by Mark Tiro
“I remember him,” Grace said, “from when he was a PD in our office. What is it about former PDs? Once anyone from our office gets appointed to the bench, it’s like whatever darkness they were hiding comes out and they inflict it on everyone around them. Why do you think that is?”
“Not sure. I just know my judge is his own unique category of asshole,” Maya said, slipping effortlessly over the line that separates pleasant enough from one drink too many. “Not the prelim judge. She’s great. But anyway, what do I want?” she pondered a moment before venturing an answer. “Same as you, I guess—to win. Clients get screwed. I can do something about that, and so I want to. And I just got a new murder case. Did I tell you? Ridiculous. I think I can get him a not guilty, so—yeah, I want to do something about that too.”
“For real though,” Grace replied. “Not at work.”
Maya paused thoughtfully an instant. “What could I want?” They found a table and sank into the chairs. Maya looked around, surveying the bar for the usual crowd of suspects, before looking back. “Well I can tell you this. What I definitely don’t want is a husband. And even if I did, there are enough husbands around here, I can pretty much have my pick of whichever one I want.”
“Uh, right,” Grace told her, smiling uncomfortably. Grace had grown up substantially more religious than she was now. As a little girl, her grandparents had taken her, most every weekend, to a small Korean church in the basement of an old department store, which itself was just on the edge of Koreatown. “You do get Maya that the reason they’re called ‘husbands’ is because they’re married—to other people?”
“Well you think they would’ve said something about that before we slept together—”
“—stop it!” Grace cut her off with a mock scream and a smile. “I get it. You don’t want anything, you have it all.”
“Well I could go work maybe at an animal rescue,” Maya answered. “I think I’d like that.”
At that Grace laughed out loud, but Maya had become quiet now. “Wait, you’re joking, right?” Grace asked. “You’re the best lawyer I know.”
Maya took a long, slow pull on her drink, this time without looking up. When she finally did, Grace saw eyes that seemed a million years old and a million miles away.
It was still early. Most everyone had left the bar by 7 when the happy hour was done. It hadn’t taken Maya long to get home after that. She tried to read a little. Maya liked to read. She read to forget her day, her bills, what passed as her ‘love life’. She read to try to get the feeling back that she had felt when she had read her first novel, working in the bookstore all those years ago. It seemed to her now in retrospect that reading that first novel had been her first really rebellious act. It had been the vector that would eventually lead her to the Public Defender’s Office. And Maya read to feel normal, to sink into the warm cocoon of another world of people and ideas.
Tonight she had tried to read but couldn’t. That intangible, formless spark, the juice and exhilaration from new ideas and people her books always seemed to bring her—it just wasn’t there. It wasn’t there, and the thought briefly occurred to her—she couldn’t remember the last time it had been.
More and more lately, Maya felt a drifting emptiness. She’d start to watch a movie on her computer, try to pick up a book she’d started, call an old college friend—and halfway through, she’d find herself getting distracted and her mind wandering.
Whatever juice and excitement used to fill her free time and propel her into castles of dancing ideas in her mind was gone now. Maybe not gone, but just not there. Increasingly she found herself obliterating it, in the meaninglessness of more friends, more whiskey, more…distractions.
And that’s how Maya fell asleep, sprawled out on her couch, iPad fallen sideways next to her, pictures of puppies for adoption pulled up on more internet windows than would fit. For one more night at least, the gnawing ‘is that all?’ remained mostly pushed down and out of the way, even as it sat on the edge of her awareness, menacing her from a distance.
And so Maya slept until the light of the morning streamed in her window, and woke her up for another day of doing it all again.
5
Looking from the safety and learning of years and space and ideas gone by, Maya remembered back to that next morning, waiting for her client to be brought out to the visiting room of Central Jail. It briefly occurred to her that everything would have been easier if she had told her boss ‘no thank you’ when he asked if she wanted the case. Or if she had gotten up and walked out before he walked in. But of course, she knew that she hadn’t had it in her to walk away.
Still, sitting and waiting, mind drifting sideways, Maya got caught up in the reverie playing out in her head. While she sat waiting for David, she pictured herself standing up, walking out of the visiting room, going back to the office, leaving her ID card on her boss’s desk. The animal rescue loomed in front of her, and in her daydream, she decided she would start as a dog groomer and work her way up from there. Definitely dogs, she thought. I do not do well with cats.
Still enveloped in her dog-grooming alter-ego fantasy, Maya suddenly looked up to find herself sitting across from her new client for the first time.
Maya felt thrown off balance for just an instant, which with a client, as far as she could recall, happened like…never. Maya never got thrown. And if she did find herself off balance—after all, she practiced intellectual combat for a living—she had the lawyer poker face (lawyer face?) down cold.
An instant later, and at last, fully snapped back to the present, she decided that she needed to be more careful, to not drift off when she needed to be present and focus.
“David Nagai.” Her new client introduced himself.
Sad eyes, but clear, she thought, as his eyes looked straight into her. In any event, as far as she could tell from looking at him—well, actually it became obvious to her fairly quickly, she couldn’t tell at all.
