The Furthest City Light (16 page)

Suddenly, I felt cranky and uncooperative. “The thing is, Emily, I’ve never liked crossword puzzles.”

She waited patiently, a trait she’d obviously perfected.

I sighed. “Berne.”

She tried the letters, which of course fit. “Hey, good guess.”

I shook my head. “It wasn’t a guess.” I reached into my briefcase, pulled out my appointment calendar, and then realized the judge would probably sentence her on the spot. No need to set any further dates in the case. I could tell Emily was watching out of the corner of her eye as I put the calendar away. The defense table was clear except for the crossword puzzle.

“Where did you get that anyway?” I asked, pointing to the puzzle.

“Penny gave it to me.”

I drummed my fingers on the table. “Well that was nice of her.” I hesitated. “Listen, Emily, I think you should put the puzzle away and begin preparing yourself for the worst.”

She regarded me with her kind blue eyes, and then patted me on the shoulder as if I were a good dog, but a little slow. “I’m quite prepared,” she said. “Sunny warned me, but I’d already figured it out for myself.” A moment later, she returned to her puzzle.

Come on, I thought, let’s get this over with. I was feeling sicker by the minute as if I were coming down with the flu. No, not the flu; a flu generally lasts seven or eight days. This portended to be much worse. A bleak, no end in sight, dark gray depression, a gravity-less state in which everything that had been painstakingly nailed down in my life would once again be up for grabs. If I’d had a closer relationship with my mother, I might have run out and called her, wailed to her, “Mama!” Instead, I sat still and brooded.

In the end, my client’s husband had managed to win the ten-year war that cost his life. In less than a quarter of an hour, his victory would be memorialized and my client would be led out of the courtroom in shackles. A tiny bleat and she’d be history. And as for yours truly? Destined, once again, to play the stunned and helpless spectator, the liberal do-gooder who had done no good.

“I hate my life,” I muttered.

“I’m not that crazy about mine either,” Emily said, still bent over her crossword puzzle. “You wouldn’t happen to know a four-letter word for a French military cap? Starts with a K.”

“No, and if I were an abuser, I’d be tempted to punch you.”

She smiled benignly. “Then it’s lucky for me you’re not.”

The courtroom door opened and Jeff rushed up the aisle, stopping at our table. He was carrying his tie in one hand and a yellow pad of paper in the other.

“I heard they have a verdict,” he said.

“That’s the rumor,” I replied.

He looked at Emily. “Well, your lawyer tried as hard as she could. No one could have done a better job.”

“I know.” She nodded. “I’m very satisfied with her.”

“Save the kind words, Jeff,” I said. “You did an adequate job. My client’s life is over. Congratulations.”

Jeff took a step back. “Jesus, Rachel, I think you need a vacation.”

After he’d walked away, Emily whispered, “That wasn’t very nice.”

I shrugged like a sullen teenager. “The one great thing about being convicted of first-degree murder: you won’t have to worry about being nice to anyone ever again.”

“That may be true for me, but you still have to work with him.”

“No,” I said, folding my arms across my chest. “I’ve just decided. I’m done.”

Less than ten minutes later, the foreman of the jury—the high school principal—handed the verdict to the bailiff, who walked it over to the judge. None of the jurors looked at Emily. Emily and I stood up and faced the judge’s bench. The courtroom was as quiet as a mortuary. I could feel Emily shaking next to me and decided it didn’t matter if I let my feelings show a little.

I pulled her close to me and together we listened as the judge intoned, “We the jury find the defendant, Emily Watkins, guilty of murder in the first degree.”

A couple of Hal’s ex-colleagues began cheering but immediately stopped when they saw the look on the judge’s face.

“There will be no more outbursts from the audience,” Judge Thomas warned. “None. If I hear one more sound, I will clear the room.” He paused. “Ms. Stein, would you like the jurors polled?”

“Yes, please,” I said.

Each juror was then asked to acknowledge whether this was indeed his or her verdict. Each juror said it was. Not one of them looked at Emily. The judge then thanked and excused the jury, which stood up en masse and quickly left the room. A few moments later, two guards in uniform emerged from one of the side doors, motioning for Sunny to change places with them. As Sunny walked past the defense table, he whispered, “I’m so sorry, Emily.”

