The Last Innocent Man (6 page)

T
he first half of July was cool and comfortable. There was a subdued sun, light breezes, a mad array of flowers, and underdressed girls in eye-catching getups. Then, overnight, the breeze disappeared, the sun went mad, and a thick, unmoving mass of hot air descended on Portland, wilting the flowers and making the girls look tired and worn. To David the oppressive heat was merely a meteorological expression of his mood. The torpid air had a dehydrating effect that wore away the energy of the city, and, in a similar way, David could feel his mental and spiritual energy draining away, like wax slowly dripping down the sides of a candle.

All his attempts to locate Valerie Dodge had failed, and she had not called him. Perhaps David desired her
because he could not find her, but her absence gnawed at him, confronting him with the void that was his personal life.

Work provided no escape. It only deepened his depression. The Gault case had brought him many new clients, all guilty and all hoping that he could perform a miracle that would wash away their guilt. His work on their behalf disheartened him. More and more he felt that he was doing something he should not.

The originality that had characterized David’s early legal career was giving way to a highly polished routine that let him move through his cases without thinking about them. His success as a lawyer was due to his brilliance and his dedication. Others might not notice, but David knew he was no longer giving his best effort. So far that had made no difference in the results he had achieved. But someday it would. On that day he would know, even if no one else did, that he was no different from the ambulance chasers and incompetents who practiced at the gutter levels of criminal law.

The trial of Tony Seals was scheduled for late July, and David was working on his final preparations when the receptionist told him that Thomas Gault was in the reception room. David had seen little of the writer since the trial, except for a half-day interview for background on the book. David had not felt much like talking about Gault’s case, but he was sharing in the proceeds of the book and was obligated by contract to cooperate. The interview had taken place the day after the trial, and a week after that Gault had taken a vacation in the Caribbean, then gone into seclusion to finish the book.

David did a double take when his office door opened. Gault laughed. He loved to shock people, and his appearance provided a low-grade jolt. Below the neck Gault looked the same. It was his head that had changed. His long brown hair had been shorn off, leaving a gleaming skull, and his upper lip sported a Fu Manchu mustache.

“Jesus!” David said, to Gault’s delight. “Have you taken up professional wrestling?”

“I’m changing my image,” Gault answered with a grin.

“Sit down,” David said, shaking his head. “What brings you to town?”

“The book. My editor wants me to beef up the final chapters, so he suggested that I get a little more of your thinking about the trial.”

“What do you want to know?”

“I don’t know. It was his idea. What you ate the morning of the main event. Who does your clothes. Think of something. After all, I’m doing the work, but you’re getting part of the profits. Take an interest.”

“Tom, I have no idea what would interest your readers. Give me a hint.”

“You ever play any sports in high school or college?”

David shrugged.

“I ran a little track in college and wrestled some.”

“Okay. Why don’t you tell me how trying a case compares to the feeling you get just before a sporting event. How’s that?”

David thought for a few minutes before answering.

“I don’t think they’re that similar,” David said. “Winning or losing at sports depends on your performance dur
ing the sporting event, but a lawyer can’t win a case at trial. Or, anyway, not usually.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, the facts of each case are determined by the time the case gets to you. All the facts might not be revealed, but they’re there. So a lawyer wins his case before trial by finding out, through investigation, what the facts are. A lawyer can’t change the facts, but once he knows what the facts are, he can deal with them. Try to get the jury to look at them in a certain way. And there is usually more than one way to look at the facts.

“A few years back I represented a man who tried to hold up a minimart. He walked in with a shotgun and told the manager to give him the money or he would kill him. The manager was a feisty little guy, and he whipped out a handgun and shot my client through the neck. When the police arrived, my man was lying in a pool of blood holding the gun, and there were five eyewitnesses who swore that he tried to rob the place. The DA charged my client with armed robbery. Those were the facts I started with. Want to guess the verdict?”

Gault smiled.

“It has to be not guilty, but how did you do it?”

“There were other facts we didn’t know about when we started. When they took the defendant to the hospital for surgery, they took a blood sample. One of the routine checks the hospital makes before performing surgery is to find out how much alcohol a person has in his system. My man was loaded. He had consumed so much alcohol that I was able to get two prominent psychiatrists to testify that a person in his condition would not be able to form the
intent to commit the crime, and the district attorney must prove intent as one of the elements of the crime of armed robbery.

