Aftershock

by Andrew Vachss

  Outside, I watched from the parking lot. If there were any reporters around, I couldn’t tell. I didn’t see anyone asking questions.

  I caught up with the man who’d been standing next to MaryLou as he walked out the same door I had. He was wearing “I’m from around here” clothes: some kind of corduroy jacket, a white shirt, and a red tie with white whales on it. Carrying something that looked like a canvas courier’s bag on a strap over one shoulder. Maybe thirty-five years old.

  “Excuse me,” I said, coming at him from the side. “Could I have a couple of minutes of your time?”

  “Who are you?”

  “A friend of MaryLou’s. I have some information that might be helpful to you.”

  “Well?” he said, hands on hips.

  “She won’t talk to you because you’ve been appointed by the state. And it’s the state that’s prosecuting her.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “Like I said, I’m a friend.”

  “Well,” he said, a little smirk on his face, “that’s her choice. But unless she’s prepared to hire private counsel, I’ll be the one who—”

  “She is prepared to hire private counsel. That’s why I’m here.”

  “Fine. Then have her new—”

  “She doesn’t want new counsel.”

  “She hasn’t got a choice about that. Unless she wants to represent herself,” he said, doubling up on the smirk.

  “I guess I’m not making myself clear,” I said, ignoring the guy’s posturing. “She wants you to be her lawyer, but she wants you to be working for her, not for the state.”

  “I don’t work for the state,” he lectured. “The state pays me to represent her because any person charged with a crime is entitled to counsel, even if they’re indigent. Given the girl’s age—she’s legally an adult, but hardly expected to have any income—the court assumed indigence. That’s why I was assigned.”

  “I’d feel better if you were hired, instead.”

  “Are you saying you want to hire me? I assure you, whoever you are, that I’ll work just as hard no matter who pays me.”

  I liked him for saying that, but I didn’t get all carried away with it.

  “I’m sure that’s absolutely true. But … well, you know how kids are.”

  “Yes. But the state pays—”

  “I know what the state pays,” I told him. “I wouldn’t insult you by offering the same kind of slave wages.”

  “Are you saying—?”

  “What I’m saying is”—I cut him off—“could we go to your office and talk?” As I spoke, I compressed the air between us, so I could walk him farther away from the courthouse but still let him think he was leading me.

  His office was in a one-story building clad in fake-wood light-blue siding. There were the names of a few other lawyers as well as his own—Bradley L. Swift—on a sign that had a few empty slots below the filled ones.

  He asked the piggish woman at the front desk if there had been any calls. She seemed to take some pleasure from telling him no. My guess was that she worked for the landlord, not the lawyer.

  His personal office was decent-sized. Computer with a small flat screen, fax machine, two-line cordless phone sitting in a cradle. Small reddish cloth sofa against one wall, pair of wood chairs on the client side of his desk. His own chair was a match to the sofa.

  I sat across from him. Before he could start talking, I put five thousand in hundreds on his desk. That shut his mouth quicker than a leveled pistol would have done.

  “I don’t know much about criminal law,” I told him. “I know you don’t get paid by the hour. The way I figure it, a case like this, it would have to cost at least twenty-five thousand. If I’m right, then there’s your retainer. I’ll pay you the rest as we go along, the same way as this.”

  He swept the cash into a drawer of his desk like he was hiding evidence of a crime he was guilty of. A serious one.

  “That is a fair fee for a case this complex,” he said, playing it like he pulled in that kind of cash all the time, but having a little trouble with his voice. “Who should I make the receipt out to?”

  I waved my hand, showing him I didn’t want one. That killed any interest he had in knowing my name.

  “You’re retained now?”

  “Certainly. I’ll notify the court and—”

  “I don’t care about that. I just wanted to make sure I understood how things work.”

  “Work?”

  “I read somewhere that you don’t need a private investigator’s license so long as you’re working for a lawyer. Is that true?”

  “I … That’s something I’d have to check for myself, frankly. Using private investigators is kind of rare around here.”

  “The state won’t pay for them?”

  “Well, in some cases, maybe. In fact, one like this, they might very well do so.”

  “Can you look it up?”

  “Look what up?”

  “Whether I could be your private investigator even though I don’t have a license.”

  “Oh. Yes, I can do that. Just give me a minute.”

  I couldn’t see what he called up on his computer screen, but I figured it wouldn’t matter.

  “Yes,” he said, swinging back to face me. “I’ll need your name, of course. In case you have to testify or—”

  “I won’t be testifying. But I will be with you when you go back and visit MaryLou this afternoon.” I put an Oregon driver’s license on his desk. “My name is Jackson. Adelbert B. Jackson. Okay?”

  He looked at his watch, like he had a lot of pressing business to attend to.

  “How about two o’clock? Would that work for you?”

  “Yes. And after that visit, I could go back anytime and see MaryLou on my own, right? Working as your investigator, I mean.”

  “Certainly, if that’s what you want.”

  “What I want is to know if they’ve got a special place for lawyers to meet with their clients. And if it’s wired.”

