The Flaming Motel

2


Tom Reilly drove a black Porsche 911 convertible. He was twenty-nine years old and spent ninety thousand dollars on a car without worrying about hurting his retirement or breaking the bank. I sat beside him watching the scenery breeze by at a smooth and luxurious ninety miles per hour. It was nothing like my fifteen year old Ford Escort, and Reilly was nothing like me.

I was in the middle of law school during the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. Unlike many of my classmates, who were the children of lawyers or doctors, my father was a mason — and I don’t mean the secret society. He specialized in tile work, but when times were bad he did anything. Brick patios, cinderblock walls, any work he could get his hands on. When times were worse, he did nothing at all. And times were the worst ever. No one was building anything. He said it was like someone just flipped a switch and turned the construction industry off.

It might seem like being parked in school was a great place to be. Free to wait out the downturn without creating a massive gap on the resume. But the truth of the matter was that law firms hired almost two years in advance, so when the economy tanks, it’s the people in school who get screwed first and hardest. Most of us were racking up student loans at $40,000 per year — essentially mortgaging our futures — and there were almost no jobs. Even many of the best students couldn’t find anything. With the debt meter constantly running, many had little or no prospect of ever being able to repay what they owed. Most would be starting their careers in their mid-twenties from the bottom of a deep, deep hole.

And it wasn’t like all would be fixed when the economy rebounded. Sure, law firms would start hiring again, but they would return to their old model, interviewing and hiring students almost two years before they graduated. Those classes that had missed that window would be lost forever. I was one of the lucky ones. Terrified of failure, I studied relentlessly. Jockeying with a few other students for the top position in our class.

At the beginning of my second year of law school I got the nod. I had been summoned to the offices of K&C for a day of interviews with people who laughed and joked and didn’t seem the least bit interested in the law, or what I thought I might do with my career. The only thing they seemed to care about was whether they liked me. I was convinced I’d failed the test, that they could all tell I did not belong there. But almost by magic, a couple of partners took me out to dinner at the end of that long day and offered me a job. I was stunned. These people were considering letting me into their club. I was speechless, but managed to say yes before they could change their mind.

Unlike me, Tom Reilly was the quintessential Kohlberg and Crowley associate. Like most of K&C’s 900 lawyers in its fifteen offices around the world, Reilly graduated from an Ivy League college, where he excelled, and then went on to an Ivy League law school, where he was on law review and finished in the top ten percent of his class. Because of his wealthy family, he finished law school at twenty-five with no student loans or debt of any kind. The first job he ever had was making six figures at K&C.

He exhibited the same casual behavior around wealth and power that I’d noticed in most of the other summer associates. It was a quality gained by attending private schools one’s entire life and growing up in the privileged neighborhoods of America where everyone’s father was a surgeon, lawyer, CEO, investment banker, or, in Los Angeles, a studio executive. Everyone Tom Reilly had ever been around was exactly like him. It was no wonder he felt comfortable at K&C. And merely because he was born five or six year before me, he had graduated from law school when the economy was great. For him, there was no economic downturn. He was completely unaffected by any of it. He was on an elevator headed nowhere but up, and at every floor along the way he would be handed more and more money. Seemingly endless money.

Although I bore little resemblance to Tom, every elite law firm had a few people like me walking the halls. I was a candidate picked for my grit and life experience, picked precisely because I was not like the others. I was blue collar, working class, and had fought to get where I was. That made me hungry and they knew it. I resented Tom Reilly and his Porsche as much as I coveted it.

After two hours of driving, we pulled off the freeway and followed the signs. A few minutes later we dropped over a rise and the prison loomed up out of the desert. It was a collection of gray concrete buildings surrounded by layer after layer of high chain link topped with spiraling razor wire. Beyond the impenetrable rings of fence, there was nothing but wide open space — an expanse of hot desert and low brush — no place for an escapee to hide from searchlights, dogs, or bullets.

I followed Reilly into a front office. We were led down a corridor to a waiting room where we sat for what seemed like an hour. We carried on the kind of stilted and disinterested conversation people engage in when they’re trying to kill time and nothing more. Those were probably the only kinds of conversations that took place inside prisons.

Finally, a guard leaned in the door and said, “Steele’s comin’ out.” We looked up at him. “You guys here for Steele?”

“Yeah.” We answered in unison, like goslings imprinting on the first authority figure we saw.

“Well, he’s comin’ out.” We continued to stare. “You guys gonna come in, or what?” He looked at us like we were both idiots. We followed him through a door that locked behind us before the next door on the opposite wall opened. Then we went into the visiting room.

