The Furthest City Light

by Jeanne Winer

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  PART I: THE KIND OF CASE EVERY PUBLIC DEFENDER WAS BORN FOR

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  PART II: UNSENT LETTERS FROM THE EARTHQUAKE CAPITAL OF THE WORLD

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  PART III: LEARNING TO KAYAK

  Chapter Seventeen

  Copyright © 2012 by Jeanne Winer

  Bella Books, Inc.

  P.O. Box 10543

  Tallahassee, FL 32302

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

  First published 2012

  Editor: Katherine V. Forrest

  Cover Designer: Kiaro Creative

  ISBN 13: 978-1-59493-325-7

  Excerpt from “Acquainted with the Night” from the book THE POETRY OF ROBERT FROST edited by Edward Connery Lathem. Copyright © 1923, 1969 by Henry Holt and Company, copyright © 1951 by Robert Frost. Reprinted by permission of Henry Holt and Company, LLC.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  Dedication

  For Leslie, el amor de mi vida loca

  And for Public Defenders everywhere

  Prologue

  Zihuatanejo, Mexico

  Edith Piaf famously sang, “Je ne regrette rien.” Lucky her. Although it’s hard to believe anyone could sail into middle age without regretting something. Perhaps when she sang it was true, but later when she was alone again without an audience, without her makeup, it was only partly true and partly defiant wishful thinking. Which I applaud. Nothing wrong with defiant wishful thinking. Criminal defense lawyers, like myself, have won many difficult cases by engaging in exactly that kind of thinking. It’s what gives us confidence when the facts are lined up against us, drives our rhetoric across the finish line when, without it, we’d sputter to a stop halfway through the trial at the time an acquittal seems hopelessly far away, a moth-sized beacon in a raging storm. No, nothing wrong with defiant wishful thinking unless it begins to dominate more than just your career.

  Now that I’ve landed here in Mexico where I intend to rest and recover, I’m alone again, without an audience, without my makeup. There’s no one to sing to here, except myself. I’m standing on a bright pink balcony overlooking the water. I’ve managed to find the same studio apartment that my partner Vickie and I rented a few years ago. Back when we were a stable twosome, the American dream, a doctor and a lawyer. At the time, though, just a pair of grateful snowbirds from Colorado looking to land on a warm sandy beach and take a couple of breaths before returning to our busy lives. Our friends, of course, thought we had it all. Actually, so did we. Had it all: what a ridiculous sounding cliché. Makes you want to grab a nice sharp pin, stick it in, and hear that satisfying pop. Which I suppose is what I did, in retrospect a terrible mistake. And not even the only one.

  How could I have been so careless, stepping out like that without looking to see what was coming? A year ago, I was cohabiting with my partner and just about to meet a new client, someone who would become my friend, an innocent woman accused of murder. It’s a burden and a privilege to defend an innocent person. It’s every defense lawyer’s dream. Makes you go all out, and then it would make sense to stop and rest but you can’t remember how, and besides, where’s the thrill in that? Might as well keep on going until you finally run out of gas. So I headed south, bypassing Mexico, and went to Nicaragua, a small car accident of a country, mired in a bloody civil war. And, in a convoluted way, the perfect destination, the trip I may never stop paying for. Vickie warned me, but I didn’t listen. Vickie was always warning me.

  Vickie Ferraro. Who told me love was the last refuge we have against the world and all its sorrows. Who I may have lost along the route, the only belonging that mattered.

  But it’s late now. Time to go inside, unpack my duffel, turn on the ceiling fan, and make myself at home. Catch my breath. Sleep. As I start to turn away, though, the view begins to change. I can’t move. I’d forgotten the spectacular sunsets here, the beauty that is sometimes possible. I feel mesmerized. No, I feel awe. Suddenly, I realize there was no way I could have gotten here except the way I came. Maybe that’s what Edith meant. If so, je ne regrette rien.

  PART I:

  THE KIND OF CASE EVERY PUBLIC DEFENDER WAS BORN FOR

  Chapter One

  Boulder, Colorado ten months earlier

  “I have walked out in rain—and back in rain. I have outwalked the furthest city light.”

  Those were the first words Emily Watkins said to me when I met her at the Boulder County Jail.

  Not, “Are you my public defender?” Or, “Hey lady, you gotta get me off. I didn’t do it.” Not even, “What the hell took you so long?” I’d been in a two-day pre-trial motions hearing on a kidnapping case and Ray Martinelli, another lawyer in our office, had been holding her hand until I could get over there.

  Ray, of course, had briefed me about the case. My new client had apparently stabbed her husband in the stomach and then barricaded herself in the bathroom. For more than an hour, according to her statement, she’d listened to him wandering around the apartment, slamming doors and turning on the television and radio.

  The next morning, she’d ventured out and found his body lying in a pool of blood in front of the television set. Afterward, she’d sat down on the couch and watched a Jane Fonda wannabe in a silver leotard demonstrate to a group of middle-aged housewives how to firm up their thighs and buttocks. As soon as the show was over, she’d called the police and confessed to the murder. Her motive—if she had one—was unknown. The last woman I’d defended for killing someone had shot her pimp in the chest because he’d refused to share his bag of Cheetos with her.

