Indefensible (11 page)

“Colin.”

“Well, Colin, how come you're home today?” He is a sandy-haired boy with the top lip scar of cleft palate surgery. It gives him a quizzical look. Otherwise, he's expressionless. He finally looks at me. He has brown eyes with a spot of green in the right iris.

“I don't feel well,” Colin says.

“What grade are you in?”

He doesn't answer.

Dorsey comes in and says, “Ma'am, it's going to be several hours. If you'd like to go anywhere, we can call you a cab.”

“I have my car,” she says in a blank voice, not looking at him.

“I'm afraid we can't release the car, ma'am.”

“It's my car.”

“Sorry, ma'am.”

She starts crying. I walk into the master bedroom. The officers have the bed apart and the dresser drawers removed, and the closet door is open. The warrant authorizes a search for any weapons and for biological evidence—blood, hair, and any other DNA sources—from any of the three victims (Zander, Cassandra, and Seth Coen) and for textile or chemical evidence, such as fibers of the clothing worn by any of the victims. It also authorizes the search for receipts
or documents and for physical or chemical evidence associating Avery Illman with the locations of the murders and/or the disposal of any of the three victims. Essentially, it gives us authority to search everywhere for almost anything.

I go outside to the garage. Upton is there with a couple of officers. The overhead door is closed. The searchers have flashlights and are working their way through cardboard boxes and toolboxes and utility shelves. Everything I see suggests an average and tidy home. In the dim light, there is the smell of gasoline and moldering grass from the mower, with cool cement and mildew. It is a sad smell. I think of Colin with his reconstructed lip and two-tone iris. If, in his adulthood, he ever senses this distinctive smell in some other place, his years here will surge to memory:
the time before Scud went to prison
. I wonder what Colin calls him: Dad? Scud? Avery? Mr. Illman? When I get back to the office, I'll look in Scud's file, see if it tells me how long he's been married to Colin's mother.

Upton sees me. “Nothing obvious yet,” he says, grinning as usual, shirtsleeves rolled up to expose beefy forearms.

“What do we want to see before we go to the grand jury?”

“Good question. With three victims, I guess . . . what? Something strong linking him to one of them. Or something less strong linking him to two. Or still less strong linking him to all three.”

“If we could link Scud or Seth Coen to the Phippin victim, even without, you know, physical evidence . . .”

“Maybe we'll get lucky. Some kind of pocket litter, maybe, or blood in the trunk of the car, 'cause we won't find the weapon, that's for sure. But if we can put the two of them together at the reservoir—Scud and Seth. Because right now we've got squat.”

“Yeah,” I say, “but ‘squat' is one fingerprint, or drop of blood, or one hair away from conviction.”

He chuckles.

“I'm going to try this case,” I blurt.

Upton was watching the agents at work, but now he pins me with his openmouthed, jaw-thrusted, Willem Dafoe grin. “Try
it yourself?” he says. “Of course you are.” He fakes a one-two punch to my stomach and says, “I'll watch your back, man. Count on me.”

There is a noise. We all startle. Sunlight blasts in under the overhead door as it automatically rises, and we're blinded by the sudden brilliance. Fingers over my eyes, I make out a car in the driveway. Its front doors open, and two men get out and lift hands into the air. There is shouting. I see an officer with weapon drawn approach from the house. “Drop the weapon.”

The men don't respond.

“Drop the weapon,” someone yells again. One of the men looks up at his hands, where he and I, and apparently the screaming officer, all see something small and suspicious. The man smiles, and I recognize the red hair and pudgy cynical downturn at the corner of his mouth and eyes. It is Scud. He dangles the item between thumb and forefinger for us to see that it is not a weapon but a remote control for the overhead door. It dangles for a moment, then Scud's fingers open, and as it tumbles, his evil squint finds me, and his eyes and mouth draw down farther in recognition and self-satisfied amusement.

The remote smashes on the pavement, and the door winds back down, and it seems very dark.

Outside, Scud is searched for weapons. I hadn't paid any attention to the other guy, the driver, but now I see it's Kendall Vance, soulless defense attorney to sociopaths and moralizing defender of Tamika Curtis (the meth-lab assistant) and others of her ilk, whom he sees as mewling victims of circumstance, done wrong by society. Scud has apparently retained him as his lawyer. Kendall submits docilely to the pat-down, and then he walks up to Dorsey and says, “I assume you have a warrant?”

