Robert Tanenbaum - Absolute rage

"Give me that! That's mine," he snarled. He made to grab it from her, but was arrested by a noise like a cold engine cranking. Gog bounded between man and mistress and exhibited his famous smile of destruction. Poole shied away and fell back on the couch.

"Get that animal away from me!" he demanded weakly. "If it touches me, I'll sue."

"If he touches you, you won't be in any condition to sue." Wiggling the bottle before his eyes, she said, "I know you need a drink, but you can't have one now. You need to do some work first. I'm going to make you a pot of strong black coffee, which you will consume until you are as sober as you ever get. Then we will have a professional conversation about our client and decide what to do next."

He gaped at her and wiped at his reddened eyes. "Who the hell are you?"

"I told you. I'm Marlene Ciampi, I'm Moses Welch's-"

"Yeah, I got that. What're you doing in McCullensburg?"

"I was a friend of Rose Heeney." Marlene put the coffee on. "Her sons engaged me to get Moses Welch out of this stupid situation and get the police back onto looking for the real killers."

"That's your plan, is it?" he asked, his voice tired and hollow. He rubbed his face vigorously with both hands. "You don't know much about Robbens County, that's for sure."

"No, I don't. That's another reason I need your help."

He snorted a sort of laugh. "Well, if you need my help, lady, you're in a sorry state. I tell you what I will do though. If you put a shot in my coffee, I will enlighten you as to how things are done around here. After which, you will kindly get the hell out of my office."

Marlene had nothing to say to this. She poured out a mug of coffee, added a splash of the bourbon. His eyes were fixed on the bottle's lip. With body English he urged a more generous pour, but was passive when he saw it would be minimal. He drank and talked. She sat on the edge of his desk and listened.

"Well, let's start with Moses Welch. Moses Welch is an idiot. He should have been put away a long time ago, but the Welches, of course, wouldn't hear of it. It's only a matter of time before he walks in front of a train or a coal truck or decides to grab some little girl and play doctor. He came to town in shoes soaked in the Heeneys' blood. He was duly arrested. At the arraignment, I pleaded him non compos, which he is. That plea was rejected by Judge Murdoch, and Mose was deemed fit to aid in his own defense."

"That's nonsense."

"I know. Don't interrupt. I have petitioned the court for a psychiatric examination, which will demonstrate that Moses Welch is, in fact, incapable of telling right from wrong. After he's convicted, he'll be remanded to the state institution at Morgantown indefinitely, which is probably the best place for him, all told. I want some aspirin."

This was found, a bottle of two hundred in a desk drawer. He downed four with the coffee. "There. That's the sad story of Moses Welch. Case closed. Now, please go away and leave me alone."

"But he didn't do it."

"He confessed to it."

"Yes, and you were probably right there with the ice cream. Oh, hell, just look at the poor sap! He wouldn't hurt a fly. Besides, the Heeneys were killed by at least two men."

"How do you know that?" Poole's hands shook when he said it, slopping the coffee.

"Because the Heeney boys figured it out. Lizzie was killed with a pistol shot to the head. Do you actually believe that our retard walked into the Heeney home, outshot an armed man, killed him and his wife, and then calmly pranced into a little girl's bedroom and shot her while she was still sleeping peacefully? Have you ever heard a twelve-gauge go off in a confined space?"

"He could've shot her first."

"Oh, please! And then put away his pistol, grabbed his shotgun, and dispatched the Heeneys? With Red Heeney alerted and a.38 in his fist? Who're we talking about here, John Wesley Hardin? Whose side are you on anyway?"

"You don't understand."

"Okay, enlighten me. Explain why you're selling out your client."

"I'm not selling out my client. I'm doing what I have to do to keep more people from being hurt. Look, miss, whatever your…"

"Marlene."

"Marlene. Let me ask you this-what do you think is going to happen when you mount your spirited defense of Moses Welch's innocence? You think everyone in town's going to say, oh, jeez, we made a mistake, thank you so much? Do you think the sheriff is actually going to look for someone else? They will not, and he will not. What they will do is look for the source of the upsetting reversal of a very nice arrangement. They will find it in you, and in me, and in the Heeney boys, who called in a fancy out-of-town lady lawyer. And they will expunge the persons responsible."

"Who is this they? "

"The they who run our little town. They didn't like Red Heeney unsettling things, with the results you know. It will be the same with you and me and the Heeney boys. What I'm trying to say is, you can't bring Rose back. Do you really want to be responsible for wiping out the rest of her family? Can I have a little more?" He held out his cup like a beggar, eyeing the bottle.

"No. Are you talking about Weames and the union?"

"Oh, he's part of it."

"And what's the whole thing look like?"

He laughed, a short pair of dry syllables, like a curse. "Have you got a year? A decade? I don't. I'm tired, lady. Why don't you go off and do good in some other nice county? Oh, my head!"

He lay back on the couch and groaned.

"Where's your file on Welch?"

He gestured vaguely at an oak filing cabinet. She rummaged. The file was thin, consisting only of the indictment, the arrest record, the three autopsy reports, a copy of the letter requesting a psych consult, and some technical data from the state lab regarding the blood on the defendant's boots. Or alleged boots. She noted where the report said they were a size nine, a small man's size. Mose was a moose; he'd said they were too tight.

"Didn't you file any motions to dismiss or to suppress?"

Poole groaned. "Dear lady, you're thinking like a lawyer. There's no law in Robbens County."

"We'll see about that." Marlene searched Poole's law library, found a form book and a criminal procedure volume. She had not typed mechanically for some years, and it was tedious doing it with two fingers truncated, but she soon had the standard motions completed. She brought these over to Poole; included were her "Notice of Appearance" form, which let the court and all interested parties know that she was now representing Welch, and the substitution of lead attorney declaration.

"Sign these," she ordered.

"You're crazy."

"I've been told. Sign!"

He signed. She took the papers and said, "Get cleaned up. I expect you to be respectable and sober in court first thing tomorrow. They do have court here, don't they? Or do they just meet in a cellar and decide who lives and who dies?"

"Both."

She left Poole's office and walked across the square, attracting some attention. People came out of shops to look and traffic slowed. She noticed this and remarked to the dog, "They probably don't see many Manolo Blahniks in this town. Maybe I should have gone with something less stylish." The dog said, they tremble at my size and ferocious aspect. "I was joking," she said. "Stay, and don't bite anyone." The courthouse proved to contain, as in many small-county towns, the entire county government and was busy without seeming hectic. Finding the court clerk's office, she handed her documents in to an angular, middleaged woman with thick, harlequin-framed glasses on a chain and a head of peculiar, tiny champagne curls. This person looked at the documents, studied them in fact, while also studying Marlene out of the corner of her eye. Marlene took her receipt and left, but noted without surprise that the clerk was on the phone before the glass door had swung shut.