“Good morning,” said a young lady as she hustled by with a stack of papers.
“Good morning,” Mitch replied. “I’m supposed to see Amos Patrick at nine o’clock.”
She had merely greeted him and had not offered to help. She managed a tense smile as if she had better things to do, and said, “Okay, I’ll tell him, but it might be a while. We’re in the middle of a bad morning.” She was gone. No invitation to have a seat, certainly no offer of coffee.
And what, exactly, might constitute a bad morning in a law firm where every case dealt with death? In spite of the tall front windows with plenty of sunlight, the place had a tense, almost dreary feel to it, as if most days began badly with the lawyers up early and fighting deadlines across the country. There were three plastic chairs in a corner with a coffee table covered in old magazines. The waiting room, of sorts. Mitch sat down, pulled out his phone, and began checking emails. At 9:30, he stretched his legs, watched the traffic on Summer Avenue, called the office because it was expected, and fought off irritation. In his world of clock-driven precision, being half an hour late for an appointment was rare and expected to occur only with a suitable explanation. But he reminded himself that this was a pro bono matter and he was donating his time.
At 9:50, a kid in jeans stepped around a corner and said, “Mr. McDeere, this way.”
“Thanks.”
Mitch followed him out of the showroom and past a large counter where, according to a faded sign, they once sold auto parts. They went through a wide swinging door and into a hallway. The kid stopped at a closed door and said, “Amos is waiting.”
“Thanks.” Mitch stepped inside and got himself bear-hugged by Amos Patrick, a wild-looking character with a mass of unruly gray hair and an unkempt beard. After the hug they shook hands and exchanged preliminary chitchat: Willie Backstrom, other acquaintances, the weather.
“Would you like an espresso?” Amos asked.
“Sure.”
“Single or double?”
“What are you having?”
“A triple.”
“Make it two.”
Amos smiled and walked to a counter where he kept an elaborate Italian espresso machine with an inventory of various beans and cups. The man was serious about his coffee. He took two of the larger cups — real, not paper — punched some buttons, and waited for the grinding to start.
They sat in a corner of his rambling office, under an overhead door that hadn’t been lowered in years. Mitch couldn’t help but notice that Amos’s eyes were red and puffy. Gravely, he said, “Look, Mitch, I’m afraid you’ve wasted a trip down. I’m really sorry, but there’s nothing you can do.”
“Okay. Willie warned me.”
“Oh no, not that. Much worse. Early this morning they found Tad Kearny hanging from an electrical cord in the shower. Looks like he beat ’em to the punch.” His voice choked and went silent.
Mitch could think of no response.
Amos cleared his throat and managed to say, almost in a whisper, “They’re calling it a suicide.”
“I’m sorry.”
For a long time they sat in silence, the only sound being the dripping of coffee. Amos wiped his eyes with a tissue, then struggled to his feet, retrieved the cups, and placed them on a small table. He walked to his remarkably cluttered desk, picked up a sheet of paper, and handed it to Mitch. “This came across about an hour ago.”
It was a shocking image of a naked, emaciated white man hanging grotesquely from an electrical cord cutting into the flesh of his neck and looped over an exposed pipe. Mitch took one look, turned away, and handed it back.
“Sorry about that,” Amos said.
“Wow.”
“Happens all the time in prison, but not on death row.”
More silence followed as they sipped espresso. Mitch could think of nothing to say, but the message was clear: the suicide was suspicious.
Amos stared at a wall and said softly, “I loved that guy. He was crazy as hell and we fought all the time, but I felt such sympathy for him. I learned a long time ago not to get emotionally involved with my clients, but with Tad I couldn’t help it. Kid never had a chance in life, doomed from the day he was born, which is not unusual.”
“Why did he fire you?”
“Oh, he fired me several times. It got to be a joke, really. Tad was street-smart and taught himself the law, thought he knew more than any of his lawyers. I stuck with him, though. You’ve been through it. It’s hard not to get consumed by these desperate men.”
“I’ve lost two of them.”
“I’ve lost twenty, now twenty-one, but Tad will always be special. I represented him for eight years and during that time he never had a visitor. No friends, no family, no one but me and a chaplain. Talk about a lonely soul. Living in a cage in solitary with no one on the outside, only a lawyer. His mental state deteriorated over the years and the last few times I visited him he refused to say a word. Then he would write me a five-page letter filled with thoughts and ramblings so incoherent it should’ve been clear proof of his schizophrenia.”
“But you tried insanity.”
“Tried, yes, but got nowhere. The State fought us at every turn and the courts had no sympathy. We tried everything, and we had a fighting chance a few months ago when he decided to fire his legal team. Not a smart move.”
“What about guilt?”
Amos took another sip and shook his head. “Well, the facts were not in his favor, shall we say? A drug runner caught in a sting with narcs, three of whom took bullets to the head and died at the scene. Not a lot of jury appeal. The deliberations lasted about an hour.”
“So he did kill them?”
“Oh, yes, shot two in the forehead from forty feet away. The third one took a bullet in the chin. Tad, you see, was an expert shot. Grew up with guns everywhere — in every car and truck, every closet, every drawer. As a kid he could hit targets practically blindfolded. The narcs picked the wrong guy to ambush.”
Mitch let the word rattle around the room for a moment, then said, “Ambush?”
“It’s a long story, Mitch, so I’ll give you a quick skinny. Back in the nineties there was a gang of rogue DEA agents who decided the best way to win the war on drugs was to kill the smugglers. They worked with informants, snitches, and other thugs in the trade and set up sting operations. When the delivery boys showed up with the goods, the agents simply killed them. No need to bother with arrests and trials and such, just vigilante justice that was bought hook, line, and sinker by the authorities and the press. Pretty effective way of putting the runners out of business.”
Mitch was speechless and decided to drink his coffee and listen.
“To this day they’ve never been exposed, so no one knows how many traffickers they ambushed. And, frankly, no one cares. Looking back, it appears as though they lost some of their enthusiasm when Tad shot three of their buddies. Happened about twenty miles north of Memphis at a rural drop-off point. There were some suspicions, some of the lawyers were putting the pieces together, but no one really wanted to dig too deep. These were nasty, violent men of the law who made their own rules. Those who knew about it were only too happy to help with the cover-up.”