Privileged

By Dave Schafer

Frank McGarrity, a young lawyer in Princeton, takes the case of William, who won't give his last name but carries plenty of cash.  William confides he murdered a man but assures him he won't kill  again.  He doesn't admit that he longs to be the most famous serial killer ever and plans to execute thirteen privileged people who took advantage of his indigent mother or him.

McGarrity is torn between legal ethics and moral right.  As a lawyer, he must keep any secrets as long as a client doesn't reveal an intent to commit a future crime.

After visiting Biscuit Buckingham, a jailed bank robber client who was caught because he stopped to help a dog, McGarrity finds out his legal mentor, Jack McCabe, has been killed by an arrow in the back.  He shadows William and realizes he's scoping out his next victim, reporter Cindy Halsey.  Back home he discovers his fiancée Trish is having an affair with a doctor.  He moves out of their apartment into Jack's vacant one.

Biscuit escapes from jail in William's laundry truck.  William murders a nun and Doctor Benjamin, Trish's lover.  McGarrity concludes he's the only one who can stop the "bow sniper."

William coerces Biscuit into robbing another bank and abandons him after the job.  While Biscuit manages to elude the police in huge Mercer County Park, William executes his grade school teacher.

Biscuit meets with McGarrity in a Trenton cemetery.  After Biscuit tells him where William lives, he convinces Biscuit to plead guilty to bank robbery and cooperate against William.  That will force the court to relieve him as William's counsel due to a conflict of interest on the bank robbery charge.

McGarrity drives to William's hideout and finds a scrapbook of victims.  He goes to the home of Elaine, the next target.  Although with her two children she's about to separate from her husband, McGarrity persuades her to tell the authorities about her ex-boyfriend—Ernest McGinty, who is using the alias William.  William finds out from a utility worker that McGarrity's been in his house, and he aims to kill him.

William's house is raided but he's not there.  McGarrity takes Cindy cross-country skiing in Mercer County Park.  William stalks them, and McGarrity leaves Cindy to act as a decoy.  Biscuit, returning to his park hideout, hears William's shouts.  He wounds him with the gun of his nephew, another of William's victims.

William escapes from the jail infirmary out an unbarred window.  McGarrity tries to warn Cindy, but she refuses to talk to him for abandoning her in the park.  Figuring that William cached some weapons at his abandoned childhood home, he races there to find them first.  Neither weapons nor William are there, and he walks down the street to check on Elaine's grandfather, who'd taught William archery.  William, having assaulted Gus to steal his bows and arrows, ambushes McGarrity.  Again McGarrity is spared, this time with Elaine's help.  Although stunned by a blow to the head, William dives out a picture window and escapes.

McGarrity retreats to his apartment where Trish dropped in earlier that day.  She's suffering from depression, has fled her home and overbearing mother, and wants to pick up with McGarrity where they left off.  He wants no part of it, although he's willing to care for her until he can get her safely back to her family.  William barges in while McGarrity's trying to feed McCabe's three-legged dog, Darrow.

I violated the privilege.  My luck has run out….

• Language: English
• Publisher: Outskirts Press
• Release date: Jun 7, 2023
• ISBN: 9781977265036

Dave Schafer

Dave Schafer has also published THE MISDEMEANOR MAN, PRIVILEGED, and RIDERS ON THE STORM with Outskirts Press. 

Book preview

This is a work of fiction. The events and characters described herein are imaginary and are not intended to refer to specific places or living persons. The opinions expressed in this manuscript are solely the opinions of the author and do not represent the opinions or thoughts of the publisher. The author has represented and warranted full ownership and/or legal right to publish all the materials in this book.

Privileged

All Rights Reserved.

Copyright © 2015 Dave Schafer

v5.0

Cover Photo © 2015 thinkstockphotos.com. All rights reserved - used with permission.

This book may not be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in whole or in part by any means, including graphic, electronic, or mechanical without the express written consent of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter One

I need to tell you about a man I killed, the prospective client said.

He ignored McGarrity’s outstretched hand and plopped down in the chair in front of his desk. McGarrity dropped his arm, walked over to his office door and closed it. He grabbed a blank legal folder from atop the bookcase and sat down behind his desk.

I’m sorry, McGarrity said. My secretary didn’t give me your last name.

That’s because I didn’t give it to her.

He scrawled William in the place allotted for a client’s name and tossed his pen on top of the file.

How do I tell a killer I need a last name for billing purposes? Ed always told me even his toughest clients would warm up if he let them have their way for awhile.

Do you prefer William or Bill?

Doesn’t matter. It’s not my real name.

