The Good Client

by Dan Decker

  “No, there is no way he could do anything like this. I just had an argument with him, he still insists that I should switch attorneys. I’m sorry. I would not have suggested him if you had asked me yesterday.”

  I nodded as if it were a closed issue.

  “Who else could have done this?”

  “I can’t really say that I have any enemies. The most conflict I have is at school competing for grades. Not that that’s really going to be much of an issue seeing as how this is going. I’ll be lucky if I don’t flunk out next semester with this hanging over my head.”

  “Do you have any past girlfriends?”

  “No. My only date this year was with that Lizzie girl and you know how that went.”

  “Does either your brother or your sister have it out for you?”

  He shook his head. “We get along fine. It helps we hardly see each other. I haven’t talked to either in months. No way they would do anything like this.”

  “Your mother?”

  “She is an angel and you better never suggest she did this again.”

  I raised an eyebrow, but Timothy held my eyes, unflinching in a way I had never seen him act before. There was some mettle in the kid after all.

  I shrugged. “No problem, sure thing.”

  “We’re pretty much screwed, aren’t we? I’m screwed. No suspects, other than me. I have no enemies, so nobody would do this to me.”

  “We still have plenty of time to look into Gordon and try to figure out who would want him dead. That is what we have to focus on if everybody around you is clean. You go spend the next three hours on social media. If anybody looks remotely familiar, send them over to me and we’ll open an investigation right away.”

  “How much would I get on a plea deal?”

  “Did you do this?”

  “I didn’t. I’ll say it till the day I die. I had nothing to do with this. But—”

  “Do you really want to go there? I can get the prosecution on the phone if you want. This is your case, it’s your call.”

  “No, I would rather spend my life free.”

  “Let’s not go there. If we have to, we will, but not yet. Let’s see what we can turn up first.” The words left my mouth before I had a chance to think about them, but I did not try to take them back.

  The situation was bad, it was really bad, but I did not believe he had done this so I wasn’t going to give up. If we turned up nothing and he was still the only suspect when we got to trial, maybe then, but for now, I had to believe whoever had done this had left something behind.

  22

  Jun 7 – 5:56 PM

  It had not even been two hours since Timothy had left my office and he had already sent me five people for Winston to investigate, all former contacts of Gordon. It turned out my little shop of horrors had given him the motivation he needed. Timothy had made short comments on each person, nothing really interesting, but at least we now had a place to start.

  I dialed Winston’s number. He picked up on the first ring. “What do you want?”

  “I have some names for you, people who Timothy saw in his apartment with Gordon. Dig into them and let’s see if we can put anything together that might be useful for the case.”

  “Okay.”

  “That is your second priority. I want you to look into the father. Timothy’s father. I want to know beyond any shadow of doubt that he did not do this; until then, treat him as if he’s our main suspect.”

  Winston did not immediately respond and I could tell he was surprised by the change of direction.

  “Will do. I’ll get back to you with what I find.”

  After I hung up with Winston, I woke up my computer and typed the name Ron Cooper into my web browser. Several minutes later I was looking at his picture on his firm’s website. He was a name partner and the firm boasted more than a hundred attorneys.

  Timothy had backpedaled very quick after suggesting his father could be behind this. I was having a difficult time believing it was just because they had an argument prior to my impromptu meeting with him.

  I had not given him time to prepare because I had been looking for raw emotion.

  Timothy had pointed a finger at his father and I had to figure out why.

  My instincts also told me to look at Ron Cooper, though I could not in my wildest imagination guess why he would have wanted Gordon dead and would frame his son for the murder.

  Especially for a man who took such great care in the picture he had posted on his website profile. Not only was I looking at a professional photo, it also appeared a makeup artist had worked on him. I would have bet real money his wardrobe had been selected by somebody who knew what they were doing. His face, along with his other twenty partners, flashed right there on the homepage.

  Ron was all about image. He would look bad if his son went to jail. That was undoubtedly part of the reason why he kept pushing Timothy to fire me and to hire Williams. If he had for some reason killed Gordon, the last thing he should have done was to frame his son for the murder.

  It did not make sense, but I had seen weirder scenarios, so I did not discount the possibility out of hand. I would wait to see what Winston came up with.

  My phone buzzed. I pressed the speaker button. “What is it, Ellie? Shouldn’t you be gone?” Ellie tended to match the hours I worked and I was always harassing her for staying late when I did. I was planning to head off in a few minutes, but it would have been better if she had gone an hour or two ago.

  “Got plenty to do still,” she said cheerfully, “just have a few loose ends to tie up and I’ll be out of here. I thought you would want to know that Frank Ward is on the phone for you.”

  “What does he want?”

  “He wouldn’t say. He asked for you and didn’t respond to anything until I said I would get you.”

  Sounds like Frank.

  “Send him through.”

  The line clicked.

