“You’re a hard-hearted woman,” I joked.
“That’s right,” she said seriously. “And I’m not even a bigot.”
We said our goodbyes and I sat at the desk in the study looking out the window to the lake below.
Sidney Townsend looked exactly like what I imagined someone named Sidney Townsend would look like. He concealed the shapelessness of his body in an expensive suit but his face was big, florid, and jowly. His hair was swept back against his head and held fixedly in place by hairspray. Small, incurious eyes assessed me as he smiled and shook my hand.
He led me into his office, a tastefully furnished room that was nearly as dark as a confessional. Perhaps he specialized in lapsed Catholics, I thought, or maybe the dimness was evocative of a bedroom in keeping with psychiatry’s obsession with sex. I sat down on a leather sofa while he got Jim’s file. He joined me, sitting a little too close and facing toward me, his jacket unbuttoned and his arm draped across the back of the sofa, leaning toward me. The perfect picture of candor. I drew back into my corner.
“So,” he said, “you’re taking Jim’s case to trial.”
“So it appears. Do you get many appointments from the court?”
“It’s probably a quarter of my practice,” he said. “Does that bother you?”
“I just like to know,” I said. “I wouldn’t want the D.A. to be able to call you a professional witness.”
“I have a whole response worked out for that,” he said with a confident smile.
I bet you do, I thought. Aloud I said, “I’d like to know something about Jim Pears.”
“Oh,” Townsend said, offhandedly, “a typical self-hating homosexual.”
“Typical?”
He shrugged. “I know that the A.P.A. doesn’t consider homosexuality to be a mental disease,” he said, “but let’s face it, Mr. Rios, many if not most homosexuals have terrible problems of self-esteem. I see a lot of instability among them.”
“You think being gay is a mental disorder per se?” I asked, keeping my voice neutral.
“That’s not what I said,” he replied tightly, then added, “You’re gay yourself, aren’t you?”
“Is that relevant?”
He smiled and shrugged. “To whether you retain me, probably.” He studied me. “I’m not the enemy, Mr. Rios.”
I looked back at him warily. “Okay, you’re not the enemy. Why don’t we talk about Jim.”
He picked up a folder and opened it. “Jim says he’s known about his homosexuality from the time he reached puberty,” Townsend said. “He’s had sexual relations with men for the last couple of years. Typical bathroom pickups, parks, that sort of thing. The incident in the restaurant was consistent with his pattern of sexual behavior.”
“Which incident?”
“The man he was discovered with,” Townsend said, “was a customer in the restaurant who picked him up and took him out to his car for sex. That’s where this other boy — Fox? — found them.”
“These sexual encounters sound risky,” I said.
“They are. Maximally so, but then, Jim wanted to get caught.”
“Is that what he says?”
“No, but it’s obvious, isn’t it?”
“What seems obvious to me,” I said, “is that the reason a gay teenage boy has sex in public places is because he has nowhere else to go.”
Townsend looked as if the thought had not occurred to him. “Possibly,” he said.
“I was told that Jim doesn’t remember anything about the actual killing,” I said.
“That’s right,” Townsend replied. “It’s a kind of amnesia induced by the trauma of the incident. It’s fairly common among people who were in serious accidents.”
“Not physiological at all?”
“He was given a medical examination,” Townsend said. “Nothing wrong there. It’s psychological.”
“Aren’t there ways to unlock his memory?” I asked.
“As a matter of fact,” Townsend said, “I tried hypnosis.”
“Did it work?”
“No. People have different susceptibilities,” he explained. He thought a bit. “There are drugs, of course. Truth serums. I doubt they would work, though. He’s really built a wall up there.”
“Are you treating him at all?”
“That’s not really my function, is it? My examination was entirely for forensic purposes.”
“What about his parents? Have you talked to them?”
“They wouldn’t talk to me. They’re strict Catholics who don’t trust psychiatry.”
“They’d rather believe their son is possessed by the devil,” I observed, bitterly.
“Which is simply an unschooled way of describing schizoid behavior,” Townsend explained.
“Who’s schizoid?”
“Jim, of course. He’s completely disassociated himself from his homosexuality.”
“Can you blame him?”
“I’ve given you my views on homosexuality,” Townsend replied tartly.
“No doubt you shared them with Jim as well.”
His small eyes narrowed. “I said I wasn’t the enemy.” “Because you’re not actually malicious?”
“Do you want me to testify or not?” he snapped.
“No, I don’t think so.”
He looked at me, then shrugged. “I still have to bill you for this time.”
“Sure.” I got up to leave.
“Mr. Rios,” he said, as I reached the door. “You’re making a mistake, you know. I’m the best there is.”
“So,” I said, “am I.”
6
The sheriffs brought Jim into the conference room and seated him across from me at a table divided by a low partition. The walls were painted a grimy pastel blue that made the room look like a soiled Easter egg. The lights were turned up to interrogation intensity and I got my first good look at Jim Pears.
His fingernails were bitten down to ragged stubs. His face was white to the point of transparency and a blue vein pounded at his temple as if trying to tear through the skin. Splotches of yellow stubble spotted his chin and cheek. His hair, unwashed and bad-smelling, was matted to his head. The whites of his eyes were streaked with red but the irises were vivid blue — the only part of his face that showed life.
His eyes were judging me. It was as if I was the last of a long line of grown-ups who would fail him. It annoyed me. His glance slipped away.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t able to talk to you this morning,” I said. “Do you understand what happened in court?’’
In a soft voice he answered, “You’re my lawyer now.”
“That’s right. We have to be ready to go to trial in six weeks.”
He shrugged and stared at the partition between us. After a moment his silence became hostile.
“Is anything wrong, Jim?”
“I don’t like lawyers,” he announced.
“You’ve got lots of company.’’
His face remained expressionless. “She didn’t believe me,” he said. “Do you?”
“That you didn’t kill Brian Fox?”
He nodded.
I make it a point not to lie to my clients, but this can involve something short of the truth. I said, “I’m willing to start from that assumption.”
His face was suspicious. “What do you mean?”
“What matters is convincing a jury that you’re innocent,” I explained.
Now he understood. “You don’t believe me, either.”
“I have an open mind,” I replied.
He withdrew again into a sulky silence. I decided to wait him out and we sat there as the minutes passed.
“I can’t sleep at night,” he said abruptly.
“Why?” I wondered if he was going to confess.
“They leave the lights on. It hurts my eyes.”
“It’s just so the guards can keep an eye on things.” “Nothing happens in there.” He looked at me. “I’m with the queens. That’s what they call them.”
“You’re safer there than in the general population.” “They’re like women,” he continued, ignoring me. “They say things that make me sick.” He shuddered. “I’m not like that.” “Not like what, Jim?”
“Gay.” He spat out the word. Once again, his eyes drifted away. He seemed unable to look directly at anything for longer than a few seconds.
“Whether you’re gay doesn’t make any difference in jail,” I said. “There are guys here who would claw through the walls to get at you.”