The Spellmans Strike Again (33 page)

Also in the file was a brief mention of another witness. The name was Craig Phelps. The note on Craig was brief. “Saw white man leaving Elsie’s house. Witness unreliable. Known drunk.”

A witness who sees another person leaving Elsie’s house and there’s no follow-up? What kind of defense attorney did Mr. Merriweather have? I needed to consult Maggie on a few matters, so I put the file away and moved on to another item on my list.

I pulled out my computer to check on the tracking device that was placed on Elizabeth Enright’s Toyota and watched her movements on her day off. Unfortunately, she drove her car to a parking garage off Van Ness, and it didn’t move for twenty-four hours. So Mrs. Enright’s vehicle wasn’t going to tell me anything. Maybe a short tail on her would. But there was no time for that now.

I phoned Len and asked him how the valet interviews were going.

“Dreadfully,” he replied.

“Can you put Christopher on the phone?”

“Hello,” Christopher said.

“Are you moving to Los Angeles or New York?”

“I haven’t decided.”

“Decide. Mr. Winslow has Len’s trust. He needs Len to help him find a replacement and Len won’t get anything done until you have a clear plan in sight.”

“Isabel, sounds to me like those are your troubles, not mine.”

“Well then I’m going to tell Len he can keep his job with Mr. Winslow, and they don’t need to look for a replacement. At least then I know my client will be in good hands.”

“You’ve made your point, Isabel.”

“Good night, Christopher.”

THURSDAYS WITH
MORTY REDUX

I picked Morty up at the full-service condo that he and Ruthy were renting near the Embarcadero. It had only been seven months since I’d seen him, but those seven months had taken their toll. Florida will do that to you, I guess. He also had something of a tan. Mixed with his square Coke-bottle glasses, the tan made him look like a Miami natural, but he was glad to be home. I could see that.

I gave Morty a Bernie-style bear hug, but then I softened the embrace because it felt like he would crumble in my arms. When Ruthy came out of the kitchen to greet me, she also appeared tired, as if the months in Florida hadn’t been as invigorating as she had hoped.

“Nice to see you again, Isabel.”

“You too,” I said, and kissed her on the cheek.

“Staying out of jail?” she asked.

“Not exactly,” I replied truthfully.

“I don’t want to hear another word,” she said, and returned to the kitchen.

After she left, I squeezed Morty’s weak bicep and said, “We need to get you back in a regular shuffleboard game,” I said. “You’re getting soft.”

Morty ignored me and said, “Did you make a reservation?”

“Of course. We need to hurry if we’re going to make the one o’clock seating.”

Morty returned to the kitchen, where he said good-bye to Ruthy. I could overhear the tones of a mild disagreement, but I couldn’t make out any of the content.

At Moishe’s Pippic,
¹
we took a table in the back. Morty ordered matzo-ball soup, which seemed odd since he was always talking up the pastrami. But maybe it’s hard to find yourself in the mood for soup in Miami and he was ready for a change. When Morty unbuttoned his Pendleton shirt, I noticed that he was sporting a
FREE SCHMIDT!
T-shirt underneath.

“You’re wearing the wrong shirt,” I said.

“I thought we wanted Schmidt free,” Morty said.

“Sure we want Schmidt free, but that looks like it’s going to happen. Now we want to free Demetrius. He takes priority. I had another shirt made for you.”

I gave Morty my offering.

“ Justice 4 Merri-weather’?” Morty read as he held up his nice, new bright red shirt with black lettering. “Must have taken forever to iron on all those letters.”

“Forever,”
I replied, reliving the memory.

“They’re crooked, you know.”

“Not another word.”

“So you’re done hunting Harkey?” Morty said with a tone of disbelief. “And now you’re searching for justice?”

“That sounds fairly close to the truth,” I replied.

“Why don’t you give me the whole truth and nothing but?”

And so I did. And by the time Morty was finished with his soup and two cups of decaf coffee, he agreed that the evidence against Merriweather was shamefully weak—and also agreed to wear the Team Merriweather T-shirt.

