Only when this emotional barrenness erupts into violence does the System step in, as it did last Thursday night when Peter Callison, Junior was arrested for the murder of his mother, father, and sister.
It was unusual for the Public Defender’s Office to be assigned the defense of a millionaire. Peter Callison, Junior, age fifteen, was heir to an estate worth millions, but Peter was a minor, so the funds were frozen. In effect, he was a pauper.
On Monday morning Alvin Harris called me in and handed me the Callison file.
“Dave, as of now you are my Chief Deputy, Juvenile Division.”
We are a small office in a medium-sized town: Harris and three underlings, including myself. Harris has been here for twenty years, in charge for the last twelve. He is hopelessly addicted to the security of civil service. We peons are typical of the Deputy Defenders whom Alvin has had over the years. We signed on at low pay, partly for the experience, partly to purge the idealism from our systems before moving on to the big bucks.
“How long have we had a Juvenile Division, Alvin?”
Harris glanced at his watch. “About five minutes. I’ll call somebody to have it lettered on your door if you’d like.”
I gave him a wide-eyed expression of mock gratitude. He was doing this to me for two reasons. He personally loathed any case that smacked of controversy or sensationalism. He also loathed any deputy who was overly questioning or argumentative toward him. I fit snugly in the latter category.
“Looks to me like a walk-through, Dave,” he went on. “Open and shut. His preliminary hearing is scheduled for Friday. You’ll argue that he shouldn’t be tried as an adult. You’ll lose, of course. Then you’ll defend him in Superior Court, going with the incompetency angle. From what I know of the kid so far, you might be solid in that area.”
I paged through the file. On top were photos of the three victims — Peter’s mother, father, and sister. All had gunshot wounds in their heads and elsewhere. Seems that the neighbors heard the shots. At first they dismissed them as backfires, but there were too many, so they called the police. The officers found the bodies on the living-room floor within feet of one another. Peter Callison, Junior was located upstairs in his room, reading. He claimed he hadn’t heard anything because his stereo was playing. There was no sign of forcible entry and every door and window in the house was locked. The boy was impassive, even when escorted downstairs past the victims. One officer had made reference to “ice water in his veins”; hyperbole wasn’t normally found in official investigative reports.
“The weapon?” I asked.
“A Smith and Wesson .38. It’s a huge house and it’s landscaped like a jungle. They’re still looking for it.”
“Eight shots altogether, I see. Which means he reloaded before finishing the job.”
Harris raised his eyebrows. “Very good, Clay. Sweet kid, isn’t he?”
“Why us?” I asked. “No close relatives?”
Harris shook his head. “No living grandparents. Mrs. Callison was an only child. Peter Senior has one brother five years older. His name is Paul and he lives in Portland. He’s been checked out. He seems as poor as these people were flush. Evidently alienated from them too. Essentially, he told the detectives to go to hell.”
I saw relief in Harris’ eyes when I stood up with the file. “So you’re asking me to go through the motions?”
Harris sighed. “I want the appearance of a good fight, Dave, even though it’s hopeless. The media is going to be living with this one and I don’t want any trouble. They haven’t had anything so juicy since the kickbacks in the Assessor’s Office. Go by the book and please don’t make waves. I’ve already ordered a psychiatric evaluation, so half of your work’s already done. Good luck.”
I left, knowing who I was really defending: Alvin Harris, his reputation and august office.
I drove out to the Callison home, which was part of an exclusive suburban development. The area was new money, ostentatious money. Most of the houses were Twenty-first Century Gothics, ultra contemporary, with hardly a right angle in sight. The Callison residence was atop a hill, at the end of a cul-de-sac. It afforded a grand view of the city. Obviously, Peter Senior, as owner of Callison Air Freight, held his own in the neighborhood.
The place was still crawling with detectives, presumably in search of the weapon. The captain in charge gave me permission to go inside and look around, with a warning not to touch anything. They always say that, so I don’t.
The foyer led directly to a huge, sunken living room. The large patches of bloodstain would never come out of that lush beige carpet. The images in those grisly photos projected themselves onto the spots. I shuddered, absolutely certain that when I left the Public Defender’s Office, criminal law would not be my specialty.
I climbed a sweeping staircase, looking for Peter Junior’s room. The first room past the landing was some sort of den, although it had more the appearance of a sports hall of fame — plaques, trophies, photographs, and framed certificates cluttered the shelving and walnut paneling.
The memorabilia provided a brief family history. Peter Senior had been a football star at Stanford during the early fifties. The pictures of him in a menacing lineman’s stance depicted a large determined man. More recent photos proved him only slightly heavier and every bit as physically imposing. He had played no-handicap golf and was a terror on local squash courts.
Mollie, his wife, struck me as being classically Nordic, very athletic, yet lovely and feminine. All the hardware on the shelves confirmed that she had been a formidable tennis opponent.
Julie, the daughter, a junior at Radcliffe, was new money in pursuit of old, chasing it on horseback. A clipping described her as an Olympic hopeful in dressage.
Peter Junior, the surviving Callison, was notably absent in this shrine. I scanned everything twice, just to be sure. Nothing, not even a Little League certificate, the kind everyone receives whether they ever get off the bench or not.
His room was at the end of the hall. The detectives had it pretty well torn apart, so I couldn’t determine if he was tidy or if he was an average teenager in that respect.
The walls were plastered with posters of aircraft, rockets, and robots that had starred in science-fiction movies. Model airplanes hung willy-nilly from the ceiling. The bedroom was decorated to the gills, but every single piece was inanimate — machines, past, present, and future. If the boy had had contact with another human being in his life, there was no evidence of that in his room.
I almost walked out before I noticed it. On the top of a bookcase, stuffed behind a plastic ICBM, was an old black-and-white photograph in an upright frame. A smiling man in flight gear sat on the wing of a Korean War vintage jet. At first glance I thought it was Peter’s father, but I studied it more closely and saw that it wasn’t. There was a definite resemblance but the man was smaller and his eyes weren’t carnivorous.
I wasn’t entirely a bad boy. The captain had ordered me to touch nothing. I touched only one item, the photo, which I stuffed inside my shirt.
I made arrangements to visit Peter Callison, Junior at the Juvenile Detention Center. After all, if I was to go through the motions, I should go through the motions.
Alvin Harris intercepted me on the way out of the office.
“The shrink saw him this morning,” he said. “So did the prosecution’s. We should have a written report before Friday’s hearing. What are you going to talk to the kid about?”
“The customary attorney-client stuff,” I said with a shrug. “I’ll play it by ear.”