Dorsey stands like MacArthur on the beach. “We do.”

“May I see it?”

“We presented it to Mrs. Illman inside.”

Kendall turns and walks toward the house, but Dorsey says, “I'm afraid you can't enter until we've finished. It will be a while.”

They have a brief stare-off, then Dorsey turns away and says, “Back to work, I guess. Mr. Illman, you and your lawyer may observe from the yard. You may not enter the house, nor the garage, nor approach any closer than, let's say, twenty feet while we're conducting our search. If you want to speak with your wife, I'll have her come out, but if she does, she won't be allowed to reenter until the search is finished.”

“I'll expect an inventory of seized property,” Kendall says.

“Naturally,” Dorsey answers.

Kendall looks at me and says, “How you doing, Nick?” Then he looks at Upton and says, “Upton.”

“Upton?” Scud says, his face breaking into a grimace of boundless amusement. “Uptown? Uptown Cruthers in the flesh?”

“Do I know you?” Upton asks Scud.

“ 'Course not, but we know guys in common. Guys you've put away. You're talked about. Uptown Cruthers. They make jokes. Busting balls. Like they're going to
do
something to you, like they got something over you. Like you're, you know, vulnerable.”

“Shut up,” Kendall says to Scud. “Don't talk to anyone.”

“I mean, I'd never do nothing myself,” Scud says. “And I tell them leave the guy alone, he's just doing his job. Right? Friggin' retards, they think—”

“Shut up, Scud,” Kendall says.

“—they think they can
influence
things. Like if they—”

“Shut the fuck up.”

“—like if they cap the right guy—”

“One more word and you can find a new lawyer.”

“Oh, sorry,” Scud says, looking at Upton, “I've been advised by counsel to shut the fuck up. Suffice it to say, they're all retards.”

Chip, who was has been studying the flower garden, gets right in Scud's face. “Was that some kind of threat?” he asks in a tired voice. “Were you threatening a federal officer?” He outweighs Scud by a hundred pounds, and I wonder, looking into the creases under his eyes, if he has picked this moment to let it all get to him and, with
us watching, is about to wrap his beefy fingers around Scud's neck and squeeze.

Scud smiles innocently up at Chip. “ 'Course not. Just repeating what I've heard on the street. I wouldn't think of—”

“Shut up,” Kendall yells. “Let's go. We're leaving.”

“Not so fast,” Chip says.

“No threat,” Kendall says to Chip. “Just bullshit. Street talk. If you had a transcript, no threat. My client and I apologize for any implication to the contrary. Now, unless you plan to arrest him, we're leaving.”

“But I live here,” Scud says.

“Not today you don't,” Kendall snaps. “Come on.”

Before Kendall can get Scud into the car, the door of the house opens, and Colin comes out with his mother. They stand in front of the door, the mother with arms crossed and back bent. Maybe she has some scoliosis, or it might just be her surrender to disillusionment. Cheeks, shoulders, eyes, jaw, all like pillowcases hanging limp on the line.

“Honey, did I tell you we were having company?” Scud says.

She ignores him and looks at Dorsey. “How long?”

“At least another hour, ma'am.”

“Stupid goddamn—” she says.

“We'll be as unobtrusive as possible, ma'am.”

“Good joke.”

She eyes us all like she'll lunge for the throat of the first one to make a move. Her eyes jump around and her nostrils widen above the quivering lip. No doubt she's been sitting inside looking for the courage to come out here. Now that she's here, the courage turns out to be hollow, and what fills the space is rage tugging at a fraying tether.

“I'm so sorry, ma'am,” Dorsey says with astonishing gentleness, and I realize he's seen what I see—that if we're not careful, we'll have to take this woman out of here in restraints, and who knows what that could trigger from her, from Scud, and from Colin. She scans
the group of us but won't look at Scud, and the obvious conclusion is that he's the one she actually loathes, not us.

“Mrs. Illman,” I say, following Dorsey's lead, “I'm just about to send someone to Starbucks. What can we get you?”

