Billy Palmer by Ronald Zastre
“Me neither,” Amanda returned the laugh, “I never minded winter as long as I was busy, but now I’m not so sure. I’m moving as soon as I tie up the last of the loose ends. I’m going to try a different climate.”
“No kidding? Is that for my benefit? I mean the rub to make me jealous?” Manny turned to look out the window and sighed. “I can’t believe it’s been snowing for six days straight.”
“Manny, it’s Minnesota, and it’s November, what else would you expect?”
“You sound like Cassey, except she loves this shit.”
“I used to too, but since I’m retired my thinking has changed. I’m going to try the tropical life style.”
“Big switch, but what if you’re jaded to incredibly decent weather?”
“I can always come back.”
“Where you going, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“I think I’ll try The Grand Caymans.”
“Really? Retired judge slinks off to her secret tax haven, huh? Is this something I should pass on, or keep to myself?” Manny looked at Amanda with a smirk.
“Think it’ll make the locals jealous?”
“Damn right. I know I am.”
“Good, I had to listen to all their sad songs for too long. I did my thing, now let everyone wonder.”
“Atta girl!”
“So Manny, you sounded official over the phone. What’s on your mind?”
“Billy Palmer.”
Amanda contoured her lips and crinkled her brow, her eyes getting serious. She still had the expressional face, that timeless professional attractiveness. She could go from incredibly compassionate and mother-like to stone cold dangerous, just from the change in her face, as many found out when they stood in her court looking up at her.
“Billy’s trial was only my third one so I was pretty new. Carl Andrews kind of tied my hands on that one. He didn’t give me any reasons to go soft on Palmer. I did what I thought I was being paid for.”
“You seem culpable about that now?”
“I’ve always felt bad about the decision I had to make, but like I said my hands were tied. I almost went to the funeral.”
“What stopped you?”
“I didn’t figure it would do anything for Billy and just make ‘me’ feel bad. What is it you want to know about him?”
“He wasn’t guilty,” Manny stated.
“So I found out later. How come ‘you’ didn’t step forward at the time?”
“I was selfish. Cassey was my thing then, and it worked to my advantage.”
“That’s a big confession; not many people would be willing to expose themselves so blatantly.”
“It may sound noble, but admitting it just makes me feel worse,” Manny confessed. “When did you realize Billy wasn’t guilty?”
“I wasn’t certain until years later. I found out long after it was too late to do anything about it.”
“Then why the guilty feelings about your decision at the time?”
“You always question yourself when you can put somebody away. It’s a hell of a power they give you, and Billy had no criminal record before that, except some cannon thing.”
Manny laughed.
“I never really found out what it was about,” Amanda continued, “and he was never in any trouble after that. When you sentence somebody, it’s kind of a justification to see them again. You know, reinforcement because I was right about so and so the first time because here they are again. I never saw Billy again, and never heard a bad thing about him after that either. Gets you wondering.”
“Didn’t you wonder about the lousy defense he got?”
“Oh sure, I wouldn’t hire Carl Andrews to represent my goldfish, but in Carl’s defense, he realized that and got out of criminal law.
“What made you give Billy the sentence you did?”
“The prosecutor was very good. He convinced me Billy was guilty.”
“But was it fair, bringing Vietnam up, accusing him of being dangerous because of his war experiences?”
“That had nothing to do with my decision. I sentenced Billy because I thought the jury was right, that Billy had assaulted Bueler and I didn’t realize the truth at the time.”
“You said you found the truth later, how?
“Marsha Dent. She got in a little trouble later and confessed to me, hoping to get my sympathy.”
“She was always in trouble.”
“She probably still is. I got the impression she had an interest in Billy and he snubbed her. Anything to that?”
“I suppose so, but she threw herself at any available guy. I know Billy never had any interest in her. So you think that’s why she never came forward?”
“Hard to say, but she wasn’t the only one that kept quiet.” Amanda looked at Manny, waiting to see what he had to say.
“I already confessed!” Manny said throwing his hands up defensively.
“So you did, so you did.”
“So Bill’s Vietnam thing had nothing to do with it?”
“I’d like to think so. Anyway that’s what I tell myself, but dammit, we were all sick of that bloody war and I guess a little guilty we got pulled in and lost so much. But like I said, that prosecutor was sharp and I didn’t know it at the time, politically hungry. He was looking to his future and that trial was his spring board. You know they call him Senator now.”
“I know, I called him, but he won’t talk to me.”
“Does that surprise you?”
“No, nobody wants to take the blame.”
“What blame? Look, I can appreciate what you’re trying to do; right a terrible wrong. Maybe it needs to be done and I applaud you. Manny, people hate to be held accountable for things they did in the past, especially if they appeared to be right at the time. Christ we could all be permanently crippled by our guilt. Why are you so determined?”
“So it doesn’t happen again.”
“Oh, you have a son in the service, am I right?”
