Gregg Hurwitz: The Crime Writer

"You haven't been together so long."

"I suppose it is a lot to handle."

Chic raised his eyebrows as if to say, Ya think?

I couldn't talk about losing April while maintaining a stiff upper lip, so I asked, "What news from the front?"

"Usual shit. CourtTV, three-minute segments on Five, five-minute segments on Three. Reporters feeling good 'bout themselves because they remember to say 'allegedly.' "

I already knew that the prosecutor's version had infected the media's take, and vice versa. The victim had been photogenic, and the public had hooked into her the way it liked and into me the way it required. The story had taken on a life of its own, and I'd been cast in the nastiest role.

He squinted at me. "You getting any sleep?"

"Sure."

But I wasn't getting much. Last night I'd stayed up like Lady Macbeth, staring at my hands, staggered by their secret history. A fleck of dried blood remained wedged under my right thumbnail, and I dug at it and dug at it until frustration gave way to something like horror and I tore off the tip of the nail with my teeth. Later I dreamed about Genevieve her pale Parisian skin, her inviting cushiony hips, lounging on my deck chair and spooning avocado curls from the dark shell, edging them with mayonnaise from the dollop she'd dropped where the pit had been. She looked at me and smiled forgivingly, and I awoke having sweated through one end of the slim pad of a pillow. The polyester sheet was thin, and I knew I was a sorry sight there in the darkness, trembling and terrified by something I couldn't put a name to.

"Can you get my condolences to Genevieve's family?" I said quietly. "Tell them I didn't do this."

"All due respect, they prob'ly don't much want to hear from you right now." He held up a hand when I started to protest. "How are those lawyers who your overeager editor found for you?"

"They seem to know what they're doing."

"Let's hope so." He withdrew a stapled document and put it in the pass-through box.

The guard rushed forward, blurting, "Let me take a look at that, sir."

Chic waited impatiently while the guard flipped through the document, searching for the blowtorch concealed in the pages. He justified himself by removing the staple from the corner.

Scrap Plan B. No flying out of here on a magic staple.

Once the document cleared security, Chic slid it through to me. A power of attorney that designated Chic Bales with broad powers over my finances and legal affairs.

"Broad powers," I said. "That include X-ray vision or just shape-shifting?"

He half smiled, but I could see his concern in the lines that pouched his eyes. "Law firm needs a two-fifty retainer. You'll have to take a second on the house."

"A third." Just contemplating the state of my finances made my temples throb. There was some bureaucratic fuss until the guard produced a notary's seal, required to validate any power of attorney. Another reality tidbit overlooked in the pages of my I now realized woefully unrealistic novels.

I signed and sent the document back through. Chic's eyes caught on the note I'd included. "What's this?"

"For Adeline."

"Genevieve's sister? You really think she wants to hear from you?"

He unfolded the paper without asking and regarded my adolescent script.

I didn't kill your sister.

Tell me if there's anything I can do.

I'm so sorry for your loss.

He refolded the note, and it disappeared into a pocket. His look said it all.

"You get accused and you're no longer allowed to have a human reaction?" I said.

"You are, but no one's gonna believe it. If you're sincere now, you'll get chewed up. Everyone'll think you playin' to the jury pool. You're in a game. The sooner you figure that out, the better."

"So what can I do?"

"Look innocent."

"I am innocent."

"Look it."

We sat in silence for a few moments, staring at each other. The guard strode over. "Time's up."

Chic's stare didn't so much as tic over to pick up the guard's reflection in the glass. "I just got here."

"You'll exit to the right. Got it?"

Chic sucked his teeth and screwed his mouth to the side. "Why, sho'." And then, to me, "Hang tough. I'm here for whatever and all of it." He pushed back with a screech, and then his footfall echoed off the cold concrete walls.

The next morning I was summoned by my lawyers back down that ammonia-reeking hall to the Plexiglas Pavilion. They waited in their chairs, outlines bleached by strong morning light, one leaning forward, elbows resting on knees, lips pouched against the weight of the decisions to come, the other canted back in his chair, thumb dimpling a cheek, forefinger riding his upper lip. Both of their heads were bowed as if in prayer. Before their features resolved, I had a strong sense I was walking into the famous picture of JFK and Bobby taken when Khrushchev's freighters were steaming toward Cuba.

I understood their concern. I'd already proven less than pliable as a client. Despite their advice, I'd elected not to waive my right to a speedy trial. Bail had been denied, a cover-yer-ass move by the down-the-middle judge we'd drawn, cowed by mounting media fanfare. The prospect of spending maybe years locked up awaiting trial was terrifying enough to compromise my judgment on the matter. My lawyers and I had also gone a few rounds over the plea. My choices were guilty or not guilty. The temporary-insanity issue would be visited in a second trial phase only if I were found guilty.

Donnie Smith, hair tamped down from his post-gym shower, picked up right where we'd left off. "Your pleading not guilty will antagonize the judge, the public, the press, and the court. And it's that group that decides your fate. Not just those twelve people. You have to plead guilty to help you gain credibility on the question of impaired sanity. Given the media, Harriman's gonna try the case, and you can bet she'll mop the floor with us in the guilt phase, leave you stained. We need to get to sanity quickly, with a clean slate, and without dragging you through a trial that you are unlikely to win."

My heart felt like it was fluttering my shirt. "But I didn't do it. And not a single fucking person believes me."

Not the first time they'd encountered such a claim. Blank eyes. Patience, edging to impatience.

"So your position is you don't remember that you didn't kill her?" Donnie spoke slowly, as if to a developmentally delayed child.

I didn't answer. It sounded stupid to me, too. As before, each minute with them contributed to my growing fear that I had no defense. And that if I didn't want to die in a prison cell, I'd have to admit to something I did not remember.

My frustration bubbled to the surface. "Is anyone trying to find out who really did this? Or are they all too busy playing trial games like us?"

Donnie and Terry glanced at each other uneasily.

"What?" I said, worried. "What's that look?"

"LAPD turned over something troubling yesterday in discovery," Donnie said. "Genevieve called you the night of the murder at 1:08 A.M., approximately twenty minutes before her murder."

"I was told that already."

Donnie removed a sealed LAPD evidence bag from his briefcase. It contained a CD. "And she left you a message."

"Is it bad?" I asked. No answer. Agitated, I stood, walked a tight circle, sat back down again. "That's why they changed my voice mail access."

Donnie popped the CD into his laptop and clicked a few buttons.

The familiar voice, back from the dead, was haunting. "I wanted to tell you I'm with someone new. I hope I hurt you. I hope you feel this pain. I hope you feel so alone. Good-bye."

It took me a few moments to recover from hearing Genevieve. I sat there with my heartbeat pounding in my ears and my lawyers staring at me with calm concern. Her voice, the accent, those nuanced pronunciations. But the invasiveness of the message's presentation also unnerved me. The cops had heard Genevieve's last words to me before I had. The message like the rest of my life, frozen by the prosecution and available to me only secondhand hammered the final nail into the coffin of my rights and privacy.