A Dangerous Affair (14 page)

Leslie rubbed her eyes when she entered the courthouse detention cell and gave the okay signal to the deputy behind the observation mirror. She dropped her attaché case on the table and slid a chair across from her shackled client.

"My name is Leslie Dancroft," she said in her congested voice before she settled in behind the table and thumbed through a bundle of legal folders. "I'm with the public defender's office. The court appointed me to represent you. I'd like to start by asking you—"

"Where's my lawyer?" Manny Morallen demanded in his prisoner restraints and orange jumpsuit with the collar covering a portion of the black Yin/Yang symbol on his neck. His pork chop sideburns extended toward his chin and melded with a thick mustache. His arms were sleeved out in prison ink with the word "
Defiance
" spelled out in black letters across his knuckles.

"
I am
your lawyer," said Leslie, projecting an air of confidence and a bit of indifference toward the man she knew only by name and rap sheet.

"I want the dude who was here before," Morallen protested. "The one who said he could make this go away."

"Right now I am that dude, Mr. Morallen, and the only thing standing between you and a swift conviction. I suggest you lose the attitude and share some love about what happened on the night of October twelfth in the house on Lipscomb Street."

"How soon can you get me out of here?"

"Your bail hearing is scheduled for tomorrow morning. Given the charges and your criminal record, I wouldn't hold your breath. You've been charged with first degree murder of a Lakewood Deputy Sheriff who happened to be a married father of one. That won't earn you any points with a jury."

Morallen jerked against the arm restraints. "I didn't kill no cop!"

Leslie felt tiny saliva particles hit her face, so she scooted her chair back. A correctional officer entered the room.

"You good in here?" the officer asked her.

Leslie wiped her chin. She burned her gaze at Morallen and asked, "Are we good in here?"

Morallen settled himself in his chair. "We're cool." He waited for the officer to leave before he whispered, "I was there, inside the house, when that cop was killed. But I didn't touch him. I'm just a cook."

Leslie opened Morallen's folder and skimmed the highlights. "Apparently not a very good one. You were busted twice in Miami-Dade and nearly blew up a house in Homestead."

"Those charges were dropped," said Morallen.

"Did you learn your trade in prison?"

"My uncle taught me."

"Professor Enrique Morallen," Leslie quoted from Morallen's file.

"He was until the cops shot him dead at a traffic stop."

"Sounds like you have a beef with the law." Leslie opened Morallen's file. "Sheriff Blanchart's arrest report indicates you were taken into custody outside a campground two days after the Lipscomb Street incident took place. Investigators found your prints on a twelve-gauge shotgun left at the scene, the same shotgun allegedly used to kill Deputy Sheriff Randal Carter."

"I didn't kill him!" Morallen sat up straight in his chair. "Believe what you want, but I'm innocent."

"The sheriff's report identifies you as the shooter."

"No way—"

"Can you explain why your prints were on the gun?"

"I ain't saying I never touched it. I'm saying I never shot it."

"Then what
did
you do with it?"

"Hell if I know. I must have picked it up and moved it or something. Guns are dangerous. I don't mess with them."

Leslie rolled her eyes.
And politicians don't lie...
She wrote a note to herself. A reminder to pick up more nasal decongestant on her way home. "That's a touching story, but you're a lousy liar. I can't help you if you're not up front with me."

"I was there. I'll give you that. But I swear I didn't shoot no cop."

"Then who did?"

Morallen looked away from Leslie and gazed at the video surveillance camera in the ceiling. "I was working the stove when deputy do-right showed up."

"You mean Deputy Carter?"

"Whatever. I didn't wait around to catch his name."

Leslie showed a photo of Carter on the slab in the morgue, the picture taken to show the undamaged side of his face. "Is this the man you saw?"

"Yeah, that's him. The sheriff rolled up a few minutes later. Tried to sneak around back like he was some kind of super cop."

"How many people were in the house with you?"

"Just me and one other dude."

"This dude have a name?"

"Hugo. I don't know his last name. He kept to himself. Walked around in his stupid gas mask like he was Darth Vader or something."

"Why was he there?"

"Security. The house was his."

Leslie jotted notes on her legal pad. "So the two of you were in the house cooking drugs when Sheriff Blanchart and Deputy Carter responded to the scene. Tell me what happened after that."

Morallen eyed the surveillance camera.

Leslie followed his stare. "The camera's video only. There's no audio. Anything you tell me is confidential."

"Hugo went Mad Max on those cops. Started shooting up the place. BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! Blasting through walls and furniture and shit. I got up in the attic and stayed low. That's when the cop was killed."

"Why were you hiding in the attic?"

"I wasn't hiding. I store the finished product up there."

"So you figured you'd wait until the sheriff's party ended and then make off with the goods?"

"Yeah..."

"Did you see Hugo shoot Deputy Carter?"

"You got it wrong. Your man had Hugo cornered in the kitchen. Hugo ate the shotgun himself. Blew his own brains out before anyone could slap the cuffs on him."