That room was cold and everything in it was gray. The only natural light came from thin windows high up on the twelve foot walls. There were three rows of four metal tables that had been painted years before but now were just drab metal flecked with traces of worn white paint. I took several steps and felt the gloom sink into me. I could only imagine the dreariness that lay beyond the door on the furthest wall. Then there was the sound of a heavy lock turning, a metal echo filled the room, and the door swung back.

A small man in plain blue coveralls entered the room. He was in his late fifties but looked older. He stood there, hesitant, his eyes darting around as if there were others present besides Reilly and me. He looked nothing like a man who once sat in the oval office and shook the president’s hand. But I didn’t know what a guy like that was supposed to look like anyway. All I knew was that Steele looked nothing like I thought he would — certainly nothing like I remembered. Finally, Reilly spoke.

“Mr. Steele, I’m Tom Reilly.” He walked toward Steele with his hand out. They shook. “And this is Oliver Olson.” Steele smiled and his eyes lit up.

“Mr. Reilly, Mr. Olson, it’s a pleasure to meet both of you. And please, call me Jim.” He shook my hand like a man who had once shaken hands for a living, and then he nodded his head at me. “I thank you for coming to see me. Please, let’s sit down.”

He motioned toward one of the old tables with a slow, regal gesture, as if asking us to join him in the study for cognac. As I sat, I wondered how long it had been since Steele had a visitor. The cadence of his speech was refined, gentlemanly, and filled with education and experience that I imagined only alienated him from his surroundings.

Reilly led the conversation. What would I have had to say? After a few more niceties, we started at the beginning.

Steele took a deep breath and thought for a second, and then said, “It was a Saturday night. The re-election was heating up and Sharon and I were going to attend a fundraiser that night. Our daughter, Becky, had gone to a church event, so when we learned that the fundraiser had been canceled, we planned on a quiet evening at home. I put our son Shawn to bed at about eight, and Sharon decided to take a bath. You know, just relax.”

“Why didn’t she take a bath in the master bedroom?” Reilly’s questions came out stiff. I wondered how many times he’d interviewed an actual client before.

“The master bath just had this glass block shower, but no tub. She liked to use the bathroom down the hall with the Jacuzzi tub in it. But just before she got in the tub that damned Matt Bishop called. Sharon hated that kid. I could hear her yelling at him from across the house.”

“Why didn’t she like Matt?”

“Matt was a bad kid. He had no manners. He lived in another neighborhood, went to a different school, but all the kids knew each other. I think Sharon was more sensitive to it. You know, Becky went to private school and Sharon tried to keep her away from what she perceived to be bad influences, like Matt.”

“So how did he know your daughter?”

“I’m not really sure. But all the kids just seemed to know each other. They met different places. Anyway, he used to come around and he terrorized Shawn.”

“What do you mean terrorized?”

“Well, that was the word Sharon used. She said he used to growl, make monster noises, and chase Shawn around. I never saw it, I wasn’t around much.” Steele looked at me, like he was apologizing for being a bad father or something. “He was a nasty kid. Sharon used to yell at him to leave Becky alone and to quit coming around.”

“But he kept coming over?”

“Yeah, he called three times that day, so, you can imagine. She was pretty mad.” Steele raised his eyebrows and grinned a little, “Sharon could really get hot about things like that.”

“What time was this?”

“Shawn was already in bed, so it was after eight. It was probably about eight-fifteen, eight-twenty.” Steele stopped and exhaled. He looked up at the small windows with an expression of grief and despondence. He breathed deeply, and shook his head slightly. “Y’know how many times I’ve thought about it? She went down the hall and I went downstairs to watch TV. The next time I saw her . . .” He stopped again.

Reilly looked over at me and I could tell right away he had no more experience with this kind of thing than I did. We waited while Steele kept himself from losing his composure. I thought I heard water dripping somewhere in the room. Steele exhaled again — long and slow, like he’d been punctured with a needle and his past was flowing out, propelled by the pressure of his own remorse.

Finally, Reilly asked, “When did she go take a bath?”

“Right after Matt called. Probably around eight-thirty.”

“What were you doing while she took a bath?”

“I just went down to the family room to watch television and shoot some pool. I flipped on an old Hitchcock movie. Well, I don’t know if it was Hitchcock, but something like that. And I made myself a drink, and I racked the pools balls.”

I watched Steele’s movements as he spoke. Though he was a small man, he had a large personality. I could see the politician in him. He used wide gestures and his torso moved back and forth as he talked.

“And then what?”

“I heard a noise.”

“A noise like what?”

“Well that’s just it, it’s like . . . you know how you can be sitting at home and you think you hear something? You know how you perk up and listen for it again because you’re not sure if you really heard anything at all? Y’know what I mean?”

