by Kim Goldman
It is strange to be counting down 300 seconds when the connection to the killer has ridden alongside me for nineteen years. It’s a part of my identity—whether I want it to be or not.
My life has always been about balance, and some days I am better at it than others. But when it comes to Sam, I worry that he gets cheated because I am juggling so many jobs, wearing so many hats, and experiencing so many emotions. I hope I don’t make him feel unimportant or that I don’t do a good enough job of having focused attention.
So I stop the movie playing in my head and look at my son across the table. He is stuffing his face silly with cookies-and-cream yogurt, with sprinkles and caramel. And I smile. This is what the healing process is all about for me: owning my life, my future, my process, my role in all of it.
Looking at my son, I know I need to be a role model of courage and strength for him.
I know that writing this letter will be a lesson I can teach to my son.
We pull into the parking lot of our post office and I park right in front of the big blue box. I grab the letter in my hand, take a deep breath and think “Fuck it” as I drop it in, leaving the rest to fate.
What a relief: 4:55 p.m. Five minutes to spare.
* * *
“Hey, Yale, what’s up?”
What’s up? That’s what I said to him?! What is wrong with me? He is not my friend; I don’t care how he is or what he’s doing. Sheesh. Okay, pull it together, regain composure, and proceed with dignity and professionalism—this could be a life-altering discussion.
“So I have to tell you, I became very suspicious when your PR person Leslie Garson called me last week, and then I became even more concerned when your attorney, Jonathan Polak, called me yesterday. So what’s going on? What it is that you are looking to accomplish, Kim?”
This is the opening exchange to one of the most revealing and empowering twenty-three minutes of my life, during the summer of 2011. Yale Galanter has been representing my brother’s killer since 2001, when he showed up as his attorney in a road rage trial and then for the federal drug raid case on the killer’s house, the misdemeanor boating violation in 2002, the domestic violence call in 2003, the If I Did It and bankruptcy situation in 2007, and then, most notably, the Vegas conviction in 2008.
“Well, I am coming to a place in my life where I am seeking additional healing, and part of my process to get there is to reach out to him,” I explain. “This has been gnawing away at me for the better part of a decade, and I feel strongly that I need this, in order to move forward in a healthier manner. I know it sounds like an odd request. Actually, it’s not so odd; lots of people in my position contact someone in his position. In fact, there is a whole theory called restorative justice.”
Stop talking Kim, that’s enough talking.
“Okay, I hear all of that and I can appreciate that,” Yale responds. “I have had loss in my life, too, so I can appreciate where this is coming from. But let me tell you, human to human, he’s not a warm and fuzzy guy.”
And with that unbelievable understatement, I kick back in my air-conditioned car, where I had gone to get some privacy, and listen to him bury his own client.
“There is a good chance that you will be more distraught when you leave than you thought. If you are expecting to get an empathetic and emotional person on the other side of the table, you won’t get that. You know, I need to be careful, ’cause he is my client, but, Kim, he is not the affable, jovial person that the media makes him out to be. His view of the world and reality are two totally different things. He’s not a nice guy.”
Uh, thank you, Captain Obvious.
“You know, Kim, I have known you for what? Almost sixteen years now? And I am just not sure you are going to get what you want. But if you tell me in your heart of hearts that you need this, and you have to have this in order to move on in your life, then I will do everything in my power to make it happen.”
I sit with my jaw open and eyes rolling as he continues to lecture me and do his best to dissuade me from taking a trip to Lovelock Prison, to see his buddy. I am enjoying this, but careful not to let my guard down. After all, he is an attorney who has been defending the man who killed my brother for many years (not quite fifteen, as Yale thinks, but long enough).
I don’t like him; I don’t trust him; I don’t respect him. But I am certainly intrigued by this game we are playing.
“I just don’t think it’s a good idea. I don’t think you are going to get what you are looking for. Most of us think that if your family sat down with someone that has harmed you all these times—I mean, after all this time, that you would expect an empathetic and compassionate person, but you will probably get a defiant, aggressive, not nice human. I don’t think he is who you think he is.”
“Or, Yale, he is exactly what I think he is.”
Pause.
“Kim, again, from a human (which sounds like ‘uman,’ because he drops the ‘h’) level, I can appreciate that you think this will help you from a cathartic place. But I don’t know what you are dealing with in your life. I mean, I don’t really know you, but regardless, I don’t agree it will help—just ’uman to ’uman—like I said, if you were my best friend and you asked me to do this, I would say you are crazy and it’s not going to help. But I would do everything in my power to make this happen for you. I can do that. But you need to think long and hard about what you are looking to gain. What do you really think you are going to accomplish?”
I am mumbling a lot of “yeahs” and “uh-huhs,” not wanting to interrupt his outpouring of information.
“But like I said, if you tell me this is helpful for your process and if you walk away feeling better, and are able to move forward in your life and get the solace you need, then I will have a warm spot in my body.”
Eww.
