Doug Allyn - v108 n03-04_1996-09-10

Casper Stone had come to appreciate every little break in the sodden routine of his life behind bars. A trip to the dentist could liven up an entire week, and even a trial on an unresolved charge of bail-jumping brought a break in the endless days. He didn’t even mind that they handcuffed his wrists and chained his ankles, so long as they took him away from the clamor and clash of the cellblock.

The trial, in the old courthouse on Seward Street, attracted a fair amount of media attention. Casper Stone had been convicted of man-slaughter just five months earlier, and there was a general belief that the relatively light sentence he received — four to eight years — had caused the District Attorney to press the bail-jumping charge. There were two holding cells in the old courthouse where the trial was being held. They were really cages of heavy wire mesh, not designed to hold prisoners for more than a few hours at a time. There was a sink but no toilet, and a single low stool for sitting. When Casper Stone was placed in the cell, it was nine-thirty in the morning; the trial was scheduled for ten.

The first thing Stone noticed about the holding cell was the wire mesh screen that covered a small square hole beneath the sink. It was on an inside wall and apparently provided access to the plumbing fixtures. He gave it a kick and was startled when it moved. The screws fastening it to the wall had not been tightened. What a joke it would be if he could squeeze through that opening somehow and escape!

The guards had left him alone in the cell. His lawyer would be arriving soon, but right now he had a few minutes alone. He dropped to his knees and tugged at the screen. It came off at once, as if the screws were too small for their holes. Sticking his head into the opening, Stone could see that it ran to a similar screen some three feet away, apparently giving-access to another room. Suddenly he heard the sound of a door being unlocked and quickly pulled his head from the opening, replacing the screen.

His lawyer, a handsome young man named Thomas Griswald, appeared in the doorway with a uniformed guard. He carried a dark blue suit, complete with shirt and tie, on a hanger. “How you feeling, Casper?”

Stone shrugged. “It breaks the monotony. What do you think my chances are?”

The sandy-haired lawyer didn’t answer directly. “This is the suit I bought you for the first trial. Put it on with the shirt and tie, and comb your hair. We want to get you looking good for that jury. I’ll be back in ten minutes.” The guard unlocked the heavy mesh door and Casper Stone accepted the suit with a nod of thanks.

When they were gone, he changed quickly into the shirt and suit, carefully knotting the tie and brushing his hair. Then he laid the prison uniform neatly on the low stool and dropped to the floor. With the screen off he had no trouble fitting through the access hole beneath the sink. Then he stretched out full length until he could touch the wire screen at the other end of the short tunnel. As he suspected, it too was loose. He pushed himself forward into the darkness.

The other room proved to be a closet containing mops, brooms, and buckets. The unlocked door led to a corridor in the courthouse. He turned on the closet light just long enough to check his appearance, brushing some dust from the blue suit. Then he opened the door a crack, saw that the coast was clear, and stepped out into the hallway. In two minutes he was mingling with a stream of people entering and leaving the building. In five minutes he was hurrying along the street a block away, a free man.

This time there’d be no mistake. He’d been given a new life and this time he’d get it right.

It felt good to be “Captain” Leopold again, even if he had been called out of retirement only to fill in while Fletcher recovered from a gunshot wound. That first morning in the office, it seemed as if he’d never been gone. There were one or two new faces, of course, but Lieutenant Connie Trent quickly introduced him to those he didn’t know. He’d been especially reluctant to use Fletcher’s glass-enclosed cubicle, which once had been his own. Connie understood that and suggested he take one of the empty desks in the squad room. It had been twenty-two years since she joined the department as a rookie cop, and she’d worked with him during most of that time. She was a lieutenant now, and still on her way up. Leopold and Fletcher and Connie Trent had been a team, and a damn good one.

On the third morning of his return, while he was still familiarizing himself with the current caseload, Connie took a call from the courthouse. “They’ve had an escape from the holding cell. They’re notifying us because the escapee is a convicted killer.”

Leopold looked up. “Anyone I know?”

“Casper Stone. It was after you retired but maybe you remember it.”

“Refresh my memory, Connie.” The name was familiar but he couldn’t quite place it.

“He was a small businessman with an auto repair service who claimed he’d been swindled by a financial consultant named Rich Easton—”

“Of course!” Leopold’s wife Molly had been involved in the case briefly, until she passed it on to a young lawyer in her office. It had upset her so much he was surprised he hadn’t remembered.

“—and one day about a year ago he bought a gun and went up to Easton’s office.”

“It was your case, wasn’t it, Connie?”

She nodded, smiling grimly. In her early forties, Connie Trent was still an attractive woman. Leopold knew she’d had relationships with men over the years, but she’d never married. Fletcher had a wife and family, and Leopold had married for the second time six years before his retirement. With Connie it was different. She was, as they say, married to her job. “It was my case,” she agreed. “Stone showed up at Rich Easton’s office and pulled his gun, demanding to see Easton. A secretary phoned 911 while an employee named Earl Frank tried to disarm him. They struggled over the gun and Stone killed him. He was overpowered by two patrolmen who arrived just seconds after the shooting.”

Leopold nodded. “That was when Molly came on board as his attorney. He argued that he hadn’t meant to kill Frank, that the shooting had been accidental. She asked for bail, pleading that he had roots and a business in the community, and the judge granted it. That was when he skipped town. Molly was pretty upset about it. After they recaptured him she resigned from the case and turned it over to Tom Griswald in her office.”

“The jury and judge both gave him a break at the trial last winter. He was only convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to four to eight years in prison. That’s when the D.A. decided to press the bail-jumping charge and get him some extra time behind bars. He was at the courthouse for the beginning of the trial when he escaped from the holding cell.”

“Get on the phone to Easton and warn him that Stone’s on the loose. I’ll swing by his office and then go on to the courthouse.”

Connie frowned, her hand on the phone. “Do you really think he escaped so he could have another try at Easton? When he jumped bail he just headed out of town.”

“We’d better not take chances,” Leopold said.

Rich Easton had a reputation around the city as something of a ladies’ man. Into his forties, with jet black hair and perfect teeth, he’d built a business as a financial advisor and money manager. Casper Stone was not the first person to feel cheated by his advice, and he probably wouldn’t be the last; but while dissatisfied clients filed lawsuits, Easton was most likely at his club with a gorgeous woman on his arm. Some said he’d settled down following his marriage to Belinda Haskins, a local socialite, but others felt she was merely the latest in his series of women betrayed. Rumors of secret bank accounts in other cities persisted, and there were charges that money from people like Stone, meant for sketchily described mutual funds, had ended up in these accounts.