Unbound (64 page)

The judge came in and settled down at her bench, and the rest of us sat too. She was a blocky woman in her early sixties, with skin the color of coffee grounds and bags under her eyes that made me think of Spike the bulldog in those old cartoons. If you didn’t look closely, you’d think she was bored out of her mind. She sat without moving much, her eyes half closed, scanning over a document on her own desk through a pair of reading glasses. There was something serpentine about her eyes, a suggestion of formidable, remorseless rationality. This was a woman who had seen a great deal, had been amused by very little of it, and who would not be easily made a fool. She finished scanning the document and glanced up at the defendant.

“Mister Luther?” she said.

The bruiser in the bad suit rose. “Yes, ma’am.”

“I see that you have taken it upon yourself to serve as your own defender,” she said. Her tone was bored, entirely neutral. “While this is your right under the law, I strongly advise you to reconsider. Given the severity of the charges against you, I would think that a professional attorney would offer you a much more comprehensive and capable legal defense.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Luther said. “I thought that too. But all the public defender wanted to do was plea bargain, ma’am. And I want to have my say.”

“That too is your right,” the Judge said. For a second, I thought I saw a flicker of something like regret on her face, but it vanished into neutrality again almost instantly. Her tone took on the measured cadence of a cop reading formal Miranda rights. “If you go through with this, you will not be able to move for a mistrial based on the fact that you do not have adequate representation. This trial will proceed and its outcome will be binding. Do you understand this warning as I have stated it to you?”

“Yes ma’am,” Luther said. “Ain’t no take-backsies. I want to represent myself, ma’am.”

The Judge nodded. “Then you may be seated.” Luther sat. The Judge turned toward the prosecutor and nodded to him. “Counselor.” There was a pause about a second and a half long, and then she repeated, in a mildly annoyed tone, “Counselor?” Another impatient pause. “Counselor Tremont, am I interrupting you?”

The young ADA in the fine suit blinked, looked up from his notes, and hastily rose. “No, your Honor, please excuse me. I’m ready to begin.”

“Thank goodness,” the Judge said in a dry tone. “My granddaughter graduates from high school in three weeks. You may proceed.”

Tremont flushed. “Um, yes. Thank you, your Honor.” The young man cleared his throat, adjusted his suit jacket, and walked over to face the jury box. He held up a glossy professional headshot of a handsome man in his thirties and showed it to us.

“Meet Curtis Black,” Tremont said. “He was a stock broker. He liked to go rock climbing on the weekends. He volunteered in a soup kitchen three weekends a month, and he once won an all-expenses-paid vacation to Florida by making a half-court shot during halftime at a Bull’s game. He was well liked by his professional associates and had an extensive family and was owned by an Abyssinian cat named Purrple.

“You have doubtless noted my use of the past tense. Was. Liked. Volunteered. But I have to use the past tense, because one year ago, Curtis Black was brutally murdered in an alley in Wrigleyville near the corner of Southport and Grace. Mr. Black was bludgeoned to death with a bowling pin. His skull was smashed flat in the back, and the autopsy showed that it had been shattered into a dozen pieces, like plate glass.”

Tremont took a moment to let the graphic description sink in. The room was very still.

“The state intends to prove,” he said, “that the defendant, Hamilton Luther, murdered Mr. Black in cold blood. That he followed him into the alley, seized the bowling pin from a refuse bin, and struck him from behind, causing him to fall to the ground. That he then proceeded to continue beating Mr. Black’s skull with twelve to fifteen heavy blows while Mr. Black lay stunned and helpless beneath him.

“This is a serious crime,” Tremont continued. “But Mr. Luther has a long history of violent offenses. Forensic evidence will prove that Mr. Luther was at the crime scene, that he left his fingerprints on the weapon, and that the forensic profile of the attack matches his height and build closely. Eyewitnesses and security cameras witnessed him fleeing the alley shortly after Mr. Black entered it, the victim’s blood literally upon his hands. The evidence will prove Mr. Luther’s guilt beyond any reasonable doubt and, in the end, you must find him guilty of this horrible crime. Thank you.”

“Thank you, counselor,” the Judge said, as Tremont returned to his seat. “Mr. Luther, you may present your opening statement.”