“You know—you’re far too tolerant of your mind wandering.” Other than his name, those were the first words she heard him speak.
A moment later, now recovered, her anger rushed in. Get the hell out of my head! she thought. The anger echoed through her mind for longer than she was comfortable.
Maya considered for an instant, and then put aside (for now), the idea that he was crazy. He’s probably not CIA, tin-foil on the head or aliens crazy, but psych eval was probably a good call, she thought.
At last, she introduced herself. “Mr. Nagai? Hi. I’m Maya. Maya Lee. I’ll be your lawyer for this case. How are you doing in here?”
“How do you think I’m doing in here?” he asked her. It was the closest any client had ever come to what Maya had always figured she would say if she was ever in that type of situation and had to come up with an answer.
A question in response to a question, she thought. Kind of like the Socratic method from back in law school. Hopefully he won’t be quite as painful as my contracts professor was.
Years later she would try to remember, try to picture what he looked like. She never could. Some quiet, sublime stillness, maybe. But that was an idea, not a description. That first day, when Maya met him, she wouldn’t have been able to recognize stillness even if it had come up and whacked her in the head.
During a first meeting with a new client, Maya would usually be able to basically put herself on autopilot. She had the pre-packaged script in her mind that most defense lawyers would run through with clients at some point: charges, worst case scenario, problems with the prosecutor’s case, defenses (if any…), what a jury trial is, and how 12 random people called jurors go into a room, close the door behind them, turn on a coffee maker, and come out and tell you what’s going to happen with the rest of your life.
Weird, she thought after she had her first chance to really sit across from him. No irony, no snarkiness.
“I’m very sorry about your daughter,” Maya said. She was as surprised as anyone who knew her would have been at
the sadness she felt when the words left her mouth.
Maya didn’t have kids, didn’t want kids, didn’t understand why people had kids. They’re cute of course, she thought. But so are puppies.
As soon as she had said it, his face seemed to change. All of the sudden, she was able to see in it the face of a grief-stricken parent. A human being in pain. She saw this pain, in one form or another, all too much. In her clients, the pain was usually followed by some outburst as if the client were trying to figure some way out of a box. Or at least, to find some way to make the pain stop. David is no different than any of the others, she thought. This thought somehow made it easier for her. But David Nagai didn’t lash out. She waited for the inevitable outburst. But it never came. Instead, he just sat there looking at her, with those eyes.
Obviously he was sad. Maya could see the tears welled up. And still, despite this, he had a quietness about him. Dark eyes, normally Maya could read. But she couldn’t read these. Not these eyes, not this client. Still, there was no attack either—just a sad stillness that Maya thought should have made her uncomfortable but for some reason, seemed to calm her instead. He’s in pain, obviously. How the hell is he so calm then? She considered the possibilities silently, unsure of how to size him up.
“This might be a long road here, Mr. Nagai, so I’ll be visiting you at least once a week, more if I can. We’ll talk more about the case. And I’m going to have a doctor, a psychologist actually, who will be coming by to talk with you. I work with him a lot, he’s on our side, and could help the case, so please be nice to him. His name is Dr. Joel Lehner.” Maya looked down at her file for a second, and then kept talking.
“I have an accident-reconstructionist to help with your case too, and of course, I’m still waiting to get a whole bunch of reports from the prosecutor.”
“Ms. Lee—”
“—Maya”
“Maya, you know—”
“Yes I know you’re not crazy, everyone asks that. Don’t worry, Dr. Lehner works with me—with us, that is—and he’ll help prepare a report that I expect will help your case.”
“Ms. Lee—er, Maya—you know I—”
“We don’t have to talk today about what happened,” she cut him off before he could begin. “We’re going to be together on this case for a while, David. Is it okay if I call you David?” she added, but continued without waiting for him to answer. “Listen, I know how much you’ve gone through, and how much of a shock this all has to have been. Just try and relax as best you can for now, and we’ll talk more next week, okay?”
“It is going to be okay, you understand that Ms. Lee? Maya, everything’s alright.” David looked straight at her, through eyes that seemed to stand as still as he was.
“For the life of me David, I know this is difficult for you to process, but please try not to be in denial. You will spend the rest of your life in prison if you’re convicted of this. Sure, we have some defenses, so I don’t want you to think we can’t do something to avoid that. But please, do take this seriously.”
As she said the words, she had two thoughts, almost simultaneously. The first, lingered like the ice that coursed through her veins in the heat of battle: Of course everything is going to be alright! You’ve got me for your goddamn lawyer! The second thought was fiery and out of control: Who the hell do you think you are, telling me everything will be alright? I’m the one who decides that!
Her face, of course, betrayed none of these thoughts. The fact that it didn’t was one of those reasons Maya Lee was so good at what she did. “Oh—one more thing I almost forgot,” she added. “I think you knew this already, but your wife filed for divorce. The sheriffs will serve you with the official papers, but I have a copy here for you to take a look at, for what it’s worth.” She handed him the paper, saying, “I’m sorry again.”
And with that, Maya got up, turned around and walked out, leaving David sitting there alone.
6
Maya came to as her dream started to take shape.