“We’ll talk later,” she said.

The judge cleared his throat. “All right then, since I have no discretion in the matter, I’m inclined to sentence the defendant immediately. Any objection, Ms. Stein?”

“No, Your Honor.”

As Emily and I approached the podium, I glanced back at Donald who was sitting with his shoulders slumped like a big sad bear. Alice and Janet sat next to him, holding hands. Their faces were the color of old snow.

When we reached the podium, Judge Thomas turned directly to Emily. There was genuine sorrow in his eyes, not the obligatory sadness when he sentenced most of my clients, but the real thing. “Fix this,” I wanted to cry. “Make it right.” But of course I said nothing. The jury had found my Emily guilty. The judge was powerless.

“Ms. Watkins,” he said, “as I’m sure your attorney has told you, when someone has been convicted of a class one felony in Colorado, the law requires me to sentence that person to life in prison.”

“I understand,” she said.

The judge nodded. “In which case, I am remanding you to the Department of Corrections to begin serving a sentence of life in prison.” He hesitated. “If anyone can make the best of this, I think maybe you can.”

“Thank you,” she said.

Thank you? No, I thought, and then the two guards materialized behind us and began escorting her out of the courtroom. It was much too fast.

“Wait,” I said and followed them into an adjacent hallway. As soon as the door shut behind us, my client turned to me with an unexpected urgency. She didn’t care that the guards were standing only a few feet away from us. I’d never seen her look so serious.

“You have to make your peace with this, Rachel.”

I shook my head at her. “No, I don’t.”

“Rachel—” She placed her hands on my shoulders. “You gave it everything you had. We all did.”

I was obviously in shock, but a bitter hopelessness was closing in on me. “So what? We lost. That’s all that matters.”

She looked as if she was about to cry, then pulled herself together. “Rachel, listen. You need to know how much this meant to me. No one has ever stood up for me the way you did.” She was staring at me, willing me to understand how important this was to her. “It’s enough.”

I pursed my lips and shrugged. “I’m glad you feel that way, but I disagree. Nothing except winning is enough. The rest is just New Age bullshit.” It was a nasty thing to say, but I wanted to hurt someone and she was the only one around.

“It’s not bullshit,” she said, but her voice lacked her earlier conviction.

One of the guards stepped forward, looking apologetic. He was holding a pair of handcuffs.

“I’m sorry, Emily,” he said, “but we have to get back in time for lockdown.”

Emily turned to face him, placing her delicate wrists in front of her. The handcuffs snapped shut with a cold metal finality. The sound of it killed me.

“Can we have one last moment?” I asked. “I need to apologize to my client.”

The guards exchanged a look and then nodded. For Emily’s sake, though, not mine.

Before I could say a word, Emily shook her head impatiently. “Rachel, I know you didn’t mean it. Listen, this is really important, so pay attention. The way I see it, we have two choices. We can either accept this or not. That’s it.”

She looked so earnest that I had to smile. “That’s it?” I asked. “No third choice?”

She was smiling back at me. “No, that’s it, only the two. I’m going to choose the first one and I think you should too.”

“Why should I?”

She regarded me with those kind blue eyes. “Because you’ll suffer less.”

The guards stepped forward, signaling the end of our conversation. Emily held up her hands to me, bowing slightly. Then, flanked by the two burly men, she headed down the hallway toward an elevator that would take her to a holding cell in the basement. In a few days, she’d be transferred to the women’s correctional facility in southern Colorado. She must have been terrified, but she held her head up and walked quickly to keep up with the men.

“Take care of yourself, Rachel,” she called, as if I were the one who had just been convicted.

***

After a quick surreal conference with the judge concerning Emily’s pretrial confinement credit and promises to stay in touch with Janet and Alice, I left the courthouse and headed back to the public defender’s office. The lilacs were in bloom, tourists strolled along Canyon Boulevard in shorts, and the sky was a deep unconcerned blue. I pulled into the parking lot and sat there watching a couple of kids playing Frisbee. After a while, I thought of a movie I’d once seen about a man who was trapped in an elevator with no hope of being rescued. At first he was calm, but eventually he started going crazy. Hour after hour, he examined his life, but there was no end to it. Finally, in desperation, he climbed through the ceiling, stood on top of it, and managed to cut the cable above him. The movie ended just as the elevator began free falling through a long dark shaft toward the basement. Freedom. A few minutes later, I roused myself to go inside.

