Warning: Objects In Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear, Page 2

into the double-door system that forced them to stop in the trap between steel doors. Six seconds after the first door clicked shut, the second door clicked open in front of them. Both men were caught up in the hard sounds of their freedom being removed. Guards, prisoners, and lawyers all feel the confinement close in on them.

  Brubaker led Robert past the window of the control room. The TV monitors flickered from one scene to another, causing nervous shadows to play about the hallway outside the window. The dull gray walls and the polished tile floor of the hallway were well known to everyone who had been led hopelessly to their cell. Scuffmarks witnessed that this route was not always peaceful.

  Through another set of steel doors were eight cells for overnight prisoners. This night there were no puking sounds, no moaning, coughing, cursing, or snoring. The usual sounds were gone. Tonight it didn’t sound like a jail.

  However, a jail always smells like a jail, a mixture of sweat, urine, and fear. The odor is breathtaking and always unforgettable. Though the cells held only one man that night, the smell was still there. It lingered in everyone’s memory.

  Brubaker had stopped short of the last set of doors, waiting for the control officer to admit Robert by electric switching. The steel latch buzzed and the door to the end cell popped open. Robert thought of Father Tolar as he entered.

  A handsome, smiling, blond-haired man stood up. It seemed that he kept getting up and getting up. “My God,” Robert thought, “this guy’s massive.”

  He had intended to watch the man’s eyes, but his perception was lost on the huge bulk. The prisoner might have been in his late twenties, maybe two hundred thirty pounds, and very tall.

  Robert’s mind was filled with all the legal advice he intended to give and all the questions he had to ask. There had been no room for fearful thoughts, a condition that probably saved his life right then and there.

  With an automatic motion, the two shook hands. Cromwell’s powerful grip sent a hot flash up to Robert’s neck. He gasped hard. Cromwell’s smile persisted and his grip intensified crushing Robert’s smaller hand. He felt a joint snap and the pain struck his neck again. It took all the strength he had to pull back and free himself.

  Robert’s anger was quick, followed by a foolish thought of hitting the man. Fortunately his professional mind restored him to reason. However, before Robert could resume normal breathing, the giant hulk of a man plopped down hard on the small bunk. His countenance exploded.

  Cromwell leaned over, exposing a thick white neck below the collar of his orange prisoner uniform. Face in his hands, he began quivering and sobbing. The shaking escalated, his sounds grew louder. Had this been the drunk tank, Cromwell might have been in convulsions. Here it looked like a psychotic event.

  “There’s a woman out there. Believe what she says,” he cried. “There’s a woman out there. Believe what she says!” Cromwell was shrieking through episodes of uncontrolled sobbing. Robert took notice that Brubaker was watching them, safely from around the corner in the hallway.

  Stimulated by the jailer’s cowardice, Robert stepped directly in front of the seated man, bent low and yelled, “shut up! I’m your lawyer! Shut up!” He dared not show any fear of this guy, at least not with Brubaker watching. Taking a step backward, Robert spoke in a quieter voice, “I am your lawyer, do you hear me?”

  Cromwell’s wailing slowed, his sobbing subsided. His body noticeably began to relax. The huge head nodded, but did not look up. Robert spoke forcefully, “do not talk to anyone, no one! I will see you in court in just a few hours, so keep silent. Do you understand?” The head nodded again.

  Robert’s exit pace scarcely matched his quickened mind. Thoughts of police reports, arrest records, witness statements, autopsy results – a thousand ideas raced through his head. Mired in all that was the uncomfortable feeling that Cromwell had put on an act, a show for Robert’s benefit and maybe to impress the security cameras.

  Brubaker walked strenuously to keep up with Robert. He was eager to talk now. Most of his babble drifted past Robert’s busy mind, but through the din came a surprise. It brought their walking to a halt.

  “The DA wants the autopsy right away, starts in fifteen minutes.” Brubaker puffed out the words. Robert was incredulous, “fifteen minutes?”

  Defense attorneys usually don’t get to attend the autopsy, but Hillard’s arrogance might let him in. “At the hospital?” he asked as he broke into a race-walker’s stride.

  Brubaker had more to say. “Yeah, and there should’ve been two of them. The guy just killed his girlfriend. The other one got away.”

