“Andy, I haven't been with anyone else since we separated.”
“I know,” I respond. “I've had you followed.”
I have this problem; I joke at inappropriate times. Also at appropriate times, though there don't seem to be that many of them anymore.
“What about you?” she asks. “Have you been with anyone?”
I nod, though she can't see me in the dark. “The Olympic girls’ volleyball team, Michelle Pfeiffer, the women's division of the Teamsters, the White sisters, Vanna, Betty, and Reggie-”
She interrupts, which is just as well, since there's no telling how long I would have babbled on. “I had forgotten that about you,” she says.
“What?”
“You never shut up.”
With that she prepares to shut me up, except for an occasional moan. She does a really good job of it, but hell, somebody had to.
I have a great night's sleep, which carries right through the usually effective wake-up call planted in my brain. I gulp down a cup of coffee and some M amp;M's and head for the office. I'm feeling good for the first time in a while; the idea of diving headlong into the Miller case is actually appealing.
I stop off at Cal Morris's newsstand, not for superstition purposes, but rather to read what the media is saying about Willie's prospects. For the time being they're buying the prosecution line about this being merely a technicality, and that the result will be the same the second time around. I know in my gut they're probably right, so I bypass my gut and make a mental note to meet with the press and push our point of view. That is, as soon as we come up with a point of view.
On the way into the office I'm stopped by Sofý, standing and waiting for me in front of her fruit stand. She hands me two cantaloupes, the second installment on her son's legal bills.
“Thank you,” I say. “You know, the best thing about being paid in cantaloupes is that they don't bounce.”
She doesn't come close to getting the joke. If a joke is told in a fruit stand and nobody gets it, did it make a sound?
As I enter the office, I see Laurie sitting there, waiting for me. The smell of annoyance is in the air.
“Good morning,” I cheerily volunteer. It doesn't get the response I hope for. Actually, it doesn't get any response.
I look at my watch. Uh, oh. “You're pissed off because I'm late.”
“Forty-five minutes late. Which wouldn't mean much if the meeting were called for three P.M. But since it was called for eight A.M., forty-five minutes is a very long time.”
“Sorry. I had a late night.” I can see Laurie react, but it's too late, the words have already left my mouth. Maybe I've said stupider things in my life, but I can't remember when. This isn't pouring gasoline on a fire, it's more like pouring freon on a frozen tundra.
Laurie, to her credit, doesn't say anything. Which means the ball is still in my court. “Okay … you're right … I'm a shit-head.”
“Let's not let that obvious fact interfere with our work, okay? And let's keep each of our personal lives personal.”
She's right, at least for now. The strain between us is not likely to go away, and eventually it will have to be dealt with. We both know that. But this is not the time, not with the Miller case staring us in the face. Edna is of course not in yet, so I make some coffee and we get right to work.
Laurie has spent the previous night reading the transcript of the first trial, which makes me even guiltier about how I spent the night. Her reaction is rather predictable.
“It's a disaster. Openand-shut,” she says.
This is Laurie's style. She's an optimist in life, a total pessimist in work. Not only does she assume that all clients are guilty, she assumes they are going to be found guilty as well. One would think it would then fall to me to be encouraging, to be a motivator, but it's really not necessary. Laurie is a total pro; she'll do the best that can be done for the client, despite her personal views.
We start talking about the case, and she asks why Willie's lawyer, a man named Robert Hinton, didn't plead it out last time. It's a question I've wondered myself, and I make a note to ask Willie about it. Maybe Willie adamantly refused to plead down for a crime he didn't commit in the first place. It's also possible that my father wouldn't go for it. Even though he wasn't the death penalty type, he may well have been under a lot of pressure to take this one all the way.
I ask Laurie if she's ever heard of Hinton, but she hasn't and neither have I. We're going to have to find him; he should be able to give us some insight that the cold transcripts don't provide.
What the transcripts do provide is a version of the fateful night that appears devastating to Willie's case. According to the prosecution, Willie Miller left work an hour before the murder, went on a drinking binge, and came back through the alley and into the back door. He went into the ladies’ room, where he came upon Denise McGregor. Willie allegedly hit Denise over the head and dragged her out into the alley, where he slashed her with a steak knife from the bar.
Cathy Pearl, a thirty-five-year-old waitress from a nearby diner, came through the alley on the way home from work and saw Willie standing over the body. He ran off, dumping the knife in a trash can three blocks away, before settling into a doorway and collapsing in a drunken stupor.
As if that weren't enough, there were scratch marks all over Willie's face, and his blood and skin were found under Denise's fingernails. Just to add another positive character trait for the jury to consider, there were needle marks in Willie's arms. It is such an airtight case that I am suspicious of it.
Laurie believes every word of the government's case, while I say that is for a jury to decide.
“They already have,” she notes.
“The conviction has been set aside,” I point out.
“He admits it.”
“No, he doesn't dispute it. He can't remember anything. He was too drunk.”
“Andy, read the transcript. This is not exactly a major whodunit.”
“It reads like a frame-up to me.”
She laughs derisively. “You're amazing,” is what she says, but what she means is that I am an asshole.
“Thank you, but enough about me. What do we know about the victim?”
Laurie recites the facts that I already know. Denise McGregor worked as a reporter for a local newspaper, the Newark Star-Ledger. No information was ever turned up to show that she had any enemies, anyone who would have had reason to kill her. According to testimony, she had been dating Edward Markham for about three months, and she was out with him on the night of her death. This reminds me of the picture I found in the attic, so I take it out of a drawer and show it to Laurie.
“Isn't that Victor Markham?”
“I have no idea what Victor Markham looks like,” she says. But then she points at the man standing next to him in the picture. “But I think I recognize him.”
He doesn't look at all familiar to me, and Laurie tells me that she thinks it's Frank Brownfield, a real estate developer who has built ugly malls all over the New York metropolitan area. Laurie has a friend who works for him, and she had met Brownfield about a year ago. All this does is add to the puzzle; my father never mentioned knowing Brownfield either.
Laurie turns the picture over and reads the date, June 14, 1965, off the back.
“Now, that's weird.”
“What?” I ask.
She digs a piece of paper out of her purse and confirms her recollection. “The cashier check your father got for the two million. It was deposited on June 17, 1965.”
Less than a week after my father posed for a picture with the future Who's Who of American industry, all of whom he never admitted knowing, he received two million dollars, which he never admitted having. If these two facts aren't related, then we're talking serious coincidence here.