I need to stop being so obnoxious; it’s my own fault that I’m here. “Look, I’m going to need a television. Can you take one from another room? Or if you want, you can move me into a room that already has one. Maybe the vice president’s suite… or even the secretary of state’s.”
He promises to take care of the problem, and Tara and I go out for a brisk walk. The temperature is in the low forties, and it actually feels invigorating. We find a small place for coffee; I would get Tara a bagel, but there’s as much chance that they sell aardvark smoothies as bagels. She settles for a couple of rolls, and I have a terrific blueberry muffin.
I take Tara back to the hotel, shower, and dress. I feel guilty about leaving her in this room all day, and if I stay here long, I’m going to have to make other arrangements for her. For now I give her a couple of extra biscuits as a peace offering, and she seems content to crawl onto a pillow and go to sleep.
It’s a three-block walk to Calvin Marshall’s office, which in Findlay means it’s on the other side of town. I walk at a brisk pace, and even in this small town it’s amazing I’m not hit by a car, since I focus all my attention on watching for any sign of Laurie. My hope is that I see her, or don’t see her, I’m not sure which.
There is a small sign indicating that the office of Calvin Marshall, Attorney-at-Law, is above a travel agency. Waiting for me at the entrance is Richard Davidson, and the look of relief on his face when he sees me is palpable. Obviously, he was afraid that I would change my mind and not come to Findlay.
“Mr. Carpenter… thanks so much for coming.”
“Andy,” I correct him.
He shakes my hand. “Andy. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate what you’re doing.”
I take a few moments to remind him that all I’m doing is checking things out, that I haven’t agreed to become involved in the case. He nods vigorously that he understands that, but I’m not sure that he does. Then he asks me if I want him in the meeting with Calvin Marshall.
“Actually, I don’t,” I say. “I think it’s better just the two of us for now.”
Again he nods vigorously, showing his full understanding. I could tell him the Vancouver Canucks were going to play the Yankees in the World Series, and his nod would be just as vigorous. He wants me on his side.
I head up the stairs to Calvin Marshall’s office. It’s two flights, and I notice with some annoyance that I’m breathing heavily when I get to the top. Apparently, working the remote control is not putting me in the kind of shape I’d like to be in.
The door is open, but I don’t see anyone in the cubbyhole that qualifies as a reception area, so I knock.
“Come on in, hotshot!” says the voice in more of a drawl than a yell.
Since I’m the only hotshot in the doorway, I enter and walk into the office. I turn a corner and see a person I presume to be Calvin sitting on a chair, feet up on another chair, scaling baseball cards into a wastebasket. This could well be my kind of guy.
“Help yourself to some coffee,” he says without looking up.
I look to the side and see a pot of coffee, about a third full. I pour a cup, which takes a while because it’s so thick. “You sure this isn’t kerosene?” I say.
“It ain’t Starbucks fancy, but it drinks good going down,” he says. “I’d have my secretary make a fresh pot, but she quit in July.”
I walk over to him, coffee in my left hand, my right extended in an offered shake. “Andy Carpenter, visiting hotshot.”
“Calvin Marshall, grizzled, cantankerous small-town attorney” is his response as we shake hands. He’s probably in his late fifties, gray-haired but not particularly grizzled. At least that’s not what I notice; what I notice is that he’s missing his left leg.
Unfortunately, I do more than notice the missing leg; I stare at where it would be if it weren’t missing. He catches me on it. “I used to climb mountains for fun,” he says. “I got trapped in a landslide… a boulder pinned me down. Had to cut my own leg off to get free.” He shakes his head at the memory. “Sort of took the fun out of mountain climbing.”
“What an awful story,” I say.
He nods. “And it’s also bullshit. I had bone cancer when I was twelve years old.”
I can’t help but laugh out loud at the blatant lie.
“You think bone cancer is funny?” he asks.
“I think it’s funny that for no reason you told me a totally bullshit story thirty seconds after we met,” I say. “Why exactly did you do that?”
“It’s the way I test new people,” he says.
“And did I pass?”
“I don’t know… I haven’t graded it yet.”
I tell him that I’m here to talk about the Jeremy Davidson case, but Richard has already briefed him fully about my purpose. He doesn’t quite understand it. “You live in civilization, you like to win cases, yet you travel to the middle of nowhere to get involved in a sure loser. Now, why is that?”
“Richard and his wife adopted Jeremy when he was an infant. I knew his real parents very well. They died in a plane crash. I was… I am… Jeremy’s godfather.”
He looks at me strangely. “Bullshit story?” he asks.
I smile. “One hundred percent. Not bad, huh?”
He laughs. “Not bad at all.”
Having established a relationship supported by a sea of bullshit, we get down to business. Calvin really does see the case as an almost sure loser. “I’m not saying he did it, but the evidence is sure saying it.”
“What’s your gut?” I ask.
“My gut doesn’t trust anything that comes out of Center City,” he says. “Not even two murder victims.”
“I stopped there on my way in.”
“Friendly place, huh?” he asks.
“Everybody was in some kind of meeting, except a cop. He questioned me like I was Osama bin Laden.”
He nods; what I am saying is no surprise. “It wasn’t a meeting; it was a religious service.”
I can’t conceal my surprise. “What religion is that?”
“They call themselves Centurions.”
“And the town is named Center City?” I’m seeing a pattern here. “Is the town named after the religion, or the religion named after the town?”
He shrugs. “Sort of one and the same. They have some kind of longitude/latitude formula which shows that the piece of ground the town is on is the spiritual center of the universe, and everything else comes off it like spokes on the wheel. That wheel runs their lives, and has been for over a hundred years.”
I don’t know what he’s talking about when he says that the wheel runs their lives, but now is not the time to analyze their religion. “How does all this relate to the murders?” I ask.
He shrugs again. “Probably doesn’t. But the pressure on that girl not to marry outside the religion would have been overwhelming. People born in that town stay in that town, and nobody from outside moves in. That’s just the way it is.”
We talk some more about the case, but the local prosecutor has not yet handed over much material in discovery, so Calvin doesn’t know that much about it yet. He does know Jeremy Davidson, though, and has known his family for years, and he doesn’t believe him to be a brutal murderer. “It doesn’t compute,” he says. “These girls got stabbed maybe ten times each. I just don’t think this kid is capable of that, no matter how pissed off he might have been.”
His feelings pretty much mirror Laurie’s, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that people are not always what they seem and that you find murderers in the strangest places, shapes, and sizes.
The arraignment is going to be today at eleven-thirty, and Calvin invites me to sit in on it. Afterward I’ll be able to meet Jeremy and hear his side of it. “You think you’re going to jump in?” Calvin asks, referring to my taking on the defense.
“I honestly don’t know.”
“You’re going to have to decide soon. This thing is going to move quickly.”
I nod. “I know. If I do come in, will you stay on as second chair? I’m obviously going to need local help.”
“Whoever handles this is going to need all kinds of help,” he says. “Yeah… why not? Count me in.”