“Nothing,” she says, as I knew she would, but it has the intended effect of knocking her off track.

“Or maybe something for Colin? A soda? A big cookie?”

“Nothing.”

“Tell you what,” I say, “we'll just get a bunch of stuff, and if Colin wants a cookie or muffin, it'll be here.” I watch Colin to see if any of this registers, but he's not letting on.

“Double-shot vanilla latte for me,” Scud bellows, but we all ignore him except for Kendall, who looks ready to tackle him.

Dorsey has stepped away and is on the phone. He sees me watching and mouths, “Family services.”

Good idea: someone trained in this stuff to get Colin and Mrs. Illman away from the action and keep a lid on things. Scud's wife probably isn't a part of whatever he's into. Not willingly, anyway—no brassy, wrong-side-of-the-tracks, don't-fuck-with-me kind of girl. But she found the backbone to come get in our faces, not to protect Scud or align herself with him, rather, to align
us
with him as intruders, disrupters, violators. In a pathetic way, she is admirable. I wonder how it would affect her if the right woman were here with us, an officer or lawyer. Maybe she wouldn't see herself as so apart from us. Not someone like Flora, whose own “issues” are a bottomless black lake under the most meager crust of ice, and probably not someone like Cassandra, whose sincere warmth would feel patronizing to the suspicious Mrs. Illman. No, the woman who comes to mind, the one most likely to hit the right note, is the gritty but sensitive Tina from my office. As a former elementary schoolteacher, she'd be a good one for Colin, too. But she's not here.

“Come on,” Kendall says to Scud, “let's get out of here. Bring your wife and son.” He puts a hand on Scud's shoulder and tries to steer him back to the car, and I see Scud check his inclination to swing at the source of this unwelcome touch.

“Bullshit, there's cookies coming. I'm staying,” Scud says. He takes Colin's hand, and they walk away from us. Scud kneels down and talks to Colin quietly and brushes hair from his eyes.

Kendall catches my eye and shakes his head in exasperation. This is a smooth move on his part; it puts Scud in the light not of a monster but just an aggravating guy.

“Got your hands full,” I say to Kendall.

Chip, who has returned to studying the flower garden, turns and yells, “Who's the gardener here?” Nobody answers, so he walks across the lawn to Mrs. Illman and says, “Nice garden.”

“They're his,” she says.

“Nice garden,” Chip says to Scud, who is standing with Colin and holding his hand.

“Relaxes me after a long day at work,” Scud says.

“A day at work?” I hiss. I press to within inches of his vile smirk, and before I know what I'm doing, I have his shirt bunched in my two fists. “And what exactly do you do, Mr. Illman?” I say.

In an instant Dorsey and Chip have separated me from Scud.

“Assault,” Scud says.

There is a moment of stillness. Everybody looks at Kendall, who appears not to have noticed.

Upton tugs me toward the car. “Let's get back.”

I laugh.

Scud laughs.

I let Upton pull me toward the street. Kendall Vance walks to the road with us. “Infuriating little weasel, isn't he,” Kendall says.

“He's a murderer.”

“It's my impression, Nick, that you have no real evidence.”

“We'll have it soon.”

“But what I want to talk to you about is Tamika Curtis.”

“Not now. Call me at work.”

“I do. You don't call back.”

“This afternoon. I'll be in.”

I get in the car with Upton and close the door.

We ride without speaking. The person I find myself thinking
about, oddly, isn't Kendall or Scud or Upton but Tina. Tina Trevor, who for some reason surfaced through the drama as the ideal person to get the volatile Mrs. Illman calmed down.

“Well, that was intense,” Upton says, breaking into my reverie.

“Upton,” I say loudly, “Upton, Uptown. So you have a reputation with the bad boys?”

He laughs and looks at me with a puzzled expression. “Go figure.”

F
riday afternoon: Tina and I are on our way to Ellisville Maximum. She has a deposition scheduled, and I'm riding along to have a chat with Fuseli the tattoo artist/informant/youth counselor. We're in her Toyota Avalon with the stock report on the radio, and our briefcases on the backseat, which looks too clean. It has never seen a child or a dog or even two adults out on a double with Tina and whomever she hangs with.