Chapter 5

An hour later, Joe was back in the interview room. Which, on the whole, wasn’t nearly as bad as the barred cell to which he had been recently introduced. Unfortunately, this time he was handcuffed and chained to the chair in which he sat.

Presently, the public defender had been called in to start his defense case on Joe’s behalf. The police were going to wait until morning, as it was already close to midnight. But, Joe started a small uproar about seeing legal council at once. Detective Eagleton thought it was best to cater to this specific request as he was still recalling ‘that damn Wilson case’ which had the previous year caused him and the Pinhill police department so much grief. So, the public defender was called in immediately.

He was a short, unkempt man with small beady, bloodshot eyes. He was introduced to Joe by Sergeant Rawls as “Yer attorney, Mr. Everett Biggs.” Joe and Mr. Biggs were then left alone in the room facing each other across the table.

Biggs had obviously been enjoying his evening before he arrived. He reeked of an assorted aroma of high octane alcohols and seemed to be occasionally nodding off while Joe related the tragic events of his evening. As Joe had very little money and absolutely no connections, he knew he would have to settle for this man to defend him against a charge of murder.

After Joe finished his story Biggs finished scribbling notes on a stained legal pad. Joe, exhausted from the evening’s ordeal, closed his eyes and tilted his head back. Several moments later when he opened his eyes and looked across the table he found his attorney in a similar position. He had fallen asleep again while writing on his pad, his eyes closed, his mouth open, his face pointing towards the ceiling.

“Hey!”, Joe rousted him from his latest catnap, “What’s your problem, man?! I’m going on trial for murder and you’re my saving hope?!”

Everett Biggs, shocked temporarily into consciousness, looked at Joe trying to recall who he was. Once he had accomplished this he assumed a look of resentful hurt, replying, “Young man, I’ll have ya’ll be informed that I’m quite a competent attorney at law. If yer a’tellin’ me the truth that it was self-dee-fense that brought ya’ll to bonkin’ this here fella,” he consulted his note pad, “. . . Jimmy Hollowy on the head, then, ya’ll can rest assured I’ll be clearin’ yer good name. Why it was only last year, as I recall, that I successfully dee-fended a man on murder charges. Perhaps ya’ll heard about the Wilson case?”

Joe replied, “Last year? No, I already told you I haven’t lived here that long.”
“Ah, but apparently long enough to make the acquaintence of this here, uh . . .”, he consulted his notepad again, “this here Mary Gulder.”
“Mary Gulder? Who the hell is she?”
“Why she’s the dee-ceased’s lady friend. In fact, the very same person what eye-deed ya’ll, my boy. And yer saying you don’t know her?”

Joe let all this sink in for a moment. His first thought was, “What insane reason could this girl have for doing this? Did I do something to her that I’m unaware of?”. Then things in his mind started to get revved up and racing for paranoid. The cops and this girl must indeed be conspiring to frame him, or at least the girl and maybe someone else in this little town. Which, given what he knew, wasn’t an unreasonable idea considering his current situation. And, on the whole, even though the conspiracy wasn’t entirely intentional, was damn close to accurate.

After this moment of contemplation, Joe asked himself aloud more than Biggs, “The girl’s name is Mary Gulder?”
Biggs replied disdainfully, “Now, that’s what I said, Mr. Smith. Ain’t you been payin’ no attention?”
“Let me see the police report.”

Biggs thought his client simply didn’t believe him. Joe did in fact believe Biggs, after all, he was sitting in jail, handcuffed to an interrogation room chair. Joe quickly scanned the report looking for Mary Gulder’s address and phone number. No phone number was listed but, there was an address on River Road.

When he was done, Joe slid the report back across the table, looked at the closed, guarded door and said very quietly, “I’ve gotta get out of here.”

Biggs proudly pointed out, “Well, that’s what I’m here fer, son. Ya’ll just sit tight and ol’ Ev’rett Biggs, Attorney at Law will git ya’ll right outta this here mess.”

Joe didn’t reply. He didn’t think much of Biggs. And, he was beginning to think even less of the local police and women. He was thinking of other, less legal and more immediate options with which to reacquire his freedom.