by Jeanne Winer
She tried to remember, but there was no time to figure it out. She’d just have to do her best, that’s all. In any event, it would be an embarrassingly short fight, at the end of which Lee would be unconscious and seriously injured—at the very least, some broken bones in her face. Maybe she’d get lucky and there would be no permanent damage. The ringing continued. She was just getting ready to rise when it occurred to her that it sounded more like a telephone than a bell.
She reached out a hand and grabbed for the receiver.
“Ms. Isaacs?” It was a male voice she didn’t recognize.
Lee glanced at her bedside alarm. It was a quarter past two.
“Who is this?” She was trying to wake up as fast as possible.
“Tim Reynolds. The guard that looks like Mr. Clean.”
“Oh, right.” How funny. Then she stopped smiling. “Has something happened? Is Jeremy okay?” It had been a week since she’d seen him. In the interim, she and Dan had met and hammered out a deal for thirty years.
“He’s not,” the guard was saying. “He tried to kill himself. One of the newer kids smuggled a knife into the facility and Jeremy asked to borrow it. He cut his wrists.”
She fumbled for the lamp, almost knocking it over.
“When?”
“I found him a few hours ago. It really freaked me out. There was blood everywhere. I don’t know if he’s going to make it.”
Lee was sitting up in bed, fully conscious now.
“Thanks for calling, Tim. Where is he now?”
“They took him to the psych ward at Boulder Community Hospital. It’s the closest place.”
“Is that on Broadway and Balsam?”
“Yeah, I think so. We called his parents, but I doubt they’ll come. Are you going over there?”
“Yes,” she said, climbing out of bed.
“Would you mind calling me back when you find out how he is?”
“Not at all.”
“I’ll be here until eight in the morning. Just ask for Mr. Clean. It’s what everyone here calls me.”
“I’ll get back to you, Tim. I won’t forget.” She was already pulling on a pair of jeans and a black turtleneck sweater.
Five minutes after hanging up, Lee was in her 4Runner heading for the hospital. As she drove, she dialed Carla’s cell phone and waited. After a few moments, she hung up and dialed again. On the third try, Carla picked up and Lee filled her in.
“I’ll call Peggy,” Carla said.
“Okay, good.” They were speaking in the hushed tones people use when death is closer than usual.
“I’ll be there in about thirty minutes,” Carla added.
Lee signaled for a right turn onto Broadway, although there were no other cars in sight.
“You don’t have to.”
“Of course I do.” Carla sounded indignant. “He’s my client too.”
“Well then, I’ll see you soon. The psych ward is on the third floor.”
A few minutes later, she turned right onto Balsam, then left into the hospital parking lot, which was almost empty. She switched off the engine and sat for a minute. The world outside was sleeping, unaware that yet another sentient being had made a run for it. Headed for what he hoped was sweet oblivion. And, given her client’s bleak prognosis, Lee could hardly blame him. Perhaps it was even for the best. But as she hurried from her car toward the revolving doors at the hospital entrance, she hoped Jeremy’s desperate bid for freedom hadn’t worked, and that he was still alive and miserable. But why? Because no one died on her watch?
No, it was more than that. As long as her client was alive, there was hope. Every case had dozens of unseen, unimagined variables. Until the last appellate court ruled against you, or your client killed himself, there was always a possibility that one of those variables would unexpectedly morph in your favor. This wasn’t optimism, just a simple recognition, after thirty-four years of lawyering, that the universe was a squirrelly place where anything could happen.
As she stepped out of the elevator onto the third floor, Lee saw a double set of thick glass doors. There was a telephone on the wall with instructions for reaching the on-duty nurse. Lee picked it up and dialed.
“Can I help you?” a woman asked.
“Yes. My name is Lee Isaacs and I’m here to see my client, Jeremy Matthews. He’s an inmate at the juvenile detention facility.”
“We generally allow only relatives to see patients after hours.”
