Robert Ellis: The Dead Room

“I don’t think champagne’s necessarily appropriate tonight. Let’s see what we’ve got.”

Nash searched through the bottles until he found one to his liking. Then he pulled two glasses out of the cabinet and fished through a drawer for the corkscrew. Teddy moved to the jury table, lit a cigarette and sat down. He’d quit smoking a few years ago, but bought a pack for the night.

“I’ve got something I think might cheer you up,” Nash said.

“If it’s the wine, I’m ready.”

Nash laughed. “It’s old. Let’s hope it hasn’t turned. But I wasn’t thinking about the wine.”

He pulled the cork and carried the glasses over, filling each glass to the brim as he often did if they were drinking alone. Teddy tapped Nash’s glass with his own and took a first sip. The wine tasted clean and rich, and he glanced at the label as he swallowed another large mouthful. It was a Chateau La Mission Haut Brion that had been bottled nineteen years ago.

His eyes moved to the window behind Nash’s desk. He could see the E.T. House lit up in the distance. The house had been given the name and title by the curious, who still drove by for a look at the place on weekends. Nash followed his gaze and smiled at the irony of Trisco living within view of the office, his own desk, and the window that often served as a looking-glass.

“I have something I want to show you,” he said.

Nash opened the doors to the library, and Teddy followed him inside. At the other end of the main aisle a new set of double doors had been installed. Nash sipped his wine and opened them. What had always been a storage room was now a second office as large as Nash’s and completely refinished. Teddy glanced at the desk and table, the view of the E.T. House outside this window as well.

“We have another case, Teddy. Something fascinating. It involves traveling to Dallas, Washington, maybe even L.A. It will require a great deal of investigation. I think it’s something we can both sink our teeth into.”

Teddy finished off his glass, overwhelmed by the prospect of sharing offices with Nash. He realized that his mentor had been guiding him to this point in his life. That his friend thought he was ready to make an important leap. The next big step. When he noticed that Nash’s glass was empty as well, he smiled and told him he’d get the bottle and his cigarettes so that they could celebrate.

Teddy bolted through the library into Nash’s office. His new partner’s office. Rushing over to the jury table, his foot knocked over a walking stick leaning against one of the chairs and he watched it skid across the hardwood floor. He set his glass on the table and reached for the cane, hoping he hadn’t broken the thing and worried about his friend’s limp. When the metal tip dropped away from the shaft, he picked it up feeling guilty and gave it a quick glance.

His chest tightened. Everything stopped.

Teddy stared at the tip of the cane in the palm of his hand for a long time. It was made of Sterling silver. He noted the etchings and recognized the tall ships and whales. The last time he’d set his eyes on it, he’d thought he was looking at an antique shot glass. But it had been dark that night. Blood was strewn all over the snow.

“It was my father’s,” Nash said in a quiet voice from behind his back. “I probably should’ve gotten rid of the thing, but it had sentimental value and time had passed. With the understanding you’ve gained over the years, I wonder if it’s relevant at all.”

Teddy was afraid to turn around. He grit his teeth and imagined himself fleeing across the ocean’s surface, the backs of sharks his only footing. He looked at the lithograph on the wall-the empty prison cell-pulling himself together as he turned to face his new partner. His mentor and friend.

Nash stood in the doorway, studying him with a faint grin on his face and those dilated eyes of his.

“You’re upset,” Nash said, glancing at the cane in Teddy’s hand. “Maybe we should talk it over.”

Nash crossed the room, taking the cane away from him and leaning it against the far wall. His movements were casual, even graceful as he refilled each glass. Teddy stood motionless, keeping his eyes on him as Nash finally slid a chair away from the jury table and sat down.

“You ran over Barnett,” he heard himself saying in a hollow voice.

“He’s a pimp, Teddy. He wanted Holmes to plead guilty to a crime he hadn’t even committed. Come on. You’ve thought about this yourself a hundred times. I find your attitude astonishing.”

“I didn’t try to kill him,” Teddy whispered.

“I didn’t either, but other people’s lives were at stake. All I wanted to do is get the fool out of the way so that we could get started. He slipped on the ice. He got hurt, but survived. In the end it all worked out. Holmes is free and Rosemary Gibb’s alive and well.”

Teddy shuddered, playing back Barnett’s accident in his head and realizing for the first time that what Andrews had told him in prison was probably true. Someone else had shot Eddie Trisco.

Nash set the wine bottle down. “If this is about me giving you that whack over the head, then please accept my apology. At the time, it couldn’t be helped.”

Teddy wasn’t thinking about being beaten unconscious. “I met Andrews in prison,” he said. “He told me that he thought someone else could’ve been in the house the night Trisco was killed.”

“You mean murdered, don’t you, Teddy? Alan Andrews was executed tonight for the murder of Edward Trisco the Third.”

Nash seemed amused. He took another sip of wine and lit a cigarette from Teddy’s pack. Teddy ignored the smirk, forcing himself to keep going.

“I met him two days after it happened,” Teddy said. “Andrews told me that he heard the shot and found Trisco on the floor when he entered the room. Someone else put the gun to Trisco’s head and pulled the trigger. Someone else planted the box of hollow-point shells in Andrews’s car.”

“Given what we know, Teddy, I’d say that’s entirely possible. I believe the defense attorney at his trial raised the same point. No one paid much attention to him though. Not after your testimony as an eyewitness.”

It hung there. Teddy’s role as the prosecution’s eyewitness.

“That person is you ,” Teddy managed.

Nash seemed delighted by the news, casually wiping a fallen ash from his sleeve. It took Teddy’s breath away.

“You set Andrews up from the beginning. Ever since I met you.”

“I don’t hate the man,” Nash said in an even voice. “I loathe him. And I guess after what happened tonight I should get used to speaking about him in the past tense. When we left the prison this evening, the man looked quite dead. The world is a better place without Alan Andrews. I’ve been following his career for a long time. Long before you and I ever met. Why do you suppose he was the subject of my legal workshop? I never hid my distaste for Andrews. I did everything I could to make it public.”

“But he died tonight for something he didn’t do….”

“Oh, really? After all that’s happened, is that what you really think?” Nash tapped the ashtray with his cigarette and briefly watched the head burn. “You might have a hard time convincing the families of his victims, Teddy. They died for something they didn’t do as well. Something they never even asked for. What happened tonight seems more poetic than what you’re suggesting. Andrews got what he gave out. Nothing more and nothing less would really do.”

“What about the missing women? The murders? The bodies? That fake call from Dawn Bingle wanting to meet me at the boathouse?”

Nash stopped to consider the sudden barrage of questions. “You’re thinking I used you,” he said after a moment.