“Yeah, Donny, great kid. Cassey and I went to Kentucky to see him last summer and met many of his fellow soldiers. Hard to believe, but a quarter of them were girls. One was absolutely gorgeous. I would have never figured that. I mean, here’s a heart stopper and she’s running around in fatigues, playing soldier. I asked Donny how the guys treated her and he said, ‘Real careful, if you didn’t want your eyes gouged out.’ None of the guys could figure out how to put the hustle on her because she was so serious about the soldier thing. I’ll tell you, Donny and his friends are sharp, dedicated soldiers. I don’t want to see them abandoned if things get tough.”
“Those boys in Vietnam saw to that, Manny. We never thanked them because we didn’t appreciate their sacrifice until much later, but we will always remember. We know now that we cannot afford to throw away our fine young men and women. There’s a great big wall in Washington that sees to that. You know, our esteemed Senator fights every day for the troops.”
“Do you think he remembers how he helped destroy one?”
“Maybe that’s the reason he fights so hard for them now.”
“I sent a copy of the trial transcript to his office, I wonder if he’ll read it.”
“I’m not too sure how happy that will make him. If big black cars start appearing in your life, you’ll know he wasn’t tickled about being reminded.”
“Did he ever find out the truth; that Billy wasn’t guilty?”
“I brought it up one time, after I knew.”
“And?”
“And politicians have extremely thick hides.”
“When I mentioned the cannon incident, you laughed,” Amanda said. “I was away at school so I never did hear the real story. You know anything about it?”
“Oh, hell yeah, I was there. We were in our mad bomber stage, making bombs, cannons, that sort of thing, blowing stuff up. Andy’s next door neighbor, Bruce Little’s Dad, had that machine shop and Billy and Bruce got one of the guys at the shop to bore out a cannon so it would fire a big a
“Bruce and Andy brought the cannon to Bruce’s house, since his parents were away, and they made a wooden mount for it. Billy’s going, ‘Guys, this is not a residential thing. This is not good. Let’s take it out in the country, or something, etc.’ Billy wasn’t too keen on firing it in town. Andy couldn’t get the car because his sister was hogging it, and they wanted to shoot this thing off, really bad. So they put this monstrosity in the middle of Bruce’s back yard, poured a shit pot of black powder down the barrel, stuffed rags in, rolled the ball bearing in, rammed everything tight and pointed it at the garden shed next to the fence. We stacked plywood left over from a porch remodel, stored behind the shed, to fire the ball bearing into. We had four of these thick plywood sheets stacked next to each other.”
“Andy, Bruce, and I were all go on this thing, but Billy was still talking ‘No.’ Anyway, we light the fuse and run like hell around the side of the house, and it goes off. Kaaaboooomm! It shook the house. It shook houses for blocks around, busted nine windows total. We look around the house and the backyard is full of black smoke, I mean obscured, and the cannon’s gone, ripped right off the mount. It put a huge divot in Bruce’s backyard and knocked down a whole section of fence.”
“Andy is freaking out because he knows his mother is still home, and he’s just got off being grounded for some other shit. Billy and I go running to see how far the ball bearing went into the plywood. We pull one sheet after the other until they are all laying there with big ass, ragged holes through all of them. There’s a big hole in the side of the garden shed. We look inside the shed, and the mower in there has no handles, just two stubs, and the shed has a hole out the other side. We run out of the shed, and there is a big hole in the fence. Andy by this time has run home and Bruce is hiding, I don’t know where, so that leaves Billy and me.”
“Billy crawls between the shed and the fence and looks through the hole, and yells out, ‘Uh oh, it’s someplace inside Andy’s house.’ We figure it’s time for us to go too and we get the hell out of there. The cannon ball stopped in the back of the sofa in Andy’s living room. Andy’s mother just happened to be sitting on the sofa and got a bruised hip.”
“Andy deigned any connection to the affair, Bruce was toast cause all the evidence was there in his back yard, but the asshole that built it went to bat for the boss’s son and the whole thing landed squarely on Billy. It was the talk of the town for weeks. He was lucky Andy’s mother wasn’t hurt bad, and everyone was sort of laughing about it. So, it wasn’t too serious in every one’s head, but it cost Billy a pretty good chunk of change. He had to pay for everything. He worked that whole damn summer, just to pay it off”
“You got away with everything?” Amanda asked.
“At the time my parents were real strict, Billy’s weren’t, so he took the blame. Besides, he was the one that built it. I was clean except for going along with Andy and Bruce. I did pay for all the beer that Billy drank that summer though.”
Chapter 6
Manny was back in Carl Andrews office, standing over the desk. He had declined the offer to sit down.
“You dumb ass, the prosecutor made him admit to shooting at people and you never cleared the air. They weren't people, god damn-it, he was shooting at the enemy. Why didn’t you bring that up?”
“I didn’t think it was relevant.”
“How can you call yourself an attorney? You let him hang, dip shit!”
“He got himself into it! And don’t you come here talking to me like that! I will not stand for it! You hear me!”
“They were all lying, Carl! You talked to Marsha, she was there and she told you Bueler started it. So don’t bother trying to protect your integrity. Not with me, not now!”
“What about you Manny? You knew what happened, and you didn’t say anything.”
“I was not hired to defend him and I certainly didn’t take an oath to protect him. That would be you, Carl.”
“It was no big deal, the judge only gave him six months.”
