“She would have been a good lawyer,” I say.
He nods. There’s a glaze of water over his eyes. He wipes them with his sleeve. I don’t tell about the limited progress I’ve made on Sharon’s probate. I’ve struck out with Feinberg. After listening to his spiel at the University Club, I approached him cautiously and told him my tale of woe. He declined to take the case-“Too busy,” he said. So I’m back to square one. But it’s my one consolation with Coop: He doesn’t press. Patience is a Southern virtue.
“I’m lookin’ for other leads,” he says, “in Sharon’s death.”
The accident remains an open matter with the police. Sharon’s car had been involved in a single-vehicle accident, careening off the road into a tree. But evidence at the scene revealed that she had not been driving at the time. Coop is on his own quest to find the driver.
“Did you know she wasn’t killed by the impact?” he says.
I shake my head. I’m not interested in feeding this conversation.
“She would have survived. I know it,” he says. “The fire killed her. Whoever was in the car could have saved her.”
“You don’t know that, Coop. Let the cops handle it.”
‘They’re not doing too well right now. They have virtually no leads. I figure anyone walking on that levee road, twenty miles from town, would be seen by someone. Don’t you think?”
I nod to humor him.
My first meeting with Coop came during the prosecution of a manslaughter case, a slam-dunk for the state on which I was putting the final touches. The defendant was a small-time pimp charged with dealing drugs to one of his hookers, who had OD’ed. Coop had already appeared and been cross-examined. But the defense now recalled him, a desperate last-minute fishing expedition. He was ordered to appear and to produce his working papers.
When Coop arrived at the courthouse, I could sense that beneath the thin veneer of professionalism he was seething. The subpoena had been delivered that morning, followed closely by a telephone call from Andy Shea, a fire-breathing counsel for the defense, and mouthpiece of the month among petty junkies and drug dealers. Shea, as was his custom, had bullied and berated half the coroner’s staff over the telephone in an effort to coerce compliance with the subpoena he hadn’t served on time.
In the period of three minutes as I counseled Cooper outside the courtroom, I observed a bizarre metamorphosis overtake the man. As I raced against the clock to explore the legal issues embraced by the subpoena, Coop appeared distracted. Then a strange calm came over him. I was gripped by a gnawing fear that fate had delivered to me the scourge of every trial lawyer-a witness who could not be controlled.
Inside, Cooper took the stand. He seated himself two feet below Merriam Watkins, judge of the superior court. Shea arrogantly demanded Cooper’s working papers. The coroner reached into the manila envelope he was carrying and handed a disheveled pile of documents to the lawyer.
He apologized for the disorganized state of the papers. He was solicitous. He did everything but rise from his chair and bow from the waist.
Shea took the stack and, shaking his head with disgust, retreated to the counsel table to place the prize in some usable order.
Coop turned his soulful eyes toward Judge Watkins, pumped up a little Southern humility, and apologized for failing to make copies for the court. He offered an explanation to the judge, his way of making small talk. Shea was too busy shuffling pages to take heed of the colloquy at the bench.
With no objection from Shea, Coop was free to ramble on. A rakish grin grew under his dark mustache and just as quickly disappeared behind a blanket of courtly charm.
He told the judge how the subpoena had been served at eight o’clock that morning and how five minutes later Mr. Shea had telephoned the office. With the mention of his name, the defense attorney looked up from the table for the first time-it was too late. Coop was on a roll.
He told about Shea’s insistence, and asked if he could quote the lawyer. By this time the judge’s expression was a quizzical mask. She shrugged her shoulders.
“Mr. Shea said, and I quote: ‘If you don’t have your fuckin’ ass in court by nine o’clock this morning, you’d better be packing a toothbrush, cuz I’ll have your worthless, worm-eaten dick jailed for contempt.’ ”
Two jurors, women in their sixties, nearly slid out of their chairs. The only thing matching the blush on Watkins’s face were Shea’s ears, which were a perfect hue of crimson as he sat slack-jawed at the counsel table while Cooper drove the sword all the way home.
“Your Honor, I’m at a loss to explain where Mr. Shea learned his anatomy, but I don’t think that’s any way for an officer of the court to talk to the public servants of this county-do you?”
Watkins stammered, covered a cough with her hand, and after several seconds finally issued what would have to pass for a judicious comment.
“I think Mr. Shea is properly rebuked,” she said.
“If you say so, Your Honor.” Coop grinned broadly at Shea. The attorney sat like some miser, hoarding a ream of paper that may as well have been confetti, for the good it would do his client.
At Shea’s insistence the court later instructed the jury to disregard Coop’s testimony concerning Shea’s own out-of-court blunder. But as Cooper remarked under his breath as he exited the courtroom, “Only when pigs can fly.”
An intern, a young kid in a white smock, has entered the room with us. He hands Coop a clipboard with several forms. Coop quickly scrawls his signature at the bottom of the appropriate form and delivers the clipboard and papers back to the assistant, who leaves the room.
“So what gives with Potter?” I ask.
“You know better than that. I can’t tell you anything. I told you more than I should have that night outside his office. I may come to regret it.”
I am a bit stung by his rebuke, the hint that he may not be able to trust my discretion. Still I press.
“I understand your situation. Coop. It’s just that I hear things. People tell me that the DA’s investigators have been questioning everybody in sight at Potter, Skarpellos. Forensics has been over the place with white gloves a dozen times.”
“I hope they did better than this lot.” He taps the slides in his hand. “Victim looks like he’s been plowing the back forty with his fingernails.”
“What the hell’s going on, Coop?” I get more serious, my tone insistent.
“If Nelson ever found out we talked outside Potter’s office that night, he’d peel the skin off my dick with a dull knife. You didn’t tell anybody you were coming to see me?”
“You know me better than that.”
“Thank God for little favors,” he says.
He walks to a Bunsen burner on a table a few feet away. A thick black goo is bubbling in a clear glass container over an open flame. Coop lifts the large glass beaker and swirls the vile substance a bit, replacing it over the burner.
I can see that he’s troubled. I tell him about my conversation with Jennings, the fact that people in the DA’s office are themselves talking. I hope that this revelation will ease his concerns for professional discretion. But whoever cautioned that secrets are like sharp tools to be kept from the clutches of children and fools was not writing of George Cooper, for he’s no child and certainly no fool.
Coop looks at me with a soulful grin, the kind that says “If they’re talking-then it’s their sorry collective asses in the flames.”
“Who did the autopsy?” I ask.
I don’t have to wait for a reply. The fact that Coop performed it is written in his eyes.
“I just can’t believe he killed himself. He was my friend, Coop, and I want to know what happened.”
There’s a long sigh. “Where are you going with this information?” he asks.
“To my grave. You have my word on it, Coop. Not a soul will hear it from me.” I take my most sacred oath and affix it like a death mask to my expression. I raise my right hand. “I swear, not a word.”