  “Mitch, how are you doing?” It was unusual for him to begin with a salutation, so I knew he was looking for something.

  Probably a plea deal.

  “Not so bad I suppose, yourself?”

  “It’s been a day. I was calling to see if you want to meet for dinner. Tonight.”

  So it was about a plea deal and he wanted a face-to-face to discuss it. This was surprising, considering the fact that all the evidence they had pointed at my client. If I were him, I would take this case to trial because it looked like a slam dunk conviction, assuming he could find proper motive. Convictions almost always made it into the newspaper and received far more attention than plea bargains.

  “Sure.”

  Frank gave me the address of where he wanted to meet and hung up.

  I had half an hour before I was supposed to meet him, so I continued my research on Ron Cooper, hoping to find something that would either rule him out as a potential suspect or a way to explain why he would frame his son when he was so sensitive about public attention.

  Ron had published a number of law review articles, I opened the first and was bored at the first sentence. There was a reason I practiced criminal law. It was far more interesting than anything to do with business transactions. Ron probably made a lot more money, but I had a better ride.

  I logged onto Facebook and with a couple short clicks found his Facebook page. It immediately reminded me of his professional profile on his firm’s website. Everything appeared public and he only used it as a means of advertising his services. I didn’t see any personal pictures or comments about anything inflammatory like politics or religion.

  After several more searches I came up with several additional social media profiles and they had all been set up the same way. The guy was active on them, but it was all geared towards getting clients.

  I would not have been surprised if his secretary was the one keeping these profiles up-to-date.

  Another search for Ron turned up his real estate property, but no other personal information. Despite Timothy’s insi
stence that his mother had nothing to do with this, I searched her name as well.

  Cynthia Cooper was a professor of history.

  I was soon looking at her online profile and noticed she had published a number of historical books and one novella. Her area of interest had been early colonial American history, all the classes she taught were related to that in some way or another.

  When I searched for her on Facebook, I found her profile to be just like that of her husband’s. Ron’s profile was not surprising in the slightest, a lot of attorneys tended to treat Facebook as if it were just another medium for them to advertise rather than actually developing their personal contacts, but I had expected different from Cynthia.

  She had stepped up to her son’s aid and told me that she’d have Keith Williams send over the retainer. Timothy was devoted to her and even though she had been supportive in the courtroom after the arraignment, she was distant and unemotional. I continued my research and found comments from students in her classes. Some had liked her well enough, but a lot thought her stiff and boring. One went so far as to suggest a fencepost would be a better teacher.

  I was not surprised, that was how she seemed to me.

  I sent Winston a text and asked him to look into the mother as well, even though Timothy had asked me not to. He technically would have a right to see the results of the investigation, but hopefully I could get the charges dismissed and he would never ask for the file.

  Timothy’s parents.

  Something was off about these two people.

  The way they handled their son the day of trial was curious. It was also interesting that neither had attempted to visit Timothy prior to his arraignment, waiting instead for the more public venue to make their appearance. They had seemed to take their son appearing before a judge as a matter of course, something that should have been shocking and appalling, considering Timothy’s lack of criminal history.

  Unless he did something as a juvenile.

  Neither Winston nor I had suspected Timothy might have a juvenile history because he’d been so clean otherwise, but perhaps that had been a mistake. Timothy had said he’d never done drugs, but it was strange that he had such a high tolerance for a roommate who appeared to be the opposite of him in many ways, especially one who had lived a much rougher life.

  I didn’t buy the story that these two had just become roommates because they had met up on Craigslist like Timothy claimed.

  So much to look into, I thought, wondering how best to approach the situation. Winston was good, but I had him looking into a lot of other things. I didn’t like the idea of sending him to track down anything Timothy might have done as a kid because I wanted him focused on the heart of the case. Even if I did find something interesting about Timothy’s past, it was not likely to be relevant to how I was going to handle his defense. I just wanted a big picture of my client and his situation.

  I buzzed Ellie. “Is Susie still here?”

  “Yeah, do you want me to send her in?”

  “Sure, thanks.”

  A few moments later she knocked and pulled the door shut before she sat down.

  “What do you need?”

  “Have you been able to turn up anything when talking to the students?” I had not asked Winston to do anything at the law school and had been relying on Susie to see if anything materialized. At some point I would probably make a trip there myself to speak to a couple of Timothy’s professors, but there just wasn’t much connection to the school.

  “I found somebody who thinks they might have seen him there, but they don’t remember when they saw him. The encounter was just in passing.”

  “Have you found anything on Timothy’s friends?” I had not yet asked Timothy for references at the law school, but perhaps it might be time to see if he had any good character witnesses I could put on the stand if it came down to it.

  That would be a reason to visit his law professors. I wouldn’t assign that to Susie, I would just do that myself.