Lee thought quickly and said, “I’m here in lieu of his parents. They can’t make it.”
The line was silent.
“Listen,” Lee added, “I can call Judge Samuels, but he really hates to be woken up unless there’s a true emergency.”
“Can you prove you’re the attorney of record?”
“Absolutely. I have my bar card and some motions that I’ve filed in district court identifying me as the attorney on the case.” Good thing she’d thought to bring them.
Suddenly, Lee heard a buzzer and the door clicked open. As soon as the first door closed behind her, the next one opened. A heavyset blonde wearing bright pink scrubs waved to her from behind a desk. Lee hurried toward her.
“Thank you,” Lee said, handing her a sheaf of papers. “How’s my client doing? Will he be all right?”
Up close, Lee could see that the woman’s hair was dyed and guessed she was in her late forties. The nurse studied the papers and was apparently satisfied.
“We think so, but only because they found him so quickly.” The woman hesitated. “This wasn’t just a cry for help, you know. The gashes were deep. He clearly intended to die.” She gave Lee back her papers. “He looks so young. What’s he in jail for anyway?”
“Felony self-hatred.”
“Is that really a crime?”
“No.” Lee smiled at her. “I was being facetious. He just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Can I see him?”
“He’s sleeping.”
“That’s okay,” Lee said, stuffing the papers back into her briefcase. “I won’t wake him. I’ll just sit there. Oh, and my investigator will be arriving in about twenty minutes with my client’s aunt.”
“Anyone else?” She was trying to look stern but was obviously sympathetic.
“Nope, that’s it.”
“I’ll bring a couple more chairs into the room. But you have to be quiet. I mean it.”
“Scout’s honor. Which room is he in?”
“Third door on your right.” The nurse pointed down the hall. “I’m glad you cared enough to come. I’m not sure most lawyers would do that.”
The room was very plain—just a hospital bed and a single chair in the corner. No windows, no plants, no pictures, nothing. A grim, no frills way-station whose inhabitants, as soon as they were stable, were headed somewhere else. After shutting the door, Lee picked up the chair, moved it near the bed, and sat down. A small overhead light shed a calm white glow on her client’s sleeping face. In repose, he looked like an innocent twelve-year old, someone who lived at home with two loving parents who’d managed to shield him from any true understanding of evil. His wrists and forearms, wrapped in thick gauze bandages, however, suggested a different, darker story.
She continued to study him, the mystery boy who’d been entrusted to her care.
“What am I missing?” she whispered, but as usual he didn’t answer.
The room was very quiet. There was nothing to do but watch her client sleep. In his dreams, he was on the lam, weightless and gloriously free. Lee hoped he was enjoying every second. After a while, her eyes felt heavy and her body leaned forward. Sometime later, she heard the door opening and sat back up again. Carla and Peggy had entered the room and were coming toward her.
“I guess I fell asleep,” Lee said. “What time is it?”
“Three-thirty,” Carla whispered. “The nurse is looking for more chairs.”
The two women tiptoed over to the bed and stared at Jeremy, who hadn’t moved.
“He’s heavily sedated,” Lee told them. “Blissfully unaware.”
“I want to be here when he wakes up,” Peggy said. Her voice was shaking, but her face looked resolute.
“He won’t be blissful then,” Carla sighed, putting an arm around Peggy’s shoulder.
The nurse walked in, carrying two more chairs.
“There’s a cafeteria in the basement,” Lee announced. “I’m going to look for some coffee and call the detention center. The guard who found him saved his life.”
When Lee returned, both Peggy and Carla were fast asleep. Off to the land of Nod, as far away from this sad bare room as possible. Lee shut the door behind her, removed her shoes, and then tiptoed inside. She didn’t feel like sitting. Time was of the essence.
There was a clue somewhere that Lee had missed, something her client told her that she somehow hadn’t heard. There had to be. Pacing back and forth, she painstakingly replayed every conversation she’d had with him. When she was finished, she started again.
