“Let me ask you something: Why would you defend the scumbag that killed Denise?”
I look him right in the mouth. “I don't think I am. I believe that the real killer is running loose.”
He stares at me for a few moments, and a feeling of impending doom comes over me. Finally, he shakes his head and says, “It's your job to believe that.”
I shake my head. “No. It's my job to defend him. It's not my job to believe in him.”
“If you get any real evidence, let me know how I can help. Me and my fat ass can get a lot done if we want to.”
“Thanks,” I say. “When all this is over, I'll take you out and buy you a tuna.”
That night I'm at home, literally ankle deep in paperwork. My work style is to sit on the couch, cover the rest of the couch, the coffee table, and the floor in papers, and wade through them. There's a basketball game on the television that serves as background music. The Knicks are playing the Pacers, and I bet on the Knicks minus three. Allan Houston just hit a jump shot. Once in my life I want to hit a backhand down the line like Pete Sampras and shoot a jump shot as smoothly as Allan Houston. The Knicks are up by eleven with a minute to go, my bet is locked, and as my mother used to say, “Money goes to money.”
The doorbell rings and I yell up for Nicole to get it. She doesn't hear me, so I answer it myself, which is just as well, since Laurie comes in, all excited. The last time she was here, she was a different kind of excited, but that's ancient history.
She doesn't even say hello, just launches into what she has to tell me. This is a sign that she's into the case, and I'm pleased about that. As it turns out, her visit has nothing to do with the Miller case at all.
“You've gotta hear this,” she says. “I ran into my friend, the one who works for Frank Brownfield, the developer? He agreed that the guy in the picture looked like Brownfield, so I gave him a copy of the picture, and he said he would check it out.”
“And?” I ask.
“And I got a call back an hour ago … what's it, ten o'clock? … from my friend …”
At this point, Nicole comes downstairs and into the room. On the list of people I was hoping would join us at that moment, Nicole ranks just below Charles Manson.
“Oh, hello, Laurie. How are you?”
Laurie hesitates, then says, “Okay … I'm okay. I didn't realize I was interrupting anything.”
“Oh, you aren't. I was just going up to bed. See you in a while, Andy?” That's Nicole, another gracious winner.
“In a while. Laurie needs to talk to me about something.”
Nicole nods. “Nice seeing you, Laurie.”
Nicole goes upstairs; it's my turn to speak. Too bad I feel like I swallowed the four-hundred-pound watermelon from Sofý.
“I should have told you. Nicole moved back in.”
Laurie puts on a look of feigned surprise. “She did? You're kidding! I just assumed her car broke down and she stopped here to phone for help.”
“Laurie …”
“Your wife is waiting for you. We can talk about Brownfield tomorrow.”
“No, let's talk about him now. So your friend called you and said what?”
The enthusiasm is now gone from Laurie's voice, but she says, “He said the picture is not Brownfield, on second thought looks nothing like Brownfield, and Brownfield knows nothing about it.”
“So?”
“So he didn't sound like himself, and he denied it so hard, you'd think the guy in the picture was naked in bed with a goat. And then, just before he gets off the phone, he asks where I got the picture.”
“What did you say?”
“That if it isn't Brownfield, what do you care?”
So now we have what seems to be a harmless picture of a bunch of guys, none of whom will admit to being in it. And we're no closer to finding out why.
Laurie leaves and I go upstairs. Nicole is in bed, waiting for me as promised. She's reading a book, but she looks up as I walk in.
“Break in that murder case?”
Nicole uses the word “that” as a distancing mechanism. “That” murder case. “That” friend of yours. It diminishes the importance of what she is talking about, and removes any connection to her.
“No. But the situation with the picture is getting stranger and stranger. Brownfield denies that it's him … vehemently.”
“Maybe they were a group of men who got together to cheat on their wives. It does happen, you know.”
“Except this time it may have ended with my father getting two million dollars.”
“Where are you going with this, Andy? What will you do if you find out what happened?”
I have no real answer to this. I can't predict how I will react until I know what it is I am reacting to.
By this time I'm already undressed. I shed clothes faster than basketball players tearing off their warm-up suits as they enter a game. I get into bed, and Nicole drops the bomb.
“You and Laurie have been involved.”
Uh, oh. “It's that obvious?”
She nods. “It's that obvious.”
“We started to … and then we stopped.”
“What happened?” she asks.
“You,” I answer.
FOUR WEEKSIS SIMPLY NOT ENOUGH TIME TO PREpare for a murder case. There are lawyers who take that long to pick out what suit they are going to wear for their opening statement. But it's all Hatchet has given us, so we have to deal with it.
Things are already starting to fall between the cracks. There are motions to be filed, evidence to be challenged, discovery to be gone over, witnesses to interview, media to be spun, and prayers to be prayed. I'm going to need help.
Ordinarily, I would discuss additions to our team with Laurie, but discussions with Laurie these days are less than comfortable. I grapple with this for a short while, but I decide that not to get the benefit of her input is to cause my client to suffer because of my personal situation. I can't let that happen.
Laurie completely agrees that we need help, and after thinking for a minute, she comes up with a name I've never heard before: Kevin Randall.
“He's as good as any attorney I've ever met,” she says. “And he can be trusted totally and completely.”
Laurie doesn't exactly throw around praise indiscriminately, so I'm intrigued.
“Where is he practicing?”
“He isn't,” she says. “He quit.”
“Why?” I ask.
“Because he has a conscience.”
As Laurie goes on to say, Kevin graduated Harvard Law about twenty years ago, but rather than join his classmates on their march to corporate law stardom, he went to work for the District Attorney in Essex County. He was a talented prosecutor, insightful and intense, but he had the misfortune to recognize his ability. Kevin would win cases with his skill and work ethic, which caused him to worry that perhaps innocent defendants were going to prison because their lawyers were outgunned.
To counter this situation, Kevin decided to become a defense attorney. It didn't work out quite the way he hoped. Now, when he won a case, he began to worry that he was responsible for dangerous felons roaming the streets. This was confirmed to him when one of his victories wound up killing two people in an armed robbery a month after Kevin got him off a convenience store holdup charge. Kevin blamed himself for the deaths.
That, Laurie says, was the final straw. Having been both a prosecutor and a defense attorney, Kevin had now run out of sides to take. His only other chance to stay in the legal system was to become a judge, so Kevin Randall made the obvious choice.
He opened a Laundromat.
Laurie and I drive out to East Brunswick to see Kevin at his current establishment, set in a tacky strip mall. There's a 7-Eleven, a takeout-only Chinese restaurant, a check-cashing business, and the “Law-dromat,” Kevin's place. The sign outside offers “Free Legal Advice While You Wash and Dry.”