A/N This is feeding my own addiction to the Life Tv series, I know, but I can't help it. An important note. The misspelling of Crews name in this chapter is deliberate and serves a purpose.
Disclaimer: I don't own the TV series Life, Charlie Crews, Constance or any of the characters there-in. This story is purely for entertainment. Please don't sue me.
Chapter 1
December 24, 2002
Last minute Christmas shoppers made Los Angeles traffic even more horrific than usual and it was nearly one in the afternoon before Constance Griffiths got back to her firm's building. She wearily rubbed her temple with one hand to soothe her headache a little more as she waited for the elevator to reach her floor. A quiet ding sounded, and the doors whisked open.
Lowering her hand, Connie exited the elevator and headed down the long and empty hallway toward her office. The majority of the other lawyers in her firm had let their staff go home at lunch to prepare for Christmas Eve, so the floor was unusually quiet. It was with some surprise that she turned the corner and noticed her personal secretary Edith sitting at her desk.
Connie smiled fondly at the grey-haired woman and said, "Now Edith, I know you had wanted to get the paperwork finished on the Grey case, but I really did mean it when I said you could go home at noon to be with your family."
Edith rose to her feet, her round face amused. "It's quite alright, Constance. While I'd like to claim that the reason I stayed late was due to my dedication to my job, the truth is I'm still here because your one o'clock appointment showed up. He's actually been here since just before noon," the secretary informed her apologetically. "I tried calling your cell but it kept taking me to your voicemail…"
Grimacing, Connie reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone. She'd forgotten she had turned it off. "Walter's been calling me every five minutes since ten this morning. I wanted a little quiet time and just shut off the phone during lunch. I'm sorry, Edith, I really didn't think he'd show or I'd have eaten lunch in the office."
Edith waved a hand dismissively, "Posh, neither of us thought he'd come, not on Christmas Eve. You'd think he'd want to be home with his family like everyone else. That husband of yours is even worse than my Albert. Anyway I didn't feel right just leaving him in there and leaving to go home, not with the office being so empty."
The brunette lawyer looked toward her office and back at Edith. "Has he just been sitting there this whole time then?"
"Yes, more or less. I offered him some coffee but he declined." A hint of confusion touched Edith's face and she confided, "He said he came so early because he wanted to get this over with as quickly as possible… He's been standing in front of the window looking out at the city this entire time."
"Thank you, Edith. Now you get home to Albert," Connie ordered with a grin. "I'm sure I'll be fine with Mr…"
"Cruise," Edith supplied the name. "William Cruise. Like the actor Tom Cruise."
Connie nodded, straightening slightly and composing her features to a less casual and more professional look before she opened the door to her office and walked in. "Mr. Cruise?" The man standing in front of the window slowly turned to face her as she approached and offered him her hand.
William Cruise was a tall man who appeared to be in his late fifties to early sixties. He was handsome, but not classically so. His dark auburn hair was shot through with varying shades of silver and white. It was his green eyes that immediately caught her attention though. They brimmed with pain and loss.
He was slow to respond to her greeting but finally shook her hand and released it. "Mrs. Griffiths," he returned quietly.
She apologized sincerely, "I apologize for the length of your wait. I had to leave the office for a few last minute errands and was held up for longer than I expected." Connie walked over to her desk and gestured toward the large leather chairs in front of it, "Please, have a seat."
Wordlessly, the older gentleman followed her, settling into one of the chairs. He held a thickly packed large manila envelope in one hand and rested it on his thigh as he watched her sit down as well.
"Now then," she said, resting her elbows on her desk and leaning forward to give him an attentive look. "What is it that I can help you with today?"
Cruise was silent for a long moment and merely sat there, studying her from across the desk. When he did speak, it wasn't to give an explanation, but to ask a question. "Do you have any children?"
She stiffened at the personal question but maintained her professional demeanor. "I'm sorry, but I…."
He interrupted her before she could protest, turning his head to look out the window as he spoke. "Over the past eight years, I've come to a conclusion… that there are two kinds of parents in this world."
"Mr. Cruise, if you'll just…" Connie began.
"Please, Ms. Griffiths… let me finish," he said, turning those sorrowful green eyes on her. "I promise you, it will explain the reasoning behind my asking that question if you let me explain."
