Rick Mofina - Perfect Grave

“I understand.”

“Having these rights in mind, do you wish to talk to us now?”

“I’m good. I don’t need a lawyer. I get it. You brought me here because you need my help to find this guy?” Coop tapped Jason’s article in the Mirror.

“We need your help,” Grace said, “to learn the truth about what happened.”

“Want me to look at a sketch or something?”

“This.” She opened her folder and slid an eight-by-ten full-size color photo of the knife. The murder weapon. “Ever see one like that before? It’s fairly unique with the maple leaf symbol.”

“Sure, it’s like the one I saw that guy take from the shelter.”

Grace slid a second photo, a series of enlargements showing shoe impressions in blood, and the alley behind the town house near the bush where the knife was found.

“These impressions are like fingerprints and they were made by Sister Anne’s killer. And see this,” Grace slid another photo, a file photo of a standard pair of tennis shoes standard-issue only by the Washington Department of Corrections. “These are the kind of shoes the killer wore. Guess where we found shoes like these?”

Cooper’s face whitened. He’s eyes moved along every photograph Grace had set before him and suddenly realization rolled over him.

“Now the lights are coming on, aren’t they, Coop?” Perelli eyeballed him, then slammed his hand down on the counter. “We got them from your little penthouse under I-5. Shoes just like the ones her killer wore, Sergeant!”

Cooper shook his head.

“Somebody put them in my cart a long time ago. I don’t even wear ‘em. I’ve got a lot of gear there.”

Perelli’s metal chair scraped and tumbled as he stood to lean into Cooper, drawing his face to within an inch of his.

“Don’t lie to us,” he whispered. “Make it easy on yourself. Be a man and tell us exactly what happened.”

Cooper’s eyes widened as he stared at the pictures.

Perelli righted his chair and sat in it.

“John,” Grace’s voice was almost soothing, “was it a sexual thing, or an argument? Did you follow her to the town house to talk to her? Maybe something was troubling you and she said something that triggered all the bad things that happened to you? John, it’ll help you to tell us now. So you can get help, John.”

“You owe it to your buddies,” Perelli said, “to their memory, to do the honorable thing, here.”

Cooper shot Perelli a look. Grace sensed something was seething just under Cooper’s skin.

“John, look at me,” she said. “Just tell us what happened.”

Cooper went back to the pictures. It seemed as if a monumental sadness washed over him. Tears welled in his eyes as he shook his head.

“I loved her.”

Grace nodded encouragement.

“I would never hurt her.”

“We know, John,” Grace said. “Was it an accident?”

“I don’t know. I mean,” he swallowed, “sometimes, I black out.”

Grace exchanged a quick glance with Perelli.

“We know. It’s in your records,” Grace said.

“I didn’t hurt her. I couldn’t hurt her. I don’t think I hurt her. ”

Cooper thrust his face into his weathered hands and released a deafening cry of anguish.

“I want a lawyer.”

C ooper’s call for a lawyer took it all to the next level.

Grace alerted Lynn Mann at the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s office. Lynn called the Office of the Public Defender on the fourth floor of the Walthew Building.

The OPD scrolled through its network of public defense agencies contracted to provide legal services. Most had conflicts, so the staff sped through the list of assigned attorneys. Next up for a felony: Barbara North, a criminal defense lawyer with Acheson, Kwang, and Myer.

The call caught her on her cell, driving from court to her son’s soccer game.

“The nun murder?” Barbara repeated into her phone while at a red light. It had started raining and she switched on her wipers. “Sorry, I didn’t get that? He’s an indigent street person? Lives under I-5. You mean the guy in today’s paper?” She scrawled notes, willing the light to stay red. “Sure. I’ll take it but I have to make a few calls. Tell Lynn I’ll meet her and Detective Garner at Homicide just as soon as I can get there.”

The rain would cancel soccer.

Barbara called her older sister, Mary, and asked her to pick up her son. He wouldn’t complain about hanging out at his aunt Mary’s. She was a better cook.

“Could be a sleepover, Mary.”

“Catch a big case?”

“The biggest.”

As Barbara drove, she probed her briefcase for today’s Mirror. It took four red lights to absorb every detail on the Cooper story. She was a quick-thinking Harvard grad whose passion for law had not waned, despite the disillusioning realities of everyday jurisprudence. She’d handled a number of homicide cases, domestics, drug murders, but never one that had played out on the front pages.

Within forty-five minutes, Barbara found herself in a secured room, contending with the smells of fried chicken, potatoes, Italian salad dressing, and Cooper. As he ate behind the bars of a holding cell, she worked at the small table asking him questions, writing notes on a yellow legal pad, consulting copies of files, reports, and statements she’d requested from Lynn and the Seattle PD.

“So, do you think they’re going to charge me with something?”

“We’ll know soon enough. Just try to take it easy.”

Barbara left the room to meet with the detectives, their sergeant, and Lynn Mann, a deputy prosecuting attorney. Lynn was a veteran of DOP, King County’s homicide response team. Lynn was beautiful. She also had fifteen years’ more experience than Barbara.

“Here it is,” Lynn said. “Your client has a troubled history, with a few violent incidents. He has been known to argue with the victim in front of witnesses at the shelter. Your client had access to the murder weapon, a knife from the shelter. Your client is in possession of shoes consistent with impressions found in the victim’s blood and at the location where the weapon was recovered.”

“But you haven’t charged him,” Barbara said. “You don’t have a time line and anyone putting him at the scene.”

“We’ve got a compelling case going,” Perelli said.

“What you have is reaction to public pressure.” Barbara tapped her pad with the point of her pen.

“He’s had access to the knife and he’s grappling with psychological anguish,” Grace said.

“Which is the case with about half of the hundreds of regulars who go to that shelter. Your case is so circumstantial as to be nonexistent.”

“At his encampment,” Boulder said, “we found other knives consistent with knives belonging to sets at the shelter.”

“Circumstantial,” Barbara said reaching for the Mirror. “Look, Mr. Cooper’s indicated that he witnessed a stranger at the shelter arguing with the victim and stealing a knife. Did you even pursue this avenue of investigation?”

“Isn’t it funny,” Perelli said, “how people with such critical information go to the press first, to put it out there, before coming to us? That’s what guilty people do.”

“Detective, my client pushes a shopping cart through the streets of this city and lives under a freeway.”

“That doesn’t make him stupid and it doesn’t rule him out,” Perelli said.

“Dom,” Grace said, “Barbara, we have pursued that avenue and have already eliminated a number of potential suspects.”

“The shoes are damning,” Lynn said.

“The shoes are state-issued only by DOC. As I understand, my client has no criminal record. He’s never been arrested. He’s never served time. And you are all well aware that all state-issued clothing is marked with an offender’s DOC number. I believe with shoes, it’s inside the instep of the right shoe.”