Perri O'Shaughnessy - Unlucky in Law

Monday 9/1

NINA WALKED DOWN THE HALLWAY AT THE SALINAS JAIL BEHIND THE guard and went into the cubicle he indicated. Featureless, windowless, worn, it held one scarred chair, a wall phone, and a shelf under the large window through which her new client would soon spill his secrets.

As soon as she had pulled the chair up to the window and placed her briefcase on the floor, the door on the other side of the glass opened and a hesitant young man entered. Stefan Wyatt had a soul patch on his chin and enormous biceps developed during, or maybe due to, his months of imprisonment. He wore the usual jail-issue orange jumpsuit, and tripped over the chair that faced Nina through the window before sitting down. The deputy, just closing the door from his side, reflexively reached for his weapon at the sudden movement.

At this first meeting with her client, Nina examined him as severely as she would a new pair of shoes, checking for hidden defects. Sometimes clients brought a smog of evil into the room along with their stories, and she knew right away: here’s one who could have done it. This one didn’t strike her that way.

“It’s all right, man,” Wyatt said to the deputy, who relaxed, seeing there was no harm intended. Fumbling with the phone, twisting the wire straight, he said, “Hello, there.” Twenty-eight, tall, a college dropout with a spotty employment history-odd jobs, bartending, almost a year at a moving company, and six months on a fishing boat-he had blue eyes, an average IQ, and a great smile that indicated a nature so sunny even this dungeon hadn’t stolen his spirit.

Nina showed him her State Bar card and smiled back, saying, “How are you?”

“Fine?” He shook his head as if uncertain of the truth of his own words. The blue eyes on her were wide open, bewildered.

Had Klaus forgotten to mention her during his visit the day before? “Er, I’m Nina Reilly.”

“Right. You’re working with Klaus. I’m Stefan. I guess I didn’t expect…” He paused, smiling. “I guess I thought you’d look like Klaus.”

Nina raised an eyebrow. “I probably will, at his age.”

“Nooo. Not ever.”

“Ready to settle down this morning and do some work?”

“Sure. Absolutely.”

“Like Klaus, I’m your attorney, and you have the same privilege of confidentiality in talking with me as you do with him. Do you understand that, Stefan?”

“You can’t tell anyone what we talk about. I know.”

“I’m here to ask a few questions. You probably understand that I’m coming in late to your case and need to hear it all.”

“Klaus didn’t explain everything to you?”

“Short notice.”

“Okay,” he said amiably. “What do you need to know?” She was already forming more judgments about the young man in front of her. Sane, at least oriented to reality at the moment. Engaging. Nice mouth, set of beautiful teeth, a healthy fellow but passive and awkward, the big body not quite coordinated. His eyes held a hangdog eagerness. He looked anxious to please. A certain kind of woman would want to take care of him.

Klaus had said this divided room wasn’t bugged. They could talk safely, he believed, so she would put her doubts aside and ask for the whole story.

Uncapping her lucky Mont Blanc pen, Nina wrote the date on her yellow legal pad.

“It’s not like I know who killed that woman,” Stefan said. “I was in the wrong place, just trying to help someone and make a few bucks I really needed.”

“All right,” Nina said. “I’m listening. Tell me what happened right up to your arrest.”

“Everything?”

“Everything. What you were thinking, not just what you did.”

Stefan began to talk, his story coming out in spurts as if he were still coming to terms with some of the things he had done. As he spoke, Nina looked up from her notes now and then and watched him, gauged him, weighed the words.

“It was April, cool at night.”

“What day in April?”

“The twelfth. Right into the next morning, April thirteenth. Lucky thirteen, ha, ha.”

“Go ahead.”

Stefan had waited for the sun to sink low, so he could get it over with. He didn’t want the job; just thinking about it made him feel like some grisly comic-book character.

But he had already delayed one night on account of rain and a minor drinking binge that sent him to bed early instead. Alex might be angry about that, and he didn’t like disappointing people. Still, if anything could wait, in a weird way, it was this. After all, the old man had been dead for decades. He wasn’t going anywhere.

Yet.

But now, if he was going to do this thing, tonight was the night. He would go light on the brewskis and be primed for action later.

He couldn’t tell Erin, which put a strain on what should have been a great Saturday night. He had made a solemn promise to her never to break the law again, and here he was preparing to break it just this one last time. Feeling guilty in advance, he took her out for fish and chips at her favorite place at Fisherman’s Wharf, the Captain’s Gig, where, stoked on caffeine, she talked fast-happily, it seemed to him, though as usual she looked longingly at the shops across the street that carried wind chimes and sea otter statues and that gnarled burlwood furniture they couldn’t afford. And jewelry, beautiful rings…

While Stefan listened with one ear to a guy ranting through a microphone across the plaza, who actually said a few things Stefan agreed with about working people and how important strong unions were, Erin got on the topic of her family and how much they would like him once they got to know him.

Stefan knew what this meant: What they had heard of him made them not like him. They had heard he had a record. Erin wouldn’t lie about that to anyone. He didn’t feel ready to meet them until he had his life in better order. But he loved Erin, so he listened to her as they walked home, hoping she wouldn’t raise the issue of meeting her folks again.

When they got home, Erin drank the shot of tequila he poured for her in the kitchen. Flushed and beautiful, she sidled up behind his chair to give him a kiss and back rub. Shit, Stefan thought, heaving a sigh, pouring himself a beer. How he would prefer to be pulling that yellow sweater over her head and taking advantage of her mood. But that had sabotaged him the night before. Tonight he couldn’t let it happen. Erin showed no signs of slowing down, and he needed her asleep, so he pretended to keep pace with her while discreetly tossing his own Coors down the kitchen sink. He drank most of one first, to be honest.

They sat down at the kitchen table. “My favorite place, if you’re gonna talk about places worth noticing, is that spot between sleeping and waking. Like after good sex?” Erin nudged him with her knee. “You float around like you’re in a boat.”

“Uh-huh.” He stuck his nose into her neck, getting a whiff of her warm smell.

“You tickle.” Smiling, she pushed him away a little and put her hand on his leg, then she slid it up and started messing with his fly.

He really did not want to leave.

His brother Gabe called Erin “dim” behind her back, but Stefan didn’t know what that was supposed to mean. She was hard to read sometimes. But if Gabe meant brights, well, Erin was brighter than Stefan. Gabe wouldn’t think that was saying much, but it meant something to Stefan. He respected her. He liked the surprises that came out of her. “Deep” fit her best. Her politics were naive to nonexistent, but she had something he didn’t have. She had connection, to people, to the earth.

He touched her and listened to her, staring beyond the window curtain to the darkening trees.