  Based on past experience, I’d been expecting a teary, panic-stricken lady with furtive eyes, alternately defensive and apologetic. Someone who would collapse into hysterics as soon as I mentioned the possibility of prison. Instead, I met an intelligent, dignified woman in her mid-thirties, physically fit with an enviable tan. A gardener, perhaps, like my girlfriend Vickie. The woman looked solemn, but relieved to see me, as if she’d been waiting too long outside a restaurant or a movie theater and was beginning to wonder if she’d penciled the wrong date into her calendar. Oh good, you made it. I have so much to tell you. I stabbed my husband with a pair of scissors and the police have charged me with murder.

  I have walked out in rain—and back in rain. I have outwalked the furthest city light. I’d always loved those lines. I hadn’t read the poem since college, but I still remembered it. “They’re from ‘Acquainted with the Night’ by Robert Frost,” I said.

  “Oh my God.” She looked stunned, then smiled delightedly. “I’ve never met anyone who knew I was quoting Frost. A public defender who reads poetry! Oh my goodness, Hal must have killed me after all and I’ve died an
d gone to heaven.”

  “In which case, you wouldn’t need me,” I said, offering her my hand. “My name is Rachel Stein.”

  “Emily Watkins. Pleased to meet you.”

  We shook hands, and then sat down on a pair of green plastic chairs. The room was small and windowless, about three times the size of a telephone booth. Someone had recently doused the floor and walls with undiluted Pine-Sol. Ah, nothing like the smell of an extremely clean bathroom. I pulled out my legal pad and set it on my lap.

  “So, would you like to talk about your case?”

  Emily made a face. “Oh, do we have to? I’d much rather talk about poetry. Almost no one reads it nowadays. Your colleague—what’s his name?”

  “Ray.”

  “Ray,” she repeated. “He was very nice, but clueless. I mentioned ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’ and he just looked at me. Finally, he asked if it was a new play on Broadway.”

  “A rock opera?”

  She smiled and waited. I was being tested again: tell me you know this poem, too, and maybe then we’ll talk. I studied her face, which looked older now that I was paying close attention. Her eyes were sky-blue, but completely opaque; looking at them was like looking at someone wearing mirrored sunglasses. Silently, she was telling me, “Don’t bother trying to find me.” But I didn’t believe her, so I began reciting the famous opening lines of the poem by T.S. Eliot she was referring to.

  “Let us go then, you and I, when the evening is spread out against the sky.”

  “Like a patient etherized upon a table,” Emily continued.

  “Is that how you feel?” I asked.

  She looked surprised. “Are you my therapist or my lawyer?”

  “Both,” I said. “We’re on a tight budget.”

  Emily smiled at my joke. “Okay, then, yes.”

  I nodded. “Well, given the circumstances, that seems like an appropriate reaction.”

  She smiled again. “So, you’ve determined that I’m sane and competent to proceed. What else do you want to know?”

  Rachel, I told myself, she’s as smart as you are. This one’s going to hurt if it doesn’t come out right. Of course the junkie in me—addicted from day one to the drama of my chosen career—was almost whimpering with joy. Damn the torpedoes, this was the kind of case every public defender was born for: the chance to help, to explain, to protect, to defend, to make right. Hell, the chance to change the course of another person’s life. Hubris? You bet.

  I picked up my pen and wrote the date, October 15, 1985, on the top of the page. “Usually I start by asking my clients for a little background information, but if you want to tell me what happened, we can start there as well.”

  She shrugged. “There’s not much to tell. He was coming toward me and I happened to have a pair of scissors in my hand, so I stuck them in his gut. Poor Hal, he looked so surprised. He looked as if I’d betrayed him, which I suppose I had.”

  “How come you happened to have a pair of scissors in your hand?”

  She looked blank for a moment. “Oh, because I was in the middle of sewing. I was making a pair of his pants a little longer.”

  “I see.” I wrote down the answers, then waited for her to expound on them. Emily nodded, but remained silent. How odd. Most people, even if they were guilty, would at least try to explain their behavior.

  I dropped the pen, signaling that for now our conversation would be more of a discussion than an interview, a chance to explore various possibilities before settling on any particular “truth.”

  “Well, in cases like this, defendants generally rely on certain defenses such as denial, accident, heat of passion, or self-defense.”

  “Or I could just plead guilty, right?”

  “You could, but I wouldn’t recommend it. You’re facing a life sentence.”

  She bit her lip. “I think I should just plead guilty. After all, I’m the one who stabbed him. I’m the one responsible for his death.” She paused. “He is dead, isn’t he?” Suddenly she looked nervous.

  “What if he wasn’t?” I asked for the hell of it.

  “If he wasn’t? Well, I guess I’d stop feeling so guilty and start worrying more about retaliation. Hal doesn’t like to be opposed.” She was watching the door now as if Hal might burst in at any moment, retaliation on his mind.

