A Case of Redemption (2 page)

I wondered if I'd asked her last night if he said that in a song, too, or if he reserved his music for threats of murder, but given my compromised brain function, I just wanted this conversation to end, even if it meant capitulation on my part. Although spending the morning
visiting a murderer in jail was not necessarily my idea of fun, it's not like I had anything else on my agenda that day. Or any other day that month, for that matter.

“Okay, you win. But it's going to take me . . .” I couldn't even remember how long it took me to get ready in the morning. “A half hour, maybe forty-five minutes.”

“That's fine. I'm relatively sure that Legally Dead isn't going anywhere. Just remember, you promised me you'd wear a suit and shave.”

I did? Christ.

The shower helped relieve my headache, and the mouthwash removed the stench of my breath, which was so putrid it even bothered me. Then I scraped off my stubble, trying to remember how many days' growth it represented.

When I opened my closet, the first suit that caught my eye was my best one, a charcoal-gray Brioni. It was the one I wore the opening day of the Darrius Macy trial. My go-to suit. The one that, once upon a time, gave me the most confidence.

It was also the last suit I'd worn, on the day of the funerals.

It fit much more snugly than the last time I'd worn it. I didn't know exactly how much weight I'd gained, but twenty pounds would have been a safe bet. The jacket pulled across the back, and the inside pants button was a lost cause. It was yet another reminder that I was a different man now.

Before I left the apartment, I stopped to assess last night's damage in the hallway mirror. I'd been seeing my father's face in my reflection more and more these days. He died three months after my daughter was born, and for a while it was something of a macabre race as to which event would occur first.

There are worse things to see, especially on the morning after an evening during which I'd had too much to drink. My father was very handsome, almost to the point of distraction. We share the same pale complexion, long straight nose, and strong chin. It's around the
eyes, however, where I see the strongest resemblance, for better and for worse. My eyes have always been among my better features, large and deep blue, which contrasts with my jet-black hair. More than one person had commented, back in my younger days, that I looked a bit like Superman. Now, however, all I saw was sallowness, which reminded me of the way my father looked after the chemo ended, when all hope was lost.

R
ikers is a jail, not a prison. The distinction is that it's operated by the city and the inmate population hasn't been convicted yet, but is awaiting trial. For that reason, it houses less-hardened criminals than you might find at Sing Sing, for example, one of New York State's prisons. But that doesn't mean it's a bed-and-breakfast, either. Just a few years ago, one of Rikers's guards was indicted for running a program in which handpicked inmates operated as enforcers, beating prisoners at the guard's command.

It was below freezing outside, and not much warmer inside. It wasn't just the air that was cold. The cinder-block-gray walls were bare except for the painted-on name of the institution and the official photos of the president and New York City's mayor in cheap, black plastic frames. The floor was even more barren, without a stick of furniture or a rug, just scuffed gray tile that might once have actually been white.

We waited in line to show our credentials to a heavyset woman sitting behind what I assumed to be bulletproof glass. Just beyond her was a small courtyard where two inmates shoveled away last night's light snowfall while under the supervision of two guards.

“Inmate name,” the woman behind the glass barked when it was our turn at the head of the line.

“Nelson Patterson,” Nina said. Seeing my confusion, she whispered to me, “You didn't think his parents actually named him Legally Dead, did you?”

“Purpose of your visit?” the heavyset woman said.

“Counsel,” Nina replied.

Nina slid her business card through the small slot in the window, and then said, “My colleague forgot his, but he'll write out his contact information if you'd like.”

The woman behind the glass eyed me suspiciously. No wonder Nina had told me to wear a suit.

After I scribbled down my home address and cell phone number, the woman pressed a button that caused a loud buzzer to sound. Simultaneously, a large metal door beside the bulletproof glass slid open. Nina and I walked through the doorway only to find another large metal door locked in front of us. When the first door closed behind us, the buzzer sounded again, indicating that the second door was now opening.

We were immediately hit with a wave of almost paralyzing stench, the unfortunate by-product of hundreds of men living in extremely close quarters. In front of us stood a guard who looked barely older than twenty and was as big as an NFL linebacker. The smell didn't seem to faze him in the least.

The guard led us down a maze of hallways until we arrived at a bank of phones. They looked just like they do on television cop shows. Each station was a mirror image of a black phone on the wall and a single metal chair, the two sides separated by thick glass, which, again, I presumed to be bulletproof.

There were only two other visitors. One looked like an attorney, if only because he was wearing a suit. The other was a woman, a girl, really, likely still in her teens. Her arms were covered in tattoos and she was holding an infant up to the glass.

“You'll have a little more privacy over here,” the guard said to explain why we were being assigned to the phone on the end.

The baby was now crying. The top-of-the-lungs shriek that only infants can muster.

As we waited for Legally Dead to arrive, my thoughts turned to the reason why he was here in the first place: Roxanne. More
accurately, I remembered that my daughter was a big fan. In fact, Roxanne may have been the first popular recording artist Alexa ever mentioned. One day she was singing the theme song from
Elmo's World,
and the next she was yelling from the backseat of the car that she wanted me to play Roxanne on the radio. Sarah laughed that our daughter thought the car radio worked like an iPod, and we could conjure at will whatever song we wanted to hear.

That memory merged seamlessly into a less happy one. An interview of Roxanne's mother I'd seen only a few weeks earlier. She didn't look much older than me, and was weeping to Katie Couric about how Legally Dead had murdered her precious angel.

When you're in law school, you spend a lot of time in legal ethics classes discussing how everyone is innocent until proven guilty and therefore entitled to a lawyer. You read
To Kill a Mockingbird
, for maybe the third time, and think someday you'll be a hero lawyer like Atticus Finch, representing unpopular causes, either because you believe in them, or just because you have that obligation.

