$200 and a Cadillac - By Fingers Murphy Page 0,117
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 motherfucker. 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 fuck 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?”