Gone, But Not Forgotten Page 13

  “Martin Darius has no idea why you’re holding him and neither do I.”

  Page looked at her for a moment, then made a decision.

  “I guess it’s not fair leaving you completely in the dark, so I’ll tell you that we plan to indict your client for the kidnapping, torture and murder of three women and one man.”

  Page took a color photo of Wendy Reiser’s body out of a manila envelope and handed it to Betsy. She blanched. The picture had been taken right after the body had been dug up. The naked woman was sprawled in the mud. Betsy could see the incisions on her stomach and the cuts and burn marks on her legs. She could also see Wendy Reiser’s face clearly. Even in death, she seemed to be suffering.

  “That’s what Martin Darius does to women, Betsy, and this may not be the first time he’s done it. We have pretty solid information that ten years ago a man named Peter Lake murdered six women in Hunter’s Point, New York in much the same way these victims were murdered. We also have conclusive proof that Peter Lake and Martin Darius are the same person. You might want to ask your client about that.

  “One other thing. There’s another missing woman. This is a one-time offer: If she’s alive and Darius tells us where she is, we might be able to deal.”

  The jail elevator opened onto a narrow concrete hallway painted in yellow and brown pastels. Across from the elevator were three solid doors. Betsy used the key the guard had given her when she checked in at the visitor’s desk. The middle door opened into a tiny room. In front of her was a wall divided in half by a narrow ledge. Below the ledge was concrete, above, a slab of bulletproof glass. Betsy placed her legal pad on the ledge, sat down on an uncomfortable metal folding chair and picked up the receiver on the phone that was attached to the wall to her left.

  On the other side of the glass, Martin Darius lifted his receiver. He was dressed in an orange jumpsuit, but he still looked as imposing as he had in her office. His hair and beard were combed and he sat erect and at ease. Darius leaned forward until he was almost touching the glass. His eyes looked a little wild, but that was the only sign of discontent.

  “When is the bail hearing scheduled?” Darius asked.

  “It isn’t.”

  “I told you I wanted out of here. You should have scheduled the hearing first thing this morning.”

  “This isn’t going to work. I’m an attorney, not a gofer. If you want someone to order around I’ll refer you to a maid service.”

  Darius stared at Betsy for a moment, then flashed an icy smile of concession.

  “Sorry. Twelve hours in this place doesn’t help your disposition.”

  “I met with Alan Page, the district attorney, this morning. He had some interesting things to tell me. He also showed me the crime scene photographs. The three women were tortured Martin. I’ve seen a lot of cruelty, but nothing like this. The killer didn’t just end their lives, he slaughtered them. Tore them open …”

  Betsy stopped, as the memory of what she’d seen took her breath away. Darius watched her. She waited for him to say something. When he didn’t, she asked:

  “Does any of this sound familiar?”

  “I didn’t kill those women.”

  “I didn’t ask you if you killed them. I asked if anything about the crimes sounded familiar.”

  Darius studied Betsy. She didn’t like the way he made her feel like a lab specimen.

  “Why are you interrogating me?” Darius asked. “You work for me, not the d.a.”

  “Mr. Darius, I decide whom I work for and right now I’m not so sure I want to work for you.”

  “Page said something, didn’t he. He played with your head.”

  “Who is Peter Lake?”

  Betsy expected a reaction, but not the one she got. The look of icy calm deserted Darius. His lip trembled. He looked, suddenly, like a man on the verge of tears.

  “So Page knows about Hunter’s Point.”

  “You haven’t been honest with me, Mr. Darius.”

  “Is that what this is all about?” Darius asked, pointing at the bulletproof glass. “Is that why you didn’t ask for a contact visit? Are you afraid to be locked in with me? Afraid I’ll …”

  Darius stopped. He put his head in his hands.

  “I don’t think I’m the right person to represent you,” Betsy told him.

  “Why?” Darius asked, his voice filled with pain. “Because Page claims I raped and murdered those women? Did you refuse to represent Andrea Hammermill when the district attorney said she murdered her husband?”

