New Tricks ac-7

by David Rosenfelt

  But I was basically a stranger to him, and it seems silly to feel he is entitled to a vigorous defense if charged with killing his father and stepmother, but not for the attempted murder of an unwitting bystander. On the other hand, I keep coming back to the fact that the unwitting bystander was me.

  I cut the walk a little short, not because I am seeing things with total clarity, but because my arms ache from trying to restrain Waggy. We get home, and I pour myself a glass of wine.

  Laurie calls me back and is as supportive as she can be, while we both understand that the decision is both personal and mine. I think about it some more, and then decide to discuss it with Waggy, who is sleeping next to Tara on the end of the bed.

  I’m nuts to do anything to wake up Waggy; I could be opening myself up for another session of his running around the house like an Olympic hurdler. But I say, “Wag, old buddy, here’s the situation. I’m going to try to help your friend Steven. If we win, you live with him. If we lose, you stay here. Either way you’ll be fine.”

  He just looks at me, gives a little wag of his tail, and lays his head on Tara’s back.

  I take this as a sign that he approves of the plan.

  I PICK KEVIN UP AT THE LAW-DROMAT at eight AM.

  His car is being repaired, and we’re going down to the jail for an early-morning meeting with Steven. Though from our point of view the meeting could wait until later in the day, we will be there early for his sake. If he’s like every other client I’ve had in this predicament, he is scared out of his mind and needs to see a friendly face. Someone on his side.

  When I arrive, there are about five customers sitting around, waiting for an interruption in the whirring sounds of the washers and dryers that means their clothes are done.

  Kevin is in intense conversation with a woman, maybe seventy years old, who is sitting but still leans against a small cart that she would use to transport her laundry. He waves to me and says that he’ll just be a couple of minutes.

  I sit down about ten feet away and see that they have papers spread out on the chair between them. I am close enough to hear them talking, which is of little benefit because they are speaking Spanish. I had no idea Kevin could speak Spanish, and certainly not as fluently as it appears. It’s disorienting; I feel like I’m watching a dubbed movie.

  They talk for ten more minutes, interrupted only by the woman getting up to put more quarters in her dryer. Finally they finish, and the woman gathers up her papers before retrieving her clothes.

  Once Kevin and I are in the car, I say, “I didn’t even know you could speak Spanish.”

  “I had to learn, because for so many of my clients it’s a first language.”

  “Clients? I thought you give legal advice for free down there.”

  “I do, but I still consider them clients. I’m representing that woman on a probate matter. Her husband died, and his will wasn’t correctly prepared or filed.”

  What I’m hearing is pretty amazing. “So you actually represent these people? In court?”

  “When I have to.”

  “For free?” I ask.

  He nods. “For free; most of them couldn’t afford to pay anyway. But they wouldn’t take their laundry anywhere else.”

  Kevin has obviously become a pro at pro bono. “How many of these clients do you have?”

  He thinks for a moment. “Right now? Probably about seventy.”

  I don’t know how to respond to this, so all I say is, “Oh.”

  On the way to the jail, Kevin tells me that he has checked and learned that Richard Wallace has been assigned to prosecute the case. It’s a mixed blessing for us. I know Richard well; my father trained him many years ago. He is cooperative and professional, but he is also smart and tough.

  Once we’re in the small, private visiting room reserved for lawyers and their clients, Steven is brought in to see us. The look on his face immediately tells us he has had a long, horrible night, and the truth is that it will only be the first of many.

  The police and prosecutor made an embarrassing mistake in initially arresting and charging the wrong person for the Walter Timmerman murder. They would not then have moved so hastily to arrest Steven had they not been very confident that the embarrassment would not be compounded by another early release. They may not have the goods on Steven, but they damn sure think they do.

  I introduce Kevin, and Steven immediately starts pressing us for information on his situation. He’s hoping I’ll tell him something positive, something to give him a reason to hope, when in actuality I’ve got nothing to tell him at all.

  “Here’s how it works at this point,” I say. “For now I am more of a collector than a provider of information. And one of the most important sources of that information, maybe the most important, is you.”

  “What does that mean?” he asks. “I don’t know what the hell is going on, so how am I going to tell you anything that you can use?”

  “You know more about your family than anyone else, and the secret to all this is almost definitely in your family. So I want you to think very carefully about it, and look at it from all different angles. Write down anything that comes to mind; we’ll spend a lot of time talking about it.”

  He seems unconvinced, but promises to do as I say. Then he asks the question that every single person asks the first time they face what he is facing. “How long will I be in here?”

  “It depends on their evidence. If they have enough to take you to trial, and they probably do, you’ll be in here at least until that trial is over. There will not be bail granted, not in a case like this.”

  “I didn’t do this… please believe me… I did not do this. Nothing that they can have can be real, or true.”

  “We have to convince a jury of that. But there’s another thing we need to talk about now.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Your representation. Do you have a criminal attorney?”

  He seems offended by the question. “Of course not.”

  “You can hire one of your choice, assuming you have financial resources. You should not feel obligated to hire us simply because I happened to be there when this went down.”

