Shirley Murphy - The Cat, The Devil, The Last Escape

The room was barely light. Morgan had turned on his side, Lee could see the rise and fall of his chest, see the IV tube swing when Morgan shifted his arm. He watched Morgan reach up and tenderly touch Becky’s face. Lee wanted to shout and do a little dance. Morgan was awake. He sat silently on the bed, looking.

Becky’s navy suit was rumpled from traveling, her eyes red from either crying or fatigue, her dark hair limp around her face. He saw no suitcase, then remembered that Storm had put them in a motel last night. Sammie lay curled up at the foot of Morgan’s bed, her head on a pillow so she could see Morgan, her blond hair tumbled across the prison blanket. He remembered how warm she had been the times he had held her, infinitely warm and alive. Sammie’s gaze didn’t leave Morgan. But slowly Becky looked up at Lee.

It was all there in her face, her pain from the long weeks when she didn’t know where they were or what was happening to Morgan, didn’t know whether he was alive or dead. Her relief when at last Storm called to say they had turned themselves in, relief that Morgan was alive—and then the phone call that he was injured, that the doctors couldn’t wake him. She looked at Lee for a long time in silence, then, “Lee? How did you make him talk?”

Lee smiled. “I had a piece of steel cable. After he hurt Morgan, I showed him how to tie a necktie.”

Becky thought about that. She didn’t ask any more questions. Lee knew the guards would have found cable marks on Falon’s throat. So far no one had hauled him into Iverson about it; he wasn’t looking forward to that confrontation.

Maybe Storm’s friendship with Warden Iverson had stifled such inquiries. He could only hope so. When he looked again at Becky, there was amusement in her eyes. He grinned back at her, rose, grabbed the clean clothes the orderly had laid out for him, and went down the hall to the shower.

When he returned, Sammie lay snuggled in her daddy’s arms, Morgan’s face buried against her shoulder. Becky still sat in the chair, her hand lying against Morgan’s face, below the bandage. Lee looked at Morgan. “What did Falon hit you with, a brick?”

“A sock full of something hard as hell,” Morgan said. “Before I woke, you were talking to me. I kept reaching for your voice, trying to come awake, trying to make sense of what you were saying. Something about horses, about cattle. I kept trying to reach up to you, like swimming up through heavy molasses.”

“I figured you’d come awake when you got tired of hearing me.”

“You made Falon talk,” Morgan said. “The money . . . they have the money? His prints . . . ?” He eased up against the pillows, lifting Sammie with him, holding her close. “When do we go to court?”

“Storm’s hoping for a transfer of jurisdiction,” Lee said. “An arraignment out here, get it on the L.A. docket. You’ll have to be strong enough,” he said, “so you don’t go to sleep in the courtroom.”

41

T HREE HOURS BEFOREBrad Falon’s scheduled move from Terminal Island to L.A. county jail on the land scam charges, the federal grand jury in Los Angeles charged him with bank robbery, murder, assault, and attempted murder. He was taken into L.A. for a preliminary hearing, bail was set at twenty-five thousand dollars, and he was incarcerated, as planned, in the L.A. jail but on the new and more serious offenses. The land matter case was set over until the murder trial was resolved. While the L.A. docket wasn’t crowded, it took most of one week to select a jury. Falon felt he had a better chance conning a jury than a federal judge; he’d heard nothing good about this group of judges. Some called them hanging judges, hard-nosed and righteous men who would not understand the finer points of his character.

On the day of the trial Morgan and Lee were seated at the attorney’s long mahogany table below the judge’s bench. Morgan was a prime witness. He approached the table with the thick, heavy bandage covering the side of his head, walking unsteadily with his hand on the arm of an orderly, and with a deputy marshal following. Even riding in the official car from Terminal Island to L.A. had left him shaky, he was glad Lee was there beside him. Storm wanted Lee at the witness table to back up small incidents in the prison and to corroborate what Morgan might have told him. “You both escaped from Atlanta to bring about this trial,” Storm said. “Before this is over you’ll both be charged for that escape. You’ve put a lot on the line, Fontana, you have a right to be here.”

Two armed deputy marshals were stationed near the bench, three more behind the jury box. Lee watched Falon ushered in, his ankles and hands shackled. His hair was carefully combed, bushy at the sides, which accentuated his narrow face and close-set eyes. He was seated at the next table with his own attorney, facing the jury box. He had buttoned his prison shirt high at the throat so the angry red wounds didn’t show. Turning in his chair he looked smugly at Lee until his attorney, James Ballard, nudged him. Then Falon turned away. Ballard was a portly man with a shaggy fringe of brown hair edging a shiny bald head. He continued to whisper to Falon until Falon looked up at the jury, a bland and gentle expression in his muddy eyes. He had pleaded not guilty on all charges: murder, bank robbery, assault, and the intent of murder.

The mahogany walls of the courtroom were hung with portraits of federal judges, some of whom, by their fancy attire, had lived in the last century. Some looked so tough they made Lee smile. Above the paintings, through the high windows, Lee could see snatches of overcast sky. He half expected to see a feline silhouette padding along the sill. But if Misto was present, Lee guessed he’d be comforting Sammie. In the visitors’ gallery, she and Becky sat near the front. Becky sat very straight, one hand fisted tightly in her lap, her other arm around Sammie; Sammie pressed close, watching Lee and her daddy, her face white and still. Her dress was pale blue, smocked down the front as Lee’s mother would smock his sisters’ dresses. The section was half empty. Looked like a few reporters, with their notepads, and a handful of old folks who might have gathered for the free entertainment.

Lee studied the jury: three women and seven men, one of whom would be an alternate. All looked like good steady citizens, neatly dressed, their expressions heavy with civic responsibility. The bailiff ordered everyone to stand. Judge Crane entered the courtroom from a private door behind the raised bench, a big man with a square, sunburned face, looked like he’d be happier on a sailing ship than confined in the courtroom. But there was something haughty about him, too, something withdrawn that made Lee watch him uneasily.

The judge would not decide Falon’s innocence or guilt, the jury would do that. But Judge Crane would decide and pronounce sentence. And even if Falon were found guilty, thus overturning Morgan’s conviction, both Lee and Morgan still had to face the judge on charges of escaping from Atlanta. When Lee looked again at Sammie, she sat straighter in her seat; she was not so white, and her arms were akimbo as if she held an imaginary doll. Lee could almost feel the warmth himself as her unseen companion eased the child’s fears—fear of what lay ahead, fear of this roomful of strangers who held Morgan’s life in their hands.

The trial took three days. The U.S. attorneys in Georgia and in L.A. had agreed that the depositions from the bank employees were sufficient evidence, on top of the bank money, the bank bag, and the gun with Falon’s prints. They had not required that the witnesses be flown out from Atlanta. None of the witnesses could have clearly identified Falon, whose face had been hidden beneath the navy blue stocking cap with its two eyeholes. Betty Holmes’s deposition stated clearly that she had seen the robber shoot and kill the bank guard. The written statements were long and detailed. There was a deposition, as well, from the shopkeeper across the street from the bank who had seen the getaway car and recorded the license number. It was this, the identification of Morgan’s car, that had first led police to increase their hunt for Morgan on the night he disappeared, and that had helped convict him.