Part 9 (1/2)
”Mommy?” Even Gabby noticed. ”What's wrong?”
Angie gave her a weak smile and handed the paper to me. ”Nothing, honey. Mommy's just tired.”
”Too much reading,” our daughter said.
”No such thing as too much reading,” I said. I looked at the paper and then back at Ange, gave her a confused look.
”Lower-right-hand side of the page,” she said.
It was the Crime Blotter, an if-it-bleeds-it-leads section they served up on the last page of the metro section. The last item read: ”Maine Woman Slain in Car-Jack.” I saw the lede then and put the paper down for a moment. Angie reached across the table and ran her warm palm along my forearm.
A mother of two was gunned down in an apparent carjacking in the early hours of Tuesday morning as she left work at BJ's Wholesaler in Auburn. Peri Pyper, 34, of Lewiston, was approached by the suspect as she tried to start her 2008 Honda Accord. Witnesses reported hearing signs of a struggle followed by a gunshot. The suspect, Taylor Biggins, 22, of Auburn, was arrested a mile away after a police pursuit and surrendered without a struggle. Mrs. Pyper was flown by medevac to Maine Medical Center but was p.r.o.nounced dead at 6:34 A.M. A.M., according to MMC spokesperson Pamela Dunn. Mrs. Pyper is survived by a son and a daughter.
Angie said, ”It's not your fault.”
”I don't know that. I don't know anything.”
”Patrick.”
”I don't know anything,” I said again.
It was a three-hour drive to Auburn, Maine, and in that time, my attorney, Cheswick Hartman, arranged everything. I arrived at the law offices of Dufresne, Barrett and McGrath and was led into an office with James Mayfield, a junior partner in the firm, who handled most of their defense litigation.
James Mayfield was a black man with salt-and-pepper hair, a matching mustache, and considerable height and girth. He had a bear of a handshake and an easy way about him that seemed authentic and unforced.
”Thanks for seeing me, Mr. Mayfield.”
”You can call me Coach, Mr. Kenzie.”
”Coach?”
”I coach baseball, basketball, golf, football, and soccer in this town. People call me Coach.”
”And why wouldn't they?” I said. ”Coach it is.”
”When an attorney of Cheswick Hartman's stature calls me up and says he'll cochair my litigation on a case, pro bono, I sit up in my seat.”
”Yes.”
”He said you are a man who never breaks his word.”
”That was kind of him.”
”Kind or not, I want your word in writing.”
”Understandable,” I said. ”I brought my own pen.”
Coach Mayfield pushed a stack of papers across the desk and I began to sign. He picked up the phone. ”Come on in now, Janice, and bring the stamp.”
When I was finished signing a page, Janice notarized it. By the time I was done, she'd notarized fourteen pages. The contract was, in its essence, quite simple-I agreed that I was working for the firm of Dufresne, Barrett and McGrath as an investigator on behalf of Taylor Biggins. In that capacity, anything Mr. Biggins said to me fell under attorney-client privilege. I could be charged, tried, and convicted if I ever discussed our conversation with anyone.
I rode out to the courthouse with Coach Mayfield. The sky had that milky blue cast it got sometimes before a nor'easter, but the air was mild. The town smelled of chimney smoke and wet asphalt.
The holding cells sat in the bowels of the courthouse. Coach Mayfield and I met Taylor Biggins on the other side of the bars, where the jailers had left a wooden bench for us.
”Yo, Coach,” Taylor Biggins said. He looked younger than twenty-two, a stringy black kid wearing an extra-large white T that draped his body like a dinner bell over a toothpick, and drooping jeans he kept pulling up over his bunched-up boxers, because they'd taken his belt.
”Bigs,” Coach Mayfield said and then to me: ”Bigs played Pop Warner for me. Baseball and football.”
”Who's this?”
Mayfield explained.
”And he can't say nothing to n.o.body?”
”Not a word.”
”Throw his a.s.s in a hole if he does?”
”Without a flashlight, Bigs.”
”A'ight, a'ight.” Bigs wandered around his cell for a minute, his thumbs hooked into his belt loops. ”What you need to know?”
”Did someone pay you to kill the woman?” I asked.
”n.i.g.g.e.r, what?”
”You heard me.”
Bigs c.o.c.ked his head. ”You saying, was I put up put up to this dumb s.h.i.+t?” to this dumb s.h.i.+t?”
”Yeah.”
”Who the f.u.c.k would do what I did if they was thinking straight? I was high as a motherf.u.c.ker, man. I been whaling on the clear for three days.”
”The clear?”
”The clear,” Bigs said. ”Meth, cheese, crank, whatever you want to call it.”
”Oh,” I said. ”So why'd you shoot her?”
”I wasn't trying trying to shoot n.o.body. Ain't you been listening? She just wouldn't give up the keys. When she grab my arm- to shoot n.o.body. Ain't you been listening? She just wouldn't give up the keys. When she grab my arm-pop. And she stop grabbing my arm. I just wanted to take her car. I got a friend, Edward, he buy cars. That's all it was.”
He looked out through the bars at me, already heading down a dark corridor's worth of DTs, his skin s.h.i.+ny with sweat, eyes wider than his head, mouth taking quick, desperate breaths.
”Walk me through it,” I said.