“For something he didn’t do.”
“If he was so tough, he should have handled it. You know, life doesn’t always hand us a dream world.
“No, not all of us, that’s for sure. You and I got handed one though, and Billy Palmer, he got handed shit.”
“Gee, life sure sucks. Why are you doing this after all these years? You weren’t his biggest fan either, if I remember correctly.”
“No, no I wasn’t, and I’m damned ashamed of it now. Now we all trip over our dicks to salute our heroes, but we were damn quick to deny them even the slightest respect then.”
“They were different, our men and women are much better now.
“Oh, really! If as you say; the youth was all screwed up then, that includes all of us. You and I included, bozo. But that does make sense, considering the job you did for Billy!”
“Look Manny, darnit, I didn’t do the best job I could have, but I was young, and to tell you the truth I was never cut out for the court room. I didn’t hate Billy. He was a vet back from that horrible place, and we were so inundated with negative propaganda. I don’t need to explain or defend my opinion regarding the time. I think vastly different about what happened in Vietnam these days. Do you know, I’ve gone to the Wall three times. I’ve walked the paths up and down that horrible place more than once. I’ve stopped and read the names, many of the names, and believe me, it makes you think. I thought of Billy every time I was there. You ever been there Manny?”
“No, I’ve been in Washington, but never—”
“Go look at all the names,” cut in Carl, “and then we can discuss this again, fair enough? And Manny, sometimes I think about being tied up on Cassey’s porch. I kind of chuckle to myself and wish it could have been you.”
*
Manny decided to call Ed Wyscouski, the resident bully he had discussed with Cassey. Wyscouski had played golf with Billy after they had returned from the service. Back then Wyscouski had been learning the game and Billy was helping him.
“Hey Ed, Manny Anderson.”
“Manny, how the hell you doing? I imagine it must be getting good and miserable, about now?”
“You got it,” Manny replied.
Ed Wyscouski had not spent a winter in Red Pine in years.
“So, what’s on your mind? Going to take me up on the offer to spend some time down here this winter?”
“I might just do that Ed, but the reason I called is; I just attended Billy Palmer’s funeral.
Wyscouski was quiet for a moment. “Damn, I hadn’t heard. I’m sorry to hear that. He was a good guy and then he just disappeared. What the heck happened to him?”
“I don’t know, that’s what I’m trying to find out?”
“Now? It’s a little late Manny my friend, and don’t go blaming Vietnam, Palmer came back just fine.”
“I know, I know, but I just can’t get it out of my mind that we might have been a little responsible.”
“Oh, don’t let it get you down, Manny, of course you were responsible. You were just too immature, then. Too immature to appreciate the tough, necessary job someone else was taking care of for you.”
“Thanks Wyscouski, is that supposed to help me feel better?”
“Manny, you don’t want to feel better. If you did, you wouldn’t have called. Manny, what you’re concerned about has been happening forever and always will. It’s called a guilt trip.”
“I know that, but—”
“But what?” Wyscouski interrupted. “Get off your dead ass, find out what Billy was all about, and then you can feel better about yourself. Let me know what you find.”
*
Manny and Cassey were sitting together, cuddling and watching the fireplace crackle and pop.
“
“Oh, I went tearing in there, told him off good.”
“And?”
“And, he pulled some lawyer shit on me.”
“Really Sherlock, that’s what they get paid for, you know.”
“Yeah, he nailed me good, made me look bad. You want to meet me in Washington?”
“To do what?”
“I want to go see the Vietnam Memorial.”
“What brought that on? We’ve been there a couple of times, and you never—”
“Andrews stuck it to me. I made a big spiel about his duty to Billy, and he asked me if I had ever been to the Wall. Turns out he has, more than once, and I get the feeling he shed a tear or two, and now I need to go.”
“I thought you were headed to New York to see the publisher buddy of Billy’s?”
“On the way back, I’ll just be stopping in D. C. for the day.”
“Well, I’ll pass, you don’t want me sobbing at some dreary monument. You know how I get, but thanks for asking.”
Chapter 7
“Thank you for seeing me Mark,” Manny said, shaking hands with Mark Tainer, Billy’s ex-partner. “It appears that you are a very busy man, so I won’t take up much of your time.”
“No problem, Manny.” Mark pointed to a big chair off to the side of his desk. “I can always take some time out to chat about old and dear friends. It was a shock to hear that Billy Palmer was gone. Bill and I were very close, we went through some interesting times together. We operated as a two man team, back then; where our very existence depended on our actions coordinating.”
“When was the last time you talked to Billy?”
“Oh boy, let me think? Damn, it must be twenty-five years now. He came to see me just after I got married.”
“You didn’t stay in touch?”
“Well, Manny, I have a confession to make. My first wife was not too pleased to have an old Marine buddy show up. She was very demanding and any attention that went somewhere else was not appreciated by her highness. Billy was very uncomfortable, and I was very much in love, so the reunion wasn’t a big success. I stayed married to that particular lady for twelve years and by the time I got clear, Billy was long lost, I’m afraid.”
“Yeah, I can understand,” Manny returned. “I was really close to Billy once, and a woman came between us too.”