Death Penalty (Charley Sloan Courtroom Thrillers) Read online

  OUTSTANDING PRAISE FOR

  WILLIAM J. COUGHLIN AND HIS NOVELS

  DEATH PENALTY

  “A superb book, rich in the elements that make for a wonderful read. Death Penalty is the best of [Coughlin’s] novels. . .a remarkable legacy . . . the most enjoyable book I’ve read all year.”

  —The Detroit News

  “Bravo! Coughlin brilliantly captures the corruption of the legal system by human error and greed. Thought-provoking and timely.”

  —Library Journal

  “A wily, likeable tale.”

  —Time

  “Coughlin delivers another thoughtful, brisk-paced and fully satisfying legal mystery.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Readers who enjoyed Scott Turow’s Presumed Innocent are likely to enjoy this fast-paced novel. Will not fail to please connoisseurs of legal fiction.”

  —American Bar Association Journal

  PROOF OF INTENT

  “A solid legal thriller that will delight the late Coughlin’s fans who’ve wondered what happened to Charley and what’s still happening in picturesque Pickeral Point. Long may the franchise wave!”

  —Amazon.com

  “Walter Sorrells is bringing new life to the Charley Sloan series that was successful in the eighties and nineties.”

  —I Love a Mystery newsletter

  “Sorrells takes one of the more endearing fictional lawyers from the 1980s and early 1990s, the late Coughlin’s Charley Sloan, and puts him back in court with the same clever, bombastic style that Coughlin perfected in a string of successful Sloan novels.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Mr. Sorrells has done an excellent job of staying true to the character . . . the courtroom scenes particularly are a study of excellence.”

  —Harriet’s Book Reviews

  SHADOW OF A DOUBT

  “Coughlin’s spellbinding grasp of the courtroom held me on the edge of my seat until the last page.”

  —William J. Caunitz

  “Lucid, emotionally demanding. The courtroom action soars and plummets its way to the most unexpected denouement since Witness for the Prosecution.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “A legal must-read.”

  —The Detroit News

  IN THE PRESENCE OF ENEMIES

  “A taut legal thriller. . .Coughlin knows his stuff.”

  —Playboy

  “Satisfying and right on target. . .Among Coughlin’s best.”

  —Detroit News

  “Taut drama and great courtroom action. . .fans will love it.”

  —Library Journal

  “Coughlin keeps you burning the midnight oil to the very end.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “A convincing legal thriller.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  THE JUDGMENT

  “Vintage Coughlin. Sharp, tight, and full of suspense.”

  —Scott Turow

  “William Coughlin, with the engraver’s finest awl, has created another legal thriller filled with the aching human frailties that are hidden in all of us. Masterfully, he intersects his characters into one thunderous conflict after another until Charley Sloan, the lawyer with the threadbare heart, is the last man standing. If you don’t have enough time to finish The Judgment, don’t start it.”

  —Paul Lindsay, author of Freedom to Kill

  “Finely wrought characterizations and a practiced novelist’s respect for the way in which unanticipated tragedy can bring on moments of quiet insight.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  THE STALKING MAN

  “All the pieces come together in a chilling climax to this tightly knit shocker.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Horrifying. . .intense. This is one to keep you sitting up straight.”

  —Chicago Tribune

  “Good storytelling. . .jackhammer drive. . .the climax is gripping.”

  —The Detroit

  ALSO BY

  WILLIAM J. COUGHLIN

  Shadow of a Doubt

  The Judgment

  The Heart of Justice

  In the Presence of Enemies

  Death Penalty

  Her Honor

  Her Father’s Daughter

  The Twelve Apostles

  No More Dreams

  Day of Wrath

  The Stalking Man

  The Grinding Mill

  The Destruction Committee

  The Dividend Was Death

  The Widow Wondered Why

  DEATH

  PENALTY

  WILLIAM J.

  COUCHLIN

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  DEATH PENALTY

  Copyright © 1992 by Ruth Coughlin.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

  ISBN: 0-312-93357-6

  EAN: 80312-93357-9

  Printed in the United States of America

  Harper Collins Publishers hardcover edition published in 1992

  Harper Paperbacks edition / September 1993

  St. Martin’s Paperbacks edition / November 2004

  St. Martin’s Paperbacks are published by St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  For Ruth Bridget

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  1

  Sometimes I like my clients, sometimes I don’t. I try to convince myself that I do an adequate job either way. But sometimes I wonder. I wasn’t fond of Miles Stewart, M.D., whom I had just defended in the Wayne County Circuit Court. We were in a courtroom located high up in the towering City-County Building, a governmental sky-scraper overlooking the sports-minded City of Detroit. Detroiters love all sports, especially contact sports, like mayhem. Here mayhem has been raised to a contest of Olympic proportions. Mayhem is a sport where scorekeeping is easy. Corpses, number of stitches, or artful location of bullet wounds count for points, but you truly win only if you survive. Lately, in Detroit, there had been a lot of losers.

