The row house smelled like cat urine and cigarettes. The thick curtains kept out the sunlight. The small television blared out game shows. Retired police officer Richard Forte lit a cigarette. He looked at Beckett and coughed.
“I don’t remember much from back then, you gotta look at my report.” He knocked ash from his cigarette into an overly-full ashtray.
“I’m not looking for precise details, I just have some general questions,” Beckett replied.
Forte shrugged his shoulder. “Ok. Shoot, counselor.”
“Did anyone ever try to verify Beaumont’s story?”
“Naw, it was obvious he did it.”
“What makes you say that?”
Forte leaned forward. “By the time we found him, he washed his hands with ammonia and got rid of his clothes.” He jabbed his cigarette at Beckett to emphasize his words as he spoke. This caused the bright tip of the cigarette to appear to dance in the semi-darkness.
“Why is ammonia significant?”
“’Cause he used the ammonia to get rid of the gunpowder traces. That’s how he tried to hide he was shooting a gun.”
“So no one investigated because. .,” Beckett let his sentence drop off, hoping Forte would finish it; Forte didn’t disappoint.
“Because it was obvious he did it,” he said, followed by a series of coughs. “Why else would he leave the scene and go wash in ammonia? To get rid of the gunpowder, that’s why.”
“Did anyone test him for gunpowder? Maybe he missed something when he was cleaning?”
“Naw, we didn’t waste our time.”
“Did anyone hire a blood splatter expert to look at the scene?”
“Naw, like I said, it was obvious he did it.” Forte coughed again. “But I got training in that and what I saw fit what happened. Sorry, counselor,” Forte laughed, “your client’s story was bullshit.”
Beckett removed a folder from his bag. From the folder, he pulled a handful of enlarged photographs. “I’m not an expert when it comes to blood or crime scenes. Can you show me what you’re talking about on these photos?”
Forte set down his cigarette and stuck out his hand. “What you got?”
“The crime scene photos,” Beckett said, shuffling the photos. “This one,” he handed one of the photos to Forte, “looks to me like somebody was sitting on the couch, when somebody else got shot in the middle of the room.”
Forte looked at the photo. “Yeah, that’s the girlfriend. She was sittin’ on the couch when he shot the other one. The blood covered the walls to her left and traces of it covered her and the couch. You can see from the clear spot in the middle of the couch somebody was sitting there when the blood splattered.”
“How do you know that wasn’t Beaumont on the couch?”
“’Cause he was busy shooting the other woman.” Forte laughed.
Beckett handed Forte another photo. “This looks like somebody got shot in the middle of the room.”
“Right. That’s where he shot the first girl.”
It was obvious from the spray pattern the shot had been upwards, but Beckett didn’t want Forte anticipating where Beckett was headed with the questioning, so he pretended to believe the shot had been downwards.
“No,” Forte interrupted Beckett impatiently. “Look at the spray pattern. See how there’s more higher up? He shot upwards.”
“Upwards? He’s fairly tall isn’t he? If she was on her knees-”
“He was on his knees too,” Forte concluded.
“How do you know?”
“When you shoot somebody, you get blow back in your direction. See how there’s blood to the left and right but not in the center? That means somebody was blocking that patch of rug. You can’t block a patch like that by standing there cause your legs ain’t thick enough to block all that blood and make such a big clear patch. That means he had to be kneeling or sitting in that spot. So he was on his knees when he shot her.” Forte took another photo from Beckett’s hand. “See here, see how the blood forms a kind of ‘V’ shape on the ceiling? That means he shot upwards.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yeah, I ain’t stupid. It’s obvious. Your client was on his knees or his ass. He put the gun in her face, pointed up, and pulled the trigger. If you check my report, you’ll see that. I put it all in my report. Do you got my report?”
“We do, yes,” Beckett responded.
“Let me see it, I’ll show you.”
“I didn’t bring it,” Beckett lied.
“Oh well.” Forte picked up his cigarette and put it out in the tray. He smiled. “Sorry I couldn’t help you counselor, but your client did it.”