Connie hesitated and then nodded. All clients explained why they needed her services as an attorney in different ways. William Cruise's method was just more unorthodox than she was used to. "Alright, go on, then."
"Let's say that a child has been accused of throwing a rock and breaking a window," Mr. Cruise continued. "No one saw the boy throw the rock, but he is standing just outside the house with the broken window. He's got rocks in his hand, so who else could it be? There are some parents who would believe their child every single time when he said, 'No, I didn't throw that rock and I don't know who did.' These are the parents who believe their child would never lie to them despite what others tell them to the contrary, and will always believe that unless they actually had witnessed their child throw the rock. Do you know the kind of parents I am talking about?" he asked.
Connie considered that question for a brief instant before replying with a simple, "Yes." She sensed there was more to come.
"Then on the other hand, there are the parents who want to believe their child, but there comes a point at which they believe what others say over the word of their child. They reach a point where they believe, for whatever reason, be it to save themselves or to stay out of trouble or what not, that their child is really lying. And has lied all along." His eyes were distant and even though he was looking in her direction, Connie sensed that he did not see her at all, but was focused on another time and another place. A sad smile twisted his face as he focused on the here and now and stared at her. "Which kind of parent are you?"
Connie paused, straightening in her chair before she answered, "Neither, I suppose. I don't have any children."
Her response must have satisfied William Cruise, because he nodded once and put the heavy envelope on her desk. "My wife Kathleen was the first type," he explained hoarsely, his face filling with grief. "I'm the second." Abruptly, he stood up.
She stared at the packet for a moment and looked up, suddenly realizing that the man was already heading toward the door as though preparing to leave. "Mr. Cruise?" Connie jumped to her feet as well and hurried after him. "Mr. Cruise, please, if you want me to take you on as a client, I'll need a lot more information from you…"
Cruise was shaking head, but stopped. "I don't need you as my lawyer." He drew in a deep breath, resting his hand on the doorknob and turned to face her. "Ms. Griffiths, seven years ago, my son was convicted of a triple homicide. My wife went to her grave absolutely adamant in her belief that our son was innocent, no matter what anyone else, including me, said to her. On the other hand, I happen to believe in our justice system. I believe that he would never have been convicted if he'd really been innocent."
"Mr. Cruise," Connie stared up at the man, a frown marring her face, "The United States justice system is one of the best in the world, but even so there have been cases in recent years where people have been wrongfully convicted of capital crimes like murder…"
"How many?" he immediately demanded.
"I'd have to look it up for an accurate number," Connie admitted after a slight pause. "It's very unusual but it can and does happen."
"If he were really innocent, someone would have said something," William stated firmly. "His partner, his lieutenant… someone would have spoken up. If even one of them had said he was innocent, he wouldn't have been convicted. But no one did, because everyone knew he was guilty."
Partner? Lieutenant? Connie wondered silently.
"After his conviction and sentence, I wouldn't let Kathleen see him in prison." He closed his eyes tightly and shook his head. "I should have let her go, but… I just didn't want…" William's voice trailed off and he turned his head away from her, but she could still see the barest hint of moisture around his eyes. His voice was rough as he regained control of his emotions, "She fought me the only way she could, by hiding money away in our house without my knowledge, putting it aside to hire a new lawyer to help appeal his sentence and get the case reopened. I didn't find out about it until I saw her will. She'd kept it hidden… I didn't even know she'd changed it."
"I'm sorry," Connie murmured sincerely, knowing there wasn't really anything more she could say. "When did she pass away?"
William lifted his hand away from the doorknob, wiping the tears from his eyes. "Last Wednesday. She just… died in her sleep. Her heart gave out." A choked sob emerged from his throat and he smiled bitterly. "I guess you could say she died of a broken heart, because I wouldn't let her see our son."
She bit her lip, turning her face away from those grief-stricken green eyes for a moment before looking back up at him. "I'll take a look at what you brought me and we can talk about it some more after I've had some time to review the case," she said quietly.
"Ms. Griffiths," Cruise said, squaring his shoulders as he met her eyes, "I don't really want to talk about my son's case with you. I brought you that envelope and what little money Kathleen had saved up to pay you because that's was her last request and because I'm going to abide by that regardless of whether or not I agree with it. I don't know how much you bill per hour, but I doubt that the check will last for very long, and I won't be needing your services after the money is gone."
