“Your mother’s a wonderful woman, who has no head for the law,” he would tell her. “So I will share it with you.”
Two years after joining Cotter Boland, Dana married a young attorney who had followed her to Seattle after law school. They rented a lovely little place near Green Lake and had Molly. But when her husband realized that he had quietly been shuffled from a dubious first to second and then to third place in Dana’s affections, he headed back to California with an aerobics instructor who was all boobs, and butt, and teeth. Neither she nor Molly had heard from him since.
It was difficult for Dana, trying to balance the demands of her job with the requirements of single-parenthood, knowing that Molly usually came out on the short end of the stick. Then one day, when she could no longer avoid thinking about her parents’ roomy house in Port Townsend, and the significantly less hectic schedule of a small-town practice, Sam McAuliffe came into her life. Sweet, solid Sam, who took over the care and feeding of her and her daughter as though he had been doing it from the beginning.
He wasn’t handsome, as her first husband had been, nor was he an attorney, which didn’t bother Dana at all. He was a violinist with the Seattle Symphony, and gave music lessons during the off-season to supplement his income.
It was crazy because they were so very different, and yet they fit together in ways she would never have thought possible. Best of all, he accepted her ambition and her drive and her passion for her work.
“You need me,” he told her one day when they had known each other for six months. “I can be there for you, and I can be there for Molly, too, when you have to be somewhere else. I know it could work for us, and I really don’t think you can afford to pass me up. Besides, I’m in love with both of you.”
His brown hair was thinning at forty-one, he was seriously myopic, and he was what would have been called homely back in her grandmother’s time. But he had the most beautiful hands she had ever seen and a lopsided grin that spread all over his face when he was happy. Dana always said it was the grin that got her. But in the end, it was Molly who persuaded her to accept Sam’s proposal; the girl was only three and she needed a father.
In the six years that had passed since the three of them had married, Dana never once regretted her decision. The little house they bought on 28th Avenue West in Magnolia was always filled with warmth and laughter and music, and Sam didn’t seem to care what place he held in her affections.
By the time his forty-seventh birthday came around, Dana was convinced that she had it all perfectly balanced—career, child, and marriage.
The telephone rang right in the middle of the pancakes.
“Something’s come up,” Paul Cotter said without preamble or apology. “We need you down here right away.”
Cotter Boland and Grace was eminently successful at the practice of law. A modest office by general standards, its seven partners and nine associates were rarely idle. The firm had long ago earned a reputation for being brilliant, conservative, and pragmatic, and for honoring diligence over flamboyance. The managing partner and his two-man executive committee, made up of senior partners Elton Grace and Charles Ramsey, chose their clients with scrupulous care, and rarely accepted a retainer for a case they did not feel was either possible or appropriate for them to win. They won far more cases than they lost, and few of their clients ever regretted the high price tag.
The firm worked out of a modest suite of offices on the seventeenth floor of Smith Tower, once renowned for being, at forty-two stories, the tallest building west of the Mississippi. A number of prominent firms in the city had since relocated to newer, more fashionable quarters, but Cotter Boland had chosen to stay. The eighty-five-year-old structure boasted marble walls, an exquisitely carved Indian head ceiling in the lobby, and ancient copper elevators manned by operators who knew every tenant by name.
Paul Cotter’s office was a spacious corner rectangle that overlooked Puget Sound from one set of windows and the King County Courthouse from the other. By the time Dana arrived, speeding all the way down from Magnolia, the rest of the partners were already assembled.
“Glad you were able to join us,” Cotter said, as though his summons had offered a choice, and steered her to the empty chair beside his own, in a grouping around an exquisite Oriental coffee table. “We waited, of course. We didn’t want to begin without you.” There was a general murmur of assent.
Dana sat, but with the distinct impression that whether they had waited or not, she was the only one in the room who had no idea what this was all about. Reacting to Cotter’s tone of voice over the telephone, she had not taken time to change, and now noticed with some discomfort that all six of the men wore suits and ties as though this were a regular business day. She tucked her legs in their casual slacks under her chair, and brushed a hand across her flour-streaked nose.
“As I’m sure you’ve already heard, a young naval officer by the name of Latham has been arrested in connection with the bombing of Hill House,” Cotter continued, turning to her. “We’ve agreed to represent him, and we’d like you to take first chair.”
Dana blinked, clearly stunned. She had of course followed the story from the very beginning, or more accurately, the speculation in lieu of facts that surrounded the tragedy. And when news of the arrest broke, she found herself listening with a real sense of satisfaction, even going so far as to offer a private little prayer that the prosecution would be swift and the punishment totally appropriate. It never dawned on her that her law firm, much less she, herself, might be involved.
Cotter Boland and Grace was a practice that, at least during Dana’s tenure, had always resisted this sort of high-profile case, far preferring to operate in the background rather than the limelight.
“I wouldn’t have thought this was our kind of thing,” she murmured.
Cotter shifted in his seat. “Normally, it isn’t,” he conceded. “But we’re doing it this time as a favor to a friend.”
