Greg Herren - Murder in the Rue Ursulines

“I know what I saw.” I stuck my hands in my jacket pockets. “I saw Freddy, no matter what Jillian might say. They’re lying, Loren.”

“We shouldn’t even be having this conversation,” he replied. “I’m violating all kinds of ethics here. I’m talking to you now as a friend, not as a lawyer. Please listen to me, okay?” He ground his cigarette out with his shoe. “Depending on what evidence is in that house, those e-mails look bad for Freddy. A reputable eyewitness saw him leaving the scene of the crime around the time it may have happened. If Freddy wasn’t a major star, the police would haul him based on that alone.” He sighed. “I’m a good lawyer, but if they arrest him, they’re going to have to bring in a real heavy hitter. That lawyer is going to have to discredit you and your testimony, Chanse. I don’t doubt you can handle yourself with the police…” His voice trailed off. “I’m really not trying to scare you, Chanse…but think about it. You got a big check from Freddy and Jillian today. You were in Glynis’s house earlier today. You were in the vicinity of the house around the time she was killed. What do you think a lawyer would make of that in court?” He folded his arms. “Maybe you confronted her and there was an altercation…you see where I’m going with this?”

My fingerprints were on the murder weapon, unless the killer wiped it clean.

“She was alive when I left the house.” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. “Her assistant can testify to that.”

“Do yourself a favor.” He reached into his wallet and handed me a business card. “Give this guy a call. I’ll phone him and let him know you’re calling.” He nodded and shut the door behind him.

I looked at the card.

STORM BRADLEY, ATTORNEY AT LAW.

I put it in my wallet. Feeling a little nauseous, I headed back to my car.

If you solve this case, you’ll be famous , I thought as I walked back to my car. I felt a little numb-and nervous. My heart was racing, and I recognized what could be the signs of an onset of an anxiety attack. My palms were damp, and I could feel wetness under my arms. My breathing was fast, so I tried to focus on slowing it down. Esplanade Avenue was deserted, no signs of life anywhere. Not even a car passing through an intersection in the distance.

Glynis was dead; and according to Loren, I was all but arrested and charged for it… But there had to be an up-side to this thing, right?

I let my imagination go. This could be the opportunity of a lifetime-solving one of the highest-profile murder cases in history. Whoever tracked down the killer would make headlines, would wind up being interviewed by the likes of Anderson Cooper and Larry King-and why shouldn’t that be me? Visions of fame and money danced through my head as I walked through the thickening fog.

I could get a book deal, and it would surely be made into a movie or a mini-series-at the very least an episode of City Confidential or American Justice. The trial would air live on Court TV.

Dream on, Chanse .

There was a piece of it that was real, though. Sure, Loren was right-I was mixed up in the middle of the whole thing. But the best way to clear everything up really would be to prove that Freddy hadn’t killed his ex-wife-and neither had I.

I was disturbed by the weak identification I was going to have to make to the police. It bothered me that Loren had so easily shaken my identification of the guy coming out of the house. I’d been completely sure it was Freddy at the time-it was only later that doubt crept in. And that doubt had been planted by Loren…

It’s pretty much taken for granted that eyewitnesses make mistakes. Defense attorneys frequently hammer that point home to juries. We see what we expect to see. Our memories are filtered by our experiences and prejudices. I’d seen someone dressed similarly to the way Freddy had been at our meeting earlier that day, and with the same kind of build, coming down the front steps of his ex-wife’s house. It was entirely possible that all of those factors had added up in my mind to recognition.

Had it really been Freddy?

If Freddy was indicted and went to trial, his attorneys would dig into my past.

Can your life bear that kind of scrutiny?

I remembered how other witnesses in major murder trials had been treated by the press. I didn’t want to be another Kato Kaelin. They would dig up everything they possibly could on me, and make it public knowledge. They’d track down my parents in Cottonwood Wells, my brother Rory, my sister Daphne in Houston-and I could be relatively certain Daphne wouldn’t appreciate the intrusion. I could give a rat’s ass about my parents-I hadn’t talked to them in years.

I imagined the look on my father’s face when some reporter asked him about his gay son, and it made me smile. The thought of how humiliated he’d be when everyone in that miserable little town found out that his big football star son was a big old homo was a very amusing one indeed. But Daphne-and my brother Rory-how would they feel about having their own lives intruded on? I hadn’t talked to Rory in years, either. I’d cut him off when I’d cut off Mom and Dad

The thought of having all the stuff about Paul dredged up also worried me. Not because it made me look bad-it might, it might not. My therapist was always telling me that the situation wasn’t as bad as I made it out to be…but there was his family to think about. How would the Maxwells, who’d taken me in as part of their family, and maintained that tie after Paul died, feel about having their beloved son’s memory tarnished and trashed on the national news?

He’d been kidnapped by an obsessed stalker, someone who’d struck him a terrible blow to the skull in order to take him from his apartment. Maybe with prompt and immediate medical attention, he would have had a chance. Instead, he’d been handcuffed to a bed, not fed or given anything to drink, and he’d begun the slow and agonizing process of dying. By the time we found him, he’d lapsed into the coma from which he’d never wake. After a few days, his family made the agonizing decision to turn off the machines that breathed for him, and he’d died. For the next year, I’d thought of my life as being clearly divided by that terrible day at Touro Hospital- before and after. In my misery and grief, I’d tried to move forward with my life.

But I felt guilty about Paul’s death; guilty because while I was looking for him I’d allowed myself to get distracted away from my primary objective-finding him-because of other things that were going on, side trails I’d followed that eventually proved to have nothing to do with him. I kept thinking, If only I were a better detective, I could have found him sooner, I could have found him when there was still a chance for him to make a recovery and he would still be with me. Instead, he’d died, and that guilt haunted me.

But maybe none of that would come up.

Maybe it wouldn’t come to that.

Maybe, like my therapist said, I was just imagining the worst again.

But I was in a bad spot, and the best way out was to solve the case.

But how? I wouldn’t be able to interview witnesses, get access to evidence, or even conduct any semblance of a normal investigation. The police wouldn’t want me interfering in their investigation.

As for the fame, truth be told, it was a nice fantasy. When I was young, I used to fantasize about being rich. I always, when I was a kid, thought the reason our lives were so miserable was because we were poor, because we lived in a trailer park, because we didn’t get to wear nice clothes and have nice things like so many of the other kids in Cotttonwood Wells. Daphne, Rory and I weren’t the only poor kids in town-but it seemed to me like we were. Other kids didn’t have mothers who wore faded old sweats and reeked of gin or vodka at the Kroger. Other kids didn’t have clothes that didn’t quite fit right, didn’t wear their clothes till they wore through in places, and didn’t have to eat bologna sandwiches for lunch every day.