Connie was a lawyer, and lawyers who didn't know the right thing to say all the time usually ended up chasing ambulances for their cases. But none the less she found herself completely at a loss for words after hearing that. Luckily she was saved from having to respond at all, because William Cruise had already opened the door to her office and left. She watched his tall form disappear down the hall and turn the corner toward the elevators.
The thick manila envelope lay on the edge of her desk where Cruise had left it. Connie picked it up, hefting in her hands for a thoughtful moment before opening it up and gently shaking out the contents to her desk.
The first thing she saw was a wallet sized photograph of a red-headed boy dressed in a Little League baseball uniform paperclipped to a check written out in the sum of nearly eight thousand dollars. She studied the photo of the boy with the gap-toothed smile and flipped it over, lifting the check out of the way to read the back. Printed neatly on the back were the words, "Charlie Crews, 7 years old, 1981." The man's name had been William Crews, not William Cruise, like the actor. When Edith had made the note in the appointment book, she had spelled the name wrong.
Connie lowered the picture and used a hand to flip through the numerous newspaper clippings and articles about one of Los Angeles most infamous convicted felons, each one cut out and saved by his mother, who had believed in her son's innocence right up until her death less than a week prior. The clippings had been painstakingly organized in chronological order, starting with from the headline news and sensationalized murder of the Seybolt family to the arrest, trial, conviction and sentencing of Charlie Crews.
She sank down into the leather chair that William Crews had so recently vacated and stared in silence at the scattered pile of clippings for a long moment before picking up the Little League picture again and pulling it away from the check. This was the Charlie Crews that Kathleen Crews had believed in, no matter what anyone else said, this innocent boy with missing teeth and an engagingly crooked grin. What had happened to turn this child into a man heartless enough to kill a family of three?
Connie stood, walking around her desk to sit back down in her large office chair and rested the small photograph of young Charlie Crews in the only picture frame she had on her desk. It held a snapshot of her and Walter from two years earlier, both of them smiling and happy during a vacation spent in Monterey, her standing behind and above him with her arms wrapped loosely around her husbands shoulders. They hadn't been on vacation together since. She frowned and tried unsuccessfully to shift the picture of Charlie Crews around so that the image didn't completely cover up Walter's face, but the frame was just too small.
Giving a mental shrug of failure, Connie pulled the neatly organized stack of articles toward her. It didn't really matter that the little picture covered up Walter's face, as it would only be there long enough for her to read through all of these articles with a fresh perspective anyway. She just wanted to keep that innocent boyhood image that Kathleen Crews so obviously clung to fresh in her mind as she leaned back and started to read.
December 29, 2002
Five days later when Connie was recording her fees and billing for the previous week, the picture was still there. She scowled at it. Who knew what would make such an innocent looking kid turn into such a cold-blooded murderer? It had taken her the better part of the night to read her way through all the articles and clippings, Walter had not exactly been pleased by her decision to work so late on Christmas Eve.
Sighing, she rested her chin on her hand and contemplated the check. The check itself may have been written out by William Crews, but was the monetary sum of Kathleen's belief in her son's innocence. If she billed this using her usual hourly fee, more than one third of the money would have been used up just from reading the articles from the manila envelope.
As far as getting Charlie Crews conviction overturned, the chances of that happening were slim and none. The physical evidence could potentially be construed as circumstantial. Charlie's fingerprints were found in the house, but then again, he had supposedly been friends with the Seybolt family. If he went over there to visit at all he'd leave fingerprints behind. Explaining how those fingerprints got on the kitchen knife that killed Paula Seybolt was a little more difficult. The woman had fought with her attacker and apparently stabbed him. Crews' blood type was a match for the blood on the knife, and he had defensive cuts on his hands.
No DNA testing had been done on the blood and that was a little bit of a surprise, but then again, DNA testing and use in criminal cases had been fairly new in 1994 when the murders occurred.
Crews had a motive for murdering Tom Seybolt as well. The two men had owned a bar together, and Tom had been skimming money from the bar's profits.