It took about five seconds after I'd joined Taylor Beckett for me to realize that's not the way it works at a large law firm. Although everyone may be entitled to a lawyer, you couldn't hire one at Taylor Beckett without paying a six-figure retainer. And even then, Taylor Beckett had a committee that reviewed every new representation to ensure that the firm wouldn't lose future business by taking on an unpopular client.

My most famous client, Darrius Macy, was a case in point. There was resistance from certain partners to the firm representing an accused rapist. The head of the corporate group laughed—actually laughed—when I tried the everybody-is-entitled-to-a-defense line. “Maybe so,” he had said, “but everybody's not entitled to Taylor Beckett representing him.”

“You really think this guy's innocent?” I asked Nina.

“I do,” she said without even a flicker of doubt.

“Statistically speaking, it's the boyfriend or husband like seventy percent of the time, and in a hundred percent of those instances, the boyfriend or the husband hasn't written a song explaining how he was going to commit the murder.”

“Are you stuck on the song still?”

“Me and everybody else in the English-speaking world.”

Nina sighed. “I told you this last night,” she said, and then quickly added, “but I've got to remember that means absolutely nothing to you. I'm going to start treating you like the guy from that movie who has no short-term memory. I'll let Legally Dead explain it, but the song isn't about Roxanne at all.”

She smiled at me, and was it ever a smile. It actually felt as if it generated heat. It also reminded me that it had been a long time since I'd been in the company of a woman who didn't look at me with abject pity.

“So tell me, what's in this for you?” I asked.

“You mean aside from wanting justice to prevail?”

She flashed that smile again.

“Yeah, aside from that.”

“I'd like to second seat.”

“Will your firm . . . where did you say you were at again?”

“Martin Quinn.”

“Right. Will they let you do that?”

“No,” she said with a self-satisfied grin. “But I'm going to quit.”

“Really? You'll quit a big law firm job in this economy?”

“You obviously have forgotten what the life of a third-year associate looks like,” she said. “My days are filled staring at a computer screen reviewing—and I kid you not—something like sixteen million emails. My job is to sort through all the garbage, all the ‘all hands' notices about team meetings and corporate-speak and whatever else, and make sure that there's no email that could possibly suggest that the client knew that his thingamabob would explode if it was ever placed on a radiator.” She stopped, and then added, “And, of course,
the partner in charge made it abundantly clear to me and my fellow document grinds that if we miss anything, we'd be fired. So, the way I figure it, this is a win-win for me. I get out of an intolerable work situation, I get to represent someone I believe in, and I get some real lawyer experience.”

“So is this something of a job interview?” I said with a grin.

“If you'd like. I don't have my résumé here, but I'm law review out of Columbia, three years of big-firm experience, I know the case, and the client loves me.”

And the client loves her
, I thought. Of course he did. He was a man locked away with other men, and then someone who looks like Nina comes to visit and says she believes his story. Who wouldn't love that?

“Well, you are the first candidate I've spoken to,” I said, playacting the role of an interviewer.

“If you're thinking of hiring me, that at least means you're seriously thinking of taking the case, doesn't it?”

She was right. I was thinking about taking the case. I had to admit that it felt good to be a lawyer again. A lot better than the other one-word descriptions that would have applied to me over the past eighteen months—widower, drunk, bum.

A
few moments later, Legally Dead entered the room on the other side of the glass. He was wearing the jail's standard-issue dingy gray canvas jumpsuit, and his gait was lethargic. He was taller than I had expected, as tall as the guard who accompanied him, who I pegged to be about six foot two. He looked strong, too. Even in the baggy clothing, you couldn't help but think it was possible for him to have beaten a woman to death.

Or not, as I'm sure Nina would have argued.

The guard on his side of the glass pointed to the seat across from us. Legally Dead did as he was told, slowly settling into his seat and then even more slowly reaching for the phone. He wiped off the receiver with the sleeve of his jumpsuit before putting the phone up to the side of his face.

Nina took the phone on our side off its hook. “Hi,” she said excitedly. “How have you been holding up?”

Legally Dead mouthed what I thought began with “fine,” but then went on to something else. I got the impression that part of what he was saying was to ask just who the hell I was.

“This is Dan Sorensen,” Nina said, “the lawyer who represented Darrius Macy. I spoke with him yesterday and told him that you wanted to meet him. I want to tell you up front that Dan's not sure he wants to take your case, so be your usual charming self. Okay?”

Nina flashed her smile, and I was beginning to see that she used it like a wand, getting the recipient to do what she wanted. It
seemed to work, because Legally Dead reciprocated with an equal-size grin.

Then she handed me the phone.

Even through the heavily scratched glass, I could see that Legally Dead was a handsome man. His skin was a dark chocolate color, and his head was shaved smooth, so much so that there wasn't even a shadow where hair had once been.

“Hey, man,” he said. “Thanks. For meetin' me. Really appreciate your time.”

Legally Dead's tone and demeanor surprised me. Everything about him suggested a gentle nature. The smile, the softness of his voice, and even the sadness in his eyes, which reminded me a little of a lost boy, were all incongruous emanating from the man who had graced the cover of
People
magazine under the headline: “The Most Hated Man of All Time.”

Even though the man on the other side of the glass didn't match my preconceived impression, it's the oldest lesson in criminal defense law that looks can be deceiving. If you're coldhearted enough to kill someone—especially someone you were romantically involved with—you're capable of anything, even faking human decency.

“Nice to meet you, too,” I said. “Before we start talking about the case, what should I call you?”

“What?” he said, as if he'd never been asked the question before.

“I know your given name is Nelson. Should I call you that? Or . . . Legally?”

“L.D. That's what my friends call me. L.D.”