Jeremy doesn’t seem like a young man capable of slashing two coeds to death, but I certainly can’t be anywhere near sure of that. I’ve never seen him enraged or rejected or distraught, and I have no idea what those powerful emotions might do to him. Or cause him to do.
The bottom line is that this is probably a case I would take if the murder were committed in North Jersey. It has the elements that can make what’s left of my legal juices flow. But I have to look at this on a personal, perhaps selfish level. A murder case takes an enormous amount of time and energy, and I really don’t want to turn my life upside down for the duration. It’s a good case, but it’s in little danger of being referred to as the trial of the century.
My level of guilt at the selfishness of my approach is pretty low. Calvin is probably competent to give Jeremy a good defense, but that will be a decision Jeremy and his father can make. If they have the money to hire me, they have the money to hire pretty much anybody they want, so my departure will not mean he will have poor representation.
Basically, it comes down to this: I want to stay in my own house, I don’t want Tara stuck in a hotel, I want to go to Charlie’s with Vince and Pete when I feel like it, and I don’t want to worry that every time I go somewhere I could run into Laurie. Or worse yet, Laurie and some boyfriend.
As my mother would have said, “Why do I need the aggravation?”
• • • • •
OUR WALK ENDS at Calvin’s house, and he’s waiting on the porch for us. He spends some time petting Tara which immediately wins her over. In Tara’s mind petters are good people, nonpetters are not. I pretty much look at life the same way.
We sit on the porch for a while, with Calvin and me literally in rocking chairs. I keep waiting for Aunt Bea to appear with homemade apple pie and ice cream. But it feels comfortable, and I briefly wonder if I could stay here long-term. There’s no doubt that I couldn’t; I’d go absolutely nuts. But for this moment it’s okay.
“This is actually a pretty nice town,” I say. It comes out more condescending than I intended.
“Depends on who you are,” he says with a trace of bitterness.
“What do you mean?”
He looks at me with a mixture of disdain and surprise. “You have any idea what it’s like to be the only openly gay person in a town like this?”
Now it’s my turn to be surprised. “You’re gay?”
“Nope,” he says, and then laughs at his nailing me with another lie. “Come on in.”
We go inside, and Calvin takes Tara and me into what he calls his sports room. It’s a small guest bedroom that has been converted into a shrine to the long-departed Milwaukee Braves baseball franchise.
There is baseball memorabilia everywhere, all relating to the Braves. Calvin was only eight years old when the Braves won the 1957 World Series, but he remembers virtually every pitch.
His prized possessions are a foul ball that Warren Spahn hit into the stands and Calvin’s father caught one-handed, and a piece of gum that Eddie Matthews spit onto the ground on the way into the stadium. “It’s one of the few pieces of baseball memorabilia that could be authenticated with a DNA test,” he says.
Tara and I spend an hour at Calvin’s, but he and I talk very little about the case. This is more my choice than his; my decision is clearly going to be more personal, more about me than about Jeremy Davidson’s legal situation.
As I’m getting ready to leave, Calvin asks me, “You think you’re gonna do this?”
“I don’t think so,” I say. “I’m not saying I’m a traveling superhero, but for me to inject myself into this situation, to transfer my life here, I sort of need to think an injustice has been committed. I’m just not sure it has.”
“I know the kid may have done it,” he says, “but I just don’t think he did. To tell you the truth, I’d defend him either way.”
“And that’s another point,” I say. “He’s already got you.”
“You know, I don’t spend all my time scaling cards into wastebaskets,” he says. “I checked you out, read some transcripts of your cases…”
“Why?”
“Because I’m a good attorney… competent. I cover all the bases,” he says.
“And?”
“And Jeremy Davidson needs more than that. He needs you.”
“More bullshit?” I ask, ever wary.
He shakes his head. “Not this time.”
I tell him that it’s flattering but not necessarily convincing, and he doesn’t make any further effort to recruit me. Another effort he doesn’t make is to feed me and Tara, and by the time we head back to the hotel, we are famished. As evidence that there is indeed a merciful God, He has placed a pizzeria just a block from the hotel. I order a large pie with a thin crust, but “thin” must be a relative term. This crust is almost an inch thick and is stuffed with cheese. I’m starting to discover that in Wisconsin, even the cheese is stuffed with cheese.
Tara and I sit at a little table outside the pizzeria and chow down. It’s not an East Coast pizza, but it’s not bad. I get Tara some bread, which she seems to find to her liking. Pigs that we are, we order a second pie and some more bread, and by the time we’re finished, we look and feel like the Pillsbury Dough Boy and the Pillsbury Dough Dog.
We go for another hour walk to get rid of the bloated feeling, which again takes us through the entire town. By the time we approach the hotel, it’s almost seven o’clock and we’ve gotten enough exercise that it’s soon going to be time to think about an evening snack. Perhaps a couple of pizzas…
To my surprise and delight, the hotel gets cable TV, including the ESPNs and CNN. Between the pizza and a Knicks-Spurs game, for the first time I feel like Findlay is providing the intellectual and cultural stimulation I require. I settle down on the bed and start reading through the case notes that Calvin gave me, with the basketball game on as background music.
There is a knock on the door, and when I open it, I see the bellman, who is bringing me a small coffeemaker that I had requested. He gives it to me, and I hand him a five-dollar bill, the smallest that I have. For a moment I’m afraid he’s going to have a stroke.
“You gave me a five-dollar bill.”
“I know that.”
He’s clearly unsettled by this. “I don’t have change.”
“I didn’t ask for any.”
It finally dawns on him that this is for real, and he goes through an endless vow that if there’s anything I need, ever, all I have to do is ask. I promise that I will, and he finally leaves.
Tara and I are no sooner settled back on the bed to watch basketball than there is another knock on the door. It’s probably the bellman offering to brush my teeth for me. As I get up to answer the door, I make a silent vow to undertip the rest of my stay here. “Just a second,” I call out.
I reach the door and open it, but the bellman is not standing there. Laurie is standing there. I’m positive of this; there is absolutely no similarity between them.
“Hello, Andy,” she says, but before I can answer, a missile comes flying past me. This particular missile is named Tara, and she has literally leaped across the room and up into Laurie’s arms. Tara always loved Laurie, but I thought I had talked her out of that during these past few months.
Laurie lands on the floor under Tara’s weight, and she struggles to get up, laughing and petting all the while. I stand there watching in a state of semi-shock, which is actually my home state, but finally, I reach a hand down and help Laurie get to her feet.
She comes inside the room and closes the door behind her. We look at each other for probably five seconds, though it feels like an hour and a half. Then she moves toward me and kisses me, and the anger I have been feeling for the last four and a half months is overwhelmed by something that feels nothing like anger.