Leslie replayed Morallen's story in her mind. "If Hugo was the only other person in the house besides you, and he didn't shoot Carter, then who did?"

Morallen kept silent for several seconds. Then he leaned over the table and said, "I want a deal."

"Are you stoned?"

"Lady, this is a give and take situation. You give me a deal I can live with and I'll tell you what I saw."

"You've been in the system before," said Leslie. Her throat felt scratchy and sore. "So you know how this works." She swallowed a dry mouth, desperate for a sip of water. "You tell me what you know—all of it—and I'll see what I can do for you. You jerk me around and throw shit on my face, and you'll get the same in return."

"So that's how you wanna play this," said Morallen.

"I don't play games. Right now I'm the only friend you've got. You can either tell me what you know and make an effort to help yourself—or get comfortable with the thought of life in prison."

Morallen leaned back in his chair with puckered lips and kept his mouth shut.

Leslie sat and waited. She'd seen it so many times before. He was contemplating his next move. And deciding the lady lawyer had more spine than the dude she replaced. And the balls to match.

"You gotta get me some protection in here," he said in a voice barely loud enough to hear.

"From what?"

"The law."

"What are you talking about?" said Leslie.

"Blanchart."

"
Sheriff
Blanchart?"

Morallen nodded.

Leslie put her pen down. "You're wasting my time."

"I saw what I saw."

"Maybe you should have been the one wearing the gas mask. I think you inhaled too much of your own product and things got fuzzy. That toxic sludge you concocted will do that to you."

"I'm telling you the truth. God as my witness, I watched Blanchart pick up the shotgun and blow his man away. Shot him right in the face. Stone cold."

"Just like that?" said Leslie.

"Just like that."

"And why should I believe you?"

"Because that cop is bad news. He's the one who should be locked up in here, not me." Morallen slumped back in his chair.

He's tired. Defeated.
Leslie tapped her pen on the desk. She struggled to breath through a stuffy nose with only moderate relief from the second dose of cold medicine she had ingested in the last four hours. "You're no different than every other felon who believes every cop's dirty. No one in the state attorney's office would buy this story. And neither do I."

"It's not a story."

"It's ludicrous and unfounded. You'd stand a better chance of pleading temporary insanity."

"But I'm not crazy," said Morallen.

"Then give me something I can use to fight back with. Something real. Something I can leverage against the charges brought against you."

Morallen wrinkled his face like he swallowed a shot of vinegar. "I'm as real as it gets, not some piece of shit junkie trying to score."

"Right..." said Leslie. "You're just the guy who supplies the drugs to feed their habit." She read his file more closely. "It's been a long day..." She glanced up and saw the conflict in his eyes. "I see you've been on anti-depressant medication before."

"I quit taking it."

"That's good," said Leslie. "That might be something we can use. I can argue your state of mind at the time of the shooting. You had intent to do harm but not intent to kill. You meant to shoot over Carter's head to scare him, but you missed and accidentally shot him in the face instead. If I could convince the state attorney to drop the first degree murder charge down to second degree, that would take the death penalty out of the equation. You could be out in twenty to twenty-five."

"Years?"

"Maybe less with good behavior."

"I can't do twenty years."

"You should have thought of that before you pulled the trigger. The sheriff claims you killed a cop. Consider yourself lucky to be alive."

Morallen flexed his muscles. "How many times I gotta tell you. I didn't kill no fucking cop!"

Leslie closed the folder. She knew Blanchart by reputation as a law enforcement veteran with zero tolerance for crime. A pillar of the community who'd won re-election with his war on drugs campaign and the positive results to back it up. The preliminary investigation supported the sheriff's account of events. Nothing in the police report suggested any means or motive to support Morallen's version. It was Blanchart's word against Morallen's, a convicted felon who'd say anything to save his bacon.

Leslie rubbed the bridge of her nose. "Say I believe you, which I don't. No jury would take the word of a career criminal over an upstanding sheriff. Not in your wildest dreams. If you keep pitching this story, the state will think you're desperate and push for the maximum penalty."

"So you're telling me I'm fucked."

"I'm telling you your prints are on the murder weapon. You admit you were at the scene. Your only supporting witness killed himself—"

"I know what I saw. That's the God's honest truth."

"Why would the sheriff kill his own deputy?"

"Why don't you ask him yourself?" said Morallen, a second before he turned his head to see Sheriff Blanchart enter the room unannounced.

"Ask me what?" said Blanchart.

Leslie covered her notes with her hands. "How did you get in here?"

"I run this jail."

"This is a privileged conversation. You can't be in here."

Blanchart sauntered around the table, pointing to the clock on the wall. "Time's up, counselor. The rat's going back in his cage."

Blanchart unchained Morallen from the chair. "Let's go, Cinderella."

"We're not finished in here," said Leslie.

"You are for now."

Chapter 19

Lloyd sat on the stairs of the halfway house with his old college football at his feet. He sipped from a warm Diet Coke and stared at the moon. Muffled country music carried from an open window. A light breeze passed on the stench from a leaking septic tank.