Phillip Margolin - Heartstone

“No thank you, Mr. Heartstone,” Caproni said.

“Suitcherself,” Heartstone replied and poured a refill. The drink seemed to make him more sober.

“I came here to ask you for information about a case I’m working on.”

Heartstone eyed him suspiciously.

“I ain’t gone talk wit’ no cops. Lass time they pulled me in when it was that other damn guy. The son of a bitch.”

“This is about a case that occurred some time ago.”

Heartstone stood up. He seemed steadier on his feet than he had when he sat down. His face looked meaner.

“Lissen, if this is about that rap where I was falsely accused of a weapon, I ain’t talkin’ to no cop. That was a frame. That bastard bartender cheated me. Besides,” he added sheepishly, the anger in his voice changing rapidly to shame, “I don’t remember most of what happened.”

“This has nothing to do with that incident, Mr. Heartstone,” Caproni assured him. He seemed relieved and sat down again. Caproni checked the door and window for a possible exit if the man got violent. He also checked the room for possible weapons. Heartstone reached for the Scotch bottle and grabbed it by the neck.

“Were you living in Portsmouth in 1960 and ’61?”

“Sure,” Heartstone said suspiciously, his hand resting on the bottle neck. “I ain’t never lived no other place.”

“Where were you living at that time?”

Heartstone passed his other hand in front of his face, trying to clear away the cobwebs that draped the corridors of his faded, alcoholic memory.

“Shit, I don’t know,” he answered finally.

“Were you living with someone named Ralph?”

Heartstone’s face clouded and his voice took on an edge of potential violence.

“Why d’you want to know about Ralph? He’s long gone. Went to Arizona years ago.”

“We want to speak to him.”

“About what? What is this?”

Caproni decided that it was time to get to the truth.

“We believe that Ralph murdered a girl in January of 1961.”

Caproni did not see the bottle, but he heard the animal roar that escaped from Heartstone’s throat at the moment the bottle connected with his temple. For a moment he was blind and falling. Then his head made hard contact with the floor and Heartstone’s boot made harder contact with the back of his skull.

When he came to, a half hour had passed and the room was empty. Heartstone had cleared out. The door of a small closet was open and the closet was empty. Two dresser drawers were half open. Caproni could see all this from his position on the floor. There was a terrible pain in his head and it got worse when he tried to sit up. He gritted his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut, but lying down again was the only thing that helped.

He felt like a fool. How had that wino caught him so off guard? He had never expected him to move so fast. He tried to sit up again and made it by rolling to his side and getting his knees under him. He touched his head. It was tender enough to make him grimace, but, miraculously, there was no blood. Scattered pieces of glass lay all over the floor and Caproni tried not to cut himself on them.

When he was on his feet, he washed his face in the sink. He wondered why McGivern had not come up to find him, then he remembered that he had told him to stay downstairs. What an idiot he had been. He assumed that Heartstone was far away by now. There must be a back entrance. If he had gone out the front, McGivern would have apprehended him or come upstairs to see why he had not come down. He was beginning to conclude that he deserved the kick in the head that Heartstone had administered. He had completely botched things.

When he was well enough, Caproni eased himself downstairs. McGivern was leaning against a parked car and he rushed over when Caproni staggered out.

“What happened?”

“He hit me with a bottle of Scotch and a few other things that he had handy,” Caproni answered.

“Are you okay?”

“I think so.”

“I’ll radio his description and we can pick him up.”

“No,” Caproni said quickly. Everything he was doing was behind Heider’s back and potentially damaging to the state’s case. He could not risk word of it getting back to Heider.

McGivern gave him a puzzled look, then shrugged his shoulders.

“I think I should take you to the hospital for an x-ray.”

“I agree. But first I want to go to the county jail. There’s a prisoner there that I have to see.”

The front entrance of the county jail looked like the portal of a medieval castle. Caproni rang an electric bell that looked out of place buried in the cold stone blocks and a second later the red iron bars of the front gate swung open.

He walked up a short flight of stairs into a circular reception area. To the right was a counter and, behind the counter, a hallway leading to the office of the jail commander. A guard sat behind the counter. He put down a copy of True Detective magazine, took his heels off his desk and stood up.

“I’m with the D.A.’s office. It’s urgent that I see one of your prisoners, Edward Toller.”

The guard looked at Caproni’s identification and handed it back.

“I’ll get him in a second,” he said and pressed a button on the jail intercom. There was a crackling noise and a voice answered. The guard said, “I need a cell block on an Edward Toller.”

There was silence for a second, then the voice on the intercom said, “He’s not here. Are you sure you have the name right?”

The guard looked at Caproni and Caproni nodded.

“Check the files on him, will you? I have a D.A. here who wants to talk to him.”

There was more silence.

“I got it,” the voice said. “He was released a week and a half ago.”

“Ask him why,” Caproni said. Something was going on here that he did not like.

“Charges were dropped. That’s all I know,” said the voice.

“Dropped by who?” Caproni asked.

“The court order just says motion of district attorney.”

McGivern drove Caproni to the hospital and waited until four o’clock, when he was released. Then he drove him back to his car. Caproni longed for sleep, but he had made a decision that would deny him that pleasure. It wasn’t an easy decision for him to make, because he wanted, more than anything, to be a district attorney, and what he was about to do could cost him his job. It wasn’t a decision that he was certain was right, not only because he feared that what he was doing might help to set two murderers free, but because his solution was a compromise. In his heart, he knew that he should approach Judge Samuels with what he knew, but that would be the end of his career. Instead, he had chosen a middle road.

There was a night guard on duty at the courthouse. Caproni showed him his identification and took the elevator to the district attorney’s office. It was eerie walking the halls of the deserted office at night and Caproni thought he heard footsteps or breathing at every turn. He found what he was looking for and carried the material to the copying machine. At six o’clock, he returned home, showered, shaved, ate a large breakfast and dressed for work.

“Your next witness, Mr. Heider,” Judge Samuels said.

“The state will call Roger Hessey, Your Honor.”

Mark Shaeffer watched the bailiff summon Hessey from the corridor. Hessey walked through the ornate courtroom doors dressed more like a swinging single than a witness in a murder case. He was nervous and his facial expressions moved back and forth between a look of deathlike solemnity and an inappropriate, overdone, smile as Philip Heider led him through his part in the events of November 25, 1960.