  Stewart, who had been reading a medical journal, put it down and walked to where I was sitting. His steps echoed in the nearly empty courtroom.

  “They’ve been out a very long time,” he said. “I presume that’s a good sign.”

  “You never really know,” I replied. “Juries tend to take murder cases somewhat seriously. Even in Detroit. It’s been a long trial, and this is only the second day of deliberation
s. But common wisdom does say that the longer a jury is out the better it is for the defendant.”

  “I have a difficult time thinking of myself that way, as the defendant.”

  I studied him for a moment, wondering if at last he might be exhibiting some sign of human vulnerability. He had maintained an icy cool throughout the trial, almost a detachment. Although I had kept him off the witness stand, I knew the jurors had watched him. They had eyes. They had seen the obvious arrogance.

  Dr. Stewart was tall, well over six feet, and athletically lean. He was almost sixty, but looked forty. His silky ginger hair, groomed as carefully as a television anchorman’s, held no trace of gray. His alabaster skin was smooth and unwrinkled. His features would have been pleasant if it weren’t for his eyes. They were two little green stones, cold and without emotion. He seldom blinked. The total effect suggested a reptilian quality.

  “Do you still think I’ll be convicted?” He smiled, but as usual the expression was more imperious than friendly.

  “We’ll see. Maybe we’ll get lucky. You never know.”

  “And if not, if we’re not lucky, what happens then?”

  “It’s all been arranged, Doctor. This is a front-page case, so there will be quite a fuss no matter which way it goes. Should the jury come back with a verdict of guilty, you’ll be taken into custody, handcuffs and all, chiefly for the benefit of the photographers. The court officers will hold you in an office behind the courtroom for an hour and then you’ll be released. The judge has agreed to continue bail.”

  “Does this sort of thing happen often?”

  “What?”

  “Where both sides come together like this to orchestrate a theatrical charade for the benefit of the great unwashed.” The words held the suggestion of a sneer. His reptilian eyes watched for a reaction. “Or is this how the legal system really works?”

  I restrained myself. I had often had to practice such restraint during the course of our lawyer-client relationship. It seemed to please him when he could provoke an angry response. I paused and then spoke in a carefully measured tone. “I have no idea about medicine, but the law lends itself to compromise, real as well as for show. I worked out this arrangement to save you a night in jail. The prosecutor knows you would eventually get out on bond, pending appeal, no matter how vigorously he objected. He just wants his triumphant moment in the camera’s eye if you’re convicted. I admit it’s for show, but this way no one is inconvenienced, especially you.”

  “How thoughtful.” His words dripped with contempt. He turned away from me, no longer interested.

  Boredom permeated the almost empty courtroom. A few newspeople sat around talking. A court officer, his face slack, his eyelids heavy, was losing his fight against sleep.

  My client walked to a courtroom window and looked down on the city below.

  The press had tagged him Doctor Death. His face caught the outside light, lending shadow and texture to his angular features, accentuating his unusual eyes and producing an effect that suggested something sinister. It was the way villains in the old horror pictures were lighted, just before they bit someone in the throat. There wasn’t a discernible trace of human concern or care in that face. The prosecutor had called him an executioner. At the moment, he looked exactly that.

  If a sulfuric mist had suddenly swirled up about him, it wouldn’t have seemed at all out of place.

  Despite a certain oily charm, a facile quality he could call forth when it suited him, I hadn’t liked Miles Stewart even the first time we had met. That very negative reaction had grown with each day we had spent together.

  The case against him wasn’t legally strong, mostly just a weak web of circumstances and suspicions. But the judge had purposely allowed the prosecutor to enter grossly inadmissible evidence against my client. Judge Gallagher, who didn’t like doctors and especially doctors accused of killing their patients, had his own ethical idea about how the case should come out. The trial was drawing national attention, and legal or not, the judge wanted to send a public message. A warning to all doctors. And it was a very, very public warning. It was that kind of public case, the kind tabloid editors dream about, the kind that produced wonderful headlines like TYCOON CONTRACTS FOR OWN MURDER.

  The tycoon, Francis X. Milliard, had been just that, a financial wizard who had gobbled up half the manufacturing companies in America. Milliard, the father of three grown sons, had divorced his socialite wife and then stepped out of the closet and into the leather bars. But he had danced with the wrong partner and had contracted AIDS, although his publicity people had artfully concealed his condition, even at the last.

