“I have space downtown in the West Village. There’s a small showroom in the front, and I do the work in the loft.”
Soon I’ll know everything about Steven Timmerman that there is to know, but right now I see him as an unspoiled, hardworking dog lover.
On the other hand, he may be a cold-blooded killer who murdered his parents, and almost me as well.
My father served many years as the lead prosecutor for Passaic County. When he would start on a case, before he fully examined the evidence and well before it went to trial, he would simply say, “We will see what we will see.”
Yes, we will.
RICHARD WALLACE agrees to see me right away.
It’s not a surprise to me, it’s consistent with how I know he will handle this case. It’s the duty of the prosecutor to share all the evidence with the other side, and Richard understands that he needs to do that on a timely basis. He’s not interested in inhibiting the defense; he’s interested in proving his case.
Arriving at Richard’s office triggers significant nostalgic feelings about my father. I used to come to his office often and just hang out, particularly on weekends. It was his way of balancing the extraordinary hours he worked with his desire to spend time with his son.
On the way home we would stop at the restaurant of my choice, usually a place called The Bonfire, before heading home. Those were great days, and if anything the passing years have made them greater.
“Takes you back, doesn’t it?” Richard asks when he sees that I am lost in thought. Richard is a good fifteen years older than me; he was just starting out back then.
I nod. “Sure does. This very office is where I should have developed a work ethic.”
He smiles. “You’ve done okay for yourself. Your father was proud of you, and he’d be prouder now.”
As usual, I’m somewhat uncomfortable with emotional feelings, so as usual I try to deflect them. “So you’ll drop the charges against my client?”
He smiles. “Afraid not.” Then: “We’re preparing a package now.” He’s talking about copies of police reports and other existing evidence.
“How about a preview?”
“Well, you’ve got a bit of an uphill climb,” he says. “Walter Timmerman had just removed Steven from his will.”
That’s unfortunate, but not a huge problem, and certainly not conclusive evidence. It goes to motive, but it can be dealt with. I don’t bother pointing this out to Richard, because we’re not arguing the case now.
Richard continues: “Steven’s stepmother was to get all the money, unless Steven outlived her. Which he did. He also hated her, and they argued frequently, including a few minutes before her death. I understand that you know firsthand that he was in the house just before the explosion.”
“Perhaps.”
He smiles. “Don’t worry, I won’t call you as a witness. I have other people who can place him there.”
“There were a lot of people there that weren’t killed,” I say. “Any one of us could have planted the bomb.”
“Were you also seen in downtown Paterson near where Walter Timmerman’s body was found at around the same time? Did you also have traces of his blood in your car?”
There’s nothing I can say to this, so I just keep listening. It’s getting ugly.
“I told you this is a bad one, Andy. And it gets worse.”
“Let’s hear it,” I say, even though I don’t want to.
“Steven spent three years in the marines, very much against his father’s wishes. His specialty was explosives, and he had specific expertise in the type used to blow up the house.”
Kaboom.
I head back to my office a little shaken by what I’ve heard. I’ve been doing this far too long to believe anything when only one side of a story has been presented, but Richard’s presentation was quite ominous.
Obviously, I’m going to give Steven the opportunity to explain away whatever he can, but before I do so I want to familiarize myself with everything the prosecution has. I still find it hard to picture Steven at the house, knowing I was going inside, telling me to take good care of Waggy and make sure he had chewies and tennis balls, while aware all along that Waggy and I were going to be dead in a few minutes.
It doesn’t compute, but the truth is that murder cases rarely do.
Kevin is waiting for me at the office, and Edna has made her appearance as well. Kevin seems content to sniffle and pretend to sneeze, while Edna is on the phone dealing with a crisis of her own. Her cousin Stella’s neighbor’s daughter is getting married, and Stella has not received an invitation. Edna has clearly been called upon to advise Stella on how to handle this potential slight, and within five minutes I hear Edna advise her to talk to the neighbor about it, ask other neighbors about it, and forget it and ignore it completely. The fact that her advice is self-contradictory does not seem to give her pause.
I bring Kevin up to date on what Richard told me, and he agrees that we should wait to get the discovery documents, which will be delivered in the morning, before confronting Steven with any of it.
Since there is little to do before the documents arrive, I decide to go home and start preparing for Laurie’s arrival tonight. Those preparations will be basic. They start with changing the sheets on the bed, something I haven’t done in quite a while. I can’t actually remember the last time I did it, but it must have been a long time ago, because I think the sheets were white at the time. Now they’re a dull gray.
After that I’ll shower a couple of times, brush my teeth until my gums bleed, and try to find underwear and socks without any holes in them. Thus finished with the personal-hygiene portion of the preparation, I’ll plug one of those electric air fresheners into a socket in the kitchen. It hasn’t been smelling so great in there lately; I think I may have dropped a frozen pizza behind the stove a few weeks ago.
These tasks will have to be delayed for a while, because as I’m ready to leave the office, Martha Wyndham shows up unannounced. I’m not a big fan of unannounced show-ups, but since I had planned to meet with her anyway, I decide to make an exception in this case.
I bring her back to my private office, which in the area of cleanliness makes my house look like a sterile operating room. I can see her eyes scanning the room, trying to find a relatively clean place to sit down. Unable to do so, she picks the least dirty place and sits in the chair opposite my desk.
“What can I do for you?” I ask.
She hesitates a moment. “I feel as if we have something of a bond, seeing as how we both could have been in that house.”
I can’t believe she’s here because of this imagined bond, so I just nod and wait for her to continue.
“I understand you’re representing Steven,” she says.
“How did you know that? I haven’t even officially registered with the court.”
“He called me and told me so,” she says. “From the prison.”
“You and Steven are friends?”
“I guess so, though I never really thought of it that way. We talked a lot; we have the same view about a lot of things.” She thinks for a moment. “I consider him a friend… yes.”
At this pace, Laurie will have landed at the airport, met someone new, and gotten engaged by the time I get home. “So what can I do for you?” I repeat.
“I want to help Steven in any way I can.”
“Good,” I say. “He can use all the help he can get.”
“So tell me what I can do,” she says.
“How long did you work for Mrs. Timmerman?”
“One week.”
She sees my surprise, so she continues. “I was Mr. Timmerman’s personal assistant, and when he… died… Mrs. Timmerman asked me to work for her.”
“So you know a lot about them?” I ask.
She nods. “To a degree. They were difficult people to get to know. But I can certainly be a source of