Luther rose slowly. He glanced around the jury box, licked his lip nervously and approached the jury.

“Ladies and . . . and gentlemen,” he said, stammering a little. “I know I got a past. I did a dime in Stateville for putting a guy in the hospital. But that was my past. I ain’t that man no more.” He swallowed and gestured vaguely over his shoulder, toward Tremont. “This guy is going to tell you about all this CSI stuff that says I did it. But all those reports and pictures don’t tell the whole story. They leave a lot of stuff out. I ain’t a lawyer. But I’m gonna tell you the whole story. And then . . . then I’ll see what you think about it, I guess.” He hovered for a moment longer, awkwardly, then nodded and said, “Okay. I’m done.”

“Thank you, Mr. Luther,” the Judge said. “You may return to your seat.”

“Yes ma’am,” Luther said, and did so.

“Mr. Luther, you are charged with first degree murder,” the Judge said, still in her rote-memory voice, “how do you plead?”

“I . . .” Luther looked down at some notes in front of him and then up again. “Not guilty, ma’am.”

Hell’s bells.

The full legal might of the state of Illinois was being thrown at Luther. The man seemed sincere enough. But apparently the only defense he had to offer was a story. A story from an ex-con, no less.

I wanted to hear him out. I knew all about being judged for things that were out of my control. But I was pretty sure Luther was going back to jail.

“Mr. Tremont,” the Judge said. “Is the prosecution ready to begin?”

“Yes, your Honor,” Tremont said.

“Very well,” she said. “You may call your first witness.”

* * * * *

Tremont spent the afternoon driving nails into Luther’s coffin, thoroughly, methodically, and one at a time.

He did exactly what he said he would do. He brought out each case of physical evidence, point by point, and linked Luther undeniably to the scene of the crime. Luther had been photographed by a grainy black-and-white security camera coming out of the alley’s far side, spattered in blood. His fingerprints were on the murder weapon, in the blood of the victim. The officer who arrested him had taken blood samples from his skin and clothing matching those of the victim. He additionally gave testimony of Luther’s past criminal record, which had landed him in jail as young man.

When given a chance to cross-examine, Luther shook his head, until he got to the testimony of the arresting officer, a black man in his late forties named Dwayne. He rose and asked the officer, “When you brung me in, was I injured?”

Officer Dwayne nodded. “You were banged up pretty good. Especially your head.”

“Where at?” Luther asked.

Dwayne grunted. “Back of your head.”

“Any other injuries on me?”

“You were one big bruise,” Dwayne said.

“How big was the victim,” Luther asked.

“About five-four, maybe one-fifty.”

“Weightlifter or something?”

“Not so you’d notice,” Dwayne said.

Luther nodded. “You known me a while. How come?”

“I was the one who arrested you the first damn time.”

“Officer,” the Judge said.

“Beg pardon, your Honor,” Dwayne said hurriedly.

“I remember that too,” Luther said. “In your experience, a businessman like that handle a guy like me?”

“Unless he’s armed, or got a lot of training, no.”

“One more question,” Luther said. He squinted at the officer and said, “You in my neighborhood ever since I got out. You ever think I’d be trouble again?”

“Objection,” Tremont said. “He’s asking for pure conjecture.”

Luther frowned and said, “Beat cops deal with ex-cons on a regular basis professionally, ma’am. Figure that qualifies him as an expert opinion on potential, uh . . .” He consulted his notes and spoke in a careful, clear tone. “Recidivism.”

The judge eyed Luther and said, toward Tremont, “Overruled. You may answer the question, Officer.”

“No,” Dwayne said. “I’ve seen you with your kids. I wouldn’t have called you for it.”

“In the arrest report,” Luther said, “does it say what I kept asking the officers?”

Dwayne cleared his throat and looked down at a notepad in front of him. “Yeah. The suspect kept asking ‘Where is she?’ and ‘Is she all right?’”

“Who was I talking about?”

Officer Dwayne turned a page and cleared his throat. “The suspect claimed that he only began the confrontation with the deceased after witnessing the man drag a female child, Latino, around the age of ten, into the alley,” he read. “Subsequent investigation could not confirm the presence of any such person.”