For Connie, the thing that did the most to cement Crews' guilt was the fact that none of the police officers backed up his story about getting the cuts on his hand during a previous arrest, not even his own partner, Robert Starks. She'd been a lawyer long enough to know the unwritten tenet of 'backing up your partner, no matter what' among cops. Not a single police officer spoke on Crews' behalf and that more than anything else indicated his guilt. She suspected William Crews had been right. If a single officer, especially Bobby Starks, had supported Charlie Crews, he wouldn't have served a day in jail, even if he had committed the crimes.
Add to that the fact that neither Crews' own father nor wife had believed in his innocence, and … well it just added up. And not in Charlie Crews favor.
Sighing impatiently, Connie opened up the file drawer on her desk. After she located the newly created file labeled "Crews" in there, she pulled it out to flip through one last time before returning it to William Crews, assuming the man even wanted it back. One of smaller clippings slid out and drifted to the ground.
She set the folder down on her desk and bent to pick it up, giving it a cursory glance. It was a small blurb about Crews' transfer from the LA county jail to Pelican Bay State Penitentiary. The article's author had noted dryly, "An ex-police officer serving out a life sentence in Pelican Bay is akin to dropping a three-legged cat into wire pen filled with a pack of starving dogs."
Though the comment was fairly unprofessional in her opinion, it was also probably a very accurate comparison. She couldn't imagine what it would be like for a cop to spend time in a prison like Pelican Bay. There was nothing that a convict hated more than cops. Then again, maybe it was Crews just deserts for killing that family.
Connie studied the slip of paper for a moment longer before stuffing it back into the folder with the other papers. Impulsively, she picked up her cell phone, sorting through the contact list until she found the number she was looking for.
The phone rang three times before being answered.
"Hello?"
A smile appeared on Connie's face at the familiar voice. "Belated Merry Christmas, Amy… I bet you can't guess who this is," she greeted the other person teasingly.
Amy laughed cheerfully from the other end, "Oh I don't know… I suspect that it's someone who promised me about six months ago that she'd call to arrange time for a girl's night out. I knew that was just crazy talk though. How you doin', Connie?"
"Fine, fine," she replied, still smiling. "I hope I didn't catch you at a bad time, did I? Are you at work?"
"Actually," Amy replied, "You caught me at just about the best time possible. I just finished up my shift and actually I'm sitting here in the hospital break in front of my locker. Why, what's up?"
Connie paused, her gaze flickering over to the Little League picture of Charlie Crews. "Actually, I kind of have an ulterior motive for calling, I confess…"
Another outburst of laughter came through the phone. "I should have known," Amy said drily. "What do you need?"
"I need some information," she responded frankly. "I know you haven't worked as a nurse in Pelican Bay for more than a year, but I've been approached about taking on a new client that's there serving out a life sentence, and I wanted to know if you've ever encountered him, what your general impressions of him were. Basically I want to know am I wasting my time by even looking at his case file. That kind of thing."
There was a metallic clank in the background as Amy apparently closed her locker before responding lightly, "Well I might have heard of him, it depends on how notorious he is. If he had to go to the prison infirmary for any reason, I almost certainly would have at least seen him around. What's his name?"
"Charlie Crews."
There was such a long period of silence that Connie wondered if the phone connection had been broken. "Amy? You there?"
There was no hint of humor in her friend's voice when Amy finally spoke. "Would you mind repeating that?"
Speaking in a slightly louder voice, Connie repeated herself. "I said that I was considering taking Charlie Crews on as a client. You know, the cop that got sentenced to life in prison back in 1994. Remember, 1994? Look I know we put in our share of drinking during our sophomore year together at Columbia University but even you should recognize that…."
Amy interrupted her with a low hissing sound before whispering roughly, as though she didn't want anyone around overhearing, "Constance, trust me when I say this… that is trouble you don't want or need." There was a quiet breath of sound as her friend exhaled into the receiver, and continued, "Look I'm willing to talk with you about him but… I can't talk about this right now. Not here, anyway. You remember where we met for lunch the last time I saw you?"
A brief laugh escaped Connie. "How could I forget? We ate loaded hot dogs down at Zuma Beach." She had no idea what had her friend acting so paranoid all of a sudden.
"Meet me there in an hour," Amy ordered and immediately severed the connection.
"I… Hello? Amy? Hello?" Connie stared at the phone in disbelief. What on earth had just happened?