FREE MERRIWEATHER—

CHAPTER 5

I phoned Harkey’s old partner, Inspector Andrew Fishman (now lieutenant), at least four times and left a message. I made a foolish mistake with the first phone call, mentioning that I wanted to discuss Harkey. This might have been the kiss of death—even when I followed him to work and then phoned his office, I was told that he was out for the day. There had to be another way. And the other way involved keeping me out of the picture.

Next up, I had to track down Craig Phelps. The file contained only his name and an El Cerrito address. But that was twenty years ago; Craig Phelps is a fairly common name, and tracking him down based on a previous address alone was next to impossible. The police file didn’t even bother giving any other identifying information on Phelps, since he was so handily dismissed.

I ran a name search for every city in the Bay Area and narrowed down the list by eliminating any Craig Phelpses under the age of forty or over eighty. This left me with ten Craig Phelpses. I started making phone calls. With each call I identified myself as a representative of a close relative who was trying to make contact with a certain Craig Phelps. Then I explained that the relative in question had lost touch with Phelps after he moved from the El Cerrito address that I provided. Craig Phelps #6 was my man. I arranged for us to meet at a nearby diner so that I could have his full attention.

We met at a Denny’s on Carolina Street. Craig Phelps was now sixty and, as far as I could tell, sober. Although based on his complexion, it might have taken him a few years to dry out. I ordered pancakes with a whipped cream face because I thought it would keep things light. It’s hard to feel threatened by someone eating a happy face.

“I’m afraid I’ve brought you here under false pretenses,” I said over my first bottomless cup of coffee.

“Oh yeah?” Craig replied.

“But really, it’s not that bad. I’m going to pay for your breakfast and give you fifty bucks after we have a short chat. No harm can come of that, right?”

And so Craig and I chatted. I reminded him of the Merriweather case and did my best to jog his memory about the officer who interviewed him. The interview, he recalled, was short; the officer, based on his description alone, was Harkey.

Then I asked Craig what he saw that night. He said he saw a white male exit through Ms. Collins’s back door sometime before dawn. Craig admitted to having been drunk at the time, but he was always drunk back then and it rarely incapacitated him. He stood by his original statement. He saw a white male, approximately twenty-five years of age, run off after exiting Elsie Collins’s home. According to the report, the date of the interview was five days after Elsie was murdered. I asked Craig if it was possible that he was remembering a white male exit her home on a different night. But he said no. The following day was etched in his memory because the murder caused such a stir in the whole neighborhood.

I asked him if he knew Demetrius Merriweather.

“Not very well,” Craig replied, “but I’m pretty sure he stole my hubcaps once.”

•� •� •

I drove to Maggie’s office after my meeting with Phelps. Same as my last visit, she was feasting on saltines and ginger ale and she had the general look of queasiness about her.

“How long are you going to pretend not to notice?” Maggie asked.

“As long as you’d like me to,” I replied.

“Who knows?”

“I think just me and Fred.”

“Fred?”

“Nothing slips past that kid. But, unlike Rae, he can be dealt with.”

“You didn’t threaten him, did you?”

“No. I wouldn’t threaten Fred. I reasoned with him. He’s reasonable. Listen, your secret is safe for a little while, but it would be wise for you to break the news on your own, if you know what I mean.”

“We just want to wait a few more weeks.”

“Congratulations. I’m really happy for you.”

“You don’t think it’s too soon?” Maggie asked.

“Of course not.”

“Will your mother?”

“My mother will be beside herself with joy. I have to say, however, I don’t know how you’re keeping this from Rae.”

“Between gardening and the Schmidt case, her attention is otherwise occupied.”

“Isn’t Schmidt free yet?”

“All the legal work is done; we’re just waiting for the court to make a decision on his release. Rae’s convinced he’s getting out. She spends most of her time here writing Schmidt letters about what has changed on the outside since his incarceration. I think she’s currently working on a slang glossary and text-message spelling guide for him.”

“How productive,” I commented dryly.

“I assume you want to discuss the Merriweather case?” Maggie asked.

“How could you tell?”

“It’s written all over your shirt.”

