William Lashner - Fatal Flaw

Out Haverford Avenue, across City Line, into the twisting suburban streets, old trees leaning over the roadbeds, calm homes still asleep to the rising morn. Down this short road, left at that stop sign, right at the next, up the hill and to the left, and there it was, dark and solitary.

There was no yellow tape. I thought there would be yellow tape. There was no yellow tape, there were no police cars, there was no police presence whatsoever. In the city the place would have been swaddled in yellow caution tape like a newborn in its blanket. But this was the suburbs, no reason to make a spectacle for the neighbors, no reason to place property values at risk. The sight filled me with anger. They were going to screw it up, they were going to let him off. It was up to me. All along I had known it was, all of it, up to me.

I parked across the street and waited. The lights were off. I didn’t know if he hadn’t yet gotten to the house or if he was already inside, doing whatever he was doing in the darkness. I parked across the street and waited. There was no rush. If he wasn’t yet at the house, he would be, and if he was, which I suspected, he wouldn’t be there long. He would do whatever he felt compelled to do and then he would leave, he would run, he would take the keys from the desk drawer and head straight for one of the cars, his or Hailey’s, parked out front. Hailey had driven a new Saab convertible. Guy drove a new black Beemer. Both cars were on the street, waiting for his great escape, and so was I.

Waiting. Waiting. And then waiting no more.

He came out from the back, his shoulders hunched, his black coat turning him almost invisible, his head swiveling this way and that as he checked the empty road for watchers. He carried a large, hard shell suitcase. He was making for the BMW.

I climbed out of my car and stuck my hand in my raincoat pocket so that it gripped the hard hunk of metal. Then I headed off to intercept.

“Guy,” I called out.

He looked up at me, startled, before setting his shoulders in a posture of determination and continuing to the car.

“Guy,” I called out again, shuffling as quickly as I could toward him. “What are you doing? Where are you going?”

“Don’t try to stop me, Victor. I’m getting out of here.”

“Why?”

By now he had just about reached his car and I had just about reached him. As he tried to stick his key in the slot, I pulled at his arm. Keytus interruptus. He stared up at me with an unfathomable fear.

“They’re going to kill me,” he said. “You told me that yourself.”

“No, I did not.”

“In so many words, yes, you did. They’re going to arrest me and throw me in jail and kill me. I’m not going to sit around and let them. I didn’t do anything.”

“And this is going to convince them of that? Come back with me to my apartment.”

“Forget it.”

“You can’t run, Guy.”

“Watch me,” he said as he pulled his arm from my grasp and slid the key into the lock. I tried to grab him again. He swung at me with his suitcase, I raised my hand in defense. The suitcase banged into my shoulder. I fell back hard onto my side. The butt of the gun dug into my hip.

He slammed the door, locked himself inside, started the engine.

I spun onto my back, tightened my grip on the gun.

Suddenly another car, boxy and brown, just missed running over me as it pulled alongside Guy’s Beemer and stopped dead, blocking him in.

Guy slammed on his horn, but the brown car didn’t move.

Guy tried to pull forward, hopping the curve and riding on the sidewalk, around a parked car, and back onto the street to get away, but another car, boxy and black, pulled up suddenly and blocked him in again.

From out of the black car jumped Detective Stone, who quickly drew her gun and aimed it at Guy.

Detective Breger calmly exited his vehicle, ambled over to Guy’s BMW, and peered in the window. He gestured for Guy to open the lock. As he patiently waited, first one, then two, then three police cruisers appeared on the street, their flashing lights painting acres of aluminum siding red and blue.

I rose from the ground, my hand out of my raincoat pocket. Breger calmly motioned me away, and I stepped back.

Guy did nothing, did nothing, and then, finally, he electronically unlocked his car. Breger opened the passenger door and leaned inside.

“Going somewhere, Mr. Forrest?”

Guy tried to say something, but Stone, gun still drawn, swung open the other door and cut him off. “Step out of the vehicle, please.”

Guy began again to speak.

“Step out of the vehicle, please,” repeated Stone.

Guy slowly climbed out, looking at me helplessly for a moment before Stone holstered her gun and jammed him roughly up against the Beemer’s side, cuffing his hands behind him.

“You are under arrest for the murder of Hailey Prouix,” said Stone when the cuffs were in place. She spun him around and began to read him his rights.

“I’m a lawyer,” said Guy halfway through.

“Good,” said Stone. “That means there won’t be any misunderstandings.” She continued.

I walked over to Detective Breger, who, with surgical gloves in place, was rifling through the contents of Guy’s suitcase.

“What are you doing?” I said.

“Search incident to arrest,” said Breger without looking up from the suitcase. “ Chimel v. California .”

“I know the damn cite. How’d you know he was here?”

“Where do you think you are, Mr. Carl? A woman is found shot dead in her bed, all the doors locked, the windows, no evidence of a break-in, no evidence of a robbery. You think we let the only other person in the house walk without a tail? Stone was following from the moment you left here. Saw him sneak out of your building, grab a cab, take it here, where I had been waiting all night just in case, hoping he would do exactly what he did.”

“Well, aren’t you the clever pair.”

“Clothes,” he said as he continued his search through the suitcase, “toothbrush, a prescription of” – he held the bottle away from his face and squinted at the label – “Viagra. Anticipating some fun, was he? And what is this? An envelope filled with cash. It’s not the three thousand, we already logged that, and it was much slimmer. Whoa. Ten, twenty, maybe fifty, sixty. Our Mr. Forrest had plans. Oh, and look, how sweet, his passport.”

“Is that what you were hoping to find?”

“It is what I was expecting to find. The coroner called in a preliminary report. Said Miss Prouix was beaten before she was killed. Her left eye was bruised.”

I fought to keep my emotions in check, I bit the inside of my cheek and fought to bat not an eyelash as I heard about the bruise. I stood stone-still and watched as Breger kept searching the suitcase and then, disappointed, started in on the car, the glove compartment, the back seat, the trunk. Finding nothing, he called over to Stone, “You pat him down?”

“Only a wallet,” said Stone, leaning against the side of the car into which she had deposited Guy.

“What are you missing?” I managed to get out.

“The gun. We still have not found the gun. I figure the gun is the final rail in your buddy’s prison cell.”

“Is that what you figure?”

I didn’t wait for an answer, I simply turned and walked toward one of the police cars with its lights still flashing. Guy was sitting forward in the back seat, his mouth tight, his fists clenched behind his back. He looked at me angrily when I came over, and I looked away, hoping to hide what it truly was I felt about him.

“I didn’t do it,” he said through clenched teeth. “Victor, I swear I didn’t do it.”

“Don’t talk,” I advised him while surveying the scene, purposely avoiding his gaze.