  “I want you. Everybody says you’re terrific.” He looks at Kevin, who nods, apparently confirming that assessment.

  “You checked me out as a criminal attorney?” I ask, since this seems to fly in the face of his previous apparent unconcern at the possibility of being arrested.

  He shakes his head. “No, I was doing research about you because you were going to decide what happens to Waggy. I wanted to see what kind of person you are. In the process, I read about cases you’ve handled and people you’ve helped.”

  I continue to make sure he understands that he can talk to or hire a different attorney, but he adamantly refuses to entertain the possibility. We discuss my fee, which is considerable but doesn’t seem to give him pause.

  “I have a trust fund,” he says. “I’m supposed to get money from it each quarter, but I always put it back into the fund. I’m sure I can have access to it now.”

  “How have you supported yourself?” I ask.

  “I make furniture. People hire me and I custom-design it to their specifications.”

  “Where do you do this?”

  “I have space downtown in the West Village. There’s a small showroom in the front, and I do the work in the loft.”

  Soon I’ll know everything about Steven Timmerman that there is to know, but right now I see him as an unspoiled, hardworking dog lover.

  On the other hand, he may be a cold-blooded killer who murdered his parents, and almost me as well.

  My father served many years as the lead prosecutor for Passaic County. When he would start on a case, before he fully examined the evidence and well before it went to trial, he would simply say, “We will see what we will see.”

  Yes, we will.

  RICHARD WALLACE agrees to see me right away.

  It’s not a surprise to me, it�
�s consistent with how I know he will handle this case. It’s the duty of the prosecutor to share all the evidence with the other side, and Richard understands that he needs to do that on a timely basis. He’s not interested in inhibiting the defense; he’s interested in proving his case.

  Arriving at Richard’s office triggers significant nostalgic feelings about my father. I used to come to his office often and just hang out, particularly on weekends. It was his way of balancing the extraordinary hours he worked with his desire to spend time with his son.

  On the way home we would stop at the restaurant of my choice, usually a place called The Bonfire, before heading home. Those were great days, and if anything the passing years have made them greater.

  “Takes you back, doesn’t it?” Richard asks when he sees that I am lost in thought. Richard is a good fifteen years older than me; he was just starting out back then.

  I nod. “Sure does. This very office is where I should have developed a work ethic.”

  He smiles. “You’ve done okay for yourself. Your father was proud of you, and he’d be prouder now.”

  As usual, I’m somewhat uncomfortable with emotional feelings, so as usual I try to deflect them. “So you’ll drop the charges against my client?”

  He smiles. “Afraid not.” Then: “We’re preparing a package now.” He’s talking about copies of police reports and other existing evidence.

  “How about a preview?”

  “Well, you’ve got a bit of an uphill climb,” he says. “Walter Timmerman had just removed Steven from his will.”

  That’s unfortunate, but not a huge problem, and certainly not conclusive evidence. It goes to motive, but it can be dealt with. I don’t bother pointing this out to Richard, because we’re not arguing the case now.

  Richard continues: “Steven’s stepmother was to get all the money, unless Steven outlived her. Which he did. He also hated her, and they argued frequently, including a few minutes before her death. I understand that you know firsthand that he was in the house just before the explosion.”

  “Perhaps.”

  He smiles. “Don’t worry, I won’t call you as a witness. I have other people who can place him there.”

  “There were a lot of people there that weren’t killed,” I say. “Any one of us could have planted the bomb.”

  “Were you also seen in downtown Paterson near where Walter Timmerman’s body was found at around the same time? Did you also have traces of his blood in your car?”

  There’s nothing I can say to this, so I just keep listening. It’s getting ugly.

  “I told you this is a bad one, Andy. And it gets worse.”

  “Let’s hear it,” I say, even though I don’t want to.

  “Steven spent three years in the marines, very much against his father’s wishes. His specialty was explosives, and he had specific expertise in the type used to blow up the house.”

  Kaboom.

  I head back to my office a little shaken by what I’ve heard. I’ve been doing this far too long to believe anything when only one side of a story has been presented, but Richard’s presentation was quite ominous.

  Obviously, I’m going to give Steven the opportunity to explain away whatever he can, but before I do so I want to familiarize myself with everything the prosecution has. I still find it hard to picture Steven at the house, knowing I was going inside, telling me to take good care of Waggy and make sure he had chewies and tennis balls, while aware all along that Waggy and I were going to be dead in a few minutes.

  It doesn’t compute, but the truth is that murder cases rarely do.

  Kevin is waiting for me at the office, and Edna has made her appearance as well. Kevin seems content to sniffle and pretend to sneeze, while Edna is on the phone dealing with a crisis of her own. Her cousin Stella’s neighbor’s daughter is getting married, and Stella has not received an invitation. Edna has clearly been called upon to advise Stella on how to handle this potential slight, and within five minutes I hear Edna advise her to talk to the neighbor about it, ask other neighbors about it, and forget it and ignore it completely. The fact that her advice is self-contradictory does not seem to give her pause.