And then we discussed Merriweather. I detailed my recent interviews and pointed out that the ten-year-old witness merely saw Merriweather exit Collins’s home with a television set. I also told her that he described what Merriweather was wearing and showed her the photograph of Merriweather at the crime scene, wearing that same jacket, the following day. Then I mentioned my interview with Craig Phelps—a drunk, but a functioning drunk, who saw a white guy leaving Collins’s home later that night. The witness and the possible subject had been summarily dismissed. Wasn’t this enough evidence to reopen the investigation?

The short answer: no. The long answer is that if the evidence was available at the time of the trial, it is not sufficient for an appeal. You need new evidence. And since all of the hard evidence in Merriweather’s case had gone conveniently missing, we couldn’t rely on DNA, which is the primary liberator of the wrongfully convicted. It makes you wonder how many people will remain behind bars who truly are innocent of the crimes for which they were convicted.

“Doesn’t ignoring a witness’s testimony qualify as police misconduct?”

“You don’t have enough here,” Maggie said. “And if I file an appeal now before we have something more substantial to go on, I can ruin Merriweather’s chances for the future.”

“What do I need?”

“If you could prove that the arresting officer had a history of manipulating witnesses or found evidence of other kinds of corruption, that
might
help us.”

“So I need to get another police officer to talk, right?”

“It wouldn’t hurt.”

I sat in Maggie’s office, dwelling on the sheer impossibility of this endeavor. Before I met Demetrius, I could have lived with the idea that there was nothing I could do to help him. But now, the concept that Merriweather might never be freed was so hideous that I refused to even contemplate that possibility. Once I got his hopes up, it seemed unconscionable to quit before he was free. But I had to wonder if I would be spending the rest of his days fighting an impossible battle.

“Isabel, are you all right?” Maggie asked.

“Yes, I was just thinking.”

“About what?”

“Nothing,” I said. To be more precise, what I was thinking about was that I was out of ideas. However, I quickly wiped that idea out of my head. I just needed more time to think.

Before I left Maggie’s office, I had to get to the bottom of one other matter.

“Why is David making Rae plant perennials in your backyard?”

“He’s not making her,” Maggie replied. “She offered.”

“Excuse me?”

“We thought she had just sort of taken to the gardening thing.”

“Didn’t you think that was suspicious?”

“Sure. But people change.”

“No, they don’t,” I replied as I made my quick departure.

THE PERENNIAL PROBLEM

From the car, I phoned David. He was conveniently at home.

Five minutes later, I pulled into his driveway and knocked on his door.

“Something very strange is going on,” I said.

“Isn’t it always?” David replied.

“By the way, congratulations.
Please
tell Mom and Dad before they figure it out on their own.”

“How’d you find out?”

“I’m a detective,” I replied. “Is there going to be a wedding? And, if so, please tell Maggie not to torture me with one of those crazy bridesmaid’s dresses.”

“She’s not that kind of torturer.”

“I didn’t think so. But you never know.”

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” David asked.

“Can you please show me where Rae has been ‘gardening’?” I said, using finger quotes.

“Sure,” David replied, eyeing me with the appropriate germ of suspicion.

I followed my brother through the back door and down the short steps to the small yard, which consists mostly of weeds, a patch of grass, and an old cypress tree. Along the side of the wooden fence that divides it from the neighboring property, I saw a long patch of dirt that was unsettled but dry.

“Aren’t you supposed to water this?”

“Rae told me to leave it alone. She’d take care of it. She said overwatering perennials is the kiss of death.”

I don’t have a green thumb, but I can tell you that not watering a plant is also the kiss of death.

“Where’s your shovel?” I asked.

David opened the door to a small tool shed and pulled out a shovel. I took it from him and immediately began digging into the unsettled dirt.

“Isabel. You’re ruining my perennials.”

“You can’t be this stupid,” I replied as I continued digging.

Within sixty seconds the shovel hit something hard. I got down on my hands and knees and brushed away the dirt, revealing a large paper bag. I pulled the bag out of the ground and opened it. Inside were three doorknobs and a sink handle. I continued digging, this time being more careful, since I knew I might hit a glass light fixture or two. Suffice it to say, within an hour’s time, I’d unearthed the entire collection of missing Spellman hardware.