Phillip Margolin - Fugitive

“I don’t know and, frankly, I don’t care. In the end, you have to do what you think is right, no matter what Levy thinks. Right now, however, you should talk to the police so they can catch the person who killed Sally and tried to kill you.”

Amanda left and Charlie thought about what he’d just said. He could tell the truth about some of the things that he’d lied about, but he wouldn’t tell the whole truth about what had happened at the Westmont Country Club the night Arnold Pope Jr. died, unless he had no choice.

The day after Sally Pope’s murder, the PI in Denver called Kate to tell her he’d located Werner Rollins. Until a month ago, Rollins had been serving time in the Colorado State Penitentiary for armed robbery, but he was currently on parole. Kate talked to Henrietta Swift, Rollins’s parole officer, who called back an hour later to tell Kate that Rollins had agreed to meet her.

During the two-and-a-half-hour flight from Portland to Denver, Dennis Levy didn’t hit on Kate once or brag about how great he was, and he never mentioned how famous he was going to be. He seemed preoccupied as he worked on his laptop or stared out the window. Kate wondered why the reporter was so quiet, but she didn’t want to press her luck by asking.

The meeting with Rollins was at a sports bar near Coors Field. They had a late flight back to Portland, so Kate rented a car at the airport and drove into Denver. It was a spectacular summer day and it took a moment for Kate’s eyes to adjust from the bright midday sunlight to the dim light in the bar, but it didn’t take long to pick out Rollins in the crowd of lunch-time patrons. He was the only man sitting alone at a table in a wheelchair.

Rollins’s parole officer had briefed Kate about the high-speed chase that had led to a prison term for armed robbery and cost Rollins his legs, but she hadn’t prepared Kate for the real toll the accident had taken on the gangster. The Werner Rollins of Kate’s imagination was a meaner version of Conan the Barbarian. There was nothing menacing about the man in the stained Denver Broncos T-shirt who was working on his second pitcher of beer. Despair had beaten the life out of Rollins and hard living had changed the sharp planes of his steroid-enhanced physique into flab.

“Mr. Rollins?” Kate asked as they drew close to his table.

Rollins looked away from the ball game airing on one of the large-screen TVs that were scattered around the bar.

“This is Dennis Levy and I’m Kate Ross, an investigator working for Charlie Marsh. Thank you for taking the time to meet with us.”

“Yeah, well, my social secretary was able to find time for you on my busy schedule, and Henrietta said you’d spring for my beer. It was a no-brainer.”

Kate smiled. “May we?” she asked, indicating one of the chairs at the table.

“Be my guest.”

“Dennis is a reporter. He’s covering Charlie’s trial for World News . Do you have a problem with him sitting in on our conversation?”

Rollins shrugged. Kate had the impression that he didn’t care much about anything anymore.

“So how’s old Charlie doing?” Rollins asked.

“He’s had a rough time. I don’t know how closely you’ve been following his case, but there have been two attempts to kill him. He was shot during the second attempt and he’s in the hospital.”

“That’s tough,” Rollins said without much conviction.

“I understand that you were Charlie’s friend,” Kate said.

“You got that wrong. We were never buddy-buddy. I tolerated him because of Freddy.”

“Freddy Clayton?”

Rollins nodded. “They were like Batman and Robin. Freddy took the little punk everywhere. If I didn’t know Freddy real good I woulda thought they were faggots.” Rollins tossed a quick glance at Dennis, smirked, and added, “No offense.”

Levy reddened but didn’t respond.

“But you knew Charlie pretty well?” Kate said.

“Yeah. It’s like that nursery rhyme, anywhere that Freddy went Charlie was sure to go.”

“Is that why you were at the Westmont Country Club on the evening Congressman Pope was killed? Were you and Gary Hass reconnecting with an old acquaintance?”

Rollins laughed then took a drink from his mug. Kate waited while he used his forearm to wipe the foam from his mouth.

“That thing with Charlie was Gary’s deal. He wanted to shake him down, see if he could scare him into parting with some cash. When Freddy was alive no one would touch Charlie, but Charlie was a rabbit and Gary figured he’d be an easy mark with no one to protect him.”

“You testified for the prosecution at Sally Pope’s trial.”

“I had to, didn’t I? Burdett was threatening me with hard time for fucking up that security guard. With my record, I couldn’t afford to go down again. Charlie was out of the country, so what I said couldn’t hurt him, and I didn’t owe the broad anything.” Rollins shrugged. “It was her or me and I chose me.”

“Mr. Rollins, the state will want you to testify again, and this time what you say could send Charlie to death row. So, let me ask you, if you testify at Charlie’s trial, what will you say?”

Rollins eyed Kate warily. “If I said something I didn’t say the first time I’d be looking at a perjury charge, so I guess I’ll have to say that I saw Charlie shoot Pope.”

“The statute of limitations has run out, Mr. Rollins. You can consult a lawyer on that if you don’t believe me, but I checked. No one can prosecute you if you lied under oath at Sally Pope’s trial.”

Rollins thought about that. “I might say something different,” he told Kate.

“Like what?”

Levy leaned forward, his eyes riveted on Rollins.

“That depends,” Rollins said. “As you may have noticed, I ain’t doing very well. In fact, I’ve got no fucking legs, which makes it hard to get a job.”

Rollins paused and the blatant bribe attempt hung in the air between the convict and the investigator like a Goodyear blimp hovering over a football stadium. Kate smiled and turned her head toward Levy.

“This is off the record, Dennis,” she said.

When Dennis didn’t object, Kate turned back toward Rollins. She had no illusions about the type of man with whom she was dealing. Rollins was a career criminal and a sociopath. Appealing to his better nature was hopeless, because men like Rollins didn’t have better natures. But they were human and they didn’t have to be evil twenty-four hours a day. Kate looked Rollins in the eye and held his gaze long enough for him to figure out she was not someone who scared easily.

“I don’t know what your experience has been with other attorneys,” Kate said in an even, nonjudgmental tone, “but my firm doesn’t pay witnesses for their testimony. We want the truth. If it’s what you testified to at Sally Pope’s trial we’ll have to deal with that. You, on the other hand, will have to live with Charlie’s death sentence if you help convict him and you’re lying.

“I don’t know if that would be easy for you to do, because I know very little about you, but I do know that you’ve suffered and, if you’re a normal human being, I can only hope that you would want to keep someone you know from suffering if you could help them without hurting yourself.”

“I’m not a charity, lady.”

Kate laughed. “I’ve read your rap sheet and a few police reports of your exploits, Mr. Rollins, so I know that’s for sure.”

Rollins hesitated for a moment. Then he smiled. “Yeah, I guess no one would ever confuse me with the Red Cross.”

“They did make for interesting reading,” Kate told him with a conspiratorial grin.