After Noah went to bed, I hauled my briefcase over to the kitchen table and pulled out Ruiz’s fat manila envelope. The only thing in it was a report on the forensic examination of Karl’s boat. I flipped to the back page and saw the expert had signed it more than a week earlier. It was annoying that Ruiz had held off on giving it to me, but since today was exactly thirty days after I’d made my discovery request for all the forensic reports they had, it wasn’t technically late. Nothing I could complain about.
I flipped back to the start. The summary said the boat appeared to have been hastily or carelessly scrubbed down. The fatal confrontation had apparently happened on deck. The report noted a damaged section of railing with blood and hair still stuck to it, and extensive bloodstains that had soaked into the deck. On the facing page were gruesome color photos of that evidence. Test results said that blood checked out as Karl’s.
Belowdecks was an impressive range of local flora and fauna. I scanned through a bullet list more than half a page long that identified various seeds, leaves, scraps of tree bark, and scales from several different species of fish. The next page itemized types of dirt and sand. I truly had not realized how many different kinds of dirt there are.
Then my eye stopped on an unexpected word: heroin. A trace amount had been recovered from the crack between two bits of Formica in a countertop. I wasn’t sure what to make of it. Karl was a drinker; nothing I or Terri had dug up had pointed to his dabbling in any other substances, apart from the occasional joint. And Jackson certainly didn’t strike me as a user. The gangly arms that stuck out of his death metal T-shirts—and now his short-sleeved summer prison uniform—had no tracks on them. He’d also been stuck in jail for nearly two months, with no source of money I was aware of, and he didn’t act like a junkie in withdrawal. I’d seen my share of those in Charleston. It wasn’t pretty.
Terri and I were going to have to look a little harder at Karl’s friends. I was making a note of that on my yellow pad when I heard, outside, the unmistakable sound of breaking glass. I turned the lights off and peeked out the curtain.
The street was empty. I could see the blue flicker of TVs in a couple of the neighbors’ houses.
My car was parked in the driveway. Something glittered inside. I turned off the porch light and stepped out to get a better look.
The rear windshield was shattered. The streetlights were glinting off the pile of broken glass on the back dash.
18
Tuesday, July 30, Morning
At work the next day I backed into a parking spot, hoping the dwarf palm tree on the curb would keep Roy from noticing the plastic-sheeting rear windshield that Noah and I had duct-taped to my car. It didn’t work. Roy headed out around eleven for a lunch date, but within three minutes, he was back inside and hanging off my doorframe.
“Leland,” he said, “you can ask Laura for the number of my car place. I’m sure they could get that windshield fixed for you today.”
“Thanks much,” I said. “Although I don’t know when I’m going to be able to get around to it. Lot going on with that murder case.”
The case, of course, had nothing to do with my inability to repair the damage. I’d already gotten a quote for $350, and it was safe to assume that wherever Roy took his Beemer would charge more.
He squinted like he thought he might not have heard me right.
“Well, now,” he said, “perhaps there’s more complexities to that case than I’m aware of, or perhaps you didn’t know that Judge Chambliss takes the whole month of August off?”
“His clerk did mention that,” I said.
“Okay, then,” he said. “Just so you know, all the judges who’ve been on the bench about as long as he has take three or four weeks off before Labor Day.” After another second of squinting at me, his face cleared. He stepped into my office, touched the door as if to close it, and asked, “Do you mind?”
“Not at all.”
He sat down in my guest chair and said, “Leland, believe me, I do not mean to pry. But that windshield of yours can’t be more than, what, a $500 repair? So I have to ask, are you having financial difficulties?”
My gut sank. My dignity sank lower, to somewhere about the vicinity of my shoes.
“Okay,” he said, leaning back in the chair. My face had apparently answered his question. He thought for a moment and added, “Well, building a practice takes time. And some folks are just not as gifted at that side of things.”
With that remark, my dignity was now in Roy’s basement.
He leaned forward like an athletic coach about to announce the next play. “Leland,” he said, “I still believe you’re an asset to Benton & Hearst, but I cannot have that redneck piece of junk sitting in my lot. The plastic sheeting is just—” He shook his head; it was beyond the pale. “So, here’s what we’re going to do. I have a client who owns a few auto dealerships. I’m sure I can arrange a very favorable lease. Not for the kind of car an attorney with your experience ought to be driving, but even something along the lines of a Chevy Malibu would be light-years better than what you’ve got. And probably under two hundred a month.”
“Roy,” I said, “I so appreciate that, but candidly, I have no wiggle room in my budget at this point. Even a lease—”
“That’s not what I mean,” he said. “I can lease it on behalf of the firm, take the business deduction, and let you drive it. Some
