William Lashner - Fatal Flaw

I stared at him from my corner, Beth stared from across the table. We didn’t say a word, didn’t a move a muscle.

“Why don’t you tell them? That’s the answer. The door was unlocked. That proves everything I said is true.”

“And the evidence for that is?” said Beth, softly.

His gaze shifted crazily around the room, and then, as if her question had been a pin inserted into his abdomen, his body deflated.

I pushed myself off the wall and walked to the desk until I stood over him, my arms still crossed. “Tell me again about your relationship with Hailey,” I said.

He looked up at me. “We were in love.”

“Still?”

“What do you mean, still? Yes, of course.”

“Did you have sex the night she died?”

“No.”

“The night before?”

“I don’t know, I don’t remember.”

“The night before that?”

“I don’t know specifically. We had an active sex life.”

“Is that why the Viagra?”

“Yes.” Pause. “But I didn’t need it.”

“Has any company ever made more money selling a drug that nobody claims to need?”

“Its just that… that… Hailey liked to keep going. The pill helped. She made me get it.”

“She made you? When was the last time you used the Viagra?”

“I don’t remember. Is it important? Why is this important?”

“Were you and Hailey fighting? Did you have any fights?”

“Some, sure. Everyone does. We did, too. About the usual things. She was fiery when we were fighting and then again when we made up.”

“Did you ever hit her?”

“No.”

“Did you hit her the night of her death?”

“No. Stop it. What are you saying?”

“There was a bruise on her cheek.”

“Maybe the killer-”

“Did you fight the night of her death? Did you hit her the night of her death?”

“No. Hit her? No. Never. Why would I do something like that?”

“Out of raw anger.”

“No.”

“Because she was sleeping with someone else. Because she was fucking someone else, Guy, and she wasn’t fucking you.”

He stared up at me, horrified and pained. “You’re wrong.”

“Am I?” I said.

Beth’s calm voice broke through the fierce flow of testosterone coursing through the room. “The coroner found semen traces in her vagina,” she said. “Such traces don’t last more than a day and half, two days maximum. The coroner swabbed out a sample and took a preliminary test. It doesn’t match your blood type, Guy. They’ll perform other tests, but that will only prove it more convincingly. Hailey Prouix was cheating on you.”

Guy didn’t say anything for a long time, nothing, and then he lied. “I didn’t know,” he said.

I stood over him for a moment longer before, ignoring Beth’s questing gaze, I turned and strolled back to the corner.

Guy’s head shook as if it were struggling to take in a new bolt of information. It was a treat, actually, to watch him work. He was dramatically sliding through the appropriate emotions like a ski racer sliding through the gates, first one, then the other. He was giving us an approximation of the emotional reaction of a man learning for the first time that his dead fiancée had been cheating on him, and a rather awkward one at that, except for the verisimilitude of the setting and situation. And then he glanced up at Beth, he glanced up as if to make sure that his emotional slalom run had been duly noted and admired, before saying:

“He did it.”

“Who?” asked Beth.

“The bastard who was doing her. You asked me who did it. I’m telling you right now. It was him. I have no doubt about it. She was staying with me, and he didn’t like it. He knew how to get in. Maybe she had even given him a key to the house. Maybe she had even shown him the gun. He did it. He did it, damn it. We have to find him. He’s a murderer. He killed Hailey.”

I stared at him with disgust, even as I thought the theory through. It wasn’t bad, it had promise. Guy had never been a legal scholar, but he was a trial lawyer himself and had always been a clever strategist. And now he had come up with a damn clever strategy. Just what I did not need.

“It’s a theory,” I said, “but there’s no evidence to support it.”

“ Find the evidence. Find the bastard. He did it, I know it. Find him, and if you can’t find him, that doesn’t change a thing. He did it. That’s what I want you to argue, Victor. That’s what I want you to prove. That’s our theory.”

“Without proof it’s a loser,” I said.

“I don’t know,” said Beth. “It sounds pretty good to me.”

“If you make the lover the issue,” I said slowly, as if instructing a first-year Criminal Law class, “you just throw Guy’s motive in the jury’s face over and over and over. Every time you mention the lover, Guy’s reason to kill her becomes more evident. And of course, if we make the lover the issue, then Jefferson will put every resource into finding him. And if he does find him, and there’s an alibi, then you might as well check the guilty box on the verdict form yourself.”

“Guy, have you thought any more about the deal?” asked Beth.

“Some. Maybe I’ve been thinking about it a lot.”

“Don’t lose your nerve here, Guy,” I said.

“I can’t spend my life in here. It’s been only a week, and already I’m a wreck.”

“Don’t lose your nerve,” I repeated, ignoring Beth’s gaze.

“Okay.”

“Everything still looks solid,” I said.

“Okay, okay. I’m sticking with you, Victor. So when can I get out of here? When can I get a bail set?”

“That’s also what we came to talk about,” said Beth. “You remember, at arraignment, when the judge set no bail, she indicated that she might reconsider if we could come up with a complete financial profile so she could set a figure high enough to be sure to deter flight. To that end we began to examine your economic resources, using the authority you gave us when you signed those documents.”

“Then let’s get moving. If I have to spend another night in here, I don’t know if…” He stopped speaking. He clasped his hands tighter to stop the shaking.

“We found your account at Schwab.” Beth reached into her briefcase and took out a statement. “It was registered in your and Hailey’s names, as joint tenants, as you told us, and we wanted you to have a look at it and maybe explain some things to us.”

“Fine,” he said, holding his hand out for the statement.

“Before you look,” I said, “can we go over again why you and Hailey had a joint account?”

“We were committed to each other, Victor. That’s the way you do it when you’re going to spend the rest of your lives together. She had some money from a case, I had some money for me to live on after I left Leila, we put it together.”

“What case did she get the payment from?”

“I don’t know, some big medical malpractice case.”

“When did it settle?”

“Last year or something.”

“You don’t know the name?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Who was the defense attorney? He’ll know the name.”

“I don’t know who it was.”

“Didn’t you discuss it with her at all?”

“Sure. War stories, you know.”

“And you don’t know the name of the opposing counsel? Because when I tell my war stories to other lawyers, I always mention who was on the other side. It makes the tale of victory so much sweeter.”

“I don’t remember.”

“How much was in the account?”

“Maybe half a million.”

“Who had access to the money?”

“Hailey mainly. I let her deal with it. Didn’t we already go over this? Can I see the statements?”