McGarrity scooped up his coffee mug and took a sip. William’s black hair had an unwashed sheen and straggled over his ears, and he’d missed shaving for a few days. He was big-boned but not muscular, about six feet and over two hundred pounds. Below his large forehead were slightly incongruent eyes, his left one smaller and lower. His pug nose was wide and seemed to lack any bone structure. Large circles under his eyes indicated he wasn’t much of a sleeper.

If I’m going to take your case, it’s going to take some money up front. I normally need a valid name and address. In an injury lawsuit, for example, there might be a monetary recovery, and if a client passed away or became incapacitated, I’d need to contact—

This isn’t one of those. I don’t have any living relatives, anyway. I’ll pay your secretary cash for today, and I’ll pay her in cash every time I come here. Money’s not a concern.

The way he interrupted me isn’t good. It could be very detrimental at a hearing or trial if I’m trying to listen to a witness or ruling. I’ve got to cure him of that if I take his case.

That’s just a consultation fee. I still have to decide if I can accept your case. There’s only a certain amount of time in a day, and I wouldn’t want to cheat you out of—

You’ve only been open a month. Before that you were a Federal Public Defender. You need the money.

McGarrity put down his mug and picked up his pen.

You must be reading my mail. Okay, how did this accident happen?

It wasn’t an accident. He needed to be dead, so I killed him.

Oh, a mercy killing. Some jurors would be sympathetic to euthanasia.

William smiled scornfully, his discolored teeth outlined with plaque gunk.

You don’t get it, do you? It’s what you lawyers call first-degree murder, premeditated homicide.

McGarrity picked up his legal pad, pushed his swivel chair away from the desk, and crossed his left leg over his right to provide a writing surface that William couldn’t see. He printed STUDY, which meant the first order of business would be to send William to a forensic psychologist to determine if he was insane, either at the time of the offense or all the time.

Are the police looking for you?

Not me in particular, but they’re searching for the person that shot the arrow.

McGarrity began to doodle, which was his habit when he didn’t know what to write. He made an elaborate arrow beneath STUDY.

Are we talking about that guy that was killed in Mercer Park on Sunday?

Bravo. I knew you were a bright lawyer. Met that loser in the Sorcerer one night. Stalked him for a week. He thought he was an aspiring novelist and used to hang outside that writer’s house, hoping she’d read one of his manuscripts. You know, the one that won that big prize because she’s black.

I don’t think that’s the reason she won it.

Not everything’s what it appears to be. The police think my murder’s a hunting accident.

I hate to turn away business, but if that’s the case you won’t need a lawyer until you’re either arrested or become a grand jury target.

I’ll decide that. What’s your hourly rate?

Let’s see. I’ve got a few on contingency, and I’ve been getting one-fifty for the municipal court stuff. But this guy’s spooky and looks to be really high maintenance.

Three hundred.

Deal. I’ll be in this time every week, Wednesday at eleven. Want to know why I killed him? To put him out of his misery. You should’ve seen him blubbering over his martini, bad mouthing some literary agent for not representing some crap he wrote and sending him a form rejection instead of a handwritten apology. It was pathetic. Shame I couldn’t tell him why I did it. Know why I used a bow?

Should’ve said six hundred. A complete loon.

Huh? William asked in a raised voice. Want to know why?

He glanced up from the huge hollow question mark he was tracing on his pad. William’s eyes were dark brown, but the thing most noticeable about them was the white showing both above and below the irises.

Just like in pictures of Rasputin, Bundy and Manson.

Why?

Because they can’t compare the shell casing of an arrow, and bows aren’t registered.

McGarrity stood up and gently thumped the legal pad against his leg.

I don’t mean to cut you off, but I’ve got an appointment at twelve. If anything comes up before next week, you can give me a call. You don’t plan to do this again, do you?

Of course not. What do you think I am, a serial killer? I was only doing that sorry loser a favor. It was a mercy killing, but I don’t think any of your jurors would understand that, since they’re probably all in the same boat. Besides, I couldn’t tell you if I was planning another one, could I? I’d lose my privilege.

William rose, and McGarrity circled his desk to open the door. With his hand on the knob, he paused and turned.

I wonder just how much he knows about the privilege.

Your privilege?

My attorney-client privilege. It’s mine, not yours, right?

Something like that.

Well, you’d better brush up on it, because this is our little secret until you reach hell. Even if I died first, you couldn’t say a word about it.

Opening the door, he asked, What makes you think I’m going to hell?

William answered just as he passed within a foot of him, his rancid breath making him wince.

That’s where all lawyers go.

William strolled over to his secretary Nancy, took out his wallet and peeled off three hundred-dollar bills onto her desk. Then he went out the front door.