“How hard did they look?” Luther asked.

“I’m sorry?”

“You heard me,” Luther said. “In your opinion, how hard did the investigating detectives look for a little girl who might clear an ex-con from being guilty of a murder of a big-shot businessman?”

“Objection.”

“Overruled.”

“I’m not a detective,” Officer Dwayne said. “I can’t speak to that. But I’m sure they followed departmental guidelines.”

My finely honed crapometer, garnered during my days as a legitimate, licensed private investigator went off. Cops were as thorough as they could be, but that wasn’t always supremely thorough—that was why private investigators could stay in business in the first place. It was understandable: a city the size of Chicago has an enormous caseload, detectives are always buried in work, and the investigations get triaged pretty severely. The preponderance of evidence, absence of witnesses, and Luther’s status as an ex-con would have made this case a slam dunk, a low priority—and most of the time, the cops would have been right. Once the evidence was all taken and dissected and duly reported upon, as far as the police were concerned, they had their man. And there was already a mountain of fresh justice waiting to be pursued on behalf of new victims. Even the most dedicated and sincere police detective could understandably have dropped the ball here.

“Sure,” Luther said. He sat back down again and said, “I’m done.”

The judge looked at the clock and asked, “Mister Tremont, do you have any further witnesses?”

Tremont listened to something his assistant whispered and rose. “Your Honor, the prosecution rests.”

“Then so will we,” she said. “Mister Luther, the defense can begin its case in the morning. I remind the jury that the details of this case are confidential and not to be discussed or disclosed. We will reconvene here at 9 a.m.”

“All rise,” the bailiff said, and we did as the judge left the room.

I frowned as Luther was escorted out.

Something did not add up here.

If Luther had been a professional tough, a little guy like Curtis Black wouldn’t have a prayer against him. I had been around enough tough guys to size Luther up. I wouldn’t want to take him on in muscle-powered combat if I could avoid it, not even now with all the extra physical stuff the Winter Knight’s mantle had given me. Doesn’t matter how much you bench press, some people are damned dangerous in a fight, and you’re a fool to take unnecessary chances against them. Luther struck me as one of those men.

Also, Tremont was way too young a kid to be pulling a high profile murder case like this one.  This was the kind of flashy prosecution DAs loved to showboat.  Killers brought to justice, the system working, that kind of thing.  They certainly didn’t hand the case off to some kid straight out of law school.  Which meant that the old hands in Chicago thought that something about this case stunk to high Heaven as well.

I didn’t know the law really well, but I have a doctorate in the parts of Chicago that never showed up on the evening news.  If Luther was telling the truth, then Curtis Black couldn’t have been human.

Problem was, most humans didn’t know that.  Even if Luther was telling the truth about Black, he wasn’t going to get a fair shake from Chicago’s justice system. Hell’s bells, the cop acquainted with him wasn’t even giving him much. Nobody was going to go to bat for him.

Unless I did it.

He was a father. For his kids’ sake, I wanted answers.

I glanced at the clock as I filed out with the rest of the jury. Nine tomorrow morning. That gave me just under sixteen hours to do what wizards do best.

I left, and began meddling.

* * * * *

 “Well?” I asked the rather large wolf after he had been casting around the alley for a while.

He gave me an irritated look. He sat, and after a few seconds, shimmered and resumed the form of Will Borden, crouched naked on the dirty concrete. “Harry, you are not helping.”

“Did you find anything or not?” I asked.

“This isn’t as easy as it looks,” he said. “Look, man, when I’m wolf, I’ve got a wolf’s sense of smell—but I don’t have a wolf’s freaking brain. I’ve been learning how to sort out signals from the noise, but it’s freaking hard. I’ve been doing this since my freshman year, and I could follow a hot trail, but you’re asking me to sift background. I don’t even know if a real wolf could do it.”

I looked around the alley where Luther had beaten Black to death with a bowling pin. It had been nearly a year to the day since the murder. There was nothing dramatic to suggest a man had died here, and the bloodstains had long since faded into unrecognizability with the rest of the grunge. We were far enough down the alley to be out of sight of the street except for a slim column of space that cars crossed in under a second. “Yeah, that was a long shot anyway.”

“You going to wizard up some information?”