“The next step was to find out why my client drank like that. It turned out that his wife had died and he had gone to pieces. When I got him, he was already an alcoholic.

“Finally, we had to figure out why he had been at the minimart in the first place. My investigator asked around, and it turned out that our boy had been blotto that day. Two of his buddies had planned the robbery and sent him inside. He was so drunk, he didn’t know what he was doing. In fact, he doesn’t remember what happened to this day.

“When we presented all the facts to the jury, they acquitted. It wasn’t what we did at trial, but the investigation before trial, that mattered. Getting the facts, then presenting them in a favorable light at trial.”

“And is that what you did in the case of State versus Thomas Ira Gault? Manipulate the facts?” Gault asked with an impish grin.

David looked straight at Gault without smiling. The question had caught him off guard.

“Yes,” he answered.

“You know, David,” Gault said, “there is something I’ve always wanted to ask you. All the time you were defending me, and doing such a bang-up job, what did you think? Guilty or innocent? Tell me.”

“Guilty,” David said without a moment’s hesitation. Gault threw back his head and laughed loudly.

“Terrific. And you still worked your ass off. David, old
buddy, you are a pro. Now, do you want to know something?” Gault asked in a conspiratorial tone.

“What?”

“Is that attorney-client thing—the privilege—is that still in effect?”

David nodded, very tense.

“Anything I tell you is secret, right? No police, nobody else finds out, right?”

David nodded again. Gault leaned back in his seat and grinned.

“Well, I did it, old buddy. Beat the shit out of her. Ah, she deserved it. She was a real bitch. I mean the original bitch. Anyway, I was tanked. Really polluted. But randy. Very hot to trot. And do you know what? She turned me down. The bitch would not spread. I couldn’t let her get away with that, could I, Dave? I mean, I was really ready for some exotic stuff. Not your missionary position. No, sir. I was going to dick her good. But she said no dice, so I decked her. It felt great.”

Gault paused for effect. David didn’t move.

“Have you ever hit a woman? No? It feels terrific. They’re soft. They can’t take the pain.”

Gault closed his eyes for a moment, and a beatific expression possessed his features.

“Julie was very soft, Dave. Soft in all the right places. And she adored pain. Loved it. So I gave her the ultimate in pain. I gave her death.”

Gault paused and looked directly at David.

“What do you think of that, Dave?”

David didn’t know what to say. He felt sick. Gault’s face had hardened into a sadistic mask as he talked, and
the handsome features looked twisted and grotesque. Then the face split open and Gault began to shake with laughter.

“Oh, you should see your face. God!” he roared between breaths. David was confused by the sudden change.

“It’s not true. I made it all up,” the writer gasped. “What terrific dialogue. You should see your face.”

“I don’t…” David started.

“It’s a joke, son. Get it? A joke. I didn’t kill Julie. She was a bitch, all right, and I’m not broken up about her death. But, shit, she was a human being and I’d hate to see anyone go the way she did.”

Gault stopped and David tried to speak. He didn’t know whether he wanted to hit Gault or get a drink.

“You son of a bitch,” he said finally.

“Really had you going, didn’t I?”

“Jesus.”

“Serves you right for thinking I did it in the first place.”

But David didn’t know what to think. There had been something about the expression on Gault’s face when he was making his confession…

“Aren’t you going to say anything, old buddy?” Gault asked, his grin spread across his face.

“I don’t know what to say,” David answered, his tone betraying some of the anger that had replaced his initial shock and confusion.

“Aw, come on, Dave. You’re not mad, are you?”

“Dammit, Tom,” David said, his face flushed, “that’s not something to kid about.”

“Now, that’s where you’re wrong, boy-o,” Gault answered. “The first thing you learn when you are soldiering is that Death is a joke. The ultimate prank, old buddy.”

Gault leaned across the desk. He was talking toward David, but David sensed that Gault was speaking to himself.

“Death is everywhere, and never forget that. The more civilized the surroundings, the harder it is to spot the little devil, but he’s there, hiding in the laundromat, peeping out from your microwave oven. He’s got more camouflage here in Portland, but he’s always present.

