Oh, one more thing, Mr. Bogardus. Where can we reach you? We called at your office but could only get the answering service.”

Sam thought. “I’m staying with friends until my apartment gets put back together. For the time being you can reach me at my office or leave a message with the service and I’ll get back to you.”