her ears perk up at any unusual sound… it somehow encourages me to trust my own instincts the way she trusts hers.
It’s a little more difficult tonight, since I’m walking both Tara and the maniac known as Waggy. He is positively crazed with excitement by this walk, though we’ve pretty much followed the same route every day since he’s been here.
I am taking very seriously Kevin’s comments about that day at the house. If Steven planted the explosives, or caused them to be planted, then he is obviously a cold-blooded murderer. And because he saw me outside the house, and knew I was going in, then he was fully content to be a cold-blooded murderer of me.
But I was basically a stranger to him, and it seems silly to feel he is entitled to a vigorous defense if charged with killing his father and stepmother, but not for the attempted murder of an unwitting bystander. On the other hand, I keep coming back to the fact that the unwitting bystander was me.
I cut the walk a little short, not because I am seeing things with total clarity, but because my arms ache from trying to restrain Waggy. We get home, and I pour myself a glass of wine.
Laurie calls me back and is as supportive as she can be, while we both understand that the decision is both personal and mine. I think about it some more, and then decide to discuss it with Waggy, who is sleeping next to Tara on the end of the bed.
I’m nuts to do anything to wake up Waggy; I could be opening myself up for another session of his running around the house like an Olympic hurdler. But I say, “Wag, old buddy, here’s the situation. I’m going to try to help your friend Steven. If we win, you live with him. If we lose, you stay here. Either way you’ll be fine.”
He just looks at me, gives a little wag of his tail, and lays his head on Tara’s back.
I take this as a sign that he approves of the plan.
I PICK KEVIN UP AT THE LAW-DROMAT at eight AM.
His car is being repaired, and we’re going down to the jail for an early-morning meeting with Steven. Though from our point of view the meeting could wait until later in the day, we will be there early for his sake. If he’s like every other client I’ve had in this predicament, he is scared out of his mind and needs to see a friendly face. Someone on his side.
When I arrive, there are about five customers sitting around, waiting for an interruption in the whirring sounds of the washers and dryers that means their clothes are done.
Kevin is in intense conversation with a woman, maybe seventy years old, who is sitting but still leans against a small cart that she would use to transport her laundry. He waves to me and says that he’ll just be a couple of minutes.
I sit down about ten feet away and see that they have papers spread out on the chair between them. I am close enough to hear them talking, which is of little benefit because they are speaking Spanish. I had no idea Kevin could speak Spanish, and certainly not as fluently as it appears. It’s disorienting; I feel like I’m watching a dubbed movie.
They talk for ten more minutes, interrupted only by the woman getting up to put more quarters in her dryer. Finally they finish, and the woman gathers up her papers before retrieving her clothes.
Once Kevin and I are in the car, I say, “I didn’t even know you could speak Spanish.”
“I had to learn, because for so many of my clients it’s a first language.”
“Clients? I thought you give legal advice for free down there.”
“I do, but I still consider them clients. I’m representing that woman on a probate matter. Her husband died, and his will wasn’t correctly prepared or filed.”
What I’m hearing is pretty amazing. “So you actually represent these people? In court?”
“When I have to.”
“For free?” I ask.
He nods. “For free; most of them couldn’t afford to pay anyway. But they wouldn’t take their laundry anywhere else.”
Kevin has obviously become a pro at pro bono. “How many of these clients do you have?”
He thinks for a moment. “Right now? Probably about seventy.”
I don’t know how to respond to this, so all I say is, “Oh.”
On the way to the jail, Kevin tells me that he has checked and learned that Richard Wallace has been assigned to prosecute the case. It’s a mixed blessing for us. I know Richard well; my father trained him many years ago. He is cooperative and professional, but he is also smart and tough.
Once we’re in the small, private visiting room reserved for lawyers and their clients, Steven is brought in to see us. The look on his face immediately tells us he has had a long, horrible night, and the truth is that it will only be the first of many.
The police and prosecutor made an embarrassing mistake in initially arresting and charging the wrong person for the Walter Timmerman murder. They would not then have moved so hastily to arrest Steven had they not been very confident that the embarrassment would not be compounded by another early release. They may not have the goods on Steven, but they damn sure think they do.
I introduce Kevin, and Steven immediately starts pressing us for information on his situation. He’s hoping I’ll tell him something positive, something to give him a reason to hope, when in actuality I’ve got nothing to tell him at all.
“Here’s how it works at this point,” I say. “For now I am more of a collector than a provider of information. And one of the most important sources of that information, maybe the most important, is you.”
“What does that mean?” he asks. “I don’t know what the hell is going on, so how am I going to tell you anything that you can use?”
“You know more about your family than anyone else, and the secret to all this is almost definitely in your family. So I want you to think very carefully about it, and look at it from all different angles. Write down anything that comes to mind; we’ll spend a lot of time talking about it.”
He seems unconvinced, but promises to do as I say. Then he asks the question that every single person asks the first time they face what he is facing. “How long will I be in here?”
“It depends on their evidence. If they have enough to take you to trial, and they probably do, you’ll be in here at least until that trial is over. There will not be bail granted, not in a case like this.”
“I didn’t do this… please believe me… I did not do this. Nothing that they can have can be real, or true.”
“We have to convince a jury of that. But there’s another thing we need to talk about now.”
“What’s that?”
“Your representation. Do you have a criminal attorney?”
He seems offended by the question. “Of course not.”
“You can hire one of your choice, assuming you have financial resources. You should not feel obligated to hire us simply because I happened to be there when this went down.”
“I want you. Everybody says you’re terrific.” He looks at Kevin, who nods, apparently confirming that assessment.
“You checked me out as a criminal attorney?” I ask, since this seems to fly in the face of his previous apparent unconcern at the possibility of being arrested.
He shakes his head. “No, I was doing research about you because you were going to decide what happens to Waggy. I wanted to see what kind of person you are. In the process, I read about cases you’ve handled and people you’ve helped.”
I continue to make sure he understands that he can talk to or hire a different attorney, but he adamantly refuses to entertain the possibility. We discuss my fee, which is considerable but doesn’t seem to give him pause.
“I have a trust fund,” he says. “I’m supposed to get money from it each quarter, but I always put it back into the fund. I’m sure I can have access to it now.”
“How have you supported yourself?” I ask.
“I make furniture. People hire me and I custom-design it to their specifications.”
“Where do you do this?”