“Now, there’s two ways of dealing with Death, old buddy: you can fear him or you can laugh at him. But I’ll tell you the truth: it don’t make no difference how you treat him, because he treats us all the same. So when you’re in the jungle, where you see Death every day standing buck naked right out in the open, you get to know the little devil real well and you learn that he is a prankster and not a serious dude at all. And you learn that it’s better to die laughing than to live each moment in fear.”

Gault stopped abruptly and sat back in his chair.

“I hope I remember that,” he said. “Be great in my next book, don’t you think? Real profound.”

“Very, Tom,” David said, still unsure of what to make of Gault’s confession and disconcerted because of his uncertainty. “Look, do you mind if we work on the book some other time?”

“Hey, I didn’t upset you, did I?”

“No, Tom,” David lied, “I just didn’t expect you and I’ve got some things to do. Why don’t we get together sometime next week?”

“Sounds good,” Gault said, standing. “I’ll give you a call.”

Gault started to leave, then stopped with his hand on the doorknob.

“One thing, Dave. If that had been the truth, if I really had killed Julie, would you have kept it a secret?”

“I never reveal a client’s confidence.”

“You’re all right, old buddy. And you should take care of yourself. You don’t look so hot. Get more sleep.”

Gault winked and he was gone.

I
t took David a long time to calm down after Gault left. Was it all a joke? Gault had a sadistic streak in him. He had enjoyed seeing David wriggle on his hook. But when he was discussing the murder, he seemed so sincere, he seemed to be reliving an experience, not creating one. David didn’t know what to think, and the worst thing was that the attorney-client privilege prevented him from discussing with anyone what Gault had said.

The intercom buzzed and David was grateful for the diversion. It was Monica calling from the district attorney’s office.

“Can you come over, Dave?” she asked.

“Sure. What’s up?”

“I want to talk to you about Tony Seals.”

“What about him?”

“I’ll tell you when you get here,” she said with a trace of bitterness. “And bring your shopping cart. We’re giving the store away today.”

A
NARROW CORRIDOR
led back to the depersonalized cubbyholes that passed for offices at the district attorney’s office. Monica had seniority and rated a corner cubbyhole somewhat larger than the rest. Her sole attempt at humanizing her work space was a framed Chagall lithograph that added a splash of color to the white and black of her diplomas.

Monica was working on a file when David entered, and she waved him toward a chair. There were two in front of her desk, and he took a stack of files off one and placed them on the floor, then glanced at the newspaper that was draped over the top file on the other chair. Monica looked up.

“I need Seals’s testimony and I’ll give him immunity to get it,” she said without ceremony.

David said nothing for a second. He was watching Monica’s face. When he was certain she was serious, he asked, “Why do you need his testimony?”

“Because he is the only one other than Zachariah Small who can testify that Sticks pulled the trigger up on the mountain. Without him Sticks will get off.

“We had an informant who heard the three of them talking after they shot Jessie. Sticks and Zack were bragging about shooting her, and it was pretty clear that it was Sticks who shot from the car.”

“Why don’t you use your informant?”

“He’s gone. He split shortly after we interviewed him. He’s a transient who was staying at the Gomes house when the boys were arrested. I guess he got scared when he realized that we wanted him to testify. I’ve got the police looking for him, but even if we found him, I’m not sure how much good he’d be to us. He has a police record and he’s a drunk.”

David was churning inside. He leaned forward slightly.

“We get complete immunity?”

“Yes.”

David stood up. “I’ll talk to my client.”

T
HE GUARD LED
Tony Seals into the interview room at the county jail. The room was long and narrow, and a row of rickety wooden folding chairs was scattered along its length. There was one Formica-topped table at the far end. David sat in front of it, watching his client walk toward him.

“Buzz me when you’re through,” the guard said, pointing to a small black button set in a silver metal box under some steam pipes near the barred door. Then he slammed the door shut and David heard the key turn in the lock.

On visiting day this room was usually jammed full of anxious wives and girlfriends, talking in quiet tones to men they might not be making love to for a long time. But this was early on a weekday, and David and his client were alone.

T.S. smelled worse than the last time they had met. There was a body odor that prisoners at the county jail had that was unique and vile. It was the type of smell you could believe would never be scrubbed away.

David searched his client’s eyes as the gangly teenager shuffled toward him with a loose, puppetlike gait that made him look as if he had straw where bones should be. The eyes were vacant and as lifeless as his perpetual half smile.