Finally, she stopped. Maybe there wasn’t a clue. Maybe anyone in Jeremy’s situation would have opted for the quick exit. Except in the thirty-four years she’d been practicing, no one ever did. Even the ones facing a lifetime of tedium and violence never wavered. So what else could it be? If Lee was right, that her client wasn’t guilty, what was it about the murder he couldn’t bear? Was it the victim’s suffering? For Lee, the hardest thing would be the feeling of helplessness. Not being able to save him. Even so, would it make Jeremy slash his wrists? Not likely, unless he’d truly cared for Sam, which he hadn’t.
Or had he? When she’d informed him that Sam’s roommate was the jailhouse snitch, he’d said, “Sam’s roommate was a creep. Sam was going to move out as soon as he had the money.” How did he know that? Sam must have confided in him. Had they actually been friends? Sam was twenty-two, six years older than Jeremy. Had either of them guessed about the other? Mark and Bobby swore that most gay men had “gaydar”—the ability to sense another man’s homosexuality. Had Jeremy cared for Sam? Standing there helpless, while his “brothers” kicked his friend to death would have been a truly horrifying experience.
Lee walked back to Jeremy’s bed.
“You knew him,” she whispered. “He was your friend and you couldn’t save him. That would be awful.” She shook her head. “But still not a reason to die.”
“What’s not a reason to die?” Carla asked, stretching her arms and yawning. “It’s so quiet, I think I fell asleep.”
“Nothing. I’m just making up stories.”
They were both looking down at their client, the boy whose secrets continued to elude them.
“He looks so peaceful,” Carla said. “I’m having a hard time picturing him in prison.”
“Me too,” Lee agreed, glancing at her watch. It was a quarter to six.
“He’s going to die in there, isn’t he?”
“Probably.”
“Well then we just can’t plead him out. I don’t care what we have to do, but it would be—”
“Shh, you’ll wake up Peggy.”
“Okay, fine,” Carla whispered. “But we have to do something.”
“What do you suggest?”
“Me?” Carla’s voice was starting to rise again. “I’m not the lawyer. You are.”
“My supernatural powers seem to have deserted me.”
“You’ll figure something out, Lee. You always do.”
“Not always. What about Lenny Hall?”
“Oh for God’s sake. Lenny was an asshole and you had bronchitis during the trial. That doesn’t count.”
Of course it did, but there was no point arguing.
“How much did you send him anyway?”
“I told you. It’s none of your business.” Carla was searching through her purse. Finally, she pulled out a comb and her compact.
“Listen,” Lee told her, “I’m going home to shower. I’ve got two arraignments at nine and a sentencing at eleven. Tell Peggy I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“All right.” Carla was staring at herself in the mirror. “Ugh, my makeup is ruined. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because it’s fixable.”
“But not our client?”
“I’m not sure, Carla. Maybe not.”
She grabbed her briefcase and shoes before leaving. As she shut the door behind her, a young man carrying a bouquet of yellow roses slipped quietly into one of the other rooms. Lee pulled on her shoes and hurried down the hallway. As she approached the thick glass doors, she suddenly stopped. Eureka! A faint new path in the case had just been revealed. It was either a way out of the maze or the last dead end.
When she returned to the hospital, Carla and Peggy were standing near the nurse’s station, buttoning their coats and pulling on their gloves. It was twelve-thirty.
“Perfect timing,” Carla told her. “Peggy and I are headed to the Hungry Toad. Do you want to come?”
“No,” Lee said. “I have a sandwich in my briefcase. Is he awake?”
“Since ten,” Peggy replied. “When he opened his eyes and saw us, he groaned and then rolled over to face the wall.”
“Has he said anything?”
“Oh yeah.” Carla snorted. “A regular chatterbox. Two words in two and a half hours: ‘Go away.’ ”
“I love him,” Peggy said as she shouldered her leather handbag, “but he’s a royal pain in the ass.”
