Scott Pratt - An Innocent Client

“Get up,” he said. “Time to go.”

“Don’t you want to play some more?”

“Get up and get out.”

The woman began to collect her clothing, which was spread out across the floor between the bed and the door. She was naked, and as Landers watched her, he wished she’d cover herself. The backs of her thighs were layered with cellulite, and her butt sagged and jiggled. When she straightened to look at Landers, he decided she had to be well into her forties. Landers liked younger women, much younger women. How much did he drink? He pulled the sheet over his head and leaned back.

“You can dress downstairs, on your way out,” Landers said. He was beginning to feel sick.

He heard her walking toward the bedroom door and pulled the sheet back down so he could take one last look at her and remind himself why he shouldn’t drink so much. As she opened the door, she turned to face him.

“You’re a lousy lay,” she said, and then she was gone.

“Like you even remember it,” Landers said.

He needed to take a shower. He threw back the sheet, and there it was. The false eyelash, about an inch from his thigh. It looked like a dead centipede. Landers felt his stomach heave. He made it to the bathroom just in time.

July 11

7:00 a.m.

We’d brought furniture up from Ma’s house when we moved her into the nursing home: a dresser, a couple of small tables, a lamp and a chair, thinking it might help ease the transition and make her more comfortable. I spent an entire afternoon hanging and arranging photographs. One of my dad in his high school football uniform was hanging just to the right of the television. She’d asked me to place it there so she could look at it from the bed. Now she didn’t even know who he was.

I arrived at 7:00 a.m. to find her lying on her back staring at nothing. She hadn’t spoken in weeks, and she’d wet herself and was drooling. The saliva had run out the corner of her mouth and soaked her pillow case. I dug a fresh one out of the closet, then went and found a nurse’s aide. I waited in the hallway while she changed Ma’s diaper. I couldn’t bear to do it myself.

When she was finished, I walked back into the room and sat down. Ever since the day I told her about Raymond, I’d gotten into the habit of talking to her, even though she was oblivious to everything I said. I’d turned my visits into mini-therapy sessions without the shrink. Mostly, I talked about my cases and the constant state of conflict in which I found myself.

“Just my luck, huh Ma?” I said. “I get a case with a client who’s innocent, and the victim’s son turns out to be a psychopath. Everybody in the family is scared to death. We check to make sure the doors and windows are locked every night, I’ve got guns spread out all over the house, we all spend half our time looking in rear-view mirrors and over our shoulders. It’s crazy.

“But you know what? The whole system is crazy. For over ten years, I’ve been traveling every day to this bizarre world of lies and deceit. There’s no honor in it anywhere. It’s all just a sick game, and the people who win the most are the ones who lie the best. They call it the criminal justice system. What a crock. Defendants lie and cheat, police officers lie and cheat, prosecutors lie and cheat, defense lawyers lie and cheat, and judges — don’t even get me started. The American legal system would do itself a great service if it could somehow execute half the sitting judges in this country and start all over again-”

My cell phone rang. It was Caroline.

“Deacon Baker just called. They found Julie Hayes dead at her house yesterday. He wants you to come down there. He wants to talk about a deal.”

I leaned over and kissed my mother on the forehead, something I never did when she was conscious.

“Love you, Ma. I have to go, but I’m glad we had this little talk. Next time, remind me to tell you about Maynard Bush.”

July 11

9:00 a.m.

Deacon Baker and Frankie Martin were waiting for me in the conference room. There were a couple of plastic plants sitting on small tables in two of the corners, and the walls were lined with bookshelves stuffed with outdated law books and police magazines. The ceilings were low, and I noticed that mildew had formed in the corners. The lighting was almost as bad as the lighting at the jail.

“Mr. Dillard,” Baker said as I walked in, “I trust you know my assistant, Frankie Martin?”

“I do.” I shook hands with each of them and took a seat at the long table with my back to the wall. Baker and Martin sat across from me. Baker looked like an oompa-loompa from Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. He was short, plump and bald, and he always wore suspenders. He was also smoking a fat cigar, despite the fact that smoking wasn’t allowed in the building. The smell and the smoke were sickening.

“Ready for trial?” I said. “Sorry about your witness.” I couldn’t resist.

“Of course we are,” Baker said. “We have plenty of evidence without her.”

“I understand you gentlemen would like to talk about a plea bargain.”

“That’s right,” Baker said. “Let’s try to be honest with each other. Perhaps we can put the posturing aside.”

Plea bargaining was entirely about posturing. There was no way anyone was going to “put it aside.”

“We have a strong case,” Baker said, “but I’ve given this a great deal of thought and I don’t think the case is appropriate for the death penalty. We might be willing to take it off the table in exchange for a plea.”

So much for honesty. Their case was anything but strong, especially now that Julie Hayes was dead.

“What do you have in mind?” I said.

“Twenty years, second degree murder.”

“Not a chance. Not on the evidence I’ve seen. Surely you didn’t bring me all the way down here for that.”

“Make a counter-offer,” Baker said.

“I’ve given it some thought too,” I said. “The way I see it, you had a weak circumstantial case before your most important witness died, and you’ve got an unappealing victim. You’re going to have to spend a great deal of time at trial proving that your preacher went to a strip club. Then I assume you’re going to try to prove he solicited a prostitute, since you’re going to introduce evidence about the money he withdrew from his bank account right before he left. I don’t think the jury will have much sympathy for him, and I’ll do everything I can make sure they don’t.”

“Let’s assume he was, as you say, there to solicit a prostitute,” Martin said. “That doesn’t mean he deserved to be brutally murdered and mutilated. The jury is going to want to see someone pay for that.”

“I’m sure they will,” I said. “But not Angel. I don’t think she did it, and you can’t prove she did. Barlowe could have killed him, any of the other girls at the club could have killed him, he could have gone somewhere else and picked up someone else, or someone could have been waiting for him when he got back to the room. It could have been anybody, and you know it.”

“Nobody else’s hair was found in that room,” Baker said. “Only your client’s.”

“If they’d found the hair in the bathroom or on the headboard or even on the floor it would be different. But they found it on his clothing. It’s entirely possible that her hair passed to him when she was serving him booze at the club and he was rubbing up against her. And the only way you could possibly make the jury even suspect Angel was at the motel was through Julie Hayes, and she’s gone.”

“We have plenty of other evidence,” Baker said.

“I know what other evidence you have, Deacon. And I know what I have. I was planning to surprise you with this, but since we’re not posturing, I have a witness who says he saw a woman fitting Erlene Barlowe’s description on Picken’s Bridge around midnight the night of the murder. His name is Virgil Watterson. I believe you’ve heard of him.”