He’s clearly not pleased by my answer. “That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
He ponders this for a few moments. “Make sure they give me a good helper.”
“Do you know a man named Daniel Butler? People seem to call him Danny.”
Noah’s face shows no hint of recognition, and certainly no concern about my reason for asking the question.
“No, I don’t think so,” he says. “Should I?”
“Danny Butler is the reason you were arrested.”
He shakes his head. “I’m the reason I was arrested. But who is he?”
“He went to the FBI and told them that you confessed setting the fire to him. The conversation supposedly took place a few weeks after the fire.”
“That’s not possible.”
“How can you be sure of that? Maybe it was during one of your blackout periods?”
He shakes his head, more firmly this time, as if adamant. “No, when I realized what I had done, I went cold turkey. I still lived in homeless shelters for a while, but I have not put a drug into my system since that day.”
“So you don’t know him at all? He claims that he had breakfast with you at a homeless shelter, and that you were bragging about it.”
“I had breakfast with plenty of people at homeless shelters, but I never talked about the fire with anyone, at any time, until I got arrested and told Becky. And then you.”
I believe Noah is telling the truth. For one thing, he sounds sincere, though that is not terribly important. Plenty of sincere-sounding people have lied to me through their teeth. More significantly, he has no reason to lie. He’s already planning to admit his guilt and plead accordingly, so he gains nothing by denying his connection to Danny Butler.
“In his deposition, Butler goes on to say that you told him exactly how you had done it, where you set the fires, and the kind of chemicals you used. He said-”
“He’s lying, Andy.” For the first time, I hear something other than resignation in Noah’s voice. I hear a little anger.
“Why would he be lying?”
“I don’t know, but he’s lying. I’ve never had the slightest recollection of anything from that day. There is no possible way I accurately described to him what happened.”
“His story matches up with the forensic investigation.”
He thinks for a moment, frustration evident on his face. “I don’t know what to say.”
I hesitate before I continue. I’m crossing a bridge, and when I get to the other side and turn around, the bridge is going to be gone, and there won’t be any going back. And the problem is, I don’t want to get to the other side at all, and I absolutely dread getting stuck there.
“Noah, it’s important that you think about the implications of this. Let’s assume that you’re right, that you never had this incriminating conversation with Danny Butler.”
“I’m definitely right about that,” he says.
“Okay. Then how did he know the details? You couldn’t have had an accomplice, could you?”
He shakes his head. “No.”
“So somebody else told Butler everything that happened, or he set the fire himself.”
“I set the fire.”
“You think that you did, I know that,” I say. “And maybe it’s true. But how did Butler find out about it? And why did he wait six years to come forward?”
Noah thinks about it and comes up with an explanation that is not completely out of left field. “You said his statement matched the forensics report. Well, maybe someone gave him the report. He read it, and attributed the information to me.”
“So he read it, and then framed someone he never met, you, while you were coincidentally hiding a belief in your own guilt.”
By now I’m pacing around the room, trying to make sense out of this. I’m sure Noah would be pacing as well, if he were not handcuffed to the metal table.
“Where does this leave us, Andy?”
“Well, I’m sorry, but what I should have already told you is that the prosecutor will not settle for anything other than life without the possibility of parole.”
He nods; it’s exactly what he expected, and probably what he wants. “I understand.”
“So there’s no rush to pleading guilty,” I say. “It’s not going to change your sentence.”
“I told you, I don’t want a trial.”
“Noah, in any negotiation, even one in which you hold no cards of any value, there is always time to make a bad deal.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means at any point you can interrupt the process and plead guilty, and that will put a stop to everything, and you’ll go away for the rest of your life. But I’m suggesting you hold off for a while, at least until we can explain what’s behind this Danny Butler situation.”
“You’re going to do that?” He rattles his handcuffs. “Because I’m sort of tied up.”
I nod. “I’ve got some free time.”
“You might regret that choice of words. Because I have no money to pay you.”
“You gave me Tara. I owe you one.”
“How do I get myself into these situations?”
Laurie and I are in bed; she’s reading, and I’m watching a
Tara lies in the corner, on a large, puffy dog bed. She used to sleep in bed with us, but now prefers to be able to stretch out by herself.
“Which situation might that be?” Laurie asks.
“I have absolutely no desire to have a client, and I’d rather have a root canal without Novocain than take on a trial, much less a murder trial. So I accept a client for no reason at all-”
Laurie interrupts, pointing to Tara. “You did it as a favor to her.”
That doesn’t seem worthy of a response, so I don’t give her one. Instead, I continue. “But I catch a break. This client doesn’t want to go to trial; he wants to confess to anyone who will listen. So what do I do? I talk him out of pleading guilty, so that maybe we can have a trial.”
“Andy, you did the right thing. Now if you are finished beating yourself up, I’m trying to read this book.”
“How many words are in it?”
“How many words are in what? This book?”
“Yes, a publishing house wants Willie to write a book, but he’s afraid it’s going to take too many words.”
“God help us,” she says.
“Let’s get back to my situation,” I say. “Do I now have to investigate this thing?”
“You know you do.”
“Full scale, or a sweep-under-the-rug job?”
“Full scale,” she says.
“Will you help?”
“Now?”
“You know what I mean.” Laurie is an ex-cop, who when she’s not teaching college-level criminology, serves as my lead investigator. That’s obviously only when I have a client, but because I’m an idiot, I seem to have one now.
“Of course I will,” she says. “Now can I finish my book? I’ll count the words later; it might be distracting to do it as I read.”
“What are you reading?” I can’t tell, because she’s got one of those e-book readers.