“But, you know, if you tell me you are ready to do this, there are some things we need to work out. You have to promise me that none of our conversations are ever discussed, and you can never tell anyone that you were there and spoke to him. You will have to sign a confidentially agreement; and the truth is, they’re not worth the paper they are written on. I would have to take you on your word that if you were ever asked if this meeting occurred, if rumor got out—I mean, you are a public figure, so if someone saw you go in and out of jail, or saw you at the Reno airport, that you would look that person in the eye and lie. And tell them it never happened. Nobody could ever know.”
“Well, Yale, that is a lot to ask of me.”
“Well, yeah. I mean, like I said, from a compassionate place, I don’t think this is a good idea, but the lawyer side—it’s all a downside for my team. You can imagine, again, that as a lawyer I need to do this. I mean, Kim, if you go in there, and you interview or talk to him for an hour, and if he says he’s sorry, or he confesses and you go out and tell it to Oprah and the world, it would be a media frenzy and I couldn’t do anything. I have no recourse. I mean, the strict restriction is for his protection, so he doesn’t get bamboozled. So you would have to promise me that nobody would ever know—and if you are asked if it happened, you would have to promise me that you would lie. I mean, you already knew this from Jonathan and Leslie, right? They told you this?”
“Yeah, I knew.” Considering how nervous I am to talk to him, I wasn’t doing much talking. I was serving as more of a confessional for him.
“I mean, I thought something was up when they reached out to me and not you. I am trusting that your motives are pure here and that you are not intending anything else.”
“Okay, so let me address that first. I am not going to throw anyone under the bus, nor am I going to defend anyone, but—Leslie and I are close, and I didn’t know she was calling—but she did that to help me where she thought I was stuck. And Jonathan called you on my behalf because he represents me and wanted me to be protected. You should know that they both had my back, and I appreciated that.”
“Kim, I know it’s hard to believe, but I have your b
ack too.”
Gack!
“And my intentions have always been about me, my family, my health, and my well-being. That has never changed,” I continued.
“Okay, okay, I believe you,” he says with a condescending laugh.
“So I have been thinking about your confidentiality demand and I will be honest that I am stuck there. I can’t imagine that if I actually am able to take this on, and I experience the most life-altering moment ever, that I can’t speak to ANYONE, ever—that’s a lot to ask of me. Those are some hefty emotional handcuffs. It’s taken me more than a decade to get up the courage to do this, and then to be told that I couldn’t ever talk about it—ever. That’s a lot to ask. And I am going to assume that if I am under this same restriction, he would be, too.”
Yale breaks into laughter. “Well, I don’t know, that’s a whole other story. I am not sure that would be the case.”
“And why is that a whole other story?” Now I am pissed. What’s good for the goose isn’t good for the killer, I guess.
“Well, I mean, I haven’t even spoken to him yet about all of this. Before I presented anything to him, I wanted to know where you were, and what you wanted.”
“So you don’t know that I have been contacting him?”
“No.” He answered quickly. Then he refueled and continued with his long-winded pitch.
“Kim, you need to think long and hard about what you are looking to gain from this. I mean, I can’t stress enough that I don’t think this will end well. He is not a nice guy. But if you tell me from the bottom of your heart that you need to do this, in order to move on, I will make it happen for you. But if you were my best friend, I would strongly oppose it. But if you say to me, ‘I am a big girl and I can handle it…”
“Yale, I do not have a rehearsed speech or a script. I just know that it’s something I need to do. I don’t know what I would say or ask.”
“Kim, I think you really need to work that out before you go. You know it would just be the two of you in there. I couldn’t protect you in there.”
“I have no expectation that he and I are going to sit down and play a game of Bunco. I have no intention of asking him ‘Why?’ I don’t want to know that; I already know why. But, honestly, there are some things that I am keeping private, because I don’t need to share all of my therapy sessions with you. I am a tough girl; I am no wallflower—he doesn’t scare me. He can’t do anything worse to me than he already has. I don’t expect to have a ‘come to Jesus’ moment with him. I just know what I need. And while I appreciate that you are being honest with me about your reservation or hesitation of whether it will be good for me or not, that is not what is making me uncomfortable.”
“It’s asking me to never breathe this to anyone—ever—for the rest of my life that I find uncomfortable. I can’t imagine that after making a decision that has taken the better part of a decade to get to, that it could never be discussed. That would be very restrictive for me; that’s where I am stuck.”
Now he is not talking much.
I continue in my speech. “So I will take all of the things we have discussed today and think about it. And I will be back in touch.”
“Well, make sure it’s you calling and nobody else.”
“Yale, if we are going to be discussing confidentiality agreements, Jonathan will be running interference on my behalf. You know better.”
“Yeah, I already told Jonathan that’s the only conversation he can be part of.”
“Okay, well, anyway, thank you for your candor. Good-bye.”
“Take care, Kim.”
Radio silence—until I let out the biggest burst of laughter and squeal. I almost crack my windshield.
