“I can’t honestly tell you I felt no anger toward him, especially after Dad killed himself,” Tommy said.
“And that’s only natural,” Harmon said. “Anyone in your situation would feel the same way. On a scale of one to ten, how angry would you say you were?”
“On a scale of one to ten? Twelve.”
Anita cringed. Tommy obviously didn’t know it, but by being honest, he was hanging himself.
“So you were angry enough to kill him.”
“I didn’t say that. I didn’t kill him.”
“Really? How do you know? You say you don’t remember what happened. You say you were angry. I know if some jerk had caused my father to kill himself, I’d want him dead. Maybe you drank yourself a bunch of liquid courage and went over and got a little revenge.”
“I didn’t. I couldn’t. I could never do something like that.”
“We have two witnesses who saw your car in the judge’s neighborhood right after the murder. One of the witnesses got a good look at the driver, and the description the witness gave matches you.”
Anita shifted uneasily in her chair. Harmon was lying. It was perfectly legal for a police officer to lie to a suspect, but the tactic sometimes backfired.
“Really?” Tommy said. “You have people who say they saw me?”
“Tell you what I’m going to do, Tommy,” Harmon said. “Agent White and I are going to take a little break so we can check on Agent Norcross. You take the time to think about things. Think hard, Tommy. You seem like a good kid to me, and I don’t want to see you go down the wrong path. If you tell us what happened that night, we’ll talk to the district attorney for you. We’ll tell him you were cooperative and remorseful. It could be the difference between a long sentence and the death penalty. And who knows? After everything you’ve been through, you probably have some kind of mental defense. Diminished capacity, that kind of thing. So you just think things through carefully, and we’ll be back in a bit.”
It went on like that all night. Anita knew what Harmon was doing. He was wearing the boy down, trying to get him to agree that he must have been the killer. Norcross’s trip to the convenience store revealed that no one who worked at the store remembered seeing Tommy. Norcross had even made a side trip to visit the employee who had worked the graveyard shift. He showed the employee Tommy’s photo and described his car, but the employee said he didn’t recall anyone who looked like Tommy in or around the store that night. There was no record of any credit card transaction with Tommy’s name on it.
Harmon would leave Tommy sitting for hours at a time, then go back into the room and question him again. With each visit, he’d reveal another detail about exactly how the judge had been killed, how someone had lain in wait, cut down a tree across the driveway, ambushed the judge with a blunt instrument, dragged him across the yard, doused him with kerosene, and hanged him from a maple tree. The intensity of the conversation increased with each visit. Anita noticed the physical and mental changes in Tommy as the grueling hours passed and the questioning became more confrontational, more accusatory. The boy was exhausted. Dark circles had formed under his eyes, which had taken on a forlorn, empty look. His speech had grown slow and deliberate, as though he had to search for every word. He was easier to confuse.
Finally, at ten minutes past three in the morning, after nearly twenty hours of questioning, Harmon leaned across the table to within a foot of Tommy’s nose.
“I just talked to your mother,” Harmon said. “She says she thinks you did it.”
Tommy burst into tears, and Anita knew that Harmon had broken him.
“My mother thinks I did it?” Tommy said slowly.
“Your own mother,” Harmon said, shaking his head.
Tommy’s head dropped to the table. His shoulders shuddered as he sobbed loudly, uncontrollably.
“Oh my God!” Tommy cried. “Oh my God! I’m a murderer!”
46
Roscoe Stinnett pulled into the gravel driveway of a small bar outside Morristown. He’d been here before, but that didn’t mean he was comfortable. The place was a dump. It was in the middle of nowhere. But Rafael Ramirez owned it and refused to meet anyplace else. Since Stinnett’s relationship with Ramirez had been so profitable, he ignored his misgivings, got out of his Jaguar, and walked through the gravel. He’d brought his briefcase along, just in case. He didn’t know what Ramirez wanted, but he hoped it was something that would involve another fat fee. Perhaps he needed help moving his cash around. Stinnett had some experience in that regard, but he’d never dealt with a drug dealer as wealthy as Ramirez.
Stinnett pushed through the heavy front door and stepped into the bar. Ramirez was waiting in the corner booth, the same seat where Stinnett had met with the person he knew only as the Mexican. It was there, in that very same booth, where Stinnett had set in motion the murder of Hannah Mills. He immediately put his hands on the table of the first booth inside the door and waited for the two men to frisk him and check him for recording devices. When they were finished, he walked back to Ramirez’s booth.
“How about a scotch on the rocks?” Stinnett said as he sat down.
“No scotch here,” Ramirez said.
“Beer then. Whatever’s on tap.”
Ramirez motioned to a white man behind the bar and told him to bring Stinnett a draft beer. The man brought the beer around the bar and put it down in front of Stinnett.
“So how’s life on the outside?” Stinnett said.
“I want my money back,” Ramirez growled.
Stinnett nearly choked on the beer. He put the glass back down on the table.
“I don’t understand,” he said.
“The money I paid you for the murder case. A hundred and fifty thousand dollars. You didn’t earn it. I want it back.”
“But I fulfilled my obligation under the contract,” Stinnett said. “The case against you was dismissed. I earned the fee.”
“I’m willing to let you keep twenty thousand,” Ramirez said. “But I want the rest of it.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Stinnett said. “It’s unheard of. You signed a contract. The fee is nonrefundable. Nearly all fees in criminal cases are nonrefundable. I couldn’t run my business otherwise. I have to pay my bills, plan my budget-”
“Live like royalty?” Ramirez interrupted. “I saw the Jaguar when you pulled up.”
“I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”
“I think I’m being generous,” Ramirez said. “More than fair.”
“I don’t see how you can call giving you a hundred and thirty thousand dollars of my money-money to which I have a contractual, legal right- fair,” Stinnett said. “The contract called for me to represent you to the disposition of the case, whether it be trial, plea bargain, dismissal, whatever. I got the case dismissed.”
“I was responsible for the case being dismissed,” Ramirez said. “Not you.”
Stinnett heard the door open and looked around. Another Mexican had walked into the bar. He looked at Ramirez and shook his head.
“But I was the one who brought you the proposal in the first place!” Stinnett said.
“And for that, you’re being paid twenty thousand dollars.”
“But when I first mentioned the deal, you didn’t say anything about refunding the fee for the murder case. I was under the impression it wouldn’t be an issue.”
“You were wrong.”
Stinnett sat back in the booth and ran his hands through his curly hair. The truth was that he no longer had the money. He’d used it for a down payment on a used Cessna Skyhawk. He’d been flying for most of his adult life and had had his eye on the plane for a long time. Ramirez had given him the means to go ahead with the purchase.
“This isn’t right,” Stinnett said. “What if I refuse?”
“It wouldn’t be a good idea.”
