If nothing else, Medlow was as good as his word. If he said a few minutes, then that’s all it would take.
This morning he wore a tan silk suit, his sun-bleached hair complementing the suit very well. His slender body and tortoiseshell spectacles gave him a dramatically earnest look. Local juries seemed to love his carefully contrived appearance. He was the most successful trial lawyer in the county and he’d turned thirty only last month.
“The coffee’s improving around here,” he said, setting his cup down on her desk.
She smiled. “You sound like a restaurant critic.”
“Four-star coffee at the DA’s office. That’d be a pretty interesting headline, don’t you think?”
He sat down, set his briefcase next to his chair, then leaned forward, picked up his coffee cup, and took a long sip.
“It really is good,” he said.
“We’re thinking of opening up a lunch counter.”
“Who would think that behind such a sweet face would lurk such a smart-ass? I certainly wouldn’t.”
She laughed. She actually liked Medlow. She’d never been involved in a Medlow trial and she wasn’t necessarily looking forward to it.
“You’ve sure got the gift of gab, as my Irish aunt used to say, Bob.”
“Well, if I didn’t, I sure wouldn’t be winning all those cases.” He laughed. “My modesty is becoming, isn’t it?”
He leaned forward, ever the dramatic actor, and said in little more than a stage whisper, “Do you see what I have here?”
She saw a plain manila file folder.
“If I guess correctly, do I win a refrigerator?”
“No. But if you guess correctly, you’ll save the taxpayers a whole lot of money. And give a good, honest policeman back his good name.”
“I knew this was going to be about Steve Arnette.”
“He’s a good man, Amy.”
“No he isn’t, and you know it. He’s a bully and a sadist and there’s no way he should be a cop.”
“You’re pretty cynical for your age, young lady.” He smiled as he spoke, but she paid more attention to his eyes than his words. He looked as if he were preparing to say something pretty dramatic. “Let me make this clear, Amy. I am in no way calling your brother Richie a liar.”
“That’s nice of you, Bob.”
“What I am saying, and what I’ve said from the beginning, is that Richie was very drunk that night and doesn’t remember how things happened.”
“And your client Steve Arnette is of course giving us the one true account of the evening?”
“No, and as you well know, we don’t have to rely just on Steve’s version of things.”
“His partner, Haymes?”
“His partner, Dutch Haymes. Twelve years on the force. Father of five. Good, devout Lutheran. He was there, too, and he goes along with Steve’s version of the altercation.”
What had happened was all pretty simple. Outside a local nightspot three months ago, Richie had been staggering across the parking lot when Arnette and Haymes pulled in. Arnette and Haymes said they wanted to give Richie a sobriety test. But somehow, a few minutes later, the three of them ended up behind the building in the alley. No witnesses. Richie got his nose and two ribs broken. Arnette and Haymes swore that Richie resisted arrest and swung at both of them. They didn’t, they insisted, have any choice but to use force.
Amy suspected that Sam knew Richie was telling the truth when he said that the two cops had simply attacked him.
But with no witness, how could he go against his own men?
So Sam bought the company line. Amy went ahead and took Richie’s deposition and started the process of bringing charges. Arnette hired Bob Medlow to defend him. A lot of her former supporters now disliked Amy. They felt she was using her office to protect her brother.
Things got so heated between Amy and Sam that Amy broke off their informal engagement. She hadn’t seen him for a long time, not until last night.
Bob Medlow said, “I hear you were at the barn dance last night.”
“So that’s what this is about.”
“Can this be? Is the lady clairvoyant?”
“In this case, I think I am clairvoyant. You heard that Sam and I were together for a while last night, so now you’re thinking that I’m going to drop the charges.”
“You are clairvoyant.”
“I’m not.”
He looked genuinely dismayed. The playfulness was gone from his voice. “You’re really going on with this bullshit, Amy?” Then, “I’m sorry. That was very unprofessional.” He leaned forward again, with his usual urgency and drama. “You know what the boys and girls in Des Moines are saying about you, Amy. That you’ve got a great political career ahead of you — if you handle things right. Defending your brother like this, especially with his reputation — it looks bad, Amy.”
“I know how it looks, Bob.”
“And most people in town — well, frankly, they believe Arnette and Haymes.” He made a sad face. “I’m sure that hurts your feelings, but it’s the truth.” Then: “Richie doesn’t always tell the truth, Amy. I mean, let’s put that on the table, too.”
Richie did tell lies, no doubt about it. When he was twelve years old, he accidentally burned down the family garage. He made up a story about seeing a hobo fleeing the fiery scene.
When he was sixteen, he got angry at his girlfriend and smashed all the windows in the car he was using — which just happened to be his sister’s. Richie insisted that a rival football team, angry over losing to Richie and his friends, had done the damage.
And then when he was nineteen, he was accused in a paternity suit. He denied ever sleeping with the girl. A lie detector and a blood test said otherwise.
There were many, many other lies, too, of course. Richie was just one of those people who seemed to prefer lies to truth, and she was skeptical about many of his claims to innocence.
But the incident with Arnette and Haymes was different.
Amy said, “Have you looked into your client’s history?”
“I have.”
“Then you’ve seen that eighteen citizens over a ten-year period have filed brutality reports against him.”
“And the Chief,” Medlow said, “cleared him of all but one of those charges.”
“Yes, and that one, poor Arnette was suspended for three days — with pay — while Mike Forbes still limps around today because of how Arnette injured him.”
He leaned back, making a big display of ruminating, elbows on the arms of the chair, fingers steepled in front of his mouth, a contemplative look in his brown eyes.
“I’ll tell you what.”
She smiled. “Whenever you say that, Bob, I know you’re going to offer me one hell of a deal.”
He smiled back. “You know me too well.”
“And actually I like you. But don’t ask me why.”
“Probably because I’m cute.”
“Probably.”
He got dramatic about being contemplative. He started making faces, weary faces, as if the weight of the cosmos were on his shoulders. Amy wondered if he’d minored in drama.
“I’ll tell you what, Amy.”
“This should be good.”
“Let’s just say that we quietly agree that neither of our clients is exactly an angel. Would you go that far?”
“I’d go that far.”
“That’s step one. Step two is admitting, again in a very quiet way, that neither of our clients is known to tell the truth very often.”
“Richie isn’t psychotic or sociopathic, if that’s what you’re implying.”
“I hate those five-dollar words. Too damned clinical. Let’s just say that both of our clients are bullshit artists of the first tier and let it go at that.”