“Hi, Mr. Nash,” T.S. said. He had a soft voice that rarely fluctuated with any emotion.

“Sit down, T.S.”

T.S. did as he was told. He always did. David wondered if he had ever initiated an action in his life. Monica was right. It had to have been Sticks and Zachariah. He was dealing with a boy who lacked free will. Another person’s creature who got from point A to point B by suggestion only.

“How’ve you been?”

“Okay, I guess.”

“I want to ask you a few questions, T.S., and I want truthful answers. This is important, so you have to be straight with me.”

“Sure, Mr. Nash.”

“Who shot Jessie when you were down at the hole? The first shot.”

“That was Zack.”

“You didn’t shoot her?”

David detected a flicker of fear.

“Honest, Mr. Nash. I didn’t never shoot her.”

“And up on the mountain? Who shot at her there?”

The boy’s right hand raised slowly and began to pick at a whitehead on his cheek. The tip of Seals’s tongue licked his lower lip, then darted back into his mouth.

“Well?”

“Uh…well, there was Zack. He done it first, right
after we left her. Then we drove off some and Sticks said we should make sure. So we turned around and Sticks asked Zack if he could take a shot and Zack give him the gun.”

David watched T.S. closely. Remembering anything seemed to exhaust him. He wondered what it would be like to go through life with a brain that worked so slowly.

“T.S., did you ever shoot the gun?”

The hand dropped from the pimple and T.S. looked afraid.

“No, honest. They don’t say I done it, do they?”

“I want to know.”

“No, no. Zack said he’d let me try, but I was too bummed out. I said no and Sticks just took another shot.”

“What do you mean, bummed out?”

“I was tired,” T.S. said, sagging back in his chair, as if he had forgotten that he had been frightened only seconds before. He went back to worrying the pimple.

“T.S., just between us, if you hadn’t been tired, would you have shot her?”

T.S. considered the question and David wondered why he had asked it. What difference did it make? He had won. T.S. would be a free man after he testified at the trials of his former friends, and David would have earned his fee. Why did he need to know the truth about this idiot boy who would soon be at large again?

“Yeah, I guess,” he said. The pimple burst and white pus squeezed through his fingers. David felt cold and alone. The empty room was suddenly too close, and he wanted to get out.

“The district attorney has offered us a deal, T.S. She
feels that she needs your testimony to convict Sticks and Zack. If you are willing to testify against them, she will grant you complete immunity. Do you know what that means?”

T.S. shook his head. His fingers were at work on another pimple.

“It means you go free. That they drop the charges against you for shooting Jessie.”

The fingers still worked, the stare was still vacant.

“I can go home?” he finally asked.

“After you’ve testified.”

“I have to testify in court?”

David nodded.

“Gee, I don’t know,” he said. Seals was trying to piece it together. David leaned back and let him think. He was floating and he needed some air. Dizzy. If he had some water.

“I guess it would be okay,” T.S. said finally. There was no excitement, no elation. David wondered if Seals even cared. For T.S. the world was a torment where everything was too complicated. He was a man made for prison where the rules and regulations set him free from the arduous task of having to make decisions.

“You’ll have to get on the witness stand in court and say exactly what happened, and you’ll have to take a liedetector test first, so the district attorney can be sure you’re being truthful. Will you do that?”

“If you say so,” the boy said. He had stopped picking his face apart and thought for a second. “I can really go home?”

“Yes, T.S.”

T.S. smiled, but only for a brief moment. Then he looked at David.

“You know, the guys in here said I was lucky to have you as my lawyer. They said you’d beat the rap for me.”

David stood to go. It was very warm in the narrow room and he needed air badly. He looked down at the idiot boy at the table and saw him back on the streets, the way he’d be in six months or a year. Back on drugs. Doing…what? Would he pull the trigger next time? Would there be a next time? David knew there would be, because he could see with his own eyes what Tony Seals was. His hands began to itch as if they were very dirty.

“I
THOUGHT YOU’D
gone home,” Gregory Banks said.

David was sitting in his office in the dark. His jacket was folded over the back of a chair on the other side of his desk, and his tie was undone. He had turned his desk chair so that it faced the river, where a tugboat flowed with the current like a firefly tracing the path of a piece of carelessly thrown black ribbon.

“Just thinking,” David said. He sounded down.