  “Honestly, the guy just tends to keep to himself. I know he was hired through me, but it was through a friend of a friend and she doesn’t even know him that well, I ran into her last week and asked a few questions.”

  I hid a smile, it was natural to distance yourself from somebody who was accused of murder.

  “Can’t say I’m surprised.” I looked at her carefully. “How would you say these conversations with his fellow students have gone?”

  “Seem to have been okay.”

  “Did you feel like you fit in with them pretty well?”

  “Yeah, I suppose. What are you getting at?”

  “I’m starting to think it might be a good idea to look deeper into Timothy’s past, specifically his high school and junior high school days. Do you think you could go on the social media websites, find people he knew from back then, and clandestinely ask for meetings with them?”

  Susie gave me a curious look. “I thought you said he was a Boy Scout? Why are we suddenly looking into his past?”

  “Let’s call it a hunch.” I didn’t want to get into my theories involving Timothy’s parents, not unless I had anything substantial. “Let’s just make sure he’s the squeaky-clean fellow we all believe him to be.”

  “You don’t want to have Winston work this?”

  “I have him tracking down other avenues and I want him focused on those. If you don’t feel comfortable with this, that’s fine, I’ll find another way to look into it.”

  “Oh no, I’m just fine. I was just curious why you are having me do it.”

  I smiled. “Well, I also think you might be able to relate to people Timothy’s age better than Winston. Timothy is what, a year or two older than you?”

  Susie gave me a wry look. “Are you suggesting I might have an in, primarily because I’m an attractive female in my early twenties and Winston is pushing forty-five and wouldn’t open as many doors?”

  “I’m not saying anything like that. I’m just saying I think you will be more successful.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence.” She gave me a knowing smile before she left.

  I packed up my briefcase for the weekend so I could have some stuff to review at night if I found the time, Britney had been out of town for the last couple of weeks so I did not have anything better to do.

  On my way out of the office I made sure to stop off and tell Ellie I had a dinner appointment with Frank Ward. I did not even remind her that she should leave. She seemed appreciative that I had remembered to tell her about one of these offsite appointments that I always seemed to have.

  23

  Jun 7 – 6:35 PM

  “We are going to seek the death penalty,” Frank Ward said to me after our dinner had been delivered, prior to that we had made awkward small talk. He was about seven or eight years older than me but probably in better condition because he jogged every morning, something he talked about at length.

  We did not have a lot in common. He didn’t think much of me, and while I respected him well enough, his dislike made it difficult for us to get along.

  I kept my face still at his pronouncement, but was inwardly surprised. My first thought was that he was bluffing. This case did not have the death penalty written on it, those were saved for truly terrible actors, not somebody who killed their roommate over a dispute about a girl. The best he could probably get on Timothy was twenty-five to life.

  My assumption was that this was a precursor to a plea deal and he wanted to make the offer seem better than it actually was.

  “Interesting,” I said while keeping my face still. “I wouldn’t expect that in this case, but we will plan accordingly. When can I get a copy of the amended charges?”

  Frank looked a little uncomfortable and I hid a smile. A tactic such as this might have worked on a new attorney, but I knew this was not a capital case. Our age difference meant that he underestimated how comfortable I was with the criminal law.

  “I’m not joking around. We’ve had new infor
mation come to light that puts this in an entirely different context. I can tell you think the judge is not going to go for it, but once we get through with the amended charges, it’s not going to be a problem.”

  I didn’t know how to respond, so I leaned back in my chair and folded my arms and waited for him to go on. He was clearly hoping for me to ask a question, but I was not gonna give him the satisfaction.

  If he wanted to play games, fine he could play games, if he had real information, he was duty-bound to give it to me anyway.

  “Nothing in this case justifies capital charges,” I said after several awkward minutes, during which I had focused on eating my food, “so unless you’re gonna say something more about it tonight, we have nothing to talk about.”

  “Timothy has a history.”

  “He’s clean,” I said, wishing I had thought to have Susie look into his juvenile years sooner. “I checked him out. He has no priors. Not even an arrest.”

  “You haven’t seen his juvie file, have you?”

  I silently cursed but kept my face still. “You know I haven’t. Are you going to provide me a copy or leave me guessing?”

  “It’s said that once a man gets a taste for killing, it’s hard to stop.”

  “You’re talking about Timothy as if he is a serial killer and there is only one body. If he had killed anybody as a kid, he would have been tried as an adult and that would’ve come up on my background check, so either start talking or let’s just eat our meal.”

  My indignation was real but kept in check. I had managed to say all of that without asking a single question. It was one of my rules when dealing with a stubborn opposing counsel.

  Make demands, don’t ask questions.

  I had even done my best to keep my tone friendly and light—letting my words speak for themselves—and I figured that I had succeeded, because Frank just shook his head. If he had been hoping to rattle me, it was not happening.

  At least outwardly.