  “There are attorney-client rooms. But this isn’t some television show. No looking through one-way glass walls, no hidden cameras, nothing like that. Still, there is one thing you should know: if an inmate makes a call on one of the jail phones, those calls are recorded. That’s no secret—there’s a big sign right above the phones.”

  “You’re sure? Bet-your-life sure?”

  His complexion went white as he nodded agreement. I could see my question had spooked him, so I knew he’d have the correct-and-checked answers to my questions by two that afternoon.

  “No comment,” I said.

  “What?”

  “That’s all you have to say about this case. To reporters, to anyone writing a book, to someone in a bar … to anyone at all.”

  “Of course,” he assured me.

  “And by the time we meet this afternoon, can you have your secretary type up something on your letterhead that says I’m working for you?”

  “Absolutely,” he said. If I was dumb enough to think he had a secretary, that was fine with him.

  As I drove away from where I’d parked, I could see TV buses disgorging all kinds of equipment. One even had a big satellite dish assembled. The on-camera people were inside, getting their makeup straight. My guess was that their timing had been off—they thought that MaryLou’s appearance wasn’t going to happen until later, and that it would take a lot longer than it already had.

  Dolly was there when I got home. I told her what I’d done.

  “That’s perfect, Dell. What did you think of her lawyer?”

  “The only thing I couldn’t understand about him was his haircut. What do you call it when women wear their hair down over their forehead? Like bangs, but there’s a name for it.”

  “I think you mean a pageboy. It was a popular hairstyle years ago, but you don’t see them much on girls anymore.”

  “On a man?”

  “Well, actually, you’d see more of that style on men than women … at least
in this part of the country.”

  “Huh.”

  “Well, what else? About the lawyer, I mean.”

  “There’s nothing else. He’s only got to be able to let me move around. Any problems, I’ll be able to pull out a letter on his office stationery. If it turns out there’s actually going to be a trial, we’ll get someone else.”

  “All right, honey. So when do you start?”

  “Two this afternoon. I’m meeting him at the jail, and he’ll get me inside with him to talk to MaryLou.”

  “But you told her not to talk to anyone.”

  “I told her not to talk to anyone unless I gave her the okay. And she hasn’t. I just have to get in there with this lawyer once. Then I can come back anytime I want. Without him, I mean.”

  “What do I do?”

  “I don’t know,” I told Dolly. “But I will. And real soon.”

  “You’re not going out like that.” I knew Dolly wasn’t asking a question, but I couldn’t figure out what she meant. So I did what I always do when that happens—I just wait for whatever she’s going to say next.

  “You have a perfectly good suit, Dell. The one I bought you. The one that’s been hanging in the cedar closet ever since.”

  “You want me to wear a suit?”

  “Yes, I want you to wear a suit. You’re not some visiting friend now, you’re a private investigator.”

  “But the lawyer, his suit was like some corduroy crap. If I go in there looking like I make more money than him, maybe that wouldn’t work so good?”

  “You wear more than just a suit, Dell. Sure, it’s a little fancy, but you want people to take you seriously. You don’t need a tie, okay? Just one of those—”

  “—nice silk shirts you bought for me? The ones that have been hanging in the cedar closet all this time?”

  “Don’t be such a smartass.”

  “I know.… Just go put on the suit, right?”

  She sat there at the long butcher-block table, tapping her fingernails.

  I went into our bedroom and changed.

  When I came back down, Dolly’s smile was a sunburst. She got up and walked over to me. Stood on her toes and kissed me on the side of my mouth.

  “I didn’t mean to act so … bossy, Dell. It’s just that this is so important. The media, they’re making it even more important already. And MaryLou’s all alone.”

  “No, she’s not,” I told her, knowing it was a blood promise the second it came out of my mouth.

  The lawyer would have been waiting for me if I’d shown up at two. But I’d been standing in front of the jail since one-thirty, waiting for him.

  “Let’s go” is all he said.

  “Bradley Swift,” he said to the guard. “Counsel for MaryLou McCoy. This is Mr. Jackson. He works for me as an investigator.”

  The guard gave him a “big fucking deal” look and buzzed us through.

  The room they put us in was plenty big enough. Empty except for some chairs placed around a wood table.

  MaryLou was brought in a few minutes later. Only one guard to escort her this time. And she wasn’t cuffed.

  As soon as the door closed, Swift said, “MaryLou, this is—”

  “I know who he is,” she cut him off. “And only my friends call me MaryLou. In here, I’m ‘Ms. McCoy.’ ”

  She shot me a “Was that all right?” look, and I nodded. Then I told her, “Mr. Swift here had to bring me through. I’m his private investigator. Which means I can come back on my own. You understand, MaryLou?”

  “Sure,” she said, flashing me just a little touch of smile, showing me she knew I got the “Ms. McCoy” bit.

  “The Visiting Room, it’s okay for some things,” I went on. “But it’s not a safe place to talk about this case.”

  “Got it.”

  “Ms. McCoy.” Swift spoke up more to be part of the conversation than anything else—MaryLou had already made it clear where he stood with her. “Do you have any questions? Concerning the legal proceedings, I mean?”