“I’ll say,” Carla agreed. She patted Lee on the shoulder. “Good luck. If anyone can get him to talk, you can.”
I have to, Lee thought. If not, it’s game over.
A few minutes later, she was sitting on a chair less than a foot from Jeremy’s bed. He was still facing the wall.
“Hi, Jeremy,” Lee said. “We have a lot to talk about.”
“Go away.”
“I can’t. I’m your lawyer. So I think I’ll just cut to the chase: Sam was your boyfriend. You watched him die. You couldn’t save him.”
Jeremy flinched as if he’d been shot.
“What? How did you find out?” He rolled over to face her.
“I wasn’t sure, but you just confirmed it.”
“But-but how did you guess? Nobody knew.”
“Some comments you made about Sam’s roommate being a creep and that Sam was going to move as soon as he had the money. I wondered how you knew that.”
“Well, it doesn’t really matter.”
“Of course it does,” Lee said calmly. “You loved him and you couldn’t save him.”
“I didn’t even try.” His voice sounded strangled.
Lee took a couple of breaths. She had to be careful here.
“I can’t imagine what it must have been like to watch him die. But you know, of course, you couldn’t possibly have saved him.”
“I loved him so much. I would have done anything for him.”
“But you couldn’t have saved him.”
His dark brown eyes flashed angrily.
“I didn’t even try. I just—”
“You just what?” He was shutting down again. Any second, he would turn away from her. “You just stood there?”
He was shaking his head, seeing things that nobody in a better world should ever have to see. The senseless violent death of someone they loved.
“Hey,” she said. “Remember when we arm-wrestled? Remember how strong I was?”
“So?”
“So if I’d been there instead of you, I could have taken one of them, but certainly not all three.” This wasn’t strictly true. With a little help from Sam, she would have disabled all of them, but of course it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except to keep him talking. “They each outweighed you by forty pounds, and they each knew how to fight. How many times have you been in a serious fight? Once, twice, never?”
“Never, but it doesn’t matter. A real man would have tried.”
But you’re just a kid, she wanted to
say, but of course didn’t.
“How did the two of you meet anyway?” she asked instead, hoping now that someone finally knew, he’d want to talk about it.
“I-I was at the Sapphire Lounge with my brothers,” he began, clearly willing, even eager to tell her. “Sam showed up with his roommate and some other skins. At first, he didn’t notice me. He was really handsome, kind of like George Clooney but younger.” He tried to raise his arms and winced. “With a shaved head. A little while later, I was standing near the jukebox and suddenly he was like standing next to me. My heart was pounding. I’d never been so attracted to anyone in my life. I guessed he was a homo just like me. I don’t know how I knew, but I did. He asked what I was into and I tried to think of something cool, you know, like hunting or wrestling, but I couldn’t think of anything except what I was really into, which was music and looking at guys in magazines. So I said, ‘I’m into the same things you are.’ He looked surprised, then asked if I wanted to go to another, quieter bar with him. I was so nervous, but I said, ‘yeah sure,’ like I was totally cool with it.” He paused to catch his breath. Lee had never heard him talk so much.
“So you went to this other bar?” she prompted.
“Yeah, it was just a dark quiet bar that no one hardly went to. By the end of the night, I knew he was the one.” He blushed. “I know it sounds stupid, but it’s true.”
“It doesn’t sound stupid to me. It sounds like you fell in love.”
“Yeah, I did. After that, I was just so happy. He was everything I’d been dreaming of. He looked tough, but he really wasn’t. He was just protecting himself, you know, like I was.”
“I understand,” Lee said. She’d seen two photographs of Sam taken by the police when he’d been arrested for soliciting. In the pictures, his neck and arms were completely covered in tattoos. Lee tried to imagine him with hair and flawless skin. No George Clooney, but handsome enough. “Can I ask you a nosy question?”
“I think I know what it is. But sure, go ahead.”
