“We’re only as good as our last case,” I say, trying to seem modest. Actually, I don’t believe this. If you only take die easy ones, your “won and lost” record is meaningless. At the Public Defender’s we measured our success by how much time our clients actually did in comparison with what they could have pulled when they were originally charged.
Only if you are a Chet Bracken does it make sense to look at your record of outright acquittals or dismissals.
The problem with this case is that the Chet Bracken of six months ago doesn’t exist any longer. How could Chet not have gotten from Norman that he called Leigh the morning of her husband’s death? He must really be slipping fast. What else don’t I know about this case?
We talk a few more minutes, but I do not get anything else useful. I walk Norman to the elevators, realizing he hasn’t mentioned his wife even once, and head for Dan’s office. Poor guy. I have to feel something for him, too. If Pearl truly has been a hooch hound their entire married life, no wonder he’s been so strict with the girls. Keep ‘em down on the farm as long as possible.
Dan is on the phone but hangs up as I come in.
“I’m thinking of having liposuction,” he says, “but it costs a fortune. I should have become a doctor. You don’t really believe that crap about doctors asking their nurses to be present when they examine their female patients?”
I close his door and take a seat. Dan’s office is gross.
The air smells like the alley behind the Layman Building that receives the exhaust fumes from a Chinese restaurant that has just opened on the first floor. Boxes, files, law reviews, bar association magazines, books, and food compete for space in Dan’s office on a no-holds-barred basis. My files are admittedly disorganized, but anything that enters Dan’s office has less chance of being found than a ship sailing into the Bermuda Triangle.
“You’re not serious about liposuction?”
I ask, somewhat alarmed. Dying is the only way Dan is going to lose weight, and even that might not do it.
He’s joked he wants to be buried with a box of Hostess cupcakes and a case of root beer.
“They say the pain is terrible,” Dan says gloomily.
“Jesus, I can’t even stand to have Brenda cut my toenails.”
The thought of Dan’s prissy society wife agreeing to perform such a mundane task makes me smile.
“Get this,” I tell him.
“Bracken hasn’t told Norman that he’s about to croak.”
Dan rolls back the cuffs of his shirt two folds, revealing fat, hairy wrists.
“Why the hell not?” he muses.
“He’s setting himself up for a malpractice claim and incompetence of counsel charges if Leigh doesn’t get off.”
“His estate,” I remind him.
“I wonder if I’ve got some duty to tell Norman about Bracken. The truth is, Chet hasn’t done shit on this case, and Norman tells me just now that he called Leigh at home the morning of the murder and heard her voice in the background. The cops don’t know this yet, but it’s just one more thing that can cook Leigh’s goose. Chet didn’t know either.”
Dan reaches in his desk and pulls out a Snickers. It is not even ten yet. He offers it to me, but I shake my head. As he peels off the paper, he says, “If I were you, I’d have a heart-to-heart with Bracken. If this case is headed for the toilet, you’re the one who’s gonna be flushed.”
I begin to wonder if I have made a serious mistake in agreeing to second chair this case. A neon sign inside my head is blinking the word “sucker.” This was to be my ticket to the big leagues. The way it is shaping up it looks like a bush-league game for last place. I fight back a momentary wave of panic. As Dan ingests the chocolate in two bites, I am reminded of the night he called from the jail to tell me he was arrested at a convenience store for stealing a Twinkie. Some people can’t tell the truth even if you hand them a script. Dan, for all his faults, can’t tell a lie.
“On top of everything else, Norman admits he can’t find a thing on Wallace either,” I complain.
“Other than stealing Norman’s daughter under false pretenses. Art was a model citizen.
Even Norman admits nobody had a motive to snuff him except himself. Of course, he was smiling when he said this.”
Dan wipes brown goo from the corners of his mouth with a dirty handkerchief. With all his practice, I mink he’d learn to hit the target.
“You check out his alibi?”
I shrug. How can Brenda stand to make love to him?
She is no Barbie but hardly a Petunia Pig either.
“He says he called from the church.”
Dan finds a corner of his handkerchief to blow his nose.
“That one didn’t wash for Leigh,” he points out “Who all saw him that morning? You just said he hated Wallace’s guts.”
If I had been in his position, I would have hated my son-in-law’s guts, too, but I doubt I would have killed him. Norman isn’t areal suspect, as far as I’m concerned.
He has far too much to lose. Even assuming he lost his temper big time, the image he has of himself wouldn’t allow him to shoot the man his daughter loved. As different as Norman and I are, I mink I understand the guy. If Sarah marries a rich creep, I’ll get her the best divorce lawyer his money can buy. Sooner or later, despite the woman-obey-your-husband garbage fundamentalists love, Norman, I’m convinced, would have come around to trying to talk Leigh into a divorce.
I reach behind me and open a window to let in some air. Dan has a great view of the Arkansas River. He tells me he will switch offices any time I want. He’d rather have my view any day.
“Come on, Dan,” I say mildly, “get real. Norman’s a lover, not a fighter.”
Dan reaches into his desk again but only to pull out a paper clip. He straightens it and begins to pick his teeth.
“How else was he gonna get his kid back? To Norman, Wallace was the Devil incarnate. What could damn a person more in a preacher’s eyes than a man who uses God for his own ends, especially if it involves the person he loves best?”
Dan is forgetting that preachers are supposed to hate the sin but love the sinner, and that usually precludes murdering him. I breathe deeply. There is a slight odor of mildew in the room. Some of these boxes have probably been sitting here for years. I indulge Dan, knowing he has to get this crap out of his system or he will never shut up. I point out, “But Norman wouldn’t set up Leigh to take the rap.”
Dan, loving the role of the great hypothesizer, says, “Norman wasn’t setting her up. He calls her at home, makes her feel guilty. She goes back to the church, and he slips out and goes to their house and offs Wallace, thinking she’ll never be charged, but the cops screw it up because they can’t figure out who else to nail. Norman thinks this will be a snap, but he gets the best criminal defense lawyer in town anyway. What he doesn’t know is the best is eaten up with cancer and can barely answer the bell.”
From Dan’s window I can see a barge coming into view. He’s got a point. Preachers have been known to commit murder for more sordid reasons than protecting their daughters. Not too long ago I read about a minister who killed his wife to run off with another woman. Yet, Norman, like myself, I realize, would try to talk somebody to death before he would shoot him. To humor him, I say, “I’ll check his alibi, but surely Chet has already done that much.”
Dan runs his tongue over his teeth to get every last bit of sugar, chuckling, “But talk about biting the hand that’s feeding you.”
I protest, “I haven’t bitten it yet.” Actually, it’s Bracken who is bothering me more than anything. Even if he has been sick, I can’t believe he has done such a sorry job. I realize I have been intimidated by his reputation.
If I’m going to keep from making a fool of myself at the trial, I’ll have to stop acting like I’m the messenger boy in this case. To give Chet credit, he isn’t hiding his lack of effort from me. In fact. he is practically rubbing my nose in it. Why? Can it be that he wants me to take over the role of lead counsel and can’t bring himself to say so? Men are harder to read than women. In our sex, the ego is like a five-hundred-pound gorilla guarding the door to the rest of the psyche.