Casey Daniels - Dead Man Talking

Helen put the photo in my hands. “Does that look like the kind of a man who would kill somebody?”

I didn’t need to look at the picture, but I did, just so she wouldn’t get suspicious. “People kill people every day,” I said. “I can’t say for sure, but I bet they don’t all look like killers.”

“Not Jeff.” She took the photo, and before she sat back down, she set it on the table next to me so that Lamar was staring right at me. “He was a good man. He was honest and ethical. He-” Helen’s voice caught on a lump of emotion and she took a drink of her tea. “He believed in justice. He believed in the system. He thought criminals could be reformed, that he could help change their lives. He wasn’t the kind of man who would take another life.”

“You had him buried in Cleveland, not near Central State.” It was something I’d planned to mention later in our conversation, but this seemed as good a time as any. “I would have thought-”

“We were both born in Cleveland, and there was nothing keeping us near Central State. Nothing but Jeff’s job. Once he was arrested…” Helen didn’t fill in the blanks. She didn’t need to. “My parents lived right here in this house, and they were elderly. It made sense for me to stay with them. I helped out around here, and I was close enough to downtown so I could visit Jeff during the trial. Once he was convicted…” A wave of pain crossed her face, and suddenly, not even her cheery T-shirt or her flip-flops could keep her from looking old and frail. “He didn’t think it was possible,” she said. “All the time the police questioned him, he understood they were just doing their jobs. He was cooperative and tolerant. He said they were only eliminating him so they could concentrate on finding a truly viable suspect. Then when he was arrested… And all through the trial…” Her shoulders rose and fell.

“I knew he didn’t do it, and he kept telling me my faith in him was all that mattered. But I could see that the publicity and the stain on his reputation was eating him up inside. He never once stopped believing in the integrity of the criminal justice system, you see. He knew he was innocent, so he never imagined the system would let him down and that he’d be found guilty. But then when he was-”

“He went to prison. Not to-”

“Central State? Oh, no. They’d never send a warden back to his own prison. Not as one of the inmates. Not that it mattered in the end.” Again, her shoulders rose, but this time when they dropped, she shuddered. “He had such a strong belief in the right way of things, such a firm notion that the system was good and that it was just. It broke his heart seeing that it failed him. He was embarrassed, and he was demoralized. He died of a heart attack in his sleep his first night in prison.”

This was another bit of the story Lamar had failed to mention, and as much as it annoyed me not to have all the details a detective needs to solve a case, I guess I understood why. A warden had to be tough, and tough guys didn’t die of broken hearts.

Rather than think about it and get all mushy, I concentrated on my case. “Do you know who could have done this?” I asked Helen. “Who would have wanted to frame your husband?”

“A warden makes a lot of enemies.” It was the same thing I’d heard from Lamar. “It’s hard to even know where to begin thinking about it. Believe me, I’ve tried. For more than twenty years.”

“And so what do you think?”

She gave me a half smile. “I wish I knew what to tell you. I’ve been over it in my head a couple million times.”

“Your husband never mentioned names? I mean, prisoners who might have had it in for him? Or employees with grudges?”

“Oh, he’d come home and say there had been problems. He would say some of the inmates were more trouble than others. Or he’d mention that he had some personnel crisis to deal with. But he never mentioned names. He didn’t want to bring that much of the job home with him. You know, so that I wouldn’t worry.”

Wondering where to take my questions next, I drummed my fingers against my legal pad. That’s when I remembered the missing silver dollar.

“He collected coins.”

As if she’d touched an electric line, Helen shot up in her chair. “My goodness! I’d almost forgotten. How on earth-”

“It must have been mentioned in one of those newspaper articles I read,” I told her.

“Well, they were right. Though it wasn’t a lifelong interest or anything. That was the thing about Jeff.” Her expression softened and a smile touched her lips. “He’d get it in his head to get a new hobby every once in a while. It was coins for a couple years, then model trains. I think he tried stamp collecting when he was a boy, too. I bet I still have some of the coins packed away in the attic. Not that they’re valuable or anything. At least not that I know of. A couple wheat pennies, a few quarters from when quarters were all silver and didn’t contain any copper. Things like that.” She looked my way. “It’s funny that you found that mentioned in the newspaper. It’s such an insignificant fact about Jeff. Do you think it’s important?”

I didn’t, and even if I did, I didn’t want to explain about the coin at the grave. For all I knew, my team was guilty of something for not only digging up the coin, but for not turning it over to whoever we should have turned it over to before it got stolen.

“Just trying to get a sense of what kind of person he was,” I said. “You didn’t ever do things like… oh, I don’t know… like leave coins at his grave or anything, did you?” Helen laughed. “Good heavens, no! Jeff wouldn’t have liked that. He wasn’t cheap, but he was careful with our money. He would have called that a waste. And he wouldn’t have been happy about me visiting his grave, either. Not in that area of town. I did for a while, but…”

I knew what she was imagining: the beat-up neighborhood, the trash, the crime.

“I’m glad to hear you’re fixing the place up.” Helen rose, and I figured our interview was over, so I got up, too. “I’m sorry I haven’t been able to help. If there’s anything else I can do…”

It was an offer I couldn’t refuse. If only I knew how to take her up on it. As I gathered my things, a thought occurred and I pounced on it.

“You said there were people who were jealous of your husband. Do you think-”

“That they’d arrange anything as elaborate as framing him for murder?” She cocked her head, thinking. “That would take a special kind of evil, wouldn’t it?”

“But you don’t think it’s totally impossible.”

She shook away whatever she was thinking and led me to the steps. “Sometimes my imagination runs away with me. But believe me, if I thought Lenny Fitzpatrick was capable of that sort of thing-”

It was the first she’d mentioned a name, and I wasn’t about to let the opportunity pass. “Lenny Fitzpatrick? He was-”

“The assistant warden at Central State when Jeff was in charge. Lenny was efficient and competent, but he didn’t have Jeff’s zeal for rehabilitation. Or Jeff’s brains. We never thought he’d rise above his job as assistant, but you know how it goes. People are often promoted above the level of their competence. Lenny got the warden’s job after Jeff was arrested.”

This was interesting, and though it wasn’t likely I’d forget, I made a note of it on my legal pad. “I can’t say it would do any good, but I don’t think it would hurt to go talk to this Lenny guy. I don’t suppose you have any idea where he is these days, do you?” “Oh, certainly! He’s still the warden at Central State.”

The news hit me like a punch to the stomach. “You mean, if I wanted to see him, I’d have to visit the prison to do it?”