We both said we did.

“Well, it was like that. I thought I heard a scream, or a woman hollering or something, but first, it was real faint and second, it’s not something you expect to hear so you discount it. Plus, the TV was on and it was some kind of thriller that might have a scream in it.”

“Then what?”

“Then nothing. I mean, I didn’t hear it again. I stopped listening and went back to playing pool.”

“How much time went by?”

“It’s really tough to say. It could have been as long as a minute, but it was probably less. I thought I heard something, I paused for a few seconds and didn’t hear anything else, and then I went back to what I was doing. And then I heard a scream.” Steele stopped again, just as he had before. His face was somber and his hands fell down to his side.

Reilly waited a second before speaking. “So the second time you knew you heard a real scream.”

“Yeah. It wasn’t loud, but it had a quality to it. I knew it wasn’t the TV. It was real. I just froze for a second. I was terrified because I knew right then what I heard before was real too and that something was going on in the house. Then I just bolted, ran right out of there.”

Reilly prodded, “And then what happened?”

“I ran up the stairs and down the hall and as I came around the bathroom doorway somebody else was coming out. I mean he was running out and I grabbed hold of him, it was just a reaction. I mean we literally ran into each other. Then he pushed me back and swiped at me. I didn’t see the knife or anything. He just made a slashing motion and pushed me away. There wasn’t anything I could do. I’m a small guy.” Steele patted the chest of his coveralls, as if to confirm the obvious. “I must have hit my head because I was stunned for a second. By the time I shook it off, the guy was gone.”

“So you were knocked out?”

“No, no, I mean it was only, I don’t know, five seconds or something. But this guy was sprinting, I mean he was out of there, like he knew exactly where he was going.”

“Which direction did he go?”

“I honestly don’t know. The stairs were just a little way down the hall. Once he got downstairs there were four or five different ways out of the house. Which way he went is anyone’s guess.”

“So you didn’t chase him?”

“No, I got up and ran into the bathroom. There was blood everywhere.” Steele’s speech halted abruptly, and then began again, slow, as if wallowing in a heavy, viscous pool of memory. “Ah, goddamn, I mean it was a mess. My feet slipped on blood as I ran in. I could see Sharon in the tub. She was moving, trying to keep herself afloat in the water.” He stopped. My eyes glanced down at Steele’s arms and hands as they unconsciously mimicked his dying wife’s slow and feeble treading motions. Then he wiped the corners of his eyes and looked up at the high windows again. The bleak light coming through gave no hint of the gorgeous day outside.

“I could hear her choking on the water. I cradled her head and tried to talk to her, but she couldn’t answer me. Then there was a noise behind me. I let go of her and jumped up. It was Shawn asking what was going on. I yelled at him to get out of there but he just started crying. I ran over and shut the door, then I realized that Sharon was back in the water again. I ran back and pulled her up so she could breathe and then I unstopped the drain so the water could run out. I had no idea how bad she was hurt, I mean there was blood everywhere . . . ”

His voice trailed off and we sat in silence once again. I was unsure what to do. I felt like reaching out and touching Steele, but I didn’t.

“Then Shawn opened the door again. He was crying. So I picked him up and took him downstairs to the family room and locked him in there with the TV on.” Steele shook his head and seemed to be looking at something far away. “When I went back upstairs, Sharon wasn’t moving at all. I don’t know how long it took before I realized I hadn’t called 911. It finally occurred to me and I ran back downstairs and dialed. I just started shouting into the phone.”

“Now, you gave the 911 operator the wrong address, you had the numbers in the wrong order.”

“Ah, shit, man — that goddamned prosecutor made a big deal out of that. For Christ’s sake, I wasn’t thinking clearly. Besides, that’s bullshit anyway, 911 knows where you’re calling from when they answer the phone. That was bullshit what the prosecutor told the jury. They knew where I was. I mean, 911’s set up so you can dial the phone when you’re dying and they’ll know where to come find you.” Steele’s anger was palpable and instantaneous.

“Did you explain that to the jury?” Reilly pushed the subject, and Steele exhaled in defeat.

“I tried to, but nobody believed me. The 911 operator testified and my lawyer, that rotten son of a bitch, never asked her that question.”

“You mean Garrett Andersen?”

“That motherf*cker. If I was ever going to kill someone, he’d be the first guy.” Steele’s eyes had gone cold. His vernacular had slowly fallen off into the crusty and colorful talk of a prison yard. A dozen years there had transformed him, as it would anyone.

“Why’d you call 911 from downstairs?”