Down on hands and knees, she found herself on a sidewalk she didn’t recognize, under a bright street lamp looking for something she’d lost. A man she also didn’t recognize came up to her and asked what she was looking for. He offered to help her find it.
“I’ll find it myself!”
But the man didn’t leave, annoying Maya.
“Well where did you lose it?” the man asked.
Maya, apoplectic by now, answered him. “Somewhere back there.” She pointed down the street towards the spot.
“Why are you looking for it here then?” he asked.
“Isn’t it obvious? Because the light is better here under the street lamp!” she barked. “I can’t see a thing back there. Now, if you’d please stop bothering me….”
With that, she put her head back down, more determined than ever to find it.
At some point, she woke up. Before getting out of bed, she lingered a while, playing over the dream in her mind. At last, after careful analysis and thought, Maya decided that she’d figured out the meaning of her dream: Everybody just needs to mind their own business and leave me the hell alone.
Raging. Maya was raging.
Donald knew it. He also knew enough to stay out of her way when she was like this.
Which is why, of course, he did exactly the opposite. He turned around in his chair, and looked straight at her.
“Take it easy on her, will you please? You know our secretaries here make next to nothing. What’d you expect?”
Maya was waving around three sets of a motion she’d gotten back from her secretary. Maya had intended to take it with her to file when she went down to court in a few minutes. But the copies she’d gotten back from her secretary had two pages missing in the middle. And it looked like the signature page must have found its way over from the other side of her secretary’s desk. It was the page from a motion of a different attorney.
Maya’s anger generally bubbled and simmered on the inside. The most she’d ever let out was a pseudo-menacing low rumble. Even that was actually kind of sweet, assuming it wasn’t directed at you.
Resolve of steel, of course. On the inside, she had a resolve of steel. A lot of people liked Maya, and generally her anger came out only as a narrowing of her eyes, and a low kind ‘hmmmpphhh’ sound. A person might know, of course, that she was pissed. But it was only terrifying if you were on the receiving end.
“You hold grudges Maya,” Donald told her, doing his best to break the spell. “Why do you do that?” He was trying to direct her away from her unsuspecting secretary. He looked over at Maya, sizing up her anger, and figured he probably had a fifty-fifty chance of succeeding.
“I don’t care if it takes months. I’ll have my payback,” she said, ignoring him as she slipped effortlessly into blood sport mode she mainly reserved for judges and prosecutors.
“God help your secretary, Maya. Really, why?”
“If she can’t keep it straight, what the hell’s she doing here?” Maya fumed.
“Well, what is it, anyway? Is this that burglary case you’d been telling me about?” he asked, trying to redirect her anger away from her secretary. He’d been on the receiving end of Maya’s wrath more than once, and didn’t wish it on anyone.
“DA can go to hell. Seriously! I don’t know why I bother,” she said, changing her focus ever so slightly, away from her secretary and towards the prosecutor. “Should just rack up 12 in the box—remember how we used to do it? Set everything for a jury trial. Most times, the prosecutors would just crumble, day of trial.”
“Those were misdemeanors—homeless guys taking a shopping cart one too many blocks away from the grocery, or trespassing by taking too long in the bathroom at Starbucks. And those were City Attorneys too, just baby prosecutors Maya. You know they’re only even allowed to do misdemeanors. DAs are a whole different beast.”
“City Attorneys are a plague on the criminal justice system!” she barked.
Donald couldn’t help
but chuckle, and that seemed to be enough to break the spell. She seemed to pull back, even if just slightly, from the rage. “Anyway,” Maya said, relenting at last, “she had better get this motion together. I’ll talk to her. One time.”
“Please just try to take it easy, okay?” Donald said, still smiling. Seeing her soften even just slightly, he knew from experience that she would be good to her word. Maya’s secretary wouldn’t get on Maya’s list. At least not today.
“Hmmmpphhh” was the only sound Donald heard. She bounded off to court though, and he could see a faint, wry smile forming on the corner of her mouth.
Everything was okay.
At home, later that afternoon and drinking tea, Maya started going through the new police reports she’d received for David’s case. The Highway Patrol had an ‘expert’. An expert! Just another random CHP officer! Maya thought when she read it. Hmmmpphhh!
Unfortunately for Maya’s client, the ‘expert’ had written in his report that it was his opinion that David had intentionally caused the accident because he had been trying to commit suicide: “The Decedent passed away due to Suspect’s failed murder/suicide attempt.” Even worse for David, the report concluded that David should be charged as tough as it gets: “It is recommended, therefore, that the Suspect be charged with first degree intentional murder.”
With that, David was charged with first degree murder. And just like that, if he lost, he’d be spending the rest of his life in prison.
Why didn’t they just charge this as vehicular manslaughter? Dude wasn’t drunk, Maya thought as she played through the possible scenarios for the case. Either the DA’s greedy and wants the murder conviction, or because David’s wife had pushed for it. The latter was certainly a possibility, she decided. David’s relationship with his wife had already been pretty bad. She probably pushed the DA for this, Maya thought. Little girl had blond hair too, most likely, she added silently, and not without a little bitterness.