I rapped once on Larry Hanover’s door, then marched into his office unannounced. I caught him staring at a spider plant that looked as if it hadn’t been watered in a year.

“I quit,” I told him.

“Hello to you, too.” He was a short, bespectacled man in his forties who was always rubbing his forehead as if he had a perpetual headache.

“I’m serious. I quit.”

Larry gestured at the empty client chair in front of his desk. “I guess you lost the trial. I’m sorry, Rachel. I know how much it meant to you.”

I refused to sit down. “Thanks, but in a way it’s a blessing. I needed something as bad as this to dislodge me.”

Larry rubbed his forehead and sighed. He was the office head partly because no one else wanted the job, but also because he was better than anyone at not saying what he really felt, an adaptive skill he’d learned from growing up in a tough Chicago neighborhood. “Please sit down, Rachel.”

I hesitated, then, feeling childish, sat down and tried to take a deep breath. There was no reason not to end my twelve-year tenure at the public defender’s office with a little grace and dignity. I crossed my legs, lowered my voice to a more appropriate level.

“You can’t talk me out of this, Larry. I’m cooked.”

“Of course you are. You’ve been working nonstop for months. Why don’t you take a few days off? We’ll cover your caseload until you get back.”

I shook my head. Suddenly, I couldn’t stand my pantyhose for another second. They were hot, itchy and confining, a symbol of all the unpleasant compromises I’d had to make in order to work within the system. I wanted to rip them off, ball them up, and throw them in Larry’s face. I didn’t, not because I was too mature, but because as a trial lawyer I’d learned that grand gestures never went over as well as I imagined.

My silence, however, was having an effect. Larry had removed his glasses, signaling his concern. “I see. Well, I think we can manage for a couple of weeks without you.”

“Try for the rest of your lives. I’m out of here. Twelve years is enough.”

Larry was beginning to rock back and forth in his chair, which meant he was irritated. “Oh for God’s sake, Rachel, you just need a vacation. You’re the best trial lawyer in the office. You can’t leave.”

I stood up. “Watch me,” I said, heading for the door.

“I won’t accept your resignation, Rachel.”

I stopped and turned to face him. “You have to.”

“No, I don’t. I’m putting you on a three-month sabbatical as of Monday. If you still want to quit in three months, I’ll accept your resignation then.”

I shrugged. “Fine, but you’re just postponing the inevitable.”

Larry waved me away with his glasses. “Get some rest, Rachel. We’ll miss you.”

I had expected Vickie to be working in the garden when I got home, tending the plants, tinkering with the lawnmower that never worked, taking care of everything I couldn’t be bothered with. Vickie: my lover, my partner, my best friend. I’d already pictured myself running toward her and being caught in her reassuring arms.

“I did it, baby! I finally quit. But if I’m not a public defender, who am I?”

And Vickie holding me, smoothing my hair, and comforting me. Except she wasn’t there.

I wandered into the living room, sat down on the couch, and flipped through a copy of
The Nation
that had been left on the coffee table. I remembered thinking a few weeks ago how much I loved this simple elegant room, how spacious and comfortable it seemed. How it reflected my sense of style as well as my values. And now it felt claustrophobic, a small ordinary box that I’d lovingly decorated without realizing it was just a cage. I stood up and began to pace, then abruptly sat down again. I looked at my watch. I’d been unemployed for less than an hour and already I was losing my mind.

After critiquing each room in the house and eating a pint of coffee ice cream, I called Vickie at the hospital.

“Where are you?” I asked.

She laughed. “I’m obviously here. You called me.”

“Why aren’t you home? I need you.”

“That’s a first.” She paused. “Are you all right, sweetheart? What’s going on? How did the trial go?”

I sat cross-legged on the rug in front of the fireplace. “I lost. And then I quit my job.”

“Are you serious, Rachel?”

I nodded. “I did it. I quit.”

“Wow, I never thought you’d do it. Congratulations.” She hesitated. “I mean I’m sorry you lost the trial and I feel badly for your client, but you may have just saved your own life.”