  “Andrea Hammermill was the victim of a husband who beat her constantly during her marriage.”

  “But she killed him, Betsy. I did not murder those women. I swear it. I did not kill anyone in Hunter’s Point. I was Peter Lake, but, do you know who Peter Lake was? Did Page tell you that? Does he even know?

  “Peter Lake was married to the most wonderful woman in the world. He was the father of a perfect child. A little girl who never hurt anyone. And his wife and daughter were murdered by a madman named Henry Waters for an insane reason Peter could never fathom.

  “Peter was a lawyer. He made money hand over fist. He lived in a magnificent house and drove a fancy car, but all that money and everything he owned couldn’t make him forget the wife and daughter who’d been taken from him. So he ran away. He assumed a new identity and started a new life, because his old life was impossible to bear.”

  Darius stopped talking. There were tears in his eyes. Betsy did not know what to think. Moments ago, she was convinced Darius was a monster. Now, seeing his pain, she wasn’t so sure.

  “I’ll make you a deal, Betsy,” Darius said, his voice barely above a whisper. “If you reach the point where you don’t believe I’m innocent, you can walk away from my case with my blessing, and you can keep your retainer.”

  Betsy did not know what to say. Those pictures. She couldn’t stop wondering how the women felt in those first, long moments of terror, knowing that the best that could ever happen to them in the rest of their lives was a death that would bring an end to their pain.

  “It’s all right,” Darius said, “I know how you feel. You only saw the pictures. I saw the dead bodies of my wife and my child. And I still see them, Betsy.”

  Betsy felt ill. She took a deep breath. She could not stay in the narrow room any longer. She needed air. And she needed to find out a lot more about Peter Lake and what happened in Hunter’s Point.

  “Are you okay?” Darius asked.

  “No, I’m not. I’m very confused.”

  “I know you are. Page laid a heavy trip on you. They said I’d be arraigned tomorrow. You get a good night’s sleep and tell me what you’ve decided to do, then.”

  Betsy nodded.

  “Two things, though,” Darius said, looking directly at Betsy.

  “What’s that?”

  “If you decide to keep me as a client, you’ve got to fight like hell for me.”

  “And the other thing?”

  “From now on, I want every visit to be a contact visit. No more glass cage. I don’t want my lawyer treating me like a zoo animal.”

  CHAPTER 10

  As soon as Rita Cohen opened the door wide enough, Kathy squeezed through and raced into the kitchen.

  “You didn’t buy that bubble-gum-flavored cereal again, did you, Mom?” Betsy asked.

  “She’s a little kid, Betsy. Who could stand that healthy stuff you feed her all the time? Let her live.”

  “That’s what I’m trying to do. If it was up to you, she’d be on an all-cholesterol diet.”

  “When I was growing up, we didn’t know from cholesterol. We ate what made us happy, not the same stuff you feed horses. And look at me. Seventy-four and still going strong.”

  Betsy hugged her mother and gave her a kiss on the forehead. Rita was only five feet four, so Betsy had to bend down to do it. Betsy’s dad never topped five feet nine. No one could figure where Betsy got her height.

  “How come there’s no school?” R
ita asked.

  “It’s another teacher planning day. I forgot to read the flyer they sent home, so I didn’t know until yesterday evening, when Kathy mentioned it.”

  “You have time for a cup of coffee?” Rita asked.

  Betsy looked at her watch. It was only seven-twenty. They would not let her into the jail to see Darius until eight.

  “Sure,” she said, dropping the backpack with Kathy’s things on a chair and following her mother into the living room. The television was already on, tuned to a morning talk show.

  “Don’t let her watch too much TV,” Betsy said, sitting down on the couch. “I packed some books and games for her.”

  “A little television isn’t going to kill her any more than that cereal.”

  Betsy laughed. “One day with you undoes all the good habits I’ve instilled in a year. You’re an absolute menace.”