Dana nodded slowly, filing this bit of information away for the moment. “And the Navy isn’t grabbing it?”
“Apparently not.”
“So, why do I get the honor?” she inquired with unusual bluntness. “Because abortion is arguably, if not accurately, a woman’s issue, and I’m the only woman on the letterhead?”
“No, because you’re a first-rate attorney who can do the job,” Cotter replied smoothly. “Of course, I admit we do think having a woman up front on this one will play a lot better with a jury.”
Dana felt the first stirrings of uneasiness in the pit of her stomach. “I have a relationship with Hill House,” she informed them. “I’ve been a patient there for over a decade. For goodness sake, my doctor was almost a victim.”
“Almost?”
“He wasn’t injured. He got to the scene just after the explosion. But he’s also a client.”
“In regard to the bombing?”
“No,” Dana conceded. “He’s being sued by a couple over a fertility procedure.”
Cotter took a moment or two to digest this. “I don’t think that constitutes a conflict of interest,” he said at length. He turned to the other partners. “Do any of you?”
There was a general shaking of heads, and Cotter looked at her and shrugged.
Her stomach stepped up its complaint. “Well then, is this the time to tell you that I’m not exactly pro-life?” she felt impelled to inquire, looking around the room. “Or that I think the son of a bitch who blew up all those people should burn in hell?”
The six men exchanged startled glances. They had always known Dana to be a well-bred and soft-spoken woman. Paul Cotter cleared his throat.
“Do you think your personal views would prejudice your client?” he asked.
Yes, she wanted to shout, of course they would. So would any rational person’s. “They never have before,” she said instead, as her stomach protested.
The managing partner folded his hands in his lap. “Then I see no problem.”
&nbs
p; NINE
The King County Jail was an eight-minute uphill walk from Smith Tower. And Dana walked it as often as possible. In her high-pressured life, staying in shape was something she had to fit into her schedule.
A solid concrete structure that fronted on Fifth Avenue and occupied the entire city block between James and Jefferson, the jail reflected an architectural style that could most kindly be described as functional. To add insult to injury, the city art commission, for some ghastly reason, had thought it appropriate to install a fanciful mosaic tile playground at the building’s entry, entitled, of all things, Freedom Park.
The twelve-story, full-service facility, completed in 1985, had been designed to house just under eleven hundred inmates. It was currently operating with more than twice that number.
Dana crossed the absurd park, and with a deep sigh, pushed her way through the entrance doors. At the security gate, she exchanged her bar card for an ID pass, and was directed to the Number 2 elevator, which took her nonstop to the eleventh floor, and from there to a private interview room.
The room, which more closely resembled a closet, was an irregularly shaped, windowless space with concrete block walls, one of which was painted a garish purple for no discernible purpose, and a steel door with one vertical, four-by-twenty-four-inch tempered glass opening. The cramped area held a small metal table, connected to a chair on either side of it, and bolted to the floor.
Ordinarily, attorneys and their clients met in the public visiting room, and spoke to each other by telephone from either side of a thick Plexiglas panel. But certain law firms that had influence in the city, or were handling a particularly high-profile case, could arrange to meet with their clients separately. Cotter Boland had both, and had no problem obtaining the private room.
Still, Dana looked around the cubicle with a heavy heart. Special treatment or not, it was a place she did not want to be, on a matter with which she did not want to deal.
“Do you believe that everyone in this country deserves a rigorous defense?” Paul Cotter had challenged her after the Sunday meeting had concluded, the other partners had departed, and just the two of them remained in his office.
“Yes, of course I do,” she had replied. “But even a defense attorney has to have standards. There may not always be a mitigating circumstance for a crime, but at least there has to be some level of rationale that I can build on. If I can’t believe in my client, I at least need to believe in the case.”
“And you don’t believe in this one?”
“No, I don’t,” she had told him, the queasiness in her stomach stirring again. “Look, I’m not one of those radical feminists who believe that a woman has the right to abdicate all responsibility for her actions. But that doesn’t mean I have any loyalty to the control freaks, either, who don’t give a tinker’s damn about fetuses and are just in it for the power trip. This case—well, I’m sorry, but I can’t find a whole lot of rationalization in some lunatic going out and killing innocent people as a protest against killing innocent people.’
“And how exactly have you determined that he’s a lunatic?” Cotter inquired. “You haven’t even met him yet.”
“No, I haven’t,” she agreed. “But there must be someone else, someone with more sympathy for his cause, who might be able to justify his actions, who would be better suited to represent him.”
“On the contrary,” Cotter declared. “I think you’re perfect for it.”
“Why?” she protested. “Aside from your idea about having a woman up front, this is a major case, certainly the most visible case this firm has handled in the twelve years I’ve been here. You know as well as I do that I have no significant capital crime experience. Aren’t you even a little bit concerned about that?”
“What I’m concerned about,” he said, “is providing the client with the very best we have to offer.”
“Well, in that case,” Dana responded, “does the client know that I’ve never sat first chair on a death penalty case before?”
