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“Well, I take that back. Ididgo visit him there because we filed an appeal, but it was turned down flat. I mean, we didn’t really have any grounds for an appeal. If anything, the judge went out of his way to accommodate us. And the jury could have returned a death sentence, but they didn’t. I actually told Meryl that his escaping the death penalty was the best he could expect. Why make waves?”
“Were you convinced of his guilt?” asked Lancaster.
Finger shrugged. “It didn’t matter to me one way or another. My job is to defend. It’s the state’s job to prove guilt. I live in the creases of reasonable doubt. All defense lawyers do.”
“But did youthinkhe was guilty?” persisted Decker.
Finger sat back and steepled his hands. “You know that the attorney-client privilege survives the death of a client.”
“I’m not asking for you to reveal any privileged communications,” Decker pointed out. “I’m just asking your opinion on the matter. That’s not privileged and can in no way injure your client. He was already convicted and now he’s dead.”
Finger grinned. “You would’ve made a good lawyer, Decker. Okay, yeah, I thought he’d done it. I think he went over there just to steal some stuff and ran into a whole lot of trouble that he couldn’t handle. It wasn’t like the guy was a career criminal. Hell, he hadn’t had so much as a parking ticket. I think that was one reason he didn’t get the death penalty. I think he lost it and started shooting and strangling, and before he knew it, he had four dead bodies. Then he just got the hell out of there.”
“And no one saw him drive up, enter the place and then leave, or hear the shots?” said Decker.
Finger shrugged. “Who knows? People said they heard nothing. One house was playing loud music. In the other the folks said they were watching TV or sleeping. The third house the people weren’t home that night, and the fourth house was abandoned. And the houses weren’t that close. And then there was the noise from the storm.” He gave Decker a funny look. “Hell, Amos, you and Mary are the ones that made the case against him. Prints.DNA. Motive. Opportunity. And the murder weapon found hidden in his home. I mean, as a defense lawyer, I had nothing really to work with. I considered it a miracle he only got life without parole.”
“And the stolen goods?” said Lancaster.
“Hawkins didn’t have an explanation for that because he said he didn’t commit the crime. But if you want my opinion, I think he chucked it all when he knew he couldn’t fence them without it tying him to four homicides.”
Decker shook his head. “He had five hundred dollars in his wallet the night he was picked up.”
“And the prosecution suggested that was the proceeds from his fencing the stolen goods. But the stuff that he was supposed to have stolen would have fetched more money than that, I think.”
“And you postulated a theory that Hawkins was planning to use the five hundred bucks to purchase painkillers for his wife, Lisa, off the street. Did he tell you that, or did you just come up with it?”
“Hey, I don’t just ‘come up’ with stuff, Decker,” Finger said firmly. “That’s what he told me.”
“So where’d he get the money?” asked Lancaster.
“He never said.”
“I wonder why,” said Decker. “I mean if he could have come up with a viable explanation that would have taken a big chunk out of the prosecution’s case.”
“Believe me, I tried. But he wouldn’t say.”
Lancaster said, “He’d gotten laid off from his job a while back. They had no money.”
“I’m just telling you what he told me about it, which was zip. And I wouldn’t let him take the stand, so the prosecution was able to bring out the money during the trial. I tried to poke holes at it and brought up him wanting to buy drugs for his terminally ill wife to get some sympathy in the courtroom, but I could tell the jury wasn’t buying it. They were connecting the dots on the money and the stolen goods. There was no way around that. And for all I know the five hundred bucks did come from that. Who’s to say what a fence will pay for hot goods connected to a string of murders? And there was no way a fence would have come forward and gotten involved in the case. So there was no avenue for me to investigate unless Meryl opened up about it, which he never did.”
Lancaster said, “But more to the point, why would he go to a house that early in the evening and that was full of people?”
Decker interjected, “There were no cars out front. David Katz’s car was parked in the back of the house. And Hawkins wouldn’t have been able to see that if he approached from the front, which he had to. The Richardses only had one car at the time and the wife had taken it. The other car was in for repairs.”
“But there were lights on when the first responders got there,” countered Lancaster. “Pretty stupid burglar to hit a house all lit up.”
Finger spread his hands. “What can I tell you? That’s what happened. Like I said, the guy wasn’t an experienced criminal. And he had no alibi. You know that.”
Decker said, “And Hawkins might have thought the lights were on just because of the storm. With no cars out front, and the house didn’t have a garage, he might have thought it was empty.”
Finger added, “And if he didn’t do it, someone went to a lot of trouble to frame him. Why would they? He was a nobody. Blue-collar guy his whole life. I’m not saying that’s bad. Hell, I admired him for that. My old man was a mechanic, could do stuff I never could. I’m just saying Meryl was a regular guy with a regular life. Not worth the trouble.”
“And yet somebody went to thetroubleof killing him,” said Decker. “And his life wasn’t exactly regular. His wife was dying and his daughter was a drug addict.”
“That’s true. Hey, did you check with Susan? She’s still around.”
“Gee, why didn’t we think of that?” said Lancaster.