Nancy picked up the bills and said, It looked as if he had another thousand in there.

He handed her the file.

Just open it under William. He won’t give me any other information. As you can see, he’ll be paying in cash. Schedule him in every Wednesday at eleven.

What if there’s a conflict with a court appearance?

"Try to move court. If you can’t, then you’ll have to listen to him ramble for an hour."

She reviewed the file while he retrieved his gym bag from the workroom.

What’s his case about? she asked as he headed by her desk to leave. There’s nothing here but your hieroglyphics.

I’ll tell you later. First, I’ve got to find out how far the attorney-client privilege goes.

McGarrity hopped into his Corolla and headed down Nassau Street. He swerved around a tentative parallel parker and turned left onto Washington Street. As he coasted along the top part of the road, he suddenly had to break for some pedestrian students and a cyclist who ignored the traffic signal. Cursing to himself, he continued down the hill to his favorite part of the Princeton campus, the stone bridge that split Lake Carnegie.

Thousands of great minds for hundreds of years have witnessed this same brilliant fall foliage mirroring off the water here. Damn, I can’t believe I’m not going to the gym.

Playing basketball at lunch was a ritual he performed as much as his work schedule would allow. It’d started out as an occasional jaunt to Dillon from his government office in Trenton to keep his belt size in check. Then it became once a week. Finally it was another reason to abandon the public dole and hang out his own shingle on Pine Street.

Now he’d broken his passionate routine—not for court, which was excusable, but out of sheer panic. William’s case had hit him like a baseball bat, and he figured only Ed could coax him out of the daze in which he found himself.

He merged onto Route 1 at one of the last free-for-all intersections of New Jersey. It was worse than one of the state’s normal circles because there was no yielding flow. There were four traffic lights, two gas stations with awkward access and a herky-jerky movement of vehicles. He cut to the left lane and flattened his accelerator.

During the twenty-minute drive to his former office, he tried to recollect all he’d learned about the attorney-client privilege. It wasn’t much. It was as if the professors considered it anathema, a pitfall on the road to truth and justice. After all, how would John or Mary Public react to a legal idiosyncrasy that made one argue to a jury that your client was innocent after your client had just confessed to you that he was guilty? No wonder it took three years of post-collegiate schooling to become so illogical.

As he put a quarter into the meter he remembered that he hadn’t told Ed he was coming. He took his cell phone out as he stared up at Ed’s fourth floor window.

Federal Public Defender.

Hey, Anna, it’s me. Ed there?

Lunch.

Loretta’s?

Where else?

If he was waiting for a jury he’d be at the Sidebar.

He hasn’t tried a case in months.

Then I’m headed for Loretta’s. Talk to you later.

Before he crossed the street to Loretta’s, he sauntered into Mercer Cemetery, a Nineteenth Century graveyard surrounded by a red brick wall. After passing through the iron gate onto a dirt and gravel pathway, he strolled beneath neat rows of huge elms to his favorite plot, the resting place of Captain Ellis Hamilton. Although most of the inscriptions on the tombstones had been eroded by time and covered with damp moss, his grave had a metal plaque commemorating the youngest commissioned officer in the Union army. He’d died at nineteen in the Battle of the Wilderness, known for its fires that cremated the wounded as they cried out for their mothers in the hellish night forest. He bowed his head.

Thanks, Captain. I’ll try to do my part to make sure you didn’t die in vain. You have my word I’ll fight for justice and equality. Only problem’s that I don’t know whether I should protect the so-called rights of William or help send him to the gas chamber. Ed’ll know.

He left the cemetery and crossed the street to Loretta’s. Inside he spotted Ed at the bar, holding a pint of Bass in his left hand as he picked at the edge of a coaster with his right. He approached him from behind and put a hand on his shoulder.

I hope you’ve had something to eat.

Ed turned, his blood-shot eyes widening when he saw him. They drooped back into tired resignation.

What’s the difference? Food’ll just prolong my life. Those auditors still skulking around?

Auditors?

Yeah, those two pencil-necks from D.C.

I didn’t stop by. Anna said you were here. Can we grab a table? I have to pick your brain while I buy you some lunch.

Sure.

Ed grabbed his beer and led him to a remote table.

I can’t guarantee we’ll have any privacy, though. Those Washington assholes probably heard I eat here and bugged the whole place.

They do those audits every couple years. What’s the big deal?

This one’s different. There’s a shortage.

He was looking at Ed, but Ed was staring down at the table like a confessing client.

How brilliant and yet how tragic. Closing in on sixty, so obvious he treats his hair. As thick and black as it was five years ago when he hired me. Graduate of Peddie and Princeton and Harvard Law. Recruited by all the big firms, chose one in Manhattan and left a month after he made partner.