  “Nonsense,” Rita answered gruffly, pouring two cups of coffee from the pot she had prepared in expectation of Betsy’s visit. “So, what are you doing this morning that’s so important you had to abandon that lovely angel to such an ogre?”

  “You’ve heard of Martin Darius?”

  “Certainly.”

  “I’m representing him.”

  “What did he do?”

  “The d.a. thinks Darius raped and killed the three women they found at his construction site. He also thinks Darius tortured and killed six women in Hunter’s Point, New York ten years ago.”

  “Oh, my God! Is he guilty?”

  “I don’t know. Darius swears he’s innocent.”

  “And you believe him?”

  Betsy shook her head. “It’s too early to say.”

  “He’s a rich man, Betsy. The police wouldn’t arrest someone that important without proof.”

  “If I took the State’s word for everything, Andrea Hammermill and Grace Peterson would be in prison today.”

  Rita looked concerned. “Should you be representing a man who rapes and tortures women after all the work you’ve done for women’s rights?”

  “We don’t know that he tortured anyone, Mom, and that feminist label is something the press stuck on me. I want to work for women’s rights, but I’m not just a woman’s lawyer. This case will help me be seen as more than one-dimensional. It could make my career. And, more important, Darius may be innocent. The d.a. won’t tell me why he thinks Darius is guilty. That makes me very suspicious. If he had the goods on Darius he’d be confident enough to tell me what he’s got.”

  “I just don’t want to see you get hurt.”

  “I won’t get hurt, Mom, because I’ll do a good job. I learned something when I won Grace’s case. I have a talent. I’m a very good trial attorney. I have a knack for talking to jurors. I’m damned good at cross-examination. If I win this case, people across the country are going to know how good I am, and that’s why I want this case so badly. But I’m going to need your help.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The case is going to go on for at least a year. The trial could last for months. With the State asking for the death penalty, I’m going to have to fight every step of the way, and the case is extremely complicated. It’s going to take all my time. We’re talking about events that occurred ten years ago. I’ve got to find out everything there is to know about Hunter’s Point, Darius’s background. That means I’ll be working long hours and weekends and I’m going to need help with Kathy. Someone has to pick her up from day care, if I’m tied up in court, make her dinner …”

  “What about Rick?”

  “I can’t ask him. You know why.”

  “No, I don’t know why. He’s Kathy’s father. He’s also your husband. He should be your biggest fan.”

  “Well, he’s not. He’s never accepted the fact that I’m a real lawyer with a successful practice.”

  “What did he think you’d be doing when you hung out your shingle?”

  “I think he thought it was going to be a cute hobby like stamp collecting, something to keep me occupied when I wasn’t cooking dinner or cleaning.”

  “Well, he is the man of the house. Men like to feel they’re in charge. And here you are, getting all the headlines and talking on the television.”

  “Look, Mom, I don’t want to discuss Rick. Do you mind? I just get angry.”

  “All right, I won’t discuss him and, of course, I’ll help.”

  “I don’t know how I’d make it without you, Mom.”

  Rita blushed and waved a hand at Betsy. “That’s what mothers are for.”

  “Granny,” Kathy yelled from the kitchen, “I can’t find the chocolate syrup.”

  “Why would she want chocolate syrup at seven-thirty in the morning?” Betsy asked menacingly.

  “None of your business,” Rita answered imperiously. “I’m coming, sweetheart. It’s too high up. You can’t reach it.”

  “I’ve got to go,” Betsy said, with a resigned shake of the head. “And please keep the TV to a minimum.”

  “We’re only reading Shakespeare and studying algebra this morning,” Rita answered as she disappeared into the kitchen.

  Reggie Stewart was waiting for Betsy on a bench near the visitor’s desk at the jail. Stewart had worked at several unsatisfying jobs before discovering a talent for investigation. He was a slender six-footer with shaggy brown hair and bright blue eyes who was most comfortable in plaid flannel shirts, cowboy boots and jeans. Stewart had an odd way of looking at events and a sarcastic air that put off some people. Betsy appreciated the way he used his imagination and his knack for making people trust him. These attributes proved invaluable in the Hammermill and Peterson cases, where the best evidence of abuse came from the victims’ relatives and would have remained buried under layers of hate and family pride if it was not for Reggie’s persuasiveness and persistence.