What the fuck just happened? Did he really just say all of those things to me? I can’t believe that he just threw his client under the bus like that. Did he think he was telling me something I didn’t know about the killer? I mean, he stabbed my brother in the heart, for God’s sake! Did he think telling me, “He isn’t a very nice guy,” would be new information?
I didn’t really expect to see the killer in jail and have him lie down so I could rub his belly! He is a murderer, an abuser, a liar, a thief, a kidnapper—I’d expect him to be defiant and aggressive. I just wouldn’t have expected his attorney to drive the point home for twenty-three minutes—and with me, of all people.
But as I sit in my car, glowing from the sheer fact that I didn’t cower or waiver in my stance, and held my own against a “big-time attorney” who protects the most hated person in my world, something occurs to me that I didn’t anticipate. This conversation is not about protecting my best interests, as Yale claimed; this conversation was about fear of what the killer might do, what he might say, and might reveal himself. It had nothing to do with me—but everything to do with him. They were afraid. And that made me giddy.
* * *
Going into that conversation, I knew damn well that I would never consider signing a confidentiality agreement, but I needed to confront that head-on. I needed to stand my ground, to assert my strength, my courage, and to not back down. I couldn’t jeopardize my integrity. How shameful and predictable that I would be asked to lie.
He asked me to deny reality—the same reality that he claims his client can’t subscribe to. I wonder why? For years the killer has been protected, shielded, and surrounded by people who consistently alter reality to suit his needs.
Did Yale really think that I would go along with a scheme that potentially would call everyone else a liar—if the word got out about my meeting? Did he imagine that I would risk my word, my reputation, for him? I guess since others have done it in the past, it’s a reasonable expectation to have in the present. Or maybe he knew I wouldn’t, and therefore he’d never actually have to expose his client as the “defiant, aggressive” person that he is.
I will never know his reasoning for being so forthcoming. Was it a manipulation, or an honest cleansing of some sort? Regardless of how I dissected all of the parts, the one that remained intact was how empowered I felt after our talk. And quite honestly, I was more motivated to see him in prison. The picture he painted of his client was exactly what I pictured in my head: angry, menacing, aggressive, emotional, mean—the picture of a murderer.
I knew that face; I knew that image. I’ve seen it in real life and in my nightmares. But I wanted to see for myself a man sentenced to a life behind bars, clad in a faded jumpsuit, his head full of gray hair. I wanted to see the look on his weathered face when I got up and walked out, leaving him to watch me go back to a life he tried to destroy but didn’t.
I needed to make one more call to Yale. I wanted to get my hands on the confidentiality agreement and see for myself exactly what restrictions would be placed on me.
I wanted to drive this as far as I could. I left that first conversation fired up and ready to take on the world. It was like the exhilaration a teenager felt after borrowing a car and taking it out for a joyride; exciting, dangerous, unpredictable, and unbridled.
So I called again, ready to give my three-line speech and then hang up.
This time, the conversation was slightly different from the first. I half expected Yale to be somewhat apologetic for his ramblings the first time, but he wasn’t at all. He was lighthearted, easygoing, and acted as if we’d been old drinking buddies.
“Oh, hey, Kim, how’s it going? What’s up?”
“Well, Yale, I have decided that I would like to pursue this a little further. I am aware of the restrictions you have placed on me. Before I make any final decisions, I would like to read what you are proposing.”
“Okay, so you thought about what I told you last week. Well, obviously, you did. Okay, so then basically I just need to know that you agree with this in content, and then I will start the ball rolling and make some calls. The specifics Jonathan and I can work out; that’s no big deal. So I guess from a logistical standpoint, you would have to come there, obviously. You would have to come alone. And I will g
et one of my ‘contacts’ to usher you in…”
Uh, you mean the big sheriff guy, that contact?!
“…and then you would have your meeting. Remember, I can’t protect you in there. And then I would have my contact usher you out. And that would be it.”
I wasn’t sure if he asked me a question or not, so I wait. He paused long enough for me to jump in.
“So assuming I sign this, and we move forward, what happens if it gets out?”
“Well, it would depend by who. If you leaked it, or my team did, then there would be penalties to pay of some kind. But if someone inside the jail leaked it, then I would expect full denial from you. So you want me to get started? You are good with the arrangements?”
I choked.
I stuttered.
I stammered and stumbled over my emotions.
My thoughts were racing.
I wasn’t prepared to say yes, to get the ball rolling. I knew by this point that I was just trying to force his hand a bit. I just wanted the piece of paper first.
“Uh, no. I am not prepared to agree to anything today. I want to see something in writing. It would be irresponsible of me to do anything else. I guess I will have to call you back again. I mean, I don’t want to get all this way and not even know if he would agree to this.”
“He’ll agree to the restrictions because I am telling him to, but I don’t know if he’ll agree to meet with you yet. I won’t talk to him until I know you are good with the content of this deal.”
“I am not prepared to answer that, Yale. I guess there will be another call.”
“Kim, I told you to call me anytime. I will do whatever I can. I still don’t think this is a good idea, and I don’t think your attorney thinks it’s a good idea either. So just let me know.”