“I guess you’re right,” Beckett said dejectedly. “I can’t see us calling you at trial, but we may need to subpoena you anyway just to make sure we’ve covered all our bases.”
“You go right ahead, counselor,” Forte laughed. “I ain’t changing my story.”
After thanking Forte, Corbin and Beckett returned to the car.
“Why didn’t you show him the report?” Corbin asked.
“No reason to clue him in yet,” Beckett said, pulling the report from the folder. “I don’t want to give him time to rethink his story. ‘Spray pattern on victim one indicates suspect Beaumont stood above victim one and shot her as she kneeled before him.’,” Beckett read from Forte’s report. “‘He then dragged victim two from the couch, shooting her in the face, before dumping the body of victim two on top of victim one.’” Beckett returned the report to the folder. “Do you know what this means?”
“What?”
“It means Beaumont’s telling the truth. He was sitting on the couch as his girlfriend shot Letricia, before she turned the gun on herself.”
“Maybe,” Corbin stressed the word.
“What do you mean ‘maybe’? Forte just laid out the blood spray pattern. What he said fits Beaumont’s version and completely contradicts the story put together by the police at the time.”
“There could be other explanations,” Corbin cautioned Beckett.
“I don’t see how.”
They drove in silence for a few blocks, before Corbin broached the topic that always lay just beneath the surface with them these days. “Listen, now that they’re talking about seventy-five years-”
“It doesn’t make any difference,” Beckett said, cutting him off.
Corbin shook his head. “It makes a huge difference.”
“It doesn’t. It means we have a bigger obligation to confess, that’s all.”
“How the hell do you figure that?”
“That should be obvious,” Beckett replied condescendingly.
“Evan, they aren’t punishing him because of what we did. They’re punishing him because of what he did. They’re punishing him because he killed three people.”
“There’s no proof of that.”
“Yes, there is!”
“No, there isn’t. Their proof is falling apart everywhere we look. It doesn’t matter anyway.”
“It does matter, Evan!” Corbin shouted. He pulled the car over to the side of the road. “You’re playing this damn game with our lives. You want to be a Goddamn martyr, but you’ve made a mistake: the man you’re trying to save is a monster who needs to be killed, not saved. You’re going to drag everyone else down if you keep this up — me, my friend, yourself, your wife, everyone.”
“I’m not going to drag anyone else down with me. If I have to confess, I won’t attempt to absolve him of his sins. If I need to confess, I’ll confess to my own crimes, nothing more.”
“You’re risking seventy-five years, Evan! Seventy-five years!”
“I know that.”
“But you’re not hearing me. This crime isn’t worth seventy-five years. This crime is a slap on the wrist crime. The only reason seventy-five years is on the table is Beaumont’s a damn monster.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does matter. When this was two years tops, I could maybe see your point. I couldn’t agree with it, but I could see it. But now you’re talking about seventy-five years, and that’s all because Beaumont is a murdering rapist. Those extra seventy-three years end any obligation you ever had.”
“You’re wrong. They only enhance our need to do the right thing.”
“Bullshit! Seventy-five years has nothing to do with our crime. It’s not our crime anymore!”
“You’re wrong, Alex. They’re using what we did to get to him. We have an obligation to set that right, whatever the consequences,” Beckett replied angrily.
“That’s bull! If this guy wasn’t a criminal, they never would have come after him. And don’t forget he stole our documents from the mailbox. He committed his own crime. Sure, so did we, but he committed the same damn crime on top of ours. He’s the thief who stole from thieves. We’re not responsible for him. Let him do the time for his own crimes. If they catch us too, then so be it, but there’s no reason for us to put our necks into a noose to protect him from crimes he committed.”
“Without our crimes, he couldn’t have committed these crimes.”
“That’s not true! He would have just used different accounts.”
“But he didn’t.”
Corbin took a deep breath. His voice became deep and threatening. “I’m not sticking my neck into a noose he created, and I won’t let you stick my neck in there either.”