  Robert slammed to a halt again. “Other one?” He heard his own mind answer, answer with Cromwell’s own words: “There’s a woman out there, believe what she says. There’s a woman out there, believe what she says!”

  “Yeah, a cocktail waitress. He tried to do her too, but she got away.” Brubaker was shouting as Robert trotted out of the building. “She said he was a crazy son-of-a-bitch and now she’s gonna hang him!”

  Robert ran the five blocks to Highland County General. He entered through the open garage and slowed to get his bearings. Only then did he notice that his right hand had begun to throb. It hurt, but still worked. It seemed that all this was becoming some sort of grotesque play.

  Rushing past several gurneys in the dim hallway, he headed for the light coming out of the doorway to the morgue. A grumbling man stormed out of the darkness and bumped Robert hard. Someone called out, “Hi, Doc.”

  Robert closely followed the pathologist into the room. As the doctor tied on an apron and donned the surgical gloves, his grumbling grew louder, more vicious. He let loose a string of profane insults aimed at no one in particular. The cops cautiously stepped back. Hillard became nervous, confused.

  During this unfriendly interlude, Robert enjoyed an unchallenged admission to the autopsy. The illusion that the doctor had brought him was maintained. This gave him an edge in his defense of that big, cruel man.

  Under the bright lights, the nude body of a young woman lay face up on a stainless steel table. It was very cold in the room. At one time or another, almost everyone attending an autopsy gets a strange urging to cover the corpse, to keep it from getting chilled. Robert immediately felt that way.

  Equally strange had been someone’s effort to protect her modesty. Across her pubis lay a single square of paper towel. In minutes, the pathologist would cut, expose, and evaluate with great intimacy, her entire body. Yet someone had wanted to show respect for her womanhood as if it was finally time to give her some dignity.

  “Too late,” Robert thought, “too late.”

  He moved closer to the table and stood to the left of the pathologist. The doctor was behind her head and worked right-handed. Robert would watch for any expressions, maybe a raised eyebrow or a look of surprise that would not be caught on the tape recording. Cases could be won on the strength of an unreported grimace.

  Mary Jane Heidenreich was no longer a human being. She now was just a piece of evidence. Robert keenly sensed a sudden change in everyone’s attitude.

  Hillard and an older cop, a sergeant, stood at a safer distance from the table. Two other cops remained back by the now-closed door. They were young, probably viewing their first autopsy, and unhappy about having to do so.

  The sergeant was unhappy too. He had more experience than anyone in the room and he had restrained himself when Hillard played up his grandiosity. He also was unhappy with the doctor and regarded him as incompetent. He was unhappy with the two rookies too. Most of all, he was openly unhappy with the presence of a defense attorney at the autopsy.

  Robert ignored the sergeant’s glare and closely monitored everything in the room. The doctor began by taking pictures with an old Polaroid. Before snapping them, he removed the paper towel from the woman and dropped it on the floor.

  That ended the decency.

  The body was rolled over for more pictures, then rolled back. Measurements were made and recited into the m
icrophone suspended from the ceiling. The doctor swabbed her orifices, taking specimens. “She had sexual intercourse shortly before death,” he proclaimed. His speech was neutral and loud.

  Then the cutting began. An intense odor filled the room. Everyone seemed to suck in their breath simultaneously, creating a timeless, lifeless silence. That soon was ripped away by the whining of the circular saw in the air, then as it growled it way through the woman’s skullcap. The bland medical voice continued with a litany of observations. His dictation sounded memorized, rehearsed, and bored.

  Robert’s alertness paid off. During the skull sawing, one of the young policemen ran from the room. “One less witness,” he thought. He looked at the round wall clock with large numbers and made a mental note of the time.

  The autopsy had started at the top of the body and with grueling efficiency, proceeded toward the bottom of the torso. The young woman’s identity completely vanished as flesh was pulled back and the rib cage split and pulled outward like a butterfly’s unfolded wings.

  The doctor’s monotone droned on as he continued the slicing and bagging of her tissues. Then his tone changed. “She hadn’t eaten for six to eight hours,” his revitalized voice reported, “but she certainly was a busy woman!” He now had an aroused interest.

  After a theatrical pause, he added, “she was