"Character issues?"
"Right."
He turned his head to face her. "But didn't you say the other day that we didn't want to bring up character? Once we did that, then the prosecution could introduce their own stuff and jump all over us?"
"You were listening." Wu didn't seem very happy about it.
"Damn straight. I'm a good listener. So now you're saying we need character?"
"Maybe it's a bit of a risk. Certainly it's a different situation. But the bottom line is we need to defeat all the criteria. Every one of them, or Andrew goes up."
North sighed heavily, cast his gaze out to the view. "I'll talk to Linda. Maybe between us we can come up with something. You got those things, the criteria, written down?"
"Yes. Right here."
"Okay. Leave them with me, and if we can come up with something concrete you don't already know, we'll get back to you. How's that?"
Wu arrived before her client did in the cold and tiny room- the scratched table, the ancient chairs, the antiseptic old-school smell. Suddenly, she noticed the bars of sunlight high on the opposite wall, and she realized that she'd been awake only for a little over three hours total today, and the daylight was already nearly gone.
And wouldn't her father have been proud of her for that? For wasting the day? Or the past weeks? She rested her head in her hands as a fresh wave of nausea and revulsion rolled and broke over her. An unconscious moan escaped.
"Are you all right?"
She hadn't heard the key, hadn't been aware that the door had opened. Now Bailiff Cottrell- the young one with the old eyes- stood in the entrance, holding a restraining hand up for Andrew, waiting for a sign that the interview was still on. It wasn't immediately forthcoming, so he asked, "Are we good here, ma'am?" Eventually she nodded, and the bailiff lowered his hand, let her client come in, closed the door.
Andrew warily kept his eyes on her as he pulled his chair over, sat on the front inch of the seat. "Are you mad at me?" he asked.
Wu's mouth was dry, her face clammy. She closed her eyes for an instant, ran her hand over her forehead. "No. I'm not mad at you, Andrew."
"I thought you would be because I didn't do what you wanted me to." He had his hands clasped together between his knees. "But I couldn't say I did it."
"I know," she said. "I wouldn't worry about it now. It's done. The thing we have to do now is prevail at this hearing, get you mandated in the juvenile system so you stay here."
"But I thought that was already over with." Confusion played itself all over his features. "I mean, that's what everybody is so mad about, right?"
"Not really. They're mad that now they have to go through the hassle of trying to move you back up to adult court."
"So you're saying your deal, even though I didn't agree to it, got me another chance anyway?"
"Yeah."
Suddenly, the look of confusion cleared. Her client tentatively smiled. "Well, then, if your job is my defense, how could it have been wrong? Maybe the guy you made the deal with wasn't as careful as he needed to be, either. You ever think of that? Maybe it wasn't all your fault?"
Wu wouldn't think ill of the dead, especially not today. But Andrew's rationale released some small bit of the tension she felt. "Well," she said, "at least some of it was my fault. But that's very nice of you to say, and I could use a little nice." For the first time with Andrew, she felt something like a connection.
But there was still the business, the five criteria for amenability to the juvenile system. After she had painstakingly gone through the list for him, she sat back with her arms crossed over her chest. "We need to talk about each of these individually, Andrew," she said. "If the court finds you not amenable on any one of them, you go up."
"Any one?"
"That's the rule. And I'm afraid we've got less than a week to prepare."
"But these criteria." Andrew scratched at the tabletop. "Most of them don't apply to me at all. I don't even know what they mean by criminal sophistication, or if I can be rehabilitated. Rehabilitated from what?"
"Your violent criminal past."
He looked a question at her. "I don't have one."
"I know. But I don't think sophistication is the problem. Neither is rehab."
"But gravity is."
Everyone seemed to understand that one immediately. "Yes."
He gestured around the small room. "If it helps me get out of here… but I was saying, even on gravity, if I didn't do it…" He raised his eyes, hopeful.
But she didn't want to raise those hopes. She came forward and reached across the table, a hand over his forearm. "This hearing isn't about whether you did it, Andrew. I need you to understand that. It's only about whether you go up as an adult or not. They're going to pretty much assume the gravity criteria."
"And they only need the one?"
"I'm afraid so."
"So I'm going to lose?"
"We may lose, yes. For now. But we'll get a real chance in adult court."
"We ought to just go straight there, then. If this hearing is just a formality."
"No," she said. "We've got to try. Anything that keeps you down here even for on extra minute is what we want to do." In his eyes, she saw real worry- perhaps he was starting to realize where his refusal to admit had left him. Left them both. "So we've got to talk about some real issues, Andrew. My partner, Mr. Hardy? He's got a few ideas about gravity. We're not just going to give that to them. But the other criteria, we don't want any surprises with those either."
"I don't know what they'd be."
"No. I don't either, but that's why they call them surprises."
He started with some marginal enthusiasm as they discussed possible witnesses for the various criteria- the psychologist he'd seen for anger management, his school counselor, one of the probation officers up here. But before they'd gone too far, the enormity of what he was facing seemed to drag him down.
His focus wavered, then abandoned him entirely, and Wu- not at peak performance levels herself- found it difficult to humor him. From her perspective, his primary emotion was sorrow for himself. He stopped every few sentences, stared straight ahead or down at the table. He fought back tears a couple of times.
"Why should we bother doing this?" he'd say. "We're never going to win."
Or: "I'm such a loser. This isn't going to make any difference."
Or: "It'd be better for everybody if I just killed myself, wouldn't it?"
That last one stopped Wu. "Why would you want to do that, Andrew? What good would that do?"
"It'd end all this stupidity. If they're going to put me away anyway."
Wu scratched at the table, summoning her patience. "That's what we're trying to avoid."
"It won't work, though, will it?"
"Not if we don't try."
But even to her, the words sounded condescending, the kind of adult pablum he'd been forced to eat a hundred times. "Or even if we do," he said.
She tried to keep him on track, but it was a long, uphill slog until they finally summoned him for dinner. After he left, she felt she had no reserve of strength and remained sitting, elbows on the table, on her papers and notes. She rested her head on her palms, the heels of them pressing into her eyes.
She heard a knock. "Excuse me? Ms. Wu?" Bailiff Cottrell, come to close up the room, stared down at her from the doorway. She must have nearly let herself doze off. "Are you feeling all right?"
"Fine. I'm fine."
"You don't look well. Can I get you something? Some water?"
Moving slowly, she leaned back in her chair. "How about a head transplant? And maybe a new body to go with it."
"You couldn't get a better face," he said, "and you definitely don't need a new body."
At the moment, she felt about as attractive as a garbage truck, and she almost laughed at the compliment. But he was, she thought, just trying to be nice. "Thank you," she said. "I'm sorry to have kept you waiting while I just sat here. It's been a long day." She started gathering the papers and folders she'd spread out over the table.