“We didn’t have a phone upstairs. I didn’t like having one in the bedroom. I always figured I should have some place where I could get away from the phone. I mean, I had a cellular if I really needed to talk upstairs. But it never occurred to me to use my cell phone. Anyway, I called 911 from the regular phone. I was yelling for them to come and help. Somewhere in the conversation the idea comes up that I should take Sharon out of the tub; I don’t know why that didn’t occur to me before. So I set the phone down and ran back upstairs. I pulled her out of the tub and laid her on the floor. I think she was already dead. I got some towels and tried to wrap her up to keep her warm. She wasn’t breathing, at least I don’t think she was. I ran back to the phone and yelled for them to hurry the hell up. I ran out onto the lawn to see if I could hear sirens or anything.”

“So the gaps in the 911 call are when you’re doing all of this?”

“Yeah. At the trial they tried to make it look like I was engaged in something nefarious — chicanery, an evil plot, the prosecutor said — but what the f*ck am I supposed to do, just wait by the goddamned phone?” The three-dollar words poured off his tongue as quickly as the four-letter ones. “My wife’s been stabbed a thousand times and I’m waiting for an ambulance. I mean, I was freaking out, I couldn’t stand still for a second, let alone just wait on the phone.”

“And how long did all this take?”

“They have the times when the calls were made and when the cops got there and all that. I’m sure the times are right. At some point, when I was out on the lawn I found myself wiping my hand on my shirt and I realized I was bleeding all over the place. I hadn’t noticed that I’d been cut. When the guy slashed at me he cut the hell outta my hand.”

Steel held his left hand, palm up, out on the table. A scar ran diagonally from the bottom of his index finger, across the shallow middle and into the meaty pad on the bottom of the opposite side. Steele traced the scar with his right index finger, and then spoke matter-of-factly: “Cut the hell out of me. I was bleeding everywhere.”

“What did you do when you saw the cut?”

“I went back inside and went to the kitchen and grabbed a dishtowel and wrapped it around my hand. Then I went back upstairs. A minute or two later I heard a siren and I came back down, got back on the phone and told the 911 operator that they were there, and then went out on the porch and waited for them.”

Despite the eighty-degree day outside, I was suddenly aware that it was freezing in the dim concrete room. I thought I heard the dripping water again and I looked behind me. Through the window in the wall, I could see the guard leaning against a filing cabinet reading a newspaper. He didn’t look up. I doubted he ever looked up.

“So then the cops got there? How many were there?”

“Just one guy, at first, in a squad car. But he wasn’t there too long before a whole bunch showed up. Within five minutes the place was crawling with, I don’t know, a dozen of them at least.”

“Ok, so what happened next?”

“Well, they investigated. They started asking me all the same questions. They didn’t find any signs of forced entry so they arrested me.”

“Then what?”

“Well, I didn’t get to the jail until, God, it must’ve been four or five in the morning. I finally got to talk to Becky and told her to get a hold of her grandparents so they could come out and take care of her and Shawn. Then I told her to find out where Matt was, and then I got a lawyer. That f*ckin’ mother . . .” Steele’s voice trailed off.

“Why did you suspect Matt?”

“It just seemed like he was the most likely. I mean he was a creepy kid, and he’d just gotten in a fight with Sharon only fifteen or twenty minutes before.”

Steele’s voice was growing tense.

“So you hired Garrett Andersen to represent you? How did you know him?”

“I didn’t. I talked to some people. He came highly recommended.”

“Why wasn’t any testimony presented regarding Matt?”

“I testified, but there was nothing else. The jury didn’t believe me. Garrett said Matt had an alibi. Everyone agreed he was sitting at home at the time. I told him that his sister had said that he was out all night.”

“You think the sister was lying?”

“Look, Becky called over to his house at about seven-thirty, pretty early for a Sunday morning. Matt’s sister answered the phone and Becky acted like she was just looking for him, like they were going to go do whatever it was they did. The sister told her that he didn’t come home that night.”

“But later, the sister and everyone else told the police that Matt was home?”

“Right, but that was after the fact. Look, when Becky talked to the sister no one knew yet what happened at my house. It wasn’t in the papers yet, it wasn’t on TV, nothing. There was no way she knew about it, so she was just being honest. After they realized we suspected Matt, she changed her tune.”

Steele’s expression had fallen off toward desperation. It was the face of a man who’d been telling the same story for years, all too aware that no one was listening. He said it with a conviction that made me think it was the obvious truth, that it couldn’t be any other way. Matt’s sister was lying.

We talked a while longer. Reilly tried repeatedly to bring the conversation to a close, but Steele wanted none of it. Eventually, Reilly stood as he spoke, forcing a conclusion. When Steele and I shook hands, he held on tight and seemed reluctant to let go at all.