“The client knows everything he needs to know,” Cotter responded. “Namely, that the full resources of this firm will be put behind his defense.”
“Which means what, exactly?”
“It means that this will be a team effort, of course—all the way down the line. You won’t be operating in an isolation ward. Nobody has any intention of abandoning you.”
It still felt like a case she knew she should be running, not walking, away from. “Why do I think you know something that I don’t know?” she wondered aloud.
“Because you’re young and have a suspicious mind,” he replied with a smile.
Now, as she sat in one of the interview room’s metal chairs, and opened her briefcase to extract a pad and a pen, Dana knew that it didn’t really matter what happened here this morning, because the managing partner had given her an out.
“Go talk to the kid,” he had said, handing her the file. “Get him through the arraignment. Then, if it really isn’t right for you, just come and tell me, and I’ll assign someone else. I believe it’s a fit, but I won’t force it on you.”
It was the only reason she was here, she knew, so that she could go back to Cotter and tell him she had done what he asked, and did not want this case.
Five minutes later, the door swung open, and twenty-five-year-old Corey Dean Latham, hands and feet shackled, and escorted by two guards, entered the cubicle.
There were four types of uniforms worn by the inmates at the King County Jail: blue for those serving misdemeanor time, yellow for worker inmates, red for accused felons awaiting trial, and white for those who were charged with a high-risk felony. Corey Latham was dressed in white, with the damning words “ULTRA SECURITY” printed in big bold letters across his shirt and down the legs of his pants.
Dana’s first reaction, as she watched him take the chair across from her, sitting ramrod straight with his manacled hands resting tentatively on the table in front of him, was one of unhappy surprise. He was not at all what she had expected, or wanted, to see. She had prepared herself for some religiously zealous martyr in the making, someone who was unkempt and unattractive, perhaps, or wild-eyed and obviously deranged, or clearly cold and calculating. Any of the above would have suited her purpose, and would have made things so much easier.
But the tall, slender, and undeniably attractive young man who sat so erect in front of her was clean-shaven, had neatly cropped brown hair, clear blue eyes, and the demeanor of an altar boy. He looked totally incongruous in the sinister white uniform.
Dana shook her head slightly as though to clear her mind, or her vision. Latham was an officer in the United States Navy, she exhorted herself to remember. Of course he would know how best to present himself in any kind of situation… or in any kind of uniform. The fact that he looked normal, she knew, did not automatically exempt him from having committed cold-blooded murder. After all, his dossier indicated that he was an assistant weapons officer on his submarine. Didn’t that mean that killing was what the government had trained him for?
There, she thought with a small surge of triumph, she was back on solid ground now, which was where she would stay. She was certainly not about to let herself get suckered into believing he might be innocent.
Still, the blue eyes did not equivocate. They looked directly at her with an expression she could only interpret as sincerity mixed with enough confusion and naivete to totally belie his circumstance.
“Mr. Latham, my name is Dana McAuliffe,” she began by rote. “I’m a partner with the law firm of Cotter Boland and Grace. As I assume you already know we’ve been retained to represent you, and I’ve been asked to come here and talk with you.”
“I’ve heard of your firm,” he said politely. “But I don’t know why you’re representing me.”
“You’re entitled to representation,” she explained. “It’s the law.”
“I know that,” he replied. “What I don’t know is why your firm would want to do that. I can’t af
ford to pay you. I don’t have that kind of money. Neither do my folks. My pastor here in Seattle told me the church would take care of it, but I know they don’t have the money, either.”
“Well, we don’t have to worry about that right now,” Dana responded, because she didn’t actually know who was footing the bill. “Let’s talk instead about how we’re going to help you.”
There was a pause. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to say,’ he said.
“You can say anything you like,” she told him. “Nothing we discuss here ever leaves this room.” He didn’t respond. For some reason, she wasn’t sure he had even heard her. “It’s called attorney-client privilege, or client confidentiality,” she added.
“I know what that is,” he said, and fell silent.
“Maybe we should begin by getting to know a little about each other,” she suggested after a while.
He sighed. “I wouldn’t know where to begin.”
“Well then, why don’t I start by telling you something about myself?” she offered.
When he gave no reaction, she took it to mean assent. “On the personal side, I’m thirty-nine years old,” she began. “I’m married to the first violinist with the Seattle Symphony. And I have a nine-year-old daughter named Molly. On the professional side, I’ve been an attorney for fourteen years. I’ve worked at Cotter Boland and Grace for twelve of those years, and I’ve been a partner there for the past four. I think my firm is very good at what it does, but you don’t have to take my word for it, if you don’t want to. We have a long list of very satisfied clients who, I’m sure, would be more than willing to back up that statement.”
“I believe you,” he said. “But you don’t understand—I don’t know what I’m doing here.”
Dana frowned. “You’ve been informed of the charges against you, haven’t you?”
He nodded. “I know what they told me, but I don’t know why they think I could have done such a horrible thing. Just because I’m in the Navy, that’s supposed to mean I’m the kind of person who goes around killing people? I don’t see how that follows, but that’s what they said.”
Act of God Page 6