I raised my eyebrows. I had to admit I was impressed. “You must be good.”
“I like to think I have a fair amount of talent,” he said modestly. “A few colleges asked me to teach some classes, and I was really interested in that.” He paused. “I probably should have, too, to share some of the blessings that came my way.”
“But?”
“I’d have had to leave Mother.”
I stared. “What are we talking about here, an hour or two a few times a week?”
“Four hours every Tuesday and Thursday for the college near our house.”
“So?”
“Once I started making money, Mom finally retired early. Her ankles were starting to swell when she stood too long, and she had arthritis, but she was always sort of at loose ends around the house. Every time I left to go somewhere, she’d start some big project that she really shouldn’t be doing.”
“Hold on a second here. If your mom was that old, you couldn’t be any spring chicken. Had you ever met anyone of the female persuasion in all this time? You know, a girl?”
“There was this one girl in my oils class. Pretty in a soft way. Quiet. A sculptress.”
“And?” I could almost guess the rest.
“Mother was so excited, she could hardly stand it. She talked about marriage and grandchildren. She loved Dulcy, thought she’d make me a wonderful wife.”
Hell and damnation. That blew that theory. I’d begun to peg the old bat as one of those clinging-vine types who wouldn’t want to share her little boy with anyone else, including a wife.
“So what happened?” I was past trying to make sense of this sorry tale. I’d listen to the whole spiel and pray for a miracle. Not that I put much faith in them, even up here.
“It fell through. Dulcy was nice and all, but nobody could really compare to my mother. Nobody.”
“Was your mom disappointed? Did she nag at you, make you feel like a worm?” Every man can relate to that, right?
“She was disappointed, sure, but she tried to hide it as well as she could. She always tried to let me live my own life, make my own decisions.”
I was getting pretty sick of how wonderful this old broad was. I didn’t think I could stomach too much more of it.
“All right, already, I’ve heard your whole life story, and you still haven’t told me why you snapped and killed the old saint. Just tell me what happened the day you wrapped your fingers around her throat and did her in.”
He took a deep breath. “It all started when she slipped in the bathtub and broke her hip.”
“Yeah?”
“After that, she couldn’t get around without a walker. I tried to do everything I could to make things easier for her. I’d get up and make her breakfast and carry it into her room for her, but I never made it quite the way she did. And every single time she’d tell me that if I’d just cook the eggs a little longer, they wouldn’t be so runny, or if I’d only butter the toast right away, the butter would melt better. I tried doing the housework, but I never got all the dirt out of the corners like she did, or else I’d use the wrong product to mop the floors. When I did the laundry, the clothes were never as soft as when she did them, and the whites were never as bright.”
We were finally getting somewhere. As he talked, his voice grew tighter and tighter. I started to scribble in my notepad. We were reaching the climax of my client’s story. Soon I’d know the truth. “Until?” I prompted.
“I was working in my studio, and I heard this crash. I ran downstairs, and there was my mom, lying on the kitchen floor, her walker tipped over beside her.”
“And?”
“She’d been trying to clean the top of the stove.”
I raised a brow and waited.
The words came out as an angry hiss. “I’d already cleaned it after lunch. I knew how Mother couldn’t tolerate any clutter or mess, but I’d left streaks, she said. Streaks. So she’d hobbled over to do it herself. To do it right, she told me. And she’d fallen. And it was all my fault because if I’d done it right in the first place, she wouldn’t have had to do it — but it wasn’t really my fault, she explained, because after all, I’d done the best I could. How could I be blamed if I didn’t know any better?”
I nodded my head. I could hear his frustration.
“I was a grown man, fifty-four years old, and I still couldn’t do anything that pleased my mother. And believe me, I’d tried.”
I’d always suspected that it was almost impossible to please a broad. Listening to Winslow only confirmed what I’d already guessed, that when my wife left me after a couple of years of marriage down on Earth she’d been as much to blame as me. All that whining about how I never thought of anyone but myself was just that — whining.
“Anyway,” he said, “all of a sudden I was so angry I could hardly breathe. I couldn’t believe my mother had risked her neck trying to clean a damn stovetop just so she could show me that she did it better. And I knew. If I was ever going to be truly happy, I had to get away from her, but I couldn’t leave her. She’d be brokenhearted. She’d never understand. So I did the only other thing I could think of at the moment. I wrapped my hands around her neck and wrung the life out of her.”
I grinned. “I understand, and I think we have a case.”
“How could we? I killed my mother.”
“Trust me,” I said. “It’s worth a shot.” And I led him toward the Scales.
We approached the bench with deference. The high cloudbank and brilliant lighting are guaranteed to knock the socks off every newcomer, and even after all these decades, the jury box filled with angels still sort of makes my knees shake.
“Winslow Morton is a good man,” I explained as he stepped before the Judge. “You already know that, or he wouldn’t be here. And his mother was a good woman. I’m not trying to belittle her in any way. As a matter of fact, that was part of the problem. She was too good, almost perfect. And that’s why Winslow had to kill her. He felt he could never measure up. She was driving him crazy, so in a way it was actually self-defense. She was killing him with kindness, and if he was ever going to feel good about himself and live a happy life, he had to get rid of her.”
The Judge leaned forward, resting His elbows on the bench. “No quick deals this time, Harry? Or trick pleas?”
“My client loved his mother, Sir. He’d have never done anything to hurt her. He was only trying to save himself.”
“For the first time, Harry, you truly listened to your client and understood him. You’re beginning to learn.”
Learn? What was He talking about? Didn’t I do the best I could for each client I brought before Him?
“Yes, you do,” He told me, reading my mind.
I hate it when He does that.
“But your methods leave something to be desired,” He said. “And let’s be honest, Harry. Your heart hasn’t really been in it. You were trying to better yourself, not your clients.”
Winslow looked at me, frowning. What did he know about anything? He was just a fresh-faced rube straight from the morgue.
“Don’t worry, Mr. Morton,” the Judge assured him. “Harry might not be the best person, but he’s a competent lawyer, and in your case, he’s absolutely right on the mark. For that, he’ll be aptly rewarded, say... to level six?”
Level six? For defending a guy who actually had a case instead of the losers He usually sent me? What was the deal?
Again He read my thoughts. “Growth is never easy, Harry, but you’re getting there, and you have lots of time.”
Easy for Him to say, He was at the top. And what was with this growth thing, anyway?
“As for you, Mr. Morton, Harry’s right. You are, on the whole, a good man, but unfortunately, you committed a rather serious crime. So you have a choice. Due to Harry’s eloquent plea, I will allow you to advance to level seven here...”