  Despite his billions, Milliard couldn’t buy a cure for the deadly disease that had been slowly killing him. No amount of money could buy that. But the prosecutor said Milliard did have sufficient funds to acquire the sinister services of Dr. Miles Stewart, purchasing a happy little injection and a quick, painless way out of a bad situation.

  The right-to-die people rallied to the cause of Dr. Stewart, calling him a pathfinder, an angel. The other side did everything but put a bounty on him.

  The officer assigned to shepherd the jury came hurrying into the courtroom. His excited whisper had the force of a shout. “They got a verdict!”

  Boredom evaporated instantly.

  Within minutes every seat in the courtroom was filled. The jury came trudging in slowly, as if they had done something wrong and expected trouble. They looked solemn, mournful. They awkwardly formed a ring before the judge.

  “Have you reached a verdict,” the court clerk spoke the formal question, “and if so, who will speak for you?”

  “We have, and I shall speak,” the rotund little woman who was a computer programmer answered. Her words had a distinct tremor, and she continued in an unnaturally loud voice. “We find the defendant guilty as charged, guilty of second-degree murder.”

  No trial lawyer likes to lose, but I had expected the verdict. During the trial, old Judge Gallagher had committed more errors than a blind shortstop.

  I would take the case up to the court of appeals and I would win there. They would order a retrial, a fair one.

  But the jury case was a public loss, and I had to face the press and television cameras out in the hallway. They didn’t like my client any more than I did, so their questions seemed unusually vicious.

  After that ordeal I made sure my original deal was carried out. It was, and Doctor Death was eventually spirited away to freedom, on bond, far from the prying eyes of the camera crews.

  It all took more time than I had anticipated, but finally I was finished, although I was beginning to experience the tiring drain of an emotional cool down. In the old days I would have sucked up some quick liquid energy at the nearest saloon. That seemed so long ago now.

  I set about gathering up my court papers and possessions for the hour-long drive back to Pickeral Point.

  Pickeral Point is a small Michigan city approximately forty miles northeast of Detroit. It is a river city. I moved there after my trouble. That’s all behind me now, I hope, but I still live in Pickeral Point, and my office is there, although I’m doing Detroit trial work once again.

  “Hey, Charley!”

  I had been alone in the deserted courtroom. I turned to see who had come in.

  At first I didn’t recognize him. I hadn’t seen him for six or seven years.

  “It’s me. Mickey Monk.” He grinned, exhibiting the familiar crooked smile. It was a beguiling choirboy grin, the kind that belonged on a fresh innocent face. But the face I was looking at wasn’t innocent or fresh. It was puffy, and the skin color resembled something you might see on ice in a fish market. Fleshy bags hung below cornflower blue eyes. Only the eyes and the smile looked healthy.

  “How are you, Mickey? It’s been a while.”

  We shook hands. His was warm and sweaty.

  “Jesus, I hear the jury jammed it up Doctor Death’s ass. Too bad.”

  “It won’t stick. The court of
appeals will overturn it.”

  “You got the fix in?”

  I laughed. “I don’t need a fix. This thing will practically appeal itself.”

  I took a closer look at him. Mickey, a lawyer too, and I were old drinking buddies, brothers at the bar in more ways than one. We were about the same age, with the big five-oh looming just down the road for us both. He had put on weight, a lot of weight. His clothes, expensive but wrinkled, strained against thigh and belly.

  “Let’s go grab a drink, Charley.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t drink anymore.”

  He nodded slowly. “I heard that. Was it tough? Quitting, I mean?”

  “Depends on how you define tough. Why? Are you interested in giving it up?”

  He laughed, his puffy cheeks shaking from the effort. “Hell, no. If I stopped drinking, the national economy of Scotland would collapse. How about coming with me while I get a quick one?”

  “I try to avoid saloons these days.”

  “Hell, Charley, you got your law license back. You’re doing okay again. Relax, enjoy life a bit. One snort won’t kill you.”

  “I’ll pass, Mickey. Thanks anyway.”

  He ran a meaty hand through his thinning blond hair. “I gotta confess I didn’t just happen by. I heard you were up here so I came looking for you.”

  “You’ve found me. What’s up?”

  “I’d talk better if I had a drink.”

  I remember the need I saw in his eyes. My eyes used to look that way, too, the need bordering on pain. In those days I was never very long between drinks.

  “Okay, where do you want to go?”

  He brightened. “Mulrooney’s, of course.”

  Mulrooney’s, one of the oldest bars in the city, was the traditional watering hole for circuit court lawyers, judges, and clerks. I thought I probably held some kind of record there for number of consecutive times drunk.