Phillip Margolin - Fugitive

Marsh nodded.

“Then why did you come back? You were safe in Batanga.”

Marsh laughed. “Amanda, I’d be safer strapped into an electric chair than I was in that mosquito-infested hellhole.”

“Why don’t you explain that to me?”

“If you don’t mind, I’d rather not.”

“I get that you had a bad experience over there…”

Marsh snorted. “You don’t know the half of it.”

“It could be important for the bail hearing. You fled the country once and Burdett will argue that’s evidence that you’ll be a flight risk if the judge sets bail.”

“Believe me, I am never going back to Africa; not ever. You won’t even catch me watching a Tarzan movie.”

“The judge isn’t going to take your word that you won’t flee, without an explanation.”

Marsh spaced out and Amanda let him think. When he looked at her, his jaw was set.

“I’m going to do this just once, so take good notes and never ask me about Batanga again. But, before I tell you about Batanga, I have something I need you to do for me.”

“What’s that?”

“I brought something with me from Batanga that I want you to hold for me. When we get to Oregon I want you to put it in a safety-deposit box.”

Amanda frowned. “What exactly is this thing?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“We’re not talking drugs here, are we?”

“No. You won’t be breaking any laws, but you will be doing something important for a lot of innocent people. I can’t say any more. Will you do it?”

Amanda hesitated. She needed to gain Marsh’s trust if she was going to be an effective advocate for him. On the other hand, she wasn’t going to aid and abet a criminal enterprise.

“You swear you’re not asking me to commit a crime?” she asked, knowing full well how ridiculous it was to ask that question of a criminal who had earned his living as a con man.

“Yes.”

“All right. Give me the item.”

Charlie went into his bedroom and returned shortly with a box wrapped in brown paper and bound with twine. Amanda put it into her large handbag.

“You ready to talk about Africa?” she asked when the box was out of sight.

Charlie sighed. “Let’s get this over.”

For the next hour, Marsh told his lawyer about his years in exile, concluding with an account of his hairbreadth escape from the makeshift airfield.

“Jesus, Charlie, you’re lucky to be alive.”

“I want you to keep me that way.”

“I’m definitely going to try my best, but tell me, if you didn’t kill Pope, who did?”

“I don’t know.”

“Everyone says the shot was fired near you and the gun was found where you were standing.”

“Look, Amanda, it was dark, what with Werner and Delmar fighting and Pope screaming at me and the citizens shrieking, it was like being in the middle of a three-ring circus.”

“So you’re saying that you don’t have any idea who killed Arnold Pope?”

“None whatsoever.”

AMANDA WAS DOG-TIRED by the time she checked into her hotel. Her cross-country trip and the lengthy interview with Charlie had been exhausting, and Dennis Levy hadn’t made her job any easier. He’d tried to eavesdrop on their conference several times and she’d used a lot of energy fending off his constant attempts to convince her that there would be no real problem if he had better access to her client.

Amanda took a hot shower to banish the chill that the arctic conditions in Charlie’s condo had seeded into her bones. There was a message from Martha Brice, who wanted an update. Amanda gave it to her while luxuriating on her bed, wrapped in one of the terry-cloth robes that the hotel provided. She was tempted to call Mike Greene just so she could talk about something other than the case, but she remembered the three-hour time difference between New York and Oregon and realized he’d probably be in court. Instead, she called Karl Burdett to tell him that Marsh would fly back on Wednesday. Burdett agreed to set the bail hearing for Thursday. Amanda had feared that the DA would renege on his promise and she breathed a sigh of relief when she hung up the phone. After the call to Burdett, she phoned her office to see if there was anything that required her attention and spoke briefly with Kate Ross.

When she finished her conversation with Kate, Amanda was a little more relaxed and ready to think about her first impressions of Charlie Marsh. He was definitely not faking his relief at escaping from Batanga. His years there sounded like hell. Amanda couldn’t imagine the horror he’d felt when he saw his butchered lover in Baptiste’s torture chamber.

Marsh also seemed needy and unsure of himself. He had tried to put on a brave front but Amanda could tell he was scared; a perfectly rational reaction, given his situation. Getting Charlie bail wasn’t going to be easy. Neither was keeping him off of death row.

What worried Amanda most was whether Charlie was anxious because he had murdered Arnold Pope Jr. In the American legal system, the state was the only party with a burden at trial. It had to convince the jury beyond a reasonable doubt that a defendant was guilty as charged. A defendant never had a burden of proving anything, so a defense attorney didn’t need to know whether her client had committed the crime with which he was charged. That didn’t mean that Amanda wasn’t as curious about her client’s culpability as she was about the contents of the box he’d given her. Charlie’s protestations of innocence were convincing, but he was a con man, and con men made their living by lying with a straight face.

The knot in Frank Jaffe’s gut tightened as he drew closer to Sally Pope’s estate. The more he wanted to see her, the more he didn’t. When Frank promised Amanda that he’d meet with Sally, he honestly thought he could handle seeing her again. Now, he wasn’t so sure.

Sally lived in the middle of farm country. Here and there, cattle, sheep, and horses grazed in fenced pastures and a barn or a farmhouse appeared. There were low hills and cultivated squares of yellow and green given over to crops or dark brown patches where the fields had been churned to reclaim the soil for planting.

Frank had arranged the meeting through Jimmy Pavel, the attorney who handled Sally’s legal affairs. A few hours after Frank phoned, Pavel called with directions to the estate and a time for the meeting. While he waited for the call, Frank looked up Sally on the Internet. There were numerous references to her before, during, and immediately after the trial. The search results tailed off drastically after she moved to Europe but there were references that linked her to Liam O’Connell, an Irish author who’d been short-listed for the Booker Prizeb and was a minor celebrity in the U.K. There were very few hits since she’d returned to the States.

A low stone wall marked the boundaries of the estate. It broke to permit access to the grounds along a dirt road that wound through a thicket of trees. After a short distance, the woods gave way to an expanse of well-tended lawn and a view of a white, antebellum plantation home that looked down on new arrivals from its perch on top of a gentle rise. An image flashed through Frank’s mind, of hoop-skirted southern belles fanning themselves in the summer heat while their beaus sipped mint juleps on the veranda.

The drive curved in front of a columned portico. Frank parked and got out. A white-and-honey-colored collie trotted toward him, wagging its tail lazily. Frank leaned over to pet the dog, then rang the doorbell. After his Gone with the Wind moment, Frank was disappointed when the woman who answered the door was wearing jeans and a light blue T-shirt. She had straight black hair, an engaging smile, and a heavy Italian accent.