I never should have left Manhattan, Ed murmured.

But you said you were never happy there.

I was miserable. Barely escaped with my soul. I got mesmerized by the money and forgot the reason I went to law school was to save the world, not buy it. But at least I had some money. See, the body’s the keeper of the soul. If the body’s not happy, it’s not going to let the soul out of its cell. I should have listened to them. My wife, my parents, my in-laws, the guys at the club—they all thought I was clearly having a nervous breakdown when I became a public defender. My kids were my only supporters, but even they jumped ship when my child support checks arrived later and later. No, I never should have left Manhattan.

Maybe not. Your plan to save the world seems to include chasing every new female law clerk who shows up the courthouse, tying on a load every night, and running down to Atlantic City after every paycheck. Your only steady roommate a three-legged cocker spaniel named Darrow. Still, the best goddamned legal mind I know.

Would you like a drink?

McGarrity glanced up at the waitress, a dyed-blond with a wrinkled face who still bore the sculptured figure of her youth.

Just a coke with two cheeseburgers, McGarrity said. On separate plates.

Another beer? the waitress asked, eyeing Ed’s almost empty glass.

How could I say no to such a sweetheart?

She smiled, picked up his glass and strolled away, her hips writhing beneath her tight black skirt. Ed tapped the fingers of both hands on the table as if he were playing the piano.

So what do you want to pick my brain about? Be careful, there’s not much left.

If your client tells you in confidence he committed a crime, you can’t reveal that to someone else, correct?

Correct.

"And if your client tells you in confidence he’s going to commit a crime in the future, you can tell that to someone else, right?"

You have an obligation to.

He watched Ed finish his beer and smack it down.

There’s nothing comes close to that first brewsky of the day, Ed said.

I don’t know. I’d give the nod to rolling around with Trish as the sun comes up.

A beer never says no, never has a headache.

No, it just gives you a headache.

Just like a woman does. It’s their favorite pastime. How’s Trish doing these days?

Good. Hey, there’s one more thing. Isn’t there an exception to that first rule, like when somebody else is listening and the client knows it?

Only when that somebody is not understood to be under the cloak of the privilege. For example, if Nancy was taking notes of the conversation or you had an investigator working on the case, they couldn’t break the privilege. But if your client tells you something in front of a waitress, the privilege dissolves.

The waitress returned with his coke and Ed’s next round. Ed greedily grabbed his beer and took a lengthy swig.

Ah, this one’s a close runner-up to the first. So has Trish accepted your proposal yet?

No, but it makes no difference. I mean, we’ve been living together for over a year now. It’s not as if we’re going to have any kids real soon.

The waitress brought the cheeseburger platters and set them down in front of McGarrity.

Can I get you boys anything else?

McGarrity said, Just the check.

As the waitress strutted away, he slid one of the platters over to Ed.

What’s the hurry?

I got to go to the Workhouse. Judge Green appointed me to a bank robbery case.

That’s too bad, Ed said, gazing down at his platter as if it were a tray of lima beans. I was hoping we could have one of those lunches we used to have when we were waiting on a verdict.

Yeah, I learned more listening to you at one of those sessions than I did in a year at law school.

Do as I tell you, not as I do, Ed mumbled.

McGarrity gobbled his cheeseburger and drained his coke. He felt uncomfortable. Ed had never seemed so pathetic. The waitress came back with the check, and he paid her. Ed hadn’t touched his platter.

Better eat that, he said as he rose to leave.

In a minute. Good seeing you again. Give my regards to Trish.

I will. Good luck with the waitress.

He left Ed staring at his beer. Outside he decided to stop in at Ed’s office before he headed up Route 29 to the jail.

There was no one at the security desk, so he didn’t bother to sign in and bounded up the staircase. Anna buzzed him in. Although overweight and a slow typist, she had a pretty face and had been Ed’s sporadic mistress, an arrangement that had provided her tenure. He leaned down and was greeted by an overdose of perfume, her perennial trademark.

He whispered, The auditors still here?

They’re back in the file room.

Since the files were at the other end of the long hallway, he straightened up.

What are they looking for?

Eddie’s in big trouble. Trudy noticed he was ordering a psychologist for sentencing mitigation in every case. She thought it was odd for a doctor to switch to a post office box, so she checked it out. Turns out Doctor Lott doesn’t have a box. It was rented to Eddie. I warned him not to hire her.

Way too efficient, he mumbled.

Ed’s probably still on the payroll only because he has just enough pride and denial left not to step down. His termination would soon come either by the Court of Appeals in Philadelphia or the Administrative Office of the Courts in Washington. He’d be fortunate to avoid indictment.

