William Lashner - Fatal Flaw

I turned from the window. It was too much to bear, but the change had happened just that quickly.

The police cars were already in the parking lot, the officers crouched behind them, shotguns at the ready. Breger and Stone and Troy Jefferson were standing in a clot of law enforcement behind the crouching uniforms. And standing together, still farther behind, was my brain trust, Beth and Skink. And each of them, every one of them, was staring at me, wondering what the hell I was doing up there. I had planned on retreating if I saw a gun, I had planned on running and letting it play out as I knew it would. There would be a knock, an order, a demand. There would a shot fired and then another and then a fusillade that would rip Dwayne Joseph Bohannon apart. He would be ripped apart and would disappear from the earth as surely as if he had fallen into one of Roylynn’s black holes, another of Cutlip’s victims. It would play out just like that, except I couldn’t let it play out just like that anymore, not after the glimpse I had caught of that boy’s inner torment. The inevitable gunplay at the end was not inevitable.

I glanced back at the force arrayed in the parking lot and then knocked on the door.

“Dwayne,” I said through the metal door, hot, I now knew, not from his evil but from the sun. I was standing in the gap between the window and the door, protected, I hoped, from anything fired from the room. “It’s Victor Carl. We met in Henderson. You ran me off the road, tried to kill me. We need to talk.”

No answer.

I knocked again. “Dwayne. It’s no use. The police are already here. But I can help. I forgive you for what you tried to do to me. I’m here to help you.”

I pressed myself against the wall and waited for the curtain to be pulled aside. It was.

A voice came muffled from behind the door. “I have a gun. Tell them I have a gun.”

“They have bazookas, Dwayne.”

“Really?”

“Let me in. I’m a lawyer. I can help you. I want to help you.”

There was a long moment when I heard nothing, nothing, before, slowly, the door opened a sliver and then a sliver more, until the chain was taut. Dwayne Joseph Bohannon stood in the doorway, the gun in his hand, his face in shadow, a dirty tee shirt, stained with his blood, hiding the most hideous of his wounds.

“Thank you,” I said.

He leaned forward. The light hit his face. I had to look away.

“Will you let me in?” I said.

“I don’t know what to do.”

“Let me in and we’ll figure it out together.”

There was a hesitation, and then the door closed for an moment before opening wider. I reached into my pocket, turned off the tape recorder, stepped inside.

Ninety minutes later I walked out that door with Dwayne Joseph Bohannon by my side. He was wearing a clean shirt, a jacket, his arms were outstretched in front of him, palms up, fingers open.

He followed me along the portico, down the stairs, past the police cars and the uniforms, all the way to Troy Jefferson, standing between Breger and Stone.

Dwayne glanced at me. His face was hideous, scabbed and scratched, infected and bleeding, but still I smiled and nodded him on. He wiped his nose with the sleeve of his jacket.

“I want to tell what happened,” he said in a slow, stuttering voice. “Everything. I want to tell. I do. I want to. But first, Mr. Carl here, he told me I need a doctor. A skin doctor. To stop this itching. I’m itching like crazy. I need a doctor. Then I need a lawyer. A different lawyer than him. He told me I have the right and that I ain’t gonna say nothing until I do.”

Troy Jefferson just stared at him.

“Oh, yeah,” said Dwayne, pulling a piece of paper out of his pocket and handing it to Jefferson. “Mr. Carl, he also gave me this.”

“YOU WEREin there for an hour and a half,” said Troy Jefferson as he looked over the subpoena I had served on Dwayne Joseph Bohannon. Bohannon himself had been cuffed and placed, into the back of one of the patrol cars while the cops searched the motel room. “Have a nice conversation?”

“It was hard to go deep, you calling up to the room every ten minutes or so, though I was touched at your concern for my welfare.”

“The Delaware cops were nervous. They didn’t know you could sleaze yourself out of tighter spots than that.”

“Practiced as I am in the arts of deception and trickery.”

“There you go. Did he tell you anything?”

“No, not really.”

“You mean he didn’t fall down on his knees and confess to the Hailey Prouix murder?”

“I wouldn’t let him.”

Jefferson’s head jerked up. “You wouldn’t let him? What the hell do you mean, you wouldn’t let him?”

“You know how it is, Troy. Defense attorneys never want to know for sure.”

“But you’re not his defense attorney.”

“Old habits die hard.”

“If he had actually confessed, it would have saved your client.”

“My client is already saved.”

“Don’t be so damn sure.”

“You heard the judge. After Cutlip’s testimony she has doubts whether the case should even go to the jury. What happens now if I put Bobo on the stand during the defense case and ask him if he killed Hailey Prouix? He’ll plead the Fifth in front of the jury and kill your case.”

“The judge won’t allow that.”

“Oh, yes she will. It’s an acquittal, probably before the case goes to the jury. And rightly so, considering you have the wrong guy. Cutlip sent Bobo east to kill Guy Forrest and the kid screwed up. My client was the intended victim, not a perpetrator. You have the wrong man, Troy.”

“You set me up.”

“Maybe I did, and if I did, I must admit, it felt fine.”

“Son of a bitch.”

“But, Troy, no one else has to know about it. The press is going to want a statement from both of us after this. Either you can go in front of the massed media and admit to being played for the rube, or you can stand side by side with Detectives Breger and Stone and announce that your office had broken the case wide open and found the two actual killers of Hailey Prouix.”

He turned his head and stared at me without saying a word.

“If your office wanted to take credit for continuing the investigation even after the indictment,” I said, “for unearthing the crucial speeding ticket, for bringing Lawrence Cutlip into the jurisdiction and effecting the arrest of Dwayne Joseph Bohannon in cooperation with the Delaware State Police, I wouldn’t contradict a single word.”

“You’d sit back and let us bask in the glory?”

“Absolutely.”

“Why?”

“’Cause I’m a sweetheart, and because all I want is for it to be over. But you have to decide quickly. Guy shouldn’t spend another day in jail.”

“What about the Juan Gonzalez fraud?”

“Time served, no more. He’s through as a lawyer, and he’s paid enough penance for burying that file, trust me. Time served, no probation, he’s free to start his life over again.”

Jefferson twisted his mouth into thought. “I’ll run it by the DA. He agrees, we’ll do it all tomorrow morning in court. Your boy will be out by noon.”

“Good. And you ought to give Breger a commendation for his work in this case. In fact, the old man’s probably close to retirement. A raise in grade might raise his pension, too, make those golden years a little more golden.”

“He doesn’t like to be called the old man.”

“Best as I can tell, he doesn’t like a lot of things.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“But for everything to go down like we’ve agreed, you have to promise me one more favor.”

“Aw, now, here it comes, here’s the payoff. All right, Carl, let me hear it. What’s your price?”