“No, who's he play for?”
I laugh so loudly that it rattles through the corridors. Willie knows damn well who Clarence Thomas is, he's been reading up on everything about his case, including who might someday be ruling on it.
As if satisfied that he got me laughing, he gets right to the point. It's a point we've gone over before.
“We gonna get the new trial?”
“The Court of Appeals ruling should come down at any time.”
“We gonna win?”
“I think so,” I say. “But even if we get it, we're still in deep shit.”
“I'll just lose again?” he asks.
I pretend to be puzzled. “Lose? Did somebody say ‘lose'? I know I've heard that word, I'm just not familiar with it.”
“Make sure it stays that way.”
The specifics of Willie's case really haven't come up between us, since all I've had to concern myself with is the technical aspect of the appeal. We're pursuing a number of arguments, but our best one is the fact that one of the jurors on Willie's case openly lied in concealing the fact that her brother was a cop. More significantly, that brother had been killed in the line of duty six months earlier. That does not tend to make one friendly to the accused.
But if we get a new trial, we're going to have to move quickly. I decide to put my toe in the water, mainly because there's not much else to talk about. “You know, you're going to have to help me more than you helped your last lawyer.”
His antennae are up. “What the hell does that mean? I got nothing more to tell you than I told him.”
“That's because I haven't started my subtle, probing questioning yet.”
“Why don't you just ask your father? He was damn sure he knew everything that happened that night.”
It is not exactly unprecedented for a death row inmate to hold a grudge against the prosecutor that put him there, and Willie has been open about his hatred for my father. Because of those feelings, it took longer than usual for Willie and me to establish a mutual trust.
He obviously has not heard about recent events, and I see no reason to conceal them. “My father died last week.”
Willie's face reflects his feelings, or lack of feelings, at hearing this news. No guilt, no triumph, no nothing. “I'm sorry for you, man,” is what he says.
I nod my thanks. “Are you ready?”
“Ready.”
“Okay,” I say. “Let's start with an easy one. Did you kill her?”
I almost never ask this question, since if the client says yes, I am then prohibited from allowing him to say no at trial. It's called suborning perjury. The reason I ask is because I know what his answer is going to be. That doesn't make it any easier to hear.
“I don't have the slightest fucking idea.”
It goes downhill from there. Willie was totally drunk that night, with no memory of anything that happened. But he had never committed a violent act in his life, except for a few street fights. He wouldn't, couldn't, murder a woman.
We don't get very far, which right now is not a big problem, since we don't even know if we'll ever get another trial. The only fact that the conversation reaffirms in my mind is that Willie is never going to testify in any trial in which I am his lawyer. The “I was too drunk to remember if I did it” defense isn't generally a winner.
After twenty more minutes of getting nowhere, I head home, where I find Nicole preparing dinner. This is in itself a rare event; Nicole can make three types of food, the best of which is a tuna fish sandwich. But here she is making spaghetti, which means she's trying to “change,” which means I'm going to get stuck eating some really terrible spaghetti.
Outside the kitchen, things seem to be going reasonably well between us. We're both aware that we're testing the waters, which doesn't make for spontaneity, but I agree with her assessment that we're making progress. We haven't had sex yet, which shows how limited that progress has been, but I think we might be getting there.
If we had no history together, I'm not sure that we would fall madly in love. But we do have a history, and I'm just not ready to abandon it. I haven't mentioned this to Laurie yet, and I tell myself it's because I haven't seen her. I also tell myself that I don't owe her anything, that we have no commitment to each other, but I can't quite get myself to stop feeling like a shithead.
THE NEXT MORNINGI HAVE TO STOP AT Roger Sandberg's office. Roger is known as “the attorney's attorney,” and for years he has personally represented many of the top lawyers in the area. He and my father had been close friends for twenty years, and my father trusted Roger with his life. Since he doesn't have his life anymore, here I am.
The purpose of this visit is to go over matters of the estate and learn the terms of my father's will. I arrive ten minutes early and start reading one of the ancient magazines from the rack in the waiting room. For some reason, every doctor's, dentist's, or lawyer's office I am ever in only has magazines more than four months old. Where do the magazines go when they first arrive? Is there a publication purgatory that they are required to inhabit until their information is no longer timely?
I pick up the current one in the office, a six-month-old Forbes. It predicts that the stock market will go up, a prediction which has turned out to be wrong. I'm glad I didn't read it six months ago.
The door to Roger's office opens and he comes out to greet me. Roger is a very distinguished-looking man, with a kind smile and smooth manner. He is the definition of “unruffled,” a neat trick to have pulled off since he's been married five times. I've had only one troubled marriage, and I am thoroughly ruffled.
“Sorry to keep you waiting, Andy.”
Roger shakes my hand and then hugs me, just like he hugged me at the funeral. I'm not a big hug fan, but I hug him back.
“No problem.”
We exchange pleasantries about his wife and children, all of whom I vaguely know, and he inquires about my practice. I talk briefly about it, at which point his eyes start to glaze over. Criminal law is not Roger's thing.
We go into his office and he suggests that I sit on the couch. He goes to his desk and starts to gather the paperwork he is going to show me. He handles legal papers like a Las Vegas dealer handles cards … smooth, with no wasted motion.
“Roger, before we start, there's something I want to ask you. Did my father ever mention knowing Victor Markham?”
He seems surprised by the question. “Of course, don't you remember? He prosecuted that murder a few years ago … when the young woman was murdered in that bar. I believe the victim was Markham's son's girlfriend.”
“I know. I'm handling the appeal.”
“Really? Did your father know that?”
I nod. “Definitely. He encouraged it.”
“Anyway, as far as I know, that's how Nelson knew Victor Markham,” he says.
“I was talking about much earlier. Almost forty years ago. I'm pretty sure he was one of the people in a picture I found up in the attic. Dad was in the picture as well.”
“He never mentioned it to me. But there was apparently a great deal about your father that I didn't know.”
Roger has just lit a fuse; and all I can do is wait for it to reach the dynamite and explode. He doesn't make a comment like that unless he has something significant to tell me. I get a strong feeling that I'm not going to like it. I know for sure that I'm dreading it, so I take a breath so deep it sucks most of the air out of the room.
“What do you mean by that?”
He looks me right in the eye. “I was very surprised by the amount of money in your father's estate. Very surprised.”
It's exhaling time; I'm relieved to hear that it's about money. I'm comfortable enough, and I really have no need to live off an inheritance. But I'm still surprised.