How much money we talking?

I heard one of them mention they’d already found sixteen cases. At about two thousand a shot, that’s thirty-two grand.

What the hell was he doing with it?

He started going back to Atlantic City last summer.

He’s a heavy drinker and an incorrigible womanizer, but his gambling’s an addiction. If he doesn’t totally abstain, the urge to take a chance gushes through his veins like grain alcohol and drowns his reasoning power.

He placed his arm gently on Anna’s shoulder, since a changing of the guard meant her job was in jeopardy.

Just watch your ass, he said.

There was never much fun in that.

He walked out without looking back.

She asked for it. Always held it over me that Ed’d tell her things he wouldn’t tell me. But now it didn’t mean much. It’d be tough for her to find a new employer, but I got more important things to worry about. Like why Biscuit Buckingham saved that dog instead of driving away with fifty-six thousand dollars.

Chapter Two

As McGarrity skirted along the Delaware River on Route 29, hoping the eighteen-wheelers would stay on their side of the hairpin turns, he glanced over to the site where General Washington had crossed the river to ambush the Hessians in Trenton on Christmas.

If George had decided it was too cold and icy that night, there wouldn’t’ve been a momentum shift in the Revolution, and United States wouldn’t exist. Congress wouldn’t’ve established a Federal Reserve, and there wouldn’t’ve been a bank for Biscuit to rob. I’ve got Mister First President to thank for having to spend the rest of the afternoon in jail.

After a few more miles, he made a right and climbed a long hill, passing a menagerie of turkeys, rabbits and ducks.

Putting up that sign, WILDLIFE REFUGE, halfway between the animal shelter and the jail, had to be some asshole freeholder’s bad idea of a joke.

He waved to Reese in the guard booth, but then realized he was asleep. Although the gate was open, he didn’t want to risk Reese getting all ticked-off. He’d known him back when the downtown detention center was open, and Reese had helped him out a few times. In a world full of hostile inmates and ornery guards, it was good to know at least one friendly face. He yanked the transmission into park and strolled over to the booth.

Reese!

Reese’s corpulent torso shook as he suddenly awoke. As he rubbed his eyes with one hand, his other instinctively pushed the gate button. When he realized it was closing, he reversed its direction.

Sorry, sir, he said as he rubbed his bald head as if he had hair. Resting my eyes.

No problem, Reese. See you on the way out.

The only difference between Reese and a prisoner in solitary is that Reese is getting paid for his time.

He reentered his car and drove into the parking lot. After pulling Biscuit’s file out of the trunk, he strolled toward the entrance. He gazed up at an unbarred window on the second floor.

Ninety-five per cent of the inmates are short-timers, first-time drug dealers and incorrigible shoplifters who’d be out in a few months and wouldn’t risk it. But there’s a bunch of federal detainees contracted out to the county and state prison inmates on trial downtown who’d take that jump if they somehow got into that room.

He proceeded through the metal detector and various checkpoints to the attorney-client meeting room, a maze of partitioned booths where an inmate’s private conversation with his or her lawyer was apt to be overheard by those in adjacent stalls. While he waited for Biscuit, he perused a presentence report dating back to Biscuit’s last bank robbery for which he’d done almost seven years.

George Julius Napoleon Buckingham had been born in Trenton forty-nine years before. At four years old, he’d watched his father stab his mother to death in their kitchen. The report noted irrelevant details, such as the reason for the murder being that there was no more beer in the refrigerator—as if any reason could explain the effect of such a crime on a child. The revelation that his father was white and mother black also had no significance, except to explain Biscuit’s tan complexion.

The report gave a detailed account of Biscuit’s previous transgressions against society. While living with his maternal aunt as his father did life behind bars, her boyfriend took him under his wing and trained him in the craft of burglary. During one of Uncle Grover’s stints in prison, his apprentice earned his nickname doing a solo job. After a pre-dawn break-in at a fast-food joint, all he ended up with was a month’s supply of biscuits. His downfall was giving them out to his friends at school. Biscuit stuck after that, despite countless protests and fistfights.

Biscuit suddenly entered the booth.

Good to see you, Mr. McGarrity. Thanks for comin’.

Still surprised at Biscuit’s politeness since first meeting him, he stood up and offered his hand. Most clients would greet him with a whine about how long it’d taken him to visit them. They sat down simultaneously on opposite sides of a small table.

"Here’s your copy of the discovery and the proposed plea agreement. I don’t think I’ve ever come across a more detailed confession. The U.S. Attorney has agreed that if you tell them who the getaway driver was and continue to cooperate, he’ll ask the judge to depart downward from your