  “When will it happen?”

  “When will what happen?”

  “The trial. When will that get going?”

  “Oh, not for a while. There are a number of options we have.”

  “Like what?”

  “Well, the facts don’t seem to be in dispute. You didn’t make any statement, true enough. But …”

  “Yeah, I get it. So?”

  “Well, if you were … coerced in any way, or acting under the influence of some drug, or—”

  “Forget that.”

  “Well, that still leaves us with some options, but if you’re going to stand mute the way you did in the courtroom today, I can’t really present much of a … psychological defense. The DA’s Office would have the right to have one of their own experts examine you, and if you won’t talk to them, it makes a very bad impression.”

  “You don’t have to talk to anyone,” I said.

  Swift gave me a look like I was overstepping my bounds, but he dropped it quicker than he’d brought it up. I don’t think he was smart enough to figure out who he was dealing with—not yet, anyway. But one thing he did know—I was a paying customer.

  “The judge already put the not-guilty plea in for her, right?” I asked the lawyer, to let him save face.

  “Yes. But if we’re going to be using a … psychological defense, we have to give notice to the—”

  “You can stop talking like I’m not in the room,” MaryLou told him. “And I’m not telling anyone I’m crazy. Then or now.”

  “It’s not necessarily—” Swift cut himself off, seeing MaryLou’s face harden. She let it happen slowly, like plaster of Paris setting.

  “I’ll be back,” I told MaryLou.

  “I’ll be here,” she said, twisting her lips into something like a smile.

  “Look, I understand you have some sort of prior friendship with the girl,” Swift said once we were back outside. “But when you hired me, it was to be her lawyer. What did you think you were buying?”

  “Time,” I told him. “As much of it as possible.”

  “Oh, I can do that for sure. A case like this, there’s no way the DA isn’t going to farm it out.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means they never try big cases down here. The DA’s Office, I’m talking about. Unless there’s going to be a plea, they’ll go crying to the AG’s Office, like they always do. That way, if there’s a guilty verdict, they can take credit for it. And if it goes the other way, they blame it on whoever comes in to actually try the case.”

  “How would that work? Bringing someone else in, I mean.”

  “They get someone from the AG. Or even from another office. What they call a ‘special prosecutor.’ ”

  “And that takes time?”

  “Sure. But that’s not the only way to stall this thing. I’ve got all kinds of discovery motions I can make. Nobody on their side is going to be in a hurry to try this one, that much I can practically guarantee. And that’s not even counting plea negotiations.”

  “Plea negotiations? What could they possibly offer MaryLou?”

  “They could take the death penalty off the table, for openers.”

  “They execute kids here?”

  “She’s eighteen. An adult. But you’re right—executing someone her age would be a political mistake.”

  “Political?”

  “Plenty of people in this part of the state are opposed to the death penalty, especially in this county. And not just people—people who vote. That scares the DA to death. He spends all his time pleasing people. That’s the only thing he knows how to do. Hell, they may not even farm this one out—the locals already feel too strongly about it, like it’s their case, not one for an outsider to handle.”

  “So what could they offer her?”

  “It depends on what excuse they could give.”

  “That’s why you mentioned the psychological stuff?”

  “Yes. The more we give th
em, the more they could live with a life sentence.”

  “If they’re not going to kill her anyway, how’s that such a great deal?”

  “This is a Measure Eleven case. The judge doesn’t have that much discretion. She’d have to go to prison, and, remember, it’s not just one murder charge, it’s a whole laundry list of felonies. Provided nobody else dies, that is. Under the best of circumstances, we could try for a manslaughter on top, with the rest to run concurrent. That would be the deal of the century. But, who knows, if it turns out she was an abused child or something …”

  “You heard her.”

  “That she won’t cooperate? Yes. But it’s still my obligation as an attorney to thoroughly investigate any avenue that might—”

  “You’re not getting paid by the hour.”

  He gave me a long look. At least he was facing me: hard to see his eyes under that pageboy haircut.

  “I assume you won’t be turning in any written reports,” he finally said.

  “No.”

  “Okay,” he said, like I’d asked him for permission.

  Driving back, I was trying to make sense of it. Realized I couldn’t, not without asking some questions.

  I don’t know how to do that, not really. The only time I’d seen men questioned, the only question was how much pain they could take.

  I didn’t like seeing that, but I knew I couldn’t look away—the men I was with would take it as a sign of weakness. Some of those men chased weakness the way other men chased women.

  The only thing I learned from watching was that, if you put a man in enough pain, he’ll scream.

  Actually, I learned something else. One man finally screamed. When they made the pain stop, he told them where his outfit’s base camp was. Then they shot him.

  When we hit where he’d said the base camp was, it was just a clearing hacked out of the jungle. Not big enough for a camp, but plenty of room for the trip wires surrounding it. The strike team got blown to chunks of flesh and bone. Nobody followed them. The man they’d tortured must have been laughing under all those screams.

  I can do a lot of things, but most of them aren’t much use to me now. Being with Dolly, that was all I wanted.