Joseph Teller - Overkill

“The law says,” he told Jeremy, “that self-defense ends once the threat ends. From that moment on, no matter what you’ve been through, you can’t pull the trigger. You’re allowed to defend yourself, but you’re not allowed to get even. That’s what the judge is going to tell the jury, in so many words. He has no choice. The law requires him to do that. And it’s very hard for me to imagine twelve ordinary people getting together and agreeing to blow him off and do the opposite of what he’s told them.”

“They weren’t there,” said Jeremy.

“No, they weren’t,” Jaywalker agreed. “And that will make it even harder for them to understand how you felt. It will make it just about impossible, in fact.”

“Can’t you explain it to them?”

The question was so utterly simple, and yet so disarmingly naive, that it completely broke the spell and forced Jaywalker to smile broadly. “Sure,” he said, “I can try. But I’m going to need an awful lot of help from you.”

“You won’t be mad at me?”

“Mad at you? For what?”

“For making you go to trial.”

“Hey,” said Jaywalker. “Going to trial is what I do.”

For a week and a half there was no word from Miranda. From what she’d told Jaywalker over the phone, he figured she should have been in New York at least three or four days by now. He called Jeremy’s mother half a dozen times. Half a dozen times she told him pretty much the same story, though it was hard not to detect a trend in the way she phrased it.

“Be patient. She’s gonna call me. Jew gonna see.”

“What can I say, Mr. Jackwalker? She told me she’d call me as soon as she get here.”

“I still don’t hear from her. So, how does the case look? Jew got to get him less time, Mr. Jakewalker. I know the other boy, he passed away. But still, an accident is an accident, and that’s the truth. Right? I hope she calls.”

“If it’s God’s will, she’ll call.”

“The wedding was yesterday, I found out. And still she don’t call me. That’s not right.”

“I don’t hear nothing from the little tramp.”

The packet of additional discovery material Katherine Darcy had given Jaywalker turned out to contain nothing new, with a single exception. That exception was a photograph of Victor Quinones, evidently taken at the time of the autopsy. It was a black-and-white head shot, not too gory, but it showed the entrance wound of the fatal gunshot, squarely between the eyes. It also revealed what a scary dude Victor had been in life. In addition to scraggly chin whiskers and shiny windowpaning that covered several of his front teeth, he had pockmarks on both cheeks, which Jaywalker took to be old acne scars. He slipped the photo into a subfile entitled M.E., for Medical Examiner, resolving to figure out some way to get it in front of the jurors, just in case Katherine Darcy didn’t bother. Like so many things, it was something of a double-edged sword. The almost surgical precision of the wound was compelling evidence that Jeremy had aimed and fired deliberately and at close range. But if you were to factor in the windowpaning and Victor’s overall menacing appearance, it was a plus for the defense. Now, was it relevant that the guy Jeremy had killed happened to have been exceedingly ugly? Technically, no, of course not. But in the real world, you bet it was. In the eyes of a juror sitting on a close case, it mattered hugely.

Now all Jaywalker had to do was figure out how to make it a close case.

So why had Katherine Darcy gone to the trouble of inviting him over to pick up the additional packet of discovery when she just as easily could have mailed it to him or waited until the next court appearance to hand it over? It certainly hadn’t been to show him the gun, which she must have known she wasn’t going to be able to introduce as the murder weapon, even if she thought it was.

So it had to have been the offer-the twenty years, maybe eighteen or nineteen-that she’d wanted to make but hadn’t gotten around to actually offering until he was ready to pay for their hot chocolates.

The Blink.

Interesting.

“She’s here.”

The clock by the bed told him it was 6:14 a.m. For Jaywalker, that would have been late to still be lying in bed had it been summertime, or even late spring or early fall. But it was the last week of January and still pitch dark outside, not to mention cold. Hibernating season. He rubbed his eyes and shifted the phone receiver from his left ear to his right, the one that heard better. And tried to place the gravelly voice.

“Who’s she? ” he managed to ask.

“She. The girl, Miranda. She’s here, with me.”

“That’s good,” said Jaywalker, suddenly awake. “That’s great. What time can you bring her to the office?” The “office” was the conference room of a suite where he’d once rented a room. For an occasional contribution of copy paper, toner or fax machine cartridges, they still let him meet the occasional client there.

“Any time jew like,” said Carmen.

“How about ten?” Most of the lawyers would be in court by then, he knew. They might even be able to use one of the empty private offices.

“Too early,” said Carmen. “She’s jung. They like to sleep late in the morning, the jung people.”

“Eleven? Twelve?”

“How about two?”

“Two it is.”

So much for any time you like.

They showed up at a quarter of three, Carmen literally leading Miranda by the hand into the conference room.

Very pretty didn’t even begin to describe her.

Try stunning. Breathtaking. Exquisite. Gorgeous . And delicate, thin to the point of looking almost breakable. Long, straight hair, somewhere between red and auburn. Whether it was from nature’s palette or something poured out of a bottle, Jaywalker couldn’t tell. But then, he never could. Skin a shade too dark for an Anglo but a bit too light for a Latina. A perfect nose, a mouth just a trifle too full, and high cheekbones that might or might not have had something to do with her “Semaphore” blood.

And then you got to the eyes.

As blue-gray as Jeremy’s were, that was how brown Miranda’s were. And they were huge, disproportionally huge, making her look almost like one of those waifs that artist guy used to paint. Klee? Maybe. But his subjects ended up slightly freaky-looking, and Miranda was anything but that.

“This is Miranda,” said Carmen, perhaps sensing that Jaywalker was too busy staring to introduce himself. “And this is the lawyer, Mr. Jameswalker.”

They shook hands. Hers was impossibly thin. Again the word delicate came to Jaywalker’s mind.

“Pleased to meetcha,” said Miranda.

And immediately the spell was broken.

It wasn’t just the meetcha, though certainly that was a big part of it. It was that as soon as she opened her mouth, she sounded just like any other teenager. And that threw him, the total and totally unexpected disconnect between her extraordinary looks and her very ordinary voice. And in some strange way, that disconnect comforted Jaywalker and allowed him to visualize Miranda and Jeremy as an item. Had she sounded like the goddess Jaywalker had fully expected her to once he’d seen her, he would have been incapable of putting the two of them together. But suddenly it made sense. Jeremy himself was exceedingly good-looking, but at the same time he was shy and introverted to a fault. Slow, to put it charitably. Now, Jaywalker realized one sentence into their meeting, so was Miranda. And he got it. In this beautiful but limited young lady, Jeremy had finally found himself, just as she’d found herself in him.

He asked Carmen to go out to the waiting room so he could talk with Miranda in privacy.