  I shook my head. “I’m sorry, Emily. I didn’t mean to confuse you. He’s dead.”

  “Ah.” She nodded sadly. “That’s what I thought. And so I think I’ll go ahead and plead guilty.”

  As a public defender, I’d interviewed more than a thousand clients, many of whom were mentally ill. Emily wasn’t crazy, but she was missing something that most people would agree was essential. During that first interview, I couldn’t have said what it was, but I noticed I was beginning to feel alarmed for her. In retrospect, I would say Emily lacked a sense of self-preservation. In a Darwinian universe like ours, without protection, she was doomed.

  “Emily, did you think your husband was going to hurt you when he was coming toward you?”

  “Of course he was.”

  “Then why isn’t it self-defense?”

  Emily looked at me as if she hated to be the bearer of bad news. “Because I was still there after ten years of it, because I never left. For the last three years, I even had a suitcase filled with some of my favorite clothes hidden in the upstairs closet. Hal never found it.”

  I considered giving her a short lecture on battered women, but she beat me to it.

  “Yes,” she said, smiling wearily. “I know. I’ve read a number of books about battered women. I know all about the cycle of violence, the theories of learned helplessness, the analogy between a battered woman and a laboratory rat who keeps pressing the bar and mostly gets shocked, but occasionally gets rewarded with a pellet of food. I know all about it and I’m sure you do, too. But in the end, the jury will still wonder, why didn’t she leave?”

  I glanced at my watch. I was supposed to be at the Justice Center at one thirty. Judge Solomon would be irritable if I was more than five minutes late. On the other hand, Judge Solomon was often irritable even when I was on time. I looked up again at my new client. “Okay, so why didn’t you leave?”

  “That’s just it,” she said, rising from her chair to help me end the interview. “I don’t know. It just never seemed like a truly viable option. I could picture myself pulling out the packed suitcase from behind all the boxes in the closet. I could picture myself grabbing my purse and the keys to my car, picking up the suitcase and heading for the front door. But I could never picture myself actually walking through it. I suppose I was like a bird that’s been in a cage too long. Even if someone unlocks the cage and swings the door open, it remains on its perch staring at its freedom, but not moving.”

  I slipped my pen and legal pad into my briefcase, then stood up to face her. “Then that’s what we’ll tell the jury. I’ll be back as soon as I’ve finished reviewing all the police reports. In the meantime, don’t give up.”

  “Now that I have you, I won’t.” Suddenly, she swayed a little and I grabbed her arm. “My goodness,” she murmured, “Hal’s really dead, isn’t he? And I’m really here.”

  “I’m afraid so.” I pushed the door open and checked the hallway, which was empty. Normally, Emily would have simply crossed the hall to the women’s cellblock, knocked on the thick metal door, and they would have let her in. “Would you like me to call a guard?”

  She shook her head. “Oh no. A cup of tea and I’ll be fine. Thank you.”

  ***

  By the end of the day, I’d skimmed through the initial police reports, which included interviews with the coroner, the emergency room doctor, the emergency medical technicians who’d first responded to the scene, the defendant, two neighbors who hadn’t heard or seen anything, and the deceased’s elderly mother who lived in a nursing home in Denver. There were no surprises. My client had obviously told the truth about how the victim had died and there was no physica
l evidence, helpful or otherwise, to suggest what might have precipitated the stabbing.

  In the next week, the detectives on the case would interview the rest of the neighbors and any other relatives, but nobody would be working overtime on this one—they didn’t have to. They had the 911 tapes in which the defendant repeatedly advised the police dispatcher she’d stabbed her husband and thought he was dead, a crime scene video with plenty of blood, and a good, fairly coherent confession that lacked any mention of self-defense. What more did they need? It was an open-and-shut case. Lady goes berserk, kills husband, feels remorse, calls police, confesses to the murder. The end.

  Because the defendant had no prior record and had killed her husband in Boulder (one of the most liberal jurisdictions in Colorado—maybe only Aspen would be better), the prosecution would eventually offer her second-degree murder. She would plead out, spend a couple of decades in prison, and then...who cared?

  I did. If this was self-defense, then Emily Watkins would plead guilty over both Hal’s and my dead body. She was a battered woman. Somebody had to stick up for her. Who better than Rachel Stein, Public Defender (it’s my job, ma’am)? With the help of my talented investigator, Donald Baker, I would figure out how to convince the good citizens of Boulder to acquit her.

  In a first-degree murder case, time is of the essence and I was already three days behind the police. If not investigated, evidence disappeared, witnesses forgot helpful facts and possible leads evaporated. While Vickie snored beside me, I read and reread the reports, then considered various strategies. At four in the morning, of course, the case looked grim, but almost every case starts out that way. Criminal defense is like trying to fit your station wagon into an impossibly small parking space—there’s no way you’ll ever make it. But you position yourself as close as you can and begin inching back and forth, back and forth, creasing a few edges if you must. You tap the car in front, tap the car in back, then bump the car in front, and bump the car in back. And then, after you’ve created as much room as possible, you take a deep breath, hold it, and with great finesse, you squeeze yourself in. Voila!