  “Ready, Chief?” Stewart asked, smiling as he unwound from the bench.

  “Always,” Betsy answered with a smile.

  Stewart had filled out visitor’s forms for both of them. A guard sat behind a glass window in a control room. Betsy pushed the forms and their i.d. through a slot in the window and asked for a contact visit with Martin Darius. As soon as the guard told them it was set, she and Reggie emptied the metal objects from their pockets, took off their watches and jewelry and walked through the metal detector. The guard checked Betsy’s briefcase, then called for the elevator. When it came, Betsy inserted the key for the seventh floor in a lock and turned it. The elevator rode up to seven and the doors opened on the same narrow hall Betsy had stepped into the day before. This time, she walked to the far end and waited in front of a thick metal door with an equally thick piece of glass in the upper half. Through the glass, she could see the two seventh-floor contact rooms. They were both empty.

  “Darius is going to be a demanding client,” Betsy told Stewart as they waited for the guard. “He’s used to being in charge, he’s very bright and he’s under tremendous pressure.”

  “Gottcha.”

  “Today, we listen. The arraignment isn’t until nine, so we have an hour. I want to get his version of what happened in Hunter’s Point. If we’re not done by nine, you can finish up later.”

  “What’s he facing?”

  Betsy pulled a copy of the indictment from her briefcase.

  “This don’t look good, Chief,” Stewart said after reading the charges. “Who’s ‘John Doe’?”

  “The man. The police have no idea who he is. His face and fingertips were disfigured with acid and the killer even smashed his teeth with a hammer to try and prevent an i.d. from his dental records.”

  Stewart grimaced. “This is one set of crime scene photos I’m not lookin’ forward to seeing.”

  “They’re the worst, Reg. Look at them before breakfast. I almost lost mine.”

  “How do you dope it out?”

  “You mean, do I think Darius did it?” Betsy shook her head. “I’m not sure. Page is convinced, but either Darius put on a great performance f
or me yesterday, or he’s not guilty.”

  “So we have a real whodunit?”

  “Maybe.”

  Out of their sight, a heavy lock opened with a loud snap. Betsy craned her neck and saw Darius precede the guard into the narrow space in front of the two contact rooms. When her client was locked in one of them, the guard let Betsy and Stewart into the contact area, then secured the door to the hall where they had been waiting. After locking them in with Darius, the guard left the contact visiting area by the door through which he had entered.

  The contact room was small. Most of the space in it was taken up by a large circular table and three plastic chairs. Darius was sitting in one of them. He did not stand up when Betsy entered.

  “I see you brought a bodyguard,” Darius said, studying Stewart carefully.

  “Martin Darius meet Reggie Stewart, my investigator.”

  “You’re only using one?” Darius asked, ignoring Reggie’s outstretched hand. Stewart pulled his hand back slowly.

  “Reggie is very good. I wouldn’t have won ‘Hammermill’ without him. If I think you need more investigators, you’ll get them. Here’s a copy of the indictment.”

  Darius took the paper and read it.

  “Page is charging you under several theories in the death of each person: personally killing a human being during the commission of the felony crime of kidnapping; torture killing; more than one victim. If he gets a conviction on any theory of Aggravated Murder, we go into a second, or penalty, phase of the trial. That’s a second trial on the issue of punishment.

  “In the penalty phase, the State has to convince the jurors that you committed the murder deliberately, that the victim’s provocation, if any, did not mitigate the killing and that there’s a probability that you’ll be dangerous in the future. If the jurors answer ‘yes’ unanimously to these three questions, you’ll be sentenced to death, unless there is some mitigating circumstance that convinces any juror that you should not get a death sentence.

  “If any juror votes ‘no’ on any question, the jurors then decide on whether you get life without parole or life with a thirty-year minimum sentence. Any questions, so far?”