  I bring Kevin up to date on what Richard told me, and he agrees that we should wait to get the discovery documents, which will be delivered in the morning, before confronting Steven with any of it.

  Since there is little to do before the documents arrive, I decide to go home and start preparing for Laurie’s arrival tonight. Those preparations will be basic. They start with changing the sheets on the bed, something I haven’t done in quite a while. I can’t actually remember the last time I did it, but it must have been a long time ago, because I think the sheets were white at the time. Now they’re a dull gray.

  After that I’ll shower a couple of times, brush my teeth until my gums bleed, and try to find underwear and socks without any holes in them. Thus finished with the personal-hygiene portion of the preparation, I’ll plug one of those electric air fresheners into a socket in the kitchen. It hasn’t been smelling so great in there lately; I think I may have dropped a frozen pizza behind the stove a few weeks ago.

  These tasks will have to be delayed for a while, because as I’m ready to leave the office, Martha Wyndham shows up unannounced. I’m not a big fan of unannounced show-ups, but since I had planned to meet with her anyway, I decide to make an exception in this case.

  I bring her back to my private office, which in the area of cleanliness makes my house look like a sterile operating room. I can see her eyes scanning the room, trying to find a relatively clean place to sit down. Unable to do so, she picks the least dirty place and sits in the chair opposite my desk.

  “What can I do for you?” I ask.

  She hesitates a moment. “I feel as if we have something of a bond, seeing as how we both could have been in that house.”

  I can’t believe she’s here because of this imagined bond, so I just nod and wait for her to continue.

  “I understand you’re representing Steven,” she says.

  “How did you know that? I haven’t even officially registered with the court.”

  “He called me and told me so,” she says. “From the prison.”

  “You and Steven are friends?”

  “I guess so, though I never really thought of it that way. We talked a lot; we have the same view about a lot of things.” She thinks for a moment. “I consider him a friend… yes.”

  At this pace, Laurie will have landed at the airport, met someone new, and gotten engaged by the time I get home. “So what can I do for you?” I repeat.

  “I want to help Steven in any way I can.”

  “Good,” I say. “He can use all the help he can get.”

  “So tell me what I can do,” she says.

  “How long did you work for Mrs. Timmerman?”

  “One week.”

  She sees my surprise, so she continues. “I was Mr. Timmerman’s personal assistant, and when he… died… Mrs. Timmerman asked me to work for her.”

  “So you know a lot about them?” I ask.

  She nods. “To a degree. They were difficult people to get to know. But I can certainly be a source of information, if that’s what you need.”

  “That’s helpful,” I say. “I’ll need a road map to help me navigate their lives. Steven may not have killed them, but someone did. Someone with a reason to do so.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know who that might be,” she says.

  “Not yet. Tell me about Steven’s relationship with his father.”

  “It was complicated; I don’t even think Steven understood it. Steven idolized him, and loved him, and was intimidated by him, and probably hated him. And every one of those emotions made sense. Walter Timmerman was an amazing man, in ways both positive and negative. Not an easy man to have as a father.”

  “But you don’t think Steven could have killed him?”

  “No.”

  “What about his stepmother?”

>   “That’s another story.”

  LAURIE’S PLANE IS DUE at Newark airport at eight o’clock.

  I’m there just before seven, which is about normal for me. For some reason I have a compulsion to arrive at airports well in advance, especially when I’m picking someone up. It makes no sense, because planes almost never arrive early. And on the rare occasions that they do, they compensate for it by arranging for the arrival gate not to be ready, so that the plane has to sit on the tarmac until it is.

  And the ugly truth is that planes could be early, if the airlines so desired. Nothing is more annoying than sitting on a plane that is late in taking off, and having the pilot announce that he will “make up time in the air.” If they could fly faster when they’re late, why not fly faster all the time? Can you imagine a bus driver on a seventy-mile-per-hour highway arbitrarily deciding to go forty?

  So once again I spend an hour looking at the arrivals screen, checking to see if other planes are arriving early, as if that might signify a pattern. They’re not.

  By the time the plane lands and Laurie gets her bags, it’s past eight thirty. It’s been an almost nine-hour trip for her; she’s had to switch planes twice. Some people might look tired or disheveled from that kind of day, but not Laurie. She would look great if she traveled cross-country strapped to the top of a covered wagon.

  I’m not much for public hugging, but I make an exception in this case. We hold it for at least fifteen fantastic seconds, at which point she pulls back and looks me right in the eye. “Andy, I have missed you so much.”

  “Oh?” I ask. “Have you been away?”

  We make it home in less than thirty minutes. It’s about fifty feet from the garage to the front door, then another forty feet to the twelve steps leading upstairs, then another twenty feet or so to the bedroom. My plan is to navigate this distance and have Laurie in bed in less than twenty-eight seconds, which would represent a new record.

  Unfortunately, Tara and Waggy have other ideas. Tara goes nuts as soon as she sees Laurie, and Waggy goes nuts because he is nuts. Within a few seconds Laurie is on the floor rolling around, petting them and laughing. The look on her face is pure delight.