By this time I'm already undressed. I shed clothes faster than basketball players tearing off their warm-up suits as they enter a game. I get into bed, and Nicole drops the bomb.
“You and Laurie have been involved.”
Uh, oh. “It's that obvious?”
She nods. “It's that obvious.”
“We started to … and then we stopped.”
“What happened?” she asks.
“You,” I answer.
FOUR WEEKSIS SIMPLY NOT ENOUGH TIME TO PREpare for a murder case. There are lawyers who take that long to pick out what suit they are going to wear for their opening statement. But it's all Hatchet has given us, so we have to deal with it.
Things are already starting to fall between the cracks. There are motions to be filed, evidence to be challenged, discovery to be gone over, witnesses to interview, media to be spun, and prayers to be prayed. I'm going to need help.
Ordinarily, I would discuss additions to our team with Laurie, but discussions with Laurie these days are less than comfortable. I grapple with this for a short while, but I decide that not to get the benefit of her input is to cause my client to suffer because of my personal situation. I can't let that happen.
Laurie completely agrees that we need help, and after thinking for a minute, she comes up with a name I've never heard before: Kevin Randall.
“He's as good as any attorney I've ever met,” she says. “And he can be trusted totally and completely.”
Laurie doesn't exactly throw around praise indiscriminately, so I'm intrigued.
“Where is he practicing?”
“He isn't,” she says. “He quit.”
“Why?” I ask.
“Because he has a conscience.”
As Laurie goes on to say, Kevin graduated Harvard Law about twenty years ago, but rather than join his classmates on their march to corporate law stardom, he went to work for the District Attorney in Essex County. He was a talented prosecutor, insightful and intense, but he had the misfortune to recognize his ability. Kevin would win cases with his skill and work ethic, which caused him to worry that perhaps innocent defendants were going to prison because their lawyers were outgunned.
To counter this situation, Kevin decided to become a defense attorney. It didn't work out quite the way he hoped. Now, when he won a case, he began to worry that he was responsible for dangerous felons roaming the streets. This was confirmed to him when one of his victories wound up killing two people in an armed robbery a month after Kevin got him off a convenience store holdup charge. Kevin blamed himself for the deaths.
That, Laurie says, was the final straw. Having been both a prosecutor and a defense attorney, Kevin had now run out of sides to take. His only other chance to stay in the legal system was to become a judge, so Kevin Randall made the obvious choice.
He opened a Laundromat.
Laurie and I drive out to East Brunswick to see Kevin at his current establishment, set in a tacky strip mall. There's a 7-Eleven, a takeout-only Chinese restaurant, a check-cashing business, and the “Law-dromat,” Kevin's place. The sign outside offers “Free Legal Advice While You Wash and Dry.”
I look at the place and then at Laurie, who has perfected the ability to read my thoughts. She can tell that I can't believe we've even come here.
“Open your mind,” she says. “Unclench your ass and open your mind.”
Laurie has mentioned that she knows Kevin quite well, but she hasn't provided any specifics. Actually, I think she knows him more than quite well, maybe much more than quite well. I've got a feeling she once may have known him in the biblical sense, and my suspicious mind concludes that is one of the reasons she recommended him. But I've agreed to give it a shot, so we go in.
The inside of the place looks like a Laundromat, which in itself is no major surprise, since that is what it is. There is only one patron in the place, a middle-aged woman who is talking to the proprietor, Kevin. He, to my immense relief, is five foot seven, thirty pounds overweight, and balding. He doesn't have a hunchback, and he doesn't drool when he talks, but his overall unattractiveness should be enough to keep my jealousy in check.
Kevin and the woman are having an animated discussion, which Laurie and I cannot hear from our vantage point, since the washers and dryers are making too much noise. The woman seems upset, and Kevin's gestures indicate he is trying to placate her. It doesn't seem to work, and she throws up her hands and leaves.
Kevin sees Laurie and waves us over. When we get there, he's still shaking his head over the encounter with the woman. Laurie gives him a big hug and kiss, causing me to briefly wonder if my initial jealous instincts had been right. Nah, she's three inches taller than he is. Can't be.
“Hey, Kev, meet Andy. Andy, Kevin.”
We shake hands and say how nice it is to meet each other. I ask him if the woman that just left is a tough client.
“They don't come any tougher,” he says.
Laurie asks, “What's the problem? Or is it privileged and you can't talk about it?”
“No, I'll tell you,” he says. “She put in seventy-five cents and her towels didn't get dry.”
We go to a coffee shop around the block to talk, and I describe the Miller case. Kevin has three pieces of pie and a bowl of fruit while I lay it out, and I have no doubt he is going to eat as long as I talk. Fortunately the case is not that complicated, or he would have to get his stomach pumped.
I ask him what he thinks and wait for his answer while he swallows. He tells me we are in a difficult position. My God, Clarence Darrow lives!
Laurie asks him if he'd be interested in coming on board, and he says, “No thanks. Been there, done that.”
I'm relieved, since I don't yet share Laurie's high opinion of this guy. But Laurie keeps pressing him, and he seems to be weakening, so I jump in with what I think is an obvious point. “No offense, I'm sure you're a dynamite lawyer, but you do run a Laundromat.”
Kevin nods and turns to Laurie. “See? This is a smart guy. He wants somebody who doesn't fluff and fold all day.”
We talk about it some more, and he actually starts to impress me with his take on the case and the law. Laurie uses her considerable powers of persuasion on him, and he finally and reluctantly agrees to join the team, but only in a very secondary role. He'll do the grunt work, filing motions and moving things along, but will not take an active courtroom role. This is fine with me, since I was not about to offer him one.
“I think we should discuss my fee,” he says.
“The sign says your advice is free,” I reply.
“My free advice is don't use too much detergent. My legal fee is one fifty an hour. You as rich as Laurie says you are?”
I glare a dagger at Laurie, who shrugs. “It slipped out,” she says.
I shake my head, disappointed at the injustice of it all. Why can't we rich people be treated as normal human beings? “Okay. One fifty an hour. But you pay for your own pie.”
“Done,” says Laurie. Then they shake hands on it. Then they hug on it. It's a beautiful moment. There isn't a dry eye in the room, unless you count both of mine.
We agree that Kevin will come to the office the next morning, and Laurie and I make arrangements to meet later to go to the scene of the crime. I head down to the courthouse to meet with Richard Wallace, which is not something I relish.
If you watched Geraldo or Larry King or any one of a hundred cable shows that covered the Simpson trial or the impeachment debacle, then you noticed that ninety-five percent of all the legal pundits they use are dubbed “former prosecutor.” It's sort of like being a baseball manager: Every day you're in the job you're one day closer to being fired. Except every day you're a prosecutor, you're one day closer to quitting. The overwhelming feeling in the profession is that “former” is the best kind of prosecutor to be.
The exception to this rule is Richard Wallace. He's been prosecuting cases for eighteen years, and if he has
