“I’ve heard that top criminal lawyers have a knack for cutting good deals with prosecutors. Are you a good negotiator?”
“I’d say so.”
“Excellent. You’re going to need your skills as a negotiator to maximize your fee.”
“You want to plead guilty?”
“Definitely not.” Maxfield folded his hands on the table and leaned forward. He looked intense. “What do I do for a living, Barry?”
“You’re a writer.”
“A best-selling writer. How much money do you think my publisher will pay for a firsthand account of the trial of the century written by a best-selling author accused of serial murder?”
“You’re going to write a book about your case?”
“I heard that you were quick,” Maxfield said with a big smile. “Let me tell you how a writer is paid. When you ink a contract with a publisher you receive a chunk of money called an advance. Getting a quarter million for my story will be easy. If you’re a good negotiator, you might get a publisher up to a million or more.
“But that’s not all. The advance is technically an advance against royalties. My contract will guarantee me a certain percentage of the cover price on every book that sells. Let’s say that the royalties are ten percent, the book goes for twenty-five dollars and it sells one million copies. Do the math, Barry.”
“That’s two million, five hundred thousand dollars.”
“On the hardcover. There’s also a paperback edition and foreign sales and movie rights and books on tape, and you will be collecting half of everything I receive if you take my case whether you win or you lose. How does that sound?”
Barry was having trouble breathing. “You’ll split everything down the middle?” he managed.
“What choice do I have? I need your help and this is the only way I can get the money to hire you. Is it a deal?”
“I’ll have to give it some thought,” Weller said, regaining some of his senses. “I’ve never done business like this.”
“That makes two of us. Before you leave I’ll tell you how to structure the contract and the name of my editor. He’s in New York. With all this publicity he might even call you when he learns you’re representing me.
“Now, do you feel comfortable telling me what you found out about my case even though you haven’t formally accepted my offer?”
“Sure. Most of what I’m going to tell you was in the papers, anyway. The indictment focuses on the murder of Terri Spencer and the assault on Casey Van Meter. As best I can make out, Ashley Spencer, Terri’s daughter, is the key to the state’s case. She says that she was jogging in the woods at the Oregon Academy when she saw you walking toward the boathouse. Shortly after she saw you she heard two screams from the direction of the boathouse. She looked in the window and saw you standing over Casey Van Meter, who was stretched out on the floor with her head against a wooden beam. You were holding a knife and the blade was covered with blood. She also saw her mother lying on the floor. Spencer says that you saw her and chased her.”
“Poor kid.” Maxfield shook his head. “She’s telling the truth.”
“You killed Spencer’s mother?” Weller asked, surprised.
“No. I didn’t hurt anyone,” Maxfield said. “I was in the boathouse but Terri was dead and Casey was unconscious when I got there. I’m innocent. But I can see why Ashley thought I killed Terri and attacked the dean.”
“Tell me what happened.”
“I often take a walk around the grounds in the evening. That’s why I was near the boathouse. It’s on the way to my cottage. I heard the same screams that frightened Ashley. Like I said, the women had already been attacked when I got there.”
“What about the knife?”
“It was lying on the ground near Terri. I picked it up because I thought that the killer might be hiding in the boathouse and I was in fear of my life. Ashley looked in the window a second after I got it. At first, I thought she was the murderer. I probably made an aggressive move toward her because she startled me. Then I recognized her. She must have been as scared as I was and she rushed off. I chased her to explain that I hadn’t hurt anyone but she was too fast for me and I never caught up. Then I realized how everything looked and I panicked and ran.”
Weller made some notes. Maxfield waited patiently.
“Tell me about the confession,” Maxfield said, when Weller looked up.
“It’s not exactly a confession but the police are viewing it as if it was. It’s your novel about the serial killer. You read a section of it to your writing class.”
“So?”
“There have been murders in different parts of the country that the police believe were committed by a serial killer. In several cases the police held back evidence from the public. Your book contains scenes that have this evidence in them. For instance, when Ashley Spencer’s father was murdered and her friend was killed, the murderer went into the Spencer kitchen and ate a piece of chocolate cake. At another murder the killer ate a piece of pie. In the scene you read to your writing class your killer eats dessert before raping and killing a victim.”
Maxfield looked incredulous. Then he laughed. “You’re not serious?”
“The DA is very serious.”
“It’s a novel. I made up everything.”
“The state’s position is that the details about eating the food are too grotesque to be a coincidence.”
“They’re wrong. Life imitates art all the time. Jules Verne predicted submarines, Tom Clancy had terrorists crash a plane into the White House.”
“That’s true, but in those cases the fictional incident preceded the real one.”
“What does that matter?” Maxfield was very upset now. “They can’t hang me because I have a good imagination.”
“They’re going to claim that you weren’t imagining anything, that you were writing what you know. Isn’t that what they tell you in writing classes?”
Maxfield looked like he was ready to explode. Then, as suddenly as he’d become unhinged, he calmed down.
“Write what you know,” he repeated. Then he laughed. “Write what you know. Wouldn’t it be hysterical if that old cliché put me on death row?”
The author stared into space for a moment. Then he smiled at Barry.
“You certainly have your work cut out for you. Are you up to it?”
“Definitely,” Weller answered.
“The money should motivate you to do your best. Let me tell you the ABCs of negotiating my book contract.”
Barry had planned to ask about something in the police reports that bothered him, but he forgot about the case as Maxfield taught him how to become a literary agent. One million dollars, two million dollars, three million dollars. Thinking about the money made it tough to concentrate on something as mundane as murder.
Chapter Twelve
Deputy District Attorney Delilah Wallace had grown up in the poorest neighborhood in Portland and cleaned houses to pay her way through school. She couldn’t help gawking at the Van Meter mansion’s entry hall, which looked as big as the house she’d grown up in. The hall was paneled in dark wood and decorated with shields, maces, swords, battleaxes, and a massive tapestry portraying unicorns and the ladies of a medieval court cavorting in a copse of trees. Suspended from the ceiling was a gigantic iron chandelier originally designed to hold candles but wired for electricity. A suit of armor stood on either side of a grand stairway that swept upward to the second floor.
As the Van Meters’ houseman led the way down a drafty corridor toward the library where Miles and Henry Van Meter waited, Delilah turned to Jack Stamm, the Multnomah County district attorney.
“This place looks like the Oregon branch of Buckingham Palace,” she whispered.
Stamm laughed because he’d had the same reaction the first time he set foot in the Van Meter home.
“The Van Meters started as dirt-poor loggers and built a timber empire,” Stamm whispered back. “I guess they felt they earned the right to live like emperors.”