“Want to talk, or should I leave?”

David swiveled around and faced his friend.

“Do you ever wonder what the hell we’re doing, Greg?”

Banks sat down.

“This does sound serious,” he said, half joking.

“I just made a deal with the DA. Tony Seals is going to get complete immunity.”

“That’s great!” Gregory said, puzzled by David’s mood. He was close to the Sealses, and he knew what this would mean to them.

“Is it? What do I do six months from now when Tony kills someone and his parents want to hire me because I did such a good job today?”

“The DA made the offer, Dave. You were just representing your client.”

“
Jah, mein Herr
, I vas chust following orders,” David said bitterly.

“Why don’t you tell me what brought all this on.”

“I don’t know, Greg,” David said. Gregory waited patiently for him to continue. “I guess I’ve just been taking a good look at the way I earn my living, and I’m not sure I like what I see. There are people out there hurting other people. The cops arrest them, the prosecutors prosecute them, and I shovel the garbage right back into the street. You know, that’s an apt metaphor. Maybe they should start calling us sanitary engineers.”

“I think you’re getting a little melodramatic, don’t you? What about that kid you helped out? The college kid who got busted with the marijuana. He was guilty of a felony, right? Should he have been convicted? If you hadn’t beaten that case, he wouldn’t be in medical school. And you beat that case using the same legal arguments you used to get that heroin dealer off last year. You can’t have two systems of justice.”

“Maybe not, Greg. Your arguments, as always, are very logical. That’s what makes you such a good lawyer. But I just made a deal today that is going to permit a very sick young man, who made a young girl dig her own grave and left her to die, to walk out of jail scot-free.

“You know, when I got into this business, I saw myself as a knight in shining armor defending the innocent, the
unjustly accused. How many innocent people have I represented, Greg? After a while you realize there aren’t any innocent men, only a lot of guilty ones who can pay pretty good for a smart lawyer. So at first you rationalize what you’re doing, but eventually you’re just in it for the money.”

“Look, Dave, I know what you’re going through. I’ve been through it, too. Anyone who practices criminal law and has a conscience has to deal with the conflict between that idealized crap they teach you in law school and the way the real world is, but the picture you’re painting isn’t accurate either.

“You are a good lawyer and you do good, honest work. There are innocent people who get arrested. There are people, like that college kid, who are guilty but shouldn’t be convicted. In order to help them, you have to help people like Tony Seals. It’s the system that’s important. It’s the only thing that keeps this country from being Nazi Germany. You think about that.”

“I do, Greg. Look, I know what you believe and I respect you for it. My problem is, I don’t know what I believe in anymore. I know what I used to believe in, and I’m beginning to think I sold that out when the money started getting too good.”

Gregory started to say something, then changed his mind. He remembered the agonies he had gone through over this same question. He never had to find an answer, because he’d stopped taking criminal cases, except those that interested him, when he’d started doing more and more work for the union. Greg had made his fortune by winning big verdicts in personal-injury cases and dealing
tough at negotiating sessions for union contracts. Getting out of criminal law was no problem for him.

David was different. He had no interest in any other area of the law. He had tried to branch out, but he had always come back to his criminal practice. And why not? He made a good living at it and he loved what he did. Only now he was beginning to question his worth because of his work.

“You want to go get a drink?” Gregory asked. It was quiet in the evening offices. A few associates staying late to work on problems assigned by the partners made an occasional disturbance in the dark rhythms. David stood up and put on his suit jacket.

“I think I’ll just go home.”

“I could tell Helen to set another place for dinner.”

“No, I’d rather be by myself.”

“Okay. Just promise me you won’t let this drag you down.”

“I’ll try,” David said, making an effort to smile.

After David left, Gregory walked back to his office. He looked at his watch. It was late. He was working too damn late recently. He’d have to cut that out. He sighed. He’d been telling himself that since he started practice, what was it, over twenty years ago. That was a long time, twenty years.

He sat at his desk and started to proofread the brief he had been writing. Poor David. There were advantages to being in your fifties. Growing up was hell and you never really stopped. You thought you did when you got out of your teens. Then you found out that the crises were just starting.

David was a good boy, though. A sound thinker. What he needed was a case he could believe in. There had been too many hard cases lately. He needed to feel his worth again. A good case would come along. It was the law of averages.