“You’re free to leave at any time.”
Each could hear the other breathing heavily. Behind Corbin’s left side, where Beckett couldn’t see, the fingers on Corbin’s left hand clawed into his palm. They sat in silence.
“I told you before, I’m not going to implicate you,” Beckett finally said. “If we get to a point where the only way to save him is for me to confess, I will confess. . but I’ll tell them I worked alone.”
“And you don’t think they’re going to zero right in on me?”
“No, I don’t. But if you think that’s going to happen, then you need to help me save Beaumont or you need to leave right now.”
“I’m going to help, that’s why I’m here,” Corbin said. “But if you decide you’re going to confess, I need a day’s notice to get the hell out of here before you do it.”
Beckett agreed.
Corbin paced back and forth in his hotel room. He was still angry from his earlier argument with Beckett. He’d debated if he was even in the right frame of mind to call Alvarez, but ultimately made the call, though he knew he shouldn’t have. The conversation wasn’t going well.
“Tell me again why you’re investigating his old crimes?” Alvarez asked. He kept peppering Corbin with questions Corbin didn’t feel like answering.
“Because the judge won’t tell us how far he’ll let the prosecutors go in terms of using evidence of his prior crimes,” Corbin said crankily. “We need to assume they’re going to bring in everything he’s done, and we need to be ready to poke holes in all of it.”
“But I thought you couldn’t talk about prior crimes? That what everybody says.”
“You can in some circumstances,” Corbin lectured Alvarez. “If you’re proving a pattern of behavior or if you need to use the prior conduct to show something like opportunity — like access to a weapon, then you can bring it in. That’s why they included the weapons charge. They want to use it as a wedge to bring in his prior arrests.”
“How?”
“Because he was caught with a gun each time, but he denies every owning a gun. So either he pleads guilty to the weapons charge or they bring in all the evidence related to his prior arrests.”
“Wow, that sucks.”
“Yeah. The judge will instruct the jury that they can’t consider his prior arrests as proof of guilt for the current charges, but there’s no way a jury can separate that out.”
“Is he going to plead guilty to the weapons charge?”
“No, he won’t plead to anything, no matter how much it might help him. He’s playing an all or nothing game.”
Alvarez changed the topic. “You said, Beckett thinks he’s innocent?”
“Of some of it.”
“Does that change your thinking?” Alvarez sounded like he wanted assurance.
“No. I’m not doing seventy-five years for anyone. Besides, even if he didn’t commit the murders, he did most of what they’re accusing him of doing. The cops don’t just pick you out of a crowd to make you a target; you earn that kind of trouble. Don’t forget, he’s guilty of stealing this information from the mailboxes and using it to steal money. He’s not innocent.”
“What if-”
“I’ll tell you something else,” Corbin said, cutting Alvarez off. “He could have taken the two-year offer and he wouldn’t be facing any of this! So fuck him!”
“Beckett won’t change his mind about turning himself in?”
“No, he’s more convinced than ever.”
“Can we still afford to wait?”
“For now. He agreed to give me one day’s notice. That gives us time to act,” Corbin said, though his tone was less than convincing.
“I don’t believe him. He’s too erratic. There’s nothing to keep him from confessing without telling you.”
“What do you want me to do about it?!”
“You know what I want,” Alvarez said cautiously.
A tense silence passed between them.
Alvarez continued: “You’re going to some dangerous places to interview witnesses. There’s no reason something couldn’t happen to him as you’re walking up the stairs in one of those damn tenements.” He paused. “You know what the cops would think.” He paused again. “Then we’re free, the ordeal’s over. No one could blame you if you dropped the case. Or hell, just get him convicted. Either way, we’d be clear.”
Corbin looked toward the suitcase in which his gun was hidden. He hadn’t touched the gun since arriving in Philadelphia, though he stared at the suitcase every night. “We can wait.” He hung up the phone before Alvarez could respond. He pulled up Penny’s number on his cell phone, but hesitated before hitting dial. Slowly, he closed the phone without making the call. “Not tonight.”